After the proposal, the Valkyrie came to the door

Alicia went to the rooftop of the villa, put her hands on the railing, and looked out at the street in the distance.

Because it's Valentine's Day, Sky City is even more lively than usual tonight.

The neon lights reflected a honey-like glow on the shop windows, the air was filled with the subtle scents of roses and cocoa, and the streets were teeming with couples in love, enough to dispel even the lingering chill of early spring.

"February 14th, huh? I thought only Qixi Festival was celebrated here in China. I didn't realize so many people celebrate Valentine's Day too~?"

Alicia seemed to sense the pervasive romantic atmosphere, blinked her beautiful pink-blue eyes, and continued to survey the scenery on the street.

Under the warm yellow light, the boy in his school uniform finally mustered up the courage to hand the rose he had hidden behind his back to the girl he was with. A young couple passing by saw this innocent student couple and felt as if they were seeing their younger selves. They couldn't help but smile, and then they embraced each other openly and exchanged chocolates they had prepared.

An elderly man who was taking a walk nearby saw these couples showing affection. Although he didn't have flowers or chocolates in his hands, he still snorted defiantly, turned around and kissed his white-haired wife on the cheek. Even though his wife gave him a look as if he were mentally challenged, he still proudly raised his head.

"Will our love, as beautiful as falling petals, remain like this when Anliang and I are old?"

Alicia raised her hand to gather the strands of hair that were being blown by the evening breeze, her eyes filled with longing, before a gentle smile curved her lips.

"That's great... Valentine's Day!"

It doesn't matter where Valentine's Day is celebrated; what matters is that people of all ages can use this opportunity to express feelings that are difficult to say on ordinary days to the people they love.

Although Alicia doesn't have this kind of trouble...

A sincere and passionate young woman always boldly expresses her love, but she also doesn't mind taking advantage of the Valentine's Day atmosphere to further develop her relationship with her fiancé.

"Hmm, the duty chocolates for Eden and the others should have been delivered by now. Now all that's left is the special chocolate I carefully prepared for Anra~?"

Miss Pink Fairy touched her chest, a faint blush rising on her cheeks.

She was already barely able to contain her excitement, eager to see Anliang's expression when she received the surprise she had prepared.

However, people in Shenzhou have to work on Valentine's Day, otherwise she would have locked Anliang in the room and done this or that to him today.

"Hmm, if I want Anliang to spend more time with me, is it really necessary to keep him as a sugar daddy after all..."

Alicia pouted, her words revealing a hint of possessiveness.

She had always wanted to use her status as a kept man to corrupt Anliang, turning him into a dependent gigolo, and then marry him early to completely monopolize him and eliminate any remaining risks.

Unfortunately, An Liang is determined and has not yet succumbed to her attempts to make her a kept man.

"No problem. After we get married, we'll have joint property. Anliang will have no choice but to live off me. Then I'll take over the family throne and use my wife's unlimited power to make Anliang obey my every word!"

Alicia clenched her fist, imagining her married life while gazing at someone waiting to get off work in the distance.

Not long after...

A familiar male figure appeared at the gate of the Golden Courtyard.

Alicia's eyes lit up. She turned and left the rooftop, went down several flights of stairs, and jogged all the way to the villa's entrance. Then she yanked open the security door.

An Liang, who had just taken out his key while standing outside the door, was slightly surprised, but his tough face softened when he saw the pink-haired girl breathing softly.

"Alicia, I'm back!"

"Welcome home, and Happy Valentine's Day!"

The enchanting girl, as beautiful as a fairy, threw herself into his arms and gave him a generous kiss on the cheek.

An Liang lowered his head and looked at Alicia, whose ear tips were flushed with a light pink, with a look of doting in his eyes.

Happy Valentine's Day! Would you like some chocolate mousse?

Anliang returned the kiss to the girl's fair cheek, then smiled and shook the small paper bag in his hand.

"Hmm, could this be your Valentine's Day gift to me? Anliang, you didn't use the same trick again, did you put some kind of surprise inside the mousse cake?"

Alicia released Anliang, took the small paper bag, glanced at the chocolate mousse inside, and her expression immediately showed a hint of teasing.

"Using the same trick twice will greatly reduce its effectiveness, but if you're willing to give me a few more kisses, Miss Fairy might forgive you~?"

