The ward suddenly became unusually quiet, and Xu Shiyue's voice, as always, was cold and aloof.
Sunlight streamed through the glass windows, casting an ethereal glow over the room and imbuing the words she spoke with an indescribable sense of unreality.
The crisp crunch of the apple echoed in the room, the slow, grinding sensation like a gentle grinding against one's heart.
A faint fruity scent wafted through the disinfectant solution in the room, and an ambiguous atmosphere arose as they rubbed against each other.
Lu Shizhen was completely stunned; she felt that she was mistaken.
In her mind, the word "ambiguous" was the furthest thing from Xu Shiyue's image.
The bright red apple pressed down on the girl's lips, coating the light pink with a beautiful, glistening layer.
The originally plain and thin fabric was made to appear softer and fuller, seemingly unintentionally evoking thoughts of underwater things.
I don't know if the viewers were bewitched by her beauty.
Or was she doing it on purpose from the beginning?
Lu Shizhen subconsciously bit her lip, even forgetting to respond to Xu Shiyue's question.
Xu Shiyue, however, didn't forget to hold the remaining half of the rabbit-shaped apple with a fork and asked, "What, you don't want to?"
How could Lu Shizhen possibly refuse?
She had just felt guilty because she had caused Xu Shiyue to miss the awards ceremony.
Then she realized that she hadn't given Xu Shiyue a proper response earlier, and was worried that Xu Shiyue would misunderstand her as hesitant and unwilling, thus deducting points from her score. Without even thinking, she blurted out, "Well... how about I make up for it with an awards ceremony?"
Xu Shiyue paused, holding the fork in her hand, and asked, "How do we fix it?"
"It's...it's that I'll book the entire hall for the orchestra's awards ceremony and invite Teacher Chen..." Lu Shizhen was planning when Xu Shiyue interrupted her, "Lu Shizhen, do you think money is everything?"
no……
Lu Shizhen pursed her lips and secretly answered in her heart.
She herself just said that she didn't really like her compensation plan.
Compensation should be sincere; this kind of imprinting, which is simply built on money, is a bit too mercenary.
This is especially true for Xu Shiyue.
Lu Shizhen felt her head was spinning, and she couldn't think of any good way to make amends for the time being.
However, no matter what, if you're going to compensate someone, you should at least show some sincerity.
Lu Shizhen pursed her lips slightly, as if she had made up her mind, and looked up at Xu Shiyue by the bed: "What do you want? Just tell me and I will definitely give it to you."
Although Lu Shizhen's words were no better than the nouveau riche's remarks just now, they easily made people think of money.
Xu Shiyue could hear the sincerity in those words, just as she knew that the blurry figure in front of her must be looking at her with eyes full of sincerity.
It was pitch black, reflecting the sunlight falling in from behind me.
Without further troubling Lu Shizhen, Xu Shiyue said, "Then draw me a picture."
“Okay.” Lu Shizhen nodded immediately and eagerly introduced the different types of paintings to Xu Shiyue, like listing a menu: “What kind do you want? Oil painting? Watercolor? Realism? Impressionism?”
Upon hearing Lu Shizhen's detailed explanation, Xu Shiyue's eyes seemed to sparkle.
She looked at the girl standing in front of her, her voice containing a meaningful smile: "I didn't expect you to know so many kinds of painting."
Lu Shizhen's expression froze for a moment; the familiar tone of voice made her heart pound.
But she could only suppress these feelings and forced herself to calm down, saying, "Well, I've dabbled in all of them."
“Haven’t you heard that Western proverb, ‘The stomach of a nobleman’s son is like a general store’?” Lu Shizhen looked into Xu Shiyue’s eyes, her voice overly calm. “Of course, my family can’t be considered noble, but we are still a family of some renown.”
As she spoke, Lu Shizhen looked at Xu Shiyue.
She still held the golden fork in her hand, its brilliant color swirling gently in her palm, reflecting the light and making her hand appear as white as jade, slender and with well-defined bones.
As if her doubts had been dispelled, Xu Shiyue paused in turning the fork and nodded, "That's true."
Then she asked, "What are you best at?"
“Of course it’s B…” Lu Shizhen was about to say that she had been drawing digital paintings for more than ten years in the original world, but she suddenly remembered her great skills at school and immediately changed her words to “oil painting.”
Xu Shiyue glanced at Lu Shizhen and then asked, following her words, "What about those that are listed after the oil paintings?"
“Digital drawing,” Lu Shizhen replied immediately.
Thinking that Xu Shiyue might not know what this was, she thoughtfully explained, "It's drawing on a computer using a black tablet. You don't need paints, just a decent monitor and a graphics tablet."
