With a "ding-dong," the gate to pass through opened in the air above the second floor, which was suspended in mid-air behind us.
Yi Heye stood on the railing, making sure that Jian Yunxian was safely watching him from downstairs, before looking at the police officers chasing after him.
A second before the bullet touched him, Yi Heye leaned back slightly and fell into the golden door by gravity.
The NPCs couldn't follow them through the gate. Yi Heye watched them stand there, unable to contain his smile. But just before the gate closed, he caught a glimpse of a blue figure.
It was a strange, flowing electronic blue, and if I'm not mistaken, it looked like a blue sheep hurrying by.
But Yi Heye felt that this guy seemed to be deliberately passing by him, as if he wanted to show him something.
Is it SHEEP? Yi Heye, who only glanced at it briefly, dared not make a conclusion, but he was certain that this was the deadly sheep that appeared in the hidden level, the culprit he had been looking for.
He instinctively tried to struggle back to the other side of the door, but he couldn't stop the speed of gravity.
The doors are tightly shut, the world is blank, and options float in the air—
[Proceed to the next level or save and exit the game]
Yi Heye chose the latter without hesitation.
He returned to reality drenched in sweat.
Yi Heye opened his eyes and looked at the familiar room. He was momentarily dazed, and his heart was still pounding.
With great difficulty, he unplugged the brain-computer interface, and once again his fingers curled up in pain and his whole body went cold. The passion he had been fueled by in the game was instantly extinguished.
He staggered to his feet and went to the bathroom to wash his face.
He looked at his pale face in the mirror, and the mirror health system immediately analyzed his condition:
"You have been diagnosed with mild anemia and low blood pressure. Please take appropriate measures as needed and seek medical attention if necessary."
He shook his head and made himself a cup of hot milk—it was more effective than any medicine for him; hot milk was his magic key.
After finishing a glass of milk, Yi Heye's cold body finally warmed up, and his consciousness and memories were finally reconnected.
He remembered the blue sheep and suddenly felt a pang of panic. He turned on his computer to find the little sheep that was always on his desktop.
SHEEP didn't reappear on the desktop. He stared at the blank screen—could the Blue Sheep in the game be SHEEP? Was he still in the game because he hadn't appeared in front of him?
Such speculation made Yi Heye somewhat uneasy. Although he had always regarded SHEEP as his greatest enemy and considered capturing SHEEP as his most important mission, he still did not want to associate him with a murderer who disregarded human life.
Although he himself is by no means a good person.
This is the second time SHEEP has cut off contact with him, and each time it has successfully driven Yi Heye to the lowest point in his mood.
He regretted leaving that door too soon. He thought that even if he were shot a few times by Officer Pei, he would still want to get a good look at that blue sheep.
He wanted to see its face clearly, to examine its round eyes closely—just as no AI could escape his gaze, he believed that once he saw the sheep's appearance, he could tell at a glance whether it was the same sheep as SHEEP.
Yi Heye waited for a long time on the page without any results. When he turned around, he finally felt extremely tired.
He took a quick shower. Normally, he wouldn't put on his prosthetic leg before bed unless he had something else to do, but this time, for some reason, he put it on despite the pain.
After the installation was completed, Yi Heye, his eyes rolling back, shrank into the blankets. The blankets gently rubbed against his mechanical arm, which had 2.5 times the sensitivity of his other hand, reminding him of the feeling of being gently stroked by Jian Yunxian earlier that day.
This reminded him of how, today, after 25 years of living a miserable life, his first kiss was so hastily and resentfully sacrificed to his most hated enemy.
Although he tried to steer his emotions toward anger, what truly filled his mind was the softness of Jian Yunxian's lips, the sandalwood scent wafting from her breath, and the tingling sensation of her fingertips on his hand.
He struggled to sit up, but each toss and turn only made his condition worse.
Yi Heye felt he couldn't take it anymore, so he shrank into the blanket and quietly reached out with his left hand.
Only then did he realize his own perversion, and he understood why he had placed his hand on his body before going to sleep.
...
"haven't seen you for a long time!"
A sudden voice in the room startled Yi Heye, causing him to tremble violently.
"Oops~" Seemingly noticing his movement, SHEEP's voice became teasing, "Did I disturb you~"
Damn it. At this moment, the fragile Yi Heye curled up in bed, too afraid to peek out, only daring to internally break down and curse—
damn it!
Chapter 23, number 023
Yi Heye hid under the covers, his mind still blank.
Just then, he heard the little lamb teasing him from outside the blankets, and he could only clutch the corner of the blankets, unable to utter a word for a long time.
He had no strength left to live; only a sliver of consciousness told him that it was fortunate he was used to hiding under the covers, otherwise, something terrible would have happened.
He felt that under the torment of SHEEP, his skin was getting thicker and thicker, and his bottom line was getting lower and lower—forget it, Yi Heye poked his head out of the quilt with a tired look on his face.
That's enough.
Outside the blankets was a pitch-black room and a small sheep emitting white light.
Seeing its head pop out, the little lamb twirled in mid-air as if showing off, and landed happily on his nose: "Look, I've learned how to use your holographic projector. Now I'm not just limited to hovering around your desktop anymore!"
