Time seemed to fly in this world.
Xu Qichen got used to this world fairly quickly; the rush of day-to-day work, his colleagues clowning around during breaks, the monotone of Mediterranean’s lectures every Friday, buying drinks for the basketball team every weekend, and quietly enjoying time spent with Xiao Cang and others as Qi Meng entertained them.
And he got used to having Mu Yao around the most.
He used to be unable to understand those who said, you have to love the person you love as though every day is the last day.
But now, he seemed to have become that kind of person.
When he woke up every morning, the first thing he had to do was make sure that the person beside him was still there.
He might have fallen for Lin Ran without realising, but Mu Yao was the one who truly made him aware of his heart.
Strangely, the two often overlapped in his mind for some reason he could not fully understand.
What he understood even less was how someone like him, who could not feel any emotions for anyone else besides that one person in the real world, fell in love so easily when he came into the world of his own novels.
It felt like fate was mocking him.
It’s not that I can’t fall in love with anyone else.
It’s just that everyone I fall in love with is very much like you.
“Ye Han, it’s raining. Did you bring an umbrella?”
His colleague’s voice brought him back to the present.
“Oh, is it raining? I didn’t notice.”
“It’s only a drizzle. After all, it’s nearing the end of autumn.” His colleague tidied up his desk before saying goodbye to him, “I’ll be going now. You should go home soon, too.”
Xu Qichen nodded, “En.”
He packed up in a daze, and only when he was in the lift did it occur to him to text Mu Yao to bring him an umbrella.
Forget it, it was only a drizzle. He could just run back.
Walking out of the elevator, he saw a tall figure in the distance, obscured by the dim street lights and fine rain.
Before he could say anything, the figure seemed to sense his presence. He turned around and waved the umbrella in his hand.
“I came to fetch you.”
As Xu Qichen approached him, Mu Yao opened the umbrella for him.
“We can just share one.”
But Mu Yao shook his head and put the just opened umbrella in his hands. “It’s quite windy today. I don’t want you to get wet.” Then he opened another umbrella for himself and they walked out, side-by-side.
“Let’s go out to play tonight.”
Mu Yao’s suggestion was unusual, but Xu Qichen said, “Okay.”
The ground was covered with puddles both deep and shallow. Bright lights were reflected off the surface of water in various directions.
The two of them walked silently on the road filled with umbrella after umbrella of different colors and sizes, dividing the world into countless semi-private boxes, each containing souls with different thoughts.
Mu Yao took him to a small bar, which was different from the one he had been to before. It was much quieter. The dim lights and the band performing live provided a wonderful atmosphere.
Even though it was a bar, Mu Yao only drank iced lemonade while Xu Qichen, uncharacteristically, ordered liquor.
“Recently, I often feel like you’re in a bad mood.”
Hearing Mu Yao speak hesitantly, Xu Qichen did not know how to answer. He could only blame the recent Probability exam for the melancholy that he had not managed to hide,
“Ah… because we just finished the midterms for Probability. I feel like I didn’t do well for it.” Xu Qichen sipped his drink and sighed, “I just feel like, I’ve put in a lot of effort, but the results don’t reflect that. This kind of discrepancy feels very unsatisfying.”
Mu Yao rested his chin on his hand with the warm light above the seat reflected in his eyes.
“I did pretty well for it. Which part did you struggle with?”
Xu Qichen thought about it, “Bayes’s Theorem… I guess.” He had come up with an excuse randomly, so he had not expected Mu Yao to take it so seriously.
However, he did have some genuine doubts about the topic, “Why must AI research be based on Bayes’s Theorem?”
“I find Bayes’s theorem very meaningful.” Mu Yao’s fingers gently tapped on the wooden table along with the band’s drumbeats. “In probability theory, most of the research is about positive probability, right?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Po P tjnf 30 mjcvlfr lc ws tjcv, bea bo ktlmt, 15 jgf ragjkyfggs-oijnbegfv, 5 jgf ifwbc, jcv 10 jgf bgjcuf, jcv sbe gjcvbwis qlmx bcf klat sbeg fsfr mibrfv, atfc ktja’r atf qgbyjylilas bo sbe qlmxlcu j ifwbc oijnbegfv bcf?”