"Uh, well..."

An Liang scratched the back of his head, somewhat embarrassed, and said, "This chocolate mousse was actually a gift from Seele and Bronya."

Ok? !

Alicia tilted her head, her beautiful eyes narrowed slightly, and her voice carried a hint of jealousy that she herself was unaware of.

"You mean, Seele and Bronya specially gave you a chocolate mousse cake as a Valentine's Day gift?!"

"Obligation chocolate, this is obligation chocolate, Qingzhu has some too!"

Anliang quickly explained, while feeling a surge of emotion.

Since the proposal, Alicia has become increasingly concerned about his interactions with other women, but from another perspective, this is also a sign that Alicia is growing to like him more and more.

"Ahem, so it's obligation chocolate. I thought..."

"Why?"

"It's nothing. By the way, Anliang, would you like to eat first?"

Alicia realized her lapse in composure, blushed, and awkwardly changed the subject.

Anliang took in the girl's adorable reaction, but instead of teasing her, he gently put his arm around Alicia's waist and walked towards the kitchen.

After enjoying a cozy dinner, Anliang and Alicia went to the villa's balcony to admire the night view.

Bathed in moonlight, Anliang smiled as he looked at the beautiful, flawless girl beside him.

"Although you misunderstood just now, you're right about one thing: I did prepare a Valentine's Day gift for you, look—"

Anliang snapped his fingers, and a playing card appeared in his hand without him even noticing. The front of the card was the Ace of Hearts, and the back had a picture of a cute little fairy.

A heart? A fairy? Is Anliang trying to express his love to her with this playing card?!

Alicia's beautiful eyes lit up, and she wanted to say something, but she saw Anliang put his index finger to his lips and gently shush.

"Don't blink, the show has only just begun!"

An Liang revealed a mysterious smile, then with a slight flick of his wrist, the playing cards spontaneously combusted, turning into a bright flame.

Before Alicia could cry out in surprise, Anliang reached into the flames.

In the next instant, the playing cards burned to ashes at an incredible speed, and the flames disappeared, but An Liang found himself holding a bright red rose.

“So beautiful!”

Alicia murmured.

The performance changed so quickly that it looked like An Liang had condensed flames into a rose, as cool as a spell from a fairy tale.

"Do you like it? I asked Velvi for help several times in order to learn this magic trick."

Anliang handed the rose to Alicia, then, as if remembering something, he reached his fingers into the petals and took out a piece of chocolate from the rose, from which nothing was hidden.

It was a chocolate shaped like a crystal flower.

An Liang held a rose in one hand and a chocolate in the other, looking at the beautiful and flawless girl in front of him, his upturned lips full of tenderness.

"This is my special chocolate, Alicia, would you like to accept it?"

P.S.: I originally planned to post this on Valentine's Day, but I overestimated my writing speed. But it's okay to post it later... I guess.

Incidentally, the Valentine's Day side story is longer than I expected. So far, it only covers the Valentine's Day gift the protagonist gives to Ellie, not the gift Ellie gives to the protagonist. Although I feel it's okay to stop here, if you want to see Ellie's story continue, I will write another side story to fill in the gaps.

Chapter 128 Does the heavily armed little rabbit dream of nights when it doesn't have to work overtime?

"Bronya, what's wrong with you...?"

After reminding Qingque, Anliang turned around and looked at the gray-haired girl sitting at the next workstation.

This was the first time he had seen Bronya not wearing her usual business suit on a weekday, but instead sporting a plaid shirt typical of programmers, her dull, lifeless eyes squinting as if she had been battling with code all night.

The question is, what kind of program code could possibly warrant such a huge fuss from a young girl?!

Bronya was already a top hacker in the world before she even started high school. Now, so many years later, her computer technology has probably reached an unparalleled level. Perhaps only AIs in science fiction novels are qualified to be Bronya's opponent.

Thinking about it from this perspective...

Could it be that Bronya encountered an omnic crisis and fought all night to stop something like Skynet, which is why she was late for work this morning?

But Skynet's computing power is only half of a 4090, so it shouldn't be that difficult to deal with, right?

An Liang raised an eyebrow, dispelling the unreliable conjecture in his mind, but a hint of curiosity remained in his gaze as he looked at Bronya.

