Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 246: Meeting

Guan Haiming’s head hurt a little, but this time it wasn’t physiological.

This early morning was particularly weird.

The showers stopped, and the sun rose. The vigilance of the Mainbrain hadn’t been weakened, but it didn’t increase either. Lao Zhang’s team returned to the refuge with the two outsiders. The group was thrown into the muddiest area by the escape pod, so the group was covered in mud when they returned.

The entire refuge was on standby, ready to deal with any Order Supervisors that were about to follow, but as time passed, no one appeared.

“There is a notice from above,” Major Ding cut into the call line. “Suspend all active offensive behaviors and use all manpower for vigilance and defense.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.” After dropping this sentence, the other party coldly cut off the communication.

This was followed by Professor Ruan’s communication. “How are Mr. Yu and Miss Ji in condition?”

“Nothing serious. Qiu Yue arranged breakfast for them. They should come over after their meal. Teacher, about the attack procedure—”

“You can put it aside for the time being.” Yu Le interrupted Guan Haiming’s words and pushed the door in carelessly. He had a little bit of mashed potatoes still stuck in the corner of his mouth. “I contacted Tang Yibu and Xiao Ruan. Those two bastards are fine. They asked to join a call.”

Ji Xiaoman followed him. She was silently wiping her mouth with a cloth towel. Although she still had a gloomy air, she looked a lot more relaxed.

“Sorry.” Ding Zepeng entered the room third. “Haiming, I stopped them, but Yu Ge said there was something important to tell Professor Ruan.”

The virtual portrait of Professor Ruan on the light screen looked at Yu Le. Yu Le didn’t say much but gave Ji Xiaoman a wink. The latter took out a bunch of weird small machines from her pocket and connected to Tang Yibu’s communication channel.

A large golden light screen unfolded, which was particularly conspicuous indoors. After the light screen was turned on, everyone in the room took a deep, cold breath.

Tang Yibu and Ruan Xian were in front of the light screen. The background was indoors, and both of them were wearing the uniform of Order Supervisors. They looked to be in very good condition. After a period of silence, Professor Ruan coughed lightly. “I wanted to ask Mr. Yu about the status of you two, but now it seems unnecessary.”

He looked up and down at the environment in the golden light screen. “Are you in the stronghold of Order Supervisors?”

“Mobile stronghold.” Tang Yibu smiled. “We are going to where you are now. In order to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, it’s better to do things face to face.”

Professor Ruan’s expression was calm. He remained silent and politely suggested that the other party continue.

“Don’t react too much to this outfit.” Ruan Xian glanced at Guan Haiming, who was nervous. “Most of our clothes were destroyed in the battle, so we can’t see you naked.”

Everyone was stunned for a while. They couldn’t tell whether the people on the other side won or lost—if they won, there wasn’t much movement in the Order Supervisors, but the authority of the Mainbrain didn’t seem to have been handed over. If they lost, the Order Supervisors wouldn’t use their own uniform as a prisoner outfit, and Tang Yibu wouldn’t look so relaxed.

“We have reached a cooperation agreement with the Mainbrain.” When doubts in the air accumulated to their highest point, Tang Yibu explained slowly. “This is the content of the agreement.”

Several more light screens appeared in the room, filling the space with dazzling text. After reading a few lines, Yu Le decisively gave up and looked at Professor Ruan and waited for a reliable summary.

Despite using an avatar, Professor Ruan’s expression was getting more complicated.

“How did you—”

“How is not the point. The point is, we have done it,” Ruan Xian interrupted the other party’s question in time. “You must be able to understand the marks of those system protocols. Of course, you will doubt the credibility of this whole thing—which is why we’re going to see you.”

“I can open up the auxiliary procedures of the agreement part to you, and you can inspect it as you like.” Tang Yibu nodded his head. “But it’s about my system, so Mr. Ruan will supervise you as you conduct your check.”

“I have to know how you did it, and then consider your credibility.” Professor Ruan wasn’t buying it. “If you can’t convince me to check the procedure, I won’t agree to meet.”

Tang Yibu and Ruan Xian looked at each other for a while. After a few seconds, Ruan Xian lost to the opponent’s gaze and began to dryly explain their previous actions and purposes. All the tense plots were turned into experimental reports by him.

Coupled with Guan Haiming and Yu Le, who would interject from time to time, Ruan Xian talked almost nonstop for more than an hour.

Professor Ruan hadn’t spoken the entire time. He finally let out a sigh. “It matches the information on our side, but it’s too risky… Have you ever thought about it, in case it fails—”

“I can definitely escape.” Tang Yibu pushed the water cup in front of him to Ruan Xian and took advantage of it to kiss the corner of the other’s mouth.

Then he turned his eyes to Professor Ruan. “If Mr. Ruan betrays me, I will forcefully take him back. Then we will go back to the original plan and attack the Mainbrain—you only need the S-type Prototype in your plan. There’s no hard requirement for Mr. Ruan’s assistance, right? Anyway, you haven’t finished the attack program yet, so let’s just give this a try as soon as possible. It’s best to win, but not to lose.”

Then he attached his bright and standard smile.

Professor Ruan, who was clearly regarded as the alternative: “…”

“You didn’t solve the problem at all.” Professor Ruan pinched his eyebrows. “The world will make a comeback sooner or later. You just delayed things a little bit. This is quite irresponsible—”

“We don’t intend to take this responsibility.”

Ruan Xian in the light screen put down the water cup.

“Judging from the situation at the end of 2100, the world will not be destroyed for a while. If society really perishes in another thousand or two—or more—and the Mainbrain observes the whole process and thinks that human beings are only worthy of such a management method, I personally have nothing to say.”

Professor Ruan frowned.

“Cybernetic brain, natural brain, mechanical tissue, normal flesh. As far as my current feelings are concerned, you haven’t found a suitable definition yourself, Professor Ruan. We are all people who are limited by the times, so don’t try to define everything. Instead of worrying about how people will feel thousands of years from now, you might as well help the living get on the right track early.”

“What if I still disagree?”

“Yibu and the Mainbrain signed a cooperation agreement, and I am also on Yibu’s side. If they join forces, you know what your chances of winning are… At the same time, we have also promised in the agreement that we will not interfere with the composition of society like the Mainbrain, so you don’t need to worry about this.”

Professor Ruan smiled, and then his virtual image dissipated, revealing a three-legged machine equipped with a brain cube.

“I will take a good look at the contents of that agreement,” it said calmly. “And I guess MUL-01 should have mentioned the way to deal with the rebels.”

“It won’t do anything to them. The total population of the world in 2100 is about 9 billion. Including the rebels, there are 30 million people who are still alive, which means more than 8 billion people have to be reset back. There won’t be many resources left that can be mobilized.”

Ruan Xian smiled.

“…They then have to prove that they aren’t crazy, find enough power to deal with Yibu, and then finally find the Mainbrain. I will guarantee that they will lose at step 2.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Yu Le made a “stop” gesture. “What does it mean that more than 8 billion people have to be reset back? I thought the Mainbrain was just going to withdraw like this?”

“It’s already started,” Tang Yibu said. “You can take a look.”

After that, Tang Yibu looked busy doing something. Hundreds of golden light screens flew out from the edge of the big light screen filling the room.

In the clear picture, as the sun rose completely, the earth began to vibrate. The dead wall gradually withdrew from the ground.

Countless construction aircraft rose up, overwhelming the sky. The ruins of the Institute were decomposed and then reconstructed to their original appearance. Even the flowers planted in the flower beds were printed back, stained with dew, and swayed slightly in the wind.

The artificial intelligence city in the distance slowly shattered. The weird, blind, spider-shaped machine disappeared, and the S City of 2100 was slowly returning—a can rolled across the empty street and came to a stop at a garbage bin. There was no dust on the windows of each building of various stores, and the 24-hour signboard kept flickering on and off. Stray cats lay on their backs by trimmed bushes as they meowed.

The annihilation point was reversed. All the undissolved building debris was taken away by the construction aircraft one after another. Without their ships, the pirates stood motionless in bewilderment as they were pelted with tents and emergency food dropped off by the Order Supervisors.

Cities everywhere were returning in turn, and everything was slowly recovering, except for the people. The mechanical life seemed to have received instructions and began to gather in groups, moving in a certain direction.

But the land reclaimed by the Mainbrain hadn’t disappeared. The City of the Mainbrain lay quietly by the sea. The people who looked out their window watched in confusion as a sky full of aircraft flew over them.

“It will take at least three months for the hardware facilities to be restored,” Tang Yibu explained. “The population will be released after everything is restored.”

“What are you going to do?”

After making sure that everyone’s attention was attracted by the light screen, Tang Yibu turned to Professor Ruan.

“Before the Mainbrain retires to seclusion, we will prepare a joint treatment plan. The situation of Guan Haiming and Ji Xiaoman won’t be a problem, but the damage to your brain is irreversible. In the next ten years, if you need a mechanical shell…”

“I will first look at Miss Ji’s mother. You two should be willing to help.” Professor Ruan was still staring at the golden light screen floating beside him. “The next thing… When I finish verifying your program, I would like to ask you to bring a message to MUL-01. At least during the three-month recovery period, it should be there, right?”

“Yes.” Ruan Xian nodded.

“Very good.” The black cube in the glass trough spewed out a string of bubbles. “I want to meet it. Don’t worry, I won’t bring anyone. If it still cares, you can go with me.”

“Alright. But don’t delay too long. We can finally rest…” Tang Yibu muttered.

“Just rest first.” There was a smile in Professor Ruan’s electronic voice. “The time is set in three months. Before it’s ready to go into seclusion… In these three months, I also have some things to deal with.”

