656 Pure Chance (1/2)

Chapter 656: Pure Chance

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: 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.