267 The Eleventh Store
◎ "That's all a misunderstanding. I can explain it."◎
The artificial star rises on time, the morning alarm rings, and the sixth district prison guard 0666 walks into the cell waving a small whip.
Fifteen minutes later, the prisoners who were going to the ninth district to farm in the morning followed 0666 listlessly.
They were all metal lumps, but the whole team inexplicably exuded a lazy atmosphere of not sleeping well.
Everyone came out of the cell and followed the prison guard to get on the airship.
The airship flew over the eighth district, and someone looked down from the window.
The man stared at the street below the eighth district for a long time, turned around and said to his companion: "The new store in the eighth district is open."
Everyone in the passenger cabin leaned over the window and looked down.
There is only one eye-catching green sign on the whole street. The name of the store is not clear, but the street has been renamed Bookstore Street.
The last store mainly sold various oils for lubricating/lubricating/mechanical joints, and the street was renamed Lubricating/Lubricating/Oil Street.
The store before that sold holographic game cartridges, and the street was renamed Game Street.
And so on, this time the store sells books?
What are books?
They are not interested at all.
But the store has reopened, which means that people from outside are coming in again.
The last shop owner who sold lubricant was an interstellar businessman with an A-level spirit value. I heard that he had a big business outside. He opened a shop in the eighth district three months ago. He was deceived by a customer who often bought lubricant. His brain was dug out and displayed in a public area. Finally, he closed the shop due to depression.
If the prison guards had not intervened in time, the shop owner would have almost died.
Three months after that incident, a new shop owner finally came.
The airship fell into a strange and heated silence.
0666 sat facing everyone, with a metal mask without expression, but he was not calm inside.
As a prison guard, 0666 learned about the new store in advance before the prisoners.
The new shop owner is a young native human female who did not change her mechanical body when she entered Guandao.
0666 passed by the Eighth District yesterday and saw her from afar.
She is very slender, fair, and has a soft face. Her smile is particularly vivid.
0666 took a quick look and turned away quickly.
Even if all the prison guards performed their duties conscientiously and did not let those vicious scum get close to her, they could not avoid the possibility of her being hurt.
She looked too fragile.
And now, those scum have discovered her.
Their evil minds are probably full of bad water.
0666's mood was unnaturally tense, and he had to cheer up.
The airship flew steadily, and suddenly many white and green balloons appeared outside the window.
They slowly ascended from the bookstore street in the eighth district, not too far from the airship.
In the long river of history, balloons disappeared earlier than books.
People of this era had never seen such primitive "flying props". Rows of balloons suddenly appeared in the sky above the eighth district, and several passing airships slowed down.
The prisoners and prison guards who took the airship to the seventh and ninth districts inevitably saw the big tails dragging behind the balloons, with words printed on the banner.
[The God of Destiny has no mercy, and God's long night has no end. Your body is just time, the time that keeps passing, and you are just every lonely moment (1). ]
[What can I use to keep you? I give you the bleak streets, the desperate sunset, and the moon in the wilderness. I give you the sadness of a person who has been looking at the lonely moon for a long time (2). 】
【A rose is becoming another rose without stopping. You are the cloud, the sea, and oblivion. You are also every self you have ever lost (3). 】
...
The airship slowly went away. 0666 leaned on the window, still staring at the banners in the distance.
Not only 0666, but everyone on the airship kept leaning on the window in the same posture, and their mechanical eyes kept tracking the banners fluttering in the wind.
----
Below the eighth district, Bookstore Street.
Lu Yao stood at the door of the bookstore, looking up at the passing airship.
Dream Fulfillment System: "The airships didn't stop."
Lu Yao pushed the signpost along the road towards the seventh district, not paying much attention: "Those airships go to the seventh and ninth districts. They definitely can't stop at will during work hours. Maybe they come during lunch break or in the afternoon."
Dream Fulfillment System was trembling with fear: "Does this method really work? Don't we need to hand out flyers?"
The new store opened, and the owner rarely asked it to print flyers, but only asked it to make some strange poetry banners.
Everyone felt that the publicity was too weak and could not be compared with the previous new store openings.
Lu Yao: "Aren't you tired of printing flyers?"
The Dream-Fulfilling System felt offended: "...Didn't you ask me to print them?"
Lu Yao soothed him: "I don't mean to blame you, I just think we can try a different approach this time."
