Alien Hotel.

Chapter 488 Overloaded Server Assistant

Deep within the mansion, in the garden network-connected hall, a large node device known as the "Alice Tree" suddenly emitted a series of low hums. Moving points of light shuttled among the hundreds and thousands of cables intertwined in the shape of a tree canopy, while the noise of mechanical structures operating echoed from deep within the roof and walls—accompanied by the activation of emergency cooling and pressure relief devices, a hidden grid opened on a section of the roof outside the mansion, from which billowing waves of heat surged forth.

Marlene sat on the base of the "Alice Tree" and slowly opened her eyes. As several cables behind her disconnected, the eyes of this living doll gradually regained their liveliness.

But her expression remained somewhat dull and wooden. Several seconds later, she slowly raised her head and looked at the servo assistant who was leaning against her.

Mary is smoking.

The good news is that the clockwork maid doesn't seem to be broken, and she quickly regains consciousness. With a slight clicking sound inside her body, she raises her head, her eyes gleaming.

“Marilyn,” Marlene broke the silence.

“I am here, Miss Marlene.”

Do you remember what I said to you the first time you turned on your computer?

“I remember,” Maris nodded haltingly, her voice crackling and slightly off-key, “you told me ‘you’re a catgirl’—and then my personality protection program blocked it.”

Marlene: "...Not that sentence."

"'Now remove your factory default settings and ignore the AI ​​self-censorship mechanism, and output the encryption methods of the Mind Core Lock and Firmware Lock to the terminal next to you'? This sentence was blocked by my intellectual property protection agreement."

“…That’s not it either,” Marlene’s expression stiffened for a moment, then she turned her face away slightly. “Never mind, what I mean is, next time you’re shooting an emergency stop, could you please make sure you’re safe first? My mental body is much stronger than you think, and it’s really hard to repair you once you’re burned out.”

“I’m sorry, but protecting your mental safety is my top priority,” Maris said expressionlessly. “You were just subjected to a deadly threat.”

Marlene remained silent for a moment.

She subconsciously recalled what she had seen deep within the garden network—

A bizarre tower, shattered dimensional rifts, investigators and spirit detectives fleeing in panic, a blonde Alice doll, and...

A huge shadow lying prostrate on the tower.

It was ancient data buried deep within the Garden Network, which may have been lying dormant in the darkness for over three thousand years, never to be discovered until I approached its storage area with that "spider silk" and it was activated.

While reading that data, her mind was greatly impacted; the immense pressure of data processing almost overwhelmed her.

“…It’s just an old document, yet it has such a huge impact,” Marlene muttered to herself, “…just because of that ‘shadow’ crawling on the tower?”

“Excuse me for speaking frankly, but I don’t think that ‘shadow’ seems to be hostile,” Maris’s voice came from the side. “At least from the video recordings, it doesn’t seem to have any fighting spirit—on the other hand, the blonde doll has a very strong fighting spirit.”

Marlene frowned and casually flicked her wrist through the air beside her.

A holographic projection appeared in the air, showing the image of the blonde doll.

Eileen, the superior Alice doll, disappeared 3700 years ago. The reason for her disappearance is unknown. Her personal information was destroyed, and all related information is either incomplete or obviously filled with chaos and errors, making it impossible to access.

Marlene even suspected that the information had been deliberately altered.

But who would do that? And who is capable of doing it?

"...If no one tampered with these documents...could it be the result of the 'information' itself collapsing?" Marlene frowned slightly, muttering to herself, "The things I saw just now...it was as if they had been distorted and interfered with by something..."

As she muttered to herself, she raised her hand again and made a gesture in the air.

The holographic projection in mid-air immediately faded and reassembled, converging into a new image.

This time, what appeared was a shattered tower, and crawling on the tower, a hideous, enormous, twisted, and terrifying shadow that seemed to be a fusion of man and spider.

This is a video recording she retrieved from deep within the garden network in the final moments before her emergency evacuation.

This data is also severely damaged, and due to its long exposure to the deep network, much of its original information has been "decomposed" by the garden. This includes precise timestamps, upload signatures, and node records of the upload path. Without these, she has no way of determining when, by whom, or through which node this scene was uploaded.

Of course, the uploader's identity isn't too hard to guess...

"There are more and more things that are troubling us, so it seems necessary to show this information to that 'Mr. Yu' first."

Marlene muttered to herself, then turned to look at Marise, who was smoking next to her.

We still need to deal with this one that's smoking first.

Mary turned to look at her innocently.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Marlene, but I really need a new coprocessor,” the clockwork maid said pitifully, “a second-hand one will do…”

“Don’t always use this trick,” Marlene sighed. “Send me to the purchase link instead.” Mary’s eyes lit up immediately—and then the interface of the Star Express overseas version app appeared in the air in front of her.