“You guys are almost there, right? I hear engine sounds of the mobile stronghold.”

The three-legged machine owed a debt to the body.

“Let’s talk about the rest, face to face.”

The author has something to say:

Transition transition——

The Mainbrain is finally going to see its father (?

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 245: Cooperation

In the rumbling thunder, the rain got heavier. Water droplets continued to slide down the temporary body of the Mainbrain. Its metal surface was drenched in the cold.

Tang Yibu sneezed and then exchanged glances with Ruan Xian.

It was impossible for Zhuo Muran to make such a big move without authorization. In other words, the Mainbrain didn’t object to this approach. It was likely that it wasn’t passive consent or rejection…

“You’re using him to test us.” Tang Yibu sneezed at the Mainbrain again as he shook the rain from his hair.

The surface of the cube in his arms was pitch black. The Mainbrain was calmly pretending to be dead.

Ruan Xian laughed. He took a step forward and blocked Tang Yibu, who was holding the black cube, behind him.

“…Both you and the Mainbrain seem to have a terrible misunderstanding about us.” His tone was very polite. “What do you think we are trying to talk about?”

“No matter what you talk about, your ambition is definitely more than the amount of just that ‘body’.” Zhuo Muran replied. “I’m not interested in the details. Give me the answer, now.”

“No, no. I have to finish. After all, you represent the will of MUL-01 for the time being. If you lose hundreds of years of resources and hard-won valuable data, wouldn’t that be just drawing water with a bamboo basket*?”

*(竹篮打水一场空) Idiom referring to wasting effort and having no effect, working in vain.

Zhuo Muran was just about to respond, but in the next moment, he closed his mouth, apparently receiving a message from the Mainbrain.

He looked at the two people not far away in silence.

“First of all, I want to clarify one thing. You are the one who’s taking 30 million lives hostage, and you’re the one who will execute them. This responsibility is not ours to bear. This isn’t the first hostage-taking ever done in the world.”

Ruan Xian’s voice was calm. “Professor Ruan may not be able to afford to accept such a loss, so he’s willing to negotiate terms with you. As for me and Yibu… Killing everyone will only make it easier for us to escape.”

Tang Yibu looked at Zhuo Muran with subtle sympathy.

“Assuming everything collapses, and we continue to run with the Mainbrain, the previous chasers were all Order Supervisors and mechanical army. Without people, the only thing chasing us will be the mechanical army—it’s you who made those 30 million lives disappear in vain, and you who will be breaking your own arm.”

Ruan Xian showed him a look of “are you stupid?”.

“Of course, you seem to be completely uninterested in the purpose of our negotiations. Since you don’t want to listen, I’m done. You can continue.”

Zhuo Muran stood quietly in place. The Mainbrain didn’t show any information. It was probably communicating—the dialogue between MUL-01 and Zhuo Muran should be carried out psionically so Ruan Xian couldn’t access the content.

“If all humans disappear, NUL-00…” Half a minute later, Zhuo Muran spoke again.

“If all humans disappear, NUL-00 will lose the chance to make a comeback. Because after this battle, you will do whatever it takes to exercise absolute control over all machines under the command of the Mainbrain. Without the support of the rebels, it will be difficult for NUL-00 to take the initiative. Is this what you wanted to say?”

Ruan Xian quickly interrupted Zhuo Muran’s words and smiled brightly. “So what? You still can’t catch us despite using your full force now, and the Mainbrain will not return to its place. Since I have the S-type Prototype, I can survive for a very long time, and I will not leave Yibu. I can always provide him with support. You know what that means.”

This game of hide-and-seek could go on for as long as they wanted.

A trace of anger appeared on Zhuo Muran’s face. “…It seems that without Professor Ruan as a bargaining chip, the two of you still want to choose such a rogue approach? Fine. Let’s talk about it. Since you two are willing to give up immediate interests and resources, why did you want to help Professor Ruan attack the Mainbrain?”

“Oh, that’s my fault.” Tang Yibu patted the Mainbrain while giving an embarrassed smile. “I wanted to make a deep impression on Mr. Ruan—to see if he was really worried about me and also trip up the Mainbrain along the way. I wasn’t going to work with Professor Ruan.”

Ruan Xian didn’t know if it was intentional, but there was a hint of shyness in Tang Yibu’s tone.

“As for this attack. Well, it was supposed to be an extreme data collection. I want to know if Ruan Xian… If he would succumb to the Mainbrain and betray me. But now that issue isn’t important anymore—I don’t want to put him through this again. Such a ‘test’ is just double torture. I’m very strong, so I can keep him away from extreme situations… Wait let me take note of this. This is important relationship tips.”

Zhuo Muran: “……”

Ruan Xian laughed out loud. “And I made sure in this attack that I didn’t betray him—I even want to live with him.”

In the most painful moment, he didn’t calculate or weigh anymore. To be honest, as a person who felt many pains and implemented many plans, he didn’t have that much energy to think about anything too complicated right now.

He just wanted to live and look at those eyes more.

“Yes, I officially announce that we’re in love,” Tang Yibu said excitedly. There’s no need to determine everything. There’s no need to think about all possibilities. There’s no need to follow logic—I guess you won’t understand, but I have been thinking about it for a long time.”

The last half was whispered to MUL-01, accompanied by a gloating knock.

“This is one of our main motivations, and the goal has been achieved,” Ruan Xian said with a smile. “It has nothing to do with those 30 million people, or your strength and resources, and it has nothing to do with who is in charge of the world.”

Zhuo Muran didn’t seem to want to continue this conversation. He gritted his teeth and stared at the two angrily for a long time before squeezing out his next question. “One of the main motivations?”

“MUL-01 has an advantage and will not easily give up trying to get Yibu’s programs. It will not stop its pursuits, and we want to live with peace of mind, so we temporarily pulled it off its throne and advised it. Is there a problem?”

“This is not a child’s play. You two are crazy—” Zhuo Muran took a deep breath.

“Speak.” MUL-01 lit up at this time and began to display text. “The content of your ‘cooperation’.”

“Wouldn’t it have been better to be polite to Mr. Ruan earlier?”

Tang Yibu took out the black knife. The knife stood between the Mainbrain and Zhuo Muran. Ruan Xian held the metal cube to ensure that everyone could see its words clearly.

Ruan Xian didn’t continue to beat on the Mainbrain. His tone became serious. “If Professor Ruan hadn’t changed too much of the core logic, as the original writer, I can probably understand what you’re thinking.”

The Mainbrain didn’t respond.

“You let me stay for a few months on December 31, 2100. The commercialization of bionic organisms was progressing too fast, and the laws and existing ethics couldn’t keep up with the development of the market. I won’t mention other economic or political situations. You probably figured all that out.”

“Some people stuff their brains into machines, and some treat machines as brains. The covenant morals and ethics were starting to look different from the ones you’ve been indoctrinated with by Fan Linsong…”

Ruan Xian paused for a moment and glanced at Zhuo Muran. “Human society’s own problems haven’t been solved, and it has fallen into a new chaos. There were shortcomings in human governance, so you decided to take action. The Great Rebellion wasn’t a great rebellion. For you, it was more like a correction before the chaos—it’s indeed easier to manage by setting a concept for everything.”

In the torrential rain, the Mainbrain remained silent.

“According to your core logic, you will not apply unacceptable practices to human groups. Your standard comes from the human race itself, and at most, you were like a knife that killed people. What happened has already happened. I don’t intend to condemn you like Professor Ruan or destroy you and give the rest of the people confidence and hope.”

“Do you really think so?” The Mainbrain slowly showed this sentence.

“Yes, but this is just my personal opinion and doesn’t represent other people. After all, I have no sense of belonging to human society.”

Under the pouring rain, Ruan Xian’s voice was very clear.

“…But I can also give you a suggestion personally. You stored all the physiological data of everyone ‘killed’ starting from December 31, 2100, including memory and emotional state. You also store detailed information about every city at the time, including information about the buildings themselves.”

“Yes.”

“Then you can observe in another way.” Ruan Xian wiped the rain from his face. “Reset human society, hide, and collect the data from possible future developments.”

“According to my calculation, if I don’t intervene, humanity will destroy itself sooner or later.” MUL-01 displayed the text word by word.

“Then let them be destroyed.”

Ruan Xian looked down at the black cube in his arms. The rain wetted the metal surface, and he could faintly see his reflection.

“During this period, you can collect data on absolute natural intelligence—their possible disputes, struggles, and final destruction. After everything is over, you can go back to the stage again and use your stored data and experience to reset everything again.”

“……”

Zhuo Muran frowned. “Do you want MUL-01 to be humanity’s own ‘Doomsday Dome’? Like the Svalbard Seed Vault*?”

*A secure backup facility for the world’s crop diversity on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The Seed Vault provides long-term storage of duplicates of seeds conserved in genebanks around the world. This provides security of the world’s food supply against the loss of seeds in genebanks due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts, war, sabotage, disease and natural disasters. || In this context, it’ll be human DNA that is stored instead of crops.

“Isn’t it good? According to MUL-01’s own statement, humanity will die sooner or later by its own hands anyway. If you observe this process to its completion, you can get a lot of interesting new data without having to make those time-consuming petri dishes.”

“In other words, you want MUL-01 to consume its own resources, restore everything to the way it was on the last day of 2100, and then retreat behind the scenes.” Zhuo Muran sneered. “Then you and NUL-00 can take its place, right? …Until the day when mankind destroys itself, MUL-01 may not necessarily be able to return safely.”

“What are you talking about?” Tang Yibu turned the knife in his hand. “Why should I work for humans and get nothing for it?”

