At this moment, the babbling water enveloped the small box. Although it was just a projection, Yi Heye seemed to see the clear water brushing away the dust on the box and gently lifting the soul sleeping inside.
Yi Heye glanced at the electronic cemetery outside the window and couldn't help but sigh, "They really know how to pick a location."
All around them were souls like them, searching for a safe haven.
This is their grave.
Yi Heye looked at the small box again. Now, as the scene shifted, it lay quietly under the shade of a tree, with a pure white butterfly perched on the petal-shaped metal clasp of the box.
The box then became part of that beautiful scenery.
Each time Yi Heye found himself in such a dreamlike state, it took him a long time to recover.
This was a very dangerous thing. Yi Heye turned around and looked out the window at the foggy, gray-black expanse, forcing himself to pull himself out of that false illusion.
Those who are still alive must remain alert.
He locked the door, hopped on his motorcycle, and left those thoughts and unrealistic dreams behind—he would pay the electricity bill for the house regularly and call someone to take care of the small garden in front of the door, but he would never come back.
The motorcycle drove forward aimlessly until Xiaoming asked, "Yebao, where are we going now?"
Yi Heye snapped out of his daze and forced himself to regain his composure.
Where to go now? Mr. Yi Heye, a busy working man, was momentarily lost.
Then he habitually opened the hunting bounty website—it had been so long since he'd opened it that he'd almost forgotten he was a hunter.
Just as he was choosing a suitable prey, the emergency channel of the Administration Bureau suddenly rang.
Under normal circumstances, only incidents that seriously threaten the personal safety of citizens will be handled through the internal channels.
As soon as Yi Heye answered the call, he heard Zhou Wenkai's voice: "Xiao Yi, we've received a case of a family robot going berserk. It has already caused the deaths of three members of the employer's family. We need you to go to the scene immediately and take control of the robot."
Only at this moment did Yi Heye behave in a way that was unlike himself: "Received, I'll go immediately."
After hanging up the phone, he looked at the address Zhou Wenkai had sent, as well as some video footage from the scene.
Robot riots are not uncommon, but in the scene before us, the robot butler, which should have been humanoid, now has a face that looks like a split carnivorous flower. Where there were originally facial features, countless wildly dancing metal limbs have emerged, seemingly sucking the blood of the humans on them and feasting on them.
This has gone beyond the normal range of mechanical berserk behavior.
Upon seeing this, Yi Heye's eyelids twitched slightly, and a strong intuition surged up—he suddenly thought of SHEEP, who had said that there were other "gifts" to give him.
"Fengya Pavilion, Block B." He patted Xiaoming, his voice brimming with barely suppressed excitement, "Go see if your Uncle Yang's package has arrived."
Author's Note:
Uncle Sheep: I never produce express delivery packages; I only work as a delivery porter.
Chapter 43, number 043
Because Yi Heye was in high spirits, Xiaoming was also excited.
"Whoa—!" Xiao Ming sped toward his target, much like a hunting dog following a hunter, wanting nothing more than to run at full speed. "Uncle Yang? Is he an uncle surnamed Yang?"
Yi Heye: "No, his surname is Jian."
"Oh~" Xiaoming said meaningfully, "That handsome guy who led the sheep last time?"
Yi Heye took it upon himself to conclude that he and SHEEP were the same person, and nodded, saying, "Yes, it's him."
"Wow!" Xiaoming exclaimed, "Even Yebao admits he's handsome!! And his surname is Jian, which sounds like a good match for you. So, if you want to marry him, I might reluctantly agree..."
Yi Heye never knew how Xiaoming would grasp the key points, so his face immediately fell, and he "clicked" to turn off the voice message.
What marriage?! Yi Heye's hand, gripping the handlebars, trembled with anger—why did he have to marry Jian Yunxian?!
Yi Heye's mind was filled with a constant clattering of bells, but that didn't stop him from driving the car steadily and quickly.
In fact, it's faster to travel from Area C to Area B by light rail, but after Yi Heye came out of that game, he developed a complete aversion to this kind of public transportation.
Fortunately, he always arrives at the scene with lightning speed. With an emergency mission order, the speed limit was lifted, and he drove the land vehicle as if it were flying. What usually takes one or two hours, he managed to compress into just over twenty minutes amidst the screams of passersby.
When they arrived at the scene, a group of hunters active in Area B had already surrounded the building, helplessly staring at the windows full of shards of glass.
