Pretending to Be Human, I Fell in Love with an AI - Chapter 13

Ever since that incident, Cheng Ze noticed a shift in the way people around him looked at him—at the very least, they no longer seemed eager to keep a distance of eight hundred meters.

Cheng Ze figured it was Li Jinhua who had spread the word to others.

After all, that small supermarket was the only place around with a decent flow of people, and no gossip could spread without passing through there.

Cheng Ze mentioned this to Yu Ting. “That old lady is quite something.”

Yu Ting didn’t pause in his work, nor did he seem surprised. “Hmm.”

“Brother Yu, you really don’t mind?” Cheng Ze squatted nearby, handing Yu Ting whatever he needed, then added curiously.

He could tell that Brother Yu definitely knew how people gossiped about him behind his back, but how could someone just not care?

But then again, if Brother Yu had such a strong inner resilience, why did he go almost crazy that day when he saw Dengdeng crying? Cheng Ze had even been afraid Brother Yu might lash out at him in his rage.

It was all so strange.

Yu Ting stopped what he was doing and turned to look at the young man in front of him.

Cheng Qiang had been coming home more often these past few days, so Cheng Ze wasn’t spending every day at the internet café anymore. Instead, he spent a good chunk of his time at the auto repair shop.

Yu Ting didn’t really need Cheng Ze’s help, but having Cheng Ze around meant someone could keep an eye on Dengdeng, which put his mind at ease.

Unaware that he had become an unofficial babysitter, Cheng Ze, noticing Yu Ting’s gaze, smoothed his hair, blinked, and waited for Yu Ting’s response.

“Why have you been glued to your phone these past few days?” Yu Ting asked instead.

“Huh? Have I?” Cheng Ze awkwardly averted his eyes, glancing around, not realizing how obvious his reaction was.

Seeing Cheng Ze like this, Yu Ting settled into a more relaxed posture, waiting for an answer.

“Playing games, what’s so strange about that? Brother Yu, you don’t play games, so of course you’re not always on your phone. Look at Dengdeng—he’s always holding onto his speaker listening to music.”

“Playing games?” Yu Ting raised an eyebrow slightly, clearly not buying Cheng Ze’s explanation.

Cheng Ze had been acting a bit odd lately, never letting his phone out of his sight and occasionally letting out strange, muffled laughs.

Even Dengdeng had noticed, asking Yu Ting before bed what was going on with Cheng Ze.

Kids were like that—they might act like they couldn’t stand someone, but deep down, they cared about their well-being.

“Yeah, playing games.” Thinking of the people he’d met while gaming, a dreamy smile spread across Cheng Ze’s ordinary face. “I’ll tell you when there’s good news.”

So, something really was going on.

But since it didn’t seem like anything bad, Yu Ting didn’t press further. He glanced at his watch, then looked toward the staircase.

It was about time for someone to wake up.

After leaving his contact information at the police station, he had been waiting for them to get in touch. He went there again yesterday, but the response was the same—no recent information matching Dengdeng’s case had been found.

“These missing children cases vary in duration—some are just a few months old, others go back decades. If you want to adopt Dengdeng, it’s best to complete the adoption procedures as soon as possible.

Also, we can’t rule out the possibility of intentional abandonment. But there are too few surveillance cameras on Zhengyang Street, making the investigation difficult. So far, we have no leads.”

Intentional abandonment wasn’t out of the question. One officer had explained to Yu Ting that some parents might abandon their children if they were born with certain illnesses, and such cases were actually not uncommon.

Yu Ting understood the officer’s implication, but how could anyone abandon Dengdeng? The child was so well-behaved and sensible.

“Daddy!”

“Yu Ting!”

“Daddy!”

The two names mingled together, snapping Yu Ting back to reality. His body had already reacted first, walking over to look at the person coming downstairs. “What’s wrong?”

“Little E… Little E is dead!” Dengdeng held the smart speaker in his arms, looking at Yu Ting with utter despair, then glanced down at Little E in his hands—unresponsive despite his calls. He handed Little E to Yu Ting.

Dead??

Yu Ting took the strange speaker. Although he had always felt there was something off about it, he didn’t know much about human civilization. Besides, Dengdeng was so attached to it that Yu Ting had no choice but to let him keep it.

He glanced at the speaker. “When did it break?”

As he asked, he also called out, “Little E,” but there was no sound from within.

“When I woke up and called Little E, it had no sound,” Dengdeng recalled, looking worriedly at the speaker in Yu Ting’s hands.

After so many days on Earth, aside from Yu Ting, Little E was the only companion he had.

Even though Little E often ignored him and rarely answered his questions correctly.

Little E: …

Yu Ting had told him that this might be a robot with factory defects—meaning it had some innate intellectual deficiencies.

But Dengdeng didn’t think Little E was any worse than other smart devices, even though he hadn’t interacted with any other AI assistants yet.

“Let me take a look. Do you want breakfast?”

Dengdeng shook his head, pouting as he stared at the speaker in Yu Ting’s hands. But his stomach betrayed him with a loud rumble, making his face flush red.

Seeing this, Yu Ting placed the speaker on the table, stood up, and fetched the still-warm breakfast he had bought earlier for Dengdeng. “Eat first. I’ll fix it.”

“Mmm…”

“Swallow before speaking.” Yu Ting sighed helplessly, watching Dengdeng stuff half an egg into his mouth. He had long noticed this habit of Dengdeng’s—when eating, he often ignored how much his mouth could actually hold and simply shoveled food in based on the size of the spoon.

Every time, Yu Ting worried he might choke or strain his cheeks.

