Chapter 60: Depressed Little Xie
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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Ding—
Another notification popped up on the phone:
【Dream City】System sent a notification.
Chu Feng wanted to see if something had happened to the little Xie in the game, but in the chat box, the tool X on the other side seemed a bit aggrieved.
——If he didn’t comfort him properly, next time when he wanted to ask the regulator something, the other party might not respond.
Chu Feng quickly sent out two facepalm emojis, immediately denying the fact that he treated X as a tool, and sincerely thanked X for the chat assistance, then politely excused himself with a sentence:
[My boss is calling me, gotta go, talk later!]
Along with it, he attached a dancing Kumamon gif.
That should do it. Chu Feng then clicked on the 【Dream City】system notification to see how little Xie in the game was doing.
——As for what X would reply, Chu Feng didn’t really care.
Although he said “talk later” to X, the term “later” had various implications among social people, one of which was similar to never, with specific usages like “talk later!” or “let’s chat later!”
X sat in the wheelchair, staring at Chu Feng’s “talk later~” message in the chat box, smiling faintly.
As fellow social beings, he naturally understood the meaning of this “later.”
“Next time I’ll treat you to dinner.” Basically, that meal was unlikely to happen.
The brilliance of this “later” lay in the fact that it made a promise, showed polite courtesy, yet lacked a specific time for implementation, like an invitation without a set time, just a vague “come whenever you like.” Wanting to have that “later” meal wasn’t easy.
But that was only the case for those lacking in social experience and with thin skin. X gazed at Chu Feng’s avatar, thinking of what he wanted to eat. There was nothing he couldn’t get.
“Talk later over dinner~”
Reply: “Sure! How about we go to XXX this Saturday?”
Retreating to advance, turning the unattainable “later” into a specific time. The other person might not want to treat, but once those words were spoken, they had to.
X held the phone, inputting very naturally in WeChat:
[You go ahead and be busy]
[Let’s chat tonight~]
Accompanied by a picture: Kumamon holding another Kumamon, happily dancing.gif
***
Ding ding—
As Chu Feng clicked on the 【System Notification】to check, another WeChat message popped up on the top of the phone:
X: [Let’s chat tonight~]
Chu Feng’s fingertips hesitated:
We’re still chatting tonight?
What would he and X talk about at that late hour?
But what’s said was said, and Chu Feng was the one who promised to chat later with someone else.
Chu Feng regretted it a bit; he shouldn’t have been so polite just now and should have just said goodbye to X directly.
Actually, this regulator wasn’t that annoying. He still helped him in the game, but Chu Feng wasn’t used to chatting with a game friend he didn’t know well, exchanging morning greetings, chatting at noon, and then continuing to chat in the evening…
“Hi! My dear little master, how are you doing?”
Chu Feng activated the Dream City game system – desktop mode. The black spirit with its dumb hair floated in the upper left corner of the desktop, bouncing up and down:
“Master, have you cracked the secret of the seven-year-old Xie yet? We… might need to quickly take down the Ghost Virus.”
“What happened?”
Chu Feng sensed something wrong from the system’s tone.
System: “Um… You know, the Ghost Virus can make characters sick, and the weaker the character’s combat power, the weaker their resistance, and the faster they’ll die.”
“What’s going on exactly?”
The system’s spirit hung its head, its dumb hair drooping, lying in the corner of Chu Feng’s phone screen:
“I told you before, all you needed to do was find the ‘origin’ of the Ghost Virus within 15 days. No matter how many characters in the city are infected now, as long as you find the ‘origin’, the virus can be instantly eradicated, and all the little Xies can recover. But now…”
“What’s happening now?” Chu Feng patiently asked, “Just say it straight, I can take it.”
“Fifteen days was my calculation: the time it takes for the weakest little Xie in the city to get sick and die after being infected with the virus. But, I just found out that the weakest little Xie wasn’t quite right even before getting infected with the virus!”
Chu Feng furrowed his brow, quickly opening the Xie Illustrated Handbook.
System: “The weakest one is 10-year-old Xie Shiyu, third grade.”
Chu Feng quickly flipped to the Xie Illustrated Handbook – Elementary School section.
When the mutated red-bellied mosquito flew from the hospital to the elementary school, the campus was probably already compromised, and little Xies from first to sixth grade were at risk of being infected.
Chu Feng clicked on the status of the third-grade – 10-year-old Xie:
【Third-grade Little Xie】
Age: 10 years old
Mood: 85
Status: Depressed
“……?” Chu Feng: “How can the mood be 85, and the status become depressed?”
“I don’t know, I just found out that he wasn’t right, so I analyzed his data code, and it seems that the mood data has been overlaid with an exponential program!”
“What does that mean?”
“Look at the details of his mood!”
Chu Feng immediately clicked on the [Expand Details] next to the mood bar.
Initial value: 100, mood -1, reason unknown, mood -2, mood -4, mood -8…
Chu Feng immediately felt that something was wrong. This deduction value was growing exponentially by a factor of 2! After 8, it would be 16, 32, 64. With little Xie’s current mood of 85, deducting 16 and 32 would leave only 37, and deducting 64 would directly become -27, and if a character’s mood value drops below 0, they will commit suicide.
Chu Feng: “Can you find out the reason?”
“I don’t know. I can only preliminarily suspect that he wasn’t in a good state to begin with, and after being infected with the virus… there may have been an abnormality between the data sequences, resulting in this outcome,” the system spirit said.
“If his mood keeps dropping like this, he’ll be dead in 72 hours!”
“I’ll go in and take a look.”
Chu Feng immediately put on the game headset and called his cousin Lin Lan:
“Let’s go to Dream City.”
***
“It’s so strange.”
