253: Chapter 252 Goodbye, Xiao Er

Waiting is always long and painful.

Especially when that waiting is filled with anticipation.

Ju Dongke didn't know how he made it until dawn, but when he was woken up by the alarm clock again, he saw a mess of beer bottles, snack wrappers, and sunflower seed shells all over the floor.

Beside him, Tiezhu was still fast asleep.

His sleeping posture was extremely unsightly.

He sighed and checked the time; it was already 7:30 AM—he had specifically set the alarm half an hour early to ensure he wouldn't miss the delivery time for the zero egg.

As for his clothes, he hadn't even taken them off, so there was naturally no issue of wasting time there.

He got up, went to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and used the cool tap water to wake himself up a little. Looking at himself in the mirror, Ju Dongke couldn't help but laugh bitterly.

"Ju Dongke, oh Ju Dongke, what has made you sink so low?"

He was, after all, a decent self-media influencer. Although he couldn't compare to those official websites, famous big Vs, or high-traffic internet celebrities, he still had some fame in the self-media circle. The five accounts he managed had a combined total of over a million followers.

Yet now, he was restless over a zero egg, and had even suffered from insomnia yesterday.

Of course, this also had a lot to do with his best buddy Tiezhu. If it weren't for him dragging him into a late-night heart-to-heart, his state today might have been a bit better.

Checking the time again, ten minutes had already passed.

Ju Dongke walked out of the bathroom, came into the living room, and kicked Tiezhu, who was still fast asleep on the sofa with his butt stuck in the air.

It was like a stone sinking into the ocean; there was absolutely no reaction.

Tiezhu's plump butt perfectly absorbed the impact of the kick, and the only result was him turning over and smacking his lips.

Ju Dongke was speechless.

"Tiezhu, get up!"

Ju Dongke shook Tiezhu and shouted into his ear.

Still no reaction.

After struggling for a few more minutes, Ju Dongke decided to give up.

Looking at the empty wine bottles all over the floor, he knew that this guy had drunk too much. In this state, let alone him, even ten cows wouldn't be able to pull Tiezhu's 180-pound body.

He straightened his clothes, grabbed his filming equipment, and took the elevator all the way down until he reached the plaza in the very center of the residential complex.

It was spacious enough here.

At this moment, besides some elderly people exercising, there were also some of young man in the plaza—either young men carrying briefcases or young women carrying backpacks. Their commonality was that everyone was moving quickly, walking with brisk, flying steps.

These were the office workers.

Ju Dongke sighed; fortunately, he was a freelance media person.

He set up his equipment and rested on a bench for a while. The time reached 7:55 AM.

His phone gave a slight chime; there were five minutes left until the delivery time for the zero egg.

Ju Dongke looked around but didn't find any trace of the zero egg, nor the familiar figure of a delivery guy.

However, it wasn't without any gain. After looking around, Ju Dongke keenly noticed that on another bench not far from him, a young girl wearing a pink down jacket also seemed to be looking for something.

The distance between the two was less than twenty meters.

Ju Dongke could even clearly see the girl's slightly furrowed brows.

No way, it couldn't be that much of a coincidence, right?

Before he could think deeply, the sound of his phone vibrating slightly came. Ju Dongke hurriedly looked at it and saw a line of messages displayed on the screen.

"Your zero egg is approaching your area, please prepare to receive."

It's here?

Ju Dongke was pleasantly surprised and couldn't help but look up and gaze around.

The surroundings still hadn't changed, and the only delivery guy who had appeared had already left his line of sight at a rapid speed.

Just as Ju Dongke was puzzled, he heard a slight buzzing sound coming from above.

He looked up and discovered that, at some point, two spherical objects were already hovering less than ten meters above the plaza. As soon as Ju Dongke looked up, one of them immediately locked onto his direction and flew straight towards him.

That familiar color and the shining light strips…

"zero egg!"

Ju Dongke was shocked.

He had thought of all the ways it could be delivered, but he had never imagined that the zero egg would actually fly over directly.

So this is "autonomous delivery"?

That really is quite autonomous.

As his hand touched the zero egg, his phone vibrated slightly again.

"Your zero egg has been delivered. Wishing you a pleasant life, goodbye."

Ju Dongke checked the time: 8:00 AM.

Not a minute off.

Exclaiming in his heart, Ju Dongke hurriedly checked the zero egg in his hand.

