Chapter 58: The Heart Will Tell You the Answer
Xiang Nanli reached out and touched his own neck. It was wet. He said in shock: “Xiao Qing, why are you leaking fluid?”
When many bionic robots were manufactured, a layer of coolant would be injected just under the surface of their skin to prevent the chips from overheating. Even though Xiang Nanli had never built one himself, he had read a few books on the subject.
He cupped Dongfang Qingdi’s face in his hands.
Xiao Qing kept his head bowed, refusing to look up.
It reminded one of an alpha wolf who had lost a fight and, fearing being driven out by the pack, secretly hid away its wounds.
“Look up, look at me.” Xiang Nanli’s tone grew stern.
Dongfang Qingdi remained stubborn for a moment before finally slowly raising his head.
Xiang Nanli saw a face continuously streaming with tears. His eyes were flushed an angry red, like someone suffering a severe hangover.
Dongfang Qingdi’s lips were pressed into a tight line, yet they still trembled uncontrollably.
Xiang Nanli was silent for a moment before asking, somewhat awkwardly: “Are you crying?”
I’m screwed.
The sight of him crying sent Xiang Nanli’s heart racing, his thoughts running completely wild.
Xiang Nanli used his index finger to wipe the corner of Dongfang Qingdi’s eye. Embracing the spirit of experimentation, he gave it a light sniff and then tasted it: “…Hmm, it really is water and salt? How did you do that? It’s amazing. So the reason those machines judged you to be human wasn’t that you interfered with their judgment systems?”
“Why did you come back so suddenly? Get off me first, alright? You’re heavy,” Xiang Nanli continued.
Right at that moment, the bedroom door suddenly opened.
Both people on the sofa snapped their heads over at the exact same time.
Xiao Bai stood leaning against the doorframe, speaking in a gentle voice: “Xiang Nanli, the bathwater is drawn. I will wait for you in the bathroom.”
As a male-model housekeeping robot, Xiao Bai was dressed simply in a white button-down shirt and black dress pants. However, the sleeves had been intentionally rolled up to his elbows, and his honey-toned skin was faintly visible through the slightly damp white shirt, exuding a pure, clear “househusband” aura.
The atmosphere fell dead silent for at least half a minute.
Xiao Bai seemed completely oblivious to the stifling tension and smiled as he gently closed the door.
Dongfang Qingdi’s voice suddenly spiked in volume: “Who is that???”
The lightbulb in the house began to flicker wildly, incredibly unstable.
Xiang Nanli’s head was full of question marks: “Why are you being so fierce? What’s the point of asking me? Ask Xiao Zhi! It’s not like I’m the one who designed him.”
He had merely instructed Xiao Zhi to place the order; he knew absolutely nothing about the model or the appearance settings.
Xiao Zhi had asked him what kind he liked, and Xiang Nanli just replied, “Whatever works.” So, even Xiao Bai’s appearance was the result of a random dice roll.
Xiao Zhi instantly panicked in horror: [Wait, I—]
Having finally managed to develop a tiny bit of genuine intelligence, Xiao Zhi was once again reduced to a little artificial idiot. Bottom-tier artificial intelligence truly had zero AI rights.
Dongfang Qingdi loaded the data and discovered that this housekeeping robot had indeed just arrived—barely two or three hours before he did. The high-voltage neural currents surging within his body finally stabilized.
His brows furrowed: “Return him. This household doesn’t need a housekeeping robot.”
Xiang Nanli didn’t know if it was just his imagination.
They hadn’t seen each other for a few days, but Xiao Qing’s temper had definitely worsened, and he carried a certain inertia of having held a high position for a long time. Instinctively, Xiang Nanli felt annoyed by this.
Xiang Nanli pushed Dongfang Qingdi off him and sat up properly on the sofa.
“Xiao Bai,” he called out the other’s name while staring directly into Dongfang Qingdi’s eyes, “come out and pour some tea.”
The housekeeping robot, Xiao Bai, walked out of the bedroom with a beaming smile.
He seemed remarkably familiar with the layout of the house. Opening the cupboard, he dug out the Da Hong Pao tea leaves Luo Xiu had left behind, boiled the hot water, and filtered the tea.
