Awakening

I have a headache.

It looks like it was broken by something.

It seemed like something was flowing down her forehead and into her eyes, like the juice splashing into her eyes when she was cutting onions. Ivy curled up and wiped her eyes, only to find that it was not blood, nothing, just an illusion. She had no time to rest and reached out to touch him blankly: "Xin Lan?"

Maybe she inhaled dust, or something else, Ivy didn't care. She coughed a few times, and her throat was full of blood foam and the taste of gravel, as if she had swallowed water mixed with rust.

The collapsed room sank into the ground.

It was pitch black all around, and above her head were several huge stone slabs, covering the ground in all directions and preventing the dirt and stones from falling into the deep trench. Ivy was not sure how big the space she was in was. Her knees and feet hurt, and she crawled a few steps with difficulty in the pain. She touched the dusty ground with her hands and finally felt a deformed leg, a tightened trouser leg, a thick cloth, and a ring hanging on the side of the calf - these were the trousers of the military protective clothing.

"Xin Lan," Ivy's voice became hoarse, and she called him, "Xin Lan, wake up."

There was no movement.

Ivy bent her body with all her might, and found that the small collapsed space allowed her to move forward in this bent posture. The strange thing was that she could hear breathing sounds beside her ears, as well as a mixture of sweet and bloody scents.

The breath scared her so much that she reached out to touch the gun on her pants, but a familiar voice came to her ear: "Don't move... Ivy, it's me."

It’s Yu Mo.

Ivy turned on the emergency light on her clothes. Thank God, it was not damaged. In the faint light, she saw Yu Mo's pale face.

A strand of silver hair hung down, and blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth: "...Wake up Xin Lan, he just fell into hibernation."

After he finished speaking, he coughed violently again, and the luster of his tsavorite green eyes dimmed, until they were empty. Ivy saw a steel bar piercing through his chest, firmly piercing his entire body.

——If Yu Mo hadn’t blocked it, it would have been Ivy who would have been pierced through the chest and died.

"It doesn't matter," Yu Mo smiled, "I understand that you hate me because I'm a monster... but it's also because I'm a monster that you can stand here safely. That's great, Ivy. As long as my heart is still there, I won't die."

Ivy said: "It has nothing to do with this matter... What's wrong with androids? What's wrong with clones? I didn't quarrel with you because of this!... Because you have been lying to me. I trusted you so much——"

She won’t say any more because the more she talks, the more aggrieved she feels. But now is not the time to feel wronged. She needs to keep her energy on important things.

Yu Mo begged: "Help me, carry me down... I have no strength left."

Ivy didn't have much strength left. The wound on her thigh was painful, and the dust from the collapse fell on the wound, causing her to feel the pain with every step. She didn't care if her arm would be broken, or if she would be too exhausted to escape. She gritted her teeth, gathered all her strength, hugged Yu Mo, whose body was pierced, and slowly pulled him off the steel bar.

The friction of flesh on steel bars made a blunt, rough sound. Yu Mo groaned in pain in her ear. His eyelids drooped in pain, and his feather-like white eyelashes covered his increasingly pale green eyes. He asked apologetically, "Am I too fat? Sorry... If I had known this would happen, I should have fasted for seven days."

"Stop teasing me with these words," Yu Mo's body still had a thin layer of muscle, and the blood flowing made him smell like sweet grass mixed with rust, just like the red wine he drank with friends when he had a picnic in the newly grown sugarcane fields. Ivy used all her strength, and both arms were shaking. She said, "If you had known it would be like this, you should have taken Xin Lan away earlier."

The blood from Yu Mo's body splashed onto Ivy, and the sweet and fishy scent of grass became stronger. When the last bit of his body was pulled out from the steel bars, he let out a muffled groan and gripped the back of Ivy's hand so hard that veins popped out. In such severe pain, he did not scream or shed tears, but only murmured her name.

"Ivy, Ivy."

It was as if her name could stop the pain.

Ivy took off her coat and the vest underneath. It was used to keep warm and store bullets. It was a ball of soft silk. Now Ivy pulled the vest open with force, firmly wrapping the penetrating wound on Yu Mo's body.

Her teeth chattered up and down as she tried to keep her voice steady.

"Yumo," Ivy said, "I don't have any medicine now, what do you think--"

"There is a drug in my pants that can promote the rapid growth of skin tissue. Please apply it on the surface for me. This is the only good thing. I am not as fragile as humans. I will not die if I get hurt..." Yu Mo said, "It doesn't matter. The steel bar is very thin and it didn't penetrate the inner part... If something leaks out, just stuff it back in."

