Chapter 17

Yun Li: “You can decide…”

“If I weren’t already taken, I would have paired myself with Fu Shizhe.” He Jiameng looked genuinely distressed and quite puzzled as she looked at Yun Li. “You’ve seen him too.”

“At least Fu Shizhe has a handsome face, which makes picking up your lunchbox a joy every day, don’t you think?” She feigned a disappointed sigh.

After finishing her tasks, He Jiameng returned to her office.

Yun Li flipped through the documents on her desk, mostly product manuals. She quickly went through them and found herself with nothing to do.

She sat at her desk for an hour, scrolling through the day’s news, from trending topics to buzzwords, yet no one else came in.

Just as she was about to die of boredom, Fang Yuning’s message on her phone summoned her to assist with repairs at the EAW Experience Hall, where engineers would be present. This wasn’t part of Yun Li’s department’s responsibilities, so presumably, Fang Yuning, having no tasks for her at the moment, lent her out to another department.

It seemed she might end up running errands, just as He Jiameng had said.

The EAW Experience Hall was closed to the public that morning. Looking through the glass door, Yun Li saw darkness inside, with dust particles dancing in narrow beams of light.

After swiping her employee card given by He Jiameng to open the door, Yun Li flipped the switch at the entrance, finding all the breakers already turned on, indicating the engineers were probably already there.

The hall was eerily quiet, which made her unconsciously tread lightly.

After making a round on the first floor, Yun Li heard the sound of a blunt object dragging on the floor near a corner room, indicating someone was already at work inside.

She knocked on the door and said properly, “Hello, I’m the new intern. Sister Yuning sent me to help you with the equipment repair.”

No one came to open the door, but the sounds of tools clanking and moving resumed inside.

Yun Li felt ignored.

The noise inside seemed deliberate, growing louder.

Knocking again felt like starting a confrontation.

While she struggled with whether to continue knocking…

“Come in.”

Yun Li pushed the door open to find only a dim, millet-yellow light on in the room, the air dry, with the smell of wood and plastic adhesive mingling together. A figure was squatting in the corner, sleeves rolled up halfway, rummaging through a toolbox, picking up a screwdriver to compare, then tossing it aside casually.

“You’re at EAW now?” Fu Shizhe’s voice wasn’t loud but echoed in the confined room.

At work, Yun Li reverted to formalities, responding respectfully, “Yes, thank you for your suggestion last time.”

Before arriving, Yun Li had imagined many scenarios of meeting Fu Shizhe. After much hesitation, she brought up the matter of being brushed off by the tech department.

“I was reassigned to the HR department, which doesn’t quite match my major. And my personality is…” Yun Li felt as if she was laying it all out there, “somewhat socially anxious…”

Fu Shizhe paused, looking up with the beige light on his face, seemingly disbelieving, “Really?”

Stunned by his question, Yun Li faltered, “Does it… not seem like it?”

Fu Shizhe watched her intently for a while, as if seriously pondering her question.

His expression made Yun Li wonder if he was recalling her asking for his contact information. Initially, she wanted to get career advice from Fu Shizhe, but now she just hoped this topic would end quickly.

“Sister Yuning sent me to help you fix things.” Yun Li trotted over to his side, trying to change the subject, and then noticed a bag of croissants in a frosted bag and a cup of coffee on the floor.

Feeling out of her depth with repairs, Yun Li was a bit apprehensive.

“Is there anything I can help with?” Yun Li glanced at the breakfast on the floor, “Your breakfast has gone cold, you could eat first.”

From Yun Li’s perspective, Fu Shizhe was dressed in a simple blue work uniform, with yellow electrician gloves covering a large area.

“It’s fine.” Fu Shizhe didn’t let her intervene, pocketed two light bulbs, and then climbed up the ladder.

The ladder didn’t seem very stable, creaking loudly even under Fu Shizhe’s weight. Yun Li instinctively held the sides of the ladder.

Fu Shizhe was replacing two ceiling spotlights. He unscrewed the bulbs, placed them in his pocket, and swiftly installed the new ones.

After descending the ladder, he stripped off his gloves and tossed them aside, then headed to the door to switch on the floodlights, brightening the once dimly lit ceiling considerably.

At the entrance, seeing Yun Li still steadying the ladder from afar, Fu Shizhe reminded her, “No one’s on the ladder.”

Yun Li froze, releasing her grip awkwardly.

Fu Shizhe picked up a brown paper bag from the ground and tore it open in a few quick moves. Biting into a piece of bread, he took a couple of steps forward to check the other spotlights.

“I’ll do the check. You go ahead and have breakfast,” Yun Li said softly, causing Fu Shizhe to stop in his tracks and look back at her.

