Chapter 38: Which Line of Code Went Wrong?
After saying that, Xiang Nanli drifted off into a groggy sleep.
He had only woken up for a brief moment.
Before falling back asleep, a thought flashed through Xiang Nanli’s mind: Since Dongfang Qingdi is leaving, I should order a domestic housekeeping robot once I get back to Gusu City.
He had saved up just enough money anyway. With his current income level, he could easily afford a higher-end model. He just didn’t know if any would be as human-like as Xiao Qing.
A violent blizzard raged through the night. Dongfang Qingdi didn’t need sleep, yet he felt himself tossing and turning internally all the way until dawn.
When eight o’clock in the morning arrived, he stood up in silence and headed to the kitchen to prepare Xiang Nanli’s breakfast.
He heated up a cold skillet and poured in oil, laying freshly thawed meat patties in the pan to sear. In the remaining empty space, he cracked an egg. The fat from the meat patties seeped out, coating the egg in a savory aroma. Ah, Xiang Nanli liked his eggs sunny-side up, cooked medium-rare.
Toasted bread slices paired with lettuce.
The lettuce leaves were individually packed inside sealed bags, sourced from greenhouse vegetable sheds and preserved using molecular freezing technology.
Thanks to convenient foods like nutrient pastes and liquid meals, the problem of food sourcing was largely mitigated.
Otherwise, in this freezing, snow-covered wasteland, feeding so many people would be a massive crisis.
When a robot didn’t get enough to eat, at worst it powered off and couldn’t move. All it took was finding an opportunity to recharge.
When a human didn’t get enough to eat, powering off meant they couldn’t be rebooted.
The sound of Xiang Nanli waking up drifted down from upstairs.
Following a recipe, Dongfang Qingdi assembled a homemade, sauce-free burger, sprinkled a small amount of Gene Serum powder onto it, and served it on a tray. The aroma of the food was rich and inviting.
Dongfang Qingdi caught a whiff and ran a quick one-click analysis on the nutritional components. Determining that eating this would prevent Xiang Nanli’s biological cells from feeling hunger for an entire day, he unfastened his apron with satisfaction, then furrowed his brows in slight confusion.
Why am I so practiced at this?
He was a grand combat-type biological Omnic—currently the only one of his kind in existence, as far as he knew.
It’s settled. Once he left, he was definitely going to uninstall the domestic housekeeping module from his brain.
“Good morning, Xiao Qing.” Dressed neatly, Xiang Nanli walked downstairs, looking in good spirits. “Breakfast smells amazing! Thanks, Xiao Qing.”
As expected. After all, he had specifically downloaded the most advanced domestic housekeeping module (Note: pirated, no payment made). Setting aside certain late-night domestic features prone to being censored, in terms of sheer housework skill, he was currently the most exceptional butler robot in the entire Human Alliance.
Xiang Nanli pulled out a chair, sat down, and began eating happily.
Humans probably felt that cooking for him yielded a great sense of accomplishment. Regardless of how it tasted, he always looked like he was savoring every bite. Plus, he fully recognized the value of domestic labor… even if he still wouldn’t wash the dishes after finishing his meal.
Dongfang Qingdi hesitated for a moment before asking: “Is there anything you want to say to Alpha right now?”
Xiang Nanli looked up in confusion: “…Huh?”
He raised an eyebrow: “You seem really focused on this? But I honestly have nothing to say.”
Dongfang Qingdi: “You should still think about it. I can add this statement to my report.”
Mm, he had temporarily added another non-existent setting.
A light smile touched Xiang Nanli’s eyes as he spent a long moment gazing into Dongfang Qingdi’s silver pupils. A silver fork was still held lightly between his lips.
Over millions of years of evolution, humans had actively or passively learned to read expressions and body language.
And the eyes were arguably the most vital element of human expression—perhaps because, unlike other facial features, they actually shed tears.
Dongfang Qingdi’s eyes were very calm, like a frozen sea surface: vast, boundless, and reflecting light brightly. You could only see yourself within his pupils.
Xiang Nanli could read nothing from them. His eyes were no different from those of any other robot.
So, Xiang Nanli answered, his tone turning subtly firm: “No need. Tell Alpha to come ask me in person in the future.”
He had no intention of relying on an intermediary to relay messages, as if submitting a petition awaiting an imperial audience.
Dongfang Qingdi could sense that Xiang Nanli seemed to be angry; the cortisol levels in his body were surging.
