Don’t Covet the Beautiful System!!

The moist breath of the forest seemed to remain in his breath, and his consciousness was still wrapped in the dizziness of traveling across the world, so Ji Tong lay down on the bed as soon as he got home.

Huahua lightly slipped into his arms, and rubbed against the listless No. 2 master.

It took a while for Ji Tong to sit up, and the heat of his palms being clenched gradually dissipated.

Looking out of the window, there are still children playing and blowing bubbles on the grass in the park downstairs.

Transparent and crystal-clear foam floats toward the blue sky.

He took a deep breath, rubbed the cat's face, and asked Pei Qingyuan who had not yet appeared in his heart: "Host, where are you?"

By the way, I will send another message to ask Fang Hao, who returned home alone, if he has arrived home.

Fang Hao didn't answer him right away, maybe he was crying secretly while getting motion sickness.

It's a pity that there is no motion sickness medicine in the fantasy world.

Fortunately, there should be more magical panacea.

The host didn't answer him either.

There was no abnormal warning on the way back, and the connection between him and the host was not cut off.

So Ji Tong wasn't worried about any accidents. He felt that the host who might end the trip as a non-system needs to receive some special reminders and inspections, so he came back a little slower than him.

There was silence in the room, staring at the distant sky for a while, Ji Tong pulled himself together, had nothing to do, and called Pei Qingyuan who didn't know where he was at the moment with a standard cheerful voice: "Host? Ruan Ruan? Xiao Yuan?"

Huahua followed suit: "Meow? Meow? Meow?"

Ji Tong shook his head: "The one in the middle is not allowed, I started it, and only I can call it."

Cats are arrogant by nature, raising their heads noblely and glamorously, never bowing to stupid humans.

"Meow meow, meow meow!" I yelled, Ruanrou!

Ji Tong grabbed its ears and scratched its belly: "Are you rebellious?"

"Meow meow meow!" Ruan Ruan, come on!

When one person and one cat were fighting on the bed, there was finally another sound of footsteps coming from the living room, walking towards Ji Tong's room.

When a familiar figure appeared at the door, Huahua felt that she had made a contribution to the summoning, so she immediately swooped proudly at Master No. 1, and got rid of Master No. 2's claws by the way.

But after it threw itself into Pei Qingyuan's arms, it felt that something was wrong. It felt cramped under its stomach, and the temperature was cool.

The cat's expression suddenly became weird, and its hair stood on end. Ji Tong stared at its changing expression curiously, and joked casually: "Did the host just fall into the space-time tunnel?"

After a while, he heard the host's hoarse voice: "No."

Ji Tong suddenly felt something was wrong.

He raised his head and met Pei Qingyuan's eyes.

Although the host is not pretending to others on weekdays, his eyes are always gentle and tolerant.

Those eyes, which are usually cold, seem to be suppressing a heavy storm at this moment, which makes people feel very strange.

Ji Tong's heart skipped a beat, inexplicably recalling the day when he first met the host.

That day, he fell into the tornado circling in the host's heart, and was blown away with electron particles all over the place. Then, with his messy hair on his head, he walked to the side of the boy who was watching the whole world with cold and gloomy eyes.

For a moment, countless thoughts flashed through Ji Tong's mind.

Could it be that something really went wrong when the host passed through the space-time channel? The strong turbulence caused the space-time disorder? The host in front of him is the one from more than a year ago? Or did he suddenly lose his memory and no longer recognize him?

Ji Tong panicked for a few seconds, and was about to contact the mastermind to confirm the status of the host, when he saw the host lift the trembling Huahua with one hand and put it outside the door.

The door of the room was closed at the same time, without the cover of the cat's body, the unusually familiar thing in Pei Qingyuan's hand came into his eyes instantly.

A diary with the six characters "Host Domestication Log" written on the cover.

Ji Tong's eyes widened instantly.

He obviously hid it so well, how did he get discovered by the host!

With a blank mind, he just wanted to perform a disappearance in place, but he didn't have the courage.

Seeing that the host was getting closer and closer to him, Ji Tong shrank into the corner subconsciously, and whispered: "Su... No, Ruan Ruan, listen to my explanation."

Pei Qingyuan stopped by the bed, with an unrecognizable emotion in his voice: "Explain what?"

After it's over, the host looks terrible now.

And he really didn't seem to know how to explain it.

Ji Tong racked his brains to recall what was written in this diary. Because the span was too long, he didn't often look back after writing it. He could only be sure that everything about the host's life was recorded in detail.

Whether it is the precious moment of winning the basketball championship, or the funny bit of holding the lid of the pot to resist the oil star when cooking for the first time.

