The corpse blinked. This situation would probably send an ordinary person into shock, but fortunately, Hao Ren's nerves had been tempered and steeled, so he was quite calm at the moment. He placed the data terminal on the bed and stepped forward to check its condition. At this time, the other party had returned to its initial lifeless appearance, its eyes half-open and half-closed weakly, looking no different from a normal corpse. It seemed that the "blink" just now was an illusion.

But a change must have occurred, because the data terminal was still clamoring about regaining some of its senses.

"There's a bit of light, very blurry, but I did see something," the terminal's voice sounded very happy. "And now I can still see... Also, it seems like I have a sense of touch, but this feeling is very strange, probably still related to driver incompatibility."

Hao Ren waved his hand in front of the corpse-ji terminal's eyes: "How does it feel?"

"Oh, oh! A shadow passed by! This unit saw a shadow!" The data terminal's clamorous voice immediately came. "But why can't I see clearly all the time?"

Hao Ren directly pried open the other party's eyelids with his hand: "Can you see now?"

The terminal was very surprised: "Whoa! I can see it all at once—True God, how did you do it?"

Hao Ren supported the corpse-ji terminal's eyelids with his hand, his large face directly stuck twenty centimeters in front of the other party: "Because you were squinting just now! Open your eyelids."

He let go, and the golden-haired girl's eyelids immediately stiffly returned to their half-open and half-closed state. The data terminal tried hard for a long time but to no avail: "Speaking of which, how do you open your eyelids?"

Hao Ren: "...Didn't you just blink?"

"That wasn't controlled by this unit!" the terminal said plausibly. "This unit has never had eyelids since it came off the production line, who knows how to control this thing."

Hao Ren opened his mouth, finding himself speechless, so he had no choice but to pull out a roll of transparent tape from his dimensional pocket and forcefully prop open the corpse-ji terminal's eyelids with tape: "Alright, I've propped them open for you. Experience this feeling properly and strive to figure out how to control it."

He felt that since entering this world, his interaction with the data terminal had become increasingly bizarre.

The terminal said "oh" and began to work hard on its pile of driver programs that were incompatible with its current body, complaining as it did so: "Speaking of which, this kind of body is really difficult to control... There are too many miscellaneous parts on the human-shaped body. I can't even imagine how many driver programs you usually have to prepare in your brains to ensure you can walk upright... Oh, oh! The field of vision is shaking! The field of vision is shaking! Earthquake, there's an earthquake!"

Hao Ren turned his head and glanced: "Earthquake my ass, that's your eyeballs moving. I told you to practice blinking, where did you practice?"

"Uh, it's really troublesome to control. This unit's usual optical sensing equipment is just a sphere with a 360-degree field of view. It's never been so troublesome," the terminal moved its eyeballs back and forth. This scene appearing on a stiff corpse was as eerie as it could get. "Hey, this unit seems to have sensed the signal when the eyelids are open. Tear off the tape... Hey, be gentle, this unit's current body isn't very strong..."

Hao Ren tore off the tape and saw that the corpse-ji in front of him did indeed blink slowly. Her eyelids trembled, obviously unable to control this function very well, but after several attempts, the terminal found the trick to control. "She" widened her eyes and curiously looked at the surrounding scenery, her eyeballs rolling around nimbly, finally landing on Hao Ren: "Oh, oh, partner, so this is what you look like when seen with human eyes... Tsk, the picture is really monotonous."

Hao Ren was suddenly curious about the data terminal's usual perspective: "What do I usually look like to you? How different is it from now?"

"This is difficult to explain to you. Our sensing organs are different," the corpse-ji terminal blinked (which was also the only part of her body that could move now). "If I had to make a comparison... it's like playing 3D games all the time and then suddenly turning around and asking you to play Tetris on a black-and-white handheld console. This unit feels that the picture quality of your whole person has dropped."

Hao Ren: "..."

