I am weak and friendly

Chapter 434 Time Frozen

"Old woman, we have guests!"

On the second floor of an old dormitory building, Du Qiming unlocked the door with his key and called out to the room.

"A guest has arrived?" Du Qiming's wife, Madam Ming, came out of the bedroom. She had just recovered from an illness and was still very weak, needing to hold onto the wall to walk, but she still smiled at the woman following behind Du Qiming: "Welcome, welcome! It's been a long time since such a young lady has come to our house... Please sit down, please sit down!"

As she spoke, Mrs. Ming pulled Du Qiming a couple of steps inside and asked in a low voice, "Is this the young Tang classmate? What a beautiful girl! I didn't expect that young Tang classmate was actually a girl. You should invite her back for dinner more often."

Du Qiming: "..."

"No, old woman, what are you thinking? That Tang student is a boy, and this girl seems... very interested in him. She stopped me downstairs and asked him a lot of questions, so I brought her back."

Master Ming's wife: "???"

Mrs. Ming looked past Mr. Du Qiming's tall frame and looked behind him, sizing up the girl.

She was very young, looking about seventeen or eighteen years old, and was wearing an outfit that looked like a school uniform, but the skirt was so short that it would drive many parents crazy. Fortunately, Mrs. Ming was not someone who cared about such things. She was born in the 1940s, experienced many social changes, and had studied abroad in some very open social eras, so she was quite knowledgeable.

But more importantly.

This is a girl who is seventeen or eighteen years old.

Mrs. Ming originally intended to reprimand Du Qiming for bringing someone back so casually. But when she saw the girl, her words changed immediately.

"Please sit down, young lady," said Master Ming's wife. "Would you like some fruit, young lady?"

Then, they quickly called to the nanny to prepare something for the little girl to eat.

The girl didn't answer, but instead looked the room up and down.

In fact, compared to the couple's financial situation and social status, the house was really too shabby.

This house was built in the 1970s or 1980s. Back then, it was considered an improved type of housing, a place that only people with a certain status and rank could live in.

But now it seems that this place can no longer be considered "old and dilapidated"; it has even entered the category of being almost uninhabitable.

In most places, these kinds of houses have already been demolished.

The house looked old, cramped, and dark, with both the decoration and furnishings reminiscent of the 1980s.

Old posters hung on the walls, and the living room contained a wooden sofa and an old-fashioned chest of drawers...

Even the electrical appliances seem to be stuck in the last century; apart from a brand-new air conditioner hanging on the wall, everything else seems frozen in time.

A family photo of the three of them hangs in front of the air conditioner.

A tall, handsome man in a Zhongshan suit and glasses; a gentle and intellectual woman with long, flowing hair; and between them, a teenage girl with a bob haircut.

The three people stood in front of a backdrop that was clearly from an old-fashioned photo studio, smiling broadly.

When he saw the girl come in, he looked around and seemed to be "sniffing" everywhere. Master Ming's wife didn't seem to mind and watched with a smile.

When the nanny came out of the kitchen with the prepared food, she asked, "Miss, would you like some fruit?"

"Fruit?" Silas looked at the fruit on the plates with a puzzled expression.

Things of all sizes, colors, and shapes, emitting a fragrance.

Silas recalled the strategy guide from his memory.

—The brighter the color of something, the more dangerous it often is. Do not approach brightly colored objects!
"Are you trying to harm me?" Silas became wary.

Silas felt very strange after entering the room.

It seems that everyone in this world lives in such boxes.

This aligns well with their life patterns and lifestyles.

But she didn't think that a cane bearer would live in such a place.

This dwelling probably doesn't even meet the most basic housing need of "a safe place to live"!

Could it be that the person wielding the staff could disguise himself so well in order to hide his identity?
Or……

Isn't this guy the cane bearer?

Yes, he's already laid bare his intentions and confronted him head-on. If he still tries to hide it, then he's just too pathetic.

Moreover, it doesn't seem to fit his pattern of using "symbols," "information," and "omens" to warn himself.

Or perhaps... this house is also some kind of "information" and "symbol," representing what he wants to tell himself?
Therefore, the ten characters "holding a staff to break the long night, embracing benevolence to help thousands of families" that I saw were meant to tell me that the "person holding the staff" had already set his sights on me.

What other symbols are hidden inside this house, telling me something?
Perhaps... this is the behavior pattern of the cane bearer?

