Ch 48 – The Robot Understands
Yu Xi was kind of regretting his decision.
Completely unaware that Sanjay was being tormented by his own memories, he watched those brutal space pirates through Sanjay’s eyes and regretted bitterly.
He shouldn’t have swapped memories with Sanjay. Sanjay now knew what it felt like to have everything at his fingertips. He was living the good life, while Yu Xi was suffering.
Yu Xi had had some expectations about what Sanjay’s past was like, but it turned out that he had still been thinking too simply. Because a story was very different from the process of living it.
Yu Xi had initially assumed that Sanjay would be enraged by the abuse he suffered at the hands of the space pirates during his childhood, but he was mistaken.
Yu Xi could sense Sanjay’s emotions, and Sanjay was excited when those space pirates tossed food to him.
But when he looked upon his parents in the prison cell, Sanjay was incomparably furious.
Influenced by his emotions, Yu Xi was surprised to find the couple unlikable as well.
But Yu Xi quickly got a hold of himself. These were humans, after all.
Sanjay was on better terms with the space pirates, and Yu Xi detected nothing close to “shame” within the child.
Why? Because the space pirates represented more food? Because he saw them as a chance to survive?
His parents could no longer give him those things. Sanjay had faint memories of parents who had been gentle, and could vaguely recall eating real food, but his parents couldn’t provide that for him anymore.
Sanjay wanted to follow the space pirates around all day, saying things they wanted to hear and making funny faces to make them laugh. And when he was kicked away, he would happily come running back to sweettalk them.
Then, one day, an unfamiliar man joined the space pirate crew.
That man immediately secured a high-ranking position, and Sanjay rushed to curry favor with him. That man didn’t smile, nor did he beat him or curse at him.
He looked at Sanjay with something in his eyes that the child couldn’t identify.
But Yu Xi knew that the man pitied him.
Later on, the man asked Sanjay where he came from and gave him some nutrient solution, but he couldn’t help but frown when he heard the filthy language coming from Sanjay’s mouth.
That man began to teach Sanjay.
Yu Xi noticed a sense of peace in Sanjay’s heart.
But this peace was short-lived, and didn’t last through the day.
Each time he laid eyes on his parents again, his peace would shatter.
He was sick and tired of those two. The man sensed Sanjay’s mood and tried to make him understand the helplessness his parents felt.
Yu Xi discovered that when Sanjay listened to the man’s reasoning, he inwardly agreed with him and seemed to be persuaded. Yet when he returned to his parents’ cell and saw their gaunt faces, a wave of revulsion still washed over him.
This feeling made Yu Xi terribly uncomfortable. He couldn’t wrap his mind around why Sanjay hated his parents so much, to the point that he practically regarded them as sworn enemies.
He wondered if Sanjay was what they called a “naturally-born bad seed.”
But Sanjay began to constrain himself.
He was very close to that man, always following at his heels. He was desperate to join the space pirate crew, but the man refused his request.
As Sanjay grew older, he began to resent the man somewhat. But he still followed him everywhere he went, and the man never pushed him away…..until Sanjay discovered his secret.
The man was transmitting information about the space pirate crew to someone outside, and Sanjay caught him in the act.
The man’s expression instantly twisted into something fierce. Sanjay was terrified.
Sanjay had long learned how to read people, and the fear of death made tears well up in his eyes. The man was momentarily taken aback.
Yu Xi had never felt such fear. He wanted to cry too.
After what felt like an eternity to Yu Xi, the man crouched down halfway and asked Sanjay in a low voice: “Don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”
Still fearing death, Sanjay nodded.
The man patted Sanjay on the head and vowed that he would rescue him and his family.
Sanjay was moved to tears. He clutched the leg of the man’s trousers, thanking him over and over again.
Yu Xi experienced the joy of surviving disaster, and found it both unfamiliar and novel.
Unfortunately, Yu Xi could basically guess the outcome. Since Sanjay had become the captain of the space pirates, that man must have been exposed.
Yu Xi was prepared to watch a heart-wrenching tragedy unfold, and hoped that the moment wouldn’t arrive right away.
But what Yu Xi didn’t expect was for Sanjay to betray the man.
Once the joy of survival faded, Sanjay began to fear his current situation. He was afraid that he would be implicated if the man was discovered. He had seen how those space pirates dealt with traitors.
Sanjay was afraid to die.
Yu Xi was speechless. He felt that Sanjay was the biggest scumbag in the world, but as he lived through Sanjay’s memories, it all unfolded so naturally that Yu Xi found it pitiable.
Sanjay lived with a constant fear of death, terrified that he wouldn’t wake up the next day.
He was simply incapable of holding up under that kind of pressure.
When the initial elation faded, Sanjay felt that the man had promised something far beyond his ability to follow through on.
What did it mean to live a normal life? That sort of life seemed like a dream, like a flavor that was beyond his imagination.
But the fear of death was his constant companion.
When his fear reached a fever pitch, Sanjay finally took that last step.
He betrayed the man.
Hiding behind the crowd of space pirates, Sanjay seemed to sense the man’s gaze settle on him…..or no, perhaps not. After all, he had yet to meet the man’s eyes.
