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墨書 Inktalez
One day, we celebrated the successful completion of my first work project. Jiang Lu, tipsy from fruit wine, murmured to me, “Back then, I thought the class representative was so cold. I never expected you to be so clingy now.”
I thought to myself, she’s only clingy with me; how does that count as being clingy? That day, we both took sick leave from our teachers. In reality, the two patients sat together in the reading area of a bookstore, sipping coffee. I held a large cup of hot milk while Jiang Lu was using a spoon to eat the froth off her Caramel Macchiato.
I casually pulled out a stack of comics that I wanted to read and hesitated before grabbing a few fashion magazines, unsure if she would like them. To my surprise, she was more interested in the comics I had.
I only liked Mary Sue youth comics; they allowed my brain cells, which had been exhausted from studying, to recover painlessly in the world of Mary Sue. Engaging in things I was good at but not interested in felt like a waste of life. For me, just living up to societal standards was exhausting enough. The passionate and unreserved love I admired, the pure good and evil, could only be satisfied by those old-school Mary Sue youth comics.
Later, I realized that Jiang Lu could also cater to my interests. What was even more precious was that she was right in front of me, a living person. She wore a pale yellow shirt dress with a light green scarf around her neck, looking as tender as a spring bamboo shoot ready to sprout.
This unexpected encounter turned out to be an exceptionally important opportunity in our lives. Unfortunately, people don’t have a god’s-eye view and not everyone enjoys analyzing screenwriting principles or casually deducing scenes, logic, and character development patterns. Even among the millions of story archetypes created by humanity, Jiang Lu and I were the purest and most classic kind of romantic adventure.
I wanted to save the world with Jiang Lu! “Jiang Lu, do you have any dreams?”
As the representative for new students giving a speech that needed to be at least a thousand words long, I didn’t want to represent anyone; I couldn’t represent anyone at all. However, that didn’t stop me from using the excuse of writing a speech to get closer to Jiang Lu. “My dream is to be with someone forever and ever.”
She stared at me, and I thought to myself, this damn love-struck brain. I should have known better than to show her so many Mary Sue comics.
Being emotionally dense, I didn’t understand that Jiang Lu’s “forever together” meant the same thing as my desire to “save the world” with her. All I wanted was her. All she wanted was to be with me. We were truly a match made in heaven, like wandering travelers in a desert who stumbled upon a lush oasis. It was Jiang Lu’s heartbeat that gave me a reason to breathe again.
I didn’t want to lie in a hospital bed, counting sheep I could never see. Lying in the same ward as me was her. I had Memory Tidal Syndrome, which only allowed for periodic memories, with no known cases of recovery. Jiang Lu suffered from Temporal Disintegration Syndrome, which caused her perception of time to be chaotic, her consciousness jumping around uncontrollably between past and future memories.
Xinxin Technology was developing rapidly, and in this city filled with machinery and dreams—Smart City—chip-related illnesses were as common as nutritional supplements on dining tables. They were everywhere. Humanity had evolved past everything but still hadn’t given up on its appetite.
In the Cyber World, we also had delicious food that looked and smelled wonderful, and it wasn’t expensive either. Do you believe in miracles? Someone once said that if you believe in miracles, then they will come to you.
In the VIP room of the hospital, there was no laughter, only the scent of oranges and green trees outside. That day we were reborn; from then on, that day became our shared birthday. Our foundation was the same; we had the same Life Code. So how could we ever be separated? No one could tear us apart. Jiang Lu and I would absolutely not be separated.
I began searching for mutual friends in my memories, trying every possible way to uncover the reason for Jiang Lu’s changes. Since she wouldn’t say anything, I decided to find someone who knew the truth.
However, after thinking it over, I realized that our social circles have no overlap at all. I only occasionally gather with my colleagues for team-building dinners. To be honest, these dinners are mainly an excuse to enjoy better food; none of us knew how to cook at first, and I despised the taste of nutritional supplements.
One day, Xiao Lu suddenly learned how to stir-fry shredded potatoes, make tomato scrambled eggs, braise pork ribs, and cook crucian carp with tofu soup—traditional dishes that made my mouth water. My family member Jiang Lu has a strong learning ability and picks up things quickly.
As for Xiao Lu's circle of friends, it mostly consists of classmates from various stages of life, especially one particular classmate from Junior High with whom she frequently keeps in touch. This classmate has now become a small but influential Internet Celebrity with over ten million followers online.
This classmate is a girl but identifies as male and is a fervent Cyber enthusiast. They even had a super-memory chip implanted in their brain, making it hard to say whether "she" is now human or a mechanical imitation.
When I clicked on the homepage product guide, my heart sank—how could they still accept so many advertisements? It seemed like they were indeed human.
The so-called Emotion Chip caught my attention with its brief description: “After implanting the program, you can experience preset Emotional Modes. The top Chip Master collaborates with award-winning screenwriters to create limited editions that let you feel love, sadness, anger, and fear.”
They really do respect advertising laws. Adding “feeling” after each term implies that since these are feelings, everyone will have their own experiences without a fixed standard.
Yet, they are selling emotions at prices that could cover a down payment in the city center, and on this person's homepage, they were slashed in half—could this be genuine? I was quite shocked.
I was curious about the user demographics; who would actually buy this? The monthly sales were over a thousand! In my hurried glance, I overlooked a long list of links for Virtual Reality Chips, Practical Skill Chips, and Emotional Resonance Chips, missing out on a hidden hint.
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