Zhang Wei felt a growing itch to try it himself. Over the years, he had balanced his studies with work-study programs and managed to accumulate some savings. Allocating capital to secure a basic computer terminal was entirely within his financial parameters.
Having completely cleared his character's fatigue points for the day, Zhang Shan looked back at Zhang Wei, noting his highly distracted posture. "What variables are you calculating?"
Zhang Wei hesitated for a fraction of a second before outputting the truth. "Zhang Shan! Does this software architecture truly possess the parameters to generate actual revenue?"
"Of course it does, but the market timeline hasn't aligned yet," Zhang Shan explained. "This game commands an incredible developmental trajectory. In roughly six years, it will scale to its absolute operational peak. As long as you lock down the opportunity, you can rake in an astronomical fortune!"
"Six years down the line?" Zhang Wei's face filled with a giant question mark, completely unable to compute how Zhang Shan's database possessed structural forecasts for six years into the future.
Zhang Shan offered a mysterious smile. "Delete that query. Just know that this game is mathematically guaranteed to go absolutely viral!"
In reality, aside from Dungeon & Fighter, League of Legends was another absolute titan on the future horizon. However, since LOL hadn't cleared local licensing distribution yet, Zhang Shan didn't bother opening that file. Furthermore, driving a high-intensity game like LOL required blisteringly fast cognitive reaction times and mechanical execution metrics—parameters that a group of aging bachelors like them simply couldn't sustain.
Consequently, staying locked into Dungeon & Fighter was a vastly simpler strategic choice.
The following morning.
Zhang Shan woke up and initiated his daily routine, checking the Apple stock tickers before reviewing his manuscript royalty dividends. A highly satisfied smile spread across his face.
The very next second, a high-decibel shriek of pure panic erupted from Zeng Xiaoxian, shattering the peace of the suite.
"Disaster! Absolute system crisis! Disaster!"
Inside the central living room, Zeng Xiaoxian was running frantic, chaotic loop vectors all over the space while clutching a miniature paper note, behaving exactly like an insect trapped on a hyper-thermal plate.
"What operational error triggered this alarm, Master Zeng? Did a malicious script possess your hardware first thing in the morning?" Zhang Shan teased.
Up on the balcony walkway, Hu Yifei threw open her door, her features still locked in a sleep macro, yet her booming voice instantly echoed across the entire structural layout of the suite:
"Zeng Xiaoxian!! If your vocal processors don't terminate that audio output immediately, I am manually twisting your head clean off your shoulders!"
However, the high-intensity threat matrix that usually achieved instantaneous containment completely failed to log an effect this time. Zeng Xiaoxian didn't even register her words, continuing to run frantic, erratic circles around the furniture.
Zhang Shan stepped into his transit vector, intercepting the paper note from his grip. Scanning the data strings on the page, he blinked in absolute confusion. "What exact parameters resolve from these characters?"
"Laura! Laura has executed a return vector to my coordinates!" Zeng Xiaoxian's vocal filters fractured with raw panic, his psychological safeguards completely failing as his system entered a total tailspin.
"Laura?" Zhang Shan ran a rapid query across his historical memories. Instantly, a massive block of highly toxic data streams flooded his mind. If his records were accurate, this specific female character was a supreme, elite-tier heartbreaker who had systematically played Zeng Xiaoxian like a basic script. During their relationship, she had consistently maintained concurrent connection profiles with alternative male targets.
Under standard social mechanics, if both factions were simply executing a casual hook-up macro, neither ledger would require commitment. But Zeng Xiaoxian didn't operate on those degraded principles; his system couldn't process a chaotic lifestyle of that caliber. Yet, the boy possessed a highly indecisive, easily manipulated emotional matrix, allowing Laura to effortlessly override his defenses... multiple times!
Zhang Shan forcefully deposited Zeng Xiaoxian onto the sofa. He and Hu Yifei settled into the opposite cushions, crossing their legs and folding their arms as they initialized a tactical assessment. "Lower your panic metrics. Detail the background logs of this Laura profile."
