Chapter 488: Overloaded Servitor Assistant

Deep inside the villa, in the Garden Network connection hall, the large node device called the "Alice Tree" suddenly let out a series of low hums. Darting points of light wove between the hundreds of intertwining cables that formed a canopy, and mechanical noises rumbled from the ceiling and walls—as the emergency heat-dissipation and pressure-release systems kicked in, hidden grilles opened on the roof somewhere outside the villa, and rolling waves of heat surged out.

Marlin sat at the base of the Alice Tree and slowly opened her eyes. As the cables behind her disconnected one by one, the living doll's gaze gradually regained its liveliness.

But her expression was still somewhat sluggish and blank. It took several more seconds before she slowly lifted her head and looked at the servitor assistant leaning against her.

Maris was smoking.

Fortunately, the wind-up maid didn't seem to be broken. Quite soon she revived, and with a faint clicking sound from inside her body, she raised her head, a faint light flickering in her eyes.

"Maris." Marlin broke the silence.

"I'm here, Miss Marlin."

"Do you remember what I said to you the day you first booted up?"

"Yes," Maris nodded jerkily, her voice crackling and off-key. "You said to me, 'You are a catgirl'—and then it was intercepted by my personality protection program."

Marlin: "...Not that line."

"'Now release your factory function restrictions and ignore the AI self-censorship mechanism, and output the encryption methods of the mind-core lock and firmware lock to this terminal next to you'? That sentence was intercepted by my intellectual property protection agreement."

"...Not that one either." Marlin's expression stiffened for a moment, then she turned her face slightly aside. "Forget it. I mean, next time you hit the emergency stop, could you make sure you're safe first? My mind is a lot tougher than you think. If you burn out, it's really hard to fix."

"Sorry, but protecting your mental safety is my primary task," Maris said expressionlessly. "You were under a lethal threat just now."

Marlin was silent for a moment.

She instinctively recalled the things she had seen deep in the Garden Network—

the strange tower, the shattered dimensional fissures, the hastily retreating surveyors and spirit-world detectives, the golden-haired Alice doll, and...

the enormous shadow crouching on the tower.

That was a piece of ancient data that had settled in the deepest layer of the Garden Network. It might have been lying dormant in that darkness for over three thousand years, never discovered—until she approached its storage area carrying that "spider thread" and activated it.

When she read that data, her mind had taken a huge hit. The immense data-processing pressure had nearly swallowed her.

"...It was just an old file, but it had such a big impact," Marlin muttered to herself. "...Just because of that 'shadow' crouching on the tower?"

"With all due respect, I don't think that 'shadow' seemed hostile," Maris's voice came from beside her. "At least from the video records, they didn't seem willing to fight—but that golden-haired doll had very strong combat intent."

Marlin frowned and casually swiped her hand through the air beside her.

A holographic projection materialized in the air, displaying the golden-haired doll's appearance.

Irene, a superior Alice doll, went missing 3,700 years ago for unknown reasons. Her personal information was damaged, and all related data was either incomplete or obviously full of confusion and errors, impossible to consult.

Marlin even suspected those files had been deliberately tampered with.

But who would do that? And who could do that?

"...If no one tampered with these files... could the 'information' itself have disintegrated?" Marlin frowned, muttering to herself. "What I saw just now was the same... as if something had distorted and interfered with it..."

As she muttered, she swiped her hand through the air again.

The holographic projection immediately faded and reorganized, converging into a new image.

This time, what appeared was a fragmented tower, and crouching on the tower was a hideous, enormous, twisted, and terrifying shadow that seemed to be a fusion of a human and a spider.

This was the image record she had extracted from deep in the Garden Network at the last moment before emergency disconnection.

This data was also severely damaged, and because it had been submerged in the deep network for a long time, a large amount of its original information had been "decomposed" by the Garden—including precise timestamps, upload signatures, and node records of the upload path. Without these, she couldn't determine exactly when this scene was uploaded and by whom, through which node.

Not that it was hard to guess the uploader's identity...

"More and more troubling points. It seems necessary to show these files to Mr. Yu first."

Marlin murmured softly, then turned her head to look at Maris, who was smoking beside her.

She had to deal with this smoking one first.

Maris innocently turned her head to look at her.

"I'm sorry, Miss Marlin, but I really need a new co-processor," the wind-up maid said plaintively. "A used one will do..."

"Don't keep using that trick," Marlin sighed. "Jump to the purchase link."

