"You just need to throw yourself wholeheartedly into the love simulation. As for the system, well... I have far more to think about..."
At this moment, Zuojian had shut himself inside the storage room on the second floor, using the cramped darkness to force his thoughts to focus as much as possible on what was happening right in front of him.
Only now did he recall that line the system had tossed at him earlier, as if it were just a joke. It seemed it had carried a deeper meaning after all.
In other words... in the normal world, whether it was keeping him from being watched, sparing him from getting dragged into trouble, or any number of other things, the system had basically been covering for him the whole time. Most of the time it probably ran fully automatically. For all Zuojian knew, that thing might already have helped him dodge countless problems without him ever realizing it.
But by the same token, once he entered a simulation, the help it could provide would probably become extremely limited. It might not even be able to manage basic communication.
"System."
In the darkness, Zuojian called out softly. The next second, that pink-and-blue light screen symbolizing the system unfolded before his eyes once again.
The panel itself had not changed much from before, except that the top now bore the words Simulation in Progress, his name had changed from Zuojian to Zuojian Lefort, and there was now an occupation labeled Doctor, along with the skill Medicine Lv. 2.
Zuojian looked toward the items section. His gaze settled on the conspicuously obvious Rose Revolver in his inventory. After hesitating for a moment, he slowly said,
"So after entering the simulation, the panel I'm looking at now doesn't belong to my real body, right? It belongs to this body called Zuojian Lefort."
[Correct.]
The system replied, though its voice remained just as stiff and mechanical as before.
"Transfer me to a human operator."
[...Connection error. Please try again later.]
"Transfer me to AI."
[...Error...]
"Yeah. Looks like my guess was right."
He shook his head with a bitter smile, but there was not the slightest trace of discouragement in his eyes. On the contrary, a spark of fighting spirit had flared there instead.
"If that's the case, then I'd really like to see exactly how this simulation intends to teach me what 'love' is."
With that, he swiped through the character status section of the panel to see whether there was any other useful information hidden there.
Still, this was genuinely strange. As a love simulation, why hadn't it displayed any information at all about a target up to this point? If it was a simulation, there had to be someone to win over... some攻略对象, some route target, right?
From the moment he woke up until now, the system had not given him even the slightest hint. Nor had he encountered any obvious event that screamed main story progression. Other than the man downstairs who had rung the bell and delivered those two girls...
"Wait... girls?"
Zuojian froze where he stood. A cold afterthought crept up his spine as he glanced toward the area beside the character status page labeled Simulation Progress.
The storage room fell into a silence so deathly complete that even the buzz of insects could be heard. After a while, it was broken by Zuojian's awkward laughter.
The tension on his face visibly drained away, replaced by the kind of forced relief that came from trying to talk himself down.
"Haha... what was I even thinking just now? No matter how absurd this gets, they're still just kids. Why would my mind immediately go there? All this proves is that I'm an evil adult on the inside. No matter how insane this system is, there's no way it'd actually make me do something to little girls, right?"
"Hah... haha... I just scared myself, that's all."
Then he opened the Simulation Progress page directly, his tightly wound eyes scanning every line on it with desperate intensity.
[Simulation in Progress.]
[You awakened within the manor.]
[You encountered an event... A pair of sisters with seemingly special identities have been left homeless after their family was murdered. Their father, however, was not much more than an ordinary acquaintance of yours, Zuojian Lefort—someone you merely got along with reasonably well. Your choice is?]
[Without a doubt, your excessive kindness and noble moral bottom line would never allow you to stand by and do nothing. You chose to take the sisters in... Main story progress has been updated. The original story may now head toward a new ending.]
"Hold on..."
Zuojian stopped halfway through reading, then went back and reread the event trigger line over and over.
Merely an ordinary acquaintance... and nothing more?
First he silently mouthed the text again, and then blurted out:
"What the hell? So that trench-coat guy's 'Mr. Dublin' wasn't even close to me?!"
"And that guy kept going on about being close friends, best friends, all that... Damn it, I actually believed him."