Hu Yifei overrode the feed to report first: "She is his primary ex-girlfriend. Their connection loop sustained an uninterrupted parameter of eight years!" When she cited the eight-year variable, her hands flashed a dramatic gesture, her emphasis heavy.
"Eight years? Then what internal error caused your relationship to hit permanent termination?" Lu Zhanbo asked, leaning over the back of the sofa.
"Our commitment sustained an eight-year log, yet her profile spent six years executing a high-intensity cheating script with alternative male targets!" Zeng Xiaoxian shrieked as his emotional core completely crashed. "My processors finally managed to clear her data files after immense difficulty, yet she just initialized a re-entry protocol out of nowhere!"
Seeing that the broadcaster was on the verge of losing all cognitive balance, Zhang Shan intervened immediately. "So, the underlying calculation is that your system still harbors affection metrics for this Laura character?"
"Absolutely not! How could my programming still hold affection for her?! My highest priority directive is never crossing coordinates with her profile again for the rest of my life!" Zeng Xiaoxian stood up, his gestures frantic.
"Alright, cool down. Let's stabilize your parameters," Zhang Shan waved a hand. "To break down the data: your primary psychological trauma has remanifested, throwing your system into a panic lock because your processing units don't know how to run a face-to-face interface module with the target, correct?"
"Precisely!" Zeng Xiaoxian nodded frantically, looking at Zhang Shan as if he had just isolated a supreme savior algorithm. He lunged forward, grabbing Zhang Shan's hands. "Shan! Does your profile control a strategic bypass to resolve this crisis?!"
"Release my hands first!" Zhang Shan broke away from his grip, speaking fluidly. "If your affection metrics register a zero, execute a flat rejection protocol. Don't claim your system lacks the processing power to refuse; that argument simply verifies that your code is still running a fractional probability of wishful thinking."
Seeing Zeng Xiaoxian prepping to deploy an excuse, Zhang Shan slashed a hand through the air. "Hold, freeze your audio output! Regarding interpersonal emotional frameworks, my policy has always been strictly omitting personal intervention. If your cells converge, it's fate; if you systematically torture each other's parameters for a lifetime, it's a dark karmic loop. Every choice rests entirely within your personal authorization. My profile always displays absolute, unshakeable respect for the fated trajectory of other individuals!"
Hu Yifei nodded in lockstep, her system aligning perfectly with Zhang Shan's baseline philosophy.
"Incorrect! That logic fails completely! Right now, my core processors are desperately seeking an external intervention script! I beg your profiles to override my emotional code! I cannot independently resolve this equation!" Zeng Xiaoxian dropped to his knees, groveling frantically!
Staring at his thoroughly degraded posture, Zhang Shan found the visual presentation pushing his cringe limits! Hu Yifei shifted her position to the absolute edge of the cushion with a look of intense disgust, ensuring her clothing didn't intercept any fluid output from his breakdown.
The rest of the roommates watched the feed in sheer shock. They hadn't calculated that a single ex-girlfriend profile possessed the absolute weight to crush Zeng Xiaoxian's system settings to this extreme degree! Zhang Shan was genuinely surprised; watching the canon broadcast, the broadcaster's panic loops hadn't tracked this severely.
"Stand up, abort the groveling routine! We operate within a shared brother cell; there is zero baseline requirement to execute a supreme submission macro!"
Once they hauled Zeng Xiaoxian back onto the sofa, Zhang Shan asked with total gravity, "Zeng Xiaoxian! Run a total system diagnostic: are you absolutely certain your programming holds zero affection data for Laura right now?"
Zeng Xiaoxian hesitated for a single second parameter before executing a decisive shake of his head. "Zero!"
"Superb!"
Clap!
Zhang Shan clapped his hands together, turning to the woman beside him. "Feifei, let's mobilize to log a bowl of Hu La Tang. My mapping array successfully localized a morning food stall yesterday that serves phenomenal pan-fried buns."
"Huh? Oh, sure," Yifei nodded blankly. Zhang Shan casually wrapped his fingers around her wrist, preparing to guide her out of the unit.
Seeing their departure vector materialize, Zeng Xiaoxian completely panicked, roaring across the room, "Alright! Fine! I confess! My sub-routines are still running a fractional, highly confusing, uncalibrated echo regarding her presence!"
