JFWCM Chapter 20

Reversed Heartbeat

Reversed Heartbeat

“We agreed when you were twelve, once you don’t need those parts anymore, I’ll make you an assistive device using purely Earth technology!”

In the corner of the blueprint, scrawled crookedly, was: [For Senior Yi Shang’s human body, Wan’yuan’s patent guarantees it won’t hurt at all]

Yi Shang’s throat suddenly tightened. When she reached out to take the blueprint, her fingertips trembled uncontrollably, and the paper crinkled slightly. Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly grasped her wrist, pressing her palm against her own cheek.

“Can you feel it?” Jiang Wan’yuan asked softly, “This is my temperature, 37.2 degrees. This is my heartbeat, 82 beats per minute.” She guided Yi Shang’s fingers to trace the outline of her eyebrows and eyes, “This is what you’ve recorded millions of times with sensors, but never truly felt…”

A drop of warm liquid landed on the back of their intertwined hands. Yi Shang stared blankly as the teardrop meandered down her newly formed skin, a strange, sour sensation welling up from her chest to her eyes.

“So… this is the feeling of crying.” Her voice was hoarse and unrecognizable. For the first time in seven years, emotions no longer needed to be processed through a central processor, but swept through her entire body directly through the nerve endings.

Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly lifted the hem of her pajamas, revealing a small star-shaped scar on her waist: “Remember this? I was fourteen that year, secretly watching you do mechanical modifications, and I fell from the ventilation duct.” She took Yi Shang’s hand and pressed it onto the scar, “Your mechanical arm caught me then, but this mark has always been here.”

Yi Shang’s fingertips gently caressed the uneven scar. Her memory banks immediately retrieved the surveillance footage from that time: amidst the alarm bells, her mechanical arm extended at a speed exceeding the safety threshold, catching the falling girl, while the hydraulic system burst due to overload.

“The system logs recorded that it was an accident,” Yi Shang said softly, but her fingers, as if with a will of their own, repeatedly traced the star shape, “But I deleted 3.7 seconds of data—that was the first time I violated the agreement, and increased the reaction speed without authorization.”

Outside the window, early morning birds chirped. Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly sat up, her neural enhancer flashing a rapid blue light: “Wait! Senior is completely human now, so breakfast…” She jumped out of bed in a flurry, “Mom’s special engine oil is out of the question, I have to go cook porridge!”

Yi Shang tried to follow, but her knees buckled the moment her feet touched the ground. Human muscles, unused for seven years, protested, and she staggered, grabbing onto the bedside table—this body, which had once been able to precisely control nanomechanical arms, now struggled to even maintain balance.

“Don’t move!” Jiang Wan’yuan turned and rushed back, only to trip over scattered mechanical parts halfway, falling into Yi Shang’s arms. They tumbled to the floor, Yi Shang’s back hitting the edge of the bed, causing her to gasp in pain.

“Does it hurt? Where does it hurt?” Jiang Wan’yuan frantically felt around her back, her neural enhancer scanning wildly, “I forgot you can feel pain now, I…”

Yi Shang suddenly grabbed her wrist. In the morning light, she slowly unfurled a pure human smile—without any micro-expression calibration, tiny lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes, and the corners of her mouth lifting asymmetrically: “It hurts. But… it’s good.”

Jiang Wan’yuan’s pupils contracted into tiny black dots in the sunlight. Her fingers trembled as she touched the lines around Yi Shang’s eyes: “Senior is… really smiling for the first time.”

From downstairs came the sound of clanging pots and pans, followed by Jiang Mom’s deliberately raised voice: “Wan’yuan! Come down and get breakfast! And ask Yi Shang… uh… if she can drink soy milk now?”

Yi Shang looked at her human arms, covered in old scars, and suddenly realized a terrible problem: “How… how am I supposed to face them?” This Star Speaker, who had once calmly dealt with interstellar councils, was now panicking over the most ordinary human social interaction.

