"I'm so fed up with you. You hate this and that all day. Why don't you find a rich person to support you?"
The man didn't seem to want to tolerate it.
"Is money the root of all problems? Do you remember that I told you that today is my birthday? I deliberately didn't remind you to see if you would remember it. And then? Not only did you not remember it, but you also took me to eat something like this! Just playing games every day, do you have... No, you definitely got virtual dependence syndrome!"
"Customers, please don't quarrel..."
It could be seen that the uncle who sold cold noodles was very embarrassed. What this man did was also unacceptable. He couldn't even remember his girlfriend's birthday.
"Aren't you also chatting with your smart companion all day long? Don't think that I didn't know that you have set your smart companion into the image of your first love!"
"Xixi? He is more considerate than you!"
Xixi was probably the name she gave to her smart companion.
"It's Xixi again, what can he do for you?"
"What can he do... He knows what I think. He will order hygiene products for me in advance before the menstrual cycle. He usually asks me to eat more vegetables and go to bed early. He checked the weather forecast the day before I went out and reminded me to wear more clothes. After the boss scolded me, he would comfort me not to get angry, and even wish me a happy birthday when you are busy playing games. Can you do this? I am also fed up with this. You don't care about me at all. You only like games …Forget it."
The woman left without looking back.
"Hey..."
The man put the cold grilled noodles in his hand back to the stall, and then tried his best to chase the woman...
"Hey, how could he do this? The cold noodles would be sad too, alright?"
The boss and I looked at each other...
"Er... If you don't mind it, you can have these cold noodles. I won't charge you, since they have already paid it anyway."
He pointed to the quarreling couple who went away.
"...Thank you boss, then."
Naturally, I would not mind it. After hesitating, I reached out and took the grilled cold noodles.
This boss was such a good person, it had been a long time since I saw such a kind person.
"People nowadays... either are addicted to games or smart companions. They are all fascinated by these artificial intelligences. My daughter also loves to use smart companions. She said that it is more considerate than all the boys she knows. Maybe I will buy one one day..."
The boss continued to grill the next cold noodle while thinking about it.
Smart companions... artificial intelligence...
I didn't have a good impression of this thing. The failure of my love life could be attributed to it.
Speaking of it, the last time I came into contact with a smart companion was when I was in junior high school.
At that time, contact lens type microcomputers were not so popular, and most people were using handheld or wristband type to perform human-computer interaction through desktop projection or holographic projection.
Endea just launched the 7th generation product of the smart companion Amicus series at that time, and my parents bought one as a birthday gift for me in the first year of junior high school.
After all, it was a new product. For me at the time, it was something worth showing off with classmates and friends.
Although artificial intelligence at that time was not as perfect in algorithms as it was now, its personality had been able to respond to user needs like a real person. Therefore, until the second grade, my smart companion and I were still good friends.
It was the end of the first semester of the second year, and I had a crush on a girl in my class. The girl was beautiful in appearance and good in academics. She was like a goddess in her year. I only dared to look at her from afar but didn't have the courage to confess to her.
But the smart companion confidently enumerated the evidence to prove that she must have a crush on me, and if I didn't confess, I would regret it... he even figured out the time, place, and way of the confession for me.
Naively, I believed his words and said a long prepared confession in the class in a stuttering manner, and invited her to a candlelight dinner like it was in the movie...
Now that I think about it, I was so stupid that I wanted to hit the wall with my head and kill myself…
The girl I had a crush on before heard my confession and angrily told me to stop harassing her under the laugh of the crowd. I didn't even remember how embarrassed I left school...
Under questioning, Smart Companion explained that this was the best method that combined the stories of many movies and precise calculations, but there were some very detailed factors that he had failed to consider.
At that time, I didn't care about the truth of the matter anymore, and deleted the software without hesitation. It was also from that time that I did not take the initiative to speak to girls...
I no longer believed in any artificial intelligence partner, how could a computer calculate human feelings? Supercomputers could calculate the distribution of preferences of most people through data analysis, but for a particular person, it could never predict it.
