Looking at Rong Gui, who was staying amidst of a pile of “trash”, Xiao Mei’s expression did not change.
He indeed went far, far away in the eight hours. The surroundings were all dark, and the more he walked, the narrower the mine cave became. There were countless forks inside the cave, just like an enormous maze. In order to be able to return without getting lost, Xiao Mei marked his path along the way.
But in the end, he actually didn’t use those marks.
He fumbled his way back, bit by bit, by following Rong Gui’s “singing voice”.
In the narrow tunnel, even Rong Gui’s plain, standard robotic voice became limpid and ethereal, echoing faintly, on and off in the air. Wherever he went, he could always hear Rong Gui’s voice.
It was like a string that guided him, and Rong Gui was always at the other end of the string.
He wouldn’t admit it explicitly, but after passing through multiple layers of narrow mine caves, Rong Gui’s filtered voice actually sounded somewhat melodious.
It was as if he had heard once more the music disc playing in his chamber on the White Tower not long ago.
And then, wherever he was, the faint singing voice would always follow.
Perhaps due to this reason, Xiao Mei found his familiar rhythm again. He spent the whole eight hours on observation and excavation, and the time soon passed.
He didn’t feel lonely, and to him, the loneliest place wasn’t here, either.
He gazed into the sky –
Yet right now, there was only darkness.
Then he went back to his work.
“Xiao Mei, Xiao Mei, how many ore stones did you dig up?” At last, it was still Rong Gui’s voice which interrupted his momentary contemplation.
The searchlight on Rong Gui’s mining helmet was shining on him brightly. After a brief period of darkness caused by the switch in the visual system, once he was able to see things again, he actually felt that he was in a completely different place than before.
“……” Without speaking, Xiao Mei only slightly tilted his body sideways so that Rong Gui could see the fanny pack around his waist.
It was that waist bag that used to carry all necessary supplies for miners, which had been all dumped out by Xiao Mei as trash.
And now, that waist bag was bulging and seemed to be fully loaded.
“Wow! There seemed to be many! As expected of you, Xiao Mei, you hit the ground running in your first dig!” Rong Gui immediately praised.
Xiao Mei didn’t refute him.
He picked up Rong Gui’s head and put it back into the backpack, then hung it on his chest. Next he turned over the small basket on the ground and carried it on his back, discarding on the floor all other things which used to be placed on the basket. He was about to leave when Rong Gui hurriedly stopped him.
“There’s still so much food here! Take it, and our radio as well! We have to take it back – I’m going to recharge it when I get back home~”
Looking at the pile of “trash” on the ground, which was utterly useless to him, after a pause, Xiao Mei at last bent down and picked them up, then throwing all of them into the small basket behind him.
Rong Gui was eventually satisfied.
They arrived before the elevator on time, three minutes before the designated time. No one was there. Initially, Rong Gui was a little worried whether they got stood up, and only until other miners appeared one after another from the distance was he finally relieved.
The back baskets of other miners were either full or half full. Even the person with the least number of ore stones dug out more than Xiao Mei, who merely had a small waist bag of them.
After all, it’s Xiao Mei’s first time doing this~
But what if Xiao Mei lost confidence…
Rong Gui worried for a while. Soon, he heard the sound of the elevator behind him, as well as the familiar music. With a creaking noise, the gate opened, and a brightly lit room once again oddly appeared in the middle of the pitch-black mining pit. Miners went out one by one. The gate closed, and then the elevator quickly went up.
The room was still silent. It seemed that miners were all tired. They all sat in their seats, and no one was talking.
It was too quiet, and even Rong Gui dared not to speak.
So he began to hum along with the music in the room with a small “voice” in his mind.
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.
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Qlat j uijcmf, Ebcu Xel cbalmfv atja la’r jc jmdejlcajcmf – atja ajii wjc rlaalcu cfza ab atf ujaf fjgilfg!
“Alright, time to check the work results.” Grabbing a huge sack in his hand, which was as large as a cattail leaf fan, he directly strode over.
Headed by that miner who previously led the way for Xiao Mei and Rong Gui, other miners immediately lined up in order. In this way, Xiao Mei would have to become the last in line.
Fortunately, they were not in a rush now, and they could actually take the time to see others’ work results~
“…A germanite ore stone – not of very good quality – I’ll give you 6 credits. This blackfield stone is quite big, 20. Czarnie…” The tall man did the math swiftly, yet Rong Gui didn’t see him using any detecting instrument. Did he solely rely on his eyes to judge? How accurate could his eyesight be? Or was he merely talking nonsense…
Rong Gui was a little worried: What if he makes the wrong judgment when he is examining Xiao Mei’s ore stones~
All kinds of unfounded, whimsical questions wandered in and out of Rong Gui’s mind. On the other hand, Xiao Mei, wearing an indifferent expression, was observing the ore stones dug out by others, and calculating the credits that each miner would eventually receive.
