茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

At 6:58 in the morning, Mijoe woke up before the alarm on her phone went off and sat up in bed.

For a tech geek who had inverted her day and night for years, it was usually the normal that she hadn’t even gone to bed at this time yet.

Watching the sunrise before falling asleep and the sunset after waking up became her routine.

But now it was different. She disciplined herself according to her company’s working hours, very regular, although technically she was not a member of the company.

After freshening up in the master bedroom’s bathroom and changing her clothes, she picked up her laptop bag and left the room, joining Assistant High, who was already up and ready to go.

When they were near their destination, Assistant High parked the car by the road and went to a breakfast shop to buy breakfast.

Although Assistant High had mentioned before that he could always buy breakfast beforehand, when Mijoe first went to the lab, she heard several researchers talking about how the breakfast from the shop nearby was really good. So, she let Assistant High drop by the shop to buy breakfast on the way to the office in the morning.

While Assistant High was queuing for breakfast, Mijoe took her soft-cover notebook out of her bag and took a piece of paper clipped inside it, squinting her eyes to look at it.

This piece of paper was clearly torn from a B5 notebook, crowded with various sizes and curves of circles or lines drawn densely with a black pen, and folded to a complex shape before.

A few days ago, she found a paper airplane on the balcony by accident.

Her first reaction was that the neighbour must have been uncivilized to randomly throw paper planes. She initially wanted to pick it up and throw it in the trash, but after picking it up, she was drawn by the folding of the paper plane.

This was the first time she saw this kind of folding. Although it was complicated, it obviously wasn’t just for looking good. The paper plane still had an excellent aerodynamic structure, and a few complex folds seemed to have been designed for weight distribution. This gave it a unique “industrial aesthetic”.

She tried to fly it in the room, and indeed, it flew very steadily, which led her to think about who else could be its owner from the people living on the 12th floor and above in the surrounding buildings.

So, Mijoe didn’t immediately throw the paper plane away, but unfolded it to study its folding. She didn’t think the paper plane was strange, but simply saw a new and good folding method and instinctively wanted to learn it – even though she actually didn’t have any special interest in folding paper planes.

Under normal circumstances, after learning how to fold, she would have thrown the paper away.

But when she unfolded the paper, Mijoe found the chaotic circles and arcs drawn on it. At first glance, it seemed like someone was randomly doodling, as if they were testing whether the pen could write smoothly. But upon a closer look, the circles and lines didn’t seem randomly drawn, and there was some kind of inexplicable…beauty?

She tried to imitate the same type of circles and arcs on another piece of paper and found the difficulty of the drawings increasingly.

So, she casually put the paper into a soft-cover book. Over the past few days, she looked at it a few times, trying to figure out what the symbols could possibly represent.

However, even though she made many guesses, there still wasn’t a reliable answer. Of course, in her speculation, the highest probability is still – these symbols were randomly doodled by someone, and the person who drew them probably didn’t know what they were drawing.

After buying the breakfast, Assistant High got back in the car and handed the bag to Mijoe who was in the back seat, glanced at the weirdly patterned paper in her hand. Although he was a bit curious, he didn’t ask a single question. He knew what his job was, did things within his job scope, limiting his curiosity, was a rule he knew when he took up this high-salary job.

After taking the breakfast, Mijoe put the piece of paper back into her soft-cover notebook, then casually asked: “Assistant High, if I want to find out more about the other residents in our residential area, is there a way to do so?” She actually knew how to do it herself, but she had previously promised Mr. Liang that she wouldn’t overstep the limits on the internet unless he allowed her to.

Upon hearing her question, Assistant High nodded: “Understood, I will take care of it.” He didn’t ask why she needed the information.

Star City.

These days, Liu Shiling didn’t flip her coin at the kindergarten as frequently as before. On one hand, the kindergarten teacher had spoken to her mother, hoping she could play with the coin less, or even not at all. Recently, there had been a “coin trend” in the kindergarten. Almost every child brought a one-yuan coin and could often be seen playing with the coin. However, not every child had Liu Shiling’s coin-flipping tricks. Most children couldn’t even balance the coin on the back of their hand, not to mention flipping it with their fingers. So, there were often children who bent down to pick up their coins everywhere, crisp sounds of coins falling to the floor were common. There were also frequent fights and quarrels among children because they couldn’t tell which coin was theirs.

