PBS Ch17: Tools

He must trust Xing Bi. This time, heading to Donglin Town, from survival safety to the route forward, whether they could make it there alive, every step depended on Xing Bi.

Qiu Shi suddenly deeply realized the significant difference between humans and bioroids.

After it got completely dark, he glanced at Xing Bi, who was still driving. “Do you need to rest?”

“Not now,” Xing Bi said. “You sleep.”

“How much fuel is left in the car?” Qiu Shi asked.

“If the car is still in the same place when we return, there will be enough to drive back to Yun City,” Xing Bi said.

“Okay.” Qiu Shi closed his eyes and reclined his seat.

He had been quite tired, and the road had become much smoother than before. But now that he had decided to sleep, he couldn’t fall asleep.

“When no one is talking to you, do you think about things in your head?” Qiu Shi asked with his eyes closed.

“Yes,” Xing Bi said.

“So what were you thinking about just now?” Qiu Shi asked.

“Why you wiped your hands on my clothes,” Xing Bi said.

Qiu Shi opened his eyes, stunned for a moment before laughing, “Did I? It’s a habit.”

“A habit of wiping your hands on others?” Xing Bi said.

“Yes.” Qiu Shi rested his head on his arm. “So, did you figure out why?”

“You subconsciously consider me a friend,” Xing Bi said.

“Bullshit,” Qiu Shi said. “You top-level bioroids are really something with your confidence…”

“Would you wipe your hands on Li Feng?” Xing Bi asked.

Qiu Shi looked at him.

“Or Zhang Qifeng? Colonel Xu?” Xing Bi continued. “Mr. Long?”

“Am I crazy?” Qiu Shi said.

“You would wipe your hands on Zhao Lü’s clothes,” Xing Bi said. “You might also wipe your hands on Hu Xiaoling’s clothes.”

Qiu Shi fell silent.

Although he had never seriously thought about this question, it did seem to be true.

“You only wipe your hands on people you are familiar with and trust,” Xing Bi said. “Not necessarily entirely accurate, but… ninety-nine point seven percent.”

“Are Deng Yeye’s fingers acting up again?” Qiu Shi said.

Xing Bi paused, then suddenly laughed.

This laugh sounded very relaxed, heartfelt, natural, and joyful. Hearing it, Qiu Shi couldn’t help but laugh along.

They finally stopped laughing after a long while. Qiu Shi let out a long breath. “You are actually quite boring, thinking about everything.”

“Just a habit,” Xing Bi said. “Time passes very slowly. The simplest way to make it go by faster is to think… to overthink.”

“That’s also the only thing you can do, right?” Qiu Shi recalled the hibernation pod that Xing Bi mentioned earlier. “Your hibernation pod is called a hibernation pod, shouldn’t you be hibernating?”

“Yes,” Xing Bi said.

“What do you mean by ‘yes’?” Qiu Shi asked.

“The body is in hibernation,” Xing Bi said. “The brain is not.”

“What kind of setting is that…” Qiu Shi said. “That’s a bit too inhumane.”

“Being awake is better,” Xing Bi said. “There’s no unknown.”

Qiu Shi glanced at him, then didn’t know what to say. “I’ll sleep for a while. Wake me up if you need to rest.”

“Okay.” Xing Bi nodded.

They had already started entering the border area between the forest and the mudflats, so the car was driving much smoother than before. The bumps from the uneven ground became softer, cushioned by the mud.

This feeling was quite suitable for sleeping.

When Qiu Shi woke up, he looked at the time display. He had slept for about three hours.

It was a bit absurd. Normally, he rarely slept for such a long time continuously, always waking up intermittently.

And now the car was stopped. Xing Bi was actually leaning back in the driver’s seat with his eyes closed, seemingly sleeping soundly. But whether he was really asleep or, as he said, his body was sleeping while his brain was pondering why Qiu Shi wiped his hands on his sleeve was unknown.

However, Qiu Shi noticed that Xing Bi had earphones in his ears, the wired kind.

Following the wire, it led to the old man’s small metallic music stick. When they returned to the house, Qiu Shi had thrown it on the table along with a small charging device, then forgotten about it.

Xing Bi not only charged it but also brought it along.

Qiu Shi was quite curious about what kind of music was in there, what was so good that he would listen to it on the road.

For Qiu Shi, the first thing that came to mind when it came to music was Mr. Long’s blessing speech broadcasted through the big loudspeakers during the city’s annual celebration. The background music was quite cheerful with its jingling sounds, but once Mr. Long started speaking, it felt oppressive.

He hesitated for a moment but didn’t make a sound. Xing Bi looked too much like he was asleep, so he decided to get out of the car to take a piss.

As soon as he opened the car door, before his leg was out, Xing Bi suddenly grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”

“Going to find your ancestors!” Qiu Shi was startled. “Are you watching a prisoner?”

