Chapter 79: Replication Experiment 3
All the other team members had already packed up and left; only He Mo and Zhuang Ningyu remained on the second floor. When Yi Ke appeared, panting at the top of the stairs, He Mo sensibly left, leaving Zhuang Ningyu standing alone with the opened thermos cup, curiously asking, “Why did you run back again?”
“…Nothing.” Yi Ke stepped forward and took the cup from his hand. “My throat is dry; I wanted to bring the water with me.”
The excuse was clearly a bit forced, since Zhuang Ningyu had ridden the team’s minibus plenty of times and there was never a shortage of bottled water. Yi Ke obviously realized this, so he emphasized, “I wanted something hot.”
“Nice try.” Zhuang Ningyu stroked his face affectionately, and seeing that no one else was around, he leaned in to kiss him. Yi Ke was caught off guard and a little dazed after the kiss, his mind quickly running: Why did he just kiss me out of nowhere—are we about to argue—no, wife is sweet—kiss again! Kiss again! He pulled Zhuang Ningyu closer around the waist and, leaning down, gave him another deep bite, before dashing off with the cup amid the “beep beep beep” of impatient car horns downstairs.
Ten minutes later, Zhuang Ningyu was in He Mo’s passenger seat. “Let’s go, straight back to the office.”
“Why’d Xiao Yi run back just now?” He Mo rested both hands on the wheel. “He doesn’t need a special goodbye for every medical exam, does he?”
“No.” Zhuang Ningyu buckled his seatbelt. “He just came back for his water cup.”
He Mo didn’t get it—what’s the point of bringing a water cup for a medical exam?
Zhuang Ningyu explained patiently, “Because the water in it was boiled by me.”
Just like how Yi Ke had come to Fuxing Court on the weekend to stew soup, only to save some for the next day to warm and eat—love shouldn’t be wasted. He looked at He Mo, his voice full of a kind of pure compassion: “You’ll understand once you’re in love.”
He Mo: … I shouldn’t have asked.
Routine medical exams after these small missions generally only take two or three hours, but by afternoon Yi Ke still hadn’t been released from the medical center and his phone couldn’t be reached. Zhuang Ningyu was worried and called the center’s admin director directly, only to be told that Comrade Xiao Yi couldn’t leave yet because his exam results were showing abnormalities.
Abnormal was right—he’d suspected all along that the recent anxious overactivity was a sign of impending evolution. Without a second thought, he drove straight to the medical center. When he arrived, Yi Ke was in the consultation room; two teammates who’d finished their exams were waiting with him.
The doctor asked, “Any new physical abnormalities recently?”
Yi Ke shook his head. “No, just the same as last time.”
“Yes, there are!” Qing Gang, standing behind him, clapped his hands on his shoulders and righteously told the doctor, “He’s afraid of water.” Then cast a stern look at his little brother, because now is not the time to hide symptoms!
Yi Ke: “?”
Qing Gang explained to the doctor himself, “It’s like this—the whole mission today, Xiao Yi kept carrying around a thermos but wasn’t drinking it. He’d pour a bit in the lid and sit there sipping it like Maotai, real strange. Normally he gulps a whole bottle of water in one go!”
Evolvers show all kinds of odd secondary symptoms when their conditions are unstable. Water aversion was duly noted. The doctor told the assistant to record it in detail, then asked, “Been bitten by a dog recently?”
Yi Ke hadn’t answered yet before Qing Gang clapped his thigh again. “Not just any dog—an evolved one! It all lines up!”
He was promptly tossed out of the room.
Back in the exam room, Yi Ke took twenty minutes to explain to the doctor that he really wasn’t afraid of water, didn’t have rabies, and hadn’t been bitten by a dog. Also, that the dog’s name wasn’t Alipay.
U-Shield: “wer!”
Yi Ke’s abnormal data was mainly reflected in the brain. The report showed he was undergoing extraordinary development, gray matter density was significantly thickening, his short-term memory was converting to long-term memory with very high efficiency, and his resistance to interference was strong. The doctor said, “The risk is that it comes with an increased tendency to hypersensitivity, including anxiety, restlessness, irritability or increased compulsive behavior, and may trigger intense headaches. You can think of it as the price of brain evolution, but don’t worry, we’ll provide all the necessary medical and training support during your evolution. Also, could your spouse come in for a chat?”
Yi Ke frowned. “Why?”
“Or your parents, anyone close who can be with you for a long time,” the doctor explained. “A safe, comfortable family environment is the best way for you to relax, which is important for getting through the evolution period quickly.”
“Knock knock knock.” Zhuang Ningyu knocked three times and, with approval, pushed the door open. “Just talk to me directly.”
The cool guy instantly melted into an enthusiastic puppy: Wifey wifey kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss!
Zhuang Ningyu unfazed, kicked him: “Cut it out.”
“Captain Zhuang?” The doctor was very surprised, glanced at Yi Ke, who sat obediently and nodded, “Go ahead, just talk to him!”