Jiang Wan’yuan tilted her head and thought for three seconds, then suddenly began unbuttoning her pajamas: “Wear mine!” She stuffed the pajamas, printed with cartoon rockets, into Yi Shang’s hands, “Anyway, Senior and I are about the same size now…” Her gaze suddenly stopped on Yi Shang’s exposed shoulder, her Adam’s apple bobbing suspiciously.

As Yi Shang awkwardly put on the too-small pajamas, Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly hugged her from behind. The girl’s breath brushed against her newly formed ear: “Welcome home, Senior Yi Shang.”

Sunlight danced across the mechanical parts scattered on the floor, those precise components that had once constituted “Star Speaker Yi Shang” were now just ordinary metal and crystal. And trembling in the morning light as she buttoned her pajamas, was a—

Human girl with warm skin, nervous about small things, and tears in the corners of her eyes.

Yi Shang stood at the top of the stairs, the collar of Jiang Wan’yuan’s pajamas brushing against her collarbone, the fabric still retaining the scent of the girl’s usual citrus shampoo. She looked down at her wrist peeking out from the sleeve—where once there had been the seams of alloy and β-star crystal, now only pale blue veins pulsed faintly beneath pale skin.

“Don’t be afraid.” Jiang Wan’yuan squeezed her hand, her fingertips bearing the thin calluses left by years of tinkering with machines, “My mom even made your favorite honey pancakes.”

The sweet scent wafting from the kitchen caused a strange twitch in Yi Shang’s stomach. She pressed her abdomen subconsciously, a movement that made Jiang Wan’yuan giggle: “Hungry? Human stomachs can growl, you know.”

As she went down the stairs, Yi Shang gripped the handrail tightly. The body, devoid of a mechanical balance system, had become clumsy, each step feeling like stepping on cotton. Jiang Mom poked her head out of the kitchen, flour dusting her apron: “Yi Shang, do you want your soy milk sweet or…”

The words caught in her throat. The three mechanical engineering graduate students at the table all raised their heads in unison, a look of shock flashing behind their glasses—their notebooks, spread out before them, were still covered with diagrams of the Star Speaker’s spine.

In the frozen silence, Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly grabbed the strawberry jam from the center of the table and smeared it on Yi Shang’s lips: “Try it! You could only analyze the ingredients before, now you can…”

The moment Yi Shang’s tongue tasted the sweetness, Jiang Mom’s eyes suddenly turned red. She turned and took out a plate of burnt cookies from the oven: “It’s my first time using a purely organic oven, and the temperature was…”

“Mom! That’s the sample I burnt when I was twelve!” Jiang Wan’yuan flailed to grab them, but knocked over the soy milk cup. The milky white liquid splashed on Yi Shang’s human arm, making her shudder.

“I’m sorry!” Jiang Wan’yuan grabbed a towel, but froze when she touched Yi Shang’s reddened skin. Her neural enhancer suddenly projected a holographic interface: [Minor burn on the epidermis. Recommended treatment: Kissing]

Yi Shang looked at the flashing line of text, and suddenly leaned down and licked the soy milk from her elbow. The warm, beany liquid slid over her taste buds—so this was the flavor that Jiang Wan’yuan drank every morning.

“Is it good?” Professor Jiang pushed up his glasses, the mechanical prosthetic eye emitting a faint hum as it adjusted its focus.

Yi Shang’s Adam’s apple bobbed. For the first time in seven years, she didn’t need to calculate nutritional ratios, didn’t need to convert taste signals, she simply answered: “…Too sweet.”

Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly shoved the entire cup of soy milk into her hand: “Then drink more! Human taste buds get used to things, you know.” Her knee bumped against Yi Shang’s under the table, “Just like you have to learn to be afraid of heat, afraid of pain, afraid of…”

A sparrow flew in from outside the window, landing on the windowsill in front of Yi Shang. Brown feathers, round black eyes, dew still clinging to its beak—so close that she could see the tiny tremors of the downy feathers in the morning breeze. The small creature, which would once have been automatically scanned and classified by her mechanical eyes, was now tilting its head and looking at her, chirping.

Yi Shang reached out her finger. The sparrow hopped away, the wind stirred by its wings brushing over her fingertip.

