Chapter 218: CH 218

The preparation of the Mainbrain was perfect. An android was quickly sent in to replace the assistant robot. Ruan Xian had never seen such a clean Tang Yibu and couldn’t help but admire him—the one he knew often smelled like dust, blood, smoke, and food. The tips of his hair most of the time were cocked because he didn’t have time to take care of it, and his expression was like a lion sunbathing.

The one in front of him was more like a product display of a humanoid assistant. It had a rich expression and natural movements, but there was still a little deviation from Tang Yibu’s lazy and self-absorbed temperament. To be fair, Ruan Xian thought this thing could fool Lao Yu and even Professor Ruan, but it couldn’t fool him.

To put it mildly—the Mainbrain’s intelligence of what Tang Yibu’s brain was like was so normal that it was unnatural.

Ruan Xian could understand the Mainbrain’s thoughts. Throughout their adventures, just by looking at the results, they were indeed the crazier ones. As far as the current situation was concerned, it seemed that only he knew how… interesting that android was.

He didn’t know why. Obviously, in an extremely dangerous environment, the tension was like a poisonous insect resting on his skin, but Ruan Xian just wanted to laugh He had crawled into bed, buried his face in the blankets as his shoulders shook, sobbing as if he was under heavy pressure.

The “Tang Yibu” provided by the Mainbrain stretched out his hand to the assistant robot and copied all the data into its system. With the assistant robot recalled, Ruan Xian was now the only one left in the room.

Or rather, there were “two” people.

Finally, Ruan Xian erased his smile, raised his head, and looked at the golden eyes in front of him.

He now understood the difference between the genuine and fake very clearly—there was a bit more cunning, curiosity, and inexplicable happiness in those golden eyes.

These strange emotions that weren’t easy to understand made them sparkle.

Unlike when he was in the Glass Conservatory, the one in front of him was a “mechanical shell” in the true sense. The real Tang Yibu was still elsewhere, and in order to not make the Mainbrain suspicious, the shell in front of him was probably still attached to a surveillance system. Ruan Xian quickly calmed down, jumped off the bed, and looked away as if he couldn’t bear it, then poured himself a large glass of water.

When he turned his gaze back to Tang Yibu again, the android had already changed into pajamas and was lying on his side of the bed while patting the edge.

Ruan Xian: “…” He put down the cup in silence and pretended not to see anything.

This was definitely Tang Yibu.

Ruan Xian rubbed his temples and lay down in the vacant position on the bed, keeping a relatively polite distance from the mechanical shell beside him. Both of them were lying upright on the bed, half an arm’s length apart, like two neatly placed corpses.

Tang Yibu had hacked into the assistant robot system, and through the data transfer just now, the implanted virus program was also transferred to the android, but it still didn’t change the fact that this was just a machine. In order to transmit suitable surveillance data to the Mainbrain, Tang Yibu needed images that could be processed…

Besides the android itself, there were plenty of surveillance cameras in every corner of this room. This made it more difficult to falsify the contents of their communications. Ruan Xian decided to provide some relatively static clips to give that guy some materials.

Sure enough, after an hour of silence, Tang Yibu turned over and lay on his side. He remotely manipulated the mechanical version of “himself” and stared at Ruan Xian with burning eyes.

Feeling the awl-style sight, Ruan Xian sighed, turned over, and lay on his side—the two were lying face-to-face; their faces half swallowed by the soft pillow.

“Don’t make a sound. Don’t move. In addition to image monitoring, I suspect that sound, vibration, and other indicators are also being monitored,” Ruan Xian mouthed wordlessly. “Communicate with your mouth.”

“You’re playing a researcher having a breakdown,” Tang Yibu mouthed. “Are you going to hug me and cry?”

“No. I should show my rejection of you as a ‘fake’. It’s too much to deceive myself right away. I should now be in a state of contradiction,” Ruan Xian coldly refused. “At least tonight, you can give the Mainbrain the loop of us playing dead.”

Tang Yibu frowned and expressed disappointment without concealment.

