Chapter 19

[August 22, 20XX]

Upon logging in today, I found the forum had posted an announcement regarding arrangements for its 20th anniversary event. Below the notice was a thread for users to leave their blessings.

Out of gratitude for this platform, I opened the thread.

Human emotional activities are quite rich, especially enthusiastic about events they’ve personally participated in—this might be a commonality among social creatures, as similar virtual social circle activities exist in other civilizations too.

Many people recounted their registration experiences and encounters on the forum. Those lengthy replies detailing personal emotions held little reference value for me.

The computer simply extracted some keywords, producing a simplified reply template: reason for registering, feelings toward the forum, blessings, and what they would do for the forum in the future.

“I came here for someone. Thank you for this platform that allowed me to communicate with him. As a token of my blessings, I can promise the admin once again that I won’t tamper with the backend programs.”

[August 23, 20XX]

My post in the blessings thread was copied out by several familiar usernames from The Cosmic Zone into a separate thread—”Shocking! Did Scholar King Come Here Chasing Love?!”

-“Since Scholar King’s account was registered, almost all his posts have been contributed to our section. Which one of you caught his eye? Own up!”

-“Did Scholar King make a typo or did I misread it? He used ‘him’ not ‘her’!”

-“Gay! Scholar King is actually gay!”

-“Wait! Who said Scholar King must be male?”

-“Fool! How could there possibly be girls in our section!”

-“I remember Scholar King mentioned being male during the discussion about four-dimensional lifeform reproduction methods, didn’t he?”

-“Huh? Where’s that post? Go find it!”

…

-“I suddenly realized something: apart from academic discussions, Scholar King never replies to any of us… what a cold-hearted man…”

-“That’s not right, is it? Didn’t he reply to Tannins?”

-“Yeah, I just saw it in the thread.”

-“Then aside from Tannins, has he replied to anyone else?”

…

-“I smell something fishy going on here.”

-“Seconded. Only Tannins gets replies for casual chatter.”

-“Everyone! I just tallied all Scholar King’s posts since registration! Every thread Tannins replied to, Scholar King also posted in!”

-“The person Scholar King is chasing… could it be Tannins?”

-“…Burn him.”

-“Where’s Tannins! Come out so I can burn you!”

-“Step aside! Let the professionals handle this!”

…

“Huh?” Dan Ning’s mouse cursor stopped.

Lying beside the screen, I could clearly see his puzzled expression.

“Coincidence?” He muttered as he clicked open his posting history.

Then the look of surprise on his face grew increasingly obvious.

The teasing in the thread kept escalating. Just as I was considering whether to give a definitive response, the system notified me of a new private message.

The sender was “Tannins”—Dan Ning.

“Scholar King, did you see that thread?” He didn’t specify which one.

“I saw it.”

After receiving my reply, Dan Ning became flustered. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, pressing letters several times only to delete them all.

His awkwardness unexpectedly pleased me.

The mimetic form gently flicked its tail tip: “Their analysis wasn’t wrong.”

Dan Ning looked even more panicked.

I asked the same question as a month ago: “I’ve been paying attention to you for a long time. Can we be friends?”

Hopefully this time I’ll get a different answer.