There was an extra hole in the rock wall above the two of them. Gradually, strong light dropped in from it. The sky wasn’t clear, but it was brighter than before. The falling light was like some kind of aggressive plant as it suddenly covered the light reflected from the lantern.
Tang Yibu smiled. Ruan Xian knew it was him at a glance. He would never mistake those eyes.
The program monster slashed straight at Tang Yibu with one of its sharp claws. The latter seemed to have eyes on his back and dodged lightly. Ruan Xian wanted to take that hand because this sudden change had made his mind blank.
“Can you still stand up, Mr. Ruan?”
The voice of the trumpet, Tang Yibu, rang clear. As an android, Tang Yibu shouldn’t have a childhood stage like a normal human. This image was most likely something he made himself. Ruan Xian had to admit that this guy had studied human aesthetics very thoroughly—the face had the shadow of an adult Tang Yibu, but it was mixed with some softness, which made it easier for people to relax their guard.
“I’m fine,” Ruan Xian simply responded.
Compared to Tang Yibu, who was disgraced but still neatly dressed, the situation on his side could be described as tragic. His simple winter clothes were soaked in blood, torn and tattered, and there were injuries everywhere on his body. Those weird scales had disappeared unknowingly, but the burning sensation still stayed on the skin.
“You don’t look like you’re okay.” Tang Yibu looked at Ruan Xian up and down, smacking his lips. “Anyway, let’s get rid of this thing first.”
“Nn.”
Tang Yibu’s fighting style was still simple and crude. He grabbed the claws of the program monster and jabbed a shiny metal weapon into it. Ruan Xian looked at it several times before he was sure it was a spoon.
After shrinking in size, the android’s movements were a bit less imposing, but he was a lot lighter and more flexible. Facing the behemoth up close, Tang Yibu flexibly stepped on the stone wall and jumped around, briskly avoiding all attacks. Ruan Xian was unable to make sense of what was going on, as when the metal spoon penetrated the monster’s claw, the deformed claw began to fester quickly before dissipating with the wind.
The attention of the program monster gradually shifted to this more threatening enemy. Ruan Xian, who had been focusing on attacking from a distance, got his chance—he wove an almost perfect guard of blood bullets for Tang Yibu, quickly adjusting the target of his attack with the other party’s movements. When Tang Yibu attacked, he used bullets to suppress the monster’s evasive actions. When the android retreated to defend, Ruan Xian began to identify the weakness of his opponent and struck hard.
There was no communication, but Tang Yibu quickly discovered Ruan Xian’s intention. He began to consciously step on the rock and turned his body to create an angle for Ruan Xian to attack.
His shooting became much smoother. Ruan Xian raised his eyes to look at the other, as Tang Yibu happened to turn his face and smiled brightly at him.
The movement of the hybrid made up of a pile of programs became slower and gradually stopped. It shrank into a ball and began to twitch horribly.
Ruan Xian put down the muzzle of his gun and took a long breath of relief. The sweet, fishy blood in his throat almost choked him. Tang Yibu approached the blackened mass of programs and leaned down to take a careful look.
“Our attack is beyond its preset response range. It overloaded.” Tang Yibu poked the mass but did not immediately erase it.
“No action?”
“This thing is too large. If it disappears completely, it will arouse the suspicion of the Mainbrain.” Tang Yibu retracted his hand and turned the spoon in the other hand. “When it starts to disappear, I will take the opportunity to intercept part of the data.”
After that, he stepped over the gravel on the ground and happily rubbed himself against Ruan Xian. Tang Yibu, who looked like a teenager, was a little taller than he was. Instead of lowering his head, he bent down slightly while his golden eyes curved from smiling.
As a real AI, Tang Yibu’s ability to observe and analyze programs was mostly above his own. Ruan Xian couldn’t find a point to question it since the other party made this conclusion.
“I know what you want to ask. I only arrived here after tracking a member of Pear Blossom and happened to find you using the scanning program. This joint dream world is fixed and connected to a lot of small spiritual spaces.”
He stretched out his hand and wiped the blood stains on Ruan Xian’s face with his thumb.
“It’s almost dawn, Mr. Ruan. Would you like something to eat?”
Ruan Xian didn’t move, letting the other party’s thumb graze his cheek. “I’m not hungry.”
“Eating here has no practical effect on your body, but it can make you feel better.” Tang Yibu took out the onions and potatoes from his pockets; one in each hand. “Look, I brought food!”
The onions and potatoes were covered with a suspicious black liquid. Ruan Xian swept his gaze over and raised his eyebrows. “What about the member you were tracking?”
“Waiting outside. Luo Jian’s condition is a bit worse. She’s outside taking care of him and won’t leave for a while. Hearing that I helped, they asked me to come over to confirm your condition… In order to achieve this effect, I went through a lot of trouble to steer the conversation.”
Tang Yibu wiped the black liquid from the potatoes with the corner of his clothes. There was a bit of pride in his voice, and his face was full of “come and praise me”.
The effect of hormones was slowly fading. Looking at Tang Yibu, who was smiling openly in front of him, Ruan Xian suddenly felt a dullness that was close to comfort.
The feeling was especially strong when he had just broken free from that memory. The coldness disappeared, and all over his body felt relaxed, as if he had been soaked in warm water.
“Thanks,” Ruan Xian said, and began to wipe the blood from his body in a daze. Seeing this, Tang Yibu approached thoughtfully, ignoring the dirt and blood on his body, and gave him a big hug while rubbing Ruan Xian’s temples with his nose affectionately.
There was a smell of onions. Ruan Xian held back a sneeze and patted the android’s back, which was wrapped in soft winter clothes.
“What is the result of the investigation?” Reason was slowly returning, and Ruan Xian didn’t let himself indulge for too long. He didn’t deliberately control his tone of voice, nor did he think about how to modify this question.
“Pear Blossom isn’t a simple organization. It’s probably related to Professor Ruan.” Tang Yibu let go of his embrace. “Now it seems that they probably have found a certain strong-willed person to act as the hub, and then connected other spiritual worlds that weren’t stable enough to this stabilized world.”
Seeing Tang Yibu speaking so solemnly with the appearance of a teenager, Ruan Xian began to lose control of his smile.
“In this way, they can meet regularly without contacting the outside world too frequently and being monitored by the Mainbrain,” Ruan Xian added with a smile. “I have confirmed that their ‘hub’ is Luo Jian.”
“But the Mainbrain isn’t so easy to fool. It should have noticed the abnormality here, so it repeatedly sent scanning programs to scan, diluting the memories repeatedly, and destroying the stability of this spiritual world.” Tang Yibu stretched out his hand and gestured.
“They call it a ‘Wolf Attack’,” Ruan Xian picked up the conversation, enjoying this relaxed form of communication.
“…I thought I could give you a surprise.” Tang Yibu’s shoulders collapsed, and the boy’s face became a bit aggravated with a hint of pitifulness. “By the way, there’s—”
“We have plenty of time to talk about this.” Ruan Xian couldn’t help patting Tang Yibu’s face. “I’m more concerned about another ‘investigation’.”
Tang Yibu stopped talking immediately, and his aggrieved expression disappeared without a trace, looking like a fox who had just stolen chicken. “Oh, you found out.”
“After all, we are not the types who easily enter into a hot love period, and you know that I will not be easily killed by that thing. The timing of your debut is a bit too appropriate, Mr. Hero.” Ruan Xian retracted his hand. “Yibu, how long have you been watching before you came out?”
“Just for a while.” Tang Yibu showed his signature innocent expression again.
“For a while…”
“After all, you call yourself ‘Ruan Xian’, and I am very curious about your spiritual image and strength.” Tang Yibu solemnly handed the potatoes in Ruan Xian’s direction. “It was a rare opportunity for observation.”
“What else?”
“I also want to know what you’ll become and how far you’ll go.” Tang Yibu was still smiling as the words he uttered were frank and cruel. “Don’t worry, I’ll be on the edge to pull you back.”
Cold guy.
However, Ruan Xian wasn’t surprised by the android’s approach. Rather, such a Tang Yibu inexplicably made him more at ease—the android’s feelings seemed to have a special processing module, which wouldn’t interfere with each other, wouldn’t tangle, and were extraordinarily well understood.
Tang Yibu’s fondness was very pure. Even the careful calculations and cruelty weren’t concealed. There was no similarity to any human he had ever come in contact with, and his own abnormalities seemed insignificant under this bizarre emotional state that was beyond common sense.
“Now I’m completely convinced that you’re a human. It’s impossible for you to know that I was present beforehand, and you couldn’t fake such a complex emotional shift on the spot.” Seeing that Ruan Xian didn’t respond, Tang Yibu stuffed the potatoes into Ruan Xian’s hand again. “Are you angry?”
This time, the android’s face openly had “I would dare next time” written all over his face.
Ruan Xian couldn’t help laughing and took the dirty potato. “I’m not angry. It’s fine, but Yibu, a potato, can’t buy me off.”
He had never trusted Tang Yibu wholeheartedly, but this abnormal relationship was just right.
“Is that so?” Tang Yibu gritted his teeth and took out the can of beans from his arms. “Then I will give you half of this too? This is… huh?”
As a result, before he finished speaking, he was attracted by the wound on Ruan Xian’s wrist—After the battle stopped, the wounds on Ruan Xian’s body, both large and small, gradually disappeared as his mental state recovered. Only the wounds on his wrists were still stubbornly bleeding.
Tang Yibu stuffed the can of beans back into his arms, slid the onion into his other hand, and gripped the wrist with both hands.
“This is a previous wound,” he said with certainty, touching the blood with his fingertips. “Do you mind telling me what happened?”
“I made it by myself. You’ve seen what I look like just now—I was still young at the time.”
“But it appeared here, indicating that you still mind it.” Tang Yibu didn’t mean to let him take the topic lightly. “Maybe I can try to help you analyze it.”
Very familiar words.
To explain the causes of these scars, the causes and consequences alone would take time to explain carefully. Ruan Xian originally planned to reject this topic neatly, but when he heard this sentence, for some unknown reason, he gave a summary.
“In my memory, my mother committed suicide because of me. I did this after that and wanted to figure out her psychology at the time.”
Tang Yibu’s expression was quite serious. He turned his head slightly and motioned for Ruan Xian to continue. Unlike when talking with Meng Yunlai, even if he didn’t explain the intelligence collection part, Tang Yibu seemed to understand it effortlessly. He still had a smile on his face, only showing pure curiosity.
“Then for some reason, it was hard for me to stop. That’s how it is.” Ruan Xian tried to withdraw his wrist.
“I have encountered a very similar situation.” Tang Yibu didn’t let Ruan Xian succeed, as he still held tightly on to the wrist.
“You?” To use an inappropriate description, Tang Yibu was more like the heartless type. Ruan Xian couldn’t imagine the way the android in front of him would hurt himself.
“But I didn’t go as far as you did.” Tang Yibu showed an expression close to nostalgia. “I always liked to cross my fingers, fold them, and then crack my fingers. It’s quite painful.”
“……”
Tang Yibu didn’t seem to care about the difference in degree at all. “I can give you my own situation as a reference. The premise is that you are sure that you don’t want to attract the attention of others or use it to punish yourself.”
“No.”
“Then you are probably in a similar situation to me.” Tang Yibu gently kissed the deepest wound. “For me, understanding ‘emotions’ is a very troublesome thing. I have no similar kind to provide a reference, so I can only explore it by myself. Based on my experience…”
He paused, with a little blood on his lips.
“I guess you were very sad at that time, Mr. Ruan.”
Ruan Xian didn’t move. He stopped breathing, and his heartbeat seemed to stop. His gaze focused on Tang Yibu’s blood-stained lips, and a burst of sourness spread throughout his nerves.
“Because of my inability to understand pain in my heart, unable to explain my abnormality, I simply transform the pain into a more understandable and logical form. This is some kind of… Well, it’s not an appropriate instinct.”
The android smiled at him again, still looking carefree and heartless.
Ruan Xian had never thought about this.
His personality problems were accompanied by disease. Everyone around him constantly reminded him of this in different ways, from the moment he understood the matter to his “death”. His mother died in front of him, and he was locked in the same room with her rotting and swollen corpse for several days. His younger self wasn’t noisy, let alone he would suddenly collapse and cry; calm to the point of abnormality. He was just thinking, thinking non-stop all the time.
This kind of behavior couldn’t be called “pain”.
But facing Tang Yibu, who wasn’t human, he suddenly felt that this explanation was a bit ridiculous. Ruan Xian opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.
Tang Yibu finally let go of his wrist.
“Mr. Ruan, you’re more sluggish than I thought.” Ruan Xian didn’t know what his expression was at the moment, but Tang Yibu clearly noticed the abnormality. The emotions in those golden eyes began to become complicated. “No, maybe I’m about the same as you—Even if we understand the reasoning, we will still instinctively look for the humans around us as an emotional contrast.”
“Did you forget I am indeed a human?”
“Previously, in area X, both men and women would be arrested for showing their arms in public. Country Y stipulates that contact between men and women is strictly prohibited before marriage, but in Country Z, adults without lovers would be considered ugly and impotent. Isn’t this interesting? They are all humans of the same era, yet their behavior is completely contradictory, as they consider each other’s behavior absurd.”
Tang Yibu softened his voice.
“Humans can be domesticated, just imperceptibly. Just let them get used to it—habits can always smooth out all irrationality. Looking at this petri dish, most people here consider themselves very ‘happy’.”
Living in a safe and limited world, everything was extremely stable on the surface. People lived in a planned grid, so even their hobbies were pre-defined to be very similar. Not to mention collisions of ideas, different voices rarely appeared.
Once they did appear, the Mainbrain would get rid of them, carefully constructing this perfect information cocoon. Here, there would be no fierce heat or cold, no storms or thunder, so there would be no flowers or falling snow, and no rainbows above the mud.
He could clearly see this, but he was bound by a larger cocoon. The effects of the hormones had long since subsided, but stronger emotions had poured in. It was no longer incomprehensible anger, but closer to the grief that revealed its true face for the first time.
Ruan Xian thought it didn’t make him cry this time. It just made his eyes sour. He couldn’t help but take his gaze away from Tang Yibu’s face and looked into the distance as he blinked hard.
This unexpected action gave him an unexpected discovery—just behind Tang Yibu, the program monster that had shrunk into a ball in the shadows, twitched suddenly.
“Yibu…”
“You are just defined by people from one era and one region, Mr. Ruan. This definition may not be complete or reasonable, but you seem to use it as a measure subconsciously.” Tang Yibu continued with interest. “That’s why I’ve always been reluctant to get too close to humans—”
“Yibu, behind!”
Ruan Xian’s body reacted faster.
The thing finally recovered from the overload, and it showed faint signs of collapse and dissipation, but it didn’t stop there. It used its corroded claws to pierce Tang Yibu straight into the back of his neck.
Ruan Xian grabbed Tang Yibu, who was still chattering, and took the blow with his arm. The blow was so heavy that his small arms almost completely snapped off.
The severe pain that followed made him react to what he had done. Tang Yibu’s surprise wasn’t much worse than his own. The android was stunned in place and seemed to be tongue-tied.
“It’s going to disappear. Remember to process the data.” Ruan Xian barely squeezed out his words from between his teeth as he half knelt on the ground. The pain made his breathing extremely short, and his broken arm hung limply. The blood gun slowly slipped from his hand.
Tang Yibu stood in a daze for more than ten seconds before turning his back to deal with the dying mass of programs. After digging out the part carrying the data and crushing it, he slowly moved to Ruan Xian.
“I’m sorry.” His tone was a little dazed.
Ruan Xian narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t know why I’m saying sorry.” Tang Yibu thought deeply for a few seconds, then added, “I mean, with what I know about you, you can’t…”
“Now it seems that I don’t know much about myself.” Ruan Xian tugged at the corners of his mouth and changed the subject. “You know it will attack you before it disappears.”
The second half of the sentence wasn’t an interrogative question.
“Yes, but I can’t grasp the timing of taking the data if I deal with it in advance.”
Tang Yibu didn’t play dumb on this issue. The surprise remained in his eyes.
“And I wanted to see your reaction so that I could make the next decision… It can’t really hurt me. I never thought you would rush out.”
He looked even more shocked. “Do you like me that much?”
Ruan Xian almost laughed angrily at this reaction. “No, the information you gave was very informative. Consider this a gift in return.”
“No, you didn’t want to see me hurt.” Tang Yibu looked at him brightly.
“Seems like your brain regressed along with your appearance.” Ruan Xian wanted to punch the android, but unfortunately, he was defeated by those beautiful eyes that were gazing at him. He decided to focus on dealing with his severe pain first.
However, as soon as he looked away, Tang Yibu pressed his face forward, nailing himself within Ruan Xian’s field of vision, looking quite happy.
“Be nice to the injured. Thanks,” Ruan Xian said angrily, throwing out the little bit of emotion he had into the clouds.
“I’m very happy,” Tang Yibu announced gleefully. “It seems that you can’t fully control your emotions and behaviors. We are at the same starting line again.”
Ruan Xian glanced deeply at the broken arm that was still emanating a lot of pain and inwardly cursed at himself a few minutes ago.
“Although there is still a while before our date, I decided to send out the prepared gifts first, and then prepare a new one.” Tang Yibu kissed Ruan Xian’s forehead. “Do you want to take a guess?”
“Stick to what you’ve learned.” Ruan Xian said dejectedly. “Either that or stop imitating humans.”
In the face of a date covered with blood, Tang Yibu created an atmosphere as if he was taking a walk in the park. In contrast, he was simply a standard normal human, which was why he could be moved.
Tang Yibu picked up the blood gun that fell to the ground and threw it into the air.
“I won’t give you such things as a plant*.”
*Clarity: This whole exchange here is a bit confusing, but basically Tang Yibu is asking do you want to take a guess what present I’m going to give you, to which Ruan Xian responded, stick to what you’ve already learned (about humans and dating) because you often don’t do/give things that humans would consider “normal” (and thus he would have a reaction because, after all, he’s human). Tang Yibu responded by saying he’s not going to give something like a plant as a gift (like flowers, succulents, ect. like normal humans who are dating would do).
The gun fell back in front of Ruan Xian, but the shadow stayed in the air, like there was an additional floating blood gun that appeared out of thin air.
“Mr. Ruan, in fact, I found out the last time I planned to kill you—Your design ability is above mine, but the modification of small instruments is a bit old school.”
The phantom began to disassemble automatically in the air, and Ruan Xian recognized every part of it. He maintained a half-kneeling posture, ignoring the raging pain and flowing blood, staring at it.
Countless formulas, data, and lines flickered in the dark. The indicator lines were connected to various parts, and even the most fragmented ones weren’t missed.
“…So I studied it and made a more powerful modification.” Tang Yibu let the scene solidify in the air, and his bright smile faded slightly. He stretched out his hand to Ruan Xian again; his tone was a little stiff for the first time.
“I hope you won’t use it against me.”
Ruan Xian stared at the flickering numbers and letters without answering. Tang Yibu frowned. He just thought he could let go of those emotions, but he didn’t expect them to come back even more strongly this time.
If he had been holding this gun when they were fighting before, Tang Yibu most likely wouldn’t have survived. He suddenly understood how Tang Yibu felt just now—he never thought Tang Yibu would do such a thing either.
Their relationship should have been twisted but clear, but now it has become more complicated.
This wasn’t the product of Tang Yibu’s whims when he saw him block the attack. Even if it was an advanced artificial intelligence, to think of such a complicated plan would require simulating the usage scenario countless times.
“Now it’s my turn to ask. Do you like me that much?” Ruan Xian threw the question back with a wry smile, staring at Tang Yibu’s outstretched hand.
“Well, in fact, I have been thinking from the beginning that although there are hidden dangers in doing this, there are also certain safety guarantees.”
Seeing that Ruan Xian remembered, Tang Yibu scratched his head with his other hand, and the design slowly disappeared in mid-air. He chose to skip this question.
“This is the spiritual world. Your appearance comes from the period when your will is strongest, plus the various elements that make you persistent.”
“I know.”
“But you’re still wearing the earring I gave you.”
When he said this, Tang Yibu didn’t smile. On the contrary, he solemnly put his hand forward.
“Promise me, at least don’t use this gun against me, okay?”
Ruan Xian finally grabbed the hand firmly.
That annoying android always smiled when he shouldn’t, and when he was motivated, he just did his own thing, but he would occasionally stop smiling where people would normally smile.
There was no joy in that sentence. It was neither coquettish nor pleading. It was so calm that it made people’s hearts throb.
Ruan Xian looked at his outstretched hand. That hand was covered with blood and was no longer its original size. It took him a while to stand firm, and he found that he needed to look down at Tang Yibu, who was in front of him.
Something had changed.
The wound on the wrist was still there, but it had turned into a scar that he was familiar with. Although covered up by blood stains, Ruan Xian could still recognize that his hands were his most familiar appearance. The pain in his arm was gradually subsiding, and everything returned to calm.
“Okay.” He heard himself answer like this.
The small Tang Yibu titled his head up for a while, as if he wasn’t used to this perspective. After a burst of data corruption-like distortion, the android also returned to the appearance that Ruan Xian was most familiar with, except he kept the ugly knitted scarf and the lips that were still stained with his own blood.
Maybe this was another test to control him, but it didn’t matter, Ruan Xian thought. This weird game was destined to continue, and now he was willing to play along and be content with it.
“Well, now you have to explain your change to those people.” Tang Yibu stretched out his hand and rubbed Ruan Xian’s hair. “As a Samaritan passing by, I have to continue to follow Auntie Yan in the shadows. Yu Le and the others are still waiting for me. Regarding things here, we can—”
“—Talk about it on our date.” After a slight pause, Ruan Xian didn’t avoid the hand and accepted the conversation quite naturally. “But I still have one more question to ask.”
Tang Yibu blinked.
“Now that you have confirmed my original mental state, what is the conclusion?” This time, Ruan Xian smiled. “Am I like the ‘Ruan Xian’ you know?”
Tang Yibu was silent for a few seconds, then returned a familiar and irritating smile. He didn’t fall into the trap.
“This question is difficult to answer. After all, I am not familiar with him.”
He then put on his hood again, but this time there weren’t those cloth ears on it. The android thought for a moment and didn’t dwell on the potatoes or onions anymore, but silently put the can of beans in the palm of Ruan Xian’s hand.
“It’s really delicious.” Before leaving, he added another sentence.
Yu Le had a headache.
Auntie Yan was as slippery as a loach, and he wasn’t good at bending words. When he was still at the Walking Stones, Tu Rui was usually responsible for this kind of negotiation. Now that his deputy captain wasn’t around, Yu Le could only try his best, but the result wasn’t ideal.
He wasn’t able to pull out too much information from Auntie Yan’s mouth. The woman simply chatted with him for a few minutes without revealing anything, as if they were really a small organization that was bending the rules.
She then made an excuse to leave when they were about to broach the subject related to the rebels. Yu Le was quite irritable as he tried his best to punch cotton.
If it weren’t for the fact that Luo Fei was still present, he would’ve grabbed Tang Yibu and just left directly.
Then something strange happened—he walked around in this confined space twice, almost lifting up toilet lids and trash cans, but he couldn’t find a trace of Tang Yibu. The troublesome android had turned into dry ice and evaporated silently in the air.
Yu Le felt a bit weak.
However, Luo Fei was watching him from the side, either intentionally or unintentionally, so it wasn’t easy for him to completely let go or show his emotions too clearly. Tang Yibu wasn’t a soft persimmon that was easy to pinch. Perhaps something went wrong, and it wasn’t good to act chaotic in advance.
Thus, the former captain of the ruins pirate made a carefree look and slipped back to his original place and began to fool Luo Fei—He was limited in what he could do, and as long as Tang Yibu didn’t have an accident, he would eventually return to him, so it was better to wait here.
“It’s really not much fun here. There isn’t even a bed,” Yu Le said critically.
“Where’s Xiao Tang?” Luo Fei’s focus was quite apt.
“Who knows which nooks and crannies he went to again. That guy’s brain isn’t very good; an old model.” Yu Le poured himself a cup of tea. “Auntie Yan left quite quickly. Are we still waiting for her?”
“She should be back in a while. You’re a guest, so she wouldn’t keep you waiting. It may be that something urgent came up.”
“Urgent? I haven’t even seen a decent book yet. Did she go to make an emergency purchase or something?” Yu Le didn’t hide his ruffian temper.
Luo Fei smiled embarrassedly.
“I’m bored as hell, so let’s talk about you. Anyway, you have all investigated me, so I have nothing new to say.” Yu Le took a sip of tea. “To be honest, I have someone in the prevention shelter that knows something about your dad. I didn’t expect to run into you here, which surprised me.”
Luo Fei’s expression dimmed.
“Isn’t your dad part of Pear Blossom? Are you concerned about him?” Yu Le pretended not to understand the other party’s expression.
“It’s not Pear Blossom’s fault.” Luo Fei fumbled with his teacup. “My father… My father is a very serious person and has always spoiled me. We had been living here very well before, but one day, he suddenly changed his temperament and disowned me.”
“Have you always been living well?” Yu Le tried his best not to accentuate “always”.
“Yes, my family is local, and I have been here since I was born. My dad also works very hard, and the conditions in our family used to be okay.” Luo Fei was a little dazed. “What’s the matter?”
“No, no, you continue.”
“He started talking about some strange doomsday-related things from time to time after his accident and then was taken away by the prevention shelter two years ago. At first, I thought the same as you, thinking that Pear Blossom had harmed him, and then I found Auntie Yan.”
Luo Fei smiled a little embarrassedly.
“I looked deeper into it and found out that Pear Blossom is really just an ordinary organization, and I haven’t heard of anyone going crazy before because of them. Although they preach about the end of the world, I think it’s closer to a kind of spiritual…”
“Stop, stop, get to the point.” Yu Le hurriedly interrupted the young man’s speech.
“Later, I paid for the prevention shelter to do a few more tests, and my dad’s brain showed signs of lesions. It may be due to physical reasons. Maybe he’s too sensitive to stress… It’s all clear data. He had been in an inexplicable high-pressure state. Haa, I just didn’t notice it in time.”
Luo Fei’s eyes were red.
“At first, he joined Pear Blossom without telling me, presumably to relieve stress. Mr. Yu, if you really have friends in the shelter, I want to ask…”
“I have a friend in that lunatic asylum, but he’s on the side that’s being treated.” Yu Le smiled. “I’m sorry.”
Luo Fei’s expression stiffened but didn’t freeze. Yu Le thought to himself that the young man had a good temper.
It was a pity that the experience sounded like an illogical literary film.
“I didn’t mean to tease you. To be honest with you, my friend also went in because of similar symptoms.” Yu Le’s tone became serious. “He kept yelling about the end of the world, and he also thought he was in love with an android. He wore a white coat and spoke nonsense every day. As a result, some time ago, he swallowed a bunch of memory inhibitors and got himself admitted.”
It may be that his expression recalling the past was so real that Luo Fei didn’t doubt it at all. “Oh my god…”
“What are your dad’s symptoms? Not joking. Maybe there are other factors besides Pear Blossom.”
“…He collapsed once, saying that I wasn’t his son.” Luo Fei lowered his eyes to the teacup. “I went to the prevention shelter to see him. He said that his son died more than ten years ago, killed by him, and told me to get out.”
