I'm OK again

Lin Yuan immediately sent an email to OCR (Open Computing Republic) hoping to increase his computing resources.

Since OCR's official website was deployed in HK and the pages provided during the application for free computing resources on the official website were all in Chinese, Lin Yuan did not translate the email into English.

“Dear Sirs and Madams of the OCR Committee:

I am a postgraduate student currently working on my own project. I previously applied for and received free cloud-based IDE computing resources from your esteemed organization, and the user experience has been excellent, for which I am deeply grateful.

However, for my project, the computing resources you provided seem somewhat insufficient, and as a student, I am unable to afford expensive computing equipment. Therefore, I earnestly implore you to consider providing me with more computing resources.

Best wishes!”

Lin Yuan's email was simple and seemed unremarkable, without mentioning any secrets.

Although Lin Yuan was already certain that the OCR organization had issues, the negotiation was like playing ping-pong, emphasizing a gradual back-and-forth process.

After sending this email, Lin Yuan did not expect a quick reply, as HK is also in the East Eight Time Zone, and it was already night.

The best outcome would be to receive a reply email from them tomorrow morning.

He got up, stretched, picked up his plastic basin with toiletries, and walked into the bathroom.

The shower was turned on, and a misty vapor filled the small space.

Lin Yuan felt a bit constipated, so he decided to take a big one before showering.

Sitting on the toilet, Lin Yuan scrolled through his phone for a while.

Soon, Xia Ye's message came through.

“Are you busy?”

“Not really.”

“I'll tell you a secret, you were really right.”

“About what?” Lin Yuan glanced at the time in the upper right corner of his phone—23:45. “It's so late, why aren't you asleep?”

“Xiao Xiao kept me chatting until now; she's going to shower.”

“I finally know what you were talking about on the road just now,”

“Xiao Xiao just pulled me aside and grilled me,”

“She asked me everything about my work at the milk tea shop.”

“She plans to take my shift tomorrow.”

“Lin Yuan, you're amazing. You guessed everything right.”

“Xiao Xiao even put makeup on my face just now.”

“Wow, do you know? It's like a completely different person.”

“I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow, [expecting]”

.

.

The notification sounds from Lin Yuan's phone kept ringing.

Unlike his habit of sending long, summary texts, this was the first time he witnessed a girl's rapid-fire chat style, especially a girl who was gossiping.

‘If I dared to send messages like this to my advisor, he would surely kill me.’

Lin Yuan held his phone, unsure how to reply.

He wasn't interested in gossip; he was only interested in when OCR would reply to his email.

‘Is this the price of having a girlfriend? Being dragged into chatting about such boring things?’

Lin Yuan could guess Song Xiaoxiao's reaction with his toes.

He certainly couldn't guess the specific operational details, but what remained unchanged was that the other party would definitely capitalize on this wave of attention.

‘I wonder which boring guy forcibly twisted my and Xia Ye's interactions into a short drama plot...’

Lin Yuan deliberated several times, typing a paragraph and then deleting it, finally managing to squeeze out, “It's late, go to bed early.”

But Xia Ye wasn't disappointed that Lin Yuan didn't join her in gossiping. “Let's watch the live broadcast together tomorrow night.”

Tomorrow?

Lin Yuan's project was at a critical stage, and he wasn't sure if he would be free tomorrow night.

“I might not be free tomorrow night.”

“Oh, right, you're still busy. You should be back by now, right?” Xia Ye naturally assumed Lin Yuan was still out delivering food.

“I'm back, showering.”

“Voice message: 12''”

She sent me another voice message.

Lin Yuan remembered his last experience and was smarter this time.

He decisively used “voice to text.”

“Then you should go to bed early, okay? When you're free, let's go eat something delicious together. Hmph! We didn't get to drink milk tea today, you have to make it up to me next time! Muah!”

Some words seem to naturally come with a voice effect, like “Muah.”

What “muah” and what “muah”?