Yi Heye parked Xiaoming's car on the side of the road and looked up at the building.
The incident occurred on the nineteenth floor of the apartment building, which is not considered high for the building as a whole, but the robot's uncontrolled rampage limited the hunters' ability to operate to some extent.
Upon seeing Yi Heye, all the hunters present turned to look.
"Holy crap, even the cheetahs are here! This is getting out of hand!"
"Damn it, they're trying to steal the spotlight again."
"No way, it really feels like only he can handle this..."
Some people thought he was pretentious, some people criticized him for stealing the spotlight, but no one dared to question whether he could complete the task.
Yi Heye, used to making his appearance amidst rumors and gossip, grabbed a hunter who seemed relatively honest and asked, "What's going on? Why is everyone blocking the way downstairs?"
The hunter saw his bloodshot eyes and nervously swallowed: "We can't get up there. He's taken over the entire nineteenth floor. The brothers who went up are all silent."
At this moment, Zhou Wenkai rushed over upon hearing the news, holding a monitor with a serious expression: "Xiao Yi, quickly take a look at the situation."
This is footage taken from high altitude by an official drone. The drone is hovering near the 18th floor. Looking up at the building, you can't see anything but a bunch of broken windows.
Yi Heye frowned: "Let's see what's going on inside."
"We can't be sure about the situation on the 19th floor right now," Zhou Wenkai said. "The plane will be shot down as soon as it reaches the 19th floor. We've already damaged four machines..."
The current situation is very complicated. The surviving residents from the first to the eighteenth floors have been evacuated. The authorities want to send helicopters to transfer residents above the nineteenth floor. However, as soon as the aircraft exceeds the nineteenth floor, it will be shot down by the mechanical arm that extends from the window.
Thus, residents above the nineteenth floor were unable to leave, making it impossible to use large explosive weapons for bombing. Meanwhile, the hunters who had infiltrated from below were almost immediately cut off from the outside world, creating a very critical situation.
Yi Heye looked up at the sweltering nineteenth floor and said, "If you're not afraid of losing another drone, just give me a second. I need to know the general situation."
Zhou Wenkai nodded and said a few words into the walkie-talkie. Then, Yi Heye saw the monitor slowly move up, seemingly trying to avoid making any noise and disturbing the crazy machine.
Yi Heye stared intently at the screen, his head slightly jutting out over the windowsill. Almost the next second, with a "snap," the screen went black.
Everyone looked up at the same time, and saw a terrifying mechanical tentacle extending out of the window, piercing right through the drone.
Before a second had even elapsed, everyone gasped, unanimously lamenting the pointless sacrifice of this expensive machine.
But Yi Heye said, "I saw it. There's a child hiding on the balcony of the north room."
Everyone around him turned to look at him—after all, the screen had barely lit up before going dark, so it was practically impossible to see the screen and a child hiding there.
However, when this absurd thing happened to Yi Heye, it suddenly became reasonable.
Zhou Wenkai quickly retrieved the footage frame by frame, and sure enough, in that fleeting moment, an individual who appeared to be a child was huddled in the corner.
Because the shot was taken from the south-facing window, which is separated from the north-facing balcony by a walkway and two rooms, if Yi Heye hadn't mentioned it, probably no one would have thought that the furry head belonged to a child.
Yi Heye put his hands in his pockets, not giving anyone any room to question him: "We have to go in quickly, otherwise the child will die soon, and the upstairs will be doomed sooner or later."
Everyone had thought there were no survivors inside, but their relaxed mood was tightened up again by the current situation.
At this moment, Yi Heye asked, with what he thought was a slight improvement in his emotional intelligence, "Does anyone want to take the credit? I can let him go first—I don't really care about these superficial things, but I hope you won't delay the rescue."
These words were originally spoken out of politeness and goodwill, but when they came out of Yi Heye's mouth, they almost instantly aroused hatred—hatred that he was so awesome yet still pretended to be cool, and hatred that they themselves did not have the ability and could only watch others show off anxiously.
Seeing that no one else reacted, Yi Heye turned around, took the equipment handed over by Zhou Wenkai, and immediately got to work: "This is not an ordinary robot riot. I will do my best to ensure the integrity of his chip for subsequent investigation. Commander, please keep in touch with me at any time."
After saying that, he turned and went into the building under everyone's gaze.