Yu Le’s joking mind suddenly faded, and he hummed dryly. “Didn’t mention anything else?”
“Not really. At that time, he was on some brain-influencing medication, so his narrative was all over the place. I could barely understand what he was saying.” Luo Fei laughed a little hard. “My mother died early, and I had a brother who also died unexpectedly. He and I are dependent on each other, and these facts are consistent with his fantasy. It’s just that in his consciousness, they all died in some disaster.”
“Doomsday?”
“That’s right.” Luo Fei took a sip of tea as if he was venting his anger. “He also worked hard and tried to give me better conditions, but he thought it was a bad place to live—a very cold place.”
Yu Le said nothing.
“He clearly remembers a lot of things. He remembered that I waited for him at home every day and insisted that the house be cold, so I would wait with just candles on. He also asked me if I remembered I liked playing with candles. I… What kind of age are we in where there are even candles?”
“…” Yu Le didn’t know what to say. He had a bad feeling.
“According to him, the climate was bad, and I have a lung disease. In order to provide me with good food for a change, he worked several times more than others in the snow. Then he said that when I was ten or about that, thinking that I would drag him to death, I ran out of the house without authorization and was frozen to death. God knows why he fantasizes about this.”
“In order for him to recover early, I went to see him every day at first, but then he didn’t even want to see me anymore and wasn’t willing to talk to me.”
Luo Fei’s became red all over. “Forget it. If I found out earlier…”
“Don’t think too much,” Yu Le said in a muffled voice, patting the young man on the back. “Sorry, brother, I can’t help you. My friend doesn’t even want to share the details of his fantasy, but I… Well, I understand this feeling of powerlessness.”
“It’s fine. I haven’t mentioned this to anyone for a long time, and I haven’t seen him for a while now. It’s more comfortable to be able to talk about it.” Luo Fei wiped his nose. “My dad is under fifty. Now that science and technology are developing so fast, he can always be cured.”
“Yes, there is always a cure.” Yu Le laughed dryly, as if there was a fishbone stuck in his throat.
“Anyway, that’s it. Now that I think about it, I might be just trying to chase his shadow.” Luo Fei struggled to smile. “I always thought that Mainbrain’s planning was perfect before, but how can I put it, these books are quite interesting, right? I have never come across such things before. Did you know that people used to create things like zombies or dragons that didn’t exist? There are also particularly cruel wars, weapons of destruction…”
“Very interesting,” Yu Le said. “Alright, seeing you like this, it seems like you need to calm down for a bit. I’m going to have a cigarette first.”
He left the room quickly, with only a thought in his mind.
‘Fuck. What an asshole,’ he thought.
Yu Le ruthlessly smoked the cigarette and tried to squeeze it out of his memory. After smoking half of it, he put it out and folded it back.
“Forget it, Xiao Luo.” He scratched his hair irritably. “I still have something to do, so I won’t wait. When Auntie Yan comes back, you can tell her on my behalf.”
“But the reward of that book…”
“I can get it when we meet again. It’s not a problem.”
“Oh, okay, you just need to walk to the room over there and turn off the lights.”
When Yu Le woke up from the enhanced memory cocktail, Ji Xiaoman was slowly eating snacks. The little girl cut the snack into four equal portions and ate them very cherishingly, little by little. Seeing Yu Le taking off his breathing mask, she pushed the two untouched portions in front of Yu Le a little uncomfortably.
There were no new customers in the store. The beautiful woman behind the counter, the remote-controlled humanoid manipulated by Auntie Yan, had half her eyes closed, making a fake appearance of being asleep.
Talking and laughter came in through the window. The night was illuminated by brilliant lights, and occasionally electronic eyes flashed everywhere. In general, the atmosphere was quite peaceful, until Yu Le’s gagging cut through.
He haphazardly took the two neatly cut snacks, stuffed them into his mouth together, and chewed hard.
“Where’s Tang Yibu?” Making sure no one was looking, Ji Xiaoman frowned.
“Still inside.” Yu Le’s voice sounded hoarse. “I can’t find him, but this kind of thing involves the cybernetic brain, so you should have a way, right?”
“Not necessarily, but I’ll try.” As always, Ji Xiaoman didn’t talk nonsense. She secretly summoned a light screen, connected it to the “cocktail bottle” that was still operating, and began to quickly invade.
Yu Le leaned on the edge of the table, carefully adjusting his movements to make sure that Auntie Yan and Luo Fei wouldn’t see Ji Xiaoman at a glance if they were to wake up.
Ji Xiaoman remained frowning. She bit her lip as the characters jumping on the light screen reflected a little blue light in her eyes. Yu Le stared at her for a while, then turned his gaze to those fast-dancing metal fingers.
“Little profiteer.”
“…What are you doing?”
“I originally thought the Sea of Ruins would be pretty fucked up. Fan Baiyan was one of the most disgusting people I have ever seen in my life.”
“Oh.”
“Later, I found out that Mr. Qian Yigeng in your Underground City was also about the same, causing you all to live an oppressive life.”
“Oh.”
“As for this place… At first, it just felt dull and boring. Now it seems that it may not lose in terms of fuckery. Do you think this place where the Mainbrain is in charge is disgusting?”
“……Well.”
“You want to save your mother; those two little bastards want to find Ruan Xian. On my side, that kid Tu Rui asked me to find a place to mix in for a year and then go back, but looking at this shitty world, where can I mix in?” Yu Le’s voice was getting lower as if he was having an inner monologue.
Ji Xiaoman stopped moving and raised her eyes to look at him.
“If you find Tang Yibu early, I have to discuss with them. Anyway, according to Lao Tu’s statement, if there’s anyone else in the world who can fuck up the Mainbrain, it’s estimated that only Professor Ruan is left.”
Yu Le looked out the window at the bustling city.
“Laozi has changed his mind. I want to go with you to find Ruan Xian.”
Kinky Thoughts:
Tang Yibu likes Ruan Xian to the point where he would give his most treasured food to him… That’s how you can tell, dear, that he likes you.
Everything in Luo Jian’s memory was extremely real, and it was completely different from the common situations recorded in data.
According to the theory Ruan Xian had seen, unsubstantiated fantasies injected, or transplanted memories would be more or less problematic. The joint therapy should prove that the doomsday in Luo Jian’s head was a flawed imagination, or artificially synthesized—fabricated things and real memories were often far from this quality of details.
Psychiatrists sent people into the mind so that they could witness those terrible loopholes with their own eyes, thereby puncturing the fantasy bubble. He and Luo Jian had the same “fantasy”. Depending on Li Han’s arrangement, there were more than two victims of this “doomsday fantasy”. This kind of joint therapy was obviously not the first time they’d done it.
However, what he was facing right now was obviously not that kind of world. Let alone this scene looking extremely real, it didn’t even have the normal memory that it should have as it was almost the same as the real world.
Ruan Xian walked in the snow one foot deep and one foot shallow. The thick snow almost reached his knees. A teenager’s body was quite troublesome as he soon fell quickly behind the rest of the team.
Luo Jian moved forward without turning his head, while Li Han occasionally looked back worriedly. It was probably because she was worried about the soul of the adult in his shell that she didn’t take any actions of substantial assistance.
The lead-gray sky became darker, and the snow that could have been a little white was gradually painted gray-blue by the night. Occasionally, the outline of a frozen corpse or the black cross-section of a stone could be seen from under the snow. The dead branches of shrubs hung with a thick layer of frost, and the only vitality came from the withered grass stubble sticking out of the snow.
Although he used his imagination to put warm clothes on himself, the skin that was exposed still felt pain as if it were being cut by a knife. The figures of Li Han and Luo Jian gradually blurred until only the patient mark on their wrist was still lit up, revealing a very uncomfortable red light in the dim air.
A faint wolf howl was mixed into the wind. Ruan Xian held his breath, took a few more steps forward, and barely caught up with Li Han, who was walking behind Luo Jian.
Li Han breathed a sigh of relief. Her gaze moved from Ruan Xian’s blood-stained wrist to the face that belonged to a teenager. After hesitating for a moment, her attitude softened a little.
“It will be fine when you enter the city.” She brushed away the snow from her sleeves. Thin ice beads hung from her eyelashes. “It’s about another half hour at most. Don’t worry.”
Ruan Xian obediently grunted and looked at Li Han’s face for a while. This ordinary girl revealed a strange temperament here. She didn’t become sharp or lean; just like a bird that had popped out of a bird cage and once again was able to breathe smoothly.
Half an hour later.
Joint therapy had a peculiar characteristic. The principle of its realization included some theories related to lucid dreaming. Just like people’s dreams, the perception of time flow in the mental world was completely different from the real world and was usually much slower.
The half-hour memory in the snowfield was just a blink of an eye in the outside world. Even if this treatment only took two hours, if Gong Siyi wanted, the three of them might stay in this cold spiritual place for two days or even two months, depending on the external conditions of the joint therapy.
This was also the only thing that the outside world could interfere with. Ruan Xian sighed at the ungloved hand.
Luo Jian’s memory was obviously extremely bad, and the damage suffered here would affect his body. If enough time passed, even friends would have conflicts, let alone strangers with different personalities that didn’t seem to get along. Fortunately, Gong Siyi had no greater authority than to adjust the passage of time. As long as he delayed the point of conflict with Luo Jian, then he would have enough time to spend with him.
This was an opportunity that Gong Siyi personally provided.
After all, as far as Luo Jian’s current performance was concerned, the other party had no intention of making a move on him.
“After entering the city, what are we going to do?” Seeing the shadow of the city in front of him get clearer, Ruan Xian tightened his voice a little. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous. This is not the same as the propaganda I saw…”
“Go into the city, eat, and sleep,” Luo Jian replied coldly. “Think of it as a vacation in a different environment.”
“Aren’t we here to find flaws? Do we have to eat here too?”
“As long as your subconscious knows that you’re still breathing, you have to also sleep and eat.” Luo Jian stopped in his tracks. His voice was dry. “It follows your biological clock. Get it?”
“But…”
“Talk less and save more energy. If you die too early, it’ll be very troublesome on my side.” Luo Jian put up his collar and rudely interrupted Ruan Xian. From beginning to end, he never once looked at him.
The night became thicker, and a large amount of off-white smoke gushed out of the various sized chimneys. The snow-covered steel frame revealed a glow of orange and yellow light, whose light seemed to carry temperature. Just looking at them would make people feel a little illusory warmth.
Luo Jian took them to the outskirts of this spooky city and found a dark storefront at random. He rubbed the snow on his soles on the blanket outside the store, crossed the dead tree in front, and gently opened the door.
“Lao Luo.” The person behind the counter nodded at him.
“Three cups of hot water, add some salt.” Luo Jian pulled the scarf that was covered in ice around his neck downward. It was so stiff that it looked like a plaster model.
Ruan Xian was the last to enter the door, and he closed it carefully. Without the cold wind, the room was a lot warmer, and the fingers that were frozen unconscious began to tingle slightly.
The woman behind the counter was holding a rough handmade pipe, with heavy bags under her eyes, messy gray hair, and no patient mark on her wrist.
It could be someone who lived in Luo Jian’s memories.
“Three people, huh.” She knocked on her pipe. “Why did you even bring a kid?”
“Auntie Yan, three cups of hot water.” Luo Jian didn’t answer her question. “Add some wine to my cup and some juice powder for Xiao Han. You don’t need to add anything for that kid.”
“Women don’t like men who are too harsh on children.” The elderly woman took out three dirty cups from under the counter. “Lao Luo, you can’t go on like this.”
“He’s not a child.” Luo Jian took the steaming water and emphasized again.
“Tch.” The woman glanced at Ruan Xian a few more times. “It’s a pity. I was just thinking how a person like you could abduct such a good-looking child. Dare I say it’s a fake? What, he…?”
“Never mind that. Do you still have a bed here?”
“Yes. There’s also dinner. Do you want it?” The woman smiled, revealing yellow teeth due to her smoking.
Luo Jian nodded. “We estimate that we’ll stay here for two days. If there are guests from other places—”
“No. You know what this place is. I haven’t seen a new face in months, and you’re willing to come over to support the show.”
“What about the wolf attack?”
“Same as always, coming in regular waves. Oh, the last time was less than a week ago. I’m guessing they’ll come back in the next few days. If you don’t plan to enter the city for the time being, you better watch out.” The woman exhaled a puff of smoke. “Are you going into the city? I have to go tomorrow, and I can buy the things you want. Turnips, onions, or potatoes? Recently, a shipment just came in.”
“I’m just here for a change of mood, and I have no other plans for the time being. Just take a look and get whatever you can.” Luo Jian shrugged.
“Look and get, ah.” There was a hint of disappointment in the woman’s tone. “Okay, then let Xiao Ma take care of you first.”
A short young man peeked out from the back of the store in response. His gaze wandered around and finally settled on Ruan Xian with a friendly smile. Luo Jian rolled his eyes as if he was too lazy to explain anymore.
Xiao Ma looked ordinary, with a standard popular face. He had an unobtrusive scar at the base of his ear, which was mostly covered by black ash. He slapped a towel around his neck, with beads of sweat on his forehead. For some reason, Xiao Ma’s entire body revealed some weird sense of incongruity, like a puzzle piece was misplaced in a box.
Ruan Xiao glanced at him but couldn’t find anything unusual, so he had to temporarily give up.
Dinner was a simple bacon and potato soup with a lot of chilies to keep out the cold, which made the entire pot of soup red. Li Han swallowed in small sips while tears pooled around her face from the spiciness. Ruan Xian dipped the dry and hard noodles in the soup and chewed slowly.
‘It was an illusion after all,’ he thought. Although the food in his mouth had a taste, it lacked a lot of “details”. The difference was as subtle as listening to a song on the spot and repeating the melody in the brain. Fortunately, there was still a sense of satiety, and he didn’t intend to be too picky about this issue.
The woman behind the counter went out at night, while Xiao Ma was busy cleaning the store. There weren’t any electric lights in the house. A strange smell wafted in the air; he wasn’t sure if it came from the burning oil lamps or the wood-like chimney outside the house.
Luo Jian’s arrangement was more monotonous than he thought—After finishing dinner, Luo Jian pulled a bunk out from the corner and fell asleep without the slightest willingness to talk to others. Li Han asked Xiao Ma for chalk-like white stones and painted casually on a rough stone slab.
Ruan Xian sat down by the only window in the house.
A lot of wooden strips were nailed sideways on the window, obscuring his vision, so he could only see vague lights outside and boundless darkness. He stared at the darkness for a while before lowering his gaze and looking at his left wrist, which was wrapped in blood.
Those wounds showed no signs of healing. The flesh was turned out, slowly seeping blood. The flowing blood also didn’t drip on the table but was like a living thing that crawled around his wrist.
Xiao Ma was wiping the table with a rag, acting as if he didn’t see the blood.
Ruan Xian covered the wound with his sleeve. At the moment, it could only bring out a little paralysis and didn’t affect his flexibility in movement. This was enough. He took a breath, raised his elbow, and made it easier for Xiao Ma to continue his cleaning.
But as soon as he raised his elbows halfway, his movements suddenly froze.
…The scar on the base of Xiao Ma’s ear was gone.
Ruan Xian narrowed his eyes and looked carefully at the young man in front of him. As if perceiving this sight, Xiao Ma turned his head and smiled at him again.
This time, Ruan Xian discovered the sense of dissonance.
Under his careful gaze, Xiao Ma’s features flickered slightly and began to blur, like a wax figure with no fixed facial features. When he turned his gaze away and just glanced casually, Xiao Ma looked the same as a normal person again.
“What’s the matter, little guy?” Xiao Ma himself seemed unaware of what was happening to him. “I still have some baked apple slices here. Do you want to eat them?”
Ruan Xian thought for a moment, glanced at Luo Jian, who was asleep, and Li Han, who was immersed in her own world, and nodded slowly.
“Thank you.” He tried to make himself sound like a shy child or an exceptionally reticent adult.
Outside the artificial dream world created by joint therapy.
Tang Yibu set aside half of his energy to listen to the conversation between the two in front of him. The communication between Yu Le and Luo Fei was very simple, so this half was enough. As for the remaining 95% of the other half, Tang Yibu was thinking about the amazing situation he was in, and the other 5% was dedicated to being nervous about the date.
He couldn’t help but raise his head again and look at the brilliant lights outside the alley.
Round patrol electronic eyes floated on the streets. After the curfew, except for those who did supervision work, only those who had reached a certain level of citizenship were allowed on the streets. The city swayed a little more than during the day, and it seemed more orderly. People were talking and laughing as they walked in the floating light, and the air was clean and fresh, with just the right amount of humidity.
Less than 30 seconds ago, an electronic eye floated past them, scanning their pupils one by one. One of them had told Luo Fei, who was holding the booklet, of his rapid heartbeat and abnormally high temperature. It checked each side of the light screen floating in the air while completely ignoring the handwritten book in his hand.
The light screen showed a scenic wildlife documentary. Luo Fei followed the light emitted from the light screen while his face remained flushed as if he was dripping with blood.
There was no unexpected emotion on Yu Le’s face. He was responsible for answering Luo Fei’s questions in a whisper and making a surprise attack when the other party was in a bind, such as now.
“I say you’re not young anymore. Don’t be like a kid under ten years old.” Yu Le crossed his arms and pretended that he had never been attracted to that booklet. “This can calm you down, and I think that’s the case with your collection.”
“I just haven’t seen anything like this.” Luo Fei sounded a little frightened. “People can really do this… My god, this kind of thing doesn’t even appear in war documentaries.”
“Oh, I know that.” When he was bored, Yu Le also found some documentaries to pass the time. However, the excessively brutal and gory bits were all trimmed away, leaving only dry text summaries. He didn’t know if it was to maintain this illusion of “world peace” as many conflicts had been deliberately downplayed or just simply glossed over.
Over time, fewer people remember them, and things that no one remembered weren’t much different from them ever having happened.
“It’s too barbaric,” Luo Fei muttered, turning the page with trembling hands. “So barbaric, my god.”
At first, Yu Le found it funny, and from time to time he would glance at Tang Yibu, who was dumbfounded, but as Luo Fei’s breathing or amazement became stronger, he began to be unable to laugh.
Luo Fei didn’t exaggerate; he really couldn’t understand what Tang Yibu wrote. As an adult, Luo Fei undoubtedly showed an expression of shock, like a mouse who saw a cat for the first time—he was already frightened before he could figure out what he was looking at.
But the horror was mixed with a lot of subtle emotions and blended into a certain expression that Yu Le didn’t like very much, so he deliberately sneezed, pulling Luo Fei’s attention away from the book.
“Doesn’t Pear Blossom communicate with people in other places?” The other party’s level was a bit low, which made Yu Le begin to feel uninterested again. “Then I have to consider whether to contact you. The book you brought me last time really wasn’t interesting. I was hoping for something exciting and fresh for a change.”
“You wrote this?” Luo Fei’s tone was extremely serious.
Yu Le glanced at Tang Yibu, who was still in a daze. The android didn’t even move his eyes, and he didn’t have the slightest reaction of wanting to participate in the dialogue, so he just scratched his head. “Sort of.”
Luo Fei began to look at Yu Le up and down with a strange gaze, which made Yu Le a little irritable from being stared at. He immediately regained the initiative on the topic. “Like I said, it’s not that there’s no blood here. The Android Show isn’t finished. Isn’t that thing also very exciting?”
“As you know, the audience for the Android Show needs to be strictly screened. It can be regarded as only accessed by the very top of this society that basically have zero possibility of committing crimes, not to mention that it costs a lot of money to watch the show itself. At least I can’t afford it.”
Luo Fei touched the booklet in his hand with a complicated expression.
“The Mainbrain thinks that this society is perfect enough. If you can’t make money, most people who are placed in the lower and middle classes are considered inferior products with insufficient intelligence or personality… ‘We’ don’t have too much discernment and touching things that shouldn’t be touched will only lead to trouble.”
“The information on the Android Show is strictly controlled, so it’s impossible for us to get access to it. Those who are able to watch the show don’t need Pear Blossom. However, looking at your work… Have you ever seen the show? Your current job—”
“You have also seen my age. In the past, the show wasn’t as strict, so I have seen a bit of it. At that time, you haven’t even grown hair yet, so it’s not surprising you don’t have any impression,” Yu Le said jokingly, as he casually carried the topic.
Luo Fei thought for a while but didn’t question this statement. “Then I’ll ask directly, Mr. Yu, what do you need?”
“How can I know without seeing your inventory? Laozi even showed you his true skills. It’s not too much to ask for a recipe, right?” Yu Le deliberately made his attitude seem harsher.
Yu Le had full experience of being a wicked person. Prisons were like barren grasslands with prey and drinking water. People had to rely on silent intimidation with gestures to live in peace. He used to be able to frighten criminals with that hostility, not to mention the young man in front of him who was sweating after reading a piece of text.
Luo Fei’s expression froze for a moment. After a while he said, “We have our rules, but I can recommend you… You can call your female android over.”
Yu Le grinned. Right as promised. It was like a dream, letting the other party show all their cards at once. They only needed a breakthrough.
As a result, before he even took a step, Tang Yibu moved decisively in the direction of the store as fast as he could. Yu Le bitterly retracted his outstretched foot and took the opportunity to adjust his standing position. Not long after, the expressionless Ji Xiaoman followed Tang Yibu over. She put her hands in her wide coat, looking terribly serious.
The pockets of the jacket were bulging. Yu Le glanced at Ji Xiaoman thoughtfully, noticing that her face was extremely stiff. His gaze immediately swept across the snack crumbs at the corners of Tang Yibu’s mouth. For a moment, Yu Le was a little envious of comrade Ruan, who was locked up in the prevention shelter.
Yu Le swiped the light screen casually. The money in his account had indeed decreased by a little.
Not so long ago, he only had to worry about how to stabilize people’s hearts through discipline and how to beat Fan Baiyan to death. These nanny-like piecemeal tasks were all handled by his deputy, Tu Rui.
‘Lao Tu, I really blame you. Taking care of children is so fucking troublesome.’ Yu Le wiped his nose in amusement.
“Let’s go.” He retracted his gaze.
“Tang Yibu and I want to get some weapons.” As he walked through the bright lights, Ji Xiaoman walked on Yu Le’s right side and whispered to him. “I bought a memory cocktail and made a simple modification. In order to get a discount, I bought the snack package… This saves more money. I didn’t hold back and hacked into your account again. Sorry.”
Yu Le raised his brows and couldn’t help laughing—she was very decisive when hunting mechanical life, and she was also slightly indifferent to the life and death of others. This girl seemed to have a great sense of guilt for hacking his account. If he was in her position, he was afraid that he would immediately steal all the money.
Compared to a certain someone who had an upright face and hadn’t wiped his mouth clean, Ji Xiaoman had a strange personality and was quite honest.
“It’s good to know that the money wasn’t all eaten by that android,” Yu Le responded in a low voice. “Don’t worry. Spend it if you think it’s reasonable. I just ask that even if you charge food, don’t let that kid get the biggest share.”
He didn’t know if it was intentional, but Tang Yibu, who was in a daze this whole time, coughed hard. Ji Xiaoman was quiet for a moment, then suddenly stretched out her hand and quietly stuffed a snack into Yu Le’s hand.
“I left you a piece.” Her tone was a bit stiff.
“Yo, the profiteer is enlightened.”
“In the end, you’re still an oaf.” Ji Xiaoman quickly snatched the snack back.
“Here.” Luo Fei stopped walking and pointed to the shop in front of him.
This was a smaller bar. Compared to the one Luo Fei recommended to them the first time, the one in front of him had a more retro taste. The gloomy decoration was particularly unobtrusive among the bright storefronts, like an empty gap, with very few guests.
The only conspicuous thing in front of the store was a pear tree, which was in full bloom, making it look like the branches were covered with thick snow.
The habits left by the Sea of Ruins were very stubborn. Yu Le first estimated the structure of the building in front of him in his mind. He kept the key details and subconsciously went through all the retreat methods in his head before stepping inside.
The tables and chairs here were all wooden, with rare traces of craftsmanship. He didn’t know if the rough shape was unskilled or deliberate—there were even oil lamps burning on the wooden tables. The light shook like a living object, and even the shadow of all things trembled on the wall.
Behind the counter stood a beautiful woman with smooth, black, and bright straight hair, hanging from her shoulders to her plump breasts. She was holding a delicate, fragrant pipe in her hand, but it was a pity that it looked more like some kind of ornament. She didn’t take a single puff, but just smiled brightly at them. Her smile was full of absent-mindedness.
“Geez, Feifei.” She winked at Luo Fei.
“I brought guests.” Being greeted affectionately by a beautiful woman, Luo Fei didn’t show the slightest unnatural look. His tone was very respectful. “It’s the person I mentioned last time, Auntie Yan.”
“I see.” The woman had a lazy tone, as if she hadn’t woken up yet. “And you brought him here? Let me see the stuff.”
Luo Fei put his hands on the booklet. “He said he wrote it himself.”
The woman casually flipped through a few pages, rolled her eyelids and glanced at Yu Le. Her reaction was much smaller than Luo Fei’s. “I know a lot… Ah, have you checked this person’s background?”
“Checked. No problem for the time being.”
“Well, then the usual rules.” The woman raised her hand with a smile. “Prepare something for this gentleman to get to the top.”
“Mr. Yu, this way, please.” Luo Fei pointed to the only table with a guest.
Leaning on the seat close to the recliner was an elderly woman. Her gray-white hair was simply groomed and the bags under her eyes were quite conspicuous and looked as if she had pasted them on. She also had a pipe in her hand, but the style was as crude as the shop itself. In addition to the temple patch commonly used for tasting memory cocktails, she was currently wearing additional equipment, like a breathing mask. Her shriveled chest was undulating soothingly, and it looked as if she was sleeping.
Yu Le’s gaze moved along the pipe connection of the breathing mask and stopped on the large glass jar in the middle of the table.
The cocktail device they had seen before was about the size of a cup, but the one in front of them was more like a beverage can in an old-fashioned cafeteria. It was fixed directly on the table, and there were four breathing masks sticking out. In addition to the one being used by the woman, there were three more placed end to end in front of the empty spots.
The blue light in the jar was much brighter than that in the cup, and it swam around as if it had life. There were already metal balls floating slowly in the liquid. Under the dim lighting of oil lamps, the electric light cruising between the metal balls revealed a full sense of unreality.
“Here, put this on, and Auntie Yan will explain it to you.”
“Can I bring my people in?” Yu Le didn’t immediately take the breathing mask that Luo Fei handed over. “I saw the promotion of the bar. It seems that androids can also use this thing.”
“That’s usually for… Uh, fun.” Luo Fei scratched his nose. His tone was a little uncomfortable. “In theory, it’s indeed possible. After all, this thing only requires the mapping of thinking data and algorithms, but this can’t be used as a protective measure. Without the connection to the Mainbrain, the android’s mental level is so low that, let alone protecting you, they’ll be even more vulnerable than you. In the event of an unexpected situation, the human brain can last for a while, but the cybernetic brain is likely to burn out.”
As he spoke, he glanced at Tang Yibu and Ji Xiaoman. “Androids aren’t cheap these days. There’s really no need.”
“I agree,” Ji Xiaoman said coldly. “I need to be out there to keep you safe, Mr. Yu.”
