On the night of November 7th, Eleven slept on the floor while Richard slept on the bed.
This was probably the most peaceful night Eleven had ever slept. Life in The Lab was extremely painful; the windowless, enclosed dark room offered no sense of day or night, no concept of time. On the night she escaped from The Lab, she was so busy running away and evading capture that she couldn't sleep well at all.
Although Richard was a somewhat mischievous "kindred spirit" who would deliberately tell scary stories and make her watch horror movies to tease her, he was probably a good person... at least better than Papa. He would treat her to delicious burgers, give her new clothes to wear, give her nice toys, and provide a bright, ventilated house to live in. He also wouldn't punish her severely when she did something wrong, but would instead patiently caution her.
Right, he also complimented her on being pretty.
Eleven stole a glance at the back of the figure on the bed. Her cheeks relaxed slightly, a smile appeared, and she closed her eyes peacefully, sinking into sleep.
[Established an interpersonal relationship with core plot character [Eleven/Jane], plot points +40]
"As expected of the protagonist." Listening to the girl's sound sleep and breathing, Richard, with his back to Eleven, suddenly opened his eyes and thought to himself.
[plot points: 61]
Strengthen [Programming] skill.
[Upgrade [Programming (C-rank)] skill. Strengthening costs 44 plot points, Refined Strengthening costs 88 plot points. Current rank refinement success rate is 40%. Please choose.]
[Ding! Your [Programming] has been upgraded to B-rank!]
[Programming (B-rank) - Top-tier expert. At least in this current era, your abilities are unrivaled.]
A massive amount of knowledge was suddenly stuffed into his brain. Although Richard didn't feel a headache, he felt groggy, as if his entire brain had swollen up and was pressing against his skull.
Richard simply didn't resist the feeling and fell asleep, slowly digesting that knowledge in his dreams.
It wasn't until the sunlight stung his cheeks that Richard woke up from his slumber.
Turning over, he happened to see Eleven sitting on her heels in front of a pile of broken parts, looking both well-behaved and nervous. Eleven kept her head down, not daring to look into Richard's eyes.
"Good morning." Richard yawned, looking completely unconcerned. "Don't be afraid. This is an alarm clock. Once you set a specific time, it will make a loud noise at that time every day. The purpose is to wake us up from sleeping in."
"Why?" Eleven was confused. Weren't people outside more free? Why couldn't they just sleep until they woke up naturally?
"Because there are things to do every day, like going to school, exercising, making breakfast, and things like that." Richard thought about it and said, "It's impossible to just sleep forever. If there are things that are hard to finish in a day, and you're lazy, you might really never finish them."
Eleven only half-understood this explanation, remaining somewhat bewildered.
"Just leave the alarm clock there. I'll see if I can fix it in a bit. Go brush your teeth first." The first thing Richard did after getting up was still to rub the little bald head, much like the first thing a cat-owning household does upon waking is to pet the cat.
Upon hearing this, Eleven immediately followed him.
After washing up, Eleven was high-spirited, her eyes filled with happiness because she had learned another thing that normal people do.
Richard had Eleven sit at the dining table to wait while he tinkered with breakfast in the kitchen. Before long, fragrant waffles with the scent of eggs, oil, and caramel were served on the table in a nice arrangement.
"If you don't think the waffles are sweet enough, take the maple syrup on the table and drizzle a little on." Richard picked up a waffle with his hand and spoke to Eleven while eating.
Eleven smelled the enticing aroma of the waffles, swallowed her saliva, and curiously rotated the plate, looking at it from every possible angle before imitating Richard's way of eating.
The outer layer was crispy upon entry, while the inside was soft. The thick aroma rushed from her mouth straight to her brain, and it felt as though even her exhaled breath was sweet and cloying.
"Delicious!" Eleven's eyes sparkled.
"If it's delicious, eat more. Drink the milk while you're at it. You're at the age where you're growing, so you can't lack calcium." Richard reminded her. For a moment, he actually felt a bit like an old mother in a TV drama.
Wait... could it be that I really have the potential to be a Househusband?
Richard fell into silence. Thinking about his skill bar, among all the skills related to housework, [Culinary Arts] and [All-around Housework] had the smallest cost to upgrade. Other skills were incredibly expensive to upgrade. Was this proof that he was exceptionally gifted in this area?
