The robot didn’t respond to Rong Gui’s greeting.
Turning away, he busied himself again around those old worn computers behind him. Rong Gui couldn’t understand his actions, but he had no intention to understand, either. Not tall enough, he looked around and dragged over a computer chassis with the most suitable height as a step stool. With this, he eventually stood before the “coffin” containing the bodies of him and the other.
Nevertheless, it remained difficult to achieve the purpose of looking down at his own body. He had to stand on tiptoes to eagerly look. The foot once drooping down had already been tucked back by the other, who tucked it rather rudely. Through the translucent coffin, Rong Gui found his foot lying in a very indecent and uncomfortable position inside.
He couldn’t criticize the other for treating him so carelessly, because the posture of that man’s own body in the “coffin” was obviously worse! From the posture of that body, Rong Gui could almost imagine how that robot tossed his body haphazardly inside with an indifferent expression as if it were clothes.
Rong Gui had thought of pushing open the freezing cabin to adjust his posture, and conveniently help the other to adjust to a beautiful posture as well. But just as his mechanical hand touched the top of the cabin, before he had time to exert any strength, that robot somehow noticed his movements, and his flat voice came from behind.
“You’d better not move it again. The air outside right now is all toxic. There is a layer of crystals on the surface of the bodies in the freezing cabin, which can prevent the highly toxic air from damaging the bodies for a period of time. The situation can’t be helped when the crystals melt after exceeding a certain amount of time.”
“You should have said this earlier!” Rong Gui hurriedly put his hand away, for fear that he would accidentally open the freezing cabin by failing to properly exercise his strength just now. He even circled around the cabin to take a thorough look, treading on the chassis as a pedal. Only after he carefully confirmed that the freezing cabin had been closed tightly did he let out a sigh of relief.
And then he didn’t know what to do.
When he had nothing to do, he would turn around to check what the other robot was doing. He watched the other clicking and typing on those large machines which he suspected to be computers, unloading components from them one after another which were piled up piecemeal. And then, the robot turned to the position behind him where the freezing cabins had been.
“Come and help.” The other called out to him, so Rong Gui followed.
“Later I will throw something from above, and you’ll catch it below.” That robot said to him.
Rong Gui quickly nodded.
Then he started watching the other climbing up.
Probably because it was hard to manage a robotic body, the other’s climbing posture was not very graceful. If one looked closely, it’s even a little funny. Rong Gui initially wanted to laugh. But when he realized that he now looked exactly like the other robot, he couldn’t laugh any longer.
The tiny robot raised his head.
Countless lattice units appeared in his sight like a giant net covering both heaven and earth.
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.
In every lattice unit cell there was a freezing cabin. Perhaps in each freezing cabin there was a man who had encountered the same misfortune as Rong Gui did.
Dea cbk, bcis atf ijaalmf ecla ktlmt tjv bcmf tfiv Ebcu Xel’r ybvs yfmjwf jc fwqas yijmx tbif, jcv bcis atf ogffhlcu mjylc ogbw atja ecla kjr ajxfc bea. Yatfg ogffhlcu mjylcr gfwjlcfv rfjifv ktfgf atfs tjv yffc. Pc atlr qijmf klatbea jcs rluc bo fcfgus rbegmfr bg tewjcr lc mtjguf, atf ojaf bo atfrf ogffhlcu mjylcr mbeiv yf fjrlis lwjulcfv.
Death.
This instant, Rong Gui suddenly shivered.
He was in awe.
In awe of death and life.
Then he hurriedly shifted his eyes once again to the little robot climbing above, who had already climbed into a freezing cabin. Every time he threw something from above, Rong Gui would hurriedly run over to catch it.
The things that Rong Gui caught were still some components whose names were unknown to him.
For every component he caught, Rong Gui would carefully place it aside. Although he didn’t know what those components were used for, he would place them in different categories based on their shapes.
After a while, the robot above threw something down again. Rong Gui caught it nimbly: it was a mechanical foot that looked a little familiar.
“My foot fell off.” Sure enough, the flat voice of the other came from above.
Rong Gui the entire robot fell into secondhand embarrassment.
Soon, the other’s voice came from above a second time.
“Catch me.” Along with the ice-cold metallic voice, the other’s mechanical body plummeted from the sky in free fall as Rong Gui watched it. Without time to think, Rong Gui’s body had already reflexively run towards the spot where the other was falling.