Tuan was already confused by a series of changes before the new store opened, and lacked confidence in himself and Lu Yao.
Lu Yao placed a signpost at the intersection of Districts 9 and 8, then returned to the store and pushed another signpost in the direction of District 7.
Tuan didn't know why Lu Yao did this. It had already understood the basic situation of this era, and a bookstore was definitely not a good decision. Tuan was
worried about this mission, and even more worried about Lu Yao's safety. Because the current situation was caused by its own mistakes, it didn't even dare to complain in front of Lu Yao.
Lu Yao learned from Alfred about the business situation of this street in the 8th District. Every time a new store successfully moved in, the street where the store was located would be renamed to match the store.
The street where Lu Yao's bookstore was located has been officially renamed Bookstore Street. There is only one store on the street. If it is well managed, it will be the only one with no rivals.
It is not easy to run an ordinary store in Guandao.
This era seems to have achieved mechanical immortality. Humans can transfer their self-consciousness and replace mechanical bodies at will.
As long as the spirit is alive, no matter how the mechanical body is damaged, this person will never die.
The most special existence on Guandao Island is the prisoners imprisoned here. All of them are criminals with super high spirit values.
The physical body is abandoned, and the strength of life forms begins to be divided according to the level of spirit value.
Simply put, the higher the spirit value, the stronger the person, and can even brainwash and control the behavior of low-spiritual life.
Most of the criminals on Guandao Island voluntarily abandon their fragile flesh/bodies and completely merge with the machines. Even if they are arrested and imprisoned, they are still not afraid of death. They cannot feel any pain brought by the flesh/body.
Because the danger value of the prisoners is too high, most of the employees on Guandao Island are stupid robots.
They are set with simple programs and are responsible for cleaning and logistics on the island.
The stupid robots themselves have no consciousness, so there is no need to worry about being controlled or brainwashed by the prisoners.
The management and prison guards on the island must be human. To ensure their own safety, all staff will be replaced with mechanical bodies before going to the island
. Lu Yao saw the scene of the previous owner being brainwashed by a high-spirited customer in the time machine. Even though he had replaced his mechanical body in advance, he was still dominated by the high-spirited customer, so that in the end even his brain was dug out.
The materials collected by Lu Yao can only see the situation on Bookstore Street. I heard that the owner's brain was later exhibited in the public area of the prison. Anyone can sneak into his brain at will and see all his thoughts and memories. The
previous owner was rescued by the prison guards and quickly closed the store and moved away from Guandao.
Lu Yao fully understood the violence, brutality and danger of this era, and informed the staff in advance in the employee group, including Harold and Bu Du, that all staff were not allowed to enter the eleventh store without her permission.
The situation in the bookstore is even more dangerous than the Ghost Street.
Lu Yao placed a road sign on the border between Districts 9 and 8, turned around and walked slowly towards the store.
It is estimated that there will be no business in the morning, and I can have a leisurely breakfast when I return to the store.
The people on the island are either robots or robots. They don’t need to eat or drink water. It can be said that the basic physiological needs of organisms have been physically eliminated.
The previous owner’s choice of mechanical joint lubricant/lubricant/oil was actually a very good idea.
It is said that different brands of lubricants have slightly different effects, and everyone's feelings are different, perhaps just like eating.
The previous owner opened a game store, which was popular for a few days at the beginning, but closed down faster than the lubricant store.
Most of the games in this world are holographic games. The technology is highly developed. Humans can even abandon their bodies at will. The mental threshold is generally too high, and it is difficult for ordinary games to maintain excitement.
The previous owner of the previous store sold exclusive clothing designs. The owner is an independent designer with many unique ideas.
Perhaps it was because of this uniqueness that she attracted too much curiosity. Less than two weeks after she came to the island, she was kidnapped by escaped prisoners, who wanted to make her brain into a specimen for collection.
When she was rescued by the prison guards, her brain was severely damaged, and she is still in a nursing home.
…
Based on past data, the customer group that the new store is targeting may be the most brutal in history.
Lu Yao was eating a corn, ham and cheese sandwich with a cup of coffee at hand, flipping through the poetry collection that had just been put on the shelf in the store, her thoughts in a turmoil.
She thought that there would be no customers in the store until lunch break.