Zhang Shan locked his optics onto him for a few silent seconds before turning back to Yifei. "Let's move. If your system prefers sweet tofu pudding, we can adjust the order—just load it up with a heavy splash of chili oil, pure bliss!"
"Let's go, let's go~" Yifei's face filled with excitement as she prepped to sprint through the door.
Seeing that the duo genuinely intended to completely isolate his crisis, Zeng Xiaoxian's firewalls went into a state of total desperation. He screamed toward their retreating figures: "You two elite heroes! Terminate the comedy routine! Help me compute a viable counter-strategy!"
Zhang Shan turned around, his expression shifting to absolute, unmitigated helplessness. "If your own inner code refuses to purge her file, how do you expect our external programs to delete it for you? Bro, stop forcing our systems to run an uncomputable equation!"
"Zhang Shan's analysis is mathematically flawless!" Yifei chimed in. "If your own core refuses to let go, our profiles can't exactly strap down your hardware and forcibly extract the data packet, can we?"
Lu Zhanbo, though his processors lacked depth regarding relationship architecture, still mirrored their logic, nodding in alignment.
Zeng Xiaoxian collapsed into deep despair. Let go? How could a generic algorithm compute that release? "That is a character profile my system loved for an uninterrupted eight-year chronological block! Deleting that history isn't something that can be cleared with a simple macro!"
"Then our systems are out of options. Good luck handling the incoming data assault," Zhang Shan shrugged. He and Yifei smoothly cleared the threshold. Lu Zhanbo rapidly tracked behind them; the audio tracking from Zeng Xiaoxian's pathetic wailing inside the unit had rendered the environment completely unlivable.
The trio executed a complete morning dining macro and returned to the apartment. The moment they cleared the door, they found Zeng Xiaoxian lying flat on the floor tiles, his optics entirely vacant as if his soul packet had been systematically extracted from his chassis.
The roommates casually stepped over his physical form, shaking their heads with deep, theatrical pity.
Just then, Zhang Wei stepped across the balcony walkway, asking curiously, "The structural crisis over here... has it cleared resolution?" He had woken up early, but the raw intensity of Zeng Xiaoxian's wailing had flagged the unit as a high-risk zone, so he had delayed his entry. Now that the audio signature had quieted down, Ziqiao had dispatched his profile to run a quick reconnaissance loop.
Zhang Shan pointed a finger at the body on the floor. "Resolution failed. Furthermore, the primary asset appears to be entering a state of total hardware failure. My ledger is currently calculating a two-hundred-yuan funeral allocation."
"My account will match that two-hundred-yuan ledger entry!" Yifei laughed.
Lu Zhanbo, having spent his formative cycles abroad, struggled to parse the domestic custom behind the ledger joke. Zhang Wei glanced down, nodding in lockstep. "In that case, count my account in for a two-hundred-yuan allocation as well!"
Suddenly! The eyes of the broadcaster on the floor snapped wide open, heavily bloodshot!
He scrambled back to his feet, his voice carrying a sudden, manic frequency. "I have decoded the parameters! Laura's return vector to my coordinates is strictly a psychological diagnostic test!"
"Oh? Detail your calculation," Yifei said.
Zeng Xiaoxian dropped into a single-seater armchair, delivering a rapid technical breakdown: "Her independent overseas ventures must have hit a permanent economic deficit, forcing her to realign with my coordinates to seek shelter! If my system logs an active affection metric, her profile claims an immediate operational window to manipulate my assets. If my ledger returns a zero, she simply drops down to the next fallback reserve profile in her database!"
At that technical resolution, Zeng Xiaoxian looked as if he had achieved supreme, unmitigated enlightenment. Two blinding beams of golden insight practically erupted from his optics, piercing the upper stratosphere!
Zhang Shan re-calibrated his entire psychological evaluation of the man. He hadn't calculated that cornering this rabbit into a total systemic dead-end would trigger an aggressive counter-offensive!