“In addition, the “you” is made by the Mainbrain… I guess in order to avoid trouble, it should have the most basic sensing system, but it’s not too advanced inside. Even if I break its neck, it’s estimated that you can only receive body temperature and heart rate.”

Ruan Xian continued to mend the knife.

“I know. I just checked its hardware,” Tang Yibu said solemnly. “But your body temperature is good enough.”

Ruan Xian choked after getting such an unexpected answer. Ruan Xian suddenly felt that this kind of subconscious speculation was exhausting, so he decided to change the subject. He was a little unsure what Tang Yibu wanted to do—was he planning to use his admiration as he once did to gain dominance again? Or was he expressing his true thoughts openly and honestly?

“It’s been less than two days since we met. Why did you come to find me?”

“Because I regret it.” Tang Yibu blinked. “I regret joining the dispute between the Mainbrain and Professor Ruan too early. I should have chosen to elope with you.”

“…Is this how ‘elope’ is used?”

“I think so,” Tang Yibu said. “So, Mr. Ruan, in order to restore things to their original state as soon as possible, I have decided to get rid of the Mainbrain within 66 hours. Of course, I will need your help with this.”

“…” Ruan Xian slowly lay back on his back, covered his head with the blanket, and was silent for fifteen seconds.

“How did you come up with this time limit?” Fifteen seconds later, Ruan Xian calmly resumed lying on his side.

Tang Yibu took a deep breath and told Ruan Xian about Yu Le’s and Ji Xiaoman’s situation as quickly as possible. Ruan Xian frowned slowly and couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.

“It’s all intelligence stacking.” After listening, Ruan Xian summed it up mercilessly. “You don’t have a detailed plan?”

“No!” Tang Yibu opened his mouth widely. “I only have a rough outline, just like you.”

For a second, Ruan Xian felt guilty of “did he mislead the person in front of him”.

As if seeing through his thoughts, Tang Yibu rubbed his head on the pillow and continued, “Although I don’t know what your plan is, I can guess the general direction of your information gathering. If we put all the clues together, there’s a high probability that we can perfect a powerful enough strategy.”

“I didn’t act according to previous style. In fact, if we go by the most reasonable logic, I shouldn’t even be here.” Tang Yibu mouthed. “And as ‘Ruan Xian’, you shouldn’t have access to the internal information here. We all know that the safest bet is to choose the safer side. Let Professor Ruan and the Mainbrain kill each other, and we choose the side we want to assist.”

Ruan Xian thought Tang Yibu was right. If they want to choose the safest path, they must act along with the rhythm of Professor Ruan and the Mainbrain. It would be a serious, long, and painful war as they carefully stepped over the footprints of others, fighting to be the oriole stalking the mantis*.

*Referring to the proverb (螳螂捕蝉黄雀在后) The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. It basically means watch your back. Don’t pursue a narrow gain while neglecting the greater danger. || In this context, it’s saying the Mainbrain and Professor Ruan are the mantis (seeing each other as the cicada) while Ruan Xian and Tang Yibu watch in the background being the oriole (they are the greater threat).

In this game, everyone was a prisoner of numbers, fighting around a winning rate, trying to keep themselves alive.

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…Then the question was… If he jumped out with the intention of overturning the chessboard and pushing the winning percentages aside, even if he took part of the risk and would do anything to keep Tang Yibu free, what would Tang Yibu think?

“Why?” Ruan Xian asked directly without any intention of garnering goodwill from Tang Yibu.

“Because of trouble.” Tang Yibu was as confident as ever. “I want to study you and my feelings for you. This grinding war is impeding it too much—especially MUL-01. If I don’t pay attention, it might really make a move on you.”

“You mean like before? That’s just acting.” Ruan Xian couldn’t help laughing.

“I know it’s acting,” Tang Yibu said nervously. “But when I was in the Sea of Ruins, I deliberately got close to you, and you claimed to like me because of it. The Mainbrain is similar to the core algorithm of my thinking. What if it comes to the same inspiration and uses the same idea to take you away?”

“Oh—”

“And I think we can win.”

“Even if the other party is the Mainbrain?”

