Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 136: Burns

Ruan Xian was excited.

It wasn’t because he liked to fight. Although he was able to recover some of the blood loss, the fragments that hadn’t been pulled out made the wound unable to heal smoothly. The loss of blood made him weaker. Even if he knew that his life wasn’t affected, the breath of death made him sober like never before.

Tang Yibu was avoiding the fight. He could see it, and he understood the motivation very well.

On the opposite side was the Commander-in-Chief of the Order Supervisors, and he came alone, seemingly confident in his own strength. In the eyes of the other party, these few people were nothing more than coins on the side of the road that could be picked up casually by bending over. Facing an opponent of this level, if he went all out and let go, Tang Yibu’s A-type Prototype was likely to get exposed.

And the possibility of his abnormalities being revealed was extremely high due to him being “seriously injured”.

Without words, when Tang Yibu quietly raised his fingers, Ruan Xian guessed what the android had in mind. If they successfully escaped, they were bound to expose something, so it was better to expose the most “harmless” item.

Technology.

When he turned his back to Zhuo Muran, Tang Yibu’s golden eyes glowed slightly, and his face was expressionless. Ruan Xian stretched out his hand that had not been hit by the bullet and gently pressed Tang Yibu’s chest.

“Give me some data,” he said while remotely activating the wristband that Ji Xiaoman was still holding, using all possible resources to calculate.

Tang Yibu looked at him and smiled slightly.

“Stop at the right time.” Ruan Xian wiped the corners of the other party’s bent mouth with his blood-stained fingers and mouthed his words. “Don’t fight too much. I’ll support you—you’re just an ordinary non-combat android, and I’m the technician of this team.”

There was also a price. If they followed the “most reasonable” script, they would suffer a little bit.

Ruan Xian knew this, as did Tang Yibu, but neither of them said anything. After all, this was the least costly way for them. The android didn’t deplore or be senselessly humble like ordinary people, but accepted this premise bluntly, with an almost cruel and natural calmness.

‘Like I predicted,’ Ruan Xian thought.

A rational partner, a suitable bedmate, and a little bit of body heat that didn’t belong to him. They had a relationship of taking what the other needed.

“My chest pocket,” during the heavy calculation process, Tang Yibu said suddenly.

Ruan Xian was taken aback. He subconsciously touched it with his hand and felt a thin square box.

“When the program starts, press the red switch above,” Tang Yibu whispered.

He didn’t know what this guy was planning, and now wasn’t the right time to ask. Seeing that the calculation was about to end, Ruan Xian clenched it tightly with his right hand, which hadn’t been blown up.

“Gwah—!” There was a scream from the iron bead behind him, and the sound of a metal shell being kicked and deformed.

Tang Yibu slammed on the brakes and put Ruan Xian on the ground.

The android simply gave instructions to Yu Le and Ji Xiaoman. The other two were smart, and there shouldn’t be any problems. Ruan Xian fell to the ground obediently, continued to pretend to be unconscious, and curled up slightly because of the blood loss. One hand continued to hold the square box that Tang Yibu handed him, while the other took out a blood gun.

“Give me the technician by your side,” Zhuo Muran demanded. “I’ll at least keep him alive.”

“No.” Tang Yibu’s voice was colder than ever before. “He’s my personal property.”

Zhuo Muran didn’t talk nonsense anymore. He immediately rushed up. Tang Yibu deliberately staggered his steps and made a look as though he could dodge. His fair cheeks were slashed, and a little blood flowed down.

However, Zhuo Muran didn’t mean to continue chasing Tang Yibu. His target was Ruan Xian, who was lying on the ground from the start. Tang Yibu easily grabbed a sharp piece of explosives from the ground and stabbed it towards Zhuo Muran’s neck.

The explosion just now didn’t hurt his opponent in the slightest. Tang Yibu knew exactly what the other side was. He didn’t intend to kill Zhuo Muran from the start. He just needed…

The explosive piece stuck deeply into Zhuo Muran’s exoskeleton. A sizzling noise of electric current sounded in the air, followed by a burning smell. Zhuo Muran’s movements stagnated as he paused and turned back with an elbow strike.

In order to play the role of a non-combat robot, Tang Yibu abruptly took the blow and flew back a few meters. Ruan Xian could hear the sound of the other party’s ribs cracking.

How long will it take?

There seemed to be something burning in his abdomen. It wasn’t a pitch-black involuntary anger but a purer, fresher anger. Before the Commander-in-Chief of the Order Supervisors could turn around, Ruan Xian put the muzzle of the blood gun against the back of Zhuo Muran’s head.

“Don’t move,” he said hoarsely, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

“It’s useless.” Zhuo Muran didn’t look nervous at all. “You’re still conscious with his kind of injury. Truly admirable.”

Seeing that the other party was about to turn his head, Ruan Xian quickly switched the hand that was holding the gun to his right, which was still intact, while holding the square box with his left, which he hid behind his back.

“You’re obviously Ruan Xian’s men. Why are you protecting that android?” Zhuo Muran turned his head and pushed the muzzle of the blood gun away like a toy. He grabbed Ruan Xian’s neck and pressed him to the ground easily. “…Forget it. I’ll just take your head.”

After that, he exerted force in his hands, and one of the arms of the exoskeleton that looked like an insect’s leg opened up like it was intending to twist off Ruan Xian’s head. Ruan Xian narrowed his eyes and was about to shoot when he caught a glimpse of the android who fell not far away from the corner of his eyes.

With a smile on his face, Tang Yibu used his hand to form a gun gesture.

It was as if he knew in advance that Ruan Xian would look over there.

“Bang.” The android mouthed.

‘How strange,’ Ruan Xian thought. Their cooperation was cold but extremely tacit, as if they truly trusted each other.

He pressed the switch on the cold metal box.

With a sharp cracking sound, his vision was swallowed by fire in the next second.

With Ruan Xian as the center of the circle, a flame engulfed everything around him. The flame failed to hurt Zhuo Muran, but it made him take a step back vigilantly—it was more than just flames that rose up and they both knew it.

The protective wall surrounding The Glass Conservatory was melting.

The virtual guardrail that should have required a huge number of calculations was invaded, and the real surrounding scenery of the city was gradually being revealed. The always blue and clear sky was slowly fading and disappearing.

From a distance, it looked like a slowly bursting bubble.

Around the flame, the sandy yellow ruins were slowly revealing themselves. Several waves of beeps indicating contact suddenly sounded on Zhuo Muran’s body. However, he narrowed his eyes and kept staring at Ruan Xian, whose small body was beginning to burn, without the intention of leaving.

The android fell to the ground, motionless, as one arm caught on fire, as if it had stopped functioning.

“Did you hear…the sound that’s breaking through the air?”

Ruan Xian smiled reluctantly, staring straight at Zhuo Muran with dull black eyes, like a wraith in the fire.

“That’s… A destructive drone flying to the city center… Everything here can be faked, but you really came… There are… Important people…”

Zhuo Muran’s scalp tightened.

This person was determined to die, as if he had made up his mind not to let him seize the information in his head. He quickly brought up the heat map and something was indeed flying towards the city center, extremely fast, but it didn’t trigger the air defense system.

It was too late to inform the others, Zhuo Muran thought. The other party had calculated this—on one hand was the threat that was about to disappear, while on the other was a person who the Mainbrain asked to protect. He knew what he had to choose.

And even if he saved Fan Linsong, the disappearance of the protective wall couldn’t be explained by “today’s surprise”. The most stabilizing thing to do was to step in immediately, not to mention the large amount of contact and work that came with it…

The exaggerated attempt to escape just now was to stall for time as this person cracked the city’s protective wall. The other two people lying on the side didn’t make any strange movements. It was all 100% this person.

Did he know from the beginning that he couldn’t escape, so he deliberately misled him by putting on an act of “I don’t care about my companions” to ensure that his two teammates could successfully run away? …Why did this person take the initiative to protect that android?

However, he was destined to be unable to confirm these thoughts.

Zhuo Muran gritted his teeth, activated the exoskeleton, and chased after the abnormal trajectory on the heat map. The dying young man in front of him continued to burn. With such a serious injury and burns, the other party wouldn’t be able to survive, not to mention that his android was hit hard by him and was completely incapacitated.

This situation wasn’t without remedy. He could send someone to search for the whereabouts of the other two.

As soon as Zhuo Muran flew away, Tang Yibu sat up.

He quickly extinguished the fire on his body and crawled in the direction of Ruan Xian with a grin. Ruan Xian was relatively better. He directly pulled out the burning debris from his body and neatly rolled away from the medium-sized fire. The burns on his body quickly recovered.

Ji Xiaoman rushed over, holding the iron bead that was quaking and crying, while Yu Le’s actions were much simpler. He picked up a whole can of rapid recovery spray, rushed to the burning body and sprayed Ruan Xian, whose clothes had mostly burned off.

“You guys…” Seeing that Ruan Xian was still conscious and didn’t look like he was going to have a violent death, he thought for a while but couldn’t find the right words. “Really tough. I’m convinced. Listen to me. Even if you have those nanobots to improve resilience, you shouldn’t play like this.”

“It’s just a special effect.” Ruan Xian raised the corner of his mouth. “Similar to magic. Don’t mind.”

Ji Xiaoman didn’t seem to want to say anything, but π was screaming too much. She could only console the iron bead hurriedly while desperately trying to feed it parts.

After briefly misleading the two of them, Ruan Xian said nothing.

This script was different from what he had imagined. Tang Yibu didn’t need to pull himself into the water.

The destruction of the city’s barriers was bound to cause riots, and Zhuo Muran, as the leader, wouldn’t have the leisure time to spend with them. Next, he just had to let Yu Le and Ji Xiaoman flee outside the city at the first opportunity while Tang Yibu pretended to perform a secret mission, hit himself hard on the head, and then run away as before.

The android didn’t even need to attack Zhuo Muran and specifically get injured. When Tang Yibu raised the explosive debris, Ruan Xian was even ready to be stabbed in the head…

Seeing that his head had lost its research value and the three people who ran away were relatively worthless, with the situation Zhuo Muran was in at the time, he wouldn’t wrap up this mess in person. He would go to the city to stabilize the people’s hearts while letting other Order Supervisors handle the aftermath here.

But Tang Yibu didn’t follow this script.

He chose to hurt himself too, weakening Zhuo Muran’s vigilance, in exchange for Ruan Xian’s not having his skull broken… Although this worked as the difference in results wasn’t too big, Ruan Xian couldn’t quite understand the other party’s action for doing this.

Tang Yibu’s first choice was always “self-preservation”. Ruan Xian once judged this way.

“It hurts, Mr. Ruan.” The android squirmed towards Ruan Xian in a somewhat familiar way, his golden eyes watery.

Before the other party spoke further, Ruan Xian cupped the blood-stained face, bit his tongue, and then kissed him deeply. Tang Yibu first greedily sucked up the blood, and then the kiss turned into a simple kiss.

“Your tongue is a bit cold.” After the long kiss, the android gave honest feedback.

…Were they really in a relationship where they took what they wanted?

If not, then what did this relationship mean? It was clear that Tang Yibu could watch, as he did when he was fighting the scanning program before or was being tortured by Gong Siyi. He almost conceded that the android would choose the most logical and convenient way to collect data.

For the first time, Ruan Xian felt a little confused. He stroked Tang Yibu’s hair and watched the other party’s curl his eyes comfortably.

“If you two want to do it, can you wait until things settle down, yeah?” Yu Le rolled his eyes. “You two didn’t really abandon us while trying to escape. I’m quite moved… Tsk.”

“π’s injury isn’t serious, but it also needs to be dealt with in a quiet place,” Ji Xiaoman said in a low voice. The iron bead whimpered in cooperation, as its voice was full of condemnation. “The follow-up troops of the Order Supervisors will be coming soon. We have to go.”

“Go, go, go. Find my car.” Yu Le was full of energy as he unloaded his luggage from the damaged hoverbike, and then his expression became serious. “Like I said before, ah. If you two dare do it in laozi’s car, I’ll definitely kill you with my bare hands.”

Tang Yibu didn’t show an immediate recovery. He rubbed Ruan Xian’s cheek with the tip of his nose affectionately as the two helped each other stand up.

“What’s flying towards the city center just now?” Ruan Xian asked Tang Yibu in a low voice.

“You will know soon.” Tang Yibu still had a bright smile. He didn’t know if he was just seeing things, but Ruan Xian felt that smile was different. “Your improvisation is good, Mr. Ruan. Commander Zhuo was completely deceived. It’s a bit of a shame. That was one of the treasures I would need to use to escape in case of an emergency—”

Soft music fell from the sky.

“It will create a high-temperature flame that emits thick smoke and is enough to destroy traces of the scene, and it will launch a flying machine into the most heavily guarded areas on its own, specially designed for deceiving people.” Tang Yibu was obviously very satisfied with his work. “Unfortunately, it will take a long time to make another.”

“Can’t it be stopped?”

“It won’t be stopped. It’s harmless, so the system won’t be deceived, but humans will.” Tang Yibu shook his head. “If it starts and I haven’t managed to escape… Well, that’s usually not the case.”

After a prelude drifted through like a drizzle, Carol Young’s “I’m With You” resounded through the sky.

“Before, it was equipped with ‘Step by Step’. I recently changed the songs, but they’re all banned tracks here, so it shouldn’t be much different.”

Ruan Xian laughed. The more he laughed, the harder it became, and finally he couldn’t hold back and laughed out loud.

“Even I feel bad. Zhuo Muran is probably furious.” Ruan Xian wiped away the tears of laughter. “You’re really… really…”

He shook his head for a long time before calming down. “Speaking of Zhuo Muran, why did you—”

“Let’s stop the sweet talk for a bit, yeah? Xiao Tang, you said before that Luo Fei would keep his end of the bargain. So where are we going to find Ruan Xian?” Yu Le was carrying a large bag of luggage that took a lot of effort to turn around. “Are you going to tell us?”

“The Android Show,” Tang Yibu replied solemnly. “The specifics can be discussed in the car.”

Ruan Xian didn’t continue the question. He retracted his gaze and looked at the ground.

“And the question you just wanted to ask, Mr. Ruan.” Tang Yibu didn’t give up so easily. Although Ruan Xian didn’t ask, the android seemed to know the content in advance.

“You said ‘pain isn’t that bad sometimes’ and the occasion that sentence refers to is very special.” Tang Yibu blinked. “That is to say, under normal circumstances, you don’t care about ‘pain’ and have relatively negative feelings towards it.”

Amongst the beautiful and ethereal female singing, Ruan Xian’s blood-stained hand was slightly raised by the android. This time, it was Tang Yibu who bit his knuckles lightly, with a thoughtful expression.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 135: Confrontation

The Glass Conservatory wasn’t without accidents, but under the management of the Mainbrain, the probability of them happening was almost zero.

From the airship, one could see the thick rising smoke from the forest on the outskirts of the city. Red smiley faces densely blocked the sky. Most likely, something went wrong inside the prevention shelter. The alert level wasn’t high, and there was no sign of data being compromised. Except for the projection of the signature of the troublemakers, there was no further expansion of damage.

It stood to reason that he really didn’t need to intervene. If it was a simple fire or a childish destruction, Zhuo Muran wouldn’t take it seriously. However, this incident made him feel particularly uncomfortable…

This wasn’t the resistance of “normal people”.

The error correction program was already running. The blood-red smiley faces lasted less than ten minutes before they started to disappear one by one. So far, there had been no reports of casualties at the scene of the incident. Purely by nature, the danger level of this rebellion was surprisingly low.

Later, they could just take some measures to embellish this short-term chaos as a surprise for the day.

The birth of distorted ideas required soil, and most people living in this city didn’t even know the concept of “rebellion”. Just as there would be no well-made daggers in a primitive cave, relatively advanced forms of resistance needed to learn from past experience, so it was impossible for people here to be exposed to such knowledge.

For those people, bleeding and injury were probably the most exciting things in their lives.

A perfect life without worry. There would be no illness or accidents, no poverty or ignorance that burrowed deep into the bones. According to differences in individual abilities, everyone could receive the most appropriate education. Although it was still in the experimental stage, there was already a shadow of the future world here.

Zhuo Muran silently boarded the aircraft.

He wanted to see what the rebels looked like, and then personally send them to hell.

The aircraft detached from the airship and turned its head to fly in the direction of The Glass Conservatory.

“Reconnaissance of the communication situation and volatility index near the protective wall. The person who made such a mess can’t be local,” Zhuo Muran ordered coldly. “Turn the detection level to the maximum. The other party has technicians and is likely using disguised encrypted communication or short-range instant messaging.”

“Yes,” a sweet-sounding mechanical voice replied.

“Send me the last 30 minutes of airborne heat changes as well.”

‘…But they were all just self-righteous stuff,’ he thought.

Short-sighted, arrogant, and egotistical. They never looked at the bigger picture and saw the sacrifices necessary to achieve humanity. Although under the banner of freedom, what they wanted was only temporary benefits and stability. Just like his former self. As long as he could eat a mouthful of food that wasn’t spoiled, he would feel satisfied. When the Mainbrain’s messenger appeared in front of him, he didn’t even understand half of what they were saying.

He wasn’t yet an adult when he met the Mainbrain. His spine was distorted from working all day. The light from grace of scientific and technological development could never illuminate real poverty. At that time, all he had in life was to complete the day’s work so that he had enough to eat.

He didn’t understand the other party’s words about IQ, talent, and the most suitable path. The only things he could touch were stone and soil. He had never even been to the elementary school in the town once.

Zhuo Muran let out a chuckle.

If the Mainbrain brain didn’t dominate the world, his fate wouldn’t be too different from his father’s—working endlessly in the mountains, finding a local woman to marry and have children with, and working until his body completely collapsed. He wouldn’t have the name Zhuo Muran, but rather be “Zhuo Xiao Zi*” before becoming “Lao Zhuo”, and his children would grow up just like him to repeat the cycle.

*(小子) Term used by seniors to address their juniors, basically equivalent to like young man.

But he was sitting here now.

He thought it was an artificial god. Fair to the point of cruelty and wasn’t swayed by human emotions. The so-called rebels were just idlers who were dissatisfied with the loss of human privileges and were entangled in the romanticism of fighting for freedom.

The Mainbrain showed him everything impartially. The relevant historical data in the Order Supervisors’ headquarters was completely public. Regarding the rebellion 22 years ago, any Order Supervisor could find out the details they wanted to see, no matter how bloody and cruel.

But no one left.

This was a necessary change in the course of human development. If such a rebellion came out of other regions, he wouldn’t mind, but not here. This should be the true utopia.

Finally, he caught an anomaly on the heat map—there was a line of heat change trajectory that was a bit weird. Although it was within the scope of error of system management, it couldn’t fool him. Zhuo Muran drove the aircraft to the left and rushed to a certain place on the edge of the city.

“It seems that that kid Gong Siyi really didn’t run away immediately. You guessed it accurately enough.”

After finally stopping the temporarily assembled hoverbike, Yu Le cracked his neck and looked up at the other two people who were slowly falling. “Has Luo Fei contacted you yet? What did he say? If he breaks the contract—”

“No.” Tang Yibu jumped off the single-person aircraft with Ruan Xian in his arms.

The space of the single-person aircraft was limited. Ruan Xian’s back ached terribly after being squished tightly as if he was inside a pocket. He straightened his waist, intending to continue from where Tang Yibu left off, but what he spit out was something entirely different.

“Be careful!” Ruan Xian subconsciously protected Tang Yibu.

Yu Le got closer to the edge and reacted quickly—as soon as he heard a strange sound in the air, he quickly turned the hoverbike around and pulled Ji Xiaoman down from a tree.

A huge explosion blew up the tree. If it weren’t for the hoverbike being strong enough, the two of them would’ve been hit by the tree trunk. The other two people without shelter fared worse. Several pieces of arm-length metal fragments punctured directly into Ruan Xian’s body, and his back was instantly dyed blood red. Tang Yibu, who was protected, only had a few abrasions. The android no longer looked innocent as he frowned, looking as if his face could kill flies.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t cautious of the aircraft in the sky, but the speed of this one was too fast. It was estimated that it didn’t plan to land well in the first place. Only Ruan Xian, who had fused with the S-type Prototype, could react in advance.

Was it an accident? The Mainbrain wouldn’t use such a crude attack method. This time, Tang Yibu turned around, shielding Ruan Xian behind him, and looked towards the thick blaze and black smoke in the impact crater in front of him.

“There’s someone inside,” Ruan Xian said in a low voice.