But he could hear the man questioning his betrayal.
Sanjay felt like he couldn’t breathe. He kept thinking of reasons and excuses, trying to convince himself that he had done what he needed to do.
Sanjay eventually received word that the man was dead, and the space pirates actually began to accept him as one of their own.
The final “joke” they played on Sanjay was making him kill his own parents. They were no longer of any use, as there was nothing more to squeeze out of that family.
When Sanjay raised the gun toward them, he found that he didn’t feel any particular emotion at all. He was finally able to rid himself of these two damn people, these two bastards who had kept him trapped.
Yu Xi felt that this person was rotten to the core, the worst of the worst.
Sanjay and those around him thought the same, that he was a natural-born space pirate.
Sanjay had thought that escaping his parents would be enough, but unexpectedly, the fear and hunger never left.
He began a desperate climb to the top, and the blood on his hands increased.
Then, at a certain moment in time, the fear lessened slightly, though the hunger remained.
The space pirates began to treat him with the utmost respect and deference, and he became a minor leader on the crew.
But at this time, those dead emotions of his returned to cling to him like ghosts.
Sanjay didn’t understand. Once the fear gradually faded away, he could remember the songs his parents used to sing to him as they rocked him to sleep. He even remembered every word that man had spoken to him.
These things were all that filled Sanjay’s dreams – everything he once had, and a better future that he might have yet reclaimed.
But they were dead at his own hands.
For the first time, Sanjay experienced true anguish. Shame seemed to catch up with him at that moment, and the ways he once sought to curry favor with these people replayed over and over in his head.
Clutching the food given to him, he was kicked aside, but he could only force himself back up through the pain and speak those pandering words.
Sanjay truly hated that hypocritical version of himself, and it was this that caused his anguish.
It had nothing to do with physical pain.
He had been captured at an age when he was just learning how to be human, and was raised like a wild beast. Biting and snarling brought him power, and he was eventually able to pull on his human skin once more. But those memories that belonged to the beast didn’t go away, lying hidden within Sanjay’s mind. And once he became human again, those memories became incredibly vivid, so alive that they seemed to writhe and crawl, intent on devouring Sanjay.
The hunger grew even more, and Sanjay set his sights on the space pirates who had humiliated him. Even when there was no one left to kill and he had become the captain of the space pirates, the starvation lingered. It expanded more and more, increasing in ferocity until it threatened to swallow everything.
Sanjay did the same thing those space pirates had done to him, toying with children to see if they would raise a hand against their own parents.
He was creating monsters just like himself. The only difference was that he would never let them grow up.
And when those monsters turned their heads toward Sanjay for praise, all they saw was the dark, gaping barrel of a gun.
He did it over and over again…..
Until his crew of space pirates stirred up enough trouble that they found themselves being hunted, and then the fear of death took hold of him once again.
Yu Xi woke with a start, gasping for breath.
Sanjay had also woken up nearby, and seemed very calm. Perhaps too calm: “I wasn’t able to see what happened after you met Kersz. Are you able to seal off your memories?”
Of course they were sealed off. Some of the things he and Kersz did were not fit for public view.
Yu Xi looked with alarm at Sanjay, who seemed very much at a loss.
Yu Xi didn’t know what to say.
Sanjay didn’t either.
The two stared at each other for quite a while before Sanjay took the initiative to ask: “Do you want to destroy everything?”
Yu Xi shook his head.
“Why?” Sanjay didn’t understand.
“I don’t know.” Yu Xi had been able to sense his joy and rage, but Sanjay held no hatred for humanity. He was just afraid.
Those space pirates were terrifying. Sanjay’s changing mindset was terrifying, and those raw and bloody memories were terrifying too.
“What about you? How did you enjoy your time in my memories?” Yu Xi asked.
“Enjoy?!” Sanjay was appalled.
“Oh! Of course you must have enjoyed yourself. My memories hold everything you could ever ask for.” Yu Xi felt that he had been ripped off in this exchange.
“What do you mean, everything?” Sanjay demanded.
“I mean literally everything!” Yu Xi owned an entire planet.
“You are dreadfully poor.” Sanjay felt that Yu Xi possessed nothing but a completely barren world, containing nothing of value.
“And you’re well-off?” Yu Xi opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I’m not going to argue with you.”
Sanjay asked him: “Do you think I was wrong?”
“What?”
“Do you think that what I did was wrong?” Sanjay asked again.
Yu Xi: “Human, the very fact that you’re asking me proves that your brain is broken. How could you make such an obvious mistake and still ask that?”
“Obvious mistake?” Sanjay seemed somewhat puzzled. “I made choices that most people would make. I’ve experimented, and a great many children in my situation did the same thing.”
“Then why didn’t you dare to let them live? Didn’t you kill them because you saw them as a mistake? Why wouldn’t you want another “you” to survive?” Yu Xi asked.
Sanjay didn’t answer.
“If you’re no different from the children you harmed, then why wasn’t there a Sanjay there to kill you after everything you did? Do you really need to ask me?”
Yu Xi felt that Sanjay already knew the answer.
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Chapter 47 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 49
