AUS Chapter 6: Liu Jiang, Who Likes Me

My consciousness felt like a wave on the sea, drifting hazily atop it. Suddenly, I caught the scent of motors, and a distant yet clear prompt sounded in my ears. “Dear tester, the system simulation has ended.”

I snapped my eyes open. I was sitting on the low stool in the middle of the server room.

The hum of the servers still buzzed in my ears. I looked down, smoothing the wrinkles in my shirt.

This time, the exit was calm, without the sensation of being kicked out. But the wistful feeling of being pulled from the edge of sleep was no less jarring than a kick.

I removed the headset, turned off the system repeating its prompt, stood up, and walked to the window.

The testing room had only one small window with venetian blinds. Peering through the slats, I saw the orange-red sky outside, signaling another brewing sandstorm.

I needed to leave. The last subway train was coming, and I had to get home before dark.

The subway arrived on time today. As usual, I was the only passenger in the entire car. The train traveled above ground, and I heard the sound of sand and gravel pelting the windows.

To save electricity, running subways typically didn’t have lights on. Behind me was the crimson city sky, while the foreground of high-rise buildings looked like pale, out-of-place decals.

When the lights flickered on just before my stop, I caught my reflection in the window.

Still the same thin eyelids, straight nose bridge, but my hair had grown longer, pressed to the sides. My turtleneck reached up to my chin, covering my neck. My eyes no longer held any trace of youthful defiance, perhaps because they were now framed by glasses.

Compared to the vivid scenes I’d just experienced in the simulation room, what I felt now seemed more like the fake version. Unfortunately, the more miserable reality was the one that was real.

When I got home, I found something even more miserable waiting for me.

The window latch, worn out from years of neglect, had been blown open by the wind. A half-inch layer of dirt had accumulated on the floor near the window, and the areas not covered in dust were scattered with debris.

I braved the wind to step inside, shutting the rattling window tightly. I grabbed some tools and managed a makeshift repair to secure it. Once the window was fixed, I had to deal with the red dirt covering the floor.

That night, I wore old work clothes I found in the closet, kneeling on the floor with my sleeves rolled up, wiping down the entire living room from left to right.

Clean water was limited, so I used stored rainwater. After three or four rounds of cleaning, the room was spotless, but it carried a faint earthy smell.

I lay down four hours later than usual. In another four hours, I’d have to open my eyes to catch the subway.

But I had a feeling I might stay awake from now until dawn. I listened to the strong wind rattling the window glass, my hands trembling uncontrollably under the blanket.

I could still see Liu Jiang.

I could actually still see Liu Jiang!

The excitement I should have felt upon seeing him hit me with a delayed intensity. I felt myself shaking from my jaw to my ankles. Moments later, I pressed my left hand over my right, reached under my pillow, and pulled out my phone.

For the past two years, my phone had mostly been powered off. Now, connected to the generator, I’d charge it fully and keep it by my pillow, though I rarely had reason to turn it on.

My chat history with Liu Jiang was still stuck on the news article I’d sent him when the apocalypse began.

In the dark, I stared at the glowing screen and typed a message. “I saw you today.”

I hit send, and as expected, the message didn’t go through. A red dot appeared next to it. It was the apocalypse, and the last time I’d connected to a signal was a year ago.

I stared at the screen a bit longer before locking the phone. I slipped back under the blanket, my heart surprisingly calm.

The Liu Jiang I saw wasn’t the real one.

Realizing this, the excitement that had nearly burst from my throat vanished. I listened to the restless wind howling in the night, quietly waiting for dawn.

I only slept for two hours before morning. When I opened my eyes, I felt half-dead.

Upon reaching the office, the first thing I did was pull up all available data from the offline cloud database. Regarding the simulation system, I had a few issues to fix.

To me, it was already running near perfectly, but for safety reasons, I needed to add two conditions.

First, I needed an automatic wake-up timer. I couldn’t keep relying on manually asking the system to pull me out. It needed to remind me at regular intervals in real-world time. I set this to every four hours, which equated to twenty-four hours in the simulation.