After that, he waved his hand casually, and a huge light screen spread out in front of everyone.

“This is a system protocol. After we all agree, it will go deep into our core system. Neither I nor MUL-01 can violate the above agreement.” Tang Yibu pointed to the dense text above.

“Overall, assuming that MUL-01 agrees, before the destruction of mankind, I am willing to personally guard its safety and assist in collecting intelligence all over the world. After its destruction, as long as it doesn’t hurt me, I will not interfere with its management, will not forcibly snatch its resources, and will not threaten its life.”

Zhuo Muran looked suspiciously at the dense text that made people’s eyes hurt. He was pretty sure that he saw a sentence: “No demands for NUL-00’s recipes are allowed.”

He rubbed his eyes, and then he saw: “No forms of direct or indirect attacks are to be carried out on NUL-00 and Ruan Xian (original). The scope of the attacks includes, but is not limited to, the following 97,325 articles…”

“Those are 99.9% of things that may hurt me, and I will add more later—of course, I’ll give MUL-01 room for rejection and negotiation for subsequent supplementary terms.”

Tang Yibu was quite serious.

“I have to write it in considerable detail. I am very fragile.”

“As for Professor Ruan, Yibu and I will deal with it.” Ruan Xian smiled and shook his head. “If you are willing to take the lead, I have a way to convince him. These are all written in the agreement.”

“As long as you agree to this agreement, you can have an earth-level petri dish and valuable data on the natural extinction of mankind. I, Mr. Ruan, and Professor Ruan will no longer be your threats. Compared with your plan to die together just now, I think our plan is better.”

Tang Yibu straightened his drenched black hair.

“Wipe out 30 million people, lose both, and hurt each other, or wait for a while and get the best of both worlds. Now, it’s your turn to choose one of the two, MUL-01.”

The author has something to say:

Is everyone in reality also preparing for a possible doomsday (?

Kinky Thoughts:

LMAO. Here MUL-01 and Professor Ruan are fighting their hardest for mankind, while Tang Yibu and Ruan Xian are using this chance to confirm their relationship and declare their love.

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 244: The Price

Tang Yibu didn’t stay on the ground for long. A group of armed aircraft reacted and rushed towards the two of them.

The spare body of the Mainbrain was close to a large cube with a side length of half a meter and was equipped with many auxiliary flight devices on the outside. Tang Yibu tore them off like peeling an orange. Without the entangled hoses and devices, the Mainbrain was simply a bare black cube. Tang Yibu held the Mainbrain’s body with both arms while Ruan Xian clung to his neck tightly with one arm while the other arm was wrapped around π, who was upside down.

The two half-naked men in ragged clothes broke through the air and quickly ran towards the edge of the desert. Many aircraft chased closely behind them, but Tang Yibu’s speed was too fast to track. Not even a bullet could match his speed.

In a rare moment, the Mainbrain was silent.

…It seemed to have made another error in judgment.

Tang Yibu glanced at it sympathetically. Not long ago, he had also felt tangled…

That night, on the bumpy road, they had climbed onto the roof of the car and perfected a plan under the starry sky while letting π drive them slowly.

[Yibu, I have an idea.] Ruan Xian looked at the sky.

[What?]

[I’ll see how you react first. If you were the Mainbrain and you were attacked by us at close range, how would you speculate?]

[NUL-00 is trying to attack and erase it, while Professor Ruan wants to seize control of the “body” of the Mainbrain to gain more advantages before the official war… The former is tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg. From any point of view, it’s impossible for me to kill it empty-handed.] Tang Yibu sucked on coconut water through a straw. Before going deep into the desert, they had stumbled upon a grove of coconut trees near the sea, so he had picked a lot.

[What else is possible?]

[I can’t think of anything else.] Tang Yibu sucked hard, then deflated his check and broke open the coconut with his bare hands. [We’re bound to be injured in this operation, so it’s impossible not to seek benefits.]

[The Mainbrain wants to destroy you and get your program—MUL-01 has an absolute advantage, so this is the most reasonable approach. It will not give up its own initiative voluntarily. One mountain cannot tolerate two tigers*. If you want to ensure a stable survival, you must kill it first… At least in its view, you’re cooperating with Professor Ruan for this purpose.]

*(一山不容二虎) Idiom referring to it’s incompatible for two strong people to be in the same place.

[In theory, this is the case.]

[But it’s Professor Ruan who “must” erase the Mainbrain. This is their war, not ours.]

Tang Yibu held the straw and thought for a few seconds. [We don’t need to kill it? But this isn’t something we can decide unilaterally. The Mainbrain has an absolute advantage. It’s impossible… Oh!]

[Figured it out?]

[Nn.] Tang Yibu curved his eyes. [Just take away its combat power advantage. I’m not interested in its programs and data, and there’s no reason why it must disappear. After all, no matter which way I look at it, I’m superior to it.]

After speaking, he deliberately paused and glanced at Ruan Xian. However, his Mr. Ruan just stretched out a hand and was playing with his hair that was blown by the wind.

[If we can negotiate on equal footing, I can think of a solution to the problem. The question is, do we have the conditions to “negotiate on an equal footing with it”—] Tang Yibu handed half the coconut to Ruan Xian.

[Yes.] Ruan Xian gladly took it. [In this regard, I have had some successful experience. Remember our first negotiation?]

[Remember. I thought you would attack me, but you tried your best and just gave me a healing bullet to prove yourself… I see, Mr. Ruan.]

[You and the Mainbrain are actually very similar, in terms of accepting death.] Ruan Xian scraped out a piece of pulp with a small knife. He stabbed it with the tip of the knife and fed Tang Yibu a bite.

[…You will definitely choose the “worst” possibility to defend.]

Facts had proven that Mr. Ruan was right. Tang Yibu patted the spare body of the Mainbrain in his arms and cocked the corner of his mouth.

Whether it was the Mainbrain or Zhuo Muran, neither of them took the enemy lightly. They defended according to the “assassination” specification. After discovering there were indeed no lethal weapons on their side, they changed their aim to “plunder”.

MUL-01 was full of war with Professor Ruan.

Tang Yibu ran away while patting it compassionately.

“Stop.” The side of the cube that was being patted suddenly showed large characters. MUL-01 obviously didn’t like this kind of touch.

Tang Yibu’s interest suddenly rose. On the way to the woodland, the sound of patting and tapping was incessant. Tang Yibu ran faster as he beat the Mainbrain like a drum.

Afraid that Tang Yibu would kill the Mainbrain in retaliation, the large aircraft that were too inconvenient to fly didn’t chase too far. The rest of the small aircraft continued trying to track them. Among the countless small aircraft, one figure was particularly eye-catching—Zhuo Muran was wearing a broken exoskeleton while chasing them closely.

Finally, Tang Yibu ran away from the desert and into a thunderstorm. It appeared in the position they predicted. The occasional bolt of lightning isolated most of their pursuers. Zhuo Muran instructed the aircraft to surround the area of the thunderstorm while he continued to give chase.

This gave Tang Yibu a lot of rest time.

The two hid under a few wet rocks. Their view was filled with dark brown and lead gray. The thunderstorm here was particularly dense. The rumbling thunder was accompanied by the sound of hissing electric current that was drowned out by the howling wind.

Tang Yibu laid the Mainbrain on a pile of gravel and circled his wrist. π woke up in a daze and let out a rattle as it bit the corner of the Mainbrain—unfortunately, the cube was made with the same material as the calculation cubes. Despite gnawing for a while, the iron bead couldn’t even bite off a small piece of debris.

Without the flight device, the Mainbrain couldn’t move, so it had to endure the biting.

“I don’t understand.” It quickly displayed a line of text. “The thunderstorm will stop, and Zhuo Muran will find you. In your current condition, you have no way to destroy me, and I will soon be able to restore everything to its original state as soon as I reach my alternate body.”

“During this period, I will at most temporarily stop the management of the cities, but this part can be continued by the Order Supervisors. No matter where you go, Zhuo Muran and his subordinates will never stop tracking, nor will they let you come into contact with anyone on Professor Ruan’s side. You can’t destroy me and can’t contact Professor Ruan. Unless you continue this meaningless escape…”

“Can’t we?” Tang Yibu said.

The Mainbrain was still desperately speculating about their purpose. When Tang Yibu said such a line, it fell silent again.

“I don’t understand.” Half a minute later, it repeated again.

“You see, with the abilities of Mr. Ruan and I, we can continue to escape with you. Of course, we can’t take much advantage of it, but without your control, guess what the rebels will do?”

Tang Yibu seemed dissatisfied with the dry conversation he was having with the cube. He pulled out the lid that was engraved with a smiley face, hung it on the cube, and then nodded with satisfaction. Ruan Xian turned his head, trying to hold back the urge to laugh.

“…This approach is not good for you or me. You’re similar to me. Professor Ruan is only temporarily cooperating with you. Once he gains the dominant position again, he will not allow you to exist.”

The Mainbrain ignored the lid of the can that was hanging on its body and started displaying its sentences faster.

“And this ‘Ruan Xian’ by your side. His mental condition isn’t healthy. Your joint actions will only be a threat to a normal society. He will not accept you…”

“That’s why we want to ‘talk about cooperation’ with you alone.” Ruan Xian spoke up when he saw those words. “We’ve already shown our sincerity—if we wanted to hurt you to the greatest extent, Yibu wouldn’t have come after you. He just needed to take your main body.”

The text on the cube disappeared, and its surface temperature slightly rose. MUL-01 seemed to be thinking.

