ATL | Chapter 21

Ganlin suddenly turned back.

He crashed into silver-gray eyes, but the other party remained unhurried, still completely calm.

This snake with no sense of boundaries!

Until the first sheep had its neck bitten off and died in the long night.

This incident immediately set off panic, and the gene companions of the same animal type quickly banded together. Herbivores started out by condemning it, and the killers also felt guilty. Biting a companion to death was not his intention, but when he was awake in the daytime, human reason was still in charge. After falling asleep at night, he really had no way to control the primitive desires of the companion gene.

At this point, Yujing's overall order construction was finally complete.

Of course, these things would not be written in textbooks. Fewer and fewer people would know about them, and Yujing worked hard to touch civilization, wanting Guidance of Dawn to lead everyone forward.

A small number of the patients were in a manic state. They bared their teeth and banged on the glass, roaring at Andri.

With perfect soundproofing, Andri could not hear a single bit of their voices.

There were also some more special ones in a state of death, and Andri stopped in front of one of the compartments.

The prisoner inside had already lost all vital signs, his severed head lying on the ground, blood all over the floor, the black neck ring clutched in his own hand. The cause of death seemed to be that he had torn off the neck ring himself and then his neck had broken, causing his death.

Andri went closer to take a look, and found that the skin color of that hand was too stiff, it was artificial skin, no wonder it could do this.

He opened the compartment door, pressed the cleaning button, and then a square cleaning robot came over from behind.

Body packed up, water rinsed through, and very quickly the inside returned to how it had been before, spotless and new.

After checking everything, Andri found a total of six people who had committed suicide.

After Andri met up with his companion, his companion also said to him, "These scum, even after dying, they still increase our workload!"

"Garbage star is a terrifying place." After Aividis closed its eyes, its perfect face looked only like a slightly more refined ordinary model.

"Amazing." [There are a total of 52 transport personnel, 52 formal soldiers, including one sergeant, one adjutant, and two medics, 100 Auxiliary Soldiers, the spaceship energy shield model is unknown, and the detailed weapon configuration is unknown.]

The landing time, landing location, and spaceship model were all data that could be easily obtained. Those formal soldiers would mention them while chatting, but more detailed information, such as the protection system and weapon configuration, he could not obtain. Those were important data.

After thinking about it, Andri finally sent one more sentence. Ganlin heard Li Gubei's reminder, turned his face slightly, breathing lightly, his brow pressed down heavily, and at the same time he dodged with extremely fast reactions.

But it was already too late.

He first felt his right wrist go rigid, and then this numbness and binding sensation rapidly spread up the entire arm. A vine as thick as half a palm tightly wound upward, pinning him in place, unable to move.

He was like a prisoner held in place, with shoulders pressed down and hands twisted behind his back, waiting for punishment.

Wu Qi then raised the giant axe high, aiming at Ganlin's neck.

The axe quickly approached, carrying a fierce wind. The time was too short to cut the vine off at all.

Li Gubei's running sound seemed to have been slowed down several times. Ganlin stared at the axe blade, his expression frighteningly calm.

A moment later, a clearly audible, extremely grating sound of bones slipping out of place rang out instantly.

Ganlin's face turned deathly pale, cold sweat all over his forehead, one arm completely dislocated, yet by this he barely avoided that fatal strike.

The sharp wind from the weapon sliding past brushed his side face, and strands of hair stuck to it, leaving his expression completely shrouded in shadow, impossible to see through.

"Ganlin!"

Li Gubei forcefully broke free of the restraint on his feet, rushed forward to pick up Ganlin, and quickly retreated.

During this time, Ganlin drew in shallow breaths, little by little, and quietly looked at him.

Not far away, Wu Qi narrowed his eyes, malice fully evident, preparing to step forward and make up the kill, when he suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure in the distance.

He froze, his voice doubtful, even taking a half step back in fear. "Mirror..."

And taking advantage of this time, Ganlin had already quickly reset his dislocated hand. The vine on his wrist was also completely cut off and casually thrown aside.

Li Gubei asked him, "Have you figured out what to do?"

Ganlin's ears were ringing from the pain, and even his eyes were red. He looked pitiful, but his tone still carried crazy laughter. "Of course. Otherwise why would I throw my backpack to Baimao? To make him miss me?"

