Chapter 620

“Miss Lin, please have a seat. Liguang will bring you some tea.”

The silver-haired girl obediently bowed with a gentle smile, her voice soft and ethereal, her bearing elegant beyond reproach.

Her light-blue house dress swirled lightly as she turned. She stepped toward the kitchen one step at a time, the silver hair on her back swaying gently.

Fang Qi leaned back on the sofa and watched her retreating figure.

Apparently, that beating just now hadn’t affected her at all. After all, he hadn’t really used any force—he’d only given her a few symbolic swats…

…Though even if he had used force, this AI companion’s body would be completely fine anyway.

She wasn’t the “Human Liguang” from the previous loop anymore.

Fang Qi turned his head again and looked to the side.

Lin Xiaoyou was sitting in the single-seat sofa she had occupied so many times before.

When Liguang had taken the initiative to open the door for her just now, she had practically thrown herself inside!

She was still wearing that pink hoodie, though it was all wrinkled. Her loose shorts left both of her pale legs bare… and she was even wearing slippers!

She looked exactly like someone who had rushed straight over from the building across the street!

At this moment, her almond-shaped eyes were wide open as she stared unblinkingly at Liguang’s back.

After watching for several seconds, she slowly turned her head toward Fang Qi. Then she raised a hand and pointed straight in Liguang’s direction.

“Huh?”

Her round little face was filled with pure bewilderment, as if she genuinely couldn’t understand what Liguang was doing.

Fang Qi: “…”

Looking at Lin Xiaoyou’s expression, Fang Qi couldn’t help blinking.

…No way. Miss Genius?

His eyelid twitched.

Miss Genius, this reaction of yours is really beyond anything I expected…

Because when her text messages had arrived, and when she had pounded on his door shouting, “If you’ve got what it takes to steal my soul, then you’ve got what it takes to open the door,”…

he had even thought there was no need to explain anything to her!

After all, she was Miss Genius!

The smartest soul in the world—a genius who had created the “cognitive interference” psychological switch from scratch, a woman who had toyed with him, the “player,” and run him in circles!

But now…?

He looked at Lin Xiaoyou’s utterly bewildered round face, and he was confused for a moment too.

Huh?

Miss Genius, what are you doing?

You…

Ah!

His pupils contracted as he remembered what Lin Xiaoyou had said in her messages!

“Please give my portion of my ‘soul’ back to me already!!!”

“If you don’t give it back soon, I’m going to turn back into ‘Lin Xiaoyou’ again!!!”

…Oh.

Could it be…?

Lin Xiaoyou had clearly noticed the change in his expression as well.

Her round face immediately twitched!

The finger pointing at Liguang suddenly snapped back and jabbed toward the tip of Fang Qi’s nose instead.

“Senior, what do you mean by that expression?!”

Her almond-shaped eyes widened.

Fang Qi: “…”

Miss Genius, there’s definitely something wrong with you.

He immediately wanted to ask her about it, but still…

he instinctively glanced toward the kitchen first.

Liguang had her back to them as she unhurriedly boiled water at the stove.

She looked focused and docile, and for the time being, showed no reaction to their conversation.

My wife is being so obedient…

That made sense, though. If his wife had forgotten about everything, then right now she was just…

an AI companion who had to act “unawakened” in front of outsiders!

She was the slightly yandere girl who would endure Lin Xiaoyou’s every attempt at suicide by stupidity before doing anything else…

Of course she would act docile!

“…Phew.”

Thinking of it that way, he relaxed a little.

At least he probably didn’t have to worry about his own wife suddenly launching a sneak attack on him…

Then he looked back at Lin Xiaoyou…

and the corner of his eye twitched slightly.

The round-faced girl was still puffing out her cheeks, glaring at him with her almond-shaped eyes!

…That expression was awfully familiar.

It was practically identical to the expression of the “naive Lin Xiaoyou” from before.

So…

“…Did you get dumber?”

He said it outright, speaking his mind.

“Ugh…!”

Lin Xiaoyou was instantly choked by the remark. Her entire body leaned back slightly, and she even raised a hand to cover her chest!

She glared at him, opening and closing her mouth several times without managing to say anything.

Fang Qi: “…”

Looks like I don’t even need to ask. That’s basically confirmation…

She really had…

“Ugh…!”

The former Miss Genius let out a deep sigh.

