Chapter 253: The Feeling of Being Repeatedly Run Over by a Big Rig

Jiang Nian tapped in, and the video began to play slowly.

The Gouba System had evolved again — this time it didn't play the video through a panel, but projected a giant screen right before his eyes.

Not bad for a good thing — only a tiny step toward intelligence.

On the multimedia lectern.

Psychology teacher Lan Lan happened to be playing a short psychology-related video, which drew Ji Jiayu's gaze; everyone present was watching the screen.

Jiang Nian looked up too, but what he was watching was the image the system gave him.

Inside the frame.

"Where to?"

Jiang Nian habitually played the audience, until the girl whose face he couldn't see clearly asked once more where they were going.

Only then did he suddenly realize — this time it was an interactive memory. Re-walking the memories of his thirty-eight-year-old self? Enhancing the immersive feel of recollection?

But for Jiang Nian, this was something that had never happened. So naturally he didn't know where they were going either, and after a long hesitation only managed to squeeze out one line.

"Never mind, let's just go first."

The girl froze for a moment — probably because she'd never heard such an outrageous answer — and her tone was already a little angry.

"You asked me out and you don't even know where to go?"

Jiang Nian turned his head and discovered that the viewpoint could actually move. Only he couldn't control the character's actions — otherwise he would've definitely pinched this female NPC in front of him.

Sis, you're just a memory NPC, behave yourself.

Even though this isn't bro's memory, plucking off your hairpin and tossing it into a little gutter is still doable.

"Where can you go in the rain?" Jiang Nian grumbled, while observing the surroundings. "Right, can you see what the dorm building looks like?"

"Of course I can, what are you thinking?" The girl was slightly displeased.

Damn, the cafeteria's selling gunpowder or something — why are you talking so aggressively?

Jiang Nian glanced at the girl beside him, standing before the boys' dormitory gate in the pouring rain. He tried using his will to mobilize the primordial force within him, to get his hands and feet to move.

Stupid system, put in some effort!

Apparently the system heard his prayer, and really did grant him permission for one hand.

Anyone who's seen an immersive movie knows one hand can do a lot of things. Not only can it work, it can make others work, and even create suffering.

With a snap, Jiang Nian raised his hand and plucked the hairpin off the girl in front of him.

You've got no choice but to take it, convict.

"Ah!! What are you doing?" The girl touched her hair, her tone increasingly annoyed. "You asked me out just to pull off my hairpin? I'm never coming out with you again!"

Jiang Nian thought to himself — fine, don't come out then.

It's just a memory, bro's the Human Sovereign!

"Just a joke, don't be mad." Jiang Nian had a sudden brainwave. "I've got a great idea — how about we take an umbrella from here to the library, clock in, and then come back?"

He didn't know much about university, so he could only pick the most basic facilities to mention.

"Go by yourself!" The girl huffed, opened her umbrella, and walked into the rain.

The scene before his eyes began to blur, and Jiang Nian thought — nice.

It felt like taking a naked exam.

Anyway, he didn't know the answers, so he might as well fill in random crap. First let's see how far this interactive video can go — the video still has to play either way.

After a while, the scene appeared again.

This time it was in a big lecture hall, and Jiang Nian looked around with great interest. He discovered that not only did the surrounding classmates have no faces, even the details of the classroom were quite blurry.

A voice came from beside him, soft and lingering.

"Shall we go to Cafeteria Six for lunch after class?"

He turned his head — it was the same girl from before, still with an indistinguishable face.

Looks like his little stunt just now hadn't affected these memories at all.

This was equivalent to interacting with himself — each one was a memory of a small memory cell. No matter what he did, it didn't affect the playback of the next memory segment.

In other words, normally speaking, this scene should have been quite warm and sweet.

Unfortunately the system was misaligned — Jiang Nian had never attended university, his highest education was an unfinished high school diploma.

Facing the female college student's question, Jiang Nian rubbed his chin and thought for a while.

"No rush, let's play a game first?"