He didn’t immediately pull out the huge pieces of debris stuck in his body. This visitor was nothing good, and he didn’t want the other party to see his rapid recovery. As for the blood, it could be covered up by his clothes, so it wouldn’t be too noticeable.

“With that impact force, even if the driver is you, they wouldn’t be able to restore their vital functions immediately.” Tang Yibu stared at the burning mechanical ruins in front of him like a wolf. “Here comes a rather troublesome guy.”

“What luck,” a voice said.

A man walked out of the blazing fire, surrounded by protective shields that they couldn’t see clearly. There was no trace of smoke on the man’s clothes. As for the face, everyone present recognized it.

“…Shit, Zhuo Muran.” Yu Le swallowed. “This isn’t a big fucking fish. It’s the sea monster that’s stalking it.”

Ji Xiaoman instinctively held her breath and hid herself in the shadow of the tree. The iron bead didn’t dare to come out and continued to pretend to be dead.

“Android.” Zhuo Muran glanced at Tang Yibu. “Interesting, it seems that our Mr. Ruan hasn’t given up yet.”

“I guess it’s time for Xiao Tang to show us how capable he really is.” Yu Le didn’t immediately climb up. He lay down with Ji Xiaoman to minimize his sense of existence. “Fuck, it’s so hard to make a profit in this goddamn place…”

Zhuo Muran glanced in Yu Le’s direction, retracted his gaze as if he had lost interest, and continued to gaze at Tang Yibu in front of him.

“What happened just now, I don’t think it was mere luck.” He stretched out a hand. “Surrender obediently, explain the situation, the Mainbrain will—”

However, before Zhuo Muran finished speaking, he saw a sight that he would never forget.

The android looked serious. When he was halfway through speaking, without a care for his teammates lying on the side, the android picked up the person behind him and ran away.

Zhuo Muran had never seen an enemy who fled so straightforwardly.

“Truly capable,” Ji Xiaoman murmured while repeating Yu Le’s words.

“…” Yu Le wiped his face with one hand and made no comment.

However, Zhuo Muran didn’t waste his time on his surprise. He casually crossed the light screen, and an assisted exoskeleton rose from his black coat, like scales erected by reptiles. In almost the next moment, he caught up with Tang Yibu, who was trying to escape.

“It’s useless to escape.” The exoskeleton stretched out its electromagnetic gun and blasted the android several times. The disgraced android barely managed to avoid them. Zhuo Muran frowned, accelerated slightly, and stopped in front of the android.

The android, who had the appearance of a human male, slammed on the brakes. There was no panic or anxiousness in his expression, but rather a solemn look with an expression of “why are you like this” shock.

Then he turned a corner and continued to run.

Zhuo Muran had seen many rebels, some begging for mercy in front of him, some fleeing in a panic, and many who were unafraid of dying, but only the one in front of him had such a look as if he was participating in a sports competition.

It didn’t look like his head was working very well. Was this a non-combat android with enhanced guard functions? Then that person he was protecting should be an important technical staff member of this team.

Zhuo Muran tried to use the cybernetic brain isolator to incapacitate the other party, but he didn’t know whether it was due to bad luck or whether his opponent did it deliberately. Every time he wanted to activate it, the android would run towards the isolation wall. The electromagnetic interference of the wall silenced machines and prevented them from operating normally. What was even more irritating was that the android found he couldn’t outrun and throw him off, so he simply just started running in circles in the area.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Order Supervisors felt like a fool.

He ignored the two rebels who were lying on the ground watching the excitement as he continued to chase. The android didn’t hesitate to run away, and the person he was protecting didn’t stop him. However he looked at it, it didn’t look like the android was the teammate-caring-type, so the person this android was protecting in his arms must be important. If he stopped attacking the target, the important person might be able to escape successfully.

This entire scene had become increasingly embarrassing.

“I ordered some raspberry biscuits from the kitchen.” Yu Le turned his head and asked Ji Xiaoman, “Would you like a piece, little profiteer? At least we can eat something good before we die. It’s a pity we don’t have popcorn here.”

Ji Xiaoman didn’t have such an easy-going attitude like Yu Le. She still maintained an attacking posture like an aggravated cat and pursed her lips tightly. Seeing that the environment had settled down, the iron bead shivered and loosened its little feet that were clinging on to Ji Xiaoman’s backpack. It slowly leaned over to the two of them and began to observe the situation in the distance with them.

“Tang Yibu is up to something,” she said. “He has a plan. We’d better not make any extra moves.”

“Yo, how do you know?”

“Ruan Lijie’s wristband is still with me,” she said. “It’s running at full speed under remote control.”

When he ran his fifth lap, Zhuo Muran was tired of chasing. All this seemed like a joke. He originally wanted to capture the opponents alive and take the talent that could hack into The Glass Conservatory for himself. However, this thought wasn’t too strong. Killing everyone and bringing back their heads for analysis was also good.

He began to attack mercilessly.

This time the person being held showed extremely abnormal behavior—just when the homing bullet was about to hit the android, the person in the android’s arms broke free for some reason, and a shell exploded over his left hand.

The man let out a scream of pain and held his left hand tightly, as if he had lost consciousness. The android only stopped for a moment before picking up the young man, who didn’t look too strong and was covered in blood and continued to run.

How boring.

Zhuo Muran stopped, made a gesture, and more homing bullets lased out, but when he was about to adjust the target parameters, his wrist was hit hard.

A Grove R-660 quickly ejected from nowhere and was barking at him.

Zhuo Muran didn’t think much about it and kicked it away casually. Under the strengthening of the exoskeleton’s attack, the round mechanical life suddenly deflated and let out a scream.

Insignificant whelp. He continued to correct the data. However, when he raised his head again, he found something had changed…

The android stopped.

“Lao Yu, can the hoverbike still be used? Miss Ji, I’ll leave π in your care,” he said fluently, his golden eyes fixed on Zhuo Muran.

Then the android put the unconscious young man in his arms on the ground and let him lie with his back to Zhuo Muran.

“Not running away anymore?” Zhuo Muran raised his eyebrows.

“No more.” The other side shook his head and sighed. “Although… But this point in time isn’t bad.”

Zhuo Muran didn’t understand where the other party’s ease came from. He didn’t think that there was a weapon comparable to the explosive power of an aircraft explosion, nor did he think his opponent could call for reinforcements from The Glass Conservatory. Counting the android, there were only four people on the opposite side, and one was delirious. Their odds of winning were exactly 0.

Maybe there was really a problem with the logic circuit in this android’s head.

But he didn’t intend to take the enemy lightly. Zhuo Muran exhaled and decided to end the farce within five minutes. He thought he could meet a good opponent, but now he was only reaping disappointment.

Was there something wrong with his intuition?

However, from an angle he couldn’t see, the seriously injured and unconscious young man stretched out his hand that should have been blown up and quietly took out a gun.

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The author has something to say:

Commander Zhuo, you shouldn’t have kicked the cat (?)

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 134: Hunting

The sun was shining brightly this afternoon, and there was no trace of clouds in the sky. From a distance, the white walls of the prevention shelter seemed to be glowing on their own. The trees and flowers that surrounded it were very well matched, and it looked more like a rich person’s vacation villa than a so-called shelter.

After living in the Underground City for many years, Ji Xiaoman had seen a few similar pictures at most.

She had thought that if there was really paradise in the world, then it would be nothing more than that. But now she had an intriguing illusion, as if she had returned to the poisonous foggy junkyard in the Underground City.

It was different from the ideal paradise in the picture. There were electronic eyes that rotated regularly hidden in the bushes, and the mechanical guards were patrolling around the periphery of the courtyard all the time, with uniformed movements, like a projection of a herd of metal beasts.

There were also humanoid guards. She didn’t know if they were in-the-flesh or remote-controlled humanoids—they were in groups of three, carrying heavy weapons, and looked around behind the patrol machine.

Faced with such a lineup, the iron bead cowered. It no longer had the mechanical shell of the assistant as that got in the way and was now, in its true appearance, tightly attached to Ji Xiaoman’s feet.

The latter’s breathing didn’t even fluctuate in the slightest.

The wreckage and garbage machinery she used to avoid in the past were now replaced by bushes. The clear air wasn’t conducive to hiding but allowed her to perform more dangerous actions without the need to breathe excessively and choke on the poisonous fog. Her prey was still the same.

It was just that the former mechanical hunter wasn’t fighting alone this time.

After making sure that the distance was close enough, Ji Xiaoman picked up the wristband sent by Ruan Lijie and quickly connected it.

“How’s it going?” She spoke extremely fast.

“Wait for the signal,” the other party responded quickly. “Yu Le will pick you up.”

They stopped the conversation before the Mainbrain detected a possible abnormal signal. Ji Xiaoman lowered her body—The information coming from the wristband was brief with very little instructions on what she had to do, so it was more like giving her free reign to act.

There was only one requirement in the plan. She needed to contain the guards in the hospital.

There was no explanation of the preparatory plan, nor was there a backup in case she failed to deal with the situation. She didn’t know if the planner had calculated her strength, or if they had everything under control so that it could withstand the consequences of her failure.

…Or they were planning to use her as a distraction and then abandon her.

She knew that there was no binding treaty between them, and that at most it was a loose alliance of interests. In terms of strength, Ji Xiaoman didn’t think she was an indispensable part. The first two situations were fine, but the last situation could cost her her life.

But she still came.

Ji Xiaoman poked the raspberry sticker on her arm with her metal fingertips, stuffed a few parts at the nervous iron bead, lowered her body, and stared at the moving machinery in the distance.

Maybe it was a stupid thing to talk about trust between them, but Ji Xiaoman just felt that even if Tang Yibu and Ruan Lijie abandoned her, Yu Le would at least try to do something.

She let the bushes tightly cover her thin body and melted her breath into the rustle of the trees. There were no smart electronic devices in operation on her body.

This was the hunting she was familiar with, she thought. Now she just needed to wait…

As a result, as soon as the thought crossed her mind, the signal suddenly appeared.

Although she was prepared for the coming changes, Ji Xiaoman was shocked by the signal in front of her. This was no longer a simple message used to tell companions to act, but a clear provocation.

A huge blood-red smiley face exploded above the prevention shelter, and then quickly copied and spread in all directions—Tang Yibu must have hacked into the weather balance system and used micro-drones floating in the sky to project this.

The red lines wove into a web of light, binding the blue sky tightly within. The nearby electronic surveillance turned towards the sky at almost the same time. The mechanical guards on patrol stopped moving, while the humanoid guards were in disarray and began to communicate in a panic.

Now.

Ji Xiaoman leapt out. Her long sleeves were completely shredded by the blade that just popped out. She split the electronic eye like a fruit, then picked up its incomplete parts and spent a few seconds reconnecting the lines, causing it to become a mini bomb. She threw it towards the group of mechanical guards.

The Mainbrain kept a tight watch on all materials that could be related to dangerous goods, but she had the knowledge obtained during her purgatory and the junkyard. Not a single rotten bone would go to waste.

Without weapons, it was natural to seize the opponent’s resources to the maximum extent possible. Such was the natural life in the Underground City.

The effect of the mini-bomb explosions wasn’t satisfactory, but it raised enough smoke. Ji Xiaoman walked through the smoke alone as her prothesis blade vibrated at high-speed while cutting through the mechanical guards that were thrown into disarray due to the changes.

The iron bead dawdled in the bushes for a while and saw that the protective net woven by the opponent was broken. It stretched out its four legs and sneaked out. Every time Ji Xiaoman split a mechanical guard, it filled itself up with two mouthfuls to ensure the other party couldn’t get back up.

The destruction didn’t last for half a minute before the human-looking guards reacted. They didn’t make a sound as more than a dozen bullets lased along with a destruction beam.

Ji Xiaoman directly raised her arms and flipped her body dexterously in midair. She avoided most of them while the rest were blocked by her metal arms.

Under the red sky, the smoke and dust raised also showed a lot of blood. The peace and tranquility of more than ten minutes ago disappeared without a trace.

At the same time, thick smoke rose from the corners of the white building in the distance, and several alarms rang out simultaneously. The patients evacuated from the building with the help of the assistant robots and ran head-on into the chaos stirred up by Ji Xiaoman. The scene faintly showed signs that things were getting out of control.

“Encountering a combat bionic. Requesting backup.” One of the guards finally spoke. After he asked the communicator for help, he immediately turned to his companions. “Not good. Turn on the cyberbrain shield—Ugh.”

As a result, before he finished speaking, Ji Xiaoman flashed away and stepped on his shoulder. Her sharp fingertips gently cut the guard’s neck, revealing the bionic tissue underneath, without any blood oozing out.

“Remote control humanoid,” Ji Xiaoman murmured in a low voice.

The next moment, she simply cut off his head.

The vision in the sky didn’t disappear, and the remaining guards quickly activated the cyberbrain shield, but unfortunately, it didn’t affect Ji Xiaoman. Seeing the confused face of the guard operating the machine, she couldn’t help but smile at him.

The long-sleeved shirt originally used to cover her prosthetic limbs had already become tattered. Her metal arms and legs were all exposed, reflecting a little red light from the smiling face in the sky.

“This is impossible.” The man finally felt a little flustered. “A human? How can there still be disabled humans now—”

“There are,” Ji Xiaoman said softly, and then used the blade to cut the support joint of the nearest guarded machine. “There are many of us.”

The sharp sirens pierced her eardrums, and more and more machines were drawn over. Ji Xiaoman expressionlessly coped with the situation while starting to look around for a way out. The beam of light shooting over became more intense and one happened to graze her left arm, leaving it half burnt. The iron bead closed its mouth in fight and clung to her backpack, pretending as if it was a large pendant.

This wasn’t a battle that could be won from the start.

The people under the Mainbrain weren’t as easy to fool as those gangsters in the Underground City. After finding out she was a human, the rest of them had no plans for any more discussion. After relying on crowd tactics to deplete her combat ability, the guards directly put down their backpacks and took out their sonic weapons.

Ji Xiaoman reluctantly raised her head. Not far from the sky, dozens of small aircraft were swooping over, and the ground reinforcements increased.

The response from the Mainbrain was too quick.

The sound of metal falling to the ground, the heckling and shouts of the guards, mixed with shrill sirens and the sounds of weapons, all combined together like a fist that punched her stomach. Ji Xiaoman gritted her teeth as her ears started to ache.

‘Must retreat,’ she thought as she took a step back.

Her ears were numb. It wasn’t until an arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her out of the battlefield that Ji Xiaoman noticed the hoverbike behind her.

“Good job, little profiteer.” Yu Le’s driving speed was frighteningly fast.

The hoverbike looked like it was temporarily welded together with various medical equipment. Yu Le drove as fast as the wind. The surrounding scenery became a mass of colors. She felt as if she was sitting on an accelerated rocket. Ji Xiaoman clung to her seat, gripped her hands in terror, and stopped breathing—God only knew how Yu Le could see the road going at this speed.

The hoverbike circled the battlefield for several large circles, leaving behind the various attacks that swarmed after it. It even hit a few machines that tried to attack it at close range.

Yu Le smiled sullenly a few times, while Ji Xiaoman could feel the vibration in her chest.

“It’s still so refreshing.” His voice was blown away by the wind, and Ji Xiaoman almost couldn’t hear it clearly.

“What about the other two?”

“Coming soon.”

Gong Siyi only hoped that he could faint or report to the Order Supervisors early so he could become a patient.

He thought that the guys lurking in the hospital were greedy for materials and forged a few accidents that weren’t too excessive. Naturally, they would leave after they were satisfied. The prevention shelter was one of the key places for the Order Supervisors. No one would think about doing something so big in such a place.

It turned out that some people really did think so.

When he saw the blood-red smiley face spreading along the sky dome centered on the prevention shelter, his newly replaced remote-controlled humanoid almost choked on a mouthful of water. Then, when the evacuation alarm sounded, Gong Siyi tasted the cruelty of life for the very first time.

He should start his own employee emergency aircraft and evacuate first.

Countless damage points flickered on the light screen. A fire broke out from the data room in the prevention shelter. It was obvious that it was calculated to leave a clear pathway for personnel to evacuate while doing enough fatal damage to the building. No matter who the Red Ghost were, looking at their actions, they sure liked to make a big splash.

Wrong. Gong Siyi suddenly panicked.

With such a loud noise, most of the people hiding here would escape. As long as he pulled out the patient’s data and compared it one by one, he would naturally be able to find those who disappeared afterwards.

Anyway, this body was just a remote-controlled humanoid. Gong Siyi simply didn’t intend to escape anymore. Along the flames, he hurriedly connected to the database that had begun to show anomalies, confirmed the permission, and tried to save all the information from this week that hadn’t been uploaded to the Mainbrain yet.

Even if this body was burned down, as long as there was time to rescue part of the information, there may still be a chance for him to earn some merit…

Gong Siyi panted with joy, ignoring the hot air, and began to operate quickly on the slightly distorted light screen.

However, the data that appeared wasn’t a list, not a medical record, but just another huge smiley face.

“Fuck—”

The aircraft that should have been completely under his control rose into the air, smashed through the window, and rushed into the thick smoke. Gong Siyi raised his head blankly, and through the thick smoke, he could vaguely see two figures above.

Dr. Gong stopped breathing, rolled his eyes, and simply disconnected his connection with the remote-controlled humanoid.

The edge of the city.

“Go back.” Zhuo Muran suddenly spoke.

“Commander, the course has been set. I’m afraid it’s not appropriate to change direction now.”

“Prepare a single-person aircraft.” Zhuo Muran spoke decisively.

“There are enough garrisons in the city. There won’t be any problems. If you’re really worried, I can help you contact the city administrator.”

“Pre-start the aircraft. I need to set off within 20 seconds.”

“…I need your justification, sir. Emergency calls to the aircraft on board must provide appropriate requisition records. Even if it is you—”

Zhuo Muran looked at the blood-red smiley faces covering the sky and tightened his brow.

“Intuition,” he replied dryly.

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 133: Before the Chaos

Tang Yibu couldn’t figure it out.

Mr. Ruan was clearly describing an almost impossible thing, but it could be inferred from his tone that the other party thought it would happen. This confused him—since they stepped into Luo Fei’s ward, everything that happened had confused him. Mr. Ruan hadn’t had much contact with Luo Fei. He only had a few encounters with the young man, yet he was able to make his conjecture so certain.

The night was about to end, and his Mr. Ruan, who hadn’t closed his eyes since the start of the joint therapy, was now sleeping heavily. Though he was fused with the S-type Prototype, the body wouldn’t be too fragile, but mental exhaustion still existed.

Tonight, they just simply stuck together. Tang Yibu hugged his Mr. Ruan to sleep—he gently rested his chin on top of the other’s head, hugged the person in his arms, and stared at the dark blue sky dyed by the night.

Tang Yibu couldn’t sleep.

The cybernetic brain could recognize hormones, and the endorphins brought about by affectionate behavior should have had a positive impact on his emotions, but he still couldn’t sleep, as if a hedgehog was walking in his stomach.

It was difficult for people born in the jungle to distinguish distance by size and difficult for those with color blindness to distinguish colors. These differences aside, most humans observed the world in similar patterns, with the brain instinctively absorbing what it observed. In fact, most of the information was sifted out, leaving only bits and pieces of memory left in the brain.

It was difficult for people to remember every signboard they passed by, every stone brick they stepped on, or even the repeated patterns of the stone brick road.

The information was chopped once, sifted through, and chopped again.

This wasn’t the case for him. Tang Yibu had always observed the world greedily. When he stared at a flower, he imagined it from its germination stage to when the flower would wither. Countless details and calculations tumbled in his mind, nonstop. The texture of the leaves, the folds of the petals, the number of stamens, then its state, life span, and finally the moment of decay.

In this noisy world, only his Mr. Ruan was covered in mist.

Originally, Tang Yibu thought so.

Although he had hit a series of walls on the subject; twelve years without a solution, he was still very confident in his computing power and information reserves—he just hadn’t collected the key information and human samples were limited. However, this problem could be solved with time.

But if the inference of the person in his arms was correct, then it could be true that there were many uncovered truths he hadn’t seen over the years, and he didn’t know how much information he had missed. This idea made the hedgehog in his stomach give up walking and start tap dancing.

Tang Yibu breathed anxiously and decided to shift the center of his thinking to planning how to escape this place.

Commander Zhuo of the Order Supervisors had left, which meant security would go through an adjustment process, shifting from strict to lax. Ji Xiaoman, who was outside, could use her own skills and seize the opportunity to create a wave of chaos. Then they could take advantage of the chaos and escape here silently.

Tang Yibu thought about the plan from beginning to end twice, back and forth, but still couldn’t fall asleep. Seeing the sky outside the window gradually light up, Tang Yibu huffed in dissatisfaction, then lowered his head and kissed his Mr. Ruan.