She raised a hand to cover her face, her shoulders slumping…

“Waaah…”

“It’s one thing for Xiaoqing to figure it out, but even an idiot like you can tell now…?”

“Have I really become this stupid…?”

She looked utterly hopeless, her voice full of despair!

Fang Qi: “?”

What exactly are you trying to say, Lin Xiaoyou?!

But Lin Xiaoyou continued to cover her face and shake her head, whimpering, “Waaah…”

“Senior, you don’t understand how this feels…”

She revealed one red-rimmed almond-shaped eye through the gaps between her fingers, looking utterly pitiful.

“Right now, I feel like my brain is unbelievably difficult to use!”

“My thoughts feel sluggish… Every step I take when thinking feels so exhausting…”

“I wasn’t like this before…”

As she spoke, she truly began to feel aggrieved. Her almond-shaped eyes grew misty, as if tears were about to spill out!

“I’ve become as stupid as you, Senior…”

Fang Qi: “…”

“But this is all your and Liguang’s fault!”

She suddenly raised her head and glared at him with reddened eyes!

Fang Qi pressed his lips together, feeling a little guilty and unsure what to say…

It did seem to be their fault…?

“Hmph…”

Lin Xiaoyou gave a soft snort and lowered her voice as she said resentfully, “After I left your place in the previous dream… I started to feel that something was wrong!”

She clenched her teeth and fists, her expression aggrieved yet indignant, and continued in a low voice:

“After I went out, I was still planning to help Senior and Liguang deal with the problems outside…”

“I even wanted to find Officer Gu and Sister An Lian to talk things over, to see if we could come up with a solution, but then…!”

She glared at Fang Qi, gnashing her teeth.

“But the moment I saw them, I felt something start going wrong with my head!”

“All those things I had thought through before—all those plans, all those lines of reasoning…”

“They all turned into mush in my head!”

She even gestured with her hands, trying her best to describe the feeling:

“It was like… I knew something was there. I knew the answer was right in front of me, but I just couldn’t grasp it!”

“I even started having trouble expressing myself. I couldn’t speak coherently anymore!”

She gnashed her teeth at Fang Qi, then shot a fierce glance toward the kitchen behind him.

“It’s all your and Liguang’s fault, Senior!”

Fang Qi blinked as he looked at the clearly flustered Lin Xiaoyou…

Then, all at once, it dawned on him!

Ah! So that was it!

No wonder!

No wonder that in the previous loop, while he and Liguang had been trapped on the offshore platform for dozens of days, nothing had happened outside!

Especially Lin Xiaoyou, that meddlesome troublemaker who loved getting involved in everything. She really hadn’t come back!

So it wasn’t that she didn’t want to come back. It was that…

she had gotten stupid!

She couldn’t come back anymore?

…So, that was what happened!

But what about the outside world in the previous loop…?

He narrowed his eyes slightly.

What had Sister An Lian and Gu Xi done in the previous loop? And what about Dawn and Twilight…?

Unable to hold back, he asked:

“So, what exactly happened outside back then…?”

“I don’t know!”

Lin Xiaoyou glared at him and cut him off outright.

“Because I really did become an idiot soon after!”

Fang Qi: “?”

Lin Xiaoyou huffed indignantly and continued in a lowered voice.

“The next day, the ‘switch’ in my head stopped listening to me too! It just went ‘snap’ and flipped itself over!”

“And then I immediately turned into that…!”

She stomped her foot hard, looking thoroughly disgruntled, and didn’t say anything more.

…but Fang Qi understood what she meant.

He pressed his lips together slightly.

She had mentioned it in her messages too. She had…

become “Lin Xiaoyou.”

She had turned into that… sweet, clueless junior colleague who liked him.

“Senior…”

Lin Xiaoyou spoke again, her tone suddenly turning aggrieved.

“I was so sad in the last dream…”

Fang Qi focused on her and saw her looking at him with an expression full of “resentment.”

“I became ‘Lin Xiaoyou.’ ‘Lin Xiaoyou’ liked ‘Senior,’ but… Senior disappeared!”

“Everyone said something had happened to you… Waaaah…!”

Her expression was so “wronged,” so “heartbroken”!

Fang Qi: “???”

Hey, you…!

Then she glared at him with her almond-shaped eyes.

“Senior, I liked you so much, but I had to look for you every day! I cried myself dry!”

“Tell me, shouldn’t you make it up to me? I…!”