The rare, beautiful autumn sunlight shone brightly into the cool hospital room and onto the face of the girl in Xu Shiyue's line of sight.
Even Lu Shizhen herself probably didn't realize that her introduction carried an enthusiasm that was even more intense than her usual lively demeanor.
Xu Shiyue nodded lightly and said, "Then let's go with this one. You decide what to paint, just don't disappoint me."
“Okay.” Lu Shizhen nodded immediately.
Is there anything better in this world than open-book exams where you can freely express yourself?
Of course not.
And who knows, if she finishes this painting well, Xu Shiyue might give her several hundred more points.
Wouldn't that bring her one step closer to completing her mission?
Lu Shizhen was secretly making plans in her mind, but the corners of her mouth couldn't help but turn up in a smile.
Xu Shiyue watched, then raised her hand and ate the remaining half of the little rabbit on her fork.
Just as the two finished speaking, the nurse pushed a cart over to give Lu Shizhen an IV drip.
Very skillfully, as soon as the nurse gave Lu Shizhen the injection, she placed her own hand, which was receiving the IV, steadily on the bed.
As if she had an excuse, Lu Shizhen supported her phone with her leg and used one hand to search for a graphics tablet and monitor that she had always wanted in her original world but could only look at because they were too expensive on a certain orange app.
Just as she was frantically adding graphics tablets to her shopping cart without looking at the price or focusing solely on performance, a tiny creature that looked exactly like Qiuqiu suddenly appeared on her phone screen.
A bubble floated above the little creature's head, and it excitedly displayed the following message: "[Host! I've finally found my way back!]"
Lu Shizhen was startled at first, and her hand, which was held in place, almost moved.
But as she looked at that line of text, Qiuqiu's familiar tone automatically came to mind, and she thought, "Qiuqiu? What's wrong with you?"
She said this in her mind, but the little thing on the phone screen didn't react.
Frowning slightly, Lu Shizhen seemed to have thought of something and tried typing her question into the search box: 【Qiuqiu? What's wrong with you?】
This time, the little thing on the other side of the screen reacted, and another text bubble appeared above its head: [Yesterday, the world system suddenly became unstable for some reason, affecting the main system as well. I secretly went to gather intelligence and got caught in the disrupted data stream; I almost didn't make it back!]
Fortunately, I found a shortcut through tens of thousands of lines of code, which is how I finally made it back alive.
Although it was written text, Lu Shizhen could still sense the sobbing in Qiuqiu's voice.
She looked at the little creature with a pitying expression and asked, "But why are you in this form?"
"Because this is the passage I found," Qiuqiu said.
I can even transform!
This little thing seems to have taken after its owner; its mood of frustration comes and goes quickly.
As she spoke, Qiuqiu enthusiastically and excitedly showed Lu Shizhen various images of herself on her phone screen.
Anime-style, pixelated, Picasso's classic abstract imagery...
That's exactly what we should expect.
Qiuqiu rolled from one side of the screen to the other in its original form, with bubbles above its head filled with bold, enlarged "hehe".
The rapidly appearing bubbles didn't have time to disappear, and Lu Shizhen was overwhelmed by the monotonous, bold text filling the screen.
But seeing Qiuqiu's rare happy and free expression, she couldn't bear to go up and dampen its spirits by telling it to stop.
After watching Qiuqiu explore her image in the mobile world for a while, Lu Shizhen finally typed in the search bar: 【Can you still come out?】
Qiuqiu maintained her professional ethics as always, immediately stopping upon hearing this, and said: "I need to restore my own data flow for a while. The points system seems to have been disrupted as well, and I also need to be responsible for repairing it."
Lu Shizhen's eyes lit up, and her fingers tapped the screen with unusual speed: "Could you fix that bug where points aren't displayed?"
Qiuqiu on the screen shook her head, and the text appeared somewhat slowly: "[Some bad news. Because the data was disrupted, the points system's statistics may have to be restarted from scratch.]"
"..."
Lu Shizhen's eyes widened suddenly, as if a bolt of lightning had struck her.
That means it'll be ages before she sees her points!
Then Qiuqiu remembered something and said to Lu Shizhen in a bubble: [Oh right, there's one more thing, host.]
[I just retrieved a piece of data from the system logs. It shows that you were forcibly rescued by Xu Shiyue while you were receiving system punishment. Her action constitutes non-system user access to the system's internal workings, and I suspect this is what disrupted the main system.]
As Lu Shizhen listened, she recalled that the main system had added an extra layer of shielding to the punishment it had given her.
It was because of this shielding punishment that the assassin was able to pass by without seeing him.
And Xu Shiyue...