"What game?" The girl was puzzled.

"It's..." Jiang Nian looked around, saw the dense crowd of students attending the lecture, and lowered his voice. "An adult game. Very cruel."

"Huh?"

"Finger guessing — the loser has to shout their own name three times."

"Huh?" The girl was puzzled a second time, seemingly not understanding what was fun about this game. "No, I don't really want to play this game."

"Then we won't eat, and you can't go eat either." Jiang Nian blurted out some scumbag lines, calm as ever. "Even if we starve to death, I'll drag you down and not let you go."

Rules? I am the rules!

The girl: "."

After a long while, the bot NPC girl finally agreed.

"Fine then."

Awesome — shamefully reveal your name!

It's all his fault for being used to only reading half the quest — if he'd read the full quest content and rewards, he wouldn't be stuck watching this faceless memory.

The main task now was to figure out who the person across from him was.

Five minutes later.

"Jiang Nian, Jiang Nian, Jiang~" he mumbled, accepting his eighth defeat. "Damn it, are you running a cheat? I haven't won a single round."

"Nope, no idea what you're talking about."

"Red-stone'd, NPC."

"What?"

"I mean. Being able to eat this bowl of rice is entirely thanks to your skill, I'm done playing." Jiang Nian took a deep breath and said solemnly, "Let's exchange names."

"Why?"

"No reason. If you don't agree, we'll just sit here till the end of time." Jiang Nian, the scumbag, dropped another classic line.

"How romantic." The girl covered her face.

"Hmm?"

Fortunately, after some back-and-forth, the girl still agreed to his rude request.

"Jiang Nian."

"***."

Jiang Nian was dumbfounded. Can't afford to lose, huh?

How is there even a mute on it?

Still, he could now confirm the other person's name had three characters — that was a major breakthrough. After all, in China, people with three-character names

Damn, the progress bar is at zero.

This pissed Jiang Nian off. Using the only hand he could move, he gave the female NPC's leg a hard grope! And there was actual sensation!

He froze, then solemnly sized up the female NPC.

Alright, campus youth drama paused for a moment — next up, campus spring colors!

This is a group study room, you can't be that crude, can you?

Hehe, of course you can.

"Sorry, my attitude was too harsh just now." Jiang Nian apologized humbly, sincerely saying, "I'm not usually like this. Baby pat-pat, don't be scared."

The moment his hand reached over, the scene began to blur.

"Hey, system, you mother—"

The scene before his eyes began to shift, and in the blink of an eye he was on a train.

"Because someone bought the wrong ticket, we could only change our booking last minute." The girl said this, yet not a trace of blame could be heard. "How are you going to make it up to me?"

Jiang Nian, unfazed, extended the only hand he could move.

"Give me your phone to play with."

The scumbag has reached new century-high heights — there's a beauty to being repeatedly run over by a heavy truck.

"Who's that?" Jiang Nian couldn't see a single word on the phone screen at all, so he bluffed offhandedly.

The girl glanced at it and said weakly.

"A public account."

"Oh, oh." Jiang Nian casually swiped a few times. Since he was free anyway, might as well bully the NPC a bit more. "Then this one, who's this?"

"Ah!" The girl suddenly shrieked and snatched the phone back.

"Oh, go on then, when did it start?" Jiang Nian looked completely unbridled, trying his best to explore every possibility of this video.

"It was a gift for you, and you dug it up." The girl looked up at him, her tone pleading. "That… can you pretend you didn't see it?"

"Let me see, does the gift have my name on it?" Jiang Nian glanced at it, continuing his scumbag classic lines.

He didn't sigh softly until the NPC girl was nearly in tears.

"Actually, my eyes can't see anymore."

"Ah?"

The scene blurred again, the next segment of memory slotted in, and began to scroll.

"Giving you flowers — they said guys like flowers too?"

"It's fine. If there's no last bus we can scan a shared bike back. No need, going to an internet cafe I can still keep you company gaming. Mm-hm, I've got money."

