An off-road car drove into the ST Base. A hand reached out of the driver’s cabin and flashed a special ID. They were immediately allowed in. When the car stopped, some uniformed people got out. 

The driver was a man with deeply-carved features. Then a dazzlingly beautiful man got out of the passenger’s seat. After him came a little four-eyes who seemed to be wrapped up in wires; in a flurry, he rescued himself from the clinging wires. Another tall and skinny man with a cigarette in his mouth stood behind him waiting, looking impatient. 

The captain of the RZ Unit, the “imperial diplomat” Su Qing, the technician Chang Dou, and the field agent Fang Xiu… As far as General Zhong was concerned, this group had come to make trouble and no mistake. Very good, excellent. 

“Fuck, what are they doing here? Is the RZ Unit here to get in on the fun again?” When General Zhong heard the news, he became even more irascible. His expression looked like someone had stepped on his foot. Then he had to come out to meet them, out of habit putting on an honest and tolerant smile. “What wind has blown you all here?” 

“We hear Yao Shuo has been brought to the base?” Su Qing’s gaze swept around in a circle. Beaming, he said, “I’m sorry, we’re acting under orders to investigate the business of the name list. We’d like everyone to understand and cooperate. What do you say, General Zhong?” 

General Zhong was very irritated. He inwardly cursed, This damned smiling tiger. But he couldn’t curse aloud. He could only pretend to be honest and tolerant in his misery, saying, “Of course—though Yao Shuo came to the base for an assessment, and we’ve had a bit of problem with the instrument. They…may not come out for a while.” 

Su Qing’s expression went blank. He asked, “‘They’ means…Kou Tong?” 

General Zhong nodded bitterly. Su Qing exchanged a look with Captain Hu, seeing his own thoughts reflected in the other’s eyes—That…really did sound like a stunt Kou Tong could pull. 

Technician Chang pushed up his glasses and very sincerely said, “Well…if you need help with the technical aspect, I can…” 

“You can what?” a cold voice came from behind General Zhong. Chang Dou gave a start, like a little rabbit startled by cold water, automatically shrinking back. The goateed Wu Xiangxiang, in a pose as fashionable as his alluring name¹, appeared—moving his arms and legs together, walking as stiffly as if his knees couldn’t bend. Then he gave Chang Dou a critical look, waved a hand, and asserted, “We have no need for your help. I can see that you don’t belong to the portion of people with the highest IQ.” 

Everyone looked at him as though beholding a paragon of wisdom. 

Wu Xiangxiang calmly pushed up his glasses and pronounced his reasoning: “Because you don’t have a beard.” 

“…” General Zhong was silent for the three seconds of peculiar atmosphere during which no one spoke. Then he turned his head and asked, “What is it?” 

“We’ve discovered something.” Wu Xiangxiang pushed up his glasses again. His goatee, which symbolized supreme intelligence, undulated gently in the wind. “During the time the server was disturbed, Dr. Kou and the others were taken to an unknown program. Neither the Projector’s instruction manual nor the designs mention this program.” 

“So…” said General Zhong. 

“So you mean that this unknown program was likely made extemporaneously by Dr. Kou himself,” Chang Dou got in first to say. Then he stroked his clean-shaven chin, not knowing what he wanted to prove. 

“Yes.” Wu Xiangxiang glanced at Chang Dou and nodded. “We need some time to analyze what this program actually is.” 

Then, not waiting for the others respond, Wu Xiangxiang continued to say to Chang Dou, “You don’t need to be anxious to show off. This only proves that you’re a little cleverer than these others—seeing that none of them have beards.” 

Then he nodded to General Zhong, turned around, and floated off. 

Chang Dou hesitated. An indignant look appeared on his always somewhat foolish-looking face. He turned his head and asked the RZ Unit’s Captain Hu for permission with a murderous look. Captain Hu paused, then nodded. “All right. It’s an emergency, and we do in fact have some pressing questions to ask Yao Shuo. We can temporarily transfer you.—General Zhong, it’s no problem if Technician Chang goes to help out?” 

General Zhong smiled painfully. 

Chang Dou turned his head again and looked at Fang Xiu with a slightly less murderous look. Fang Xiu could only sigh and, as if encouraging a working dog, pat Chang Dou on his bird’s nest-like head. Chang Dou’s batteries immediately filled up, and he charged like an angry bird—towards that jeering lean pig. 

The three people trapped in the unknown program passed the evening in peace. This space was like a roundworm living in the heart—it had what you wanted and didn’t have what you didn’t want…even if it was only subconsciously, just a passing thought. 

The chattering Kou Tong seemed to have eaten something funny. From having dinner to helping clear the table, he didn’t say a word, becoming a mouthless gourd. Yao Shuo also had something weighing on his mind. He had been through many years of ups and downs. His emotions didn’t really show on his face. When he wasn’t talking, his features only showed sadness and happiness within a narrow range, his mind wandering off somewhere unknown. 

