Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Smiling is an indication of a peaceful mindset and an expression of kindness. To ordinary people, smiling is really common.
When a person’s mood is in a healthy condition, a smile would be used as an indication of friendliness during conversations between people. People are able to smile by nature, but few people know that every time one smiles, 80 muscles from the face down to the waist would participate in this act.
Thus, it really wasn’t an easy task to make Lin Chuyin learn how to smile.
Because she’d never smiled before. She didn’t understand emotional changes and how to control the muscles in her face and body to combine into a smile.
And today, she was going to relearn the first lesson that a person had gone through after he or she had come to this world.
“En, where do we start from?” Hong Dali was rather troubled at how to teach Lin Chuyin how to smile. Everyone knew how to do this, but nobody could explain clearly how to begin smiling—it was like how children knew how to drink milk after they were born, they weren’t taught how to do it.
Everyone around was helpless. Smiling was truly difficult to teach.
In fact, many things were like that. The more common something was, the harder it was to teach. How was one supposed to teach how to chew food? And how to maintain the balance of the body? Even breathing, how should it be taught?
Those things were what humans naturally knew how to do once they were born, and these same things were the most difficult to teach as well.
“What about this.” Hong Dali thought for a long while and finally had some ideas. “Chuyin, teach Hatsune Miku to make the sides of her mouth move slightly upwards—not too upwards, it’s just the two edges of the mouth moving a little upwards.”
“Mm, okay.” Lin Chuyin had no experience in doing this, so she could only do as Hong Dali said.
Very soon, the edges Hatsune Miku’s mouth on the screen moved slightly upwards. Though it was quite unnatural, at least there was already a little hint of a smile…
“Ok, good job, let’s continue.” Hong Dali moved his fingers around his face and searched for the muscle movement to do a smile. “En, pull the muscles of the two cheeks slightly towards both sides respectively, then it’ll look like the muscle leading in the movement of the corners of the mouth. It’ll be much more natural.”
“Mm, understood.” Lin Chuyin controlled the computer and started to form a slight pulling force on Hatsune Miku’s facial muscles. This truly looked more natural, and the corners of Hatsune Miku’s mouth finally had some hint of a smile.
It was a good start. Hong Dali touched his face and smiled again and again and searched for the movement of the facial muscles. Very soon, he said, “During a smile, the muscles at the cheekbone will contract upwards—a little bit will do, slightly above the eye bag area. Remember, it’s only a little bit, don’t overdo it.”
Lin Chuyin instantly did as he said.
The lower half of Hatsune Miku’s face this time already had a little bit of a smile.
The smile wasn’t very obvious, but as a whole, the cold and icy feeling like a robot was already completely gone.
This was a good start! Tang Muxin exclaimed by the side, “Dali, you’re awesome. Sister Chuyin looks so beautiful with just a slight smile. I haven’t seen that before!”
“Hahaha, of course.” Hong Dali smiled. “Chuyin has always been pretty, so she’d naturally look better when she smiles. Come, let’s continue. I reckon it can be completed today!”
Lin Chuyin’s eyes stared intently at the laptop screen and insipidly said, “This… is how… I look when I smile?”
“En, it can only be counted as half a smile now!” Hong Dali said, “This is only the bottom part, the smile of the corners of the mouth. Moving on, we’ll do the upper part. Let’s continue. Chuyin, when you smile, the muscles of the cheekbone will squeeze the eyes. Thus, the eyes will be slightly smaller than their original size. At the same time, the corners of the eyes will slightly close. Give it a try.”
“En.” Now that there was already some results, Lin Chuyin instantly did as he said. Very soon, the eyes of Hatsune Miku on the screen were slightly squinted. Lin Chuyin followed Hong Dali’s instructions and made the muscles of the corners of the eyes contract slightly. Now, the originally bright and clear pair of eyes became slightly thinner and longer and combined with the closing of the corners of the mouth—there was already a basic idea of a smile!
“Good! Yes, this should be the way!” Hong Dali loudly cheered Lin Chuyin on. “Don’t stop, continue! Coordinate the facial muscles further—right right, squint the eyes, slightly tilt the head, good!”
Very soon, the Hatsune Miku finally smiled.
The smile was very pure, free of any impurities.
Hatsune Miku at this point was like an angel that had descended from the sky, so pure that one wouldn’t be able to resist not embracing her into one’s arms.
It was a pure embrace, without any hint of impurity.
“Come, Chuyin. Say hello to everyone!” Hong Dali continued to encourage Lin Chuyin. “When you greet us, you must smile. Just give off a ‘hehe’ when you smile, this should be simpler.”
“He… He…” Lin Chuyin insipidly tried to mimic Hong Dali’s voice, and then input the phrase into the computer. Very soon, on the Holographic Projection video, Hatsune Miku raised her hand towards everyone present and elegantly bowed. Afterward, she said, “Hello, everyone, I’m Hatsune Miku. I come from the future. It’s our first time meeting, so please take care of me!”