After saying that, he turned his head and looked sharply and provocatively at the space behind Wu Qi.

That long-haired man also slightly raised his head, slowly moving his gaze onto Ganlin, his brows and eyes curved, his smile harmless and innocent.

"It's our turn."

Ganlin bit down on the dagger and scattered left and right with Li Gubei.

On Baimao's side, he held Ganlin's backpack and stared at the sealed-off path in front of him, already thinking about where he should bury himself.

But he did not manage to stay depressed for long, because Baimao suddenly discovered that Ganlin's backpack had actually started moving.

"Fuck?!"

He subconsciously wanted to throw the bag away, but after thinking for a moment, he only stretched out his arm and pulled it as far away as possible.

"Ying!"

Little Doll hugged something and crawled out using all four limbs. When it saw that the person carrying the backpack was not Ganlin, it tilted its head slightly, as if a little confused.

Baimao looked at this... Little Doll, wrapped in shredded cloth, and his expression was complicated. "What the hell is Ganlin raising."

Little Doll nodded in satisfaction.

Ganlin was raising it.

Mm mm!

It took out the note Ganlin had written and stood on tiptoe to hand it to Baimao.

"Huh?"

Baimao carefully took it and asked while opening it, "What is this for?"

Little Doll sat on the backpack, smiling as it propped its face up to look at him.

Baimao quickly skimmed over it and said in surprise, "How did he know I found the mirror?!"

The wall he had been leaning against at the time was actually a huge mirror surface completely covered by plants.

So when he first leaned against it, he had felt a chill coming from his back in waves.

Little Doll slowly swung its legs, but it seemed to suddenly notice something. It turned its body, and its expression changed from confusion to anxiety to, in a few seconds, bursting into tears.

Just as it was about to jump down, Baimao hurriedly caught it and asked again, "What's wrong with you?"

Little Doll wiped its tears and let out a sobbing sound, but Baimao simply could not understand what it meant.

But Ganlin's little note wrote clearly.

[Clean the mirror, this should be a way to deal with Minotaurus. Lastly, please take care of my little pet;)]

Little pet?

Baimao was momentarily at a loss and could only carefully place it on the backpack, while he himself quickly got moving.

He looked toward the place where he had just been sitting. The back side was even clearer than the front he had been feeling around earlier.

Numerous plants intertwined and covered it, but they still could not hide its neat edges.

He stepped forward and reached out to pull at it.

And behind him, Little Doll was also tugging at the backpack.

"Can't pull it," Baimao said, rubbing his hands together and looking up again. "What is this thing?"

He felt something touch his ankle.

Looking down, he saw that the little thing was standing on the ground, pushing the backpack from behind, looking like it was using all its strength.

"Huh?"

Baimao crouched down and picked up the bag, and a folding short knife inside just happened to fall out.

His expression became somewhat complicated. "…A pervert really does carry a knife on him."

Little Doll's expression was equally complicated.

It just knew Ganlin still had something hidden.

Baimao took out the short knife and said softly, "Testify for me, I'm just using it."

With a light click, the blade sprang open, and he began quickly cutting the climbing vines in front of him.

"It won't take too long," he muttered while working. "I remember that if you cut the main vine, you can just peel it off directly. When I was little, I played like this and got tied up and beaten..."

Little Doll: "Ying?"

It tilted its head, seeming to hear some other movement.

But very quickly, as dense cracking sounds kept ringing out, the shadow on the ground also kept growing larger.

Looking up, he found that it was actually Baimao's shadow falling down.

Little Doll: "Ying!"

It hurriedly moved, using hands and feet, and escaped the range where Baimao fell.

A gust of wind passed, and it started dropping tears again, pattering them down. No one knew who it was complaining to, but its whole body gave off a layer of pale pink.

Beside him, Baimao was rubbing his butt, grimacing in pain.

The vine covering in front of them was peeled off in one piece, and very soon the complete back of the mirror was revealed, already infiltrated and eroded beyond recognition.

Baimao tried to reach out, but was tugged by the doll on his trouser leg.

He looked down and saw it pointing to the side.

"Huh?" Though Baimao was confused, he still picked up the backpack. "Fine, I'll go take a look."