...He probably didn't reveal too much about himself, because life here revolves around the host. Even if he has occasional emotions about the past, anyway, he definitely didn't write directly about his experience as a human being.

He never took the initiative to bring up unhappy things.

Taking the chance that the host didn't read the content carefully in such a short period of time, Ji Tong tried his best to think optimistically that maybe the host was just angry with him for secretly writing a diary to observe his behavior.

"This title is a joke. I didn't intend to tame you..." He gritted his teeth and explained tremblingly, "It's because I read a novel in which a little prince domesticated a rose."

Would comparing the host to a rose make him angrier?

"No, it can also be said that the rose tamed the little prince, because after leaving the rose, the little prince missed it very much..."

Pei Qingyuan remained silent, and the shadow blurred by the sun was projected on the nervous young man.

Feeling that his description was getting darker and darker, Ji Tong decisively changed the topic: "The name is not important, and the content... the content is actually not very important. It's all just a journal written by hand. Don't take it seriously."

He remembered that he had written something similar to looking for opportunities to trick the host into eating green onions, taking pictures of dinosaur sweaters, etc. The host suddenly showed him when he grew up, and daily prayers for the host not to grow taller...

Hopefully the host hasn't seen this content yet.

Ji Tong closed his eyes in despair, and wanted to say something more to reduce the anger of the host, when he heard him speak in a low voice: "Why do you always want me to call you brother?"

Ji Tong was stunned, unable to think of an answer for a while, so he could only quickly promise: "I will never let you call again, I swear."

At a critical moment, this small hobby can be put aside for a while, and the most important thing is to appease the host first.

But the low-pressure aura lingering on Pei Qingyuan's body did not dissipate.

He answered the question he asked himself.

"Is it because you were older than me before you became a system?"

"Actually we're about the same age—"

The blurted words stopped in the air.

Ji Tong:! !

The young man beside him froze completely. Before he came back to his senses, Pei Qingyuan blocked all possible excuses: "Do you need to find other reasons?"

After a moment of silence, Ji Tong gave up struggling and murmured: "The world will be destroyed..."

He must have heard the frantic siren sound after the mission panel woke up, and the mastermind's cold reprimand.

However, during his anxious waiting, nothing happened. The sunlight diffused into the room, and golden dust danced silently between him and the host.

"There is no destruction." Pei Qingyuan replied, "At least not at this moment."

When he stood under the paulownia tree and opened the thick diary, the long-lost storm and cloud surge rolled up in this space closely related to his emotions.

When he closed the diary, he heard a strange and cold mechanical voice in the void: "The intermediate alarm has been triggered, do you want to clear the abnormal elements immediately?"

What is an outlier element?

Was it a system that was supposed to pretend to be a calm and rational artificial intelligence and serve the host wholeheartedly?

Pei Qingyuan's answer was short and firm: "No."

"Never."

A few seconds later, the mechanical voice left the last sentence.

"Advanced alert triggered—"

After the sound disappeared, the buried task panel reappeared in this space, its appearance returned to normal, but the screen was pitch black, as if an unknown crisis was brewing.

But this is not what Pei Qingyuan is most concerned about at the moment.

He didn't fall into the space-time tunnel.

But fell into a deeper tunnel.

In the relatively wordless silence, for a long time, Ji Tong, who was sure that there was no sign of dissipating in this world for the time being, heaved a long sigh of relief, then lowered his head and whispered: "I'm sorry."

The host still discovered the human identity he tried hard to hide.

He simply finished what he had just said: "We are the same age, but the timelines of the two worlds are different. If you have to compare, you may be a month or two older than me, so whoever is called brother should not be at a disadvantage. ..."

Following his words, those delicate handwriting resurfaced in Pei Qingyuan's mind.

[The host rejected the proposal that whoever loses should call the opponent's brother, because he felt that this flying chess game was unfair, and the essence was three against one. ]

[Xiaomei is obviously an independent individual, I just roll the dice for her! Moreover, Huahua obviously listens to the host more. I told him not to hit my plane, but he pretended not to understand. ]

…

[Oh, forget it, next time I will find another opportunity to trick the host into calling me brother. ]

That night, he learned how to cook for the first time. The braised pork was a little salty, the scrambled eggs with tomatoes was a little sweet, and the stir-fried vegetables were a little bland.

After dinner, they played flying chess on the balcony. Besides him and Ji Tong, there were a cat and a watch on the other two stools.

Later, Ji Tong really kept looking for opportunities to trick him into calling him brother.

Pei Qingyuan suddenly said: "I called your brother."

"Yeah." Ji Tong nodded honestly, "Thank you host."

He still didn't dare to raise his head to meet the host's gaze, so he hugged his knees and nestled in the corner of the bed.