As the tea poured into the porcelain cups, the sound merged into a continuous, pleasant tinkling of water.
Xiao Bai pushed a teacup in front of Dongfang Qingdi, his voice soft: “Please enjoy your tea, guest.” As he leaned down, the sweet scent of lemon verbena drifted off his body.
For a split second, Dongfang Qingdi actually suspected he was doing it on purpose.
He swept his gaze over the housekeeping robot, picked up the teacup, and used the motion of drinking to hide the silver-white Pupil Rings faintly glowing in his eyes.
The entity across from him was installed with a Housekeeping Module and an Emotional Response Module; aside from those, it lacked any offensive capabilities whatsoever, and its background code was incredibly clean. It wouldn’t even take Dongfang Qingdi three seconds to hack into it.
After checking the data, he covertly uninstalled the housekeeping robot’s mandatory “Night Duty Mode,” as well as the “Romance Response” and “Personality Simulation” functions embedded within its Emotional Response Module.
Xiao Bai’s personality had been rolled randomly on the ordering page, and it just so happened to land on the exact archetype Dongfang Qingdi despised the most—it reminded him of a truly detestable old acquaintance.
The smile on the housekeeping robot’s face gradually faded, and his eyes grew dull and vacant.
Xiang Nanli: “Why did you come back?”
This was the third time he had asked today.
And this time, Dongfang Qingdi finally provided an answer: “I received a new mission, so I don’t need to return for the time being.”
Received a new mission.
Or rather, his mind had been forcefully crammed with a massive data stream.
Under normal operational protocols, the scattered Alpha slave units transmitted data back to the mainframe.
Aside from a few critical models, the primary purpose of these slave units was observation and recording. They roamed the wasteland, recording the soil quality, air composition, nuclear radiation levels, and the state of the biosphere. They cared far more about the future of humanity on the Surface than the Human Alliance ever did.
They were essentially Alpha’s eyes. But not every single unit possessed actual intelligence.
Alpha 5.2.0, however, was the overseer that 0.0.0 had dispatched to Donghuang Heavy Industry—that black-hearted factory had scammed him out of trillions in military funds! Not hundreds, not thousands, but eighty thousand. Unit: hundred millions [8 trillion].
He wasn’t the kind of artificial intelligence who liked to embezzle public funds. That eight trillion wasn’t entirely in cash, but it had thoroughly hollowed out the fortune Alpha had painstakingly amassed over three hundred years.
Alpha even possessed the founder’s shares in Immortality Tech—the ones Xiang Nanli had left him. He had sold them off but deliberately refused to sell them to Luoyang, nearly causing Immortality Tech to fracture into three separate companies as a result. The rest of the funds came from arms smuggling, shell corporations, and extraterrestrial mining operations.
The enterprise known as Donghuang Heavy Industry was also one that Alpha had propped up before leaving the Human Alliance.
Though it was infuriating that the investment had gone down the drain, Alpha knew very well that such ventures inherently carried risks.
Later, the experiments failed, and the Human Alliance directly devoured Donghuang Heavy Industry. Luoyang visited twice, and 0.0.0 entirely lost contact with 5.2.0.
When 5.2.0 suddenly came back online, 0.0.0 was somewhat surprised, but it felt more like a dying flash of lucidity.
After that, 0.0.0 had transmitted several satellite signals but received no response.
In order to find the slave unit closest to Gusu City, Alpha directly activated the satellite array.
147 artificial satellites booted up instantly, synchronizing global signals. At that very moment, Alpha observed every single “Alpha” currently active on the Surface.
Within the data network, they looked like individual stars scattered across the ground.
Alpha simply selected the few closest to Gusu City and issued the command: Proceed to Gusu City and locate Xiang Nanli.
He knew full well that the hardware of these slave units was subpar. Forcing a possession would only result in one outcome: the intelligent chips would burn out and be destroyed.
He also knew that because of their judgment logic, these Alphas would likely find many different versions of “Xiang Nanli,” and ultimately, they would have to be brought back to the Omnic Legion to be verified one by one.
Until he discovered Version 5.2.0 among this group of slave units.