Obviously, their line was formed according to the total amount of credits earned, from the highest to the lowest.
In the beginning, the miners formed the line tacitly in the current order, and later, the ore stone inspection was also according to this order. This demonstrated that the results of each inspection were largely the same.
Ore stone excavation indeed relied more on the ability to identify ore stones, and very few could rely on mere luck.
That tall man should be the manager of the mining pit. The details of his hands showed that he used to be a miner as well. However, all other miners were still miners, and he alone became the manager.
It indicated that in Eni, there were other career paths besides becoming a miner. It’s just that they still didn’t know about their selection and promotion methods.
Never mind, we’ll take our time – although they were thinking about entirely different things, in the end, the last idea in Rong Gui’s mind coincided peculiarly with Xiao Mei’s thought.
“Okay, newbie, it’s you…two’s turn.” The tall man’s sack was now much fuller, but he ditched even more ore stones on the ground – naturally, they were the ore stones which he judged to be worthless. Miners who dug them out had no intention to take them back, either, but just left them spreading on the ground.
Other miners had not yet left, and they were all standing close to the gate indifferently. Rong Gui guessed that they were probably waiting to see Xiao Mei’s ore stones – a good opportunity to assess the newcomer’s competence.
Thus, Xiao Mei began to take out ore stones under the gaze of many watchful eyes.
There was one huge thing in common for all ore stones dug out by Xiao Mei: they were all small.
Other people’s ore stones were all in big chunks, but Xiao Mei’s ore stones were basically all of palm-size – Xiao Mei’s own palm-size. Even the largest among them was a bit smaller than Rong Gui’s head. As for the smaller ones…they were just about the size of an egg.
Had Rong Gui still had hands, he would have been facepalming.
Even if he was not an expert, he knew it would be easier to find minerals in large ore stones! At least, there would be a higher likelihood, but ore stones as small as these…
Ugh! It’s all his fault that his body had been ruined – Xiao Mei must have been unable to carry larger stones on his own!!!!!
Rong Gui screamed to himself inside.
As expected, a miner went out of the room right then – probably feeling that there’s no need to look further.
Although other people were still there, they were also packing up the belongings.
However, that chief miner responsible for leading way for them was still watching from aside. The tall manager, on the other hand, held out his large hand, and first took an egg-sized ore stone from Xiao Mei’s palm:
“Hmm…this one…has none.”
And Xiao Mei handed out the second egg…no, the second ore stone.
“This one…unfortunately, also has none.”
The ore stones in Xiao Mei’s waist bag were handed out one by one. With the “none” verdicts coming along one after another, more and more miners went out of the room. After hearing the verdict on the final ore stone, at last, that chief miner also walked out without mercy. Eventually, only the tall manager, Xiao Mei, and Rong Gui…’s head were left in the room.
The verdict on the final ore stone was slightly better – a tiny bit of blackfield mineral was contained therein, which earned Xiao Mei two credits.
Of all miners who went out to work today, he received the least credits.
Yet, he didn’t seem to mind, and apparently, nor did the manager, who only said lazily: “take out your pass, and I’ll give the credits to you.”
The pass could serve as a payroll card – it had a wide range of functions here.
Xiao Mei, however, fumbled in the bag carrying Rong Gui and, after a long while, took out two passes: “Can you add one credit to each pass?”
“Huh?” The manager seemed to be startled.
Rong Gui was startled as well.
Of the two passes in Xiao Mei’s hands, one was, of course, Xiao Mei’s own, but the other…
Was his!
But he didn’t shout out loudly, and nor did he ask Xiao Mei or refute anything at this moment.
Somewhat agitated, Rong Gui timidly looked at Xiao Mei’s chin.
“Nope.” The manager spoke out words of denial, “If credits can be transferred back and forth, then people here will surely try to strip off credits from each other every day. We don’t actually care about arguments or scuffles between miners, but if no one does his work properly for this reason, things will become difficult for us.”
“That’s why transfers of credits are almost prohibited.”
“You just said ‘almost prohibited’, which means there are transfers exempted from such prohibition.” Catching the key word, Xiao Mei asked again.
“……” After a moment of silence, that man suddenly smiled.
“You are indeed clever. You knew that you don’t have much strength, and that you were very unlikely to dig out ore stones for the first time here. Besides, as a newcomer, you wouldn’t be assigned to any good mine caves.
So you simply gave up the hope of finding any ore, but rather, chose to categorize the ore in the mine cave and cut a small chunk from each type of ore stones as samples, and you brought them to me, just to let me help you identify.
A very clever method indeed. Of all the miners coming here, you were the second to do so.”
While listening to the manager’s slow narration, Rong Gui was dumbfounded: Good heavens! He had not thought about it at all!