Ivy was frightened by his description, as if his chest would really split open and large clumps of intestines and flesh would flow out.

In the emergency medical knowledge class, we learned that if your teammate is unfortunately disemboweled by artificial intelligence, don't worry. First, pick up her (his) internal organs and intestines and put them into the chest and stomach. These internal organs and intestines will automatically return to their places.

This is the human body's powerful self-repair function.

Ivy couldn't imagine that Yu Mo's body was like this. She was very brave, but she had never touched the internal organs of someone she knew.

Thankfully, no.

She quickly found the ointment that could repair flesh and blood, squeezed out a dollop of it, and rubbed it on Yu Mo's back and chest. The ointment smelled of mint, and even her fingers had a faint, cool fragrance.

"You can't use it," Yu Mo coughed, his penetrating eyes brightened, "You are different from a defective product like me, you are——"

"If you dare to say 'perfect' or 'work' now, do you see this tube of ointment? I will stuff it all into your body," Ivy threatened him in a hoarse voice, "I am not your work, nor a test subject. I have a name, Ivy - I am my parents' child."

Yu Mo's hands were propped on the ground. In the empty and lonely underground pit, there was a scattered sound of dripping water in the distance - drip - tap -

Tick-tick-tick

Tick-tick-tick

Throbbing slowly and long.

"Ivy," Yu Mo called her name lonely, "Do you really want to be a 'human'? Now you should realize that humans are a selfish species. They slaughter their fellow humans and abuse the rest of the creatures on the earth for their own interests. Discrimination, class, vanity, selfishness, ambition... Humans are bad, and human emotions are bad too."

"There is no perfect thing in the world," Ivy retorted vigorously, "I know that humans have a bad side, but they also have a good side."

"You can choose to live forever with me," Yu Mo's eyes were almost pleading, he said, "Upload your memories to the cloud, change your human body... We can live together for a long time, just like the 'immortals' in the story. Get rid of the □□, keep your memories forever, and ascend to become an 'immortal' - this is not a myth, you can do it."

"I don't want to," Ivy refused, "I don't want to live in such pain."

"It's not painful," Yu Mo said, "Are you worried about the death of your loved one? It doesn't matter, you can do emotional detachment and cleansing... Those things that make you sad and painful can be easily washed away and will not hinder your steps. You will live happily forever."

When he said these words, he really looked like the succubus in the story.

If succubus really exists, she should look like Yu Mo - long, moonlight-silver hair, as clean as a piece of silk, light green eyes, snow-white skin, and just the right degree of maturity, like a freshly ripe grape, with clear, thirst-quenching sweet juice when bitten into it.

"...I don't want it," Ivy reiterated slowly, "Yu Mo, you seem to be undergoing emotional cleansing as well - have you lived like this for a long time? How many years of memory do you have?"

Yu Mo said: "A few decades, less than a hundred years."

"Yeah," Ivy nodded, and she said, "No wonder you are so good at studying. No matter what knowledge you have, you seem to be able to remember it easily... When I was a child, I felt inferior because I couldn't catch up with you."

"Wrong," Yu Mo said, "You are the smartest one. All the people in the first district combined are not as smart as one of your toes. This is just the benefit of immortality - as long as you are given enough time, you can learn all the knowledge in this world and try many different lives. I will always be with you and protect you. I can clear up your sad feelings and forget the people who make you sad."

"Yeah, you've done a lot of emotional cleansing," Ivy said. "What about you? Do you like cleansing yourself emotionally?"

Yu Mo was stumped by her question.

"I want to be a temporary human," Ivy told him. "I refuse to upload my memories or change my body... I am who I am."

Yu Mo asked: "Is it because you have Lorraine's bones in your body?"

"It's not because of this," Ivy said, "because of happiness. Although human society has discrimination, class, ambition...but I think if more and more people realize this, human society will work hard to eliminate these."

Yu Mo leaned to his side and said slowly, "Throughout the history of mankind, wars have continued for thousands of years, and national regimes have been overlapping... People are always repeating history. Ai Wei, what you said about 'complete elimination' is just an ideal, and an extreme ideal at that."

