Chapter 656: Pure Chance
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After a busy day, the elfins fell asleep one after another, but Pi was still sitting in front of the computer.
It was quiet outside, nothing but the occasional firecracker could be heard.
Pi took off its glasses, and rubbed its bloodshot eyes. It was very sleepy, but couldn’t sleep, it hadn’t been sleeping well for days. As soon as it lied down and closed its eyes, the increasing number of Favorites appeared in its mind. It was both excited and anxious. The mixed feelings made it difficult to fall asleep. It was like a metal ribbon in a clock, being wound up tighter and tighter, with the potential to break at any moment.
It just finished a new chapter. It stretched its fingers and glanced at the clock on the computer screen. It couldn’t remember how many times it had checked the time.
It was almost midnight, and, according to its editor, the novel was going Premium at midnight. Pi waited anxiously for the moment to come.
Aside from checking the clock, its most frequent action was refreshing the Authors Platform. The number of Favorites was approaching 50,000, but it was afraid of clicking the mouse too much, as the clicking sound might wake up the other elfins.
The chapters that were to be uploaded after midnight were ready. There were five chapters in total, which it had been working on for a few days. Zhang Zian had checked them a few times during the day, so everything should be fine. However, Pi was still proofreading the chapters.
This would’ve been the time to catch up on new chapters, but as midnight approached, it became increasingly restless and couldn’t focus on writing at all.
After reading over a chapter, Pi felt that one of the paragraphs wasn’t coherent enough, and it needed another sentence to make it flow smoother. So Pi put on its glasses, placed its fingers on the keyboard, and typed quietly. However, something else was mixed in the line. It was the long string of numbers that was 3.1415926.
Ever since Pi’s last upgrade, it had been typing the numbers a lot less, but tonight, they came back.
It moved the cursor over the numbers and deleted them. Then, it clicked the Save button in order to not lose the changes.
When Pi first started using Word, it made the mistake of closing a document without saving it first. As a result, a chapter with a few thousand words was lost. It was so angry that it almost quit writing. After being persuaded by Zhang Zian, Pi managed to suppress its frustration and redo the chapter.
It turned out that retyping a few thousand words wasn’t as bad as it thought, and it didn’t take that long. Planning out the plot was the most time-consuming part, not typing.
After deleting the numbers, Pi looked at the edited document and smiled.
This was good.
Zhang Zian didn’t like the numbers, neither did the readers. They were never meant to exist, they were meaningless.
On this cold, silent night, Pi suddenly felt empty, as if it just lost something important.
It bowed its head, and gazed at its own palms.
Why couldn’t it control itself? Why did it type those numbers obsessively? Why couldn’t it type what it wanted to type, like a human being?
Pi had a hazy memory of its first appearance in this world. It was in the big house full of books, except it wasn’t interested in books back then, it was interested in the computer on the desk. More specifically, it was intrigued by the keyboard.
It stretched out its hands involuntarily and pressed the soft keys. The touch felt so familiar, as if it had done this a million times.
There were only one or two people sitting in front of the computer, tapping away on the keyboard.
Pi waved its hands in front of them, but they didn’t respond. They couldn’t see it.
It stood behind them, and watched how they went into chatrooms and communicated with others. Then, it found a free computer in the corner, and repeated what it learned.
Pi picked up most things quickly, but it wasn’t able to type as fast as them.
However, the humans were typing differently. They were using a keyboard with both letter and number keys, while it was using a numeric keypad.
The alphanumeric keyboard had 26 letter keys and 21 number keys, but the numeric keypad was much simpler, as it only contained 10 number keys and 1 period key.
Now, its hazy memory was starting to come back. There were more of its kind, a lot of them, and they all loved typing. Each one was like a human, and prefered the keyboard that was alphanumeric. Pi was the only one that liked the numeric keypad.
Pi was a weirdo, even among its own kind.
Why was Pi the only one to appear in this world? It had no idea.
Pi looked around, the books were all written in words. None of them were written in numbers.
Although the others of its kind typed randomly, sometimes they were able to come up with a real word, and were thrilled about it, as if they had achieved something great.
Pi couldn’t judge them, as it was typing randomly itself with the numeric keypad. However, numbers were numbers, so matter how many times it typed, it wasn’t able to come up with a word.
If Pi imitated the others, it might’ve been able to come up with a word eventually. So, compared to Pi, the others were more qualified to appear in this world.
In the previous world, time was almost frozen, and Pi, and the others, had an almost infinite life span. If they wanted to, they could keep typing forever. They had no idea when they appeared in that world, nor why. Regardless, they had been typing ever since.
Was that meaningful?
Everything was pure chance. They didn’t understand what they were typing, nor did they know what they wanted to type.
Why did Pi, a weirdo, appear in this dazzling and colorful world, instead of the others?
Pi had no idea when it would appear in a new world, but it could vaguely sense when it was about to leave, when it was finally able to write a meaningful novel.
Without a doubt, this was a fairytale. Even if Pi had all the time in the world, the chances of it writing a meaningful novel by pure chance were slim. It may never succeed until the end of the world.
Surprisingly, Pi succeeded somehow, it was unexplainable.
Out of habit, it randomly tapped the numeric keypad and typed a long string of numbers. The decimal point came after the first digit, followed by another 100 digits. It had no idea of the meaning of the numbers it had typed.
Clearly, nobody had a clue about this back in the library. They thought somebody was playing a prank on them.
At first, Pi was having fun. Soon, it became anxious, as it found out that it was only able to type the 100 digits, and forgot the following numbers.
Something was wrong. In the other world, it could type indefinitely. Why did it forget the numbers after coming to this world?
Being anxious and puzzled, Pi suddenly felt sick and weak. It seemed to feel the others staring at it with jealousy, and asking, “Why was it you?”
An overwhelming grudge had travelled through time and space to cloud over Pi.
Similar to how human faith was able to create and kill elfins, a grudge from countless individuals was a black hole with enormous gravitational force. It was able to pull Pi back to the old world at any moment.
In an unperceivable reality, Pi heard someone talking. It wasn’t a human, but some sovereign existence.
“Find the book about life, universe and everything, or else you’ll return to the old space.” The voice was like a bell at dawn, strong enough to shake the entire universe.
It didn’t want to go back. As soon as it did, the others would tear it to pieces. Pi learned an expression to explain its state of mind, “Being poor was much more acceptable than being unfair.”
Pi tried to seek help from those around it, asking them to try to find the book, but no one was able to see or hear it. They ignored it, and it couldn’t read what they typed.
When it was close to giving up, Zhang Zian showed up.
Pi could never forget the moment when Zhang Zian showed up in front of it with the nameless book in his arms. No matter how others saw him, Pi thought he was so handsome.
Pi’s looked up from its palms, its eyes landed on the nameless book next to its laptop.
It stretched out a finger, and gently touched the cover.
Apart from the metal lining on the edge, the crimson cover was bare. It wasn’t pretty.
For the first time in forever, it had an idea. It’d be great if the cover had some writing or a picture on it.
At that moment, a hand covered its own.
Pi lifted its head to look. It saw that Zhang Zian was standing behind it, watching it silently.