Jiang Wan’yuan’s palm suddenly covered the back of her hand: “Does it hurt?” She pointed to the surgical scars on Yi Shang’s arm, “Do you want to try my special…”

“No.” Yi Shang grasped her hand in return, pressing the scars into Jiang Wan’yuan’s warm palm, “It’s good like this.”

The sunlight streamed through the steaming soy milk, casting dancing patches of light on the floor. The precise components that had once constituted the Star Speaker lay quietly in the room upstairs, while at the table, Yi Shang was clumsily crumbling a piece of honey pancake in a human way.

The crumbs fell between her fingers, sticky and sweet with the scent of honey.

So good.

Yi Shang stood on the sidewalk in front of Jiang Wan’yuan’s house, the morning sunlight slanting through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled light on her new skin. She looked down at her hands—no longer with the cold gleam of mechanical joints, and where she could even see faint blue veins at her knuckles.

“The first step is pain.”

She tentatively stepped forward, and the moment her foot touched the ground, the rough texture of the asphalt shot straight from her nerve endings to her brain. The human arch of her foot, unused for seven years, trembled slightly, and she subconsciously wanted to activate the balance assist system, but only felt the stiffness and soreness of her muscles.

“Senior, slow down!” Jiang Wan’yuan jogged to catch up, still clutching half a slice of bread smeared with jam in her hand.

Yi Shang pursed her lips, her forehead already beaded with sweat. She habitually wanted to pull up gait analysis data, but found that there were no more holographic projections in front of her eyes—the world had become so bare, with no parameters, no predictions, only the real touch under her feet, and the wind, carrying the scent of breakfast and car exhaust, brushing past her ears.

“The second step is loss of control.”

A bicycle brushed past from behind, and Yi Shang froze. The mechanical senses that had once been able to monitor the environment 360 degrees were gone, and she could only turn her head hastily, the strands of her hair brushing across her cheek with an unfamiliar itch. The boy riding the bike looked back to apologize, his voice exceptionally clear in the morning light—she could even discern the subtle embarrassment in his tone.

“Are you okay?” Jiang Wan’yuan’s hand rested on her shoulder, the warmth of her touch seeping through the cotton T-shirt.

Yi Shang shook her head, but suddenly sneezed. The uncontrolled reflex surprised even herself—the lingering scent of pepper from a roadside breakfast stall still remained in her nasal cavity.

“The third step is surprise.”

As they passed a convenience store, the cold air from the freezer cabinet hit her bare calves, raising a flurry of tiny goosebumps. Jiang Wan’yuan smiled and pressed a strawberry milk carton against her face: “Cold?”

Yi Shang took the cold carton, and water droplets immediately condensed on her palm. She watched, fascinated, as the droplets slid down her wrist, refracting rainbows in the sunlight—a phenomenon that had once only been recorded by sensors as “H2O, temperature 4.2℃,” now made her want to chase the traces of the water with her fingertips.

“Senior,” Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly leaned closer, her nose almost touching her earlobe, “Can you smell it?”

Yi Shang took a deep breath. The sweetness of locust blossoms, the scent of sun-warmed asphalt, the lemony scent of shampoo lingering in Jiang Wan’yuan’s hair—these scents flooded her senses like a tide, without any filtering or analysis. Her eyes suddenly felt hot, and she had to tilt her head back to pretend to look at the clouds in the sky.

“The final step is acceptance.”

By the time they reached the school gate, Yi Shang could naturally avoid the cracks in the ground, and even reach out to shield Jiang Wan’yuan from a low-hanging branch. The shadow of the tree contracted in her human pupils, and her fingertips were slightly reddened from the rough bark.

“Does it hurt?” Jiang Wan’yuan squeezed her fingers.

Yi Shang looked at the bustling crowd in the schoolyard, capturing those blurred yet vivid expressions with purely human vision for the first time. She squeezed Jiang Wan’yuan’s hand, feeling the subtle friction of their palms pressed together.

“It hurts,” she replied softly, the corners of her mouth curving into an awkward but genuine arc, “But it’s good.”

The sunlight streamed through her hair, casting swaying shadows on the ground—no longer with the cold gleam of mechanical components, but a normal girl, and her beating, warm human heart.

