Chapter 58: It Is Not a Defect
The hospital room fell into a deathly silence, with only the echoes of Hui Ji’s retching sounds.
Cang Lin’s expression was extremely unsightly.
It turned from black to green, then from green to red—a complete palette.
Li Su remained silent for two seconds, then stood up, cleared his throat lightly, and prepared to leave:
“That fellow Yun Qi has already set out on his own. We must catch up as soon as possible.”
As he spoke, his expression grew a bit heavy:
“The Alliance’s first SSS-rank mission—don’t forget the Death Contract.”
…
“So you mean, Dudu is a defect?”
In the Mechanical Department, Chi Wan, summoned by a light-brain message, looked at Dudu, who hadn’t been fixed yet on the repair table.
Its small head was open, and many mechanical parts inside had been disassembled, covering the entire table.
The head of the Mechanical Department was a one-armed retired Sentinel. He looked at Chi Wan and the Shen Yu behind her, simply telling the truth:
“That’s the case, which is why repairing it is extremely difficult.”
“Normally, the Alliance’s robots are mass-produced, and their models and structures are recorded in the system.”
“But we matched them one by one, and all failed.”
“So, I went to search for its personal data, only to find that it was a defective product that should have been destroyed.”
As he spoke, he called up the information. The data was projected in the air before Chi Wan through the star-screen.
The personal information of Alliance Robot Number 0573 appeared one by one. At the bottom was a line of small text—
[Grade III Defective Product. Originally intended to be shredded and destroyed. The Alliance Administrator saw it was pitiful and kept it in the Alliance.]
Chi Wan’s eyes dimmed. She looked at Dudu on the repair table again:
“Then what should we do? Can it not be fixed?”
“We can only do our best. After all, the machinery of a defective product is inherently disorganized. Fixing it requires many attempts from different angles to find the root cause.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
“Guide Chi Wan is too polite. By the way, that electroshock device you wanted this morning was urgently assembled by our department’s assemblers. The power is very strong.”
“I heard from Guide Kui An that you wanted to shock a bull. You must never use it on a Sentinel.”
“It could kill someone.”
Chi Wan was stunned.
She could only nod awkwardly: “Ah, okay.”
The department head finished speaking, smiled a goodbye, and continued with his work.
Shen Yu took a step forward and stood beside Chi Wan. He looked at Dudu on the table:
“A robot this cute doesn’t look like a defect at all.”
“Dudu is not a defect.”
Chi Wan’s voice was crisp and firm: “Machine standards are set by people. Perhaps it doesn’t meet the Alliance’s general standards of eligibility, but in my eyes, Dudu is an excellent robot.”
She liked it very much.
In fact, she planned to save up enough Contribution Points to buy it in the future.
Shen Yu turned his head to look at the girl beside him, an unconscious smile forming on his lips.
He had really been right to persist.
He had insisted on accompanying her to the medical center—fortunately, the medical officer said she was just hungry—and then insisted on accompanying her to eat.
Until she said she had business at the Mechanical Department, and he insisted on coming along.
Along the way, he had already discovered several of her shining points.
Shen Yu looked at Dudu again, but his thoughts had already drifted.
This feeling was like having a piece of fine jade beside you whose radiance you hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly, one day, you were dazzled by its light and realized what you had missed.
How could he have found her annoying before?
Shen Yu fell into deep thought.
It was because she had once maliciously tried to harm him.
Thinking of this, Shen Yu stole another glance at Chi Wan. She had already walked forward to talk with Dudu’s specialized repairer about its specific condition. Her serious, focused little face looked somewhat fragile in its stubbornness under the nearly pallid lights of the department, like a quiet, cold white rose at night.
Shen Yu’s heart skipped a beat.
How could a girl who spoke gently to medical staff, said thank you politely when receiving food, and blushed with embarrassment during a meal because of his company, have anything to do with being “malicious”?
She must have had a reason she couldn’t help but hide in the past.
Shen Yu told himself this.
Perhaps those were all her means of self-protection.
Thinking this, a dense, detailed heartache rose in his chest.
The next second, Shen Yu saw Chi Wan’s face turn pale.
His heart tightened, and he hurriedly strode forward:
“What’s wrong?”
He saw that on the floating star-screen in front of Chi Wan, the mechanical memories in Dudu’s brain were being read.
Although the location in the footage changed constantly, it could roughly be seen as being within the Alliance.
A tall Sentinel looked at Dudu’s camera eyes with disgust:
“Get lost. A defect is coming here to cause trouble too?”
The mechanical repairer playing the memory saw that Chi Wan’s expression was wrong and immediately switched the memory footage.
The scene changed, and a Sentinel spoke helplessly:
“Alright then. Administrator Kui Chuan said not to destroy it, but to keep it as a mascot in the Alliance.”
The Sentinel on the other side glanced at the camera:
“I really don’t know what the Administrator is thinking. Keeping a defect only wastes electricity.”
The footage was switched again.
The other Alliance robots, which were also robots, huddled together and isolated it:
“Defect! Defect! Defect!”
“Hahahaha, a defective product!”
“Look, it’s still making that stupid ‘∩_∩’ smiling face. A defect is a defect; it doesn’t even know we’re mocking it.”
“Always making ‘dudu’ ‘dudu’ sounds—is that a functional disability?”
“It’s like an idiot among humans. You really embarrass us robots _#.”
The non-defective robots were clearly more flexible and agile. After they finished teasing, they left disinterestedly.
The last robot to leave even heavily bumped into Dudu’s body.
The lens flickered slightly. In the silent hallway, the smart sensors dimmed.
Dudu turned around and moved forward slowly.
In the memory footage, Chi Wan couldn’t see Dudu’s expression. She could only judge its behavior through the scenes its “eyes” saw.
The next second, accompanying the constantly moving ground footage was Dudu’s low, disappointed murmur:
“I am not a defect… I am not a defect…”
“Abominable.”
Chi Wan grew angry as she watched, and her eyes felt a bit sour.
Seeing that she was about to cry, the repairer quickly switched the scene.
One after another, without exception, they were scenes of being bullied, harassed, isolated, and disliked.
Until the most recent memory footage.
The lighting in the scene was very bright. After the door to the medical room opened, a girl wearing a beige combat suit walked out.
The moment she saw it, she revealed a happy and surprised smile.
She stepped forward and said softly to it:
“Little robot, why are you here?”
Chi Wan’s eyes were mostly wet.
No wonder Dudu liked her so much.
In its short robotic life, she was the first human to smile at it.
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