MASG chapter 5

 

Xia Yu felt his body tremble.

Thanks to his super-strong self-healing ability, his broken left ankle had recovered; the skin had returned to its normal color; and the large area burned by the acid rain had disappeared completely. But he was once again at a crossroads of fate, which was really too hard for him now.

He could hide in the trash bin and sneak out every day to find food, treating this place as a temporary safe haven for himself and Mo An. They had already successfully avoided the triangular-headed robots. As long as they made no sound, the robots would definitely not discover them.

The other choice was to leave the metal box and risk being discovered by the robots. They would have to run several hundred meters to find a password door, open it, and enter the sewer. Xia Yu didn’t know what the situation was outside. It must be full of danger. But what made him even more hesitant was Jingwei.

It must also be an artificial intelligence similar to Nuwa.

He had never heard of Jingwei before. The whole world had been controlled by Nuwa all along. Who was Jingwei? Was it good or bad? Was it trying to trick him and then wipe him out?

Jingwei: [Xia Yu, you must leave here, take Mo An, quickly!]

The bracelet made a sound again. Although Jingwei was just a mechanical voice, the urgency in its tone was still clear.

“Who are you? Why should I believe you? How do you know my name?” Xia Yu asked.
“Machines are killing people. Why should I believe you?”

Yes, artificial intelligence and robots were on the same side. They weren’t living people, so they would kill living people. Without hesitation, Xia Yu chose to stay, instinctively choosing temporary safety.

Jingwei: [Leave quickly, leave quickly!]

“You’re lying!” Xia Yu said angrily. “Not only do you kill people, but you also lie to them. I know you want to trick me. There’s no sound of robots around, there’s simply no…”

Jingwei: [You must believe me, and now the only one you can believe is me. Professor Wang Qin gave you this bracelet, perhaps that is the answer.]

Wang Qin… Professor Wang? After hearing this name, Xia Yu suddenly calmed down.

Jingwei: [Professor Wang wouldn’t lie to you, and neither will I. Please take Mo An and leave immediately!]

Jingwei’s tone sounded more and more anxious. Xia Yu was torn by his own hesitation. Believing this artificial intelligence that appeared out of nowhere was risky, but Jingwei said that Professor Wang gave him the bracelet. Xia Yu’s heart beat especially fast. He knew he was about to leave the safe hut again.

Still moving carefully, he stepped out of the trash bin first. His clothes were already torn. The surroundings were still quiet, with no signs of a big cleanse. He held his breath, grabbed the sleeve of the white coat, pulled Mo An out, and put him back on his back. He wasn’t sure if it was because of hunger, but Mo An felt much heavier.

“Which way is west?” Xia Yu asked.

Jingwei: [Opening the street view camera… I see you, Xia Yu. Run straight ahead. The road is safe. There are no machines. Your time is running out.]

Straight ahead was west. Should he run now? Xia Yu looked at the waterlogged ground, pressed his lips together, and started running. He ran as hard as he could, his lips pressed together so tightly that they turned white. Although Jingwei had told him the road was safe, Xia Yu still didn’t dare lower his guard.

He also couldn’t step into puddles; the threat of acid rain had not yet passed.

Huff, huff, huff, huff. Xia Yu, who rarely exercised, quickly became exhausted. So his running turned into fast walking, and then slow walking.

Jingwei: [Speed up, don’t rest.]

“I know. I’m just very hungry. My stomach is growling.” Xia Yu pouted bitterly. Artificial intelligence doesn’t need to eat. Of course, it doesn’t know what hunger means. Just as he finished speaking, something exploded three or four hundred meters behind him. The sound was deafening!

It was the trash bin that he and Mo An had just hidden in!

When Xia Yu saw clearly, his whole body stiffened in fright. Had they not left that place, they would now be shattered pieces of flesh! Jingwei wasn’t lying, the machines were really conducting a big road cleanup.

Jingwei said, “It’s aircraft. Aircraft are patrolling the road surface!”

Jingwei’s voice pulled Xia Yu back to reality. Those aircraft hadn’t flown over yet, he still had a chance to escape. Turning around, Xia Yu forgot about his hunger. In his head, only two words remained: escape!

Escape with his little fish fry. Xia Yu’s mind went completely blank. He stretched his legs and raced for his life. He had seen those aircraft before. There were so many of them that he couldn’t count them all, and they were very fast.

