Chapter 225 Chapter 225 Socially anxious father 2
Zhuozhuo stood on the back of the golden-eyed black lion. She didn't look at the "lovesick" who had fallen to the ground and was stunned. She stared straight at the screen. The bubble frame above her head turned an angry red. On the frame, a fiery bird stretched its neck and screamed, "Zhong Qing Daddy, Zhuozhuo is out. I'll beat you until you cry!"
This fierce and cute statement made 9972 stunned. They had actually been in this small world for two days. Because Zhuozhuo was very curious about online games, they had been playing here quietly for two days.
The story behind this small world is complex. Simply put, it's about planets helping each other. More specifically, the consciousness of a Magic Planet, on the verge of being devoured by Void Monsters, stumbles upon the consciousness of a Tech Planet and calls for help. Together, the two planetary consciousnesses arrange for the people of Tech Planet to travel to the Magic Planet via an online game, helping them drive out the monsters and rebuild their homeland.
Currently, it is the early stage of the plot. "Datong", which is highly anticipated by the two planetary consciousnesses, is still in the form of a traditional online game. The ecological environment of normal online games is the same as that of "Datong". Players are full of martial virtues and swear a lot. Although 9972 tried his best to create a youth mode for Zhuozhuo, Zhuozhuo was still influenced by it.
Zhong Qing ignored Zhuozhuo's words. He drugged his "lovesick" and left a message to customer service to report the villain's existence. He looked at the arrogant villain on the screen, sneered, and clicked his mouse cursor...
Zhuozhuo felt like she was being pummeled by countless invisible giant apples. She ran back and forth on the golden-eyed black lion's back, trying to avoid them, but she couldn't escape. She was in a state of panic. Even so, she still stubbornly challenged him, "Is this all you can do?"
Zhong Qing laughed in anger. He lifted his wrist and brought the mouse back to a comfortable position. Before he could do anything, he saw the little man, as if pushed hard on the back, fall face-first from the lion's back. He held his breath in that instant. His left hand unconsciously reached for the screen, trying to hold Zhuo Zhuo up, while his right hand frantically moved the mouse to pull him up.
But no matter how much, how fast or how anxiously Zhong Qing moved, it was impossible for him to reach his hand into the screen. At the critical moment, the golden-eyed black lion lay on the ground and caught Zhuozhuo with its soft and elastic belly.
Zhuozhuo, completely buried in thick lion fur, was stunned for a long moment before she finally got up. She sat on the black lion's belly, spitting the fur out of her mouth. In the silence on and off the screen, she suddenly threw her head back and burst into tears. A blue bubble appeared above her head, and in the upper right corner of the bubble frame was a cute blue whale, its tail whipping and spraying water. "Zhong Qing, hit Zhuozhuo! Zhong Qing, hit Zhuozhuo! Hit Zhuozhuo! Woo-ah-!"
The golden-eyed black lion widened its copper-bell eyes and looked at the "lovesick man" standing next to it in shock. It didn't expect that its owner with thick eyebrows and big eyes was actually a barbecued pork who abused a young child!
Zhong Qing almost cried out in injustice, he typed in the bubble box to defend himself, "I didn't hit you, don't cry, the lion caught you, you didn't get hurt."
As soon as these words came out, Zhuozhuo cried even louder. Her tears dripped onto the lion's fur, making a small puddle. The bubble frame above her head fell down because it was filled with water from the blue whale, and she held it in her arms.
Zhong Qing watched, feeling that even the best cartoonists couldn't capture Zhuozhuo's adorable expression. He couldn't help but curl his lips. Unfortunately, Zhuozhuo saw this. She tugged the pearl from the golden-eyed black lion's neck and threw it at the screen.
Zhong Qing leaned back subconsciously, and at that moment he felt that Mingzhu would really pass through the screen and hit him in the face.
Zhuozhu watched Mingzhu hit the invisible barrier and slide to the ground. She was so angry that she looked up to the sky and screamed. After she finished screaming, she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. She stood up, one hand on her waist and the other pointing at Zhong Qing, and said fiercely: "Today I will let you die with a clear mind!"
Unable to beat Zhong Qing, she started to imitate the other players in talking nonsense.
Zhuozhuo lifted the blue bubble and smashed it against the screen, but it disappeared before it hit the barrier. Red bubbles emerged from above her head, and the bird was breathing fire angrily. "Zhuozhuo was sitting on the lion, and you pushed Zhuozhuo down and kept hitting him! It hurts!"
Zhong Qing opened his mouth to retort, but in a flash, details he hadn't noticed before flashed through his mind. He briefly reconstructed the events and realized that he'd likely inadvertently shifted the cursor while moving it, exerting force that had pushed Zhuozhuo off the golden-eyed black lion. And then, his subsequent frantic attempts to stop Zhuozhuo's fall with the mouse, each click accompanied by a tiny shift in position to follow her movements, felt like a barrage of punches.
Zhong Qing: “…”
Zhong Qing met Zhuozhuo's accusing gaze and looked away guiltily. Suddenly, he saw the bruises and red marks of beatings on Zhuozhuo's exposed skin, and guilt surged in him. Just as he was wondering why he had felt so deeply for a virtual person, who couldn't actually feel pain, the bubble above Zhuozhuo's head turned green.