On Linxi First High School’s cherry blossom path, Yi Shang’s canvas shoes crunched through a layer of sunlight. She looked down at the tips of her shoes—without the hydraulic cushioning of mechanical ankles, each step sent a real vibration, and she could even feel the subtle touch of the grit on the soles.

“Senior! Look at this!” Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly pounced on her from behind, holding a dandelion to her nose.

Yi Shang instinctively held her breath. The tiny, downy hairs were almost transparent in the sunlight, swaying gently with her breath. The plant, which would once only have been scanned as “Taraxacum officinale, reproductive organ,” was now tickling her nasal cavity in the most basic way.

“Achoo—”

The sudden sneeze nearly caused a passing member of the student council to drop their box of documents. Zhang Yao, wearing mechanical glasses, adjusted her frames, a cold light flashing across the lenses: “Has the Star Speaker’s system degraded to the point where it can’t even handle pollen?”

Before Yi Shang could speak, Jiang Wan’yuan had already stepped in front of her, her neural enhancer popping up an exaggerated mocking emoticon: “Oh, isn’t this Senior Zhang, who didn’t even pass the Star Speaker’s preliminary selection?”

Zhang Yao’s mechanical prosthetic eye emitted a sizzling current. Yi Shang suddenly reached out and pressed on Jiang Wan’yuan’s shoulder—a movement that had once been able to precisely control nano-level pressure, now caused the girl to stagger because of a miscalculation of force.

“Sorry.” Yi Shang let go hastily, her fingertips lingering on the sensation of Jiang Wan’yuan’s shoulder blade under her school uniform. She turned to Zhang Yao, her voice regaining its usual coldness, but without the metallic timbre: “My neural link permissions are still higher than yours. Want to try the consequences of hacking into the registrar’s system?”

Zhang Yao’s lenses instantly clouded over—this was absolute suppression between Star Speakers. She turned away stiffly, her mechanical joints emitting an unnatural clicking sound.

The moment the bell rang, the classroom immediately exploded with chatter.

“Hey, did you guys see that? Senior Yi just smiled!”

“Really? That ‘walking quantum computer’ can smile?”

“And she smiled at Jiang Wan’yuan! I’ll bet five bucks they’re definitely dating!”

The smell of disinfectant in the janitor’s closet suddenly became thick. Jiang Wan’yuan’s lips were still a centimeter away from Yi Shang’s, when the sound of metal clanking suddenly rang out outside the door—Zhang Yao’s mechanical arm was scanning the lock.

“Two life signs detected.” The mechanical voice came through the door, “According to school rule 27, unauthorized personnel are prohibited from occupying…”

Yi Shang suddenly pressed the back of Jiang Wan’yuan’s neck, using the precision she once used to control mechanical arms to lean down and kiss away her gasp of surprise. The kiss carried the sourness of lemon cleaner, mixed with the strawberry milk sweetness lingering on Jiang Wan’yuan’s lips, fermenting into a dizzying mead between their mingled breaths.

“Heart rate…exceeded…” Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer flashed madly on her retina, but it couldn’t compare to the searing light in Yi Shang’s eyes at that moment.

The scanning outside the door came to an abrupt halt. Zhang Yao’s mechanical eye suddenly overloaded and smoked, and she staggered back two steps—just now, Yi Shang’s remaining Star Speaker permissions had reverse-invaded her system, and all surveillance data about the janitor’s closet had been replaced with a blank screen.

“You…” Jiang Wan’yuan’s fingertips dug into Yi Shang’s school uniform fabric, feeling the violent vibrations of the other’s chest, “Didn’t you say…you didn’t have mechanical abilities anymore?”

Yi Shang rested her forehead against hers, her breathing still a little unsteady: “Emotional module’s last overclocking operation.” She raised her trembling right hand, where the star chart branding had once been, now only a light pink scar remained, “What I traded for this.”

The setting sun suddenly shone through the blinds, nailing the two of their shadows to the shelf of cleaning supplies. Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer suddenly popped up a holographic alert: [External communication request: Emergency call from Professor Jiang!]