The Little Doll on the ground was briefly thrown into disarray by the wind, then fell into deep thought.

Only a few seconds passed...

It felt itself flying.

"Almost forgot about you."

Baimao took a step back, grabbed it, and took it along.

As he kept getting closer, the voices faintly coming from that side gradually grew louder.

"Where is the nameplate? Hand it over!"

"Dream..."

Baimao listened for a moment, then decisively stopped in place, gripping the backpack strap and hesitating there for a long time.

Muffled sounds of fists hitting flesh kept coming. He stared at the fork in the road ahead and asked, "Go, which way?"

Little Doll pointed to the other path with no sound.

Baimao nodded and went in without thinking.

"Who exactly are you taking me to see."

Perhaps because it had become increasingly quiet, he could not help asking in a low voice.

But the doll could not speak, so it could only sit in his palm, patting him reassuringly, then hiding away a nearly transparent thread.

Baimao brushed off the leaf fragments from his body, and in the motion vaguely saw something ahead.

The doll tugged at his sleeve again.

"Follow it?"

The doll nodded, looking a little anxious.

After only half a second of hesitation, Baimao picked up the weapons in Ganlin's backpack, slightly bent down to avoid the unknown plants hanging low in front of him, and quickened his pace.

He found that the maze layout here was a little strange. The curves of the passages were getting larger and larger, and after walking for who knew how long, he suddenly saw something familiar through the maze wall.

The huge mirror he had just cleaned.

He stared at the doll, his eyes full of accusation. So I made a circle around the central area and ran back here? There was only one maze wall in between!

But the doll patted him and kept urging him with its movements.

Baimao: "I'll trust you one last time, otherwise I'll cry for you to see."

The doll tilted its head: "?"

He did not stop walking, but in this kind of maze structure like concentric circles, since he had already encountered where he had started earlier, he naturally also inevitably ran into the scene of... that fight.

Baimao: "?!"

No one told me they were here!

He turned and was about to run, but was noticed by the people behind him.

"Who?!"

"Someone!"

"Don't let him run!"

Someone shouted and instantly chased after him.

The injury on Baimao's foot had not healed yet, and now he was running with a limp, so the distance that had originally been quite large behind him was also shortened quite a bit.

But he found that the doll in his hand was actually more anxious than he was.

"No, no, what are you anxious about-!!!"

Before the words were finished, Baimao was hooked by the plants hanging down from where he had come, instantly losing his balance. The doll was flung out of his hand, and in a panic he wanted to catch it again, but he twisted the injured foot, and piercing pain instantly shot through him.

"Ying!"

Little Doll squeaked and cried out, and was finally caught lightly by a hand, gathered into the palm.

"All right, be good, didn't we make it in time."

Hetawaisi gently soothed it, then reached out to support Baimao.

"Th, thanks." Baimao panted and hurriedly said, "But should we still, still run first?"

"Hm?" Hetawaisi stuffed the doll into a pocket and looked back, smiling slightly. "It's fine, don't be afraid."

Little Doll also poked its head out, looking at those running over with a sidelong glance, and whining softly.

The next second, its head was stroked by a soft, dry fingertip.

Ganlin had a lot more injuries on his body. Blood that kept flowing seeped through the openings and soaked the fabric, sticking tightly to him.

But his eyes were still bright. He exchanged a look with Li Gubei, and the two of them both nodded lightly, inching little by little toward the corner.

However, Wu Qi did not gain any advantage either. Half of his face was smeared over by the blood flowing from the wound on his forehead, and at this moment he was staring at Ganlin with a vicious gaze.

But the long-haired man beside him was still leisurely, and even had the energy to taunt him, "Can you beat them?"

Wu Qi answered flatly, "Depends on who you're helping."

"Me?" That man laughed with a slight tremble. "Of course I help you."

"Then stop them."

Wu Qi wiped his face, dragged the axe, and once again walked toward Ganlin and the other.

The man still answered with a smile, "Sure."

And Ganlin and the other, already close to the mirror, yanked down the loosened vines. In the rustling falling dirt, a strange silhouette they had never seen before slowly emerged.

[Eliya, this is dangerous.]

Liya looked at the long string of messages in front of him, his expression grave. Only after reading through all the content did he reveal a smile.

