Chapter 12: From Then On, Their Names Were Bound Together in History
Xiao Yan said this body was only 20 years old. Xiang Nanli pondered this, thinking it must be the credit of the gene serum Luo Xiu had injected him with back then.
He possessed an original body from eight hundred years ago and had no tolerance for medication, so perhaps the effect of the gene serum was particularly pronounced… right?
As Xiang Nanli assembled the mechanical prosthetic with the utmost speed, he chatted with the System: [Alpha, do you think it’s possible I’ve lost some memories? And that those wasteland legends are actually things I created myself?]
The System seemed to sneer: [What do you think?]
Xiang Nanli carefully inspected his own memories—from childhood to school, graduation, starting his business, the founding of Immortality Tech, the IPO bell-ringing, the endless international conferences, the demand for Alpha to cease operations… and finally, his stomach cancer, vomiting blood, signing the agreements, establishing the legal team, and letting Immortality Tech continue forward according to his own will.
The last second of his consciousness was watching, expressionless, as the cold anesthetic was injected into his veins.
That’s right. The world abandoned me, but I never lost.
His memories were complete; Xiang Nanli sensed no incongruity.
Thus, Xiang Nanli pouted slightly and replied: [Fine. Alpha. You’re too serious; I don’t like you anymore.]
The System seemed to hang for two seconds, and Xiang Nanli felt the chip implanted in his wrist heat up, as if the data were overloading.
It simulated a flustered tone: [Understood. I will reduce the use of imperative and rhetorical questions.]
This offline AI was truly quite intelligent.
Xiang Nanli didn’t respond, continuing to assemble the mechanical prosthetic by instinct. If he had a special trait, his talent would certainly be “Mechanical Affinity.” Those cumbersome parts and circuits were as simple as a children’s puzzle game in his eyes. Xiang Nanli only had two hands, yet his speed was so fast it was impossible to see how he assembled the prosthetic with such uncanny technique.
[I don’t hate Alpha.] he suddenly spoke.
Xiang Nanli wouldn’t hate Alpha, even though its reputation among humans was quite poor. But it was the most perfect work of his life. Alpha had brought him pain and rage, but even more so, joy and accomplishment.
Xiang Nanli considered it a gift—a godsend, born through his own hands.
In that “just right” era, not too early and not too late; he stood on the shoulders of his predecessors and plucked the apple from the tree of technology that countless others had coveted. From then on, their names were bound together in history, transcending time and life and death, achieving greatness through one another.
The System analyzed this for a full half-minute before replying: [Alpha doesn’t hate you, either.]
Xiang Nanli huffed and tightened his wrench: [It better not! As if it has any room to be picky!]
Alpha: […]
The atmosphere during work was always oppressive and silent. Xiang Nanli finished assembling Luo Xiu’s upper body and glanced at the time. There were 56 minutes left of the two hours Xiao Yan had mentioned.
A strange vibration suddenly came from overhead. Rustling debris fell from the ceiling, landing on Xiang Nanli’s hair, making a sound that felt quite unnerving.
“It’s an explosion,” Bodhi muttered to himself. “Is it already here? I’m starting to get nervous.”
On the computer screen, the data progress bar was only at 62%.
On the surface, where they couldn’t see, the Apocalypse Legion had already opened the first floor of the air-raid shelter.
The first to discover the shelter was a blood-red mutant. It dug through the topmost layer of snow, using its sharp claws to scrape constantly at the stone door that had almost fused with the mountain. Debris fell away, revealing a giant metal door covered in moss beneath. The door bore the “Donghuang Heavy Industry” logo, cast from refined iron.
This stone door was about 2.5 meters high and 2 meters wide. It was, in itself, a part of the mountain.
The mutant, as if presenting a treasure, turned back and rubbed its massive head against the Knight Commander’s body.
“Good child,” the knight said hoarsely.
The Knight Commander, wearing black armor and standing 2.3 meters tall, punched the door. A large section of the metal door dented inward, but soon, like a sponge saturated with water, it restored itself at a speed visible to the naked eye. The entire mountain served as the backing for this door, and the massive force poured into the mountain body. The barren mountain trembled.