No, how could he be destined to be a Househusband? He was a slice-of-life male lead. Yeah, just doing some part-time power-leveling and killing monsters on the side.
After breakfast, Richard used his miraculous acting skills to call the school and ask for a leave of absence. Eleven, who was nearby, was stunned by the performance. She stared at Richard with a strange look in her eyes until he put down the phone, then Eleven said seriously: "Lying, bad."
"Silly child, this is a white lie." Richard patted Eleven's head and took her back to the room.
"While I fix the alarm clock, you sense the movements over at the laboratory." Richard took out his repair tools, turned on the desk lamp, and focused on repairing the broken clock body, putting the scattered parts back together.
Eleven nodded, sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and skillfully projected her psychic power outward. Her consciousness transformed into herself, placed within a dark space. She gradually saw the people in the laboratory, including Dr. Brennan, whom she called Papa. They were standing in the observation control room, focused on conducting an exploration experiment of The Upside Down.
An exploration researcher dressed like an astronaut was fully equipped with communication gear and a rope tied around his waist, walking into The Upside Down portal that she had accidentally opened in the laboratory.
At first, that researcher could still communicate intermittently with the people in the laboratory, talking about his discoveries inside. But soon, a sudden change occurred. The researcher on the other side of The Upside Down let out a terrified scream, followed by a burst of rapid breathing and cries for help, accompanied by bursts of monstrous roars that sounded like dog barks but were even more chilling.
Hearing these sounds, everyone in the laboratory's expression changed instantly. Dr. Brennan roared with a tense expression: "Shepard! Shepard! Answer me! Damn it! Quickly retract the rope and pull him back!"
The rope-retracting machine immediately spun rapidly. From the other end of the walkie-talkie came the man's shrill screams, along with the sound of crunching bites and tearing flesh. The rope connected to the machine swayed violently from side to side. After a while, the machine's rotation speed suddenly increased, and the taut rope went slack and collapsed.
Until finally, a belt covered in blood, flesh, and slime was dragged out of the portal, trailing a path of blood on the floor.
The people witnessing this tragedy all covered their mouths in disbelief. Eleven was also frightened. Immediately after, she suddenly heard the roar of a monster again, bellowing around her, clearly audible. She whipped her head around and actually found a Demogorgon with a mouth full of blood roaring at her. She was instantly hit by the impact and fell backward in fright.
"Henry, is that you over there?"
A moment before her consciousness fell out of the psychic space, Eleven seemed to hear Dr. Brennan say this, but she didn't have time to stay for another second before her consciousness fell back into reality.
"Ugh—" Like someone who had just escaped drowning, Eleven breathed heavily, and nosebleed flowed steadily from her nostrils.
"Tissues are next to you, wipe yourself." Richard placed the newly repaired alarm clock back on the table. He spoke while crumpling the remains of the items used during the repair into a ball and throwing them into the trash can.
Eleven covered her bleeding nostrils and took some tissues to wipe them.
Getting up from his chair, Richard sat cross-legged in front of Eleven. He looked at the red-eyed little girl and waited for her emotions to calm down before asking: "What did you see?"
"Lab, people, door, death." Eleven tried hard to express herself, but because she rarely communicated with people and had lost part of her memory during the superpower experiments, her language skills were currently incomplete and needed to be relearned.
Richard listened patiently and translated: "You're saying someone from The Lab entered the door to The Upside Down and ended up dying inside."
Eleven nodded and continued: "Monster, saw me."
"Understood. Anything else?" Richard raised an eyebrow.
Eleven frowned, recalled carefully, and said hesitantly: "Papa said, Henry, over there?"
"Who's Henry?" Richard blinked, feeling very confused.
According to his many reviews and summaries of the plot, he had tried his best to remember all the characters closely related to The Upside Down storyline, but this was the first time he had heard the name "Henry."
So, is this a character that was never mentioned in the original work?
Or could it be that he, this little butterfly who had strayed into this world, had caused a change somewhere in the plot of this cinematic world?
Unfortunately, the point in time Richard transmigrated was early 2022, and his familiarity with this world was limited to the content of the first three seasons.