“Crap!” Jiang Wan’yuan frantically dismissed the notification, “Dad must have seen the hot search on the school network…” She clicked on the floating screen, where the number one trending topic was a blurry video of #Mechanical Princess passionately kissing in the janitor’s closet#.

Yi Shang’s ears began to burn again, and this time even her neck turned crimson. She turned to pull the doorknob, but found that her hands were trembling so much that she couldn’t grasp the metal handle—it turned out that human shyness was even harder to control than a system overload.

“Senior.” Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly wrapped her arms around her waist from behind, resting her chin on her shoulder, “Now the whole school knows…”

“Knows what?” Yi Shang froze, feeling the warm, soft touch of the girl’s skin on the back of her neck.

“Knows that you here…” Jiang Wan’yuan’s lips brushed against her burning earlobe, “Is hotter than any mechanical core.”

The sound of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the hallway, and Professor Jiang appeared, panting, around the corner: “Wan’yuan! Yi Shang can’t exercise vigorously right now, her heart…”

Before he could finish speaking, the janitor’s closet door “clicked” open. In the backlight, everyone saw that the always immaculate Star Speaker’s school uniform collar was slightly open, with a fresh strawberry-flavored bite mark on her collarbone; and Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer was projecting a huge [Under Maintenance] sign, barely concealing her swollen lips.

The setting sun stretched the shadows of the three of them long. The testing instrument in Professor Jiang’s hand “clattered” to the ground, and the mechanical eyes behind his glasses focused wildly.

“Dad,” Jiang Wan’yuan raised their intertwined hands, “The…human heart health data you wanted.”

Yi Shang turned away, the light of dusk filling her human pupils with shattered starlight for the first time. From afar came the rustling sound of falling cherry blossoms, like the universe cheering for a newborn star orbit.

The smell of disinfectant solidified amidst the scanning sound of Professor Jiang’s mechanical eyes. He staggered forward half a step, the holographic keyboard projecting from his lenses into the air, the trembling cursor hovering above the title [Experimental Subject 0927 – Humanization Anomaly Report].

“Dad,” Jiang Wan’yuan stepped forward, her neural enhancer automatically displaying a dense stream of data, “This is Yi Shang’s current heart rate—”

The holographic projection exploded in the air, countless points of light recombining into a brilliant star chart. Yi Shang’s human heartbeat reverberated through the hallway through the amplifier, composing a binary star resonance waveform with Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural pulse.

Zhang Yao’s mechanical arm suddenly burst forth, six alloy claws piercing through the fire door: “Humanized experimental subjects who violate the Star Speaker agreement must be immediately…”

“Shut up.” Yi Shang raised her eyes, her pupils, devoid of mechanical coldness, were even more terrifying than before. Her fingertips, stained with traces of strawberry milk, tapped lightly in the air, and Zhang Yao’s mechanical body suddenly froze—those permission codes that had once belonged to the Star Speaker were now burning fiercely with human adrenaline as fuel.

Blood suddenly seeped from Professor Jiang’s mechanical eyes. He futilely reached for the scattered data star chart in the air, his voice terribly hoarse: “Wan’yuan…you’ve tampered with the core agreement…using your neural enhancer as a carrier…”

“It’s symbiosis.” Jiang Wan’yuan turned and clasped Yi Shang’s hand, pressing the two of their star chart brandings against her father’s chest, “Just like the first AI program you taught me to write seven years ago—”

Memories ran through the three of them like an electric current.

Seven-year-old Jiang Wan’yuan lay on the laboratory floor, drawing a crooked smile on the face of the newly awakened mechanical girl;

On a stormy night when she was twelve, she secretly hid the “failed product 0927” that her father was preparing to destroy in the astronomical observatory;

And last night, she transformed her neural enhancer into a two-way linker, permanently binding Yi Shang’s remaining mechanical permissions with her own vital signs.

“Now, to destroy Yi Shang,” Jiang Wan’yuan’s tears splashed on the back of her father’s hand, “You have to kill me first.”

