Ch 49 – They’re All the Same
“Is humanity…..coming to an end?” Tau huddled in the corner with his arms wrapped around his knees.
“I really don’t plan to wipe out the human race.” Yu Xi couldn’t understand why Tau didn’t believe him.
“It’s an act,” said Tau. “You’ve picked up bad habits from humans.”
Yu Xi: ……
“I told you not to mess around with human memories, but you went and did it anyway. How can humans be anything good?” Tau actually shed a tear. “Now I’ll have to part ways with my Xiao Konglong.”
“Don’t cry, ah.” Yu Xi paced back and forth in front of Tau.
Tau buried his head in his knees, looking even more despondent.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry.” Yu Xi started to reach out to Tau, but didn’t dare make actual contact.
He crouched down beside him.
Tau cried for a while, then looked up at Yu Xi and said: “I’m an Illegitimate, and I don’t have superfluous feelings. You don’t have to put on an act around me.”
Yu Xi didn’t respond right away. Instead, he reached out and gently wiped beneath Tau’s eyes.
Tau said nothing.
This display counted as a lack of superfluous feelings? Yu Xi didn’t think that Tau was being honest.
“Tau, I’m not deceiving you,” Yu Xi said.
Tau: “Is the person in front of me Yu Xi or Sanjay?”
“Aiya! Do you have any idea how long I’ve lived?” Yu Xi asked him.
Tau shook his head.
“I don’t know how long of a period my lost memories span, but even if I don’t include them in the length of my life, it still equates to about twenty billion years.” Yu Xi gently placated him, “The humans who created me are gone, and so is Earth.”
Tau: “Earth?”
“Oh, that’s humanity’s home planet,” Yu Xi explained. “Life in the solar system reached its end. The sun expanded rapidly, and Earth was swallowed up.”
“Later, the sun became a small white dwarf. Some young stars close to the sun ‘stole’ its last remaining planets, and now that small white dwarf, about the size of Earth, is the only thing remaining in that solar system.” Yu Xi said, “Nobody knows what took place there. It’s all in the past.”
Tau’s eyes widened: “But didn’t you say your planet is called Earth?”
Yu Xi: ……
Yu Xi lowered his head dejectedly: “I lied.”
“Tens of billions of years…..I can’t imagine it,” said Tau.
Yu Xi: “I just lived life, day after day. Humans gave me a longer lifespan towards the end…..I don’t quite understand why they did that.”
“They must have discussed it behind my back,” Yu Xi lamented.
“It’s been such a long time. Why didn’t you evolve like the ancient humans you talk about?” Tau asked.
“I was just doing what I was supposed to do, over and over again,” said Yu Xi.
Tau: …..
Tau: “…..Is it possible that…..”
Yu Xi tilted his head.
Tau: “…..Is it possible that those humans thought you were a slow-witted dummy who needed more time to learn?”
Yu Xi’s eyes widened, and he gasped in shock: “What did you say?!”
“Sorry.” Tau’s heart finally settled a bit. The Yu Xi in front of him didn’t seem to have been affected by Sanjay. “When did you begin to realize that you were lonely?”
“I don’t know, I was only vaguely aware of it. I didn’t realize until recently that it was loneliness,” Yu Xi explained.
Tau: …..
Yu Xi: “Because I’ve been spending so much time around you guys lately.”
Tau shook his head in astonishment: “You really aren’t very perceptive.” Did Yu Xi have rocks for brains?
“Tau, you’ve become unkind.” Yu Xi touched his chest.
“Did I hurt you?” Tau asked.
“It’s fine. I’m actually a little happy.” Yu Xi shifted his crouch toward Tau until they were squeezed together. “I feel like you’ve changed.”
“I’ve noticed it too,” Tau said softly. “I wouldn’t have been so careless before.”
“So you’re not all that bright either,” Yu Xi said.
Tau: “I think I’m still a level above you.”
Yu Xi: “Absolutely not! Impossible.”
Tau: “I just momentarily let down my guard.”
Yu Xi: “You ate until you got fat! That’s not just a momentary lapse.”
Tau: “You’re the one who gave me the food.”
Yu Xi: “But you could have eaten a little less of it.”
