AYLS -Chapter 160

Even so, Lin Qiao was still very interested in Fat Cat’s abilities.

She knew very well just how important knowledge was to the country at this point in history. Even children like Lanlan and the others were studying hard every day, constantly chanting about how “the imperialists will never give up their desire to destroy us,” always talking about the blockade on technology and knowledge. Truly terrible.

“Gu Huayuan, make it bring out everything it knows!”

Gu Huayuan wasn’t in a rush. Instead, he told Lin Qiao to ask Fat Cat exactly what kind of knowledge it possessed and to what extent.

How many years ahead was its knowledge from?

Fat Cat wasn’t stupid. “That depends on my condition. The better shape I’m in, the more permissions I can access. Right now, I don’t even have the strength to unlock any permissions.”

Lin Qiao immediately repeated this to him.

Gu Huayuan let out a cold laugh. “Is that a threat? Tell it this: it’s already this unruly without energy—if it really had energy, wouldn’t it be even more out of control? It needs to bring out something first. When we’re satisfied, then we can talk about the rest.”

Lin Qiao was now completely united with Gu Huayuan. Especially since Fat Cat actually judged people by appearance, she was very displeased. She added fuel to the fire and scolded Fat Cat thoroughly.

Fat Cat was extremely depressed. It said that with its current abilities, it couldn’t produce finished things out of thin air—only copy and paste onto existing books, the same way it Photoshopped pictures before.

“I can’t do too much each time. My ability isn’t all-powerful. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

Fat Cat cursed the game developers in its heart again and again. Why didn’t they give it the power of a world’s main god during setup? If it had that, it could pinch these natives to death with a flick of its paw.

Gu Huayuan thought about it. Based on Fat Cat’s current condition and the abilities it had shown, he realized it indeed didn’t have that much capability.

Maybe it could do more if it had enough energy—but right now it clearly didn’t.

And Gu Huayuan definitely wouldn’t give it even more energy just to make it produce more items. What if it rebelled?

So he proposed: fat cat would demonstrate its ability first, then he’d give it a portion of energy.

Once Fat Cat agreed, he took out a notebook.

He placed it on the table for Fat Cat to paste onto.

Fat Cat picked and chose for a while before selecting a biology-related book. After doing it, it practically had no strength left to breathe.

Gu Huayuan picked up the notebook. He didn’t understand scientific research, but he was at least educated enough to recognize some basics.

It was indeed a biology book.

Lin Qiao leaned over. “Did it sabotage anything?”

Gu Huayuan shook his head. “I’m not sure. This needs to be shown to professionals.”

“Ah… should we send it to the regiment commander now?”

Gu Huayuan replied, “And how do we explain the source? Say we found it lying around? And then what—more will magically appear in the future?”

Fat Cat almost vomited blood hearing that. More? This single book nearly cost it its life!

And they hadn’t even paid it yet.

Lin Qiao looked at Gu Huayuan nervously. “You… won’t hand me over, right?” She was willing to contribute to this world, but she was also afraid of unknown consequences.

Gu Huayuan said, “Didn’t you say it yourself? No one can know your origin. Bad things will definitely happen. If I handed you over, you wouldn’t last a day before being investigated thoroughly.”

In truth, he didn’t even need those organizations. If he wanted, he could investigate everything about Xiao Qiao’s original world.

Let alone what others could do. And who knew whether others would believe her when she said the truth couldn’t be investigated? He certainly couldn’t control that outcome.

He trusted Xiao Qiao because she had feelings and subjective judgment. Others were rational—they would only believe what they deduced.

Fat Cat also became terrified listening to this.

It hadn’t lied—people absolutely couldn’t learn the truth about this world.

Imagine if people in a game suddenly learned they were NPCs in a game—how could the world not explode?

Lin Qiao let out a breath of relief. “Then… these things… they’re useless if we just keep them.”

“I know. That’s why we need its cooperation.” Gu Huayuan said. “Ask it if it can copy things directly onto other objects, like how it did with that photograph.”

Lin Qiao immediately asked. Fat Cat truly couldn’t speak anymore—its eyes couldn’t even roll properly.

“It really seems completely drained… Should we give it some energy?” Lin Qiao asked. Then she hesitated. “But… I can’t fake crying right now. How about… how about you pinch me?”

She held out her arm bravely, ready to sacrifice a little.

Gu Huayuan laughed and held her arm. “What are you thinking? No way I’d let you suffer. If this works out, Comrade Xiao Qiao will be an unsung hero.”

He knew very well that no one could ever learn about this.

Lin Qiao blushed. “I didn’t even do anything.”

Fat Cat thought: Exactly. It was all me!

Lin Qiao continued, “So… what do we do now? I really can’t cry.”

Gu Huayuan patted her back comfortingly. “If you can’t cry, then don’t. Relax. I’ll tell you a story.”

Lin Qiao gave him a suspicious look. “You? Tell a story? You sure?”

“How do you know if you don’t try?”

