DCBS: Chapter 7

Pei Qingyuan finished speaking and the classroom was so silent that a needle could be heard. It was as if they could hear the sound of the leaves being blown by the wind outside the window.

Zhou Fang was also surprised. She calmed down her mood and said, “That’s fine. Then let’s welcome Pei Qingyuan as the class monitor of our third class. The semester has started and everyone is in the third year of high school. The academic work is very intense, so I hope that the students can cooperate with the work of the class monitor to make progress together.

There was sparse applause in the classroom when the head teacher finished speaking. Many people were still looking at Pei Qingyuan with doubts.

A girl quietly whispered to her deskmate, “Just now, I really wanted to take out my phone to take photos. What should I do? I don’t want to target him any longer. It doesn’t matter what his grades are. At least our class monitor is now the most handsome one in school. How much face…”

Lin Zihai listened to the mutters behind him and gripped the pen in his hand with some reluctance.

Why could Pei Qingyuan still be so calm when targeted like this?

He thought that this person’s scheming was indeed very deep.

Lin Zihai, who was always serious in class, didn’t have the heart to listen to the teacher’s math class today. The moment the bell rang, he ran to the toilet and took out his phone to send a message.

His finger fell on the touch screen and he hesitated. He typed and deleted words, taking a long time to issue a complete sentence.

[Xiao Yan, it isn’t easy for you. That Pei Qingyuan is really annoying.]

Lin Zihai and Pei Yan had a good relationship. Pei Yan was the class monitor before while he was the study committee. The two people were jointly responsible for many things in the class and their grades were also among the best.

He wanted to get revenge for Pei Yan after learning about the absurd incident that happened in his good friend’s family this time.

Originally, he couldn’t understand Pei Qingyuan, who had just transferred this semester. He had inquired and found that Pei Qingyuan had no results in the entrance test at all. He was directly parachuted into their class. This made Lin Zihai think that he was a transfer student sent in through connections.

At that time, he didn’t know about the leopard cat being changed for the prince. He just saw Pei Qingyuan and thought this must be a person who wasn’t focused on studying at all. He was either busy falling in love with girls or doing other things. This would definitely lower the grades of their class.

He was the study committee member so what he hated the most was this type of time-wasting, ignorant person who could win the favor of others with just his face.

After hearing the shocking news from Pei Yan, he directly judged Pei Qingyuan as a sinister scum. Then Lin Zihai was inspired and thought of recommending Pei Qingyuan as the class monitor.

Except for some cowards in the entire class, there weren’t many people who had a good impression of the transfer student Pei Qingyuan. For such a person without popularity or achievements, it must be a type of torture to let him be the class monitor. no one would listen to him and he would make a fool of himself.

Therefore, Lin Zihai decided on this sudden election after discussing it with a few students he was familiar with in the class. There were so many people in the class and the question of who to choose had long been passed into everyone’s ears along with the gossip of the true and false master.

He originally planned to tell Pei Yan after he succeeded in order to give Pei Yan a surprise. His purpose had been achieved thanks to Pei Qingyuan ignoring Teacher Zhou’s persuasion and accepting. Unexpectedly, he saw Pei Qingyuan’s expression when speaking and he couldn’t be happy.

Pei Qingyuan’s face didn’t even have a trace of fear.

He crouched in the toilet cubicle, holding his mobile phone and waiting. Pei Yan quickly replied to his message.

[What happened? Why are you saying that all of a sudden?]

Lin Zihai gritted his teeth and typed quickly to pass one what just happened.

[Pei Qingyuan was selected as the class monitor and Teacher Zhou seems to like him.]

Of course, he didn’t say that the selection of Pei Qingyuan as the class monitor was originally planned by him. It was because this plan didn’t achieve the expected effect and he was too ashamed to say it.

Yet after this message, Pei Yan didn’t reply.

Once the class bell rang, Lin Zihai couldn’t wait any longer. He hurriedly left the toilet and returned to the classroom.

Pei Qingyuan watched the thin study committee member walk in and glare at him.

Just now, it was this person who took the lead in raising his hand to propose the election. The study committee member seemed very hostile to him.

He didn’t know the reason but the reason became unimportant in the face of hostility from 42 people.

Pei Qingyuan noted down the name in his heart before looking out the window without any fluctuations.

The campus of the 2nd High School wasn’t large. He sat by the window and could see the school gates in the distance. At this time, the campus was quiet and there were no people coming and going at the school gates. The guard’s booth was closed and no movement could be seen inside.

