6: Chapter 6 Fixing the bugs and buying an invisibility tent

Zhang Yi turned a deaf ear.

His brain was spinning rapidly.

Forced unbinding.

The system would go find the next host.

That would mean he, Zhang Yi, would turn back into a homeless man with nothing.

He would have to crouch in the corner of a relief agency again, clutching a piece of whole-wheat bread and a carton of low-fat milk, waiting on the streets of Los Angeles for a turning point that would never come.

Was this really the ending for both of his lives combined?

In his past life, he was hit by a truck while delivering food; after transmigrating, was he going to be abandoned by the system while begging?

No.

Impossible.

He still had to rely on this system to change his current status as a homeless man.

He still had to turn his life around, get ahead, stand at the top of this world, and become the creator weaving everything from behind the scenes.

He had only just seen hope, only just earned 3000 Emotional Points, and only just allowed his fate to take a turn for the better.

How could he possibly let all of this just slip away?

"How do I fix them?" Zhang Yi blurted out, "System, tell me how to fix these two loopholes."

[Fixing loopholes requires using Emotional Points for materialization correction.]

[The system can transform misunderstood false phenomena into real existence, making them an organic part of the story.]

[The cost to fix each loophole is 1000 Emotional Points, totaling 2000 Emotional Points for both.]

[After the fix,]

[Loophole 1: The electric arc between the Men in Black's fingers will be transformed into a genuine non-lethal electric restraint weapon, with its function, appearance, and energy output perfectly matching the characteristics of alien optoelectronic equipment.]

[Loophole 2: The middle-aged woman will receive a miniature light control device, which can remotely control lighting equipment within a specific range, consistent with the technological level of the organization she belongs to.]

2000 points.

The 3000 points he had just earned, before they were even warm, were about to have two-thirds spent.

Zhang Yi looked at the Emotional Point balance on the system interface—3000 points—and then took a deep breath, quickly doing the math in his head.

If he didn't fix them, the system would unbind, everything would return to zero, and he would continue being a homeless man.

If he fixed them, he would spend 2000 points, leaving 1000 points. The system would remain, and Link Warren would continue to generate Emotional Points, which would only increase in the long run.

This wasn't even a multiple-choice question.

But his heart still ached.

It genuinely ached.

It was like someone who had been starving for three days finally finding a hundred dollars, just about to go buy a full meal, only to be told that seventy of those dollars had to be used first to patch two holes in their clothes.

Although he knew the consequences of not patching them were worse, that feeling of reluctance still bubbled up from his heart.

"Fix them," Zhang Yi gritted his teeth, "Fix both of them."

[Confirmed. Materialization correction in progress...]

[Loophole 1 fixed.]

[The electric arc artifact has been transformed into: MK-3 Non-Lethal Electric Restraint Device (Alien Technology Derivative Model). This weapon is powered by the android's built-in energy core and can release directional high-voltage electric arc pulses to effectively restrain carbon-based organisms within range, leaving no physical traces after use.]

[Loophole 2 fixed.]

[The lighting malfunction artifact has been transformed into: LX-7 Miniature Light Environment Control Terminal. This device is embedded in the middle-aged woman's watch face and can remotely control all compatible lighting equipment within a 200-meter range, including on/off, brightness adjustment, and color switching, complying with the equipment configuration standards of the Federal Urban Pipeline Maintenance Department.]

[This correction consumed a total of 2000 Emotional Points. Remaining Emotional Points: 1000.]

Zhang Yi looked at that "1000 points" balance and was silent for a moment.

Alright.

1000 left.

He couldn't afford a self-defense weapon; the cheapest one in the store's weapon category cost tens of thousands.

But he had to buy something.

He really didn't want to have his tent shaken by someone again tonight.

He reopened the store and carefully searched through the range under 1000 points.

After flipping through three or four pages, his gaze stopped on an item.

[Optical Camouflage Portable Tent, Price: 800 Emotional Points]

[Description: A portable camping device based on alien optical deflection technology. The tent has a built-in miniature optical camouflage generator.]

[When the tent is properly set up and the camouflage function is activated, the outer surface of the tent and surrounding items within a certain range will be covered by a dynamic optical deflection field, making it completely invisible within the visible spectrum and seamlessly blending into the surrounding environment.]

[Note: The tent's invisibility function only takes effect when it is "properly set up." If the tent is not set up correctly, the camouflage function cannot be activated.]

Zhang Yi read the description twice, confirming he hadn't misread it.

