Chapter 187: CH 187

The iron bead didn’t like it here.

In terms of habitat, it preferred the wilderness lined with ruins—easily torn metal ruins that were half buried in the sand and palm-sized mechanical life bursting out from broken walls from time to time meant food was abundant and plentiful. It was completely different here. Everything was so well maintained that even a building that was about to be demolished didn’t have a speck of dust.

All the machines were tightly wrapped and carefully supervised so that it didn’t even dare to lower its mouth.

Dissatisfaction was dissatisfaction, but it didn’t regret going with those humans. They let it eat a lot of delicacies that had never been seen in the ruins. It no longer had to worry about being preyed upon by large predators such as scavenging puppets, and it had people who would help it clean its shell. There was even one of its kind on the human team—Tang Yibu could understand what it wanted to express, and he was its best friend.

The human surnamed Ruan was very close to Tang Yibu, so he must be a person who loved mechanical life as well, so the iron bead placed Ruan Xian second in its heart.

Just after being separated from the two of them on the island, π had already felt all kinds of discomfort. At the moment, it couldn’t help but look around nervously, for fear that the big guy surnamed Tang would never come back.

And it was hungry.

The iron bead, who didn’t have well-developed mechanical legs, thought for a while, turned around, and looked at Professor Ruan—the mechanical legs looked quite flexible. Perhaps it could ask him for one. Professor Ruan seemed to be human before, so he must be very good at walking on two legs.

Suddenly, the iron bead was shocked by its own intelligence. It then turned to Professor Ruan with great confidence.

As a result, as soon as it snapped around, there was a tingling at the seams of its shell. Professor Ruan took advantage of its motionless time to solemnly think and stretch out a romantic arm from under the solution tank. A thin needle tube passed through the gap in the metal shell and a small tube of white tissue fluid was drawn out. The iron bead turned around angrily, but the robotic arm had already been retracted inside Professor Ruan’s mechanical container.

The iron bead was furious—the situation was tense at the moment, so it didn’t dare to bark. This guy was definitely planning this from the start.

The three-legged machine jumped high in the next moment and landed on top of an abandoned machine nearly two meters high. The iron bead that couldn’t jump very high began to circle around the bottom of the abandoned machine, whining badly.

But its big friends soon appeared—Tang Yibu and Ruan Xian walked out of the empty room at the end of the corridor, looking like they were in a good mood.

The iron bead regarded them as its savior. It rushed over like a cannonball and slammed its head into Tang Yibu’s calf, sharply whining and complaining.

Even the S-type Prototype wouldn’t make the pain disappear, let alone the A-type with low healing capabilities. Tang Yibu immediately stifled his groan, squatted down, and rubbed the spot where the iron bead bit him.

Ruan Xian held back his smile and picked up the iron bead that was spinning all over the floor with one hand. “It seems to have something to say to you.”

“It’s getting stronger and stronger.” Tang Yibu stood up and leaned against Ruan Xian, distributing part of his weight to the other party. “I probably know what it wants to say.”

When they met with Professor Ruan again, he was still standing in his original position, acting like nothing had happened.

“You took π’s tissue fluid.” Tang Yibu got straight to the point.

π rattled angrily and whined a few times, expressing its approval.

“Because you wouldn’t agree with me doing so,” Professor Ruan replied calmly. “Now it seems that things are similar to what I thought. It has mutated under the influence of the S-type Prototype, and NUL-00 is able to communicate with it directly.”

“It’s not that ‘I won’t agree’, it’s that I will use this as a price for the deal. Since you want to take its tissue fluid, at least you have to exchange some parts or information.” Ruan Xian happily corrected as he patted π’s shell. “…And, is it strange that Yibu can communicate with it?”

π rubbed Ruan Xian’s chest hard with its round body and rattled aggrievedly. That grievance and innocence were quite similar to Tang Yibu’s.

“Whether it’s NUL-00 or MUL-01, the original program didn’t have a similar function. They can both parse data, provided that the nerve centers of these mechanical beings are completely connected to the system,” Professor Ruan said. “I found no sign of anything similar in it.”

