Chapter 22: Charged for 600 Years, Used for 3 Minutes.
That “I am here” was incredibly grounding.
It was the voice of a mature man. Even though he had uttered only a single word, it was remarkably pleasant to the ear, like a brief, elegant chord struck on a stringed instrument.
Held tightly against his chest, Xiang Nanli’s brain hadn’t even fully processed the situation, yet his hands instinctively went to work, groping and exploring the body in front of him.
From this, it was evident that Xin Zhui had been entirely justified in handcuffing him back in the vehicle. The hands of these mechanics were never honest.
The stranger’s hair seemed to be on the longer side, as Xiang Nanli brushed against smooth, silky strands near the shoulder. The chest—while it couldn’t be described as flat—definitely didn’t possess the contours or volume of a female body. Furthermore, it felt incredible to the touch; it wasn’t hard metal at all. Instead, it felt exactly like real human flesh. Xiang Nanli politely gave it just a single squeeze.
Slipping his hands further down, he found a remarkably fluid waistline.
Wait, I can’t keep violating a metallic being like this. He reminded himself. I’ve heard that intelligent machines enjoy human rights these days.
Xiang Nanli’s eyes still hadn’t recovered from the blinding glare, but he could feel that the proportions of the body before him were flawless. It was the kind of elegant, beautiful silhouette that required a foundation of superior genetics combined with rigorous physical training to achieve.
What Xiang Nanli didn’t know was that barely half a meter away, a dome of silver-white light enveloped them, perfectly absorbing the torrential barrage of firepower unleashed by the Mechanical Crawler.
A plasma shield.
It was deployed incredibly close, almost directly behind the Oriental Qingdi.
The Oriental Qingdi did not breathe—he likely had no physiological need to—but to better adapt to this body, he quickly began to simulate respiration and blinking. Just like a human. It was just that the intervals between each breath were a bit too mathematically precise.
The totemic pillar behind them was actually a uniquely constructed cryogenic containment bay, its doors currently hanging wide open. One could still see severed intravenous tubes dangling inside, though they could just as easily have been charging cables.
His mechanical heart thudded violently. If he had been even 0.1 seconds later, he would have inherited nothing but a vaporized Xiang Nanli. With the current level of technology, reconstructing a human from scattered molecules was a monumental task. More importantly, a physical restructuring was an entirely different concept from a soul-level recombination.
Why did I feel fear? Is it because my core chip is still inside Xiang Nanli’s physical body? Alpha couldn’t quite comprehend it.
Then, he heard the blind Xiang Nanli let out a wistful sigh from his embrace: “So the Oriental Qingdi isn’t a giant mech suit after all…?”
Discovering that the legendary asset was merely a humanoid android left Xiang Nanli profoundly disappointed.
The Oriental Qingdi: “…”
A sudden influx of redundant data flooded his system because of Xiang Nanli. Did I catch a virus? Where is this bizarre urge to lash out coming from?
Unclasping his arms, the Oriental Qingdi spoke: “Give me ten minutes.”
Still trapped in darkness, the sudden loss of physical contact felt, to Xiang Nanli, like a total severance from the world. Standing in the void, the corners of his lips curled up slightly. “Alright.” He didn’t ask him to promise to return.
The Oriental Qingdi looked up toward the abyss. He possessed a pair of silver-grey eyes, dominated heavily by the silver hue, completely devoid of emotion. They resembled a silver moon reflected in a pool of pitch-black water. His long, dark hair blew back in the wind, revealing a smooth forehead. The face beneath it easily evoked the image of a razor-sharp blade. Even without a single shred of expression, the visage exuded an innate, cold arrogance.
Though his name contained the word “Qing” (Green), there wasn’t a single trace of green anywhere on his body.
It was worth mentioning that he looked exactly like the avatar Alpha used in the virtual space.
The good news: It was a flawless face that aligned perfectly with Xiang Nanli’s exact aesthetic preferences.
The bad news: It aligned with his preferences from when he was eighteen years old.
By the time Xiang Nanli reached his twenties, he had developed a fondness for bright, puppy-like men. In his thirties, he leaned more toward gentle, house-husband types. Not to mention, he was already forty-eight years old when he entered the cryogenic pod…
Staring up at the Mechanical Crawler, the Oriental Qingdi casually pulled off his gloves.
He possessed mechanical hands, but they weren’t entirely fabricated from raw metal. One could see a silver-white metallic chassis covering the majority of his palms, extending up toward his forearms. Upon the ring and pinky finger joints where synthetic skin was exposed, silver-white metallic rings were embedded. They looked like jewelry.
Bioengineering and cybernetic machinery had achieved absolute synergy within him; he was bound to be astronomically expensive.
The Crawler unhinged its jaws, exposing rows of vicious fangs as it unleashed a barrage of low growls at the Oriental Qingdi. Yet, the terror laced within its voice vastly outweighed the threat. It had no idea what this entity was, but its primal biological instincts were screaming at it to flee.
