Chapter 116: Nom, nom, so delicious~

Alpha-Ji’s decision to drop the webcam back then wasn't because she wanted to continue pestering the man in sunglasses or because she possessed some form of clairvoyance. Rather, Hallelujah Mountain was such a miraculous place that her cat-like curiosity compelled her to find an opportunity to study it. However, once she returned home, the webcam lost its signal, and she gave up on the idea.

Unexpectedly, while processing the goods from Jiang Cheng over the past two days and continuously upgrading her imaginary space, she reached a critical threshold and suddenly regained a connection to the webcam. Naturally, she had to go take a look—this was what she had referred to as a "good place." Even better, if she could find the man in sunglasses again, re-acquire his account and password, and give that Zenithian a big surprise, it would be perfect.

With the script ready, Alpha-Ji sensed the location of the webcam. "Whoosh!" The world shifted, and she appeared on Hallelujah Mountain. It was indeed Hallelujah Mountain—the floating peaks, the rainbow-like waterfalls, the air permeated with a spiritual essence... Ye Chao, who had been knocked out by a sap previously, had never actually seen it. Now, as he returned to the old site with the Calculator, he couldn't help but marvel.

In a post-disaster world, beautiful scenery is everywhere. Without people, everywhere is a sight to behold—the exact opposite of the pre-disaster era, where there was no scenery, only crowds, and one could hardly distinguish between looking at the view and looking at the people. But a place as magical as this, with mountains floating in the sky, rivers flowing through the air, and clouds drifting like a beauty's veil—seemingly covering nothing yet obscuring everything—was truly rare.

"This place seems..." After admiring it for a moment, Ye Chao seemed to think of something and fell into deep contemplation.

Alpha-Ji, however, was no longer focused on the scenery. Not only was this place mesmerizing, but it actually possessed the properties of a space-time bubble! Alpha-Ji had a body again—a living, breathing body of flesh and blood. When she had passed through here last time, she had assumed it was the residual power of a previous space-time bubble, but it seemed that wasn't the case at all. Does this mean if I want to indulge in self-gratification, I just need to come in and get a buff?

Just as Alpha-Ji was deeply intoxicated by the sensation of her own body, the sky suddenly darkened. She looked up in surprise and saw a massive, fat cow head—easily two or three meters wide and four or five meters long, looking like a Wuling Hongguang minivan—lowering down. "Moo..." Accompanied by a heaven-shaking roar, a two-meter-wide tongue curled out, and Alpha-Ji vanished into the cow's mouth.

"Ah~~~"
"Chomp, chomp..." The cow’s mouth chewed.
Alpha-Ji, deceased.

***

!!!
Ye Chao, in FPP mode, was stunned, let alone Alpha-Ji, who had been scooped up by a slimy cow tongue and chewed thoroughly.

***

Escaping from this inexplicable space-time bubble, Alpha-Ji’s face was deathly pale. "Bondage play isn't actually that fun, you know..."

"Was that bondage play? It looked more like feeding play to me," Ye Chao replied. Having spent so much time with Alpha-Ji, he had picked up some of her eccentric ways of speaking.

[Affection +10]

"Blech..." Recalling the sensation of her slimy, wet body being crushed, Alpha-Ji retched violently. "Don't talk nonsense if you don't know what feeding play is! By the way, what kind of monster was that?"

"A terror-cow. I told you about it before."
A terror-cow. So, a cow that grows as big as a dinosaur. Message received.

"Ahhh..." Suddenly, Alpha-Ji let out a miserable scream as if she’d been stabbed, startling Ye Chao.
"What’s wrong?"
"My body! My fair-skinned, beautiful, flower-like, mesmerizing, moon-shaming, flower-closing body!"

It turned out that as she exited the space-time bubble, the flesh-and-blood body she had just formed vanished along with it, and she returned to her projection state. She had thought this was a teleportation point where she could recharge whenever she was free and maintain her "manifesting in public" state long-term, but she never imagined the portal would open directly into a dragon's nest—or a terror-cow's nest, which was close enough.

"If it's gone, just go back in and refresh it! Just try not to get eaten this time."
"Easy for you to say! It’s not your body being chewed on by a cow... What are you doing?"

Alpha-Ji instinctively retorted, but then she turned her head and saw Ye Chao opening his F91 laptop, typing away furiously. She leaned in to look, and the screen was flooded with cascading code. As a Calculator, she had played with code since she was small—or rather, she was born from code. After a quick glance, she understood what was happening.

"You’re researching... the signal fluctuations from when I entered and exited just now?"
"That's right. Do you know how long it took for you to teleport in? And how long it took to come out?"
Wasn't it just a "whoosh" in and a "whoosh" out? Alpha-Ji was puzzled.
No, no, no! That wasn't the point at all!

"You want me to go back in just to use me as your lab rat, to collect more data and figure out what that place is and where it's located?"
(▼ヘ▼#)

"It took you forty-three seconds to get in, and ten to get out... yet the volume of information didn't change. Don't you think it's interesting that the world on the other side constructs your body?" Ye Chao was completely oblivious, dancing on the edge of a foul.

"I! DON'T! THINK! SO! AT! ALL!"
[Affection -99!]

There might have been interest before, but being a lab rat killed it!

"Fine then..." Ye Chao sighed, his gaze piercing through space-time via the webcam, and he pressed the enter key with gravity. The laptop began to scroll frantically once more.

Watching the screen, Alpha-Ji’s face gradually turned pale. "Th-this, this is... my code? When, when, when did you copy..."
Indeed, what was scrolling across the screen was clearly her own code. Since she refused to go, Ye Chao had to send an identical copy to test the waters.

"A long time ago, right when we first met. Later, when you said roleplaying was too tiring, I copied a few more. But they were useless—all of them were just vegetables... er, programs, not even as useful as your artificial stupidity. At least the backups came in handy."

Alpha-Ji listened as if in a dream. "Ah, they came in handy?"
"Yes. You've died a few times in the space-time bubbles, haven't you? I only realized a couple of days ago that I had several fewer backups... it seems every time you die, one disappears. I suppose we're lucky!" Ye Chao said, feeling fortunate.

"Ha... is, is that so?"
As they spoke, the forty-three seconds passed, and the code transmission was complete. But there was no response.

"Tsk, works without a soul really don't work, do they?" Ye Chao sighed regretfully and turned his expectations toward Alpha-Ji. But he saw Alpha-Ji trembling, staring at him with terror as he remained calm, even faintly excited, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

Is the truth of my immortality... really like this?
Am I... no longer the original me, but a copy?
Have I had some terrible memories erased, and I don't remember them at all?
What number am I now? 10031? 10032? 10086? 19090? 20001?
This guy—is he really just a socially awkward science nerd? He's more like a mad scientist!

[Affection...]