Xing Bi took off the earphones, seemingly listening for something, then looked at him. “To the bathroom?”

“So elegant,” Qiu Shi shook off his hand and got out of the car. “Just taking a piss, in the middle of nowhere. Where am I supposed to find a bathroom…”

“Go to the front of the car,” Xing Bi said.

Qiu Shi stopped and stared at him. “You don’t have any weird fetishes, do you?”

“Don’t close the car door,” Xing Bi said.

“Alright,” Qiu Shi nodded and walked to the front of the car, looking at Xing Bi in the driver’s seat. “As long as you don’t mind, I can piss right on the front of the car.”

“I can’t see from here,” Xing Bi leaned back in his seat.

Qiu Shi clicked his tongue. Actually, he didn’t want to say so much nonsense, but after getting out of the car, the sudden drop in temperature, the humid and earthy-smelling air, and the unfamiliar atmosphere, completely different from near Yun City, made him feel uneasy.

Talking nonsense with Xing Bi made him less nervous.

After finishing his business, he quickly returned to the car. As soon as he sat down, Xing Bi tossed a gun onto his lap.

“Hmm?” Qiu Shi was puzzled but immediately picked up the gun and checked it.

“Someone’s coming,” Xing Bi said.

“From which direction?” Qiu Shi slid down, using the seatback to cover his body.

“Directly behind,” Xing Bi said. “About two hundred meters away, five to seven people, armed.”

“People?” Qiu Shi asked.

“Yes,” Xing Bi said. “Can’t tell exactly.”

“Aren’t you supposed to sense other things…” Qiu Shi turned to look behind the seat, but under the not-so-bright starlight, he couldn’t see anything beyond fifty meters.

“Not symbionts,” Xing Bi said. “They are level 1 bioroids, but I don’t know if they’re hidden guards.”

Qiu Shi didn’t respond. To him, there wasn’t much difference between symbionts and non-symbionts, but there was a significant difference between ordinary level 1 bioroids and level 1 hidden guards.

He was about to ask Xing Bi if they should open the map when several flashes of light suddenly erupted from the darkness behind, followed by a burst of gunfire.

The car was bulletproof, but the loud bangs from the hits made their ears ring.

“Six,” Xing Bi said, then got out of the car. Almost at the same time as the second round of gunfire, he opened the rear door, using it as cover, and fired two shots.

Qiu Shi didn’t have his speed to ensure he wouldn’t get shot in the head immediately upon getting out of the car, and he also needed to open the rear door. Fortunately, the seat was still reclined, so he lunged forward to open the rear door, then turned back and jumped out from the passenger side.

The car was off, and Qiu Shi didn’t dare to turn on the headlights at this moment, which would expose his exact location. He fired a shot in that direction, and the other side responded with a burst of bullets, hitting the car door in front of him.

Using the brief light from the gunfire, he saw that the other side wasn’t just armed but fully equipped.

Xing Bi’s two shots probably killed two of them. Now he could see four people, with two in front holding large transparent shield-like objects, effectively shielding the people behind.

The two people in the back had several guns slung over their shoulders, and they were dragging a strange little “cart” behind them. It looked like a sled from old pictures, but instead of carrying people, this cart had something resembling a small cannon.

“Legs,” Xing Bi said.

Qiu Shi lowered his gun and fired at their legs simultaneously with Xing Bi.

When the two people in front knelt down, they suddenly thrust the large transparent shields into the ground, and the shields actually held up.

Just as Qiu Shi was about to find an opportunity to shoot the person behind in the head, the person next to the small cannon suddenly patted it, like pressing a switch.

There was no fire, and for a moment, there was no sound at all.

But in that instant, Qiu Shi felt a suffocating sensation, a sharp ringing in his ears, like someone had hit him on the head with a stick. Then he knew nothing.

The old man had said that before people die, they experience a flashback of their lives, with everything they’ve been through flashing before their eyes.

“Don’t be afraid of forgetting anything; you’ll remember it all when you’re about to die,” the old man had said.

At that time, Qiu Shi even looked forward to experiencing death a little.

He should be dying now, but there was nothing—nothing but black chaos, no images, no sounds…

No, there was sound, muffled, coming from far away, chaotic noises filtered through layers of confusion, with someone speaking.

Just as Qiu Shi was trying to listen clearly, someone slapped him across the face.

F*ck!

In this life, no one had dared to greet his face like that!

“Screw your ancestors,” Qiu Shi cursed, hearing his own voice.

Suddenly, his vision brightened, and a woman’s voice clearly reached his ears: “He’s awake. Give him some water.”

A tube was shoved into his mouth, poking and jabbing at his lips.