Second, I needed the simulation system to be more humanized.

Sometimes, I found it inexplicably infuriating. That wasn’t just my imagination, was it?

Theoretically, only a system with biomimetic intelligence would have such human-like aggravating traits. Its current humanization level should be 0%, yet its ability to annoy me was at 80%. I didn’t give it the full 100% because I felt it still had room to grow in that department.

I opened the backend, added the timer system, and then went looking for the source files of the intelligent assistance system. That’s when I hit a snag.

The intelligent assistance system’s files were encrypted, but that wasn’t a big deal. I tried entering the default password for my account, and it worked. Then I was greeted by tens of thousands of lines of code.

This system had been meticulously designed by someone.

Good grief, who put in all this effort to create such a useless thing?

I leaned closer, adjusting my glasses, and reality hit me with another surprise. The coding style was strikingly similar to one person’s: mine.

Was this system something I wrote?

My memories of working before the apocalypse were a bit fuzzy, but I was certain I hadn’t been involved in developing the intelligent assistance system. There were only two possibilities: either I’d lost my memory, or someone was mimicking my coding style.

I thought it over. I had mentored a few interns during the time I got promoted, so I leaned toward the second possibility.

If I ever got the chance to see them again, I’d give them all a piece of my mind. What kind of nonsense did they write?

I leaned back in my chair, hands behind my head, but the thought fizzled out as soon as it surfaced, my smile freezing on my face.

What chance did I have to see them again?

On the screen, the cursor blinked behind the code. I sealed the code back up, deciding not to touch it.

If it was annoying, so be it. I’d brought it on myself.

I returned to the testing room, took a deep breath, and put on the headset like a diver donning a mask.

My consciousness floated in darkness. Soon, I smelled lilacs again. I could feel myself lying on a soft duvet—this was Liu Jiang’s bed.

The person beside me was still breathing evenly.

Wait, that wasn’t the sound of someone asleep—he was awake!

But breathing wouldn’t be this noticeable after waking up unless they were very close.

Hm, very close.

Very close?

I snapped my eyes open, and all I could see was Liu Jiang’s face, lips puckered, inching closer.

I swallowed a scream, grabbed whatever was nearby, and swung it at him. Liu Jiang yelped, clutching his nose.

In the midst of his cries, I scrambled back, shouting, “What are you doing?!”

Caught off guard by my outburst, he looked aggrieved, holding his nose for a while before managing to say, “I thought you were having another episode!”

What?

Imagine taking a nap, waking up refreshed, only to see your friend with a mental condition lying there with eyes closed. Knowing he might randomly kiss people when triggered, and seeing him in apparent distress, how would you save him?

Liu Jiang finally lowered his hand. His nose wasn’t bleeding, just red. Frowning at his palm, he explained, “I thought kissing you would wake you up.”

I opened my mouth, speechless, and looked down at the bedsheet. The thing I’d hit him with was his Bohemian Rhapsody album.

I asked, “Did it ever occur to you that I might just be asleep?”

Now it was his turn to be speechless. He deflected, “How would I know? I don’t understand your condition!”

I stated firmly, “And don’t just go kissing people.”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. To him, I was probably the one who’d randomly kissed someone.

Luckily, he wasn’t sharp enough to turn it back on me. Instead, he brushed it off. “We’re both guys. What’s the big deal?”

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t about to tell him who’d be the first to confess in the future.

The sky had turned completely dark. The room was lit only by the deep blue walls and shadowy figures. He went to turn on a wall lamp, then stepped off the bed and beckoned to me. “Want me to walk you out?”

“No need,” I said. “I know the way.”

But he still walked me to the mouth of the alley. After taking a few steps forward, I impulsively turned back, only to find him still standing there, watching me.

He wore his oversized school uniform jacket open, revealing a Bee Gees graphic tee underneath. His school uniform pants were tapered, paired with basketball socks and mismatched plastic slippers. One pant leg was slightly higher than the other.

The sadness from hearing my story earlier was gone. His face now carried the carefree spirit of a sixteen-year-old.

I couldn’t help but want to laugh. He looked both good and not good—good, probably just because his natural charm carried it off.

