He stared at his palm, the sharp pain still lingering in his mind, now elusive and intangible. For a moment, he felt a sense of loss.
Yi Heye was stunned for a moment, then reached behind his head to unplug the plug.
He knew that the plug was extremely sensitive, so he was very careful, but he still couldn't help but feel an uncontrollable tingling and numb pain in the back of his head as soon as he touched the plug.
He nearly lost his balance and fell off the chair—frankly, he looked quite disheveled; a top hunter who could do anything, tripped over a tiny plug.
Yi Heye tried to touch it again, but failed before he could succeed due to the enormous tremors.
He paused for a moment, then made up his mind to stop hesitating. He took a deep breath and pulled out the brain-computer interface plug in one go.
In that instant, the sharp pain from the friction exploded on the back of his head. Yi Heye trembled and held his breath. Then, the force grew stronger and stronger, and the burning sensation seemed to spread all over the back of his head.
Yi Heye planned to get up and forget about it once he recovered, but he didn't expect the pain to last much longer than he had imagined.
He felt as if the back of his head had been drilled open by an electric drill, and a sharp pain, like an electric shock, spread throughout his entire head.
The complex physiological sensations made him feel weak all over. He barely managed to stay upright and didn't fall to the ground, but instead crashed heavily onto the bed.
At that moment, the pain, amplified by malicious intent, made his heart skip a beat. He instinctively tightened the blanket, squeezing himself into a tight ball.
Sweat and broken breathing scattered on the ground, yet the brain remained wildly excited and euphoric.
He glanced up and saw the webcam in front of the computer, and surprisingly felt like he was being spied on by SHEEP.
A sense of shame crept up his ears, and he frantically buried himself under the pillow. The pain made him kick the sheets into a messy ball, and he even bit down hard on a corner of the blanket. After a long while, when he could barely hold on any longer, he finally relaxed cautiously.
The pain subsided—I made it through.
Yi Heye lay on the bed in a daze, feeling as if he were in a state of sage mode after driving a manual transmission car.
After a long while, he got up wearily, and while his senses were still numb, he removed the prosthetic arm from his left hand and went to the bathroom to take a shower.
Water cascaded down from above, forming gurgling streams that flowed along the lines of Yi Heye's body.
He could sense that ever since he met Jian Yunxian, he had been indulging in sensory stimulation more and more often.
He knew this was an abnormal psychological phenomenon; he had known it since he was a child.
He developed this bad habit when he was very young.
When he was about five or six years old, he fell and broke his leg. It was the first time he cried loudly in front of a lot of people. At that time, he heard people in the crowd talking about it.
They said, "This child can actually feel pain? I thought he was a robot."
From that time on, "pain" became synonymous with "humanity" for him, a sign that proved he was not a machine.
Although he later learned that many AIs also have a relatively sensitive pain perception system, from childhood to adulthood, the constant self-suggestion and brainwashing he underwent still made him gradually come to love pain.
Yi Heye believed that he was not a machine, since he could feel pain so easily.
After taking a shower, he decided to let it go and not rush to get a prosthetic leg installed.
He was a little sleepy, but he still followed his instincts and went online for a while before bed, until he saw the top trending topic again—
"4D Networks has suffered another large-scale cyberattack, resulting in a market value loss of over 100 million."
"Siwei's financial records have been leaked, and it is suspected of serious tax evasion."
"Indecent photos of Liu Siwei, president of Siwei, have been exposed, confirming his immoral private life!"
Seeing the flood of four-dimensional networks on the internet, Yi Heye had a vague premonition and continued scrolling down—
"Siwei acquired the largest pig farm in China and named the farm's top breeding pig 'Liu Siwei'."
He raised an eyebrow, scrolled down a few more articles, and found another news item in an inconspicuous place:
"Liu Siwei, CEO of Siwei Networks, denied the acquisition of the pig farm, and the pig farm refused Siwei's unilateral breach of contract."
Such news, mixed in with the bloody storm on the screen, suddenly seemed somewhat comical. Yi Heye clicked on the comments section with great interest and saw various "Liu-faced pig heads" photoshopped by enthusiastic netizens.
There's even a GIF of a sheep riding a pig, whipping it as they gallop across the grassland.
Yi Heye thought of SHEEP's sheep-like face and laughed without any warning.
The next second, a little lamb propped its head up and lay in front of his screen:
"Oh my, I'm so glad to see you smile."
Author's Note:
The story of the beacon fires that amused the feudal lords, Mr. Mei, your uncle dotes on his father!
Chapter 19, number 019
Looking at the sheep's head on the screen, Yi Heye's smile froze on his face.
This time, his first reaction wasn't anger, but a sense of shame that his secret had been exposed—he was wearing a robe with an open collar, his prosthetic leg hadn't been fitted yet, and his left shoulder and below were completely bare. Being stared at like this by SHEEP made him feel terrified of being seen naked.
He instinctively covered the screen with his right hand, but couldn't hide the bright redness from his neck to his ear tips—disability is, after all, a hidden shame, and he especially didn't want SHEEP to see him like this.
“There’s nothing to be shy about, Mr. Yi.” SHEEP’s voice seeped out from between his hands. “Be confident, you look good no matter what.”
Yi Heye ignored his nonsense and tried to pick up the prosthetic limb from the table to put it on, but he couldn't let go and could only stand there in frustration.
"Oh, you go ahead, I'll leave," SHEEP said considerately.
Yi Heye pursed his lips, not daring to let go, when he heard the sound of footsteps on the other end: "I've turned around, you go and get it done!"