There was an abrupt knock on the door. After the bookstore was renovated, the door was replaced with a hard, transparent bulletproof glass sensor door. Customers can see the decoration and furnishings of the store from the outside, and no one needs to open the door.
Lu Yao looked up.
Outside the door stood a silver-grey humanoid robot, estimated to be over two meters tall, wearing a blue and white striped prison uniform, with a metallic luster on the exposed skin and face, and blue-grey simulated mechanical eyeballs embedded in the cold and hard steel mask, with deep and spirited eyes.
Because these eyes are too realistic, they don't look very compatible with the metal body.
Lu Yao prefers the sweeping robots that occasionally pass by, which are agile, compact and cute.
Lu Yao didn't hesitate for too long, he stood up and walked to the door, personally welcoming the guest in.
Before entering, Gus looked down at his hands in confusion.
He had just come out of District 7, and after fifteen days of mental interrogation, he was finally going to be sent back to the prison in District 6.
Probably because of the accumulated stress from the mental interrogation, his mental value was rioting when he came out, and he accidentally stabbed the prison guard who was escorting him.
While waiting for the new prison guard to receive him, Guts heard the prison guards outside the door talking about the newly opened store in the eighth district, and slipped out when they were not paying attention.
Guts was in an active mental state, and he easily avoided the guards at the door, crossed the border between the seventh and eighth districts, and then saw the signpost.
On the huge green signpost, there was a big arrow and a somewhat arrogant sentence -
[Welcome to the resting place of souls.]
Guts reached out and touched the signpost, and it was not a suspended light screen.
The resident stores and new store owners in the eighth district have always been their toys. This time, Guts didn't know what kind of store this was at first glance.
He walked forward in the direction indicated by the signpost and saw balloons and banners floating in the air.
Gus stopped at the side of the road and carefully read the words on the balloon banners. He stood there for a few minutes, and when he realized that the jailer was about to catch up with him, he continued to walk forward.
A few minutes later, Gus arrived at the door of the bookstore. He looked up at the store sign for a while, and when he looked down, he saw the owner sitting by the window.
Gus's mechanical eyeballs turned slowly a few circles, and it turned out to be a native human female.
She did not replace any mechanical limbs, and sat defenselessly behind the glass door. On the table in front of her was a good-looking breakfast.
Gus stood there confused for a while, his emotions gradually rising, and he raised his arm and knocked on the glass door lightly.
Fortunately, the door was of good quality and he didn't break it.
Gus's eyes were always following the fragile native human woman in the door.
When she stood up and came to open the door, he failed to break her weak neck as expected.
Her eyes were always gentle. After seeing him, her eyes wandered around, her face didn't change much, she walked over, opened the door, and smiled at him, as if she was just receiving an ordinary customer.
Gus bent his fingers slightly, slowly put them behind his back, and pointed to the balloons floating in the open space in front of the bookstore. His voice was a little unnatural and stagnant: "Those things...what are they?"
Lu Yao: "Balloons and banners."
Gus felt that she didn't understand what he meant: "I mean the text."
Lu Yao: "Ah - you are interested in Borges."
Gus turned his head, his blue-gray eyes turned twice, and there was no emotion in his eyes: "Borges?"
Lu Yao turned and walked to the display stand facing the door, and took a collection of poems from the most conspicuous position: "The poems on the banner are all from this collection of poems, and the author is Borges. If you are interested, there is a reading room in the store."
Physical books have disappeared for hundreds of years in this era. For the people here, books are something completely new.
Lu Yao has urgent business tasks, but she still set up a reading room in the bookstore, hoping that customers who come to the store can first understand what the books are.
Gus's eyes moved away from the poetry collection in Lu Yao's hand and fell on her face.
Is this an invitation for him to enter the store?
Gus was very confused, but there was no expression on his steel mask.
The mechanical limbs seemed to have suddenly malfunctioned, and he slowly raised his legs and walked into the bookstore.
Lu Yao walked in front and led Gus to sit in the reading room, and put down the poetry collection for trial reading.
The reading room is separated by high-strength soundproof glass. It is safe and quiet, and you can see the situation outside by looking up.
Gus sat down at the table and looked around calmly. He saw the owner returned to her previous position, eating breakfast while looking down at the open book on the table. She was not nervous at all.
She seemed to be reading Borges's poetry collection as well.