After all, for terrorism, patterns are very important; everyone has their own patterns, and this is also a requirement for becoming a terrorist.

Even the person wielding the staff should be no exception.

Pattern-title-responsibility: this is how the system constrains them and is also the basis for granting them power.

To gain something, you must first lose something else.

The pattern of the staff-bearer has already been partially revealed, namely the preference for suggestion and display, and semiotics.

With that thought in mind, Silas began to observe his surroundings with a completely new perspective.

And from a semiotic point of view, what does this room represent?

Unfortunately, this physical body acquires information too slowly and in a primitive way. Higher-dimensional thinking requires a higher-dimensional body and senses to support it, which is something that remote prosthetics cannot achieve.

Even though she exploited many loopholes, there was still not much she could do while maintaining secrecy. It was already quite impressive that she could maintain multi-dimensional thinking abilities using only a prosthetic body.

This is the limit that this prosthetic body can withstand.

It's like a powerful brain being put into a tank, with only a camera that can only see one pixel at a time, inputting information into it.

Even the most brilliant mind is useless.

So... if these guys aren't trying to harm me, but are actually trying to send me some kind of message...

She stared at the plate of fruits with their complex colors and sizes for a while, then arranged them into various possible codes and information.

She wrote down many of her deductions, then stepped back and looked at Master Ming's wife.

After being rejected by Silas, Master Ming's wife did not show any impatience, but watched with a smile.

Even if a strange girl stares at her repeatedly, or even gets very close, she doesn't get angry.

After a while, Grandpa Du changed into some home clothes and came out of the bedroom leaning on his white cane.

"What are you doing?" Although I couldn't see, something seemed off.

“I don’t know either,” said Mrs. Ming. “This little girl seems very curious about me.”

So, Grandpa Du sat down as well, letting the little girl look at him carefully.

Youth is wonderful, but it's also so abstract.

It's been far too long since a young woman has visited this house.

Although this girl doesn't look like their daughter at all.

And it's very impolite.

It's even quite puzzling.

However, they happen to have a very high tolerance.

As you get older, many things seem less intolerable.

The young woman looked around and gazed at everything, while the two elderly people watched quietly from the side.

Their behavior made Silas even more convinced that there must be some hidden information here.

However, after several tens of minutes, she still couldn't find a possible combination of information.

Strange, this doesn't make sense. The first piece of information about the person wielding the staff is right in their face, so why is the second piece of information so hard to obtain?
Could it be that I misunderstood something? Or that I'm looking in the wrong direction?

Is this not the behavior pattern of a cane bearer?

"Girl, are you hungry? I'll cook for you. What would you like to eat?" Master Ming's wife asked Silas, noticing that it was getting late.

"Hungry?"

Did this trigger some process?
What is the man with the staff about to reveal?
“Yes, you’re hungry and need to eat. Do you want something to eat?” said Master Ming’s wife. “You haven’t even had a sip of water since you came in.”

"Here's what we'll do: you stay here, young lady, and Lao Du, you stay with her while I go make some food."

As soon as Mrs. Ming said this, she went to the kitchen.

The nanny was cooking inside when she saw her come in and was startled. She quickly said, "Auntie, you should go back and rest. Why did you come into the kitchen? You're not well yet and can't stand the fumes."

"It's alright. We have guests today, so I'll cook some of my specialties," said Mrs. Ming. "I haven't been in the kitchen for a long time, so I don't know if I'll still be able to cook."

As she spoke, she picked up a kitchen knife. Her vegetable-cutting skills had become rusty; after all, the housekeeper had been with the family for almost ten years, and during those ten years, her health had been poor, with frequent and repeated hospitalizations, leaving her with little time or energy to cook.

However, there were a few dishes for which she remembered every single step of the process clearly.

because……

She did it countless times in her dreams.

She was busy when she suddenly heard the kitchen door open. Turning around, she saw that the strange girl from before had also come in.

She was in her early teens, youthful and beautiful, wearing a pretty dress, and staring with curious eyes.

It seems to be asking, "Mom, what did you cook today?"

"What are you doing in the kitchen? Just wait outside, there's everything you like to eat."

"What you like to eat?" Silas frowned.

Is this some kind of hint or riddle?

Did I finally trigger the correct pattern?

