Chapter 73: Artificial Stupidity (9)
73 – Artificial Stupidity (9)
Zhi Zhen meowed.
Lin Xun locked eyes with it.
While staring, he thought back to the call with Lin Kexin.
The demon realm and the human world were like the ocean and a ship sailing upon it.
Demons had always lurked at the edges of the world, waiting for an opportunity to seize the human realm. When cracks appeared in the ship’s planks and seawater seeped in, they seized the chance to launch a full-scale invasion, infecting ordinary humans.
That left Lin Xun puzzled.
With so much water in the ocean, wasn’t there enough for them to do their own thing? Why did they insist on invading the human world? He often had similar doubts when watching disaster movies. In those films, the villains’ motives were usually explained as them wanting something from this world.
Lin Xun didn’t know exactly what that something was, but based on his observations, he was a focal point for the demons. So, there was about a sixty percent chance that it had something to do with him—though what that connection was, he didn’t know. He would find out one day.
As for the others in the Cultivation world—they had cultivation levels and could deal with demons that ordinary people couldn’t handle, acting like the ship’s repair crew?
But the repair crew’s power was limited. They still needed a miraculous captain who could solve all problems. Who the captain was remained unknown, but it certainly wasn’t Zhi Zhen—that would be absurd.
Lost in thought, Zhi Zhen let out a fierce “meow.”
His distraction had been noticed.
Lin Xun rubbed its head. “Don’t be angry, don’t be angry.”
Zhi Zhen settled on his chest.
He closed his eyes.
—And then, he lay there for forty minutes, completely unable to sleep, feeling nothing but anxiety.
After serious contemplation, he combined Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou’s advice, slowly picked up his phone, and sent three words to Dong Jun.
“Can’t sleep.”
Not long after, the screen lit up.
Dong Jun: Come over.
So Lin Xun carried the cat over, feeling like he really did resemble a kept something-or-other.
After walking down a corridor with handrails, he knocked on the door while holding Zhi Zhen—this time, he specifically glanced down at Zhi Zhen’s collar.
From inside, Dong Jun said, “Come in.”
Dong Jun’s room had a similar layout to his own, with no clear distinction between primary and secondary spaces. However, the style was much colder, with stark contrasts of black and white. The extremely minimalist decor brought a chilling aura reminiscent of a snowy mountain.
Amid this cool, detached atmosphere, Lin Xun rubbed his eyes.
Once he lowered his hand, he was surprised himself.
Why did he feel sleepy as soon as he entered this room?
Just moments ago, he had confidently claimed he wasn’t tired.
Dong Jun didn’t seem to have any intention of sleeping either. He looked up from behind his computer screen, raised an eyebrow at Lin Xun’s eye-rubbing, and asked, “Trouble sleeping in a new bed?”
“No,” Lin Xun denied outright. “I wasn’t tired at all just now.”
Dong Jun smiled slightly, his eyelashes curving gently.
He usually wore glasses when working at the computer, and with this soft smile, he appeared gentle, harmless, and as beautiful as the moon in the sky.
Under the cool white light, he seemed like a fragile yet dangerous object—exquisite and translucent.
Lin Xun immediately felt that his idol was still his idol, and Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou were just talking nonsense.
At that moment, Zhi Zhen jumped onto the desk and meowed.
A simple “meow.”
Dong Jun said, “Zhi Zhen says you didn’t sleep well.”
Lin Xun replied, “Do you know the phrase ‘calling a deer a horse’?”
Dong Jun curved his lips. “No.”
Lin Xun quietly moved to the desk. “Can I tell you about that idea now?”
“No.” Dong Jun said, “You sleep here. I’ll watch over you.”
Lin Xun: “…”
He now suspected that Dong Jun’s house had a surveillance system, detecting that he had made several phone calls, then anxiously tossing and turning in the room—just not sleeping.
He silently buried himself further into the blankets: “Is that so?”
Dong Jun: “Now you can close your eyes.”
Lin Xun closed his eyes.
Probably due to the smart control system, the lights gradually dimmed, plunging the room into a hazy darkness.
In the silence, the occasional sound of Dong Jun tapping on the keyboard was light and crisp, like spring rain falling on the eaves of an old house—Lin Xun didn’t know why he made that association.