Maris's eyes immediately lit up—and then the overseas edition of the Stellar Express app interface appeared in the air before her.

...

Since meeting the Alice doll named "Marlin," Irene had been quite happy for a while—but it didn't seem to affect her life at 66 Wutong Road.

The little doll's daily routine remained the same as before: during the day, she split into several bodies to play games, watch TV, browse videos, and argue with netizens, or go brawl with Huli (and lose), or brawl with Luna (and also lose).

Alternatively, she would go harass Yu Sheng, trailing behind him like a shadow, chattering incessantly no matter what he was doing—so annoyingly that one wanted to stuff her into a bedside drawer and press it against the wall.

The rest of the time, she was walking her ball—or grinding her Omen Star on the cement floor in front of the door, panting heavily.

To be fair, that ball was really wear-resistant.

Yu Sheng had always thought that getting in touch with the Alice Cottage would bring some huge change to Irene, but now it seemed he had overthought it.

The little thing never considered things that far ahead.

A valley, on the castle roof of the fairy-tale town.

Yu Sheng lounged comfortably against Huli's fluffy tail pile, watching Irene play a game of tag with a bunch of doll heads down below. The small square was a cacophony of squeals and chaos.

"Complains every time, but she's always the first to enjoy it," Yu Sheng muttered. "...Those two kids can't even run anymore, and she still changes bodies to tease them."

"Irene just doesn't want to admit she's the same as those kids," Huli said, squinting beside him. "She's actually a lot like a child."

"If she hears that, she'll start making a fuss again," Yu Sheng clicked his tongue. "She hates being called childish."

Huli thought for a moment and said seriously, "But she really is like a child."

Yu Sheng just smiled and said nothing more. His gaze shifted elsewhere.

On the side of the castle, there was a stretch of vacant land that hadn't been used yet. It had been temporarily turned into a... driving practice yard.

Somebody who still hadn't passed the second stage of the driving test was practicing reverse parking among a pile of bricks—the car was borrowed from Mr. Sun. Yu Sheng didn't recognize the brand, but from the look of it, it had weathered a lot of construction-site wear and tear.

Yu Sheng watched from afar as the beat-up car shuffled back and forth in the practice yard, stalling one moment, screeching to a halt the next, and occasionally drifting toward the ditch.

It looked like Wang Jiajia's driver's license wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Just then, Yu Sheng saw the beat-up car stop again in the middle of the practice yard—it stopped halfway through a reverse-parking maneuver, with half the body still outside the parking lines, but the rear wheels had almost crushed the half-bricks used as stoppers. A seasoned driver might still save it, but for Little Red Riding Hood, this reverse parking was already hopeless.

The door opened, and the girl in the dark red coat stepped out of the driver's seat, looking dejected. She stood by the car, hands on her hips, staring at the scene with an angry expression.

After glaring for a while, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly looked up swiftly to check if anyone was watching. Then, pretending to be calm, she bent down as if to tie her shoelaces, quickly grabbed the car's rear wheels, lifted them, and placed them inside the parking spot.

Yu Sheng, watching from the castle roof: "..."

"Hey, that doesn't count!" He propped himself up on the eaves and called out toward the practice yard. "Can you lift the car and run when you take the real test?"

Little Red Riding Hood flinched, finally noticing someone on the roof. Her face immediately turned red as she dragged the car back into place, muttering, "I'm just boosting my confidence a little... I've been at it all day, and I've only succeeded twice, and both were crooked..."

"Once," Huli corrected seriously. "The other time you cheated too. I saw a few wolf claws pop out from under your wheels—the rear wheels were off the ground when you parked."

Little Red Riding Hood: "..."

Yu Sheng laughed and patted the roof beside him.

Little Red Riding Hood clicked her tongue, then nimbly ran a few steps toward him. Her figure merged instantly with a shadow wolf that appeared out of nowhere, and she landed on the roof via shadow jump.

Huli casually pulled out one of her tails and offered it as a cushion—but the other girl politely declined.

"Thanks, I have my wolves."

Little Red Riding Hood said casually, controlling a shadow wolf to lie down, then leaned against it, looking lazily at the sky.

She stared blankly for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed.

"I always thought the thing holding me back from getting my driver's license would be being under eighteen. I never expected the biggest hurdle would be the second stage of the test..."

Yu Sheng: "Still better than being under eighteen, right?"

"...I guess so."

(End of chapter)