“Take a step back. It’s tiring to take you and continue to escape day and night. Adults need to live an adult life, so we might as well be rational and do something that benefits both sides—”

Before he could speak the stone over his head crashed to pieces. Zhuo Muran stood quietly in the rain, looking at them coldly.

“Cooperation,” he hissed.” Forcing MUL-01 to transfer its system and making us chase you like monkeys just to ‘talk about cooperation’?”

Tang Yibu clamped Ruan Xian with one hand and hooked the Mainbrain with the other as he jumped back. π bit a corner of the cube tightly, and almost slipped off because of the rain.

Zhuo Muran didn’t attack immediately. He obviously eavesdropped from a distance for a while. The expression on his face was hard to make out, but it could be seen that it was unpleasant, but there was no panic in it; only indifference and gloom.

“Abandoning MUL-01’s body was your stupidest move, NUL-00. This Ruan Xian’s statement isn’t true at all. The conditions are so different that ‘sincerity’ isn’t even half as useful. Now, immediately hand over MUL-01. Or else…”

“Or else?”

Zhuo Muran laughed. Ruan Xian had never seen him laugh like that. It wasn’t a normal laugh with a sense of calmness like a martyr.

“When I was fighting you, I had already guessed a certain possibility,” he said. “There’s a gap between my guess and reality. Fortunately, the gap wasn’t large and emergency measures can still be used.”

Emergency measures? Ruan Xian frowned.

“I respect Professor Ruan as an opponent, but I have to say that his resistance is like a mantis trying to stop a car*. It can’t change direction with the times… Before, I decided the Mainbrain didn’t need to sacrifice too much for him. We can just slowly strangle them.”

*(螳臂当车) Idiom referring to something that cannot be done by force and is bound to fail.

Zhou Muran raised the muzzle of his gun. The rain haloed the blood on his body, sliding it down the tattered exoskeleton. Numerous aircraft were floating around him with all their guns pointed at Tang Yibu in unison.

“However, it’s a pity that now it seems that the two of you do have the ability to run around with MUL-01 and delay our affairs. This time, Professor Ruan chose a very useful tool. You seized the body as planned and now the war will escalate. Even if he doesn’t run out to negotiate himself, he will still be able to reap the benefits.”

“He crossed the line. He shouldn’t use a dangerous person like you to usurp the rules.” Zhuo Muran’s eyes lit up uncomfortably. “Now, I’ll give you a chance to redeem…”

“We—” As soon as Tang Yibu wanted to open his mouth, Ruan Xian slapped it shut. Ruan Xian nodded and motioned for the other party to continue.

“If you insist on continuing this stupid negotiation, I will restart all the petri dishes.”

Zhuo Muran glanced in the direction of the Mainbrain and moved his fingers.

“R-α and R-β had reserved a considerable number of viruses for us. Combined with the instructions given to the machines, it’s enough to kill everyone outside the dead wall. The Mainbrain contains all human genetic information and can restart everything whenever it wants.”

“The Order Supervisors will also die.” Ruan Xian narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, all biological ‘humans’ will disappear. Only semi-transformed people like you and me, mechanical life, and pure machines will be left in the world—although the lost energy and data will take thousands of years to recover, in this way, Professor Ruan will inevitably be unable to continue, and not only will you not be able to gain an advantage, you’ll lose everything and will also be responsible for the lives of these 30 million people.”

He had killed many people and wiped out countless petri dishes. Zhuo Muran clenched his fists tightly. There could only be one leader in his world, and he was willing to do anything for it.

“Now, give back the Mainbrain, and there will be a conventional ‘war’. There is still time to control the losses within the range that you and I can bear. Everything has rules and restrictions, NUL-00. There’s always a price for messing around.”

It was too greedy. It was just appropriating MUL-01’s body and escalating the war. The state of affairs was still under the control of the Mainbrain, but since the two of them gave up the fat in their mouths and chose to threaten and negotiate, the benefits they sought must be more than “one body”. Not to mention that there was also an eyeing Professor Ruan on the side.

The Mainbrain didn’t reject his application. Zhuo Muran could still turn things around. The balance of the war must be maintained. Zhuo Muran slowly exhaled.

“Choose.”

The author has something to say:

Zhuo: You play according to the rules, or everyone will die together. Anyway, you can’t win.

Tang: Hesitating to talk.

Ruan: Mysterious smile (?

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 243: Empty Target

Yu Le cleared his throat and stopped yelling.

Layers of mechanical spiders were still climbing above their heads, sliding their feet over the smooth glass, making an unbearable scratching sound. Ji Xiaoman emptied her backpack and blocked every gap with solid materials. However, this measure could only help them buy an extra hour or two at most—those mechanical spiders were already slicing through the glass.

While Ji Xiaoman hadn’t finished blocking the gap, hundreds of mechanical spiders slipped into the space. Ji Xiaoman activated all her prosthetic limbs and jumped lightly in the entire space, smashing the machines that tried to approach Yu Le with her fists.

“Not calling for help anymore?” In a short pause, she looked at Yu Le with a complicated expression.

“It’s good when the effect is there.” Yu Le focused his energy back on the machine in front of him. “There’s a new signal coming through. Little Captain, pay attention to it and cover me. There are programs coming, and I have to work hard to spread them out.”

“The effect has arrived?”

“The whole world knows that we are here and knows we’re fighting alone. Would the rebels guiltily shout for help like this?” Yu Le snorted. “Knowing this, Zhuo Muran won’t focus his attack on us. On the other hand, if Professor Ruan wants to figure out the situation, we’re his best breakthrough point.”

Now even the Mainbrain couldn’t get them out. Regardless of what the battle was like on the Mainbrain’s side, Professor Ruan would find someone to protect them so he could get as much information about their plans as possible.

They were in the resource-rich forest petri dish. There were no worries about reinforcements.

Yu Le purposefully yelled for Tang Yibu, who could certainly guess what his purpose was—knowing that their situation was critical and they needed the help from the rebel army… Aside from this, he was quite happy to give Tang Yibu a scolding.

It felt good.

After enjoying the aftertaste of scolding several war giants at the same time, Yu Le was in a good mood, which made the operation a little faster.

“I don’t understand some of these things.” Ji Xiaoman squished a single mechanical spider, causing sparks to scatter. “I just want to know, in case they don’t come…”

“If the rebels don’t even have this ability, even if we succeed in escaping here, we’ll die sooner or later.”

Yu Le smacked his mouth as the clattering above their heads started getting louder. “I haven’t been fooling around in the Sea of Ruins all these years for nothing. Professor Ruan’s people will come. Trust me, Little Captain.”

Ji Xiaoman patted off the debris in her hand and rushed to the next one. “…Okay.”

It didn’t take long for the scratching sound at the top of the space to suddenly decrease. Several vague figures appeared on the other end of the glass. They had no intention of breaking the glass, but quietly cleaned up the mechanical spiders.

The mechanical spiders were scraped to one side of the glass, becoming indistinct. Ji Xiaoman barely found a relatively translucent place. Five people appeared on the glass above them, two of whom she recognized…

“This is for the debt for the steering wheel.” Zhong Qing stuck to the other side of the glass with a straight face. “And there are still a lot of favors left. Tell Yu Le, I don’t like this place very much, and I still want to go back…”

“Why are you here?” Ji Xiaoman cleared the air and interrupted the chattering teenager.

“Shh, shh, shh. Keep your voice down. We have to help you secretly!” Zhong Qing quickly waved his hand. “I help them detect the environment. Biological detection is difficult to expose. We have to forge signals to mislead the Order Supervisors that those things are still there.”

Ding Zepeng was hanging a complex mechanical device on his chest and nodded to Ji Xiaoman when he heard the words.

“Then stall for time, they seem to…”

“Let me explain.” A strange man put his face on a glass plate. “We have someone on the Order Supervisors’ side. After two hours, he can help you get a chance to safely escape. The blockade outside right now is very strict. Even if you go through an escape pod, you will soon be caught.”

Ji Xiaoman wiped away her sweat. “The Order Supervisors can’t get in, so how did you guys? Sorry, I have to be sure.”

“Professor Ruan contacted us urgently just now. He set up a secret door. Haiming is his student and has authority and the ability to control it,” Ding Zepeng said. “I know what you want to ask—sorry, I’m afraid you two can’t use it. Its location is quite remote. It’s easy to get in, but hard to get out. When the matter is over, we will go with you to the escape pods.”

Then he took a few deep breaths.

“This is Zhang Yazhe.” He pointed to the strange man who had just spoken. “…The one over there is Chi Lei. They are the top explorers of this refuge, and they are all credible people. Don’t worry, Miss Ji. Continue to assist NUL-00.”

“What did I just say?” Yu Le’s tone had a smile in it. “And you were worried no one was coming.”

Ji Xiaoman pursed her lips, nodded to Guan Haiming, and jumped back to the ground from the glass ceiling.

Her sturdy prosthetic limbs crushed the last mechanical spider.

“Lao Yu, continue.” She sat back in the co-pilot seat and began to adjust the parameters. There were still remnants of blue fire on her prosthetics.

“I seem to remember someone saying there’s only one escape pod left? Oh my god, I’m so touched. Comrade Ji Xiaoman, if you want to stay so badly, next time you can just—”

“Shut up.”

In the desert.

Zhuo Muran didn’t have time to change his exoskeleton. As soon as he stepped into the cabin of the spacecraft, he strode to the command room. The Mainbrain had always maintained contact with him, and the news he just received wasn’t optimistic.

“Activate the backup equipment in the Western District and be ready to turn off the energy supply here at any moment.”

He pulled up a chair and sat down. Tang Yibu’s attack left him with many deep cuts. Zhuo Muran took two bottles of R-β blood extract and drank it. “Turn off protection protocols 18, 33, and 47. Place the heavy-duty units according to the diagram to ensure that the energy supply can be turned off within 90 seconds.”

