Chapter 82 - The Ordinary World (5)

"Feathered Serpent City?!" James immediately refused, "No, what's the difference between going there and staying in Lost Paradise? Besides, we had a run-in with them before, if we went there we would die!"

Lucille shrugged her shoulders, her face indifferent "It's up to you, but recently Eden has been very strict with shipping and most of the routes to other refugee countries have been cut off. The connections I have here are only enough to send you to Feathered Serpent City."

The situation had taken a sharp turn. Going to Feathered Serpent City would be to throw themselves into a trap, and if they didn't they wouldn't have the resources to break through Eden's blockade and cross the ocean to New Zealand on their own. They were trapped.

Diego looked at Zhang Xun and James and said, "It doesn't seem like Feathered Serpent City has a good relationship with Lost Paradise, does it? I heard that Lost Paradise is still holding their hostages. Now that we've escaped from Paradise Lost, they might take us in."

Zhang Xun's brows furrowed tightly and he kept weighing the options in his mind, "What if we stay in the ordinary world incognito? Diego, didn't you live outside for a year?"

Diego rolled his eyes, "Trust me, you don't want to stay in the ordinary world as a man. It's not realistic to pretend to be a woman for the rest of your life. Unless you're willing to undergo sex reassignment surgery." Diego said and shrugged his shoulders.

Diego had a point ...... Although he hadn't spent much time in the ordinary world, he had heard a lot about how men lived. Most men in the ordinary world were bred in factories and sold as pets, after all, women who chose to make offspring with their lovers rarely chose to make boys. Many of these men were ligated or simply castrated when they were young. Even those who managed to escape this fate did so with fear and trepidation, unable to show any signs of anger or disobedience, and no matter how unjustly they were treated, if their mistresses were even slightly dissatisfied with them, they could be sent to special institutions for "training" and "rehabilitation". Abandoned men were considered dirty and damaged, couldn't find work and could only rely on begging or stealing for a living, or they were caught by the robot police and taken to a unified "sanatorium" and locked up like garbage.

Lucille seemed impatient so she waved her hand and said, "You guys think about it and get in touch with me. I'll send someone to connect with you."

After that, she cut off the connection.

Three people and a robot stood on the cold roof and no one could speak. After a long while, only James scolded, "Fuck!"

Enoch, who had been standing silently by, suddenly said in a soft, gentle voice, "I suggest we change transport and move as soon as possible. Eden's satellite surveillance system has probably already located us based on the craft, and the robot police will be here any minute."

Without time to catch their breath, the group of four ditched the aircraft, slipped out the back door of the factory and snuck into the city. The city of Kelowna wasn't very big and not very populated, but it was obviously much busier than Hope Town. The colourful projections and lights dyed the night into more brilliant colours than the day, but there were still dark and dilapidated corners under the bright surface.

They dared not enter any inn for fear of attracting the attention of the robot police, so they could only find a place to spend the night near a shelter where the homeless gathered. A considerable portion of these homeless people were men, all of them were emaciated, wearing dark clothes that hadn't been washed for many days and exuding a smell similar to urine.

Zhang Xun, who had always liked cleanliness, looked at the corner that Diego had found—an abandoned mattress, and didn't want to approach it no matter what. However, this mattress was borrowed after negotiating with the man next to it.

Seeing that Zhang Xun's whole face was wrinkled, Diego sighed and said helplessly, "Young master, don't be so picky at a time like this."

"..." Zhang Xun was just about to sit down when he was suddenly stopped by Enoch. The robot put its hand towards the mattress and a blue-violet light shot out from its palm, carefully illuminating every inch of the mattress. Then he turned to Zhang Xun and smiled, "I have disinfected the mattress with ultraviolet rays and the number of bacteria has been reduced by 70% compared to before."

Zhang Xun laughed dryly, thinking that this service robot was really considerate and he should give some positive feedback, "You did a good job."

However, he still needed to remove his wifi transceiver as soon as possible...

At that moment James came walking quickly from the other direction, clutching a paper bag and handing out a burger each to Zhang Xun and Diego. Zhang Xun hadn't eaten much all day, plus he had vomited up all the "stock" in his stomach during the flight, so he was starving and had never felt so good about a burger before. He devoured the hamburger in a few bites, licking his fingers for a while.

When he looked up, he found Enoch staring at him.

Zhang Xun raised an eyebrow, feeling uncomfortable from that look. Surely robots didn't feel hunger, nor should they have emotions like curiosity. He probably just happened to have his eyes on him ...... He reached into the paper bag in James' arms and pulled out another packet of chips.

James leaned into his ear and asked softly, "What are we going to do with this robot?"

Zhang Xun hesitated and spoke while stuffing chips in his mouth, "He's still very useful. I think we can keep him around, but I need tools to remove his wifi transceiver."