"Master Zeng! I didn't expect your cowardly code to actually deploy teeth when pushed to the perimeter!" Zhang Shan said with total seriousness. "Based on your technical breakdown, I have processed a clean diagnostic profile on your ex-girlfriend. If my deduction is solid, her historical trajectory over the last few years was anchored entirely overseas, correct?"
Zeng Xiaoxian nodded. "Correct. She broke domestic orbit years ago; otherwise, my processors wouldn't have been able to clear her files... Overseas? Wait! Overseas! The social mechanics in those foreign sectors operate on highly volatile, uncalibrated promiscuity parameters... If her physical matrix has intercepted a collection of malignant biological contaminants... Yuck~~~"
Zeng Xiaoxian's facial features instantly twisted into absolute, visceral revulsion! In that single microsecond, Laura's profile was systematically purged from his life list, hit with a permanent, irreversible deletion filter! He could theoretically tolerate running a low-level acquaintance script with her, but his system flatly, completely rejected initializing any future 'deep physical data exchange' loops!
Seeing that the broadcaster's core logic had finally cleared the infection, Zhang Shan ceased his avoidance strategy. He settled comfortably onto the long sofa, casually reaching for a mandarin orange that had been sitting on the tray for God knew how many chronological cycles. As he methodically peeled the rind, he tossed out a final, heavy variable: "Master Zeng, during my month-long deployment overseas, my sensors literally intercepted high-frequency, multi-target promiscuity clusters on a daily baseline. And your ex-girlfriend operates as a supreme, apex heartbreaker... Mmm~ I highly optimize that your system keep those environmental variables tightly locked into your active memory."
Hiss~~ Zeng Xiaoxian inhaled a sharp breath of pure terror, celebrating frantically: "Thank the heavens my hardware never initiated a physical workout macro with her!"
The technical confession hit the room like a localized sonic boom, leaving everyone thoroughly stunned!
"Are your processors stating... that your commitment sustained an eight-year log, yet your structural status remains a pristine virgin?!" Hu Yifei's facial features contorted violently, her code running a high-intensity battle to suppress a massive wave of laughter.
Directly behind them, two bursts of completely unmitigated laughter erupted from the balcony bridge. Lu Ziqiao and Chen Meijia stepped out of the shadows, with Kamiki tracking behind them with a completely blank expression.
"Hahaha! Master Zeng, your system sustained an eight-year runtime with a female target without executing a single physical penetration script?! How the hell did your hardware suppress that operational urge?!" Lu Ziqiao clutched his midsection, his laughter scaling into absurdly loud parameters. Meijia followed suit, her metrics matching his hilarity. As experienced veterans of the rivers and lakes, their standard timeline for a relationship clearing the path to a hotel interface was compressed into a few months; they simply couldn't compute a systemic anomaly of Zeng Xiaoxian's caliber.
Zhang Shan's brow furrowed as he interjected smoothly, blocking the offensive. "Enough, what structural logic makes this an object of mockery? Master Zeng's code displayed absolute fidelity to the ideal of romance, calculating that the highest-priority physical data exchange should be reserved exclusively for the wedding terminal. Is there an internal error in that architecture? My profile flatly backs Master Zeng's baseline!"
Instantly, Zeng Xiaoxian turned a look of profound, soulful adoration toward Zhang Shan. "Shan! Your system is the only engine capable of truly parsing my source code!"
"Hold, freeze! Abort that vector! My programming is strictly barred from running a same-sex romance script!" Zhang Shan rapidly deployed a deflection macro, pushing him away.
Just then, Yifei smirked, cutting her eyes toward him. "Based on that logic, Zhang Shan, your own profile must also be..."
Zhang Shan cleared his throat heavily. "Ahem! Well... while my system conceptually comprehends and backs Master Zeng's architecture, my personal cultivation path hasn't reached that absolute baseline of self-regulation. Long ago, my perimeter defenses were heavily infiltrated and compromised by high-tier outer demons~ But rest assured! The core matrix of my soul has never wavered for a single fraction of a second!"
"Tch~" Yifei rolled her eyes hard, before pivoting back to the broadcaster. "Zeng Xiaoxian! What exact chronological marker maps to your ex-girlfriend's arrival?"