On the other hand, Liu Shiling had herself found another way to entertain herself with the coin.

She found that she could now control the two “magic coins” that Uncle Baldy gave her, keeping them attached to her body.

For instance, if she placed a coin in the palm of her hand, flipped her hand over; the coin could “stick” to her palm without falling. Sometimes, when she was in a good state, she could attract the coin directly into her palm from a distance of 2 or 3 centimeters.

Uncle Baldy had told her that her magic abilities should remain a secret, so she could only play when no one was watching, and would never show off in front of others.

Moreover, when she played with the coin in this manner, strange phenomena occasionally occurred, such as the light in the activity room subtly fluctuating, the classroom speaker making a strange noise, or the projector showing some interference, and so on.

So, when she was in kindergarten, she didn’t use this ability as much during the day and practiced more at night in her bed. However, she was unaware of how frustrated Shiling’s Mom next door was, as her mobile game network latency shot up to 460 every time she practiced.

Aside from the coins, Liu Shiling was also gaining new perceptions of the “magic A4 paper”, which was now full of creases.

She had a vague feeling that sometimes there seemed to be a thread connecting her and the magic paper.

So, when she folded the magic paper into a paper plane and threw it out, she could weakly control the plane’s direction and flight pattern in the air.

A paper plane could originally only fly 10 meters, but under her control, it could fly to 18 or even 20 meters. It could change its ordinary rightward trajectory to fly straight under her influence.

Moreover, she vaguely found that there seemed to be an indescribable connection between her and the other ordinary folded papers she had made, as if a finer thread was connecting her with these papers.

But perhaps these “threads” were too thin and weak, so no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t influence these folded papers in any significant way.

However, this discovery still sparked great interest in Liu Shiling. She felt that she had unveiled a new “magic domain”.

If she could master this new magic before meeting Uncle Baldy again, she could definitely surprise him.

So now, even though she was sitting in her seat, her gaze was fixed on a two-headed paper crane on a classmate’s desk not far away. She only knew that she folded it, but she couldn’t remember when. All she knew was that she could vaguely feel the “thread” between herself and the paper crane.

Liu Shiling’s eyes slowly narrowed as she tried to concentrate, imagining that the paper crane would start to move. Even if it moved just a tiny bit, it would be enough.

But after staring for a long time, to the point where her vision started to blur and her eyes were itching to tear up, the two-headed paper crane hadn’t moved at all.

Just when she was about to give up and rub her eyes, the paper crane suddenly left the desk and flew towards her.

Liu Shiling was taken aback, and then she heard a timid voice, “Liu Shiling, I exchanged this paper crane for a doll from Xiao Xue. If you don’t agree, I’ll give it back to her.”

Only then did she realize that the two-headed paper crane was carefully pinched by two small fingers, as if they were afraid of damaging it from touching too much. The owner of those small fingers was a pretty little girl standing next to her desk with a nervous look on her face.

Liu Shiling knew that this girl was one of the most popular kids in their class. Not only was she cute and beautiful, but she was also good at singing and dancing, and even singing songs in English. She always had new clothes and toys, and all the kids loved to play with her.

Of course, that was in the past.

Now the most popular was definitely Liu Shiling. However, she didn’t really care about that because her focus was on the vast starry sea of the “magic world”. Her goal was to improve herself as quickly as possible to have the power to help Uncle Baldy. When that time came, she might be able to go hunt monsters with Uncle Baldy.

As for the other kids, they were the audience she needed to protect.

Yes, Uncle Baldy with his bow and arrow, and her with her magic, just like the elf archers and human magicians in cartoons.

As Liu Shiling imagined herself in a bright red, gold-trimmed magic robe combating monsters, she said to the pretty little girl in front of her, “Whatever I give her is hers. If she gave it to you, then it’s yours. I have no objection.”

