Chapter 52

After spending over two hours of effort, an exhausted Sun Cheng finally managed to dismantle the hundreds-of-kilograms-heavy Server from the bed and move it to the floor, then reassembled it; by this time, the sky had already turned bright.

Because his stomach was growling with hunger, he simply washed up and went outside to buy some breakfast.

After returning to the dormitory, Sun Cheng casually locked the door; after all, the room now contained a valuable Server, a Level 2 Decepticon Core, and two weapons he had brought back from another world—if they were accidentally exposed, it would be trouble.

After six o'clock, the school dormitory's power supply was restored.

Come to think of it, although modern China had a President Yu Chen who turned the tide during the Xinhai Revolution and reignited the fire of national rejuvenation, the country's strength had been in long-term decline since the Opium War at the end of the Qing Dynasty, with overseas powers holding sway and vicious enemies all around, so development had been difficult since the founding of the new China.

The new China's arduous path of industrialization had continued from the 1920s to the present, yet the demand for electricity had still not been completely resolved; China's annual power deficit was conservatively estimated to be between 5-10%, and it was said that the gap was still continuing to widen.

Because of this, many institutions and government facilities in the country, including schools, were still implementing the tiered energy-saving policy formulated by the Ministry of Industry half a century ago; every night from eleven o'clock until six o'clock the next morning, most campus facilities, except for a few scientific research Laboratories, would have their power cut off.

Pouring himself a glass of water, Sun Cheng sat back down at the table with his breakfast; he wasn't in a hurry to eat, but instead opened his computer first, preparing to see if there were any replies to the emails he had previously sent to Apple and the vulnerability acquisition platform Zerodium.

The computer finished booting in just over ten seconds; clearly, the new XP system he had optimized himself by removing all unnecessary plugins was far more powerful than the previous XP.

He logged directly into his email, and after browsing carefully for a while, Sun Cheng felt a bit disappointed; these two companies might not have noticed the emails he sent yet, so they hadn't replied to him.

He quickly closed his email and opened the browser, but soon closed it again; feeling a bit bored, he suddenly didn't know what to do for a moment.

After hesitating for a moment, he clicked on the computer's E drive, and after fiddling with the toolbar in My Computer for a while, he made a hidden folder appear in the E drive.

Reference Materials!

This was the name Sun Cheng had noted for this hidden folder; although it looked like the method most adolescent boys used to collect adult films, there really wasn't that kind of stuff in here.

Picking up a steamed bun and taking a bite, Sun Cheng quickly clicked on the folder, revealing several neatly backed-up video files inside: "World Starting at the End," "Sunny Hallelujah," "Strange Great Universe," "Darling," and "Really, Really Want to See You Again."

Controlling the mouse, he clicked on the video file labeled "World Starting at the End" without much thought; after two or three seconds of buffering, the figure of a young girl wearing headphones and sitting in front of a microphone preparing to sing appeared on the screen.

Although Sun Cheng was already more than familiar with the young girl's appearance, when he saw her again, his mind was still filled with amazement.

What words should one use to describe such beauty?!

Heaven must have doted on her too much, giving her a face so perfect that any man would find it hard to look away once he saw it—bright eyes and white teeth, a delicate mouth and jade nose; the tiny, almost invisible tear mole under the corner of her left eye did not appear as a flaw, but instead added a touch of fragile, sickly beauty to the girl.

She also had long, straight black hair reaching her chest, every strand as soft and lustrous as a pearl; although the girl appeared in a sitting position, Sun Cheng could still outline her beautiful figure in his mind.

"Today, I want to sing a Japanese song I really like for someone who might not hear it; the song title is 'World Starting at the End,' and I hope he can understand my feelings!"

Because the video was a clip from a live stream, one could see bullet comments flying across the screen from time to time.

Sun Cheng frowned as he looked at those bullet comments that were either straightforwardly flirtatious or expressing love, and unpleasantly and skillfully dragged the progress bar forward by a dozen seconds; the next moment, a beautiful and somewhat mournful, pleasant singing voice rang out.

"Being able to smile at each other is a happy thing!"

"This is the very truth you made me understand!"

