At the foot of the mountain, in the corner where the wildflowers bloomed, there was a long, thin winding river flowing slowly. The river was neither wide nor deep, and the water was clear, with small transparent fish living in it.
There was a shallow pond, about 10 meters in diameter, under a large tree, which was suitable for the children to play in. If Jing Man hadn’t been trying to find the best secluded space for sketching, he wouldn’t have found this place that generally went unnoticed by other people.
Xiao Shui, ZhiZhi and Xiao Sang, the three kids who had the gift of race and didn’t have to worry about drowning, slowly stepped into the pond under the watchful eyes of Jing Man and Mu CangZhou.
As an aquatic child, the medusa, Xiao Shui stepped into the water, like two halves that become whole, but there was no river whose water could give him the same carefree, back-to-nature feeling as this one today. After stepping into it, Xiao Shui felt the slippery, cold pebbles beneath his feet and felt like he was back in an eggshell. His body slowly soaked, relaxed and free, and the feeling of softness and openness grew deeper and deeper. He slowly closed his eyes and let his whole body float on the water, his hair spread out, and his lips were smiling.
Xiao Sang’s eyes swished open when he entered the water, he looked around twice, and then fluttered to the bottom of the lake. After waiting for a while, the water surface clattered. Xiao Sang floated up, and his green and white hands cupped two stones. The two stones look ordinary at first glance, but after a closer look, they were very transparent inside, with the texture of jade.
Xiao Sang squeezed the stones and refused to let go. Returning to the shore and sitting down, his hands gently sharpened on the jade over and over again.
Jing Man noticed the difference and came over to ask, “Xiao Sang, what is that in your hand? Don’t pick up things under the water.”
The next second, the undead child looked up and the emotion in his eyes was like a winter snow scene, slightly cool but with a touch of lingering around it. He held up the stone to show Jing Man, “Daddy, there’s something inside the stones.”
Jing Man let out a cry of surprise and squatted down to take the two stones that had caught his son’s eye with interest. One was oval in shape and the other was like an equilateral triangle.
The oval one seems to have thin green lines inside, and the lines were wrapped around each other to form the appearance of a tree. The other piece had a crimson dot inside, like a whole blood bead stored inside.
“There really is!” Jing Man was so amazed that he asked, “Xiao Sang, did you feel them as soon as you entered the water?”
Xiao Sang nodded with a hint of surprise, his eyes still on the stones. The corners of his mouth skewed down as if he was torn between urging Daddy or not, since he wanted the two stones back.
Jing Man, however, did not receive his son’s message, holding the stones in his hand.
He carefully searched his memory in his mind and remembered that he had read similar legendary stories when he was cramming his knowledge of children.
A long, long time ago, when people still ate raw meat, the relationship between the races was not as harmonious as it was now. Because there were a lot of gaps between each other’s habits, the various races and districts would experience friction from time to time. Swords, spears, and halberds would be taken out every now and then to wear off the rust.
The long-term state of seeing every bush and tree as an enemy resulted in the five senses of humans to be much sharper than in peaceful times, and they were often able to feel some new things appear in life. A beast person saint was born, and the sky raised a full three days of colorful auspicious clouds.
When the saint was still small, they one day sank into the water for nearly half an hour without emerging. Everyone knew that they were not a good aquatic race, so it was asserted that they had drowned. However, they were also afraid of the water beast people, not daring to rashly enter the water.
So, after weighing many things, the beast people decided to seek a truce with the benevolent aquatic race and asked them to help retrieve the body. The beast people race and the aquatic race had a truce meeting for several hours, and finally reached an agreement when the sun was about to sink to the bottom of the sea.
The two races chose the path of permanently laying down their weapons, respecting each other and helping each other. Just after the agreement was signed, the saint emerged from the bottom of the water, clutching a radiant, dazzling stone.
People say they found a cluster of light embedded in the stone that brought the Seed of Peace to Sky Blue Star.
Jing Man’s brain circuit was very simple. The stone that the saint found under the water was so powerful that it could overturn the war. The two stones that Xiao Sang found under the water also looked powerful, one with a tree inside and one with a red dot, so maybe they had some good uses too.
Jing Man unconsciously ignored Xiao Sang’s expectant attention and took the stones aside. He cautiously asked Mu CangZhou, “Brother Mu, do you see anything special about these stones?”
The latter raised his eyebrows, took the stones and looked at them for half a day, “This pattern looks like a tomato and the other one looks like broccoli?”
At that, Jing Man looked incredulous as he gave his own explanation to Mu CangZhou.
“This one looks like a tree inside, symbolizing upward growth and life. This one looks like a drop of blood, symbolizing the completion of life, health and peace.”
Seeing him like this, Mu CangZhou’s heart was helpless. He seriously wondered if ManMan had been drawing and sketching continuously lately, and all the thoughts that sprouted in his mind had been processed artistically. As he tried to arrange his wording to properly enlighten the man, Xiao Sang came over anxiously and tugged at his pant leg.