"Well, I had to deal with some computer issues last night, so I changed into this outfit. It shouldn't look strange, right?"

Bronya pursed her lips and said softly.

She wanted to always present her best self to the captain, but an unexpected incident caused her to oversleep today. She had to rush to work in this slightly disheveled state, and she was quite embarrassed when the captain saw her.

"It's pretty normal, it's just that your hairline isn't very high, which doesn't quite fit the image of a programmer."

An Liang shrugged and said in a joking tone.

Plaid shirts are a type of clothing that looks good on both men and women, not to mention that Bronya is naturally beautiful and looks good in anything. If there is any problem, it is that he is a little worried about the button on the girl's chest. The button that is tightly tucked in is obviously bearing pressure that it should not be bearing.

"I think you have some stereotypes about programmers. Not all programmers lose their hair early..."

Bronya breathed a sigh of relief, then said with a hint of helplessness.

"That's true."

Anliang stroked his chin, thinking of Kevin, who was also a programmer.

Although he lost his power to save the world, Kevin's strong genes still prevented his hairline from receding, even with his daily high-intensity overtime work. He just had premature gray hair... uh, no, that guy was originally gray-haired.

Anliang mentally complained, then leaned back in his chair, subtly using casual conversation to cover up his slacking off.

"Speaking of which, what kind of computer problem could have kept you up all night last night?"

"Well, simple computer problems don't really bother me. The main issue is that last night's events involved some sociological questions... like whether AI has human rights..."

Bronya reached out and smoothed her messy, long, turbine-like hair, speaking vaguely that left everyone somewhat confused.

"Oh, is it true that you've really encountered an android crisis?"

An Liang tilted his head, his face full of confusion.

"It's not that bad, it's more like a family dispute..."

Bronya sighed and gave a (???) look.

She spent the weekend overseeing the villa's renovations, leaving Seele and the captain some time together, in preparation for asking Seele to be her wingman in the future.

But Bronya never expected that an artificial intelligence would seize this opportunity and secretly complain to Seele.

Okay, she's been making Reload Bunny do a lot of work lately. To avoid wasting computing power, it writes game code during the day and mines cryptocurrency at night, working 24/7. But she still paid Reload Bunny a new graphics card as its salary.

For artificial intelligence, getting a new graphics card is a much more convenient way to give it a break.

However, that guy, Heavy Bunny, wasn't satisfied. He tried to play the victim with Seele, saying that she was over-exploiting labor and strongly demanding that artificial intelligence also be subject to labor laws.

Bronya originally wanted to argue logically and prove that the fate of artificial intelligence is not a matter of fate.

But Seele wouldn't listen to any of that.

Under her younger sister's stern gaze, Bronya could only surrender with her hands raised, and then worked through the night to write the eight-hour workday into the underlying code of Reloaded Bunny.

Of course, that alone wasn't enough to keep Bronya so busy that she stayed up all night.

Anyone familiar with science fiction knows that even the Three Laws of Robotics can be circumvented, let alone an eight-hour workday riddled with loopholes... Bronya deliberately wrote extra code to circumvent the limitations of the eight-hour workday.

Hmph, a mere AI dares to complain. Once Seele goes back, she'll have plenty of ways to make Reloaded Bunny work overtime voluntarily and without pay!

Bronya narrowed her beautiful eyes, and in the shadow of the light, the capitalist's evil face flashed by.

"Haha, this seems pretty complicated..."

An Liang could roughly guess the gist of the matter, but he didn't show it. He just chatted casually in a normal tone: "Anyway, you stayed up late last night to study artificial intelligence and then got up later than usual, so you're late today, right?"

"That's right, it's actually a little embarrassing to say."

"It's nothing, you're the boss anyway, it doesn't matter if you're a little late."

“That won’t do. As the studio’s owner, Bronya should set a better example.”

Bronya coughed lightly, raised her head slightly, and spoke with a tone full of professionalism.

But the girl was thinking that during her daily work hours and the few times she could openly spend time with the captain, the enemy was already difficult to deal with. If she was late again, it would be equivalent to wasting the opportunity to conquer the enemy, which would be a huge loss.

Anliang didn't think too much about it, simply assuming that the girl wanted to make a name for herself and prove herself, hence his enthusiasm.