Fat Cat: “…” These natives were too black-hearted. They tricked away the last bit of energy keeping it functioning—and now they were just ignoring it.

Unfortunately for Fat Cat, Gu Huayuan and Lin Qiao weren’t paying any attention to it anymore.

Gu Huayuan began telling a story from the revolutionary era.

In that time of war and chaos, countless martyrs sacrificed their lives to drive out the invaders.

Gu Huayuan grew up hearing such stories. He had even witnessed some of them personally.

For example, his mother—after her identity was exposed, she was captured by the enemy. To avoid implicating her comrades who planned to rescue her, she committed suicide in public. Gu Huayuan had been in the crowd, watching her. She lay on the ground, eyes gazing at the sky, a faint smile at her lips.

Gu Huayuan always felt that in that moment, she must have been seeing the future—the founding of Xinhua, the final victory.

Lin Qiao listened with tears streaming down her face.

Gu Huayuan gently wiped her tears.

She sniffed and said she wanted to visit her mother-in-law, to tell her that the future world was truly, truly wonderful.

Gu Huayuan made a soft sound of acknowledgment but didn’t tell her that it wasn’t possible—because after his mother’s sacrifice, even her remains were never found. He didn’t want to make Xiao Qiao sad again. Instead, he asked, “How’s the cat now?”

Lin Qiao instinctively looked toward Fat Cat—and jumped in fright. Fat Cat was sitting up. When it sensed her attention, it rolled its eyes dramatically.

“So useless,” it complained. “Someone just coaxed you a little and you stopped crying!”

Just now was such a rare opportunity. It had been happily absorbing energy when everything suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

Lin Qiao completely ignored it, immediately running out to tell Gu Huayuan.

Gu Huayuan patted her head. “Looks like telling you stories can increase its power too. Whenever we need it in the future, we’ll just tell stories.”

He was quite curious to try whether the organization’s ideological education would have any effect on the little bug in Xiao Qiao’s mind.

Lin Qiao said, “Now that it has energy again, what if it stops listening to us?”

“If it’s truly satisfied with this amount of energy, it wouldn’t have tried to attack me in the first place. My guess is that it has some other goal and needs to reach a certain energy level.”

When Gu Huayuan said this, he didn’t even bother shielding Fat Cat from hearing it. He was intentionally saying it for Fat Cat’s sake.

Fat Cat had just been rejoicing over finally recovering a bit of energy. Upon hearing Gu Huayuan’s words, its eyes instantly bulged wide.

Gu Huayuan said, “I know you’re listening. I think you’ll be very willing to make this deal with us.”

“…”

Fat Cat wished it could curse that dog of a developer a hundred times, but it also knew swearing was useless.

It could only submit.

Because its weakness had been grasped.

It could choose not to cooperate—but without energy, it would be trapped here forever.

And once the player completed the mission and successfully left, if its negative-energy bar wasn’t full, it would perish together with this world.

If it weren’t because the player’s mission bar was steadily rising while its own negative-energy bar stayed motionless, it truly would never have spent its own energy meddling in an NPC’s fate.

Humans were indeed the most terrifying creatures.

Even humans inside a game.

Fat Cat reluctantly, unwillingly expressed its willingness to cooperate.

But those small, aggrieved eyes could not have looked more pitiful.

Seeing it so deflated, Lin Qiao couldn’t help feeling triumphant. “Let’s see you bully me again!”

When she looked back at Gu Huayuan, her eyes were full of excitement. “Gu Huayuan, it agreed!”

Since both sides had reached a cooperation intention, negotiations afterward went smoothly.

Gu Huayuan only needed Fat Cat to provide knowledge in the places he specified. Then, based on how important that knowledge was, he would give it some additional energy as compensation.

Lin Qiao objected to this. She had absolutely no trust left in Fat Cat. In Gu Huayuan’s proposed arrangement, the knowledge would be placed elsewhere, meaning they wouldn’t see it directly—and even if they saw it, there was no way to prove whether it was actually useful.

She strongly suspected Fat Cat would take the chance to slack off.

Gu Huayuan nodded. “Exactly, so it needs to find its own way to prove it isn’t pulling any tricks.”

Fat Cat: “……!!!”

Seeing her suggestion accepted by Gu Huayuan, Lin Qiao instantly felt quite proud of herself.

This was all experience gained from her long-term battles with Fat Cat!

In the end, Fat Cat had no choice. It said it could spend some energy to let Xiao Qiao see the process of it placing the information—like an after-sales service.

But that process also required energy, so energy must be paid.

Lin Qiao told Gu Huayuan not to agree yet. “You think I’ve never bought anything before? If you want me to pay, I need to see how good your service is first. I’ll give a good review only if it deserves one!”

Fat Cat: “…”

After a round of bargaining, the matter was finally settled.

Lin Qiao was overjoyed, feeling like she finally had a golden finger of her own.

She had always envied Zhenzhen’s golden finger that could create good varieties and good seeds, helping the people here. Now she had one too.

Zhenzhen was an unsung hero, and now she was one as well.

She could finally do more for this world.