Run faster! Run faster! They were right behind him. Xia Yu didn’t know how far he had run, he just kept rushing forward. The sound of the aircraft was getting closer and closer, like an unshakable nightmare. Finally, he saw a rusty metal door. Without knowing if it was the right one, Xia Yu rushed toward it.

Jingwei: [The password is 0901.]

There were many stones on the ground. Xia Yu stumbled a few steps and fell hard to the ground. But he couldn’t care about anything else. After getting up, he pounced on the password lock. The keys to the password lock had already been corroded by acid rain and were blurry. Despite the blurriness, he recognized the numbers and, with trembling hands, pressed those four digits.

The door opened right in front of him.

Another explosion sounded behind him. He didn’t know what had been blown up. Xia Yu carried Mo An and ran through the door, slamming it shut. Half a second later, the door was hit by the blast, and the ground was almost lifted up. Xia Yu was thrown against the wall and rolled down the stairs with the fish egg.

The world spun, and his head felt dizzy.

His ears rang from the sound outside. He couldn’t hear anything for a few seconds and may have blacked out. His body felt heavy and his head was foggy. He knew only that the stairs were long and that it took quite some time to roll to the bottom. He didn’t know how long it took before the ringing truly faded. Xia Yu slowly opened his eyes and saw a faint light.

It was the warm yellow light of the sewer.

This kind of light made people feel at ease. However, the bracelet didn’t respond; perhaps it had broken. He lay there for a few minutes before he had the strength to sit up. The first thing he did after getting up was to check if Mo An was injured.

The huge fish egg, wrapped in clothes, had rolled down the stairs with him and taken some of the damage. The outer layer of the fish egg, which had been intact, now had several scratches. Xia Yu stroked it with his small hand, his heart aching and his tears welling up again.

“I’m so sorry. You always get hurt just from following me.” Xia Yu hated himself for being useless. He was unable to run fast, wasn’t strong or tall enough, and didn’t even have a decent weapon. Professor Wang had entrusted him with this precious fish egg, and now Mo An was injured.

“When I recover, I’ll help you find medicine.” Xia Yu pressed his dirty face against the fish egg and unknowingly cried on it. Outside, the great cleansing was underway. The bricks and stones above them shook from time to time, and dust fell, covering Xia Yu from head to toe.

After resting for a while, he decided to venture deeper into the sewer. This place was too dangerous, it was too close to the door.

Carrying Mo An on his back once again, Xia Yu was no longer as panicked as before. For now, at least, he had found relatively stable shelter, and he knew he had Jingwei’s help. The width and height of the sewer were similar to the institute’s corridor, just not as bright. The ground shook, and the sewers shook along with it.

Each tremor filled Xia Yu with fear. These movements were transmitted into the fish egg, causing Mo An’s pelvic fins to tremble as well. Yet, he didn’t have the strength to open his eyes.

“I am a little jellyfish…” Xia Yu began to sing again. This way, he wouldn’t be so afraid. After walking dozens of meters and carrying Mo An around a corner, Xia Yu suddenly heard a faint sound.

“Help, help!”

“Who’s there?” Xia Yu immediately put the fish egg on the ground, stood in front of it, and took out the metal shard he had hidden in his pocket to use as a weapon. “Who… who… who’s there! I’m really strong. I can kill people!”

“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” The voice rang out again.

Xia Yu listened quietly. His bluff certainly couldn’t scare adults, but it was more than enough to scare peers. A boy around his age crawled out of a gap in the wall. He was covered in sand and dirt and had a wound the size of a palm on his shoulder. He looked very different from Xia Yu. Something seemed to be hidden under his hair on the top of his head.

“Who are you?” Xia Yu asked fiercely.

“My name is… Mi Dou.” The boy breathed intermittently, blood was already pooling on the ground. “My name is… Mi Dou, help me.”

Mi Dou? What kind of name was that? It was the first time Xia Yu had heard such an unusual name. The institute always gave test subjects pleasant names. He cautiously approached Mi Dou, needing to confirm whether this person was dangerous.

As he got closer, Mi Dou seemed even younger than him, maybe seven or eight years old.