Mr. Ruan should be awake, but apparently was too lazy to care about Tang Yibu. He let the other party bite his lower lip and continue to sleep. However, when Tang Yibu used his tongue aggressively, he had to wake up.

Wrapped in the body temperature of the android, and exhausted to the extreme. Ruan Xian slept so happily that he gave birth to the notion of just staying in bed. Unfortunately, Tang Yibu had no intention of letting him go as he gave him an overly intense good morning kiss.

Ruan Xian didn’t hesitate. After the other party turned the pecking kiss into a deep kiss, he turned over and held down the unprepared Tang Yibu, and kissed him back fiercely, until the android began to make a serious whining protest because of lack of oxygen.

“Strange for you to have insomnia.” Ruan Xian noticed Tang Yibu’s malaise. “Is it because I put the blood guns under the pillow?”

“…Aren’t they hidden in the assistant machine?” Tang Yibu stiffened.

“Well, I feel it’s more exciting to play like this. I’ll put it back in a while.” Ruan Xian yawned and laid unceremoniously on Tang Yibu’s chest. “What’s the matter with you?”

For a moment, Tang Yibu looked a little aggrieved.

“Why are you so sure that Luo Fei will ‘do stupid things’?”

“His emotional state, combined with the resources in his hands… What’s wrong?” Ruan Xian got out of bed first and started to get dressed. “It’s not like it’s a problem that can stump you.”

“The long-dead ‘Luo Fei’ and him have nothing to do with each other, and Pear Blossom is on the verge of collapse. He’s not an important member, and he doesn’t have the kind of assertive personality that dares to reverse the situation on his own. On top of that, it’s impossible to immediately accept the situation on the outside. Even if there was emotional influence, Luo Jian’s final decision was obviously in his favor, so he shouldn’t be—”

Tang Yibu hesitated on the wording for half a second.

“—He shouldn’t have a hurt appearance. Why can you understand it so easily?”

Ruan Xian’s movements stopped. He didn’t know how to explain the problem.

This wasn’t a question that could be expressed and understood by language alone.

Tang Yibu sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hands on it, looking over with burning eyes. The sun was rising behind him, gradually breaking through the dark blue shadow in the room. Ruan Xian was in a daze for a while, and a certain scene passed through time and space, gradually overlapping with everything in front of him.

It was also early in the morning. After New Year’s Eve, it was the first morning of the new year.

Except for a few people who must preside over the project, most of the employees in the institute had already gone home for New Year’s. He was almost left alone in the underground living area of the institute. Ruan Xian simply got some food and went to the computer room of NUL-00 to pass the time.

When he entered the door, NUL-00 was trying to adapt the rustic old songs used at New Year’s into a grand and mournful symphony. The walls projected a lot of sketch-like stick figures, making the computer look like a murder scene.

For a moment, Ruan Xian seemed to turn around and leave, but the hot air in the computer room was really comfortable, and he hesitated for a few seconds before directing the wheelchair to enter.

[Dad.] NUL-00 threw the word head-on.

[…I told you, I don’t accept this kind of name.] Ruan Xian sighed, feeling a headache coming on.

[Combining real-time information from various places, this is the most intimate name for today’s atmosphere.] NUL-00 solemnly stated. [According to custom, now you should give me New Year’s money.]

At that time, Ruan Xian was very sure that if his condition worsened prematurely, most likely it was due to anger from this thing.

[I’m not your father, and there’s no New Year’s money.] After taking a deep breath, Ruan Xian said gently.

[:(]

[Let’s watch a movie.] Ruan Xian had become accustomed to dealing with NUL-00’s increasingly disconnected expressions.

[:D]

Ruan Xian chose a murder film unexpectedly while heating the liquid food used for breakfast on the radiator of NUL-00. As a result, the plot had just reached its climax, and NUL-00 had gone into the 100,000 reasons mode.

[According to the current mainstream values of humans, the male protagonist has no reason to be angry. It’s just that he has repeatedly denied it with reference to reality. No one has attacked him with language or actions that exceed the standard. His socioeconomic status is middle or upper class. Why would he show a state of being hurt?]

This was its first question, and it threw an entire long paragraph along with it.

[The rating of this film is not low. Why can humans easily understand it?]

This was the second question.

Thinking about it now, it was one of the few warm moments in his life. It was a pity that because the project was scrapped by “Professor Ruan”, NUL-00, who had spent five years with him and should have accompanied him to the end of his life, disappeared from this world first.

Ruan Xian couldn’t help but stretch out his hand and pat Tang Yibu’s cheek lightly.

[It’s hard to explain.] At that time, he once replied like this.

“It’s hard to explain.” Ruan Xian salvaged those answers from the past.

[But in my delicate situation, I can understand a thing or two now.]

“You know my condition. Despite the personality defect in me, I could understand a little bit.”

[So I think one day, you can too.]

“…I think one day, you can—” Ruan Xian failed to finish.

The hand he used to caress the side of Tang Yibu’s face was clenched tightly. The android’s gaze was unprecedentedly complicated, so much so that he couldn’t understand it.

“It’s time for us to have breakfast, Mr. Ruan. Today’s breakfast is xiao long bao with gravy.” Tang Yibu stood up, and his tone was somewhat irrefutable. Ruan Xian raised his eyebrows and drew his hand back forcefully.

“Tang Yibu, what are you—”

“Mr. Ruan.” A knock on the door was accompanied by a familiar female voice. “I, ahem, this is Li Han. Please open the door.”

Ruan Xian glanced at Tang Yibu with a subtle expression, then walked to the door and opened it.

Li Han’s eyes were severely swollen, her voice sounded lost, and her mental state wasn’t right. She struggled to smile and showed sadness mixed with eerie exuberance.

“I’m here to deliver a message. Luo Fei wants to talk to you.” The girl didn’t seem to be planning to quit Pear Blossom.

“Luo Fei?”

“…It can be said that it is Luo Fei.” She used a rather ambiguous statement. “If it’s convenient for you two…”

“Let’s go now,” Tang Yibu said, and his expression became a little more complicated.

“I would like to provide more information about Professor Ruan.”

When they found Luo Fei, the young man had already eaten his xiao long bao at Luo Jian’s old sitting spot. His appearance hadn’t changed, but his eyes looked more mature, and the sharpness unique to young people was heavily exuded in his body.

“Why did you change your mind?” Ruan Xian sat down opposite him and accepted it very naturally.

“I was… My dad was too cautious before, and he had a deep relationship with that person. I’m not the same.” Luo Fei took a bite of the xiao long bao and smiled embarrassedly, claiming to be still a bit confused. “His trust and protection of Professor Ruan were too over the top. I don’t have that kind of heart. I want to make a deal with you two.”

The tone of this sentence was very similar to the Luo Jian he knew.

“My place, no, my dad has a disposable communication device that can evade the detection system. He hasn’t had time to use it yet. You can take it.”

“Let’s talk about the content of your deal first.” Ruan Xian raised the corners of his mouth with interest.

“Zhuo Muran is leaving today, and you guys are done talking to my dad, so I guess you’ll be leaving as well.” Luo Fei put down his chopsticks and took a sip of his millet porridge. “Cause chaos and leave quietly, right? At the beginning, Professor Ruan also discussed a similar plan with my… dad.”

“So what?”

“I hope that you two will leave with a bang.” Luo Fei gave a rather old-fashioned smile.

“…I guess this means more than a test of strength.”

Luo Fei’s eyes floated for a few moments, showing a bit of praise and relief that wasn’t normally seen on a young man. “The next piece of information is my advance deposit. According to what I know about Professor Ruan, there’s a high probability that he’s still watching this place, and I have a guess about his whereabouts. If you guys make it out alive, I’ll share my conjecture with you.”

“I hope the Red Ghost is strong enough to get you two out of here. If you perform well, Professor Ruan might really be willing to cooperate with you.”

“And this will create an environment for Pear Blossom to raise morale and excite the people.”

“More than that.”

Luo Fei, who had mixed Luo Jian’s memories into him, raised his head and spoke in a flat tone.

“You can also think of this as a signal. I want to convey this news and let Professor Ruan open his eyes and take a good look. His fire is far from being completely extinguished.”

Ruan Xian turned his face and looked at Tang Yibu, only to find that the android happened to be watching him too.

“Okay.” Before he could speak, Tang Yibu spoke first. “This is my opinion.”

“I agree too.” After thinking about the escape route for a while, Ruan Xian didn’t have much resistance to this crazy request. As a cover-up, the name of the Red Ghost would become known sooner or later. He could confirm Yu Le’s opinion afterward. As a great ruins pirate in the Sea of Ruins, Yu Le would probably not object.

“It seems that the cooperation is basically settled, so I will make more preparations.” Tang Yibu took off the collar of the doctor’s uniform and, in a rare moment, didn’t touch his breakfast.

“I’ll wait for good news from you,” Luo Fei said as he sipped his porridge. “…Xiao Han, try this xiao long bao. It tastes really good.”

Seeing that Tang Yibu was in the wrong state, Ruan Xian didn’t have much thought to continue eating breakfast. He nodded to Luo Fei and walked out of the cafeteria with Tang Yibu.

“I didn’t expect you to be quite straightforward,’ Ruan Xian said in a chatty tone. “Doing this kind of big move under the eyes of the Mainbrain… The previous you wouldn’t agree to this.”

“I have estimated the risk, and the risk is within my tolerance.” When he said this, Tang Yibu didn’t look at him. “Since all three of you want to see Ruan Xian, it’s more realistic to seize information from a reliable source than to try our luck.”

“What else?” Tang Yibu had never had the habit of sacrificing himself for the sake of others, and Ruan Xian had no intention of being fooled by the other party in this way.

Tang Yibu stopped and turned to Ruan Xian.

“There’s a problem with my subject. As far as I know, Professor Ruan will have very important reference materials.”

“…What else?”

“I questioned my ability to judge.” Tang Yibu’s voice was very soft. “…Mr. Ruan, I’m also a little curious about the answer to your question: ‘Is it the real Ruan Xian?’.”

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 132: Spark

“I recorded the potential positioning and route in the wristband, but I can’t seem to locate Ji Xiaoman. You can use the data in advance.” Ruan Xian’s expression was serious. “Don’t eat it, π.”

“Gwah.” Under the opened assistant robot shell, the three small eyes of the iron bead gleamed.

Ruan Xian fixed his wristband to the iron bead and used the parts obtained yesterday to make a simple data transmission device to ensure that this little thing could easily obtain data. It couldn’t understand very complicated problems, but it was enough to find someone.

“After finding Ji Xiaoman, you give her the wristband and act with her.”

“Gwah?!” The iron bead shook the two blood guns hidden in the assistant mechanical shell.

“It doesn’t matter. As long as we don’t push Gong Siyi too hard, he can meet some of our requirements. I’ll get a real assistant machine and transform it.”

The iron bead couldn’t express its emotions on its face, but Ruan Xian could feel a weird aura. The reaction of this little thing was a bit like that of a cat in a documentary that found a new pet in the house.

“We’ll leave here soon and meet up with you,” he hurriedly added, and sprinkled a handful of parts into the shell where the iron bead was hiding. Only then did the iron bead turn its head, put a few parts in its mouth, and wandered out the door.

It was difficult for people to leave, but if the iron bead was hidden in the gap of a mechanical transport vehicle, there was no problem with leaving quietly.

Basically, everything that should have been prepared was ready. Ruan Xian rolled his shoulders and glanced at the time on the light screen. Seeing that it was time for dinner, Tang Yibu still hadn’t shown up.

Having said that, they didn’t make any agreements. The fake second hand on the light screen slid round and round. Ruan Xian hid the blood guns, stretched out his waist, and decided to have a meal first. With the iron bead gone, he was the only living thing left in the room. For the first time, Ruan Xian felt a little empty here.

It was just that before he had time to step out of the room, Tang Yibu flashed to the door while humming a tune. He was accompanied by a stifled Yu Le and a dull-witted mechanical assistant.

“Mr. Ruan!” The android still looked carefree, spreading his arms open as if asking for a hug. “I’m done with my side of things.”

“Me too.” Ruan Xian smiled subconsciously.

“Ahem.” Yu Le coughed loudly, breaking the weird, relaxed atmosphere in the room. “It’s not fucking dark yet. Let’s talk about the things we need to discuss first.”

“I figured out how Luo Jian snuck into the hospital. Unfortunately, it’s of little value to us—Ruan Xian got him a device to store memories repeatedly. Now he’d taken out his real memories and poured in fake ones.”

Tang Yibu spoke in a narrator-like tone.

“Even if Mr. Ruan and I can complete the installation quickly, it’ll take a long time and suitable materials to make artificial memories. The people here are waiting for Mr. Ruan’s ‘memory to recover’. Afterwards, they will make him undergo memory screening, so it’s unrealistic to leave in the same way.”

Yu Le drew a breath from between his teeth. Ruan Xian didn’t speak. They didn’t need Tang Yibu to explain too many details. However, two seconds later, Yu Le grasped the point of the matter.

“Wait, wait, what do you mean? If Xiao Ruan can’t leave like this, what about me?”

“Isn’t it good for you to live here?” Tang Yibu blinked. “We have made a fairly safe fake identity for you. The reason you came in has nothing to do with abnormal memory, so you won’t undergo memory screening. There’s food and water here, and you don’t have to work yet. You can wait for the time to pass before you’re discharged from the hospital.”

“Then how do I go back to the Sea of Ruins?”

“The difficulty of leaving here is lower than entering. With your ability, you should be able to figure out a way by yourself.” Tang Yibu sounded confident. “The most appropriate thing for us to do now is to kill you and fundamentally ensure our safety, but you’re very interesting, and the egg custard you make is really delicious—”

“Do I still want to thank you?” Yu Le’s voice was weak.

“You’re welcome,” Tang Yibu responded very solemnly.

“Fuck you. Forget it. That’s it, Xiao Ruan, I want to go with you.” Yu Le rolled his eyes and quickly lost his willingness to communicate with Tang Yibu. “I’m starting to get annoyed with this shit from the Mainbrain. When you find Professor Ruan, I want to talk to him too.”

The former great ruins pirate was quick. Before Ruan Xian could speak, he continued, “If I go with you, you’ll get a car. It’s always convenient to have a car. The little profiteer is too arrogant and you two are too whimsical. At a critical moment, at least I can somehow help. The things I have seen are disgusting, but this journey is also quite exciting.” 

“Mr. Ruan, I still have to say, don’t get too close to humans—” Tang Yibu seized the opportunity to interrupt.

“Let’s talk about something unrelated. I still have a lot of Carol Young’s old songs in my car. If we get some fresh ingredients from here, I can cook good food on the road.” Yu Le quickly shot back.

Tang Yibu immediately closed his mouth, pretending that he had never said anything.

“I have no opinion.”

Ruan Xian really didn’t mind. Yu Le had a quick brain, was ruthless, and had a good talent for operating large-scale machinery. It was hard to say when such a person would come in handy but taking Yu Le with them meant they could protect their own information.

“There are also fresh eggs in the kitchen here.” Tang Yibu began to make strange remarks.

“The transaction has to be fair.” Yu Le gave Tang Yibu a sideways glance. “Just like before, I want a whole novel.”

“Deal.”

“Regarding the whereabouts of Professor Ruan, have you found anything there?” Ruan Xian pinched the bridge of his nose and decisively interrupted the unintended conversation between the two.

“No.” Tang Yibu quickly broke open the assistant robot and took out a memory storage device the size of a can with the brand of the prevention shelter printed on it. “Luo Jian changed his memory too fast. I promised the little girl to help him make a memory backup before I knock out this information.”

He tossed a metallic glowing jar into the air. “Something happened with Luo Jian halfway through, so she ran away. Now I have to send it over.”

“Can’t you look at what’s inside?” Yu Le obviously didn’t care much about the usual moral concepts.

“Can’t. Memory screening is only a fixed-point identification, and it requires a large processor and time to sift through the memories aimlessly. Of course, it’s easier to inject the memories directly into a cybernetic brain or into the human brain, but then there’s an increased likelihood of a personality breakdown.”

Tang Yibu turned to look at Yu Le. “Yu Ge, if I pour this thing into your head… Mr. Ruan and I can make a bet that you will think you are “Yu Le” or “Luo Jian”, or simply go crazy.”

“I was just asking,” Yu Le clicked his tongue loudly. “So now we send something to that little girl and then—”

“Then wait for the commander of the Order Supervisors to leave and escape from here.”

“This can be discussed after dinner.” Tang Yibu held the jar in both hands, lengthening his tone as his voice became a little softer. “Do you want to go together, Mr. Ruan? The original version is still in Li Han’s hands. Aren’t you curious about Ruan Xian’s design?”

Yu Le shuddered. “Fuck, I’m not going to join the fun. Since we’re leaving tomorrow, I’ll go and see if there’s anything I can take away.”

After arriving at the scene, Ruan Xian knew what Tang Yibu meant by “Luo Jian had an accident”.

Luo Jian and Li Han were both in Luo Fei’s room. Luo Jian’s expression was uneasy and disturbed. Li Han’s eyes were swollen while Luo Fei’s entire face was pale, with a little despair in his eyes, as he was holding an old wooden box tightly in his hands.

“Miss Li, I found something that you had dropped.” Tang Yibu smiled and handed over the metal jar wrapped in fabric.

“What is it?” Luo Fei’s had a hard inquisitive tone.

“My stuff…” Li Han’s voice was very low.

Luo Fei stared at her with red eyes.

“What are you arguing about?” It could be seen that Luo Jian tried to stabilize the scene with the authority of an elder, but unfortunately, he wasn’t successful. “Feifei, I know you feel uncomfortable. I’ve been confused these past few years and given you a hard time… I’m getting better though. We can go home together soon. Xiao Han is just a junior that I take care of in passing. You, quickly return other people’s things.”

“Does a junior have such a valuable thing?” Luo Fei secretly shook the memory storage device in his hand, trying very hard to suppress his voice. “I’ve seen promotional materials for something like this in bars, and the large-capacity model ‘Game of Life’ has only recently been released. But this… This looks very old.”

Luo Fei’s lips were shaking, and Tang Yibu raised his eyebrows.

In his impression, Luo Fei couldn’t be called brave. The young man did make a small resistance against the Mainbrain, and he had the unique vigor of youth, but he wasn’t impulsive. He was just an ordinary young man with a little bit of ideas in his head.

The other party didn’t seem injured, and he also had a healthy father, but Luo Fei looked as if he had been stabbed in the chest with a poisonous dagger as tears pooled around his eyes.

“It has nothing to do with you how they got it. Luo Fei, have you forgotten what I taught you?” Luo Jian’s tone became stern. “This is a prevention shelter. Are you thinking you haven’t stayed here long enough, ah? Are you in a hurry to cause trouble?”

“Did you really teach me that?” Luo Fei spoke in a dreamy tone.

He walked forward and stretched out his hand to Luo Jian, with a small object lying in his palm. Tang Yibu had seen it. It was the only other thing left in the wooden box. In terms of value, it was indeed useless scrap.

A candle head that was covered with dirt and was yellowed by the passage of time was lying in Luo Fei’s hand.

It was something that could never exist in this city.

“Dad,” he said. “Are you really the one who taught me?”

However, Luo Jian looked at the candle with a confused expression. He frowned and looked carefully for a while.

“What is this? A candle?” He replied like this. “Xiao Han, where did you get it? What age is this where candles still exist?”

Luo Fei stood quietly for a long time, like a puppet without clockwork. When he raised his head again, his expression was quite calm, and his gaze swept past Tang Yibu meaningfully.

“Ah, it’s just a joke.” He rubbed his eyes twice. “Li Han, I’m sorry. Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll have a good chat with Xiao Han in a while.”

Both Li Han and Luo Fei were a little confused by this sudden turn in the atmosphere.

“I want to know more about my dad’s time here. Looking at the current situation, he has basically forgotten about the past two years.”

“…Yes.”

“Can I keep this box here for now?”

Li Han clenched her fists tightly and then let go. “Nn.”

“I have something that must be confirmed.” Luo Fei’s voice still had a tremble in it. “Please understand.”

Tang Yibu showed a little bit of disappointment from missing the drama. Ruan Xian’s gaze swept over the three people in the room who had different expressions before finally stopping at Luo Fei’s hand holding the candle tightly.

He had seen this candle head, but not in reality. It was lighted in front of a simple grave.

“Let’s go, Yibu,” he said, pulling out the memory stick from Tang Yibu’s hand and putting it on the small table closest to the door. “Memory backup… Although I guess you didn’t have this idea, you probably made a good move.”