Zuojian's face drooped. Who would've thought he'd get played by some random passerby using nothing more than an information gap?
If he hadn't been worried that he didn't know who this so-called Mr. Dublin even was, and had no memories belonging to this "Doctor Zuojian" the man kept talking about—if he hadn't been afraid of exposing himself—then he... he would've...
"...Damn it, I guess nothing would've changed anyway."
At first he thought the only reason he had agreed to take in the sisters was because the man had kept stressing that their father had been his close friend, and refusing the orphaned daughters of such a friend too coldly would have drawn suspicion to his identity.
But now that he thought about it, even if their father had only had a middling relationship with him, he still probably wouldn't have been able to slam the door in their faces.
Sure, there were probably people in the world who could look at a pair of timid twin girls—both parents dead, clearly miserable and helpless—and simply close the door on them without a second thought.
But Zuojian was very obviously not one of those people.
"Ugh... fine, I took them in, so I took them in."
As he said that, a helpless little smile appeared on his face—only to freeze there the very next second.
"Wait, no! What do you mean the main story progress has updated?!"
Realizing something was very wrong, Zuojian hurriedly focused back on the screen. At that moment, the contents of the panel began to warp and twist, gradually transforming into a progress bar currently displaying 0%.
And around that bar were four huge glowing characters:
[Main Story Progress]
Zuojian stared, eyes widening in disbelief. When he read the description below, it felt like his jaw was about to come unhinged.
[Quest updated. You have taken in these sisters, who appear to carry layers upon layers of mystery. Main quest updated to: Please fill the progress bar as much as possible using the 'love' generated in your interactions with the sisters Eblana and Loughshinny. When the bar is full, the simulation will end. Reward calculation will be completed within three to five minutes afterward.]
"No, wait—are you serious? Those two girls aren't even adults yet!! What do you mean, generate love through my interactions with them?"
"That's a crime, isn't it? That absolutely sounds like a crime, doesn't it?!"
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Zuojian outright swore.
There was no question about it.
This was the one line he absolutely could not cross.
Sure, back in the day he'd joked around online with all kinds of outrageous lolicon memes and the like, but those had always only been jokes. He knew perfectly well where the line between the internet and reality was. As a healthy adult in both mind and body, how could he possibly lay a hand on two underage girls? Not to mention that he had principles of his own—
"I only like women with at least some curves in the right places. As for those two girls... age-wise, add another seven or eight years, minimum, and then we can start talking."
Zuojian wore a dead-serious expression as he declared this utterly impossible.
Morality was his solid outer shell.
Preference was his unyielding core.
And right then, the system interface suddenly popped up with an annotation.
With a slightly startled expression, he leaned in to read it.
[Quest Note: The love generated through interaction may include many categories. It does not refer only to romantic or sexual love between a man and a woman. It may also include fatherly affection, parental care, tenderness, and the like...]
"S-Sister..."
The young girl cautiously swept her gaze over the unfamiliar surroundings with the corner of her eye, looking like a startled little animal with not a shred of security in her.
And beside her, the older sister—who would normally make her feel somewhat afraid—had now become the only thing she could rely on.
"What is it, Loughshinny? Are you still uneasy?"
At that moment, Eblana withdrew the interested gaze she had been using to study the dust-covered furniture and hallways on the first floor, and instead turned her eyes back to her younger sister, who was sitting beside her with all her anxiety practically written in the frantic swishing of her tail.
"I... I..."
Loughshinny lowered her head, mumbling so indistinctly she couldn't even manage a full sentence.
But the tail behind her, whipping faster and faster from nerves, had already revealed her answer in full.
In response, Eblana gently reached out and took hold of the hand her little sister had wanted to grab, yet had not quite dared to extend. At the same time, she lightly wound her own tail around Loughshinny's, using it to calm the increasingly frantic motion.
"There's no need to be nervous, Loughshinny. You just need to do as I told you. Look—hasn't he already taken us in? Judging by the way he looks, he might even be the kind of 'good person' you were hoping for~"
"...Really?"
Little Loughshinny lifted her head slightly, though her voice still trembled with fear.