A lush green tree stretched out its branches in the lower left corner of the frame, wrapping around the entire bubble frame. It was both vibrant and green, yet naturally heavy and powerful. Just one glance was enough to shock the soul, just like the words in the bubble frame: "Zhong Qing, Zhuozhuo is not a monster, not a boss, not an NPC, but a human. It hurts when you hit him."
Zhong Qing chuckled. The hacker's deceptive tactics weren't particularly sophisticated. The "I'm human" meme had been played out in countless online novels and games. But after he finished laughing, a chill rose, spreading through him with irresistible force. He couldn't stop recalling the details of the past hour, trying to find evidence that Zhuozhuo was just a piece of data.
Evidence after evidence formed a perfect logical chain in his mind, capable of refut- ing Zhuozhuo's words forcefully. But Zhong Qing didn't feel the relief of a sure win; instead, his heart grew heavier. He realized that while he was searching for evidence that Zhuozhuo was data, he had already internalized the belief that she was a person.
At this moment, Zhong Qing felt as if he had been struck by a hundred thousand thunderbolts, leaving him burnt on the outside and tender on the inside, and then buried in a pit with a patch of "grass, grass, grass!" planted on his grave. After a brief blank, his mind flashed through all the conspiracies and tricks he had come across in the past twenty-three years, helping him to accept the absurd fact that a living person was trapped in a game.
"Zhong Qing."
A childish voice suddenly rang out. Zhong Qing was startled and looked towards the source of the sound. He heard the voice continue, "Can you hear me? I'm Zhuozhuo."
The voice was soft and sticky, with the unclear sound of a child, but it was like a sledgehammer hitting Zhong Qing's head, making him think he was hallucinating. He was shocked and asked a stupid question, "Can you speak?"
Zhuozhuo lay on the lion's head, staring at the screen with piercing eyes, chattering: "Zhuozhuo can talk. I didn't let Zhongqing hear it before because I was afraid it would scare him. Now I'm not afraid anymore because Zhongqing knows Zhuozhuo is a human."
Zhong Qing: "..." Isn't it scarier to know that he is a talented person?
Although Zhong Qing wasn't truly scared, he was nonetheless slightly shaken. His Adam's apple rolled, and his throat felt like it was clogged with cotton. He coughed before calmly saying, "Zhuozhuo? How did you get trapped in this game? Tell me, and I'll find a way to get you out."
The bubble above Zhuozhuo's head was still there, now yellow. A little duck was treading its large feet and wiggling its butt along the bubble frame. The words inside matched her own words, "No need to save him. Zhuozhuo can get out on his own."
Zhong Qing couldn't help but think, "Crawled into your house along the internet cable." He preferred believing Zhuozhuo was a ghost, a digital apparition, rather than a human. But now wasn't the time to dwell on that. With a complex tone of resistance and anticipation, Zhong Qing asked, "Can you come out now?"
"No, that's not the case. If Zhong Qing likes Zhuo Zhuo, then Zhuo Zhuo can go out." Zhuo Zhuo tilted his head and thought about what 9972 said casually yesterday, and added, "He has to like him very much, very much, very much, in order for him to go out."
"Okay, I get it. Next time, don't tell others about your weaknesses."
The socially anxious young man Zhong Qing almost blurted out "Then you'll never get out in your life". No matter how cute Zhuozhuo was, as long as he thought of her as a living person, he would never be able to like her!
Zhong Qing asked sincerely: "You can only come out if I like you. Is it okay if others like you?"
Zhuozhuo shook his head and said in a baby voice, "No."
Zhong Qing noticed that Zhuozhuo was in a good mood, simply because she could communicate normally with him. She was so innocent and naive, it seemed she was a genuine three-year-old. He tried to get more information, "If you go to someone else's house, do you need their likes to come out?"
Zhuozhuo continued to shake his head and said childishly, "Zhuozhuo is going to play at someone else's house and will be back soon."
Zhong Qing suddenly felt a pang of uncertainty; Zhuozhuo had actually been linked to his account. But to avoid the possibility that Zhuozhuo, being young, had made a mistake, he decided to find a chance to verify it.
However, the above was all out of Zhong Qing's curiosity. He couldn't let a child be trapped in his game account. "Your name is Zhuozhuo. Do you remember your parents' names? Where do you live?" Zhong Qing picked up his phone and thought about how to call the police so as not to be regarded as crazy or deliberately disrupting the police's work.
Zhuozhuo grabbed the lion's ear and bit it, filling his mouth with fur. He was pulling out the fur one by one. When he heard this, he looked at Zhong Qing strangely and said, "Dad is Zhong Qing. Home is here."
She pointed to the "Lovesick" courtyard, then pointed outside the screen, referring to Zhong Qing's house.
Zhong Qing remembered that the little girl had called him "Dad" the moment she appeared. Perhaps she had forgotten who her real parents were. He raised his eyebrows, his sharp eyes locked on Zhuo Zhuo, "Come to think of it, you're not a hacker virus, how did you know my name?"
Zhuozhuo didn't like the tone and glared at Zhong Qing angrily, but he still answered every question and said proudly, "What Zhuozhuo saw is here."
She raised her hand and pointed to the location of the portrait, trying to describe it, "Push the door open, push the door open again, push the door open again, and you will see it."
Zhong Qing quickly understood that the little guy had seen his real-name authentication. "Can you read?"
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