After such a tedious day, the room finally fell silent with the three people, two adults and one cutie dozing off. Wen Qinxi might have been closing his eyes but he didn't immediately fall asleep as he had an uninvited guest. The team had been running a diagnostic test on the gaming system after the unfortunate incident where Jolie lost all authority with another entity taking over.
They suspected Qie Ranzhe but that possibility was too farfetched so they decided to run a system diagnostic test and scan for viruses or bugs. As expected, they found none and the only possible conclusion was that it was Qie Ranzhe's doing. After much deliberation, they decided to have the system sniff around for any irregularities which was what Jolie had been upto this entire time.
As soon as the system found out something it considered peculiar, it came back to report not caring whether Wen Qinxi was sleeping or not. Hell, even if Wen Qinxi was in the bathroom it would still barge in, that's how spooked it was.
"Boss, boss.....I found something," said the system whispering as though afraid someone or something would eavesdrop.
"What are you whispering for when you are in my head?" said Wen Qinxi scolding the system that had picked the worst timing to intrude as he was just about to drift off to lala land.
"Oh, um...is this better?" it asked but it didn't wait for Wen Qinxi's response and carried on, "Something is off with our CEO. It's hard to explain but....something is definitely off," with the last part said in a whisper.
The system was genuinely terrified that it didn't dare say anything bad or disrespectful. It was used to Flagship being its playground doing as it pleased but now there were some things it could no longer do. It used to have the freedom to check out the next world even take over a character and mess around. Let's not blame the system, it was just bored. As long as it didn't mess with Qie Ranzhe's world it could do as it wished but now it was blocked from all sides but that wasn't what spooked it.
It was when it was suddenly frozen in the fourth world with Qie Ranzhe directly staring at it even though the system was invincible. Those dark villainous eyes shook the system to the bone. It could only play dead and remain unmoving till Qie Ranzhe's gaze shifted but what happened next made it almost piss its pants if it could.
Qie Ranzhe flashed a malicious grin that had the system weeping internally for its mama. In the next second, Qie Ranzhe went back to normal carrying on as though nothing happened. Even the vicious glare had melted away making it seem like it was the system's imagination.
Terrified out of its mind it struggled for ten minutes to leave the fourth world and as soon as it left it ran away so fast to complain to its actual mama slash creator.
Wen Qinxi listened to the system's grievances, his expression grave. He didn't know what to make of this and what it meant for himself. "I think he, he sometimes becomes lucid. Even Qie Xieling's appearance I believe was a well designed plan. I think he interfered with the third world and even picked this character for you in advance. In the past two worlds your character setting was picked after careful statistical analysis and the character with the highest probability of helping Qie Ranzhe succeed would be picked. Logic states that in this world it was meant to be Feng Yu but somehow you ended up with Feng Zi. I know it doesn't make sense but I am telling you something is off," the system rambled on barely making sense.
Thinking it over, it seemed the system was right. If Wen Qinxi got the character Feng Yu wouldn't it be as simple as handing over the crystal, problem solved. But he ended up as Feng Zi struggling to find a father that was hiding from him. Even when he found Feng Yu it didn't mean he would willingly hand over the crystal.
"Shit! You are right but what about Qie Xieling? What did you find?" asked Wen Qinxi unsure what to think now.
"Your character has missing memories. The memories from the day Feng Zi got Qie Ranzhe drunk and stole the codes and hand them over to Feng Yu are all missing. I think Feng Yu tempered with his son's memories though am not sure for what reason," said the system but hearing Qie Ranzhe shuffle, it got spooked once more, "I got to go, boss. I will come back if I find something worth mentioning."
Just like that Jolie vanished leaving behind a flabbergasted Wen Qinxi. He should have known, Qie Ranzhe would never make things easy for him. To think this world would have been conquered by moving a simple chess piece made him sigh in frustration.
Because his mind was hard at work analysing the jumble of information delivered by the system, Wen Qinxi didn't immediately fall asleep only managing to catch some z's after midnight. As his breathing evened out and body relaxed, falling into deep sleep someone suddenly made a move.
Qie Ranzhe woke up with the kid's foot right in his mouth. He carefully removed the stray foot and gently moved Feng Xieling to his side after placing pillows at the edge of the bed to prevent the kid from falling over. After he was sure Qie Xieling wouldn't fall over he moved to the centre of the bed and slept right besides Feng Zi. This move was so slick and practiced that the man beside him didn't feel anything.
In the blink of an eye evening was over with the sun rising from the horizon. Regardless of whether he slept well or not, Wen Qinxi woke up early, a victim of his biological clock. He sheepishly opened his eyes expecting to see Feng Xieling but his heart got a an electric shock when he saw Qie Ranzhe lying next to him with his eyes wide open staring at him scrutinizing his appearance.
"What the fuck," whispered Wen Qinxi pushing Qie Ranzhe away, "Wh-what are you doing?" Believe me, he would so love this treatment if it was any other day but after what the system said, he was really confused.
Qie Ranzhe smiled and confidently replied, "Conducting an experiment," as he kept staring at him.