I will never give in to Miss Death

I stopped.

"What's wrong."

The girl in front turned around and asked: "Anything else?"

"I……"

I hesitated for a moment: "How about I wait for you upstairs, Xiaomo?"

"Afraid?"

Yin Xiamo showed an expression like looking at a kitten: "Don't be afraid, the boxing match is not as exaggerated as you think. This place is more or less within the scope of the Canjing District. They will stop when they see an advantage and won't see bloodshed. It's not as violent as in the movies. People who can come here will not be as rude as those troublemakers during the day. And I'm here, I won't let you..."

"No."

I interrupted Yin Xiamo before she finished speaking. I shook my head and said, "I'm not afraid of places like that. I trust Xiaomo very much. I know that as long as I'm with Xiaomo, I don't have to worry about safety even if someone drops a nuclear bomb here."

"Then why..."

“I just think it’s not necessary.”

I raised my head and met Yin Xiamo's beautiful eyes in the golden light: "Xiaomo can handle it by herself anyway, right?"

"That's right."

The girl in front of me seemed a little surprised that I would say this, and was silent for a while: "I thought that given Noel's personality... since she followed me here, she would follow me to the end and take a look at this place she has never seen before."

"I read a book before, called 'The Three-Body Problem', in which the protagonist said... Make yourself happy, this is part of the plan."

"When you brought me here just now, Filo also told me that Xiaomo's greatest wish is that I can be happy, right?"

I felt a little embarrassed: "Xiao Mo seemed to have said before, or I once dreamed about it... The main purpose of turning Nuo'er into a little girl is to hope that she can enjoy the peace and happiness of a little girl, without so many worries and depression. Little girls generally won't come to such a place."

To use an analogy, the wife followed her husband who was about to go to the battlefield all the way to the place where the gunfire was raging, then stopped and gave her husband the most sincere blessing at the safest edge of the battlefield.

Of course, this analogy may be a bit inappropriate. After all, if Xiaomo is compared to a soldier on the battlefield, there is almost no need to fight, because she can kill all the enemy troops by herself, and Xiaomo's "wife" has no reason to worry.

However, if the "wife" follows the "husband" to the battlefield, it is indeed possible that the "husband" will need to devote a little bit of his attention to protecting her.

Therefore, I felt that there was no need for me to go down with Xiaomo.

I came here today just to see how Xiaomo usually handles similar things. It is not my purpose to distract Xiaomo because of my presence, that would be putting the cart before the horse.

"..."

In the light, Yin Xiamo stared into my eyes for a while, then nodded: "Nuo'er, you are right, I do think so."

"So this time I'll follow Xiaomo's advice and not go to the world below the elevator."

I put my hands behind my back and said, "I'll just take a walk around here. Xiaomo, come back when you're done. We'll go to the movies together."

"..."

This time, Yin Xiamo was silent for nearly half a minute.

"You've grown up a little."

Then, she turned around and said, "Okay, then you just walk around up there, I'll come up as soon as I finish my work."

"What do you mean I've grown up a little?"

I clenched my fists in dissatisfaction, and the hair on my head seemed to stand up: "I am an adult!"

"Yes, yes, my Lord."

Yin Xiamo didn't look back: "Be careful, I will always pay attention to the magic fluctuations of the bell. If you encounter any danger, don't suppress your emotions."

"What kind of danger could there be around here..."

"The Zhao family is the type that knows both good and bad. Although this place is close to the Canjing District, there won't be any dark scenes on the surface, but it's better to pay more attention."

As she spoke, Yin Xiamo lifted a curtain in front of her and disappeared in the golden light.

Ah...really gone.

Seeing Yin Xiamo enter the elevator, I glanced cautiously at the two security guards not far away.

Unlike the muscular thugs who came to the coffee shop to cause trouble during the day, although these two guys also have muscles and are martial artists, their temperament is obviously much better than those guys.

Even though I don't know the specific background of the people here, I can feel from the temperament that this place is obviously different from any other place I have lived.

I don’t know how to describe the word “temperament”. It’s just like... when I go to the vegetable market by myself, the uncles and aunts there are all cheerful, wearing ordinary clothes, covered in water stains and mud, and asking you what vegetables you want in a difficult dialect. Their temperament is obviously different from the waiters in the supermarket who wear neat employee uniforms and speak fluent Mandarin.

It’s like jumping from an ordinary vegetable market to a high-end supermarket. The place I’m in now, whether it’s the design style of the buildings or the security guards and waiters here, gives me a feeling that it’s “obviously a level higher than the previous living area”.

Seeing that Yin Xiamo and I had separated, the two security guards did not come over to ask if I needed any help or anything like that. They didn't even look at me, they just stood straight at their work stations.

