Chapter 13: “Have You Betrayed Me?”
Xiang Nanli couldn’t see a thing in the surging river water.
“Xiang Nanli—” It was Xiu calling him.
Xiang Nanli grabbed onto Xiu by instinct. He didn’t know what he had grabbed—likely the neck—and, unfortunately, pulled off a necklace.
A human body was truly too fragile; it couldn’t withstand the wind and rain. Xiang Nanli could feel his oxygen levels decreasing bit by bit, rapidly approaching a dangerous red line.
“Xiang Nanli!” Alpha’s voice in his mind was louder than it had ever been.
[Host’s vital signs detected at critical levels. Complying with the ‘Artificial Intelligence Management Regulations’ temporary emergency avoidance principle.]
Xiang Nanli felt a jolt. The current wasn’t strong; it shouldn’t have been enough to burn him. He opened his eyes, twitching, his lungs feeling as if they were burning. The river water here was filthy, filled with floating bits of unidentified metal. There was a taste of rust.
Blood also tasted like rust.
When he was swept away by the river, someone had reached out to grab him, but unfortunately, they hadn’t managed to catch him.
He was just a delicate technical staffer… if he’d known, he would have tied himself to Xin Zhui’s waist.
Alpha’s phrasing was as formulaic as ever, but there was an indescribable tension and urgency to it that, in this moment, made it sound very much like a real person: [According to calculations, in 12.45 seconds, the subterranean river will pass through the air-raid shelter’s exhaust vents. When I say ‘now,’ swim to the left immediately.]
Xiang Nanli didn’t respond, but the System knew he had heard clearly.
It spoke: “Now.”
Xiang Nanli caught sight of a pitch-black opening in his peripheral vision. He surged upward, breaking free from the surging subterranean river, his hands firmly gripping the metal slats of the drainage vent. He pried them open and jumped through with a violent heave.
One shot, one hit. He tumbled into the empty conduit.
His palms were chafed and bleeding. In his hand, he was still gripping the necklace tightly; he couldn’t tell what material it was, but it hung with a round pendant.
Sorry, brother, I snatched your jewelry. But I didn’t do it on purpose; you shouldn’t mind, right? I’ll return it next time we meet.
“Ugh…”
Xiang Nanli stuffed the necklace into the pocket of his protective suit, unable to control himself as he began to retch. He vomited up the dirty water that his lungs and stomach couldn’t hold; he vomited until his eyes were bloodshot and his nasal cavity was filled with the smell of metal, his heart filled with an unspeakable fury.
The life Xiang Nanli had lived had been quite smooth sailing. Even when he was at the lowest point of his life and had to sell his home, he was selling a courtyard house near the First Ring Road of the capital. It was his ancestral home, passed down from his grandfather, across generations, into the hands of him, the grandson.
He had tasted the bitterness of life, but not much. If his business failed, the worst case was returning to teaching as a university professor; he was never at a dead end. Since entering this new era, the number of times Xiang Nanli had brushed shoulders with death was more than in his entire previous life.
Wastewater mixed with blood pooled into a puddle by his feet.
Xiang Nanli wiped his lips, lowered his head, and sneered: “Interesting.”
The subterranean river had been breached. The water on one side was still surging. Xiang Nanli’s current location was relatively safe, but he had unfortunately lost contact with the others.
The System’s voice leveled off: [Host has recovered autonomous consciousness and is in a safe state. Alert canceled.]
“Aside from electrocuting me, what else can you do?”
The System replied: [Releasing weak currents within the human body is my only autonomous function. Depending on the targeted region of the brain’s nerves, it can achieve effects such as masking perception and stimulating resuscitation.]
Xiang Nanli cautiously surveyed his surroundings and rummaged through the first-aid kit inside his protective suit.
The kit contained simple antibiotics, a small flashlight, three tubes of nutrient paste in plastic containers, and one standard-model battery. This was the standard equipment for the suit. There was no extra charge when renting, but if the kit was used when returning it, an additional 500 credit points would be deducted. The pricing was very unreasonable—after all, this bag of things was worth at most 100 credit points—but in certain situations, it really could save a life.
Xiang Nanli cut open the seal, took out the flashlight, and gripped it in his teeth for lighting. He then looked at the instructions for the antibiotics.
He wasn’t swimming in water anymore; the current hadn’t cared about much, knocking him into many hard objects one after another. Xiang Nanli’s shoulder was still aching now.
“Haven’t encountered an infection yet; don’t need antibiotics.”
Xiang Nanli stuffed the medicine back into his pocket.
The river didn’t calm down for another half hour. Xiang Nanli didn’t know where he had been washed to. The terrible thing was that the river showed no signs of receding. The river had calmed down, but the surface was floating with some planks, building materials, and plastic parts. It was impossible to tell what had been submerged, but it felt quite wide.
Xiang Nanli turned off his flashlight: “That machine-modified human is repaired. If I were Xin Zhui, I wouldn’t specifically come looking for ‘me.’ It’s a loss-making business.”
His voice was calm, as if life and death had nothing to do with him.
The System replied: “Correct.”
It wouldn’t comfort anyone; it only performed data analysis. If it were Xin Zhui’s built-in AI, it wouldn’t suggest that Xin Zhui come looking for Xiang Nanli either.
Xiang Nanli withdrew his gaze and looked toward the depths of the pipeline: “Alpha, can we get out of here?”
His tone had a slight tremor. When facing the unknown, it was difficult not to feel fear.
The System replied: [Analyzing based on human behavioral patterns, the optimal solution should be to comfort you and offer guarantees. But I apologize, I cannot deceive you.]
Xiang Nanli smiled slightly: “Alright.”
