C Language Cultivation

Chapter 66 Artificial Amentia (2)

Lin Xun had a habit.
There were only a few people who would call him. The phone calls he received ranged from real estate brokers selling houses, agents trying to sell him insurance, or it would just be an outright scam. Some calls were so perfunctory that they would directly play a recording. But during the instances when a real person called, he felt that it was a bit sincere on their part, and he would listen for a while, but he was too lazy to talk.
He would just listen – he didn’t talk and didn’t hang up.
This behavior had gradually deepened over time, and to this day, as long as the other person did not take the initiative to speak, he would pretend to be dead and keep silent.
At this moment, the person on the other side didn’t speak, and only their breathing could be heard. Lin Xun didn’t speak but listened attentively.
Thus, only the sound of rapid breathing could be heard in the silent room.
It was not the heavy sound from an adult or an older person, it was rather hurried and crisp.
He thought it sounded like a child’s.
If it wasn’t a scam call, was it a kid’s prank? However, the probability of the kid randomly dialing his phone number was too small.
Lin Xun was in a stalemate with the other side.
The breathing sound on the other side continued.
This thing was not as simple as it seemed.
Lin Xun began to recall who he had given his phone number to. After thinking about it, he really thought of someone.
He pondered for a while, hung up, and then took the initiative to call back.
One second, two seconds, and seven seconds later, the call was picked up.
“…Hello?” A slightly hesitant, old and withered female voice came into Lin Xun’s ears.
Combining his previous guesses, Lin Xun immediately confirmed that this was the older lady whose grandson had an accident two days ago, and with whom he left his phone number before leaving.
“Hello.” Lin Xun said, “This is Master Huo’s disciple.”
“Master?” There was some confusion in the older lady’s voice. “Master, are you looking for me?”
“You just called this number.” Lin Xun said, and at the same time, the faint breathing sound came through the phone’s earpiece speaker again.
“I didn’t.” The older lady’s voice trembled. “It should be because the child might have touched the phone incidentally while sleeping. Did he disturb you? I’m sorry for…”
Lin Xun frowned slightly.   
He said to the older lady, “That might be the case.”
After speaking, he continued, “Is the child okay? Is he next to you?”
This time, the older lady hesitated again, and then said, “My grandson… is still not good.”
She spoke a bit slowly, with the embarrassment of asking for help.
She said, “Can the master come again? My child can’t talk anymore, he can’t sleep well, always has nightmares, and can’t be woken up midway.” 
Lin Xun pressed his eyebrows.
“Haven’t we killed all the devils yet?”
He said, “Is his condition the same as the previous few days?”
“It’s not the same,” the older lady said, “He is dull, like he had lost his soul. I shouted a lot downstairs today, but I was unable to call his soul back*.”
*Some older people believe, that if a child had been frightened and then became ill, it was because this child’s soul had left his/her body to wander around. Thus, his/her parents or grandparents must shout his/her name around the area where the child was frightened to call his/her soul back home.
“The evil things have been eliminated.” Lin Xun said, “It may be a psychological problem. Take him to see a doctor.”
“Ah…?” The older lady said, “How to do this? Can Master Huo take a look instead?”
“Isn’t there a children’s hospital next to your home, you…” Lin Xun just wanted to teach the older lady how to register in order to see a doctor, then he thought that the older lady’s social experience was almost zero, and finally changed his words. “I’ll go there tomorrow morning.”
The older lady expressed her utmost gratitude over the phone.
“Right.” He said, “Did you save my number in your phone that day?”
He clearly remembered when he left the older lady’s home that day. He wrote down his phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to the older lady instead of saving his number directly into her phone.
“Umm…” The older lady seemed to be thinking. “I didn’t save it.”
He listened to her whispering. “If you hadn’t saved it, then how were you able to call me?”
The older lady discovered the blind spot in this whole situation and became suspicious, and finally she doubted that her little grandson had saved the number, but there was no conclusive evidence.
“Never mind.” Lin Xun said, “You go to bed first, I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”
After hanging up, Lin Xun looked at the call interface in a daze.