The pretty little girl let out a sigh of relief, showed a radiant smile, and two adorable dimples appeared on her cheeks. “Thank you, Liu Shiling!” Then she took the double-headed paper crane back to her seat, as if the paper crane was not something she had exchanged with an expensive Barbie doll, but rather a gift from Liu Shiling.

Staring at the girl’s back, Liu Shiling was also taken aback. She sniffled and murmured,

Her laugh is so beautiful!

Thankfully I know magic.

In “Xiao Pingguo’s” room, besides the quiet Xiao Pingguo “reading” a braille book at the desk, there is also a ten-year-old boy “sneakily” playing with the bird in the cage, Gold Shimmer.

“Don’t touch it with your fingers, ‘Gold Shimmer’ is usually very timid, but if it gets provoked, it will peck you,” Xiao Pingguo said helplessly.

“I didn’t,” the little boy widened his eyes and said to her.

Xiao Pingguo didn’t say anything, she continued to read the braille book with her fingers, but in reality, she was using the method of ‘Object Sensing’ to sense her surroundings. The feedback from this method of sensing is getting more and more informative, making her more and more adept at using it.

This little boy is the child of her father’s cousin, making him her cousin as well. He, his older brother, and their mother came to visit today.

Next year his older brother is going to college and he seems interested in attending the university where Li Yang teaches and studying his major. So, they came to pay an early New Year visit to their relatives and “consult” about some matters.

Now his older brother, their mother, and Xiao Pingguo’s father were chatting in the living room, while he ran to Xiao Pingguo’s room to see “Gold Shimmer”.

The boy left a good impression on Li Yang in the past, he was a very well-behaved and obedient boy, very polite every time they met, and all he heard from his mother was praise, so he didn’t think there was a problem allowing him to play with his daughter.

However, it was obvious that this little boy wasn’t as well-behaved as he seemed in front of others, he continued to tease “Gold Shimmer” in the cage with his fingers after being told not to by Xiao Pingguo, he even tried to pull its feathers.

“Don’t touch it with your hand!” Xiao Pingguo spoke again, this time her tone was a bit stern.

The boy withdrew his hand and glared at Xiao Pingguo: “I didn’t touch it. I just sat here watching my phone and never moved it!”

“Don’t lie.”

“I didn’t lie. You can’t see, what makes you believe I did anything?” As he was saying these words, he intentionally reached out to touch Gold Shimmer in the cage, but this time Gold Shimmer didn’t dodge and turned around to peck, almost hitting his hand.

Xiao Pingguo got up, walked over directly, picked up Gold Shimmer’s cage and put it by her side. The whole action was very fast, she didn’t look visually impaired at all.

The boy was stunned, and unconsciously waved his hand in front of Xiao Pingguo.

Xiao Pingguo didn’t have experience dealing with such a naughty boy, slightly frowning her eyebrows, but still didn’t say anything.

The boy didn’t amuse Gold Shimmer again, he was looking around Xiao Pingguo’s room curiously and tried to pick up the CPU wood carving on the table.

“Don’t touch that,” Xiao Pingguo said helplessly. She picked up the CPU wood carving and put it back in her drawer beforehand.

The boy widened his eyes at her, “You’re not blind, are you?”

Xiao Pingguo ignored him.

The boy theorized, “I see, you’re pretending to be blind so you don’t have to go to school!”

Xiao Pingguo sighed helplessly but didn’t say anything.

“Just lend me that piece of wood you just had, or I’m going to tell my uncle that you’re not actually blind!” The boy thought he had found a handle on his cousin.

With her right hand gripping the minion wood carving in her coat pocket, Xiao Pingguo held back her anger, hoping that time would pass quickly so that this cousin could leave sooner. She didn’t want to call her father to deal with it, even though she knew her father would definitely take her side. But if a quarrel breaks out with relatives over such a trivial matter, and it ends up damaging her father’s reputation, that would be the last thing she would want to see.

However, the little boy didn’t get discouraged because of her silence. Instead, while staring at her, he secretly tried to open the drawer containing the CPU woodcarving.

Through “Object Sensing,” Xiao Pingguo naturally detected this action, which filled her with indignation.

