Chapter 89 Gifts Don't Want Her to Be Disappointed in Him

Since it was the first chamber, the zombies showed them some mercy. After all, they couldn't let guests pay and then eliminate them in the first chamber. Wouldn't that just be asking for complaints? Although Sun Mingyuan and his companions were slow to react, struggling back and forth in the corridor several times before getting themselves into the prison, forgetting to close the chain, the zombies didn't approach to catch them, only giving them a polite scare before leaving.

After the zombies left, the few people who were scared to death gradually calmed down.

Xu Sirui had wiped away his tears in the chaos and returned to his aloof look, but he always kept no more than half a meter behind Zhu Yingning, for fear of getting separated from her.

Guo Yingying took Zhu Yingning's arm, hung herself on her, and whispered, "Yingning, you have to protect me..."

"I will protect you." She promised, glancing back at Xu Sirui.

This look seemed to say "I will protect you too". After crying, Xu Sirui wanted to turn his face away and deny it. He turned his eyes away and just stared at the crack in the wall, as if there was something worth admiring hidden in the crack.

The eerie music continued to play in the second chamber. The other three, more or less frightened by the sudden appearance of the zombies, proceeded with increased caution. Sun Mingyuan went in first to scout the way, and when he saw no problems, he called the others in.

The door from the second secret room to the third secret room also had a combination lock. Everyone looked for clues separately and finally found out that it was Morse code, and it was the kind without a comparison table.

Sun Mingyuan was dumbfounded. "This is ridiculous! Who can memorize the Morse code table? Let's call for help. Who has the walkie-talkie?"

"No need." Xu Sirui interrupted him.

He put all the Morse codes he had found together and recalled them, and after two minutes he deduced a four-digit code.

Sun Mingyuan tried it, and it actually worked. "Holy crap!" he said, turning back to look at Xu Sirui. "Why are you memorizing the Morse code table for no reason? Is it just to show off today?"

Xu Sirui said nothing. This was how you had to act darkly. When someone said something, you couldn't laugh or respond. The best attitude was to stay out of it. In short, you had to be indifferent.

Xu Sirui glanced at Zhu Yingning nonchalantly, hoping that this move could restore some of his image in her mind - although there was not much image left in the first place - but Zhu Yingning didn't even look at him, and took Guo Yingying's hand and went to the third secret room.

“…”

Good, very good.

He followed with gritted teeth.

After everyone entered the third chamber, Wu Bo reminded the others, "We'd better be careful. There were no zombies in the second chamber, but I keep thinking there should be some in this one."

"Ah, don't scare me." Guo Yingying shrank her shoulders and grabbed Zhu Yingning's right hand even tighter.

As they walked forward, click——

There was a slight sound from the ground, as if Zhu Yingning had stepped on some mechanism or something. Guo Yingying was about to ask her if she heard any movement when the ceiling above her head opened and a head fell from above, falling straight towards where Zhu Yingning was.

"ah--!!"

Guo Yingying screamed, and out of the instinct to escape, she subconsciously shook off Zhu Yingning's hand and tried to hide to the side.

Before he could even move his body, Zhu Yingning stretched out his left hand and steadily caught the bloody head, then placed it steadily on the table beside him, as if it was not a head that fell from the sky, but just a football.

“…”

Everyone looked at her in horror.

"Don't be afraid." She thought everyone was afraid of the head, so she said calmly, "I've put the head here. It can't touch you."

"Sister, why don't you even scream?" Sun Mingyuan said in horror.

He, Wu Bo and Zou Hao were all considered brave, but their bravery was still within the range of human comprehension. When faced with unexpected situations, they would panic, scream and be afraid. Only Zhu Yingning was so calm that it was almost against the will of heaven.

Zhu Yingning asked in confusion, "Who to call?"

"?" Sun Mingyuan was stunned by her question and replied, "This... no one, I didn't call anyone."

Oh my god, a pure naiveté.

He looked at Xu Sirui, his eyes expressing: Did you see that? This is what true indifference means, and you're just a paper tiger, bluffing.

Xu Sirui chose to unilaterally break off eye contact with Sun Mingyuan.

The most obvious clues to the third secret room are two puzzle pieces.

"Let's split into two groups and put the puzzle together." Zhu Yingning said as he squatted down and took one of the puzzle pieces nearby.

Xu Sirui and Guo Yingying immediately squatted beside her, one on each side.

She looked at Xu Sirui, then at Guo Yingying: "...Okay, then the three of us will work together. I have never done a jigsaw puzzle before, do you have any experience?"

"If it's a large puzzle, there will be letter classifications on the back. This one is smaller and doesn't have those things, so just start from the corners," said Xu Sirui.

"Oh! That makes sense. The features of the corners are more obvious. Let's find the puzzle pieces at the corners first." She broke up the puzzle pieces that were piled up in front of her and passed some to Xu Sirui and Guo Yingying so that everyone could participate.