Gus reached out and imitated the owner's movements, gently opening the book in front of him.
There was a rustling sound when the papers were turned, which Gus found novel, as the suspended screen never made such a sound.
The paper was very fragile, and Gus turned it over and over carefully. He started reading only after he got used to the sound of the pages turning.
The feeling of reading a paper book is completely different from the usual use of a light screen to quickly process a large amount of information. As I read slowly, line by line, time seemed to be stretched to infinity, and my restlessness was silently soothed.
However, the speed at which robots process information is much faster than that of ordinary people. Gus imitated Lu Yao's reading and read for a while, but soon lost his patience. His hands were flipping through the pages, and he read ten lines at a glance, occasionally stopping at a certain page to read carefully.
Not long after, Gus found the poem on the banner.
[…Your body is just time, time that keeps passing, and you are just every lonely moment…]
[…The sadness of a person who has been looking at the lonely moon for a long time.]
[…You are also every self you have lost.]
…
Not long after prison guard 0666 sent the prisoner to the ninth district, he received an emergency reception notice and hurried from the ninth district to the seventh district.
He heard the alarm bell in the seventh district and learned that Gus had escaped from prison, and his target was most likely the newly opened store in the eighth district.
0666 hurried from the seventh district to the eighth district again. Considering that the new store owner might have been murdered, 0666 angrily called in the mechanical sniper team. The
group rushed to the eighth district in a mighty manner. 0666 saw Guts' tall figure through the glass door of the bookstore and made a gesture: "Prepare to shoot."
The mechanical body is expensive, but it has no weaknesses. Ordinary guns cannot cause harm to it.
However, the prisoners were implanted with special chips when they entered Guandao. The use of special mechanical guns can deprive the robot of its mobility for a short time, just like anesthetizing a native.
The mechanical sniper team dispersed outside the bookstore. 0666 gave the order, and the sniper team immediately prepared to shoot Guts.
The next second, Guts turned around, and the sniper's finger on the trigger paused slightly.
Guts stood sideways with his arms bent.
The legendary native shop owner stood opposite Guts, with a metal table between them. Guts seemed to use the star ring to scan the scanner on the metal table. The shop owner picked up a few cubes on the table and threw them into the bag, then handed them to Guts with both hands.
0666 raised his hand and made a "pause" gesture: "Wait a minute."
Sniper No. 03 asked: "What is the prisoner doing?"
0666 was also puzzled. Guts had just finished a 15-day mental interrogation. His mental value was undoubtedly in a state of riot, but he didn't move at all.
As rumored, the shop owner did not use any mechanical limbs. She stood in front of Guts with a calm expression, as if she was just receiving an ordinary guest.
After paying with the Star Ring, Gus took the cloth bag containing the books and turned to leave. He lowered his head to take another look at the blue mark on the bag.
There was a big "Yao" mark in the middle of the cloth bag, which looked a bit like the name of the bookstore.
Lu Yao noticed his gaze and said casually: "Lu Yao, my name is. The shop sign and the mark on the packaging bag are the logos of my store."
Gus paused slightly and introduced himself: "Gus, I live in cell No. 5, District 6."
Lu Yao nodded and casually pulled out a pen from the pen holder on the table and handed it to him: "You are the first customer of our store, so I have a small gift for you."
Gus: "What is this?"
Lu Yao took out another signing pen from the drawer and drew a few strokes on the draft paper. Some messy black lines appeared on the yellowed paper: "This is a pen, used for writing, studying, and taking notes. You bought three books, maybe you can use it."
Pen?
Gus thought what kind of antique this was. He had never used a pen since he was born. The data and memory could be integrated into a memory chip and stored, so he would never forget it.
Thinking this way, Gus reached out to take the pen and turned to walk towards the door.
Gus had just come out of the bookstore when Jail Guard 0666 and two robots surrounded him from the side. The arresting robots were extremely powerful and they clamped Gus' arms on the left and right.
The sniper stood two meters away with a mechanical gun, surrounding him in a half circle.
Gus did not struggle, and even raised his hand in cooperation: "I'll go back with you, don't damage my book."
0666 gave an order to the robot: "Take him to the airship first."
The guards and the robots appeared suddenly, and in less than two minutes, a confrontation that should have been extremely tense ended quietly.
After 0666 confirmed that Gus was taken onto the airship and put on the controller again, he got off the airship and walked towards the bookstore.