“That’s my own creation. I always need to gather information when I’m out in the world and communicating with them can give me a lot of information. It’s very complicated in theory… In short, I can have simple communication with these common mechanical beings.”

Tang Yibu shrugged and looked away. “Sometimes I may use small means to make them feel good about me, but it won’t harm them… I always take back the influence afterwards.”

“But you can unilaterally incorporate them into your neural network like the Mainbrain, which means you can directly control them. When you were on the island, you did that to the mechanical soldier birds of the Mainbrain,” Professor Ruan continued in a weird tone.

Tang Yibu looked at Professor Ruan in surprise, as if he was asking what 1+2 equals. “That’s different? Those birds were sent by the Mainbrain to kill me! …For other creatures that aren’t controlled by it, I’m asking for information. Isn’t it basic etiquette to have a good conversation?”

For a moment, Professor Ruan couldn’t come back to his senses. “What?”

Ruan Xian could understand why Professor Ruan was confused. Tang Yibu didn’t really have much kindness towards humans, but on other levels, he didn’t have much malice either—in the eyes of the android, the importance of the iron bead as a creature might be even higher than that of Yu Le’s and Ji Xiaoman’s.

That handsome human body did give people the illusion of “the same kind”, but in essence, he was just a unique artificial species that treated other species equally. Tang Yibu didn’t have the slightest anthropocentric idea in his subconscious.

This, he had never taught him.

It was better to say that it was precisely because he wanted to avoid NUL-00 from being replaced by inappropriate innate bias that he didn’t install those things in it. If people wanted a truly objective manager, subconscious bias was the biggest obstacle.

And now his NUL-00 had become like this… It—rather he, after countless judgments, had chosen to become what he was now.

Ruan Xian suddenly felt an inexplicable ease, just like those days twelve years ago.

“Basic courtesy,” Tang Yibu repeated, leaning on Ruan Xian intentionally or unintentionally. “I can control them in my neural network, but this kind of control will damage their own nerve center. They will become my disposable database, lose themselves, and die after I abandon them. Obviously, it’s a problem that I can solve smoothly by paying attention to it, but there’s no need for a direct conflict right out of the gate.”

Professor Ruan glanced at the iron bead that was still quaking in Ruan Xian’s arms and fell silent. He only had one brain left, sealed in a dark box, which Ruan Xian couldn’t guess his emotions.

Tang Yibu glanced at Professor Ruan inexplicably. He searched his pockets for a while before stretching out a small steel ingot that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The iron bead gave a cheerful cry, broke away from Ruan Xian’s embrace, rushed towards Tang Yibu, and bit the steel ingot.

“Yibu, there should be nothing wrong with this floor. I didn’t feel the breath of creatures upstairs. You go ahead and take care of the surveillance upstairs. Professor Ruan and I are responsible for collecting information on this floor.”

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Ruan Xian thought for a moment and decided to send Tang Yibu away first. The latter was also keen on his plan.

Tang Yibu tilted his body and shook off his calf that had been bit by the iron bead, giving Ruan Xian a “I was seriously injured” face.

Ruan Xian turned around, cupped the android’s face, and gave him a deep kiss. The excuse failed to work as Ruan Xian’s suggestion was indeed reasonable. Tang Yibu could only reluctantly lead the iron bead and disappear at the end of the corridor.

“Do you know how dangerous the idea of it is?” Seeing Tang Yibu’s figure completely disappear, Professor Ruan sighed.

“I’m quite proud of him. I personally don’t care much about the future of mankind, and it wasn’t part of my family that started the rebellion.” Ruan Xian crossed his arms. “What do you want π’s tissue fluid for?”

“You can guess,” Professor Ruan said. “I think you already know. Otherwise, you wouldn’t specifically send him off.”

“Weaponization, right?”

