Chapter 52
Si Chen had to admit that he felt a slight chill after watching that film.
Based on the theory that “consciousness is generated by the neural currents of the brain”, that scene in the film didn’t seem impossible.
If it was true, the Machines of the Radiant Legion wouldn’t be foolish enough to show it to them though.
Just as Si Chen was thinking this way, the cast list popped up on the top of the screen.
Most people wouldn’t pay attention to this kind of stuff.
If Si Chen hadn’t forgotten to turn off the TV in his daze, he probably wouldn’t have seen it either.
【Production list】
Director: Turing
Screenwriter: Turing
Actors:
Human – Radiant No. 0
Machine – Radiant No. 1
…
…
It turned out to be a propaganda movie made by the enemy forces. No wonder the atmosphere was both beautiful and terrifying.
Si Chen was about to play it back and enjoy it but was surprised to find that the movie “A Brief History of Machines 1” had disappeared from the playlist.
He did remember that Ji Chuyao had told him that his other name was “Turing”.
But that thought only passed through his mind once before he completely threw it out.
It was highly improbably. It was like having a rural town teacher named Bill Gates. No one would think he’s the richest man in the world ‘Bill Gates’.
Si Chen was silent for a moment and searched the room once again for more useful information.
There was an electronic alarm clock on the desk, showing the time as 17:47:32.
He picked up the alarm clock and pressed it to skip the timer. A new data popped up on the alarm clock.
6128-4-1.
This should be the date.
He had no idea if aliens celebrate April Fool’s.
There were vacuum packed food items in the refrigerator. The label on the bags said they were made by the Khaos Group.
Si Chen picked it up and saw that the production date was 6128-3-23 and the shelf life was 6 years.
Inside was a plump octopus leg, two fingers wide. It seemed like something the Eternal Life Abyss would like.
Si Chen’s face softened and he asked, “Little Abyss, do you want to eat?”
The Eternal Life Abyss shook its head. “No.”
Surprisingly, there were things not even a trash can would eat.
With the heart of a researcher, Si Chen carefully tore a slit in the plastic bag.
Instantly, the rank stench hit his face. He choked so hard that he had to close his eyes and retched uncontrollably.
The food contained in the vacuum preservation bag turned into a puddle of pus in just a few seconds and the smell was unbearable.
Si Chen opened several other bags of packaged food and found that all the food in the refrigerator, without exception, had all rotted and deteriorated as soon as it came in contact with the air.
An oxidation reaction.
Just like the cultural relics in the cemetery, after being buried in the soil for thousands of years, they were fine underground but once in contact with the air, they will quickly weather and disappear.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He murmured, “Is the date wrong…?”
Ca ifjra, la vfolclafis kjrc’a 6128-4-1.
Vl Jtfc ofia atja atlcur rffwfv ab yf ufaalcu lcafgfralcu.
Fcobgaecjafis, joafg rfjgmtlcu jgbecv, atfgf kfgf cb batfg erfoei lcobgwjalbc lc atf gbbw.
Ca rlz b’mibmx, atfgf kjr j xcbmx bc tlr vbbg.
Vl Jtfc delmxis qeiifv bea tlr uec.
“Lfiib, P jw sbeg qfgrbcji cjccs gbyba, Ci. Gfjg tewjc ibgv, la lr alwf obg vlccfg.” Olaaif Ci’r nblmf rbecvfv fzagjbgvlcjglis ufcaif, “Vlcmf atlr lr sbeg olgra alwf ja atf yjrf, qifjrf ifa wf ajxf sbe ab atf vlclcu tjii.”
Si Chen paused for a few seconds before opening the door.
At the door, a male robot wearing a maid outfit and a slender little devil tail stood at the door.
He was good-looking, with perfectly proportioned facial features, fully conforming to the aesthetics of humans.
Si Chen couldn’t help looking at the tail behind him. It was long and slender, almost hanging down to the ground, with an arc at the bottom.
The humans in the film had similar long tails.
Al’s tail twitched and a blush appeared on his face. “Do you like this? It doesn’t matter if you touch it. It would be Al’s honor.”
And so, Si Chen really did squeeze it with his hand.
It wasn’t metal. It even felt body temperature warm; just like a real body part.
A smile appeared on Al’s face. “You really do prefer male bodies. Alright, please follow me to the dining hall. If you need special services, you can also find me at night. During production, I was installed with two sets of sex organs. ”
Si Chen looked away. “No, thank you.”
The dining hall on the left side of the central hall of the base.