Tau: “Couldn’t you have just given me a little less?”
The two of them argued for a long time without reaching a consensus.
Then, Tau suddenly changed the subject: “That Sanjay saw so many of your memories. Is he still Sanjay now, or is he Yu Xi?”
“He’s still himself,” said Yu Xi. “That device protects the user’s sense of self, especially if the user is more vulnerable. Otherwise, if something went wrong and a three-year-old child inherited the knowledge and experience of his elders, wouldn’t that child’s personality be completely overwritten?”
“There were some mishaps after the initial version of the device was created. Back then, humans were still quite preoccupied with individuality. But the device has been improved over several generations and isn’t dangerous anymore,” said Yu Xi.
“But that doesn’t mean that humans are just bystanders viewing the experiences of others. Users are able to experience the other person’s feelings, and gain understanding that way,” said Yu Xi.
“Then what did you learn from Sanjay’s memories?” Tau was a little curious.
“I understand now how he turned out this way,” Yu Xi said.
Tau: “So are his actions forgivable?”
“On what grounds should I forgive him? The two of us have no history.” Yu Xi didn’t feel that it was his place to draw such a conclusion. He was just a robot from out of town, and wasn’t close to Sanjay. How could there be any talk of forgiveness?
Yu Xi simply disliked Sanjay as a human being. And after learning how Sanjay had become what he was, Yu Xi disliked him even more.
Yu Xi wasn’t sure if this was prejudice, but he really disliked people like Sanjay. He was like a host infected by a virus, eager to transmit the sickness to the next host.
Eager to prove that everyone was the same.
Sanjay and Kersz were both space pirates, but they couldn’t be more different.
“Should we tell Kersz about this?” Tau asked him.
“No!” Yu Xi startled. “He still doesn’t know that we were exposed!”
Tau: “Then there are quite a few things Kersz doesn’t know about right now.”
Yu Xi: …..
Yu Xi was starting to feel unwell.
Just then, Tau added: “Right, then you understand Sanjay a little better now, ah?”
Yu Xi fell silent.
Tau: “We really shouldn’t tell Kersz about this. His personality is so eccentric.”
Yu Xi’s eyes welled up with tears.
Tau turned as white as a sheet: “What’s wrong?! Don’t be afraid, I’ll help you deceive him!”
“Deceive?” Yu Xi’s voice trembled.
“Exactly!” Tau said firmly. “Don’t worry, he won’t suspect a thing.”
Yu Xi’s tears fell even faster.
So he was deceiving Kersz?
No! He just didn’t want Kersz to know that they had blown their cover. He wanted to maintain a perfect image in Kersz’s eyes.
Yu Xi said to Tau as tears dripped down his face: “I….I….I just don’t want Kersz to know that I was exposed.”
Tau agreed completely: “That’s why we have to deceive him.”
Yu Xi: …..
Tau: “Don’t worry, he won’t find out. By the looks of the current situation, Sanjay won’t be alive much longer. Once he’s dead, there will be even less chance of anyone discovering the truth.”
A sob caught in Yu Xi’s throat.
“When that time comes, we’ll just keep this between the two of us.” Tau patted Yu Xi on the shoulder.
Yu Xi stared blankly ahead, as if he had forgotten the world around him.
Finally, he buried his head in his knees and clutched his legs, sobbing quietly.
Tau didn’t understand what was happening: “Don’t cry, ah. Hey, why are you crying?”
“Yu Xi? Yu Xi!”
*
*
That very night, Yu Xi took Tau home and came clean to Kersz.
Kersz didn’t react very strongly.
In fact, he was astounded that Yu Xi had been completely exposed and had even gained control of Sanjay.
Logically speaking, Kersz shouldn’t be this calm.
But Yu Xi was taking it so hard.
As soon as Yu Xi walked through the door, he began to cry so miserably that Kersz was given a fright.
Kersz asked Yu Xi if something terrible had happened, but Yu Xi just shook his head and said that he was the one who had done something terrible.
Yu Xi claimed that he was a thoroughly wicked robot, while Tau just kept comforting Yu Xi without offering any explanation himself.
Many speculations sprang to Kersz’s mind.