While Luo Fei looked at Tang Yibu, Ji Xiaoman quietly shook her head at Yu Le and nodded. Yu Le immediately understood—No one knew what special reactions an android would have under the action of a memory cocktail. Tang Yibu was really an android, but Ji Xiaoman could easily reveal her flaws.
Besides, they needed someone to keep an eye on things outside.
“Well, I do want to have some fun along the way. If I see something good, I want to take a shot at it.” Yu Le’s face was full of regret. “Then let Xiao Tang go with me. It’s too boring if there’s no one to accompany me.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, according to you, androids aren’t a threat to you.”
Luo Fei looked at the counter, and the woman known as Auntie Yan nodded quite casually. He didn’t say anything more, and handed the breathing mask to Tang Yibu, who was dutifully pretending to play dumb.
“You’d better choose a gentler image.”
After Tang Yibu took it, Luo Fei opened his mouth a bit stiffly.
“According to the computing power of androids, it should be fine. Anyway, you have no such thing as a subconscious mind and willpower. Just choose whatever you want—cats and dogs are fine. Remember to choose something harmless. The image of a young man is too aggressive.”
Tang Yibu nodded politely and smiled, indicating that he understood. Ji Xiaoman leaned against the table and put her hands in her pockets, making a gesture of holding something.
Yu Le breathed a sigh of relief and rolled his eyes secretly. He dawdled on the recliner for a while, then carefully put the patch on his temples, and finally put on a breathing mask.
It was completely different from the memory cocktail he tried last time.
The feeling brought about by the memory cocktail was more inclined to the “past”, like remembering a dream when you woke up in the morning. Now it was as if he had entered the dreamland itself. Although everything around them had a weird sense of unreality, it really felt as if it belonged to the present.
Yu Le looked at himself subconsciously. His clothes hadn’t changed, and his hands were in a familiar state. Luo Fei, who was beside him, looked exactly like when they had just met. The woman who had been sleeping in the recliner was standing opposite of Luo Fei, talking with him and taping her pipe.
Inside the house were around four people, mostly dressed in ordinary clothes, reading books by the crackling fireplace.
Judging from the environment, they were standing in a small western-style building that was simply decorated. Yu Le could only see the spiral steps upstairs, and he couldn’t judge how many floors there were. The lightning in the living room came from lights and flames, and the curtains were tightly drawn. He strode to the window, opened the corner of the curtain, and saw only pure darkness that seemed to be painted on the glass.
If the glass here hadn’t been specially treated, then there may be a void outside of “this building”.
“Tang—” Yu Le turned around and tried to communicate with Tang Yibu, but he looked blank.
Tang Yibu, who was supposed to be by his side, disappeared.
Yu Le’s scalp went numb. He clenched his fists, and instinctively flashed to the nearest shelter. As a result, before he could figure out whether the shelter in this illusion could block an attack, he took aim at the guy who was suspected to be Tang Yibu a few steps away.
Tang Yibu had shrunk quite a bit that Yu Le had to lower his gaze to look at him—a young boy about 11 or 12 years old was looking at him with a smile and an inexplicably happy mood in his golden eyes.
“…” The corners of Yu Le’s mouth twitched.
“Luo Fei asked me to choose a harmless image. It’s inconvenient to communicate as an animal. Some people will be wary of the elderly, but few will be wary of children.” Tang Yibu jumped onto the table, swinging his legs casually, as if he was really a teenager. “I have also studied the looks that people like—”
“How fucking cute. Just shut up.” Yu Le pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. “I’ll be regarded as a fucking pervert. With Ji Xiaoman and you looking like this, my reputation… Haa, laozi likes women with big breasts and ass, not those with handlebars1 and washboards2, let alone little brats who haven’t grown up. Fuck, who can make sense of this?”
1Slang for men (because they have a “handle”). 2Slang for flat-chested girls.
Tang Yibu spread out his hand with a helpless look. Yu Le’s fist felt a bit itchy, but he had to admit that despite Tang Yibu looking like a beautiful boy that would break from a single touch, he really couldn’t beat him.
So he had to resign to secretly flip him off.
Tang Yibu pretended not to see Yu Le’s gesture and followed him obediently while carefully analyzing the people in front of the fireplace with his gaze.
In theory, it was safer here than in the real world. After all, the electronic eyes of the Mainbrain couldn’t penetrate into the human mind.
It didn’t take long for Tang Yibu to figure out how this place worked—the memory cocktail was packed with memory fragments that had been purified in advance and stuffed directly into the guests’ brains. It was more like multiple people sharing an instant process of memory generation, like stepping into an ongoing dream.
Bluntly put, the former was like watching a random video clip of an adventure, while the latter was more like participating in a holographic adventure game.
There were troubles too.
Although Tang Yibu had full confidence in his mental endurance, the A-type Prototype didn’t have a powerful healing function, so he couldn’t attach it to his spirit. Here, he would not have much of an advantage in terms of combat power. If he was “killed”, the possibility of damage to his cybernetic brain wasn’t low.
The most troublesome thing was that in order to kill someone, he had to make sure they realized that they were fatally wounded…
After all, it wasn’t the real world, so poisoning wouldn’t work and hunkering down in the shadows for a surprise attack wasn’t useful either. Only a frontal assault could be done. All medical knowledge was invalid, and only by inducing the “subconscious to think that they will die” was the only way to cause death.
Tang Yibu would subconsciously assess the extent of his injuries and would instantly come to the conclusion that it “may lead to death”. Although he could control his thoughts as much as possible, he didn’t want to take any risks.
It was better to use the fragile appearance to deal with a crisis relatively peacefully. Even if the situation was different, Yu Le, who was tall and sturdy, would be a more conspicuous target, which would allow him time to escape.
Tang Yibu thought about it quite realistically with a smile on his face that couldn’t be picked out. As if perceiving Tang Yibu’s thoughts, Yu Le glanced over coolly.
“You’re thinking crooked again, aren’t you? I don’t plan to act with you.” Yu Le habitually cleared his throat and turned up his volume. “…Hey, what about the things I want to see?”
“Auntie Yan will take you to the study.”
“Hmm? Isn’t Auntie Yan the one—” Yu Le tutted in surprise.
“The one behind the counter? That’s just a remote-controlled humanoid I use. Isn’t it beautiful?” The older woman scratched her off-white hair and knocked on the wooden pipe in her hand. “I can manipulate it here and use it as a distraction… What’s with that look? It’s according to my appearance when I was young. Haa, another superficial man. Forget it, come here.”
She looked down at Tang Yibu’s appearance, and there was a bit more disgust in her eyes when she looked at Yu Le.
“This is what the kid surnamed Luo asked for. I’m not interested in this kind of thing.” Yu Le explained with a stern face. “Xiao Tang, you can go explore by yourself first. Tell me about the situation later.”
This meant go take care of yourself and investigate on your own. Auntie Yan seemed to be accustomed to this reaction as she didn’t have anything special to say.
Under the guise of being Yu Le’s android, Tang Yibu didn’t have many options. He curled his lips in dissatisfaction and walked obediently to the spiral staircase.
The western building had only two floors. A spiral staircase connected to a thickly carpeted corridor, and the curtains on the windows were still tightly drawn.
Tang Yibu looked out. It was no different from when Yu Le explored the first floor; it was still a chaotic darkness. There were small tables next to the windows with long tablecloths that draped to the floor and vases of flowers placed on them. The original snow-white flowers were dyed light orange by light.
There were many doors on the opposite side of the window, each of which was tightly locked.
Tang Yibu paid attention to the keyhole and tried to find a way to pry open the lock, but found that the more carefully he looked, the more blurred the scene in front of him became, so he had to give up. There was no one else in the corridor, and there was nothing remotely resembling surveillance equipment. Tang Yibu walked around briskly and quickly explored the floor.
The place wasn’t big. Most of it was based on someone’s brain. Using dream-related principles to build out a mental space and then briefly open it to others, if the equipment was in place, it was indeed a good idea and several times safer to gather under the nose of the Mainbrain.
However, the theory was quite simple, but the actual operation wasn’t as easy…
Based on Yu Le’s reaction last time, it was conservatively estimated that the speed of time passing here should be different from the outside world. To get online for a short period of time in the outside world without arousing the suspicion of the Mainbrain wasn’t something that a layman could do casually.
Pear Blossom’s way of gathering was cleverer than he thought. However, to start from scratch and create an illusory space in these layers of cobwebs was tantamount to battling directly against the Mainbrain.
It seemed that Professor Ruan had indeed been here. Tang Yibu lowered his gaze.
Considering that they were newcomers, this was probably not an important meeting place. Whether or not Pear Blossom was doing something small in private other than reading and propaganda, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to lead strangers to their intelligence location.
Yu Le wasn’t a fuel-saving lamp*, but his ability to spy was passable. At present, he’d better behave harmlessly and exchange information after he got out. Then… He still had his date.
*Metaphor describing someone who’s not easy to deal with.
Tang Yibu leaned on one of the small tables, glanced at the flowers in the vase, and began to be silently nervous again.
Fortunately, this tension didn’t weaken his vigilance. More than ten minutes later, as soon as a figure emerged from the stairs, Tang Yibu leaned down and hid under the small table covered with a tablecloth.
A pair of high-heeled shoes belonging to a woman stepped on the velvet blanket. Tang Yibu slightly lifted the folds of the tablecloth and saw the familiar wooden pipe. Auntie Yan stopped in front of a door with her back to the small table. She quickly took out a bunch of old metal keys and fiddled with them one by one.
Tang Yibu surveyed Auntie Yan’s standing position for a bit. The moment she opened the door, he slightly drilled out of the tablecloth and moved carefully to her blind spot. The carpet in the corridor and the figure of a teenager made this matter a lot less difficult. At most, before pushing open the door, Auntie Yan simply looked around, which made things a lot easier to deal with.
The door was the most easily exposed link.
Tang Yibu followed her like a ghost. He minimized his sense of existence, like a thin page glued to the other party’s shadow. Auntie Yan’s movements were familiar and decisive. Tang Yibu held his breath and moved like a cat, adjusting his movements to the rotation of the other party’s body, and flashed into the door with Auntie Yan like a gust of wind.
Then he was really greeted with blowing hail that was blisteringly cold. They blew up a few snowflakes and slashed at his cheeks mercilessly like knives. Tang Yibu was pretty sure that they didn’t enter a room but into another world—the door that led them here by Auntie Yan had closed and disappeared within a few seconds.
At that moment, they were standing in a dilapidated steel city, with huge chimneys spewing billowing smoke not far away. The air was filled with the unique smell of charcoal burning, but it was so subtle that it lacked a bit of realism.
There were few people on the street, and all the buildings closed their doors and windows tightly. It was extremely dark, and there were only a few houses with lights on, reflecting the icicles hanging from the eaves. Auntie Yan was holding her wooden pipe as she stepped across the muddy and snowy road. The dark and heavy sky was glued to the top of this dilapidated city, with a vague tendency that it would crush the earth. Under this suffocating pressure, the woman’s back bent down a little.
Tang Yibu recognized this place.
It was the long-destroyed Petri Dish No. 1024 that stood in front of him.
Tang Yibu had spent some time there and could almost say that he had witnessed its destruction. The cold winter was like a chronic poison; a drug that soaked its victims in despair before slowly killing them one by one.
The last fire was extinguished, and the burning smoke dissipated. Before MUL-01 did a cleanup and reset, Petri Dish No. 1024 was destined to turn into a frozen city of death. Now, its ghost was floating in front of him, as if it was struggling before death.
It was impossible for a person’s mind to lead directly to reality. He himself dared to follow only because Auntie Yan’s real body shared a device with him, and he wasn’t in an unknown and dangerous situation because of the different device configurations.
The premise was that he followed her closely.
Tang Yibu wiped away the snow that melted on his face and didn’t have much time to recall the past. He rubbed his frozen red hands and imagined the robe he used to keep out the cold.
Not long after, Tang Yibu had a wide-standard black robe on his body. The thickness was just right, though the sleeves were a bit long, covering most of his hands. If you pulled the hood with plush edges down slightly, you could only see half of his chin from an adult’s point of view.
Tang Yibu tied up the collar but felt that something was missing.
He went through the main points of disguising as a human child in his head again and added two more furry cloth ears to his hood. Although he couldn’t see what kind of animal it was, the depressing look on his robe dissipated quite a bit, and it was more like a style that normal children would wear.
Coupled with a hand-woven scarf with an unsightly pattern that covered the lower half of his face, this outfit should minimize people’s suspicion. It stood to reason that he should also change the color of his eyes to ordinary brown, so that the risk of being seen through would be minimized.
However, he was slow to visualize exactly what he was doing—once he put his mind on his eyes, the memory of Mr. Ruan kissing them would appear on its own, accompanied by the soft touch of lips and moist, warm breathing.
The other party really liked these eyes.
Forget it. The security brought about by this detail was only icing on the cake. Tang Yibu pulled the edge of the soft hood down again.
Now wasn’t the time to count how much influence Mr. Ruan had on him.
Auntie Yan walked in front by herself. Her thin back seemed like it could be blown away by the blizzard at any second. Tang Yibu followed quietly in the dark; the snow on the ground almost reached his ankles.
He watched her walk near a chimney, and then entered the largest club in Petri Dish No. 1024.
In the never-ending harsh winter, this used to be the only place where people could have some fun. When people gathered, the air would be much warmer. They lit a fire indoors, played some silly, simple games, and drank spicy bean soup cooked in cans.
Now, the fire in the room was still burning, and the bean soup was tumbling in the pot. There were not a lot of people. Auntie Yan entered and sat down at a table with the most people. There were about six present, and each had a serious expression.
If he walked in through the main entrance, he would be exposed in an instant. Fortunately, he had spent a lot of time in the real Petri Dish No. 1024 and knew the structure of this building well.
Tang Yibu walked around the back of the building and squeezed into an exceptionally narrow dark alley. The old hole he knew well was still in place.
This hole has existed for a long time, and the alley was blocked by a wall. No matter the cold wind or wild cats and dogs, no one could get in. For an adult, the entrance of the hole was also slightly too narrow. Supplies were limited, and in the end, no one cared about it.
It was just right for his current body shape.
Tang Yibu squeezed into the interior of the building and struggled out of the pile of dry branches and withered grass. This was the back kitchen of the club. Imagining that the food was time-consuming and exhausting, he simply opened a cabinet and grabbed himself a few cans of cold beans.
The back kitchen was emptier than the hall. Tang Yibu stuffed a can of beans into his pocket, and with a spoon in his mouth, crept close to the hall, hiding in the corner full of cardboard boxes.
“What took you so long?” A man with a beard spoke impatiently.
“Luo Fei brought a newcomer, so I have to keep an eye on him.” Auntie Yan slowly exhaled a puff of smoke. “A man who’s quite a looker came over with a pornographic book. Based on his age, he most likely saw the world before the Great Rebellion.”
She knocked on the pipe and glanced at the man. “He brought two androids, a little girl and a young man, who both look pretty good, but they’re not the most popular faces… The details are like that. I don’t think it looks like a person who’s from the Order Supervisors, so I’m thinking about observing him more.”
“Be careful, I’d rather have a stupid kid like Luo Fei than let an Order Supervisor in.”
“Does that even need to be said?”
“How is Luo Fei’s situation?”
“Still the same. He really thinks we’re just a book club.” Auntie Yan’s tone wasn’t contemptuous or sarcastic, but her smile was a bit bitter.
“Keep talking about your situation.” The man she was talking to decisively skipped the topic. “The news from the center this time…”
“There’s no news. Business as usual. It’s true that there are new people coming in, but there’s no intention of testing at the hub. I specifically asked. There may be more observations. The wolf didn’t seem to act either, so there’s no need to worry for the time being.”
“There’s no wolf attack on my side. Recently, the monitoring of the Mainbrain has been a bit loose. This isn’t a good sign…”
They didn’t intend to break their words apart, so Tang Yibu couldn’t understand the meaning of those words. He curled up and hid himself as much as possible in the pile of cardboard boxes, listening more carefully.
“If the pattern remains the same, the attack should be in these two days. I’ll go back and keep an eye on it.” Auntie Yan was silent for a moment before she spoke again.
“This is by far the most stable hub. There must be no mistakes.”
“Nn.” Auntie Yan spewed out a smoke ring. “What about the Android Show? How long has it been without news? If the professor hasn’t given instructions, there’s no need for us to gather so often.”
“No instructions,” the other man interjected. “According to the professor’s meaning, we must insist—”
“Insist? Except for us old antiques, who remembers how the world was before? When we’re all dead, the most rebellious person to them will be equivalent to Luo Fei—shouting slogans and doing harmless little tricks in private; getting back what they should have and thinking they will reap major benefits.”
Auntie Yan sneered.
“In my opinion, saving lives takes precedence. Since Professor Ruan hasn’t come back with news for so long, we shouldn’t face the wolf attack and settle down for a while first.”
“I agree with Xiao Yan.” The oldest looking one spoke. “Everyone could see that there are fewer ‘people’ outside. This hub, although powerful, in the end, still has its limits. Sooner or later, this hub will collapse when the wolf eats this place. Since Ruan Xian hasn’t sent news, we should also adjust according to the current situation and protect ourselves. Blindly following instructions will not yield good results.”
People, wolf attacks, the hub, Android Show… and Ruan Xian.
Tang Yibu carved those seemingly unrelated words into his mind, slowly exhaled, and pursed the spoon in his mouth.
This place wasn’t a simple “spiritual world”, or “joint dreamland”. It was operating according to a strange set of rules. His own knowledge wasn’t enough to sift through this information.
“I object. At least I don’t think I’m smarter than Professor Ruan. We have to be ready at all times.”
“I think…”
The table of people suddenly clamored. Auntie Yan let out a long sigh and stood up. The irregularly shaped wooden chair scuffed across the floor, making a harsh sound.
“You guys are giving me a headache. I’ll go back first. After all, I still have to take care of the hub,” she said wearily. “Anyway, there will be no results for a while, so everyone can sort out their ideas and get together another day. If you come to an agreement, you can find someone to tell me.”
Having said that, she ignored the reaction of the others, grabbed a gray wool shawl from the table, and walked in the direction of the door.
“Auntie Yan, the weather—”
“I’ll go and get the things to be repaired. It will be dawn in a few hours, so I can probably make it back in the morning and sleep then.” Auntie Yan waved her hand without looking back.
Tang Yibu clenched the canned food in his pocket. He glanced at Auntie Yan’s direction, then bent down, and quickly got out of the building from the opposite way.
A simple carriage stopped at the side door of the building, and several people were loading bulging bags onto it. Tang Yibu smelled potatoes stained with wet mud and slightly rotten onions.
They were once the main food in Petri Dish No. 1024, and the smell they emitted was no different from what he remembered.
But the carriage, horses, and people were another matter.
The people looked okay, dressed in bulky, tattered cotton coats or down jackets bunched up with nylon straps. Their figures were clear, but when they turned their heads, their faces seemed to be separated by layers of frosted glass.
Their facial features were like colored mist, so Tang Yibu couldn’t tell their true appearance. The situation of the horse was even more exaggerated—its body structure was slightly shifting and changing. It looked like a horse when you glanced at random, but it didn’t look like it when you carefully paid attention to it. It became more like a blurred human face.
They carry the blurred features characteristic of a remembered scene to a much greater degree.
Auntie Yan turned a blind eye to the distorted monster in front of her. After all the bags were loaded into the carriage, she got into the position of the driver and began to whip the vague horse with a wire-altered whip.
Tang Yibu rubbed his hands, jumped into the body of the car with a hearty step, and buried himself in a pile of gray bags. The strong smell of onions almost choked him and he had to spit out his spoon.
After holding the spoon firmly again, Tang Yibu squeezed the side full of potatoes. The snow followed the wind through the top of the dilapidated carriage, and thick snow quickly accumulated on the sack, almost burying him.
Looking out through a little gap in the snow, the ghost of Petri Dish No. 1024 was soaked in the deep night.
The current time in the dream was about 4 in the morning. According to Auntie Yan, it would take them at least half a day to reach their destination. Fortunately, the passage of time in the dream was different from the real world. Tang Yibu wrapped his clothes tightly and twitched his nose.
Next, he should have enough time to investigate the “hub”, find the thread connecting those words, and then use it as a small surprise for his date.
It was just that the environment was really bad, so he should find a way to regain some energy. Tang Yibu put the canned beans in his arms, clenched the spoon, and fell into a state of half-asleep and half-awake.
At the same time.
Ruan Xian touched the baked apple slices on the paper with his fingers. The fruit that had lost most of its moisture felt a little stiff to the touch and rather odd. Coupled with his fingers that didn’t match his actual age, the scene in front of him had a weird sense of incongruity.
It was roughly estimated that it should be the latter half of the night. Li Han was tired of painting, so she lay in a corner inside a simple sleeping bag that was to the side of a pile of broken wooden boxes that had little practical use, then fell asleep. Luo Jian kept sticking to his corner, breathing very lightly. Most likely he was still tense.
Xiao Ma skillfully stuck a metal latch on the inside of the door and dragged out a recliner that was half down, then took out a dirty blanket off the ground. He tied a metal rope to his wrist that was attached to the bell on the door.
The size of the bell was almost the same as that of a ping-pong ball. Neither the movements of Xiao Ma nor the blowing of the wind against the door were enough to shake it. It seemed as if it was used to guard against other things.
Within a few minutes, Xiao Ma also fell asleep. Only the oil lamp in front of Ruan Xian was left in the room. The lights were dim, and without the assistance of the S-type Prototype, it was difficult for him to see the contours of the other three.
The flames continued to quiver as Ruan Xian played with the apple slices without any intention of sleeping.
He hadn’t experienced this feeling in a while—even if he knew that the chances of something happening to him were extremely low, once he entered an unfamiliar environment, it was always difficult for him to sleep, unless there was a fuse with relevant interest and comparable strength—and said fuse that was surnamed Tang wasn’t around at the moment, so he had long lost his desire for sleep.
Forget it.
Since there was nothing else to do, he could think about his next plan. For example, how to use these strange conditions to sidetrack and dig out some information from Luo Jian’s mouth. This current boring situation was likely to cope with the “stranger”, being him, present.
However, if Luo Jian just wanted to deal with him simply, he didn’t have to choose such a dangerous memory. After all, Li Han was also here. If he wanted to kill him without a trace, this inconvenient environment wasn’t suitable. Once he saw that something was wrong, he could easily find an empty room to hide in, and Luo Jian may not be able to find him before the treatment ended.
Still, this wasn’t a reason to relax…
As far as the current situation was concerned, either the other party just wanted him to suffer so he would refuse joint therapy the next time it was proposed… Or maybe this memory had some special meaning that Luo Jian “has to” choose it. If it was the latter, all the previous inferences wouldn’t be valid.
After all, compared with most memories, its details were too rich, which meant most likely this was an extremely important memory for Luo Jian. The other party’s choice of it may also be based on some reason that had nothing to do with Ruan Xian.
Unfortunately, the information he had currently wasn’t enough to draw a precise conclusion. Ruan Xian took a bite of the dried apple and looked out the window again.
In the crevices of the wooden boards that sealed the windows, dozens of blood-red spots of light flickered in the darkness.
He tightened his back abruptly. Those ominous lights looked like mechanic police dogs that he encountered in the forest petri dish. Ruan Xian subconsciously extinguished the oil lamp in front of him while mentally tracing his blood gun repeatedly in his mind.
The cold metal slowly spread across the palm of his hand.
Items outside Luo Jian’s memory must be created by outsiders. The more complicated things were, the more difficult they were to create—the creator needed to refine every last detail. Clothing and food were doable, and simple cold weapons weren’t difficult to make, but to bring in a complex machine out of thin air, the imaginer must be familiar with its structure and operating principles. Otherwise, they would only produce an empty shell.
He made the blood gun himself. Although there was no steady supply of blood bullets, in theory, he could rely on the limited “blood” in his cognition. There was no Tang Yibu here, so he only needed to be responsible for attacking.
Here, Ruan Xian’s blood gun stabbed into the left wrist of his wound. Suddenly, the bell hanging on the door began to ring violently.
Luo Jian woke up quicker than Xiao Ma. After the rustling noise, a metal bump sounded. “Xiao Han, get up!”
In the darkness, Ruan Xian hid the blood gun under his cloak to keep out the cold.
“Wolf attack.” Luo Jian’s voice was a bit hoarse after another sound of fabric rubbing.
At the same time, something outside—whatever it was—began to slam the door frantically. The fragile little house started making shrill sounds. Several places that weren’t sturdy were torn apart, and the things outside poked their heads in, gnawing on the cracked walls.
It wasn’t a “wolf”.
Ruan Xian didn’t know what those things were, as they were pure black. Even in the dim night, they were strikingly black. If everything in front of him was a dimly hued photo, those things were like the darkness that came through after a nail pierced the photo. The last time he saw this kind of blackness was at the dead wall that divided the petri dishes.
This was the Mainbrain’s handiwork.
Their shapes looked a bit like wolves, and their blood-red light eyes were embedded in a similar head structure. Their eyes moved everywhere on the head of the dark shadow, converging towards places where there was sound.
“Don’t attack. Run!” Luo Jian only shouted one sentence, and then quickly left. As soon as he left his spot, the place where he was standing was packed with a group of strange wolves.
Li Han ignited charcoal and skillfully ignited the roof. The structure of the roof was special as it didn’t raise much smoke. The fire instantly tore through the darkness.
Those strange wolves sucked up all the light and were busy devouring everything that was closest to them—tables, chairs, firewood piled in the corners, and Xiao Ma, who hadn’t had time to escape.
Ruan Xian ran behind Luo Jian at the first opportunity, keeping an eye on the strange wolves with his spare attention.
Seeing Xiao Ma being attacked, Luo Jian remained unmoved. He stretched out his hand and grabbed Ruan Xian’s collar and ran towards the back door of the store, half-dragging him along. Li Han followed closely behind; the soft-hearted girl also ignored the screams of Xiao Ma.
Despite Xiao Ma’s leg being torn off by the wolves, the wound didn’t shed the slightest trace of blood. Only a vague red smoke spread out. Before Ruan Xian had time to take a few more glances, he was taken away from the room by Luo Jian.
He was distracted and gave a horrified look.
Luo Jian took them directly into the storage room behind the store. He quickly pushed away the debris and opened the lid of the cellar, which emitted a choking musty smell. “Quick, go down. Hurry up.”
This sentence was almost said in exasperation.
Ruan Xian took a deep breath, grabbed the rope by the pothole, and quickly slipped down. As soon as they landed, Luo Jian quickly fastened the metal door at the entrance of the cellar. The thick metal door had many layers, with varying degrees of erosion, making it obvious it had existed for a long time.
The cellar was very deep and was covered with the smell of mud, moss, and snow. There was an air filter installed here. The cold wind from outside seeped into their clothes, causing a biting chill that froze and numbed their feet.
After going deep underground, the chaotic sound became much weaker, leaving only faint tremors. Luo Jian somehow managed to get a candle and made a small light. In the swaying candle, his expression was particularly ugly.
“What are those things out there?” Ruan Xian played his role brilliantly. “Isn’t this your memory? What are you remembering?”
“It’s all the work done by Pear Blossom. Look, it’s all messed up monsters, so it’s normal for my brains to be messed up.” Luo Jian’s tone was stiff. “There are no such things in the real world. Do you understand now?”