"I have known everything since I was a child!"

"Your hobbies, wanting to become someone who fits your ideals."

"Yet you quietly told me!"

"That you prefer older, beautiful women!"

"It was too late to change, so I used a superpower to go back to the past!"

"To meet you there again, to fall in love with you again!"

"You, with tears falling incessantly, are searching everywhere."

"For my figure that suddenly disappeared from your world!"

"You should go back quickly, but the ability is one-way, and I cannot return to the future."

The girl in the video sang this song in Japanese, but there were Chinese subtitles for the lyrics below.

Sun Cheng listened to the mesmerizing singing voice with intoxication, and his eyes involuntarily softened a little.

"I want to tell you that I came from far away!"

"But I discovered that this is impossible."

"Looking at the older me, you asked me."

"I am looking for someone who looks a lot like you."

"Do you know anything?"

"Everything has become a mess, that day of searching!"

"Wanting to connect the two separated people once more!"

"No, I am right here!"

"So, don't leave me!"

"Spring has come again, and you decided to leave here!"

"Leaving behind the words, 'If only you were that person'."

Within the beautiful and moving singing voice, a hint of sobbing gradually emerged; clearly, the girl singing was fully immersed in the performance, and perhaps she had also projected her own emotions into it.

"Love, a luxurious emotion!"

"I finally remembered!"

"So I used all my strength to grab that hand!"

"Crying uncontrollably, I told you the truth!"

"Scattered and swept into time and space."

"After waking up, what is here is a gray world."

"In my hand is an old photograph!"

"There was an era with this kind of color!"

"In the photo, smiling innocently!"

"In order to meet you, my journey started from here!"

While humming softly, the girl seemed to have adjusted her mood, and even her voice became firm.

"Can we smile again?"

"In this world?"

"Put down your photo, step forward!"

Accompanied by the closing melody, the girl quickly finished her performance.

On the video, tips were like a dense rain of barrage comments, falling incessantly.

The girl in front of the microphone quickly wiped the corners of her eyes, a brilliant smile blooming on her face once more to thank the many viewers, and she began to answer some of the questions from the barrage.

"I am single, but I already have someone I like!"

"I am not an only child; I have a younger brother at home."

"This song was written by a friend of mine. I want to dedicate it to someone, hoping he can understand my feelings!"

The short video, which lasted only a few minutes, ended quickly. Staring at the closed video player, Sun Cheng silently swallowed the last bite of his steamed bun, then reached out toward the table.

"Snap!"

The bag containing the steamed buns wobbled, knocking the wallet beside it off the table with a soft sound.

Sun Cheng instinctively looked down at the floor, his expression freezing for a moment.

A photo had fallen out of his wallet, which had popped open upon hitting the ground; it was a photo of a young boy and girl together. Looking closely, the boy's appearance was clearly somewhat similar to Sun Cheng's, and the girl, who was of similar height and affectionately hugging his left arm, was none other than the one who had just been singing in the video he had been watching!

Pulling out a tissue and carefully wiping his fingers, Sun Cheng then bent down to pick up the photo and the wallet.

He held the photo in his hand and looked at it for a long while, letting his fingertips gently caress the girl's cheek on the photo for quite some time before solemnly placing it back into his wallet, muttering to himself: "The trouble of the 'Student Loan' must be resolved as soon as possible, and the plan regarding reality must also be accelerated..."

Quickly tossing the wallet aside, Sun Cheng shut down the computer, grabbed the steamed buns he had bought, and finished them off in a few bites, consuming all seven or eight of them in no time.

After taking a sip of water and tidying up the table, he immediately rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a thick stack of documents.

After searching through them for a while and finding the few documents he needed, Sun Cheng picked them up one by one to look at them, then stood up to head out.

Before he even reached the dormitory door, he suddenly seemed to remember something; he turned back, took the Taser from his box to carry with him, and only then did he pick up the documents and head out the door.

PS:

1. Once again, thank you to the reader 'Bookworm' for the tip.

2. Book club group 170012408; readers who enjoy chatting or offering excellent suggestions to the author can join the group for lively discussions.