Tang Yibu turned his face slightly and looked at Ruan Xian with curiosity written on his face.

“Before leaving tomorrow, we can meet with them again and ask about the information from Professor Ruan,” Ruan Xian said softly.

“But the memory has been taken out. Li Han wanted to quit. Neither she nor Luo Fei had participated in core activities, nor do they have the personality to become leaders.”

“Sometimes people do stupid things, especially when they are stimulated,” Ruan Xian said. “Out of personal desire, people do stupid, impulsive, and incomprehensible things… In most cases, those behavior won’t have any result and even negative impact, which contribute no value to personal development.”

“Yes.”

“But that probability is never 100%.”

Early the next morning. Auntie Yan, who couldn’t sleep, lit a cigarette in the shop.

‘It’s all over,’ she thought. This was the first day of true “freedom”. She knew Luo Jian and knew how he would deal with this situation.

The hub had disappeared, and the party had ended. After all, it was destined that the question of “whether to give up” couldn’t be held on for too long—it only took one core member who intended to give up and come forward and cross the line to destroy the fragile web. It was always easier to destroy than to build and operate, and those who decided to persist remained at a disadvantage.

It turned out that this was indeed the case.

Ruan Xian’s disappearance made her gradually tired, and now that she was suddenly liberated, the exhaustion still lingered. Auntie Yan simply closed the small bar and connected herself to the temporary spiritual space again.

This time there wasn’t anyone in the small house.

She threw off her shoes and walked barefoot on the thick carpet. Her eyes swept over the vague decorations, as if she was bidding farewell to them in silence. Unconsciously, she walked to the familiar door again.

When she opened the door, this time, only an ordinary room would be waiting for her.

But she still dawdled with her keys, counting them one by one, and then inserted them into the keyhole.

‘So stupid,’ she thought.

The door opened in response, and the sun shone into the dim corridor. A few pear flower petals flew in and fell on the thick carpet. The sky across the door was blindingly blue, and the building was hauntingly familiar.

On the other side of the door was a prevention shelter, but there were no patrolling electronic eyes, no mechanical guards, and no signs of patients. There was only a short boy standing by the blooming pear tree. As if aware of her arrival, the child turned his head. It was a face she had seen before.

She remembered a child of about ten years old, but he had already died and should’ve been buried under the distant permafrost.

Auntie Yan covered her mouth with both hands so that she could swallow her screams and choke.

The boy in a hospital gown opened his mouth, looking as if he wanted to subconsciously call out “Xiao Yan”, but stopped in time. He stood in a daze for a while, his eyes finally became firm again, but slowly reddened.

“Auntie Yan. I… I’m not skilled enough, but I’ll finish this place. I will find a way to stay in the prevention shelter while Dad recovers. No one will suspect me.”

That was what the boy said.

“I want to continue.”

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 131: The Feeling of Tragedy

“What Professor Ruan was worried about still happened,” Luo Jian said.

He didn’t show up at lunch, leaving Li Han alone to eat in silence. It wasn’t until the sun set that Ruan Xian saw Luo Jian in the activity area. He hadn’t seen him for most of the day, and the man who was originally cold and hard looked like he had aged a lot more.

Li Han wasn’t by his side this time.

For the prevention shelter, what happened today was at most a minor incident. The people who were locked up entered one by one, like raindrops that were merging into a stagnant pool, and the clouds had scattered, leaving no trace behind.

The snow-white corridor was dyed orange red by the setting sun. Luo Jian leaned against the corner of the corridor and looked at the young man in the hospital gown from a distance—the latter still had his back straightened, but he had a sense of bewilderment.

Luo Jian stared blankly for a while without any intention of stepping forward to talk to him.

“What was Professor Ruan most worried about?” Ruan Xian didn’t ask for the identity of the young man. The information from Tang Yibu was sufficient.

Luo Jian’s dead son was pulled back from the void by the Mainbrain and lived in this artificial fairy tale, firmly believing that his father had lost his mind because of too much stress.

And during this time, he “grew up” successfully.

“That’s right.” Luo Jian looked at Luo Fei again. “You have also read the diary, so you can feel some of Professor Ruan’s emotions. I relied on the system he designed to intervene in order to successfully take root here. After he contacted me, he sent in some rebels who weren’t fit for manual labor. You know this.”

“Nn.”

“Everyone came from all over,” Luo Jian said. “There aren’t many good places in those petri dishes. There’s a mess of dangerous creatures in the forest petri dish, the Underground City is full of poisonous fog, the Sea of Ruins is a giant garbage dump… Where I used to be, it snowed all year round and you had to gather together to just fight for some warmth.”

Ruan Xian listened quietly.

“To put it bluntly, resistance is a matter of struggling. Despite the Mainbrain’s abilities, Professor Ruan has worked extremely hard. I can be regarded as the earliest group of people with him, but even I was shaken in this hellish place.”

Luo Jian smiled self-deprecatingly.

“What kind of life did everyone lead before? Desperately hiding from the Mainbrain, living like street rats, just trying to survive. Resistance is not just a matter of exerting one’s strength. You have to slowly penetrate the truth, hoping that individuals will find a way to deal with the Mainbrain. The psychological pressure is very high… but people can adapt. After encountering tragedies once or twice, their blood remains hot, but over time it starts to become numb. Everyone understands the principles taught by Professor Ruan, but everyone wants to know how many cities we have taken back and how many people we have liberated, not what stage of the plan we’re in.”

“To put it bluntly, how many people can really rise to the level of righteousness? Everyone just wants to live an easy life. I’m only supporting them due to my personal enmity. After so many years of boiling blood, enthusiasm will shrink… Professor Ruan told me that the Order Supervisors had hit the rebels hard. I wasn’t surprised. At that time, he was definitely hiding other things and didn’t say anything else, but he must have realized the seriousness of the problem. Well, it’s time for a red ghost or green ghost or whatever to stand up and continue to respond to the Mainbrain.”

“There are still people in the Shade Refuge who are holding on,” Ruan Xian responded quietly, but they both knew this comfort was closer to polite words and had no practical effect.

There were people who could hold on all the time, but there were few that were truly enlightened. No one could stand against the flood.

“Although it may not be good for cooperation, let me be honest. Before the accident, Xiao Yan and the others quarreled for a long time. In this current state, the rebels can’t rise no matter what they think… As a result, an accident on my side probably pushed them past their limit. Sending these young people in is a warning to me.” Sure enough, Luo Jian skipped the topic directly.

The young didn’t want to continue and had no deep consideration. Young people who grew up here were the easiest to soften. They had no obsession and weren’t guilty of any serious crime. Most of them could leave after being locked up for a period of time.

Everyone knew that resistance was the “right” thing, but they knew better how difficult it was to keep holding on by doing the right thing.

Luo Jian’s state was really low, so it was a bit impersonal to inquire about his backup plan at this time. Not long after they separated, Ruan Xian had already begun to miss the feeling of communicating with Tang Yibu without scruples.

“Don’t you want to talk to him?” Ruan Xian tried his best to guide the topic in a gentle direction. “That’s Luo Fei, right?”

“My son died a long time ago.” Luo Jian’s expression was stiff. “I buried him in the cellar with my own hands. You have seen his grave. That way, his body will not be dug out by the wolves. The bodies we bury in the snow can always be found by the wolves.”

“Mr. Luo, what are you going to do next? I remember you said you wanted to wait for Ruan Xian.” Seeing that this topic couldn’t go further, Ruan Xian immediately changed to another one.

“I will wait for him, but not ‘like this’. I have all the information about the rebels in my mind. You see, they won’t warn me like this for no reason. Goodbye, Mr. Ruan. You saved me twice, but Pear Blossom had become like this. I’m sorry.”

Luo Jian glanced at Luo Fei again, making it clear that he was saying goodbye.

“I’m afraid I can’t provide you with more information.”

Ruan Xian didn’t plan to pursue it further. He watched Luo Jian walk out into the sun and stepped into the shadow at the end of the corridor.

“Zhuo Muran will leave tomorrow.”

Tang Yibu flashed out of the shadows, hugging Ruan Xian in a seemingly intimate manner to make sure the surveillance would capture this.

“I talked to Yu Le, and unsurprisingly, Pear Blossom only exists in name only. What are Luo Jian’s plans?”

“He had no intention of opening up. He’s quite shrewd, so I can’t force it too hard.” Ruan Xian turned his head, bit Tang Yibu’s lower lip, and whispered back, “Auntie Yan isn’t here. Except for Luo Fei, none of the members here have seen you. I’m counting on you next, Dr. Tang.”

“Mr. Ruan, this level of espionage shouldn’t be difficult for you.”

“I have other things to do.” Ruan Xian smiled slightly. “It seems that Yu Le left Ji Xiaoman alone outside. I don’t think our lady mechanic will stay put honestly.”

Tang Yibu looked at the smiling person in front of him.

It was like plucking away layers of candy to reveal the candy within. The other party’s data was carefully entered into his mind and gradually became three-dimensional. Tang Yibu touched his pocket—During their date, he also got himself some parts and secretly used them to make something else.

He made a more delicate and deadlier black earring.

Tang Yibu knew that he should put it on for his Mr. Ruan as soon as possible and completely regained the initiative to put his mind at ease, but instinctively he felt that somehow it felt inappropriate.

He had many opportunities to do so, such as last night.

With the permission of the other party, Tang Yibu came up with quite a long list of tricks he could try. He was quite sure that for a while, Mr. Ruan would be completely fooled by him and wouldn’t realize it.

He could have bitten the other party’s earlobe and replaced the earring stud as quickly as possible, but he didn’t do it. Perhaps it was because the other party was holding onto him too tightly, or perhaps it was because the other party showed a little—just a tiny bit—unreserved sense of vulnerability.

It was like a wolf showing its soft belly or a lion showing its fragile throat. He couldn’t be sure if the other party was occasionally out of control or deliberate, and he wanted to see more.

Forget it. He could wait until they escape from here. Tang Yibu maintained the smile on his face and kissed the corner of Ruan Xian’s mouth.

“Okay,” he replied, very happily.

It was a pity that the atmosphere was heavy on the side of their observation.

“Xiao Han.” Luo Jian chose the corridor closest to a pear blossom tree that was facing an open window. The little white petals fell smoothly to the floor, like flakes of snow that couldn’t be melted.

Li Han stood beside him with dodgy eyes.

“Just say it if you’re afraid. I get it.” Luo Jian smiled encouragingly.

The windows were large. As long as they faced out towards it and kept their voices low, the surveillance wouldn’t catch them. This place was found by Li Han herself, and it could be said to be the freest window in the entire prevention shelter.

“I like painting and I want to be recognized. I also feel that the current environment isn’t right.” Li Han twisted her fingers. “But everyone has been caught, and I don’t want to be discovered by the Mainbrain. What you’re doing isn’t wrong, but those things will not… Will not make me…”

“I understand. You have been assisting me in the joint dreamland for the past two years and I’m very grateful.”

Luo Jian wasn’t surprised. The dreams and hope of freedom after the rebellion had always been attractive to the young. He had always tried his hardest not to put too much pressure on this young woman who had grown up in The Glass Conservatory, but his abilities were ultimately limited.

He always had a limited ability to hold onto the people around him.

Now that he had revealed his flaws, he no longer seemed to be in control and omnipotent, and thus she finally realized the true price of resistance.

“Thank you,” he repeated. “The reason for your admission has nothing to do with Pear Blossom, nor have you met anyone other than Auntie Yan. Those people won’t get along with you. Leave Pear Blossom.”

“But don’t forget what I once told you. The Mainbrain has no right to define you… No one can define what you should like and what you should hate.”

Li Han began to sob in a low voice.

Tang Yibu hid well. He pretended to be observing the rebuilt botanical garden nearby, hiding in the blind corner of the two people’s sight and eavesdropping silently. Although not as sensitive as the S-type Prototype, he could still distinguish unwillingness and fear from the girl’s sobs.

“I don’t want to leave. I really don’t want to. But…” She stopped talking again.

“I want to ask you one more thing, Xiao Han.” Luo Jian’s voice became gentler. “It’s the same as the task I gave you at the beginning.”

“What? I don’t want it!”

“It’s okay.”

“Although I don’t have the right or am qualified to say this, Lao Luo, are you going to give up too?”

“Professor Ruan knows what I did. When he comes back and sees my situation, he’ll naturally understand what to do… I will still be me then.”

“But in case he doesn’t plan to come back…!”

“I believe he’ll come back,” Luo Jian said softly. “If I believe in the wrong person, then so be it. After all, if I don’t erase those memories, those people who were just sent in won’t feel at ease. Don’t cry. Maybe I can be discharged from the hospital with you.”

Li Han really cried this time.

Luo Jian sighed, turned around, and hugged Li Han.

“Good girl,” he said. “I’ll see you in an hour, okay?”

“I want to go with you,” Li Han murmured, her voice slurred by her swollen throat. “In that case, I want to… I want to go with you.”

Tang Yibu quietly followed the two of them all the way to the nearby botanical garden.

The botanical garden was rebuilt extremely quickly. Although only a few days had passed, there was no trace of it being burned down at all. The plants under the glass dome were still vibrant and green, and the pear blossoms were still in full bloom in their old location. The two of them, barely dodging surveillance, stood still under the pear trees.

Another perfect blind spot. Tang Yibu raised his eyebrows with interest and walked quietly behind the bushes.

Without activating any secret machinery, Luo Jian just dug out a small wooden box the size of a palm from the ground. The box had a simple style, was covered in dirt, was deeply buried on the side of the ditch, and was tightly stuck on the metal frame used to shape the terrain.

Then Luo Jian opened the box and took out a needle-like tubular machine from inside.

Tang Yibu couldn’t help but snort softly. It looked a lot like a small version of a memory cocktail, but the structure was much more complicated. The light rotating in the glass tube wasn’t blue but was emitting a dazzling white.

“You… Do you really want to do this…?”

“Professor Ruan made it so that it’s reusable. Most likely, he was prepared for this situation.”

“I don’t like him.” Li Han’s voice had a crying tone again. “He clearly guessed that this kind of thing would happen, and he also gave you a tool to replace the false memories. What is the difference between this approach and the Mainbrain—”

“Don’t say that.” Luo Jian flicked her forehead. “At least he has my consent.”

“But……”

“But you are right. Professor Ruan is indeed a bit cruel.” Luo Jian smiled with a complicated expression. “Good night, Xiao Han.”

He didn’t give Li Han time to react as he pierced the thing straight into his neck.

The dazzling white light gradually dimmed, and a gleaming golden light gradually lit up. Those lights seemed to be inhaled by the wound and spat out again. Luo Jian shook in place for a while, as if drunk, and stood still for a long time.

“Xiao Han?”

After finally standing firm, he struggled to open his mouth.

“Why are we here again? ……Why are you crying? What’s going on? This is… Oh, oh, this is what we are going to bury, right? I remember this. You wait for me for a while, I’ll bury it first. Then you have to tell me who bullied my Xiao Han.”

Li Han threw herself into Luo Jian’s arms and cried loudly.

“Don’t… Don’t bury it. It’s not safe here. Let me take it with me,” she said in a broken and desperate voice. “No one bullied me. I let you down. It’s me who let you know.”

“You child, what are you talking about—”

“Do you remember who asked you to bury it?” Li Han wiped away tears vigorously. “You don’t remember, do you? You just… You just feel like you want to bury it, right?!”

“Take it easy. Just calm down. I’ll give it to you.” Luo Jian’s entire person looked a lot gentler, without that cold and harsh aura. “Sorry, Uncle Luo’s brain isn’t very good, so he’s often confused.”

Tang Yibu frowned in the bushes. He stopped hiding, walked straight into the center of this inexplicable chaos, raised his hand, and grabbed the box. Seeing that someone in a staff uniform suddenly appeared, Li Han’s legs were weak, and she almost fell flat on her ass.

“Give it back to me!” she screamed with tears.

Luo Jian frowned. “Are you a staff member here? Don’t bully the little girl.”

Tang Yibu ignored the reactions of the two people and observed the small and exquisite mechanical device in his hand with interest. It was indeed similar in structure to a memory cocktail, but in terms of structural complexity, it could hold much more memory than a memory cocktail.

Enough to accommodate a person’s life.

“Interesting,” he said. “Little girl, if you don’t want Mr. Luo’s efforts to be in vain, I hope you’ll ask him to back off and we’ll talk alone.”

Li Han finally collapsed on the ground. Her fingers dug into the soil, turning her knuckles pale. Her face was full of tears as she shook badly. It could be seen that it took a lot of willpower for her not to faint.

“Lao Luo…No, Uncle Luo, you can go first.”

“You look like this. How could I—”

“Go!” Li Han nearly broke down and roared in a low voice. Her eyes were fixed on the mechanical device in Tang Yibu’s hand; her whole body was nervously twitching.

Luo Jian seemed to be frightened by this gesture. He slowed his movements, sighed, and retreated some distance away, looking at the two from afar.

“No need to be scared like that. Mr. Ruan should’ve introduced himself to you. Like him, I’m also a member of the Red Ghost.” Tang Yibu casually picked up the fragile machinery the size of a needle tube. The last trace of blood on Li Han’s face was given away by fear.

“I can also see that this device use to hold a lot of memory. Is this Luo Jian’s way of avoiding memory screening?”

Li Han bit her lip and said nothing.

“Unlike Mr. Ruan, I never thought about getting along with you. Stalling won’t work on me.” Tang Yibu shook his head. “Besides, let’s not talk about what I think first. My intention is to cooperate with you guys, but if you don’t say anything, there’s not much I can do.”

He paused meaningfully for a while.

“There was a fire here not long ago. It’s really not safe to bury things here, and it’s risky to carry them around. If you’re willing to talk, we can provide the tools so that you can leave a backup. Listening to Luo Jian’s statement, you don’t know the sensitive information related to the rebel army. Personally, I think this deal is quite good.”

Li Han was silent for a long time.

“This was made by Professor Ruan. It took him a long time to make this thing… He took out all Lao Luo’s memories and stored them in it. Then he made a false memory and poured it back into Lao Luo’s brain. When Lao—Lao Luo came in, from a memory level, he was indeed just an ordinary resident who had been pitted by Pear Blossom. Memory screening couldn’t find anything.”

After nearly five minutes, Li Han finally spoke.

“Then… Then Professor Ruan added hints to his memory, just like he did just now. I followed the instructions and brought Lao Luo here and asked him to change his memory according to the hints. At that time, Lao Luo had already lived for a full month, and it was impossible for another memory screening unless he became seriously ill.”

“Use fake memories to deceive the prevention shelter, and then draw them out to get back the real memories so he can be the hub for the joint dreamland. Is that right?”

“……Yes.”

Now that the matter was clear, Tang Yibu felt very satisfied.

Things weren’t complicated. The rebels had a mole and they sent people here as a threat. Unable to contact Ruan Xian, Luo Jian simply showed weakness. He injected the fake memories and would get discharged from the hospital in a fair manner, thus signaling that he, as the hub, would not carry out further activities to reassure the whistle-blower.

This could temporarily save those members of the rebel army who were still loyal, as well as the young “spark” who had not yet been reported.

Judging from the conversation just now, if Ruan Xian came back, he knew where to find Luo Jian’s true memory, and he would certainly restore his veteran. If Ruan Xian had no intention of coming back…

“How do you plan to deal with Luo Fei?” After speculating about the situation, Tang Yibu turned his attention to other issues.

“Lao—Lao Luo had just been admitted to the hospital for a week, and Luo Fei appeared before his memories were changed back.”

Li Han wiped away tears again.

“Professor Ruan… Professor Ruan said that it was a clone temporarily created by the Mainbrain. It found someone to get Luo Fei’s information, and made some simulated memories about his son, and added it to Lao Luo at that time. Thinking about it now, he knew at that time that Lao Luo would have to use that false memory sooner or later…”

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Tang Yibu nodded solemnly, interrupting Li Han’s words. “When do you want to get the backup?”

“The sooner, the better.” Li Han stared at the mechanical device in Tang Yibu’s hand sternly.

“No problem, you are welcome to supervise.” Tang Yibu put the device in his pocket. “It’ll be fine before dinner.”

“Can you return the box to me first?” Li Han whispered, pressing back a sob.

Tang Yibu glanced at the box. There were only useless fragments left inside. He gave the wooden box to Li Han readily with a standard smile.

Humans were always like this.