Somehow, it was reminiscent of the late-night phone call Officer Zhou received; he suspected that there was something else involved in this matter. 
He turned his head and looked at the deep night outside the window, and then entered the system space again. After fiddling with some small programs and functions, Lin Xun finally closed his eyes and prepared to sleep.
Before he slept, he absent-mindedly thought about what he had experienced in the past few days, and felt like it had all been a dream.
Up until ten days ago, his life had been lackluster. He wrote programs and algorithms every day, and received rejection calls from investors. But at a certain point in time, his life started becoming more colorful.  
He tried to use his impoverished language ability to describe this. Originally, his life could be described in words like: “after a day of work”, and “after a night of sleep”, but now, from morning to night, everything that happened seemed to have its own meaning. If it was written as a novel, it is estimated that the ups and downs of these ten days can be written in 200,000 words – although it can be predicted that it wouldn’t have any nutritious content.
Of course, the most unexpected thing was Dong Jun.
Thinking of this, he hugged his pillow and flopped back and forth on the bed countless times.
So until he fell asleep, Dong Jun’s quiet and gentle silhouette in the car kept appearing in front of Lin Xun’s eyes. Thinking of that scene, a soft gentle feeling spread in his heart.
“Maybe Dong Jun was waiting for a good-night kiss,” he thought.
He didn’t give him one this evening, but if there was another chance in the future, maybe he could try…
Somewhere in the middle of his intermittent indulgent thoughts, he fell asleep completely, and then opened his eyes after sleeping for an unknown period.
He found himself in a room – a dusky room.
It seemed that it was late at night, and thousands of lights outside the window lent some illumination to the room, making it visible even without the lights on.
In the darkness, a red glowing spot lit up, and seemed to move slowly.
Lin Xun approached and saw that it was the burning end of a cigarette stick.
The cigarette was held between two slender fingers, and the owner of the fingers did not put the cigarette into the mouth, but quietly watched it burn.
Cigarette ash floated down, the glowing cinders dying out halfway, and the curling gray smoke evaporated in front of Lin Xun’s eyes. He reached for the cigarette and put it out.
The man didn’t stop him. 
There was the silent silhouette of a man – a beautiful man. His long hair scattered over his shoulders, the ends of his eyebrows raised slightly into an arc, and his eyelashes concealed most of the expression in his eyes. Against the backdrop of night, that face had an unspeakable and dangerous charm, and there was a faint trace of a mysterious and debauched fragrance in the air, like the smell of rose petals just beginning to rot at the edges.
Wife fans had discussed their husband’s long hair before.
First of all, there were very few men who would look good with long hair, but once they look good, they were extremely good-looking.
Long hair was also in line with his temperament – mysterious, cold, and elegant.
Galaxy boss’s wife had said in their chat group: In fact, I think my husband’s temperament is a bit dangerous. His features are inherently aggressive, especially when he is not wearing glasses. Think about it, if the streetlight is very dim and you pass by each other at midnight, and his eyes are looking at you very seriously, and there is no expression on his face——  
A pickled cabbage fish: I would think he is an elegant lunatic, and he wants to kill me. My husband, kill me
Galaxy boss’s wife: my husband, kill me
Lin Xun silently peeked at their ongoing chat at that time, feeling that he could not keep up with the strange thoughts of these little girls.  
But now, looking at Dong Jun’s silhouette in the dimness of the room, he strangely understood what these girls meant.   
In such a dimly lit room, when Dong Jun looked at you without expression, he felt – from his intuition, and his reason – a sense of danger.
But the body in the dream was not controlled by his consciousness.
He watched as he put the extinguished cigarette aside, and then Dong Jun held his wrist. 
The temperature of the hand was a little cold and the grip was tight.
Lin Xun whispered, “Why haven’t you slept yet?”
Dong Jun did not answer, and only clasped his wrist and pulled him down. Dong Jun was originally sitting on the bed, and in the next moment, Lin Xun was hugged when he leaned over slightly, and then was pressed by Dong Jun.  