Xu Qichen answered, “One out of six.”
Mu Yao hummed, “This is the simple answer according to positive probability, right?”
Xu Qichen smiled, leaning his head on the wall as he looked at Mu Yao.
“But,” Mu Yao put all the candies back in the packet, “In real life, who will tell us beforehand how many candies of each flavour there are? Positive probability does not seem to have any practical applications aside from calculating reference samples for the unknown.”
Mu Yao lowered his head and picked some candies one by one from the small packet.
“That’s why we need Bayes’s Theorem, based not on objective values but subjective assumptions, just like the human brain.” Then he extended his closed fist to Xu Qichen.
“Close your eyes, and pick a candy from my hand randomly.”
Xu Qichen did as asked and randomly chose one.
“Open your eyes.” Mu Yao’s hand was once again closed. “What flavour is it?”
It was the yellow packaging of a lemon-flavoured candy.
“Again.”
He closed his eyes and chose another one, but when he opened his eyes, the candy packet in his hand was still the glaring yellow of the lemon flavor.
They did it again, with the same results.
Xu Qichen grabbed Mu Yao’s wrist and voiced his guess with a laugh, “Do you only have lemon flavoured candies in your hand?”
Mu Yao opened his hand. As expected, it was all yellow.
“This is the way of thinking of Bayesian theorem. When you don’t have any objective evidence, you can only rely on the actual results again and again to eliminate the conclusions that seem more likely to be wrong, and then constantly correct the previous judgment.” Mu Yao’s voice was very soft, complementing the soothing tones of the jazz music in the bar.
Xu Qichen nodded and took another sip. “If every math teacher taught like you, I think I would like math better.” The taste of the alcohol was too strong. The cold liquid slid down his throat and lit fire deep into his heart. The sensations were extremely contradictory. “But, I didn’t know that you’re so interested in Probability. You’re always sleeping in class.”
Mu Yao’s gaze turned to look at the performing band.
“Because, falling in love with you is a process that follows the Bayes’s Theorem.”
Xu Qichen paused, not understanding.
“From the moment I saw you, I began to like you.”
Mu Yao’s voice was so deep, as if separated from the surrounding noises. It seemed to be on a completely different bandwidth that poured directly into Xu Qichen’s heart.
“But, a one-sided love is like picking a candy with your eyes closed. Every time I plucked up my courage to approach you was like reaching around in darkness.” He shook the soda in his glass, and the bubbles floated up against the golden lemon slice. “And seeing your reaction to my advances was like opening my eyes to see which candy I chose.”
“Everyone feels like that when they like someone ba. Trying to parse the meaning of every word, and even the meanings hidden in every punctuation.” Mu Yao laughed self-deprecatingly. “Doesn’t it sound stupid? Because everyone expects the one taking initiative to always be strong and decisive.”
He imitated the tone of a third party, “If you meet someone you like, then you should be direct about it. You should go up to them and say, ‘I’m attracted to you, I like you, I can’t live without you.’” Then he laughed, “But how many can actually do that?”
Xu Qichen could not say anything. Every word Mu Yao said seemed to be a hard knock on his heart.
“I don’t know what the next candy I pick will be, whether it will be sweet or sour, I can only reach out carefully each time.”
“But, even after I picked many candies and all of them turned out to be sweet, I can never be sure that there are only sweet candies. So I can only repeatedly adjust my judgement, guessing if you might really like me more than I thought, but still never sure.” He dropped all the candies in his hand onto the table. “Who could possibly say if every single candy is sweet?”
Then he looked at Xu Qichen.
In his eyes, Xu Qichen saw the reflection of himself.
Unlike Mu Yao, he had never reached out. He had never picked a single candy.
So his probability had always been zero.
“But,” Mu Yao spoke again, “you freed me from endless testing and guessing, and gave me the answer directly.” Mu Yao smiled, his eyes forming crescents. “So I can finally stop going around in circles.”
He lay on the table, his slender fingers on the table, moving forward slowly like walking, until they reached Xu Qichen’s hand.