“You are… a genetically modified human?” Xia Yu slowly put down his weapon when he clearly saw the two bear ears on top of Mi Dou’s head. This was an external trait that only genetically modified humans would have. When the DNA of an animal is fused with a human’s, the resulting person will have corresponding external features. For example, Mi Dou had a pair of furry ears growing within his curls.

These inhuman appearances would be deemed “flaws” by humans. Perfectly modified humans looked no different from humans on the outside.

Mi Dou nodded weakly. The moment he looked at Xia Yu, he recognized a kindred spirit. Their genes had both been “surgically” altered. As flawed genetically modified humans of a similar age, there was no barrier between them, only a sympathy born from mutual understanding.

Xia Yu put away his weapon and carried Mo An away. He looked around. Mi Dou was located in a collapsed section of the wall that revealed a small room, likely a rest chamber in the sewer. It was much better hidden than the corridor. He settled Mo An down, then pulled the seemingly dying Mi Dou inside and gently closed the door.

“What happened to you?” After finishing these tasks, Xia Yu squatted beside Mi Dou. “My name is Xia Yu. I am a little jellyfish.”

“I got separated from my mother. The ground cracked open, and I fell in. Where am I?” Mi Dou stared into Xia Yu’s eyes. He had never seen a color like his before, like fish scales.

Xia Yu simply sat beside him. “It’s a sewer, but I don’t know where we are either. How did you fall in?”

Perhaps through Mi Dou, he could learn something about the outside world. Xia Yu was eager to understand everything. Only by understanding could he survive—at the very least, not die so easily.

Mi Dou’s face was flushed; he was obviously very unwell. “I…I was walking on the street with my mom when we heard a loud noise. When we looked up, the aircraft started shooting at the street. Then, some transport robots started attacking us.”

“So it really is like that.” Xia Yu nodded. It was much the same as what happened in the institute—the robots had rebelled.

“Mom pulled me along and told me to run, but I ran slowly. I fell, and then a fireball came down. The ground cracked, and I rolled into this hole. The crack collapsed, and now I can’t get out.” Mi Dou looked at his right shoulder. The wound looked like a pit. “I won’t survive.”

Xia Yu was skilled at handling wounds since he had been moving around laboratories since childhood. However, under the current circumstances, he couldn’t do anything.

“The wound needs bandages and medicine. But right now, you need…” Xia Yu touched Mi Dou’s forehead. “You need fever reduction. You’ve got a fever.”

“No wonder I feel so awful.” Mi Dou said weakly.

Xia Yu felt sorry for him. “How long have you been here? Your wound is infected. The fever needs to go down.”

Mi Dou shook his head. “One day? Or two days? I don’t remember… I passed out. That, that—what is it? Is it medicine?”

He looked toward the fish egg wrapped in a red piece of clothing in the corner. Xia Yu was very protective of it. Could it be a medicine that could save someone?

“That’s not medicine. It’s my most important best friend.” Xia Yu didn’t have time to explain anything about “abnormal species” or “mermaids.” He was already hungry and now even more lost. The bracelet flashed at just the right time. Before Jingwei could speak this time, Xia Yu lifted it in front of him.

Jingwei: [Signal is a bit weak… Xia Yu, are you still okay now?]

“I came in. I’m in the sewer. I’m so hungry.” First, Xia Yu reported his condition, then said, “I met a little bear. He’s injured. What should I do now?”

Jingwei: [Retrieving sewer map, loading map… If you can reach the next manhole exit, climb up to the surface from there, you will find an automatic medicine vending machine. There is also a food vending machine where you can get food.]

“Ah? Go to the surface again…” Xia Yu immediately wavered. That place was filled with death and danger of discovery at any moment.

Jingwei: [Behind the vending machine, there will be an energy pharmacy. There are medicines and nutrient injections for Mo An.]

“What!” Xia Yu’s heart trembled in shock.

Jingwei: [Mo An needs nutrients. According to the information database, mermaids require sufficient energy. Mo An’s current daily need is 5,000 calories. If this number isn’t met, he will die.]

Xia Yu asked timidly, “What does that mean?”

Jingwei: [It means that if he doesn’t receive nutrient injections, he will starve to death.]

Once again, Xia Yu faced a dilemma. After a brief hesitation, he gripped his weapon and stood up. “Don’t you dare lie to me… I, I will go.”