Li Han pursed her lips and didn’t speak.
Ruan Xian didn’t answer directly. He wiped the wet walls of the cellar with his fingers, and his tone was uneasy. “How long will we stay here?”
“It’ll be fine at dawn,” Luo Jian replied in an extremely perfunctorily manner.
“I mean, when will the treatment end?” Ruan Xian stared at Luo Jian’s face tightly.
Despite the tension, Luo Jian still showed a relaxed expression. The muscles on his face twitched twice. “It’s early. It also depends on Gong Siyi’s mood. Joint therapy is like this, or can you tell me an alternative treatment that’s easier and more comfortable, and we can do that, yeah? Xiao Han, follow me closely and stay on the path.”
“I read some information before the treatment. Even if Xiao Ma is someone in your memory, he should bleed when attacked, not turn into something strange like that.” Seeing the other party wanted to change the subject, Ruan Xian pulled the focus back.
“Didn’t I already tell you? It’s because I’m crazy. The things in my head are messed up.”
“But…”
“If you keep talking nonsense, I will leave you here.” Luo Jian obviously didn’t want to entangle with this topic for too long. “Kid, I thought you were ambitious, but it turns out that the time when you were most serious was when you were a kid—just shut up if you have no idea. We have dealt with this situation hundreds of thousands of times, and we don’t have time to play commentary games with you.”
Luo Jian no longer spoke and led them into the darkest place. For some reason, Ruan Xian felt that the world around him was becoming clearer.
The slope first went downwards, then up. Ruan Xian made a rough estimate that they were getting closer to the surface.
Finally, they reached the end.
Unlike the Shade Refuge, the underground fortifications here were extremely rough and not much different from mines. The cold wind that penetrated into the ground became colder, indicating that the surface was just above their heads and there should be an emergency exit nearby.
“Go to sleep.” Luo Jian put the candle holder casually on the ground and sat down by a small mound of soil. “It’s still a while before dawn.”
Having said that, he sighed and stared at the void in front of him.
Then Ruan Xian saw Xiao Ma.
At first there was a vague outline, and then it gradually became clear. Unlike in the store, Xiao Ma appeared in front of them out of thin air. He was panting, and his hair was stuck to his forehead by sweat. His facial features distorted even more, and his figure appeared even more unnatural.
“Lao Luo.” Xiao Ma wiped the sweat off his face, as if he was unaware of what had happened just now. “Did the wolves come again?”
“Nn, but it’s alright now.” Under the swaying candlelight, Luo Jian’s eyes looked a bit sad. “Thank you for your hard work, Xiao Ma. Hurry up and take a break.”
“Okay.” Xiao Ma laughed humbly. His facial features were frighteningly distorted, and his voice was a bit indistinct. “Oh, pay attention to your side… Pay attention… attention…”
Halfway through speaking, the young man’s figure shook suddenly, spreading out in the air like a flame that was blown out.
Li Han twitched her nose loudly, while Luo Jian lowered his head, expressionless.
“Just now that was—”
“Shut up!” Luo Jian roared at Ruan Xian with a touch of anger.
“Lao Luo, don’t do this. He doesn’t know anything,” Li Han persuaded, her voice trembling a little.
Luo Jian took a few hard breaths and slammed down on the ground. The flame of the candle was shaken by the wind, illuminating a slate in front of the small mound.
A grave.
“I lost my temper. Sorry.” After a while, Luo Jian apologized in a blunt tone. Turning his back to the humble, lonely grave, he didn’t seem to want them to see the expression on his face.
“It’s okay. Wait until dawn. When things calm down, we can talk about it.”
Ruan Xian hid himself in the darkness.
“Now, I just want to ask one question. Why can’t we attack those… things? I checked some information about joint therapy before I came in. Even if they are things in your memory, as long as you know enough about them, they can be destroyed.”
If it was a real wolf pack that struck, Luo Jian didn’t have the slightest need to stop the attack. Even if they were monsters born of insane fantasies capable of reaching such a clear and stable level, Luo Jian, as the master of this spiritual world, knew them well enough.
Usually, understanding meant being able to control it. Unless…
“Forget it. Yes, I lied. That stuff is from the Mainbrain. Not my memories.”
“…The Mainbrain?” Ruan Xian frowned.
“Nn. In my memory, it has always been real wolves who attacked the village.” Luo Jian looked at the top of the cave absent-mindedly. “So I imagined a time when the wolves didn’t come and enter the city. But they still came, howling, so we call this a ‘wolf attack’.”
Li Han nodded in silence.
“It’s probably not mentioned in the pile of things you read, as they’ll only appear in abnormal memories that are too clear.”
Luo Jian grimaced and made a bitter smile. “These days, it’s impossible to be completely free of ideas. Just think of them as an antivirus program for the human brain.”
“Abnormal memories?”
“The doomsday doesn’t exist, but I have such a clear delusion and will share it with others. The Mainbrain has to find a way to dilute it. Why do you think this is called ‘therapy’?”
Ruan Xian understood.
When he attacked Gong Siyi before, the system put forward a suggestion to erase his memory. There were also means to erase recent memories according to the time spent at the Shade Refuge. But for the past that wasn’t within the immediate degree and had been deeply rooted in one’s mind, it was difficult to solve with a rough one-size-fits-all approach.
Thus, the method taken by the Mainbrain was more likely setting up key plots for people’s thoughts and memories, and then using a program to dilute these abnormalities at regular intervals. The way to dilute it was probably…
“They made you forget Xiao Ma.”
To say completely forget wasn’t quite apt. Ruan Xian could probably imagine the technique the Mainbrain was using—the spiritual world was mainly derived from human memory. If the things in it were erased, people needed to recollect those long-standing memories to recall and imagine again.
But people do forget.
Time and time again, with the destruction and recollection of long-past memories, every reconstruction represented a loss of details.
First, the less important scenery, like the withered grass on the side of the road, the dead trees, and the clouds on the horizon. Then there were the decorations of the buildings, the contents of paintings, the rusty candlesticks, and the dusty cobwebs in the corner. Last would be the person, how they were dressed, their body shape, their voice, and finally their appearance.
All of this until there was only a vague impression left and the person could no longer think of it systematically.
Ruan Xian suddenly understood why there were so few people in this city.
“Sort of.” Luo Jian lightly touched the topic. “If you resist, even if it’s just a little, the system will recognize you as a threat.”
“Can’t they identify you as a patient?”
“We don’t know the definition of resistance set by the Mainbrain, and no one ever explained it.”
Seeing that Luo Jian didn’t mean to explain anymore, Li Han replied on his behalf, and there was an uncontrollable anger in the young girl’s tone.
“If the Mainbrain thinks you resisted, then it’s considered resistance. There’s no room to make sense of it. You can only hide. After all, being stomped on by those things, as a human you will instinctively struggle, and can’t help but become hostile. Who could control their emotions at that point?”
“And it’s impossible to win against them… That’s a program made by the Mainbrain. No one can stop it before being killed.”
Ruan Xian didn’t ask any more questions.
These two people were hiding something from him. While their explanation seemed reasonable on the surface, there were still holes.
If it was true as Luo Jian said, as the spiritual world that needed to be disclosed, it would require to be repeatedly scanned by the Mainbrain. Then, before the “disinfection” was completed, it was impossible for Gong Siyi to use such a dangerous environment for joint therapy more than once. This was equivalent to making a joke out of his future career.
It was likely that Gong Siyi was busy monitoring their emotional index at this moment and guessing whether they were struggling.
Ruan Xian subconsciously rubbed the rough cave wall with his fingers, and the cold and hard stones stung his fingertips.
Judging from the previous dialogue between Luo Jian and Auntie Yan, there was a wolf attack just a week ago, and the frequency was quite high. If the scans were such a common occurrence, it would be impossible for them not to be mentioned in the joint therapy information he was given.
It seemed that his previous thoughts may have been right. For some reason, Luo Jian had a reason to choose this memory. At the same time, this memory had already attracted the attention of the Mainbrain, so it was scanned repeatedly with the Wolf Pack program.
“Miss Li, you guys used to come here a lot, right? Nothing will happen to us, right?” Ruan Xian changed his perspective.
“Um, it’ll be fine.” Li Han smiled reluctantly at him. The patient mark near her wrist was still flashing red. “Believe me, we have been here—”
“Xiao Han!” Luo Jian, who had his eyes closed and was pretending to be asleep, interrupted Li Han’s words.
Li Han closed her mouth instantly.
“When you guys wake up, I’ll take you guys somewhere else.” Luo Jian took over the leadership and closed his eyes again. “Save some energy first.”
Li Han looked downcast and nervous as she moved a few steps in the direction of the candle. Her eyes were watching the dancing flames without rest.
It seemed that this joint therapy was more interesting than he thought. Ruan Xian nestled into the dark shadows again.
But he still didn’t feel sleepy at all.
There was still something wrong. He seemed to have missed a certain detail. Ruan Xian broke apart all the memories after the start of the joint therapy and went through them over and over again in his mind in order, but there were so many details that he couldn’t determine the source of this feeling.
Ruan Xian began to unconsciously play with the studs on his left ear.
[…Follow your intuition. You need to abandon your logical habits as a researcher.]
Perhaps it was this action that guided his subconscious, and what the android said surfaced in the depths of his mind, light as a fleeting bubble in boiling water.
Ruan Xian didn’t let go of this memory.
The first time he felt an inexplicable sense of dissonance was with Xiao Ma. After Auntie Yan left, the scar behind Xiao Ma’s ear disappeared, and his facial features began to distort. After being attacked by the strange wolves, Xiao Ma’s facial features distorted even more severely, and then just disappeared completely.
He didn’t feel this sense of dissonance in Auntie Yan, but Auntie Yan’s wrist was empty and there was no patient mark.
Rich details and dangerous memories. Frequent scans. Xiao Ma that changed inexplicably at the beginning…
“Miss Li.” Ruan Xian didn’t ask Luo Jian his question this time. He left the shadows and leaned next to Li Han. “For a change of mood, look at this.”
Luo Jian raised his right eyelid and secretly watched Ruan Xian’s movements. Ruan Xian didn’t notice it—he opened his palm and a six-petal pear blossom lay quietly in his hand.
Ruan Xian deliberately imagined one more petal and adjusted his posture to make sure Luo Jian could see it too. Luo Jian just glanced at it briefly, but the flowers didn’t change at all.
“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” Li Han smiled with a pale face, “But pear blossoms have only five petals.”
Before her voice fell, the flower turned into five petals, and even the structure of the stamens became a bit clearer.
“Ah, no wonder why I thought there seemed to be something off.” Ruan Xian put away his fingers to cover Li Han’s eyes. After her attention turned elsewhere, the stamens of the flower began to blur again. “I don’t know much about them.”
His guess was correct.
As outsiders of the memories, they could “fill in” the details of this world. Li Han, who sat by the window every day and liked to paint, would be keen knowing that pear blossoms only had five petals. She may have a clearer understanding of the details of pear blossoms than everyone present.
This kind of cognitive feedback could reverse consolidate the memories of the master of the spiritual world and make their world stronger.
What if Xiao Ma was also a member of the “replenishment”?
The Xiao Ma they first saw was most likely a “supplementary” version. As the master of the memories, Luo Jian must have known Xiao Ma, but he probably didn’t know him too well. At least he hadn’t noticed a scar near Xiao Ma’s ear.
When Auntie Yan left the scene, that was the only other person who could provide details.
In this way, it was natural for Auntie Yan to have no sense of dissonance—she wasn’t part of his memories, but another person that was involved in this joint therapy.
That was, if this was considered “joint therapy”.
Auntie Yan wasn’t a patient but an acquaintance of Luo Jian’s. She knew Xiao Ma, who only existed in memory, and she had obviously lived in a place that was related to this memory. Thinking from this perspective, it was worth pondering why she left in the middle of the night, combined with the frequent scanning procedure of those strange wolves…
Most likely there were other visitors here.
Now Ruan Xian was completely sober. He squeezed the blood gun hidden under his jacket.
It stood to reason that joint therapy couldn’t accommodate too many participants. There were too many intervening foreign minds. If the will wasn’t strong enough, the provider of the spiritual world would likely fall into chaos, which would lead to longer recuperation in light cases, and a mental breakdown in heavier cases.
But thinking backwards, if he wanted to establish a stable enough place for multiple gatherings, the most suitable place for the provider was undoubtedly a prevention shelter.
Did Luo Jian really think that he was a victim of Pear Blossoms? Did he really think the end of the world didn’t exist?
…Or is it that Luo Jian made the gesture to himself in order to keep it secret?
Ruan Xian stood up, leaning on the wet and cold cave wall.
If the idea of “this is a secret gathering place to avoid the Mainbrain” was established, the participants wouldn’t simply come to drink tea and chat. Combined with the information that Professor Ruan had been here before, perhaps the answer he was looking for was closer than he thought.
At this moment, the wall of the cave suddenly trembled badly, and the sound of collapse rang out in the distant darkness.
“Don’t panic.” Luo Jian’s first reaction was to extinguish the candle. The red text marking them as patients on their wrists was particularly dazzling. “This is normal.”
“The wolves will come.” Li Han’s voice trembled a little.
“They won’t chase us so far. There are still many active people on the ground. We just need to not show hostility.”
“If they really come…”
“We can escape. If you really can’t escape, get down, don’t move, press your hands under your body, and don’t resist.” Luo Jian’s voice was calm. “The scan may be a bit uncomfortable, but just bear it until it passes.”
Li Han hummed uneasily while Ruan Xian remained silent—he wouldn’t be locked as the primary target by the scanner as this was his first time entering the spiritual world, but it was difficult to say regarding these other two who had been frequently here. If Luo Jian were to die now, it would also be troublesome for him.
Not long after the air was quiet, the sound of collapse also came from the other side of the cellar.
It was deliberate as the three of them weren’t tightly blocked into the cellar.
Soon, red eyes of light began to appear in the darkness. Luo Jian lit all the candle holders on his body—He kept taking out short candles that looked similar to each other from his pocket, showing some weakness due to the rapid consumption of energy.
Countless white candles were placed on the ground, and the cellar became much brighter. The atmosphere was a bit out of touch with the times and had a sense of desolation with the small grave on the ground.
“Don’t worry. If something happens, I will forcibly eject you. Even if the mind suffers a little shock, it’s better than losing your life.”
“Luo Jian, don’t coax me! With the scanning program here, you can’t leave—”
“This is my memory after all.” Luo Jian smiled. “Besides, you’re talking about the worst-case scenario. Don’t worry. Take care of that useless kid over there. In case something happens to me, you know what to do.”
As the dark monstrous wolves approached from both sides, the red dots became denser and denser. The bright candlelight seemed to be swallowed up in one bite. Luo Jian didn’t risk running away. He walked to the small grave and sat down facing the rough tombstone.
Ruan Xian stared at the wolves without blinking. He didn’t let go of any details about their movements. From the trajectory of the light from their eyes and the way they gnawed on the stones inside the cave.
Comprehend, think. Everything can be unraveled.
Finally, the first monstrous wolf attacked—it ignored Ruan Xian and Li Han on the side and rushed straight at Luo Jian.
Luo Jian didn’t get down but didn’t resist. He sat among the burning candles, rubbing the small tombstone. Ruan Xian could feel a burst of cold being pulled away as his whole body felt as if he was stepping on air.
Forced ejection.
The moment he felt the abnormality, he fired directly.
The wolf that pounced on Luo Jian was bombarded with blood bullets into a rock wall, then fell softly to the ground. It let out a hoarse and unpleasant howl, only to stand up again after a while. The entire pack of wolves retreated together, and for an instant, all the red eyes pointed at Ruan Xian.
Time was limited, and he failed to completely unlock the scanner, but logic wouldn’t betray him—every pattern and detail he understood had taken effect, and he was able to hurt them, which was enough.
Ruan Xian took a deep breath, ignored Luo Jian and Li Han, who were stunned, and shot at the side of the strange wolf.
The entire process took no more than five seconds. Not a single bullet missed. After opening one side, Ruan Xian turned around and sharply pointed his gun at another group.
This time, the strange wolves no longer showed even the slightest semblance of animal characteristics. They didn’t attack anymore. Instead, they stood upright and formed a phalanx, just like a copied image. The blood-red eyes on their heads were turning frantically, looking quite disgusting.
“Now I’m the one they are most interested in.” Ruan Xian spoke with his juvenile voice, which he didn’t like very much. “Li Han, you and Luo Jian walk in front. I’ll take the back.”
He couldn’t kill them yet, and there was no point in fighting a battle of attrition.
While the wolves were immersed in their weird state, Ruan Xian retreated while shooting as Luo Jian and Li Han ran in front.
“You injured them.” Luo Jian’s voice was still shocked. “You know that they are from the Mainbrain, yet you managed to hurt them… Even if you can analyze the system, you think you have a chance of winning against the Mainbrain?!”
In the end, this was a spiritual world constructed by cognition. If the person believed from the bottom of his heart that the Mainbrain couldn’t be defeated, then he couldn’t hurt these monsters in the slightest.
Ruan Xian wasn’t surprised at Luo Jian’s concern.
“Maybe because I’m truly crazy.” He clenched the blood gun in his hand. “Are you from the rebel army?”
“…” Luo Jian didn’t answer.
In the next second, a huge paw poked out of the darkness and almost covered Ruan Xian.
The strange wolves were merging but hadn’t fully fused together yet. The densely packed eyes of light were all gathered in one place, and just the sight could make a person watching go numb. The fused monster’s behavior completely changed. Ruan Xian couldn’t eliminate the influence of the opposite giant on his subconscious—the effectiveness of his blood bullet began to weaken.
The monster, which was now huge in size, began moving down the tunnel. Several claws flickered like data failures surged forward. The sound of collapse became particularly clear. The wind from the outside was getting stronger, indicating they were close to the exit.
In the end, this was the spiritual world of the living, and the Mainbrain wouldn’t have complete control. These programs shouldn’t belong here. Luo Jian’s subconscious would gradually weaken them. As long as they can last for a while, they would have a chance to breathe.
The only question was, how long was this “period of time”?
Luo Jian and Li Han weren’t indecisive. They didn’t talk nonsense and quickly climbed out of the cellar along the soft ladder. Ruan Xian controlled the rhythm of his shooting, trying his best to aim each bullet to hit the monster’s light eyes so it would delay it longer.
The dark monster roared more grotesquely, causing the flimsy rock wall to crack and quickly shatter. Ruan Xian estimated the distance he was from the monster and the time it would take to stop attacking and climb the ladder.
“Is there any other exit in the back?” The blood gun kept drawing blood from his ready-made wound on his wrist. Ruan Xian’s shooting rhythm was getting faster, but his face remained steady.
“Yes, there is…”
“You run away first.”
The sky outside was already lit up. Ruan Xian ignored the soft ladder that was now illuminated by the snow but retreated deeper into the darkness behind him.
“Ruan Lijie!”
“…I’ll catch up later.”
Having said that, Ruan Xian no longer attacked the monster, but instead shot at the already fragile rock wall near it. This attack was more targeted—hitting a specific rock that started to crack before finally collapsing, which created a strong, solid wall between him and the monster.
As a result, the entrance of the cave that was originally used as an exit was also destroyed, separating him from Luo Jian and Li Han, who were relatively safe on the surface.
Next, he just needed to follow the wind while delaying the monster’s speed as much as possible.
Ruan Xian walked around while stumbling forward in the dark corridor. There was a constant scratching sound behind him, but he didn’t feel the slightest tension.
This was the first time he had acted alone since entering here. His mind turned frantically. With death close at hand, it inexplicably made him feel excited. The cold metal and the faint smell of blood stimulated his nerves. Ruan Xian smoothly constructed the same lantern he got when he was at the Shade Refuge, allowing the darkness to wrap itself around him just right without dropping its illumination too badly.
Perhaps this was his most liberating moment. If he had to pick one flaw…
He felt a bit cold.
Finally, the initial wall was torn apart by claws, and the monster’s cry became clearer. As Ruan Xian deduced, it ignored Luo Jian, who had fled to the surface and was difficult to track and chose to continue chasing him.
‘Very good,’ he thought.
After providing such a favor, he didn’t have to worry about digging up something from Luo Jian.
Above the snow, Tang Yibu choked on the onion smell and woke up. He wiped away two hot tears from his eyes and plucked away a little layer of snow as he looked out.
It wasn’t yet dawn, and the carriage had just reached the edge of Petri Dish No. 1024. Tang Yibu saw billowing smoke in the gradually lit sky, and the buildings in the distance were burning, spitting out thin smoke into the surreal sky. The street was unusually quiet, with only a few people who had blurred faces walking crookedly, like zombies from an old horror movie.
Auntie Yan took a breath and snapped her whip. The carriage suddenly accelerated its speed and headed straight in a certain direction.
She stopped in front of a shop that was destroyed beyond recognition. There was a dead pear tree in front of the store, and its nearly black branches were still caught in flames. The trunk looked as if it had been chewed by something, as several large pieces were missing.
Judging from the remnants of the building structure, it was similar to a small bar with rough decorations in the real world. When he was still in Petri Dish No. 1024, he didn’t pay special attention to this place. Although that petri dish wasn’t as big as the Underground City, it was still the size of a small city. There weren’t many survivors in marginal areas. Unless there were special observation objects, Tang Yibu rarely stayed on the dangerous edge of the city.
While Auntie Yan was watching the wreckage, Tang Yibu jumped out of the carriage, pulled down the brim of his hood with both hands, and ran towards the ruins.
There wasn’t much cover here. Auntie Yan should have seen his back and regarded him as a resident here, since she watched him run towards the ruins without meaning to stop him.
Tang Yibu’s footsteps became more cheerful.
He took the potatoes and onions that came from the carriage in his arms and found a great place to hide among the pile of rubble. He planned to observe Auntie Yan from a different angle.
As a result, he saw something extraordinary.
A strange, dark thing was devouring someone’s hands and feet. The figure falling to the ground almost became a cloud of fog. The part of the thing that resembled its mouth was overflowing with red mist from time to time as it ate very happily, and the only eyes of light that glowed on its head turned.
Tang Yibu suddenly found himself hungry. He rubbed his stomach and decided to figure out what this inexplicable thing was before finding a place to solve his breakfast problem.
Happily making his decision, Tang Yibu quietly took a few steps closer and tried to observe more carefully.
This thing wasn’t difficult to recognize. MUL-01 was based on NUL-00 as its core foundation. Regardless of hardware strength, they weren’t too different from their logical construction. Tang Yibu looked at this thing as kindly as the handicraft of his twin brother.
The visualized scanner in the spiritual world carried a high probability of carrying data packets that it would regularly transmit to the outside world. It was similar to the detection birds in the forest Petri Dish.
When he was there, he estimated that there were dozens of detection birds that he abducted from the Mainbrain. As long as he aimed at single ones, Tang Yibu was confident he wouldn’t be discovered.
The program monster, who was by itself, was still chewing on a human leg and knew nothing about its upcoming tragic fate.
He had become a lot smaller and had lost most of his strength, so he could no longer simply control them as he did before. Although it would be better to change back to his original appearance, Auntie Yan was not far away, and it wasn’t as if much power could be enhanced by changing back, so Tang Yibu gave up on this idea.
His coat was buttoned up, with potatoes in one pocket and onions in the other. The can of beans was fixed in the inner pocket of his front chest, close to his heart. The spoon was firmly clenched in his hand as if he was holding a dagger; everything was ready to go.
Tang Yibu chose a suitable angle, approached lightly, and pounced on it. Before the monster scanner could react, it was hugged from behind.
It released the memory data that was being destroyed in its mouth, intending to attack this humanoid object that didn’t know the height of the sky, but it didn’t expect that its opponent was one step ahead—Tang Yibu opened his mouth and bit the back of the black monster fiercely.
Once bitten, the scanning program would be overloaded.
Tang Yibu wasn’t interested in the mood of the scanning program—or the internal computing logic—as he gleefully swallowed the gnawed pieces he had chewed off and quickly analyzed its program composition and recently stored data.
The taste of this thing was a bit like frozen pudding, but unfortunately, it had no sweetness and couldn’t bring him the slightest pleasure from eating it.
Tang Yibu let go bitterly, gave up the idea of using it for breakfast, and began to focus on detecting the dissociated data. When he saw Luo Jian from the image recorded by this thing, he wasn’t really surprised.
If more than one organization could appear in a place such as The Glass Conservatory that was so closely monitored, it was better for the Mainbrain to check it out as soon as possible rather than interfere with human civilization.
Luo Jian was here, and so was Li Han. There was also a young man who he had never seen before who was knocked down. After a brief search, he didn’t find his Mr. Ruan.
Tang Yibu frowned and sifted the data again.
Only for a brief moment, he spotted an unfamiliar short boy behind Luo Jian. From just a quick glance, it was enough for Tang Yibu to distinguish him. That was the face that was 90% similar to Mr. Ruan’s, and the indifference in his expression made up for the other 10% of uncertainty.
Feeling inexplicably better, Tang Yibu took another bite of the program monster, and then decisively pierced his finger into its “wound”. The red-light eyes on the head of the dark monster turned frantically for a while, stopped abruptly, and turned to a beautiful blue color.
As soon as he finished processing on his side, Auntie Yan let out a scream. Tang Yibu quickly poked the program monster’s head with his spoon a few times and moved it towards Auntie Yan’s direction.
Auntie Yan was lying on the ground in a weird posture, pressing her hands under her body. However, even though she made a gesture of surrender, she still failed to escape the attack of two nearby program monsters. One of the beasts tore a piece of flesh from her calf and blood gushed from the wound. The other was staring at her neck, obviously thinking about how to deal with her quickly to make her realize that “she was dead”.
Tang Yibu rode on the back of the program monster, lowered his body, and gave the order to attack its companions with the greatest force. The dark monster rushed towards its former companions like a cannonball, knocking the program monster that tried to attack Auntie Yan’s neck about six meters away.
Then he grabbed his mount by the back of its neck, reversed direction, and stabbed the one who was biting at Auntie Yan’s calf with his spoon.
After figuring out their internal programming, rewriting it became easy. Not long after, the red eyes of the three program monsters turned blue, and they lay on the ground obediently.
Auntie Yan, who survived the catastrophe: “…”
She didn’t know how to describe the scene in front of her and thought she was stimulated into insanity.
In front of her was a comically dressed… teenager, or child, who was riding the “wolf” that they were afraid of. The strange boy’s face was tightly covered by an ugly scarf, the edge of his furry hood blocked his eyes, and the top of the hood was covered with cloth ears; she didn’t know if it belonged to a leopard or bear.
What the little knight was holding in his hand wasn’t a sword, but a spoon with an unknown black liquid stuck to it. One side of his pocket was opened, revealing the purple-yellow skin of an onion. No matter how she looked at it, this boy didn’t seem like a match for those three dangerous creatures that were surrounding him in obedience.
“…What are you?” This was her first reaction amidst her shock.
Neither she nor Luo Jian could use their minds to create creatures that could compete with the creations of the Mainbrain. Taking a step back, their taste wasn’t this strange.
An intruder?
Auntie Yan almost forgot about her injured leg as all her energy was concentrated on Tang Yibu, who was tightly wrapped. The situation was too bizarre; she couldn’t decide whether to approach or say thank you.