I better not stay here any longer.

With this mood, I walked out of this magnificent building, returned to the entrance of the square in the bright moonlight reflected by various luxury cars around, looked around, found a bench and sat down.

For some reason, the moon tonight is particularly large, hanging high in the sky, and its color is a rare light yellow, like the background template in some anime works.

Xiaomo...should be able to handle it, right?

Taking a final look at the building behind me, I took out my phone and opened a movie ticket purchasing app.

On it are the cinema tickets that Ouyang Xue promised to buy for me.

Two photos with VR glasses, the name of the movie is "The Age of Aquarius".

This is a recently released domestic film, which has been preheated for a long time. It is said that the setting is very complicated and brain-burning, and there is also a game of the same name "Age of Aquarius" which is about to be released. The "e-sports center on the basement floor of the coffee shop" that we discussed with Su Yunjin and the foreign lady Xiong Xiong Sikongyue before was a bet that this game could set off the online game craze again.

The setting of the game is similar to the currently popular concept of the metaverse, and is also a bit like cyberpunk. In short, it is set in the future world and tells the story of how, after the popularization of various electronic devices, the gap between the rich and the poor widens, the whole world including Africa enters a low-desire society, and many countries merge, eventually resulting in a somewhat sci-fi and somewhat realistic "Age of Aquarius".

Originally, the term "Age of Aquarius" referred to the "new era" in Mayan culture, which was the much-discussed 2012 Doomsday. The "End of the World" predicted by the Mayans did not actually mean that the world would end after 2012, but that the world would enter a new era, the "Age of Aquarius".

The two movie tickets for "The Age of Aquarius" that Ouyang Xue helped buy tell the story of two girls meeting and falling in love in this low-desire society, and finally going to destruction together under the oppression of cruel reality.

"The Age of Aquarius" is said to be a very rare film in China with lesbian love as the main theme. It was stuck in the censorship process for several years and was finally released after many revisions.

After all...the world in which this movie is set is one where there are more women than men.

It is said that the story itself is both a tragedy and a comedy, because at the end of the movie both girls found happiness, but society still failed to change and is still moving towards destruction. Everyone's desire to survive is getting lower and lower, and interest in reproduction is almost gone, just like a terrible experiment "Mouse Universe 25". When food is abundant but land is limited, the mice raised in "Universe 25" eventually entered a low-desire society. Male mice are no longer interested in reproduction, female mice become extremely aggressive, and eventually the entire mouse society collapses.

The "Xiong Xiong" in my reader group is willing to provide help to the coffee shop and support the domestic chip industry. The biggest "bet" is that this type of game will be popular and that our future world is likely to develop in the direction predicted in the movie.

Technology is becoming more and more advanced, wealth is becoming more and more concentrated, but the population is decreasing, and the lower-class common people are becoming more and more idle. After working every day to earn enough money for food and drink, they go home and lie down to play games. They are unwilling to socialize, let alone fall in love, get married, and have children.

The movie "The Age of Aquarius" is a new domestic film that was released these few days. It is said that the plot is very good. If it can be made freely, the plot will definitely take off. After watching the movie, many people are looking forward to the release of the game so that they can update their computer configuration and experience the online game craze of that year again.

Even a waiter like me who works in a coffee shop has received many messages from fans asking Xiaomo and I to play the game live when it is launched and become small game anchors or something.

[Uncle, I haven't been in the group for a long time. What happened? ]

[Why don't you talk about yourself? How long have you not checked the group? You are still an uncle, but others are little lolita]

【Why don’t I understand what you are saying? 】

[Wake up, it’s June of 2022, the uncle has been confirmed to be no longer an uncle, and the novel has also been finished. Have you read the novel? ]

[Ah… I only watched half of it]

After confirming that tonight's movie would start at 8:30, I took another quick look at my readership, turned off my phone, stood up from my chair, and stretched.

You can see that next to this super large "entertainment city" behind you there is a small shop selling various daily necessities and snacks.

I walked towards the small shop and started shopping inside pretending to be a customer.

There are so many foreign brands. This... this cookie that looks like a crunchy shark costs 20 yuan a piece. And this chocolate, is the name of this chocolate in English or Greek? It costs 180 yuan a piece? Is this chocolate made of gold?

Just as I expected, everything in the store was incredibly expensive. I walked around for a long time without deciding what to buy - because no matter what I bought, I would feel bad because it was just too expensive.

Fortunately, because I have completely adapted to the life of a girl this month, I have become very clean. The clothes I am wearing at this moment were washed by Xiaomo herself. I look like a young lady. The waiters in the store did not say anything because I was wandering around the store without buying anything. They were just watching short videos at the counter.