Had she said something wrong? Or was there something on her face? Several thoughts flashed through Yun Li’s mind. Seeing Fu Shizhe unmoved, she nervously added, “You’ve worked hard all morning, I can take care of the rest.”

Unexpectedly, Fu Shizhe just took another bite of his bread and mimicked her tone, “No need for your help.”

“…”

Yun Li learned her lesson, “Then you have breakfast first…”

The rest of the lighting equipment was mostly functioning well. Yun Li took note of a few minor issues on paper, while Fu Shizhe slowly followed behind her.

The presence behind her put pressure on Yun Li, and she feigned composure before hesitantly asking, “Are we doing anything else today?”

Fu Shizhe hummed in acknowledgment, paused for a moment, and then asked her, “What would you like to do?”

Yun Li’s hand froze.

What kind of question was that—what could she want to do??

That was something she should be asking him!

Fortunately, Fu Shizhe finished his breakfast without paying much attention to her answer and told her that the remaining work for the morning was to test the rest of the game equipment in the venue.

It was something she could handle, and Yun Li breathed a sigh of relief.

Compared to her first visit, EAW had added some classic movie-themed pavilions and some street entertainment features like facial expression imitation lotteries, and game mystery boxes. Yun Li, unfamiliar with the venue, followed Fu Shizhe with a folder in hand. After testing each device, she would tick off the corresponding spot on the checklist.

Later, they split up, and Yun Li was responsible for the facial expression imitation lottery machine. This machine utilized facial expression recognition technology, prompting players on the screen to mimic certain emotions. Then the camera would record and recognize the player’s expressions, with higher matching scores resulting in better prizes.

Yun Li had never played this before and wasn’t sure how sensitive it was.

She sat in front of the machine, her face appearing on the screen, with different colored bars in the top left corner indicating the scores for various emotions and the total score.

She hit “Start Game,” and the screen prompted: “Overjoyed.”

Yun Li flashed a light smile, and a yellow rectangle framed her face on the screen. Bright, flashy advertising fonts then displayed the total score—20 points.

This… was way too hard, wasn’t it?

Yun Li clicked to try again. As soon as the yellow frame appeared, she exaggeratedly raised her eyebrows, widened her eyes, and stretched her mouth wide, making her laugh lines clearly visible.

The screen popped up with several revealed gift boxes—100 points, surpassing 99% of people.

That was just too exaggerated.

For those not very expressive, this game wasn’t very friendly.

After ticking off the corresponding spot, Yun Li operated the screen, preparing to shut down the machine.

Suddenly, another idea sprouted in her mind—

As soon as the thought emerged, Yun Li felt she might be going a bit too far.

Just then, Fu Shizhe finished his testing and came over to her side.

Yun Li took a step back, lowering the folder to her thigh.

“There seems to be a problem with this machine; it’s not very accurate,” Yun Li said while observing Fu Shizhe’s expression.

She… wasn’t exactly lying, right?

The machine indeed wasn’t very accurate; she had to make exaggerated expressions to score high.

Convincing herself, Yun Li was slightly expectant, waiting for Fu Shizhe’s reaction.

“It’s always been like that,” Fu Shizhe said unenthusiastically, yawning and poking at the screen.

The words “Overjoyed” appeared.

Fu Shizhe’s face was in the center of the screen, looking stern and somber. His tightly clenched jawline finally relaxed, as if he was making a great effort to smile.

A purple-gray box appeared on the screen.

The scores for “Anger” and “Sadness” in the top left corner shot up.

—10 points, surpassing 5% of people.

It was quite accurate after all.

Yun Li thought.

But Fu Shizhe showed no intention of squeezing out a smile for a higher score, and Yun Li’s little scheme fell through.

“It’s inaccurate,” Fu Shizhe said bluntly, walking to the side and marking a big ‘X’ on the checklist, then snapping the pen cap shut and slipping it into his chest pocket.

Yun Li quickly offered a comforting smile, “It’s just that it’s not very accurate, we can have the manufacturer fix it.”

At that moment, the camera happened to capture Yun Li’s face.

The score jumped directly from 10 to 100 points.

“…”

It’s like, one moment you’re consoling a friend who flunked a test, saying it’s fine, everyone did poorly, and the next moment, the teacher loudly proclaims from the podium that you’ve scored first in the grade.

“See, you’ve even surpassed 5% of the people,” Yun Li was almost at a loss for words, “5% multiplied by the total population, that’s a huge number.”

Fu Shizhe glanced at her: “You’re quite the optimist.”

