Chapter 2: Man and Machine
Translator: - - Editor: - -
“Are you sure?” The sa voice sounded uncertain.
“Nonsense! Just show yourself and we’ll see!” Ye Chong’s expression betrayed mild impatience, but the intensity of his gaze were a contrast to his apparent emotions. Ye Chong arched his body slightly, like a bow ready to fire, prepared to deliver a fatal blow.
“Then I’m coming out!” The voice maintained its level tone.
Imdiately, the room dimd, and Ye Chong did not manage a reaction before hearing a deafening rumble as a huge wave of trash engulfed him whole.
The trash planet fell silent again.
After a long stillness, in a trash heap near a Pulsed Signal Relay Station, a hand suddenly erged from the heap, and a filthy man climbed his way out of the trash heap.
*Cough… cough…*
“Bad things co in threes, huh…” Ye Chong cursed as he shook the little rocks and sand grains out of his clothing. Up to this point, Ye Chong could not understand what had happened.
Could it be that, this was the legendary mode of self-destruction?
He looked on at the sorry sight of the area, the entrance to his ho no longer there - everywhere was just trash and more trash. Ye Chong shuddered at the aftermath- how long would it take to carve out another entrance?
Ye Chong cursed murderously under his breath, “Once I find you, you little scum, I will make you pay!” The fury in him burned like a lasting wildfire.
As Ye Chong stared at the perpetrator of this whole incident, he found himself speechless.
The route-digging took three whole days, and the thought of the long and arduous process fueled Ye Chong’s anger towards the perpetrator to new unprecedented heights.
But when Ye Chong tried to deal with the perpetrator, the fire would not catch.
Its tallic shell, aesthetic and powerful, the alternating blue-and-white laser coating pristine, the ch’s surface completely spotless despite being amongst filthy and disgusting trash. When Ye Chong found it, it was just quietly standing there, firmly, as though nothing in existence could ever perturb it.
Ye Chong knew at first glance that he had found real treasure!
If the first glance at the ch gave him joy, a second glance made Ye Chong understand profoundly the aning of pain within joy.
A huge scar extended from its left shoulder to its waist, even exposing part of its engine to the air, and the entire left arm was missing. It was as though a one-of-a-kind exquisite painting of perfection was forcefully ripped in half.
This was a human-shaped ch, with a height of around twelve ters, its body painted with alternating blues and whites, with an elongated overall design, a world’s difference from Winnie’s thickset bulkiness. The ch’s body radiated a faint, mysterious tallic luster, the protective armor panels on the chest were like the abs of well-developnt muscles, but not cumbersoly so. The icy cold profile had edges that looked as though they cut, and hosted an enigmatic pair of blue bionic eyes that blinked rhythmically, emanating a supernatural charm.
Ye Chong was stunned, as he starred at the dilapidated ch that destroyed his ho. For a mont, Ye Chong was thoroughly captivated by this damaged but unique ch, as though the ch had bewitched his entire being with magic.
“*Beep* self-assessnt completed, engine functions at 86%, left limb functions at 0%, cabin functions at 97%, other parts are fully functional!”
The gender-neutral voice interrupted Ye Chong out of his fantasies.
Ye Chong blurted, “Waah, this is the real deal, a self-assessing ch!” If one looked closely, one could see Ye Chong’s mouth gaping wide enough to fit an engulfer’s thigh and even drooling.
The damaged ch suddenly spoke, “Hello!”
A ch that greets, Ye Chong thought in a daze, and greeted back instinctively, “Hello!”
The ch continued, “My na is Mu Shang, you can call Mu!”
Ye Chong was still not out of his reverie, “Oh, I’m Ye Chong, you can call Ye!”
Abruptly, Ye Chong ca back to his senses and flinched as though burned on the ass. He pointed at the damaged ch and stamred, “You - you - you - you can talk?”
The damaged ch that was Mu Shang nodded gracefully, “At a certain level, your observation is accurate!”
Ye Chong repeated in disbelief, “A ch that speaks?”
“Um-hum!”
With the addition of Mu Shang, Ye Chong’s ho inevitably grew in space to thrice its original size. From Mu Shang, Ye Chong ca to realize that the hanging ornant was Mu Shang’s spatial control, but Mu Shang seed to prefer being outside than in the alternate dinsion. Ye Chong was also grateful for the company - for a sixteen-year-old, loneliness was almost unbearable.
Ye Chong sat down heavily, finally finished with his work, and completely exhausted. Mu Shang imitated Ye Chong’s actions, as it swooshed down to a sitting position beside Ye Chong with a loud thud. Dust erupted into the air, and Ye Chong was caught off guard amidst the chaos as he was sent tumbling to a corner by the strong gust. As he rose, face frozen in anger, what he found was Mu Shang had smashed a large hole in the ground, and the ch was still sitting comfortably in the hole as it looked back with innocent eyes.
