"Ruan Mei, thank you for making the trip... although I only need you to hand over your phone for a few minutes." Chen Li said to the cool and elegant beauty standing before him.
Ruan Mei, Genius Society Member #81. Her achievements in the life sciences were renowned throughout the universe, yet she maintained a low profile, living in seclusion. Only when facing her directly could one feel that cool, stunning beauty. Her features were delicate and soft, her brows and eyes like a painting. The slight droop at the corner of her eyes revealed a calmness and reservation unique to a scholar. The color of her pupils was clear and translucent, as cold as ice crystals, echoing her character's ice-elemental setting. Her long black hair was done up in a classical bun, adorned with a plum blossom-shaped hair accessory or a jade hairpin, appearing both dignified and lively. She wore a variant cheongsam in ink-wash hues with a high slit, which, combined with her slender and well-proportioned figure, gave the classic image of a gentle woman from the south. Her fair, long legs would inevitably draw sighs of admiration.
Lady Ruan Mei, now with a limited-time rerun!
"It's no trouble. It was a good opportunity to experience the Friends Circle's teleportation effect," Ruan Mei shook her head, unlocked her phone, navigated to the public account forwarding interface, and handed the phone to Chen Li.
Ruan Mei had always been curious about the Friends Circle's teleportation function, and this trip to the Herta Space Station was the perfect chance to test it out. The Friends Circle had indeed brought friends closer together. And because teleportation consumed chat logs, the atmosphere in the Curio group chat had become exceptionally lively.
Although the topics of discussion were extremely abstract, Chen Li could understand. As long as they didn't discuss any R-18 topics that could corrupt the children in the group, it was fine.
In fact, Chen Li was also surprised that Ruan Mei, as a friend, hadn't been sacrificed. Perhaps... after the user was transferred, the Friends Circle prioritized sacrificing strangers based on the current user's relationship priorities? And there was no need to elaborate on Herta and Ruan Mei's relationship.
"Where's Herta?" Ruan Mei scanned the area, seeing only Screwllum and Chen Li drinking tea (drinking machine oil) together, but no sign of Herta or a Herta puppet.
"She caused trouble and bailed," Chen Li said, annoyed.
To this day, Chen Li still didn't understand how Herta had managed to consume 12 Friends Circle bonds after using the Elation's Die to bring great misfortune upon Polka Kakamot. After the Friends Circle had been upgraded to a 1-Star Curio, although its defensive function hadn't fundamentally changed, it now added a three-second "golden body effect"—immunity to all damage—after withstanding a fatal attack. During this period, taking damage wouldn't consume a "friend," unless the attack's intensity exceeded the upper limit of a 1-Star Curio.
But if Polka Kakamot's attack could exceed the upper limit of a 1-Star Curio, Chen Li would twist Herta's head off and let Polka Kakamot kick it like a ball!
So Herta hadn't just messed up 12 times; she might have messed up countless times. Therefore, Chen Li was astonished at how she had managed it. Could it be that even knowing a single slash from the enemy would trigger her life-saving effect, she still had to get in their face and taunt them?
Surely... not? Actually, it wasn't impossible.
Chen Li had already replaced the Friends Circle terminals for the other people among the 12 consumed bonds. Nowadays, the terminals were cheaper and more efficient to produce; 3D printing each one only cost a single Star Stone. The only one still out of contact was the little unlucky egg Silver Wolf, who was probably still catching up on sleep.
And now, Chen Li was about to solve that problem.
Chen Li took Ruan Mei's phone and began engraving characters with a Miracle Crystal. Both Screwllum, who had seen this "engraving technique" several times, and Ruan Mei, who had never seen it before, were curious about the technique, so they both leaned in close to watch.
"Done! Sent!" After engraving for a while, Chen Li tapped the post button.
"Attention please, little Silver Wolf of the Stellaron Hunters, little Silver Wolf of the Stellaron Hunters, your mommy has brought you your favorite game console and left it in the old spot. Please be sure to pick it up."
After reading the text, Ruan Mei and Screwllum, under the influence of the miracle's power, spoke the content of the message Chen Li had just posted in unison.
"Screwllum, I need you to quickly place the new Friends Circle terminal in the same spot where you left the terminal for Silver Wolf last time. Give her two this time!" Chen Li said, handing two terminals to Screwllum.
"...Alright," Screwllum nodded.
"I'm sure Silver Wolf will be very touched that I went to such great lengths to notify her to pick up her terminals. What can I say? I care deeply for every friend in the Friends Circle," Chen Li said, moved.
"..." by Screwllum.
Based on his understanding of that little hacker, if Silver Wolf was still sleeping, this message would wake her up with rage. And if she was already awake, hearing this message would make her pass out from rage.
"Ruan Mei, you can delete this message now. As for what kind of follow-up message to post, you can decide for yourself," Chen Li said, handing the phone back to Ruan Mei.
"Mhm." Having experienced the influence of the Source Text at such close range, Ruan Mei found it eye-opening. Just like Screwllum and Herta, she also posted a follow-up statement.
Ruan Mei: [Apologies, my account was just hacked by the Stellaron Hunter Silver Wolf. How could the Stellaron Hunter Silver Wolf be so naughty!]
"???"
Seeing this statement, personally edited and sent by Ruan Mei, Chen Li looked at her in astonishment, then looked at the message, then back at Ruan Mei.
Seriously, dude! You're not even going to pretend?