Lin Yuan hesitated whether to listen to the real voice; what if he got excited and couldn't sleep like last time?

Wait, Lin Yuan suddenly realized: I'm still in Sage Mode!

Lin Yuan looked down at himself.

Because he had sold his body to the system for computing power, he was still in an unrecovered state.

So he naturally clicked on Xia Ye's voice message.

...

Besides that unchanging youthful and beautiful aura, this time there was an added touch of playfulness and coquettishness.

Between the lighthearted words, before Lin Yuan even had a chance to speak, their next meeting was already set.

But this was still not the greatest magic of this voice message; the true greatest magic was the anticipation in Xia Ye's tone.

It was like an exciting novel with another page waiting for you, and Lin Yuan clearly yearned to know the next plot.

“Okay, good night.”

Although Lin Yuan's reply was brief, the corners of his mouth had already unconsciously turned up.

He even envisioned scenes of living with Xia Ye.

Suddenly, Lin Yuan felt something pressing against him.

He subconsciously looked down.

Damn it, I'm back in business?

After the panic brought on by the side effects of computing power recovery, this debuff finally ended unexpectedly.

And the catalyst for its end was the image of Xia Ye as a virtuous wife and loving mother in Lin Yuan's mind.

He suddenly understood something.

Unlike Song Xiaoxiao's worldliness and straightforwardness, it seemed that Xia Ye's domestic and homely style could reach his soul more directly.

‘I truly am a good person who isn't solely moved by beauty.’ Lin Yuan couldn't help but pat himself on the back again.

Perhaps because the side effects of computing power recovery still had some lingering effects, Lin Yuan's impulse didn't last long this time, and after showering, his mind no longer wandered.

After coming out of the bathroom, he habitually checked his email.

He naturally didn't dare to hope that OCR would reply to him now.

However, there was indeed a newly received email in his inbox.

Lin Yuan didn't bother to continue drying his semi-dry hair, hung the towel around his neck, swiped his finger a few times on the laptop touchpad, and quickly opened his inbox.

‘Alright, it was a false alarm after all.’

Because the title of that email started with four big, bold red characters—Auto-Reply.

This was a manually set automatic reply.

Lin Yuan didn't take it seriously and casually closed it.

After everything was settled, Lin Yuan lay down on the bed.

The night was both lively and quiet at this moment, because there was no more human noise outside the window, only the chirping of insects.

Lin Yuan liked to write code in this kind of atmosphere, because this atmosphere naturally made it easy for people to concentrate and think about problems.

He thought of that auto-reply email again.

To be safe, he should read it carefully again.

The email began with “Thank you for your letter,” and after a lot of polite words, it only briefly mentioned some precautions.

“Precautions: Please try to use fewer emotional particles or adjectives, state your intention in the most concise language, and note your institution of study or work and your position.”

Lin Yuan examined it, and this type of reminder was quite reasonable.

Because in the process of writing work reports within Hao Tuan Company, there were similar requirements.

Work-related writing is not like writing a short essay; it leans more towards a technical writing style, and haphazard word choice and sentence construction are very annoying.

For example: very, many, perhaps, should...

Science and engineering fields are more inclined to use numbers, for example: delivery efficiency increased by XX percentage points.

As for the requirement to state the affiliated institution, it didn't seem excessive.

Lin Yuan naturally wouldn't apply as an intern at Hao Tuan Company; “intern” sounded quite awkward.

So he used “Postgraduate Student at Zijin Aeronautics and Astronautics University” as the signature, and after recalling the original email, he resent a revised email with adjusted line formatting and the added signature.

Then Lin Yuan yawned, grateful that he hadn't lost sleep because of Xia Ye today; it seemed the system's Sage debuff wasn't entirely useless.

Beep beep beep~~~, this was the sound of a new email arriving.

Lin Yuan naturally assumed it was another auto-reply email.

But then, the laptop sounded again: Beep beep beep.