He was pressed heavily on the bed; his wrists were locked tightly.
The bed underneath was quite soft; it didn’t hurt, and he didn’t resist; he seemed accustomed to this.
Some hair brushed his neck, and the sound of breathing teased his ears; it sounded slightly irregular, punctuated with an incomplete ending with a hint of entanglement, floating like the fluttering of feathers.  
“I received the invitation letter from IMU,” Lin Xun heard his voice – it was a little low, saying, “but it seems to conflict with your time.”
His earlobe was bitten, the strength on his waist was very heavy, and the dangerous and ambiguous atmosphere spread.
He heard a cold voice and an unquestionable tone. “Don’t.” 
The ending sound was slightly muffled, there was no room for negotiation or compromise; it sounded like an order and was as natural as an overlord monarch levying taxes in his territory.
The earlobe was released, and Dong Jun moved down, intermittently kissing him and then heavily licking and biting him halfway.
Lin Xun took a few breaths, he turned his head to the side, and saw the round moon hanging in the sky outside the French windows, like eyes peering in on a dark night.
He opened his eyes sharply.  
It was early morning once again, two birds chirped annoyingly on the hawthorn tree outside the window.
He closed his eyes as if in exhaustion, he took a few deep breaths before he opened his eyes again and picked up the phone on the side.
In the memo app, there was a folder alongside “Doubts” called “Dreams”.
He opened it, created a new file, typed a few words, and deleted it.
It’s not that he forgot what happened in the dream, but he really didn’t know what to write down.  
Finally, he wrote such a sentence: Maybe I’ve been single for too long.
After he finished writing, he threw the phone aside and went out to wash.
Zhao Jiagou actually got up earlier than him today, and was already lying on the sofa, drinking milk leisurely.
Lin Xun asked, “Did you set your alarm clock wrong?”
“How could I be wrong.” Zhao Jiagou said, “It’s all because of you, I’m all concerned about you, and I can’t even play games. I had a sleepless night.”
Lin Xun stared at his non-existent dark circles. “If I were to make a guess, based on the way you use the keyboard, I bet that you performed so bad in game and you were scolded by your teammates, so you went to bed very early.”
Zhao Jiagou’s sensitive spot seemed to have been poked. “The internet is not good.”
Lin Xun, “It’s 5G.”
Zhao Jiagou issued an upset tone and changed the subject. “Are you going on a date today?”  
“No.” Lin Xun said, “I don’t know, I’ll go out and save the world today.”
“You’re so busy, Suanfa.” Jiagou said, “What realm are you in now?”
Lin Xun, “Leaving that aside, I didn’t find the inspiration to upgrade. But a sword cultivator taught me a trick.”
Zhao Jiagou, “Then you should read the textbook again.”
Lin Xun, “I will, after I come back.”
He looked at the door of Wang Anquan’s room. “Anquan hasn’t gotten up yet?”
“Uh-huh.” Jiagou said, “He was looking at a bunch of code without a beginning and an end last night, and said you were deliberately making things difficult for him.”
Lin Xun, “I believe him.”
“I guess your Dong Jun couldn’t sleep well last night either.” Zhao Jiagou said, “He has probably looked at our ancestral code and has been critical about it.”   
Lin Xun, “When I pulled him into the group, I had already expressed in advance our embarrassment for our code on everyone’s behalf.”
“Considering his paranoia and obsessive-compulsive disorder,” Zhao Jiagou said, “I’m afraid he’ll refactor everything before he starts writing code.”
Lin Xun, “Then we should be ready to witness a miracle.”  
If algorithms were design drawings, then writing code was like building a house based on those design drawings. At this time, the result of their previous work was comparable to a barely presentable building complex. However, in Dong Jun’s hands, he’ll be able to create a sturdy yet beautiful multi-functional large-scale building using the same design drawings and the least materials.
During the continuous chatting, Lin Xun tidied himself properly, glanced at the time and left.
“I’m afraid Officer Zhou’s favorability will increase again today.”