The blue light from the phone screen turned the iron bed in the dormitory into an ice cave. Li Xiaoming stared at the YSL gold bar on the shopping cart page. The two digits after the decimal point were like sparks from a barbecue stall, making his temples throb. The account balance was 9.7 yuan, enough to buy three bottles of iced happy water, or half a lipstick sample - but the system task countdown was still 18 hours.
The next day, when he delivered an order to Yangguang Community, the Chanel lady in the elevator glanced at his work card with the corner of her eye. Li Xiaoming stared at the movement of her shoulder strap sliding down, and suddenly remembered the express delivery that Kailan collected on behalf of him in the Fengchao cabinet yesterday: the recipient was "Brother Chen", and the goods were lavender laundry detergent. As he counted the elevator floors, his fingertips unconsciously rubbed the interlayer of the incubator, where a metal stick that fell out of the maternity box lay, with strange symbols engraved on the stick, exactly the same as Kailan's silver bracelet.
At 10pm, the convenience store smelled of seaweed from oden. Kailan was restocking the freezer, and the collar of her white sweatshirt was loose. Li Xiaoming was holding the mint candy he had picked up, and the second button of his work clothes had been torn off, revealing the clavicle that was praised by the pregnant woman when he was moving the express yesterday - in fact, he practiced in front of the mirror in the dormitory for half an hour last night how to make the clavicle line more obvious.
At the moment when the automatic door dinged, he stumbled over the beverage boxes piled at the door. The sound of a whole box of mineral water hitting the shelf startled the cashier. When Kailan ran over with a price tag gun, he was lying on the ground and stuffing lipstick into the gap - the YSL1966 that he cheated from Sister Wang at the station, saying that it was a fake gift from his ex-boyfriend, but the color number was exactly the same as the "small gold bar" in the barrage yesterday.
"Why do you always throw things?" Kailan bent down to pick up the bottle, and the silver bracelet made a buzzing sound when it brushed against the back of his hand, like the sound of a microwave turntable jamming. Li Xiaoming took the opportunity to look up and saw the clavicle chain under her sweater gleaming faintly, the same metallic color as the silver bracelet. The retina suddenly exploded with bullets:
[Kai Lan's heartbeat value: 18 (surprised state)]
[Inner OS: Where did he get the money to buy lipstick? Could it be stolen... No, the color number is quite accurate]
The convenience store surveillance camera turned half a circle around the corner, and Li Xiaoming saw the reflection of sunglasses flashing across the street. Kai Lan suddenly stuffed the lipstick back into his hand, and her fingertips stayed on the calluses on his palm for a few tenths of a second: "Compensate me." The warm touch has not yet dissipated, and new bullets popped up again:
[Kai Lan's heartbeat value: 25 (shaken state)]
[Inner OS: Brother Chen said that the hosts are all poor ghosts, this lipstick could not be a prop given by the system? ]
The intercom suddenly emitted an electric current noise, Kai Lan's face turned pale and turned away, and a note fell out of the sweater pocket. Li Xiaoming picked it up quickly, and the red pen handwriting hurt his eye sockets: [Delete system data before 24:00, otherwise the host memory will be cleared simultaneously - Chen] The back of his neck was suddenly pressed against metal, and the blue light from the convenience store freezer shattered into spots on his sunglasses. The man in the black suit smiled like a frozen steak: "Chat?" The metal stick in the incubator was as hot as a piece of charcoal, and Li Xiaoming instinctively ran towards the instant noodle shelf. A whole row of old-style pickled cabbage fell down, and in the aroma of the seasoning packets exploding, he saw the electromagnetic pulse device revealed when the man bent over - exactly the same thing that blew up his electric car battery yesterday. When he took the opportunity to run to the warehouse, the iron door slammed behind him. Kai Lan was typing frantically on the phone screen, and those golden codes looked like the borders of the system bullet screen.
"You knew it long ago!" He held his pounding chest and found that Kailan's silver bracelet had turned golden at some point, and the "Eye of Eros" engraved on the inside shone under the emergency light. When she turned around, her eyelashes cast a trembling shadow under her eyes, just like the way she stood under the spotlight at the university welcome party: "Xiao Ming, the burn on your wrist..."
The system prompt sound suddenly tore through the air, and the blood-red barrage on the retina almost dripped down:
[Energy fluctuations of the cleaner detected! Remaining number of mind-reading barrages: 1/3]
[Emergency side quest: Check Kailan's true thoughts, reward: upgrade of the love talk skill book]
The moment the last mind-reading barrage was activated, Kailan's OS was like a homework book wet by rain:
[Kailan's heartbeat value: 28 (contradictory state)]
[Inner OS: The boy in the alley seven years ago also had such a scar. Is he really the fat boy who helped me pick up the silver bracelet back then? ]
The moment the lights in the warehouse went out, the metal stick fell to the ground with a clang. Li Xiaoming touched his wrist. The burn from moving the coal stove when he was ten years old was now as hot as Kailan's silver bracelet. Her breathing could be heard in the darkness, and the hot air with the smell of kelp brushed over her earlobe: "You borrowed my "Love in the Time of Cholera" from the library in your freshman year. Your class schedule is on page 37..."
The door suddenly exploded, and Li Xiaoming stuffed the lipstick into Kailan's palm: "This color is called unrepeatable red." This should have been as gentle as the system taught, but it came out with the roughness of delivering orders in the early morning. When the emergency light came on, he saw that the inside of the silver bracelet on Kailan's fingertips was engraved with the same ancient Greek words as the metal stick - the Eye of Eros.
Outside the convenience store, the electric car alarm screamed, and his broken car was sparking. Kailan stuffed the lipstick into the drawer and handed him a rice ball: "Come and get the charger tomorrow." Her fingertips tapped on the package three times, which was the Morse code learned in the club: danger. When leaving, the street lights stretched the shadows long. Li Xiaoming found a line of small words on the rice ball packaging: "Don't trust the system - Zhang", which reminded him of Zhang who resigned last month and always hid metal parts with symbols in his locker.
The metal stick in the incubator had cooled down at some point, like a stone that had been heated and then turned cold. Li Xiaoming touched the empty lipstick shell in his pocket and suddenly remembered that what he stuffed into the shelf when he fell was actually the metal stick from the pregnant woman's express delivery - and what Kai Lan received was this empty tube that could not be painted at all. The lights of the convenience store went out behind him, and he didn't see Kai Lan insert the metal stick into the secret compartment of the cash register when she turned around, where half of a silver bracelet engraved with the same symbol was lying.