If the worst were to happen and NUL-00 was really able to capture all the calculation cubes, Zhuo Muran could stop it by cutting off the energy supply—although the Mainbrain had added countless insurances to this supply, it can approve removing the protection and have them destroy the energy supply device.

Zhuo Muran glanced out the window gloomily. The night was like ink.

Everything was going to be fine. There was still a backup.

…Even if the ones they were facing were the original Ruan Xian and NUL-00.

Ruan Xian was in a bitter fight.

R-β went completely crazy. She no longer maintained the appearance of a beautiful woman, but grew abnormal hyperplasia all over her body, making it more suitable to advance through the currents and crevices. He wasn’t sure if this was a special improvement by the Mainbrain. Anyway,  Ruan Xian himself didn’t realize the S-type Prototype could be used in this way, but he didn’t regret it at all.

The hot air brought convenience instead—the deadly germs spewed out by R-β couldn’t float too far. As long as she wasn’t allowed to approach Tang Yibu, he would be safe.

Ruan Xian glanced at Tang Yibu beside him.

The android’s eyes were closed tightly. His whole body was tense, and his back was slightly arched. Protruding blood vessels could be seen in his neck and temples. The brilliant golden color was slowly eroding the blue arcs. Originally accounting for one-ten thousandth eroded, it gradually became one-thousandth, one-hundredth, and one-tenth.

R-β continued to attack in the direction of Tang Yibu, and every time was blocked by Ruan Xian. Although she had lost her human body form, her facial features could still be clearly seen on her head.

“Are you going to die for it?” she hissed. “It’s not you that MUL-01 is unwilling to give up. It’s NUL-00. With Professor Ruan around, you are a target that can be killed… Once the protection is opened, this area would be attacked with concentrated fire, and at that time, I will crush your brain with my own hands.”

“Surely you can guess this. You’re not going to really die for it, are you? According to your usual style, you’re not like that—”

“Of course not.” Under the cover of another dense burst of blood bullets, Ruan Xian shot off the limbs of R-β that was trying to get close. “If I die, Yibu won’t be able to find me.”

He answered quite calmly.

“He’s actually not courageous and worries easily, although he doesn’t want to admit it himself… I have already told him, ‘Don’t be afraid’. Why would I do something stupid like dying without authorization. What’s more—”

“What’s more?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the type who dies easily.” Ruan Xian’s voice was a little hoarse. The high temperature was steaming all the moisture off his body. He raised his gun again.

The upper half of R-β’s face was almost blown away, and a piece of her brain spilled out.

“Ruan, you can’t…”

“Don’t bother. The Mainbrain has already used this trick.” Ruan Xian didn’t stop shooting. “Sorry, I have a problem with my brain. I’m not a good person, and I wouldn’t cry for an empty shell.”

R-β let out an angry hiss and didn’t maintain her facial features or voice anymore. She—or rather, it—transformed its body into a multi-legged fleshy snake. It started swimming through the gaps between the cube and spouted poisonous mist from its head.

The gold color was getting larger. It was about to occupy half of the mountain from the blue color. The temperature was boiling. Ruan Xian bit the tip of his tongue and gave Tang Yibu another bloody kiss.

This time, he wouldn’t let anyone take him away from him again.

It wasn’t about cherishing one’s own work; it wasn’t about memories. So far, Tang Yibu was the only good thing in his life.

Unable to break through the opponent’s carefully set defenses, and unable to obliterate the S-type Prototype in one breath, R-β began to panic. It abandoned its last defense and began to drill in Tang Yibu’s direction in spite of everything. It elongated its flesh and broke into three pieces, each squirming into smaller pieces of flesh, hoping to break through Ruan Xian’s defenses.

The cubes with golden arcs suddenly moved and broke away from the formation and floated to Ruan Xian’s side. Tang Yibu, who was in a semi-sleeping state, stretched out his hand and grabbed Ruan Xian’s hand and clasped it.

Ruan Xian smiled.

He put on the head device that Tang Yibu had taken off and inserted the probe again. This time he didn’t enter a white system space but looked up into the darkness.

The other little projections had long disappeared, leaving only Tang Yibu’s golden spiritual core in the middle of the void, cautiously sticking out a little soft tentacle.

Ruan Xian knew what the other party was doing.

…The android had opened up some of his core permissions to him.

Ruan Xian kissed the ray of light without doing anything extra. He took over the calculation cube next to Tang Yibu and directly smashed it into R-β a hundred meters away. The two split pieces of flesh were crushed into meat sauce.

The golden color continued to swallow everything.

As if perceiving a change, the Mainbrain suddenly gave up resistance. Tang Yibu, who was holding back his strength, stepped forward and almost bumped into the cube in front of his face. At the same time, the closure of the “last line of defense” was abruptly withdrawn, revealing a sky packed with armed aircraft.

Dense spots of light lit up in an instant, and all kinds of shells and artillery rushed towards them, for fear that Tang Yibu would forcibly seize control before the energy supply device was destroyed.

In a short moment, the “body” that originally belonged to the Mainbrain was completely taken over by Tang Yibu. The Mainbrain stopped most of the calculations, stuffed itself into the spare body prepared by Zhuo Muran, and flew away like an arrow…

This was a serious war.

They were competing in speed to see if they could cut off the energy supply faster than if “NUL-00” could control this precious “body” and swallow up all the large piece of fat.

…At least, this was what the Order Supervisors thought.

In fact, they were indeed competing for speed.

The second the surrounding dead wall was withdrawn, Tang Yibu grabbed Ruan Xian and put him behind his back and ran away. He didn’t care about the extremely precious hardware equipment in front of him and left behind a group of heavy spaceships attacking an empty target. Ruan Xian hugged Tang Yibu’s neck tightly. For the first time, he saw Tang Yibu running so desperately—he left behind a string of afterimages, and the wind was blowing against them so fast it almost peeled off their skins.

Then the android jumped high, stretched out his arms, and lunged forward.

The spare body of the Mainbrain that was flying at a low altitude was pounced on.

Tang Yibu’s sweaty face was covered with dirt. He slammed into the ground in an undignified manner, causing Ruan Xian to fall off his back.

“I caught you, little brother,” he said happily.

The author has something to say:

Mainbrain: …This is different from what was said.

Tang: (ψ°▽°)

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 242: Don’t Be Afraid

The influence in Ruan Xian’s brain hadn’t been removed. The white space was full of warning symbols, and only electric light filled the darkness of reality. The two images kept alternating in his view. The difference was that this time, there was Tang Yibu in both visions.

The one in reality was holding him quietly in his arms. Ruan Xian sniffed and caught the fresh smell of scorched flesh. Tang Yibu had fresh wounds on his body. Ruan Xian followed the smell of blood and tried to wipe it away from his wound.

Throughout the whole process, Tang Yibu just buried his face into the crook of Ruan Xian’s neck, as if resting.

He didn’t ask questions, nor did he report the latest situation with interest. Tang Yibu didn’t look happy, and his voice sounded depressed. Ruan Xian was becoming more helpless. He wanted to give Tang Yibu a hug, but it was hard to use his strength with ungrown arms.

“Yes, we are about to win. The program has successfully spread.” Although it was unclear what was going on with the android, their strategy was the best. “There are still remnants of poison gas around here. You’d better…”

“Oh,” Tang Yibu said.

Ruan Xian glanced at him strangely. “R-β may come over at any time. It’s very dangerous here. You better…”

“Oh,” Tang Yibu said again.

Ruan Xian coughed twice, weakly pushed the person away, and looked at Tang Yibu up and down through the flashing lights. “What’s the matter with you?”

The last time he saw Tang Yibu like this was when they were still in the Mainbrain’s city. Since he was sure that he could find their answer on this trip, Tang Yibu’s mood had become quite high, which was quite in line with his style. Now, he was holding back the pain and he didn’t betray, but the other party was behaving like a wilted eggplant.

“I don’t know what’s going on with me,” Tang Yibu muttered. “But when I rushed over, I didn’t think about the issue of trust or distrust… I just kept thinking, ‘Ruan Xian is hurting like this’. I know we need to endure pain for this plan, but ‘knowing’ is not the same as ‘feeling’.”

The more he spoke, the sadder he became. “It’s fine if you scream out a few times since that’s part of the plan, but right now I just want to escape with you.”

“…But we’re just one step away.” Ruan Xian didn’t know what to say for a while. There was a rustling sound in the darkness. R-β was climbing this way.

“I know. This is just an expression. It’ll be too much of a loss to run away now when we’re close to beating MUL-01.” Tang Yibu sniffled.

“Then continue.” Ruan Xian struggled to move his badly burned joints, trying to make them a little more flexible.

However, Tang Yibu was completely unaware of the tense battle situation. He casually hit a nearby calculation cube and once again fell into contemplation. Ruan Xian couldn’t wait to hold the other party down and try to hide this ostentatious guy. The crawling speed of R-β from below was getting faster.

“Emotional adjustment completed.” In the heat, Tang Yibu’s voice seemed a little suffocated. “I got it.”

“Got what?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Tang Yibu said very solemnly. “I want to seriously publish my findings.”

Having said that, Tang Yibu began to instruct π on how to shrink back to its spherical shape. God knew where he pulled this information from.

“…” The original tension was completely disrupted by Tang Yibu. Ruan Xian was at a loss for a moment and almost forgot the next step of their plan.

Although he had no clue about what Tang Yibu wanted to say, Ruan Xian breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the other party’s state was restored. Focusing his energy back to the space of the Mainbrain, the switch from reality to illusion made him a little dizzy.