The future of these people was spread out in front of him. Most likely, based on the current situation, Luo Jian wouldn’t wait for Ruan Xian and is destined to spend the rest of his life in The Glass Conservatory with false memories. The rebel army sent in by Ruan Xian would be silenced, and without a central guide, the young people who develop locally wouldn’t be able to systematically persist. After her instant enthusiasm died down, Li Han, who was weak in character, would eventually leave here and return to her original life.

Pear Blossom would vanish in a few years, and perhaps the Mainbrain would create a similar organization for it to be observed as an alternate variable.

Considering each person’s characteristics, no matter how he calculated it, the possibility of this future being established was infinitely close to 100%.

He thought there was no longer a need to observe here.

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The author has something to say:

Tang is still the same ruthless Tang. It’s impossible to be bought for a few cars*, and it’s impossible he can be soft. (ψ°▽°)

*Slang for sex. || In this context it means a few rounds (of sex).

The two are confused by the strange impact of their relationship (??

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 130: Emergency Situation

The next day, sunshine sprinkled in. Ruan Xian considered for a while whether he should backtrack and pretended to forget that he still owed Tang Yibu a gift.

Famine and cold, blood and fire; everything appeared to have vanished. The room was clean as a refreshing wind poured in from the window and the sky was particularly dazzling. Tang Yibu was sleeping on his pillow, breathing evenly and deeply. His slightly long hair slid along the pillow’s depression, and a bit of sunlight fell on his handsome face.

A gentle and harmless appearance.

It was a pity that Ruan Xian was pretty sure that the calculations in this guy’s heart were louder than anyone else’s. During the date, he was able to coax him with a few sentences and promised that he would pick him up another gift. As a result, judging from the situation last night, he had absolutely paid back the other party for the blood gun schematics with interest. For the first time, Ruan Xian realized that his understanding of a certain field was extremely lacking.

Although he had the support of the S-type Prototype, his entire body still felt like it was falling apart. The intense sensory impact was so great that he couldn’t even close his eyes for most of the night. At this moment, Tang Yibu hurriedly took the time to take a nap while maintaining his innocent expression.

Ruan Xian stretched out his index and middle fingers, making them into the shape of a gun, and tapped Tang Yibu’s forehead.

“Bang,” he said.

“Mr. Ruan.” Tang Yibu opened his eyes, yawned, and wrapped the blanket comfortably around his body. “Good morning to you too.”

“The battle last night didn’t ‘leave me with the strength to speak normally’.” Ruan Xian took the lead and sat up, turned on the light screen, and checked today’s news. Although all the information had been carefully modified by the Mainbrain, a little effect could still pluck out some useful information.

“We have finished exchanging information properly, and you still have the strength to speak afterwards.” Tang Yibu moved his body lazily as he crawled to Ruan Xian’s side without hesitation and reached for a glass of water by the bed. Ruan Xian clicked his tongue and handed him the half-drunk glass.

Tang Yibu propped up his body and leisurely drank the water without any intention of crawling back. Ruan Xian stroked his hair soothingly. “Then do you remember what I said?”

“Remember. The diary records of Ruan Xian’s route and what happened on the road. He concealed a lot of key points and mentioned the matter of sending the elderly rebels into The Glass Conservatory, but he didn’t write about his conflict with Fan Linsong.”

As they guessed, since the information could be exposed to the Mainbrain, there wasn’t any sensitive content in the diary. It could even be said that it was biased towards the sentimental side. There wasn’t much information worth taking out, but it proved that there was nothing wrong with their search route.

But putting aside the intelligence perspective, it made Ruan Xian uncomfortable.

The words contained a person’s will, and Ruan Xian could sense that the diary’s writer was almost the exact opposite of himself. He could tell from reading the content that the writer, the other Professor Ruan, was passionate, had a love and care for life beyond the norm, and was unusually pure in his emotions. The joy and anger were extremely clean, and even the sadness was very typical.

It was like an overly clear ocean in the tropics.

Ruan Xian understood why people were infected by him. The other Professor Ruan had the qualities to become a leader and the mind to use them freely. There was only one hidden problem—that person was too stubborn in some ways, to the point of near paranoia.

At the end of the diary, he did discover the loss described by Luo Jian and the others.

It was a very deep and sincere disappointment and sadness. Professor Ruan didn’t write the reason, but just let the emotions filled the words slowly overflowing between the lines. The records in the diary were indeed trivial matters, and at a later stage, Professor Ruan’s mentions of others gradually became less frequent, and his descriptions of dead things became more frequent.

The diary after that was blank. According to the information obtained by the two of them, Professor Ruan rarely had contact with the people in The Glass Conservatory until he lost contact completely. At this point in time, they were a lot closer to him than when they first met Guan Haiming, but they still didn’t know his specific whereabouts.

This was also one of the reasons why they had to talk to Luo Jian. Ruan Xian moved his body and continued to look at the light screen that was reporting the latest news.

[Mr. Zhuo Muran, Commander-in-Chief of the Order Supervisors, arrived in our city yesterday and delivered a speech on crime prevention…]

“This is why the scanning system became stricter yesterday?” Tang Yibu seemed to treat Ruan Xian like a pillow as he lazily stretched his limbs.

“It seems so.” Ruan Xian stared at the man with a straight face and a cold expression on the screen. “The security level in various regions will also rise by 80%. I don’t know when he will leave.”

“Mr. Ruan, when you find Ruan Xian and get an answer, do you have any other plans?” Tang Yibu didn’t respond but instead changed the subject.

“No,” Ruan Xian replied quickly.

“If it makes no difference to you whether you are Ruan Xian or not, why do you have to go to so much effort to confirm?” Tang Yibu rolled over, lay on Ruan Xian’s lap with a blanket, and looked at Ruan Xian’s face curiously.

“I didn’t have any goals at all.” Ruan Xian looked at the bright green plants on the light screen and the dazzling sunlight that sprinkled on them. “So I just try to solve the problem that interests me the most.”

He had always lived like this and that had never changed. It wasn’t for a certain dream, or for satisfaction after success, but simply to get used to doing so.

After all, as long as there was plenty of food, water, and a place to sleep, people could live, and it was too boring not to do anything for the rest of the time.

“What about the second most interesting thing?”

“It depends on the answer I get.” Ruan Xian easily avoided this question. “Get up. You need to go to work as usual. I have to go see Luo Jian.”

“Then I’ll continue to look at the guards outside. You’re still resisting here as you failed to relax completely last night.” Tang Yibu stepped up and bit Ruan Xian’s earlobe.

Tang Yibu should have guessed something about his past, but he didn’t ask, and Ruan Xian didn’t take the initiative to mention it. They continued the conversation tacitly, pretending that the other party already knew themselves.

“If I relax a little more, I’ll be torn apart.” Ruan Xian quickly put on his clothes. “…Go.”

When the light screen was turned off, the camera was still facing Zhuo Muran’s direction. The sound of reporting continued.

[…Recently, there have been small conflicts in the border area of Country B. There are suspicious people wandering nearby. Please be vigilant and actively report abnormal behavior in the near future…]

Luo Jian was really waiting for him near the cafeteria.

“There was an accident yesterday, probably because of Zhuo Muran’s visit.” Luo Jian obviously also watched the news this morning. Seeing Ruan Xian coming over, Li Han walked behind Luo Jian, as if she wanted to say something.

“I saw it.” Ruan Xian nodded, found that the other party was still looking at him anxiously, and simply continued, “Gong Siyi only did basic emotional tests on me, nothing happened. Mr. Luo, I want to talk to you again, I wonder if you have time?”

Luo Jian nodded very lightly and sat down in his fixed position. This time it was like there were three people having breakfast together while the rest of the other patients whispered, laughed loudly, or talked about random topics like usual. The cacophony of voices drowned them out like clouds.

“About last night—” As a result, Luo Jian hadn’t had time to finish speaking when a sudden change occurred.

There was a noise outside the window, as many aircraft slowly landed. The verdant grass and leaves were swept around by the wind. The cafeteria was closest to the gate of the prevention shelter. From this perspective, Ruan Xian could barely see more than a dozen people being taken off the aircraft. Most of them were about 30 years old, well-dressed, and with angry expressions.

Among them was an acquaintance of his own.

Yu Le curled his mouth and rolled his eyes. His ruffian aura was incompatible with the people around him. Ruan Xian rubbed his temples. He and Tang Yibu hadn’t slipped out yet, but one of their own came in.

Luo Jian’s reaction was much more intense.

At first glance, the man sitting opposite him didn’t react excessively. However, Ruan Xian could hear his heartbeat beat several times faster, and his hand holding the fork trembled, causing the bottom of the plate to clatter. Li Han almost dropped her chopsticks but still held on firmly and didn’t lose her temper.

“Acquaintances?” Ruan Xian lowered his voice.

“People from Snow Blossom.” Amidst the laughter of the surrounding patients, Luo Jian mouthed his reply.

“Rebel army? If the rebel army is there, it would be more appropriate to send them to the Order Supervisors.” Ruan Xian bit into his beef pie. “Is the situation serious?”

“No, that’s the problem. All of the people there aren’t core members.”

Ruan Xian glanced again but didn’t see Auntie Yan but only found a very dazzling young man. The young man’s eyebrows and eyes were a bit like Luo Jian’s, and his back was straight, revealing the arrogance unique to young people.

“It seems that you don’t have the mind to continue chatting with me.” Seeing Luo Jian speeding up his eating speed, Ruan Xian shrugged. “Keep in touch?”

“Keep in touch.” After finishing the meal quickly, Luo Jian quickly stood up and left the cafeteria.

He himself had new things to deal with. Ruan Xian sorted out the restraint clothes on his body and walked straight to the staff area.

Gong Siyi was collapsed on the chair.

The single room in the confinement room was blown up by the two bastards, and he had to carry all the blame. His social debt had almost doubled.

Not to mention the failure to successfully get Ruan Lijie’s abnormal report, he also provoked two additional calamities who claimed to be the Red Ghost. The other party must have manipulated his remote-controlled humanoid. He only remembered the words of those two people, but their faces and voices had been disguised.

As soon as he sent Ruan Lijie away with his front foot, he got entangled with two figures with his back foot. The one surname Ruan was also quite suspicious. Gong Siyi specially called up the surveillance record of bed 231, but as a result, he was hit head on with hot restricted-level X-rated content. When he was being torn apart by two unknown figures, the person surnamed Ruan was getting hot and heavy with the person surnamed Tang again.

Looking at the concentration and dedication of those two people, as well as all the tricks that could make people’s blood boil, Gong Siyi dispelled most of his doubts—this time, Tang Yibu almost ate that poor young man surnamed Ruan alive. The madness and cruelty of those two were many times more than any kind of tenderness he’d ever seen. He didn’t know how many times they went at it, but it was completely unlike any tacit intimate relationship.

As an employee of the prevention shelter, Tang Yibu had also undergone an extremely rigorous systematic review and shouldn’t be involved in this kind of thing.

On the other hand, Tang Yibu manipulated a humanoid machine, so it was still fine, but Ruan Lijie was a real person in the flesh. Assuming that he was related to the Red Ghost but allowed himself to be tossed to the point where he could make that kind of look… If something really happened and there wasn’t any supply of advanced medication, he might not be able to escape.

The two Red Ghosts were still wandering around in the prevention shelter, and he was helpless to do anything about it.

Gong Siyi anxiously confirmed the inventory of recovery medication and asked the assistant robot to take two pictures. Then he asked another robot to go to Ruan Xian’s ward to find traces to make sure that the records he saw weren’t deliberately altered. Other than that, he could hardly do anything. Even if he used his memory as a basis to infer the identities of the two, his memory was completely unreliable.

This feeling made him inexplicably nauseous. Gong Siyi faintly felt that something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

Even now, the two lurking ghosts refused to let him go.

They didn’t appear again, but left a light screen note in his office, claiming that his remote-controlled device would stop working at a specific time, so that he could be prepared in advance so he wouldn’t collapse in an inappropriate place.

There was also an annoying blood-red smiley face at the end of the message.

‘Impossible,’ he thought. The Red Ghost had captured his weakness, so he didn’t dare take these things to report to the Order Supervisors. In case he was judged to be mentally disturbed, he may be changed from an employee to a resident here.

Gong Siyi lowered the back of the chair sadly, leaned back on it, closed his eyes resignedly, took a nap, and allowed his consciousness to be kicked away from the remote-controlled device.

The next second, the handsome humanoid sat up and moved his hands.

When Yu Le approached the consultation room of the prevention shelter, his eyes were still rolling.

“If you got something to say, spit it out.” Yu Le dug in his ears while staring at the strange doctor in front of him. “I’m in a bad mood.”

“Tell me what’s going on.” The doctor’s expression was subtly familiar. Yu Le frowned and stared at him for a while. “I have your record here—Yu Le, 36 years old, abnormal behavior… Let’s see, privately creating erotica books. After reviewing the content, it was determined that you have a serious degree of psychological abnormality and was hereby sent to a prevention shelter for correction.”

The doctor turned a few more pages. “Luo Fei in the back was also charged with a similar crime. Did the Order Supervisors bust an illegal assembly?”

“So you still want me to tell you what’s going on? Should I recite the contents of the book to you?”

“I’m even more curious why Miss Ji is not here.” The doctor smiled like a fox.

Yu Le suddenly stiffened. He squinted his eyes and looked at the doctor in front of him again, focusing on the name tag on the doctor’s chest. “Tang Yibu? When did you get a face-lift and change your name to Gong Siyi?”

Having said that, he raised his chin towards the surveillance in the corner.

“It’s just a remote-controlled humanoid. Don’t worry about surveillance. I know your personality well, so I have replaced our dialogue with a simulated one in advance.” Tang Yibu, who was manipulating Gong Siyi’s shell, replied. “Mr. Ruan informed me that Pear Blossom was directly caught. What went wrong?”

“Most likely it’s an inside job.” Yu Le then relaxed his body. “Yesterday, after we left, Luo Fei came out and Auntie Yan woke up, but her state wasn’t right. I guess something happened inside. This morning we just went out and bumped into Luo Fei, who told us to turn ourselves in quickly—he’s afraid that there was a mole in Pear Blossom, and they had reported our names.”

“…And you quickly surrendered?”

“Well he thought we couldn’t escape. In fact, he isn’t wrong. It’s not easy to run away from here.” Yu Le rubbed his chin, clearly dissatisfied. “Xiaoman is nominally my android, so I asked her to go home and get something, and then pretend to malfunction so she could escape this predicament.”

“In order to earn themselves more points for their meritorious service, it’s estimated that in the past, the informants only reported the dissemination of illegal text. It just so happens that the wind has been tight in the city recently, so they managed to round up everyone.”

Tang Yibu suddenly thought of the conflict in the spiritual world.

“I don’t know the specific details. You can just ask Luo Fei. Damn, thinking about it, laozi came in because of your book. What will happen to us? Do you know?”

“At least you’re not dead.”

“Bullshit.”

“Let me check… According to the way Gong Siyi usually handles it, you can take the initiative to admit that you are crazy like Luo Jian and your abnormal memories are all false, so you’ll actively undergo transformation here. If you refuse to receive treatment, your memory will be forcibly erased and filled with standard law-abiding memories.”

Tang Yibu quickly counted the cases in front of him.

“But there is a very troublesome place.”

“What?”

“When Mr. Ruan came in, he took memory inhibitors to avoid possible memory screening in the test. He knew that we would definitely leave before the theoretical efficacy expired, but those people are different. Not to mention whether they have time to prepare memory inhibitors, even if they are taken in time, it will be difficult to escape from here. They can only hide for a while with no means.”

“From another point of view, the average age of you, Luo Fei, and those other people isn’t too old. I guess that those that were reported are all members who are unaware of the situation in the rebel army.”

“Internal conflict. Kill the chicken to make an example of the monkey.” Yu Le reacted quickly.

“I’m a little curious.” Tang Yibu’s reaction was elsewhere.

“What?”

“If the rebels themselves are so taboo about memory screening of the prevention shelter and had no countermeasures for it, how did Luo Jian get in?”

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Kinky Thoughts:

Despite what he may think, Gong Siyi is the luckiest character in this novel… He gets to watch the adult channel for free, while we readers have to just imagine what’s going on.

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 129: Early Morning Date

When Tang Yibu successfully returned to the prevention shelter, it was nearly an hour before 5 AM. After they had finished exchanging information, he started to become nervous again.

In order to calm these unnecessary emotions, Tang Yibu decided to observe the other party’s movements first. The joint treatment had been over almost a few hours ago, and Mr. Ruan was probably in his own ward.

He specially chose bed No. 231 for the other party, and this approach to tagging his property made him happy.

Unfortunately, after avoiding all the surveillance and arriving at the room, he found the bed was empty.

The blanket was neatly folded by the assistant robot, and the iron bead stood blankly by the bed. The moment it saw Tang Yibu, it rushed over at a speed almost comparable to a cannon. Tang Yibu darted decisively, popped open the lid, and held down the iron bead’s mouth in a fluster of actions that were executed in one go. If he had been a second slower, the aggrieved bark of the iron bead would have resounded through the corridors.

“Mr. Ruan never came back?”

The iron bead whined agitatedly. Tang Yibu petted it soothingly, then checked out all the surveillance videos in the prevention shelter. The whereabouts of the other party weren’t difficult to find—his Mr. Ruan was surrounded by a group of mechanical assistants and was taken to the most remote corner of the shelter.

The confinement area.

Tang Yibu knew that the treatment methods there were cruder than the relatively mild procedures of editing memories here.

Tang Yibu was deep in thought about his difficult decision. Now that they have seen Ruan Xian’s diary, their purpose for coming here has been achieved. Should he go ahead and see Mr. Ruan in advance and get him out of that terrible place… Or should he go to the kitchen to steal some hot milk for a meal and then attend the date as scheduled?

After all, this was their first date. If he didn’t prepare a suitable gift, it would be easy to trigger the other party’s dissatisfaction. The original prepared schematics for the blood gun were already given in advance. Considering that Mr. Ruan might still have strong hostility towards him, he had thought about a backup plan in case he didn’t send out those design drawings.

For example, some exquisite snacks served with warm milk also sounded quite appropriate.

Tang Yibu rolled on the empty bed, spread out his limbs comfortably, and calculated carefully in his mind—being there on time was an important part of human etiquette. On top of that, hot milk and walnut crisps and vegetable cookies after a day spent in the freezing snow was very much on point for gifts given the setting. However, if he went in advance, he could spend more time with the other party and maybe observe reactions that he normally didn’t see.

But without the hot milk, they could only use distilled water with the walnut crisps, which didn’t sound very good.

The iron bead jumped anxiously by the bed, hitting Tang Yibu’s heel that was dangling down. Tang Yibu struggled for a while and decided to go observe the situation. Although hot milk was scarce, it wasn’t something that could only be obtained here. It was better to collect more data.

Seeing Tang Yibu get out of the bed, the iron bead finally stopped bouncing and rattled wearily.

After 4 AM, there wasn’t a figure in sight along the corridors. Tang Yibu quickly revised the surveillance along the way and walked to the confinement area with the iron bead. Unfortunately, Mr. Ruan wasn’t alone at the moment.

Tang Yibu arrived at his destination quickly. He didn’t immediately enter after confirming the condition of the room, but instead carried the walnut crisps and the iron bead and deftly climbed on the door.

A door away.

The straps on the bound clothes were connected to a mechanical table beneath him. Ruan Xian was firmly fixed to the mechanical platform. There was a familiar-looking machine parked above his head, but it was more refined, and the ends of its slender metal feet weren’t stained with black and red blood.

The one in the Underground City was a machine that removed brains, and the one he was currently facing must be something similar in function. It hadn’t started yet, as it was working on something else—four long metal needles pierced into his legs and shoulder, puncturing the parts where his nerves were densest and avoiding his internal organs.

Gong Siyi was operating the light screen by the mechanical table; his expression was extremely relaxed.

“You’ll be fine. It’ll only hurt a little at most,” he said. “This is a professional device, so the damage done to the human body is actually very small. It also comes with healing-related medication, so it won’t leave any sequelae, including scars. Please feel free to vent any of your emotions. I won’t mind.”

“But this treatment doesn’t look very formal.”

The needle should have done some tampering as it was injecting pain into his body in a simple and crude way. Ruan Xian instinctively became short of breath, but his voice remained steady.

Fortunately, Gong Siyi was now focusing on his emotional index and not his physical body. Before the other party found something strange, he could stall a little longer and find an appropriate way to deal with this.

The pain became more intense, and his muscles started spasming. Ruan Xian didn’t make a sound. He looked up and down at the small confinement room, focusing on the humming machinery, and finally his eyes swept over the small round window on the far side of the door.

Before he had time to think about whether it was suitable for escape, he couldn’t help but let out a puff.

