7480 came to his senses and discovered that the host had successfully hacked into the network at some point and was using powerful hacking techniques to retrieve all information related to the original owner: when was the original owner sent to the orphanage; when did he go to elementary school, junior high school, high school, and college; when did he get married and have children; when did he start working, and how much was his monthly salary...
The big and small things in life will leave traces in this era of the Internet of Things, and Zhuang Li does not need the memories and plots transmitted by 7480 at all. He can master everything just by moving his fingers and tapping the keyboard.
7480 stared at the information on the computer screen, flipping through the pages one by one, carefully hiding his resentment, and asked, "Master, how do you know Zhu Jianrui is not your biological son?"
Zhu Miaomiao, Zhu Jianrui, Gong Xuanlin, and the original owner—all four of them, coincidentally, had type A blood. Judging from their medical reports alone, Zhuang Li wouldn't have known anything so profound. The original owner did know the truth and willingly took it upon himself, but his memory faded after his death. How did Zhuang Li even know the truth?
Did he intercept the original owner's soul?
7480 was just lost in thought when Zhuang Li pointed to a photo of a family of three on the computer screen and said with sympathy, "Two people with single eyelids can't develop double eyelids. This is obvious evidence. Zhuang Li probably didn't have much education before."
Single eyelids are recessive genes, and two aa genes can only form aa, never Aa or AA. Given that both the original owner and Zhu Miaomiao have standard single eyelids, who provided Zhu Jianrui with his European-style double eyelids? This is quite intriguing.
"The original owner's marriage has many problems and deserves in-depth investigation." As he said this, Zhuang Li typed Zhu Miaomiao's name into the Internet and began to check the trajectory of her life.
7480, who originally thought he could hide everything: "..."
"Found it! Gong Xuanlin, Zhu Jianrui's biological father." Zhuang Li displayed two photos side by side on the computer screen. The one on the left belonged to Gong Xuanlin, the one on the right to Zhu Jianrui. The two men were clearly unrelated, yet their appearance was strikingly similar, especially their passionate eyes, which looked as if they had been copied and pasted.
Without further DNA testing, Zhuang Li has confirmed the father-son relationship between the two.
7480: “…”
After turning off the photo, Zhuang Li began to check an old school disciplinary notice. It clearly stated that Zhu Miaomiao, a senior high school student in the school, was given a disciplinary warning for having a premature love affair with someone outside the school.
To uncover the identity of this outsider, Zhuang Li hacked into the campus network, recovered data from that year, and found a low-resolution candid photo from an old post on a campus forum. In the photo, Zhu Miaomiao was tightly embraced by a tall man, with only half of their faces visible, and their outlines were blurred.
Zhuang Li immediately designed a photo editing program and a facial recognition program, and repeatedly refined the photo, finally getting a clear side face. He then continued to compare it with a large number of online photos, and selected the one with the highest overlap coefficient.
This photo belongs to Gong Xuanlin, who is now 38 years old.
"Ah, this is a big shot." Zhuang Li murmured with a chuckle.
7480 looked up and saw that the computer screen was displaying information about Gong Xuanlin's ancestors for eighteen generations. What was even more exaggerated was that one of the items recorded the entire process of Gong Xuanlin going to the doctor for bedwetting at the age of six.
7480 slumped to his knees before the host, and began to doubt his own fantasies: a protagonist from a different dimension was being stripped naked before the host! Could he really kill the host instead of being killed by him?
However, before it could adjust its mood, Zhuang Li gave it another critical blow: "Ah, they started dating again recently."
"You, you, you, how did you know?" 7480 suddenly stuttered because he was too shocked.
Zhuang Li compared Zhu Miaomiao's and Gong Xuanlin's recent purchases with great interest. On the same day and at the same time, both of them would always make purchases in the same place. The difference was that Gong Xuanlin bought expensive women's clothing, bags, and jewelry, while Zhu Miaomiao bought inexpensive items like milk tea, dolls, movie tickets, and popcorn.
"They always buy two movie tickets, and the movies they watch are either horror or romance. Are they getting back together?" Zhuang Li gently stroked the curls at his temples with his fingertips and sighed, "My hair seems to be a little green."
7480 gloated to himself, "There's something else you don't know, right? The son you worked so hard to raise doesn't even recognize you as his dad! Because you refused to buy him a pair of sneakers worth 38,000 yuan, he hates you and is ready to send you to jail!"
However, the next second, 7480's secretly happy mood was shattered by Zhuang Li's words: "Ah, this is really tragic! Zhu Jianrui has also been bribed by Gong Xuanlin."
"You, you, you, how do you know?" 7480 asked this question while kneeling.
Zhuang Li pointed at Gong Xuanlin's spending list and said lazily, "This pair of 38,000 yuan men's sneakers isn't his size, it's Zhu Jianrui's. Also, the arcade tickets, mecha figurines, drones, aircraft carrier models, game discs... these are all things a 13 or 14-year-old would like. Gong Xuanlin doesn't have a son, and his eldest brother's son is 25 this year. Why would he buy all these toys?"
7480: “…”
Zhuang Li stood up, stretched, and whispered, "Let's go and verify my theory."
He opened the door and walked around the small apartment, which was only about 60 square meters. He soon saw an expensive drone and a huge aircraft carrier model on the antique display cabinet. He also found many game discs next to the TV. In the entrance hall, a pair of brand new sneakers were placed on the highest shoe rack, wrapped tightly in cellophane, as if to avoid contaminating the poor atmosphere of the house...
