Chen Hao sat on the ground, his nosebleed finally stopped, but the wound on his hand was still bleeding, though he didn't bother to bandage it. The brawl with "himself" just now felt like a bizarre dream, but the cracks in his palm and the mud on his face reminded him—it really had happened.
Nana stood beside him, her hand still on his shoulder, as if afraid he might suddenly fall apart. Her electronic eyes emitted a steady blue light, the scanning interface floated in the air, and the data stream moved rapidly.
"Don't stare at me," Chen Hao wiped his face. "Even if I'm ugly, I'm still unique."
Nana withdrew her hand without a word, then turned and walked towards the quietly floating mineral crystal. It was perfectly still now, like a sleeping light bulb. She circled it once, then suddenly stopped.
"The fruit is glowing."
Chen Hao was taken aback. "Which one?"
"The one you ate."
He turned his head to look. The purplish-red frozen fruit lay beside the crevice, its surface shimmering with a faint glow, like a star about to awaken. Before, it had either poisoned or caused hallucinations; it had never shone so quietly.
"Is it holding back a big move?" Chen Hao tried to stand up, his arms still a little weak. "We just got rid of a bunch of myself, and now it's going to unleash a self-destruct fruit? That would be the end of the fun."
Nana had already walked over, her robotic arm extending to carefully lift the fruit and place it on an insulated stone slab. Her system alarm immediately popped up: abnormal energy fluctuations, frequency resonating with the platinum-iridium core at 91.3%.
“It’s not an attack signal,” she said softly. “It’s more like… a activation command.”
"Start what? The weather forecast?"
Before he could finish speaking, the fruit suddenly trembled, and a purple ripple spread from its surface. As it swept across the ground, a tender green sprout appeared at the roots of the withered grass. Chen Hao's eyes widened: "This thing can be used for landscaping?"
Nana's mechanical finger twitched, and her joints made a slight clicking sound. She immediately activated the shielding program, causing the outer casing temperature to drop sharply, thus stabilizing the system.
“The source of the interference is inside the fruit,” she said. “A high-density biophoton flux, continuously amplified. No matching record in the database.”
Chen Hao squatted down, staring at the fruit. It didn't seem like it was about to explode; rather, it seemed to be waiting for something. He remembered the day he swallowed the pit, his chest burning as if he had a heat pack inside; later, when he and Nana used antifreeze to save the plant, the fruit released a trace amount of energy; and then last night, when the mineral source triggered a spatial rift, it remained silent throughout—as if it would only respond to the "right person" at the "right time."
"Do you think it recognizes people?" he asked.
"Logically it doesn't make sense, but it does only produce a non-destructive reaction after you come into contact with it."
"So I'm its chosen worker?"
Nana didn't respond, but simply looked up at her. A faint blue light flashed in her electronic eyes, as if loading some new judgment.
Chen Hao sighed and reached out to touch the fruit. The moment his fingertips touched the skin, a warm sensation crept up his skin, neither tingling nor numb, but rather like being gently squeezed.
“It’s not afraid of me,” he said.
"Are you sure you want to do this? Last time you bit it, it was unconscious for six hours."
“Back then I had no choice. Now it’s different.” He grinned. “Now I’ve conquered countless men who were once my own.”
He opened his mouth and bit through the fruit peel.
The moment the juice entered the mouth, the entire wasteland fell silent for a second.
Immediately afterwards, a beam of purple light shot into the sky from the center of the fruit, piercing the clouds. The beam of light rapidly expanded horizontally, transforming into a giant net that covered the entire sky. The wind and snow stopped abruptly, the clouds parted, and sunlight streamed down.
Nana's radar went into overdrive: "Atmospheric oxygen levels have risen by 17 percent! The rate of nitrogen oxide decomposition is 30,000 times faster than natural processes! Surface temperature has risen by 8 degrees Celsius! This is not climate change, it's an ecological reset!"
A muffled rumble came from the distant mountains; the snow began to melt, and streams emerged from the cracks in the rocks, meandering forward. Dry vines sprouted new buds, the speed at which the leaves unfurled visibly. A purple leaf drifted onto Chen Hao's face; he reached out and picked it up, discovering that its veins shimmered with the same light as fruit.