[Andri, thank you. I look forward to meeting you.]

"Andri!"

"Andri!!"

Another person's voice came from outside the cabin door, getting closer and closer, until it was almost at his cabin door, when Andri pulled the door open first.

Then he just happened to run into the companion who had come looking for him.

His companion was much shorter than he was, so Andri's build was probably too exceptionally advantageous, and his companion almost bumped into his chest.

"Andri, at a time this busy, you're actually still slacking off!?"

"He's about to jump. We need to go inspect the hibernation pods and check whether they can successfully wake us up after the jump is over, what a pile of crap!"

"Move!"

After his companion called him, he turned and left.

Andri followed in silence.

Everyone outside was busy, even the normally leisurely Empire Soldiers were nowhere to be seen.

An elevator beside them opened, and an Auxiliary Soldier rushed out from inside in a panic, bumped into Andri's companion, then said nothing, leaving only a back view behind.

"Damn rat! Can't you see the road?!"

Andri's companion jumped in place, his chest heaving, cursing as he walked quickly. "An ignorant thing, scared to death like a dog, he'll never become a formal soldier in this lifetime!"

"So what if a few people died? Has he never seen a corpse?"

Andri asked in a muffled voice, "Is he the one who checks the prisoners today?"

"Yes, it's him."

"Now people are dying downstairs every day. The patrol frequency has been changed upstairs, if they die, they die. Can we control whether they want to commit suicide or not?"

Ganlin reached out and touched Aividis. The feel was very similar to human skin, and with a little force, he could even feel the same softness as a human body.

His fingertips slid down from between its eyebrows and along the bridge of its nose, finally landing on Aividis's lips.

"The lips are also very soft. What was the material used?"

Ganlin rubbed its lips while thinking.

But only for a moment. He also felt that Aividis's body temperature, the same as a human's, was rapidly dropping, and with a face so similar to a human's, it was hard not to make him feel as if he were touching a corpse that had just died and was gradually losing its body heat.

This made his mood less than pleasant.

Ganlin directly withdrew his hand, intending to go take a shower first.

In just half an hour, when he came out of the bathroom, Aividis had already opened its eyes and was sitting by the bed.

"Ganlin, you touched me just now."

"??" Right now, its remaining energy was 43%, and the charging count showed three times.

"Hm?"

"The energy consumption is not quite right."

Ganlin frowned. He felt that there seemed to be a problem with Aividis's energy usage, that the consumption was too much.

Current energy storage and energy compression technology was already quite advanced. Ordinary robots, whether replenished with liquid energy or any other type of energy storage device, could use energy for quite a long time after being fully charged.

Aividis did not have any special energy-consuming functions, hmm, wait, because of the second form?

Ganlin flipped down further, looking at the detailed energy usage report inside it, and saw that at one certain moment, Aividis's stored energy had been consumed by 80% within thirty seconds. He still had some impression of that time point, it was when he had made Aividis switch to its second form.

Aside from this, there was no particularly abrupt period of massive energy consumption. Just from daily energy use, it was on the high side.

Aividis was not an industrial robot like one used for transport or mining, so why was its daily energy consumption so high?

Ganlin noted this anomaly and continued looking down.

Biomimetic blood vessels, scent capture and analysis, liquid collection and analysis, all kinds of functional components were normal.

The wear levels of important joints, the wear levels of the biomimetic skin, the number of biomimetic hairs falling out, and so on were basically all in a perfect state at one hundred percent.

Until he saw the number of uses of the biomimetic genitals, Ganlin almost choked on his own saliva.

What was the need to record this usage count???

Oh, so this also had a wear level.

Xier scratched the back of his head and said, "There's nothing very important here, right?"

Eliya: "Yeah."

Wang Yun: "The other party's target is only Ganlin and the things related to him, and also, hmm, a video segment was played on loop 21,548 times."

Ganlin was expressionless. Right now he felt that even if that video segment was his nude photo, he wouldn't be surprised anymore.

Eliya was also much more relaxed now. After all, this wasn't aimed at him. He immediately urged Wang Yun, "Open it, open it."

"All right."

The chat log on the screen disappeared. Wang Yun tapped a few times with his finger, and then a black video playback frame popped up.

