Ch 45 – Rotten Fruit
“My heart has been very heavy lately.” Yu Xi intertwined his fingers, pressing the backs of them against his forehead. “I told a lie.”
The space pirate captain: “What does that have to do with me?”
Yu Xi looked up at him: “Wasn’t it you who came to talk to me?” Just as he was wishing he had someone to pour his heart out to, the space pirate captain had come along.
“I wanted to say that whatever Kersz is giving you, I’ll pay double,” said the space pirate captain. “Your friend Kersz is…..a loner. He doesn’t have many people around him. You could easily be dragged down with him if you stay by his side, but with me, it would be a different story.”
“So I could be hunted down along with you?” Yu Xi had a feeling that this space pirate captain was trying to scam him.
“You could solve that problem easily, couldn’t you? Just like you’re helping Kersz.” The space pirate captain sent him a smile.
“He’s just one person. Your operation is too big.” Yu Xi shook his head.
“You need scale to access resources. What exactly is Kersz offering you?” the space pirate captain pressed.
Kersz had limited access to resources. Whatever he had in his hands, the space pirate captain possessed as well.
“He gave me a friend. A very, very dear friend,” said Yu Xi.
“Do you not believe that I can double what he’s offering you?” The space pirate captain didn’t believe a word of Yu Xi’s reply.
“Are you going to befriend me yourself or make one of your subordinates do it? Are you alright in the head?” Yu Xi used to look down on Kersz for having an unhealthy mindset, but at this point, he realized that at the very least, Kersz was a good person deep down. He had simply been driven to extremes.
This person standing before him now was a real piece of work.
“You want people?” The space pirate captain grasped the key point. “I can give you people. If you want affection, that’s even easier.”
Human emotions were the easiest thing to manipulate.
“I can’t reason with you.” Yu Xi wanted to continue to stew in his feelings, but the space pirate captain gave him no opportunity to do so, determined to find a way to get a leash on Yu Xi.
Yu Xi was fed up with his nagging: “Sanjay, can you just let me have some peace and quiet for a while?”
Sanjay was the space pirate captain’s real name.
“I just don’t understand why you’re willing to lend your help to Kersz, but not us.” Sanjay couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “Do you think that he’s righteous, and we’re evil?”
“You really are quite wicked. Don’t think that I’m just biased against you.” Yu Xi was getting a headache from Sanjay’s persistent conversational assault. “I don’t necessarily endorse Kersz’s actions, but he’s really not as convoluted as you are. He doesn’t want very much either.”
“He doesn’t want very much? He would gladly wipe out anyone he perceives as evildoers.” Sanjay felt that Kersz was very much like himself.
“Kersz always holds anger in his heart. He’s not as desperate for survival as you.” Yu Xi felt that Kersz was just searching for an answer, one that he might never find.
Sanjay’s actions seemed more like they stemmed from existential dread. He needed more and more power, more and more money…..but he himself likely didn’t know what amount would be enough.
Sanjay simply needed these things to feel secure. So he kept demanding more, never stopping, until all of his plans collapsed at this moment in time.
“I’ve lost everything,” Sanjay said to Yu Xi.
Yu Xi looked over at him.
“You can’t expect me to be as naive as Kersz. The childhood I remember wasn’t nearly as pleasant,” said Sanjay.
“I know.” Kersz had told him.
“His parents loved him, while I…..I killed my own parents.” Sanjay’s face contorted pitifully.
Yu Xi grew vigilant. He didn’t believe that this human was actually baring his heart to him.
This rotten human probably brought up his unpleasant past all the time and used it to his advantage. Did any of it really affect him at this point? Yu Xi had no way of knowing, but he was certain that Sanjay, this wicked space pirate, did not consider this a matter of monumental importance. And there was no way he had suddenly become so innocent and genuine.
“It’s difficult to say whether or not my relationship with them would have gotten any better had we not fallen victim to space pirates.” Sanjay leaned his head against the wall. “But it’s too late to wonder about it now. From what I remember, they were just a couple of assholes.”
“They coveted my nutrient solution. I only got one bottle per day, but they still tried to snatch it away.” Sanjay’s voice seemed to catch in his throat. “I thought they were supposed to love me, but they never did.”
“Every day, I had to be on guard against them snatching my food. I bowed and scraped to those space pirates so they’d throw me a mouthful of food, but even that was stolen from me later,” Sanjay said. “Those space pirates watched them steal my food. Watched me cry. Watched me scream.”
“Everything I possess, I’ve had to seize by force.” The second Sanjay stopped speaking, he felt a hand patting his head.
“Ai.” Yu Xi was very disappointed in himself.