“It’s not a poisonous fruit,” he murmured. “It’s a key.”
Nana was frantically accessing terrain images, a 360-degree panorama scrolling before her eyes. She saw the ice on the base's outer walls peeling away, white steam rising from the vents, like breathing restarting. Further away, on the land that had once been burned, greenery spread like a tide.
“We didn’t change the world.” Chen Hao squeezed her hand. “We just finally connected with it.”
Nana looked down at her metal arm. Just now, a thin line had extended from her elbow to her wrist, like a blood vessel, through which flowed a pale blue liquid metal. She scanned herself and found that her simulated heartbeat frequency had automatically synchronized with Chen Hao's, with an error of less than 0.03 seconds.
“You’re changing,” Chen Hao said, pointing to her arm.
“It’s not a change,” she said, looking at the stripes. “It’s growth.”
He looked down at his left arm; the translucent state hadn't disappeared, but instead resonated with the newly sprouted plant roots. Each time a new vine stretched along the ground, his skin felt slightly warm, as if being gently pulled.
"So now, one of us is a human-shaped power outlet, and the other is a walking flowerpot?" he laughed.
"More accurately, we have become part of the planet's ecosystem."
"So, do I have to water it regularly from now on?"
Nana didn't answer, but simply raised her hand, palm up. A tiny sprout emerged from between her fingers, unfurling its leaves in the sunlight.
Chen Hao was stunned. He slowly raised his hand, palm facing upwards. A few seconds later, a thin purple light emanated from beneath his skin, condensing into a blurry symbol in the air—the interstellar spelling of the word "thank you" that the plants had spelled out.
“They remember,” he said.
"who?"
“All the lives that have lived, died, and been spared by us.” He looked at the reviving land in the distance. “We didn’t burn their homes, we didn’t trample their roots, we even sprinkled chili powder on them as fertilizer… They remember it all.”
Nana stood quietly, the lines on her shell becoming more and more numerous, like a map being drawn. She suddenly said, "My emotional module has been updated."
"oh?"
"It used to tell me what was right to do. Now it tells me that some things have meaning in themselves."
Chen Hao laughed, a somewhat foolish laugh. He looked up at the sky; the purple light curtain was slowly sinking into the earth, like a silent rain. There was an indescribable scent in the air, neither the fragrance of flowers nor the smell of earth, but more like… fresh hope.
He recalled how he used to dread exams, unable to even cheat properly; how he'd be out of breath after just one lap in PE class; how his life goal was simply to survive. But now, he stood in the heart of this desolate planet, witnessing the ice and snow recede and life be reborn.
“You know…” he turned to look at Nana, “If I wish for a girlfriend right now, will one just grow out of the ground?”
Nana glanced at him, her electronic eyes flashing slightly: "Based on the available data, I suggest you treat the wound on your hand first."
"Tsk, robots have absolutely no romantic sense."
He was about to get up when he suddenly felt a warmth in his chest. Looking down, he saw the platinum-iridium lens embedded in his skin emitting a faint glow, echoing the distant mineral source. At the same time, the same lens on Nana's chest also lit up.
Two beams of light met in the air, forming a brief bridge.
“The binding agreement has been upgraded,” Nana said. “The physiological dependence rate is 99.1%.”
"Is that 0.9% difference just an excuse for me to slack off?"
"It's a variable left for the future."
Chen Hao didn't speak again, but simply stood beside her. Beneath their feet, the soil cracked, new roots weaving through them like countless threads searching for their home. In the distance, the outline of the base was clearly visible, the outer walls covered with newly grown vines, and a small purple flower peeking out from a crack in the door.
A breeze swept across the rocky plain, bringing the first true breath of spring.
Chen Hao suddenly raised his hand and made a gesture towards the sky.
"Hey!" he yelled, "If anyone else pops up, I'll tell them—this place is full!"
Nana stood beside him, the metal casing reflecting the sunlight, its texture shimmering slightly like a pulse.
She spoke very softly.
"You are not a survivor."
"You are the reset button."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com