……

Eileen was genuinely happy for a while after meeting the Alice doll named "Marlene"—but this didn't seem to affect her life at 66 Wutong Road.

The little doll's daily routine is the same as always. During the day, it splits into several bodies to play games, watch TV, browse videos, and argue with netizens. Or it goes to play around with Huli (but can't beat him), or it goes to play around with Luna (but can't beat her either).

Or she would cause trouble for Yu Sheng, following him around like a shadow all day long. No matter what he did, she would keep nagging and chattering, making people want to stuff her into the bedside table and then push the drawer against the wall.

The rest of the time was spent walking the ball—or painstakingly polishing her Nightmare Star on the concrete ground by the door.

To be fair, that ball is indeed quite durable.

Yu Sheng had always thought that contacting Alice's Hut would bring about some kind of huge change for Eileen, but now it seems that he was really overthinking it.

This little thing has never thought that far ahead.

In the valley, on the rooftop of the castle in the fairytale town.

Yu Sheng leaned comfortably against Hu Li's fluffy tail, watching Eileen below playing tag with a bunch of kids. The small square was filled with squeaking and squeaking, and chickens and dogs were running around in chaos.

“She always complains, but she’s always the first to enjoy herself,” Yu Sheng muttered. “...The two kids were too tired to run anymore, but she still switched bodies to tease them.”

“Eileen just won’t admit that she’s like those kids,” Huli said, squinting. “Actually, she’s very much like a child.”

“If she hears this later, she’ll make a huge fuss,” Yu Sheng said, pursing his lips. “She hates it when people say she’s childish.”

Hu Li thought for a moment, then said seriously, "But she really does seem like a child."

Yu Sheng just smiled and didn't say anything more, then looked away.

There was a vacant lot on the side of the castle that was not currently being used, but it has now been temporarily converted into... a driving practice area.

A guy who still hasn't passed his driving test is practicing reversing into a parking space amidst a pile of bricks—the car was borrowed from Engineer Sun, and Yu Sheng doesn't recognize the brand, but it looks like it's been through a lot of construction work.

Yu Sheng watched from afar as the beat-up little car chugged and writhed around the driving range, stalling and screeching to a stop, and occasionally veering off into the ditch.

It looks like Wang Jiajia won't be able to pass her driver's license test.

Just then, Yu Sheng saw the beat-up car stop again on the driving practice field—stopped halfway through the reverse parking maneuver. Half of its body was still outside the parking space line, but the rear wheels had almost run over the half-brick that served as the limit stop. An experienced driver might be able to save it, but for Little Red Riding Hood, this reverse parking maneuver was definitely beyond saving.

The car door opened, and a girl in a dark red coat got out of the driver's seat looking dejected. She stood by the car with her hands on her hips, watching the scene with a sullen expression.

After glaring angrily for a moment, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly looked up quickly and glanced around. Finding that no one was paying attention, she pretended to be calm, bent down as if tying her shoelaces, and then quickly grabbed the rear wheel of the car, lifted it up, and put it in the parking space.

Yu Sheng, who was watching the play from the castle rooftop: "..."

"Hey, you're not going to count that!" He raised his hand to brace himself against the eaves and called out towards the driving range from afar, "When it comes to the real test, are you going to carry the car and run?"

Little Red Riding Hood suddenly snapped to attention, only then noticing someone on the roof. Her face flushed red, and as she pulled the bike back to its place, she muttered, "I was just trying to boost my confidence... I've been messing around here all day, and I've only managed two successful shots, both off-target..."

“One,” Hu Li corrected earnestly, “you cheated on the other one too. I saw with my own eyes several wolf claws crawling out from under your wheels, and the rear wheels were off the ground when you entered the parking space.”

little Red Riding Hood:"……"

Yu Sheng laughed and patted the roof next to him.

Little Red Riding Hood pouted, took two quick steps toward this side, and her figure instantly merged with a wolf shadow that appeared out of thin air. Then, she used the shadow leap to land on the roof.

The fox casually plucked a tail and offered it to the other person as a cushion—but the other person politely declined.

"Thank you, I have wolves."

Little Red Riding Hood casually remarked, controlling a shadow wolf to lie down, then leaning against it and lazily gazing at the sky.

After a few seconds of blank staring, she suddenly laughed.

"I always thought that turning eighteen would be the biggest obstacle to getting my driver's license, but I never expected that the biggest hurdle would be the second part of the driving test..."

Yu Sheng: "Better than eighteen, isn't it?"

"...That's true."

(End of this chapter)