"Most likely," Eblana said with a smile.
Then, in her heart, she silently added:
That's a lie.
Though she was still very young, there was not the slightest trace of childish innocence in her eyes as she surveyed everything in the manor's sitting room and began silently piecing things together.
That man who brought them here had kept repeatedly emphasizing that their father had been this man's close friend. But Eblana knew perfectly well that her father had no such "close friend." At first she had wondered why the man was so insistent on that fabricated relationship. But once she saw the man named Zuojian open the door, a possible "truth" occurred to her.
When Zuojian heard the words close friend, there had been a split-second expression of confusion and incomprehension on his face. But it was immediately covered up, replaced by a look that said Yes, Mr. Dublin truly was my close friend.
That only confirmed her suspicion further.
The close friend story was false.
But the fact that this man knew the bloodline secret she and her sister carried—that part was real.
And from the manor alone, it was obvious that his family had once been quite illustrious. Combined with the fact that he seemed to offer free treatment to people from Taran districts in order to build influence among the Taran population, the answer was practically staring her in the face.
A declining old noble house, now reduced to such a state. As the last heir, this man—Zuojian Lefort—was probably trying to restore his family, or perhaps aiming even higher than that. But whatever his ambitions were, everything he could once depend on had already withered, decayed, and rotted away.
What he needed now was a shot in the arm—something powerful enough to revive the dying world around him.
And what, after all, could better restart a rotting heart than the blood of two purebred Dracos?
His purpose was painfully obvious.
This ruined nobleman's disguise still needed practice. Otherwise, she would not have seen through him at a glance.
Of course, perhaps it was simply because they were children, and he had lowered his guard without realizing it...
How pathetic.
He probably still believed his act was flawless in front of two little girls, and might even be quietly pleased with himself over it.
Eblana lightly squeezed her sister's hand. As she looked toward Zuojian descending the stairs, a trace of mockery flashed clearly through her eyes before vanishing again.
All right then. Let me guess. Looking at two red dragons right now, what exactly is going through your head? Elation? The need to hold yourself back? Or do you perhaps have even grander plans?
Watching him come down, she amused herself by imagining all the possibilities.
...
What should we eat tonight?
Zuojian came downstairs in visible awkwardness, looking at the two children still sitting on the sofa, and that was the thought that popped into his head.
He had no idea why his love simulation had somehow turned into a single-dad simulation, but "single dad" was still a lot better than "creepy foster father," so he didn't really mind continuing along those lines.
But the moment he realized it was nearly dinner time, a major problem surfaced.
The two girls obviously hadn't eaten dinner yet. And he wasn't familiar with this broken-down manor at all, much less with cooking in it. He wasn't even sure whether there were any ingredients to begin with. Judging by the age of the place, for all he knew the cellar might still contain potatoes older than he was.
Which meant that what to eat tonight had instantly become the biggest issue of all.
Fortunately, in the storage room he had found a coat that looked fairly new, and in one of its pockets were several paper bills of what seemed to be rather large denomination.
After mentally comparing them to Lungmen prices, and doing his best to guess at the purchasing power of Victorian pounds, he figured taking two kids out for a meal probably wouldn't be too difficult.
With that in mind, Zuojian slowly walked toward Eblana and Loughshinny, all the while trying to figure out how exactly he should start their first real conversation.
He had never dealt with children before, after all...
Meanwhile, in front of him, Eblana watched Zuojian's faintly furrowed brow, and the corners of her mouth lifted involuntarily as she thought:
Oh? So you're thinking about something more important now. Let me guess—what sort of ideas are you about to pour into us?
Hatred? Some excuse about righteousness and duty? Or just a raw emotional outburst?
As if she had been expecting it all along, she quietly waited for Zuojian to speak his very first sentence.
"...You two..."
Yes. Go on, then. Let me hear what kind of thoughts and ambitions you truly harbor—what purpose you mean to use this bloodline for.
"Would you like to come out with me and grab some fries?"
At those words, Eblana froze on the spot. Then, before she could stop herself, she blurted out:
"Huh?"
-------
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