The data terminal wasn't finished yet: "Tsk tsk, this unit sees you like a mosaic now, but it's better than nothing."

Hao Ren ignored this guy's nagging and just curiously observed the expression on the other party's face, trying to find more signs of restored vitality: "Besides the eyes? Are there any other useful parts?"

"Hearing has recovered, this unit just discovered," the data terminal checked its current senses. "In addition, the sense of touch has also recovered a part, but a large number of signals are mixed together in a chaotic manner, making it impossible to determine which part of the body the feeling comes from. It doesn't seem to be of any use. Besides that..."

The data terminal thought for a long time and suddenly became frustrated: "There are also a large number of inexplicable signals, which may be human sensory information, such as cold, heat, and pain, but this unit cannot understand them. These signals are far less clear than the things fed back by the sensors. This unit feels like it has fallen into an information storm, with noise everywhere."

Hao Ren frowned. Although he couldn't empathize, through the data terminal's description, he still understood how much trouble it would be to put a soul into a body that was incompatible from a life-form perspective. The data terminal was trying to adapt to a new shell that seemed seriously "inaccurate" to it. All the sensors in this shell were probably broken to it, with no quantifiable data coming in. This was not something an AI was used to.

"Why did your senses suddenly recover?" While the data terminal was trying to learn how to process those vague signals, Hao Ren muttered to himself almost involuntarily, "This body should still be in a state of death. The nerves and circuits inside are broken... How are the sensory organs working?"

"This unit doesn't know. This unit only knows that this body is quite difficult to use," the data terminal muttered. "Also, don't even think about taking this unit apart to see what's going on. It's finally a little better. What if you poke it and break it with a screwdriver?"

Hao Ren lowered his head and looked at the corpse-ji: "Just lie down. Besides, even if this body needs to be taken apart, it'll be with a scalpel—I don't do autopsies."

Regardless of how the data terminal was gradually recovering on a corpse, and regardless of why this non-functioning body would suddenly regain consciousness, in short, this was a good sign: according to the terminal's progress in controlling blinking, it was not impossible for this body to fully recover its ability to move. At that time, Hao Ren wouldn't have to carry a corpse around and be mistaken for a necrophiliac.

But before that, he still had to face a problem: how to explain the situation of the corpse-ji coming back to life to the mercenaries here!?

The data terminal came up with a bad idea: "Tell them it was a misdiagnosis before. This unit is actually alive, just playing dead for a while."

Hao Ren glared at her: "You were shot through and through! Saying you're playing dead, I dare say no one will believe it?"

"Isn't that what you've been saying all along?"

"Before, if I said that, at most people would think I'm crazy, but if you really jumped out alive and kicking, then it would be their turn to go crazy," Hao Ren covered his face. "Forget it, you should continue to pretend to be a corpse. You can move when there's no one around."

"Alright, it's still too early to say that anyway. This unit hasn't even mastered its eyelids yet," the terminal blinked, continuing to roll its eyeballs around and look around. "Oh right, what's that beacon you threw out doing? Is there any reaction?"

"I wanted to check on its situation when I came back, but you interrupted me."

As Hao Ren spoke, he took out a set of holographic projection communication equipment from his dimensional pocket. This device could be used to contact the probe drone swarm, but because it didn't have intelligence, it was of course not as convenient to use as the data terminal.

He turned his head and glanced at the terminal lying stiffly on the bed next to him, sighing in his heart: This situation could only be made do with.

He started the device, entered the parameters, and established a connection with the drone swarm. Since the operation process was not complicated, Hao Ren could still handle it himself. After the system connected, he successfully received the response signal from the probe drone swarm, which was located in some corner of the universe. Although the interference was strong, the connection was still stably established.

Then he issued an instruction to the drone swarm to search for the beacon—the beacon transmitter he had released in the slums had completed its deployment more than ten minutes ago, and should now have begun to release a powerful navigation signal into space.

"Search failed. No beacon found."

The drone interface replied stiffly and mechanically.