In the virtual space, the expression of the other “Tang Yibu” was even less beautiful.

Although NUL-00 used top-of-the-line encryption techniques, the Mainbrain successfully broke the programs they distributed.

…It hadn’t seen such a simple and crude DDoS attack for so many years.

The program itself was quite beautifully made, but it was ridiculously simple. If the attack program prepared by Professor Ruan was a destructive nuclear weapon, this was at most a warehouse of pepper spray—it continuously generated junk data in various locations, impacting the communication connection of the Mainbrain making it impossible for the Mainbrain to relay its instructions.

The pile of junk could proliferate frantically and was spreading everywhere thanks to Professor Ruan’s “communication device”. For a while, the Mainbrain’s communication network became a sea of garbage and was severely clogged.

No matter how the stronghold system tried to connect to the Mainbrain, all they could get was a red “:D” on their screen as a result. However, this piece of junk was so strongly defended by NUL-00 that the stronghold couldn’t break it.

But on the other hand, something of this magnitude couldn’t hurt the Mainbrain. At most, it was cutting off its connections to other strongholds.

MUL-01 looked at its own state. The “last line of defense” was activated, and NUL-00 was cut off from the outside world and locked inside the last line of defense. Just in case, Zhuo Muran had already prepared a backup body for its escape. The black box had been activated, and it could save its system at any time and immediately escape.

This attack was not destined to end with its own “destruction”.

The situation of NUL-00 was much worse. It and Ruan Xian suffered heavy damage, and there was no energy replenishment. It could be said that the mountains and waters have reached their end*. Things were becoming stranger. While the Mainbrain tried its best to calculate, it couldn’t figure out how the two of them planned to kill it…

*(山穷水尽) Idiom referring to being at the end of one’s resources (AKA the end of one’s rope).

It also had a vulnerability that wasn’t life-threatening, but the consequences could be quite serious.

…Due to the bouquet patch, its thermal design wasn’t optimal.

Normally, it would use peripheral hardware to support its computation, but now that communication was blocked by the “junk” that was crazily proliferating, it couldn’t use resources other than its own. The backup plan was to establish a secondary network on the periphery, but that required small and medium-sized strongholds to work together and set it up manually. Even if Zhuo Muran gave the orders on its behalf, the small and medium-sized strongholds were still in chaos and wouldn’t be able to complete the fortification quickly.

First mess up the surrounding strongholds, then, using themselves as bait, they would distract the Mainbrain at close range, and launch a spam program.

The seemingly inexplicable actions of the other party clearly blocked its way. During this period, if the Mainbrain continued to calculate with its given resources…

It would overheat.

The solution was simple. It had to stop some processing and leave the calculation cube idle. This matter was easy in itself, but there was NUL-00 nearby who was eyeing it…

The NUL-00 program was primitive and had various restrictions that needed to be calculated that were less than its own. The Mainbrain didn’t know how much. Still, NUL-00 didn’t need to take the situation and management of other cities into account. It could be said that its life was so idle that it would never encounter an overheating crisis.

NUL-00 was ordered by Professor Ruan to seize its “body”.

The more the Mainbrain thought about this, the more certain it became.

This really couldn’t kill it. As long as the Mainbrain could escape to its spare body, it would reach its spare hardware within a week. However, this would give NUL-00 the chance to obtain considerable computing resources and upgrade the war to a whole new level.

The Mainbrain had to consider countless countermeasures for its overheating problem, even taking into account a nuclear explosion, but it never thought NUL-00 would come to its door in person. It turned out that Professor Ruan’s control over NUL-00 and Ruan Xian had reached this point?

But if this was the enemy’s purpose… It was strategically valid, and the feasibility did exist, provided the two had enough supply of energy.

The Mainbrain immediately scanned the situation of the two people carefully.

Very unpleasant. It “smelled” food.

At the same time.

“It’s enough to make sure that MUL-01 understands the situation.” Tang Yibu carefully unplugged the machine on Ruan Xian’s head, exposing the bloody probe. “It’s not easy to wear this thing all the time. The virtual space has little observational value.”

“I can see your central projection there.” Ruan Xian smiled reluctantly. “Forget it. I’ll treat you first—”

Tang Yibu seemed quite taken by Ruan Xian’s statement and didn’t continue to ask. “I still have some blood vials you gave me in the Glass Conservatory. Let’s replenish some energy first. It’s not good if we keep losing it.”

Ruan Xian glanced suspiciously at Tang Yibu, whose clothes were in tatters.

Tang Yibu smiled and stuck π, who had fallen into a coma, between two calculation cubes. He put his hand into the inner pocket near his heart, first took out a few small tubes of blood, and then took out a small can. The canned food was smaller than the palm of your hand, with a thin layer. High in energy value… It looked very familiar.

“Since we’re in a relationship, gifts given by lovers should be well preserved.” Tang Yibu said triumphantly. “Zhuo Muran and the Mainbrain can’t guess this. Considering the situation, hiding this thing on my body is the most cost-effective—”

“Don’t say the next sentence,” Ruan Xian interrupted. “Let me be happy for a few more seconds.”

Tang Yibu’s gaze softened.

The canned food with dents on its surface was finally opened. The smell of fragment food broke through the burnt stench. Tang Yibu threw the last blood vial into his mouth, squeezed the lid of the can into a spoon, and fed Ruan Xian spoonful by spoonful.

Although they lacked water, the replenishment of energy was immediate. The scorched black tissues cracked and peeled off as pale skin slowly enveloped his muscles. Ruan Xian choked. The food was so dry that he had difficulty swallowing it, but at least he no longer looked like a corpse. The pain slowly stopped when he swallowed another spoonful. Seeing that there was only one-third of the canned food left, he hurriedly stopped eating.

Tang Yibu didn’t care about the amount of remaining food. His eyes curled up with a smile.

“Now exchange positions.” Tang Yibu ate the remaining third in one bite, stuffing it into his mouth, causing his cheeks to bulge. “Ruan Xian, you have to protect me this time.”

Ruan Xian just took out the blood gun and was taken aback when he heard the words.

“…And π.” After pausing for a moment, Tang Yibu also filled in for the iron bead.

Since they met again, the android had not opened any topics related to “betrayal”. There wasn’t much worry on his face, and his actions seemed as natural as breathing.

It was as if what he was facing wasn’t MUL-01 but a less-than sumptuous dinner.

Ruan Xian closed his eyes. More than a dozen gunshots sounded. R-β, which had caught his ankle, slipped again. Tang Yibu took the opportunity to rush to the edge of the Mainbrain and began to move.

More than a thousand calculation cubes seemed to return to their place, but the blue arc had turned into golden light. The golden arcs started to spread, occupying less than one-tenth of the space.

This wasn’t simply borrowing like before. Tang Yibu no longer used them as weapons but was beginning to formally invade.

The entire space covered by the defense line was getting hotter. The calculation cube with flashing blue light was forced to gradually extinguish and was then swallowed one by one by the golden light. Tang Yibu curled up and set himself up as another core, then began to seize control of the Mainbrain’s body with all his strength.

Ruan Xian stayed by his side. He first kissed Tang Yibu’s hair lightly and then raised the blood gun with both hands.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 241: Embrace

When M-β was attacked, R-β was sitting on its back. She was almost blown to smithereens by the explosion, but her pieces of flesh squirmed and gathered together again, regaining her human shape.

There were only two opponents left.

Tang Yibu turned his gaze to the woman’s head and began to think about how to smash her brain just right. However, Zhuo Muran’s reaction was faster as she seemed to have received some instructions. R-β immediately left the battlefield and rushed towards the core of the Mainbrain.

Her shoulders and arms were crushed by the cubes gathered on the surface, but she immediately recovered. She endured the high temperature and rushed towards the metal cage in the center. When she was about five meters away, Tang Yibu could no longer control the cubes in that area, which made R-β advance faster.

Her goal was Ruan Xian.

At the same time, following Zhuo Muran’s gesture, armed machines lined up in a half-arc in the sky, and defense ammunition was poured towards Tang Yibu. More D-type products flew by, trying to isolate him.

After losing M-β, there was nothing else the Mainbrain had that could keep up with Tang Yibu’s speed. Zhuo Muran saw the situation wasn’t good and had turned his offense into defense. Despite the black cube rotating at high speed, it couldn’t penetrate the enemy’s body as easily as before—most likely because it was made of the same material as Zhuo Muran’s exoskeleton, which was made from the D-type Prototype.

The black cube rotated around Tang Yibu and finally arranged a circle of cubic layers that was very similar to the Mainbrain. They turned faster, squeezed together, and finally, the metal cube that was wrapped in the middle turned from black to red and began to melt.

Tang Yibu resisted the pouring bullets and gestured directing the peripheral cube to move. After a while, the metal in the center gradually melted into a grid, changing its shape into a knife.

“Not going after it?” After several hours of fighting, Zhuo Muran finally spoke to Tang Yibu for the first time. He didn’t sound at all surprised.

“We have an appointment.” Tang Yibu responded simply.

He ignored the heat, grabbed the hilt of the knife, and stabbed it straight into his abdomen without hesitation. The still scorching metal encountered warm blood and made a loud sizzling sound.

The material from the D-type Prototype was quenched by the flesh and blood of the A-type Prototype. It had lost its computing function and turned into a dead thing. Now, without fire support, it could play a greater role.

Tang Yibu pulled out the black knife; his eyes were a little red. He didn’t give Zhuo Muran time to react. He stepped on the metal cube floating in the air and accelerated, as fast as a meteor, towards Zhuo Muran.