Lin Lan stared at the ten-year-old Brother Xie in front of him:
“Seven-year-old Brother Xie’s combat power was extraordinary, how did he become the weakest in the city by the time he reached third grade?”
Lin Lan looked left and right, and also felt that this Brother Xie had no weak points. On the contrary, he seemed taller than seven years old and looked even more powerful.
System spirit: “Combat power isn’t determined by height; it’s determined by mental strength. It indicates that this little Xie’s mental state is very fragile right now.”
The spirit flew over to Chu Feng’s side. “Did something happen to him when he was in third grade?”
Chu Feng shook his head. Third grade… that was 19 years ago. He only remembered that they were two ordinary elementary school students back then, studying together, playing together, going home together… in Chu Feng’s mind, there was no existence of any abnormalities.
Ding-ling— Ding-ling—
The school bell rang.
At noon, Chu Feng stood under the big banyan tree at the corner of the school gate, waiting. After a while, ten-year-old Xie walked out of the elementary school gate with his schoolbag on his back…
“Xie Shiyu—”
Chu Feng called out to him as he approached.
The system spirit and Lin Lan hid behind the big banyan tree, with the spirit keeping an eye on the character’s status monitoring panel while watching Chu Feng walk towards the character.
“That’s right! Master, come on! Quickly comfort Little Xie a bit and raise his mood!”
——When the little Xie in Chu Feng’s city saw Chu Feng, his mood would more or less improve. For minors, it was hugs, holding hands, and kissing foreheads. For adult little Xies… there were adult methods of boosting their mood.
Chu Feng squatted down, hugged the ten-year-old Xie, and patted his head.
“How was school today?”
The ten-year-old Xie took the initiative to hold his hand, smiling. “Not bad! The results of the last essay competition came out, and the teacher gave me an award certificate.”
“Really?” Chu Feng looked at the award certificate Xie took out: Congratulations to Xie Shiyu for being awarded the title of ‘Writing New Star.’
This should be the only award certificate Xie Shiyu received during his student days.
To be honest, the 29-year-old Chu Feng couldn’t remember what essay competition took place in the third grade 19 years ago. His elementary school days were too far removed from his current adult life.
“Ah, Chu Feng!”
“Look, it’s Chu Feng!”
“Chu Feng! Why are you only looking for him?”
“That’s right, you don’t come to visit us when you come to the elementary school. You biased ghost!”
The seven, eight, and nine-year-old little Xies who finished school rushed out of the school gate and immediately surrounded Chu Feng. Chu Feng couldn’t afford the hat of being biased, so he could only greet them one by one, hug them, kiss their little cheeks, and coax the elementary school little Xies to go home and do their homework obediently.
When he looked up again, the ten-year-old Xie was nowhere to be seen.
——Maybe he went home alone first.
Chu Feng returned to the big banyan tree. Just now, he hugged and kissed ten-year-old Xie’s cheek, and praised his award certificate. This should increase his mood quite a bit.
“How’s his condition now?” Chu Feng asked the system as he opened the Xie Illustrated Handbook to check:
Character: Third-grade Little Xie
Mood value: 80
——? Not only did it not increase, it dropped by 5?
Chu Feng was a bit incredulous. He quickly clicked on the mood value to [Expand Details] and see what was going on:
Xie’s mood -5
Reason: Saw Chu Feng.
***
Chu Feng blinked, slender eyelashes casting a shadow on his delicate face.
He couldn’t believe it:
Ten-year-old Xie… actually… hated him?
“Uh, Cousin, maybe… something was wrong with Xie that day… His mood wasn’t very good,” Lin Lan hurriedly comforted Chu Feng. The system also chimed in:
“Yeah, Master, look, uh, that, ten-year-old Xie’s status is depressed, so… he’s not happy when he’s emotional.”
“That’s right, don’t worry about it, Cousin.”
The system spirit asked, “When you were in third grade… did you guys have a fight?”
Chu Feng shook his head slowly. They probably didn’t, but… he didn’t remember so clearly anymore, 19 years apart, who could remember if they had a couple of quarrels.
The current priority is to prevent the mood of the ten-year-old Xie from dropping further. Chu Feng opened the in-game backpack, where he had previously purchased many items that could quickly boost the characters’ mood:
[Jumping Chocolate Beans], [Rainbow Happy Candy], [Joyful Bubble Ball]
Chu Feng dragged each item and remotely threw them onto the character of the 10-year-old Xie.
Beep—Beep—
A red alert popped up in front of him: [Character status abnormal, unable to use items to increase mood value]
This method also didn’t work. Chu Feng didn’t hesitate; he quickly put away the game backpack and turned to ask the system, “How much time is left now?”
“There are 72 hours left until the character dies… no, 71 hours and 36 minutes!”
Chu Feng said, “Let’s go to the seven-year-old Xie.”
Observing Swallow seven-year-old Xie, who had extraordinary combat power, was suspected to be the [suspect] of the virus’s origin.
The system spirit led the way ahead:
“If the seven-year-old Xie is the origin, then everything will be fine! The virus will be immediately lifted, and the mood of the ten-year-old Xie won’t inexplicably drop anymore!”
Chu Feng returned to the decryption page.
The character’s combat power ranking for seven-year-old Xie: [***]
Forgot password – Change password – Answer password security question:
- Who is the deceased?
Answer: Cui Jun
- What is the murderer’s door number?
Answer: 304
Chu Feng clicked on the next page [→]
[Congratulations, your answer is correct!]
He quickly changed the password and then clicked to view the combat power ranking:
Lin Lan, standing aside, became nervous. Although seven-year-old Xie was young, he exuded an inexplicable coolness in his every move. He should be the origin…
Drip—
The encrypted [***] revealed the true ranking.
Seven-year-old Xie:
Combat Power: No. 4
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