Aunty – no, Sister Tang!
The week had been considerably fruitful for someone who had just recently been laid-off, and Du Lang could only feel satisfied. Standing before the bathroom mirror, he admired himself and adjusted the collar of his newly ironed and adjusted suit, and reached for a black tie hanging nearby. The silky strip was arranged into a lazy, casual Windsor variant, and Du Lang gently twisted his neck before leaving the bathroom.
Three hours from now, he was to meet with Aunty – no, Sister Tang – for the blind date his gracious and heavenly, magnificent specimen of an Elder Sister had generously set up without his knowledge. Apparently, the matchmaking was one that even his Elder Sister was satisfied with, hence Du Lang couldn't lower his expectations.
The countenance reflected on the cheap mirror's surface was that of his original appearance prior to Sibyl's intervention. Not particularly handsome, but not ugly.
It was perfectly normal, and was a visage that would vanish into the crowd if one stopped paying attention for the slightest amount of time.
"Sibyl, this illusion won't wear off even if someone touches it, right? What about the texture – is that simulated as well?"
[The illusion applied by
Well.
He didn't necessarily regain his original countenance. To Du Lang, his current state was no different than applying a transparent, cosmetic face mask on his skin and running out in public.
Du Lang huffed in disappointment and holstered the briefcase onto his shoulder. With a final glance inside his home to ensure that he had turned off all unnecessary appliances, he reached out to close the door and engage the locking mechanism. Tapping the heels of his shoes for good luck – a habit taught by his dignified sibling, Du Lang climbed into his car, and started the engine.
The place of meeting arranged by Sister Tang was a local coffeeshop not unsimilar to the one he frequented with Gu Ling after a tiring task. It was no more than a fifteen-minute drive whilst locked in horribly congested traffic – the perfect amount of time to unleash his complaints.
Oh, but he had a lot of complaints –
"How can it be so useless!?"
The twin black spheres maintained their idle flight circling Du Lang's head as the dignified man slammed his fists into the pitiful steering wheel. Just before the leather cover demanded filing a domestic violence claim against its owner, Du Lang released a heavy sigh and leaned back into his chair as he waited for traffic to ease.
Wraith – however good of an idea, was far too useless. The concept of an artificial sentience automatically processing the trickled-down remnants of the grunt work Sibyl had assigned onto his shoulders was excellent on paper, but doomed to be naturally horrific upon execution.
The features were excellent. Wraith – the inconspicuous black sphere with two decorative crimson eyes – could achieve a multitude of tasks that even Google's Assistant would be envious of.
In the span of a few hundred milliseconds, the small, foolish sphere could perform an incredibly detailed terrain mapping of the surrounding environment, including the infrastructure data and layout inside buildings without accessing additional resources. By Du Lang's first command for it to excavate the entirety of the Internet to serve as creative reference, the black sphere had assembled the necessary framework to construct spell model after spell model and achieve a miraculous state.
Instead of a network connection to a local router or modem system, Wraith tunneled directly into the scattered bandwidth leaking from nearby handheld devices through a curse model. Camera photography, high-processing rendering, and simulation could all be achieved by curse models…
"Speaking of which, it should have reached the five hundredth curse model by now… Wraith, confirmation?���
Du Lang gestured for the black sphere to halt its revolutions around his head, and the crimson eyes locked onto his figure. As the drivers besides him scowled at their phones buzzing with their employers' anger and disappointment, thin tendrils of light extended from Wraith's surface, landing onto the frontal windshield to project a holographic display on the tinted glass.
There, a starry map of hundreds upon hundreds of blinking lights was displayed on the right half of the windshield, allowing Du Lang to focus on driving. Each of the lights represented an independent curse model that had been created by Wraith, and they merged together into beautiful, stellar constellations based on similar factors ranging from efficacy, time-consumption, and compatibility.
The constellations revolved around a central sphere gleaming with a brilliant, scarlet light – the framework that Du Lang had 'painstakingly' created utilizing Sibyl's assistance. The blazing supernova at the center of the stellar skies released pulses of light that were reflected by the tiny, inscrutable blotches on the inky skies, producing a wonderous image.
Wraith had exceeded his expectations by a considerable amount. Hundreds of curse models capable of achieving miracles were at his fingertips, except for one problem.
Just one problem.
"Why, my dear Wraith, are these curse models not tagged by ASCII characters!?"
Regarding that, Sibyl had provided an excellent answer. It was simple and concise, requiring absolutely little effort from Du Lang to comprehend its meaning.
[The platform provided for the creation of
He had a human soul, which meant that there was a limit on the amount of data that the black sphere could access. Similarly, its processing speeds and memory were significantly limited by Du Lang's 'greatness' as a human and intellectual being.
It was so f*cking terrible, to the extent that Wraith had to implement a hashing algorithm! One that did some bizarre, convoluted series of backloops and recursive chain-conversions between MD5, CRC32, and xxhash to mention a few!
To top it off, the stupid thing decided to encrypt its hash checksums in another bizarre, convoluted series of combinations of AES, RSA-256 bit, and several other algorithms!
"To call a curse model and have it activate, I have to call it by its hash table… you've got to be f*cking kidding me."