The child’s gaze held a trace of sadness and his voice muffled, “Father, can Daddy give me back the stone?”
Hearing this question, Jing Man made a big blushing face as he avoided Mu CangZhou’s smirking gaze and returned the stone to Xiao Sang. He gave the stone back to Xiao Sang with a dry admonition, “Xiao Sang, be good, only play with it, don’t put it in your mouth.”
“Of course, I know!” Xiao Sang took the stone and immediately dodged to the side.
At this time, the remaining children and two golden retrievers had also entered the river to play for a while. Jing Man watched their playful appearance, heart very relaxed.
He saw Xiao Shui pour a handful of water on ZhiZhi playfully. ZhiZhi turned around and thought FanFan did it, and immediately threw water back. Not long after, the children all played together, and his mind suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He quickly took out his sketchbook to present the image he had captured to the top.
Mu CangZhou took the time to look at the children in between, and found that Jing Man’s way of thinking was quite complicated.
What he saw was obviously the children laughing and happy, but somehow transcribed onto the paper as huge ancient creatures with swords drawn, looking dangerous, as if war was about to break out. But Jing Man was so engrossed in his creation that the expression on his face became much more serious. He quickly stroked as if the surrounding environment was nothing.
This showed a completely different side of Jing Man from the past. Mu CangZhou felt a hot current passing through his heart when he saw it, with a little sweetness and an overflowing heartbeat.
After leaving Wanhua Mountain, the midterm results came out quickly and Jing Man got a satisfactory answer.
After lunch, he slept at home with six different kinds of dumplings curled up around him.
When he heard a knock at the door, he ran to the door in a daze. He wondered who it was, since Brother Mu was even busier than before lately, he didn’t even come back for lunch.
“ManMan, Tian Yuan is back!” Opening the door to see, it turned out that outside the door stood robot Tian Yuan, who went to Wanhua Mountain more than a month ago.
He didn’t know what exactly he had gone through during this time, his clothes were covered with unknown grass seeds, stubble, and broken blades, looking no different from a vagrant.
If it was a normal person, going out for so long would cause one to tan by a few degrees, but Tian Yuan’s body, except for the clothes, had no change at all.
Jing Man’s eyes bypassed him and stuck to another robot in a police uniform, asking hesitantly, “Is this Xinghai Jun?”1
The last time he had seen Xinghai Jun was when he and Mu CangZhou had just met, and he had said a lot of vague things that he unfortunately didn’t understand. Still, was there a connection between the robots of these different system agencies? It was the first time he knew that!
Xinghai Jun nodded slightly as he spoke, “Now sending Tian Yuan home, please sign for it.”
Seeing Jing Man’s face full of confusion, Xinghai Jun explained, “This fool went too deep after entering the mountain, there was a rainstorm and a landslide. My team happened to meet him when they went there to search and rescue people.”
He said it to the point, but Jing Man listened with great fear. He hurriedly invited the two into his home.
He turned to Tian Yuan and reprimanded him as if he were Big Bear, “Is Tian Yuan okay? Why didn’t you tell us if something happened to you! If it weren’t for the help of the police, we wouldn’t have been able to see you! You have such a big egg breeding base to take care of, you can’t do that anymore!”
After Tian Yuan entered the mountain, he said he wanted to immerse himself in biological research, and directly cut off contact with the outside world unilaterally.
So what happened, Jing Man and the others did not know anything.
When Jing Man said that, Tian Yuan was not annoyed, and said stupidly, “Tian Yuan is fine! The egg breeding base has backup data of Tian Yuan to manage, do not worry! Even if ceased to function, Mu CangZhou knows where Tian Yuan’s backup chip is! Tian Yuan will live longer than anyone!”
As a robot, he was not able to understand human empathy behavior. Because they were good friends, so many secrets were also directly self-exposed. However, upon seeing Jing Man speak and the corners of his eyes abruptly redden slightly, he still pulled a tissue and handed it over. In his mind, he silently calculated where the problem was, why Jing Man was crying…
After listening to the explanation, Jing Man’s mood also calmed down.
After once again realizing his lack of understanding of the robot, he awkwardly pulled up the corners of his mouth and turned to Xinghai Jun, who was watching the show with interest.
Jing Man sniffled and bowed, “Anyway, thanks for the help of the police, thank you for helping me get Tian Yuan back, nothing serious happened in this storm, right?”
Xinghai Jun shook his head and glanced at Tian Yuan, “Except for this robot and a few goats raised by a farmer, there were no other casualties.”
Jing Man relaxed a lot, he thought about it and asked, “Hey, normally the police station AI is not allowed to leave? Is there something Xinghai Jun has come here to do today?”
Xinghai Jun hummed and looked at Tian Yuan, “I want to ask Mu CangZhou to help me make a copy of Tian Yuan’s social information and send it to the police station.” At the end, he added, “I don’t mean anything else, it’s just that I’ve only seen this one AI with such high intelligence that can rival me, except for the one in the State Department. I want to make a friend.”
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SB: Robots can have a social life too! Robo-buddies!