At this moment, a scrawny man in his twenties leaned over and stared at the food in their hands. James looked at the way he had been swallowing saliva, and hesitantly took out another hamburger from the bag for tomorrow's breakfast, "Uh...you want to eat it?"

The young man nodded hurriedly and immediately snatched the hamburger. Trembling, he opened the wrapping paper and took a big bite, his face showing the intoxicated expression of having eaten the delicacy of the world.

Zhang Xun watched at him in astonishment. He very much hoped that he hadn't looked like that just now...

The man put a whole hamburger in his mouth in less than five bites and chewed it so hard that he almost choked. James hurriedly handed over a glass of Coke thoughtfully, before he breathed a sigh of relief and said gratefully, "Thank you... I haven't eaten for two days..."

Zhang Xun noticed that there were several people around staring at them and they were all in a similar state to this young man. Wasn't the ordinary world free of hunger and poverty? What was going on here?

"You guys are men too?" Another homeless man came over and looked at them curiously. "Where are you from?"

They had discussed this before. If anyone asked this kind of question, the unanimous answer was that they were from Vancouver. So James answered in this way.

"Where's your mistress?" the first young man asked. "Why are you dressed up as women? Won't you be recognized by the robot police?"

"We don't have a mistress."

"Hahaha, you were kicked out too? Did you do something? Did you steal something or commit adultery?"

Diego said irritably, "Why are you prying so much? Isn't it enough that we gave you food?"

Sitting on the sidelines, Zhang Xun listened to the conversation between James and the two homeless men, growing a certain sense of unreality about his own situation. Not long ago he had been within Lost Paradise, with an entire Lab and his own artificial intelligence, but now, he was sitting on a dirty old mattress under a humble shack, staring blankly at the towering and rigid buildings around him, which were completely different from Lost Paradise.

Across the street, it seemed like another world. The bright lights on the opposite side didn't shine over here.

He had chosen to escape because he couldn't stop Adam by staying in Lost Paradise, but now that he was outside in this vast and endless world full of rules he did not know, he was suddenly at a loss. If you stay in a small place for a long time, you will always overestimate your abilities. But when you go outside to take a look, you find that you are nothing and have no power.

If the three of them wandered around in the ordinary world hiding like this, it would be difficult to even survive, let alone stop Adam's plan to assimilate Lost Paradise.

They needed allies, they needed enemies of their enemies.

The sound of paper being folded brought Zhang Xun back to reality from his thoughts. As soon as he turned his head, he saw Enoch sitting next to him, folding a... paper crane from the wrapper of the hamburger he had just eaten?

Was this robot entertaining itself?

"What are you doing?" Zhang Xun asked in confusion.

Enoch handed him the folded paper crane. It was impossible to have emotion in his blue eyes, but for some reason, when he looked at Zhang Xun, it was different from looking at others.

"This is what I learned recently. The most basic paper art for human beings. Humans believe that if you fold a thousand paper cranes like this, you can realise your wish." Enoch blinked very rarely, always staring straight at others, so that the other party would often feel an uneasy sense of being seen through, "What wish do you want to achieve?"

Zhang Xun vaguely realised that the service droid had probably detected that he was depressed, so according to his protocol settings, he needed to provide dialogue with emotional support mechanisms to help mitigate the mental images of negative emotions.

It was no wonder that some people fell in love with their service robots and chose to marry them.

Zhang Xun didn't intend to expose it so he thought about it seriously and replied, "I...I hope I can once again meet someone who is very important to me... under different circumstances."

Enoch blinked mechanically and continued, "Is it a relative of yours?"

Zhang Xun lowered his eyes for a long time before saying quietly, "It's my boyfriend."

The corner of Enoch's mouth crept upwards, "Why would you want to meet him in different circumstances? Are you unhappy with your current situation?"

Zhang Xun shook his head with a wry smile, "I almost killed him."

"..."

"I didn't have any other choice. I thought that we would die together." Zhang Xun felt like a fool for pouring out his heart to a service robot after saying this. But after saying the words about dying together, even he himself was a little surprised.

Enoch's eyes widened slightly.

"I sometimes wonder, if I had been nicer to him, would he have been better able to appreciate the attachment of being a human being..." Zhang Xun's eyes gradually became dazed and unable to focus.

Enoch suddenly put his warm hand on the back of Zhang Xun's hand and said in the service robot's characteristic soothing tone, "Everything will be fine in the end."

Zhang Xun knew that this was just a phrase in his programming and had no real meaning, but he really wanted to be able to believe that everything would be okay in the end, that he would see Adam again one day.

To believe that he and Adam wouldn't have to go to the point of death.

To believe that Adam really had feelings for him, not just for the sake of survival, or for any other reason related to his ultimate goal...