“Just a good Samaritan passing by,” Tang Yibu responded modestly.
“…” With his appearance tightly covered, she couldn’t see too many characteristics of the young man’s figure. It clearly seemed that the other party didn’t want to reveal his identity.
Auntie Yan didn’t pursue it further. She sat up, concentrated desperately, and constructed a roll of bandages, which she used to bandage up her injured calf. She glanced at the young man riding on the program monster, who was just staring quietly at her as she was bandaging herself up without any strange actions.
“What do you want?” Barely standing up, Auntie Yan got to the point.
“A large army of these guys chased after the people here. Seeing your expression just now, these people are your acquaintances, right? A good person sees things to the end and send Buddha to the west*. I can take you to them.” In this way he could make the excuse to meet up with Mr. Ruan and won’t lose Auntie Yan either.
*(送佛送到西) Metaphor for doing good deeds to the end. || In this context, he’s seeing this good deed to the end by not just saving Auntie Yan in this moment but seeing it through to reunite her with her companions.
“…What do you want?” Aunt Yan’s tone was heavier this time.
“To collect a little information and address the Mainbrain along the way,” Tang Yibu answered smoothly. “I know what you’re worried about; whether I’m an Order Supervisors taking advantage of this situation in order to penetrate into your organization. I’m not interested in you at all, as this is just a matter of convenience.”
Auntie Yan wiped the mud from the wooden pipe with the corner of her coat and took a shaky puff from it, still not buying what he was saying.
“This is Petri Dish No. 1024. The club at the center of the city will provide delicious spicy bean soup. If you have a good relationship with the boss, you can also get a little onion pie that’s handmade by the boss herself. Every Wednesday, a man who yells extra loud would come to play poker, and he always loses. You can confirm with the master of this spiritual world—Seeing the fineness of the place, he should know a lot about Petri Dish No. 1024.”
Tang Yibu tugged the knitted scarf back towards his face.
“The Mainbrain will adopt a strategy that avoids suspicion. Once the Order Supervisor who had worked in a Petri Dish is transferred away, they will no longer be exposed to things related to the Petri Dish to prevent emotional problems… You should have some understanding of these rules since you can do something like this to avoid the Mainbrain.”
“Taking a step back. I believe what you say. Who do you work for?” Auntie Yan’s expression softened a little.
The question almost tripped Tang Yibu, but fortunately, their last stop provided him with a ready-made answer…
“The Red Ghost.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Well, I’m not surprised.” Tang Yibu snapped his fingers and the two programmed monsters that had originally attacked Auntie Yan slowly fused and transformed into a size more suitable for a human mount. “Are you going to follow or not? If you continue talking nonsense like this, your companions will be eaten clean by these things.”
Auntie Yan no longer refused. She stepped on the monster with a shiver and held onto its pitch-black neck.
“Let’s go.” After confirming the other party was sitting firmly, Tang Yibu lowered his head and whispered happily to the program monster of his. “You go find your companions. I’ll go to my Mr. Ruan.”
His Mr. Ruan wasn’t in good condition right now.
Ruan Xian didn’t run into any fatal danger. The huge program monster was slowed down by the various obstacles he created and couldn’t catch up for a while. He didn’t get lost, and he was pretty sure he didn’t miss the exit.
But his state wasn’t right.
Starting from the separation from Luo Jian and the others, his mood started to become clearer, and another feeling gradually grew in the dark. At first, Ruan Xian only regarded it as a side effect of energy loss; an abnormality caused by a little fatigue, but now he couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he began to feel the anger and irritability that had no origin. They were like charcoal stuffed into his head, making it impossible for him to think smoothly.
Making sure that the monster was still at a safe distance, Ruan Xian created another pile of obstacles, stopped, and gasped against the rock wall.
He was becoming upset, losing patience and composure. Judging from the symptoms, it was very likely that it was hormonal abnormality that was man-made. They wouldn’t hurt him, and the S-type Prototype wouldn’t interfere with it. He also didn’t have a cybernetic brain like Tang Yibu that could artificially adjust his hormone levels.
Someone had acted.
If placed in a normal person, these abnormalities may be regarded as part of a stress response in a high-pressure environment, but Ruan Xian had an almost paranoid desire to control his emotions, and he would never let go of such unnatural details.
Gong Siyi was more impatient than he thought.
The other party probably saw that they were in an abnormal state through their heartbeat and brain waves, and easily added firewood to himself, a “novice” with no experience in joint therapy, hoping to provoke a conflict between him and Luo Jian faster.
It wasn’t fatal at the moment, but it had a chemical reaction with his current mental state that made Ruan Xian quite uncomfortable.
The wound on the wrist that wouldn’t heal was illuminated by the text marking the patient’s information, and it became more dazzling in his eyes. Ruan Xian held back the desire to shoot indiscriminately to vent his anger and tried his best to suppress the boiling memories in his mind.
His steps slowed, but the speed of the monster was the same. The sound of rocks cracking behind him was getting closer.
[What are you doing?]
It was a certain winter after he was adopted by Meng Yunlai. A little older, as Meng Yunlai’s assistant in a sense, Ruan Xian, who was free to obtain professional equipment, turned up a scalpel.
He didn’t think too much about it at the time, and now that he thought about it, he didn’t know why he did it—he looked at the falling snow outside the window for a while and tried to cut his wrist with it.
The scalpel was very sharp, but the wound he made wasn’t fatal. He had a good grasp of strength. The pain spread rapidly from the blade of the scalpel, but Ruan Xian didn’t make a sound, and instead watched quietly. Meng Yunlai, who was supposed to be at a meeting, had returned home early, just in time to witness this scene.
She didn’t scream, didn’t rush forward, but just calmly asked that question.
[I don’t know.] Ruan Xian didn’t know his motivation for doing this as he looked at the wound fascinatedly.
At that time, the rotting corpse of his mother had been hanging in his mind for several years. He deduced the scene countless times and looked for a way to break it, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never understand his mother’s way of thinking and emotional expression.
Perhaps like her, if he let the crisis of death get closer, he could grasp more information.
But he knew very well that he was doing this for more reasons than just that. That pain gave him a very wonderful feeling that he couldn’t accurately describe.
[Xianxian, put the knife down.] With the amount of bleeding, Meng Yunlai could naturally see the severity of the wound. She took out the hemostatic spray and gauze for bandages from the medicine cabinet on one side, but her tone was still flat.
She communicated calmly and expressed herself rationally. In addition to that, her superficial role as his grandmother made it much simpler to communicate with his adoptive mother. This way of getting along did make him feel a lot better, but Ruan Xian always felt that something was wrong.
Ruan Xian didn’t answer her this time, nor did he follow her instructions. He slashed his wrist again, and fresh pain swarmed through him.
[Ruan Xian!] Meng Yunlai raised her voice. [I have to submit your guardianship report to the prevention agency at the end of the month, and they will check your body then. If you want to continue, I won’t hide it from them.]
He knew what this meant. He was engaging in B-level risky behavior and would likely be taken away again by the prevention shelter. The blood trickled down his wrist, accumulating into a pool of red puddles on the clean white wooden floor.
[I don’t want to stop, but I don’t know the reason.] Ruan Xian clenched the scalpel tightly.
[You can do it if you don’t let go. According to the current situation, there are still more than ten minutes left before you faint from blood loss.] Meng Yunlai sat down at the table. [I can try and help you analyze this problem.]
Ruan Xian sat still at the other end of the table, as blood kept dripping down, creating a dazzling trail on the floor. After he rested his wrist on the table, the white table was gradually covered with blood, and its smell permeated the air. An old woman and a young man sat staring at each other across the bleeding table with equally expressionless faces. The scene was quite weird for a while.
[Why did you want to do this in the first place?] Meng Yunlai didn’t look at the flowing blood.
[To study the psychological state of my mother killing herself, I created a near-death experience, and tried to collect information.] Ruan Xian answered truthfully.
Meng Yunlai sighed. [Have you ever thought of killing yourself?]
[I don’t think so. I have no reason to kill myself.] Ruan Xian felt the severe pain and cold caused by the wound, but his voice remained calm. [But I also don’t have a special reason to want to live.]
This was quite normal. Life was just a certain form of energy operation, and he currently had no good reason to change it.
Meng Yunlai showed an expression of “sure enough” just as he thought. For some reason, Ruan Xian wanted to add another wound to his wrist.
He knew that she wouldn’t ask him if he wanted to punish himself for his mother’s death, or if he felt sad, because she knew he wouldn’t. His personality tendencies had been tested over and over again, and the data was clearly recorded by the prevention shelter, so she knew what he was.
But he would still feel anger; an unrelenting, pitch-black rage that burned all the time.
[From the perspective of a scholar, you are probably attracted by these fresh experiences and stimuli, which is normal.] Meng Yunlai took off her glasses and pinched the center between her brows. [You can think of it as a kind of curiosity.]
‘That’s not true.’ Ruan Xian thought for a while, but he couldn’t find the answer himself.
[According to our agreement, I will not force you to do anything.] Meng Yunlai lowered her voice, and a little sadness flashed across her taut face. [Let’s put it this way, I have a suggestion you might want to listen to.]
Ruan Xian didn’t miss the flash of emotion on the other party’s face.
[I told you, I don’t want to lie to you. I can’t accept you or love you like an elder. That hasn’t changed, but you… Haven’t done anything wrong.] The elderly Meng Yunlai crossed her fingers. As blood flowed through the sleeves of her expensive coat, she didn’t even look at it. [You haven’t done anything wrong.]
Ruan Xian stared at her quietly.
[I’m getting old, and I don’t think I’ll live long. Ruan Xian, I’m not a selfless benefactor, but I’m not unkind either. In short, you don’t have to pay attention to the rejection and disgust of others. To be honest, if you can keep pretending, I hope you can live well.]
[Live. With your ability, you can always find something interesting. Of course, the result may also be bad, but no one can tell.] Although there was still fear in Meng Yunlai’s eyes, it softened a little. [You’re still young now. No matter how smart you are, experience won’t grow out of thin air. I suggest you disguise yourself well, live as smoothly and low-key as possible, and start collecting information from this perspective.]
She stretched out her hand and picked up the hemostatic spray. [Give me your hand.]
Ruan Xian didn’t respond to her.
[Indeed, I don’t want to give up your talents because of possible risks. You are the most talented child I have ever seen. And with the limitation of the disease in place, you… Forget it.] Meng Yunlai added with a wry smile.
[I won’t live long, so it’s manageable.] Ruan Xian completed her statement for her, and finally stretched out his arm.
[From another perspective, this is a win-win cooperation.] Meng Yunlai did a simple hemostasis for him, and then went to get a powerful wound gel.
Then she hesitated for a while, but still spoke.
[More than that.] She said, [I’m sorry, I can’t accept you from the bottom of my heart, Xianxian.]
[I know, you once told me.]
[No, the point is, I’m really sorry.] She tentatively stretched out her hand, as if trying to rub his hair.
Ruan Xian instinctively leaned forward slightly, but the hand finally fell on his shoulder.
[…I hope you can understand.] She spoke.
[Nn.]
But he couldn’t understand.
Ruan Xian complied with the agreement with his adoptive mother, Meng Yunlai, disguised himself, and lived a stable life. Facts have proved that the growth of experience was indeed effective. Having been exposed to enough tragedies, Ruan Xian was finally able to analyze his mother’s collapse and fear from a purely theoretical perspective.
And the reason she chose to die.
But everything just remained from a theoretical point of view, and he still couldn’t find the most suitable solution. New problems also followed. He also failed to figure out the complexity in Meng Yunlai’s expression at the time, nor could he figure out the reason for cutting his wrist in the first place.
Three questions were strung together on cause and effect.
Meng Yunlai had long since passed away, and this scar represented the three most difficult puzzles in his life, and it was also the closest thing to “obsession”.
Ruan Xian himself wasn’t too surprised that this was his appearance in the spiritual world. However, the artificially injected hormone compound caused him to lose control of his emotions, and then pain, doubt, and blood swept over him. The narrow and cramped space intensified the fermentation of his emotions. He was so anxious that he didn’t know what he was anxious about.
His heart was beating furiously, his head became a little dizzy, and his steps started to become unstable.
Ruan Xian simply stopped.
With the program monster chasing after him, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hurt himself at this time. Even if it was clear that Gong Siyi wouldn’t kill him, Ruan Xian didn’t know how long this abnormal state would last. The emotional effects were particularly serious in the spiritual world. It ate away at his energy, causing his exhaustion to become stronger.
Ruan Xian had never liked to fall into a passive situation, let alone leave his safety completely to luck, betting on whether the program monster would disappear first, or he would run out of strength first. It was better to take advantage of his own state and simply turn it into an offense.
Instead of being dragged down by the abnormal state, it was better to release this hostility in turn.
It was cold here, but the world in his eyes seemed to be burning. The patient’s marked wound began to bleed faster. Ruan Xian’s chest became stuffy, and the faint desire for pain resurfaced.
The collapsed stone was finally cracked open, melting into the vast darkness of the program monster with outstretched claws. The converging light of its eyes tightly locked onto his movements, and it seemed to want to tear him apart from head to toe to analyze him carefully.
Ruan Xian ignored the roaring darkness on the opposite side. He let go of his thoughts and focused all his energy on observing the monster.
He no longer suppressed his emotions, and he saw his anger.
Black flames rolled over his skin, burning the original intact skin to patches. Under the burnt skin, disgusting scales were revealed, somewhat resembling some kind of snake.
Perhaps this was what had been imprisoned deep in his heart that he took all this trouble to hide.
Ruan Xian didn’t care about it this time. He let his anger turn into destructive desire and murderous intent as blood bullets poured towards the huge program monster. He put defense on the back burner and was badly scratched by the monstrous claws. The skin that had been burned out of shape cracked into a larger wound.
Unprecedented pain exploded outwards from the inside of his skull.
‘He won’t die here,’ he thought. As long as he had this thought, he wouldn’t die. Now this wasn’t a desire to live, but more like a recognition of his curse.
No need to worry about it.
He only needed to be concerned about his opponent’s movement patterns, find out the weaknesses of the program’s operation, and break it. However, taking most of his attention away from defense had its price—the monster was also staring at him and had managed to pierce his shoulder with its claws.
It was getting colder all around. The pain gradually became unbearable until he dropped the lantern to the side, which illuminated his hands. There was only blood, burnt skin, and weird scales on it.
At most, he was mentally distorted and had fallen into madness, but he wouldn’t die.
Ruan Xian held his breath and broke free of the claws. The opponent’s mode of operation was becoming more obvious. Not only could he defeat it, but he could also completely destroy it. As for what the effects of this emotional outburst would be after the hormones faded, he didn’t bother to think about it.
This was the scene he was used to, struggling alone in the dark, as it always had been. However, some of his skin was still mottled as some pale skin stubbornly refused to turn into scales.
Ruan Xian didn’t know what he was struggling with. He didn’t really care about the opinions of others, and now he didn’t need to pretend to survive—he had been pretending for too long that he had lost most of his interest in his true self. It was enough to accept negative definitions smoothly and live as himself.
There was nothing wrong with being a demon. It didn’t matter if he became a real lunatic.
‘Perhaps the question he had been pursuing wasn’t that important,’ Ruan Xian thought in a daze. Besides, he just gave himself an answer. What he had done so far wasn’t much different from a game. There wasn’t anything he had to do anyway…
Wrong.
An inexplicable thought suddenly hit him.
He still owed the android a date.
Comically, that trivial thought stopped him for a moment. The anger was like ice that touched a soldering iron and immediately hissed and part of it melted. He didn’t know why, but every time he thought of Tang Yibu’s extraordinary, innocent face, he couldn’t help but want to laugh.
Those unsightly scales began to slowly disappear, and the heat and madness that almost burned his brain began to fade. Ruan Xian held the blood gun firmly in his hand, intending to continue to deal with the situation in front of him, when another cracking sound came from above his head…
The next moment, a strange object slammed into him. It looked like a teenager, wearing a hood decorated with animal ears. His face was facing the ground.
Ruan Xian’s movements stopped for half a second.
The young man struggled on the ground a few times before jumping up lightly. He pulled down the ugly knitted scarf, tore off the fleeced hood, and finally wiped the dirt off his face.
“Mr. Ruan.”
Tang Yibu’s trumpet* smiled brightly as he stretched out a hand towards him.
*Buzzword for alt account. || In this context, it’s basically saying his alternative form.
“I’m here to see you.”
Kinky Thoughts:
Oh my Jesus, this chapter was hella long. It’s basically like 8 normal chapters combined. Just a note: “spiritual/mental world” all refers to the same thing. It’s the world created in the mind/memories of Luo Jian.
I really want a fanart of Tang Yibu in kid form with the animal ear hoodie. So cute!
He once again switched the scene in the room to the beach. The time of the augmented reality system was the same as in reality. This time he was no longer greeted by the dark sea at midnight, but a turquoise blue that almost connected to the sky.
Countless light screens floated around him, and formally dressed men and women on the screens were reporting on major events or anecdotes that had occurred all over the world. The virtual waves rolled over the golden sandy beach, leaving a tan wet mark. The development of science and technology hadn’t stopped. Ruan Xian himself once liked to use this type of technology to make up for the regret of not being able to go out—the augmented reality effect at that time wasn’t so realistic.
In the light screen floating around, the world was very stable. Although conflict hadn’t completely disappeared, it was much less than in his own time. The scene was bright, the sun was shining, or rather the lights were bright. People came and went on the street that should no longer exist, mostly with calmness and hope on their faces.
It was like a finely woven, huge dream.
Ruan Xian spent more than ten minutes looking at the trivial news, and soon, he found a loophole in the fast-surging flow of information. Posing to kill time while recalling the data obtained from the shelter data room, he connected to the outermost layer of the system and began to explore the key word “joint memory therapy”.
As a formal treatment method, information on joint therapy wasn’t difficult to find.
The operability of memory could cause some problems. Joint therapy was usually only used in three ways—to replace missing memories, falsify memories, or purely for demonstration.
It required a person to be the subject of the memory, which was processed and then projected onto others through augmented reality. People’s perception of the world relied on stimulating various signals in the brain, and the interference and simulation of these signals could probably “send people into the minds of others” to such an extent.
It was like the immune system of the human mind. Ruan Xian smiled slightly in his illusory world.
Although he wasn’t at risk of exposing his memories, such a treatment would put him in an unsuspecting state. He didn’t like being in a passive situation very much, but since Gong Siyi was counting on making a sum of money off him, he probably had his own set of plans for this scenario.
It would be too stupid if he died due to medical malpractice. According to the set of rules from the Mainbrain, not to mention whether Gong Siyi would still get money, it was hard to say if he could even continue being a doctor.
Ruan Xian raised his head, feeling the sea breeze in the illusion.
Cautious preparation was needed. He must admit that he had a tendency to deliberately walk on the edge of death before. Those crazy behaviors weren’t out of self-confidence but something much darker.
He always felt that he wouldn’t die so easily due to a certain kind of blind and gloomy optimism, coupled with a little morbid sense of humor that he had. It was like playing Russian roulette with fate—he had lived through despair and the disgust of others, and he wouldn’t die so easily and make the world a little better.
However, Ruan Xian hesitated this time.
He thought of Tang Yibu, the android who was shrewd and cold in some ways, but in others was like a puppy chasing his tail. He enjoyed every mutual test, every game, and every hug with the other party. Unlike his previous life that existed only for survival, he hadn’t grown tired of all this.
This was the first time he had an emotional aversion to death, which wasn’t a good sign.
Ruan Xian touched the iron bead wandering by the bed and sighed softly.
As before, he wouldn’t ignore or deliberately distort his feelings.
He wanted Tang Yibu to stay by his side longer, wanted to embrace the warm body as much as possible… Wanted to take the other party for himself. This kind of selfish and greedy thought may not be “love”, but it still burned in his heart, making him unable to remain calm.
But in the face of the current situation, this was probably a good thing. Under the effects of the S-type Prototype, he wouldn’t die easily, but if Gong Siyi perceived something strange as a result, things would become more troublesome. A stronger survival mentality would make his mind stronger and wouldn’t be too disturbed by joint therapy.
Time flew by quickly.
Based on all the knowledge he obtained about joint therapy, it was within a safe range. The time for treatment was approaching as night fell. Ruan Xian stopped in front of the semi-open sleeping compartment, subconsciously still a bit resistant.
Luo Jian and Li Han had already laid down, floating in a capsule-like dormant warehouse. The two of them were wearing simple undergarments. Their mouths were covered with breathing masks, and there were many patches connected to wires on their bodies. The liquid that engulfed the bodies of the two was slightly yellow. If it weren’t for their chests slowly rising and falling, they wouldn’t be much different from human specimens at first glance.
Ruan Xian sighed, slowly took off his clothes, and slowly lay down in the liquid. The cold liquid gradually swallowed him with the strong smell of medicine, and then everything sank into darkness.
‘This sucks,’ he thought to himself. He hoped that he would have time to dry his body before meeting the android.
The sense of floating lasted only for a moment.
In the next second, his feet stepped onto the thick snow. The oncoming snowflakes mixed with the dry wind turned into a biting chill like a blade. Ruan Xian subconsciously clung to his arms and looked around…
A large-scale steel city stood in his field of vision, and a huge chimney in the middle of the city kept spewing out thick smoke. Sparse dead trees poked out in the snow, and the sky was a dark smoky gray.
It was Luo Jian’s memory.
Luo Jian himself was standing not far away. He looked at least ten years younger. There weren’t many wrinkles on his face, his chin was smooth and clean-shaven, looking obviously less than 40 years old. Standing next to him, Li Han looked not so much different from what she looked like in the shelter.
After all, there was a gap between spirituality and reality. A strong physique wasn’t useful here. After entering the spiritual world, the human brain would automatically adjust the cognition of appearance and age to the period when the “will was strongest”, so as to have a positive stimulation of the consciousness.
It seemed that Luo Jian’s willpower was at its peak in his thirties. What was a bit surprising was that Li Han was now at the peak of her willpower with her current life.
There was a circle of dazzling red text fluttering on the wrists of the two people, which was probably a mark used to distinguish the characters in memory from outsiders. They simply mark their identity.
[Bed 10, Luo Jian]
[Bed 176, Li Han]
When he looked at the other two people, they were also observing himself. Their expressions were a little weird.
Ruan Xian frowned. It stood to reason that in order to protect oneself, the brain removed a few characteristics that could positively stimulate the spirit and usually didn’t bring in negative factors related to disease or injury. Right now he was standing in the snow, and his appearance should be very different from that of “Professor Ruan”.
He quickly retracted his gaze, looked at his hand, and then instantly understood the reason for the strange expressions on the two of them.
Those hands were small, belonging to a child. There were the scars on his left wrist—a fresh cut across that wasn’t too deep but enough to bleed. The blood seemed to be some kind of tattoo as it flowed from his left wrist and hand, but not a drop spilled onto the white blinding snow.
Accompanied by the effect of the circle that was constantly rotating [Bed 231, Ruan Lijie], the effect was a bit terrifying.
“…Ruan Lijie?” The young version of Luo Jian’s voice still held doubts. He was wearing a relatively lightweight thermal suit, and the tip of his nose was red from the cold.
“It’s me,” Ruan Xian responded. Even his voice was no different from what he remembered. Based on the scars, it was deduced that he should be around twelve years old.
Li Han moved one step ahead. She stepped on the thick snow and walked over, took out a roll of bandage from her bag, and motioned to Ruan Xian to stretch out his hand.
“Don’t worry about him. Although this kind of situation is rare… Xiao Han, he’s not a real child.” Luo Jian didn’t move a step. “Those injuries are just the ‘characteristics’ in his memories and will not affect him. At most, it just hurts a little.”
Not misled by the appearance of a child, he looked at Ruan Xian vigilantly.
“But…” Li Han held the bandage stiffly and stopped hesitantly.
“Since he brought them in subconsciously, they should have a positive effect on him, so it’s not good to wrap them up.” Luo Jian exhaled a white breath. “Come on, let’s go into the town. Ruan Lijie, if you feel cold, imagine the winter clothes you wear the most often.”
As he became shorter, his steps were also smaller. Ruan Xian followed the two of them, one foot deep and one foot shallow, walking with extreme difficulty. Fortunately, this wasn’t the real world. Though it wasn’t an environment that a child’s physical strength could cope with, Ruan Xian didn’t feel tired except for having trouble walking.
Luo Jian didn’t explain, and Ruan Xian didn’t ask any questions. Only the rampage of snow and the creaking sound of walking on it were left in this oppressive world. The three of them walked silently towards the lifeless steel city.
From time to time, there were frozen corpses lying across the road, mostly buried by the snow, with only bits and pieces exposed. Li Han followed Luo Jian closely, without looking away, while Ruan Xian slowed down and scanned around to scrape some clues from the corpses as much as possible.
“Don’t look.” It seemed that Ruan Xian was walking too slowly as Luo Jian finally spoke.
“If you really have doomsday-related memories, you should have heard of this place—this is Petri Dish No. 1024, the city of natural disasters.”
The other side at night.
When Luo Fei arrived at the meeting place, Yu Le was still studying Tang Yibu’s work seriously, with the posture of wanting to recite it. Seeing that the original two-person group had become a three, Luo Fei became more vigilant.
“Oh, that’s also my android. Don’t mind.” Yu Le put the medium-sized book into his pocket while maintaining a natural tone.
“You can you afford two?”
“Saving money. What else can you do? I have been living a tight life, so I don’t even buy remote-controlled humanoid devices.” Yu Le leaned forward and lowered his voice. “After all, if you really want to get married, the Mainbrain will match you with the best partner. For someone like me, who likes to play with both the left and right, it’s better to play ball on the side like this.”
The outstanding appearances of Tang Yibu and Ji Xiaoman obviously dispelled some of Luo Fei’s doubts. Luo Fei thought for a moment, then sat down opposite Yu Le. “You said you want a more exciting memory cocktail, Mr. Yu, but that would require a charge—”
“Let’s not talk about this yet.” Yu Le put away his playful appearance, though he still maintained that carefree look that had a slightly diffused sharpness. “I’m here to talk business. I guess I won’t be able to drink for a while, so how about we go out for a walk?”
Luo Fei glanced at the two “androids” sitting around Yu Le, with a little more reluctance in his expression.
“Xiaoman, you stay here and look at the table. We’ll be back soon.” Trying to guess the other party’s scruples, Yu Le casually added to Ji Xiaoman. “Your android is also waiting for you outside, right? I’ll bring a bodyguard to follow me as well. Are there any more issues, Mr. Luo?”
Tang Yibu showed a timely standard smile.
Luo Fei looked at Yu Le up and down, but he still didn’t move. “Mr. Yu, don’t whet my appetite. Let’s discuss some news first. What kind of business do you want to talk about? I’m afraid I can’t make decisions.”
Yu Le took Tang Yibu’s masterpiece out of his pocket again and flipped to the two pages that were the bloodiest and waved them in front of Luo Fei.
“About this.”
“…” Luo Fei seemed to have forgotten how to speak for a while, as his face blushed a bit. “Put it away!”
Tang Yibu wrote very quickly. He erased most of what Yu Le had written, and then rewrote it in almost exactly the same handwriting. Yu Le crossed his arms and leaned against the table, his eyes following the tip of Tang Yibu’s pen.