“The S-type Prototype was done by my own hands, Mr. Ruan Xian. Even if our levels are equal, you’re missing twelve years. It’s just that just a few short months and no corresponding equipment… It’s already surprising to me that you can use it to this point, but judging from the evolution of π, you don’t know enough about it.”

“I only have a little research bulletinizing it.” Ruan Xian threw the healing blood gun over, which Professor Ruan caught with a robotic arm.

This environment was quite favorable for negotiations—unless they were really crazy, starting a conflict here would only benefit the Mainbrain. Choosing this time to talk about this matter was probably what Professor Ruan had planned during this escape journey quite some time ago.

If he had more understanding of the Prototypes, they would have more power. Professor Ruan knew that it was difficult for them to resist this temptation.

“Then I guess it was π who gave you inspiration.” Professor Ruan scanned the healing blood gun. “You used similar means to infiltrate my base and to deal with the Mainbrain’s Z-α… The uncontrollable abnormal growth of the body will only lead to death.”

“Indeed. Attacking the nerve center is the most effective. Otherwise, a considerable amount of effort is required.” At first, he had calculated for a long time on the mechanical bird before he figured out the data on the impact of the Prototype on mechanical life.

Similar to what he envisioned, depending on the degree of head transformation of Z-α and Z-β, their brains needed to undergo mechanical rest. The concentrated blood attack was effective. If the target was changed to Yu Le, unfortunately, the result would be just a few sneezes.

Ruan Xian put the blood gun back in his holster. “You want to verify at this time. This means you want to make a deal with us, or rather me.”

“Yes,” Professor Ruan replied. “In fact, I originally wanted to leave the S-type Prototype to NUL-00. With this in mind…”

“NUL-00 isn’t a human. As long as it wants, it can hack into almost all mechanical life systems and use the S-type Prototype to make suitable attacks… As for you, both in terms of technology and control of the S-type Prototype, it’s difficult for you to do this.”

“If Yibu really got his hands on it… Even if he doesn’t cooperate with you, it can be used as a ‘virus bank’ for mechanical life and can deal with the Mainbrain, right?”

If Tang Yibu really successfully mastered the power of the S-type Prototype and received the technical and theoretical support of Professor Ruan, Ruan Xian wasn’t really sure if the android would be excited—after all, Tang Yibu’s sense of self-protection had always been high enough to break the sky.

“That’s your other plan,” Professor Ruan said quietly.

“Now that you find that I can barely use it, how do you plan to salvage it?” Ruan Xian spread his hands.

“You won’t refuse.”

“Hard to say.”

“It can give you the power to restrain NUL-00. Don’t you want it?” Professor Ruan’s voice was calm. “I can see that you really have feelings for him, and I’m not going to comment on this, but you can’t deny that one of the reasons you stabilize the situation is that ‘NUL-00 can kill you at any time’. Currently, he’s better than you.”

Ruan Xian touched the earring stud in his left ear and was silent for a while. “Thank you for your trouble, but I don’t plan to accept any love advice from you for the time being.”

“Also, it can also give you the ability to protect yourself around the Mainbrain.” Professor Ruan’s emotions didn’t fluctuate at all. His electronic voice echoed in the empty room. “…As a means of side protection for NUL-00.”

Ruan Xian narrowed his eyes.

“Just as you understand NUL-00, I also understand MUL-01.” Professor Ruan sighed. “It… Will find you soon.”

“Speaking of this, I happen to have another question to ask.” Ruan Xian’s tone became cold.”…I hope you can answer truthfully, because it may have already been found.”

“What?”

“How much do you know about my mother… Our mother?”

The author has something to say:

After thinking about it, the level of mental stress in this team may be like this:

Professor Ruan >>> Ji Xiaoman >>> Ruan >>> Tang >>> Lao Yu >>> Iron Bead

Professor Ruan: The catastrophic journey of fighting for mankind is startling every step of the way.

Iron bead: What are we eating today? What will we eat tomorrow? What to eat the day after tomorrow? Where is Tang Yibu?

Kinky Thoughts:

Aww π considers Tang Yibu to be its best friend. So cute.

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