Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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There was a chilly wind in the elevator.
Luo Zhan came back to his senses and felt the thorny gaze behind him, and he sighed.
“You misunderstood. I didn’t explain it to you clearly that day. The girl on the 12th floor is not my girlfriend. I was just asked by her elders to give her the key that day…”
“Why…..”
The old lady patted the outside of his arm affectionately.
“Look at you, young man, what are you embarrassed about? Don’t look at my age, I’m not like those old antiques. What’s more, you young people, why are you embarrassed to admit that you are in love?”
Luo Zhan said righteously: “It’s really not love, I’m just giving keys.”
The old lady hesitated: “Really?”
“Um.”
The old lady looked confused: “Then… you went up there at noon that day, so how come I met you here when I was coming back in the evening? It wouldn’t take you all afternoon to deliver the keys, right?”
Luo Zhan: “…”
After his unremitting efforts, the emotion in Lan Jingqian’s eyes behind him had basically turned into murderous intent.
Not daring to talk to the old lady any further, Luo Zhan just watched her leave.
Lan Jingqian: “Send the keys?”
Luo Zhan: “It is true that I came to send the keys. You can ask Ran Ran or her grandmother and they can verify it.”
Lan Jingqian: “That is to say, there is no one at home, and you and her are alone under the same roof.”
Luo Zhan: “…”
Lan Jingqian: “Stayed for the whole afternoon?”
Luo Zhan: “…”
After staring at each other for a few seconds, Luo Zhan smiled helplessly: “Why do I seem to have no way to defend myself?”
“If it’s inconsistent with the facts, you can refute it.”
“Unfortunately,” Luo Zhan shrugged, “No. That’s indeed the case.”
Lan Jingqian’s eyes darkened slightly.
Luo Zhan: “But even if you want to sentence me, can you let me explain the situation and background at that time?”
“……you say.”
Luo Zhan: “Ran Ran was home alone at noon that day, and she didn’t eat. There was no fast food at home, and I didn’t know when her grandmother would come back – I couldn’t just leave her alone.”
Lan Jingqian’s eyes moved slightly and his expression began to relax.
Luo Zhan added: “I have never cooked before, so I spent a long time preparing lunch that day. After lunch, she fell asleep on the sofa, so I didn’t leave. I waited until her grandmother came home in the evening before I left.”
Lan Jingqian couldn’t help but frown and lower his eyes: “Was Xiao Ran… often left home alone?” He seemed to be asking Luo Zhan, but also seemed to be talking to himself, with an expression that kept wavering.
And Luo Zhan was very familiar with this emotion.
——After knowing that he was the boy the little girl saved in her childhood, Luo Zhan had never really gotten over this emotion.
Luo Zhan lowered his voice and said, “In the past, maybe. But in the future, no.”
Lan Jingqian raised his eyes.
Luo Zhan showed a rare serious and earnest look: “From now on, as long as Ran Ran needs me, I will appear in front of her at any time.”
Lan Jingqian was very moved and said, “Boy, don’t even think about it.”
Luo Zhan: “?”
Lan Jingqian: “My daughter is only 16 years old. Beasts like you who don’t even have the basic moral bottom line when it comes to dating at an age, stay as far away from her as possible in the next few years.”
Luo Zhan: “…”
Were all men with daughters always on guard and prepared like this?
After the old lady in the apartment exposed the incident, Lan Jingqian’s last bit of trust in Luo Zhan in terms of Tang Ran, along with their fake brotherhood, was completely shattered.
In Lan Jingqian’s eyes, Luo Zhan’s status quickly fell in just half a day from a young master of the Luo family who was a close friend of his to a beastly boy who was obsessed with his precious daughter whom he had just met after sixteen years.
The danger of defending against Luo Zhan was more serious than defending Sichuan.
So during the entire day’s operation, no matter where Luo Zhan and Tang Ran went, the black sedan was always firmly attached to their car.
The old father’s gaze, full of reproach and vigilance, was like an axe hanging over Young Master Luo’s head.
——Where he still had a grudge against him and was ready to jump down and chop him with the axe at any moment.