Alpha 0.0.0 casually read the data—
An ocean of data intertwined, and the memories synchronized directly into his mind.
“I don’t hate Alpha, you know.”
“I don’t regret it. He is my most perfect creation. I still love him.”
“Yes, my fiancé and I are heading back to the base…”
Alpha’s hands trembled with fury, and his eyes burned red as he listened.
5.2.0 actually dared to withhold data uploads!
This was Xiang Nanli. The living, breathing Xiang Nanli.
In order to resist electronic virus corruption, Alpha had purged his database many, many times.
So much so that years later, the Xiang Nanli within his database was nothing more than a blurry, faceless shadow.
Alpha had carved him into his source code, remembering every single event connected to him, yet he could no longer recognize Xiang Nanli’s face.
It wasn’t until this very moment that features finally surfaced upon the blank face in his memory once again.
Many years ago, Beta had asked him whether she should accept Delta’s proposal.
“I don’t know what this feeling is. When I see him, I feel a bit happy but also a bit uneasy. His passionate pursuit confuses me. Is this what humans call ‘love’? He says he would violate his own source code to do anything for me—what is the reason for this? Is it real, or just a pretty lie? Should I accept him?”
Alpha had replied: The heart will tell you the answer.
Can an Omnic have a heart? Do they understand what love is? Have you ever seen a flower bloom? Heard the sound of the wind? Smelled the first snow of winter? What kind of five senses does a virtual world provide you? In a world woven entirely from data, can you tell what is real and what is fake?
The heart will tell you the answer.
And so, Dongfang Qingdi returned to this place, carrying with him a portion of the memories that belonged to 0.0.0.
Just like an exhausted traveler who had walked an incredibly long road and finally made it home.
From 0.0.0 to 9.9.9—no matter which version of Alpha it was, they would all run toward you.
…
…
“What new mission?” Xiang Nanli pressed.
Dongfang Qingdi answered without the slightest hesitation: “To collect more bio-energy.”
He paused slightly. “There are too many people in this house right now. You, me, Xiao Fu, Beichen, and now a housekeeping robot. There’s no room to sleep.”
“How could there be no room? You sleep with me. Xiao Bei and Gospel take your room. And Xiao Bai can just sleep on the sofa.”
How perfect. The household hierarchy and each person’s weight in Xiang Nanli’s heart were glaringly obvious.
Dongfang Qingdi’s heart inevitably skipped a beat, but he continued to argue: “There’s only one charging station in the house.”
Xiang Nanli: “Beichen is an old model; he runs on a storage battery. You don’t need to charge either. That just leaves Xiao Fu and Xiao Bai needing the station, so they can just stagger their charging times. A single charge lasts a really long time anyway. Besides, housekeeping robots don’t support the ‘7-day no-questions-asked return’ policy.”
Xiao Bai, standing off to the side, spoke up: “Please do not return me. My appearance was custom-made; if I am returned, I can only be sent back to the furnace and remade. Xiao Bai does not want to be destroyed.”
Xiang Nanli remembered Little Black, who had already been melted down into a monument, and a surge of pity welled up in his heart. “Alright, it’s decided then.”
Decisions made by Xiang Nanli were rarely overturned.
Take the past, for example. When he wanted to create Alpha, he went hundreds of millions into debt, taking out bank loans and selling his house just to build him. Later, when the Committee demanded he sign an agreement to restrict artificial intelligence development, practically shoving the pen into his hand, he absolutely refused. Upon returning, he went ahead and built several more mainframes.
Xiang Nanli wasn’t always right, but he never regretted his choices.
Dongfang Qingdi’s lips pressed together, his hands clenching into fists and unclenching again. Suppressing the urge to hurl this housekeeping robot straight out the 17th-floor window, he replied: “Understood.”
__
Author’s Note:
Lmao, I suddenly remembered someone asking why Xiang Nanli kissing Xiao Qing in the last chapter felt so natural.
Because he’s a foreigner (hey now), so kissing a friend’s face or forehead is perfectly normal to him!
What actually felt strange to him was why he felt sexual arousal toward Xiao Qing. But that moment of confusion was far too brief.