"Ah... I mean, these are all things I'm good at." Master Ming's wife realized she had lost her composure and quickly said.

Then she saw that strange girl approach her.

"What is this?" she asked.

"This is diced chicken."

"Diced chicken?"

"It's chicken chopped up into small cubes."

"What about that one?"

"Those are raisins."

"raisin?"

"It's just dried grapes. The purple ones in the fruit you just ate were grapes."

This girl seemed to know nothing.

But Mrs. Ming was not annoyed at all, answering in detail and speaking softly.

Of course, that's how it is from Silas's perspective.

The NPC who solves the puzzle is very cooperative, presenting the puzzle in its entirety.

So, I should dig deeper and find the second piece of information about this guy, right?

"What are you trying to do?" she asked.

"I'm going to stir-fry them together to make 'Grape Chicken,' which is my specialty and my daughter's...favorite dish..."

"Your favorite dish?"

When Master Ming's wife saw the girl tilting her head and looking at her with a look of inquiry and doubt.

I couldn't help but reach out my hand.

It didn't come to nothing.

It did not suddenly disappear.

My hand touched the soft hair, a sensation I hadn't felt in decades.

It has the feel of a young girl's hair.

The girl covered her face with her hand, and for a moment, she felt as if she had returned to a decades-old afternoon when she had cooked dinner late.

However, my hands were already loose, with bulging veins and covered with age spots.

She moved her hand away, and the face below was not the face she remembered.

Tears streamed down her face, and she didn't have time to wipe them away.

"What's wrong?" the girl asked, her tone still very calm.

"It's nothing, I just got a bit choked by the cooking fumes and they got into my eyes," she said.

"Oh." The girl stared at her.

The food was served more than an hour later.

The nanny ate a simple meal in the kitchen by herself, without coming out to disturb the three of them or making any comments.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock." The living room was quiet, with only the sound of the old-fashioned grandfather clock on the wall. It seemed that decades of time had been frozen in this house and were finally moving forward.

Du Qiming and his wife sat on either side of the table, barely touching their chopsticks.

Only the girl was picking and choosing, rummaging through the food.

This behavior is actually very rude, but...

Fortunately, both of them are very tolerant.

More than enough to encompass everything.

"Don't just look, eat!" Finally, Du Qiming couldn't resist anymore.

Then Master Ming's wife patted the back of his hand.

You're so talkative!

"eat?"

"Yes, eat it," said Master Ming's wife softly. "It's the same as the fruit from before, you can eat it."

Yes, this creature also has a sense of taste, so it must contain all sorts of information.

Moreover, it seems that no further information can be found using only the other senses.

The girl finally stopped fiddling with it and started eating.

If anyone could describe Silas's current thought process, it would be a computational storm that the entire Earth's computer networks and computing power combined could not match.

She was going through and studying the signals from all her senses, reorganizing and eliminating them, trying to find a "symbol" related to the person holding the staff, like "holding a staff to break the long night, with benevolence to help all families".

but.

After finishing his meal, Silas looked up at Du Qiming:

"So, you really aren't the cane bearer?"

“I’ve already said it, I’m not the one who holds the staff. The one who holds the staff is Xiao Tang,” he said.

"Little Tang?" Silas frowned.

"The one in the wheelchair."

Perhaps, I was indeed going in the wrong direction.

Silas thought.

She stood up, turned around, and walked towards the door.

"Oh? You're leaving?" Mrs. Ming asked reluctantly. "Will you come back?"

The girl didn't answer and left without looking back.

As the girl's figure seemed to disappear in an instant, Master Ming's wife stood there for a long, long time, lost in thought.

Silas returned to the point in time when he had just seen "Holding a staff to break through the long night, with benevolence to help all families," and looked at the boy sitting in the wheelchair beside him.

Everything repeated itself without any change.

For people who lack multidimensional thinking, the world is linear, and they are unaware of the world's possibilities.

They didn't even realize that some things weren't as they perceived them to be.

……

Tang Yiping discovered that the ID had been following him.

Hmm, did you discover that you're also a user of the "Survival Guide for the Weak"?

It's rare to meet new companions. Are there other users in Chuanling?
Unfortunately, there were so many people around, making it inconvenient for them to recognize each other.

Huh... why is Vanrag here?
Tang Yiping noticed that next to that ID, there was a yellow dot representing Van Lag.

(End of this chapter)