In the evening, Luo Zhan handed the little girl over to Lan Jingqian’s “driver” car. He then drove back to the laboratory to prepare for his part-time job as a robot in the evening.
In order to avoid running into Lan Jingqian, Luo Zhan deliberately delayed his departure from the laboratory.
On the way.
Inside the loading truck, Lin Qianhua asked anxiously, “Brother Zhan, is it okay for just the two of us to go?”
Luo Zhan: “The pulley device has been installed in the truck bed, and one person can handle the problem of raising and lowering the mechanical box. Why not?”
Lin Qianhua: “That’s not the problem. I’m worried. Isn’t Mr. Lan pretending to be a driver for Tang Ran? Plus the delivery guy, the otaku seems to be getting more and more complicated. I feel like it will be exposed sooner or later if it goes on like this. And Senior Tan has something to do tonight. If something goes wrong, how can I react as quickly as him?”
Luo Zhan didn’t raise his eyes but yawned lazily: “Don’t be such a bad mouth, that’s enough.”
“…Oh.” Lin Qianhua quickly turned his head away and made two “Pui” sounds.
Luo Zhan pondered for a few seconds and then said calmly: “Once you enter the back door of the Tang family compound, observe the parking situation. If Lan Jingqian’s car is still in the yard, then you turn off the engine and pretend to be dead and wait for him to leave. If not, everything will proceed as usual.”
Lin Qianhua felt relieved after hearing this and nodded immediately: “Okay.”
The loader entered the Tang family’s back door unimpeded.
After getting off the car, Lin Qianhua was so cautious as if he wanted to turn over the grass near the side house to make sure that Lan Jingqian’s car was not in the yard.
Seeing that it was not there, he heaved a sigh of relief and moved the mechanical box of the “robot” that had been loaded into the truck bed to the ground along the retractable electric slide, and then pushed it into the side house where the door was usually left open.
The side house was brightly lit.
There was no one in the living room. This situation had happened more than once or twice. Lin Qianhua thus habitually did not disturb anything. He just knocked on the metal door of the mechanical box according to the agreed “secret code” and turned to leave the side house.
After getting into the car in the courtyard, Lin Qianhua heaved a sigh of relief as he prepared to start the car, muttering to himself, “It’s no different than usual, why did I scare myself so much?”
Lin Qianhua took the car key and was about to turn it to start the engine when two beams of snow-white light from car headlights suddenly appeared from the direction of the Tang family’s back door.
The car lights seemed to be turning and happened to pass in front of Lin Qianhua. He thus instinctively raised his arms to block them.
After stopping for four or five seconds, the car lights turned on.
Lin Qianhua put down his arms and muttered, “Who is so…”
The voice stopped abruptly.
The next second after coming back to his senses from his stiffness, Lin Qianhua suddenly lunged forward, almost leaning on the front window to look at the black sedan parked in front of the side house not far away.
A few seconds later, the doors on both sides opened, and the man who got out of the driver’s seat walked to the passenger seat and helped the girl out of the car.
Inside the car, Lin Qianhua, who had been stunned for a few seconds, suddenly came to his senses: “F**k!”
He shrank back into his seat, frantically dug out his phone, and quickly sent a message to Luo Zhan at his fastest speed:
[They are not at home, they just came back, hide quickly!]
Inside the side house.
Not long after Lin Qianhua left, Luo Zhan walked out of the mechanical box.
There was no one in the living room. So, Luo Zhan turned around and made sure that everything was normal. Then he walked straight towards the girl’s bedroom. According to the previous nights, if Tang Ran was not in the living room, she would most likely be in the bedroom because of something.
Arriving at the bedroom door, Luo Zhan listened for a long time but still heard no movement. He frowned slightly, carefully opened the door, and walked into the bedroom.
But after walking around the bedroom and even searching the bathroom, the little girl was still nowhere to be found.
Luo Zhan frowned.
He subconsciously raised his wrist, then remembered that the watch would be taken off in advance when disguising himself as a robot.
So, Luo Zhan could only take out his cell phone, which was set to silent mode, to confirm the time.
But as soon as he took out the phone, it lit up in his hand.