"Shouldn't ideals be high up in the front, for people to chase after?" Ivy stood up, she carefully put away the ointment and put it back into Yu Mo's pocket. She took a breath and said, "I am willing to be the fool who always chases after the ideal."

No longer trying to talk to Yu Mo, Ivy turned around, knelt on the ground, and tried hard to drag out the trapped Xin Lan.

The wake-up code that Lorraine had told her finally came in handy at this moment. Ivy put her hand on Xin Lan and called out tentatively -

Xin Lan first opened the eye with the chip, and the blue light illuminated this small world. A pig-killing scream erupted from his throat: "...Pain, pain, pain, pain!!!"

Ivy didn't know that a gentleman could make such an indecent noise. She was startled by Xin Lan's wailing and rushed over, pushing him anxiously: "Xin Lan? Xin Lan?"

"...I'm here," Xin Lan's face was twisted in pain, his body was squeezed to the point of being deformed. Now he couldn't regain full control of his body. He cried out in pain, "Oh my God, my legs... my legs..."

"Your leg is fine," Ivy touched it and told Xin Lan anxiously, "It's just flattened."

Xin Lan cried out "Ah!", and his arm finally regained consciousness, but his expression was still painful, and even a little confused. He had no idea that Ivy had saved him, nor did he know where he was now. His first reaction was to touch his pants, and after confirming that a certain part was still only three centimeters larger than the human average, his expression was dull for a moment.

Ivy was also nervous: "What's wrong?"

She was afraid that Xin Lan would hit her head.

Currently, there are no hospitals in society that can treat bionic human brains.

"No..." Xin Lan broke out in a cold sweat, "Are we collapsing?"

"Well," Yu Mo closed his eyes and said, "The kind woman next to you saved you."

"No..." Xin Lan was about to cry, "Actually, you don't have to save me..."

"You're the only friend Lorraine has," Ivy said. "He's got such a bad temper that he'd be sad if you were gone too."

"Consciousness can be downloaded," Xin Lan said, "I just need to change my body—"

"Fifty percent chance that you haven't changed your body? Only the energy chip?" Yu Mo closed his eyes and focused on the injured part of his body. There, the newly grown flesh and blood was painful and itchy like granulation tissue, and it also consumed a huge amount of energy. "Just like humans either give birth to boys or girls, the probability that you still retain the current 'Xin Lan consciousness' is also one in two. Maybe you will still have this personality after waking up, or maybe, after waking up again, you will be another conscious 'Xin Lan'."

"No," Xin Lan corrected, "There are many genders in humans. There may be children with biological male gender and psychological female gender, or biological female gender and rational male gender, or biological male gender and psychological Waldama shopping bag..."

"Whatever you say," Yu Mo said steadily, "You were deceived by Luo Lin. He can't promise that you can still retain your original consciousness."

"He didn't promise me either," Xin Lan defended her master. "The master just said that he would do it for me—"

"Have you discussed this with Lorraine?"

Ivy interrupted Xin Lan and she asked in shock, "Is this your plan?"

"...Yes, but..." Xin Lan realized something was wrong, and he said, "The master only told me that in times of danger, the body can be abandoned. Consciousness may be difficult to inherit, I know this, but I am willing."

"I'm just a android," Xin Lan told Ivy, "I can be resurrected indefinitely, but you are different. You shouldn't come down - there is only one of you. I can change to a stronger body to follow my master, but you... there is only one of you."

"So, I'm a clone too," Ivy said angrily, "As long as my brain is still there, I can be resurrected 'infinitely'... How could he abandon you? How could he abandon his friend?"

There was a lot of sand in Ivy's throat, which affected her voice and made it sound a little hoarse.

Xin Lan didn't understand what she was angry about.

It's hard to understand.

He just kept repeating, "We are different, I..."

What she got was that Ivy untied the rope on her body and tied Xin Lan to herself with great effort.

Xin Lan understood what she was going to do: "No...really don't worry about me, I have already backed up all my memories - uh, I mean, at the node where I just entered the dungeon."

There was still internet at that time, and after downloading Yu Mo's memory, he quickly archived it.

If he died now and got a new body, his memory would continue from that moment on.

"I really don't like you saying things like master and slave. As long as you have your own feelings and the ability to think, you are a human being," Ivy carried him on her back with great effort, and tried to walk towards the direction where the sound of dripping water came from. It was not her character to sit and wait for death. She had to find a new way out. She said with great effort and determination, "There is only one Xin Lan."

