Befoing to bed, Ephraim spoke to Ling Jialei on the phone. Well, more like listened — the woman barely left him room to breathe, let alone speak. He clutched the receiver, obediently enduring her nagging with the occasional hum of agreement.
By the time she was finally winding down, Ephraim seized the rare pause to squeeze in a single question.
"Jiejie, say... what kind of man or woman would you be willing to hand your precious, obedient, well-behaved, unbelievably cute little brother to?"
The other side of the li silent for a beat. Then Ling Jialei's voice returned, bright and leisurely.
"Someone who fight a bear bare-handed, solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded, survive a week of Deng-ge's cooking, and still have the face to call you 'baby' in front of me without blinking. Otherwise, not worthy."
Ephraim's eyeshes fluttered. He nodded seriously.
[Ephraim: Rachel, do you think Old Qi do all that?]
[Rachel: What about Shen Yizhou?]
[Ephraim: What about him?]
Rachel chuckled, low and mellow.
[Rachel: Based on my assessment of his physical capabilities aion time, he indeed fight a bear... though not barehanded. He could solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded without breaking a sweat. But surviving Deng Hongjie’s cooking for a full week... he'd likely perish withiy-four hours.]
Ephraim sighed dramatically.
[Ephraim: A pity... I was still hoping I might have a ce with him. Alright, let's move on to my bae.]
Rachel hummed in amusement.
[Rachel: Your so-called bae is only an afterthought? How fickle. But fair. DILFs and MILFs are superior.]
[Ephraim: Exactly! An older charmer has experiehe ups and downs of life. They might actually have the patieo tolerate me.]
[Rachel: Heh. Well then, acc to my data, Shen Yizhou meets all the requirements — with the minor caveat of needing one or two ons to subdue the bear.]
Ephraim’s eyes curved into crests.
[Ephraim: Hm... sounds worthy enough. Let’s keep him for observation.]
That night, Ephraim texted Shen Yizhou befoing to bed.
{Mister Shen. Please learn to defeat a bear barehanded or I will be forced to make the difficult decision of asking for a divorce.}
While Ephraim slept soundly, Rachel quietly switched off their unication el. Leaning ba a plush sofa in her spacious, high-tech office illuminated by the soft glow of tless floating ss, she stretched her limbs zily before snapping her fingers.
A translut red window, simir in design to Ephraim's blue one, flickered ience before her.
Humming to herself, Rachel curled up in her seat, hugging her ko her chest. Her delicate fingers danced across the interfaavigating through a hidden menu only accessible to system partners.
She selected the option — [System unication in Viity. {Personal}].
The {Personal} el rivate messaging interface for selected systems within a world — an invitation-only line of unication separate from the noisy, open group chat where all systems in the viity could freely mingle. Executioners had their own chat window as well, entirely isoted from the systems' work.
A list of nearby systems appeared — a single name glowing faintly at the top.
Rachel's lips curved into a smile. Without hesitation, she selected the name and typed.
{0511: Honey, why are you here? You're not assigo this world, are you?}
There was a long pause before the reply came, the typing indicator flickering softly.
{0002: Watg my partner make a fool of himself. Not gonna lie — with the way he's ag, I see glimpses of myself back when I was chasing after you, little fox.}
Rachel's red-painted nails tapped against her s as her eyes kled with mirth.
{0511: I was holy surprised when I saw him. I thought for sure you'd talk him out of his behavior.}
{0002: Who said I didn't try? The brat's stubborn as hell — reminds me of someone.}
Rachel's gaze softened, flig over the faint digital glow refleg in her eyes. Her fingers hovered for a moment before she typed back slowly.
{0511: Then he really is a fool.}
{0002: En... Just like I was.}
After a moment of warm silehe s flickered again.
{0002: Anyway, as you see. I failed. Then again, I'm not surprised. He's been waiting for this moment so desperately — there was no ce of talking him out of it. He forsook his memories to walk into mission wranted, he'll regain them once he returns to the tral space... but that depends oher your boy finish the mission or not.}
{0511: Hmm. Ephraim probably . He's a nice boy. And if I see he's failing, I'll simply dictate his ayself and have him plete it. He won't earn much karma that way, but at least the mission would be pleted.}
{0002: I trust you, little fox. Well, whatever. This just gives me an opportunity to enjoy a good show and stay close to my dear wife while she's on mission.}
{0511: Then watch my boy bulldoze through it. He wants to have fun, and I won't stop him from that. He's such a fun little diva.}
{0002: Sounds iing. Heh.}
{0511: ht, one question, my love... Your missioioner has lost his memories, right? How e... he still flirted with my boy so easily?}
{0002: He wasn't flirting, little fox. That man himself doesn't know what he wants. He just says whatever's on his mind. That's his current personality. Maybe... without notig, he found Ephraim attractive even in Ling Xiaoyu’s body.}
{0511: So... autism?}
{0002: ...Perhaps?}
Ephraim woke up early the m, before his arm even rang. He was gd to find he'd retained his habits and training — waking up at the time he'd set for himself was one such little habit.
He spent three full hrooming himself into the prettiest diva possible before making his way downstairs for breakfast.