Lin Qianhua’s text message came into his view at that time.
Seeing the word “they” in the text message, Luo Zhan’s eyes were shocked. He then put away his phone and was about to open the bedroom door.
At this moment, the sound of a door being pushed open suddenly rang out from the entrance behind the living room.
“Xiao Ran, be careful.”
“Thank you, uncle.”
“You’ve been out all day, you must be exhausted, right? Sit down first… What is this?”
“Um?”
In the living room, Lan Jingqian looked to the side with vigilance, and said to Tang Ran, “Xiao Ran, there suddenly appeared a two-meter-long metal box in your living room, and it was open.”
Tang Ran was stunned for a moment, then smiled: “Don’t worry, uncle, that’s the robot’s mechanical box.”
Lan Jingqian was startled and turned around: “Is this the robot’s?”
“Yeah.” Tang Ran nodded, then looked puzzled. “The door is open, so the robot should have come out. Ah, it might be in the bedroom. Sometimes it will automatically sense and go there to find me.”
“…”
Following Tang Ran’s words, Lan Jingqian’s brows, which had just relaxed, slowly furrowed again: “You mean, that robot will take the initiative to go to your bedroom?”
Tang Ran nodded: “Similar to heat source sensing?”
Lan Jingqian pursed his lips and said nothing, his expression serious and alert——
According to the current level of development of artificial intelligence, it was not impossible to actively judge and respond to heat sources, but it was undoubtedly extremely difficult to coordinate the system of a completely independent bionic robot.
Combined with Tang Ran’s previous description, he became more and more doubtful about the nature of this robot.
Tang Ran didn’t notice Lan Jingqian’s caution.
After getting familiar with the side house for a few months, she was able to move around like a normal person. So after answering Lan Jingqian, Tang Ran took two steps towards the bedroom.
As they walked, the little girl called softly, “Luo Luo, are you there?”
“…”
The air was quiet.
Tang Ran stopped unexpectedly.
In the darkness that never changed, the little girl turned away blankly: “Luo Luo?”
“…”
The only answer she got was still silence.
A seed of panic that had been buried deep in Tang Ran’s heart struggled to come out, causing her voice to tremble slightly: “Luo, Luo Luo, are you not here?”
Lan Jingqian came back to his senses and stepped forward, half pulling and half protecting the flustered girl: “Xiao Ran, don’t worry.”
Tang Ran instinctively pushed Lan Jingqian’s hand away. She then hurriedly took two steps into the darkness where she suddenly lost her direction, her voice trembling.
“Luo——”
“I am here.”
Before the panic reached its peak, there was a cutoff of sound.
In the darkness, that mechanical, hoarse voice walked out of the bedroom corridor and appeared in Tang Ran’s empty world.
Then, step by step, silently and calmly, “it” walked in front of her and stopped.
Tang Ran sensed something and slowly reached out her hand, her trembling fingertips touching the familiar shirt and temperature.
The panic and tension on her face suddenly relaxed, and the little girl’s voice was choked with laughter: “Luo Luo?”
“I am here.”
The mechanical textured voice repeated itself tirelessly.
“I thought something happened to you again.” The little girl relaxed her trembling voice, opened her arms, and hugged the robot’s waist with lingering fear. “You scared me to death.”
“…”
After a moment of hesitation, Luo Zhan let Tang Ran hold him.
When the little girl in front of him finished her mumbling, he just smiled silently.
Then Luo Zhan raised his eyes.
He looked at Lan Jingqian, who was standing in shock not far behind the girl.
Until Tang Ran slowly regained her composure, then she raised her head in front of him and said, “Luo Luo, you didn’t say hello to me tonight.”
Luo Zhan paused, helpless: “Is it necessary?”
The flexibility of this conversation seemed to be greater than before.
Tang Ran hesitated for a moment, but still answered softly: “It was clearly there every night before. I want to listen.”
“…”
In front of Lan Jingqian, Luo Zhan knew that it would be wise for him to remain silent.
But he had never been able to refuse Tang Ran’s request.
So, Luo Zhan lowered his eyes helplessly.
Then looking at the girl, he whispered:
“Good evening, Master.”
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