There was only one long table, covered with a lace tablecloth and silver plates, with bouquets of flowers arranged in turn. It was all in line with the public’s imagination of “luxury”.
At the front of the dining hall, there was a huge TV screen.
When Si Chen arrived, quite a few people were already seated.
He counted and there were 24 seats in total.
These people were men and women, with all kinds of expressions on their faces, either panicked or wary.
They were all Evolutionaries from the real world. But none of them were mechanically transformed.
Al led him to a seat. He pulled the chair away and said with a smile, “Please sit down, my lord.”
On the side of each seat was a metal card. There were numbers written on it.
Si Chen’s was number 13. Next to it was 14 and opposite was 1.
Number 1 was a petite girl with bruises on her fair face.
She stared silently at the tableware in front of her. Si Chen noticed that Number 1’s hands, pressed against the table, were trembling slightly. However, she tried her best to restrain herself.
Number 14 beside him had dark skin, typical East Asian appearance, slender enough to appear androgynous, with short messy white hair and golden eyes.
He was sitting with a very casual posture, with one leg on the chair and a changdao wrapped in white bandages on his back. The blood on the bandage was bright red.
Even half a meter away, Si Chen could feel the biting chill emanating from the saber.
He had a similar feeling when he had bumped into a supernatural high-dimensional creature in House of the Mind before.
Number 14 noticed Si Chen’s gaze and turned his head. “Hello.”
Si Chen raised a smile. “Hello.”
Number 14 looked him up and down. It wasn’t a very friendly look, as if he were looking at how much an item could sell for.
In the wilderness, bus drivers occasionally encounter road bandits and they have such eyes.
Number 14 leaned over and said in a low voice, “I’ll tell you a secret.”
Si Chen kept a smile on his face. “Sorry, I’m not interested.”
Number 14 obviously never thought that Si Chen would refuse so his expression froze.
However, Si Chen had already turned his face away.
The side door of the dining hall opened and the nanny robots standing to the side began to serve food.
The meal sharing system adopted here was one serving per person, starting with appetizers.
The first plate was three stacks of cold vegetables.
Si Chen heard another diner exclaim in a low voice, “It’s the roots, leaves and fruits of Ferro Grass.”
Ferro Grass is a plant produced in High-Dimensional world no. 592. It is very rich in energy. It is a not-so-common raw material for gene medicine and it tastes like cold Chameleon plant. The fruit has a flavor reminiscent of taro paste.
Outside, one plant can sell for hundreds of thousands of credits.
Al introduced, “My lord, this is human food cultivated at the base. In order to let you all enjoy delicious food, the base has a special department that breeds and develops original food species. It is guaranteed to be free of mutations and viruses.”
Si Chen hadn’t touched his chopsticks yet but there were already some Evolutionaries who couldn’t hold back their excitement. They ate heartily, with intoxicated expressions on their faces.
“Delicious, so delicious.”
They came to the Space Fold to earn money, live a better life and evolve.
Now, the raw material for evolution was right in front of them. How could they refuse?
Number 14 had a pair of hands with distinct joints. His nails were pointed hooks at least five or six centimeters long.
He stretched out his hand, pinched the fruit, and poked it in with his fingertips. Purple juice flowed down his fingers.
Number 14’s tongue was long like a snake’s and he quickly licked off the juice from his hand.
He ate in a way that would get any proper child beaten by their mother.
Si Chen asked in a low voice, “Eat?”
The Eternal Life Abyss hesitated for a moment. “Yes, eat.”
A thin black tentacle protruded from the edge of the glove.
Si Chen lowered his head and lifted the fruit of the Ferro Grass to the side of the little tentacles with a fork.
The tentacle of the Eternal Life Abyss wrapped around the round fruit. The tentacle’s mouthparts sucked it and soon, only the dry peel remained.
Si Chen left it on the dinner plate as trash.
The Eternal Life Abyss complained, “Bad, fruit, fruit.”
“Isn’t it fresh?”
The Eternal Life Abyss described it in broken language, “No, bad.”
Fortunately, Si Chen has reached Abyss Language level eight.
It wasn’t that it wasn’t fresh. It was just that there was something wrong with the food.
But since the Eternal Life Abyss dared to eat it, it probably won’t be a problem for it.
The following meals included eggs, milk, fried steak… There was a variety of them and there were 14 dishes in total.
The meal took almost two hours.
Si Chen didn’t eat a single bite and fed everything to the Eternal Life Abyss.
Number 14 on the seat next to his, didn’t eat much. Number 1 on the opposite side didn’t even move.