Would Luo Zhichang be sitting there now?

His current situation was worse than yesterday in the hotel. His unassertive mother Luo Xiuyun had promised to let Luo Zhichang come to the 2nd High School as a security guard, using him as an excuse to move Pei Minghong to act. His parents, whom he had been with for 17 years, didn’t object. After all, the procedures were completed overnight.

His life history was exposed and spread on this campus. Everyone was talking about it. Pei Yan’s former classmates and friends hated him even more. They came up with the bad trick of making him the class monitor. They would probably target him even more in the future.

If it was him yesterday, he would’ve been shrouded in deeper and deeper despair and unwillingness. He wouldn’t be able to understand why he suffered all of this.

Now Pei Qingyuan’s heart was exceptionally calm.

His fate had deviated from its once peaceful trajectory. He could either let it fall or try to hold onto it with his own hands.

He wanted to choose the second one.

The artificial intelligence who thought savory crepes were delicious also wanted him to choose this way.

Pei Qingyuan thought of this and glanced at the knowledge in the textbook that he was already familiar with. He didn’t choose to learn more difficult knowledge like he did a few days ago. Instead, he was rarely distracted.

What did a system meeting look like?

In a pure white space, many systems of various shapes were sitting upright in a motionless manner.

In the midst of these fancy-looking systems, Ji Tong, who still retained his original green robot form, quietly lowered his head. Two robotic hands were put together and a small virtual screen appeared in the middle.

On the screen was the classroom of the third class of the 2nd High School. In the window position in the back row, sunshine fell on the delicate eyes of the teenager. A fleeting smile and cold expression were combined and the words he calmly responded with had a deterrent effect.

Before he knew it, the video finished and the screen automatically jumped back to the moment when Teacher Zhou announced the election results, ready to play it again.

Before pressing the play button, Ji Tong carefully adjusted the screen’s viewing angle. Then he watched it happily.

This was a function that all systems had that allowed them to remotely check the status of the host. It was used for regular system meetings or in various special situations to avoid temporary accidents between the host and the plotline.

The built-in functions such as rewinding, fast forwarding, switching angles and individual selection were originally used by the system to review certain plots and details. Yet in the eyes of Ji Tong, it was simply an artifact to appreciate a handsome person from all angles without omission.

The host was really good-looking. He was worthy of being the protagonist of the novel.

If only there wasn’t a meeting today. It might’ve been better to watch it live.

Ji Tong admired it while thinking that after he returned to Pei Qingyuan’s consciousness space, he would make a special electronic photo album and put it on his bedside table. He would record all his favorite scenes in it and it could be named as the host’s precious moments.

He couldn’t help feeling the satisfaction of a new mother making a growth album for her newborn son.

He couldn’t control his expression for a while, so the representative of the main brain noticed the system giggling from where he was talking on the stage. He asked in a dissatisfied manner, “No. 0587, what are you doing?”

The other fancy systems turned their heads in unison. The uniform strength and ruthless gazes of real artificial intelligences made Ji Tong hiccup in fear.

Speaking of hiccuping, when could he have lunch?

Ji Tong quickly restrained his expression and reflexively admitted his mistake. “Teacher, I’m sorry.”

He was originally looking forward to the system meeting because he thought there would be a cool flow of various data intersection codes. He didn’t expect that the system world would also be contaminated with the bad atmosphere of human beings. Their way of meeting was exactly the same as that of humans. After everyone arrived, the leader would give a brief talk, but an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, he had a handsome guy to watch.

The representative of the main brain didn’t want anything to do with a self-aware human system, so he glared and continued to talk.

“In short, we must pay attention to the problem of deviating from the plotline. This month, two projection worlds have collapsed and caused considerable losses. The systems responsible for these worlds had their year-end bonuses deducted and the difficulty probability of the next world they are allocated to has increased as a punishment.”

“Everyone must strictly follow the content given by the main task. This is the best route and method given by the main brain after complex calculations. Please follow it word by word.”

“At the monthly system meeting, the main brain will evaluate and score each projection world’s task completion and quality. The system with the lowest score will receive special incentives…”

Ji Tong imagined the delicious food that Pei Qingyuan would eat at noon while listening to the representative of the main brain repeat this part for the third time.

At the regular meeting, Ji Tong finally figured out the answer to the soul torturing question of ‘since the novel has been born, why do the characters in the novel have to act out the plot again?’

To be precise, this world wasn’t a complete novel but just a prototype. Therefore, Ji Tong didn’t know the name of the novel because it didn’t have a title yet.