The mechanical sniper team was still at the door of the bookstore, waiting to receive Lu Yao's orders.
They needed to determine the owner's condition. She might have been dominated and had to undergo a full body examination.
Lu Yao watched Gus being caught at the door of the store without moving.
0666 led the sniper team into the bookstore. Lu Yao was still standing in front of the cash register, with the black muzzles of the guns all pointed at her.
Lu Yao's face was calm: "Excuse me, is there anything I can do for you?"
0666 looked at the owner carefully, scanning him up and down with his mechanical eyes. He paused for a moment before speaking: "Are you not injured?"
Lu Yao shook his head.
0666 thought the situation was a bit absurd: "The prisoner didn't do anything to you?"
Lu Yao: "You ask Gus? He bought three books and left."
0666: "Books?"
Lu Yao slowly turned around and pulled out three books from a nearby bookshelf: "These are them."
Two Borges poetry collections and a novel.
The novel is a long one, a set of three volumes, and Gus only bought the first one.
0666 took the books from Lu Yao, the plastic cover had been opened, and they were all sample books for trial reading.
Poetry collections, novels, all names that he had never heard of.
0666 flipped through a few pages, and a question popped up in his mind - why did Gus only buy a novel?
0666 turned to the back of the book, and there was a suggested price under the barcode in the lower right corner.
——68,000 star coins.
0666 slowly raised her head, glanced at the store owner, and then looked down at the price of the book: "68,000 star coins?"
He seemed to understand why Gus only bought one copy.
Lu Yao seemed not to hear his doubts, nodded and prepared to introduce: "This novel is very interesting..."
0666 put down the book, and her tone suddenly became firm: "We are the prison guards of the Sixth District. According to the procedure, we need to take you to the Mental Value Research Center for a full body check-up. Please cooperate."
Lu Yao did not take any protection. In the eyes of high mental value criminals, her brain was like a luxurious villa with the door open.
After Gus entered the store, he stayed in the store for about fifteen minutes. 0666 was very worried about the store owner's situation.
Lu Yao knew that she was fine, but she also cooperated with the prison guards' investigation.
Not only could she experience the airship for free, but she could also explore the map.
Lu Yao hung a sign on the door of the bookstore, saying that the owner was temporarily busy, and that people could come into the store to read books, and they could pay at the cashier to buy books.
The Dream Fulfilling System can remotely monitor the situation in the store, and the prices of the books have been set. Customers can pay by scanning the Star Ring.
Lu Yao boarded the airship. The space inside the airship was very large. She did not see Gus, and she estimated that he was being held solitary.
Lu Yao sat with the prison guard. She occupied a long row of seats on the right side of the airship. The prison guards, snipers and arrest robots opposite her all looked over, with dozens of electronic eyes rolling around.
They were curious about this native human, but also a little afraid, especially after seeing the prices of the books in the store.
Dream Fulfillment System: "I said the price was too high, they didn't even dare to look at you."
Lu Yao: "That's all a misunderstanding, I can explain."
Dream Fulfillment System: "They may not give us another chance."
Just now in the bookstore, 0666 Prison Guard was cautious and full of pity towards the owner at first, but he took a look at the price of "The Count of Monte Cristo", silently took two steps back, and when he looked at the owner again, he inexplicably felt a sense of respect and distance.
【Author's Comment】
Notes (1), (2), (3): The original sentences are all taken from the poetry collection of Jorge Luis Borges.
Thanks to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated the nutrient solution between 2023-12-01 17:12:28 and 2023-12-01 22:00:45.
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: 110 bottles of Manman Qingluo; 50 bottles of If You Hit the Moon; 29 bottles of Salt Ginger Scallion Fish; 26 bottles of Yoyo Luming; 20 bottles of Muziju; 12 bottles of Seven Su; 10 bottles of Qinghuan, Yuhuishenhuo, Want to Lie Down, Have You Updated; 7 bottles of Air Leaf; Hunyuan Lingtong, Dec 5 bottles; Geji Dove, Qingfeng Xulai, Taylor, Mimi Mimi, I want to eat bear biscuits, Tao, Lingdangdangdang, JoyceLeo, Yeye, Liuliwa, Xiong, Dieyi, Gulishanhe, and Luyao realize the wish 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
No comments yet.