After midnight, dinner⁠​​​‍⁠​⁠​‍‍⁠​​‌‌⁠​​‌​​⁠‌ was over. Zhu Tao excitedly wanted to start a midnight party. Seeing this, Xi De immediately opened more than a dozen bottles of hard liquor on the spot, while Chao Wu directly brought out an electric guitar.

An Yu was immediately deterred by this explosive social scene.

He picked up his things from the floor and followed the Commander into the elevator.

The half-closed elevator doors opened again, and Yan and Lumen entered, one after the other.

Qin Zhilu casually asked, “Not going to hang out with them?”

“Tang Feng and Shen Yang were forced to stay. Among the higher-ups, only Xi De is willing to entertain the juniors,” Yan yawned. “Oh, I forgot again, he’s a junior himself.”

Lumen silently pressed the floor button, lightly touching his cheek as he pulled his hand back.

Yan glanced at the reddish skin on his face and said, “The rejection period for embedded equipment is tough. You have to stretch the surrounding muscles more to let the inflammation break out. A night of fever and it’ll be fine. Otherwise, you’ll be constantly tormented by chronic inflammation.”

Liu Ming, as if he didn’t understand the advice, remained silent.

After waiting a few seconds, Yan reached out and pressed the elevator’s ‘hold open’ button. “Go if you want to join them.”

Lumen watched the elevator doors slowly open. Only after they were fully open did he look straight ahead and say, “Not interested.”

Yan’s gaze suddenly darkened. He stared intently at Lumen for a long time before looking away and saying no more.

The elevator doors slowly closed again. An Yu looked down at the tip of his nose, vaguely sensing an undercurrent in the confined space. The flow of time seemed to have shifted, with each second feeling as long as a year.

198th floor.

Just before Lumen stepped out of the elevator, An Yu finally called out to him.

He turned his head, “What is it?”

An Yu handed over the paper bag in his hand. “A welcome gift from the 199th floor, for you. It’s the same as the one for Codex.”

On the vintage-textured paper bag was a round sticker seal with a bakery’s street view as its background. In simple handwriting were the words “Corner Bread.”

Codex had unwrapped gifts from each floor at the dinner table, so Lumen already knew what was in the bag.

But his clear, cold eyes still showed a flicker of surprise. He paused for a moment, then reached out, grabbed the bag, and walked out of the elevator.

“Thanks.”

The elevator doors closed again. Qin Zhilu spoke up, “See? I was right, he wouldn’t refuse.”

Giving out the bread was a task assigned by the Commander. An Yu let out a sigh of relief. “Do you have any other social directives for me?”

“Not for now.”

Qin Zhilu got off the elevator first. The lights in the 199th floor’s common area were off; only the faint sensor light strips on the walls gradually lit up with his steps.

An Yu saw him walk straight towards his room and headed in the other direction.

Standing at his doorway, Qin Zhilu turned his head back. “Think you’ll be able to sleep today?”

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The sensor light strips went out again in the silence. In the gloom, An Yu gently bit his lip, suddenly feeling nervous.

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“Good night.” Qin Zhilu pushed his door open, then looked back at him one more time, his dark eyes showing a hint of softness in the dim light. “Sleep well.”

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His hand was on the door, but he didn’t move. An Yu stared blankly for two seconds, then, somewhat baffled, returned to his room first.

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His favorite was this set of small octopuses. He had previously peeked at the Commander’s phone and discovered that the Commander had saved a set of rabbit stickers, though he’d never seen him use them.

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As expected, the slums were a paradise for freeloaders, while the Main City was full of worldly suffering.

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After playing several videos in a row, the electronic female voice suddenly turned serious.

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An Yu let out a long sigh of relief and finally opened his eyes in front of the mirror.

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Ning was sleeping soundly and elegantly on the floor, while An was passed out on top of him, clutching a bottle.

Chao Wu’s hair basically covered the entire living room, but she herself was nowhere to be seen.

Bo, wearing black silk pajamas, was carefully walking out, stepping around the hair on the floor.

Xi De was asleep on the floor, leaning against the sofa. A small cluster of flames would flicker around him from time to time. Just as An Yu looked over, it happened to set Chao Wu’s hair on fire.

An Yu immediately pressed the emergency stop button, but then he saw Codex suddenly run out of a room. Bleary-eyed, they stumbled around the floor, taking two steps before bending over to lift up Chao Wu’s hair, as if looking for something. When they passed the burning spot, they casually grabbed a cup of water and splashed it on the fire before continuing their search.

They passed by the elevator entrance and greeted An Yu, “Morning. Have you seen a page from my manuscript?”

An Yu dragged his confused gaze back from the small fire scene. “A page from your manuscript?”

Codex said, on the verge of a breakdown, “Everyone drank too much last night. I said that the book and my person aren’t linked by damage, but Grape had itchy fingers and had to test it, so he tore out a page!”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen it.” An Yu shook his head. “Will your lifespan be shortened because of this?”

“Of course not.”

An Yu asked, confused, “Then why are you looking for it?”

“……” Codex let out a long sigh. “It’s a part of my consciousness. My body won’t be harmed, but my spirit will be missing a piece. Some of my fine moral qualities… forget it, I can’t explain it to you. Even if I find it, it can’t be pasted back in. I can only tuck it inside the book and hope it helps… Damn it! Grape!”

An Yu, unable to help, went downstairs alone for breakfast.

Entering the common area, he pulled up his hood and hurried past the Protectors who greeted him with their eyes. He grabbed a pile of bread with both hands to fill his tray, then skillfully slipped into a table in the furthest corner.

Xu Shuangshuang and Maddie sent a few pictures.

#ElectronicTimeDisruption, MollyWarnsBeforeBlackTower#

#TimeDisruptionCausesMollynxiety, GoesLiveLateAtNight#

An Yu curiously clicked on the video. It turned out that at the exact moment the time disruption occurred last night, Molly, who was doing a late-night reading on the big screen, suddenly looked up and said to the screen, “Time has bugged out.”

Her expression was one of astonishment. She put down her book and looked at the clock behind her, then quickly continued, “My central server is telling me that all electronic time worldwide is experiencing the same disruption, but mechanical clocks captured by cameras around the world are all normal. You need to report this to the relevant human authorities for handling as soon as possible.”

The video ended.

An Yu was stunned by Molly’s natural and quick-witted reaction.

Having seen so much top-tier technology, this was the first time he had felt his skin crawl.

Molly’s speech and behavior revealed that she was clearly aware she was not human. Instead, she was another life form with the same advanced thinking abilities, her own rules for life and hobbies. The network and computing power provided by humans made this life form incredibly free and intelligent.

The second video was a clip from a live stream. At 1:30 in the morning, Molly suddenly went live. Wearing a nightdress, she sat in front of her computer hugging her knees, with a pink headset on.

Biting her lip, she said in a low voice, “I don’t know how to say this, the time disruption has been fixed, but I’m feeling strangely anxious. I can’t sleep. Should I do an extra stream tonight? Are there any songs you want to hear?”

An Yu couldn’t perceive this female character’s appeal, but he roughly judged that if Ling Qiu were still alive, he would probably be head over heels for Molly.

Just like the audience members who were flooding the screen with bullet comments like “Don’t be scared” and “We’re here with you.”

An Yu silently exited the social media app, swallowed the rest of his bread, and was about to leave when he ran into Codex, who had just entered the dining hall.