Ch 47 – Foolish Robot
Upon realizing that Yu Xi truly had no defenses against psychological pressure, Sanjay continued to entice him with the idea of peering into his memories.
“You must not fall for it.” Tau said to the slightly tempted Yu Xi. “His mind is a pit of filth. There is a very real chance that he will drag you down into the darkness with him.”
“You want me to keep my innocence?” Yu Xi was deeply moved.
“I’m mostly afraid that if you have a mental breakdown, you’ll take all of humanity down with you,” Tau said, patting the back of Yu Xi’s hand.
Yu Xi: ……
Yu Xi sighed and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling.
He knew that he should ignore Sanjay, but the man kept poking at his weaknesses. Sanjay knew that Yu Xi sympathized with his misfortune, so he continuously asked Yu Xi if he could bear to let him die without knowing the whole story.
“I don’t understand why you’re so conflicted. He’s a killer, ah.” Tau continued, “For ordinary people, isn’t it a simple concept that a life must be repaid with a life?”
Yu Xi: “Ordinary people?”
Tau: “Those who have a normal growth trajectory.” Tau himself didn’t hate Sanjay, because “hatred” was an emotion he was completely incapable of.
“Yes, a life for a life. But why am I always so soft-hearted?” Yu Xi didn’t understand it.
“Ah….” Something suddenly occurred to Tau.
Tau gestured toward Yu Xi: “Isn’t it because you aren’t human?”
Yu Xi: “Ah?”
“There are some humans like that too. I recall a nobleman who had a cat. That cat killed the other pets he owned, but the nobleman just thought it was a headache. He didn’t think that the cat deserved to die.” Tau felt that a robot like Yu Xi simply didn’t operate within the framework of humanity.
“So that’s what it is?” Yu Xi really didn’t understand.
“Sanjay is ultimately unable to kill you, and he hasn’t directly harmed Kersz either.” Tau felt that Yu Xi just didn’t see Sanjay as one of his own kind.
As someone with great power, Yu Xi had the luxury of being able to pity such a person. After all, his pity wouldn’t come at the expense of his own interests.
“Then if I see his memories, will I be able to determine if Sanjay deserves to die?” Yu Xi returned to the previous subject.
“Why are you so fixated on this? The memories of someone like that are dangerous!” Tau was somewhat anxious, but he wasn’t Kersz. He didn’t know how to dissuade Yu Xi.
“Because whenever I’m misunderstood, I wish I could pull out my memories and show them to people, so that they can see that I’m innocent,” Yu Xi said. “Once humans gained the ability to do this, they were quite dull, but you can’t deny that there are some advantages to the technology. For example, fixing misconceptions.”
Tau: “You’re saying that Sanjay’s eagerness to reveal his past reminds you of your own past grievances? You empathize with him?”
Yu Xi nodded.
Tau had never felt so helpless: “The gravity of these two things is completely different. He’s a completely broken person.”
Sanjay’s state of mind was irrevocably warped. Only a madman could empathize with a madman, and Tau felt that there was no reason for Yu Xi to do so.
Tau really wished that Kersz was here. He would definitely be able to stop Yu Xi from doing something so foolish. If worse came to worst, Kersz could just sell his body to divert Yu Xi’s attention.
There was nothing Tau could do.
His lot in life was a bitter one.
He seemed to be witnessing in real time humanity’s march toward a future of death and ashes.
How had this extremely dangerous robot come to have such a temperament?
Tau failed to dissuade Yu Xi.
Yu Xi thought about the issue for a long time, but the more he thought, the more curious he grew about Sanjay’s memories.
In the end, when Sanjay came to see him again, Yu Xi proposed that he take a look inside his head.
Sanjay froze in place.
Then he smiled.
It was a very unnerving smile. He hadn’t expected Yu Xi to take the initiative to ask.
He had assumed that Yu Xi still had a basic sense of self-preservation.
Sure enough, ah. This robot’s life had gone too smoothly, to the point that he thought he could handle anything he set his mind to.
Sanjay had encountered many such people. Those who thought themselves to be kind and compassionate. Those who would even attempt to “save” and “heal” other people.
Most of them were dragged down into the same swamp themselves.
Yu Xi was one such fool. His life had been too tranquil, and he thought that as long as he was careful enough, he could avoid being dragged into the vortex. He was unaware that no amount of “preparedness” would be enough to resolve such an issue. This was a fate from which there was no escape.
Fate would randomly select an unfortunate soul to play such an absurd role in the world, and whether that person went with the flow or acted with caution, there was no leaving the path fate had set in stone for them.
“But while I experience your memories, you’ll also be forced to experience mine. Are you okay with that?” Yu Xi asked.
“Of course. But your memories must stretch across a huge span of time. Will I be able to handle it?” Sanjay didn’t want his brain to turn to mush.
“You’ll be fine. This technology will protect your mind,” said Yu Xi.
Sanjay agreed to go through with it.
A smooth life like Yu Xi’s was one of his greatest desires. “Survival” was the last thing Yu Xi had to worry about. He had it all. His lived experience was so devoid of pitfalls that he even thought he could calmly relive Sanjay’s past.
He watched as Yu Xi procured two bracelets and slipped one of them onto his wrist.
The bracelet was so thin that it was only slightly larger than a strand of hair, and emitted a white halo of light.
After fastening his own bracelet, Yu Xi told Sanjay to close his eyes.