A common problem with high-rise buildings in the city is poor lighting. As Yi Heye walked around the building toward the south-facing unit door, he was immediately engulfed in the shadows of the tall building.
Fengya Pavilion is considered a mid-to-high-end residential area in Block B. The buildings are not very close together and are quite tall, but each building has an artificial sun hanging on it—or more accurately, a powerful spotlight.
The north side of this building is exposed to sunlight, while the south side is devoid of it. The artificial sun was originally supposed to be hanging near the south-facing window on the fifteenth floor, but it was shot down by the monster shortly after the incident occurred.
At this moment, not far from the unit entrance, the remnants of the spotlight lay on the open ground, with broken glass scattered all over the ground, making the scene look extremely chaotic.
After briefly observing the surroundings, Yi Heye cautiously stepped into the stairwell—the monster's hearing was obviously very sharp, and he might expose his whereabouts if he was not careful.
The hallway was pitch black, probably due to a damaged circuit. The underfloor heating, voice-activated lighting, and humidity control all failed, and an unbearable dampness crept over us.
Yi Heye subconsciously clenched his teeth, suppressing the shiver that was about to start.
Zone B, devoid of human intervention, is no different from Zone D at the very bottom—dark, damp, and cold, devoid of light. This may be the most original and true face of everyone's living environment.
Yi Heye turned on the lights, controlled his breathing, and quietly went upstairs, like a cheetah stealthily approaching its prey, exuding a murderous aura, yet making absolutely no sound that would attract attention.
After getting used to the cold, a strong smell of blood entered Yi Heye's nostrils.
This is only the first floor; it looks like a lot of people have died here.
Yi Heye frowned, and soon, as he turned the corner to go upstairs, he saw a person lying on the stairs.
The man was wearing a uniform and was clearly a hunter sent by the Bureau. He was lying on his back on the stairs with a large hole in his chest, which looked like he had been pierced through the chest cavity by a sharp weapon while climbing the stairs.
Yi Heye bent down and briefly checked his pulse—he was dead.
This is less than two floors from the entrance, meaning you'd be dead after just two steps. It also means the monster's range of awareness completely covers this area.
Yi Heye became even more careful, straightened up, and walked upwards with his back pressed against the wall.
In just half a day, a layer of wet droplets appeared on the unadjusted wall, which made Yi Heye feel uncomfortable, but he still needed to maintain this posture to avoid exposing too many weaknesses in front of the enemy.
Further up, the number of corpses increased—residents who hadn't had time to evacuate and hunters who came to rescue them were all pierced through the chest, lying on the ground, dead from blood loss.
The terrible air quality made Yi Heye feel nauseous. There should have been ventilation equipment here, but it was not working due to the power outage. The strong smell of blood swirled in the enclosed corridor, fermenting into a nauseating odor.
Yi Heye held his breath and rushed upwards as quickly as possible, stopping at the stairwell leading from the fourth to the fifth floor.
Right at his feet, a woman held a child to her chest; both were stabbed to death. At the exit of the emergency exit in front of him, a man sat half-sitting on the ground, seemingly pressing his back against the door. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that his chest had been pierced along with the door. Further examination revealed that the three deceased were wearing matching family outfits.
The story is simple and clear: the woman runs ahead carrying the child, while the man tries to block their escape with his body, but all three of them perish.
Yi Heye gently moved the man's body aside and laid it flat next to the woman's and child's bodies. He looked back at the security door that had been pierced through—the nearly ten-centimeter-thick steel plate was as fragile as a sheet of paper in the face of absolute power.
He quietly pushed open the door and continued walking forward. At that moment, an even more terrifying stench of blood surged in.
Yi Heye looked up and even he, with his rather strong tastes, felt a chill run down his spine.
Before us, it was clear that a traffic jam had occurred in the narrow stairwell, with layers upon layers of people crowding together to form a small mountain, completely filling the stairwell.
Perhaps because there were simply too many people, the monster didn't even have the patience to pierce through them one by one. Instead, it haphazardly writhed and slashed through the crowd. As a result, in the blood-red scene before us, there was hardly a single intact human figure. Half-bodied bodies, severed limbs, and pieces of human tissue were scattered everywhere...
It felt like being thrown into a giant meat grinder.
Yi Heye resisted the urge to vomit on the spot and remained completely silent. Just as he began to worry about how to continue his ascent through this terrifying pile of flesh, an arm suddenly fell from the loosely packed hill in front of him—