A newbie's anime life diary

Somewhat conflicted, Yukino glanced towards the kitchen, but in the end, she was pulled away by Utaha, and the two of them went into Yukiteru's bedroom together.

Of course, Yukiteru didn't miss their movements. It seems that Utaha really likes to stir up trouble now, but with Yukino around, she should be able to keep them in check.

Five minutes later, the bedroom door opened, and Shiyu walked confidently into the kitchen, tugged at Xuehui's clothes, and asked, "Xuehui-kun, what's your computer password?"

"...Do you need to use the computer?"

Xuehui put down his work and looked at Shiyu with a puzzled expression.

Utaha nodded and replied, "We still have some time before dinner, so Yukino and I thought we'd go online for a while to kill some time."

Is Yukino one too?

Xuehui nodded and asked, "Laptop or desktop?"

"Taiwanese style!"

"...The full English spelling of my novel is just 'swordartonline', you can just type it in."

"Sigh~ We thought it was someone's birthday password, how boring." With a pout, Shi Yu walked back leisurely, and the bedroom door slammed shut again.

Xiao Jing, standing to the side, looked at Xue Hui with some concern: "They won't be thinking of going through your computer, will they?"

"Let them look. I'm not hiding anything."

Xuehui didn't care at all. He wasn't going to be foolish enough to leave any evidence behind. He had hidden the few classic video files he had downloaded very well, so how could they possibly be discovered?

However, he forgot one thing: the internet's accessibility meant that many techniques could be easily found with a simple search...

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The quality of anime series in recent months seems to have declined significantly compared to before. Well, I'm not talking about mainstream anime.

Chapter 116 The Secret Hidden Deep Within the Computer

Inside the bedroom, Yukino and Utaha were sitting in front of the computer. Utaha, who had obtained the password, carefully typed in a long string of letters and then clicked confirm.

A familiar startup music played, and finally, the system booted up.

"Hmm~ Surprisingly simple."

Utaha looked at Yukiteru's computer desktop and commented with some surprise, and Yukino nodded in agreement.

The desktop background has never been changed; it's just the same ordinary desktop after the system was installed, and there are very few software icons on the desktop.

It only has a browser, music player, drawing software, office software, and a few other utility software programs; that's about it. It's incredibly limited.

The absence of game icons is understandable, since both girls have seen the two game consoles and a bunch of games that Yukiteru has placed in the living room, but now it's mostly Hiratsuka Shizuka who's playing them.

"Perhaps there really isn't?" Yukino still felt a little reluctant to continue, and she looked at Utaha and asked.

"Now that it's open, why would I turn it off right away?" Shi Yu pouted, then dragged the mouse and opened the browser on the desktop.

"Browsers can see a lot of content. I remember when I was in middle school, I didn't have my own laptop. During the holidays, I would use the desktop computer at home in the study to go online. I accidentally clicked on the history and saw some web links that my father had visited. Even my serious dad would browse those kinds of websites. Do you think Xuehui, a 17-year-old boy, wouldn't have those kinds of thoughts?"

Hearing Shiwa's words, Yukino couldn't help but blush a little. But thinking about it, it was normal, after all, adult websites were not uncommon in this country, and even some internet cafes had these resources.

Of course, Yukino herself had never been there; she only learned about it online.

After all, the screen in front of you is connected to the whole world.

"Huh?" Just as she was thinking this, she heard Shiyu exclaim in surprise. Focusing her attention on the screen, Yukino saw that Shiyu had opened a webpage but was unable to log in.

Looking at the website address, Yukino realized, "This is a foreign website? And it's all in English? Hmm... It's a foreign tech forum, no need to look at it."

Shiyu nodded, closed the webpage, and continued scrolling through the history. She scrolled back several days, all the way to early September, but didn't find anything of value. It was just some domestic Nico Nico Douga websites and some official forums for light novels.

"Really not?" Shiyu was a little skeptical. Considering her own experience, Yukiteru's movements were unusually swift in the Service Club classroom on the day of the cultural festival. Combined with what she had talked about with Shizuka and Yukino, this guy must have seen that kind of thing. It was impossible for him to say that he had never been exposed to it.

This was the conclusion the three of them reached together during their online chat yesterday.

Well... girls can sometimes be a bit more open in their interactions, especially when the person they're talking to is the same person.

"Why don't we check the hard drive and see if there's anything hidden there?" Yukino suggested to Utaha after thinking for a moment.

"Right, why don't we just look at the files?" Shi Yu suddenly realized, closed the browser, and began searching through the hard drive partitions one by one.

And then the two of them actually discovered something.

The computer's hard drive was divided into three partitions, with a total capacity of 1TB. The latter two partitions were basically empty, containing only software installation files, Xuehui's original novel manuscripts and illustrations, all neatly organized into individual folders.

"Although I don't know much about computers, it's hard not to be familiar with them after using them to write for so long. Logically speaking, with so few things on Xuehui's computer, the system drive shouldn't be taking up so much space." Shiyu seemed to be possessed by Sherlock Holmes, her eyes shining with wisdom.

"Let's look it up." Yukino said, picking up her phone. The screen displayed common file extensions, such as .a, .vi, .rmvb, and .exe.

Huh? You mean in Japan, it's all about buying?

Piracy exists everywhere; it's just a matter of how much or how little.

As they searched one by one, ten minutes gradually passed.

"Really not?"

Not a single video file was found. Could it be that they were wrong?