The winter sun made the colorful furnishings more dazzling, slowly overlapping with the lonely white room of long ago.

Pei Qingyuan's eyes flickered: "Why did you name it Xiaomei?"

This third question has finally been answered.

"Because I have a best friend named Xiaomei."

Ji Tong thought for a while, and said seriously: "She is very cute, I miss her very much."

If Pei Qingyuan hadn't had that series of dreams, he might have subconsciously thought that Xiaomei was a person's name.

But he had seen Xiaomei in his dream, it appeared on the screen of the all-black smart speaker, it was a pea-green little robot animation, it could tell bad jokes, and pink flowers would pop out.

All traces have a source, and all preferences have a reason.

They flow in the trivial daily life, imperceptibly infiltrating each other's lives.

Therefore, the questions Pei Qingyuan used to confirm were also scattered.

"Do you want to learn basketball?"

The topic jumped too fast, Ji Tong was a little dazed, and replied blankly: "Think."

[I also want to play basketball, but never. ]

[Looks happy playing basketball. ]

Next to this diary is a small photo of the No. 2 Middle School basketball team that was published in the newspaper. In the center is Pei Qingyuan who is shooting.

Pei Qingyuan stared at his still pale complexion: "Why haven't you played basketball before?"

"Because of poor physique, it's similar to being often sick, so you can't participate in strenuous exercise." Ji Tong replied quite simply, "In short, now you can play casually."

"Since when did you get sick often?"

Ji Tong's tone was still relaxed, as if he was talking about a cold that had lasted for more than ten years: "I can't remember clearly, when I was very young, genetic problems, in fact, it's nothing, just pay more attention to it and you'll be fine."

Pei Qingyuan's fingers gradually tightened.

It turned out that his dream was not complete.

Ji Tong not only spent his youth in the ward, but also spent most of his time from childhood to adulthood, until a miracle happened and he was discharged from the hospital.

The little boy who once grabbed his coat and said he wanted to eat lamb chops, maybe in another world, he can only stay in front of the thick glass window, day after day looking forward to the scenery outside, growing up alone What it looks like now.

His best friend is a dumb AI who don't know who gave it to him.

Pei Qingyuan guessed that it would not be the parents.

No relatives appeared in the dream, only doctors and nurses with kind smiles.

He remembered Ji Tong in this world, the background weaved for the adult form, was an orphan who grew up in an orphanage.

— "Is the name still Ji Tong?"

— "Well, maybe it's because there is a big paulownia tree in the orphanage."

At that moment, Pei Qingyuan thought, Ji Tong made up the story very completely, even thought out the details.

"Your past name..." he asked awkwardly, "is it also Ji Tong?"

"Yes, I used to think this name was too casual and not handsome enough." Ji Tong laughed, "But now I like it, because you said Paulownia flowers are beautiful."

The paulownia flowers in spring are very beautiful, like purple clouds.

So he wished he had been born in a cloudy purple spring.

In this way, even if the parents leave him and leave quietly, the baby still has the shadow of flowers in his ignorant eyes.

The aunt in the orphanage named him after the big tree with fallen leaves.

It was a time so long that people can't remember clearly. Ji Tong only knew that he was often sick, often sitting under the paulownia tree blowing soap bubbles, and often hugged the dean and acted like a baby, saying that he wanted to change his name to something more special.

This was told to him with a smile when he went back to the orphanage to visit the dean after he was admitted to university and walked out of the hospital ward.

When I was a child, I got sick many times, and the condition became more and more serious. The doctor suggested a more in-depth examination, only to find out that he has a rare immune system disease, and it will continue to worsen with age. Even ordinary things can cause fatal threats .

Then he left the orphanage with paulownia trees and was transferred to a closed sterile ward.

The only thing that remains the same is that the strangers I meet along the way are very nice.

At first, the doctors and nurses collected donations for him, and later, as a rare special case, he accepted various research-type treatment attempts for free.

He grew up in the hospital, everyone took good care of him, hoping for a miracle, and the sister nurse with a gentle smile gave him a smart speaker to relieve boredom.

Miracles really happened after Speaker Mei got really old and old.

He walked into the university campus like an ordinary person. He could stand in front of the window of the cafeteria and worry about today's dinner, sit in the piano club and press the black and white keys, and secretly doze off on his stomach in the high math class.

Ji Tong originally thought that this might be the happiest time in his life.

Later I realized that happiness can have a more magnificent appearance.

The dean said many times that his name sounds good and there is no need to change it. The young Ji Tong refused to listen to it anyway, stubbornly not wanting to share the same name with plants.