At that moment, an idea popped up in her mind. The next instant, in Xiao Pingguo’s cognition field, an “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster” seemed to rise, detached from its confinement, standing by her side, its head brushing against the ceiling, looking down at the little boy.

Xiao Pingguo lifted her eyes to the boy standing barely a meter away, her expression cold, her eyes even icier. It was as if dark clouds were gathering and thunder was brewing.

Although she couldn’t actually see anything, her eyes were locked onto the boy’s eyes, creating a momentary “eye contact”.

The little boy was taken aback, his expression going blank for a moment.

In her mind, just when Xiao Pingguo was about to give an “order” to the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster,” she suddenly remembered some words Xiang Kun had once told her and the profound teachings her father had given her in the past. Anger slowly subsided within her, and the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster” disappeared from her perceptual grasp as if it had never appeared.

The little boy snapped out of it, wiping the cold sweat off his forehead, he looked in confusion at Xiao Pingguo who just sat right there, “reading” her book, feeling a sense of unease for no apparent reason.

“Do you like comedy sketches? Let me tell you one.” Xiao Pingguo’s voice softened.

The little boy had no idea how to respond, so he just nodded dumbly.

Then Xiao Pingguo started to narrate a sketch she had heard before. A contemporary comedy sketch themed on mathematics. Meanwhile, in her cognition field, thirteen minions gathered around her, seemingly helping her reenact the sketch, running around the room.

Not long ago, under Xiang Kun’s deliberate guidance, Xiao Pingguo finally successfully established a deep connection with the other twelve minion wood carvings at Xiang Kun’s place through the sole minion in her hand under her special sensing state.

As she felt finding the “Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Woodcarving” like encountering a multi-armed monster, when she sensed the twelve minion wood carvings, she indeed perceived twelve extremely joyful minions.

She was aware that Xiang Kun had made so many minion wood carvings; hence, her sensing of these minions made Xiao Pingguo realize instantly those various “creatures” which seemed not of their world or dimension sensed by her under her special sensing state might bear a direct relation to Xiang Kun.

Xiang Kun could very likely serve as the access point of these creatures to the world and also the origin of her unusual perception.

After developing that idea, she found that she could not only sense those “creatures”, but they could even respond to her “summons”, coming to her side, albeit for not a very long duration which required her to maintain a high level of attention throughout the process.

Within just over five minutes of Xiao Pingguo’s brief sketch show, the little cousin had burst into laughter dozens of times, utterlely engrossed in the atmosphere she’d created.

However, the laughter also attracted the attention of Li Yang in the outside living room. He knew that his daughter wasn’t that fond of having contact with people she wasn’t familiar with. Although they were kin, her infrequent encounters with them meant she wasn’t acquainted with them. Thus, sensing that the conversation had run its course, he tactfully proposed that he would have a meeting at the school soon, prompting the cousin to get ready to leave.

After calling for her young son to come out, his mother curiously asked, “What were you talking to Xiao Jun about that made you laugh so much?”

Before the little boy could reply, Xiao Pingguo, who appeared to be preparing to see off the guests with her cane, preempted him and jocularly said, “I was sharing some interesting mathematical anecdotes. The kid seems to have a genuine interest in and talent for math. Auntie, you should enroll him in a math olympiad course over the winter break and get him some reference books. We mustn’t let such a gift go to waste!”

“I… I don’t…” The little boy was at a loss of words, gaping in surprise, trying to retort but not knowing how.

On the other hand, his mother was very delighted, nodding her head in agreement repeatedly.

“Initially, he might lose interest after the novelty wears off. As parents, you and Uncle Nine must help maintain his determination, not let him give up halfway. Otherwise, he’ll regret it later, blaming you two and himself for wasting this gift.” As they left the house, Xiao Pingguo still kept advising earnestly.

Professor Li Yang added, “I know there’s a good math olympiad class over your place. Some of their teachers are nationally renowned. I’ll send you the contact details later.”

“Don’t worry, third brother, Xiao Jun, I won’t let this kid idle away. I won’t let you down.” The hopeful mother gratefully responded.

Behind her, the elder brother was peering sideways at his stupefied younger brother, struggling to keep his schadenfreude in check.