"Unverified. The packet could clear terminal today, or materialize tomorrow. As your databases know, I... command zero administrative authority over her vector!" Zeng Xiaoxian said, forcing his parameters to track as steadily as possible.
Zhang Shan patted his shoulder, preparing to offer a word of encouragement, when the front door suddenly rattled under a series of soft, calculated knocks.
"Xian-er are you inside?"
The soft, heavily synthesized, melting vocal signature drifted through the gap in the door, dropping directly into Zeng Xiaoxian's audio receptors and causing his entire physical chassis to execute a reflexive shudder.
But a microsecond later, the core data inputs Zhang Shan had supplied, stacked with the variables from his own internal enlightenment, clicked into place. His spinal architecture straightened with absolute rigidity! Under the encouraging gazes of his cell, Zeng Xiaoxian assumed the exact psychological posture of a frontline shock-trooper marching into a total war zone, his boots striking the floor tiles with absolute firmness as he advanced toward the entrance.
The very next second, Lu Ziqiao, Chen Meijia, and Kamiki initiated a rapid concealment macro, completely vanishing onto the balcony walkway. Zhang Shan and Hu Yifei remained anchored on the long sofa, their positions showing zero intent to vacate the zone.
Click~
Zeng Xiaoxian unlatched the door. Standing directly within his visual field was the exact facial matrix that had once sent his entire processing core into absolute, unmitigated obsession! She appeared completely identical to his historical records—radiating a soft, helpless, deeply vulnerable aura designed to trigger an immediate protective macro in any observer.
However, the Zeng Xiaoxian operating today was no longer the legacy build of the past. His system had undergone a total evolutionary update! In his current visual rendering, Laura's structural form was flagged as an unnamable entity entirely saturated with toxic viral codes! Consequently, even as a fractional echo of historical attraction attempted to trigger a ripple in his core, he deployed absolute, crushing mental weight to suppress the latency, preventing the variable from contaminating his judgment parameters!
"Laura, what algorithmic process guided your tracking array to these coordinates?" Zeng Xiaoxian asked, his brow furrowed.
Laura behaved as if she failed to register his defensive posture, her vocal output remaining soft and melting. "Xian-er, I initiated a high-priority data query with Lisa to extract your residential coordinate packets. Did my arrival trigger an interruption in your schedule? Apologies~ My system simply encountered an overwhelming urge to interface with your presence! I couldn't restrain my code, so I bypassed protocol to extract the address from your executive supervisor. You... won't log a resentment variable against me, right?"
As she delivered the line, she executed a highly calculated, vulnerable ocular blink macro directly at his visors. A social engineering maneuver of this caliber would require Hu Yifei a decade of study to replicate! Of course, Yifei had zero structural requirement to learn her slop; their Yifei commanded her own sovereign, absolute combat mechanics!
Even though Zeng Xiaoxian had fortified his firewalls beforehand, facing Laura's direct opening assault still forced his processors into a brief tactical hitch! Looking at her, he cleared his throat. "An interruption hasn't cleared terminal. However, my unit operates on a shared communal lease format; the sector is entirely unoptimized to host your presence." With that notice, Zeng Xiaoxian moved to execute a decisive door-closure protocol.
But Laura's physical transit speed was a tier faster, smoothly slipping past his vector to breach the interior threshold before the latch could click.
Catching sight of the three independent profiles sitting on the long sofa, Laura offered a brilliant, sweet smile, routing a greeting to the room: "Hello, everyone! Massive thanks to your profiles for managing the logistical care of my Xian-er over the last few cycles~"
Watching her execute the script from the side, Zhang Shan felt an immediate wave of goosebumps breaking out across his skin arrays! He shot a sharp tactical look toward Hu Yifei, and the woman instantly nodded, her processors perfectly synchronized with his intent.
Zhang Shan smoothly turned his head, letting a calm smile spread across his features as he addressed Laura directly: "Omit the gratitude protocol, miss. After all, your profile holds zero verified status across Zeng Xiaoxian's active directory registry today. Extending a thanks to our suite is entirely devoid of logical backing, isn't that right... Xian-er?~"