Ji Xiaoman had no interest in watching Tang Yibu’s creation from the sidelines. She retreated into the corner and began to carefully maintain the weapons in her prosthetic limbs. The afternoon sun passed through the thin window screens, and for a while, the scene was still quite peaceful.
“Not bad, Xiao Tang.” Yu Le tsked. “There are some things I haven’t seen in my collection. What’s this? Is it possible you’ve changed to a companion android?”
“I’ve done some work on this subject.” Tang Yibu raised his head with a calm expression. The nib of his pen kept spitting out words in a steady stream. If it weren’t for being able to see the hot content, Yu Le wasn’t sure if he misunderstood and regarded Tang Yibu as a serious work assistant who was writing furiously.
“…Then your subject is quite strong. Wow, writing can still be like this…” Yu Le groaned.
“I still want to eat egg custard.” Tang Yibu glanced at Yu Le, blocked the next part with his arm, and made a serious transaction request.
Oddly enough, he was separated from Mr. Ruan again, but this time his appetite wasn’t affected, but was rather extremely good.
“You have the makings of a ruins pirate, kid.” Yu Le grabbed his apron and wiped his hands. “Okay, okay, okay, I’ll give you two more dishes. Let me take a look after you finish writing.”
Ji Xiaoman rolled her eyes silently in the corner.
“Have you ever liked someone, Yu Ge?” Seeing Yu Le wiping his hands to prepare food, Tang Yibu didn’t stop writing, but he spoke more.
“What do you think? I’m thirty-six years old, dude, and I’m very experienced.”
“Would you mind sharing your experience?” Tang Yibu touched a piece of bread from the table and started nibbling on it, making his voice a bit muffled. “…There are not too many materials.”
“First of all, you’re not allowed to ask what goes on in bed. A breakup is a breakup, and private matters remain private.”
“Okay,” Tang Yibu readily agreed. “Here’s the thing. I have collected a lot of information; human enthusiasm and interest in partners will fade when hormone levels decrease. Most don’t ever have the ‘perfect love’ they preach, and to some extent, resource-sharing relationships are widespread…”
“You mean partnering to live?” Yu Le asked lightly. “There’s a ton out there. Whether looking for it or not, people will always find ways to live.”
“But according to the previous social tendencies—”
“If I tell someone I like them, some may be moved, while some just enjoy the physical aspect, but in any case, people can look everywhere. Some are good, and some aren’t a match.” Yu Le was heating oil in a pan while cleaning up the blood on the meat. “Going by what you say that it’s hormones that are affected by the brain, living life isn’t a virtue of enthusiasm and interest.”
Tang Yibu’s gaze moved from Yu Le’s face to the meat on the chopping board, then back to Yu Le’s face with difficulty.
“Do you think that if interest subsides due to the decrease of hormones in your body, the emotional involvement will also disappear?”
After all, his own body was human. Tang Yibu tried to explain his attraction to “Ruan Lijie” as sexual. With his original interest and this additional desire, it would make sense.
Then, as long as they maintained this relationship for long enough, this attraction would gradually fade, and they would no longer affect the other party. According to Yu Le, things weren’t as simple as they seemed.
This was necessary to collect more data. Tang Yibu gave himself a rather official explanation, not wanting to pay attention to the inexplicable tension in his heart.
“Why do I feel like you and I are talking about two different things?” Yu Le removed the pieces of meat from the pan and the aroma of fried garlic wafted over from the kitchen. “Young people like splitting hairs*, so they make a mountain out of a molehill. A little hormone, just like anything else, can be analyzed. Come on, I’ll teach you a lesson. What do you think is most important when finding someone?”
*Take unnecessary pains to study an insignificant problem (钻牛角尖) Idiom referring to people becoming brain dead and inflexible when encountering problems.
This question obviously poked Tang Yibu’s weakness. He showed an expression like a lost puppy, looking quite pitiful. “I have never thought about this question.”
“What do you think humans look for in finding a partner?”
“Appearance, personality, financial strength, and overall potential. In general, the need for the relationship to satisfy their own needs as much as possible, both physical and mental. If you want to reproduce, there may be more issues to consider.”
Mr. Ruan’s face and figure were very in line with human aesthetics, his personality was interesting, and his abilities were strong enough. It was very logical for him to be attracted to the other party, and he also had a strong obsession with “Ruan Xian”. With this combination, perhaps this was what attracted him.
Like a person suffering from an undiagnosed disease, Tang Yibu put his symptoms into a common pattern.
“…These are all standards.”
Yu Le shoveled the prepared beef cubes onto the plate and put some leftover tomatoes and hot bok choy.
“However, the objective is not mating, and it may not be possible even if both sides are excellent. This doesn’t count. Who knows, there might be some things you can’t stand and some things you can’t do without. There’s also going to be fights and friction. You can’t expect a perfect match to fall from the sky, with everything fitting according to your taste, or find true love on the first try. Such a good thing doesn’t exist.”
“But a character can be calculated, and the body can be quantified.”
“What? You’re telling me you’ll have the same taste as you did ten years ago? Behavior will never change? Even a cybernetic brain must absorb new knowledge. If you ask me, first look at whether you’re compatible and get along well together, and then see if you can move forward. If you can, move forward. If you can’t, split up. People will always change. It’s that simple.”
Tang Yibu stopped writing.
“My love… At that time, I thought she was a great beauty. She had the figure, the face, and the brains. I wanted to marry at the time, but in the end, it didn’t work out. She wanted to go abroad to develop her career while I was working by the sea every day. We could only see each other a few times in the last year and a half, and I didn’t think it would work in the future.” Yu Le put the fried beef cubes in front of Tang Yibu. “This was a relationship that involves hormones, but do you think it’s the same situation?”
Ji Xiaoman had stopped maintaining her weapon and pricked up her ears to listen.
“So what’s going on with you and Ruan Lijie?” Yu Le saw Tang Yibu chewing the beef cubes thoughtfully, raising his eyebrows high. “That pile of questions has nothing to do with this book, right? Why do I get the feeling that you’re nervous?”
“For some reason, his attraction to me far exceeds the risk standard I can bear.” Tang Yibu chewed the juicy beef and pushed the finished book farther away. “But I’m still very interested in him. I care enough that I get an upset stomach because of dating… Well, I care about my stomach discomfort. It’s unwise to make a move until his situation is fully analyzed.”
“…You really got involved with the person surnamed Ruan.” Yu Le took a breath and turned to Ji Xiaoman. “Do androids usually think like this?”
“I don’t know.” Ji Xiaoman’s face was blank. “If it is a mechanical life that has not been injected with human-like programs, and there’s no support from the Mainbrain, usually the IQ would be similar to that of a mechanical police dog. It may be the underlying simulated emotion program isn’t clean, or he’s equipped with a particularly strange personality data.”
Tang Yibu didn’t mind Ji Xiaoman’s evaluation at all. He bit into a piece of beef and fell into deep thought.
“I see.” After a while, Tang Yibu suddenly opened his mouth, and the pieces of beef in his mouth almost fell out. “I can change my perspective and figure out why he’s attracted to me. Since Mr. Ruan is a human, it’ll be much easier—if he likes me as long as possible and stays by my side, I will have more time to slowly think about my own problems.”
“No, you don’t seem to understand at all,” Yu Le said dryly. The android was still trying to apply logic, and he was too lazy to explain anymore.
“Mr. Ruan is very smart,” Tang Yibu continued happily. “If it is too deliberate, he’ll definitely be able to see through my plan. Then I just need to show my interest in him unreservedly. Thank you, Yu Ge.”
“…I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, and I really don’t want to,” Yu Le said weakly, trying to steal a piece of meat from Tang Yibu’s plate, but before the tip of his chopstick touched the meat, the plate was snatched away by Tang Yibu.
“They intend to get serious about dating,” Ji Xiaoman translated in a not-so-considerate whisper.
“Although I figured this out, I’m still nervous.” Tang Yibu sat upright, looking like the chairman of a meeting. “Yu Ge…”
“Just shut up, you.”
Ruan Xian was completely unaware of Tang Yibu’s new decision. Compared to the worried android that was in a strange state, this current time period was considered his most relaxed before the end of the world. Even with the restraint clothes and white walls of the prevention shelter, they couldn’t ruin his mood at this moment.
A brand-new experience. Even though he didn’t think their relationship had anything to do with “love”, Ruan Xian still felt incredibly relaxed, like accidently stepping on a pot of gold on a muddy beach.
While enjoying lunch, he even subconsciously hummed Carol Young’s “Step by Step” until Luo Jian sat across from him with a cold face.
“Gong Siyi has approached me,” he said in a low voice, not sounding pleasant. “We have joint therapy tonight, in the basement. You should receive specific details in a while, but I have something to say in advance.”
“Okay.” Ruan Xian maintained his good attitude.
“Joint memory therapy is a pain in the ass. It’s the first time I’ve seen three people together. Although Li Han and you are both victims of Pear Blossom, as the person leading the therapy, I can’t treat you both equally.”
Luo Jian fiddled with the fried carrots on the plate irritably with his chopsticks.
“I don’t have a good impression of you. That’s the truth. It’s pointless to be cordial. I can’t fool my own mind and consciousness. Li Han is fine. If you were to enter my memory, it would be a very dangerous thing for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Gong Siyi sometimes uses some more radical therapies… Although it’s not enough to kill—”
“It’s enough that no one will die.”
Ruan Xian showed a polite smile. He seemed to be getting more accustomed to the action of “really smiling”, he thought.
“Thank you for reminding me, but I have no impression of this joint memory therapy you mentioned… What will I encounter?”
“Anything is possible.”
Luo Jian snorted.
“After all, you are going to enter my memory, and it’s a real doomsday in my head.”
The author has something to say:
Lao Yu: How can the relationship between humans be so simple! Come here and let me tell you…
Tang: Okay, I see. I will follow this strategy to make Mr. Ruan like me.
Lao Yu: …
This period is probably Ruan’s happiest period. After all, he still knows nothing about the true identity of the coconut (?
The android was wearing a white staff coat and stood in the spotless corridor that was so clean it felt unreal. Ruan Xian stretched out his hand again in a daze, but this time the target wasn’t Tang Yibu’s hair, but the other party’s lips.
With a warm and soft touch, his fingertips could feel the other’s warm breath.
So human-like in appearance, but on the inside was something entirely different. Even with the most intimate relationship, the reaction of the other party couldn’t be inferred from human thinking habits. Tang Yibu wasn’t much different from the past, except the curiosity in his eyes was a bit stronger. His degree of calmness hadn’t changed.
And he was stripped of all the characteristics of a “normal person”, including the darkness and madness he had shown unscrupulously in front of the other party. In the eyes of the creature in front of him, it wasn’t as good as “he may leave”, which was worth worrying about.
[I haven’t been able to find anything in you that I don’t like.] The current conclusion of the android was that.
For such a brief moment, Ruan Xian suddenly understood the feelings of those fire-loving moths, but after that moment passed, reason was crushed down again. Inexplicably, relaxation was mixed with vigilance and a little joy, finally all combined into a sour taste.
Seeing that Ruan Xian hadn’t responded for a long time, Tang Yibu opened his mouth slightly in confusion and bit Ruan Xian’s fingertips lightly.
“Let me reassure you.” Ruan Xian pressed Tang Yibu’s lower lip. “When will you be back?”
“Around 3 or 4 in the morning.”
“Okay, then let’s have a date at 5.” Ruan Xian finally retracted his hand and patted off a piece of hair on the other party’s shoulder. “Don’t be late.”
Tang Yibu grabbed Ruan Xian’s hand with his backhand and bit hard with his sharp teeth, piercing the skin on the fingertip. A little blood oozed out. Before it could be reabsorbed by the skin, Tang Yibu had already sucked it up.
“But you don’t really want to go on a date with me.” There was still the sweetness of the snack on the other party’s finger, which Tang Yibu licked lightly with the tip of his tongue. “Your hormone levels aren’t elevated at all, and you don’t show enough concentration and infatuation.”
“I’m not proficient in this business. Forgive me.” Ruan Xian wanted to laugh again. “After all, I’m ‘relatively slow’.”
“I accept.” Tang Yibu let go of Ruan Xian’s wrist. He couldn’t calculate another solution at this moment. Whether this proposal was sincere or fake, there was nothing to lose by going along with it.
Tang Yibu thought seriously about it having never dated a creature before.
Given that this was the first time he had ever had such a strong interest in a living thing, this was completely uncharted territory. Coupled with the possible identity of the other party, Tang Yibu found that he was uncomfortably nervous—in every sense of the word—and he didn’t want to fail.
“I will definitely come to meet you at 5 tomorrow morning,” Tang Yibu added after thinking for a few seconds.
The middle of the city.
Yu Le slept for a few hours, barely regaining some strength. He squinted his eyes at the sunny sky outside the window. It looked as if it was 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
After copying a disgusting book all night, in order to save money, the only food left was raspberry ice cream. The former great ruins pirate lay on the floor in a daze, suddenly feeling that his life was surreal.
A little smell came from the simple kitchen of the small apartment. Yu Le twitched his nose and finally got up from the floor.
“I bought some salt and eggs, plus a loaf of bread.” Ji Xiaoman moved the spatula carefully. “It didn’t cost much. The oil was a bit expensive, so I didn’t buy it… The taste should be almost the same, so make do with it.”
The little girl thought of something, then dug a square hole in the middle of the bread slices and poured the eggs into it before frying them up.
“How mischievous,” Yu Le muttered, and yawned loudly while operating the light screen.
“I didn’t want to hack your citizen account, but you were sleeping just now, and the account could only be operated by you—”
“I don’t mean this.” Yu Le waved his hand impatiently, scratching the stubble on his chin. “How old are you, 19, 20? It’s not easy to have good conditions. Young people should eat something good. After passing this area, there won’t be such a shop. Didn’t I also drink beer? It’s not bad to splurge.”
Before Ji Xiaoman’s slices of bread were toasted, a drone delivered his order. Yu Le washed his hands, cut up the tomatoes and threw pats of butter into the pan.
The aroma in the air suddenly became several times stronger.
“What are you looking at? When laozi started cooking, you probably wasn’t even born yet.” Seeing Ji Xiaoman watching him intently as he cut tomatoes, Yu Le gestured with the knife.
Lunch changed from a simple dry egg in a basket to a hearty sandwich. Yu Le also bought some chicken. He paused for a moment before he sandwiched the chicken in between the bread slices.
“What’s the matter?” Ji Xiaoman didn’t let go of the momentary blankness on the other party’s face.
“No, I just remembered something from the past.” Yu Le smiled a little stiffly. “That’s how I prepared breakfast for my sister when I was in my teens.”
There was a cafeteria in the prison, and being a pirate, he wasn’t particular about things. It had been a long time since he’d cooked a meal for two.
“Eat yours. Only when you’re full will you have the strength to fool people.” Seeing Ji Xiaoman’s expression of wanting to hear more details, Yu Le curled his lips. “Eat more meat. You look like a pole that I can’t even tell if you’re a girl or boy from afar—”
Ji Xiaoman frowned, sat back at the table with murderous intent, and bit into the chicken as if it was an enemy.
“Hey, do you want egg custard? God knows how long we can stay here. Better not have any regrets.”
“…” Ji Xiaoman pretended not to hear.
“Ouch, really ignoring me?” Yu Le smiled and shook his head, grabbing the remaining eggs with his hands. “You don’t want it? I’m good at making them. Don’t ask me to do it later—”
“Really?” A serious voice joined the conversation.
Yu Le almost dropped the egg in his hand.
Tang Yibu stood at the door and looked solemnly at Yu Le’s hand holding the egg. “Then you can give me her share.”
“No.” Ji Xiaoman objected almost immediately.
“Add more water. It’ll be enough for three servings.” Yu Le put down the egg in his hand and began to prepare the custard. “Why are you out? Where’s Xiao Ruan?”
“He’s fine. There’s something we need Miss Ji’s help.” Tang Yibu got straight the point. He closed the door and sat at the dining table very consciously.
“Go ahead.” Ji Xiaoman vigilantly guarded the food in front of her as her voice hitched a little.
“Mr. Ruan had gathered something from Luo Jian. There’s an organization called ‘Pear Blossom’ in the city, and they have Ruan Xian’s diary in their hands.” Tang Yibu clasped his fingers and placed them on the table. “I hope you two can help me investigate—”
“Oh, that.” Yu Le was beating the egg mixture. “You happened to investigate and stumble upon Ruan Xian’s diary? What bullshit. I thought you would only get some normal information.”
“Ruan Xian was really here?” Ji Xiaoman stopped chewing and swallowed the food in her mouth hard.
“It seems so at the moment.” Tang Yibu carefully chose his words.
“We just checked casually when we saw Pear Blossom promoting the idea of the end of the world. We became interested and bumped into Luo Jian’s son.” Seeing that Yu Le was still busy preparing food, Ji Xiaoman took over the conversation. “He made Lao Yu a memory cocktail that provided an ordinary memory…”
“It’s called ‘Ford’s Ordinary Life’,” Yu Le interjected.
“I have confirmed that, at least in the database of this city, that Luo Fei’s father is indeed the Luo Jian we’re looking for.” Ji Xiaoman freed up a hand and drew it twice on the light screen. “The specific information has been sent to you.”
Tang Yibu tightened his fingers slightly. “Good.”
“In short, that’s it. We’ve already made contact with Luo Fei and are preparing to go further.” Ji Xiaoman took a sip of milk. “The Mainbrain currently has no intention of eradicating this organization. I don’t think a little contact will cause it to become alert.”
“The Mainbrain may be more dangerous than you think. It’s unwise to make reckless contact.”
“Come on, you’re not the boss of us.” Yu Le steamed the custard. “In such a big place, we can’t squat in a room and eat and wait to death while you play your blockbuster in that madhouse. Why does the Mainbrain acquiesce to the existence of Pear Blossom? Aren’t you curious? Besides, it’s much more reliable to get good stuff from a large civic organization rather than from the Mainbrain—”
Ji Xiaoman and Tang Yibu looked at Yu Le together.
“—Of course this is not the point.” Yu Le wisely stopped talking.
“For the next half day, I will act with you.” Tang Yibu didn’t dwell on this subject for too long. “Now that you guys have cast the line, you should have a strategy for the next step of contact, right?”
Ji Xiaoman got up and handed Tang Yibu the booklet pressed under the cushion. “…Nomination certificate. It’s not pressed yet, so be gentle with it.”
Tang Yibu took the “King of Killers” and quickly flipped through it.
“In fact, the name is ‘The Forbidden Wife of the King of Killers’. Lao Yu refused to write this for the cover, so we went with this,” Ji Xiaoman explained. “As far as we’re concerned, Luo Fei advocates cultural liberation. I think this should reduce his suspicion.”
“That’s a path.” Tang Yibu quickly scanned the book with a calm expression. “But the content level is not enough.”
“Right!” Yu Le pulled his voice. “Laozi had to fucking copy this. The guy who wrote this thing is probably a virgin.”
“There are no typos in it. How much chemicals do you have left to erase ink?” Tang Yibu put the book in front of him.
“There is still a lot left. Lao Yu’s head is better than I thought… What are you going to do?” Ji Xiaoman pointed to the bottle in the corner.
“Improve quality and increase the success rate.”
“Yo, I can’t see it. Xiao Tang, you have two brushes*. I thought androids didn’t have needs in this regard.” Yu Le prepared the custard as he took off his apron. “Eat, eat. Be careful not to burn your mouth.”
*(两把刷子) Idiom used to describe someone capable of doing things. || In this context, he’s basically saying “Oh, Tang Yibu, I didn’t know you were capable (in regard to writing smut) considering you’re an android (which don’t engage in sex or have need for it).”
Tang Yibu took a bite of the custard, slowly raised his head and looked at Yu Le.
“…What are you looking at me for?” Yu Le was a little perturbed. “Hey, I didn’t mean to say you couldn’t do it just now. Don’t misunderstand.”
“It’s very delicious,” Tang Yibu commented.
Yu Le breathed a sigh of relief.
“You are also a very valuable person to me,” Tang Yibu muttered in a low voice. “I don’t dislike you. In fact, I’m even a little interested in your character, but…”
“But?” Yu Le was a little confused about the strange direction this topic was heading towards.
“I have no sexual urges for you at all.” Tang Yibu bit the spoon, looking a little confused.
“Fuck, if I’ve known that I could fuck you, I would’ve blown your brains out*.” Yu Le clenched the handle of the frying pan on one side and gestured towards Tang Yibu’s head twice. “Fuck you. Shit, laozi is straight!”
“Stop talking.” Seeing Tang Yibu turning to her, Ji Xiaoman vigilantly raised her prosthetic leg that had a crossbow embedded in it. The arrow was ready to fire at any moment. “Not a word. I don’t want to know anything.”
“I believe that what’s in this guy’s head isn’t a human brain.” Yu Le rolled his eyes. “If this is an actual person, it’s a fucking miracle he hasn’t been killed yet.”
Seeing that the atmosphere was wrong, Tang Yibu quickly swallowed the custard and wisely remained silent.
“Oh come on. It’s not like I’ll deny you food. Is laozi that petty?” Yu Le waved his hand weakly. “So why did you suddenly say these things? Did you want to draw inspiration from materials or something? If you really want some, I can provide some personal experience.”
“No, thank you. I have read a lot of information in this area and have experienced it firsthand.”
Seeing that Yu Le didn’t mean to take away his egg custard, Tang Yibu finally resumed his normal eating speed.
“It’s just a little personal confusion.”
“What? Is there someone else in that madhouse that you want to sleep with?” Yu Le casually joked.
A regular companion android would have a program that strengthened their human emotions. No matter how perfect their performance was, the underlying algorithm was the same, so it wasn’t much different from the advanced machinery from the Mainbrain. Relying on the gray practice of storing human personality data in the Underground City, the product barely had “emotions”. However, looking at Tang Yibu’s terrifying combat ability and indescribable character, it was obvious that the two weren’t related.
Even if Yu Le hadn’t studied bionics deeply, he had heard a little relevant knowledge. Active sexual arousal was a very complex and useless procedure. In order to ensure the user’s experience, even the companion machine before the end of the world also needed exact instructions to trigger relevant behavior.
Designing something like this specifically for a combat android was about the equivalent of lighting erotic candles for a nuclear warhead. Absolutely no one would do this.
“Nn.” However, Tang Yibu answered very seriously.
He ignored Yu Le’s complicated expression, ate the custard carefully, opened the handwritten book, and picked up the eraser fluid and pen that Ji Xiaoman kicked over. “Oh, also, I will leave before 4 AM.”
“…No, wait…”
“I don’t want to delay my date with Mr. Ruan.”
“……”
The author has something to say:
Today’s victim, straight man Lao Yu (…)
Tang Yibu: Although I don’t know what the truth is, I will tie this Mr. Ruan to my side first.jpg
Gong Siyi sighed slowly and poked the light screen floating above the table. So far, the Order Supervisors side still hadn’t returned any information about “Ruan Lijie”.
Looking at the response of the Order Supervisors, most of the above cases weren’t taken seriously. This meant that he had to take the initiative to submit a report.
Although the procedure was reasonable, Gong Siyi still had a headache. No one liked to clean up a mess that lacked any gains.
If this Mr. Ruan had been a well-behaved citizen before, then his disappearance should have been noticed immediately. Since there was no news yet, this pretty young man probably belonged to the bottom of the city.
Emotion detection devices all over the city could accurately locate murderous intent, overly strong excitement, anger, and fear. The cost of violent crime had become extremely high that there weren’t many murders each year. However, as long as it was taken from nature, even clear water would precipitate some impurities after a long time.
Even with careful screening by prevention agencies and reproductive constraints on genetically disadvantaged individuals, some “low-quality” residents would still be born. These people were still young and wouldn’t cause much impact for the time being. The trouble came in those who were already adults—many people had successfully passed the screening of prevention agencies, but they had begun to become abnormal and violent towards other individuals, inexplicably.
Phenomena such as theft, assault, and bullying still existed, but they had become more hidden. In less serious cases, once these “degenerate residents” were discovered, they would usually be reduced to the lowest-paid positions in the city and live in a small apartment uniformly allocated by the Mainbrain.
It essentially changed them from hunters to prey.
This part of the population had relatively few rights, and few people could afford remote-controlled humanoids or android assistants. They shuttled through the darkest and the most remote corners of the city, but the security measures allocated were worse than those of ordinary citizens.
There have been several previous cases of imprisonment before. In order to circumvent the city’s emotion detection devices, the offender usually chose to drug their target, let them “disappear” relatively cooperatively, and then use drugs for continuous control.
The young man in front of him fully fit the image description of this kind of person—abnormal personality and top-notch appearance. However, since the system didn’t identify him in the first place, it was highly likely that his outstanding looks had been artificially adjusted. “Ruan Lijie” may not be a real name either.
He could only wait for the other side to recover their memories and see if he could find any useful clues. If the perpetrator was capable of getting a powerful memory cocktail, the memories recovered by this person may not be credible.
After all, crude memory manipulation would invalidate people’s testimony. Unless out of interest, cases of silencing people due to fear of exposing their identity have not appeared for many years.
How troublesome.
Gong Siyi sighed again and picked up the somewhat cold tea. Calculating the time, this kid started to hook up with a staff member before he recovered his memory. Most likely, he was a repeat offender who had been at the bottom for quite some time.
Tang Yibu was right. The value he could extract from this troublesome matter was probably the other party’s ability to evade the emotion detection device.
Assuming that the young man in front of him really had this ability, he would be able to submit a patch application report to MUL-01. If he got the recognition of the Mainbrain, the reward he could get was enough for him to watch The Android Show for free until he died of old age, or even buy a “replica” of the memory and body that was no different from the androids in the field, so that it could serve him.
…All he had to do was create some conflict between patients.
That kid surnamed Tang must have also seen this opportunity and enjoyed a wave of sex, but in vain. Unfortunately, he was still too young and not shrewd enough that he wasn’t able to take this piece of exposed fat for himself.
“Doctor Gong?” After a few minutes of silence, the beautiful young man on the opposite side couldn’t help but speak. Gong Siyi glanced at the empty teacup, only to realize that it had been four minutes since he asked his question to the other party.
“Sorry, I am considering a case similar to yours.” Gong Siyi smiled and finally poured a cup of tea for the patient. “His name is Luo Jian. He happens to be in the same ward as you. Have you ever come into contact with him?”
“Sort of.” The young man, surnamed Ruan, hesitated for a second and gave a fluttering answer.
“He started in the same condition as you, but he didn’t have symptoms of amnesia. Now that he’s recovering well and is not an aggressive patient himself, you can communicate with him more.”
“I will consider it.”
“Okay, I will ask him about his wishes. If things go well, you can let him participate in part of your treatment next. Now let’s start a formal conversation… Are you ready, Mr. Ruan? “
“Of course.” This time the young man opposite showed a bright smile.
Although he wasn’t interested in men, Gong Siyi probably understood what Tang Yibu was attracted to. The young man in front of him had a peculiar and dangerous temperament, and an inexplicable attraction.
If this kid was used as a model to make an android and then put that android in the Android Show, he might have become a popular character in Struggler II.
Gong Siyi shook his head slightly, threw these distractions out of his mind, and turned on the treatment-assisted light screen in front of him.