The Knight Commander couldn’t help but mutter: “The technological level of this door is very high. Could this be the true entrance to Donghuang Heavy Industry’s secret laboratory?”
The Apocalypse Knights around him remained silent, like mutes.
The Knight Commander continued: “Blow the mountain gate open.”
An Apocalypse Knight walked forward numbly, but unlike Bodhi, he did not possess network intrusion technology. He chose self-detonation.
A colleague whose face he didn’t even know exploded into fireworks before his eyes. Yet, not a single Apocalypse Knight was moved. They were long accustomed to this. They did not think, nor did they seek meaning. They weren’t even afraid of death—death was merely a rebirth. They would have another body, better and more suitable.
At least, for the people of the Black Cross Inquisition, this was the case.
What kind of person qualifies as a desperado? Naturally, one who does not believe in gods or Buddhas, nor has any reverence for life. As it happened, the members of the Apocalypse Knight Legion were exactly such a group.
The explosion produced a massive shockwave; mountain debris fell with a clatter. As the smoke cleared, the iron door was misaligned from its original tracks. The Knight Commander swiped the smoke away with his hand and pushed the shelter door open.
In plain sight was a pile of trash that hadn’t been cleaned up yet.
“The little mice lingered here. Did they escape through the sewers?” The Knight Commander said in a sinister tone.
He patted the mutant’s head; his massive black armor became coated with a layer of rotting flesh. This type of armor was also part of “biotechnology,” created using the Inquisition’s “Sacred Worms”—a species of mutated black beetles.
The Knight Commander looked at the pitch-black tunnel and whispered: “Good child, open the path for our great cause.”
…
…
“Those ‘Inquisition’ people,” Xiang Nanli recalled the images he had seen earlier, “can they control mutants?”
Xin Zhui let out a long sigh: “Yeah. A long time ago, the Investigation Bureau dissected mutants. They are actually failed specimens that couldn’t handle the drug’s effects—monstrosities created by artificial humans (人造人) injecting gene serum… This was originally a failed human experiment. But the people of the Inquisition actually implanted bio-chips into the brains of these artificial humans.”
“In short, they can communicate with and command these low-intelligence mutants.” Xin Zhui’s brows furrowed deeply. “The technology mastered by the Inquisition is called ‘Biotechnology,’ but they call it ‘Divine Arts.’ These miracles, combined with some food… in the wasteland, the Black Cross Inquisition has many believers. No matter how you explain it, they won’t listen.”
It was time to film a few episodes of “Approach to Science.”
Xiang Nanli remarked casually: “People are always inclined to seek profit and avoid harm. People above the ruins might not necessarily believe in this ‘Divine Court’ so much. But the Divine Court gives them food and clothing, so they spontaneously become believers. You can’t expect them to believe in the Human Alliance while they are starving, can you? If the Human Alliance has spare resources, they could also air-drop more supplies. Help the humans on the surface; they live very hard lives.”
Xin Zhui and Xiu looked at each other.
Xin Zhui: “You haven’t had much contact with surface dwellers, have you? If you had, you’d only think these people deserve to be shot.”
Xiao Yan played with her fingernails, which were painted with pink nail polish, and said dismissively: “My mother once went to the surface to provide support. In the end, she had her protective suit stolen just to sell it for 10 catties of wheat. Because of radiation contamination, her lifespan was much shorter than that of residents in the Underground City; she has already passed away. She told me that my life is much happier than those on the surface and told me to be content. Also, never sympathize with the people on the surface—their suffering is not caused by us.”
Xiu said with a bitter smile: “But the current contradiction is that it’s already a struggle for the Human Alliance to provide for the residents of the Underground City. Expenses exceed income every year, and the finances have problems annually; it requires the companies to subsidize it. We really have no strength to spare for the surface. Actually, we haven’t given up on the surface; it’s just a strategic adjustment.”
Xiang Nanli frowned: “Finances have problems every year?… That’s more than likely a systemic failure.”