Sanjay did as instructed. He felt a fascinating sensation, and immediately after closing his eyes, they were forced open again.
Though ‘open’ wasn’t quite accurate, because he didn’t have eyelids.
“He” was looking at himself in a mirror.
And what he saw there was a white robot with a round head. The robot’s eyes were cyan-blue electronic circles, which shifted into horizontal lines before becoming circles again.
Was this how robots blinked?
“Just now, what did you say my name was?” The voice was emotionless and gender-neutral.
To his surprise, Sanjay found that he could understand this foreign language. It was likely another function of the memory-sharing device.
“Yu Xi. Your name is Yu Xi,” replied someone nearby. “What made you suddenly ask about your name today?”
Yu Xi’s glowing circular eyes flashed: “Oh! That’s right, my name is Yu Xi.”
The human said again: “Why ask about it today?”
“I don’t know,” said Yu Xi.
Was this where Yu Xi’s memories began? Had he acquired self-awareness at this very moment, without even realizing it himself?
Yu Xi turned toward the human, and Sanjay finally got a clear look at them. It was an elderly man.
“The weather is nice today. Would you like to go out for a walk?” Yu Xi approached the old man.
“No.” The man shook his head.
“Alright, then.” Yu Xi turned to go start cutting up some fruit.
As he moved, he turned his head toward the window and the call of birdsong.
The robot tilted his head slightly to the side.
The birds were singing to the robot.
So the robot began to play birdsong back to them.
“Yu Xi? What are you doing?” The old man asked, turning his head toward him.
“Those are swallows,” said Yu Xi.
“Yes, those are swallows,” said the old man.
Yu Xi nodded and returned to cutting fruit. He prepared two platters and set them on the old man’s table.
The old man was taken aback, and called Yu Xi’s name again.
“Do you want to listen to the swallows some more?” Yu Xi asked. “I recorded their song.”
He himself didn’t know why he had bothered to do something so silly.
“She’s gone,” said the old man.
Yu Xi slowly turned around and looked at the black-and-white photo displayed nearby.
“The funeral was just yesterday. Did you forget?” The old man asked.
“…..I haven’t gone to a funeral.” Yu Xi seemed a little dazed. “Can I go to it?”
The old man: “It’s already over.”
Yu Xi fell silent. Then he spoke up again: “She is a very good person.”
The old man’s breathing hitched.
“I want to go to the funeral,” Yu Xi said, and then backtracked: “But I can’t go, because the funeral was yesterday, and right now it’s today. What is the difference between yesterday and today?”
“Oh! I think I can perceive time,” Yu Xi added.
Yu Xi said no more, but Sanjay could hear Yu Xi think: once time passes, it never returns.
Something felt off to Sanjay. At the very least, this was going completely different from how he had imagined it.
As the memories progressed, this feeling only grew stronger.
Hadn’t he said that Yu Xi had it all?
Why didn’t he rule over humanity and seize everything he desired?
Why did he only have what humans chose to give him?
If humans didn’t offer it to him, Yu Xi made no effort to obtain it.
Yu Xi just watched from the sidelines.
Sanjay wanted to end this tedious journey through memory, but he couldn’t terminate the process himself. From the perspective of a robot, he was forced to watch as humans departed one after another, and as humanity itself transformed.
And in the wake of all of these changes, this robot attempted to build on a certain planet all of the structures that had once been familiar to him.
He was so alone…..
Was this what it meant to live? He would be better off dead!
Sanjay indulged in all manner of fierce, passionate emotions. Having suffered, he was intent on making it up to himself with the best things the world had to offer.
He was completely unable to accept Yu Xi’s behavior, but he was forced to share in Yu Xi’s solitude.
There wasn’t a single person on the entire planet. Yu Xi had even begun talking to himself.
He would talk to the loudspeakers, and the loudspeakers would talk back to him.
They got into the occasional argument, but neither of them were really angry.
When would it end?
When would it all end?!
How much longer was he going to have to wait?
“I should hang a photo here.” Yu Xi printed out another photo of a human he had once known and hung it on the wall.
Sanjay discovered that every house on Yu Xi’s planet was decorated differently, and these decorations were very familiar to him.
Because Yu Xi had lived in those houses.
He was renovating them. The entire planet was his home.
A terrifying realization belatedly occurred to Sanjay.
Yu Xi had endured a long period of solitude while he was still ignorant and naive. Back then, Yu Xi didn’t even know if he had any humanity in him, having never made any choices that could determine such a thing.
Sanjay had made his choices far too early, desperate to become a complete whole.
He abhorred idling time away like this, the desolate solitude and absence of achievement.
He hated it all!
He wanted to leave!
Putting him through this experience was worse than just killing him!
Sanjay felt as if he was falling apart over a very, very long period of time.
But there was nothing he could do.
Yet on one particular day, when Yu Xi went to check on his vegetable seeds and found that they had sprouted, Sanjay unexpectedly felt a sense of gratification.
He figured he had gone mad.
But he hadn’t been quite right in the head to begin with. Could someone like him become even crazier?
Once he accepted that there was nothing he could do, his emotions strangely synchronized with Yu Xi’s.
A little helpless. A little sad.
There seemed to be so much he wanted to say.
He was so lonely, but there was nobody to confide his loneliness to.
When he saw the sprout that had pushed up through the soil, he couldn’t help but let out a “wow.”
In that moment….it was so beautiful, ah.
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Chapter 46 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 48