After she said that, the Hatsune Miku in the video tilted her head slightly, both eyes slightly squinted, as she smiled and said, “Hehe.”
“Yay!” Everyone started cheering!
Hatsune Miku, Lin Chuyin’s holographic projection, finally managed to smile!
Though it was still quite unnatural and the movements were still—though this was only the preliminary stage of a smile, at least, she could smile! She no longer had that look of a cold and icy robot!
“Chuyin, good job!” Hong Dali hugged Lin Chuyin and exclaimed, “You can smile, haha! You can smile, hahaha! From now on, you can smile!”
“I… can… smile?” Lin Chuyin stared intently at Hatsune Miku’s look of smiling on the holographic projection and mumbled, “I… I can smile?”
“Yes.” Tang Muxin smiled while tearing up as she excitedly said, “Sister Chuyin, you can smile! You look great when you smile! Quickly look, quickly look. Isn’t Hatsune Miku smiling now? Sister Chuyin, in the future, you’ll definitely be able to smile too!”
Mu Yuxi looked at Lin Chuyin with a stunned expression. As a woman, she was also happy for Lin Chuyin.
No matter how high her intelligence quotient was, still, who would know the joy of being able to laugh loudly and freely?
Catherine took out her phone and took a picture of Hatsune Miku. In the picture, Hatsune Miku’s smile was genuine and pure without any impurities. Just that beautiful look alone was enough to make people fail to conceive any intentions of harming her.
“Maybe I shouldn’t report about this thing…” They were both women, thus Catherine could understand very well about everyone’s joy now. She really couldn’t bear to spoil this moment. “Forget it, even if my boss were to give me a scolding, I wouldn’t report it too. Sigh, poor Chuyin. From what they said, that probably meant that she’d never smiled all her life…”
Ling Xiaoyi smiled as she wiped her tears. Young Master appeared to be carefree and didn’t bother about anything, but he’d always kept matters in his heart.
Though that was only a virtual smile, they had already taken a step forward in making Chuyin smile, didn’t they?
“Chuyin, Chuyin.” Hong Dali hugged Lin Chuyin and excitedly jumped and exclaimed, “Hatsune Miku already knows how to smile, don’t you want to learn how to do it too? Your intelligence quotient is very high. I guarantee that you’ll definitely be able to do it once you learn how to!”
“Can I… really do it?” The emotionless Lin Chuyin actually appeared skeptical for the first time. “Can I really… smile?”
“You can, you definitely can!” Hong Dali poured his might into rooting for her. “Even Hatsune Miku can do it, why can’t you? Just do it according to the steps just now, don’t be scared. Try it little by little!” He winked at everyone around. “Everyone, keep quiet. Let Chuyin give it a try, do not make noise!”
The entire laboratory immediately became silent.
“Mm, then I’ll… try.” Lin Chuyin was still rather uncertain. However, after all, she wasn’t an indecisive person. “I’ll.. try it bit by bit.”
As she spoke, she recalled the previous steps and tried her best to move both corners of her mouth upwards.
Unfortunately, though the Hatsune Miku in the computer did that very easily, it was very difficult for Lin Chuyin. After all, she never smiled before throughout the 18 years of her life, and her facial muscles were already rather stiff. Thus, it was very difficult, extremely difficult for her to directly break into a smile.
Actually, she wasn’t to be blamed.
Anyone who never moved a particular muscle for 18 years would become be unable to move it like her, as if it had become paralyzed.
“Don’t lose heart, continue!” Hong Dali cheered on with all his might. “Take it slowly, bit by bit. Don’t rush. Bit by bit, try to move your facial muscles first, or else you won’t be able to smile like that.”
“I… I’ll try again.” Lin Chuyin actually sounded rather uncertain when she said that, and she became rather afraid.
“Don’t be scared, step by step.” Hong Dali instructed her step by step from the side. “Chuyin, you can definitely do it, definitely! Don’t fret! This is not something that can be done in one or two days. As long as there’s an improvement, it’s considered a success!”
“Mm, I’ll try my best…” As she spoke, Lin Chuyin moved the corners of her mouth again.
This time, there was a relatively small change. The corners of her mouth were only slightly lifted up by… a little bit.
“Still… can’t…” After Lin Chuyin had tried hard, she was rather disappointed. “Still… no effect…”
Everyone around watched till tears rained down their faces.
Smiling, this was ever so simple to everyone. But to Lin Chuyin, it was just so difficult!
Lin Chuyin looked pitiful as ever now.
She was a genius, a true genius, one of the members of the most mysterious organization in the world, Holy Grail, and a military geek with an intelligence quotient as high as 180! She was someone that even the nation regarded as a treasure.
However, it just had to be that she couldn’t do such an ordinary act of a “smile.”