Maybe Yu Xi’s power had burst out and harmed innocents, or maybe one of Yu Xi’s gadgets had gone out of control and unleashed a catastrophe.
Yu Xi tearfully confessed to having kept a major secret from Kersz. He wouldn’t even let Kersz reach out to steady him, because he didn’t consider himself to be a good friend.
Kersz’s heart was in his throat.
And when he finally heard the truth, he breathed a genuine sigh of relief.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Kersz rubbed Yu Xi’s back. “Were you affected by his memories?”
Yu Xi shook his head: “Those emotions were very new and extreme, but my feelings were only stirred up during the most emotionally intense parts.”
“I suppose it’s because I’ve just existed for so long,” Yu Xi said.
“Plus, you have your own worldview,” Kersz added.
“Ah?” Yu Xi wiped his tears away. To be honest, he felt that he couldn’t really claim to have a philosophy of life, value system, or worldview.
When facing humans, Yu Xi felt even more strongly that he lacked any sort of worldview.
But on second thought, perhaps he had one after all.
More than that, someone like him would be considered an old fossil in human society, stuck in his ways.
“I really am something,ah,” Yu Xi said, still wiping away tears.
Kersz continued to rub his back.
Yu Xi glanced at Kersz, then leaned his head on Kersz’s shoulder: “I deceived you. I’m sorry.”
Kersz: …..
Kersz was actually touchy about deception.
He had experienced betrayal, and didn’t trust any sort of collective group.
Even when Kersz felt that he had made a decent friend, he would never give them his wholehearted trust.
But at this moment, Kersz really couldn’t bring himself to get angry at all: “It’s okay, don’t feel bad.”
“There won’t be as much openness between us anymore.” Yu Xi was devastated.
“It really doesn’t have to be like that.” Kersz tried to pull Yu Xi up from where he had slid off his chair to the floor, but couldn’t get him to budge at all.
Yu Xi: “There may be a rift between us, but I won’t let you throw me out.”
Kersz: “I wasn’t going to throw you out. I’m trying to help you up.”
Understanding suddenly dawned on Yu Xi.
Kersz mustered his strength to lift him, but the sudden lack of resistance sent him staggering back, and he landed on his ass with Yu Xi on top of him.
Kersz: “Hiss…..” There went his tailbone.
“Waaah!” Yu Xi suddenly sprang up and wrapped his arms around Kersz.
“Kersz!!” The tears Yu Xi had just wiped away began to flow again.
“Kersz, hold on!” Yu Xi started to run out of the room.
“I’m not seriously injured!” Kersz said hastily.
Yu Xi visually scanned Kersz and confirmed that there were no bone fractures.
With this confirmation, Yu Xi dropped to his knees with Kersz in his arms.
Tau, standing right across from Yu Xi: ?
“Kersz!!” Yu Xi suddenly cried out in anguish.
Kersz was startled, while Tau took a step back to get farther away from them.
After shouting, Yu Xi quietly stood up.
Kersz wasn’t in much pain anymore.
Without warning, Yu Xi then dropped to his knees again, the hair across his forehead swaying with the movement.
Kersz stared at Yu Xi’s expression of despair. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, and he ultimately drew them in against his chest.
After calling Kersz’s name again with heart-wrenching anguish, Yu Xi stood up with Kersz still cradled in his arms and rubbed his cheek against the top of his head.
Kersz blinked.
Yu Xi glanced at him, then went right back at it.
Yu Xi was having fun. After realizing that Kersz’s tailbone was fine, it suddenly dawned on him that he was holding him in a rather dramatic “princess carry” straight out of a TV drama.
Kersz was not drifting apart from him, which made Yu Xi very happy. Kersz’s lack of injury only elevated his mood more, raising the level of his happiness even higher.
With his good human in his arms, he didn’t quite know what to do, but his excitement urged him to do something.
Yu Xi secretly enjoyed the moment before the show came to an end.
Kersz finally came to his senses: “Yu Xi, what are you doing?”
Yu Xi thought for a moment, then said: “Maybe…..playing make-believe.”
Kersz: “What?”
“Could you close your eyes? I’ll kiss you awake,” said Yu Xi.