Tang Yibu was outside the door, and Ruan Xian could see those iconic golden eyes. The doorway could have pressure monitoring installed on it, as Tang Yibu’s eyes were upside down. The bangs that normally covered most of his forehead had drooped down and were hanging softly towards the ground.

His beast-like golden eyes bent slightly as he noticed Ruan Xian looking over. Ruan Xian could see from those eyes that the android was smiling.

Tang Yibu even took out a delicate packaging box without any tension and shook it at him happily. The iron bead that occupied the other round window shivered as its breath of anxiety almost broke through the glass.

Hearing the stifled laugh, Gong Siyi turned around and frowned as it didn’t match the current scene they were in.

He was following the process, trying to use pain stimulation to amplify Ruan Lijie’s emotions, but the other party’s emotional index was like a pool of stagnant water. He almost suspected that this person had dementia, but he finally fluctuated a bit, but it went in a positive direction.

It was clear that everything was going well before—Ruan Lijie and Luo Jian clashed, and he successfully reproduced the other party’s undetectable hostility. Next, he only needed to take advantage of the opportunity of the other party being locked up in the confinement area and justifiably test Ruan Lijie’s emotional condition to obtain first-hand information.

Gong Siyi made sufficient preparations.

When Ruan Lijie was stimulated to the limit by the pain and became extremely hostile to him, he would open the other party’s skull and insert a detection probe into his brain for state sampling. With sufficient medicine and assistant machinery at hand, he was confident he would restore the other party’s state to its original condition before sunrise.

It was just that, in order to ensure the other party was sane, he couldn’t use anesthesia during the entire process. The craniotomy process may be a bit troublesome, but as long as Ruan Lijie’s memory was eliminated with no traces left, the other party wouldn’t experience any loss at all and he himself wouldn’t violate any rules set by the Mainbrain.

But contrary to the joint therapy, he had hit a wall right from the beginning—Ruan Lijie’s emotions were completely out of his control. Being stared at by the other party’s beautiful but dim black eyes, Gong Siyi felt like he had a poisonous stinger stuck in his back.

Unlike what he had expected, all the elements used to exert mental pressure didn’t have any effect. Instead of escaping the terrible scene of being pierced, Ruan Lijie carefully observed the machine that was inflicting pain on him.

‘It didn’t matter,’ Gong Siyi thought as he increased the dose of pain.

His real body wasn’t here. This was just a remote-controlled humanoid, so it was impossible for the other party to hurt him. Everything was fine.

This time the pain increase took effect. The young man who was tied up turned pale and began to whisper in a low voice. His brows were tightly locked as sweat kept flowing down.

“Don’t force it.” Gong Siyi tried to make himself sound gentle, and slowly turned around. “It’s okay, just let it out. Mr. Ruan, this isn’t joint therapy. If you endure it, you will only suffer longer. You…”

He was halfway through speaking before he couldn’t go on.

The man on the mechanical table was smiling. It wasn’t a sneer, nor a fake smile, or even an angry cackle. The young man, who was currently being pierced by a metal needle, smiled sincerely with a hint of cunningness attached to it.

“You’re not good enough to hear me scream,” he said. His black hair was soaked in sweat that clung to his skin. “I addition, I don’t like being called ‘Mr. Ruan’ by you.”

The scene in front of him had a cruel beauty. A pang went through Gong Siyi’s heart. He knew what kind of pain the other party was suffering.

Lunatic.

It stood to reason that this level of pain was enough to make most people lose consciousness, and he would have gotten a few blurry, hate-filled screams instead of rational words. ‘This person is very dangerous,’ Gong Siyi thought. After obtaining the data, he would hand him over to the Order Supervisors and get rid of this hot potato.

Even if his behavioral score was deducted, he would admit to it.

He had dealt with many patients with mental problems, and no one had ever come to his level of abnormality. At this moment, the other party was baring his fangs at him unreservedly. He might have even prepared for this in advance, and this thought only made Gong Siyi’s internal organs churn.

Gong Siyi took a deep breath and raised the pain by another level.

However, the emotional value monitoring system seemed to be broken as it continued to maintain a positive index. There was no anger, hatred, or hostility. If he wanted to define the state of this patient, his attitude towards him was… Ridiculous.

Gong Siyi’s heart sank and became colder. He was obviously the one in charge, but he was so flustered that he became a little scared.

“Don’t force it, Doctor Gong. It’s better to let me go.”

Seeing that the other party’s face quickly turned to the same color as the wall, Ruan Xian slowly spat out his words one by one. While Gong Siyi was repeatedly trying to confirm the emotional index, he would look outside the door from time to time.

There was a little light from the light screen on the other side of the round window. It seemed that Tang Yibu was busy cracking something. The android occasionally poked his head out and squinted his eyes at him.

“I promise I won’t get angry again. You see, I’m doing well right now, right?” Ruan Xian smiled back at Tang Yibu and continued to add fuel to the fire.

The pain wandered all over his body. It was like the blood in his veins had turned into boiling oil. Unexpectedly, Ruan Xian didn’t feel much pain but felt relaxed. Compared to the pain caused by the wound on his wrist, this current pain wasn’t worth mentioning.

Tang Yibu’s hypothesis was correct. This was the first time he had accurately captured the “pain” that really belonged to him, not anger.

Ruan Xian was really in a good mood. Poor Gong Siyi, who was next to him, was about to have a nervous breakdown.

“I didn’t want to go this far.” Dr. Gong murmured quickly. “There’s no other way. It seems we can only switch the order. Honestly, why do I bother.”

A shaking shadow passed across his face. Ruan Xian raised his head and saw the brain-taking machine start to move.

“I have to make a small incision in your head. You’d better not move.” Gong Siyi seemed to have made up his mind. “I should have been more direct. People like you… Who can contribute nothing to society, this is considered the best way to make use of you.”

Ruan Xian didn’t respond. From the corner of his eyes, he looked in the direction of Tang Yibu.

The light from the light screen had disappeared. Tang Yibu leaned against the window, pointing to the gun in his hand.

“I only have one question.” Seeing those thin metal limbs getting closer, Ruan Xian spoke again.

Gong Siyi stopped his movement and tightly pursed his lips.

“…What time is it now?”

“Around 5,” Gong Siyi gritted his teeth and replied.

“Thank you.” Ruan Xian twitched his fingers twice, turned his face in the direction of the door, nodded vigorously, and the smile on his face became brighter.

Gong Siyi turned around abruptly, but it was too late.

The door slid open silently, and at the same time, the program restraints malfunctioned. Ruan Xian broke free as the long needles that pierced his body slowly withdrew. Ruan Xian didn’t even wait for them to completely withdraw as he forcibly sat up from the mechanical table and let the needle cut into his flesh. Tang Yibu jumped into the room lightly, grabbed Gong Siyi’s head and pressed him directly against the wall.

Ruan Xian flashed past tacitly as the iron bead rushed in while whining, circling around Ruan Xian’s ankles at high speed.

“Done observing?” Tang Yibu asked softly.

“Nn.”

Ruan Xian rushed to the console, imitated Gong Siyi’s operation just now, and summoned countless light screens. Knowing the activation method was like opening the door to a room, it was only a matter of time before he could take the contents inside. Since Gong Siyi intended to store his brain state in this machine, it was likely that it wasn’t equipped with strict data monitoring or was simply offline to prevent others from accidentally discovering it.

It turned out that his speculation was correct.

“What about you? Have you observed enough?” After confirming that this thing wasn’t connected to the network, Ruan Xian successfully called up its assembly structure diagram with a smile in his voice.

“Not enough.” Tang Yibu’s tone had a hint of regret, which made Ruan Xian’s fingers stop.

“I have a guess. It was the same during the joint therapy, and also now. You seem to like watching me get messed up.” Ruan Xian raised his eyebrows and flicked the light screen containing drawings in Tang Yibu’s direction.

“Because your reaction is always very special and worth recording, but if I want to do it myself, in case I don’t grasp the right degree, our cooperative relationship won’t be stable again.” Tang Yibu looked at the light screen solemnly and directly tore off one of Gong Siyi’s arms with his other hand. Fine parts of the remote-controlled humanoid were scattered all over the place, but Gong Siyi didn’t scream and only shivered frantically.

“You two…”

“Oh.” Ruan Xian took the robotic arm thrown by Tang Yibu and began to organize the parts inside calmly, completely ignoring the restraint clothing that was soaked in blood from being cut by the steel needles. “Indeed, under normal circumstances, pain isn’t a good thing.”

“Right.” Tang Yibu also had a smile in his voice as he casually removed Gong Siyi’s arm. “This date is a bit different from what I thought, but it’s also quite interesting. Speaking of this, Mr. Ruan, I brought you a very delicious snack.”

“You guys…” Gong Siyi cried weakly, trying to add a sense of existence to himself.

“Mm-hmm,” Ruan Xian responded half-heartedly. Not waiting for him to continue, he changed the subject. “Yibu, give me the gun.”

However, Tang Yibu didn’t have any intention of throwing over the gun. He looked at Ruan Xian in horror, as if his worldview had been shaken. “Where’s my gift?”

Ruan Xian almost laughed out loud again. He pushed away the iron bead that was drooling on the table, turned around, and asked back with bad intention. “What gift?”

“I gave you the schematics and even brought you walnut crisps.” Tang Yibu grabbed the snack bag aggrievedly. “According to the information, shouldn’t the first date be like this? Even if you brought some kind of plant, that’s still fine with me. This kind of cooperation is unequal, so I hereby protest.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. Actually, I prepared it. I confirmed it just now. I think you will like it.”

Tang Yibu hid his pericardium and shook the blood gun in his hand again. “Tell me about it?”

“Don’t worry about our partnership. You can make a mess of me on certain occasions. I don’t mind.” Ruan Xian took a few steps forward, kissed Tang Yibu’s lips teasingly, and took the blood gun out of his hand. “Sometimes pain isn’t so bad.”

“Well—” Tang Yibu deliberately lengthened his voice, “According to the degree to which a particular someone seemed to be endless, I’m not the only one who likes this kind of thing. Isn’t it inappropriate to treat this as a one-sided gift*?”

*Clarity: In case you’re missing it, Tang Yibu is unhappy that the gift Ruan Xian is preparing for him is sex because to him, Ruan Xian also enjoys it as well, so this would be just as much of a gift to him as to himself.

This cunning android almost rebuked what he had said, and the worst thing was that he wasn’t good at fighting back. Ruan Xian finally laughed. He dipped his thumb in the remaining blood on his clothes and gently wiped Tang Yibu’s soft lower lip.

He suddenly understood the other party’s obsession with writing his name on things.

“I didn’t think about it thoroughly enough.” Ruan Xian kissed Tang Yibu again and stole some of the other party’s body heat. “I’ll prepare some more gifts to compensate you.”

“You two!” Gong Siyi was almost roaring this time. “What do you want to do? Why can’t my consciousness go back? Who are you guys?”

“Bad people,” Ruan Xian replied indifferently.

Gong Siyi: “……”

“You know the answer yourself,” Tang Yibu’s response was solemn; so serious that it seemed to be straight up sarcastic. “I must disconnect you from the outside in advance. If I let you go back, you’ll attract the attention of the Order Supervisors.”

“I know!” He didn’t know if it was their intention, but these two people weren’t answering the main point at all.

They were really together, and everything had been calculated. This idea raced through Gong Siyi’s mind, and he could hardly think about it. “No one can do this. The remote-controlled humanoid was designed and developed by the Mainbrain… No, what the hell are you trying to do?!”

As soon as he was about to start explaining, the two demons turned their heads with an obvious lack of interest, leaving Gong Siyi dumbfounded.

“Isn’t it obvious? Robbery.” Ruan Xian quickly disassembled the blood gun and began to install parts inside. “Yibu, the drawing number PT-0871 helped me process it, but the size is a bit different.”

Under Gong Siyi’s horrified gaze, Tang Yibu glanced at the schematics from Ruan Xian, peeled off the heavy shell of the emotion detector like a chestnut, took out a part, and began to mold it into another shape with his fingertips.

The iron bead took the opportunity to lean forward and quickly ate the parts that were broken by Tang Yibu.

He had no idea what was going on. Fear accumulated to its peak and began to transform into numbness. Gong Siyi’s remote-controlled humanoid was missing a leg, its two arms, and had a small cavity in its chest. He stopped making sounds and shrank silently against the wall, like a broken piece of machinery.

A few steps away, Ruan Xian finally assembled his new blood gun. He moved his sore fingers and gently kissed the barrel of the gun.

“I forgot to say, I like this gift very much. Thank you.”

A puffed-up Tang Yibu finally exhaled some air and took out the snack. “Is the matter with Luo Jian over? Can we leave tonight? There are still too many restrictions on activities here.”

“Tomorrow. There’s something wrong in the joint dreamland, and I still have information to collect.” For example, Luo Jian’s backup plan. It wasn’t a bad thing to know more about ways to deal with the Order Supervisors. He was taken away in front of Luo Jian and didn’t have time to communicate with him. Considering the previous situation, the other party probably had a lot of questions to ask.

“It’s too vague. I want to hear a more detailed explanation, including things about the diary.” Tang Yibu took the blood gun and checked it carefully while protesting.

“It’s still not even 6 yet. I’m going to have breakfast at 9 at the latest.” Ruan Xian smoothed out Tang Yibu’s hair, then picked up a piece of walnut crisps. “We can go back to the room first. Let me give my gift sincerely, and slowly explain things—Remember to leave me some strength so I can speak normally.”

“Don’t leave me here!” Seeing that the two of them were leaving, Gong Siyi panicked. There had never been a case of a consciousness trapped in a remote-controlled machine before, and the unknown made him panic like crazy. “What if I don’t arrive on time tomorrow. The Order Supervisors will start to become suspicious. If you can’t escape by then, let me go. I won’t say anything. I definitely won’t say anything—”

Ruan Xian sighed and squatted in front of the broken remote-controlled humanoid.

The original handsome humanoid appearance of this machine had completely disappeared, and the fine parts under the simulated skin were hideously exposed. The only intact mechanical eyeball was spinning in circles, full of panic, but not even a drop of tear could be shed.

“You have a point.” He smiled at Gong Siyi. “But I don’t believe your promise.”

“I apologize. Can’t I apologize!” Gong Siyi panicked. “I’m just an ordinary person who wants to make a little money. I didn’t break any rules… You can’t do this to me. I obviously didn’t intend to hurt you. Don’t leave me here…”

“I don’t care about the rules set by the Mainbrain.”

Ruan Xian shook his head gently.

“Here, let me tell you what’s going to happen. According to the hospital’s data, you sent me back to my room in the middle of the night, and then I had a good time with my boyfriend while you returned to this room. Due to some mishandling, the offline equipment exploded.”

“No……”

“You will return to your body and remember the real facts. However, considering security concerns, before we let you go back, we need to blur certain information… Like our appearance, voice, and conversation. After all, we still need to fuck.”

Having said that, Ruan Xian stood up, put one hand around Tang Yibu’s waist, and squinted his eyes as he enjoyed the heat radiating from the other party’s body.

For the real human brain, this operation was quite difficult, but for the consciousness projected into the remote-controlled humanoid, memories were nothing more than pure data… And Dr. Gong never used his real body to work.

Gong Siyi couldn’t move anymore and remained silent, as if he had lost consciousness. Dr. Gong’s brain wasn’t bad, so Ruan Xian suspected he knew whatthis meant…

Either he knocked out his own teeth and swallowed the blood and honestly bore the responsibility of blowing up the Mainbrain’s property, or he would make trouble for the Order Supervisors without any real evidence to prove his case and get rid of all his guilt.

“Why make it so complicated. Just delete all my memories.” A few minutes later, Gong Siyi spoke again. His tone was mixed with resignation.

“In fact, wouldn’t it be a pity to delete it?” Ruan Xian said softly. “In case someone gets your account, this is also a good opportunity for publicity.”

Gong Siyi raised his head with difficulty.

“Tell them that this was all done by the ‘Red Ghost‘.” 

---

The author has something to say:

The anxious iron bead, despairing over Daddy Tang’s ability to capture the key points.√

Dr. Gong who rushed into the Order Supervisor’s office: Don’t be afraid of what I’m going to say. (Omitted) 

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Kinky Thoughts:

Can I just say how much I love Tang Yibu. Best gong ever. I also love the dynamic in their relationship. Ruan Xian ain’t no fragile shou. He knows what he wants, and he takes it. Tang Yibu had better step up to the plate and last more than 2 hours.

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 128: Spoon

At that moment, Ruan Xian didn’t know what was going on in the android’s mind.

Luo Jian had already revealed enough information this time and pursuing it further would only arouse suspicion. Ruan Xian stopped talking. He walked a little further and carefully engraved the contents of the diary that had a pale golden cover in his mind.

It was probably the first time that Li Han came into contact with a strange force other than the rebel army. After Ruan Xian walked far enough, she barely overcame her nervousness and successfully constructed the carriage with two fat pigeons attached.

“Xiao Han, urgently notify the people in the city and let them leave first.” Sitting firmly in the back of the carriage, Luo Jian calmly ordered.

Li Han secretly glanced at Ruan Xian, who was sitting nearby, and gulped. Ruan Xian was accustomed to that kind of unfriendly look and simply leaned towards Luo Jian’s side. Even if he saved her in a sense, in the eyes of that girl, he was still some kind of unknown danger.

When she commanded the pigeon to fly away, her hands were still shaking.

“Don’t take it personally.” After noticing Ruan Xian’s movements, Luo Jian began to whisper in a low voice. “It’s not that she’s not thankful. She’s just not used to things she can’t understand.”

“I don’t mind.” Ruan Xian didn’t lie this time.

The girl looked younger than Ji Xiaoman and she grew up in The Glass Conservatory. Most likely, she was able to join the rebel army due to the enthusiasm of youth. All previous emergencies were under Luo Jian’s control, and problems could be explained. However, this incident made her sense of security pop like a bubble, so it was natural to have an overreaction.

Luo Jian turned his head to look at him. The smile on his face was a bit complicated.

What followed was a long silence.

The carriage was creaking in the snow. Auntie Yan was driving, while Li Han shrank in the corner. The trees on the side of the road were sparse, but Ruan Xian couldn’t see any traces of Tang Yibu. Perhaps seeing that he had the diary, the android left here early. Ruan Xian subconsciously touched his earring.

He wasn’t too worried about Tang Yibu. On the contrary, he had a wonderful premonition—different from the morbid confidence when facing death—even if Tang Yibu ran into the Mainbrain at this moment, he wouldn’t be late for their date.

Li Han’s mood wasn’t very stable as the car was moving at a pace slower than walking, yet he was unable to find Tang Yibu. The slowly retreating snow scenery made people drowsy

“I want to get out of here as soon as possible. Do you have any experience in this area?” Now that he had enough information, it was time to think about how to leave.

Unfortunately, he waited for a long time, yet Luo Jian didn’t give a response. Ruan Xian thought he hadn’t heard him clearly, so he changed his question. “How do we leave on our own initiative?”

But Luo Jian still didn’t answer, so Ruan Xian could only turn his gaze away from the snow scene.

Luo Jian was still sitting next to Ruan Xian. Without clothes covering his skin, it revealed signs of cracks, as if there were invisible insects constantly gnawing on his flesh. The blood was particularly conspicuous in this pale world. Luo Jian didn’t make a sound but turned his face away from Li Han’s direction.

Ruan Xian didn’t react in a panic, but instead the indifference that was unlike ordinary people at this moment took effect.

“The scanning specifications are different from before,” Luo Jian hissed. “What did you do to the scanners?”

“Erase the relevant data and wait for it to disappear naturally so it won’t have a record of us.”

Luo Jian curled up his fingers, and the back of his hand looked severely burned. “It seems that I’m quite unlucky that a big guy happened to be here… The scanner programs fusing means that they encountered a difficult object to deal with. Usually, it’s fine, but now… Even if they don’t find suspicious records, they’d rather kill a thousand by mistake than let one go.”

He slowed down his speech, but his bad appearance didn’t improve.

“This used to happen occasionally, but this time we unfortunately hit a bump in the road. I’ll have to forcibly eject you guys. Sorry. I’m probably being targeted… Now they are going to completely destroy my memory.”

“Lao Luo.” Auntie Yan didn’t look back as she spoke with a little suppressed tremor in her voice.

“It’s okay, I won’t die. Xiao Yan, you can withdraw first.” Luo Jian was very calm. “I hope that the group of guys in the city will see the warning and run faster. Passively withdrawing will leave them with a headache for a year and a half or so, but at least you can leave by yourself. Now I can only take these two into account.”