Unlike their cooperation model, Zou Hao gave a direct order: "Just send one person to put it together. When it comes to puzzles, everyone has their own ideas. If everyone participates, it will only make things more chaotic."

Sun Mingyuan nodded: "Who's coming?"

Wu Bo hesitated a bit after hearing this, fearing that if the task fell on her, she would fail to complete it in time and end up being blamed by others. She remained silent and did not respond.

Zou Hao was more accustomed to assigning tasks to others rather than shouldering them all himself. He patted Sun Mingyuan on the shoulder and said, "I'm counting on you, brother."

Sun Mingyuan didn't have so many twists and turns in his mind. He boasted to himself, "I am the king of puzzles," and started to piece together the puzzle without saying anything else.

Xu Sirui raised his eyelids and glanced in the direction of Sun Mingyuan and the others, feeling a little strange.

Before meeting Zhu Yingning, he'd actually shared Zou Hao's sentiment, believing that requiring multiple people to complete something that could be accomplished by one person would only lower overall efficiency. Even now, he didn't think Zou Hao's choice was wrong, because Sun Mingyuan was indeed quite good at puzzles. Whether it was accidental or due to his unique discerning eye, assigning the puzzle task to Sun Mingyuan was the right decision.

only……

Xu Sirui looked at Wu Bo, who was squatting on the side in boredom because he had no chance to participate in the puzzle, and then turned to look at Zhu Yingning and Guo Yingying beside him.

Guo Yingying found the right puzzle piece and pressed it in. Zhu Yingning whispered, "You have a really good eye. I couldn't find this piece after searching for ages."

"It's okay..." Guo Yingying smiled shyly, but it was obvious that her mood had brightened a lot after being frightened by the zombies.

Yes, that’s what Zhu Yingning is like.

She never leaves anyone behind, even if it means temporarily sacrificing some efficiency.

When they were halfway through the puzzle, Wu Bo squatted over to their side and said, "I'm so bored. I'll just watch you guys do it."

"Or, why don't you look for a place to hide in this room? Or a secret door where zombies might appear? You just said there might be zombies in this secret room, which I think makes sense." Zhu Yingning said.

Wu Bo regained his energy and stood up, saying, "Oh, right! I almost forgot something so important. You guys try your best, and I'll go look for it."

Xu Sirui couldn't help but look at Zhu Yingning again.

Do you think she is strong? Not really.

Say she's eloquent? Not at all.

She was old-fashioned and boring when she spoke.

But she just has this kind of gentle and kind power that can pick up everyone's little emotions and smooth them out one by one, just like a breeze unfolding the folds on the lake surface and blowing the ripples into calmness.

**

After a crazy day of fun, I got home and it was already past seven o'clock in the evening.

Xu Zhengkang was not at home and the part-time worker was on holiday. Both of them were too tired to cook, so they simply took a box of instant noodles and ate them facing each other.

After finishing the last of his instant noodles, Xu Sirui stood up and went to the bedroom to retrieve a laptop. He had secretly sold Xu Zhengkang's laptop and used some of his own pocket money to buy it. He placed the laptop on the dining table, with the screen facing Zhu Yingning.

She put down her fork, moved the instant noodle bucket away to prevent the soup from splashing onto the computer, and asked curiously, "What is this..."

Xu Sirui clicked on a web page and pushed the mouse to her hand.

Zhu Yingning instinctively grasped the mouse he handed her, then looked at the screen. On it was a web game, its title bouncing up and down like candy. It was called "The Adventures of Zhu Yingning."

"Huh? What's that?" She laughed in surprise, "How could it be my name?"

"You play it." He tapped the button on the screen to start the game.

After the mouse was clicked, accompanied by a series of bouncing sounds, a short-haired girl wearing a superhero cape crawled out from the corner of the screen, shook her wrinkled cape, and scratched her hair.

"Ah!" Zhu Yingning laughed so hard she wanted to slam the table. She pointed at the person on the screen and turned to ask Xu Sirui who was standing behind her, "Is this me?"

"Otherwise, could it be me?" He raised his chin arrogantly.

The little man on the screen gave a self-introduction, and then there was a series of "thump thump" sounds, and a map unfolded in front of her. The starting point of the map was written as the first level. She moved the mouse and clicked on the first level. The small game that popped up was a parkour game. The road was a mountain road, and the obstacles blocking the road were chickens, ducks, cows, sheep, walking elementary school students and lame old men. Sometimes there would be an obstacle avoidance prop "ox cart" in the middle of the road. After using it, you would not be afraid of obstacles, because when you encounter an obstacle, the ox cart will automatically carry you up. You can also obtain the sacred object "Aura of Knowledge" from Teacher Chen who occasionally jogs by. With the "Aura of Knowledge", you can get a strong magnetic attraction for ten seconds, which can suck up all the "gold coins" - that is, all the textbooks on the road used to add points.

The game's interactions were simple and clear, making it easy for even someone like her who didn't play games often to understand. As she played, she kept uttering meaningless interjections, sometimes "Wow!", sometimes "Ah!", and occasionally blurting out, "Oh my God... This is amazing! This is amazing!"