As for the mecha figures, exquisite clothing, expensive handbags, jewelry and other evidence, they were all hidden by Zhu Miaomiao and Zhu Jianrui in their respective bedrooms. Zhuang Li couldn't open their locked doors, so he was too lazy to look for them.
Wrapped in a thin blanket, he lazily nestled in the worn little sofa, surveying the cramped home while sighing inwardly, "The original owner's death was not worth it."
Yes, it was totally unworthy. Due to Zhu Miaomiao's unexpected pregnancy, the original owner had to work part-time while studying to support her. Her excellent grades gradually declined, and in the end, she only passed the third-tier exam.
After work, he worked tirelessly to earn money. The house he bought with the loan was still in Zhu Miaomiao's name. He only kept 800 yuan of his 10,000 yuan salary each month and turned the rest over to the government. He himself lived on coarse food, but provided Zhu Miaomiao and her son with a luxurious life. Even so, in return, he did not receive true love, but betrayal.
Zhuang Li shook his head and sighed with regret.
7480 asked cautiously, "Master, what are you going to do?"
"Of course this kind of garbage should be thrown into the recycling station. Should we keep it for the New Year?" Zhuang Li raised his thin, crimson lips.
"Do you want to file for divorce?" 7480 continued to test.
"What else? What are you expecting?" Zhuang Li raised his eyebrows and asked.
7480 quickly shook his head and waved his hands: "No, no, no, I don't dare to expect anything."
Zhuang Li closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then suddenly asked, "System, you are the cause of my current situation, right?"
7480 was so frightened that even his breathing stopped.
Just when it thought the host was going to eat it alive, Zhuang Li smiled softly: "But it doesn't matter, I like challenges."
"Master, aren't you afraid that I will kill you during the time travel?" 7480 mustered up all his courage to ask this question.
"Don't be afraid," Zhuang Li casually lifted his hair. "When you bring the host across, there must be one rule you must abide by—you are not allowed to kill the host right away. Am I right?"
7480 held his breath for a long time before reluctantly nodding: "You're right."
The system's primary purpose in guiding its hosts through time travel was to compel them to complete missions. Therefore, the host must not be killed immediately upon crossing, otherwise the Lord God would suffer the loss of many slaves. He could ignore these slaves, but he could not ignore the waste of his energy by his subordinates. Therefore, he wrote this prohibition into the core programming of all systems.
Zhuang Li logically guessed the ban, and his smile grew even more amused. "Give me a chance to survive, and I can resolve any dilemma. If you don't believe the system, we can always give it a try later."
7480 asked cautiously, "Master, are you challenging me?"
It understood that its host had discovered its evil intentions, yet the host, far from caring, seemed genuinely excited. He loved carving a path out of despair, and even more so, facing the world's most difficult challenges. This proud courage was constantly transmitted through his brainwaves.
The core program of 7480 was so overwhelmed by these intense thoughts that it was stunned and boldly said, "Master, I accept your challenge. Actually, there is a loophole in this rule. As long as I don't cause the host's death at the moment of crossing, the Lord God will not punish me. So the next time I cross over, I can send you into a chess game where you are sure to die, and slowly trap you and kill you. So Master, you must be careful from now on. I can still control your fate."
"Although you've implanted an instant force field activation device into my program, each activation consumes as much energy as a large country consumes in twenty years. In other words, without sufficient energy, you can't activate the force field. It's destined to be a luxury technology. You can't rely on the force field to escape a killing spree under all circumstances. The force field will only be triggered when an observer arrives. Am I correct?"
Zhuang Li raised his hands and clapped softly, his thin cheeks flushed slightly with excitement and anticipation. "Yes, you guessed right, but I'm sorry, you don't get a reward."
7480, who originally thought he could be proud of himself: "..."
After communicating with the system, Zhuang Li returned to the bedroom and completed the work left by the original owner.
By 7:30 in the morning, he had already showered, put on the original owner's most respectable suit, and fixed his curly hair in the mirror. This honest man named Zhuang Li looked exactly like him, only a little thinner, with a sickly pale skin.
But this is not surprising. At the age of 18, he took on the heavy responsibility of supporting his wife and children. He had done all kinds of hard work, so his health was naturally not very good.
"I need to gain some weight." Zhuang Li murmured to the man in the mirror, then picked up a bottle of lotion on the washbasin and applied it carefully on his cheeks.
A sharp voice came from behind him: "Why are you applying my moisturizer? Do you know it's expensive!" Then, a pretty and slender woman rushed into the bathroom, snatched the moisturizer from his hand, and glared at him fiercely.
Zhuang Li narrowed his eyes and looked back at him, his tone cold: "No matter how expensive it is, I bought it for you. What's wrong with me using a little?"
Filled with disgust, Zhu Miaomiao subconsciously retorted, "Can you afford a moisturizing cream that costs over 20,000 yuan?"
"You don't have a job. If this money isn't mine, then whose is it?" Zhuang Li asked coldly.
Zhu Miaomiao choked up. The Gong family was one of the most powerful families in China, and they had very high expectations for their daughters-in-law and were extremely concerned about their reputation. So before the divorce, she had to avoid being the one caught cheating. In other words, she couldn't expose Gong Xuanlin's existence.
In the silence, another gruff voice rang out: "Zhuang Li, give me two thousand yuan. My classmate has a birthday today, and I need to buy her a present!" A young man walked to the door and, as if it were a matter of course, opened his palm to Zhuang Li. He didn't know when it started, but he no longer cared to call this man "Dad."
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