Hearing this, Brian Young let out a sigh of relief and said gently, “Twelve years—it’s been so long. He must be different from before, right?”

Little Ford shrugged, unconcerned. “Probably.”

“You can never truly know someone’s heart. He’s inviting you to stay at his place—do you know what he’s really thinking?”

Little Ford looked back at Evan Clark with innocent, rabbit-like eyes, as if not understanding what Brian Young was talking about.

Some people spend every day together, yet their hearts remain a mystery.

Seeing that Evan Clark didn’t take his roundabout advice to heart, Brian Young felt even more unsettled.

Although Evan Clark was gentle and mild by nature, his family background meant that his circle of friends would never be on the same level as Brian Young’s.

Every time Evan Clark’s friends appeared, it was a constant reminder to Brian Young that he and Evan Clark were not from the same world.

Brian Young needed to pull him into his own circle.

So, under his planning and persuasion, he had already helped Evan Clark cut ties with many people in his original circle whom he deemed unworthy of befriending.

But who would have thought that now someone called Ian Lowe would suddenly appear?

This conversation made the atmosphere between the two rather unpleasant.

To be precise, it was only Brian Young who was unhappy.

That night, he texted Evan Clark to say that the manager had called him in for overtime at the last minute, so he wouldn’t be coming home to sleep.

Soon, Evan Clark replied: “Good luck.” He even added three hearts at the end.

Brian Young: “……”

After replying to Brian Young’s message, Little Ford lay on the soft, large bed in the apartment and said to the system, “If he comes home and finds I’ve already moved out, I wonder what his expression will be.”

The system thought, probably an expression of -20 favorability.

Little Ford stretched lazily. “His parents are coming the day after tomorrow, right? Before they arrive, he wants me to move out, but when I do, he’s unhappy. Men are all big pig trotters.”

The system admired Little Ford’s calmness, but still couldn’t help reminding him, “Mr. Chi, please pay attention to your task progress.”

These days, Little Ford had been testing the edge of Brian Young’s favorability just enough to pass, while completely ignoring the only standard for completing the task: the regret value.

Little Ford replied to the system, “Aren’t you tired?”

System: “...Huh?”

Little Ford said, “You keep calling me Mr. Chi. It’s been days. Are we really that unfamiliar?”

The system said nothing.

He hadn’t always been like this; he used to get along well with all his hosts.

This only changed after he was reported by his eighth host.

Starting with the ninth, he began addressing hosts as ‘Mr. X.’

“Unfamiliar is fine.” Little Ford quickly understood the system’s concerns from its silence and said generously, “The less we bond, the less sad you’ll be when I leave and you end up crying.”

System: “...”

Little Ford: “Because you’ll never find another host as nice as me, who lets you watch movies in my head in the middle of the night.”

System: “…………”

Little Ford said, “Next time, remember not to play it out loud.”

The system said, “...Sorry.”

Little Ford said, “It’s fine. I haven’t watched that movie in ages. It was nice to rewatch it with you.”

Despite feeling guilty, the system was still puzzled. “Mr. Chi, didn’t you use a hypnosis card?”

These days, all the favorability points Little Ford earned had been used to exchange for hypnosis cards—first to knock out Brian Young, then himself—making the system feel like it had been downgraded from a proper system to a seller of knockout drugs.

“I’m a light sleeper,” Little Ford said. “Besides, the hypnosis card isn’t a dead pig card.”

The system apologized again. “Sorry.”

Little Ford asked, “Did you like my movie?”

System: “...It was very good.”

Little Ford said, “Great. Since you can download movies I’ve acted in, maybe after I finish my tasks and go back, you’ll still get to see me.”

Hearing this, the system asked in return, “Is your wish to return to your original world?”

Little Ford raised an eyebrow. “Of course.”

The system smiled bitterly to itself.

The “Scumbag Gong Recycling System” where 061 worked was just one branch among many world systems. Without exception, all the hosts carrying out tasks had experienced life-threatening accidents in their own worlds, and their fading brainwaves were captured by the main system, which extended those waves into various parallel world survey systems to bring them over.

The main system would sign a contract with the hosts, assign them a system, and have them carry out certain tasks.

After completing ten worlds, the host could make a wish, and once the main system fulfilled it, the contract would be automatically terminated.

As for their physical bodies in the real world, the system could only guarantee their most basic survival needs.

According to private exchanges among the systems, almost every host they’d brought in had the wish to “go home” when they first arrived.

However, the flow of time in the task worlds was the same as in the host’s real world.

For a person, lying in bed like a living corpse for months or even years—there’s no need to elaborate on what that means.