CLATTER CLATTER CRACK –
Rong Gui’s body fell apart.
“It’s all you! Why did you suddenly jump down from above?” Rong Gui’s body was completely broken into pieces, with only the head and half of the shoulders connected to each other. The rest of the body had already been scattered into parts he could not recognize – parts that were tattered, and a little rusty, too.
Seeing those rust stains made him even angrier.
“It must be you, who used substandard materials on me!” He said furiously.
“First, I didn’t suddenly jump down from above – I had given you notice.” The culprit robot had long since stood up. Because a foot was missing, he initially wobbled a little. But he soon learned to stand on one foot.
“Second, I didn’t jump down, but fell down. As early as the moment when my foot fell off, you should have considered the possibility of this consequence.” After patting off the dirt all over his body, he started to place back his own foot. After fixing his foot, he started to reassemble Rong Gui’s body.
The little robot was very dexterous. Soon, Rong Gui’s body came into shape again.
Rong Gui definitely wouldn’t admit that he was a little envious of the other. His mouth still said, “You just put my foot onto your own body.”
“Really? Do you need me to take it down and switch it back to you?” The other talked with Rong Gui while swiftly doing his job.
“No need. Your foot was better-looking. You see, the materials you selected for yourself are superior…” Rong Gui said in a small voice.
The robot who was holding Rong Gui’s claws in his hands: ……
Rong Gui soon got back on his feet. When he was getting used to the body which had just been assembled, the other had run over to pack up the components they just acquired. No one knew where that robot found a piece of ragged, dirty cloth. He mixed all previously obtained components with the components sorted out by Rong Gui, threw them all into the ragged cloth, indiscriminately tied them into a parcel, and then threw the parcel onto the freezing cabin where the two bodies were placed.
“Aiyo! How can such a dirty cloth and such a heavy thing be put on my face!” Rong Gui jumped up with his heart in pain – his face inside the “coffin” was precisely located under the spot the parcel had been smashed into.
“And the parcel would come loose too easily if you tied it this way. Your way of wrapping things is simply too careless.” Taking the parcel down, Rong Gui rearranged the components inside and then put them back into the parcel. He organized them so well that the once bulging parcel now had a lot of extra space. In the end, he reached for two corners of the cloth which was now left empty and tied them together, fastening the parcel to the freezing cabin. While wrapping the parcel, he even sealed it with a rather pretty bow-knot.
The robot did not object to the fact that Rong Gui had taken it upon himself to organize the parcel. Only when Rong Gui finished packing did he speak again.
“It’s done? Then let’s go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I don’t know, but we have to leave this place.”
These two continued with their meaningless conversations. While talking, each of the two robots lifted up one side of the freezing cabin containing their bodies. The parcel originally placed at the end of the freezing cabin slid down. But fortunately, Rong Gui tied a tight knot, and the parcel eventually hung in the middle of the freezing cabin. The cabin looked like a shoulder pole, very steady.
Led by that robot, Rong Gui cautiously carried his own coffin…no, freezing cabin, and moved ahead.
“What is it like outside?” Only until now did Rong Gui think of this question.
“I don’t know.”
“Will there be a lot of people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then…what’s your name?” Similarly, Rong Gui thought of asking this question only until now.
“Asheville Methentahl. I allow you to call me Ashe.”
“Ash?”
“Ashe.”
“Ash?”
“…You really do have poor language skills as well.”
“You see right through me, hehe, I’ve never passed my English exam before. But my English teacher always said that my pronunciation especially sounded like Russian, so I might be a genius in learning Russian! How about…calling you Xiao Mei*?”
*小梅 (Xiao Mei): Literally, “Little Mei”, with “Mei” short for “Methentahl”. Xiao Mei is a common nickname for girls… especially, village girls.
“…Thanks, you may just call me Ash.”
In this way, the two robots, chatting “intimately”, lifted up the freezing cabin and walked into the unknown distance ahead.
They carried their own bodies, like two pallbearers, towards the unknown fate.
Thanks for the chapter! ❤
Thanks for support! 😘
I don’t know why they look so adorable in my imagination T^T
Damn. I thought when Rong Gui would ask him what’s his name, he would also say “I don’t know.” QWQ
DAMNNNNN THEY LOOK SO ADORABLE IN MY IMAGINATION, CARRYING THEIR BODIES (ㆁωㆁ)
THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCHHHH!!!^^
Ikr omg they are so cute