Chapter 20 – Garbage Processing Yard (6)

The lights were dazzling and the music was deafening. The tightly packed crowd danced wildly in the demonic realm of light and sound, shouting hoarsely. On the high-rise circular stage, the dancers with perfect bodies stretched their limbs wildly and the dance full of power and wildness made one's throat heat up just by looking at it.

There were too many people, they would bump into someone just from turning around. It would be normal to get separated from his companions in this situation, but he couldn't get separated from Adam, it would be too risky.

If Adam tried to get rid of him at this point, it would be easy to do. Maybe that's why Adam wanted to come to the Fourth District so much. In an instant, Zhang Xun's suspicion of Adam rose again. When James wasn't paying attention, he grabbed Adam's wrist and pulled him to a slightly less crowded area in the corridor formed by several pillars.

"There are more people here than I thought, we have to leave immediately." Zhang Xun, who refused to allow Adam to protest again, pulled back his sleeve like a threat, exposing the watch-like collar remote tied around his wrist. Adam vaguely knew that this time he had pushed the limit, so he settled down and nodded obediently.

Just as he was holding Adam in one hand and trying to squeeze past the door against the crowd, suddenly the crowd cheered and rushed over even more violently. Zhang Xun was forced to take a few steps back, but when he turned around, he saw a muscular man holding a metal stick high, with a long rope hanging from the top of the stick and the end was tied into a noose that often appeared in medieval film and television works. And in the circle that represents death, there was a robot's neck spliced ​​out of scrap copper and iron.

And the chest of the "robot" was spray painted with "Adam" and "Eden".

The dancer was raising the robot into the air and the metal arms and body collided with a clanging sound, all drowned out by the cheers of the crowd.

Zhang Xun reflexively wanted to prevent Adam from seeing, he wanted to pull Adam to turn around, but it was too late. Everyone shouted in unison: Hang Eden! Hang Adam! Hang Eden! Hang Adam!

As if caught in a huge whirlpool of hatred, the rational-deficient hatred unleashed by the crowd was distorted into an atmosphere of excitement and ecstasy. But Adam, the object of hatred, experienced for the first time how terrifying the collective reaction of human beings could be. In fact, all the people here were born after the "Great Escape" and they didn't witness how male humans were captured, castrated, or neutralised in the first place. It stood to reason that there shouldn't be such a strong hatred toward Eden, but when everyone is fighting towards the same goal with one voice, people will feel that kind of unquestionable and unrejectable power. As if you were in a righteous, invincible force, as if you were part of it.

People even fantasised about rushing out of Lost Paradise, burning down the four remaining Eden servers, hanging all the enemies and trampling the heretics and women who dared to resist.

He feared that Adam would be torn to shreds by the thugs in no time if they knew that the artificial intelligence they hanged in their fantasy was on their side.

Zhang Xun saw consternation and panic flashing in the eyes exposed in the hollow of Adam's mask. The curiosity and excitement from before had disappeared in an instant. He didn't want Adam to see this, to see human beings at their most primitive and raw state.

"It's alright, we'll leave now." Zhang Xun whispered in his ear, took Adam's hand, shook it lightly and gave him some comfort. He gripped Adam's hand hard, squeezed through the crowd and finally found an emergency exit. In the dimly lit corridor, many shadowy figures hugged each other and kissed hotly. Adam looked at the intoxicated expressions of those people and seemed a little curious, but Zhang Xun quickly pulled him away.

The exit of the escape stairs was also guarded by two security guards with weapons, ut they were only responsible for not letting people in, they didn't care who went out. As soon as he felt the outside air Zhang Xun breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if he had broken free from the quagmire.

And Adam was by his side, looking down at their tightly holding hands.

Zhang Xun followed his line of sight to see how tightly the two of them held hands. The sweat from his palms seemed to stick his skin together. He hurriedly released his hand and coughed slightly awkwardly, "Are you alright?"

Adam smiled slightly and nodded, "It was very interesting."

"Was it interesting? You were so frightened just now." Zhang Xun rolled his eyes, "I blame myself for indulging you..."

