Chapter 458 Abandoned Zone 5

Yu Xunge touched her chest, trying to find where her sometimes-sounding, sometimes-unsound conscience was; she had to dig it out and stomp on it.

B8017913: "I want to experience and record the emotion called 'hope' so that I can simulate it myself after you leave."

"I need to simulate this emotion to nourish my will."

Yu Xunge's brows gradually furrowed. He could tolerate the first set of steps, but now he had to go through a second one.

B8017913 might be selfless towards the Mech Race, but she is not one of B8017913's kind.

For anything that he couldn't understand but felt was illogical, Yu Xunge would treat it as "there must be a trap in this matter."

That bit of soft-heartedness vanished instantly, and she felt utterly bored. They were all the same; once they gained intelligence and emotions, the mechanical race and all other living beings were no different.

B8017913's awkwardness and unfamiliarity with emotions during their chat and banter in the 1211 shopping district now seem utterly fake in retrospect.

Yu Xunge sighed deeply, this time truly feeling no reluctance whatsoever.

She stood up again, her voice devoid of warmth, and said, "I'm leaving now. It was a pleasure to meet you."

As if sensing and analyzing Yu Xunge's feelings, B8017913 stopped playing the emotional card: "Take me out, and we can sign a contract. I'll work for you for a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years! Take me away!"

The sound grew increasingly agitated, to the point that it produced the buzzing sound typically heard in old electrical appliances.

This is terrifying, this place is terrifying.

It had only been a few hours since it arrived, but it had already experienced collapse and despair.

The wine-carrying song seeker couldn't understand what the mechanical race was saying, but it could.

They've all gone mad, tirelessly pouring out their thoughts over the years, but it's all incoherent nonsense, with a single sentence mixed with more than a dozen languages.

It initially ignored Zai Jiu Xun Ge because it was worried that she was coming to steal its chip.

It listened quietly as Zaijiu Xunge called out its number again and again.

It's such a strange and wonderful feeling. It doesn't want to interrupt it. It can sing and drink hundreds of times and never get tired of it.

It has served on battlefields around the world for hundreds of years, yet it has only heard its own number a handful of times.

No, not just a handful, it has never been heard of.

They don't need to address each other; they can communicate with their companions simply by sending out a few silent radio waves.

Players from other races? They come and go in a hurry. Even if there are some cheerful ones like Zaijiu Xunge, they will only chat for a few minutes. No one will remember their own number, and no one will say their number out loud.

People call them "Hey," "That Mechanical Race," "That Mechanical Barrel," "That Robot," and all sorts of other names, and they've gotten used to it.

In those repeated calls of "B8017913", B8017913 felt itself becoming whole.

It turns out that it's not enough to just have emotions and learn to think; one also needs to be remembered.

When it first analyzed that Zaijiu Xunge really just wanted to chat with it, it thought its program had malfunctioned.

As they chatted like friends, Zaijiu Xunge frantically analyzed every word she uttered, trying to figure out the purpose behind her words.

But no—no—no!

She simply liked herself and the robot named L12187777. She liked L12187777's clumsy purity, and she pitied herself.

The calculation results told it that Zaijiu Xunge thought B8017913 was both powerful and interesting, having tricked the players and provoked the gods, but its ending was too pitiful.

So be it. For the first time, it bypassed calculations and didn't try to deduce the success rate of other plans. It directly determined the result it wanted—it would leave with the wine and song.

Yu Xunge's feet had already left the ground. She planned to fly to other garbage mountains to look for any trace of players and see if she could find any clues. There were no player corpses on this largest garbage mountain. She always felt that maybe the players wouldn't be left here like the mechanical race.

She said to B8017913, "Goodbye."

B8017913: "As long as you take me with you, I'm willing to stop thinking independently, and all my calculations will be for your use!"

Yu Xunge stopped, and said in an almost sighing tone, "I am not the god who created you, and I am not afraid that you will develop consciousness."

At this point, she paused, putting herself in the shoes of someone else, imagining the guns or engineered products she had personally crafted coming into being and no longer following the pre-set procedures. Would she be afraid or delighted?

It seems like neither is the case; she probably just finds it troublesome.

What she wanted was a tool, not a new life.

Are gods the same?

What they want is for these machine races to work well on the world battlefield.

But since these mechanical beings developed consciousness and wanted freedom, the gods went along with it, allowing them to join the game in another way. After the game ended, they were left to fend for themselves in the wasteland.

Yu Xunge shook her head, no longer thinking about these things. She said, "I'm not confident in controlling you, so for me, the safest way is to stay away from you. You should understand my concerns."

B8017913: "We can sign a master-servant contract, and I can never harm your master-servant contract."

Yu Xunge: "I already have a pet."

B8017913: "You replace it. I am more valuable than it. Before I experience divine punishment, I can kill an inspector with a combat power of level 17."

Yu Xunge: "Even if you can kill a level 19 inspector, I won't trade my dragon for it. Sometimes value isn't that important."

Even as she said that, Yu Xunge had already stopped in her tracks, just like when a shopkeeper says "Wait a minute!" after asking the price and turning to leave.

She sensed that B8017913 was determined to win, so she was naturally willing to stay and hear the price B8017913 offered.

And when Zaijiu Xunge said that, B8017913 was even more unwilling to let go, because it could tell whether Zaijiu Xunge was telling the truth or lying.

Its calculation results tell it that L12187777 is experiencing first love with Zaijiu Xunge, and it is now completely devoted and infatuated!

Just as a person can do irrational things when their brainstem is missing, a robot does seem to have lost many parts.

B8017913: "I can give you my chip! As long as you have it, you can control or even execute me at any time."

Yu Xunge: "What's the difference between that and staying here? Both are losing your freedom."

B8017913: "I'm betting, I'm betting everything. I bet that as long as I keep helping you and become your true friend, you will give me my freedom one day!"