He raised his flashlight and began to walk into the pipeline.
The passage was large enough for Xiang Nanli to walk inside. Based on the treads and gears he could occasionally see, he deduced that this wasn’t an exhaust vent, but some kind of cargo transport pipeline. There were even train tracks on the ground. The further he went, the larger and deeper the tunnel became.
The temperature also began to drop.
Xiang Nanli’s combat capability was basically zero, so he explored very carefully. He also tried his best to memorize every fork in the pipeline in his mind. This tested his spatial thinking skills somewhat, but Xiang Nanli could perform mechanical modeling in his head from scratch; for him, it wasn’t particularly difficult.
Several hundred years had passed, and the cargo that once needed transporting had all been cleared away. Only the intricate network of underground passages remained, like the great maw of a Leviathan, devouring everything.
“There is writing on the wall in the corner,” the System reminded him.
Xiang Nanli: “No way. Didn’t I not install an electronic eye on you? So you can see now, is that it?”
Alpha: “…” I really want to electrocute you again.
Xiang Nanli walked over and discovered a few lines of shallow, small text on the rusted metal wall.
So many years had passed that the color of the text was extremely faint. The surface was also covered with green moss; if not for the System’s reminder, Xiang Nanli might not have seen it at all.
“Perhaps we were wrong from the start.”
“Why build it? Why try to harness it? I heard the experiments are almost successful… is that truly what they call a bio-mecha? Does it truly bring hope?”
“I feel fear; this is a giant scam. Yet Donghuang Heavy Industry has spent a century working toward it. I want to return to the surface. I want to go home. Mom.”
Toward the end, the handwriting became very messy. Xiang Nanli didn’t know who had left these lines, but they seemed to have been on the verge of a breakdown. Every stroke was a messy, sharp sword.
Xiang Nanli frowned: “Do you have information on Donghuang Heavy Industry? Alpha.”
“Donghuang Heavy Industry was one of the eight major state-owned enterprises at the beginning of the Machine Era. It was a human enterprise that was friendly toward machinery. Currently, most of the robotic modification technology used in the market comes from Donghuang Heavy Industry. Six hundred years ago, due to committing treason, it was reorganized and split up by companies like Immortality Tech and High-Tech Military Industry, disappearing from the stage of history.”
“And what is a ‘bio-mecha’?”
Alpha replied: “Apologies, I am not clear on that. The meaning of this term is very broad. Currently, it generally refers to modification methods combining biology and machinery.”
Xiang Nanli continued walking forward, and two diverging paths appeared before him. They looked indistinguishable, with no markings.
Xiang Nanli pondered for a moment and walked to the right. There was no special meaning; it was purely a blind guess. He knew too little information and couldn’t just stand there doing nothing.
But Alpha suddenly said: “Go left. According to the analysis, the safety coefficient on the left is higher.”
“Is that for real?” Xiang Nanli was somewhat suspicious. “Why?”
Alpha replied: “Random number prediction.”
“Why don’t you just say you’re casting lots for divination!” Xiang Nanli retorted angrily.
Although he didn’t know the reason, Xiang Nanli decided to trust the System’s judgment. He wasn’t the type of stubborn person who had to go against artificial intelligence for the sake of it.
He walked to the left. A few minutes later, in the right-hand pipeline, a blood-red shadow flashed past.
It was a mutant, crawling through the wide pipeline. It was frantically sniffing for scents. But the only people it had smelled were Luo Xiu, Xin Zhui, and that group, not including Xiang Nanli. And Xiang Nanli smelled so faint, so weak.
Thus, the mutant hesitated for a moment and didn’t continue forward. Instead, it began searching for the residual scent of Luo Xiu in the air. That was exactly what the Knight Commander needed most.
…
…
Luo Xiu’s expression was hideous; he was with Xin Zhui. The subterranean river had come on suddenly, scattering the entire team. But even if they hadn’t been separated, Luo Xiu felt he probably would have acted independently with Xin Zhui anyway.
At a time like this, he didn’t trust anyone else; he was only willing to believe in Xin Zhui.
It wasn’t because of the bond of them growing up together. It was because Xin Zhui was his “Artificial Human Bodyguard.” Their lives were bound together; when Luo Xiu’s heart stopped, due to certain intelligent program settings, Xin Zhui would also drop dead instantly.
Therefore, a master never needed to worry about the betrayal of an artificial human. To a certain extent, they were even more reliable than machines. Machines could be hacked, but a human brain could not.
“We have to find Xiang Nanli,” Luo Xiu said.
Xin Zhui frowned: “What time is it? We really can’t take care of a mechanic anymore. Let’s talk about it later.”
As for whether they would find a living person or a corpse later, it didn’t matter to them.
“No,” Luo Xiu’s expression was complex. “When he was swept away by the river, he took the key to Donghuang Heavy Industry with him.”
Xin Zhui was startled: “What? Wasn’t that magnetically attached to the back of your neck? How could it be taken away?”
Luo Xiu’s expression was equally serious: “I’m not clear on that. Electromagnetic unlocking? Or just a simple accident? My mechanical core malfunctioned at that moment.”
“Could it be that his goal from the beginning was this?”
“That would be a bit too much of a coincidence.”
“But… that is the key to unlocking the ‘Eastern Azure Emperor.’ A Disaster-class mechanical device that Donghuang Heavy Industry spent a century and countless resources to create. I don’t think anyone would remain unmoved.”
Luo Xiu: “Only the two of us know about this. Have you betrayed me?”
Xin Zhui raised an eyebrow: “You suspect me? I haven’t.”
“Neither have I,” Luo Xiu replied.
