The next day, Li Haojun received a new instruction, need to take a break in the morning accompanied by Lily arrived in Spokane, exchange data. But there is no designated means of transportation, think with that broken plane, not only slow, or open top, this winter fly a while on the cold to death, a few hundred kilometers will not be their own life. So he knocked on the door of Lily's room.

  “Sorry to interrupt, I've received new instructions, are you, too?”

  “Yes, come in and talk,” Li Haojun also felt a bit embarrassed because Lily was still wearing only a long-sleeved robe, turquoise green fluffy velvet fabric, long plush sleeves with large cuffs and a deep V-neckline, but with only a belt tied around her waist.

  Li Haojun followed her into the room, casually closing the door as he didn't want too much of the indoor warmth to escape. Pulling up a chair in the doorway, he looked at Lily's back and asked.

  “Is it possible to take a faster commercial airline to Spokane? Otherwise I'm afraid I might not make it in time,” It was better to talk openly about work, otherwise it was hard to look at Lily's attire without getting distracted.

  “Of course you can, or I'll be cold too,” Lily turned and sat on the edge of the bed, slightly favoring her body and folding her legs to press against the corners of her coat.

  “Yes, indeed,” not sure if she recognized it or if she felt the same way, Haojun Li had to admit it with a smile before asking, again.

  “This time when you took over John Wayant's data exchange work, was it long term or just this one time or a few times? I'm just a little curious,” after saying that, Li Haoyun silently looked at Lily's eyes, eager to get a truthful answer as to what exactly happened.

  “Long term, sort of,” finished Lily with a flirtatious smile.

  “Where's the long term in that?” Sentimentally, she seemed to want to say something, and stopped explaining herself, and

  “Yeah,” Li Haojun chimed in.

  “Just like me, I lost all my memories, and had to start all over again.”

  “Oh yeah,” Lily nodded and

  “So in the future you're going to fly to Spokane to do data exchanges with Qin Wenjing? It used to be closer for John to get there from Montana,” Haojun Li thought about where Lily lived, I think it was in the southern location, but held back from asking, it wasn't good to ask people about their privacy.

  “No need, go there and update your and her terminal equipment, you can act as a node, I can exchange data with you later,”

  “Oh, that's great, much easier,” after saying that, Li Haojun thought of the past fixed point to operate in Spokane seems to be because of security reasons, could it be possible to change the location at will? So he asked Lily about it.

  Lily thought about it and said.

  “Yeah? Makes sense, but as long as I'm close enough to you, it's unlikely that I'll be intercepted,” and after that, Lily thought for a moment and then added

  “He's into Spokane taverns, isn't he?” After saying that, she muttered something in a low voice to herself and rolled her eyes.

  Haojun Li also laughed at that, and was less embarrassed at being guessed that he was afraid of the cold. It seemed that Lily knew John better, so Li Haojun wanted to ask again.

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  “May I ask, do you guys rotate your workplace regularly? Or.”

  “Not always, sometimes it's for work, sometimes it's for personal reasons,”

  “As I recall John was always a cowboy western style, seemed to specialize in revolvers and lever action rifles,”

  “Well, stop your curiosity,” said Lily, gesturing to her robe, one end of her shoulders spread out with both hands,

  “Oh, sorry, talk to you later,” said Li Haojun, exiting the room and closing the door.

  The morning went well, and Haojun Li got on a commercial airplane from Boise to Spokane, never having to blow in the cold again. The cabin had warm air, comfortable seats, enclosed quiet space, but, a little cramped, because he didn't know what to talk to Lily about, or the opposite seat, had to shrug his shoulders, too, and say.

  “It's much warmer this time,”

  Lily looked at Haojun Li, didn't answer, and after a moment of staring at each other, continued the morning's conversation, and

  “John does specialize in firearms, and there are some confrontational missions that do require him. But it's not as confrontational as it was some years ago, now the spheres of influence of all parties are basically frozen, after all, no one wants to consume endlessly, so everyone guards their respective spheres of influence and technology areas.”

  “Was I involved then? I was curious because I realized I had a lot of weapons,”

  “You weren't a field agent, but did have a sense of crisis, so you were at least prepared with the weapons necessary for self-preservation. But a lot of these times are biologically or digitally enhanced individuals now, it's hard for the average person to match that, and the counter operations are systematic. I appreciated your courage back then though.” After saying that Lily looked at Li Haojun with unblinking eyes.

  “Forgive me for asking, but are you and John?”

  Lily didn't answer, paused for a moment, took Li Haojun's right hand with her own left hand, gently placed it on her neck, and

  Although a little surprised, he didn't resist, but obediently fit it against her skin, and could feel the throbbing of her carotid artery, the

  Then Lily moved forward close to Li Haojun, slowly pulling his hand down and pressing it on her chest, and could feel the frequency of her heartbeat.

  In the face of such a sincere woman, Li Haojun is not good at stretching his arm to take advantage of others, and also moved his body forward to look at Lily sincerely.

  Right at this moment, Li Haojun's mind seemed to recall memories from a long time ago, car chases, running and hiding in alleys, Lily's back was right in front of her eyes, pulling herself away from danger.

  “You've already experienced it with the Red Queen, haven't you, some of the implanted chips do enhance perception and information processing.”

  “Were those the experiences you and I had before?”

  “Yes,” said Lily as she released her hand and sat back down on the seat back again, saying no more as she stared silently out the porthole.

  Although she knew that the sights were projected to her from the outside, it might as well serve as a blank memory filler for the time being. It was only that Li Haojun's own heart was also skeptical, since Lily was able to project memories to me, then is it possible for others to do the same to her.

  The strong sunlight reflected from the clouds outside the porthole shone on Lily's face, and her white face lacked even more color saturation; she was a woman of a wonderful age, but seemed to lack the color of life. So Li Haojun couldn't help but ask.

  “Lily, do you like your life now?”

  Lily remained expressionless, glanced at Li Haojun, her eyes turned to the window again, and said softly.

  “Why not, at least it's financially free, and I can still enjoy the scenery along the way,”

  “Then you do not want to have a family, a stable life?” Li Haojun finally asked the sentence that his heart wanted to say.

  Lily also finally turned her head back, revealing a hint of a smile, and

  “Thank you for your concern, I'm already used to this kind of life, I'm in the field, the word stable doesn't really apply in my life,”

  “Well, I hope you have a happy life,”

  Lily gazed at Li Haojun's concerned expression and watched with a smile.

  Spokane, Qin Wenjing came to meet alone, the three of them met at the street, by now the sun was already in the west, the afterglow of winter sprinkled goldenly from the treetops to the ground, in vain, the atmosphere was warm but without temperature.

  Qin Wenjing is very happy to see Li Haojun, just in the way of Lily in front of the bad too much publicity. The three of them chose a café for a short talk, and after Lily set up their respective terminals, she got up first to say goodbye, and Li Haojun and Qin Wenting also went out to see them off.

  The wooden door of the café seems to isolate the two worlds, just now Lily turned away through the glass, and when Li Haojun took Qin Wenting's hand and pushed the door out again, she had already walked out of the street alone for a long time. Li Haojun glanced at Qin Wentian in front of him, gently put her in his arms, and then turned his head to look at Lily's lonely figure in the distance, feeling pity.