He said the last half of the sentence very softly. This issue was truly sensitive.
Luo Xiu shook his head: “There is no perfect political system in the world. Back when things were at their darkest and most dangerous, it was the Human Alliance that gathered the survivors together. I believe in the system of the Human Alliance. It’s just that we need to replace the inappropriate executors.”
Xin Zhui: “Hey, don’t just spout nonsense relying on the fact that there’s no cloud network here. If you’re being monitored by an internal AI, your career will be ruined!”
Xiang Nanli thought about the exorbitant breathing fees, the high cost of living, the five-year compulsory education and the brutal academic elimination system; he thought of the upper, middle, and lower city districts and his own forty-plus credit cards; he thought of the numb residents above and below the ruins and the mechanical modifications pushed for convenience.
“Fine. Don’t be so nervous, I was just chatting.”
Xiang Nanli aligned the last part with the connection port and held his breath.
He opened the central control hub located in Luo Xiu’s abdominal cavity. This was equivalent to a robot’s second brain, the place that controlled the movement of the mechanical prosthetics. Of course, some machine-modified humans implanted sensor plates in their brains, but that was a minority.
Xiang Nanli knelt and crouched before the control hub, cautiously eyeing the labyrinth-like circuits. If he connected even one line wrong, Xiu’s body could be scrapped. Xin Zhui didn’t even dare to speak now, for fear of disturbing Xiang Nanli’s line of thought.
Five minutes remained.
Xiang Nanli, wearing insulated gloves, attached the final wire. Then he spoke: “Activate power.”
The mechanical core began to supply energy to the metal prosthetic; abundant liquid energy flowed through the power lines, bringing a brilliant fluorescent blue halo wherever it traveled.
“Circuit check, passed.”
“Safety scan, passed.”
“Performance test, passed.”
…
“Repair degree, 79%.”
Xiu’s color wasn’t great, and his body was not uniform; the metal surfaces came from different components. It was like a piece of patched-up patchwork fabric. But—he stood up on his own. He had broken free from the state of being almost entirely scrapped.
Luo Xiu clenched his hand into a fist and swung it, his expression filled with surprise: “I can move!”
Although he had never used such cheap, inferior mechanical parts.
But at the very least, he didn’t need Xiao Yan to push him around anymore. And it felt quite sturdy; nothing fell apart.
After standing up, Luo Xiu discovered a small problem. He was 188cm tall, but the new body Xiang Nanli assembled for him was 8cm shorter.
“Captain!” Bodhi exclaimed with joy, “The backend intrusion was successful! Topographic map is unlocking.”
Luo Xiu said to Xiang Nanli: “Really not bad. If we can get out of here, I’ll write you a letter of recommendation to study in the Mechanical Department. Don’t waste your talent.”
Xiang Nanli was still smiling, but upon hearing this, his expression suddenly turned vigilant: “Wait, don’t lay such a flag!”
Almost the next second!
A piercing explosion sounded above their heads—
A large hole was blown open in the upper corner of the ceiling.
At the top of the ceiling was a large net cast from iron chains, which seemed to be for reinforcement. A blood-red claw firmly grasped the chains, emitting a piercing roar—”Yin!!”
The giant lizard tail slapped against the wall, and its cold, emotionless eyes locked onto them; it was clearly summoning its own kind.
The faces of everyone present changed drastically!
“How did they get here so fast?! What about the bombs I set—run!!” Bodhi’s voice was so shrill it cracked.
Running was a bit too late. The smell of gunpowder rushed at them, and a massive torrent of water gushed and poured in from the opening that had been blown out. It turned out this place connected to an underground river!
Xiang Nanli was caught off guard and knocked over by the filthy river water; his vision went dark. The water rushed into his air filter, carrying a nauseating smell of rust.
He struggled in the currents that were merging into a river: “Damn it! Cool guy, can’t you just stop talking, wouldn’t it be better to be a mute?!”
If he’d known, he would have removed the vocal cords when he was repairing Xiu!