“…”

Fortunately, Fu Shizhe had long been accustomed to the machine and was also very self-aware.

Once they finished checking the equipment, it was time for their lunch break. They closed the shutter of the small room and prepared to leave. Yun Li noticed an arcade machine at the entrance of the outermost room, which had a sign indicating that the VR game inside was adapted from a classic arcade game.

Back when Yun Li was in elementary school, arcade games were all the rage in XiFu. After school, she would often sneak off with her classmates to play, vowing to play together forever.

Her allowance wasn’t much at the time, so she saved a dollar or two each week. Then, when Yun Ye started elementary school, Yun Li saved her living expenses so they could go play together on weekends.

Later on, as technology advanced by leaps and bounds, Yun Li would continue to play those games with Yun Ye at home on a console. And the friends from before just faded away with time.

Seeing Yun Li pause in front of the arcade machine, Fu Shizhe waited for a bit before asking, “Want to try it?”

Yun Li: “Eh, can I?”

Fu Shizhe hummed in affirmation.

Yun Li was somewhat embarrassed, “I used to play a lot with my classmates when I was a kid. Arcade games were very popular, and I’m familiar with several of them.” Realizing she had been talking about herself, Yun Li asked, “Did you play this when you were a kid?”

“I didn’t play,” Fu Shizhe responded.

Yun Li: “Then what did you usually play as a kid?”

Fu Shizhe: “Mostly played with my nephew.”

Yun Li: “Oh… What did you and Fu Zhengchu play?”

Fu Shizhe: “He liked playing house.”

Yun Li: “?”

Fu Shizhe flipped the power switch, and inside the room, there were about a dozen small motorbike setups. He went backstage to remotely activate two machines, and they agreed she would be on the left, and Fu Shizhe on the right.

Yun Li controlled the screen, selecting ‘2p’ (two players), and then came the choice of their relationship, which would likely determine the game’s scenario.

A few options popped up on the screen, and Yun Li was startled; only parent-child, spouse, and lovers were available.

Choosing the other two seemed too suggestive, so Yun Li decisively selected ‘parent-child.’

Fu Shizhe: “…”

Not knowing how to explain to make her motives seem more legitimate, Yun Li awkwardly said, “I think this term describes our relationship more accurately…”

Fu Shizhe: “…”

He then reminded her, “There’s a next page.”

“…”

Yun Li felt like she needed a pair of prescription glasses; she hadn’t even seen the big ‘Next’ button. Since it was already locked in, Yun Li couldn’t perform any other operations and just pressed continue.

The next page asked them to choose the machine operated by the guardian.

Yun Li highly doubted the game designer’s intentions, wondering how they could design such an outrageous entry interface.

Yun Li consciously set Fu Shizhe as the father and herself as the daughter.

Fu Shizhe didn’t speak, but his gaze felt like it was piercing through her back, scaring Yun Li. She awkwardly suggested, “Then how about I be the mother, and you be the…” Yun Li just couldn’t bring herself to say “son.”

Fu Shizhe: “…”

Luckily, the subsequent operations went smoothly. After the basic settings, they entered the actual game. The game required riding on motorbikes, which had mechanical devices installed underneath to simulate the driving experience.

Yun Li had never worn the equipment before, and after climbing onto the motorbike, she didn’t know what to do. Seeing this, Fu Shizhe got off his bike, walked over to her, and reminded her, “It’s going to shake quite a bit.”

He leaned over and tapped a pedal near her shoes, “Step on this.”

Yun Li obediently placed her feet on the pedals.

Fu Shizhe asked her sideways, “Shall I tie you up?”

The question sounded embarrassingly intimate, and Yun Li hummed a response, as quiet as a mosquito.

This was different from her first time at EAW when her emotions were more engulfed by fear. At this moment, she watched as Fu Shizhe looped the safety strap around her ankles and tightened it. Unconsciously, her gaze drifted upward, lingering on his collarbone.

Just after securing Yun Li’s equipment and noticing her fixed gaze, Fu Shizhe looked up, “Too tight?”

Yun Li blushed: “No.”

After securing the other safety strap, Fu Shizhe returned to his position. Once both of them had put on the VR glasses and entered the game, a motorcycle shop appeared before them.

Yun Li saw someone beside her wearing sunglasses and tight sportswear, probably Fu Shizhe in the game. After he selected a motorcycle model, he also nodded at her.

The game entered the countdown.

Doesn’t she need to choose a motorcycle? Yun Li was confused.

When the game officially started, Yun Li realized the issue—

Since they had chosen the parent-child mode, the system defaulted them to riding on the same motorcycle.

She sat behind Fu Shizhe, with his back right in front of her.