Very good. Yi Heye closed his eyes wearily—the project was starting to move from 2D to 3D, and his life was becoming more and more promising.
The little lamb, who had just learned the new technology, was very excited and flew around the house.
SHEEP asked expectantly, "Do I look like a little fairy? Like one of those sparkly little elves?"
Yi Heye: "...You're like a big, fluttering moth."
The kind of person you want to slap to death when you see them.
Yi Heye's heartless words hurt Xiao Yang's pride, and he flew dejectedly to sit down by Yi Heye's bedside.
"Get off." Yi Heye coldly rolled up the blanket. "I don't like people sitting on my bed."
"I didn't sit down." The little lamb blinked. "It's a projector, it won't get dirty."
Yi Heye: "..."
Having just been forced to finish, his mind was blank. Yi Heye knew he couldn't argue with him, so he sighed, turned over, and tried to learn to ignore it.
As soon as he turned over, Yi Heye remembered the game that had just ended, the blue sheep, and SHEEP's inexplicable absence.
Yi Heye: "Where did you go just now?"
"I got held up by someone and was delayed for a while." The little lamb landed in front of him with a smile. "It seems Mr. Leopard was quite concerned about me."
Yi Heye's forehead veins bulged, and he turned over so his back was facing him.
Was he being harassed by someone? Could it be those two cops? Yi Heye frowned, unwilling to think in that direction.
He recalled Jian Yunxian from the game, and looking at the sheep in front of him, he suddenly realized that, apart from online games, it seemed like he hadn't seen Jian Yunxian in person for quite some time.
Has his human form been ruined? Won't it rot after lying at home for so many days? Will the police suspect that I assassinated him?
So he asked, "How is Professor Jian doing lately? When will he be back?"
SHEEP started playing dumb: "How should I know? I'm not him."
Yi Heye didn't even bother to reply: "Aren't you good at spying? Go into his computer and take a look for me."
SHEEP: ...
He pretended to disappear from Yi Heye's sight for about half a minute, and then returned to the room.
"I feel like I've almost recovered," Little Sheep said seriously. "He asked me to tell you that if you really want to see him, he'll come back to see you tomorrow despite being sick."
Even though he'd already been exposed, he still stubbornly pretended he wasn't the same person. Yi Heye was speechless—let him act if he wanted, he couldn't be bothered with him.
I was speechless for a long time before my slow reaction time finally caught up.
"What a load of crap, just tell him never to come again." Yi Heye turned off the light, closed his eyes, and prepared to sleep.
After closing his eyes, there was no sound in the room for a long time. Yi Heye opened his eyes warily, and then was startled.
The lamb was lying on his pillow, eyes closed, very close to him, almost touching his nose.
Despite being an adorable little lamb, Yi Heye subconsciously thought of Jian Yunxian, recalling their intertwined breaths and soft kisses.
He sat up abruptly in bed and, as if by reflex, raised his pillow to slap it down, but the lamb's body passed right through the pillow and remained lying there peacefully.
He forgot that this thing was a holographic projection. It was all his own fault for having such a high resolution projector, which made it look so realistic that it created an illusion.
At this moment, SHEEP was awakened by his noise and groggily opened her eyes: "What's wrong...?"
"Keep pretending, keep pretending." Yi Heye glared at him: "Why the hell are you in my bed?"
"I want to sleep with you!" SHEEP said matter-of-factly, then flew up and covered his mouth, "Don't swear."
Yi Heye looked at him with a cold face, while the little lamb blinked its eyes, looking innocent and pure.
Five seconds later, Yi Heye got out of bed and walked straight to the main power switch: "I'll give you three seconds to save the data."
The little lamb, with tears welling in its eyes, cried out, "You're so heartless..."
"Click." Yi Heye turned off the power switch, and the world went dark. The little lamb also vanished into thin air.
It didn't even last three seconds.
After closing the curtains and turning off the communicator, Yi Heye finally drifted off to sleep.
Perhaps due to the stress of the day, Yi Heye felt somewhat unwell.
He suspected he had a low-grade fever, his muscles ached all over his body, and he couldn't muster any strength in his limbs.
The first-aid kit was actually in the most obvious place in the house, but Yi Heye was unwilling to even take his temperature.
He let himself suffer in the dim light, even drinking a glass of cold water in the dark. He wished he could suffer more—this kind of disguised self-torture would make him feel less guilty and more at ease with his helplessness than to indulge in pain.
The next morning, he forced himself to get out of bed despite a splitting headache.
After finishing breakfast, he drank a glass of milk and then drowsily sat down at his computer desk.
The mirror told him as he was washing up that his complexion had worsened compared to yesterday, his blood pressure had dropped significantly, and his anemia had not improved.
But he still picked up the helmet without hesitation.
"It's not that I'm deliberately torturing myself," Yi Heye explained, "it's because I'm afraid that if I delay too long, I'll never find that blue sheep again."
Normally, connecting to the brain-computer interface would only cause him pain to the point of brief stiffness, but this time, perhaps because his physical condition was really too bad, the amplified pain almost penetrated his entire body the moment the connection was made.