How could a tiny human invoke this?
When its own physical form was so grand, so titanic!
The minuscule human took a single step forward. Before anyone could perceive how he moved, he materialized directly on top of the Crawler’s head in the blink of an eye.
He needed no weapons. This body was the ultimate living weapon on earth, even if his current methods lacked elegance.
Completely ignoring the blistering thermal radiation, he clamped his hand around one of the Crawler’s eyes and popped it like a water balloon. Viscous fluid exploded everywhere. The thick, foul-smelling blood of the Crawler drenched his entire frame. Strangely, the blood was rapidly absorbed into the Oriental Qingdi’s synthetic skin.
Squatting down atop the monster’s skull, he ran a hand across its pale, dry hide.
Sensing mortal peril, the Crawler thrashed frantically, attempting to hurl the Oriental Qingdi off its back. But this human—yes, in the Crawler’s sensory perception, it was a human—acted like a powerful magnet, locked immovably onto its body.
In a panicked frenzy, the monster discharged every weapon system it possessed, flailing its massive arms to crush the intruder. Yet, the Oriental Qingdi always vanished a millisecond before the palm could connect. The Crawler ended up violently slapping itself multiple times—inflicting 20% damage to the enemy (mostly through energy consumption) while dealing 1000\% self-harm.
The weakness of genetically modified humans lay in the head. Naturally, the definition of modified humans extended to mutants, as well as their evolutionary offshoots like the Crawlers.
Having located the critical vulnerability, the Oriental Qingdi dropped to one knee. His expression turned razor-sharp as he drove a fist straight downward.
A heavy, low resonance echoed through the chamber: Vvvmm.
The floor buckled into a terrifying crater, and matching the indentation, the Crawler’s skull collapsed completely. Shattered floor tiles and fragments of stone from the ceiling rained down in all directions.
With a pitiful, dying wail, the Crawler’s body lost all structural integrity, collapsing limply to the earth. It was dead.
[Reserve energy critically low. Please note remaining battery (2%). Eco-mode activated; weapon modules temporarily unavailable.]
Looking down at the silver ring on his pinky finger flashing frantically, a rare flicker of irritation finally crossed his face. “How am I out of juice already?”
Charged for 600 years, used for 3 minutes. Is this reasonable? Did the charging dock—that totemic pillar—even bother to do its job for the last six centuries?
Then again, he couldn’t entirely blame the hardware.
The “Mechanical Crawler” project was actually a spin-off born only after the research on the Oriental Qingdi had failed. Decades ago, the researchers had discovered to their despair that although they had successfully constructed the “Oriental Qingdi” using cracked black-tech, it was nothing more than a beautiful corpse.
The Oriental Qingdi couldn’t boot up. Whether it was a programming error or a structural design beyond their comprehension, the unit flatly refused to initialize. It was like owning the latest smartphone without a compatible data cable or charging brick. Thermal power, electrical power, even nuclear energy—to this body, they were all primitive, incompatible power sources.
The researchers fundamentally couldn’t comprehend the high-dimensional energy required to jumpstart it—an energy that theoretically originated from “Calabi-Yau space,” a hypothetical six-dimensional universe. If they had submitted those analysis results to the board of directors, it would have read like a high-fantasy novel.
Weighing the impossibility of discovering a brand-new energy source against developing a secondary technology, the stressed-out researchers chose the latter to save their skins. They needed to deliver something tangible to answer for the mountain of resources they had consumed—resources that included assets far more valuable than mere currency, such as political networks and classified intelligence. They had to produce results, or their enraged investors would strip them of everything.
Thus, “Bio-Cybernetic Technology” and the mutants were born.
The Oriental Qingdi pried open the Mechanical Crawler’s jaws, stepped inside, and extracted a glowing, crystalline stone from its mangled brain. The metallic plating on his palm slid open, revealing a hollow, customized docking slot beneath the surface.
He slotted the glowing stone inside, and the metallic plates automatically slid back into place, sealing seamlessly.
[Biological energy replenishment complete. Energy conversion in progress.]
Stepping out from the crushed skull of the Crawler, the Oriental Qingdi muttered, “And there’s a distance limitation, too.”
His true processing core was still anchored within Xiang Nanli’s physical brain. Consequently, the moment he strayed beyond a specific radius from Xiang Nanli, the “Oriental Qingdi” vessel would lose its connection and drop into a shutdown state, while the “Alpha” AI inside Xiang Nanli’s mind would boot back up. He didn’t truly own this body yet; he was merely piloting it via a glorified Bluetooth connection from within Xiang Nanli.
What a malicious piece of programming. Who on earth designed this architecture?
However, now was not the time to ponder system flaws. He flashed back to Xiang Nanli’s side, exactly ten minutes having elapsed.
He had intended to say “I’m back,” but he quickly realized the words were redundant. Xiang Nanli was collapsed on the ground, completely unresponsive.
WARNING: Target vital signs are critical.