Under the lighting, the tiny human and the huge machine sat side by side.
Ye Chong asked curiously, “Mu, what happened to you?”
Mu Shang answered, “Information corrupted, reason is unknown!”
Ye Chong gulped down a mouthful of water and laughed. “Hah, if it must be because you are actually not powerful enough, to be beaten up like that!”
Mu Shang replied, “Information corrupted, reason is unknown!”
Ye Chong’s laughter ended abruptly, and he moped. “Oh co one, can’t you be a little more interesting? Don’t just be like ‘information this’, ‘information that’!”
Mu Shang tilted its head in confusion. “Interesting? What is ‘interesting’?”
Ye Chong scratched his head in frustration, for he was stumped. “Er, er, that question is, hmm, a bit complicated, er, let’s talk about sothing else, Mu, are you actually male or female?”
… … …
Ye Chong sat in Mu Shang’s cabin, stupefied, as he stared in obvious disbelief, his hand caressing this and that in absolute adoration and admiration. “Mu, you must be one of the best chs there is, aren’t you?”
Mu replied evenly, “Information archive indicates that the answer is negative. Calculation indicates the probability of inclusion in the top 500 ranking chs as 26%, in the 501th to 600th ranking range as 63%, beyond the 600th ranking as 11%.”
Ye Chong gasped in astonishnt. “500 chs? Are there so many more great chs? But, back to your point, being in the top 500 is not too shabby! In any case, you’re definitely better than Winnie!”
Naturally, Ye Chong did not fully understand the implications of Mu Shang ranking within the top 500, even in its current state of dilapidation. Ye Chong had always dread of owning a ch more advanced than Winnie one day, and then he would march forth and challenge the trash planet’s most ferocious mutants in battle. What would the giant iron lizard’s at taste like? Ye Chong licked his lips without realizing it. Hah, the ti will co when I crown myself as King of this trash planet!
Mu Shang heartlessly cut short his fantasy. “Winnie’s strength cannot be calculated!”
Ye Shang imdiately pulled a face, “I know that!” “Mu, can I be your pilot?” he asked with anticipation.
“Denied!”
*Cries* Oh well, it looks like he’ll have to pilot Winnie himself!
Ye Chong was deeply saddened, but he caught on to a puzzling aspect. “Then why do you have a cabin?”
Mu Shang was silent for a few second before responding. “Information is corrupted, query is impossible!”
“Then do you rember who made you?” Ye Chong asked, interested.
“Information is corrupted, query is impossible!”
The ever so lonely Ye Chong was deeply absorbed in the conversation, and just as he was about to continue with the questions, a sudden alarm buzzed softly, as Mu Shang announced, “Energy level depleted!” Upon inspection of the energy indication display, the level was a hair’s breadth away from zeroing out.
Since Trash Planet-12 was situated close to a star, it had a nearly unlimited supply of solar energy, or at least Ye Chong never faced problems with energy supply. But when he used up all his backup energy cells on Mu Shang and found that it did not even recover 10% of its full capacity, Ye Chong was confounded!
As Mu Shang connected directly to the solar panels, Ye Chong was speechless, and prayed that the energy cell circulating his house would last until Mu Shang was finished charging that day.
Mu Shang was quiet throughout the charging process, and Ye Chong, bored with the whole process, dozed off.
The next day, as Ye Chong rubbed off the sleepiness of his tired eyes, he found that Mu Shang looked a little different. The machine’s surface looked as if it was coated with an extra layer of shine that added to the mysteriousness of the ch.
Ye Chong gasped, “Mu, you looked beautiful all of a sudden!”
Mu Shang seed to understand Ye Chong’s aning of ‘beautiful’, and explained, “This is the photon excitation effect, where an adequate energy supply produces a lifelike shine on tallic surfaces, the basic theory is that …”
Ye Chong sported his baggy eyelids and couldn’t stop yawning.
Mu Shang seed to enjoy the lecturing, showing no signs of stopping. “Other theories involved are actually quite simple, they can be classified into the following fields …”
Ye Chong bowed his head, like a monk in ditation, and one would notice upon close inspection that a line of “moisture” had ford on his lap, forming a big patch of dampness on his trousers.
Mu Shang was not quite finished. “And so, from here one can reach the conclusion that a ch’s strength …”
A thundering snore cut off Mu Shang’s lecture. Mu Shang looked angrily towards the source of the sound, and saw Ye Chong snoring rhythmically through his nose, incessantly, and his shoulders rose and fell with his heavy breathing.
Mu Shang humphed in anger!
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