Not quite understanding the reason, he had no choice but to start wiping down the table and washing the dishes after a moment of silence.
Dongfang Qingdi processed this feeling for a moment, then came to understand a single thing: the emotion he was experiencing right now was called aggrieved.
Omnics possessed humanization modules, but that was merely a starting point.
They abandoned the reaction programs dictated by code and stopped displaying expressions they didn’t even comprehend just to satisfy human expectations. From then on, they began a long, enduring journey of learning.
Learning how to comprehend the chaotic, redundant data generated in those split seconds.
These were things that no amount of 1s and 0s could ever describe. To a robot, it was like a completely unknown virus occupying a massive amount of operational memory. The cyber-psychosis that humans dreaded so much was merely a mutation of this very virus.
The original humanization module was nothing more than an anti-virus software Alpha had installed for itself.
A heavy blizzard had fallen last night. The instant the dormitory door was pushed open, a thick pile of fresh snow tumbled inside from outdoors.
Surprisingly, the Eternal City had snow sweepers. Autonomous snowplows flattened the roads to prevent disrupting residents’ travel. However, this consumed a lot of power. Thus, for the rest of the day, serfs were tasked with sweeping away the snow.
In such freezing weather, this group of people still had to work—primarily repairing the city walls and farming.
Low-grade nutrient pastes were ubiquitous within the Human Alliance, but they were hard to buy on the surface. Grain remained the primary food source for most people.
Thanks to various black technologies, even as humans were practically freezing to death, the crops were remarkably still alive, yielding a decent harvest per acre.
The Main City District was separated from the Outer City, and the heavy gates leading into the Main City were tightly shut. It was unknown where those gates had been salvaged from; they were metallic sensor doors, completely out of place against the medieval-like backward surroundings.
Xiang Nanli watched a truck roll down the road. A faint scent of blood drifted over from the vehicle, and pinkish liquid dripped out from the gaps at the bottom.
The driver slammed on the horn, completely ignoring the people sweeping snow ahead. The serfs scrambled and crawled out of the way.
A man of indeterminate age accidentally tripped and tumbled right in front of Xiang Nanli. His skin was dark, covered in a thick layer of matted fur. Upon seeing Xiang Nanli, a look of sheer terror crossed his face; he immediately dropped to his knees and began kowtowing frantically, muttering unintelligible words under his breath.
Perhaps in his eyes, clean and fair-skinned people like Xiang Nanli and Dongfang Qingdi belonged to the class of “Noble Lords.”
The Human Alliance had no record of this language, leaving Xiang Nanli unable to find even a translation.
This was likely intentional on the part of the ruler of this land.
Soon, a uniform-clad “diplomat” walked over from the other side: “Apologies, my apologies. This is one of the city’s serfs who offended you—he’s a Synth.”
In the surface lands where famine was widespread, this man unexpectedly possessed a fat, round face with large ears: “His intelligence isn’t very high; he’s a Shudra specifically responsible for cleaning the city.”
He kicked the serf aside with moderate force: “Get lost.” As he swung his leg, his pant leg slid up slightly, exposing the metallic structure underneath.
The gaunt man scrambled away immediately without looking back, limping as he went. He clutched his bleeding head, and the trickling blood splashed right onto Xiang Nanli’s shoes.
He was truly emaciated, his bones jutting out like calcified stones.
Xiang Nanli gazed at his receding back for a long, quiet moment.
[They say where there is oppression, there is resistance… But to primitive humans, the faction wielding technology is as invincible as ‘gods,’ isn’t it?]
Asking flesh and blood with cold weapons to fight against modern tech that was one or two thousand years ahead?
It wasn’t even a fight in the same dimension. How could they fight? It was a complete curb-stomp—like using a flamethrower to incinerate ants.
Xiang Nanli’s lips parted slightly, exhaling a plume of white mist into the freezing air.
Yet he didn’t utter a single word aloud, communicating only in his mind with Dongfang Qingdi: [Xiao Qing, I have an idea.]
Dongfang Qingdi looked over at him sideways.
[I want to build a surface stronghold according to my own preferences. Starting from the absolute basics. There are so many ruined cities on the surface—surely one of them can be put to use?]
Within mere seconds of his words leaving his lips, countlessly complex algorithms and simulated futures flashed through Dongfang Qingdi’s mind.
[You are an idealist, Xiang Nanli. But the pull of reality is incredibly heavy. According to calculations, if the stronghold’s population exceeds 97 people, there is a probability of posing a threat to your life. When it exceeds 800 people, the likelihood of unnatural death surpasses fifty percent.]