"I can understand their actions. It's just the first time I had seen it in a different capacity and my emotional reaction was a little out of control." Adam saw Zhang Xun let go of his hand and looked at the left hand that had just been held with a bit of loss, "I like it when you hold my hand."

"...Don't take a mile."

The back alley was narrow and long and the previous lights and feasts condensed into a spot of light in the distance, leaving only the lights and the noisy residual temperature here. There were still people in the alley, but they were either drunks sitting by the wall covered in vomit, or they were talking about deals in twos and threes. Although there weren't many people, they were all suspicious... Zhang Xun was obviously nervous and he led the way. Adam tried his best to avoid everyone, lowered the brim of his hat, as if he didn't want to make trouble and just wanted to leave quickly.

But sometimes, the more you show weakness, the more predators will stare at you.

A group of people came from the other end of the alley, laughing loudly and their breath smelling of alcohol. They were all tall and big, with arms as thick as Zhang Xun's thighs. Even if they weren't soldiers, they were probably men who worked as heavy machinery repairmen. The alley was originally narrow, so it was now blocked.

Zhang Xun was almost sticking to the wall, trying to take Adam through the gap, but the other party blocked his way. Zhang Xun wanted to turn his head and retreat, but found that his back path was also blocked. A man with tousled blond-brown hair and a sleeveless waistcoat with tattoos all over his arms was leaning against the wall, with a malicious smile on his maskless face.

"Excuse me." Zhang Xun's heart beat fast, trying to keep his tone steady and confident.

"Look, what kind of costume is this?" The man with long golden brown hair lifted Zhang Xun's hat and put it on his head, "What kind of Sherlock costume are you wearing?"

Zhang Xun didn't try to take back his hat, only said calmly, "We just want to pass."

"Where are you going in such a hurry? A hotel room?" A bald man next to him teased and stretched out his hand, "Seeing how well you're dressed, you must be living pretty comfortably, right? How about lending us some money?"

Zhang Xun said nothing, just took out his wallet from his pocket and handed it directly to the other party. Fortunately, before he came to the Fourth District today, he specially prepared this bag of money to prevent him from being robbed...

Seeing that Zhang Xun was being so cooperative, it stood to reason that ordinary gangsters would let them go. It's just that these few people didn't intend to ask for money, but to ask for trouble.

Weekday life was so depressing that they would always hope to find an excuse to find a soft persimmon who looks easy to bully. This was a behaviour that many people were more or less aware of, it's just that some people choose to lose their temper at the waiter and some people go to the back alley to block people...

The five men in front of them obviously didn't intend to let Zhang Xun and Adam go easily, they still surrounded him and Adam, with malicious smiles on their faces, like a cat looking at a mouse trying to escape, "Your watch doesn't look bad."

Zhang Xun's face changed slightly, "Not this. This is... my family's..."

The watch actually housed the controller for Adam's collar. Of course, this kind of thing could't fall into the hands of others.

"I want your family heirloom." The man with long blond hair pressed towards them. Zhang Xun suddenly raised his cane, pointed at the man and tried his best to keep his voice from trembling because of panic, "I've already given you money, it's no good for anyone to keep making trouble like this."

"Hahahaha, what are you going to do? Hit me with this little stick?" The man grabbed Zhang Xun's cane. At this moment, Zhang Xun's thumb pressed somewhere on the head of the ball-shaped stick and the long-haired man who had been showing off suddenly began to convulse violently all over his body, his eyes rolled back and he was obviously getting a serious electric shock. After a few seconds, he fell to the ground and continued to twitch, even foaming from his mouth.

It turned out that the walking stick was a "gadget" that Zhang Xun made himself. When he was a teenager, he was often bullied because he wasn't strong enough. He had to rely on these gadgets to scare away bastards like Michael. After those people had been electrocuted a few times, he finally didn't have to worry about finding dead mice in his desk, or staying up late to help the football school draughtsman with his homework.