“You saved me.”
A lot of words were stuck in his chest wanting to rush out, but it was like a bottle of soda that had been open for too long. No matter how he shook it, the words would not burst out.
The little bit of gas left did not have enough strength to rise up.
The band finished a song and said some words of thanks.
Mu Yao suddenly stood up.
Xu Qichen grabbed his hand, “Where are you going?”
Mu Yao smiled, “Why are you acting as if I’ll disappear?” He pointed at the stage, “I’ll sing a song for you.”
Xu Qichen nodded and watched as he went up to the stage and said a few words to the band. Then he sat down on the lead singer’s stool with a borrowed guitar.
The audience gave him a round of applause.
The yellow spotlight lit up every inch of his profile.
… Reminding Xu Qichen of the cultural show in high school.
He had hid in the corner and watched that person shine brightly on the stage.
The guitar strummed alongside Mu Yao’s deep and gentle voice, just like the tone he used to speak to him, every night, before going to bed.
[A bone-deep weariness, a gaze of emptiness, a certain kind of helplessness.]
[I feel sick, I feel cold.]
[All that’s left is a heart filled with warmth.]
His fingers gently picked the guitar strings.
Again and again, as though playing with the strings of his heart.
[Maybe… maybe this is a new emotion.]
[Maybe… maybe I was infected by someone.]
[Maybe this is love.]
He sang the word ‘love’ with a sigh burdened with the weight of fate.
Xu Qichen had never heard this song, but he felt like the lyrics were wondrously drilling into his heart.
The effects of alcohol began to emerge and made Xu Qichen feel slightly dizzy.
He lay his head on the table as he continued listening to Mu Yao sing.
[Maybe… all of these strange phenomena…]
Unmnindful of table after table of admiring gazes, Mu Yao’s eyes were always on Xu Qichen’s face.
[… Are because you love me.]
Once the sound of the last string faded away, Mu Yao thanked the audience and stood up to walk back to their table.
“Did you like it?”
Slightly tipsy, Xu Qichen lay on the table, nodding and giving him an innocent smile, “It was very good.”
He was always like that when he got drunk, giving silly smiles. “I really envy you ah. You can play basketball, your results are good, and you can even sing well. It’s like you’re good at everything.”
Just like that person he used to like.
Whether it was envy or admiration… Anyway, he really wanted to be like that person.
“None of those are my greatest talent.”
Xu Qichen turned his head slightly to look at him, “Then what is?”
Before Mu Yao could speak, he was interrupted by a drunkard. The other party staggered and accidentally bumped into their table, spilling half a cup of ice-cold wine on Xu Qichen’s shoulder.
Xu Qichen sat up suddenly.
The other party murmured, “S-sorry! I’m so sorry, I’m tipsy, sorry, sorry.” Then he reached out to help Xu Qichen wipe it off.
Xu Qichen smiled, “It’s okay.”
Mu Yao was upset. He grabbed the man’s arm to stop him, “Drink less next time ba.” Then he went beside Xu Qichen and wiped his shoulder and back with a napkin.
When the man walked away, Xu Qichen still kept a smile on his face, but Mu Yao was a little unhappy. After helping him clean up, he paid the bill and took Xu Qichen away from the bar.
Different from the cozy warmth of the small bar, the wind and rain outside had not stopped. As soon as they opened the door, the cold rushed over their face and slid straight inside their clothes.
Mu Yao shook off his denim jacket and placed it over Xu Qichen’s shoulders.
Xu Qichen smiled up at him, “Are you upset?”
Mu Yao grabbed his arm and put it through the large sleeves of the jacket, then buttoned it up for him. Only after the last button was done did he speak, “Don’t smile at other people.”
Xu Qichen was so tipsy that his voice was different from usual. He giggled, “Why, isn’t smiling good?”
Mu Yao opened the umbrella and gave it to him. “Because I’m selfish and have a bad temper, so I get angry when you’re gentle with others.”
Xu Qichen did not reply.
They walked back in the rain, like everyone else on the street, covering their heads with the umbrella.
Like throwing a pebble in the lake hoping it’ll skip a few times, but instead, it sank with a splash.