He was a little disappoio find that Shen Yizhou had already left for work, but the faint trace ret vahe moment he saw the message waiting on his phone.
{Good m, Little Yu. If you wish to go out, please ask Old Qi. Old Qi will prepare a car for you. I left a credit card in Old Qi's hands — if you're short on money, don't hesitate to use it. If you enter any problems, call me. If you 't reach me, tact my assistant instead. Here is his number: xxxxxxx.}
Ephraim's lips curled into a dazzling smile as he accepted the sleek card from Old Qi — his eyes sparkling the moment he realized it was a bck card.
[Ephraim: Aww. Isn't he such a well-mannered cutie? He really is my bae. Makes me want to promise all my loyalties to him.]
[Rachel: Will you, honey?]
[Ephraim: Sure... when he learns to defeat a bear barehanded first.]
After breakfast, Ephraim informed Old Qi that he'd be out for the day and there was o prepare lunch.
Settling into the plush backseat of the car, he zily slouched with one leg crossed over the other, direg the driver to the location of the protest Rachel had provided.
With the gentle hum of the engine lulling him, he casually unlocked his phone and opened his social media at — only to freeze in mild surprise at the sudden surge in his follower t within just a few days.
His fingers lingered on the s for a moment before swiping through the influx of notifications, lips curling once more.
There were too many. The number had already surged past fifty thousand — a figure so absurd, it made no sense.
[ProfessionalLurker69: ?? Miss Ma’am, weren’t you at 5k followers yesterday?? Why do you have half of 100k now??]
[TaxEvasionButMakeItRomantic: WHO is funding you?? This type of ht success is not normal.]
[ShrimpKing88: Did a rich CEO secretly i in her??]
[DetectiveButBroke: I feel like she has a financial backer, and I o find out who.]
[IQDroppingLive: Girl, be ho. Is this talent or ism?]
[FutureBeau’sSideChick: I’ve seen influencers rise fast, but this is SPEEDRUNNING the i.]
[SimpNationRepresentative: How does she go viral just by EXISTING??]
Ephraim blinked dumbly, momentarily fearing his own prowess.
[Ephraim: Did they… finally realize my unholy beauty and irresistible carm?]
[Rachel: Ling Jialei made it so. She bought you popurity. And when more people came across your profile, they liked what they saw — naturally, they followed.]
[Ephraim: ... this be sidered ism?]
[Rachel: ism? No no no, sweetheart. This is called leveraging social capital to uplift marginalized voices.]
[Ephraim: ...What marginalized voices??]
[Rachel: Yours.]
[Ephraim: I'm not marginalized?]
[Rachel: You're a delicate little sickly beauty struggling to survive in a world that's too harsh on you. Well... acc to her at least. When the heavens close one door, your sister simply opened a window — and threw a viral thirst trap out of it.]
[Ephraim: I don't think that's how justice works.]
[Rachel: It does... in capitalism.]
After a moment.
[Rachel: Besides... if they didn't want to see you half-hey wouldn't have followed.]
Ephraim blihen smiled proudly. Flig his wig, he preened, "You're right, Rachel. Absolutely."
He puckered his lips into the camera, pouting and posing about, winking here and there as he addressed his sudden influx of fans.
"Hi cuties~ It’s your sister Xiaoying~ Today, I will be taking you all to the resy future baby’s godfather. Man’s in a pickle. Let’s do our best. Muah muah~"
And off he went, on a quest to find Xu Jinyao, who too had been relegated a role out of nowhere.
The car had to stop some distance from the institute’s gate — the sheer number of protesters clogging the roads made it impossible to get any closer.
Ephraim instructed the driver to leave without him, turning his gaze toward the sea of people. Crag his neck with a satisfying pop, he dove headfirst into the crowd, weaving and slipping through gaps with a fluid ease that betrayed an unnervingly well-trained body.
[Rachel: Those are some impressive moves. And even more impressive is the body. What a tiny waist. Bet your followers would love to see this.]
Naturally, Ephraim had his pho in an instant, upgrading his audience from Rachel aloo Rachel plus fifty thousand curious spectators with far too much free time.
"They say, ‘if there’s a will, there’s a way.’ But in my case, if there’s a gap, there’s me. Watd learn, my children. This is what happens when your waistline is one missed meal away from disappeariirely. Truly, I am but a whisper in the wind. What do they say again? Oh yeah — ‘the wind blew and sister flew.’"
Some odd gazes and irritated scowls came his way, but Ephraim breezed through, utterly unbothered. He finally made it to the other side, he school gate — and that’s when Ephraim spotted a certain someone.
With how suddenly the protest had fred up, there were only a handful of personnel guarding the institute. Most security likely hadn't even arrived yet, leaving several unfortuudents trapped outside the gates. One sufortunate soul was Xu Jinyao.
His situation was especially precarious — someone had loudly pointed him out as one of the students with a backer, and now the angry mob was tugging at him as he g to the gate, wide-eyed and bewildered.
The fusion in his eyes only deepened when a particurly eager, unnervingly cheerful female face — ohat looked armingly like his own — emerged through the crowd and tched onto him.
"Gotcha~!"