“I am its prototype. I think I’m stronger,” Tang Yibu declared proudly. “And you’re my maker. We’re equal on a technical level. In terms of material, we have two Prototypes and an information advantage—the best thing is that if we control the number of participants to a minimum, the difficulty of the Mainbrain’s response is equivalent to finding a needle in a haystack.”

“It’s not impossible.” Ruan Xian didn’t respond directly but just smiled. “Why do you think you’re stronger?”

“Well… I now understand a lot about why you gave me that subject in the first place, and I understand quite a bit now. From what I’ve seen along the way, I’m afraid the Mainbrain has never thought about those things.”

Tang Yibu returned a weird smile that was a little jerky.

“In other words, now when I analyze and calculate, I have at least one more angle than it. As long as I catch those blind spots, I can formulate a plan that it won’t be able to calculate.”

Ruan Xian didn’t answer. He gently raised his arm, raised his hand in front of Tang Yibu, and opened his palm slightly. Tang Yibu looked at it suspiciously for a while, then stretched out his hand and lightly gave Ruan Xian a high-five.

As a result, before he could withdraw his hand, Ruan Xian grabbed it tightly and clasped their fingers together.

“Sounds like a pretty good idea.” Ruan Xian’s curved his eyes. “And time is limited, so I don’t seem to have much of a choice.”

Tang Yibu huffed in satisfaction.

“But have you ever thought about it, Yibu? If I had been moved by the Mainbrain, what would happen to you now?”

Tang Yibu shrank his hand in fright, but it was still firmly held by Ruan Xian. He looked at Ruan Xian in shock and a faint panic crossed his eyes.

‘…How surprising,’ Ruan Xian thought. This android, who liked to calculate all possibilities, seemed surprised by the possibility that he proposed.

This was a good sign.

“It’s good to plan well. I can tell you’re having problems right now.” Ruan Xian grabbed the hand and continued to smile. “In my opinion, this requires us to give each other considerable trust. Shhh, I know what you want to say—love is not a substitute for trust.”

Tang Yibu stared at their clasped hands without saying anything.

“But like you said, time is limited.” Ruan Xian continued, “In any case, we must act immediately. In short, we should prepare well first. As for the issue of trust… Let’s take it one step at a time. Even if the plan fails, we aren’t without a way out.”

Things had developed to the present and the risk of everything could still be calculated, but to complete the plan to defeat the Mainbrain, it was impossible for them to stick together all the time and spend energy being wary of each other.

Ruan Xian thought that Tang Yibu had realized this. He was curious about the current thoughts of the android.

“I don’t really trust you.” Sure enough, this was how Tang Yibu responded.

“……”

“But I gradually discovered that I don’t doubt you either,” After a pause, Tang Yibu said bitterly. “Some time ago, I considered a question—my previous method of calculation emotional-related topics seemed to be a bit flawed.”

“Loophole?”

“You see, I don’t know much about your nature. As for you… I don’t know your specific situation. I only know that most humans don’t understand their own nature either.”

Tang Yibu narrowed his golden eyes and relaxed his posture.

“But compared to using human commonalities to calculate your interests and risks and try to guess your thoughts… I think it’s what you actually do that becomes the calculated capital of ‘you as a person’.”

“When those moments come, will you betray me, defend me, or stand idly by? This may be a topic that lacks condition, so I will wait.”

“Wait?”

“Because I don’t want to lose you, I’m willing to wait.” Tang Yibu returned with greater strength, clasping Ruan Xian’s hand. “I won’t do anything to you until those moments come.”

Ruan Xian didn’t speak. He looked into the eyes of the person opposite and felt a sourness in his heart.

“I have tried to calculate it many times before.” Tang Yibu looked away guiltily. “It turns out that if the father in my memory is the result of your deliberate disguise, my understanding of you is quite limited. So far, I have conducted some stats… Now you are the goal I want to save more.”

“So?”

Tang Yibu broke free of Ruan Xian’s hand, and with a turn of his wrist, the two hands changed from fingers intertwined to a standard handshake. The two of them lay stiffly on the bed, holding hands solemnly, as if they had been thrown into amber during a handshake and laid down sideways after they solidified.

“Nice to meet you,” the android whispered.

“…Let’s get along.”

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