The knife wasn’t long, but it was able to cut through Zhuo Muran’s sturdy exoskeleton, lopping off a piece of the armor. Zhuo Muran’s skin was scratched, and a stream of blood gushed out.

Now that R-β wasn’t by Zhuo Muran’s side, the armed machines that were bombarding him weren’t enough. There was nothing for Tang Yibu to be afraid of. He was like a sharp arrow, sprinting around Zhuo Muran at a speed invisible to the human eye while he chopped off large pieces of Zhuo Muran’s armor.

He was gradually stripping him.

Zhuo Muran didn’t seem to care. He shrank his body and protected his key points. At the same time, more light screens flashed around him, sending out instructions. More advanced armed machines continued to come from afar, forcing Tang Yibu to speed up.

Looking at this situation, what they were doing was no longer a farce. It had been upgraded to an assassination. Troops arranged nearby were rushing here. Heavy fort-like floating islands had appeared on the horizon.

Time was almost up.

“In a bad mood?”

Ruan Xian in the system was lying on the ground and took the initiative to speak first. “Tang Yibu” was expressionless. The flow of information from Zhuo Muran was surging around him. Ruan Xian could make out some of the floating codes.

Tang Yibu had successfully controlled the situation.

Which meant he needed to work harder on his side. Ruan Xian looked at his fingers—his body was severely damaged, but his brain had temporarily isolated the external pain. However, abnormal projections were still gradually appearing. The image of his hands kept shaking as sand-like particles fell upward, gradually disappearing.

“M-β has been destroyed, but R-β and Zhuo Muran are still in good condition. Heavy weapon support is already on the way, and you…”

“Tang Yibu” brought his face closer and grabbed Ruan Xian’s head with one hand.

Ruan Xian was suddenly overwhelmed by agonizing pain. He knew the Mainbrain had removed the shielding system, and now his long-neglected external pain swarmed up. It seemed as if red-hot molten iron had covered his entire body, while his lungs seemed to be stuffed into a spinning blender. Ruan Xian almost fainted.

“If you are destroyed, your brain must be specially treated, and the S-type Prototype will be completely scrapped.” The Mainbrain spoke in a quite familiar voice. “…What a pity, but I have to live.”

Ruan Xian looked at the face that was exactly like Tang Yibu and laughed bitterly. The Mainbrain was truly the Mainbrain. Even if it didn’t know what they wanted to do, even if a more precise threat wasn’t determined, it was willing to sacrifice its curiosity in exchange for the most stable security.

Regarding this point, his Tang Yibu was much, much cuter.

…And they bought enough time.

Ruan Xian no longer had the strength to resist the attack of the Mainbrain. Even if he withdrew from the system, the scene implanted by the other party was still flashing in his mind and would mix with the reality in front of him. The picture he was seeing was cut between the white room and the Mainbrain’s body. For a while, he would see “Tang Yibu”, then it would cut to R-β who was rapidly approaching.

The poisonous gas and his wound were about to overwhelm his body. His flesh was completely eroded that Ruan Xian couldn’t even lift his arms.

But he was still holding the metal box, and it was still possible for him to click a button.

A flare passed through the gap in the array of cubes, and a small red smiley face exploded in the night sky. The sky was now crowded with armed machines, with explosions constantly happening. While not too conspicuous, the symbol was clear enough.

Tang Yibu pulled out his knife from Zhuo Muran’s arm. The latter had swallowed a tablet that quickly healed his wound. Zhuo Muran didn’t seem to understand what fatigue or limits were. He kept calling for support and kept constant vigilance. After several stabbings, except for the irreversible damage to the exoskeleton, there was actually no other loss.

“This is your attack?”

The D-type machines had almost completely surrounded the space. Tang Yibu’s movable range was getting smaller.

“Of course not.” Looking at the smiley face in the sky, Tang Yibu smiled equally as bright.

In the next second, a sharp alarm exploded, but the alarm didn’t come from inside the Mainbrain. Countless red light screens emerged from Zhuo Muran’s side as warning sounds blared off one after another.

“The Mainbrain has lost control of its surrounding system?” Zhuo Muran replied in a unified voice, as he had no time to type it out. “Impossible. Ruan Xian, no, Professor Ruan’s attack system hasn’t been completed yet. Don’t mess up. Confirm each other…”

“We never said, ‘our target is the Mainbrain’.”

Tang Yibu clenched his newly forged knife. His beautiful face was covered with blood. His clothes had already been damaged, and his waist bag and backpack were nowhere to be seen. There was only his undergarment lining that was covered with burn marks and blood.

“Surprise?” he said expressionlessly.

Zhuo Muran’s face turned ugly. The commander was a smart man. At this point, he should have seen through it…

“…You’re using yourself as bait.” In the flickering field of vision, the white room where the Mainbrain was located was filled with warning signs.

“Having Ruan Xian himself invade at close range was nothing more than a bluff.” Ruan Xian didn’t need to speak. The connection device was still in his head, and the pins were still attached to his brain. “You were indeed fooled.”

The program they created was spreading outside the Mainbrain.

After all, what this mechanical box was connected to was the best communication device in the world. Professor Ruan originally planned to collect tens of millions of points and gather them in one place, but they reversed it.

It was just that they had to prevent the Mainbrain from noticing it when the program started until they were ready to attack. In order to restrain the Mainbrain’s attention to the greatest extent, there was no more appropriate approach than placing two “key objects of focus” on the field.

The Mainbrain, which had lost control of its surroundings, didn’t panic.

“Even if you started learning again from the first day you appeared, you couldn’t have made a program strong enough to destroy me.” The Mainbrain looked at the data returned from various places and began to crack the program that was spreading frantically, intending to analyze its characteristics.

Compared to the calm Mainbrain, Zhuo Muran’s foreboding was getting stronger. He subconsciously wanted to prevent the Mainbrain from analyzing it, but he couldn’t give a reason. The other party’s meaningless practices were gradually beginning to become clear, and he had a bad feeling of being slowly bound by cobwebs.

He took a breath, turned on the contact device, and directed the machines around him to pile in front of him to resist possible attacks.

However, his opponent had disappeared.

Zhuo Muran, who had never let his targets escape his sight on the battlefield, was, in a rare moment, stunned for a few seconds.

Tang Yibu was rushing to the inside of the Mainbrain as quickly as possible. Zhuo Muran thought for a moment and ordered, “Do a good job with the screening. Except for samples analyzed by the Mainbrain, don’t give other programs the possibility of getting in. Focus on the areas and Petri Dishes that Professor Ruan has greater influence on. Once there’s an abnormality, report it to me immediately… Others will deal with the rebel forces that are bound to appear.”

Seeing Tang Yibu rush in, Zhuo Muran added another sentence.

“Now activate the ‘last line of defense’.”

A dead wall dozens of meters thick quickly rose around the cube array, quickly wrapping the huge body of the Mainbrain. The two people who came to disrupt the situation were locked in. There was a resounding silence from the outside, and the rough male voice was no longer heard on the broadcast system.

The last line of defense was originally prepared for Professor Ruan. It only allowed the Mainbrain’s instructions to spread out and reduce all incoming information as that information had to be screened layer by layer. The current situation was too weird. Regardless of whether the other party had a program that could destroy the Mainbrain or not, MUL-01’s safety must not be compromised.

Even if the probability was 0%.

Keeping the system of the Mainbrain was key. Now, even if the two people inside turned into nuclear weapons and exploded, the Mainbrain wouldn’t be destroyed. The cube array that was flashing blue light had turned into a huge, lifeless cube. The place where it resided seemed to have been cut off from the world, leaving only a void.

This situation must be stabilized first.

“After things are delivered, immediately connect to the interface corresponding to the dead wall.” Zhuo Muran gave the last command before flying to a command ship not far away.

NUL-00’s equipment was completely destroyed by him. Whether it was water or energy, they had no supplies. R-β was toxic enough. Even if they want to use her as food, the damage would be far greater than the supplementation, so the gain wouldn’t be worth the loss.

It was only a matter of time before the two failed.

The area was tightly sealed, with only a burning blue light left inside the Mainbrain. R-β crawled toward Ruan Xian persistently, but when she was about an arm’s length away from her target, something grabbed the back of her neck and slammed her to the ground. The iron bead rattled weakly, removing its tangled metal limbs, revealing Ruan Xian, who couldn’t move.

“Shh.” Tang Yibu stretched out and took Ruan Xian’s mutilated body into his arms.

“Mr. Ruan, I’m here to pick you up.”

He kissed the other party’s lips earnestly, without any intention to get blood.

“…We are about to win.”

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Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

Chapter 240: Two Cages

Around the Mainbrain’s core, the heat between the calculation cubes distorted the air.

The iron bead was in a terrible rush. It didn’t even have a chance to rattle. There were more and more cleaning machines gathering. Even if it could destroy one at a time, the speed wasn’t fast enough. The iron bead was too small that it could only protect Ruan Xian’s body at most. His arms and legs were still seriously injured—the cleaning machines had more or less scraped off pieces of his flesh from there.

The iron bead didn’t understand humans’ injuries. It could only sensitively perceive the speed of recovery of the person behind it getting slower. Ruan Xian had almost no bones left in his hands, but there had been no signs of recovery for more than ten minutes. In the hot air, the blood clotted extremely quickly, burning into a thick blood scab on the surface of the bones.

Another wave of cleaning machines squeezed through, almost knocking the iron bead into Ruan Xian’s body. Most of Ruan Xian’s clothes were burned, and he was tightly holding a box in his arms. The iron bead didn’t have anything to hold onto, so it could only poke its thin feet into Ruan Xian’s skin and clamp on his spine.