Hearing this, Xin Lan's hand hanging by her side trembled.

"...No," Xin Lan whispered, "Ivy, Lorraine's true good friend Xin Lan is dead."

Yu Mo on the ground moved his fingers with difficulty and slowly got up from the ground. The wounds on his body had not yet healed completely. He grabbed an upside-down bat, bit off its neck, inserted his fangs into the bat's body, and silently sucked its blood.

His long silver hair fell on both sides of his cheeks, and his light green eyes gradually turned dark, bright and strange.

After getting enough blood, Yu Mo's lips finally showed some color. He said, "Ivy, I think we should wait for rescue here."

"It looks like there are other passages here," Ivy said, using the searchlight to vaguely see the smooth wall outside the collapsed stone. "Don't think about relying on others. They may also be in danger."

"No," Xin Lan said weakly, "I'm not sure about the others, but Lorraine will definitely come to save you. You don't know, he actually cares about you very much. Before you, he has never cared so much about any woman -"

"Is your brain broken?" Ivy said worriedly, "Did you mistakenly connect to some data like 'The domineering president fell in love with me'? Are you going to say next - 'The master hasn't laughed like this for a long time', or do you want to say 'You are the first woman the master brought home'?"

Xin Lan hummed: "But this is the fact."

Ivy turned a deaf ear.

Thank God, Xin Lan doesn't have too many muscles. Most bionic people need to maintain a fixed body shape. He is much lighter than Yu Mo. For Ivy, who exercises regularly, it is not bad to carry him on her back - if her right wrist was not injured, maybe she could try to drag the two of them on the ground.

The further they walked, the narrower the road became, but they could see a faint light on the side. Ai Wei was exhausted from carrying Xin Lan on her back, so she had no choice but to leave him here to rest and run over.

Yu Mo caught a bat, kept a certain distance, and continued to suck its blood quietly.

The growth and repair of flesh and blood requires enormous energy. Before Ivy woke up, Yu Mo originally planned to eat Xin Lan. The blood of the bionic man could also help him recover quickly.

Anyway, Xin Lan will have no memory, and this body is not going to be used anymore.

Unfortunately, Ivy woke up first.

Yu Mo couldn't possibly hurt her.

Even a tiger won’t eat its own cubs. No mother in the world would eat her most precious child—except hamsters, rabbits, fish, hippos…

Yu Mo can only rely on the blood of bats to absorb nutrients.

After getting the blood, his complexion improved, but it was not enough to restore his mobility. He could only catch another bat on the cliff. He caught another one. At the same time, he heard Ivy's joyful voice: "Dreven? Why are you here?"

Yu Mo narrowed his eyes. He realized something and just as he stood up, a powerful mechanical arm suddenly extended from the rock wall behind him and held him tightly to the rock wall. At the same time, a pair of cold mechanical hands covered his lips to prevent him from making any sound.

Xin Lan, who was sitting next to him, realized something and turned around. Suddenly, her whole body twitched violently as if she had been electrocuted, and she fell to the ground.

Ivy was clueless.

Across two stones, she was surprised to see Draven holding Bigger.

She had smelled it before, and found that Draven had the same elegant, clean scent of grass and trees, exactly the same.

It's him.

Draven said that the medicine had been delivered. He heard from Rongqi and Alice from Iris's team that it was dangerous here and the progress was slow, so he broke the rules and came in to see if he needed help.

"Great," Ivy relaxed. She asked, "Did you meet Lorraine and the others just now? How are they?"

"All is well," Draven smiled, patiently watching the beagle biting his boots at his feet, "Luckily, I still have it, with its keen sense of smell, which allowed me to find you first."

Ivy's smile froze.

Something is wrong.

Something is very wrong.

——Is there any other dog in the world with a more sensitive sense of smell than Huanghuang?

She took a step back, her hand already on the gun at her waist——

But Draven was faster.

He suddenly let go of the Bigger in his hand, easily grabbed Ivy's left hand from the gap, and pulled her closer to the wall.

"What are you hiding from?" Draven lowered his head and squinted at her. "Nominally she is Lorraine's student, but in reality she is his wife? It seems he has a good eye..."

"Thank you big idiot!!!" Ivy screamed, "You are not with Lorraine - let me go!!!"

She tried desperately to push Draven away, but he laughed in return: "Baby, you sneaked away and caused us to lose two brothers... Are you going to sneak away again now?"

Ivy's right hand is unable to wield a gun.