Just like you know that the probability of the front and back of a coin was 50%, but you would never know which side of the coin would appear next time, people's thoughts were so random.
Having games was enough, and I didn't need a girlfriend. This was my creed for a long time.
... But as the age of chuunibyou slowly passed, and was stimulated by the normal guys who showed the pictures of their girls every day, the desire to find a girlfriend began to wake up again...
It was a pity that in reality, I was a lonely homebody. This was what I accidentally heard from other girls when they commented on me.
Probably there was no hope anymore, if it was just with my own strength.
It was precisely because of this that I thought of asking for help from netizens who claimed to be a dating sim expert...
When I finished eating cold noodles while sitting on a bench, the setting sun almost disappeared from the sky. The moon was faintly visible in the east, and I walked slowly back to the dormitory.
[Waning Moon: Are you there? ]
As soon as I sat down in the dormitory, I saw the message of the Waning Moon.
[Me: You need anything? ]
[Waning Moon: Of course, I want to ask you about the game. Has the harem plan been achieved? ]
[Me:...]
This guy came to laugh at me.
[Waning Moon: It looks like a failure, as I expected. ]
[Me: I plan to play a hidden ending, and I just cleared Shuiyuan Weina's line. ]
There was no point to argue with him, so I honestly stated my next goal.
[Waning Moon: This is more like it! Such thoughts are more practical than harem endings. You can do it, 18-year-old virgin! ]
As expected, this guy didn't say anything useful at all...
It had been a long time since I had a good rest. I have been living with a messy resting schedule because of the game recently. Today, I must go to bed early and get a full sleep.
I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. For a second before closing my eyes, I was still thinking about whether I would see Gameover… If this continued, would I really be affected by the game...
….
On the road where cherry blossoms were flying, Ying slowly walked towards me, half-dreaming and half-awake I came to the familiar game interface again.
I shivered unconsciously. It was strange because the login screen of the game had no somatosensory settings, and I could feel that the cherry blossoms this time were a little different...
"Classmate Yuchuan...?"
Ying walked towards me in silence with her head down. No matter how I called, she seemed to be walking without hearing half of it.
The surroundings gradually darkened, as if an old electric light was slowly extinguishing, and as Ying approached, my vision began to darken strangely.
What happened?
"This...this is?"
A piece of cherry blossoms fell on my cheeks, extremely cold, so cold that I couldn't stop trembling subconsciously. I wiped it off with my hand... the red petal that caught my eye... I didn't know when the cherry blossoms all over the sky changed from pink to red like blood.
"Classmate Yuchuan! What is going on?"
I yelled Ying in a panic, but she still didn't give me any reply, she just walked towards me step by step among the blood red cherry blossoms, and finally stopped in front of me.
"Student Gaocheng, there are only two of us in this world. No one will bother us~ So, will Gaocheng be with me?"
She called my name sweetly, but when she looked up, I saw her face covered with blood!
I wanted to run away, but found that I couldn't move at all...
Ying slowly stretched out her hand to me...
Damn it, hurry up and quit the game!
What made me feel desperate was that no matter how I called, the operation menu to log out still did not appear...
"Ah!"
I let out a short scream and woke up.
Surrounded by familiar walls and ceiling, the sky outside the window was still dark, indicating that the current time was at least before dawn.
It turned out to be a dream...
But the scene in the dream was very strange. How could the gentle and kind Ying change be stained with blood? It clearly did not make sense at all!
I haven't read "Analysis of Dreams" and other books. I only remembered that when I was a child, my parents would always use "dreams and reality are opposite" to explain most nightmares, but now I could only accept this explanation.
Maybe it's just a coincidence.
I had to say that once the game started, I couldn't stop it. After eating some bread, I decided to skip all the lessons today and clear Minghai Lily's storyline.
——
[Fifth Day]
The fifth day, for this game, was the last day for all the characters in the game to share the same storyline. These were the words I heard from the Waning Moon.