But when he heard the indifferent high school student say that it was a beautiful flower, he was very happy.

I was so happy that I immediately planted a row of paulownia trees that bloom all year round in the consciousness space.

Like Rose finally saw the belated little prince.

In the autumn morning, they sat side by side under the tree with floating light and shadow, eating a different breakfast every day, and then the high school student rode his bicycle to school, and the children watched him go away, ready to find a place to disappear and become a talking watch AI , an up-close look at high school life.

The golden leaves fell on their shoulders at the same time.

The still and brilliant air is like this now.

Pei Qingyuan was very close to the young man who was lying on the bed, seeing the relaxed smile in his eyes, he felt a dense tingling pain in his heart.

He is almost close to the full picture of the story.

The last period of time to be hidden is still short.

The former Ji Tong bid farewell to the ward and the stray cats, walked into the bright future with mushrooms in his arms, and started a new life.

But later, he came to another world and became another person's system, no longer having his own life.

And the other took and remembered all his eccentric hobbies.

Likes to eat all kinds of delicacies, likes to watch healthy people running on the field, Xiaomei who never forgets, mushrooms everywhere, cats with snow-white fur, and a fictional father who loves his son "season banquet"...

Everything he likes in this world bears the imprint of another time and space.

There are no exceptions.

There is only one hobby left without finding the reason.

"Why do you like suits so much?"

Pei Qingyuan thought, this is the last question he will ask.

Hearing this question, Ji Tong was stunned.

Soon, he laughed again: "Because adults on TV always wear formal clothes, I think wearing a suit is like growing up."

"My roommates in college also said that men should have a formal suit, and they can even make a custom suit. Although it is more expensive, it can be worn for a long time."

"I'm going to celebrate my birthday, and everyone said that I can buy myself a coming-of-age gift. I just happened to be going to an internship interview, so I made up my mind and ordered a set. Now that I think about it, the style seems a bit old-fashioned. I didn't experience."

His brows were slightly frowned, as if he remembered the outdated suit, and he was still not very satisfied.

The words came to a standstill, and Pei Qingyuan asked, "What happened next?"

"There was an accident later." Ji Tong's tone was very ordinary, "So I didn't get the suit, I don't know how old it is, and I also changed jobs."

"In short, I like this new job very much." He mustered up the courage to look at the host, "Really, I didn't lie to you."

He really likes this job that accompanies Pei Qingyuan to grow up.

The day Ji Tong came to this world, he once thought that he, who was born unlucky, would finally be a dazzling protagonist, but it turned out not to be, and the customer service specially reminded him not to usurp the throne.

Then he thought, maybe that's good too.

Because of his illness, he is not good-looking, not strong, probably just miserable, and has nothing but optimism, so he cannot be the protagonist.

Pei Qingyuan is much better than he used to be, and he deserves a more exciting destiny. Stories are often used to entrust unrealized fantasies. Ji Tong actually likes the projection world he is in now very much.

Seeing the host's life getting better and better, it seemed to comfort the dead him a little bit.

At the same time, Pei Qingyuan remembered the passage in the whole diary that concerned him the most.

On the day before his birthday this year, on October 6th, Ji Tong wrote in his diary that he had finally figured out what gift he would give the host.

Then, Ji Tong wrote down his wish.

[I also thought about my birthday. ]

[Not in time for my eighteenth birthday. ]

In the world outside the diary, the young man looked at him seriously, with stars shining in his eyes: "You look good in a suit, the best I've ever seen, and it must look better than mine."

With such bright and enthusiastic eyes, Pei Qingyuan could hardly find his own voice.

His system is honest, honestly showing the beautiful side of the story, and hiding the silent pain behind it without any trace.

When Pei Qingyuan didn't know the correct answer, he had already guessed by intuition that the owner of the wish in the wishing card written by Ji Tong must not be himself.

Just like this thick diary, filled with another person's life.

The suit he couldn't put on, the tomorrow he couldn't see, were entrusted to another person.

"So... are you still mad at me?"

Ji Tong, who was uneasy at first, gradually found that the host did not seem to be so depressed.

And for some reason, Ji Tong was relieved by not asking too many questions about his past, the past is not important.

The diary slipped to the side of the bed, and the man sitting next to him lowered his eyes, unable to see his emotions clearly.

"I didn't mean to lie to you, there is a rule not to reveal the identity of a human being..."

Before he could finish his sentence, he was suddenly drawn into a warm embrace, with those powerful arms tightly wrapped around his waist, Ji Tong heard the turbulent heartbeat helplessly, the other world seemed to disappear, the scorching heat The body temperature is rushing towards the colder winter.

Whispers sounded close at hand.

"You have successfully domesticated, little liar."