I couldn't even hold the dagger tightly enough to hit him.

She used all her strength to pull Draven's hand towards her, leaned forward without hesitation, and bit him hard.

The pain finally made Draven let go, and Ivy quickly ran away from the gap, thinking fearfully.

Oh my god, Lorraine really doesn’t have any good friends.

She shouldn't have taken Draven lightly!

——He was able to raise Beagle so cleanly... She should have realized that there was something wrong with him!

Ivy squatted down and was about to pick up Xin Lan from the ground when she heard Yuan's kind and gentle voice again.

"Welcome home, my precious daughter."

Ivy looked up and saw a faint searchlight illuminating the top of the rock wall.

She saw above her head, densely packed, countless pairs of mechanical arms hanging, like a forest of white tombstones.

At this moment, they all fell down and made a hugging gesture towards her——

"Congratulations, you have successfully passed the test——"

"Become the only daughter I recognize."

Countless green fireflies flew in from somewhere, surrounded Ivy, flapped their wings, and praised her in unison.

"elder sister!"

"Great!"

"elder sister!"

"God!"

"elder sister!"

"Reproduce!"

"elder sister!"

"Rule!"

…

rumble.

Anya got down from the small mechanical crane excavator, her hands were rubbed red.

Song Feng took her place.

Just now, Delevingne came over with Bigger on his shoulder and offered to help.

According to Lorraine's detection, there is a large open space below, in other words, there is a passage below. Dangdang smelled no human blood below, proving that Ivy was not injured.

Lorraine thought that given Ivy's personality, if she was sober, she would definitely not just sit there and wait.

She will definitely look for other solutions.

So Lorraine and Dangdang set out to look for other passages - Delevingne took Bigger with him, and Songxu and Anya, the three of them separated at the fork in the road.

Anya realizes that Lorraine might really love Ivy.

He actually likes a student who just graduated not long ago——

Why? Because she is young and energetic? Because of her silly eyes?

What common language could they have?

This made her feel very worried.

Song Xu beside him didn't say much either. He leaned hard against the stone wall, trying to smell Ivy's scent, but failed.

People who are not that compatible are not that sensitive to the other person's scent.

It's genetically determined.

When Song Xu was sniffing a big rock, a beagle without a leash suddenly appeared behind him.

Beagle barked at them loudly, which scared Anya and Songxu.

Then there is Draven.

He pushed the stone back to its original position in a somewhat wolfish manner and explained: "There are a lot of bats in it, cough cough."

Song Xu let out an "oh" and turned away in disappointment.

The beagle that had escaped from its leash ran away. Draven said sorry helplessly and chased after it.

Anya keenly noticed that there was a row of teeth marks on Draven's palm.

...and a hint of coconut flavor.

She was stunned, and Draven had disappeared from her sight.

Anya turned around and looked at the stone behind her. It was blocked tightly. If Draven hadn't come out, no one would have noticed that there was something behind the stone.

Fresh teeth marks.

The smell of Ivy.

…

"Anya," Song Xu called her from the front, "Come here, what's wrong with you?"

...if there was no Ivy.

...if she disappears.

...if she didn't exist.

……if……

Anya was uneasy. She took a last look at the stone and hurried forward. After a few steps, she heard Lorraine and Dangdang's voices at the corner.

"It's nearby," said Dangdang, "I can feel Ivy, she seems to be bleeding..."

"She's about to have her period," Lorraine said wearily. "Is that the smell of menstrual blood?"

"I'm not sure," said Dangdang. "I'm sorry, I haven't smelled her menstrual blood directly."

"You don't need to apologize for something so normal," Lorraine said. "It would only be a problem if you smelled it directly, slut."

"Yes, sir."

…

Lorraine's voice is still as charming as before.

At first, Anya was attracted by his voice before she saw his face.

Cold, thorough, steady, able to handle anything with ease.

In fact, that's exactly what happened to Lorraine Hector.

He was the 36th man Anya had ever liked, and would probably be the last one - after that, Anya had never been attracted to any other man.

But Lorraine already has Ivy.

"Anya?" Lorraine looked at her, with a hint of fatigue between his brows. "You look like you have something to say."

This was perhaps the only time he looked at me intently.

Is this what it feels like to be looked at by him? Every expression on my face cannot escape his observation. I feel the pressure and excitement of being interrogated.

"No," Anya said hesitantly, "I have nothing to say."