The doctor was used to big drama, didn’t ask further, just wrote out three full pages of instructions. At this stage, Yi Ke was as precious as a crystal ball about to enter its evolution. After leaving the hospital, Zhuang Ningyu didn’t even let him drive. Yi Ke sat in the passenger seat, grinning happily. He wasn’t too concerned about his brain’s wild development, but he did have a lot of thoughts about his rapidly developing love—like, when his fragrant wife was explaining to the doctor in the corridor, “I’m not afraid of water, I just couldn’t bear to finish it all in one gulp,” who was it?
Genius Xiao Yi!
Zhuang Ningyu stopped at a red light and turned to ask, “Why is your face so red?”
Yi Ke held his hand on the gear shift. “Nothing, just a little warm.”
After the last episode, Zhuang Ningyu stayed highly alert the whole drive, parked in a spot with no cameras in the basement, just in case this guy tried something, but Yi Ke was completely absorbed in his own magnificent linguistic art, not noticing his wife was already braced to prevent anything unseemly. He just leaned over, kissed his cheek, and got out the car.
Zhuang Ningyu: … Why does he seem so mysterious today?
Back home, Yi Ke was even clingier—he practically wanted to drag the showerhead into the kitchen because Zhuang Ningyu was making dinner. The morning’s apple water was a mistake since Zhuang Ningyu had been too busy and added sugar twice, but usually he managed quick, reliable home-cooked meals. He was anxiously slicing vegetables and didn’t notice the knife being pulled from his hands. Yi Ke, in a bathrobe, hugged him from behind, chin resting on his shoulder, and finished chopping for him.
He had to be there for stir-frying.
For scooping rice.
Eating—they had to sit attached.
Opening the dishwasher—they had to do it together.
Zhuang Ningyu gripped his shoulders, “Every secondary symptom has to be reported to the evolver management center. Can you please stop being so embarrassing?”
Yi Ke whined, “I’ll try.”
The result was that Zhuang Ningyu yawned all through work the next day, reading aloud from the screen: “Logic chain disruption?”
“Yes,” Ren Bing said. “Chaotic logic chains help us ‘solve the puzzle’ faster.”
“So you mean, if we can disrupt the rule zone’s logic chain, we can turn a relatively reasonable game into one full of bugs—end the rule zone by creating bugs?”
“Just like yesterday’s Zeus Grand Hotel and the Shiliu Mountain rule zone test on Friday,” Ren Bing said. “I think a rough cut-off is workable. What do you think?”
“I agree,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “And if it’s as I guessed, and the rule zone has been learning using AI models, then later on, every sample it collects and observes will be a logic-chain-damaged defective product.”
The more ineffective data accumulates, the more bugs there will be, and when the scale is big enough, maybe the ‘program’ itself will crash.
“So the rule zone could disappear,” Ren Bing said.
If the rule zone disappears, He Mo leaned over: “Do evolvers disappear too?”
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter,” Zhuang Ningyu said, “Evolution isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
If someone else said this, maybe it would sound sour, but Zhuang Ningyu was a perfect post-evolution product himself. Even he said it wasn’t necessarily good… He Mo thought about it for a moment, couldn’t figure out why, so he asked, “How so? Give details.”
Zhuang Ningyu thought of last night’s wildly energetic Yi Ke—no way to explain that in detail. Anyway, once you’ve personally experienced the feeling of being unable to sleep all night because someone’s crazily lifting weights while hanging from a pull-up bar, maybe you’ll get it.
Yi Ke’s biological clock was destroyed by evolution. Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t need sleep at all, heading to swim at the gym at three a.m.; sometimes he’d collapse on the couch in a coma, refusing to eat. That night at ten, Zhuang Ningyu squatted beside him, slapping his face: “Get up, quick, go sleep in bed!”
“Wait a second.” Yi Ke mumbled with his mouth full, not even clear if he was awake—lying like a mountain, unmoving in wind or rain.
Zhuang Ningyu tugged at his pajamas for ages, couldn’t budge him, almost tore the expensive silk. “Should I carry you to bed?”
Yi Ke lifted his eyelids, finally reacting.
Zhuang Ningyu bent down, rolled him over, grabbed his shoulder with one arm and his knees with the other—
Yi Ke bolted upright, scrambling and tumbling; even with blurry eyes, there was no way he’d let his wife carry him. No—only he could carry his wife! Letting his wife carry him was an insult to his dignity! So he rubbed his eyes, scooped Zhuang Ningyu into his arms, and carried him upstairs.
Bang! Zhuang Ningyu’s head hit the banister, pain shooting through him.
“…”
Yi Ke didn’t notice at all, clumsily brought him into the bedroom, flopped down grandly on the bed with his wife still in his arms—
Zhuang Ningyu was flattened like a pancake, gazing blankly at the ceiling light.
Let the world end.
