Chapter 142 Don’t You Want to Be My Grandfather?
The Exile Star has no sun or moon, and its color is always a dirty gray-black, mixed with gun smoke and dirty blood, and a garbage mountain made up of countless discarded metals, which eventually paints large areas of scars and charred black.
The dawn of this world is the most doomsday-like dawn that the stars have ever seen.
"Good morning, Xingxing." The mechanical doll stood on the metal seat and greeted Xingxing politely.
"Good morning~" Xingxing smiled with her eyes curved, then stood on tiptoe to pick up the laptop on the table, and opened the live broadcast room with familiarity.
Before starting, Xingxing carefully typed the title of today's live broadcast: Take the baby to the safe zone to buy energy.
It was simple and straightforward, but it made every viewer who received the live broadcast notification and clicked in subconsciously feel nervous.
[Good morning, Xingbao. Are you going out today? Just you and your baby, or will grandpa go with you?]
A line of bullet comments slowly crossed the light screen.
During the three days, Xingxing's live broadcast content was all about making dolls. It can be said that the audience watched Xingxing build the mechanical doll bit by bit from the skeleton.
Xingxing saw the comments and pointed the camera at Shisheng next to him. He then introduced the doll from behind the camera: "I made the doll last night. Its name is Shisheng."
It was the first time that the audience saw the mechanical doll open its eyes.
[What beautiful blue eyes!!!]
[Oh my god, when Xingxing picked up this mechanical doll a few days ago, I never thought it would be so cute after being modified and repaired!]
[The color of the eyes is so pretty and clean, and the doll looks so cute when it opens its eyes. The mechanical intelligent companion product manufacturing companies in the interstellar world should really take a look at the template of this doll. If every mechanical doll can be made so cute and fit, I will buy them like crazy!!]
[Shisheng? Does it have any special meaning? I feel like this name is a bit weird, but it also sounds pretty nice.]
[The little doll is looking at the camera the whole time. So cute. I wonder how intelligent it is, how is its logic and learning and imitation abilities?]
[I just say two words: cute, I want to keep it!]
[The people above have started to talk nonsense~]
The comments on the screen scrolled by densely. Shi Sheng quietly looked at the many compliments on it, and then, like every ordinary mechanical intelligent product, he spoke in a cold and calm tone: "Good morning, it's time for us to set off."
The special language system of the cubs has triggered a new round of discussion in the barrage.
Xingxing moved the camera away, hugged Shisheng in her arms, turned around and looked at the old man in the house who was already sitting in a wheelchair but still unkempt.
"Grandpa, hold me~" The child opened his little arms and was picked up by his grandfather and placed on his lap with ease.
During these three days, Qi Nan had already learned about Xingxing's live broadcast from his occasional interactions with the live broadcast room. His first reaction was to check whether his appearance had been captured in the previous live broadcast. After finding that there was no image, he breathed a sigh of relief. After that, he simply threw the light computer to the little robot and let it play with it.
Therefore, when Xingxing suggested going to the safe zone to buy energy blocks, Qinan only considered whether it was safe or not, but did not consider the situation of being short of money.
The little robot is richer than him.
The shabby house where Qi Nan lives is very remote, at least ten hours away from the safe zone. The places farther and more remote have long been occupied by strange beasts and are dangerous restricted areas. Only mecha masters can drive mechas in to hunt strange beasts and make money.
But even if all the humans on the entire planet of Exile were added together, there were no more than ten high-level mecha technicians.
However, the road from the small shabby house to the safe zone is not safe.
It was the first time that Xingxing had traveled so far, and it was also the first time that he saw so many familiar scenes.
The reason why it feels familiar is that everything here is too similar to the end of the world.
When being stopped and robbed by the second wave of scavengers, Xingxing watched Qinan pierce the body of the leader with a homemade weapon.
When they encountered the third attack from the alien beasts, Xingxing and Shisheng stood aside and watched Qi Nan being besieged by the alien beasts. One of the alien beasts bit Qi Nan's arm, but ended up breaking its own teeth.
The humans on the Exile Planet are very much like humans in the end times.
The strange beasts on the Exile Star also look very much like zombie creatures at the end of the world.
As for Xingxing and Shisheng, whether in the interstellar space or in the end times, they always seem to be the ones watching with cold eyes.
"Do we want to keep going?" Xingxing asked, holding Shisheng in his arms and sitting on a relatively clean piece of metal, while watching his grandfather bend over to repair his bitten knee joint.
Qi Nan knocked on the metal on his knee, looked up at the gray front after hearing this, and sighed: "Let's keep going."
Now that we are here, we have already walked almost halfway.
"As we get closer to the safe zone, we won't encounter so many strange beasts."
As he spoke, he removed the damaged parts and threw them away, then reached out and picked up the two cubs next to him and put them on his legs, then continued to move forward in one direction with them.
His words did not comfort the three living beings present.
Even the audience in the live broadcast room, who had been worried, sighed silently.
[The closer you get to the safe zone, the fewer monsters there are, but the more scavengers there are, right?]