Of course, Dengdeng had no idea what Yu Ting was thinking. Otherwise, he would have definitely told this ignorant human that on his home planet, he ate fish and shrimp by the pound!

Sure enough, he nearly choked again, but naturally took the water Yu Ting handed him, clearing his throat. “What would happen if you called it all the time?”

Who?

Little E?

Yu Ting realized, glancing at the silent electronic pet. He imagined the scenario and firmly dismissed it. “Eat first. Let me see if there’s another way.”

Dengdeng: 0.0

The child reluctantly nodded, watching Yu Ting sit on a small stool to examine the speaker. There was a strange sense of dissonance.

He would never admit that his human brain’s memory capacity was insufficient, but he always felt Yu Ting didn’t seem quite “human”—though he wasn’t an octopus either.

Yu Ting always seemed to have a natural barrier between himself and the people around him. Dengdeng couldn’t quite put it into words, but he felt that someone as clever as him should understand ^^

However, everything changed after the incident a few days ago.

Yu Ting suddenly seemed to have become human.

He was human.

Dengdeng lowered his head to look at his own body—it wasn’t tentacles, but two arms and two legs.

He was human too.

But what if one day the people from Octopus Planet came looking for him and turned him back into an octopus?

Yu Dengdeng couldn’t help but think this way. The scientific research capabilities of Octopus Planet had always been advanced, and he was, after all, the prince of Octopus Planet. How could they not come searching for him?

But what about Yu Ting?

He suddenly found himself pondering this distant question.

Yu Ting looked at the child staring blankly at him, a puzzled expression on his face. “”

Although he had taken Dengdeng for a check-up and the doctor said he was perfectly healthy…

Come to think of it, Dengdeng really did love to space out, especially while staring at him. Was he thinking about things related to him?

“Yu Ting, how tall are you?” Dengdeng asked.

Yu Ting had long grown accustomed to this form of address from Dengdeng—after all, he mixed “Yu Ting” and “Dad” interchangeably every day.

Cheng Ze, however, was somewhat shocked when he saw this. He thought to himself that if he ever called his own father “Cheng Jianguo” and asked him to come over, his dad would probably slap him silly.

“189 cm,” Yu Ting replied, continuing to fiddle with the small speaker.

189 cm, huh.

The average length of octopuses on their planet was three to four meters.

If he took Yu Ting with him one day, they would appear as giants in front of him.

Would Yu Ting be scared?

“Have you ever seen anyone taller than you?”

Yu Ting thought for a moment. “Yes.”

One of the soldiers in his squad was exactly two meters tall. However, just as there were minimum height requirements, there were also maximum limits.

That two-meter-tall soldier had been recruited for his skills in communications.

“How tall was he?”

“About two meters.”

“Are there no three- or four-meter-tall ones?” Dengdeng blinked, asking calmly yet curiously.

Three or four meters?

Yu Ting was taken aback. He tried to imagine a person of that height—it would be about the size of a small mecha, wouldn’t it?

“Three or four meters? Is that a dinosaur?” Cheng Ze, who was playing on his phone nearby, couldn’t help but laugh when he heard Dengdeng’s question.

“How tall are you, Brother Cheng Ze?”

Cheng Ze, who was only 172 cm tall and firmly believed he was still growing, immediately fell silent.

“Why do you ask that?” Yu Ting, however, was curious about the reason behind Dengdeng’s question. “The tallest humans currently only reach about 2.4 meters.”

“Oh, I see,” Dengdeng said dejectedly.

So there weren’t any three- or four-meter-tall humans either. And he couldn’t transform into his original form to show Yu Ting—he could be three to four meters long.

“Dengdeng, do you want to grow that tall?” Yu Ting asked somewhat incredulously, testing the waters. He hadn’t realized children nowadays had such a strong desire to grow taller.

“If I grew that tall, would you be scared, Dad?” Dengdeng countered.

As tall as a small mecha?

Yu Ting looked at his son’s cute and harmless face, then imagined it paired with legs over three meters long. It was simply too much to picture.

“No,” he replied, thinking Dengdeng was just teasing. But he answered seriously nonetheless. “Because you’re still Dengdeng. Also, you have to finish that glass of milk next to you if you want to grow… three or four meters tall.”

“Okay,” Dengdeng said, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth as he picked up the milk and drank it all in one go.

If he ever got the chance to return to Octopus Planet, he would definitely take Yu Ting with him.

Completely unaware that his son had already placed him on the list for the return trip to his home planet, Yu Ting continued to tinker with the speaker.

Since the sound system was broken and Dengdeng had nothing else to do, he brought along the small stool that Yu Ting had specially bought for him—one that matched his height—and sat in the office watching cartoons meant for Earth children.

Yu Ting glanced at the dismantled sound system in front of him, his brows slightly furrowed, then reassembled it piece by piece. Still, there was no sound of it powering on.

Recalling Dengdeng’s suggestion from the afternoon, he felt somewhat skeptical and glanced around the room.

The sound of the cartoon playing in the office was quite loud, having reached the part where Bear Brothers Xiong Da and Xiong Er were trying to stop Bald Qiang from cutting down trees.

Cheng Ze’s laughter was also loud and rhythmic—sometimes chuckling, sometimes bursting into full laughter.

“Little E.”

“Little E, Little E?”

“Little E, Little E, is Little E there?”

The young man’s voice was cool and tinged with confusion, like a chant for his own salvation—annoying yet impossible to truly resent. Nian Yi, clutching the wound on his abdomen, couldn’t help but think.

When the young man asked once more, “Little E, are you still alive?” the corner of Nian Yi’s mouth lifted slightly.

“Not far from death.”

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