Seeing me laugh, Liu Jiang grinned too, raising a hand to wave me off and shouting, “I actually kinda like you as a person!”

My next step nearly tripped me up. Then I realized he meant it purely in a buddy sense.

I turned back and shouted, “Gross!”

I’d told him earlier that my place wasn’t far from here, and it wasn’t. But there was a physical sense of separation. I had to cross a bridge to the other side of the old town, then take three subway stops to the commercial pedestrian street’s center, where my parents had rented my apartment.

But I’d overlooked one thing: today was my first day at the new school, so my dad came to check on me.

When I saw Yang Hui, I froze for a moment. A much younger version of him was squatting on the floor, inspecting the label on an air purifier. Seeing me return, he stood up silently.

Clearly, I needed to explain why I was back so late on my first day of school.

But rushing to explain would look highly suspicious.

So I set down my backpack, went to the kitchen, turned on the water purifier, poured myself a glass of water, and drank it before saying, “I went to check out study rooms near the school. None were quite right. I’ll keep looking tomorrow.”

His gaze, which had been fixed on me, shifted away. This answer seemed to satisfy him.

If I was going to act, I’d go all in. I served myself some rice from the pot, pretending to be starving as I shoveled in several bites. Only then did he seem content and prepare to leave.

As he put on his shoes at the door, he turned back to remind me, “Don’t hang out with shady people at school. If you have any problems, go to the discipline director, or call me or your mom.”

I mumbled an agreement, picking up a piece of stir-fried chicken breast with oyster mushrooms for my bowl.

My parents were obsessed with nutrition. The meals the housekeeper made daily were planned by them. Those years were the peak of their business, and everything we ate, wore, or used was top-notch.

The best blackout curtains, the best Simmons mattress, the best ingredients, the best air purifier—naturally, they raised the weirdest kid.

I sat at the kitchen island, glancing to the side. The sleek, integrated cabinet wall reflected my face, brimming with spoiled entitlement.

I set down my bowl, studying the face that was ten years younger.

Objectively, it was a good-looking face. That’s why, back at my old school in the city center, so many girls would take the long route to the bathroom just to pass by my classroom and sneak a glance at me.

It made sense. In the hormone-fueled haze of teenage acne, a clean-cut, well-proportioned guy was rare—especially one who was freakishly good at studying.

If I kept summing it up like this, I’d make myself sick.

Back then, I had every reason to look down on everyone and everything. That “everything” included Number Twenty High School, its students, and Liu Jiang.

Fine, I’ll admit it: the old me did look down on Liu Jiang. But he willingly let me.

He should’ve been living a happy life—no parental expectations to bear, just eating well, playing hard, living in the oldest part of town, sleeping however he wanted, free as could be.

But in front of me, he was humble.

Maybe he really did like me a lot, so much that he didn’t care about the happiness he could’ve had.

I took a deep breath, set my chopsticks back in the bowl, and lost my appetite.

So, had I now met him “correctly”?

In a sincere way, without being picky, but tinged with the flair of a mental illness.

I tried not to let my memories veer toward melancholy. There was no need. I still had time to live here, and since the world was already at its end, how much worse could it get?

After packing the books I’d need for tomorrow, I hung my school uniform on the edge of the wardrobe. Lying flat on the meticulously chosen mattress my parents had bought, my consciousness began to blur.

But just as my mind started to sink into a vortex, the heavenly chime in my head suddenly rang out.

So the system had a prelude before speaking. I first heard a faint hum, like a microphone being turned on, as if a school radio station was about to make an announcement. Then it spoke.

“Dear tester, you are about to enter Level 1-2. Objective prompt: resist the gaze of the mundane.”

Resist the gaze of the mundane?

I opened my eyes wide in the darkness. If there were swirling lights on the ceiling right now, my stunned, flat-on-my-back expression would’ve been more dramatic. Unfortunately, my parents’ blackout curtains were too effective, and I was enveloped in pure darkness.

Damn it.

Resisting the mundane—did that mean I had to kiss him again in front of everyone?