Lu Shizhen belatedly realized that Xu Shiyue had found her in that shield that no one could detect.
Compared to the brief chat between Xu Shiyue and Shen Yanxing, which had little interaction, the fact that Xu Shiyue had managed to find her by bypassing the system's firewall caused Lu Shizhen's heart to churn even more.
The sound of her heart pounding against Lu Shizhen's chest brought her a warm and complex feeling she had never experienced before.
An inexplicable sense of urgency compelled her to confirm this event, and she knocked expectantly yet cautiously: "Is this possible?"
"Theoretically speaking, it's unlikely," Qiuqiu said.
Lu Shizhen felt a sudden emptiness in her heart.
But this disappointment didn't last long before Qiuqiu helped her pick it up again: "But system commands are, after all, just a collection of many advanced programs, so that possibility can't be ruled out. Besides, Xu Shiyue is the protagonist, so the system's detectability is very low, and its tolerance for her is correspondingly high."
Lu Shizhen's heart, which had been pounding, slowly began to beat faster, and she felt an unprecedented sense of joy.
It wasn't just because Xu Shiyue broke through the system's restrictions, but because Xu Shiyue broke through the system's restrictions for her sake.
Lu Shizhen had never felt that words were so magical, but just adding a few more words did indeed give her a completely new feeling.
Lu Shizhen couldn't quite put her finger on what to call this feeling.
But she knew she was very fortunate that this feeling came from Xu Shiyue.
She didn't know when it started, but Lu Shizhen's reverence for the main god and main system in the system novels turned into some other different thoughts.
The thought of the main system's defeat filled her with a nameless excitement mixed with a rebellious pleasure. Her fingers tapped rapidly on the phone screen: [Truly worthy of being the female lead, she can effortlessly accomplish what I cannot.]
"Yes, Xu Shiyue is officially recognized as the 'black moonlight' (a term used to describe someone who is considered unattractive or morally ambiguous)," Qiuqiu chimed in.
Whether it was because the little ball rolling on the screen was too comical, or because of a certain sentence, Lu Shizhen's eyes curved into a smile.
She wanted to ask Qiuqiu about her experience yesterday, but out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly saw a plate with neatly arranged red rabbit-shaped apples.
"apple?"
Xu Shiyue held a plate in one hand and a fork with a rabbit and apple on it in the other, gesturing to Lu Shizhen.
The apple's blush settled on her hand, and her fair skin radiated a warm, rosy glow in Lu Shizhen's gaze.
Suddenly feeling embarrassed, Lu Shizhen's eyes flickered unusually, and she let out a "whoosh" as she reached for the plate in Xu Shiyue's hand.
My fingers brushed over it lightly, feeling a warmth mixed with a slight coolness.
Xu Shiyue's hands were not as warm as Lu Shizhen had seen, and she did not hand all the apples to Lu Shizhen as she had expected.
"Do you want to play the drumstick?" Xu Shiyue asked, her voice sounding somewhat serious and calm.
Lu Shizhen was a little confused about what Xu Shiyue was trying to do, asking her if she wanted to eat, but not giving her the apple.
The next second, Xu Shiyue showed her what she was going to do with her actions.
"Open your mouth."
The adorable rabbit-shaped apple held in Xu Shiyue's hand was brought closer to her, her jade-like hand so close.
The faint scent of apples mixed with the aroma emanating from her wrist overpowered the smell of disinfectant in the room, gently yet unavoidably invading Lu Shizhen's nasal cavity.
thump.
Lu Shizhen's heart skipped a beat.
Perhaps it was because the sunlight outside the window was too gentle at that moment that it also cast a gentle shadow over Xu Shiyue, which was contrary to her coldness.
Her outstretched arm was as straight as when she held a bow, and her unusually calm expression seemed to indicate that she was doing this only to prevent Lu Shizhen from using the drum needle.
And it is precisely because of this that those who have wild fantasies appear ashamed.
Lu Shizhen felt a sudden surge of chaos within her.
Just as she was about to decline, Xu Shiyue's voice rang in her ears again: "It's sour."
The voice was clear and cool, yet contained a hint of coquettishness that was hard to pinpoint.
As if reminding herself, she had been holding her arm up for a long time.
Lu Shizhen's gaze faltered slightly.
As if possessed, after Xu Shiyue said those words, he lowered his head and took a bite of the rabbit-shaped apple that she offered.
At that moment, the door to the ward was pushed open from the outside.
Without knocking, a woman dressed as a head nurse walked in, hands in her pockets, talking to Cheng Meiyan.
She watched the two people behaving intimately, then turned to Cheng Meiyan and smiled, "Madam, your young couple has such a good relationship."
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