Qiu Shi immediately became furious, opening his eyes to a string of, “Go away, go away, go away…”

“Ungrateful!” someone cursed and then punched him in the stomach.

His stomach churned, and Qiu Shi gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to retch. After the suffocating dizziness passed, he was fully awake.

He was in a muddy wetland, able to see grass and hear water, but it was stagnant, not flowing.

A swamp?

His hands and feet were immobile, his arms stretched out and tied to a wooden frame.

In front of him, by a bonfire, stood three men and a woman sitting beside them, with two people lying at her feet.

Six people—Xing Bi’s judgment was correct.

Where was Xing Bi?

Qiu Shi suddenly lifted his head. Where was Xing Bi?

Xing Bi?

When he saw Xing Bi sitting in a chair opposite him, Qiu Shi was stunned.

Xing Bi wasn’t tied up like him, only restrained by two thin steel cables, and he could even sit comfortably in the chair.

“Xing Bi?” Qiu Shi tried calling him.

Xing Bi didn’t respond, just looked at him.

“Quite professional,” the woman by the fire stood up and walked slowly to him. “The first thing you do upon waking is to check on your partner. You really are a kite flyer.”

Qiu Shi glanced at her. The woman was very young, with fair and delicate skin, in stark contrast to the scarred, weather-beaten faces of the men around her.

She was a bioroid.

“Xing Bi,” Qiu Shi’s gaze moved from her ear to Xing Bi, “how are you?”

“He’s fine,” the woman said, “but he will no longer be under your control.”

What the hell?

Qiu Shi’s eyes returned to her face.

She calmly met his gaze. “I’ll give you one minute to lift the restrictions on your partner’s abilities.”

Qiu Shi was completely confused about what had happened since that ear-piercing noise by the car.

Lift what?

A man swung a stick and hit Qiu Shi’s stomach.

“…Damn,” Qiu Shi felt like his stomach was about to come out of his throat, and the pain brought tears to his eyes.

Ability restrictions?

Had he restricted Xing Bi’s abilities?

The man swung the stick again.

At that moment, Qiu Shi could no longer feel pain, only a strong urge to vomit.

Kite flyer.

He looked at Xing Bi.

Finally, he understood. Those hand gestures—what the woman meant were the gestures he used to control his hidden guard partner.

But he had never used them.

Xing Bi was pretending.

Damn it.

Why was he pretending? Couldn’t fight back? Injured? Or…

In this situation, he didn’t believe Xing Bi would betray him. But with Xing Bi silent, his eyes calm, even cold as he watched him, Qiu Shi admitted that for a second, he thought Xing Bi wanted to use this chance to kill him and escape.

But then he quickly realized that Xing Bi couldn’t use such a trick; it would be too easy to see through. He just needed to deny it and actually control Xing Bi once to prove it.

So there was only one possibility: Xing Bi was pretending and might really be unable to move, otherwise, he wouldn’t need to fake being restrained.

“Right,” Qiu Shi nodded, looking at the man with the stick, “hit me two more times, kill me, and he’ll never get up from that chair.”

The woman stopped the man from hitting him again.

“Even if he never moves again,” she looked at Qiu Shi, “we won’t give up on him. You can die slowly here.”

Qiu Shi said nothing, looking at Xing Bi.

He suddenly noticed that the steel cables on Xing Bi seemed looser than before.

The woman turned to look back at him.

“Are all bioroids this childish?” Qiu Shi spoke.

The woman turned back to him.

“You’re just tools for humans,” Qiu Shi continued. “Your emotions and your thoughts were all given by humans. Now you think you’re a person?”

“Arrogant,” the woman said, her tone calm.

The man with the stick swung it at him again.

Qiu Shi could hardly breathe, and the ribs he had injured earlier began to hurt.

Xing Bi, you better hurry up. You better really be trying to escape.

“The control system is behind his neck,” Xing Bi suddenly said. “Dig it out.”

Everyone looked at Qiu Shi simultaneously.

“It should be possible,” the woman said. “If he really doesn’t want to cooperate, just dig it out.”

Damn you, Xing Bi!

The two other men by the fire also stood up and turned towards Qiu Shi, with one of them even drawing a knife from his waist.

Xing Bi, what the hell are you thinking?

Xing Bi moved slightly, and the steel cables slid off him.

As he stood up, he swung his hand, and the steel cable he threw out caught the light of the fire, drawing a thin arc through the air and looping around the necks of the two men by the fire.

Then Xing Bi gave a sharp pull.

The steel cable swiftly cut through the two men’s necks.

There was only a faint “puff” sound, not even the sound of bones being cut.

When the woman turned back, the two headless bodies were slowly kneeling in front of her.

And one of those bodies had already had its knife taken by Xing Bi, who now held it to the back of her neck.

The man with the stick reacted quickly, drawing a gun from his waist and aiming it at Xing Bi.