And amid such sounds, he actually began to feel a long-lost, peaceful, lazy drowsiness.
He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he last felt this way. It seemed that for the past few years, his nights had either been spent forcing himself to sleep when bedtime arrived or collapsing into deep slumber from sheer exhaustion after staying up too late.
But if he slept just because Dong Jun told him to, wouldn’t that be a bit too undignified?
He opened his eyes again, not looking anywhere else, just staring at Dong Jun.
Staring.
Five minutes later, Dong Jun met his gaze. There was a hint of amusement in his eyes—the kind that suggested he was looking for trouble.
Lin Xun wriggled toward the edge of the bed: “You can’t have double standards. You come up here too.”
The lights went out, and Dong Jun climbed onto the bed.
His scent had changed—no longer the cool, clean fragrance of cologne, but the scent of shower gel, with a hint of sweetness, just like the one in the guest room.
Lin Xun looked at him.
In the dim light, he could only make out the handsome outline of this person, his thick eyelashes.
A distant familiarity, as if from a dream.
As if guided by some unseen force, he reached out and lightly touched them.
Dong Jun took his hand and kissed him, a long, lingering kiss.
Lin Xun whispered, “I feel like I’m climbing into bed with someone.”
Dong Jun chuckled softly, “I’m the one who called you here.”
Lin Xun: “Still feels like it.”
Dong Jun’s fingers threaded through his hair, pulling him closer.
Lin Xun heard him whisper in his ear, “You’re my boyfriend now.”
Lin Xun: “Really?”
Dong Jun didn’t answer.
Those who brush others off will eventually be brushed off themselves. Just as Lin Xun thought he was about to receive his idol’s perfunctory response, he heard Dong Jun utter two words.
A slightly husky voice sounded beside his ear. For a moment, his mind went blank for three seconds. Only after those three seconds did he process what Dong Jun had said.
He said, “Baby.”
At that moment, Lin Xun was completely undone.
What he couldn’t handle was precisely this kind of thing.
It had been a long time since he had been close to his family. He felt like he had been lonely for a very long time.
So, he couldn’t bear it when someone treated him with such intimacy and care, just like the hand that reached out to check his temperature when he woke from his dream earlier that day.
He lowered his eyes and leaned a little closer to Dong Jun.
A very close distance.
He realized that when he was with Dong Jun, silence felt much more natural than forced conversation—perhaps the word “talkative” had never been associated with the term “programmer” in the first place.
Like now, holding hands lightly. Neither spoke, yet it felt as though they could stay like this forever. A day, a night, many years, until the end of time.
Maybe, after all, too much communication wasn’t necessary.
Lin Xun: “Now I’m going to sleep.”
“Goodnight,” Dong Jun said.
A second later, he added, “Sweetheart.”
Lin Xun pulled the blanket over his face.
“Goodnight,” he mumbled, “my idol.”
A rustling sound followed—he knew it was Zhi Zhen settling down beside the pillow.
Perhaps Zhi Zhen symbolized safety, a shield against demonic intrusions.
Then what did Dong Jun represent?
Closing his eyes, Lin Xun expected to struggle with the unfamiliarity of sharing a bed for the first time, but within a minute, a rare sense of tranquility enveloped him.
—And just like that, he drifted off.
He slept dreamlessly through the night, and upon waking, he felt as though he had been reborn—perhaps even ascended to immortality.
In fact, he sensed his intelligence had peaked thanks to the deep sleep.
“I want to introduce a method similar to chaos control, but neither open-loop nor closed-loop—maybe a combination of the two, with a random perturbation term. By observing its propagation, we can obtain a staggering amount of information. If we can extract it, the modeling process would simplify. There’s already an extraction method—the Gavid method—it just needs refinement,” Lin Xun rambled, sitting wrapped in the blanket, voicing both last night’s thoughts and newfound inspiration. “It’s just an idea, but I don’t know where or how to apply it yet.”
Dong Jun fastened the last button of his shirt. In the morning light, he cast a deep glance at Lin Xun.
“I know,” Lin Xun heard him say.
Lin Xun looked up at him.
In that moment, he understood Wang Anquan’s words and felt certain he had attained both ** and spiritual fulfillment.