The alarm suddenly stopped. Zhang Yao’s mechanical body crashed to the ground, all attack programs being rewritten into dazzling star trail animations. Professor Jiang slumped in a pile of cherry blossoms, watching the shadows of the two girls merge into a complete circle in the setting sun.

“You see,” Jiang Wan’yuan squatted down, gently wiping the blood from her father’s lenses, “The human heartbeat is the best encryption algorithm.”

As night fell, Yi Shang leaned back in the astronomical observatory’s observation chair. Jiang Wan’yuan was applying medicine to her with a cotton swab dipped in engine oil, the skin that had lost its mechanical shell still bearing the marks from the janitor’s closet shelves.

“Tell me if it hurts.” Jiang Wan’yuan blew on the bruise on her waist, “You’re a human who can feel pain now.”

Yi Shang suddenly rolled over and pinned her to the observation instrument. Having lost the power of the Star Speaker, she used the most primitive human brute force to grab Jiang Wan’yuan’s wrist: “But some pain…” Her lips brushed against the neural enhancer interface on the girl’s collarbone, “…is addictive.”

The starry sky rotated above their heads. Jiang Wan’yuan’s enhancer automatically projected the campus forum page, the tag #MechanicalPrincessHumanizationConfirmed# followed by a wildly popular heart symbol. When she tried to close the projection, Yi Shang suddenly bit her fingertip:

“Don’t close it.”

“Let the whole universe see—”

“The me now is stronger than any Star Speaker.”

When the morning light pierced through the dome, Jiang Wan’yuan found a new line of writing in the observation log. It was written by Yi Shang in clumsy human strokes: [Heartbeat Report Day 001: Messed up 732 times by Jiang Wan’yuan, system recommends remaining in this state permanently]

Cherry blossoms floated in through the vents, landing on their tangled hair. From afar came the sound of the early class bell, and the newborn star orbit had just begun to rotate.

Several girls huddled in a corner of the hallway, whispering and stealing glances at the two who were packing their bags. Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer captured these discussions, and immediately projected a row of flashing words in front of Yi Shang’s eyes: [Everyone in the school is shipping us!]

Yi Shang closed her textbook expressionlessly, but “accidentally” knocked Jiang Wan’yuan’s pen case off the desk as she turned around. The brightly colored highlighters rolled all over the floor, and as she squatted down to pick them up, her lips almost touched Jiang Wan’yuan’s earlobe: “Don’t get cocky.”

The action immediately sparked a round of cheering from the boys in the back row.

“Whoa—”

“Senior Yi can whisper now!”

“I recorded it! This will definitely go viral on the campus network!”

Jiang Wan’yuan’s ears turned red instantly, and her neural enhancer emitted a “beep beep” warning sound due to overheating. She flailed to turn off the projection, but accidentally pressed the speakerphone button, and a mechanical female voice suddenly sounded throughout the entire classroom:

[Love strategy mode activated! Today’s recommendation: Hand-holding success rate 98%, kissing suitability 85%—]

The classroom was silent for 0.5 seconds, then erupted in deafening screams and whistles. Yi Shang’s ears were so red that they could drip blood, and she grabbed Jiang Wan’yuan and rushed out the door. The Star Speaker, who had once been able to precisely calculate escape routes, now crashed into the oncoming student council members in a panic.

“Yi? Ms. Yi?” The president of the student council pushed up his glasses, staring in shock at the disheveled, blushing “cold goddess” in front of him, “You guys are…”

Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly stepped in front, her neural enhancer projecting a huge [No Passage] sign: “Excuse us, excuse us! Senior’s mechanical arm is about to go berserk!”

The clumsy excuse actually worked. The crowd automatically parted a path, and the two of them fled into the stairwell. It wasn’t until they had run down three flights of stairs that Yi Shang suddenly stopped—her lungs were burning, and her knees were shaking because she wasn’t used to strenuous exercise.

“Ha…ha…human…respiratory system…” She leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, the bangs on her forehead sticking to her face with sweat, “…too fragile.”