800 Emotional Points, a tent with an invisibility function.

No one would shake his tent again.

Because no one would be able to see his tent at all.

He would go from the light to the dark, from a target everyone could find to a mass of transparent air in the park.

"Buying it."

[Purchase confirmed. Optical Camouflage Portable Tent has been stored in the system storage space.]

[This consumed 800 Emotional Points. Remaining Emotional Points: 200.]

Zhang Yi looked at that pathetic "200 points" on the system interface and smiled bitterly.

From 3000 to 200, less than ten minutes had passed.

But this time, he didn't feel the heartache anymore.

Because this money was well spent.

The loopholes were fixed, the story wouldn't be exposed, and the system wouldn't unbind.

And with the invisibility tent, he could finally have a safe and sound sleep tonight.

He didn't hesitate anymore and immediately took the newly acquired tent out of the system storage space.

A neatly folded silver-gray package appeared out of thin air in his palm; it was only the size of a regular schoolbag, and so light he could barely feel it.

The material felt smooth and cold to the touch, unlike any tent fabric available on the market.

He began to pack his things.

His movements were quick.

He rolled up his sleeping bag and stuffed it into his backpack, packed away his folding stool, and tightened the cap on the half-bottle of mineral water before stuffing that in too.

Then he unzipped the old tent and crawled out.

Under the dull gazes of a few other homeless people,

he pulled the old tent—that gray-blue, cheap tent with several patches—up from the ground, folded it, rolled it up, and tossed it into the trash can nearby.

He didn't want it anymore.

From today on, his way of surviving in this world had completely changed.

He stuffed the silver-gray package into his backpack, put it on, and walked through the lawn of Echo Park without looking back, heading west along Sunset Boulevard.

After walking for about twenty minutes and crossing two main roads and three traffic lights, he turned into the Silver Lake district.

It was a neighborhood in Los Angeles that wasn't the most high-end, but was definitely a decent upper-middle-class community.

On both sides of the street were neatly trimmed lawns and well-arranged detached villas; the streetlights were bright but not glaring, and the air was filled with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and freshly cut grass.

There was no howling of homeless people, no cursing of drug addicts, no smell of urine, and no stench of cheap alcohol.

In the Silver Lake community, there was a small park called Silver Lake Park; it wasn't big, but it had the advantage of being sparsely populated and quiet.

More importantly, there was an eye-catching sign hanging at the park entrance:

"No camping. No pitching tents. Violators will be fined and forcibly evicted."

In the past, this kind of sign would be a no-go zone for homeless people.

If you pitched a tent at night, police cars would come to chase you away at three or four in the morning.

But now, Zhang Yi looked at the sign, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly, and he walked straight in.

He found a gentle slope in a corner of the park surrounded by several dense oak trees. The ground was a flat lawn, and the warm yellow lights of the residential area in the distance shone through the gaps in the leaves, looking like amber shattered all over the ground.

He took the silver-gray package out of his backpack and unfolded it according to the instructions in the system manual.

The tent's frame seemed to be made of memory metal; as soon as he unzipped it and gave it a gentle shake, the entire structure popped out automatically, like an inverted umbrella being opened.

In less than two minutes, a silver-gray tent with a low-key appearance and a texture completely different from ordinary tents stood steadily on the grass.

He crawled in, zipped it up, and activated the camouflage function.

From the outside, there was nothing there.

The tent, along with everything inside it, completely disappeared into the shadows of the oak trees and the background of the grass.

If someone walked by from five meters away, they would only see an ordinary, empty park lawn.

And Zhang Yi could finally lay out his sleeping bag, lie down, rest his head on his backpack, and let out a long sigh of relief in the quiet and clean air.

He could finally get a good night's sleep.

Parks in wealthy areas were just different.

No strange noises, no stench of alcohol, no hands suddenly reaching out to shake the tent.

Only the chirping of insects in the distance and the rustling of leaves occasionally stirred by the wind.

He didn't even have to worry about police patrols in the early morning; no one could see him anyway.

However, before falling asleep, Zhang Yi didn't forget his real business.

He opened the system interface.

The screen was still on Las Vegas.

It wasn't the parking lot anymore; the scene in the parking lot had already ended.

The system was tracking Link Warren's real-time location, and the screen had switched to the interior of a manor.

A quite impressive manor.

Zhang Yi enlarged the interface a bit and adjusted to a comfortable viewing angle,

then lay in his sleeping bag, like an audience member who had just found the best seat in a movie theater, and continued to watch the second act of his first script unfolding in the real world.