Under a street lamp, darkness on all four sides.

Ahead were blurry high-rises, the street as if covered with a dim yellow blanket of fallen leaves.

The two of them cast infinitely long shadows, slanting up by the roadside.

"Cheer up, today's your birthday." The girl chattered on. "I originally bought you a cake, but it fell off while I was biking."

"The cake shops are all closed now. How about I grab a little pocket cake later to make do?"

Jiang Nian could no longer spout scumbag lines, and let this poor NPC off the hook. Even though everything he did had nothing to do with the memories the system gave him.

This is a single-player CV.

But that idiot at thirty-eight really did have such a perfectly normal girlfriend in college. You could even say it was rare — buying flowers, buying cake.

Even tagging along to the internet cafe, and even paying.

Truly, even scumbags fall silent at this.

Bro, you can't even hold onto this? Do you normally walk to school?

What the hell did you do all through college?!

Jiang Nian felt a bit frustrated on his behalf, but at least it wasn't his own loss. Anyway, he wasn't going to get into a second-tier college himself — a 985 isn't worse than a second-tier, forget it.

The scene shifted. Jiang Nian, thoroughly bored, had watched them embrace in the snow, hold hands in a winter library corridor, ride the train home together.

Wait — going home together?

Jiang Nian perked up, all twelve senses alert. Meeting the parents in college already?

The scene cut off abruptly.

"Damn, can you do something decent for once!" Jiang Nian cursed the stupid system, but could only accept that the viewing session was over.

His vision instantly plunged into darkness.

The first ray of light shone in, followed by the second, then the third. Until the light filled his field of view and then dimmed again, the scene before his eyes slowly emerged.

Lan Lan was still explaining the PPT.

Jiang Nian couldn't hold it in anymore. "Damn, this psychology lecture is just a pure watered-down college course!"

"Hmm?" Ji Jiayu beside him turned her head and glanced at Jiang Nian curiously. "From the way you talk, it feels like you've actually been to college?"

Strictly speaking, he had indeed attended one class.

Although the people around him at the time were all system NPCs, the environment in the video was, after all, a one-to-one replica of the watered-down course quality of a trash-tier second-tier university, faithfully reconstructed from memory.

It couldn't be called vivid, but it was at least identical. The first three rows were empty, while the back rows were packed with talent. The teacher buried her head in the PPT, while classmates were locked in heated five-player ranked battles.

Under this psychology lecture now, everyone was either reading, doing homework, or lying down sleeping — basically a carbon copy of a watered-down college course.

"Uh, even if I haven't eaten pork, haven't I still seen a pig run?" Jiang Nian brushed her off.

"Speaking of which, I've really never seen a pig run." Ji Jiayu was also a bit abstract — the brains of Class 3 were all a little sick. "Pigs are so fat, how can they still run?"

Jiang Nian frowned, thought seriously, then said.

"Because pig trotters are springy, tender, and chewy, of course pigs can run."

Hearing this, Ji Jiayu was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized.

"So... that's how it is?"

In the last two rows, Yuan Zhengchuan stared ahead with a dark, sullen face. Watching his ex-girlfriend whisper with Jiang Nian, his heart ached as if being cut by ten thousand blades.

Watching them lower their voices and sneakily talk like that. His heart felt as if gripped tightly by a hand, then twisted hard, sourness flooding over.

Jiang Nian seemed to remember something and suddenly asked.

"By the way, how many minutes has the psychology teacher been lecturing?"

"If you include the video that was just played, all together—" Ji Jiayu lowered her head and glanced at her watch. "Oh, twelve minutes total."

"Oh oh, got it."

Twelve minutes?

Jiang Nian pretended to casually wave his hand and directly opened the system panel. The unfinished task lay quietly there; the video already showed it had finished playing.

He kept scrolling down, wanting to know who exactly the NPC girl who would send flowers in college was.

【(Meaningless narration)

Task: Re-establish contact with Song Xiyun. Reward: 300 RMB.】