The Oriental Qingdi’s silver pupils narrowed. Xiang Nanli required immediate medical intervention. But Xiang Nanli’s bank account was completely drained (he had just maxed it out to pay off his credit card debts), and he didn’t possess any medical insurance. Even if he were transported to a hospital, he would be left to die.
What could he do? He knew he could exploit a dark-web ghost account to wire money into Xiang Nanli’s profile, but it would inevitably leave a data trail. Was he supposed to gamble that the vile beast ruling Luoyang wouldn’t intercept it?
The Oriental Qingdi didn’t waste time hesitating. He scooped Xiang Nanli up in a bridal carry and blinked forward.
He materialized a few hundred meters away, directly in front of Luo Xiu.
Luo Xiu’s eyes instantly flared with hostility; if he hadn’t recognized Xiang Nanli in the man’s arms, he would have opened fire on the spot. Xin Zhui’s injuries had stabilized, though he remained unconscious. Luo Xiu instinctively shifted his weight to shield his companion, his gaze locking with the Oriental Qingdi’s in midair.
The built-in AI within Luo Xiu’s mind reported:
“Master. According to scans, this is an ordinary human with a 25% cybernetic modification rate. Estimated bone age is 24 years. No mechanical core detected; non-combat class cyborg.”
“Who are you?”
“How long until your family’s medical team arrives?”
The two spoke simultaneously.
Luo Xiu adjusted his stance cautiously. “Answer my question first.”
The Oriental Qingdi pressed a hand against Xiang Nanli’s forehead to check his temperature. “I am an employee of Donghuang Heavy Industries, Security Department. I was just defrosted from a cryogenic containment pod. He is severely injured; internal organ compression trauma has induced a critical fever and infection.”
At this, the Oriental Qingdi’s brow furrowed slightly in blatant irritation. “Furthermore, he has stomach cancer. In light of the fact that he risked his life to activate the ‘Oriental Qingdi,’ save him. In return, we can hand the Oriental Qingdi over to you.”
Despite bargaining for someone’s life, his demeanor remained entirely detached, as though he were casually discussing the weather.
Luo Xiu had no desire to pick apart the logical inconsistencies in the stranger’s story. Straightening his posture, he asked anxiously, “And where is the Oriental Qingdi?”
This was the ultimate prize he sought—the entire reason he had taken such a massive gamble. He didn’t even care to ask how the man had survived inside a pod. During the war-torn eras, countless wealthy individuals had buried themselves in cryogenic units; specialized ruin-reclamation teams dug a few out during almost every major excavation.
The Oriental Qingdi replied, “It is still at the crash site. But we need to sign a contract first. The terms dictate that you must heal him at all costs. Furthermore, you will purchase a piece of real estate for us in Gusu City. It must be located in the Midtown district, paid in full—no sixty-year mortgages. It must be at least 85 square meters, fully furnished and renovated. Thank you.”
…Wait, what kind of bizarre logic had Xiang Nanli managed to train into him over the past few days?
Luo Xiu, however, found the terms incredibly reasonable. He commanded his built-in AI to draft a digital contract, but when he attempted to scan the stranger, no citizen data emerged. Instead, only Xiang Nanli’s registered network signal pinged back.
As if reading his confusion, the Oriental Qingdi stated, “I haven’t been provisioned with a modern built-in AI yet.”
Do individuals defrosted from centuries ago not require citizen ID cards? Or were the employees of Donghuang Heavy Industries just naturally anti-establishment? Luo Xiu wondered.
In the next second, a signature materialized on the document. Alpha finalized the contract with Luo Xiu under Xiang Nanli’s legal name. Luo Xiu was an honorable, decent youth. Being young meant he hadn’t been hardened by the cynicism of the world; his heart was still soft, still warm.
The Oriental Qingdi scanned the finalized text. To his surprise, the contract didn’t just include the apartment—Luo Xiu had thrown in an additional 500,000 credit points allocated specifically for “maintenance fees.”
The Oriental Qingdi nodded approval. “Follow me.”
With the Oriental Qingdi carrying Xiang Nanli and Luo Xiu hoisting Xin Zhui onto his back, the two retraced their steps from the observation quarters back into the central hall.
Stopping at the edge of the expanse, the Oriental Qingdi pointed down into the massive, collapsed fissure. “The Oriental Qingdi is right down there.”
And indeed, it was. He was pointing directly at the massive containment capsule that served as both a cryogenic pod and a charging dock.
At that exact moment, the specialized “packaging box” began to automatically shift and reassemble itself according to the exact parameters of Xiang Nanli’s tech fantasies, morphing into a towering, twelve-meter-tall, ivory-white mecha suit. It exuded an incredible aura of futuristic sci-fi design, leaving Luo Xiu utterly spellbound.
“That,” the Oriental Qingdi announced grandly, “is the authentic Oriental Qingdi.”
Hah. He thought to himself. These clueless modern humans won’t be able to tell the difference anyway.