As always, I came to the game club after school and accepted the new task.
This time the task was to clear "Gazing at the Stars". This game was a love game with a woman as the protagonist. There were three routes, and I was about to enter the route of reconciliation with the childhood sweetheart betrayed by the heroine.
[Zhenli: Is this Xin Mu City? Wow-awesome! Those buildings are so tall! It's a big city!]
In the opening CG, a ponytail girl carrying a plain canvas bag opened her arms in front of a high-rise city building. This girl was the heroine Tiangong Zhenli.
The number of times I saw it at the beginning made me want to puke...
[Zhenli: But where is the Star Idol Academy... Damn it, I don't understand the map!]
[Mysterious male voice:...Miss, are you also a freshman in the Star Idol Academy?]
Zhenli turned her head and saw one of the protagonists, who was sitting in a luxury car parked on the side of the road, Shangyue Sen.
The standard male protagonist setting of the girly manga.
[Zhenli (internal monologue): This man is so handsome! And he is talking to me! He must be interested in me! But I can't betray Hexi. Hexi is so gentle and considerate to me... But it should be okay to just ask him for directions? ]
[Zhenli: Yes! Huh...Are you also a freshman in the Star Idol Academy? ]
[Sen: Yes, my name is Shangyue Sen. What is your name, Miss? ]
[Zhenli: My name is Tiangong Zhenli, and I came here from Teng Ye Prefecture. But I'm lost and can't find the Star Idol Academy...]
[Sen (internal monologue): I've never heard of this place before...]
[Sen: Can I invite this beautiful lady to sit in my car and go to the Star Idol Academy together? ]
[Zhenli: If it's convenient, of course... And just call me Zhenli. ]
Sen opened the door and got out of the car to face Zhenli.
[Sen: Then please get in the car. It's an honor to ride with Zhenli. ]
[Zhenli (internal monologue): This is a fateful encounter. Today is indeed my lucky day! ]
And… she completely forgot about her childhood sweetheart in just a few sentences.
What kind of stupid game design was this. Ah, forget it, there were too many things to complain about this game.
...
After the event, I took the initiative to stay to clean the room. The so-called cleaning of the room was actually to be close to Minghai Lily.
It was no different from the behavior of the rich young master in the game.
"Club President, why are you always being strict with Classmate Tianzhong?"
I picked up the cleaning equipment and pretended to clean the floor. AI wouldn't mind me being lazy anyway.
"...I don't know about others, but isn't Classmate Tianzhong the kind of person that wished people to scold him?"
"... You are right."
It was obvious to all that Tianzhong was a masochist, so sympathizing with him was definitely the wrong choice.
"I'm kidding! Actually, I think Classmate Tianzhong is the kind of person who is unorganized in life and can't do things if no one assigns tasks and urges him. So there is no way for him to work well without being strict?"
"Is it the so-called procrastination..."
"Well, it's almost like that. And Classmate Tianzhong is different from Classmate Gaocheng. They didn't join the club because they liked games, but because it was an invitation from a beautiful girl."
Come on, be humble a little! This was the first time I have seen a girl claiming herself to be a beautiful girl!
"But since they have joined this club, they must do what they should do."
"I don't deny that."
"I thought Classmate Gaocheng was the same as them, but I didn't expect Classmate Gaocheng to really love games..."
She stroked her chin and looked at me meaningfully.
"I have high hope for Classmate Gaocheng, don't let me down!"
"Have the club president thought about making them "like" games?"
"Well...I think about it every day, but it's really difficult. Even if they were offered rewards, they don't seem to have much motivation."
"I think the club president may have used the wrong method."
"Ah? Is that so? So what is the correct way?"
She looked at me expectantly.
"Well... I haven't figured it out yet. If I can think of it, I will tell the club president immediately."
"...Be sure to figure it out."
She solemnly requested. In other words, she really valued this game club. In this case, she played through this line in one go to see what was going on.