"This was found from your data recycling bin. It was discarded data that you had cleaned out. From the tags and time, it was footage automatically uploaded by a recorder a long time ago."

The screen started playing. It was a scene from the activity hall. In the image, several people first stumbled and staggered in from the entrance. Their expressions were panicked, and as they ran, they kept looking back, as if something behind them was chasing them.

Sure enough, two seconds later, there was another disturbance at the entrance. A man's body flew in, knocking over several people before silently lying on the ground.

Ganlin's figure appeared. His movements were extremely fast, his silhouette flashing once and disappearing. When he appeared again, he was already on top of a man.

He wrapped his legs around a man's neck, twisted his body, and the man was then pinned under his knee, face down on the ground. After twitching twice, his body went limp.

After dealing with one person, Ganlin did not pause at all. He directly picked up the gun from the man on the ground, and with a backhand motion knocked back another person who had come from behind.

The activity hall was completely in chaos, and Ganlin was the center of the chaos. He was the target of everyone's attacks.

Of course, that was not the focus of the footage. The focus was that Ganlin fought very beautifully!

He was best at close combat, nimble and flexible. When he wound around the enemy, the various attacking postures could clearly show his waist, his legs, his hips, and the tail hook extending from behind his butt.

"Oh~"

Eliya clicked his tongue.

The image captured by the old recorder was not very clear, but Ganlin's figure inside had a high definition that was out of sync with the entire image.

"Obviously, Ganlin's figure was repaired."

Wang Yun stated a fact everyone had already seen.

The other party even only repaired him alone. Very double standard.

Ganlin closed his eyes, then said, "We need to deal with him."

"We need to find him first." Wang Yun said, "See if we can catch his little tail. Eliya, you're more familiar with this place."

Eliya nodded. "I'll go check."

The topic quickly turned back to the transport spaceship that was about to arrive. That was their final goal.

Wang Yun: "I need some people to help me install the jammer, and the prerequisite for installing the jammer is that you first have to get the transport spaceship's landing point."

After Ganlin finished looking at Aividis's physical condition, he went to see whether its "brain" had any problems.

In the emotional module, he discovered that Aividis remained in a passionate, excited, and loving state most of the time. Occasionally there were emotions such as concern, worry, and anticipation. The negative emotion of depression had only appeared twice.

He did not quite understand it. Ganlin thought for a while and felt that this emotional display should be normal, after all there had been no dangerous emotions such as irritability, violence, or wanting to destroy things.

The data processing module was mainly related to human health. Ganlin saw several processed data entries that were all related to him, and the result was that his body was generally healthy, but his mental state was not very stable.

Dazing off, avoidance, and headaches appeared too many times. The sudden and intense pain caused his body to have a stress reaction, and the analysis result suggested that he contact a professional psychological and psychiatric Doctor for diagnosis.

Ganlin: "How do you know?"

Aividis raised one hand, its clearly defined index finger pointing at the center of its own brow, then sliding downward, along the tip of its nose, and finally landing on its lips. The route was exactly the same as when Ganlin had touched it.

"These places, and your scent."

Ganlin gave an oh, not knowing why he felt a little awkward.

He cleared his throat twice, then said, "Aividis, I want to look at your self-check report."

"Then when they commit crimes, how do they not know to be afraid?"

The two of them found their superior and reported the situation from this inspection.

That serious, indifferent man only said, after hearing them report the number of deaths, "I understand. Go down."

Andri left with his companion, only when he walked out of that door, it seemed as if he heard that man say something in a low voice.

"The deaths have increased"

Lingsheng had carried out illegal modifications to his brain. The built-in electronic chip should be the real reason he successfully invaded the holographic projection control system.

But why?

Almost unconsciously, Ganlin tightly clenched the chip in his hand. His gaze swept outward, and he saw wreckage and fragments all over the ground. On one of them was a word stabbed into it.

Dance or

He seemed to understand it, and yet it also seemed as if he understood nothing. Then, almost instinctively, Ganlin's gaze suddenly lifted.

Hetawaisi.

Across blood beads, snow fluff, and white feathers, two lines of sight unexpectedly collided and intertwined. This instant was as brief as an illusion, yet as long as eternity.