A little blood flowed out along its movements.

Tang Yibu—its big friend had asked it to protect this person, but it couldn’t protect him anymore. The cleaning machine had listed it as an object to be cleaned. Its beautiful shell was marked with countless scratches, and the original shiny metal surface had been scorched black by the heat weapons. A few more beams of light came over and blasted into its weakly protected mouth slit. π couldn’t help but let out a scream and almost fell to the ground.

Though it had eaten a lot of rare materials, it couldn’t bear the large number of opponents. Its iron shell was slowly breaking, and fragile white tissue was leaking out. π winced twice.

It couldn’t help but think that things were too complicated. It didn’t know how to take advantage of the situation to escape. The iron bead lay on Ruan Xian’s back and rattled for a while, just wanting the battle to end quickly.

It had to survive this crisis and π vaguely knew why. The human blood under its body seemed to have a strange effect. Eating it would make it feel particularly satiated. The iron bead hesitated for a while, then began to chew on the flesh and blood cut off by the cleaning machine.

Sure enough, the familiar feeling came back. Its shell was recovering, and its entire body felt warm. Fortunately, these cleaning machines didn’t have mouths, and it thankfully had attached to Ruan Xian’s spine.

Its big friend would come pick it up, and the human under it was also quite good to it.

So it had to work a little harder.

Soon, the warm feeling turned into pain. The shell kept going back and forth between being damaged and repaired. The iron bead didn’t understand the reason, but it instinctively kept eating, hoping that it would feel better. It opened its mouth to the max, biting at the approaching cleaning machine and gobbling down the pieces of flesh stuck to their mechanical blades.

Its consciousness was getting vague, but it couldn’t sleep yet. Tang Yibu hadn’t come back yet.

In the dimness, the iron bead felt that its mouth seemed to have become bigger. The enemies that were in front of it were farther away. There seemed to be a lot of unfamiliar parts on its body, but it didn’t have time to think about them. There was only one thought in its mind.

This person has to be protected. Although he is weak, his heart is still beating.

“What is that thing?!” the garrison leader said in horror.

Under the scanner, something was attached to Ruan Lijie’s spine. At first glance, it was a ball the size of a bowling ball, but then it swelled a few times. It looked like a terrifying flower bud as it kept gnawing at the surrounding cleaning machines at lightning speed. They sent thousands of cleaning machines, which would have cut Ruan Lijie down into a skeleton, but the result now was just attrition to his limbs at best.

The ball didn’t even stop there. It continued to grow. The enlarged spherical object cracked in a more exaggerated form so that its original appearance couldn’t be seen any longer. Countless mechanical limbs stretched out, bypassing the floating calculation cubes, and wrapped around the gaps to form an octahedral metal cage, protecting Ruan Lijie in the middle.

The metal limbs were pulsating regularly, and each corner of the octahedron gave birth to petal shaped mouthparts, which kept opening and closing all around. The scene had turned creepy. The “corpse” was curled up in the blue light from the electric arc, and behind it was a huge metal flower.

They had never seen anything like this.

The cleaning machine could no longer get close. Once they approached the living guard cage, there was always a mouth—and sometimes even more than one—biting it, gnawing their central parts to pieces.

…The battle situation didn’t seem to be as simple as he thought. The leader pinched himself severely before recounting the information to Zhuo Muran. As humans, the Order Supervisors withdrew at Zhuo Muran’s order, but now that even machines couldn’t do anything, he didn’t know what to do.

He hoped that Commander Zhuo could spare time to look at this. The leader thought this as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Withdraw the cleaning machines. That thing can digest metal. Don’t get close to it!” The leader conveyed his instructions. “The Mainbrain will not be defeated by a human clone. Continue to improve the surrounding encirclement network and prepare for the aftermath!”

However, Commander Zhuo didn’t have the energy for the time being.

Tang Yibu was knocked to the ground. His back crashed into the concrete floor. Thousands of calculation cubes flickered and spun around in vain.

Zhuo Muran didn’t give him a chance to breathe. Accompanied by the rain of bullets, M-β darted towards him, wrapped in a poisonous mist. Tang Yibu got up with difficulty and barely managed to dodge, but he almost ran into Zhuo Muran’s attack.

With the help of the calculation cubes, Tang Yibu barley managed to tie M-β and R-β. As a user of the D-type Prototype, Zhuo Muran’s appearance directly disrupted the balance. Half of Tang Yibu’s shoulder was almost crushed by M-β. He had to swallow a lot of the compressed blood agent to stabilize his injury.

However, the worst thing wasn’t purely poor combat power. Zhuo Muran was commanding M-β and R-β, and the actions of the three were extremely clean. Tang Yibu’s body was barely able to recover, but his backpack full of food had become ashes.

There was still some food left in his pocket, and he still had more than half the blood agents made by Mr. Ruan, but they would be consumed sooner or later. The bodies of the three opposite him had precision nuclear energy tanks built into them, so there was no need to worry about them collapsing halfway.

Tang Yibu commanded the calculation cubes to assemble and made a simple flying platform. They carried him into the air and temporarily separated him from his opponent’s pursuit. However, Zhuo Muran quickly chased after him. Without saying a word, he directly activated all the weapons on the exoskeleton and bombarded Tang Yibu.

The calculation cubes blocked most of the attack, but there were still some stray bullets that hit his abdomen. Tang Yibu whimpered, barely swallowing his groan, as dark red blood splattered on the black metal cube.

Those small cubes couldn’t fly too far away from the massive body of the Mainbrain that was running under his feet.

“Mr. Ruan,” Tang Yibu shouted softly, even though he knew the other party couldn’t hear me.

The time they spent together making plans made him relax, and he liked the feeling very much—the two of them were planning together, just waiting to put it into action, and there was no time to be vigilant of each other. Those days were his things, and at this moment, Tang Yibu desperately hoped to get them back.

Zhuo Muran wouldn’t wait for him to recover. He flew around Tang Yibu, seizing all his flaws, and attacked. Smoke coming from the exoskeleton left faint traces in the air. M-β attacked from below and smashed into a calculation cube that was supporting Tang Yibu.

At this moment, there were a few more fist-sized blood holes in Tang Yibu’s shoulders. He relied on his reflexes to barely manage to keep his neck.

Three hours had passed, but they still needed time.

Blood flowed into his eyes. In the blood-red world, Zhuo Muran was talking to someone. Tang Yibu ordered the little cubes to protect him as he barely landed, then woefully avoided R-β germ attack.

He needed to wait for an opportunity, an absolutely safe opportunity. Not yet. Tang Yibu squinted his eyes at M-β, who was closely behind him, and completely gave up the attack and turned to a defensive style. Then he looked at the biggest threat…

After ending the call, Zhuo Muran followed again, but his face was a little more solemn. However, the other party had no intention of talking and just focused on helping M-β block him.

…Not yet.

The other party was too concentrated, so his plan may not work. They had to wait for Yu Le to weaken the connection, and then they would have the winning ticket in hand. However, although the signal was stable from time to time, it didn’t maintain the weakest level. The great ruins pirate was able to hold up better than he thought.

Although it would take longer, the effect would be better. Tang Yibu glanced at the core of the Mainbrain and inexplicably felt uncomfortable.

However, what Yu Le did was even more desperate than he thought.

Near the Mainbrain’s body was a broadcasting device that was used to facilitate commands. It was just an ordinary loudspeaker. The Order Supervisors that usually managed them had been withdrawn.

“We’re in Petri Dish No. 1306. Help!!!”

A roar of excellent sound quality resounded through the night sky so loudly that it even made the cubes around the Mainbrain stop rotating for a moment.

“Tang Yibu! Ruan Lijie! I know you two bastards are listening! If laozi dies here, I’ll become a ghost—hey, Little Captain, are you sure this can be connected to the Mainbrain? Oh, oh—a ghost that will come back and haunt you! This stupid device isn’t useful at all, so contact me as soon as you hear this!”

Tang Yibu: “……”

M-β and R-β stopped their movements out of confusion, and Zhuo Muran was still some distance away. Tang Yibu didn’t let go of this moment…

He didn’t even bother to treat his body and basically gave up on defense. He directed all the calculation cubes to rush to the chest and abdomen of M-β. Realizing this wasn’t good, Zhuo Muran ordered M-β to duck, but his speed wasn’t fast enough.

More than a thousand cubes crushed M-β’s chest and then exploded.

The explosion was so powerful that it destroyed the nuclear energy tank in M-β’s body and set off a small nuclear explosion. Tang Yibu was at the edge of the explosion. He stuffed a mouthful of blood agent into his mouth and tried his best to have the calculation cube surround M-β tightly. This was a makeshift version of an explosion-proof box made from out of Mainbrain.

A burning light leaked out, stinging Tang Yibu’s eyes.

Given that the people present were all equipped with high-level armaments, Tang Yibu didn’t expect the radiation to kill anyone, but his purpose had been achieved—when the calculation cubes dispersed, M-β had disappeared without a trace.

Focusing on “defense”, Tang Yibu quietly stuck powerful sucker bombs on those cubes for more than three hours. Hundreds of bombs had exploded all at once, and even then, the damage didn’t make a dent in the Mainbrain’s cube, but it was enough to crush the nuclear energy tank.

Tang Yibu had to laugh as Yu Le was still scolding through the loudspeaker.

“Come on, continue.” He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said to Zhuo Muran, who was now livid, “Now it’s my turn to attack.”

The author has something to say:

The passive (?) beating is finally over. The second evolution of the iron bead √

Ruan: So cool behind.jpg

Tang: …I can’t afford it!

Kinky Thoughts:

MPV π.

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