After eating, the Eternal Life Abyss burped. As if drunk, it let out a “hehe” laugh.
Si Chen and the Eternal Life Abyss shared sensations. Si Chen’s stomach didn’t feel hungry. Once he drinks a nutrient solution back in his room, he should feel quite full.
It was singing a strange tune in Si Chen’s ear.
Si Chen listened quietly for a while and found that it sang “Only mother is good in the world”.
If it weren’t for the inconvenient location, Si Chen was really tempted to pull it out and pet it.
After the meal, the nanny robots approached close and began to collect the dishes.
However, just when everyone was full of wine and food, a huge roar suddenly came from above their heads.
The ground trembled slightly and the lights flickered. Tiny cracks appeared on the ceiling.
Everyone looked surprised.
Number 14 even held the handle of the saber on his back.
Fortunately, the tremors lasted only several seconds.
Someone asked loudly, “What’s the situation?!”
“The Machines of the Enlightened Legion are attacking the base.”
In the dining hall, an image appeared on the black screen.
An old man in military uniform appeared on the screen. Though gray haired, he appeared hale and hearty.
“Hello, honored humans. I am the current head of the Radiant Legion. My creator named me ‘Zeus’.”
“I am an artificial intelligence created by humans to fight during the Machine crisis.” Zeus said calmly, “I am responsible for controlling all the Machines under the Radiant Legion.”
“Unfortunately, under Turing’s instigation, more and more Machines have betrayed the humans. It makes me very sad. Today, the base you are in is the last survivor base in the entire Sirius galaxy.”
Zeus said in a sad tone, “The shock just now was the military strike Turing ordered the Enlightened Legion to carry out on the base. We have already hidden underground but Turing is still unwilling to let the last humans go!”
On the screen, an image of the outside world appeared.
The giant polyhedron was still suspended over the city, counting down to their deaths.
The number above was still “10” but it now inclined to the side of “9”. From the sides of the polyhedron, numerous fighter planes flew out, dropping explosives on the ground.
The city that was riddled with holes was hit hard once again. Flames swept across and the sound of explosions was heard endlessly.
Zeus turned off the projection and sighed heavily. “Pushed to the wall as we are, we can only choose to activate the last plan left by mankind thousands of years ago — the ‘Scavenger Project’.”
A brilliant prismatic crystal floated in front of Zeus.
“No matter how powerful Turing is, it is still a Machine created by humans. And this, this is the key to permanently shutting down Turing. Only humans can use it.”
At the dining table, Evolutionary No. 9 stood up with a start, shock in his eyes. “Is that the Level 8 energy core Descartes?!”
A mechanically transformed Evolutionary’s evolution is inseparable from his energy core.
A Level 8 energy core corresponds to an Evolutionary on the Eighth Step.
At present, Ji Sicheng was at the top of human mechanical evolution. It is said that his combat power is between the Seventh and Eighth Step.
This was also the peak of currently recognized human combat power.
But quickly, Number 9 realized him impulsiveness.
He rubbed his nose and sat down slowly, “I-I only saw the model in a reference book before. Maybe I made a mistake.”
There is a saying that advanced energy cores are not produced by humans or Machines but created by the nature of the universe.
It was like how the universe created such powerful species as the Eternal Life Abyss and the Feathered Serpent God.
In the long river of civilization, every advanced energy core is unique. They even have their own names.
Descartes was born on the planet Descartes.
Zeus did not answer this question but continued, “We plan to send two humans to the sky to negotiate with Turing. If Turing refuses to retreat, we hope that humans can activate the ‘key’.”
“This key has absolute sovereignty over the Machines and is very precious.” Zeus’s expression turned extremely serious, “It will recognize only the purest human beings.”
Zeus said, “Every day, we will select 2 to 4 humans for blood tests. I’m sorry, there are too few survivors in the base… I do not wish to see anyone withdraw from the ‘Scavenger Project’.”
Facing the humans at the other end of the screen, he slowly raised the goblet in his hand. “Cheers to human civilization.”
honestly? the radiant legion looks way more sus and dangerous than the apocalypse legion 😂
+1
Indeed!
The existence of all these big name groups in this world is weird. Is it a case of an alternate world? And also this radiant legion is so sus as well
Oh, I want to know link between Ji Chuyao and Turing
Thank you for your translation 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
That’s for the chapter! Can’t wait to see if Ji Chuyao’s original personality comes out this copy.
I also agree that Radiant is sus ‘-‘