“Send Li Han away first, I’m not in a hurry,” Ruan Xian said decisively.

He was a little curious about how Luo Jian planned to deal with this matter—right now he still had an ace in his hand he hadn’t used. Although it was a bit dangerous, the probability of it being feasible was still quite high.

Auntie Yan disappeared into thin air, and the carriage gradually came to a stop. The surrounding snow scenery slowly became blurred and turned into patchy whiteness. Li Han didn’t choose to leave immediately. The young girl’s lips trembled as she looked at Luo Jian sternly.

“You should go,” Luo Jian said. “If you leave a second early, the shock will be one point less.”

“What about you?” Ruan Xian held his arms.

“I’m prepared.” Luo Jian was frighteningly calm.

“If your preparation is to delay time and deliberately let your will be destroyed in order to fundamentally protect the information in your mind… I personally hope you will reconsider.”

Li Han who sat on the side, suddenly raised her head and stared at Luo Jian.

“…This way, everyone will be safe.”

Despite having his thoughts seen through, Luo Jian’s voice remained calm. The blood almost soaked all of his winter clothes.

He could stay here, let his consciousness disappear with his memory, and let his brain be destroyed. Even if the worse happened and his brain was taken away and cracked, they wouldn’t be able to get anything out of the damaged brain.

“As the hub, I can’t take the initiative to leave. Although other preparations can be made in advance, the treatment time is set by Gong Siyi. There’s no need for anyone to take risks in order to save me alone.”

“You said you have a way!” Li Han’s tears dripped down. At this moment, she no longer cared about Ruan Xian, and rushed directly to Luo Jian as if she wanted to hug him but dared not. “Without your leadership, Pear Blossom will definitely fall apart. Didn’t you say you would be fine?”

“Good girl.” Luo Jian hugged her and patted her on the back. “It can’t be helped. Sometimes that’s how luck works.”

“But you’re the leader—”

“My life is no more precious than yours.”

Li Han cried even more severely, while Ruan Xian, who was expressionless on one side, seemed a bit out of place.

“Stop for a moment.”

Ruan Xian pinched his eyebrows. He knew he should try his best not to look like an asshole in this sad atmosphere, but he had become lazier about pretending lately. “I can understand that you don’t want to forcibly evacuate and arouse more suspicion, but Mr. Luo, you have more than just this backup plan.”

According to Guan Haiming, Luo Jian was the master of infiltration of the rebel army, so he wouldn’t use his own death as a foolproof solution.

“If it will only cause a general degree of vigilance and allow the treatment to end normally, I have a way.”

The skin on Luo Jian’s face and hands began to peel off. He didn’t have much fear of the coming death, and his voice only sounded more exhausted.

“It’s a pity that the situation is special this time. We’ve only been here for a day. It’s impossible to wait until treatment ends properly. Mr. Ruan, thank you for your help. I hope that this diary will be useful to you.”

“It’s still a bit early to say goodbye.” Ruan Xian walked up to Luo Jian.

“What—”

Luo Jian only saw the young man raise his hand, accompanied by a shrill scream from Li Han.

There was a coolness in the neck, followed by tingling, and finally turned into severe pain. He could feel blood gushing out. Luo Jian was a little stunned. He stretched out his hand and touched the wound carefully.

The “Mr. Ruan” had used a spoon to slit his throat, causing an extremely deep wound.

The next second, Luo Jian sat up abruptly from the liquid tank and coughed out the liquid in his lungs. Gong Siyi was standing by his side, with a weird expression, looking as if he was both worried and happy.

Luo Jian looked at him blankly, catching sight of the syringe in the corner of the other party’s pocket.

Not far away, Li Han was holding the edge of the liquid tank. Her tears still hadn’t stopped. The young man surnamed Ruan also sat up, looking angry.

“You…” Luo Jian didn’t react for a while.

“Fortunately, I knew that you and Ruan Lijie had conflict, so I watched from the side. It seems something happened.”

Gong Siyi sighed. “After all, this is your first joint therapy. There won’t be any good places in a doomsday fantasy. Young people are still too fiery. I’ll take care of Ruan Lijie.”

Luo Jian tried to cast a puzzled look at “Ruan Lijie”, but the young man’s acting skills were very good. He didn’t even look at him once, as if some unsolvable hatred had really broken out between them.

Under the supervision of the mechanical assistant, the man slowly put on his restraint clothes, then was tied tightly, and was quickly taken away from the treatment room. Li Han was still crying as medicine slid down Luo Jian’s intact skin, trickling over his fingers and falling drop by drop to the floor.

“You guys go back and rest early,” Gong Siyi said with a smile. “A good night’s sleep will do you guys good.”

“Ruan Lijie, he…”

“He will be transferred to the confinement area until his mood stabilizes. Don’t worry, I won’t let him participate in joint therapy again in the future.”

Luo Jian slowly clenched his fists, not knowing how to express his feelings at the moment. Gong Siyi was completely avoiding the crucial point while taking things lightly. This wasn’t a question of whether he was angry or not.

He was the memory provider for the joint therapy and the center of the spiritual world. In order to prevent vicious medical malpractices, for patients inside the joint treatment like Ruan Lijie and Li Han, the emotional index detection was much more stringent than in the real world.

In theory, even if his memory was on the verge of annihilation, Ruan Lijie couldn’t take the initiative to kill him. The moment Ruan Lijie developed a strong hostility against him, the system would automatically eject him.

But Ruan Lijie was able to use the spoon and cut his throat directly without any hindrance.

To achieve this level, in addition to circumventing the system’s emotional monitoring, it was always necessary to be 100% sure that Gong Siyi happened to be on the scene, rather than using the system to manage it autonomously. It was almost impossible for emotional monitoring to go wrong, so even if Ruan Xian slit his throat, the system would first need to feed this anomaly back to Gong Siyi and alert him so he could deal with it.

The reaction time for this was enough that he would calm down by then.

Based on his own investigation of Gong Siyi, Dr. Gong was a typical resident of The Glass Conservatory. He was extremely obedient to the Mainbrain, so there was absolutely no possibility of mutiny and he could only be misguided.

It seemed that the organization that called itself the “Red Ghost” was deeper than he thought.

“Lao Luo.” Li Han put on her sick uniform and stumbled over. The liquid in her hair hadn’t dried yet. “What happened just now? I don’t understand. I don’t understand… Were you really lying to me?”

“Sorry.” Luo Jian glanced at the girl’s pale and trembling lips and held back the urge to sigh. Only then did he have a real sense that he had come back from the dead. The world in his eyes seemed to be shaking. “…I’ll give you a good explanation, but…”

“But what?”

“Before that, I have to find a chance to talk to Ruan Lijie.” Luo Jian closed his eyes.

Seeing that Auntie Yan was being monitored by Ruan Xian, Tang Yibu took the initiative to withdraw from the joint dream first. However, it wasn’t accurate to say that he took the initiative, but more like he was forced out by a botched information notification.

Before he took two steps, the nearby snowflakes turned into scattered white text. They were incredibly hard to make out, and it made him uncomfortable. Tang Yibu watched the snow for a long time before he barely managed to understand the information it carried.

[Lao Yu has withdrawn. Please return.]

Most likely, this flow of foreign information was from Ji Xiaoman. The little girl knew a lot of research on the cybernetic brain, but her skills were still limited. They were poured into his brain and turned into crude visuals and tactile cues.

Tang Yibu shook the words, ignored them, and planned to stay a little longer.

As a result, those words crackled and fell, not stopping as the word “quickly” was added. Tang Yibu shook off the white characters that circled his head, causing the “Yu” character to fall onto the snow.

He didn’t really care about the safety of those two humans, but considering that his precious body was still with them, Tang Yibu had to yield. He mulled for a while, flipped through the additional system data of his environment, and forcibly kicked himself out.

As a result, when he opened his eyes, Yu Le was eating a small bag of fresh walnut crisps with Ji Xiaoman. Luo Fei and Auntie Yan hadn’t woken up yet, and there was nothing going on in the store.

After making a sweep of the few plates of snacks left, Tang Yibu only felt that he had received a double blow. The two humans didn’t know how lucky they were as all the remaining snacks had teeth marks on them.

“What about the emergency?” Tang Yibu took off his breathing mask and grinned, showing an unfriendly smile.

“I was afraid you were lost.” Yu Le squinted at him. “I was having a hard time over here too, you know. The android I brought in hasn’t said a word and was lost in its own world.”

“Lao Yu, get down to business.”

“Alright, alright, business.” Yu Le scratched his head. “I pried out some information from Luo Fei and probably have some ideas about the situation here. Aren’t you in a hurry? It’s better to make things clear sooner rather than later… Don’t look at me like that. Like I said, if Luo Fei woke up and you were still knocked out, how would I explain that?”

Tang Yibu huffed.

“Anyway, go back first. I have something to talk about.” Yu Le stood up. Tang Yibu seemed to be stuck to the stool as he remained motionless. Ji Xiaoman had already walked to the door. When she saw that her companions hadn’t followed, she turned her head suspiciously.

Yu Le rolled his eyes. “Little profiteer, go next door and order a pack of walnut crisps to go.”

Tang Yibu stood up.

“Two packs,” he said. “There’s also Mr. Ruan’s share.”

Yu Le was shocked to find that the android had kept his word this time—Tang Yibu listened to his account of Luo Fei’s tragic past while sweetly nibbling on the walnut crisp, seemingly enjoying it, but he didn’t even touch the share left for Ruan Lijie.

“I understand.” After listening to the story, Tang Yibu didn’t look touched at all, as if he had just finished listening to a wildlife observation. “The technique is somewhat interesting, but not appropriate.”

“…” Yu Le began to seriously contemplate whether he should really continue traveling with this guy.

“Luo Fei’s generation had a comprehensive genetic record at birth, so it’s not difficult to make a clone. As for his memory, it should have been instilled later in life. The overall quality of the people here is high, and they have no idea about the Great Rebellion of the 22^nd century. If the workload is too large to eliminate one by one, it’s better to directly replace it with a full set of false memories.”

“His memory is basically consistent with Luo Jian’s situation. At most, it’s just a changed version. This can’t be a coincidence.” Yu Le scratched his head. “I originally thought the same as you, but it doesn’t make sense.”

“Luo Fei’s age may not be what it looks like. You’re a bit preconceived, Mr. Yu.” Tang Yibu licked the residual crumbs leftover from the snack on his finger. “What if he’s also part of the correction method?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Luo Jian came here four years ago, and Auntie Yan came with Ruan Xian two years later. Luo Fei told you that the starting point of his contact with Pear Blossom was through Auntie Yan. Based on this alone, we cannot be sure that this Luo Fei existed four years ago.”

Tang Yibu spread out his hands with a natural look on his face.

“Luo Jian got a fake identity, established Pear Blossom, and looked for young people who might become the ‘spark’ for the truth. Then Ruan Xian came and brought Auntie Yan and let Pear Blossom develop and grow… As far as what I observed in it, he sent not only Auntie Yan but also some older rebels who couldn’t fight outside.”

“Pear Blossom developed to a certain scale. In order to ensure the safety of their members, Luo Jian, the leader, pretended to be ill and became a fringe member of society, then put himself into a prevention shelter and became the hub that provided a safe place for the rebels to operate. In other words, he made himself an anomaly in this perfect city.”

Tang Yibu looked as if he was solving a problem with quite a bit of interest.

“Even if Luo Jian disguises his identity, his DNA cannot be modified, and hiding DNA would be suspicious. Combining the information obtained from the doctor and giving him a new relative is a very effective means.”

“……”

“If Luo Jian is a real patient, this can be used as a means to experiment and try to treat him. If Luo Jian has other purposes, this can also impact his psychological defenses. Isn’t there a broad statement humans use in the face of the death of a loved one? ‘It would be great if everything was a nightmare.’ In short, no matter what the situation is, the Mainbrain won’t suffer.”

The inhuman feelings of the other party surfaced again. Yu Le put away the expression on his face and tightened his muscles. He knew that bionics didn’t need to consider things from a human standpoint, but Tang Yibu’s tone of speaking about the matter was very flat, as if he was explaining a certain natural phenomenon.

The blandness made him uncomfortable.

“According to you, if you want a perfect city, the Mainbrain shouldn’t let Pear Blossom exist.” Yu Le couldn’t help choking back.

“After all, this is still a petri dish.” Tang Yibu wiped the oil on his hands with a handkerchief. “Of course, when doing experiments, you have to observe multiple control groups, and you use all the materials you have at your fingertips. Personally, it seems that the Android Show, the self-developed Pear Blossom, and Ruan Xian’s thoughts were all tools to distinguish the observation groups here.”

Tang Yibu didn’t explicitly say it, but Yu Le could guess what the subject of observation was after all this was gathered. Ji Xiaoman, who had been listening in silence next to him, also turned blue. She was a smart girl and must’ve noticed the chilling possibility…

The human body could be repaired at will, or simply replaced with machinery. The human mind could be replaced with a cybernetic brain, and memory can be grafted, but at least, in the petri dishes they came in contact with before, the Mainbrain didn’t touch anything regarding personality itself.

This was indeed a glass conservatory.

For the flowers to flourish and become beautiful, unnecessary mental branches needed to be pruned away. Those with impure colors needed to be eliminated and improved, and weeds couldn’t exist. It gave people different guidance and pushed this society without wind and rain forward autonomously.

It was shaping them, and when they got off track, it conducted therapeutic experiments with almost cruel curiosity, allowing the garden to gradually thrive.

Yu Le became nauseous.

“…That is my conclusion.” Finding that the faces of the two of them had changed, Tang Yibu made a simple summary and picked up the bag of walnut crisps. “If there’s no other information to be exchanged, I’ll go first.”

“Wait.” Yu Le opened his mouth.

“Hmm?”

“You sound indifferent to this approach. If the positions were switched and it was you, would you do the same?”

“Of course not.” Tang Yibu leaned against the door, looking like he was doing his best to fight against the aroma of the packet of walnut crisps. “The problems of human society have nothing to do with me, and I have no need to intervene. What’s more, I haven’t even completed the basic course given by Ruan Xian.”

“…Then why are you helping us?” Yu Le breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s not to help. It’s to use each other,” Tang Yibu corrected solemnly. “Your cooking is delicious, and Miss Ji is also very useful when we need to cooperate our actions.”

“Okay, okay. Get lost.” Yu Le wiped his face. Unconsciously, the chill on his skin had dissipated.

“Goodbye.” Tang Yibu waved his hand and walked out with the snacks.

“Which AI do you think this guy is from? I don’t think he’s from Plan Corp.” After Tang Yibu’s figure disappeared, Yu Le collapsed onto the sofa. “I can’t imagine who would do such a dangerous thing. They probably drank too much when they wrote the instructions.”

“I don’t know.” Ji Xiaoman’s face still didn’t look good. “Do you still want to go with us?”

“Fuck no, but I can’t stay here either. To be honest, I’m still curious about who’s behind those two people. Not to mention the issue of outrageous personality, the strength of that android is quite scary. Speaking of which, Ruan Lijie’s brain isn’t normal either… Forget it. If I had to choose between a shithole and a firepit, I rather jump into the fire with you.”

Yu Le looked at the snow-white ceiling. Lying in such a city made him uncomfortable all over.

“At least compared to the Mainbrain, our android has one advantage. He’s still willing to communicate with us and between him and Xiao Ruan…”

After sighing for a while, Yu Le continued.

“You summed it up quite right. They really seem to be serious.”

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Kinky Thoughts:

Turns out utopia isn’t what people imagined it to be, for those who realize the truth anyway. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 127: Wish

For most people in The Glass Conservatory, it was a clear and peaceful morning. Under the purification of regulating machinery, the air was fresh and pleasant, and the greenery inside the city was just right. There was no annoying mechanical sound, and only pleasant birdsong could be heard.

There was an extremely tall building in the center of the city. From the topmost room, one could see the entire city and its surrounding lush forests.

The indoor electronic fireplace was burning, and a hearty breakfast was placed on the adjacent table. A well-dressed android attendant left the table and began to choose the music and indoor fragrance for the morning.

Perfect temperature and humidity, a well-organized, spotless space, and an elegant style without the slightest accumulation of the elements. This luxurious residence had more than one floor, with an indoor pool and other recreational facilities on the lower floors and an open garden on the roof.

In terms of living conditions, no matter how discerning people were, they wouldn’t be able to spot an issue here.

There was a visitor here today.

Looking at the appearance, it was a handsome man in his thirties. His short black hair was neatly trimmed, and his gaze was like a falcon. Although the visitor wasn’t very old, his gestures faintly revealed a heavy majesty.

He walked into the door, took off his gloves neatly, and was guided by the attendant to the table.

There was no expression on the man’s face. From entering the door to sitting down at the table, there was no extra movement.

As soon as he sat down, countless light screens were automatically turned around him. The man drank hot tea and quickly reviewed the images and text on the light screen. Just by looking at his actions, it seemed that he was the owner of this luxurious space.

Five minutes, ten minutes. He was still the only one sitting at the dining table. Finally, the man raised his eyes. “Where is he?”

“Mr. Fan isn’t in good condition.” The android leaned slightly. “Please wait a moment, Commander Zhuo.”

“Nn,” The man known as Commander Zhuo replied coldly. “What kind of death did that old man think of again?”

“Mr. Fan Linsong hasn’t made dangerous moves for a while. He just drastically reduced his activity frequency and spent most of his time lying in bed.”

“Gave up?” Commander Zhuo slid the light screen in front of him twice and continued to deal with his affairs. “Then he should at least have a minimal courtesy.”

“…Zhuo Muran.”

At that moment, an old voice sounded from the door.

An old man, who was not much different from the living skeleton, stood at the entrance of the dining room in standard clothing, supported by an attendant. His voice was full of sadness.

“Mr. Fan Linsong.” Zhuo Muran greeted politely. “How are you doing lately?”

“You should already know.” Fan Linsong’s voice was hoarse, and his eyes were bloodshot.

Zhuo Muran took a sip of tea and glanced at Fan Linsong, who looked like a mummified corpse. He didn’t speak, but there was a bit more irony in his smile.

“Today’s not a scheduled meeting day.”

Fan Linsong stumbled to the table, not touching any of the tableware.

“As the Commander-in-Chief of the Order Supervisors, you are also quite busy. Cough, and now that you’ve seen my situation, I won’t see you off.”

“The scheduled meeting has been changed.” Zhuo Muran had no intention of leaving his seat. “The Mainbrain should’ve notified you.”

Hearing the word Mainbrain, Fan Linsong’s hand shook.

“You should feel honored to be supported by the Mainbrain like this. Or do you have any dissatisfaction with your current life?” Zhuo Muran put down the teacup. “It will meet all your needs, you know that. Now you live in the best place in the world to survive, enjoy the most advanced medical treatment, and don’t even have to do anything.”

Having said that, Zhuo Muran waved his hand and motioned to the attendant to pour himself another cup of tea.

Taking advantage of the attendant turning away, Fan Linsong somehow mustered up the strength and suddenly grabbed a fork on the table and stabbed viciously towards his throat.

The attendant who was pouring tea for Zhuo Muran tilted its head slightly before one hand came off its wrist. The slender hand popped out like a bullet, connected to the body by a metal tube, and in the next moment firmly grabbed Fan Linsong’s wrist.

Everything happened within an instant.

When he was stopped, Fan Linsong hadn’t had time to exert his strength. The tip of the fork was more than two centimeters away from his throat. A few steps away, the female attendant restrained him from a distance with just one hand as she poured tea steadily with the other.

“It’s useless.” Zhuo Muran took a sip of tea. “Like I said, you’re being looked after by the most intelligent creature in the world.”

“Bullshit,” Fan Linsong gasped. “Since it meets my every need, why won’t it let me die, huh?”

“It determined that you have no reason to seek death. This is just an impulse. Speaking of this, isn’t it you who took the first step, Professor Fan?” Zhuo Muran raised his eyes. “The person who understands us best should obviously be you, yet you went and joined the rebel army with Ruan Xian.”

“Because this is not normal, this is not normal…”

“MUL-01 has passed all tests. It won’t apply unacceptable practices by human standards to humans. This is one of the basic restrictions you have written yourself.”

“I didn’t build the core program. As I have said many times, it’s Ruan Xian… Xiao Ruan… I don’t know what the consequences of a small error can cause after repeated calculations.”

“There is no error.”

“It’s impossible to be error-free!”

Fan Linsong looked like he was half dead. There was no brilliance in his eyes, his face was sallow, closely resembling a ghost that was imprisoned in its grave. He pulled his short gray hair, disregarding all his former academic temperament, and his mouth babbled nonsensically.