Just when Mu Yao gave up all hope of getting a reply, a bubble appeared on the surface of the lake.
“That’s not right.”
Xu Qichen’s voice broke through the darkness of the rainy night.
“What’s not right?” Mu Yao stopped and turned to him.
Xu Qichen raised the umbrella slightly to meet his eyes.
“Your diction.”
His tone was like that of a serious pupil, working out, why a sentence was grammatically incorrect.
Currently, he looked both naive as well asseductive, as it was wont to whenever alcohol came into play.
“To be precise, I am friendly with everyone, but only to you, am I tender.”
What am I best at?
I’m best at loving you for over ten years, like every day was the first.
And you’re best at capturing my heart every day over those ten years, like every time was the first.
Two gray umbrellas come together to create a blind area within other’s field of vision.
Mu Yao gently hugged Xu Qichen’s waist and kissed him under the overlapping umbrellas.
Alcohol, the night rain, and the dim lighting.
They all came together to make Xu Qichen feel dazed.
“Carry me ba, I can’t walk anymore.”
The two umbrellas became one. Xu Qichen rested his head on Mu Yao’s shoulder, feeling his body warmth.
“Are you cold?” Mu Yao asked.
Xu Qichen shook his head, “No.” Like a cat, he let out a satisfied sigh. “I really want to live through winter with you. It must be very warm.”
Mu Yao walked slowly, thinking that he drank too much.
Xu Qichen said a lot of things, feeling that his consciousness was slipping further and further away and his mind was becoming more and more confused. He tried to get close to Mu Yao’s face, kissed his cool ear, and said the last words the moment before he fell unconscious, “I like you… I really miss you.”
Even before we part, I already miss you.
Mu Yao tightly pursed his lips and felt his sharp tooth biting the inner wall of his mouth, slightly painfully.
The more favor he got, the more afraid he was that it was all just a fantasy.
After putting on a new costume, what would his probability of success be? He did not know and had no confidence at all in his success.
The only thing he was sure of was, no matter how many times, he would try without exception, and catch him with his Bayes’ Theorem.
T/N: This is the end of this arc! There won’t be any update next week due to real life, but we’ll be back the week after. Sorry! >-<
Thank you for the chapter and take care!! ❤️❤️
So male lead is aware of the transmigration? It was vague at the beginning of the arc so I couldn’t confirm but his words here are basically a confirmation right 🤔
Yes @SuouNono, male lead is aware!
AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Are they both from Irl and he is the reason the system happened??? I really hope they get together in irl after all the stories get fixed 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Maybe he’s hacking the virtual world system to enter it and find xqc
Thank you for the chapter!!!!
Thank you so much for the chapter! It’s okay if life gets busy – do what you need, just please don’t stop updating! I love this novel, this couple so, so, so, very much and fervently hoping it’ll get translated to the end 🙏🙇♀️
Ooh!! Thank you for the chapter!
This was beautiful 🤧❤
thanks for the chapter <3
i didn’t expect to like the second arc all too much, but was pleasantly surprised^^ we can now assume that the ML is also a transmigrator, but don’t know if he knows about MC being one too.
This chapter has made me realize… After two years of unuse… I have forgotten Baye’s Theorem.
NOW JUST YOU WAIT A DAMN SECOND!!!! HE KNOWS FROM THE START?!?!?!?!?!?
So is the ml the guy A’Chen liked before? the one that kept him getting reminded by Lin Ran and Mu Yao?🤔
This chapter is so beautiful. Every sentence seems to be very meaningful. A good chapter to read before falling asleep. 🥹
Seeing the description of the novel, I guess the AI system is something ML has made in the first place. And he doesn’t seem aware of MC’s affection for him irl? Two sided crush, how cute 😀 And ahhh he is giving out hints, I wonder when will the MC catch them.
thanks for the chapter!
I was not expecting a lecture about Bayes’ Theorem in the middle of the novel and I wasn’t expecting it to be so romantic even more🥺🥺🥺
It’s even funnier because some months ago I wouldn’t have known what they are talking about 😅
Wow that was a good arc, I really really love this novel!!!