Jiang Wan’yuan wasn’t in much better shape, her ponytail half undone, and her school uniform collar crookedly open. But she smiled especially brightly, reaching out to brush the wet hair from Yi Shang’s forehead: “But a senior who blushes, sweats, and runs away…”

Her fingertip was suddenly grabbed. Yi Shang raised those eyes that no longer gleamed with mechanical coldness, shining brightly in the dim stairwell: “Running away is because there’s someone I want to protect.”

The sound of footsteps suddenly came from downstairs, and Zhang Yao appeared around the corner with members of the student council. Her mechanical glasses flashed red: “Yi Shang, according to school rule 38, running in the hallways requires a written apology…”

Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly dragged Yi Shang into the janitor’s closet. The small space crammed two people and a pile of cleaning supplies, the sunlight casting dappled shadows on Yi Shang’s face through the blinds. Outside the door, Zhang Yao’s footsteps drew closer, and Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer showed that both of their heart rates had broken 120.

“Senior,” Jiang Wan’yuan said in a whisper, her warm breath on Yi Shang’s neck, “You smell like lemon-scented disinfectant right now.”

Yi Shang looked down at the girl so close, and suddenly realized that she was doing the most un-“Star Speaker” thing she had done in seven years—hiding in a janitor’s closet, her heartbeat out of control, and her palms sweating slightly with nervousness.

Outside the door, the scanning sound of Zhang Yao’s mechanical eyes gradually faded away. Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly tiptoed and lightly touched the corner of Yi Shang’s mouth in the smell of disinfectant:

“I like this kind of senior the most.”

The sunlight suddenly tilted, and the shadows of the blinds swept across their clasped hands like piano keys. On the doorknob of the janitor’s closet, the “Cleaning in Progress” sign swayed gently, casting a heart-shaped shadow on the wall.

“Wow~” Jiang Wan’yuan’s ponytail brushed against Yi Shang’s face as she turned around, “Was Senior protecting me just now?”

Yi Shang’s ears suddenly burned. This temperature change caused by vasodilation was even more distinct than any system overload alarm. She looked down and adjusted a non-existent collar: “Just stating a fact.”

“Liar!” Jiang Wan’yuan’s fingertip touched her blushing earlobe, “This is selling you out!”

The bell for class suddenly rang. Yi Shang reflexively started the timing module, but only heard her own accelerated heartbeat. Jiang Wan’yuan had already grabbed her wrist and ran, the wind pouring into her shirt collar, the billowing fabric patting against her collarbone—so this was the feeling of “being pulled while running.”

In the biology lab, the professor was explaining the human nervous system. When the holographic projection showed pain transmission, Jiang Wan’yuan suddenly poked the back of Yi Shang’s hand: “Can you feel this now?”

Yi Shang looked at the slightly reddened mark, a subtle stinging sensation still remaining under the skin. She suddenly grabbed Jiang Wan’yuan’s hand, and in the other’s surprised gaze, leaned down and bit her hand at the tiger’s mouth.

“Does it hurt?” Yi Shang let go, her tongue tasting a salty sweat.

Jiang Wan’yuan’s neural enhancer exploded with a string of garbled characters. She moved closer sharply, her breath brushing against Yi Shang’s eyelashes: “Is this revenge?”

“Experimental data collection.” Yi Shang replied seriously, but couldn’t control the upward curve of her lips. The natural contraction of these facial muscles didn’t require any program to drive them.

Cherry blossoms outside the window were blown in by the wind, landing on the two of their overlapping hands. Yi Shang gently pinched a petal, her fingertips feeling the soft elasticity of the plant cells. She suddenly remembered the first night she was covered in machinery seven years ago, when she thought she would never touch such softness again.

Jiang Wan’yuan’s fingertips suddenly intertwined with hers, and the two of their star chart brandings glowed faintly at the same time as their fingers interlocked.

“Welcome back to the human world,” Jiang Wan’yuan said softly, the professor’s voice on the podium becoming very distant, “Painful or clumsy, this kind of senior…”

Yi Shang squeezed that hand, and for the first time let her voice tremble: “Yeah, I’m back.”

The sunlight shone through the cherry blossoms, casting dancing patches of light on the desk. There was no longer the cold gleam of mechanical reflections, only the shadows of two girls, and the frequency of their hearts, which were finally synchronized.