During the first week of cohabitation, Lin Xia felt that this monitoring task might be a bit easier to complete than she had imagined.
Su Xin—her monitoring target, that newborn humanoid meme—seemed very… low-maintenance.
She didn’t cause trouble, didn’t make a fuss, had no strange movements, and no abnormal ability releases.
She woke up naturally every day, ate, sat in the living room using her phone (issued by the branch), sometimes went to the balcony to look at the sky, sometimes read books, sometimes spaced out.
Her daily routine was regular, her behavior normal—even more “ordinary” than most ordinary people Lin Xia knew.
Lin Xia recorded observation logs every day as required, feeling that what she wrote was increasingly like a boring log:
“08:42, observation target woke up, went to kitchen for water.”
“09:15, observation target played on phone in living room, no abnormalities.”
“12:30, observation target asked if lunch was ready, no abnormalities.”
She stared at these records, sometimes couldn’t help thinking: ‘What’s the difference between this and writing a diary for a roommate?’
But a task was a task; she still had to record and report.
Until the eighth day, Yin Qi began to feel that this life was a bit boring and decided to have some fun.
Her first move was to silently walk behind Lin Xia while she was seriously writing her report, and just as Lin Xia had typed a long paragraph and was about to click “Save,” she said in an extremely calm voice by her ear:
“You wrote it wrong.”
Lin Xia shuddered and nearly knocked over the coffee beside her hand.
She turned her head, made eye contact with Yin Qi, then moved her gaze back to the screen, looked once, and then looked again.
“…Where is it wrong?”
“That second sentence in the third paragraph,” Yin Qi said, “you wrote that the observation target conducted a ‘suspected ability test’ at 10 AM, but actually I was just cracking my knuckles. What ability test?”
Lin Xia was silent for three seconds.
“…How do you know what I wrote? Were you secretly looking at my screen?”
“No,” Yin Qi said, “I guessed.”
…She stared at Yin Qi for a while, unable to tell whether it was true or false, and ultimately decided to change that sentence.
On the tenth day, Yin Qi discovered a small habit of Lin Xia’s: every morning before drinking coffee, she would first warm the coffee cup in her palm until it reached the right temperature before drinking.
After three days of observation, she confirmed it was a fixed behavior, so that morning, while Lin Xia wasn’t paying attention, Yin Qi replaced the coffee in her cup with warm water.
Lin Xia picked up the cup, warmed it for a while, brought it to her lips, took a sip, and then froze.
She lowered her head, stared at the water in the cup, was silent for five seconds, then looked up and swept her gaze across the living room.
Yin Qi was sitting on the sofa reading a book, her expression focused, as if nothing had happened.
“…Su Xin.”
“Hmm?”
“Where’s my coffee?”
“What?”
“I put—” Lin Xia pointed at the table, “the cup of coffee I put here.”
“I don’t know,” Yin Qi said without looking up, flipping a page in her book.
“Maybe it was put in the wrong place.”
Lin Xia stared at her for a while, then silently went to the kitchen to brew another cup of coffee, brought it back and held it, and then she discovered that her cup had already returned to its original spot, filled with hot coffee at just the right temperature.
She stood there holding two cups of coffee, looking bewildered.
“…She thought about it, decided not to pursue it, and handed the extra cup to Yin Qi.
Yin Qi took it, took a sip, and nodded: “Mm, it’s good.”
On the fifteenth day, Yin Qi asked Lin Xia: “What are you afraid of?”
Lin Xia was folding clothes.
Her hands paused.
She looked up.
“…What do you mean?”
“I’m asking what you’re afraid of,” Yin Qi said, leaning against the doorframe with a casual tone.
“Bugs? Darkness? Or heights?”
“I… why should I tell you that?”
“Just curious,” Yin Qi said.
“Sometimes you turn the lights on and off rather quickly.
I guessed it might be because you’re afraid of the dark?”
Lin Xia was silent for a moment, then said: “…A little, but not too serious.”
“Have you always been afraid?”
“Since I was a child. It’s from one time when I was…”
She stopped mid-sentence, glanced at Yin Qi, and said, “Why are you asking this?”
“To understand the psychological characteristics of the monitoring target,” Yin Qi said with a straight face.
“It helps me cooperate with your work.”
Lin Xia stared at her for another five seconds, pursed her lips, then patted her clothes and continued folding, saying: “You’re the monitoring target. I’m the supervisor.”
“Cooperation goes both ways,” Yin Qi said.
Lin Xia finished folding the last piece of clothing and decided to ignore Su Xin.
Then she noticed that the living room light had been brightened by one level at some point.
She looked at the switch; the switch hadn’t moved.
She looked at Yin Qi, who was inspecting her own rings without looking up.
Lin Xia felt that Su Xin’s observation log should add an entry:
“Observation target suspected of being able to adjust lamp brightness without being detected; specific mechanism unknown.”
Then she thought about it and deleted that entry, changing it to:
“The lamp brightness in this dormitory is unstable; cause unknown.”
Late on the eighteenth night, Yin Qi couldn’t sleep.
She sat alone on the balcony looking at the night sky.
Shanghai’s night sky was always a bluish-orange hue; light pollution drowned the sea of stars, leaving only a layer of hazy glow.
She propped her chin and watched for a while, feeling that this world was a bit more interesting than she had imagined.
Overall, this world was still quite an interesting place.
There were memes like herself, the GMRA, all kinds of indescribable strange beings, and workers like Lin Xia who seriously kept boring logs.
She lowered her head and looked at the rings on her hand.
Ten silver rings were neatly arranged, emitting a faint glow in the night.
She extended her index finger, hooked the edge of a ring with her thumb, and gently tested the force—indeed, it could be taken off.
But she pulled her hand back again.
She couldn’t be bothered to take them off, and there was no need—at least for now, life was going smoothly.
Behind her came a slight sound; the bedroom door opened.
Lin Xia, wrapped in a coat, came out.
Seeing her sitting on the balcony, she paused, then walked over, leaned nearby, and said in a low voice: “Can’t sleep?”
“Can’t sleep,” Yin Qi said.
“You?”
“To see if you’re here,” Lin Xia said quite honestly.
“For humanoid individuals, even E-class memes need to be confirmed at night; it’s the rules.”
“Mm,” Yin Qi moved aside a bit, making room on the balcony chair.
“Sit.”
Lin Xia sat down, and the two of them looked at that orange night sky together for a while.
“How long have you been working here?”
Yin Qi asked.
“Three months,” Lin Xia said.
“I was assigned to Shanghai right after joining.”
“Then where is your hometown?”
“Sichuan.”
“Oh,” Yin Qi thought for a moment.
“I didn’t expect you’re a tyrannosaur?”
Lin Xia was silent.
“Then… do you think the cooking here is too bland?”
“Mm, occasionally.”