When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The overly realistic scene caused Yun Li to instinctively recoil, her hands letting go of the motorcycle handles. The VR headset's audio system was built right into the device, and Yun Li heard a cute prompt sound: "Little friend, you need to hold tight to the handles so you can hug your dad, oh."

"......"

Knowing full well that everything was virtual, within the world of VR, this visual sense of reality still made Yun Li reluctant to proactively hug Fu Shize.

Yet the more she cared in her heart, even these ordinary, mundane things took on a peculiar significance.

Within two seconds, the motorcycle began to move. Fu Shize rode the motorcycle through the mountain forests while shooting at monsters darting out from the shadows—monsters whose appearance paid homage to that classic arcade game. The simulation effect of the motion rig was exceptionally good; several flipping sequences scared Yun Li so much that she closed her eyes.

When Yun Li finally snapped back to her senses, she realized that at some point she had once again gripped the handles tightly, and in the game, her small arms were wrapped around Fu Shize's waist.

Yun Li felt a fine layer of sweat break out on her forehead. Virtual reality technology had its limits and could not yet provide genuine tactile feedback, yet simply through a visual embrace, Yun Li felt as though her heart had jumped straight into her throat.

Fu Shize kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, seeming entirely unaware of her presence. Yun Li's intention to pull her hands back froze. She pressed her fingertips against her palms, which were already slick with a thin layer of sweat. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her fingers and saw that she was once again hugging the figure in front of her.

Stealing a hug... probably wouldn't matter...

The destination was the edge of a canyon. She watched as Fu Shize dismounted the motorcycle; the character in the game wore a helmet and sunglasses, with a few scratches on his cheeks.

He extended both hands toward her.

Yun Li held her breath as she watched Fu Shize slide his hands underneath her arms, lifting her up and setting her onto the ground.

Through a journey of just a few minutes spanning rivers and mountains, Yun Li looked at her own tiny palms and mustered the courage to reach out and hold his hand.

In her field of vision, the other person gently held her hand back.

At this moment, Fu Shize had already taken off his VR headset, and only felt his left glove vibrate once. He turned his head to look at Yun Li, who took a little while before slowly removing her VR headset, looking as though she hadn't quite returned to reality.

After a few seconds of silence, the system began broadcasting departure safety notices. Fu Shize unfastened his own equipment first and walked over to Yun Li's side.

Yun Li's gaze was somewhat evasive: "This mode seems a bit unusual."

Fu Shize bent down to untie her safety harness. Despite playing the same game, he seemed completely unaffected, asking her: "What's unusual about it?"

"The setup for this parent-child mode seems to prevent children from performing driving and shooting actions..."

Fu Shize paused for a moment: "You didn't shoot just now?"

"Yes."

"Nor did you ride the bike?"

"Yes..."

Fu Shize's expression looked slightly perplexed: "Didn't enter the game?"

"......"

Yun Li lowered her head, feeling terribly guilty: "In parent-child mode, the child can't operate anything and can only watch the scenery all the way through."

Fu Shize glanced at her: "Was it pretty?"

Yun Li nodded.

Without needing to ask, Yun Li could deduce from their conversation that Fu Shize had no idea she was sitting behind him at all.

Naturally—there was no way he had ever played the parent-child mode either.

Unable to tell whether her heart held more relief or disappointment, Yun Li felt that she had already gained a lot today. Thanks to the blessings of technology, much like the blood-pumping excitement the old arcade games used to bring her, she had experienced a completely different world firsthand right here.

Yet she wished these things were real.

After powering down all the equipment, the two of them returned to the office.

Clasping her folder to her chest, Yun Li whispered a soft "Thank you for your guidance" to Fu Shize and then turned and bolted away.

There were already three or four people sitting in the office. Yun Li immediately grew a bit nervous, lightening her footsteps as she walked back to her desk, fortunately without drawing anyone's attention.

Deng Chuqi was dropping off materials nearby and invited her to meet at the first-floor cafe of Haitian Mall. Yun Li packed up her things and sent He Jiameng a message stating that she wouldn't be eating lunch at the company.