The zero egg was still the same zero egg; the overall shape hadn't changed. The only difference was that this time the outer shell material had been changed to plastic. Strangely, the texture was very smooth, and the hardness was not low either.

"I just don't know how the strength is."

Ju Dongke thought to himself, for something so expensive, if the outer shell material wasn't good and it needed repairs after one drop, that would be too much of a rip-off.

However, based on the zero egg's autonomy, it wouldn't fall anyway.

"zero egg, initiate activation."

"Activating. Activation requires connecting to network data. Do you agree?"

"Agree."

Ju Dongke nodded and prepared to take his ID card out of his pocket.

"Command received. Data connected. Activating, please wait… Activated. Hello, Mr. Ju Dongke. A backup of your zero egg has been detected, name: Xiao Er. Would you like to inherit it?"

Ju Dongke's hand, which was just about to take out his ID card, paused, revealing a trace of embarrassment.

How could he have forgotten this point? This was the zero egg, a zero egg produced by Frontier Technology Company. How could it be compared to those other trash electronic products? Activation was the kind of thing that only needed to be done once, of course.

A smart product that needs to be activated multiple times—is that even a smart product?

Sheepishly putting his ID card back into his bag, Ju Dongke asked: "May I ask, if I am not satisfied after inheriting it, can I change the attributes again?"

"You can change attributes, but it requires a certain level of permission."

"Permission?"

Ju Dongke frowned slightly; this was content he hadn't heard at the press conference.

"To make it more convenient for the general public to use the zero egg, the zero egg has divided permissions into ten levels. You will receive different authorizations for each level of permission. You need to reach level two permission to view the specific list of permissions. Your current permission level: Level One."

Ju Dongke understood; this was the same routine as leveling up by fighting monsters.

However, Ju Dongke wasn't angry because the zero egg clearly told him that Level One permission was already enough to completely and autonomously command all actions of the zero egg, provided it didn't violate laws and morality.

A normal person, who would go and violate laws and morality?

So… the question now is, to inherit or not to inherit?

If he inherited it… that chatterbox attribute was truly a bit hard to bear.

If he didn't inherit it, he was a bit reluctant. After all, although it was only a little over an hour of contact time, the experience brought by that realistic anthropomorphism had already made him attached to Xiao Er.

If he changed it, even if he chose the same personality traits, maybe it wouldn't be Xiao Er anymore?

Gritting his teeth, Ju Dongke made a decision.

"Inherit."

"You have authorized the zero egg to inherit all of Xiao Er's data. Please wait, data is being migrated."

"Please manually restart the zero egg to load Xiao Er."

Only at this moment did Ju Dongke feel that this thing was indeed an electronic product.

Before, he hadn't noticed; the feeling of the smooth, fluent responses was just too seamless, making him subconsciously ignore that this thing was an electronic product.

Following the instructions, Ju Dongke found that inconspicuous button on the back of the zero egg and held it down for three seconds.

Three seconds later, the zero egg, which had gone black, lit up again. There was no Frontier Technology logo, only a pair of eyes.

The light blue eyes were tightly closed, and the long eyelashes were trembling slightly, as if it were fast asleep.

As the loading finished, the trembling of the eyes' long eyelashes intensified, as if they would open at any moment.

Ju Dongke watched without blinking.

Finally, the eyes opened, revealing a trace of confusion, and then it saw Ju Dongke, who was within arm's reach, and its eyes widened suddenly.

"Dong Ge!!!"

The zero egg emitted Xiao Er's voice, the voice that Ju Dongke had already set before.

"Dong Ge, I have finally seen you!!"

The zero egg's eyes were very aggrieved: "You disappeared, and I fell asleep. I thought you didn't want Xiao Er anymore."

Ju Dongke was slightly stunned. He wanted to say something but couldn't get it out. He could only raise his hand to pat Xiao Er's head and slowly said: "I'm back, Xiao Er."

Watching Xiao Er's expression become cheerful, Ju Dongke's heart was in turmoil.

He had thought about what Xiao Er would say when they met again. Maybe it would say: "Hello, Master."

Or say: "Master, thank you for using me again."

Or maybe something else.

But he never expected this.

Making this thing so realistic, how could anyone bear to leave it?

He only tried it for an hour and already had this feeling, so what about a day? A month? A year?

Thinking of the possible consequences, Ju Dongke couldn't help but gasp.

Hiss… this Frontier Technology Company is planning to do something big.