The world that Pei Qingyuan lived in was one of the projection worlds with the theme of ‘true and false young master.’ The main plotline of the story of these projection worlds started from the behavior commonly known as changing the leopard cat for the prince. However, the specific development of different worlds was determined by the influence of various subtle factors. There would be various trends, rather than stereotypes.

For example, Luo Xiuyun’s guilt in this world, combined with the factors of a single parent family, caused her to be kind toward her unrelated son, Pei Yan. After Pei Yan returned to the Pei family, he changed from being doted on by one person to being doubly doted on. The young master Pei Yan lost all the drama that a protagonist should have. On the contrary, the experience of the false young master Pei Qingyuan, who fell from the clouds, had many ups and downs. This was why the main brain chose Pei Qingyuan as the protagonist of this world.

The content of the projection world would become a novel in another dimension. If the novel wasn’t good-looking or the content was too old-fashioned, it would lead to the loss of viewers i.e. the loss of people’s attention.

Being forgotten was tantamount to complete demise and the world would collapse step by step. Thus, the main brain sends cheats like the system to upgrade and optimize the main storyline. This would meet the changing tastes of the readers and keep the world running stably.

The main task that Ji Tong and Pei Qingyuan had to complete was actually a standard preset plot calculated by the main brain through big data and was in line with most people’s tastes. It might not be special but it wouldn’t cause any mistakes that would lead to the collapse of the world.

From this point of view, Ji Tong could understand the logic behind the task requirement of ‘having a harmonious and happy family.’ It was actually the most common ‘biased family member gets slapped in the face-start trying to make amends’ link in the real and fake young master plot. First, let the host bear the grievances silently. Then once Luo Xiuyun realized what the host had suffered, she would regretfully change her attitude, try to get along well with her son and try to repair their relationship.

Ji Tong could understand this idea. If it was put in other novels, he also liked to read such a plot. However, once it involved his host, he subconsciously didn’t want the host to go through this slightly hypocritical plot.

He always believed in the saying: Late affection is worse than grass.

How could this task be better accomplished?

The representative of the main brain finally announced a five minute temporary break to let the systems process the accumulated data. Ji Tong immediately stretched out and relaxed. Then he tried to strike up a conversation with the colleagues around him.

The system colleague next to him was a delicate, blue-eyed, blonde-haired doll. She looked sweet and cute, but the cold and inorganic gaze showed that it was a real AI. There was no human soul in the body.

“Hello, beauty. I am No. 0587.” The little green robot was very polite and two crooked, smiling eyes appeared on his head. “Do I need to change clothes in advance to participate in the system meeting? It seems that I am the only one who is still green.”

Looking around, this was like the scene of an anime exhibition. There were all sorts of strange appearances.

“Hello, I am No. 0361.” The doll’s voice was very cute. “No, this is the form that the host selected for me.”

It turned out that the host could also assign daily forms for the system.

Ji Tong noted it down before asking curiously, “What theme are you working on?”

“Group pet who is three and a half years old.”

Ji Tong imagined the relationship between the three and a half year old host and the doll system. It was quite picturesque.

“Can I ask, have you ever completed a happy family task? How did you complete it?”

Ji Tong guessed that there was this plot in all novels. It just so happened that this colleague worked in the ‘group pet who is three and a half years old’ world. The way to complete the task shouldn’t make the host suffer too many grievances.

“I’ve done it.” The doll nodded with jewel-like eyes. “The three and a half year old child just needs to be cute.”

“……” It made sense.

In fact, he felt that with the conditions of the host, the host just needed to be handsome.

Luo Xiuyun had no vision.

The little robot sighed and tried to figure out the problem.

The main brain said it must be followed word by word. ‘Harmony’ meant the host couldn’t be alone. ‘Happiness’ meant a good relationship. ‘Family’ meant at least living together in one house…

Ji Tong thought about it and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He slapped his mechanical thigh and turned to ask the well-behaved doll next to him in an excited manner. “Do you think I can directly form a family with the host?”

The doll colleague was shocked when she heard this. She was just about to answer when she shook. There were faint electronic particles that were released from her body, accompanied by a series of sounds.

Under Ji Tong’s horrified gaze, several locks of the doll’s blonde hair fell off. Then a mechanical notification was heard: Data overload. Please stop computing— danger, please clear the virus data immediately—

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The author has something to say:

Fake virus: made up by Ji Tong.

Real virus: Ji Tong himself.