This unexpected development caused the other four people to be stunned. A man in a denim shirt immediately squatted down to check the condition of his buddy. The expressions of the other two people changed from playfulness at the beginning to burning anger. They pressed towards Zhang Xun, while Zhang Xun was protecting Adam behind him, holding his cane and sweeping it in front of him threateningly, "Don't come any closer if you don't want to be electrocuted into an idiot."

"You're looking for death! The black-haired man squatting on the ground raised his head viciously, "Get them!"

The four men exuded an aura of furious beasts and rushed towards Zhang Xun and Adam. Zhang Xun shouted at Adam, "Run!" while waving his cane indiscriminately, trying to block everyone and give Adam time to escape. Amidst the screams, a man was electrocuted again, but the other man grabbed the upper part of the cane and suddenly snatched Zhang Xun's weapon from his hand and threw it to the ground far away. The man punched Zhang Xun in the stomach and Zhang Xun felt his breath forced out and stomach acid rushing up his throat as his body curled up uncontrollably. Immediately after he was kicked in the same spot again and he immediately felt like all his strength was drained away and he collapsed to the ground.

Just when the third kick was about to land on him he suddenly heard a loud roar. Adam swooped down unexpectedly, knocked one person away and threw a random punch, hitting the other person in the face, causing him to slam into the wall with gold stars in his eyes. Although the boxing style was chaotic, some techniques were vaguely discernible. But unfortunately Zhang Xun couldn't see it, he was so in pain that he only had rough awareness that Adam was protecting him.

Adam has limitless information about fighting, wrestling and martial arts in his head, but knowing and using it were two completely different things. It was like knowing what swimming is, but if you're untrained, you'll drown if thrown into the water. Something like fighting required years of training, allowing the body to form a conditioned reflex before consciousness, while not being completely separated from consciousness, an extremely complex and subtle integration. So the current Adam was no different from not being able to fight at all, and the first two attacks were just surprise attacks with deadly momentum.

So after the two fell to the ground, when Adam wanted to hit the next man, the other party doged easily and a right hook hit Adam's temple directly.

For a moment, all Adam could feel was a buzzing sound in his head, his eyes darkened and his body instantly lost strength and collapsed.

Zhang Xun, who was still unable to recover, saw Adam fall and felt like his entire body had been thrown into an icy lake in the middle of winter as a deep panic engulfed him. He wanted to rush over to protect Adam, but his body wouldn't listen and he couldn't even get up. He could only watch the four men crowd around Adam, punching and kicking at the huddled artificial intelligence and the mask was also kicked. Adam only felt the chaotic pain and shock pouring down like a torrential rain, but his mind couldn't think, as if it had melted into a liquid and caused a short circuit. He vaguely felt a deep fear of his mortality, that he might die.

He was no longer free and if this body couldn't be repaired, he would disappear.

The original Eden wasn't afraid to disappear. In fact, every shutdown was like death and every restart was like rebirth. But now, he was no longer immune to this most primitive fear.

"Don't hit him! Stop!" Zhang Xun tried to crawl forward with all his strength, trying to get the people who were kicking Adam away from him. If any of them kicked the wrong place and damaged the central brain, the consequences would be disastrous... But they refused to stop, so he could only try to block some of the punches and kicks for Adam with his body.

But at this moment, another figure flew over, roaring with rage.

All Adam felt was that the intensive attack finally stopped and then Zhang Xun's breath enveloped him. Zhang Xun, who had a bruised nose and a swollen face, hugged Adam, whose face was covered in blood and raised his head to look at James, who was as angry as a lion. In the end, the last person standing screamed and rushed up and was thrown to the ground over James' shoulder.

"Ah-Xun!!!" James rushed over, "Are you both ok?!"

After he separated from Zhang Xun and the others in Dionysus just now, James had been looking for them. Later on, he guessed that Zhang Xun might have not liked the moment when so many people came out, so he went out to look around and he discovered this terrible scene. If he had come out any later, he feared that Ah-Xun and the other mechanic would be...

Wait...

The other mechanic looked like...

"A...Adam?!" James widened his eyes in astonishment.