She turned around and looked at him, her eyes shining like stars, even mixed with a bit of admiration: "Did you do all this yourself?"

He nodded implicitly.

"You are a genius, Xu Sirui!" She screamed and turned back to play games.

Xu Sirui touched his nose and muttered, "What a fuss." But the corners of his mouth rose.

He first got into programming simply because he was too bored staying at home. Although Zhu Yingning repeatedly told him not to go to the Internet cafe, there was no surveillance at home, so Xu Sirui got bored and still went to the Internet cafe out of habit.

If internet addiction were so easy to break, why wouldn't there be so many teenagers who worry their parents? However, friends can't always be available for appointments, and he has to keep an eye on the time to get home before Zhu Yingning finishes school, lest she finds out and scolds him. So whenever Xu Sirui goes to the internet cafe, he just teams up with random people sitting next to him to play online games.

As for passers-by, their gaming skills are inevitably uneven.

After playing for half a month, he felt sick of it and wanted to vomit.

One day, sitting in an internet cafe, smelling the stench of cigarettes and foot odor, and listening to people around him spewing all sorts of obscenities about sex and reproductive organs, he suddenly felt a wave of nausea, like eating a ball of white rice covered in aflatoxin, or swallowing a mouthful of expired, stinky milk. He suddenly began to doubt his life, and for the first time in his life, he wanted to ask himself -

Is this how his life will be?

Surf the internet during the day, study at night, take a few exams casually before the college entrance exam, and finally live your life carelessly? Like a garbage bag, blown here and there by the wind and sent to the incinerator.

He remembered Zhu Yingning's non-stop tutoring every night, the Saturdays when he and his friends gathered to study, and her following behind him, carrying her schoolbag, with dark circles under her eyes, walking tiredly and silently.

In fact, before she came to Beijing, after what happened in his home, he thought more than once, let it rot.

The world doesn't need him. The earth will keep turning with or without him. So what if he makes progress or falls?

However, it is difficult to explain human awakening.

Maybe it was just a tiny thought that popped into his head at some point, like not wanting her to be disappointed in him. There wasn't much grandeur or righteousness, or independence or strength or so-called hard work or sudden realization. The motivation behind it was just this tiny reason.

After two or three days of careful consideration, he took the initiative to sell Xu Zhengkang's computer, bought himself a better computer, and started to teach himself programming.

This choice was a compromise, because he couldn't quit gaming. He couldn't quit, but he didn't want to be a gamer. So what could he do? He decided to just make games.

He started by learning C language according to the tutorials on the Internet, then studied Java on this basis, read the information on HTML, and learned how to use the Unity engine.

After calling Sun Mingyuan to ask what gift he could give and getting a bunch of bad ideas, he returned to his room and waved his mouse over the Unity shortcut icon.

He created a new engineering project.

**

The passing score for the first level is 1000 points. Zhu Yingning played it three times and reached the requirement on the third time.

The second level was unlocked immediately, and she was stunned as soon as she clicked it.

It's to save Apple.

In other words, the improved version saves Apple.

Unlike the "Save the Apple" in Kingsoft Typing Master, Xu Sirui's own version features a short-haired figure at the bottom, tilting its head back and holding a basket to catch the apple. Needless to say, this figure is also her. If the apple is caught successfully, the figure giggles; if it fails, it sobs. I don't know where Xu Sirui found this free, open-source, low-quality audio, but the figure's laugh sounds like a rooster, and its cry sounds like something out of a horror movie. Sob. Sob.

It was supposed to be funny, but after playing with it for a while, she broke down in tears.

My fingers stopped pressing the keyboard, and apples fell out of the basket one after another. The screen showed "Game over, do you want another round?"

This was exactly the effect Xu Sirui was after. When he saw her crying, he felt no sympathy at all. Instead, he felt extremely happy, thinking that all his hard work and staying up late was worth it. However, on the surface, he still said righteously, "Why are you crying? Finish your fun first, then cry."

After clearing all the levels, the melody of the birthday song would play. He had specially found a music store and rented a piano room for an hour to play that song himself. After all the hard work and effort, he had to let her hear it.

Zhu Yingning shook her head, took out a tissue and held it in her hand, crying and saying, "I'll play after I finish crying."

Sob, sob, sob. The crying sound is similar to the sound effect in the game.

"Cry after you're done playing."

"Play after you finish crying."

"After we finish playing..."

This conversation would have gone on endlessly, but they accidentally looked at each other.

One was in tears, the other was secretly happy but had to try hard to control his facial expression.

This glance seemed to have hit the funny bone of each of them. Zhu Yingning wrinkled her nose and tried her best to hold back her laughter, but after seeing Xu Sirui burst into laughter, she was infected by him and laughed wildly with him.

She had no idea what she was laughing at, and Xu Sirui didn't know what was so funny about it either.

He fell down under the dining table laughing, and she laughed so hard that she accidentally hit the enter key.

Apples began to rain down on the screen again.