Du Lang violently swore as he drove. The car turned left onto the designated street, granting him a few precious minutes to finish his venting.
It wasn't that big of a deal since Wraith's primary projections displayed the series of algorithms that he required to obtain the hash tables necessary to cast curse models at his whim. If he were ever in a crisis or emergency situation, he only needed to pull out his phone and convert a single keyphrase along… thirteen different hashing algorithms after passing through five encryption trees?
Brother, before pulling the trigger, could you give me a few minutes? I need to run a few conversions on my phone – it won't take long, I promise!
"Sibyl, is there any way you can terminate Wraith's current command or initialize some break function?"
[The debugging and troubleshooting of any
"Yeah, I thought so. Jingdou's 'great' Dalang, you're exceptionally brilliant at screwing things up – you know that?"
The deprecating answer caused Du Lang to sigh once more and curse at his 'great' intelligence and foresight. Turning off the engine and stepping out of the car, he stood before the breezy gates of a small and lofty coffeeshop. Looking at the great, bolded characters of 'DRINK ME' stamped across the plated glass, Du Lang grabbed his briefcase, a Louis Vuitton bag and cosmetic set from the trunk, and walked into the store.
The mellow fragrance of lightly brewed coffee invaded his nose and dominated his scent of smell the moment his body stepped past the glass doors. Du Lang paused briefly to indulge in the heavenly scent, and eventually scanned across the shop's interior.
The numerous seats were already filled with young, innocent-minded people seeking nothing but to pass their days in indulgent decadence. There were those attempting to cram their way into the next exam, those who tried to hit up on girls, and… a woman in her early thirties earnestly waving her hand at him.
Du Lang clucked his tongue in disappointment, and strode towards the woman waving her hand. Once she noticed the Louis Vuitton dustbag in his left hand, she dragged him into the seat across the table.
"Xiao Lang, which treasure did you get for Elder Sister Tang this time? LV… this is the 'Clouded Sea' release of their standard tote bag, right? Not bad, not bad at all!"
Sister Tang repeatedly nodded her head in appreciation, and reached with her hands to directly observe the blue-and-white striped bag. Once she had confirmed the authenticity of the 'Louis Vuitton' stamped plate threaded onto the bag, the woman graciously clucked her tongue at Du Lang.
"Xiao Lang, Xiao Lang, this time – Elder Sister has brought you an excellent match!" Sister Tang crooned, and gestured for Du Lang to bring his head closer.
"She'll arrive in just a few more minutes. I've got to warn you though – she's a real solid hit! Perfect wife material!"
"…you've said that each time Elder Sister roped you into snatching luxury bags from me, haven't you? You Aunty… Elder Sister Tang."
Du Lang harrumphed and crossed his arms in discontent, only to silence himself when Elder Sister Tang flashed the display of her phone at his eyes. The iPhone proudly projected the magnificent image of a connected call, and the recipient was his glorious Elder Sister, Du Yuexin.
"Xiao Lang, make sure not to disappoint your Elder Sister!"
The combined threat was enough for Du Lang to capitulate, and he raised his gaze to the uncompassionate heavens. With a groan, he rested the briefcase on his lap and debated whether to busy himself on his laptop or bombard Tang Jing with numerous questions. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, his choice was made with the entrance of a certain young girl.
Dressed in a simple combination of denim jeans and a wool sweater, the young girl marched her way to sit besides Tang Jing after receiving the latter's customary wave. Her simple, fresh presence was masked from the nearby youngsters and their delusional interests, and many didn't cast a second glance after eyeing her from head to toe.
"Huazhong University's first year student Ming Wuying. Xiao Lang, what do you think of her?"
The brusque introduction caused Du Lang to clap his forehead in disappointment, and Ming Wuying to blush scarlet. Tang Jing's eyebrows shot up after she realized her gaffe, and awkwardly cleared her throat with a domineering cough.
"A-anyways, Xiao Lang! Take a good look at her, and let Elder Sister know your impression, ah?"
Ming Wuying didn't wear any cosmetics on her countenance, not even the slightest amount of lip gloss that many modest young women in Jingdou resorted to when going outside. The soft, fair texture of her cheeks combined with a thin figure and delicate appearance presented a favorable impression, only…
"She's eighteen, no? That's six years apart – are you certain on this?"
The age gap was rather considerable, as neither was pressed to engage in a relationship…
Du Lang's comment caused the young girl to burst into a tittering laugh, and Tang Jing to clasp her forehead in annoyance. Elder Sister Tang shoved her face directly against Du Lang's nose, and whispered the magical set of words through gritted teeth.
"Your Elder Sister is listening through this call… Let's not get your beloved Elder Sister Tang killed, ah?"
The two former abuse victims eagerly nodded their heads in reconciliation, and Tang Jing withdrew to her seat with a satisfied expression. As Ming Wuying looked upon the smiling pair with unease and a questioning expression on her beautiful countenance, the gracious Elder Sister Tang sipped at her coffee with exaggerated glamour.
"Well, since everyone is now here, let's begin? Ming Wuying, there's quite a bit to talk about Du Lang here, ah…"