But Xing Bi had half of his body behind the woman, and in the second the man aimed, Xing Bi drew the woman’s gun and shot him without hesitation.

Right between the eyebrows.

“Why?” The woman tilted her head, trying to look at Xing Bi. “Humans are not friends.”

Xing Bi didn’t speak; he just stabbed the knife into the back of her neck.

The woman fell to the ground, and Xing Bi stepped on the spot behind her neck.

The sound of breaking was just like the first time Qiu Shi saw Xing Bi in the dense forest—decisive and calm.

The surroundings quieted down. In just a few seconds, the only ones left standing were Xing Bi and Qiu Shi, still tied to the wooden frame.

Xing Bi walked over and cut the ropes on the frame.

As his entire weight fell, Qiu Shi felt a sharp pain throughout his body, almost making him kneel down.

Xing Bi reached out to support him, dragging him to the fire and hooking a chair over with his foot for him to sit on.

Qiu Shi didn’t speak; he still hadn’t quite recovered his senses and didn’t know what to say, or perhaps there was nothing he wanted to say.

This was the first time he had seen Xing Bi kill like this.

Precise, decisive.

Completely different from when he was on a mission.

Xing Bi also didn’t speak, turning over the bodies on the ground and removing small blocks from the back of their necks, throwing them into the fire.

What surprised Qiu Shi was that except for the female bioroid, the other men also had those small blocks in them.

These human corpses, which had spilled blood everywhere, also had those small blocks.

“Aren’t they human?” Qiu Shi asked.

“They are, but modified,” Xing Bi took the bottle they had tried to give Qiu Shi water with. “Do you want some water?”

“…No,” Qiu Shi said. He didn’t want to ask about the modifications. He already had a vague feeling that Li Feng and the others definitely knew, and Curator Wu could probably do it too. He frowned. “No appetite.”

Xing Bi opened the bottle, pouring water over his hands to wash off the blood.

“Could you really not move just now?” Qiu Shi asked.

“I could,” Xing Bi glanced at the small cannon set aside, “but that thing affects bioroids too. I needed time to recover. They had more people; I had to deal with them all at once to ensure they had no chance to kill you.”

Qiu Shi looked at him, and as he was about to speak, his stomach churned again, causing him so much pain that he found it hard to breathe. He slid from the chair to the ground, kneeling and dry heaving for a long time before he felt better.

“Take off your clothes,” Xing Bi walked into the darkness nearby. “There’s a medical kit in the car.”

Qiu Shi didn’t move, watching him retrieve the medical kit from the car.

The surroundings indicated that they were no longer at the place where they were attacked earlier: “Did they bring the car too?”

“Yes.” Xing Bi placed the medical kit on the ground and looked at him, presumably waiting for him to take off his clothes.

“It should be fine,” Qiu Shi didn’t move. “No broken bones, I’ll just take it easy.”

Xing Bi didn’t say anything else, sitting on the other side of the fire.

Qiu Shi opened the medical kit, rummaged through it, and took out a painkiller injection, giving it to himself.

This stuff worked quickly. Soon, he felt much more comfortable but still lacked energy. He didn’t even bother to sit back in the chair, just leaning against its leg on the ground.

These chairs were very rough, made by chopping down trees from the forest and nailing the pieces together, not comfortable to sit on.

“Where are we?” Qiu Shi looked around. He could still hear the faint sound of water and see some scattered reflections in the distance, but everything else was unclear.

“In the swamp,” Xing Bi said. “I’ve never been here; we need to wait for daylight to leave.”

“Do they have any accomplices?” Qiu Shi was a little uneasy.

“No,” Xing Bi said. “They are swamp nomads.”

Qiu Shi didn’t respond.

“Get some sleep,” Xing Bi said. “They have a boat; we’ll leave when it’s light.”

Qiu Shi responded but still didn’t move.

“Whether from a mission or personal standpoint,” Xing Bi said, “I won’t kill you.”

“Yeah,” Qiu Shi smiled slightly.

He believed Xing Bi’s words. He couldn’t tell if his current low mood was because he had been beaten or because of the scene of Xing Bi killing earlier. Maybe both.

He pushed the chair back a bit and lay down by the fire.

Through the fire, Xing Bi’s face had a bit more warmth than usual, but it was hard to see clearly.

“Xing Bi.” Qiu Shi closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Xing Bi responded.

“What I said earlier,” Qiu Shi said, “about being tools and all that… I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” Xing Bi replied.

____________

Author’s Note:

To avoid any confusion, I’d like to explain that a Level 1 ordinary bioroid and a Level 1 hidden guard are different enhancement directions within the Level 1 bioroids , which have their own thoughts and emotions. Hidden guards are like Brother Bi, but there are other types as well.

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