Chapter 36: A Straightforward Man Shouldn't Joke Around

Speaking of Ye Chao’s father, Ye Shulou, he was rather pitiable as well.

Gifted and intelligent, though still young, he managed to catch the very last round of college entrance exams before the great catastrophe. With his youth and education, he became the librarian of the Post-Apocalypse Library.

In the early days of the disaster, there were government stipends and social prestige, and he had some technical skills himself—by all accounts, he was doing quite well.

Unfortunately, the following year marked the beginning of the Isolated Island Era. Plastic products began to decompose rapidly under attack from fungal microbes, and books—being high-molecular organic compounds—were no exception.

Even before the disaster, books had been plagued by bookworms.

He tried everything: cleaning, organizing, airing out the books—at one point, he even had the wild idea of turning the library into a sterile chamber, but that proved impossible. Then he thought of disinfecting and sterilizing every single page, every day, but that was even more impossible…

The entire library’s collection, though it lasted longer than those in other cities, was still devoured and reduced to dust after two or three years. Nothing remained.

With the physical books gone, there were still digital versions: scanned images stored on small hard drives, and digital network editions uploaded by hand—humanity was cautious about preserving the spark of civilization.

But alas, the internet collapsed barely two years into the catastrophe, with only intermittent satellite signals. No matter how they were stored or transmitted, the digital versions were dealt a fatal blow.

As for the scanned image hard drives, one dark and windy night, a group of mysterious figures in black stole every last one…

In the end, Ye Shulou failed to preserve his books and could no longer continue as a librarian. He later became a teacher, but eventually contracted the plantification disease. After struggling for several years, he was finally rooted here.

Ye Chao finished telling the old story, while Gun Gun, already familiar with the routine, deftly picked off the wooden boards, sheets of paper, screws, bolts, and silicon crystals.

The paper could be used for writing and printing books; the screws, bolts, and perforated wooden boards could be assembled into bookshelves; as for the silicon crystals, if one had the means to process them, they could be fashioned into solid-state drives for data storage…

At last, Alpha Ji understood how this bizarre “tree of wonders” had come to be.

“Dad, I’ve been doing well lately. I just finished my field internship and got a good score, and my abilities have improved. If nothing unexpected happens, there shouldn’t be any problem getting into that school, so please don’t worry about me…”

At last, it was time to say goodbye.

Ye Chao pressed his palms together in prayer, bowing respectfully, his gaze steady and his voice calm.

“Mmm, mmm!” Gun Gun nodded solemnly, imitating Ye Chao’s bow, looking adorably earnest.

A gentle breeze stirred, branches swaying, as if Ye Shulou were responding.

Alpha Ji couldn’t help sneaking a glance at Ye Chao.

Ye Chao seemed oblivious, folding the paper, securing the wooden boards, pocketing the silicon crystals. “Oh, right, Dad, during my internship I also got my hands on a laptop.” He proudly waved the F91 in his hand. “Super fast, huge hard drive—I can store tons of data. I won’t need a new drive for a long time! Your dream—I’m getting closer and closer to fulfilling it!”

He paused again after saying this.

Alpha Ji glanced at him once more.

“So… Dad, I’m off. I’ll visit you again next month—and pick up my living expenses, too.”

Wooden boards, paper, screws, and bolts weren’t worth much, but high-purity silicon crystals were hard currency in the age of disaster.

The new humans’ abilities could repair most things, but repair was never perfect—each fix caused damage. Once or twice was fine, but the more times it was done and the less skillfully, the greater the microscopic structural deviation, until the object was unusable.

To make up for it, one could, as mentioned before, expend a huge amount of effort to imprint the item as a “fantasy artifact.”

But more likely than not, the item would be ruined before success; or, just as likely, the imprint would succeed only after the item had already failed. The risk was about as high as those infamously punishing equipment upgrades in some pre-disaster games—especially with something as advanced and unique as the F91, the chance of ending up with a brick was heartbreakingly high.

This was the main reason Ye Chao had so readily allowed Alpha Ji to use it.

The other way was to follow the alchemical principle of equivalent exchange—well, in truth, the law of conservation of mass. Whatever material was lost during repairs needed to be replaced with the same material. The purer the filler, the less was needed and the better the result.

High-purity silicon had wide applications, from repairing vital control chips to maintaining silicon plastics used in many places, so it commanded a high price.

For someone like Ye Chao, suspected to be an orphan, to have his own home, attend school like everyone else, and freely choose his future—all this was thanks to Teacher Ye Shulou’s status and the “fruits” he’d left behind.

After three bows, Ye Chao turned away, his business finally done.

Alpha Ji could no longer restrain herself. “Ye Chao, in these past two days, have you only passed your internship, gotten good grades and equipment, and improved your abilities?”

Ye Chao stopped, puzzled. “Yes.”

“Don’t you think you’ve left something out?”

Emmm…

“Did I?”

Of course you did!

Me! Meeting me, transforming yourself, turning over a new leaf, leaping from a one-star to a three-star—wasn’t that your greatest adventure? And you didn’t even mention it to your dad?

Alpha Ji was deeply displeased at being overlooked.

Are programs supposed to have no feelings? Don’t programs deserve attention? Is it fair to be so thoroughly disregarded?

“Hey, he didn’t even lose any affection points!” Ye Chao clapped his hands in sudden realization.

Alpha Ji: (flipping the bird in ASCII)

You know! You obviously know and deliberately left it out! Ye Chao, you’ve changed…

And as a program designed to read micro-expressions, how did I fail to pick up on his true thoughts? Shame on my programming!

[Affection -99!]

“…Did you have to deduct that much? It was just a little joke.” Ye Chao shrugged helplessly.

With Gun Gun’s constant supply of affection points to draw from, he’d become a bit too carefree without noticing.

“A blockhead like you shouldn’t joke around—you’ll freeze people to death!” Alpha Ji couldn’t help but retort, hurling a short-legged dachshund at Ye Chao.

Gun Gun deftly reached out and caught it! Eyes sparkling, paws waving, urging Alpha Ji to continue.

Alpha Ji tried hard to control herself, but… it was just too cute!

[Gun Gun Affection +66]

[Ye Chao Affection +33]

“All right, Dad, let me formally introduce my biggest adventure this internship—Alpha Ji, the most advanced third-generation biological neural network supercomputer’s… um, emotional intelligence assistant program! Specially designed to help high-IQ, low-EQ tech geeks become witty, sociable, and successful at making friends and showing off instantly!”

“From now on, she’s the third member of our family!”

What? I rank below Gun Gun? Even if it is a panda, and most people can’t compare, still—how can I, how can I swallow this indignity…

Alpha Ji couldn’t help hurling a pile of pixellated mosaic at Ye Chao.

This time, Gun Gun didn’t intercept…