Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 305 - 119. I don’t want to die_2

Chapter 305: 119. I don’t want to die_2

"Look at yourself; your brain may be a dud, but at least your looks are decent."

It seemed like Du Zexin intended to scorn Li Aozi, but being a machine, he couldn’t quite manage it, so he just flashed his lights:

"Seriously, you are pretty attractive, or rather, you possess a quality beyond ordinary—it’s unforgettable. I feel like even if I forgot my own birthday, forgot who I am, I would still remember you. It’s like an addiction. It’s weird because my preference is clearly mechanical."

"Fuck, it seems like you accidentally revealed something huge..."

Li Aozi couldn’t help but laugh:

"Mechanophiliac, you Mechanics are all into that metal and copper stuff, which is hilarious, pfft hahaha..."

Seeing him laugh, Du Zexin said casually:

"At least that’s more reasonable."

"—What? What did you say?"

"I said your mom’s a cutie, I love you, my dear cookie," Du Zexin said irritably. "Look at yourself, normally so pretty and full of arrogance, but now you’ve been beaten down to a pulp, looking like you’ve lost your soul."

"The situation... it’s beyond my control now, I have a bad feeling about this, you wouldn’t understand. I feel powerless, and just thinking about the Secret Society makes that feeling grow in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know what it is; for the first time, I feel like there’s nothing I can do, no way to resist the oppression of the White Knight. His power is too great, I can’t do anything; I can only keep dying, reviving, and dying again. Do you get that feeling, Du Ze—"

"Idiot, you’re just too damn arrogant," Du Zexin said.

It seemed that Du Zexin had gotten used to being around Li Aozi and no longer maintained his usual posture and etiquette. He packed up his own corpse, refrigerated it, and shoved it into a safe cabinet. Turning back, he looked at Li Aozi with sixteen eyes:

"No one can guarantee that the future will proceed according to your will. What do you think this is? A game? Li Aozi, you have to realize, you aren’t the main character, neither am I. In this game called reality, we’re all just passersby, destined to die sooner or later."

Li Aozi shrugged, unconcerned:

"The hell are you talking about, Meibei... Didn’t you die once too?"

"I’m talking about your arrogant dumb ass. You don’t know shit about dying. You got your friend’s Arcane Energy, you won’t die," he said with complexity.

"I will, Li Aozi. No matter how many bodies I switch into, my will would wear thin, my thoughts would turn into zeros and ones. Even steel can rust. Sooner or later, I’ll be annihilated due to increasing entropy. Hell, I might even end up like that beast who attacked us, attracted and warped by society due to excessive Intelligence—"

"But it’s different for you. You can die and resurrect. You’ve seen so much—stars, blue skies, galaxies, the sun. Are Azure Star People content to be trapped on the ground? No, not at all. Do we truly believe that there’s no sun in the world? No, it’s just that we can’t, we daren’t imagine it."

"The cosmos we’re most curious about, you already know all about it."

"The sunshine we dare not dream of, to you, it’s routine."

"The starry sky we can never attain, it’s merely your homeland."

Li Aozi stared blankly at Du Zexin’s camera eyes:

"Meibei, you..."

These statements weren’t included in the official character descriptions.

The Du Zexin described officially was a hero filled with justice, conscience, Talent, and Strength—in other words, a hero.

"I want to go to space."

That’s what Du Zexin said:

"It’s not that I want to see what space is like, nor do I want to become a higher-level Mechanic. I don’t want to be the hero who saves human fate. I fucking don’t want to fight with Society, that monster—I just hate this planet filled with trashy nations like Frost Plated, Sky Ring, Zhengxu, and Red Arrow."

His electronic eyes twinkled as he expressed all his emotions in the cold synthetic tones:

"Li Aozi, I don’t love space. I just want to escape."

Synthetic voices can’t quiver, electronic currents show no joy or sorrow:

"I want to cram my soul into a can, bury it for a few hundred years, wait for humankind to perish, and then, inside a machine body, walk in the apocalypse, to travel, to escape, to survive."