Deng Chuqi: "So, you spent the entire morning just playing games."

Yun Li retorted with dissatisfaction: "Wasn't this work?"

Deng Chuqi remarked: "And games you even had to pay to play."

Deng Chuqi took a sip of her coffee: "Did Xia Xia's maternal uncle show any signs of taking care of you? But looking at his icy demeanor, he doesn't seem like the type to look out for people."

"Self-reliance." Yun Li shot her a side-glance.

Unwilling to have her words interpreted by Deng Chuqi as Fu Shize being 'completely useless,' Yun Li organized her thoughts and said: "Xia Xia's maternal uncle is actually quite nice to me. When he came to our school a couple of days ago to take Fu Zhengchu to a soccer match, he brought me along too."

Yun Li omitted the other details.

"You guys even went to watch a soccer match together? Do you even know anything about soccer?" Remembering something on her own, Deng Chuqi gave the table a light tap. "I remember now, didn't you participate in that robot soccer competition back then? You should be pretty familiar with the rules."

Yun Li shook her head: "That soccer competition just required getting the ball in; even scoring a basketball counted as a win."

The robot soccer competition Deng Chuqi mentioned took place when Yun Li was in her second year of high school. Both of them attended the best high school in Xifu, where the school had no shortage of activities designed to enhance students' comprehensive qualities.

That was also the first time Yun Li learned of the existence of the Technology Festival.

Yun Li had scraped into this high school by the skin of her teeth and found herself gasping for breath under the excellence of the surrounding students. The period when monthly exam rankings were publicly posted each month was an emotional and mental torture. On multiple occasions, Yun Li held that ten-centimeter-long grade slip—unbeknownst to her head-card teacher—this jagged-edged little strip of paper was a night filled with gunpowder.

She didn't want to go home.

Yun Li would always stand blankly holding that kind of paper slip two blocks away from home.

A distance of five meters, repeatedly kicking the exact same pebble from one side to the other.

Until it grew late enough that she had no choice but to return.

The notification for the Technology Festival was published right as the monthly exams concluded. Predictably, Yun Yunchang did not agree to let her participate in this 'meaningless' activity.

In fact, in Yun Yunchang's eyes, academic grades were everything.

Attending a good university was the only way ordinary people could change their destiny.

He placed those same expectations on both of his children.

"Look at yourself, what kind of score did you get again? With grades like this, you're still thinking about participating in those messy distractions." Yun Yunchang tore the grade slip to pieces and tossed it into the trash can.

It was clearly a feather-light piece of paper, but the moment it was torn apart, it felt too heavy for Yun Li to breathe.

That day, right before the registration deadline, Yun Li thought of that wildly popular video she had watched a little over a year ago.

As if possessed by a spell, Yun Li signed up for the robot soccer competition within it. Each team needed to complete the assembly of a robot under the guidance of a coach.

The school invited top-tier students from Xifu University of Technology to guide them, and the captain of each team was a student from Xituke.

Nearly sixty teams participated.

The team Yun Li belonged to spent three weeks building those six robots. The official competition was 5v5, requiring one alternate robot to be kept on standby.

In the early stages, their team captain wrote code remotely at Xituke, and during the final stretch, he would come to the school to assemble the robots together with them.

There were only a few days left before the competition.

The captain told them to find a surface with a bit more friction to get familiar with operating the robots.

That day was the weekend, and the plastic running track of the sports field was still soaked in the morning's moisture.

Yun Li found a corner and placed the robot on the ground. The robot wasn't particularly attractive, featuring a dark-gray square torso, two round yellow eyes, and a white head.

Ugly as it was, as long as it could move, that was fine.

Yun Li manipulated the joystick on the controller, but the robot was extremely sluggish, usually requiring her to push it in a direction for a few seconds before it would slowly crawl forward.

Yun Li spent the entire day without getting the robot to push a single stone, until the midday scorching sun also secretly peeked out, prompting her to go to the convenience store to buy a piece of bread and sit back down on the sports field.