"Noel."

I don’t know how much time had passed, but when I heard a familiar call, I saw the elf-like girl in a black windbreaker appear at the door of the store.

"Wait a mininute."

At Xiaomo's call, I ran to the door of this high-end convenience store, opened the freezer door, took out an ice cream that I had picked out long ago, and handed it to the waiter at the counter.

"Total 26 yuan."

The waiter dripped the ice cream into the machine: "Do you want it bagged?"

"No thanks."

I took out my phone to pay, then happily ran out of the store with this ice cream from an unknown country and handed it to Xiaomo.

"Thanks for your hard work!"

"You haven't received your salary yet?"

Seeing the ice cream in my hand, the girl said with a smile: "You look distressed, so eat it."

"I'm on my period."

I tore open the ice cream bag and stuffed it into Xiaomo's hand, then I put my arm around her.

"Is it done?"

"Yeah, it's done."

The girl finally accepted the ice cream: "The Zhao family has promised not to carry out any activities that will affect us and the coffee shop."

"They didn't make things difficult for you, did they?"

“I didn’t give them any trouble.”

"puff……"

"why are you laughing?"

"Nothing, just eat the ice cream and tell me what it tastes like. This is the first time I've bought something so expensive."

"If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it here, stupid."

"It's a rare opportunity, so don't worry about those things, try it and tell me what it tastes like... Um, eh... What's the point of kissing me all of a sudden!"

"It's Noel flavored."

"..."

……

No. 238 is about half a barrel of popcorn

With the help of Xiaomo's magical abilities, we quickly arrived at the entrance of the cinema in Nannai District where Ouyang Xue helped book tickets.

Just like what has been reported on the internet in recent times, this movie city which was very popular a few years ago can now be described as "desolate". Even though there is a small pedestrian street not far from the cinema and many snack streets and milk tea shops around it, there is no one to be seen in the cinema's lobby.

At least from the visual perspective... I think the milk tea shop next to the cinema should be more profitable, after all, you can still see people inside the milk tea shop.

But this is natural.

As the entire society and even the world enters a period of "low desire" and people's living habits change, movie theaters are the first to be affected.

The situation in movie theaters is similar to that in Internet cafes, and even more serious than that in Internet cafes.

Decades ago, mobile phones were not popular and computers came out. Most families could not afford to buy computers and could only go to Internet cafes to experience this high-tech product. Later, online games became popular, and college students and everyone else basically went to Internet cafes to play games as a means of entertainment after get off work. Now that people's living standards have improved and computers have become cheaper, there will be no shortage of channels to play games unless you are an enthusiast. Like Xiaomo and I did before, you can buy an ordinary computer for two or three thousand yuan. Even in a place like Kamihama City where the salaries of university graduates are generally low, if you save three to five hundred yuan a month, you can get a computer that can play mainstream online games and watch anime movies in less than half a year.

If you are a big shot like brother "Tualatin", you don't even need two or three thousand yuan, you can get a good computer for less than one thousand yuan - the motherboard can be disassembled from an old computer of a relative, the graphics card can be borrowed from a friend, the hard drive and memory can be discarded by a friend, the mouse and keyboard can be picked up from two unwanted ones by the boss of a closed Internet cafe, and the monitor can be bargained for a few dozen yuan plus a cigarette at a flea market...it's almost free.

Most people have computers at home, online games are strictly censored, mobile games emerge, and mobile phones can be used to watch movies, anime, and play games. If all else fails, there are cloud games. In addition, there have been almost no good games released in recent years, so people are not very enthusiastic about this, and the Internet cafe business has naturally declined.

Similarly, since I already have a mobile phone and a computer at home, and there are so many pirated movies on the Internet that I can watch at home at any time, why should I spend a lot of money, go out, take a car, and travel a long way to the cinema?

In a low-desire society, most people don't date or socialize, but they will make a few good friends in middle school, college, or at work. They may occasionally go to an Internet cafe together to feel the atmosphere of the game. Before this, the mainstream consumer groups in movie theaters were "couples" and "families." It was very rare for good brothers and friends to look forward to the release of a new movie every day and then make an appointment to buy tickets to watch a movie.

"drop……"

Xiaomo and I walked into the cinema. I scanned the QR code on the automatic ticket machine next to it, opened the cinema's own software, and applied for a ticket.

The movie that Ouyang Xue bought for us started at 8:30 p.m. and lasted nearly three hours. The seats were in the center right in front of the big screen.

"Swish, brush, brush..."

After a while, after receiving the application, the machine in front of me spit out two movie tickets.

"Here."

I held two tickets: "Xiaomo, do you want to sit on the left or the right?"