He was fully aware that Sanjay was playing the victim, and that he had harmed a great many people. But after hearing all of that, Yu Xi really couldn’t hold himself back.
“If you help me survive this time….” Sanjay looked at him. “I promise I’ll change.”
“…..Would you like to eat real food? I can give some to you.” Yu Xi didn’t give him an answer.
He would not help Sanjay, because those humans he killed would never return.
Those ordinary people had been suddenly kidnapped by space pirates, stripped of their identification, and sold off to others……it never should have happened, and couldn’t be brushed off as a result of this person “having a difficult past.”
Yu Xi had no plans to intervene too deeply. He only needed to ensure that his human didn’t die.
Sanjay may look upset, but he felt no anger or resentment.
It was simply how this human operated. When he realized he was at a disadvantage, this human would make every effort to conceal his aggression, and would even go so far as to expose his vulnerabilities.
Sanjay had no interest in food: “Are those ordinary people really so innocent?”
Yu Xi: “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Those pirates once filmed themselves toying with me. The video circulated on the StarNet for a while, but they deleted it later on when they decided it reflected poorly on them.”
“Those people liked watching me look like a crazy person. They enjoyed watching me fight my own parents for food. And when they learned that my parents had once been small business owners and I was the ‘young master’ they had raised, their ‘liking’ for me grew even deeper.” Sanjay fixed his eyes on Yu Xi.
“They found old images of my parents when they were still glamorous and radiant, and compared them to what they were reduced to in captivity. They found images of my parents hugging me, and compared them to how they hurt me. They took particular delight in watching a young master like me being reduced to a savage.” A look of great confusion came over Sanjay’s face. “I tracked down some of the commenters later on, but everyone said that they were kind to others in their daily lives. That they were good neighbors, good partners, good parents, friends, and children.”
“I don’t understand, ah. I just don’t get it. How can ‘good’ people take such pleasure in another’s suffering?” Sanjay placed a hand on his chest. “They relentlessly searched the Starnet for my parents’ past careless remarks, and used them to prove that they deserved their fate.”
“My parents were adults, and actually snatched the food out of my hands. They were simply unworthy to be called human. Their affection for their child was merely an act.”
“And me, I was a write-off. I was no longer human. I dared to raise a hand against my own parents and groveled to those space pirates. I even got into physical brawls with my parents.”
“In the end, they reached a conclusion – that none of us deserved to be called human. And having come to that conclusion, they could laugh as much as they wanted.”
“I was confused for such a long time. I was still a person, ah.”
“Why couldn’t they see that?” Sanjay tilted his head. “What do you suppose lies beneath the skin of those people?”
“What lies beneath the skin of any person?” Sanjay asked earnestly. “Do you know what kindness is?”
Yu Xi didn’t answer.
“I know. Kindness is just the fear of death. It’s cowardice,” said Sanjay. “They’re terrified of being labeled as ‘unkind’ and ostracized from society. Once someone is proven to be unkind, those ‘kind-hearted’ people will have an outlet for their anger.”
“They hide themselves within their respective groups, pretending to be the same as those around them, pretending that everyone shares the same goals and the same ways of thinking. One advantage of doing this is to leverage their commonalities. They perceive every conflict as being directed at their group, and they hide within their ranks, inconspicuous, kind-hearted, and innocent.” Sanjay smiled. “This world is full of such people!”
“I did things their way, selecting those who deserved to die, but then they turned around and called me vicious, saying that those people were pure and innocent. Why?” Sanjay grabbed Yu Xi’s sleeve. “I was only showing them exactly what they taught me. Why couldn’t they accept it?”
“I thought my parents would close their eyes with dignity and quietly await their deaths, devoid of any hatred, kind-hearted and sacrosanct.”
Sanjay let out a sigh: “But why did even those people scream and wail, begging me to spare them, casting all of their dignity aside?”
“They even hurled vicious curses my way. Underneath their skin, people are all the same.”
“When their bellies were full, they curried favor in order to get a bigger share of the food. They might have even been moved by their own virtue.” Sanjay felt Yu Xi try to break free from him, and clutched his wrist. “But when food was scarce, they couldn’t help but covet what was in another person’s bowl, as if they wish they could stuff that person whole into their mouths and chew them up.”
“Everyone is the same. There are no exceptions.”
“My parents were nothing but a couple of savages who had finally revealed their true colors. Just like me.”
He was frightening Yu Xi.
Sanjay continued: “Am I not someone they personally created? It’s not that I wanted to hurt them, ah. It’s that they needed me. They were the ones hungering for me.”
“Otherwise, why would they have nurtured me at all?”
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Chapter 44 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 46