Staring at this foolish-looking robot, Yun Li glumly nibbled on her bread.

Feeling nothing but sadness, she flicked the robot's head with her finger and complained: "Why are you so dumb?"

Later, she stared gloomily at the robot, making it approach a pebble from half a meter away while she herself crouched on the ground, carefully following along right behind the robot.

A northern warm breeze rushed against her face like a tide. When she lowered her head, Yun Li's peripheral vision caught sight of a pair of canvas shoes appearing beside her.

Yun Li raised her head. It was a tall, slender boy who looked somewhat familiar; both his eye color and hair color leaned toward a brownish hue, yet his facial features were soft and handsome, leaving Yun Li momentarily dazed.

"Sorry to bother you," the boy said with a smile. "It's just that my friend and I—we were passing by here today, and he was a bit shy, so he didn't come over."

He pointed toward the spectator stands in the distance. Far away, amidst the sea of blue seats, a boy sat there all alone.

That boy was also watching them; Yun Li could only tell that the other person's skin was very fair, but she couldn't make out his features.

Yun Li stood up.

"We've been here all day, and we noticed you've been playing with this robot the whole time."

Yun Li was somewhat shy in front of strangers, but hearing him say that, she instinctively reacted: "I'm not playing, I'm training it!"

The boy froze for a moment, then suddenly chuckled.

Yun Li felt a bit awkward and asked him: "What are you laughing at?"

Without answering her, the boy squatted down to examine her robot: "This robot is pretty cute. Did you build it yourself?"

Yun Li didn't utter a sound, watching him vigilantly for fear that he might accidentally break her precious baby.

As he leaned forward, a pass slipped out from the boy's pocket, encased in a transparent card sleeve. Yun Li recognized it as the special pass issued by the school specifically for students from Xituke.

He was the captain of another team.

Yun Li didn't know how to respond for a moment.

Seeing Yun Li staring intently at his pass and thinking she was curious, the boy picked it up and casually let her take a look.

The ID photo featured an image of Ultraman.

"......"

The picture blocked his name, leaving only a single character visible—Yuan.

At that time, Yun Li hadn't interacted much with men of this age group, and only felt that the other person was gentle yet rebellious. She shrank back a step and stared at him.

The boy picked up the small pebble and tossed it into the grass. With an arc sweeping through the air, the pebble vanished from sight. Then he pulled a tiny soccer ball from his pocket, which had a smiley face drawn on it with graffiti, placed it in front of her robot, and asked her: "Look, doesn't this fit pretty well?"

Yun Li wore a skeptical expression.

The boy took a step back and told her: "Try it again."

Yun Li operated the joystick. The robot, which had acted foolish all morning, moved forward two steps, but right as it reached the soccer ball, it jammed and stopped moving again.

The boy's expression turned slightly awkward as well, and he asked: "Want me to give it a try?"

Internalizing her hesitation for a long while, Yun Li ultimately handed the controller over to him.

In the gentle afternoon, the boy patiently taught her how to operate the robot to easily control both its movement and the direction of the ball.

Once she was able to use the robot to move the little soccer ball around, Yun Li broke into the first smile she had shown since they met.

"I have to go, my friend is still waiting for me." The boy's soft facial features dissolved into the light. Yun Li picked up the little soccer ball, and when she looked back up, the boy had already run far away. Faintly visible on his back was a word starting with the letter "U".

Yun Li widened her eyes.

"Wait—"

The call teetering on the tip of her tongue stopped. Yun Li stood in place, watching them.

At some unknown point, over at the spectator stands, the person who had been sitting there quietly all this time had also arrived at the entrance of the sports field. The two of them were of similar height, wearing identical jackets, and the letters on their backs were already completely indistinguishable.

Yun Li never did get a clear look at the other person's face.

That hasty meeting was left behind, forgotten by Yun Li amidst the passing light and shadow. Afterward, she poured her heart and soul entirely into her own robot. In the competition, though her ranking wasn't high, Yun Li won her very first small trophy.

She placed that little soccer ball right beside the trophy, displaying it proudly on the bookshelf in her room.