It was quite draining to put on an act in front of the counselor. It could also be because of the excessive amount of exercise performed that night and the unsightly breakfast that had long been digested. During the period when the counseling session was about to end, there were even a few more fluttering silver stars in Ruan Xian’s vision.
Fortunately, he ran into Tang Yibu as soon as he went out.
Now that the two of them have a physical relationship that was no different from the public, their meeting wouldn’t look too suspicious at this moment. Seeing Ruan Xian walking out the door, Tang Yibu stood by it like a sculpture, as if he was abruptly frozen in the air and his expression was extremely deep.
“Baby, you’re here.” Ruan Xian leaned forward generously and bit the tip of the other party’s nose.
For some reason, Tang Yibu’s expression sank deeper. He pondered for a while, and finally seemed to be mentally prepared—the android took out a honey sack from his pocket and peeled off the package.
“According to calculations, you need a little energy, Mr. Ruan,” Tang Yibu glanced around, making sure there was no one else nearby, then whispered. “If π send you too much breakfast, it will cause suspicion. Time is limited, so I couldn’t think of any other way for the time being.”
“Very considerate.” Ruan Xian stretched out his hand to catch the small snack.
Tang Yibu didn’t hand it to him. He observed Ruan Xian for a while, as if observing a new species, and then slowly delivered the candied treat to his own mouth…
Ruan Xian: “……”
…Then the android held the treat in his mouth and gestured for Ruan Xian to step forward with a complicated expression.
Coupled with Tang Yibu’s face, this should be a particularly provocative action. Unfortunately, the other party’s expression resembled more of a person preparing to announce an experiment report. Ruan Xian paused for a moment, not knowing whether he should react with his mouth or not.
Tang Yibu pointed at the snack in his mouth solemnly.
Holding back the sudden smile, Ruan Xian grabbed the other party’s collar, bit the treat in his mouth, and took advantage of the situation by giving a deep kiss that was filled with sweetness.
‘Tang Yibu was still Tang Yibu in the end,’ Ruan Xian thought helplessly. Even with such ambiguous behavior, the android still bit off a piece of the snack aggressively and swallowed a small piece for himself.
“I told you…”
“Before we fought, you said you got the information.” Tang Yibu quickly changed the subject. “I know you wanted to distract me and prevent me from activating the earring first, but that doesn’t seem like a lie. What did you get from Luo Jian?”
“Ruan Xian’s diary is in Pear Blossom.” Ruan Xian didn’t hide it. “Ruan Xian has indeed been here, but so far I have only asked a few questions. Speaking of this, Gong Siyi just put me and Luo Jian together. I believe this is credited to you?”
“Gong Siyi likes to watch the android show Struggler II and keeps throwing money at it. He also owes a lot of loans to the Mainbrain and would not let go of any opportunities to make money. You attacked him in the previous consultation—”
“And it didn’t trigger the emotion monitoring alert of the Mainbrain. He plans to submit my details as a bug sample and make a serious profit?”
“Well… Regarding our relationship, I also explained it by ‘being interested in your performance’.”
“This statement is really cruel, and it sounds a bit like a fact.” Ruan Xian’s tone was extremely relaxed.
Tang Yibu probably took advantage of the small conflict when they first met in the cafeteria and implied that he and Luo Jian were at odds. Gong Siyi, who was anxious to make some extra money, was estimated to deliberately increase their time spent together, quietly create trouble, and wait for him to act aggressively again.
It wasn’t a bad emergency countermeasure.
“I hope Dr. Gong moves quickly.” Ruan Xian raised his hand and touched Tang Yibu’s soft hair—since he had been with the other party all night, he liked the feeling of stroking the soft black hair.
Tang Yibu hummed as if in a daze. After the two walked halfway down the corridor, the android turned his head again.
“In your… Ruan Xian’s memory, did you keep a diary?” His voice was as soft as talking to himself.
“I don’t write it. I remember it all.” Ruan Xian shrugged. “But I will write the day’s summary, mainly summarizing some project ideas and inspiration.”
“For example?”
“Follow ups on a project.” Ruan Xian didn’t understand the meaning of Tang Yibu’s question, but this wasn’t sensitive information, so he answered obediently. “When you checked my physical condition, you should know that I was in something similar to a dormant warehouse. Before that, I was documenting a project about NUL-00.”
Ruan Xian couldn’t help showing a nostalgic expression. “I guess not many people know about that project now.”
If Ruan Xian hadn’t been immersed in his memories of the past, he would have found that Tang Yibu, who was about to turn the corner smoothly, broke his movement back a little stiffly.
“But judging from Luo Jian’s statement, Professor Ruan’s diary seems more like a normal diary. If we’re lucky, we might be able to find clues about his whereabouts from it.” Ruan Xian retracted his gaze from the void and naturally pulled the topic back.
These days, memories could be faked, not to mention the authenticity of his own memories. He was a little curious about what was in the head of the other Professor Ruan.
“You continue to make contact with Luo Jian. I’ll go out a little bit after work and meet those other two.” Tang Yibu turned his head away, avoiding looking at Ruan Xian’s face. “Ji Xiaoman’s skills are good enough. She can investigate Pear Blossom simultaneously.”
Having said that, Tang Yibu touched his nose and turned his head a little stiffly. “I will be back soon, really soon.”
“I really won’t disappear in place.” Ruan Xian laughed. “There was a fire just now and security is very tight. If I want to escape, I won’t choose a time like this.”
“…So you specifically observed the security situation.” Tang Yibu’s face was a little green.
Without the mandatory constraints of the earring, Tang Yibu’s anxiety level soared visibly to the naked eye.
Ruan Xian didn’t suppress himself this time and laughed softly—his life was a bit comical. His closest loved one wanted to push him away, but now there was a nervous android who wanted to handcuff him to his side.
“Yeah, what are you going to do?”
Ruan Xian regretted it as soon as he finished asking.
Considering the extremely fragile trust between them, this question was like a spark that was connected to a powder keg. However, Tang Yibu didn’t explode or threaten. The previously incomparably android stopped in his tracks and, for the first time, showed a completely distressed and helpless look.
It was the first time Ruan Xian saw Tang Yibu show such an expression.
“I don’t know,” Tang Yibu said. “For the time being, I won’t destroy your thinking ability. Assuming you really ran away, the most feasible solution is to find you. The way to prevent it… I can’t think of it yet.”
The android’s face wrinkled in distress.
“‘Not for the time being’.” Ruan Xian replied with a smile.
“I have to complete the analysis of the relationship between the two of us to draw a firm conclusion, but now—”
Tang Yibu took a breath and continued with great frustration.
“I haven’t been able to find anything in you that I don’t like.”
The author has something to say:
Tang: Analysis of the relationship between the two of us (refers to pseudo-father and son)
Tang: Oh, relationship analysis (Refers to his “cannon”. Friend)
Tang happiness strategy. I never thought about what I will face in the future (?
Kinky Thoughts:
How can Tang Yibu be this cute? How! How?! Even when flirting, he still managed to always put his love for food at top priority (well, a little less now since Ruan Xian has taken that place).
“Nomination? Although there are a lot of things in our heads that are not quite right, where are you going to get equipment and materials?” Seeing Ji Xiaoman fiddling with the parts on the ground, Yu Le thought that the young mechanic also wanted to make a memory cocktail, or something similar.
However, they couldn’t speak loudly in the apartment. This place wasn’t like the Underground City. The parts and machines were all firmly monitored by the Mainbrain. All memory operations had to be carried out by designated hospitals, and commercialized memory fragments were strictly controlled by regular manufacturers.
Not to mention the memory interference device, they had to risk breaking through the strict monitoring system when they got some memory inhibitors. Even a clever woman couldn’t cook a meal without rice*. No matter how high her intelligence or technique was, she couldn’t conjure such complex machinery and chemicals out of thin air.
*(巧妇难为无米之炊) Proverb referring to lacking the necessary conditions, it would be difficult even for capable people to accomplish things.
“Text,” Ji Xiaoman said seriously.
“…What?”
Yu Le understood, but he couldn’t react for a while. Since the rapid popularity and rise of the audio-visual industry, the text-related industry had declined rapidly due to the low rate of return. As a pastime, it naturally didn’t fade from people’s minds, but instead grew in a short, flat, and fast direction.
“All images, audio, video, and text coming into the system will be monitored and screened by MUL-01. I think this is why they chose the memory cocktail. In a sense, it has the characteristics of being ‘offline’ and will not be detected by the Mainbrain… The problem is that the capacity is small. It’s no wonder that under this level of surveillance, they can’t get too much good manufacturing machinery.”
Ji Xiaoman picked up a small bottle of oil and carefully lubricated her metal knee. She didn’t look at Yu Le, as if she was having a cordial conversation with her knee.
“In this case, text with a physical carrier is the most informative way to convey information.”
“The question is where to get the carrier? We can’t just run up to people and give them two paragraphs of a quick story.” Yu Le stuffed the last egg tart in his mouth and almost choked on it, coughing a few times. “I can still get a few books over there. Even paper packaging is rare in this hellhole. Even the toilet fucking spray water and is mechanically cleaned. Seriously, where are we going to get paper?”
Ji Xiaoman silently poked at the ice cream box that was neatly folded by her and raised her eyes. “Here.”
It was the ice cream Yu Le bought for her before they went out, and the paper box was printed with exquisite and cute patterns. Ji Xiaoman took it apart and kept it privately, intending to make a small collection. Now it seemed that it had to be used elsewhere.
Yu Le was taken aback.
“I can use the materials on my body to make ink. With the modification of the garbage shredder, we can also get pulp. The bleaching process can be omitted, and the sun-drying device and dryer don’t even need to be modified.” Ji Xiaoman’s expression was very serious. “I calculated that if you thin the paper and mix it with other materials, a box can make five sheets of paper. We can get a booklet with about 30,000 words.”
Ji Xiaoman poked the delicate raspberry pattern on the box with a metal finger.
“One page can hold 600 words… We still need four more boxes. For insurance, buy one more, so five boxes of ice cream. Hong, do you still have ample savings?”
“I have enough money. Anyway, this will be settled on Luo Fei’s account.” Yu Le snorted. “What do you mean Hong? No matter how big or small, call me Yu Ge.”
“Uncle Yu.”
“Yu Ge.”
“Lao Yu.”
“…Lao Yu is fine.” Yu Le opened the order interface rather tiredly. “My god, 30,000 words. Where are we going to find the content? I can’t make up stories. Um, what flavor do you want this time?”
“Same as last time.” Ji Xiaoman rubbed the raspberry pattern with her metal fingertips. “Don’t worry about the content. I have read a lot of messed up books in the Underground City, and I still remember them.”
“I won’t ask why.” Yu Le skillfully placed the order.
“But I can’t write,” Ji Xiaoman added in a low voice.
She had never received a formal education since she was sensible. Recognizing words was already her limit. Even if it was written in memory, let alone how effective it would be, first of all, she would write ridiculously slowly, and they had limited time.
“You speak, I’ll write.” Yu Le shrugged readily. “This is the generation gap, little miss. When I was a kid, this craft was still necessary.”
“Got it, old man.”
“Who are you calling old man?! Forget it. Hurry up and make your ink while you can. Speaking of which, what are you going to show them?”
Ji Xiaoman recalled the electronic materials that Qian Yigeng used for entertainment, scratched her hair, and decided to find the most impactful—Qian Yigeng was her first target for gaining knowledge when she was young and had limited access to resources. For better or worse, she knew by heart every word Qian Yigeng had hidden in his wristband.
“<The Forbidden Wife of the King of Killers>” Ji Xiaoman decided to pick the worst plot.
“…………” Yu Le’s expression froze.
The two of them stayed up all night in the room. When the sun rose the next day, Ji Xiaoman was fine, but the expression of the famous pirate Mr. Yu was, in a rare moment, extremely dull.
“What the fuck is this?” He rubbed his wrists irritably. “It’s the first time I’ve seen such a garbage yellow book. Fuck. That fucker Qian Yigeng had this kind of taste?”
No matter how strange her personality was, Ji Xiaoman could be regarded as a young and beautiful woman. At first, Yu Le would feel a little awkward, but over time, the degree of how bad the plot was made the ambiguous atmosphere disappear.
Though quite experienced, he still wrote with great disgust.
“No.” After memorizing the book all night, Ji Xiaoman, who was dry mouthed, poured another cup of tea with a very calm expression. “What Qian Yigeng did was much more ruthless than the plot in this book.”
“Why didn’t I give him more kicks in the first place.” Yu Le broke the pen weakly.
“Your writing is beautiful.” Ji Xiaoman put the paper together and carefully cut it with the sharp blade of her prosthetic limb. The booklet faintly took on the appearance of a book. “When the glue is dried, we can pack up and set off.”
“…Are you not sleepy?”
“Not sleepy.”
“It’s nice to be young.” Yu Le yawned, his words blurred. “I can’t. I have to sleep for a while… You go ahead and get it. Remember to wake me up after you’re done.”
Yu Le didn’t even bother to move to the sofa. He yanked a cushion out and fell asleep on the floor. Ji Xiaoman stared at Yu Le carefully for a while and made sure that the other party was asleep. She stood up lightly, walked to the small jar where the half-finished glue was placed, and took out a small piece of cardboard.
She secretly cut off the raspberry pattern on the box, which was bright in a color she had never seen in the poisonous and foggy Underground City. It was so clear that it seemed to be glowing.
Ji Xiaoman gestured for a while, dipped it into the glue in the jar, and stuck it firmly to the forearm of her metal prosthetic.
The beautiful color was lined with a scratched metal surface, which unexpectedly looked appropriate. Ji Xiaoman admired for a few seconds, then carefully rolled down her sleeves.
A very interesting night. She hoped the progress of the other two would go equally as smoothly.
This morning, Ruan Xian was awakened by the iron bead.
It was obvious that the iron bead was unskilled using the assistant machine. After it successfully placed the breakfast on the bed side table, it slapped Ruan Xian on the chest with a mechanical arm. Ruan Xian almost thought he had been attacked.
It had been a long time since he slept so heavily. After Tang Yibu left, he went straight to sleep. According to habit, Ruan Xian thought he would wake up ten minutes later, but he didn’t expect to sleep for more than an hour.
The iron bead wandered by the bed, a bit like a puppy that found its master getting up, and it almost barked twice. It could be seen that it tried its best to suppress its excitement, so Ruan Xian decided not to pursue the slap that almost broke his bones.
“Okay, okay. Be careful of the surveillance.” He patted the inverted teardrop shell of the fake assistant.
After getting up, he deliberately made his actions more languid, washed quickly, and then sipped porridge while in bed. Although compared with yesterday, the situation he faced wasn’t really any better, Ruan Xian still felt inexplicably in a good mood, which was refreshing in his mind.
It was like walking alone on a tightrope at high altitude for a long time and suddenly finding a safety net under his feet. He didn’t know if this net was reliable, but there was still a little psychological comfort.
His own physique was good, and he avoided any possible follow-up problems. Although he had no comparison, Tang Yibu’s skill wasn’t bad. If the android didn’t mind, they might have been able to come a few more times.
Ruan Xian scraped the porridge at the bottom of the bowl with a spoon and glanced at the wristband.
Since Gong Siyi talked to Tang Yibu, it was only a matter of time before he went to see him. He originally had a consultation scheduled for today, and after this incident, most likely it would be pushed in advance.
Despite being a patient, at least in name, he “made out” with Tang Yibu for two hours under Gong Siyi’s eyes. The other party most likely wouldn’t give him time for breakfast and rest.
If he managed his time well, perhaps he could catch Luo Jian at lunch and entangle with him again to slowly grind away the other party’s psychological defenses.
Ruan Xian stretched out his waist and petted π, who was hiding his two blood guns. “Follow me closely for a while.”
“Gwah.”
Unsurprisingly, as soon as he put the empty porridge bowl back on the head of the bed, his wristband rang anxiously. Gong Siyi’s name kept flashing on the screen. Ruan Xian shook his head and moved out of bed “laboriously”.
“Did you notice anything wrong last night?”
After more than ten minutes, Ruan Xian sat down in the familiar room. This time Gong Siyi didn’t prepare drinking water for him, nor did he get straight to the point. “There was a fire in the botanical garden last night. I checked the information corresponding to the time and you were awake at that time.”
“No.” Ruan Xian showed a polite smile, as if he didn’t know how much the other party had seen. “The fire outside the window could be seen quite clearly, but I didn’t find any other abnormalities, Mr. Gong. Was it arson, or…?”
“This is just a routine inquiry. After all, there were not many people who were awake in the early hours of the morning.” Gong Siyi smiled with the same gentle smile, as if completely forgetting the conflict that occurred during the last counseling session. “The current investigation result is the natural aging of the thermoregulation circuit, coupled with some messy coincidences. Don’t be nervous.”
He stared at Ruan Xian’s reaction without blinking. Ruan Xian relaxed and let the other party gawk at him.
“Then can we start the counseling?” Ruan Xian put on a look that showed he had no interest in the fire and sat honestly in the chair. “I remember the fire situation, but my window wasn’t particularly well positioned—”
“There is indeed one more thing before the consultation.” Gong Siyi retracted his sharp gaze.
“Hmm.”
“Why did you seduce Tang Yibu?”
Ruan Xian raised his eyebrows.
“I believe you have been told that if there is a physical need, we can arrange the most advanced companion machinery. Instead, you chose to lure our on-the-job staff. Considering the possible problems in your personality…”
“We’re both adults and it’s a matter of mutual consent.” Ruan Xian blinked. “My memory hasn’t recovered yet, and I’m not officially a patient here. This shouldn’t be illegal, right?”
Gong Siyi didn’t answer.
“Although I can’t remember too much about myself, I also vaguely remember the rules. Tang Yibu only used a remote-controlled humanoid, and we will not have an issue with children. In my impression, the Mainbrain didn’t forbid us from having fun.”
Gong Siyi remained silent as he concentrated on observing the micro-expressions of the other party’s face, plus all his body language. The remote-controlled humanoid he was using was currently a top model that wouldn’t miss a single detail.
This person’s statement was consistent with Tang Yibu’s, and there seemed to be no signs of lying, but he had been practicing for several years and instinctively detected a slight sense of inconsistency.
Compared with the first counseling session, the aura of the young man in front of him had changed a bit.
If it was said that the last time was like facing a viper hidden in the grass that gave people chills behind their backs, this time the person in front of him was like an extremely poisonous python. Even though he was wrapped in a tight restraint suit, there was an invisible pressure slowly spreading out.
In the android show, there was no shortage of fragrant and flamboyant images, for a fee. Counting those, the scene he witnessed last night was unquestionably spectacular. However, Gong Siyi didn’t have the slightest ambiguous thoughts.
Fortunately, his real body wasn’t here. Gong Siyi slowly drank his tea. He had never seen a case where the risk of the Mainbrain’s calculation could be circumvented, but he hoped that the other party’s attack from last time was just an accident.
[I like his face and voice.] Not long ago, Tang Yibu gave such an answer. [And he has a strange temperament. I think you have also discovered it, Doctor Gong. This is also one of the reasons why I approached him—sorry to say, we got a little carried away last night. He scratched my shoulder, but the system showed no warning signs.]
[Quite an observation, isn’t it? I… I think this matter could be killing two birds with one stone. I think we can specifically create a little conflict. For example, put him with a patient who he has a bad relationship with and see what happens. If this person can really be immune to the mood fluctuations monitoring of the Mainbrain, perhaps it’s worth a dissertation—]
The young man looked a little embarrassed. Unlike the lingering appearance in the video, at this moment, his speech was unexpectedly cold.
[Hmm? A patient who he has a bad relationship with? Let me think about it. It might be Luo Jian.]
The author has something to say:
On the same night, some people were engaged in yellow (physical), and some were engaged in yellow (copying books).
Lao Yu is really miserable√
Kinky Thoughts:
I’m starting to doubt Tang Yibu is an android. He only lasted for 2 hours? First time I read about a gong that wanted to stop and the shou wanted to keep going.
See quote: If the android didn’t mind, they might have been able to come a few more times.
Ruan Xian touched the bedside, grabbed the water cup accurately, and filled himself with half a glass of water.
To his east was whitish, indicating the sun was about to rise. The alarm for the fire in the botanical garden was still ringing in his ears and all the doors of the ward were forcibly closed. This situation lasted for two hours before the fire outside the window faded. Ruan Xian suspected that the focus of the prevention shelter had already changed from extinguishing the fire to investigation.
But this had nothing to do with him.
After the alarm sounded, Tang Yibu was immediately locked up in Ruan Xian’s ward. The two took advantage of the darkness to hide the dirt on their faces, took a shower together, and then spent more than two hours in bed.
Now Ruan Xian was too lazy to sit up again. His recovery power kept him from feeling too sore, and he was able to support his body, but his brain seemed to be soaked in alcohol, full of hot lethargy and satisfaction. His calves were still resting on Tang Yibu’s leg, and the other party’s body temperature was constantly surging.
Before, Ruan Xian’s understanding of this matter was limited to theories and books. Considering his own situation, he never had much interest in it.
Now he understood the reason why people were obsessed with it.
He once thought that the sense of solidity brought about by the touch of the skin had exceeded expectations. Facts have proved that the hormones secreted in the brain never deceived people. With a hot bath and a soft bed, the intense atmosphere that was close to killing each other had faded. Although they had been entangled in the botanical garden for a long time, the two embraced each other far beyond just for show.
Even if he knew that there were bystanders on the other side of the monitor, neither of them showed any hesitation or cramps. Tang Yibu didn’t engage in any interrogation tricks this time. They just slowly and genuinely felt each other.
Ruan Xian shook the remaining ice water in the cup and casually raised the cup to Tang Yibu to signal, “Do you want to drink water?”
The frightened iron bead had fallen asleep in the corner of the room, while Tang Yibu was half leaning on the head of the bed with the tip of his hair sweeping across his collarbone. He was looking out the window in a daze; those golden eyes in the gradually brightening night were extremely attractive.
Ruan Xian added some water to the cup again, finally propped up his body, and kissed those eyes again.
“Thank you.” Tang Yibu seemed to have come back to his senses. He took the cup with both hands and took a sip. After drinking, he slipped back into the blanket along the head of the bed, wrapped himself in a cocoon, and looked at Ruan Xian with burning eyes.
Ruan Xian lay down knowingly and turned his body sideways so that the monitor couldn’t capture their mouth movements.
“Let’s not talk about my own problems. I’m getting more and more curious about your affairs.” Ruan Xian watched Tang Yibu stretch out his hand and let the other party touch his cheeks and facial features. “If I were really Ruan Xian, wouldn’t this relationship cause you trouble?”
Tang Yibu thought for a long time, then shook his head with a stiff expression. Ruan Xian couldn’t understand the source of the stiffness, but there was no sign of a lie on the other party’s face.
After shaking his head, the android seemed to feel that the response was a bit cold. He pondered seriously for a moment, then leaned forward and gently kissed the corner of Ruan Xian’s lips.
Ruan Xian took advantage of the situation and touched the other party’s soft hair. From the perspective of outsiders, they were indeed quite close to being a sweet little couple.
It was just that what was going on in his mind now was another matter.
Assuming that the “Professor Ruan” who was wandering outside was a fake, once the news spread, the rebel army, which had been severely hit, was likely to be devastated. And as Ruan Xian’s true self, he should be the object of interest to forces other than MUL-01. Even if he lacked the impression of MUL-01 manufacturing, as long as he collected enough information, Ruan Xian believed that he could find a way to deal with it.
MUL-01 could naturally speculate on this matter. Once the news leaked, he would definitely become the highest-ranking target to kill.
Therefore, the “interest” of other forces may not be the friendly kind. After all, not all forces desired to oppose the Mainbrain. If they stood in a neutral position, they would probably stay away from this plague.
Then Tang Yibu’s origin was very interesting.
He had the A-type Prototype that the rebels claimed to have destroyed, but at the same time had no inclination to support the rebels. Along the way, he didn’t see Tang Yibu contact any companions. After obtaining a considerable amount of information and having a physical relationship with the “possible Ruan Xian” himself, Tang Yibu didn’t show the eagerness to find personal time to contact anyone, even if only a little.
‘This android is too free,’ Ruan Xian thought.
There were many things that didn’t make sense to him, and the other party was also half-hearted. In this apocalyptic world where materials were highly concentrated in the surveillance range of the Mainbrain, Tang Yibu’s behavior of running around alone was tantamount to suicide.
But since they wouldn’t be separated for the time being, there were still many opportunities for exploration.
Tang Yibu seemed to be thinking about something similar. They looked at each other and caught a little unspoken word in each other’s eyes.
“Gong Siyi will contact me soon.” Tang Yibu mouthed as he kneaded Ruan Xian’s somewhat red earlobes casually, as if his fingertips weren’t touching the other party’s skin. “I have to leave here in a while.”
“I have to lie down for a bit. After all, I just gave free access to the adult channel, so I can’t necessarily get out of bed and act all alive and kicking.” Ruan Xian snorted softly. “I think our plans will change a bit, and it’s good to take this time to plan.”
Tang Yibu hesitated and pulled out the bloodstained earring from the clothes at the head of the bed.
“…You can’t leave it as a token of affection for Gong Siyi to see?”
“Your brain is biological, so it can’t really hurt you.” Tang Yibu compared the earring stud to his left ear. “It’s more natural to wear it.”
“Excuses.”
“You can use it to contact me at close range.”
“That’s less of an excuse, but it still smells like it.”
“…I hope you wear it because it is something I gave you,” Tang Yibu continued in a low voice, using his fingers slightly. “How will you judge that?”
“I’m just teasing you. Don’t tell the truth so quickly in the future.”
Before Ruan Xian could finish speaking, his earlobe tingled, and he could feel a bit of warm blood slowly seeping out. Next, something warmer was wrapped around it. Tang Yibu leaned his head in and slurped up all the blood that came out.
At almost the same time, Tang Yibu’s wristband let out a shrill ring. The light screen with Gong Siyi’s name kept shaking in mid-air. Tang Yibu sighed softly, stood up, and began to dress himself slowly.
“Later π will bring you breakfast.”
“Nn.”
“Don’t leave here.”
“Nn.”
Tang Yibu was silent for a while, lowered his head, and slowly gave him a hug.
“I don’t like to leave without saying goodbye.”
The android whispered in his ear. His voice was still gentle but with an inexplicable sourness and determination.
“…If you still plan to run away now, even if you run all the way in front of the Mainbrain, I will drag you back with my own hands.”
“How funny.” Ruan Xian couldn’t help but touch Tang Yibu’s bangs. “If I want to escape, I will definitely give you a proper farewell—I wouldn’t do something like break up cold turkey.”
Tang Yibu didn’t say anything more. He slightly fixed his hair, straightened up, and looked down at Ruan Xian, who was still half-lying in bed.
“I will come to see you soon, Mr. Ruan. Very soon,” he said. “When we leave here, we need to have a good chat.”
Time went back to a day ago.
Yu Le caught Luo Jian’s son right out the gate. He made his way back to the apartment in a trance and opened up three bottles of beer for himself. Ji Xiaoman packed a lot of food from the restaurant they went to dine at and was nestled in a corner eating her dinner like a hamster.
“Don’t you want to eat?” Seeing Yu Le drinking at a uniform speed like a machine, Ji Xiaoman finally couldn’t help but make a noise.