Only Huang Jinchen kept up a constant chatter with Kou Tong’s doomed beauty of a mother, fully enjoying himself. 

Only when it was very late did Kou Tong suddenly ask, “…No one’s touched the unfinished things in my study, right?” 

Kou Tong’s mom was just cutting up fruit. Without looking up, she said, “Don’t worry, there’s nothing nice in your lousy study, one weird strongbox after another… I don’t even let the hourly cleaning lady touch your study when she comes.” 

Kou Tong gave a “yeah” and quietly said, “Then I’ll go have a look.” 

He had already noticed how she had jokingly called him “Expert Kou.” This was likely a hint at the identity this space had assigned to him. The system hadn’t given him any other prompts. This showed that in this space, he likely lived here. According to his habits, it wasn’t very likely that he would work in a single place for many years; some rather important documents would probably be in his study. 

And those concerning the Projector’s special program were likely to be among them. 

Kou Tong closed the study door like a thief. First he looked everything over and quickly came to a conclusion: this wasn’t any room in the apartment he had lived in as a child; it was the study in the apartment he lived in now. 

He opened the lowest cabinet of a big bookcase and took a small strongbox out of it. 

Just then, the door behind him opened. Kou Tong’s fingers paused. He turned and saw Huang Jinchen boldly walk in. 

He had an apple in his mouth and was carrying another peeled one that he gave to Kou Tong. Then he pulled over the chair in front of the desk and plopped down in it. He crossed one leg over the other and loftily looked the room over. 

“Your mom took Yao Shuo to the guest room. I’m staying with you,” Huang Jinchen voluntarily reported. “Your mom’s cooking is delicious.” 

Fiddling with the strongbox, Kou Tong laughed lightly with his head down and said nothing. He quickly entered a very long code and opened the strongbox. He took a little “boiler” the size of a desk lamp from it.

“What’s this?” Huang Jinchen asked, craning his neck. 

“My template for the first generation Projector,” Kou Tong said. “It may not be much use.” 

As he said this, he hooked up the power supply and pressed a switch on the boiler. Huang Jinchen hopped up. “Hey, hey, hey! It’s smoking, it’s smoking!” 

Kou Tong said, “Help me get the power supply out, hurry!” 

Huang Jinchen deftly pulled out the power supply. The little boiler puffed. There was popping and crackling inside it, then a sharp sound. It went silent. 

Huang Jinchen: “…” 

Kou Tong rubbed his forehead. “It really isn’t much use.” 

Huang Jinchen couldn’t resist stroking his hair. In a very good mood, he thought, It really does feel good. It’s soft. 

Kou Tong crouched on the ground, having no attention to spare to make any comment about his vulgar gesture, because he was carefully opening the little boiler’s cover, planning to investigate what malfunction had happened inside it. Then he found that there were two big-headed, narrow-bodied mushrooms growing in the cracks of the instrument’s complex wiring and microchips. Half of the mushrooms’ umbrellas had been blackened, looking very coquettish…

Huang Jinchen went blank for a long moment. Then he rocked back and forth with laughter. 

Kou Tong sat on the ground, shook his head, and also laughed. 

When Huang Jinchen had laughed enough, he slowly pulled out a box of cigarettes, put one in his mouth, and lit it. Through the thin smoke, he sized up Kou Tong, sitting on the floor. Then, like an understanding older brother, he softly asked, “Better now? You seem to have been in low spirits for a while, as if you’d turned into a different person.” 

Kou Tong didn’t even look up. “Really?” 

Huang Jinchen laughed quietly. “Didn’t get on with your beautiful mother? Or did you feel awkward when you saw a mother hardly older than you?” 

Kou Tong was silent for a while. He deftly pulled the mushrooms out, yanked out the microchips and a pair of wires from inside, inspected them for a while, and found that they really had burned out. He shook his head. “No.” 

Huang Jinchen, sitting in the swivel chair, leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, tilting his head to look at him. “Really?” 

Kou Tong glanced at him and didn’t answer. 

Huang Jinchen looked and looked, and suddenly wanted to do something demeaning, for example…kiss Kou Tong’s face, tease him, something like that, all the better to make him immediately jump up off the ground, wipe his face and curse, fly into a rage…

He slowly drew close, but before he could put this thought into practice, in a flash, Kou Tong seemed to remember something. He got up and stood on tiptoe to feel around on top of the bookcase. He found a small projection and pressed on it. The bookcase suddenly opened into two sides at an invisible seam, revealing a safe set into the wall. 

Huang Jinchen had no time for regrets. He stared dumbfounded, not noticing as cigarette ash fell to the ground. “Kou…Kou Tongtong-tongxue, please tell me, which one of us is the real spy?”