Although the explanations posted by both Screwllum and Herta after their memetic messages had a perfunctory feel to them, this time, after specifically naming Silver Wolf in the message, to then claim the account was hacked by Silver Wolf... Chen Li was now starting to think about how he could possibly explain this to Silver Wolf in a way that would convince her that Ruan Mei had genuinely sent this follow-up message, and that it wasn't his idea.
Ruan Mei, I thought only that Herta was capable of such abstract trolling. I never thought that you, Ruan Mei, with your honest-looking face, could be so abstract too!
"Is there a problem? I saw that this was the explanation used the last two times. Isn't this the standard template?" Ruan Mei asked softly, seeing Chen Li's hesitant expression after she sent the message.
"Was that on purpose or an accident?" After holding it in for a long time, this was the only thing Chen Li could manage to say.
"I thought this was a regular bit between you and Silver Wolf. Do you need me to help you clarify?" Ruan Mei asked with a light smile.
"Forget it, no need. Let's just leave it. I hope Silver Wolf believes that I really didn't orchestrate this follow-up message," Chen Li sighed.
Would Silver Wolf believe him? Probably not.
"By the way, Ruan Mei and Screwllum, you two have clicked the link for the revival card, right? How's your progress on collecting the fragments?" Chen Li figured that since he was unhappy, he might as well find a way to make everyone unhappy, so he brought up this topic.
As expected, both Screwllum and Ruan Mei fell silent when faced with this question.
"Query: Chen Li, are you certain you haven't secretly adjusted the drop rate of the revival card fragments?" Screwllum was the first to speak.
"Of course not. If I didn't want you to revive the people you want to revive, wouldn't it be easier to just block you at the revival card approval stage? Why would I block you at the fragment collection stage?" Chen Li said innocently.
"Then it's a problem with the Curio itself. Perhaps this is also part of the price," Ruan Mei sighed. As an expert in the life sciences, a genius who had truly tried to revive her deceased parents, defying the very essence of the biological cycle and even drawing the attention of Nous for it, Ruan Mei knew better than anyone the great price that had to be paid to resurrect a life.
"So how many fragments have you two collected? And which fragment are you missing?" Chen Li asked curiously. As the one and only designated VIP of the Revival Games, with the privilege of reviving someone after watching just 30 seconds of ads, and also being very busy, Chen Li had never tried to collect the fragments himself. Thus, he had no idea how absurdly low the drop rate for the final fragment was.
"I currently have 89 fragments. Among them, I have between 7 and 10 of each numbered fragment, except for fragment #7," Screwllum said.
"I currently have 369 fragments. Except for fragment #3, the appearance probability of the other numbered fragments is also relatively even," Ruan Mei said.
"369 fragments? Ermm... forgive my asking, but what are your feelings towards Herta and Robin right now?" 369 fragments was equivalent to watching ads for over three hours straight, without sleep. And while watching, your gaze couldn't wander, or it would jump to the product page. Watching three hours of ads might sound easy, but the frustration of never getting that one missing fragment would drastically reduce one's patience, making the experience unbearable. That's why Chen Li asked about Ruan Mei's feelings towards Robin and Herta, who had monopolized all the ad slots yesterday and today.
"Nothing unusual. Why?"
"Don't you find watching the ads annoying? Especially with those two appearing repeatedly."
"Miss Robin's singing, while different from my preferred genre of music, is still pleasant to the ear. And Little Herta's ads are also very cute. I don't find it frustrating," Ruan Mei shook her head.
Now Chen Li really couldn't tell if it was because Ruan Mei's patience was just that good, or if the Revival Games ad link itself had some kind of anti-aversion effect. In any case... the advertising effect was definitely great!
"Ruan Mei?"
The door to the room where Chen Li and the others were automatically opened. Herta strode in, walking like she owned the place. When she saw Ruan Mei, her eyes lit up and she walked over, directly hugging her and rubbing her face against Ruan Mei's stomach.
"What's wrong, Herta?" Ruan Mei was a little surprised by the puppet's unusual behavior.
"Call me Unique Herta," Herta corrected.
"Why are you interested in the name the Erudition Society writers came up with for you? Didn't you already reject it?" Ruan Mei was a bit puzzled.
"Never mind that for now. Lower your head," Little Herta beckoned.
"What is it?" Ruan Mei complied with Little Herta's suggestion, though she was confused.
Herta didn't speak, but simply wrapped her puppet arms around Ruan Mei's shoulders, bringing their faces very close together, while looking expectantly at the now-closed automatic door.
The next moment, the automatic door opened again.
"Oh, right, there's one more thing..." Big Herta, controlling another puppet, walked in. She was about to say something when she saw Little Herta hugging Ruan Mei and looking at her smugly.
"You... Little Herta, what are you doing?" Big Herta froze.
"That's right, that's the look! This is the look I've always wanted to see—that expression of both jealousy and astonishment!" Little Herta, still hugging Ruan Mei, threw her head back and laughed.
"Click!"
Chen Li pressed the shutter button, forever capturing this moment.
The puppet controlled by a grim-faced Big Herta, the laughing Little Herta hugging Ruan Mei, and Ruan Mei herself, who was perhaps in on it but let it happen...
"This," Chen Li said with absolute certainty to Screwllum beside him, "is art!"
Chen Li decided to name this photograph—"The Smile of Herta."
---o---
(Translator's Note: The final line, "塔的笑" (Tǎ de xiào - The Smile of Herta), is a direct pun on the Chinese name for the Mona Lisa, "蒙娜丽莎的笑" (Méngnà Lìshā de xiào - Mona Lisa's Smile). "Tǎ" is the character for Herta's name.)