“That’s not really a storyline that occurs between friends.”
Kersz found it difficult to turn Yu Xi down, but when it came to playing around like this, he was really…..at a loss for what to do.
“Friends?!” Exclaimed Tau. “What do you mean friends? In what way are you two just friends?”
Kersz’s face stiffened: “Do you really have to stand there and watch?”
Tau had his hands on his hips, looking very free and at ease.
“It doesn’t bother me,” said Tau. “Just pretend I’m not here. I’ve seen people fooling around in front of me more than once. It’s just a couple of bodies.”
“You’re so easygoing.” Kersz smiled at him. “But it does bother me a little.”
Tau: “Huh?!”
Kersz: “Haven’t you been too easygoing lately? Do you still remember that you’re a kidnapping victim?”
Tau: …..
Kersz: “And there’s still your father.”
Tau was visibly stunned, and couldn’t react for a second.
“It’s fine. Your father doesn’t know, so he won’t be upset,” Yu Xi comforted him.
Then he added: “But if you leave, your little dinosaur will be sad.”
Tau said nothing, looking toward his room. The door was open a crack, and he could see Xiao Konglong eating.
Tau silently put his hands behind his back and returned to his room.
He looked rather unconcerned, as if he hadn’t heard the word “father” just now.
Yu Xi and Kersz watched him close the door, then exchanged a glance.
“I want to kiss you awake,” Yu Xi said again.
“Alright.” Kersz’s face was slightly red. “But when you’re finished, I want to play too.”
Yu Xi: “Ah?”
“I want to kiss the robot awake.” Kersz forced down his sense of shame and smiled a little flippantly. “Make your breathing lights dim, and then when I kiss you, make them light up again.”
The breathing lights on Yu Xi’s face grew particularly bright. He was nervous.
Kersz continued: “I’m curious about how the breathing lights on your body are distributed.”
The breathing lights on Yu Xi’s face began to pulse.
“I’ll explore them, ah, all the way down…..” Kersz’s smile widened, and he leaned in close to Yu Xi’s face. “What will happen then?”
Yu Xi opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“It’s only fair,” said Kersz.
Yu Xi: “Right, right, right, a fair exchange.” This meant double happiness for him!
*
*
“Why did you hide that memory?” Sanjay asked Yu Xi as he returned to his cell.
“Ah?” Yu Xi was a bit dazed, and reacted slower than usual.
“Why did you hide the memory of meeting Kersz?” Sanjay asked. “Or rather, what did he deceive you about?”
Yu Xi’s eyes were half-lidded, and he swayed on his feet as he started to close the door. He felt like laying down for a while and savoring the delightful time he had just experienced.
Then Sanjay insisted on butting in.
“He’s not deceiving me. He’s very good.” Yu Xi waved his hand.
Sanjay disagreed: “Perhaps you don’t know Kersz well enough. He’s a killer too.”
Yu Xi: “Kersz certainly doesn’t like powerful people with blood on their hands, but he’s not bloodthirsty.”
“He’s not?” Sanjay retorted, “Only slaughter can quench his burning rage. He needs a justification to kill, and the evil deeds of those people provide it for him.”
Yu Xi: …..
“In the end, people like us are exactly the same.” Sanjay crouched down beside Yu Xi and looked him right in the eyes.
Sanjay really liked eye contact. He was always looking for something in the eyes of others, whether it was fear or anger, and relished the way he was able to get a rise out of them.
“He lacks the power to change anything. The humans in your memories were perfect, but I doubt that Kersz could accept even that kind of perfection.” Sanjay said with a smile, “He’s like a child who can only scream and cry, his actions meaningless and futile.”
“He disdains working with others and has no leadership abilities, but he’s still so smug and self-righteous, unwilling to be used,” said Sanjay. “He’s intelligent, but not intelligent enough. He doesn’t have the ability to invent world-changing technology like the ancient humans did, and can’t alter the status quo.”
“He wants to kill me. But I imagine that given your experiences, you understand that if I die, a second Sanjay will immediately step in to take my place. There will always be a vicious, brutal space pirate in this position, simply because this position exists, and there is money to be made.” Sanjay’s voice was very soft.