"I hate this world, I want to leave it. So, ever since I saw that children’s primer when I was little, I’ve had this unshakable belief in escape—but I always thought I loved the universe, the unexplored starry sky."

"Du Zexin..."

"Later, when you arrived with all the wonderful things I had dreamed of, I suddenly realized—I wasn’t interested in the universe at all; I just want to escape this stupid world."

"As a boy, I lost out on opportunities to study because girls took them. As an adult, because a relative works in the government, I missed out on promotions and overtime. Later, I wanted to change this country, but David Lyn went in."

"Now that I’ve met you, even though it’s damn ridiculous, the days I spent with you were the most authentic and exhilarating of my life, dumbass Li Aozi,"

Using a welding gun, Du Zexin repaired his upper and lower body and steered the Mobile Armor to regain its stance:

"Li Aozi, if you feel like you can’t do anything, take a look at me. I think no one’s unluckier than this loser, Meibei."

"Du Zexin, that nickname was just a joke—"

"At least, someone loves you, cares about you, worries about you."

Du Zexin stuffed Li Aozi into the cockpit:

"I’ve got nothing left around me; at least you count as half a friend to me."

The Mobile Armor quickly smashed through the checkpoint barriers, carrying Li Aozi into the endless long night and the blizzards.

There was silence all the way, as the mecha shielded them from the frosty wind and snow. The shaking body was sturdier than imagined, and the Mobile Armor was even more stable than the ones he knew. It looked like Du Zexin had put in a lot of effort, and the infusion of his consciousness into the mecha also provided considerable help in piloting it.

Li Aozi’s destination was an abandoned camp on the outskirts of Triangle Town, the optimal launch site, where the chosen players were also waiting.

Li Aozi’s Biological Pool could accommodate 25 players, and when the nuclear bomb detonated, the sturdy biological pool would also keep them safe.

The Narrow Space Mirror indicated everything was going smoothly and was on its way to the rendezvous point.

Compared to these matters, Li Aozi was actually more concerned about Du Zexin’s situation.

He was very different from before, and even farther removed from the Du Zexin in his memory.

Li Aozi glanced at the data.

There was no change in favorability, it seemed that some things couldn’t be reflected by numbers.

Why then had Du Zexin spoken like that?

Suddenly Li Aozi remembered something:

"How’s your body doing?"

"...It’s not too bad."

"Really? Your head got chopped off, and you inhaled that poison gas."

"I’ve cryogenically sealed it. For a severed head, find a Biochemist to reattach it. As for poison gas, just need to replace the lung lobe with a cybernetic one—as an agent of the Third Rule, it’s easy for me to acquire these things."

Since his instructor as a Mechanic said so, Li Aozi, being a layman, naturally did not question his view.

"I hope you’re okay," said Li Aozi, "and I’m not lying about that."

But Du Zexin didn’t counter with a sarcastic retort like ’how many lies have you told then,’ but suddenly said:

"This hydrogen bomb is only enough for you to clear a 70-kilometer Ersha, but Ersha gathers faster than you think. If you don’t want to end up in space as nothing but bones, you’ll need to detonate another small nuclear bomb when you reach the ionosphere."

Li Aozi sighed, shaking his head:

"It’s too late for that. I can only send my brain out. Once regeneration is complete in outer space, I’ll just fly away. Besides, I’m taking the Biological Pool with me, and it’s safe to soak in there too."

Du Zexin replied, "That will lose a lot of initial velocity."

"Time waits for no one."

"Do you have to go to space now?"

"Necessarily. To tell the truth, it’s already very late. I should have gone to space a month ago. The Ersha crisis is imminent."

"You should still have an additional charge."

"I fucking know, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, and there’s no time to look for a second nuclear bomb."

"Look for what?"

Du Zexin said:

"Isn’t there one right here?"

With that, he lifted his mechanical hand and pointed at the reactor on his chest.