Forgive me, Xiao Mei – I failed to be your soulmate!!!!
However, it was said that people with the same IQ could not be good friends. Smart people usually love simpletons, and they indeed need a simpleton to be their friend. For instance, now, the other smart guy – the manager – obviously expected his words to arouse certain reactions from his audience, yet Xiao Mei, who was even smarter than him, reacted aloofly. At such time, someone who didn’t mind to expose his less intelligent self would need to graciously pick up the conversation.
Therefore, Rong Gui instantly asked: “Eh? There was someone else who did it before? Who was that?”
Rong Gui demonstrated his good acting skills to the utmost – the way he asked the question looked both naive and silly.
The manager was indeed very pleased: “Hehe, that’s me.”
As expected – thought Rong Gui. I knew you wanted to show off.
However, probably because it’s rare to see anyone using the strategy he used before, the manager was in a very good mood, so he continued to provide them with guidance: “The credits of an ordinary person cannot be transferred, but those within a family can. Credits are an important tool for traveling to other cities. In order to allow a family to move together, the credits within a family can be transferred to one another freely.”
“But accordingly, all kinds of punishment and penalties, if received, shall be shared among all family members. This was to prevent people from exploiting the exempted transfers within a family as a loophole.”
“What do you say? Are you two going to open a family joint account?”
Rong Gui was stunned.
Then, he heard Xiao Mei said coldly: “Yes.”
“Okay. It so happens that my machine here is authorized to open family accounts. Do you want me to open one for you now?”
“Yes.”
“After it’s opened, no matter how many credits you’ve earned, half of them shall always be allocated to the other member of the family. Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Xiao Mei was very fluent in his responses. Thus, the manager asked no more questions, and opened the account for him quickly. The next second he handed the card back to Xiao Mei, the information contained in the card was completely different, despite that the card still looked quite the same.
Had Rong Gui had a heart now, it must have been beating fast.
Thump, thump – perhaps it would even jump out?
But now, he no longer had a heart, so he could merely stare dumbly at Xiao Mei…’s chin.
“Okay, I have to go. You two better leave soon, The workers in the next shift are going to come.” Picking up his heavy sack, the man was about to retreat.
“Can I take these ore stones away?” However, Xiao Mei called out to him, and pointed to the ore stones on the ground which he dug up.
“Yes, but you need to come to my place later to get a stamp for approval.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” Rong Gui immediately said thanks for Xiao Mei.
Waving his hand, that man wandered away.
Then, Xiao Mei bent down, and picked up the ore stones thrown on the ground piece by piece.
After picking up his own, he also went to look at the ore stones thrown away by others.
“Xiao, Xiao Mei, why are you looking at others’ ore stones? Did that man miss anything?” Not knowing what to say, Rong Gui could only pick a random topic to chat.
“That man’s judgment was very accurate, and he shouldn’t be able to miss anything. I am only observing the appearance of others’ ore stones which were judged not to contain any minerals, so that I can directly skip them if I dig out such kinds of ore stones in the future.” Xiao Mei answered while examining the stones.
“Oh, oh!” Rong Gui went quiet for a while, and then –
“Xiao, Xiao Mei, why did you set up a family account with me? This…this…”
“Your body was broken and we need new materials to repair it. This place cannot provide the new materials, and we have to go to other cities in order to obtain them. So you must have enough credits to travel to a new city.”
“However, with your current status…” said Xiao Mei, casting a lofty glance upon Rong Gui’s big head, “probably you can save enough credits to go to the next city only by selling your other body in the freezing cabin. You want to do that?”
“No way! Why should I sell my real body to repair a robotic body!” Rong Gui instantly refused.
“So now, the only way is to open a family account.”
“Er…you seem to be right…”
There seemed to be some truth in this explanation, but something seemed to be wrong as well. Rong Gui thought for a long while, but still couldn’t figure out.
He didn’t know that, at this very moment, even Xiao Mei, who personally made this decision, also couldn’t figure out.
For Xiao Mei, he was just making the simplest choice under the current circumstance, and that’s all.
In the short term, before he had figured it out, and before he found a better substitute for his body, he would still need to share Rong Gui’s freezing cabin. In addition, he was the direct reason why Rong Gui’s mechanical body was damaged. Not intending to owe Rong Gui any favor, he just wanted to pay it back.
It was, after all, just a choice.
Yet for Rong Gui, he had one more “family”.
Thinking about it over and over again, Rong Gui grinned dumbly.
From today, he and Xiao Mei were no longer just friends.
They’re now a family.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Author has something to say:
In fact, Xiao Mei didn’t realize what he had done. For him, it’s just a choice.
He chose the simplest solution.
On the other hand, A Gui was much brighter than him in such matter.
Family!!!! ;______; They’ve gotten one step closer~
Thanks for the chapter!!