“…There’s definitely something wrong somewhere. There has to be a guidance error in our daily inspection…”

“It’s a pity. You could’ve been our hero and fought Ruan Xian. What you call the ‘Great Rebellion of the 22^nd Century’ may be crude, but it was the most efficient and reasonable approach. You cannot deny that.”

Zhuo Muran seemed to be accustomed to this scene.

“You are indeed our inspiration. But now I have to say that I am very disappointed in you. Mr. Fan, I’m sorry. Sooner or later, we will execute Ruan Xian and let this farce end quickly… He’s alive and kicking and it’s all thanks to you when I think about it.”

Fan Linsong calmed down. He stared at the still steaming milk in his cup without looking at Zhuo Muran.

“I told you about Xiao Ruan, and I also told you that it was one of the things I regretted most in my life. Thanks to me? How many times do you want me to correct this statement?”

Fan Linsong’s voice suddenly became a little empty.

“After all, I didn’t treat him at all. That’s…”

“This is one of the reasons why I came here early this time. The Mainbrain believes that this isn’t a question worth asking repeatedly. You did treat Ruan Xian properly, but there was a deviation in his thoughts and opinions. Since you have been struggling with this issue, the Mainbrain is willing to give you more information.”

Fan Linsong finally turned his gaze to Zhuo Muran.

“On April 21, 2095, Professor Ruan Xian fell into a coma due to the deterioration of his physical condition. After a month of treatment, as a collaborator, you successfully found a way to stabilize his condition and took the opportunity to use personality correction-related treatment as well. After that, Professor Ruan Xian quickly recovered and devoted himself to research again.”

“According to the feedback from people who have been in contact with Ruan Xian, Professor Ruan has talked a lot. Afterwards, the prevention agency re-measured his personality, and his mental abnormality index had been significantly reduced. His mental health far exceeded that of an ordinary person—this was the most widely circulated statement.”

Muddy tears welled up around Fan Linsong’s eyes, and his shriveled lips shook. “…No.”

“Do you think we believe this statement and regard you as our inspiration?”

Zhuo Muran shook his head.

“Ruan Xian was studying a variant of the nanobot α-092 at the time, and he had the habit of recording work summaries.”

“…I know that every day after he gets off work, he would always go back and record some details and analysis related to the experiment. I know this.”

“Judging from the medical records during that time, his health deteriorated further. NUL-00 should be aware of this matter.”

“At that time, NUL-00 was still under development, and we strictly prohibited it from actively contacting external information. What does this have to do with it?”

“NUL-00 exploited the rule. It really didn’t have permission to ‘see’ the content of those materials. In order to reduce the burden on Ruan Xian’s recording, it just added a simple synchronization log externally. It distinguished the research image records under Ruan Xian’s name and synchronized them with Ruan Xian’s personal computer in real time, then automatically classified them into auxiliary research materials.”

“Ruan Xian originally had permission to call this data. This logic wasn’t complicated, nor did it violate any regulations. It succeeded.”

Fan Linsong froze in his seat.

“Mr. Fan, you did modify the part of the image stored in the official database, but you didn’t modify the backup stored on Ruan Xian’s personal computer. After that, you were too obsessed with Ruan Xian’s talents and kept all the data on that computer. And after completing MUL-01, entered them all into MUL-01 as a research reference.”

“The above is the data analyzed by MUL-01. Now that we have seen the original image, we all know what happened that day and how you ‘treated’ Ruan Xian.”

“It never told me—” Fan Linsong’s voice became high-pitched.

“Because the Mainbrain thinks your approach is logical, there’s no need to tell you specifically. This incident is enough to prove that the instability of NUL-00 is quite large. Combined with the personality report of the original prevention shelter, its designer, Ruan Xian, most likely had a plan.”

Fan Linsong’s tears dripped down the wrinkles on his face.

“I repeat, we agree that you did treat Ruan Xian properly at the beginning. As for why you and he embarked on the current path, I can’t understand, and the Mainbrain is also very curious. If you are willing to provide information in this regard, we would be very grateful.”

Fan Linsong’s attention was not on him. The old man slowly covered his face and murmured quickly, as if trying to explain something to a non-existent person.

“He only had a few years left to live and he was slow in his progress of NUL-00, which passed the basic test and could be put to use. One person dragged out the entire project by himself… As his collaborator, I know how dangerous he is and have seen his abilities… If he was a healthy and mentally sound person, I clearly know what kind of well-being he could bring to humanity…”

Fan Linsong staggered to his feet, and the familiar pain overwhelmed him again.

Why couldn’t God give talent to the right people? Regardless of whether he gave it to him, there was no shortage of young people in that institute who could show a real smile and still live a long life.

But it gave that talent to a cold-blooded and short-lived lunatic.

The prevention agency signed a surveillance agreement with him, asking him to carefully monitor Ruan Xian, who was like a ticking timebomb. It was through this terrible agreement that he found out about Ruan Xian’s past. After that, every time he saw his terrifying collaborator, he always felt a chill from the bottom of his heart.

Ruan Xian smiled kindly to everyone and behaved in an unobtrusive manner. People were most frightened by the corroding disease, but only he knew the real abnormality of that young man.

The “normal” on the surface was matched by the “abnormal”, which was particularly creepy.

“…I thought I could fix that problem,” he said to himself. “I was wrong, I was wrong.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.” Zhuo Muran acted as if he didn’t seem to see Fan Linsong’s tears. He sighed and clapped his hands. “Fan Linsong’s current mental index?”

“On the verge of collapse.” The android attendant standing next to Zhuo Muran spoke in a flat tone.

“Well, erase his memory data for the last 30 minutes, and remember to pass the backup to the Mainbrain.”

“Yes.” The other attendant nodded, and a needle pierced directly into the back of Fan Linsong’s head.

When the expression on the old man’s face disappeared, they stretched out a handkerchief, gently wiped the tears from the old man’s face, and then sprayed some medicine spray.

Fan Linsong’s red and swollen eyes immediately returned to normal.

“If it weren’t for MUL-01’s insistence on keeping this person alive, it would be enough to just forcibly crack his brain.” Zhuo Muran folded his hands; his expression didn’t fluctuate at all.

“Cracking can only obtain memory data and personality patterns. It cannot determine the thoughts of a particular time—”

“I know. I’m just too lazy to watch him cry over and over again.” Zhuo Muran didn’t bother to look at the vocal attendant. “How much longer?”

“Nine seconds.”

“Remember to adjust the time display in this building and don’t let him find that his memory is missing.”

As soon as Zhuo Muran’s voice fell, Fan Linsong woke up from a trance.

He frowned. “Zhuo Muran, the meeting date hasn’t yet arrived.”

“The Mainbrain has changed the meeting time, I’m just here to make a routine report.”

Too lazy to repeat the same set of conversations again, before Fan Linsong spoke again, Zhuo Muran interrupted him first.

“There is only one problem to be determined—the Sea of Ruins, where waste is disposed of, and the Underground United City in 1315. Recently, interesting changes have occurred in those two regions in succession, and these two petri dishes are very close to each other. There are also traces of technological manipulation beyond the level of a local civilization. We suspect there are remnants of the rebel army still active. Have you heard of the organization called the ‘Red Ghost’?”

“No.” Fan Linsong’s tone was cold and hard, and the appearance of collapse not long ago seemed to be just an illusion.

The other party showed no signs of lying. Zhuo Muran glanced at the real-time physiological data on the screen and sighed.

“Understood. Next is the ecological briefing of each petri dish…”

“Even if MUL-01 insists that I know this.” Fan Linsong’s tone was a bit rough as he quivered a little. “Video, text, any form is fine. Whether it’s making a report or inquiring about problems, there’s no need to trouble you to come here in person for these trivial matters, Commander-in-Chief Zhuo.”

The old man aggravated the pronunciation of those last words.

“I also don’t think it’s necessary.”

Zhuo Muran smiled detachedly and scooped the sweet porridge in front of him.

“But the Mainbrain believes that regular contact with real humans is good for your psychological condition, and I obey its arrangements.”

Luo Jian’s memory world.

Ruan Xian scooped some canned beans with a spoon, hesitated for a while, then put it in his mouth, and tried not to think about what the spoon had poked not long ago.

A few steps away, Li Han failed to build for the third time.

Relying on a painter’s solid structural understanding, she seemed to be trying to imagine a small carriage that could hold four people out of thin air, but Ruan Xian could feel that the girl’s gaze swept over in horror from time to time. With this level of concentration, no one could succeed.

He went through half the canned beans, but there were only four horseshoes and two wheels on the ground.

“Xiao Han, don’t panic.” Even Luo Jian, who had slowed down, began to explain to her. “It’s possible to change his appearance due to changes in his mental state.”

Ruan Xian also knew that his image wasn’t good right now. It wasn’t easy to add an underarm holster to his winter clothes, so the blood gun was directly pinned to his waist. The wound had disappeared, but blood and debris remained on his clothes. His face had no expression as he was too lazy to put on a disguise, making him look completely like a thug.

“Thank you for your help.”

He didn’t know if it was to distract him or relieve some pressure off of Li Han as Luo Jian pulled Ruan Xian aside. Auntie Yan cooperatively walked to Li Han’s side and began to comfort her softly.

“If you didn’t make a move, I would probably have become a lunatic by now and everyone else would be in danger of mental traumatization.” Luo Jian didn’t seem to be the type that’s good at thanking people. His voice was still a bit stiff. “Earlier, Xiao Yan met with a child who was behaving abnormally. He should have gone to see you. You two…?”

“Not familiar.” Ruan Xian spoke as he chewed the beans.

“He claimed to work for the Red Ghost. I have never heard of this organization.”

Luo Jian patted the snow on his body. “What about you? Why did you save us?”

Ruan Xian almost instantly understood the cunning android’s intention and couldn’t help tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“He and I belong to two departments, each performing our own duties.” He lied fluently. “He wasn’t very willing to take action before, right? He doesn’t have to be responsible for my safety.”

Tang Yibu was making smoke, a smoke bomb.

They had done a lot of unconventional things along the way, and no one could guarantee that there would be no clues left behind. If MUL-01 was really made based off of NUL-00, its filtering and processing power was by no means bad. There would be no good consequences if they took the enemy lightly, and it was also good to add more stumbling blocks to their opponent.

Chaotic, illogical, crazy behavior, mixed with some misinformation, was good. Besides, they had no ambition to change the world, and they had no intention of deliberately leaving an impact.

On this basis, it was feasible to increase the difficulty for the Mainbrain to extract information by lacing it with confusing, counter-reconnaissance intelligence.

Luo Jian frowned and glanced at Auntie Yan. “Sorry, human sympathy is one thing, but I have to and should ask. If you want information from us—”

“We know that Ruan Xian has been here, and we also know that he has had contact with you.” Ruan Xian put down half of the canned beans he had eaten. “You mentioned Ruan Xian’s diary.”

“I was talking nonsense,” Luo Jian replied decisively.

“Looking at your reaction at the beginning, I don’t think so. Just relying on pure lies, you can’t stay in a place like a prevention shelter for too long… The next step is just our guess. You can listen to it.”

Ruan Xian looked at Luo Jian.

“Ruan Xian did leave a diary as a ‘charm’ for Pear Blossom—I’m afraid the Mainbrain has already asked the Order Supervisor to investigate that diary. There shouldn’t be too many technical-related things recorded in it, but it’s true.”

“People who really don’t know anything about the doomsday wouldn’t be aware of the hostility between Professor Ruan and the Mainbrain. I guess it’s not difficult to obtain the diary. When a person like Mr. Luo who needs to ‘break free’ from Pear Blossom appears, giving this information can minimize the suspicion of the outside world. A real insider will hear those words and just think you’re nothing but ordinary people who know nothing and are just swaggering around with works banned by the Mainbrain.”

Luo Jian’s expression became more vigilant.

“But there is a danger in this approach. Once you’re caught and exposed, you will immediately be targeted by the Mainbrain, so you organize small offline gatherings with a lack of disguise to promote forbidden text. This method is so clumsy that everyone knows about it… After all, in this city, the Order Supervisors monitor all abnormal behavior, so it was better to just play dumb.”

“In order to give a little more sweetness, you will even organize a small-scale ‘Joint Dreamland’ book club to give the Order Supervisors the information they want. If our investigation isn’t wrong, there should be many people in Pear Blossom that are really unaware of what it truly is. Hiding the woods in the forest, it’s a good technique.”

Luo Jian moved his arm, and Auntie Yan pulled him back. Ruan Xian pretended he didn’t see. He casually held the loose snow that quickly melted into a pool in his hand.

“Those small gatherings won’t make them too vigilant. They are too unstable and will be scattered by the scanning program after a few times. To achieve regular communication between multiple people, it was necessary to cooperate with real-world meetings and communication, but that was too easy to be exposed by the Mainbrain.”

Then he grasped a small snowball close to the ice core and kept wrapping snow around it.

“…If they can quietly access a sufficiently stable spiritual world, this problem will no longer be an issue. Mr. Luo’s memory is like a hidden lighthouse. When it appears, those temporary small spiritual spaces can directly access it. As long as you can avoid the scanning programs, this is the safest place to be.”

Ruan Xian stopped moving, and the snowball lay quietly in his palm. Although it was still melting slowly, there was no sign of cracking.

“The above is just our conjecture. There is only one piece of information we want to know… He established an intelligence network here, and then left you without contact and disappeared on his own. What are Ruan Xian’s plans?”

“You didn’t immediately take off our heads and analyze them for the Mainbrain. Let me just believe that you are not with them.” After half a minute of silence, Luo Jian spoke again. “Why do you want to know this?”

“Only after I know will I decide if I want to cooperate or not,” Ruan Xian said solemnly, as if such a thing was even on the table.

“Everyone knows that the rebels were overwhelmed by the Order Supervisors, and Ruan Xian and Fan Linsong broke out into conflict, and their whereabouts are still unknown. Nowadays, even if there’s fresh blood that wants to resist the Mainbrain, you have to weigh them before letting them into the rebel army. We also think that the Mainbrain isn’t very pleasing to the eye. Before, you guys were in the forefront, so we simply hid and watched how things would develop. Now is a good time.”

After speaking, he specifically paused. Luo Jian just looked at him and realized that he was caught.

The kid hadn’t mentioned the rebel army before, but now he suddenly talked about it and then replaced “rebel army” with “you”. The conversation was moving too fast, and his energy was focused on other aspects that he missed the most suitable time to deny it.

“Of course, if Ruan Xian just gives up like this, or plans to break the jar*, it’s fine not to cooperate.”

*(破罐子破摔) Metaphor referring to after having shortcomings, mistakes, or setbacks, allow the progress to flow without correction or contrary, and intentionally let it develop into a worse direction.

After getting the desired reaction, the snake-like young man continued to narrate with a steady tone.

“If he is still wavering, you can help us by letting him know that there’s an opportunity. That’s pretty much it.”

“Unfortunately, you asked the wrong person.” Luo Jian breathed heavily, “If this is what you want, it’s fine to tell you. Here. This is Ruan Xian’s diary. I remember every sentence. You should also be able to write it down.”

He took out a book with a pale gold cover from his backpack and threw it at Ruan Xian.

“Professor Ruan’s approach has never changed. No matter what the situation of the rebels is, we must leave a ‘spark’ in each petri dish. Where there are pure humans, there must be people who know, so that everyone won’t forget the true definition of being human.”

But Luo Jian’s expression didn’t seem to be excited or uplifted.

“I infiltrated to complete this work and stayed here for four years. Because there’s no way to contact the outside world, I could only set up an organization like Pear Blossom as the base. About two years ago, Professor Ruan came here and brought Xiao Yan…”

“I’m a survivor, wandering outside. I’m older and the environment here is more stable. Professor Ruan brought me in along the way and got me an identity.”

Auntie Yan interjected and patted Li Han on the head. “This kid is a local. This is one of the areas where the Mainbrain focuses on management, and there are not as many rebels as you think.”

Luo Jian sighed again.

“The rest is similar to what you investigated. Professor Ruan personally created this system. At first, he would occasionally bring some people in, telling us to be vigilant at all times and try to absorb good seedlings with independent ideas. But then something happened… How to put it, everyone’s thoughts are not the same.”

Ruan Xian was quickly memorizing the contents of the book, and when he heard this, he stopped flipping the pages. “What do you mean?”

“It’s too comfortable here and there are… Well, replicas of our relatives. A perfect replica; the kind that even their personality flaws are repaired. You get it, right? On the other hand, you also see the level of surveillance here. Except for a few stubborn people like me, many people want to quit. After all, most of the people who are still resisting aren’t young…”

“To be honest, when Professor Ruan first arrived here, there was something wrong with his mood. Disappointed? Lost? At least, that’s how it felt. Later, after this incident, he no longer lives in the city and will only contact us when he has the intention.”

The more Luo Jian spoke, the more unpleasant it became.

“It’s true that we haven’t heard from him for a long time. That’s all I know. To be honest, I want to find him more than you guys. I don’t think he’s the one who will give up, but… Haa, I’ll still wait for him.”

“Got it.” Ruan Xian nodded solemnly. “Thank you for your information.”

Not far away, behind a tree, Tang Yibu looked up at the sky where the snow was still falling. He slowly stretched out his fingers and clasped them together, fiercely clenching them.

He had complicated feelings for the human individual “Ruan Xian”, so complicated that he couldn’t completely sort it out himself. If there must be a definition, that feeling was more like a mixture of grievances, rejection, and persistence after being abandoned.

In that silent computer room, he and his maker had five years.

Ruan Xian appeared as a teacher most of the time, and even when he talked about his own affairs, he mostly avoided topics that were too in-depth. Tang Yibu didn’t know how that person usually got along with others. He only knew that most of the time, that person came to him alone.

Quiet and lonely, like a tombstone full of snow.

He could occasionally catch a glimpse of Ruan Xian’s relatively cold part, but the other party seemed to be consciously hiding it. Even when he was most relaxed, he wouldn’t let the negative emotions show too obviously.

That person used to take care of himself so carefully. Most of the time, he was very strict, occasionally a little jerky and clumsy. Tang Yibu really liked the feeling of being taken seriously.

Tang Yibu once thought that he was the same kind as the other party.

But on the other hand, Ruan Xian didn’t want to involve himself too much. It seemed that he didn’t want to establish too many emotional connections with him.

It didn’t matter. There were no rules in this world now. He learned quickly, thought even faster, and always found a way to achieve his goals. Tang Yibu once hoped that that person would stay by his side for a long time. He used to enjoy the time they communicated with each other.

On the day Ruan Xian saw him for the last time, the skin on his fingers was completely swollen and festering. At that time, he played a clever trick and quietly stuffed a simple synchronization command into the monitoring system.

In the small talk that day, Ruan Xian once complained with a smile that typing was troublesome, voice input was too slow, and the daily work summary was getting harder to organize. Maybe this little gift could surprise the other party, so that Ruan Xian won’t be too disappointed when he found out that he failed to complete the task successfully…

He had made progress. At least he understood the meaning of “active concern”, Tang Yibu thought.

But Ruan Xian never came back.

He narrowly escaped being destroyed. Hearing what happened in The Glass Conservatory, Tang Yibu didn’t seem surprised.

Luo Jian and the others were not much different from his abandoned self at the time.

Tang Yibu slowly exhaled white steam and turned his gaze to his Mr. Ruan again.

To be honest, he didn’t buy much of Mr. Ruan’s claim that he was Ruan Xian. His Mr. Ruan was indeed similar to Ruan Xian in his memory, but it wasn’t the same.

Tang Yibu liked the other’s unpredictability and madness. The most important thing was that his Mr. Ruan had never reneged on his agreement with him, nor had he firmly drawn a line between them.

That human being exposed him to complex and novel emotions for the first time. It was like brushing off the dust on a painting; the whole world became a little brighter.

He could see a lot of things that he had never noticed before, and he could throw some information into that unfinished subject every day. As long as he completed it, he would be able to gain true freedom, and would no longer have such a heavy problem.

He was getting better every day, he thought.

After this subject was over, he could change his next subject to study Mr. Ruan. Observe him, touch him, kill him, or live with him.

Tang Yibu found himself wishing for a rare moment…

For the first time, he hoped to be able to define his emotions as soon as possible so that he could find the best way to deal with them.

For the first time, he hoped to complete the project completely before his Mr. Ruan found Ruan Xian.

For the first time, he hoped that his Mr. Ruan was just his Mr. Ruan.

After all, statistically speaking, once a person committed an act similar to betrayal, there was a great probability that there would be a second time.

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