“It’s strange,” Yu Le muttered as he wiped his mouth. “According to the news given by Guan Haiming, wasn’t all of Luo Jian’s family killed by the Mainbrain? What the hell was that just now? You also checked on the way. His father is really Luo Jian, and it’s not just the same name.”
Yu Le wiped the beer foam from his mouth and belched. Ji Xiaoman glared at him in disgust.
“I don’t know how those two boys are doing in the prevention shelter. I hope I can get some information about Luo Jian. To be honest, this place creeps me out.”
“Pay attention to your volume.” Ji Xiaoman didn’t bother to pay attention to Yu Le’s sentiments and kicked a pack of egg tarts in his direction.
“Right.” Yu Le casually turned the indoor music to its max volume. “Seriously, don’t you feel that way? Although the Underground City is shoddy, at least it has a human smell. Here…”
He took a while to choose his words. “…It’s like a zoo.”
“That Luo Fei is not an android,” Ji Xiaoman whispered.
“How do you know?”
“While he wasn’t paying attention, I spiked his drink,” Ji Xiaoman said in a particularly flat tone. “The stuff I used in the Underground City wasn’t used up… Ah, the homemade android anesthetic.”
Yu Le grabbed the beer he had just opened and swallowed.
“Although there’s not much left that could put down a mechanical life, it’s still possible for him to show discomfort. But he didn’t show any abnormality.”
After a simple dinner, Ji Xiaoman moved her mechanical arms for a bit, stretched out her mechanical legs, and started her daily routine of maintenance work. “So that’s probably the original, or maybe a clone.”
“What he took out isn’t interesting.” Yu Le picked up the egg tart, propped up his legs and took a bite. “However, it’s necessary to dig further. If you ask me, that’s not the original.”
“Why?” Ji Xiaoman stopped twisting the screws.
“Let’s put it this way. I have seen my sister’s body.” Yu Le took another sip of beer; his tone became a little colder. “If she was just missing at the time, or I wasn’t so sure… If I ran into her in town at this moment, I would definitely rush to identify her.”
“…” Ji Xiaoman pursed her lips.
“I think you also understand that we’re not people with pursuits. If we can deceive ourselves, we’ll do it. It’s rare to be confused in this world. That Luo Jian isn’t too young anymore, right? Even if he wasn’t sure, it would be better to stay by his son’s side than in that awful madhouse. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.”
“You mean…”
“With his son here, I don’t believe he wouldn’t want to get close. He’s probably similar to me. He witnessed the tragic death of his family with his own eyes, or he saw the corpse clearly, and he simply couldn’t deceive himself.”
Yu Le threw the beer can into the trash.
“So he forced himself to separate from his baby son, so that he wouldn’t spend a lot of time clearing up his thoughts. But with so many messy memory pills here, it’s not like he didn’t have a chance to lie to himself.”
“That guy is either struggling or has other plans. Who knows? Anyway, I don’t think Luo Fei is the original.”
“Then we can continue to engage with him.” Ji Xiaoman didn’t refute it. “Time is limited. I do have an idea for us to quickly infiltrate Pear Blossom.”
“Oh?”
“Nomination certificate*.”
*The term being used is (投名状) which refers to, in ancient times, used for an expression of loyalty. A nomination is basically a pledge of loyalty to join an illegal organization. || The context here is that they’re going to basically do something to show a pledge of loyalty to join Pear Blossom (the illegal organization).
The author has something to say:
The two had intermittently engaged at night and had an excellent experience (?
Tang, I said not to get too close to humans; this is all negative distance.
Kinky Thoughts:
Gong Siyi is so fucking lucky to get free access to the adult channel. Who do I have to pay to get that? Of course, every major fight must end with some makeup sex!
Tang Yibu had always been accustomed to reserving some of his cards. He might perhaps use three, but never five. He had always been walking in this twisted world for many years and had never encountered a truly uncontrollable situation.
But now he had.
In order to ensure that his breathing, heartbeat, and expression weren’t abnormal, Tang Yibu almost exhausted all his strength.
After knowing that “Ruan Lijie” was a human being, he made an inference about the identity of his mysterious partner.
If that person was a human, he would have reached the hiding place of the S-type Prototype one step ahead of himself and destroyed it. Combined with the other party’s physical condition at the time, there was only one possibility—”Ruan Lijie” was likely to have slept in a hidden dormant warehouse before he was awakened according to pre-settings.
From this perspective, it was excusable for Mr. Ruan to lie to him. Whether he belonged to the rebel forces or not, if the other party really had a closer connection with Ruan Xian, it was reasonable to be wary of him.
It stood to reason that only Ruan Xian could open the sealing mechanism there, and he would never trap his own people in it. Then, in order to leave the secret room where the Prototype was stored, it was also possible for Professor Ruan to entrust part of his memory to this human being.
This could also explain the strange similarity between the other party and Ruan Xian.
…But this set of logic only existed in theory.
Ruan Xian, in his own cognition, wouldn’t do that. Professor Ruan knew how decisive and cruel mechanical life was, and how natural life was reverent.
Professor Ruan must have some compelling circumstances and needed to enact complicated follow-ups for the S-type prototype. At least for now, Tang Yibu couldn’t see the necessity of this kind of setting, which was no different from arranging the dead.
In general, if it was simply destroyed, the battle would be too big. As the backbone of the specially strengthened rebel army, “Ruan Lijie’s” personality was too mismatched—as a human, “Ruan Lijie” had excellent intelligence as well as a cold personality to the point that it could be said he was unkind. This kind of person wasn’t suitable for training subordinates or leaders.
For those who owe him a favor, his Mr. Ruan would be relatively active in assisting. For the rest of the time, Mr. Ruan’s behavior was more suitable for words such as “stubborn”, “abnormal”, and “my way or the highway”.
Nothing made sense.
This person was like a sharp knife, piercing into his world for no reason, cutting out the set of logic he carefully maintained.
“In my memory, I am Ruan Xian.” That was what the man said just now.
Impossible.
Tang Yibu rarely came to conclusions recklessly, but this thought sprang up instinctively. The other party’s memory must have been modified, and there must be a deeper plan or conspiracy in it…
However, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that everything was just a forced argument he was using for denial. He took a deep breath, remained expressionless, and focused his attention back on the other party.
What a fascinating puzzle. After those words, the puzzle turned into fog, diffusing through his frantically spinning thoughts.
His Mr. Ruan’s face was very close. Their foreheads were against each other, and Tang Yibu could still feel the other’s body temperature rising after intense exercise. He still remembered the touch of the other’s skin and the details of his trembling muscles. The man just looked at him with a smile, his beautiful eyes slightly bent, with a hint of redness in the corners of those eyes.
His breath was also extremely hot.
‘Impossible,’ Tang Yibu repeated in his heart. The other party seemed to be waiting for him to give an answer, but his brain was in a mess so he couldn’t give a decent response.
He must wait to find out the general facts before jumping to conclusion. This person wasn’t necessary Mr. Ruan… Not necessarily…
[What should I call you?] More than a decade ago, he had asked Ruan Xian this, who was sitting in his wheelchair.
[I found out you’ll use honorifics when you really want to get my feedback.] In his memory, Ruan Xian touched his chin. [Is there any problem with the title ‘Administrator’?]
[I don’t like it.] At that time, his thoughts were extremely simple—even those stupid old systems would call their masters administrators, but the relationship between himself and Ruan Xian wasn’t ordinary. He didn’t know why, but he wanted a special name.
[Then you can call me Mr. Ruan or Professor Ruan like everyone else.] Ruan Xian didn’t get too entangled in this issue. He was busy stealing gummy candy.
[I still don’t like it.] He was still NUL-00 at the time and continued stubbornly. These two names were not special enough, although he didn’t understand why he wanted to be “special”.
[…Then what do you want to call me?] Ruan Xian smiled, and suddenly his body twitched. He knew that the other party’s old problem had flared up again, so he waited until Ruan Xian slowed down his breathing before giving his answer.
At first, he compared countless data points and came up with a relatively satisfactory answer. [Breeder.]
Ruan Xian coughed from laughter and almost choked.
[No.] Before Ruan Xian finished coughing, he rejected the proposal himself. [You haven’t fed me fresh water in the true sense, nor have you bathed or groomed me.]
Seeing Ruan Xian laughing hard enough, he cast a few “:D” in the air, and then continued with a synthetic tone that wasn’t very emotional.
[Father.] He said.
Ruan Xian’s smile slowly disappeared.
[Father.] Tang Yibu repeated it, secretly proud of his newly discovered title for a while. [You are my creator. You have taught me all the knowledge about this world, and your gender is male. I think the title father is very appropriate.]
[Sorry, I can’t accept that title.] Ruan Xian’s tone was rarely stiff after the smile disappeared.
Tang Yibu admitted that he was a little unhappy at the time. He didn’t make a sound and cast a very huge “oh” in the air.
[Why?] After a long time, he finally asked, trying to change the other party’s mind.
[It’s still too early for you. When you study human feelings more deeply, I will tell you it as a case study.] Ruan Xian waved his hand, and the stiffness in his tone quickly disappeared. [I won’t change my mind, NUL-00.]
He knew that once Ruan Xian really made a decision, it would be futile to entangle him any longer, so he paused for a few seconds and cast a bigger “oh” in the air in dissatisfaction.
Ruan Xian’s smile returned to his face, and he reached out and patted the huge chassis he used to dissipate heat. [Don’t be angry. How about I stay with you for a while today?]
[Okay.] He threw out a standard synthetic word and suddenly had an idea. This time he still didn’t explicitly call that person, but just threw out two simple smiley faces, indicating that his mood had recovered…
:DA:D
Ruan Xian, who he knew well, had been sitting in a wheelchair, looking like he had been gnawed by illness. That person never talked about his past but was willing to open up part of his heart to him.
His conceptual “father”.
Until that sudden farewell, Ruan Xian had always been “gentle” to him. Although that gentleness was more like the instinct of two people who were about to freeze to death meeting in a snowfield and had to warm each other in order to live.
Since he claimed to be Ruan Xian, why didn’t he say goodbye in the first place, father?
Unfortunately, he couldn’t ask him that. Tang Yibu bit his lip. “Ruan Lijie” identity wasn’t clear yet and his mind was too keen. Once he was caught by the other party, he was likely to be exposed as NUL-00. That fact was what he was hiding at the top of his pyramid, and no mistakes could be allowed.
So he could only prevaricate with other answers for the time being.
He no longer pressed against the other party’s forehead but stretched out his arms and hooked them around the other’s waist, then kissed him again. He exhausted all the knowledge in his mind as his tongue was entangled in a battle, frantically plundering the other’s breath, until the body in his arm slowly softened and trembled before losing balance.
“…I’m a little confused about what this response mean.” His Mr. Ruan sat on the ground and gasped for a while. It took a while before he regained his voice.
“The reward for exchanging information.” Tang Yibu turned his back and walked to the bushes where π was hiding, making sure his expression couldn’t be seen. “You seem to like them very much.”
Having said that, he pulled out the trembling iron bead from the bushes. The iron bead shrunk in the shell of the assistant robot and let out a long, crying “gwah”, followed by short and frantic “gwahs”.
Tang Yibu simply nodded in response while holding it in his arms. He took out two sets of sealed and compressed clothes from the bottom of the assistant robot’s empty shell. He briefly soothed the iron bead for a while before putting it back into the shell again.
“According to the degree to which someone is endless, I’m not the only one who likes these things. Isn’t it inappropriate to treat this as a unilateral reward?”
Ruan Xian stared at the other’s back and raised his voice slightly. The other party’s kissing skills were as superb as his other skills. He was kissed until he went soft that he had to simply sit down on the lawn.
A few hours later, the fish in the stagnant water had no strength to continue struggling and could only breathe with difficulty. Ruan Xian glanced at it, grabbed its tail, and threw it into the nearest drain.
Tang Yibu’s reaction was a bit different from what he had expected. He expected that the other party might think about it for a while, but he didn’t expect Tang Yibu, who usually was careful when examining the ingredient list of convenience foods, to not ask him any questions at this time.
Instead, the android gave him an inexplicable kiss.
Tang Yibu and the forces behind him seemed to be more interesting than he thought. He rubbed his wet lower lip for a while, and as soon as he was about to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the existing information, he was hit in the chest by a new set of restraint clothes.
“Also specially prepared clothes?” Ruan Xian raised his eyebrows. He could probably guess its purpose. But for some reason, he really wanted to tease Tang Yibu now.
“It is very likely that we will fight, and the clothes are likely to be damaged.” Tang Yibu himself put on a white coat. His face was stiff like a wax figure. π, who was wearing the assistant robot shell, was still shaking and spinning at his feet, as if it had drank too much wine. “Put it on quickly. We have to get out of here immediately.”
“It’s not impossible to talk tomorrow.” After all, the surveillance video was already forged by the other party, and he wasn’t sure of the pre-arranged timing. Ruan Xian had no intention of delaying this negotiation. “What have you prepared?”
“Fire.” Tang Yibu still looked like his brain was overloaded.
“Quite appropriate.” Ruan Xian patted the shell of the iron bead with his hand, and the latter crooned nervously. “What did you say to π just now?”
“You screamed too loudly. It thought you were hurt.” The culprit replied sternly, staring at a point in the air in front of him while tying the buttons on his white coat one by one. “I told it you are okay.”
“I see.” Ruan Xian didn’t feel much shame about it. He patted the anxiously shaking iron bead. “After all, the opportunity is rare. Next time, it may not be so convenient to make a sound.”
Tang Yibu’s movement of buttoning stopped.
Then he hugged the iron bead and strode ahead. Ruan Xian shrugged, adjusted the last concealed buckle on the restraint clothes, and followed in the same stride.
After fighting in every sense and shaking out the facts, Ruan Xian discovered a new kind of fun—it was fun to tease Tang Yibu while his head was down.
There was a slight crackling behind them, and a flash of fire cut through the darkness. Ruan Xian roughly calculated that, considering Tang Yibu probably manipulated the fire protection system, in another 20 minutes, the botanical garden would turn into a sea of fire, completely burning all traces they left behind.
When he was thinking about whether the fish he threw into the drain would survive, Tang Yibu suddenly stopped, and Ruan Xian almost bumped into his back.
Before Ruan Xian could say, “What’s the matter”, Tang Yibu turned around solemnly and stretched out a hand to him.
“According to my original arrangement, if your body is still ‘alive’, I will send you back to your room, and then wait for someone to find out that your brain is abnormal.” Tang Yibu’s voice was more serious than his expression.
“Very reasonable.” Ruan Xian held up his arms, as if in a sign of surrender to the other party.
“But you still have the ability to think now, and I need to be in closer contact with you, so I decided to go back with you to your room.”
“Then what?”
“I need to make Gong Siyi believe that we have become regular sex partners… or that we have gotten together.” In a rare moment, Tang Yibu didn’t look directly at Ruan Xian but at his outstretched hands.
“Based on what just happened, this isn’t a lie.” Ruan Xian still didn’t know what the android was planning.
“At present, I cannot accept the identity you claim, nor can I immediately resolve my own emotional problems.” Tang Yibu was standing in the white corridor. The silver moonlight hit him through the window, causing his inhuman aura of an android to become a bit heavier. “But assuming you are really Ruan Xian, I have a reason to keep you tied to me.”
“…I don’t like the word tie very much.”
“So I thought about it for a while. In addition to the intelligence constraints between us, I want to add something else to make sure you wouldn’t want to run away.”
Those golden eyes blinked, and Tang Yibu’s gaze was more serious than ever before.
“You and I are attracted to each other… or rather, we like each other… and the bed is quite spacious. According to human information, proper intimacy can weaken your willingness to leave.”
“So?” Ruan Xian had a subtle premonition.
“I think we should cement this intimacy,” Tang Yibu said in a tone similar to making a report. “This is a brand new cooperation. Let’s shake on it, Mr. Ruan.”
“……”
“In order to ensure authenticity, we need to do it in a bit to make sure that Gong Siyi finds out. Your answer is directly related to the degree of naturalness of our performance. If it doesn’t work, I can consider other parties—”
Ruan Xian didn’t shake his hand. He held it with his backhand and bit Tang Yibu’s slender fingers lightly.
“Sure,” he said.
“But this is really the worst courtship I’ve ever seen.”
The author has something to say:
How could Tang only be confused in one chapter!
But he cares more about Ruan’s identity…Even if Ruan is really his father, he won’t be panicked because he slept with his father (…).
Tang: Is it dad? Is it dad? This is different from the dad in my memory! Doesn’t make sense! (Confusion)
Ruan: Is this the android’s downtime (.
Kinky Thoughts:
LMAO. Tang Yibu needs to work on his pickup lines… Well, it’ll still work on me. Ahhhh we all know what’s coming up next!
Ruan Xian rarely truly lost his sense of time. Even in a dangerous battlefield or a quiet midnight, his perception of the passage of time wouldn’t fluctuate much.
But this time he completely forgot about time. The reality of this moment was like an overly vivid dream. If his nerves that fully opened his perception could be disturbed by water droplets from a mist, then he was currently facing a tsunami.
The first time he touched a person’s skin, the first time he was truly embraced, the first time he was kissed. Including the joy of his first, all memories related to temperature were tied to this dangerous creature in front of him.
“You like me, right? I like you too.” He heard Tang Yibu say. “…I don’t want to let go yet.”
The android’s tone was straightforward, but he looked more confused than ever. Tang Yibu’s movements didn’t stop. The world was shaking frantically, and the other party’s sweat kept falling, mixed with blood dripping on Ruan Xian’s cheeks.
In the huge vortex of sensory impact, he firmly maintained his crumbling sanity, hooked Tang Yibu’s neck with his bound hands, and kissed him on the ear.
“Correct.” He affirmed the other party’s statement. Although he didn’t have much fear of death, Ruan Xian didn’t really want to say goodbye.
He thought of the starlight in the Sea of Ruins again.
Maybe there was a description that he had not yet fully understood but, unexpectedly, was appropriate. Ruan Xian struggled to adjust his breathing so that the words weren’t interrupted by his own laborious panting.
“…You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
Ruan Xian hadn’t much desire to be loved. Before, he simply just lived, like moss nestling in a dark cave, or germs dormant in ice.
If it weren’t for his own belief that God didn’t exist, he would have thought that fate was just some cruel joke from the Gods—a rare disease that set a strict limit on the length of his life that he was destined not to live long, but it seemed he couldn’t die early either.
His mother made the most illogical choice and didn’t send him to a humane execution before he was five years old, and he survived. After that, the beating and abandonment that followed didn’t really kill him, and every return home went incredibly well. After he was weaned off his medication, despite the rapid deterioration because of his disease, he was still hanging on for dear life.
Even the desperate situation forged by his mother didn’t take away his life.
Now he remembered it very clearly. Ruan Xian hugged Tang Yibu tightly and looked at the clear night sky, suddenly feeling relieved.
His mother set the most logical choice for him, trying to prove his abnormality to the world. But he, who was abandoned in that secret room, didn’t move his mother’s body, allowing it to rot slowly.
Ruan Xian, who was still young, wasn’t afraid or desperate but felt a certain cold sense of emptiness.
He got the last bit of water from the bathroom and kitchen that hadn’t dried out, chose the corner where he felt most at ease, and slowly waited for death—The automatic air conditioner stopped, and the house was so airtight that he felt like he had been put into a hot, putrid steamer. A physically weak child who didn’t hydrate and replenish his energy in time simply couldn’t live too long.
However, after drinking a little bit of water, Ruan Xian still didn’t eat the corpse until the moment his vision was blurred.
Ruan Xian didn’t know what he wanted to prove. The “abnormal” incident hadn’t had time to cause him trouble, and he didn’t think he had such a deep love for his mother… He was just a little sad.
At that time, Ruan Xian couldn’t analyze that feeling. It couldn’t make him cry, but it could make him sit stubbornly in place, watching the body gradually swell.
The air was hot and humid, but he only felt cold.
When he woke up again, he was in the hospital. A small coincidence saved him. The air processor installed by the resident next door just broke down, and the stench of a rotting corpse floated into their room. After several days of patience to no avail, the grumpy residents called the police.
He broke away from the established results time and again, and he survived. The coincidences were so frequent that Ruan Xian almost started to believe his mother’s statement about him being a demon.
If his memory was true, Fan Linsong’s first shot failed to kill him. And now, facing an almost doomed situation, Tang Yibu was also…
Obviously, he had calculated everything possible, but there was always a more absurd response in reality.
Ruan Xian simply stopped controlling the smile on his face.
The android’s physical strength seemed inexhaustible. He seemed to want to practice all the relevant information he had gathered. Ruan Xian tried his best to warn him before his nerves were completely melted.
“If you don’t plan to kill me… Um…” He bit Tang Yibu’s lower lip lightly. “This… It’s not safe here. We still have time…”
“I have calculated it.” Tang Yibu licked the blood from the corner of Ruan Xian’s mouth with the tip of his tongue. “We still have fifteen minutes and eight seconds.”
“Not bad.” Ruan Xian guided this action into another seductive kiss. “…But you have to leave time for negotiation.”
He tugged at Tang Yibu’s sweaty black hair at the back of his head. “Our negotiation time.”
“I have thought about this issue.” Tang Yibu rubbed his face against his hand. His fingertips slid from the corners of his eyes to the corners of his lips and then his chin. “We can talk now.”
“I need a while to analyze my feelings for you,” Tang Yibu said in a low voice, breathing a little short. “And… Although it is unlikely, have you done anything to that earring?”
“Do you want to interrogate me?” Ruan Xian adjusted his posture. His wrists that were tied up started to become sore.
“Yeah, after all, according to you—” Tang Yibu lowered his head and kissed deeply again, while increasing his movement. Ruan Xian muttered vaguely. “…From all physiological indicators, it is difficult for you to disguise your emotions now. Even a cybernetic brain will accept this kind of stimulation, I understand.”
He hugged Ruan Xian tightly. “Just answer yes or no, have or haven’t.”
“No.” After panting for a few seconds, Ruan Xian managed to find his voice. “I haven’t touched it… Um…”
“Since you are really human.” Tang Yibu himself wasn’t much better. His voice was intermittent. “Are you a human who obeys MUL-01?”
“No. “
“Has anyone from MUL-01 contacted you privately?”
“…No…” He had to say that Tang Yibu had found a good way. Ruan Xian only felt that his brain was about to melt. Under this impact, it was indeed difficult for him to disguise himself perfectly.
“Are you related to Ruan Xian?”
Ruan Xian found that he didn’t have much strength to make a sound, so he replaced a “yes” with a nod.
Tang Yibu kissed the corner of his lip, and there was a slight murmur in his throat. “Very good… At least not the enemy…”
The android didn’t speak again next. Ruan Xian guessed that he had completed the last wave of practice. A few more minutes passed as Ruan Xian lazily slumped on the lawn and watched Tang Yibu get dressed slowly and then untie the shackles on his wrists.
“Mr. Ruan, before I sort out my problem, you’d better not act out of the ordinary.” Tang Yibu tried his best to straighten his face, but he still couldn’t hide the softness behind him. “I’ll let π follow you… Ah.”
“Ah.” Ruan Xian also remembered. The iron bead still hung around in the bushes not far away. “You can explain later, Yibu.”
“…” Tang Yibu wiped his face.
“But there is another problem.”
Ruan Xian shook his sore wrist and began to wipe his body with a blood-stained cloth. The power of the S-type Prototype allowed him to regain his strength quickly, leaving only a little fatigue after excessive exercise.
“Look, now you know who I am, but I still don’t know anything about you.”
After a simple clean-up, Ruan Xian threw the fabric aside and decided to strike the iron while it was hot.
“The S-type Prototype is in the hands of a human. If this news spreads, it will be equally fatal to me… If we have to cooperate in the future, I hope I can get information of the same value.”
Humans wouldn’t expect anything from a member of another race if he was truly an android. But if he was a human, this information itself would become some kind of inspiration, and MUL-01 would destroy him and show the world as quickly as possible.
Tang Yibu wouldn’t have missed this.
He supported himself on the trees around him, stood up, and generously gathered the shredded restraint clothes together. “After all, my understanding of you is limited to the point of an ‘android who does not obey the Mainbrain and is involved with other forces behind him’. In this place, you can’t make an earring that restricts pure humans in a short time, right?”
Ruan Xian straightened his sweaty hair, walked to Tang Yibu a little unsteadily, and put his arms around his waist. “You have also seen my abilities. If I make up my mind to run, a little surveillance can’t stop me.”
“But we like each other.” Tang Yibu seemed a little dazed.
“I will miss you from afar.” Ruan Xian squinted comfortably as he felt the other party’s body heat. “In addition, this doesn’t conflict with our vigilance against each other. A little bit of information is exchanged for me to stay by your side honestly during this period of time. I personally think it’s a very good deal.”
Tang Yibu remained silent about this.
‘Such a difficult guy,’ Ruan Xian sighed in his heart. At this point, he had a better way to deal with it.
Almost all of Tang Yibu’s previous questions were testing his position, and he could see that the android and the Mainbrain were definitely not the same. Since his own human identity had been exposed and his memories were likely to be falsified, it wasn’t impossible to simply provide part of the information to the other party.
“If you give me enough valuable information, I can add more weight.” Ruan Xian leaned his face closer.
Tang Yibu took a step back, as if he was lost in thought. He glanced at Ruan Xian a few times. As if he thought that staring at the other party would make his state worse, he turned around solemnly.
Too cute. Ruan Xian laughed out loud.
“I can tell you ‘in my memory’, my relationship with Ruan Xian.” Ruan Xian increased the temptation bit by bit. “But I can’t guarantee the originality of my memory. This has to be said upfront.”
Tang Yibu turned back again, looking more serious.
“…I will not deceive you.” Ruan Xian spread out his hands. “Of course, if you want to use the ‘interrogation’ method just now, I have no opinion at all.”
“Okay.” Tang Yibu seemed to have reached a conclusion. “I will provide you with a little information about myself. But after that, there are only two possibilities left between us: to cooperate with each other, or I will kill you.”
“Mm-hmm.” Ruan Xian made a welcoming gesture.
Tang Yibu took a few steps closer, holding Ruan Xian’s face with both hands, and pressed his forehead against Ruan Xian’s. His lips opened and closed without making a sound.
“This body of mine is integrated with an A-type Prototype,” Tang Yibu said silently. “Considering that we will cooperate for a long time, and you have strong observation power… This information should be considered just right. As for how I got it, I may tell you later depending on the situation. For now, you—“
Ruan Xian was a little surprised, but only a little.
Lacking doomsday-related memories, he didn’t have a strong impression of the A-type Prototype being destroyed. Judging from Tang Yibu’s rather abnormal combat effectiveness and inexplicable confidence in certain situations, Tang Yibu’s deduction was correct—It was really only a matter of time before he found out about him and making it public in advance would instead be more conducive for Tang Yibu to unfold his hand and better threaten him.
As a mutual containment intelligence, Ruan Xian couldn’t think of a more appropriate one.
…Truly a cunning guy.
“Good information.” Ruan Xian maintained a posture with his forehead against the other. “Then I can also give mine.”
Tang Yibu blinked.
Ruan Xian raised the corner of his mouth and wiped the remaining blood stains on the other party’s face.
Kinky Translations 