Yi Heye quietly parted his fingers to make sure that a white lamb's rear end was facing him before cautiously taking a step back and reaching out to touch the prosthetic limb on the table.
He knew there were cameras in every corner of the house, and if this guy was determined to spy on him, there was no point in hiding anywhere. So he glanced at the screen again, made sure the lamb was covering its eyes and facing away from him, and then carefully loosened the belt of his bathrobe.
The bathrobe slipped off his bare left shoulder, and Yi Heye just picked up his prosthetic arm—
"I've come here today because I have something to discuss with you..."
Yi Heye was so startled by the sudden sound that he almost dropped his hand. He grabbed his collar and turned to glare at the screen.
The lamb wasn't actually peeking at him; it covered its eyes with its two little hooves, turned its rear end towards him, and wagged its little white tail back and forth.
Yi Heye wished he could reach into the screen, grab the guy, pull him out, and slap his white butt twice: "...Don't talk, wait for me to finish installing it."
He stared at the white fluffy ball, thinking of the feeling of touching the little cloud last time, and then of his own fluffy tail in the game.
The feel of a sheep's butt must be quite nice, right? A terrible thought flashed through Yi Heye's mind, but he quickly forced himself to forget it.
He decided to finish quickly and fix the hand in one go, so he picked up the prosthetic leg again and started working on it rapidly.
There are two grooves on the cross-section of the severed limb, which are the locations where the prosthesis clips engage. Due to the 2.5 times pain setting, Yi Heye's experience each time he gets the prosthesis installed is extremely painful.
He pressed the clips of the prosthesis into the slot. With a soft "click," the moment the sensory system connected, intense pain surged from his shoulder to the back of his head.
The feeling was like being pierced by high voltage; a white light flashed before my eyes, and even my heart skipped a beat.
Despite his efforts to control himself, he couldn't help but lose control the moment the connection was established, and his breathing became completely disordered.
He really couldn't control himself, so he could only curl up in the chair, biting the sleeve of his bathrobe and trying his best to endure it, trying not to make a sound.
At this moment, he was praying that SHEEP would make some noise, at least enough to cover his voice, but the sheep was unusually obedient at this time, not uttering a single word, as if it was intentionally holding its breath and listening to his breathing.
Only Yi Heye's voice remained in the room, so clear it seemed to outline the shape of the sweat beads.
Damn it. Yi Heye was drenched in sweat, but he finally made it through.
Ignoring his glazed eyes and exhaustion, he hurriedly turned around and asked SHEEP to show him his condition: "What's wrong?"
SHEEP's gaze swept over him from head to toe. The little leopard looked as if he had been pulled out of the water, his face as pale as paper, and even the tips of his hair were covered with weak beads of sweat.
Little Lamb: "Aren't you going to make some adjustments..."
Yi Heye interrupted him: "What do you want?"
Little Lamb: "...I want to say that you don't need to play LIFE anymore."
Yi Heye frowned: "What?"
He was the one who desperately tried to get himself involved, and he was the one who gave him the helmet. Now he's saying he's quitting?
Little Lamb: "To be honest, I didn't do these cases. You don't need to investigate anymore. Let's stop here."
Yi Heye looked at him without saying a word.
"I know I've lost all credibility, but this time I'm serious." The lamb lay back on the screen, idly playing with its little hooves in the air. "I'm tired of this. We can continue our fight in a different way; you still have a chance to beat me."
“You can just tell the truth.” Yi Heye looked at him for a long time before saying, “My intuition tells me that’s not what you think.”
This time, it was SHEEP who frowned – intuition, intuition again.
He stared at Yi Heye for a long time before finally deciding to tell the truth.
“Because of me, Siwei has their eyes on you,” SHEEP said. “I don’t want you to get involved in this mess.”
After a long pause, he added, "...This will distract you from catching me, won't it?"
Upon hearing the second half of this sentence, Yi Heye paused for a moment before replying, "Hmm."
Whether he listened or not, SHEEP watched as he turned around, opened the milk powder can, went to the water dispenser to get hot water, carefully stirred it with the stirring stick until there was no more sediment, took a small sip, squinted his eyes in satisfaction, and then sat back down in front of him with a sense of ceremony.
"You mean, you didn't do these cases?" Yi Heye asked.
“Yes.” SHEEP sighed, spreading her hooves. “Anyway, you wouldn’t believe me…”
“I believe you,” Yi Heye said.
SHEEP looked at him in disbelief: "...What?"
“I said I believe you,” Yi Heye said. “Because of my intuition, I felt from the beginning that it wasn’t you.”
The little lamb smiled helplessly.
“Do you know what I hate most about you?” he said half-jokingly, “it’s your supposedly amazing intuition. It’s so unreasonable that I never know where I’ve made a mistake, which is really frustrating.”
Yi Heye smiled slightly: "It would be my honor."
Yi Heye's expression clearly lifted SHEEP's spirits. He rolled over, lay on the table, and wagged his tail happily, like a cotton ball swaying in the wind.
“But they’ve increased the difficulty of the game for you,” SHEEP said. “Siwei did everything it could to protect LIFE’s servers and added a firewall specifically for me. Although it couldn’t stop me, it did greatly restrict my actions—I probably can’t help you much anymore.”
This time, under SHEEP's relentless bombardment, the former internet giant was on the verge of bankruptcy. Holding his breath, he decided to make a desperate gamble, determined not to give up until he captured SHEEP.
"It's alright," Yi Heye said. "I never expected anything from you anyway."
"I will personally eliminate all those who steal my prey." Yi Heye's voice was very calm, but his blood-red eyes revealed an undisguised killing intent. "I hate it when others steal my prey."