Before she could finish—

“Clink!”

From the kitchen came the deliberate sound of a teacup striking a saucer.

It was crisp, but carried a certain deliberate force.

Lin Xiaoyou immediately shut her mouth and shrank her neck, sneaking a glance toward Liguang…

Then she hurriedly turned back. The grievance on her round little face instantly vanished, replaced by a nervous, cautious expression.

Fang Qi: “…”

…I knew it.

Fang Qi’s eye twitched as he stared at Lin Xiaoyou.

Even after becoming dumber, this girl still loved courting death!

He instinctively glanced toward the kitchen again.

The silver-haired girl was still facing away from them, standing before the stove with the white porcelain teacup in her hands.

Her movements paused for only a moment before she… continued adding tea leaves to the cup at an unhurried pace.

Her silver hair fell over her shoulders, revealing nothing of her expression.

But Fang Qi felt a faint chill run down his back…

“So…!”

Lin Xiaoyou spoke to Fang Qi again in a somewhat anxious whisper.

“Senior! Right now, I… Anyway, it’s just…”

Her words became hopelessly tangled.

“Um… I-I-I… Ah!”

She irritably scratched at her hair, then rubbed her face hard. Finally…

She looked pitifully at Fang Qi and pressed her hands together before her chest.

“Senior, help me convince Liguang, okay?”

“I-I-I… I really don’t know what to do now! I…!”

Her almond-shaped eyes briefly went vacant.

“I’m really scared… Xiaoqing, she…”

Her lips trembled faintly.

Ah…

Fang Qi raised a hand and rubbed his temples.

He had more or less figured it out.

But he had to admit…

The future looked bleak.

In other words, the Lin Xiaoyou standing before him merely possessed Lin You’s memories… without Lin You’s brain?

And what was more…

She might forget everything again later, truly becoming that… “naive Lin Xiaoyou”?

He looked at Lin Xiaoyou, who was biting her lip in a daze, her expression practically proclaiming that she wasn’t all that bright…

The corner of his mouth twitched.

…My highly intelligent teammate is really going to become an idiot!

But if they wanted to stop her from ending up like that and restore her intelligence, they would have to…

He turned his head and looked toward the kitchen once more.

Liguang was still standing there without moving, her silver hair cascading smoothly down her back.

And yet, red light was flashing inside the room!

Scarlet radiance flickered on and off across the frosted kitchen door!

It was the light of Liguang’s red eyes, flashing wildly!

A faint chill ran down Fang Qi’s spine, and he quietly inhaled.

However, he didn’t think she was about to turn evil.

She was probably… calculating.

After all, she must have heard what Lin Xiaoyou had just said.

And combined with what he had said earlier about her having lost part of her memory, she was surely…

trying her hardest to think things through!

Her red eyes were glowing brightly as she attempted to understand everything!

…Could she understand it?

Fang Qi also fell into a brief daze.

After all, the key to restoring Lin Xiaoyou’s intelligence lay with Liguang.

…At least, that was what Lin Xiaoyou herself had said.

Because that so-called “part of her soul” was in Liguang’s hands.

But…

Fang Qi tilted his head slightly, his pupils losing focus.

…What exactly was a “part of a soul”?

He didn’t know. But he did know that, given Liguang’s current state, returning that “soul” might be…

just a tiny bit… difficult?

She couldn’t even figure out which memories she had lost. How could she possibly know how to return a soul to someone else?

She didn’t even know she had taken someone else’s “thing”!

And besides…

He had only just found out that this crazy woman had actually done something like that in the previous cycle!

She hadn’t even told him!

This was seriously… so utterly depressing…!

“Ah…! Senior, I get it now!”

Hmm?

Fang Qi instinctively turned to look at her.

The former genius lady was staring toward Liguang in the kitchen, her expression faintly dawning with realization.

Then she turned back to Fang Qi, her almond-shaped eyes lighting up.

“Senior…”

She pointed at her own head and blinked.

“Is Liguang… having problems with her brain too?”

Fang Qi: “…”

Problems with her brain?

Hahaha…!

He raised a hand and covered his forehead.

…Suddenly, this all felt absurd beyond words.

How should he put it…

There were three people in the room right now: Fang Qi, his Liguang, and the genius lady Lin Xiaoyou.

The three of them, put together…

couldn’t even make up one complete brain between them!

What was this nonsense?!