"There seems to be a browser here."

"Icons," Yukino said, pointing to the screen. "We're searching for applications now. In a long list, Yukino saw one that looked a little different, and then she saw another one."

She could recognize the first one as a browser icon, but she didn't recognize the second one.

Which one should we look at first?

Utaha looked at Yukino, who thought for a moment and then said, "Let's use a browser, since this is different from the one we saw before."

Shi Yu nodded and then moved the mouse to click.

The browser opened, and as before, I clicked on the history, only to find... it was empty!

When I opened the bookmarks folder again, it was empty.

It's like a newly installed browser software; there's nothing there.

"You hid a browser, but it didn't work at all. Don't you find that strange?" Yukino finally realized it, but there was no way to prove it since it didn't work.

"Lastly, if there's nothing there, we'll just pretend nothing happened. Anyway, it's not uncommon for high school students to look at notebooks these days. At most, we'll just stop him from touching them in the future." Shi Yu muttered to herself before clicking on the software icon she had seen earlier.

"This is... a cloud drive?" Yukino looked at the text on it and realized what it meant. A cloud drive is a way for internet companies to store files online, which is very useful for backing up data and so on.

"Oh ho, looks like he's found something good. 2048GB of storage, almost a quarter of it has been used? That's more than he uses on his computer."

Scrolling through the pages with the mouse, Shiyu grinned mischievously, "Hmm, how should I use it after I find it? Should I have Yukiteru take me out for a date? That sounds like a good idea! We could even go to an amusement park and ride the Ferris wheel, that's a classic scene from romance novels, and then have a candlelight dinner together..."

"Are you treating me like I don't exist? Besides, he would have taken you there even without this." Yukino looked at Shiwa coldly. This girl was indeed too excited, revealing her inner thoughts.

"It's just about adding some fun. Ah, I found it." As she spoke, Shiyu opened a folder called "Study Materials," and then opened a "National Culture" folder inside. There were several categories inside, such as human landscape, food culture, science and technology culture, and even more outrageous things like relativity and Marxism.

"Hmm... Hey, Yukino, should we keep lighting it?" At this point, no one would believe there wasn't something fishy going on. Thinking about what she might see, Utaha blushed and looked at Yukino beside her.

However, at this point, Yukino was no longer shy and looked at Utaha with great interest: "Didn't you say you wanted to come and see? Why are you asking me now?"

Yukino could tell that Utaha was starting to back down, or perhaps she was just shy. After all, Utaha hadn't really been exposed to harem items before, and her shyness was more of a factor than curiosity.

Yukino had already decided that if Utaha dared to click on it, she would immediately close her eyes.

"Tch, what's there to be afraid of? It's just a pile of meat." Saying this to cheer herself up, Shi Yu prepared to open one of the folders, "Food Culture".

Just as I was about to click the mouse, there was a knock on the bedroom door.

"Yukino, Utaha, dinner is ready, come out and eat."

"Ah!" Startled by the sudden sound, my hand trembled and I accidentally clicked on the folder. Fortunately, there were many subfolders inside.

Before she could take a closer look, Shiyu immediately closed the app, because Xuehui was already opening the door.

When Yukiteru opened the door, he wondered what the two of them were doing that made such a sound. But when he came in, he saw Yukino standing in front of the table, her body blocking Utaha and the computer screen behind her.

Upon seeing this, Xuehui frowned: "What are you doing?"

"It's nothing~" Yukino stood there, shaking her head with a flushed face. Utaha had already shut down the computer, then stood up and, together with Yukino, each took one arm and carried Yukiteru outside.

"I have a feeling you're hiding something from me." As he spoke, Xuehui glanced at his desk before leaving.

The computer is now off. I heard the shutdown sound, and I didn't hear any other noises beforehand, so I guess I haven't been exposed.

However, there was no time to check now, so Xuehui put the matter aside for now and focused on eating first.

Xuehui's cooking skills are as good as ever, of course, within the scope of Chinese cuisine. He's too lazy to study Japanese cuisine, so it's just so-so. Therefore, Chinese cuisine will still be the main focus today.

At the dinner table, Hiratsuka Shizuka, as always, had a hearty appetite, and her eating manners were more graceful than unseemly.

On the other hand, Yukino and Utaha are a bit strange.

Yukino doesn't usually eat much, so it's not noticeable. But Utaha, who was excitedly saying she wanted to eat his cooking, seems a bit distracted now?

"What's wrong? Don't you like the food?" Xuehui asked, placing a chicken wing into Shiyu's bowl.

Seeing the extra food suddenly appear in her bowl, Shiyu finally came to her senses, gave Xuehui a bright smile, and said, "The food is delicious, I'm very satisfied."

Then finally things returned to normal, and she ate gracefully, bite by bite.

Seeing Shiyu's movements gradually quicken, Xuehui also revealed a smile. After all, as the person in charge of cooking, he likes to see others eat the dishes he makes the most.

Suddenly, someone kicked my shin.

Sensing something, Yukiteru turned his head and saw Yukino looking at him. He tilted his head in confusion.

Then, he was kicked again, this time with three times more force than before.

Finally, Yukiteru understood and picked up a chicken wing, placing it in Yukino's bowl. Yukino's expression finally showed a hint of satisfaction.

Shaking his head, Xuehui picked up the bowl again, but the other side was kicked as well.

...Can't we just eat a meal in peace?

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I'm a bit conflicted about what comes next.