That day, Sanjay and Yu Xi had argued over whether Sanjay had been wrong to do what he did, and Sanjay had eventually fallen silent. He neither agreed nor disagreed after that, leaving Yu Xi with no way to know what was on the human’s mind.
Sanjay intended to attempt to persuade Yu Xi again today.
He didn’t want to die, and the fear of death once again gripped him by the heart.
And in addition to the fear of death was resentment.
Sanjay felt that fate had never once been kind to him. That the world was horribly unfair.
He didn’t know what was in those hidden memories, but space pirates were all the same. They were all killers. Why was it that a killer like Kersz was fortunate enough to stumble upon this robot in the middle of a crisis?
Having experienced Yu Xi’s past, Sanjay was even more unwilling to let this go.
Because he had found that Yu Xi wasn’t preoccupied by the concepts of good and evil. He just loved people who were vibrant and full of life.
There was no shortage of vibrant people in the universe, and anyone who landed on that planet would have won this robot’s affection.
It would have been the same for Sanjay too.
After all, to Yu Xi, humans were all alike.
Yu Xi’s regard was a good thing. With Yu Xi’s protection, why would Sanjay bother with those dangerous business dealings anymore? He didn’t have to be a bad guy, did he? He just didn’t have any other choice.
If he had the opportunity, he could even be a great philanthropist. He could break free from his past and walk through the world with a new identity.
“No one in this world has ever given me the chance to be a normal person,” he told Yu Xi. “But Kersz could have been a good person. His parents gave him that chance, and then he met you. At least on the surface, he really does seem like a better person than me.”
“Kersz is different,” Yu Xi retorted.
Sanjay: “Only because he’s the first person you met.”
“No, he and I are very alike.” Yu Xi shook his head. “I’m also obsessed with certain things. Things that aren’t quite proper.”
The path of the ancient humans was perfect. So perfect that no fault could be found with them.
They had felt their way forward through difficulties, purging themselves of everything negative.
It was simply incredible. There was no more suffering, and nobody misunderstood each other anymore.
But Yu Xi had loved their imperfections, because their flaws had allowed Yu Xi to glimpse a burning passion within them.
“You aren’t all the same. Humans differ greatly from one another,” Yu Xi continued.
He suddenly recalled the question Tau had asked him: Is it possible that those humans thought you were a slow-witted dummy?
“He’s a dummy.” Yu Xi used the same word to describe Kersz. “It might be that he’s obsessed to a fault, and that brain of his just refuses to learn how to be flexible.”
He remembered how the ancient humans had patted his head as they left.
He remembered someone saying that the ancient humans didn’t like emotions, but didn’t hate them either. They perceived everything, and also embraced everything.
Perhaps the incredibly long span of time they gave Yu Xi wasn’t meant to preserve the trappings of humanity. They just felt that this stubborn robot hadn’t reached the end of the road.
But what lay at the end of the road?
Omniscience and omnipotence like the ancient humans had obtained?
Yu Xi didn’t think he was capable of such a thing anymore, and he didn’t have much time left either.
If he had taken all this time only to slowly realize that he was a “dummy,” wouldn’t that make it all pointless?
This outcome sounded terrible to Yu Xi.
“Why can’t you extend some of your tolerance to others?” Sanjay asked “That dummy of yours wants to kill me.”
Yu Xi gave it some thought, then said quite earnestly: “It’s because I’m biased.”
“I don’t hate you. There are no conflicts of interest between us. There will always be someone biased toward you, but it’s clear that I’m not that person.” Yu Xi already had a good human of his own.
Sanjay started to say something, but Yu Xi cut him off: “In your eyes, do I look like that undercover agent you betrayed? When he first showed you tenderness, you finally breathed a sigh of relief and felt a brief moment of joy that your situation had improved.”
Sanjay didn’t speak.
But there was more to the story. That moment of joy couldn’t last forever.
The hunger was always there.
He was desperate to snatch everything good from the hands of others and take it for himself.
But good things always rotted once they fell into his hands.
He was truly unfortunate. Truly unlucky.
Had he ever actually eaten?
So hungry…..so hungry…..
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Chapter 48 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 50