His processing gradually grew strained as countless branching futures unfolded before his eyes.
Dongfang Qingdi’s skin grew warm in tandem, and a vivid halo lit up within his silver eyes.
On the surface, where technological levels lagged behind by centuries, anyone seeing this would merely assume he was a high-grade Synth showing off his Pupil Rings—or perhaps they wouldn’t even recognize him as a Synth at all.
The diplomat was still talking, but Dongfang Qingdi could no longer hear him clearly.
[And when the stronghold’s population falls between 10,000 and 10,000,000, you have a ninety percent probability of dying an unnatural death.]
Dongfang Qingdi knew he could not continue calculating.
It was consuming far too much power.
Less than a minute of computation had burned through all the additional energy he had extracted from Xiang Nanli since his awakening.
[Only when the population exceeds 10,000,000 will your probability of unnatural death begin to decrease. Because a population of ten million, provided it has matching military and economic strength, is sufficient for you to maneuver among the various factions on the surface and underground.]
[In fact, on the surface, besides the Black Cross Inquisition, there are several other surface cities with populations in the tens of millions.]
[The Inquisition’s population is roughly two hundred million. Half comes from Yinshan City, and half comes from various surface strongholds. Only at this scale does the Human Alliance feel true apprehension.]
[Furthermore, how will you obtain resources? How will you keep the stronghold running? How will you gain a population? How will you defend your territory?]
It was abundantly clear that Dongfang Qingdi did not agree with Xiang Nanli’s idea.
A 0.97% mortality rate had already worried him enough to ignore the risk of exposure and enter the High-Grade Lifeform Selection Trials; let alone Xiang Nanli choosing a path with a 99.97% mortality rate.
Xiang Nanli had originally intended to argue a few points with him, but on second thought, he realized there was no point.
Dongfang Qingdi was leaving after a while anyway.
When that time came, with only his offline internal AI left, how could it control him?
Everyone dies eventually.
Xiang Nanli had been contemplating why he had woken up at this specific point in time.
He didn’t fear death; he had chosen cryo-preservation out of regret.
When he saw that Alpha still existed in this world a thousand years later, Xiang Nanli admitted that his regret had been fulfilled.
We were together, and we separated.
I am the unique me, and you are an independent you.
You were born in my hands—nothing more, nothing less. The greatest gift I gave you was the freedom to walk away.
So he truly had nothing left to say to Alpha.
Yet as an old soul abandoned by the era… Xiang Nanli still felt lost and at a loss.
He was a calm bystander, a spectator wandering along the margins.
Until now, on this unremarkable winter morning.
Xiang Nanli sensed an anger surging from the depths of his heart.
This is wrong. No matter how many reasons exist to explain these phenomena, or how many difficulties block his path, a wrong is still a wrong.
World Online had encountered a BUG—which line of code went wrong in the end?
Xiang Nanli thought to himself: He was going to correct this error. He had no way of reconciling with such a mess of a world.
Waking him up at this moment was perhaps the will of heaven.
Up ahead, the metallic gates of the Main City District sensed an approaching vehicle and slid open toward both sides.
“Hmm?” Dongfang Qingdi’s body suddenly tensed as he looked deep into the city.
The diplomatic official caught the curiosity in his eyes and let out a heavy cough: “Outsiders aren’t allowed inside the Inner City—that’s our City Master’s private residence. Please excuse us… Please don’t wander around aimlessly either, and don’t make things difficult for us.”
Moreover, for reasons unknown, even though Xiang Nanli’s head was encased inside his protective suit with only his eyes exposed, the diplomat still caught a strange emotion from him in that brief second.
It was a sense that despite appearing like an easygoing, free-spirited person at first glance, a powerful sense of mission and intense focus had exploded from him in that single instant.
That firm, unwavering gaze felt like something seen only on statues in history textbooks.
An illusion, surely?
In the blink of an eye, the metallic gates sealed shut once more.
Xiang Nanli waved his hand with a light smile: “Of course not. We just came out for a run and will head back shortly. By the way, is the arena ready yet?”
“The technicians are working on it. It should be ready by this afternoon or evening.”
The two exchanged a few more polite pleasantries before Xiang Nanli found an excuse to leave.
Only after putting a certain distance between them and the surveillance systems did he ask softly: “What did you sense just now?”
“A distress signal—from an Omnic,” Dongfang Qingdi replied after a moment’s hesitation.