[This is not the first time I have watched live broadcasts from the Exile Star, but most of them are broadcasters living in the safe zone. I used to think that life in the Exile Star was not much different from that in the main star, except that it was a little poorer and the environment was a little worse. Now I know that it is really a world of difference.]
[+1, I never thought that life outside the safe zone of Exile Star would be so cruel.]
[No wonder I always heard that on every exile star, the most expensive thing for scavengers is a place to settle in the safe zone. The dividing line between inside and outside the safe zone is actually the edge between life and death, right?]
[Xingbao, why don’t you quickly buy a place to stay in the safe zone? It’s really too dangerous outside…]
Along with these discussions and concerns came more and more rewards and increasing popularity.
Xingxing held the laptop in his hand, looked up at the thin and tall figure that was like a ghost under the dark sky, and suddenly asked softly, "Grandpa, are we going to live in the safe zone?"
The wheelchair, which was moving smoothly, suddenly stopped.
After staying still for a few seconds, Qi Nan did not move forward. Instead, he lowered his head and asked the little robot in his arms: "Xingxing wants to live in the safe zone? Is he afraid that it is too dangerous outside?"
Xingxing shook her head.
"No~" The little robot shook his head, holding the mechanical doll and said slowly: "It's because it's too far away. Grandpa drank the spoiled nutrient solution and couldn't find a hospital for treatment."
Qi Nan was stunned.
The alertness in his eyes faded, and turned into a subtle complexity. After a long while, he slowly said in a hoarse and old voice: "It doesn't matter. I'm half buried in the ground. There's no need to spend so much money to enter the safe zone."
That was the money the little robot earned itself, and Qi Nan was not shameless enough to take it for himself.
“Oh~”
"Then buy grandpa some nutrient solution that won't expire or go bad, so he won't get a stomachache."
Xingxing nodded and patted the armrest of the wheelchair with her little hands, signaling grandpa to continue on his way.
Qi Nan's face, which was wrinkled like orange peel, trembled, and he started the wheelchair silently.
After walking for a long time, Qi Nan seemed to have sorted out his complicated emotions. In silence, he opened his mouth and said abruptly: "That's your money, you don't have to spend it on me."
What he actually wanted to say was that he didn't need the little robot's pity and help. It wasn't that he couldn't make money, he just...
"Don't you want to be my grandfather?" Xingxing turned around and asked him.
The child's eyes were big, and his black pupils reflected Qi Nan's old and decadent face. Qi Nan didn't say anything, so it asked again seriously: "You don't want to be my grandfather, do you want to throw us out of your house? Just like throwing away the garbage?"
"...No." Qi Nan frowned and retorted. For some reason, although the little robot's tone was very calm, he always felt a little uncomfortable when he heard the content of his words.
So he had to explain: "I don't mean to throw you away, but those star coins belong to your property. You can do more things with them and buy more things. It's a complete waste to use them on me."
The stars understood.
Xingxing began to conclude: "Grandpa, you still want to abandon us."
Qi Nan: “……?”
How on earth did it come to this conclusion??!
As if she had guessed his confusion at the moment, Xingxing swung her short legs in the air and said slowly, "Because grandpa doesn't want to share the happiness with Xingxing, he doesn't want to depend on me and Shisheng for life. Grandpa doesn't want us to be part of your family."
As Xingxing asked, she used her slender fingers to gently poke the back of the old man's hand, which was silently clenched on the armrest of the wheelchair.
"Grandpa wants to abandon us, let us go and live a good life, and leave you to die quietly outside, right?"
After the words were spoken, there was another long silence.
The barrage also fell silent.
I don’t know how long it took, but after Qi Nan frightened away another wave of scavengers, a barrage of comments slowly passed across the screen.
[Xingbao, is your grandfather a good person or a bad person?]
Qi Nan also spoke at the same time: "I am old, but you can still live a long time."
Xingxing didn't answer anyone.
It is listing with Qiuqiu the items it wants to buy next.
"I need to buy energy blocks and nutrient solution."
"Buy two optical computers that can access the Star Network, as well as clothes, shoes, and mechanical lubricants..."
After listing them one by one, Xingxing thought of the two unknown seeds he had picked up before, looked around at the deformed plants hidden in the gray and black background, and added the nutrient soil and culture medium to the shopping list.
Finally, Xingxing listened to the broken and rapid breathing sounds in the human chest behind his ears, which sounded like a bellows, and asked Qiuqiu to add equipment that could purify the air and reduce radiation pollution to the shopping list.
"Kid...if we buy these things, we will probably be penniless in no time." Qiuqiu looked at the last two items and had to remind him.
The reason why the Exile Planet has become a garbage dumping planet is because most of the planet is filled with high-risk radiation and extreme pollution. The environment here has long been unsuitable for human survival, so the Exile Planet has been abandoned by humans and become a waste planet.
The moment it was designated as an exile planet, the Federation no longer needed to plan for the future of this planet, because this planet and the creatures on it had been equivalent to cosmic garbage from then on.
Time will find the best destination for this pile of garbage. It will either decay and decompose naturally, or rot and merge into this world, just like the increasing number of deformed scavengers that Xingxing saw along the way.
Qinan is also one of the deformed people affected by the environment of the Exile Star.
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