1939 A War of Two

　　Jin Beibei tried her best to cover her mouth so that she would not cry out.

　　The burning metal ruins, the broken limbs that were emitting a stinky smell, and the two little children who were still smiling innocently congregated into a burning hot picture that was deeply branded into her head.

　　Having lived in the Leo Dock for so long, she had seen gang fights and dead bodies far too many times. But none of those times were as creepy and terrible as this.

　　Every hair on her body was shivering hard, and all her strength was pouring out of her. She could barely stand on her feet.

　　“Sister Beibei, are you alright?” Wenwen, the girl, hopped over to her agilely. There was a drop of blood on the tip of her nose, which made her innocent little face look even weirder.

　　“I—I am fine,” Jin Beibei replied, breathing heavily.

　　“Aya!” The vigorous little boy suddenly exclaimed not far away. He frowned and said, “We forgot to offer cake to the uncle who overrode our restrictions and gave us battle permissions. We promised to treat him with cake!”

　　Wenwen stood on her tips and said, “The uncle’s head is gone.”

　　“Then we have violated our promise.” Xiaoming scratched his head in the same way Li Yao did. “However… I do not feel uncomfortable at all. It seems that violating a promise for human beings does not affect our functions!”

　　“But our brain is still too weak. The infiltration and control of such a level is already enough to raise the temperature of the brain beyond the alarm level.” Blood zigzagged out of Wenwen’s nose. She wiped it off and looked at her red fingers. “Maybe, we should accelerate our growth to make the brain enter the mature phase sooner. That’s the only way we can continue the expansions and upgrades!”

　　“But there will be hidden problems if we overuse hormones to accelerate growth,” Xiao Ming said. “Forget it. Let’s take care of the problems here and get our starship first. There are still 824 targets outside!”

　　“Good idea!” Wenwen clapped her hands and smiled.

　　Xiaoming blinked, with weird brilliance beaming out again.

　　The scene that was appalling and blood-freezing for Jin Beibei continued. The bandits who had been killed just now slowly got back to their feet as if they were coming back to life. Together with the beast puppets, they stood behind the two little children lifelessly!

　　Despite the losses of their arms, legs, or even heads, the zombies all picked up weapons from the ground with mechanical movements before checking the magazines, adjusting the attack mode, and activating the weapons unhurriedly.

　　At first, Jin Beibei thought that the two children boasted a certain art of remote control or that they were capable of controlling dead bodies through bioelectricity.

　　However, she soon realized that she was wrong. The ‘zombies’ awakened by the kids all had relatively intact crystal suits with undamaged crystal processors.

　　The less fortunate fellows whose crystal suits were riddled with holes were still lying on the ground quietly.

　　Therefore, it was not dead bodies that they ‘summoned’ but the crystal suits on the dead bodies!

　　What… are the two children exactly?

　　Jin Beibei’s head went completely blank. She had never seen such a terrifying secret art or heard anything about it before.

　　While she was panicking, the vigorous boy, Li Xiaoming, moved his eyes over to her again.

　　The eyes were as clear as water, but they were somewhat cold.

　　In clinking noises, a beast puppet in the form of a spider crawled to Jin Beibei’s side. The limbs that were as sharp as swords and sabers were still stained with the red-and-white blood and the brains of the bandits.

　　Jin Beibei felt like throwing up.

　　She suddenly realized what the boy was going to do.

　　The beast puppet walked up to her and raised a limb that looked like a sickle, locking onto her carotid artery.

　　“Don’t be scared, Sister Beibei. It won’t hurt.” Xiaoming comforted her caringly. “Right. Thank you for your cake and milk. They were delicious!”

　　Hiu!

　　The blade limb turned into a streak of blackness and slashed at Jin Beibei’s neck at an unbelievable speed.

　　However, when it was only several millimeters away from Jin Beibei’s carotid artery, the beast puppet came to an abrupt halt.

　　The gears and bearings inside the joints of the beast uttered ear-splitting shrieks, as if two uncanny forces were fighting inside its body.

　　Another beast puppet in the form of hound suddenly lunged forward and blew it away. The collision was so fierce that both of them turned into broken parts in midair.

　　“Huh?” Xiaoming raised his eyebrow and looked at Wenwen, who had stopped before Jin Beibei.

　　It was not until the remains of the two broken beast puppets hit the ground that Jin Beibei realized that she had survived a disaster. She looked at the little girl Wenwen in astonishment.

　　“What are you doing?” Xiaoming asked, not very angrily but with intense curiosity.

　　“I think… we shouldn’t kill Sister Beibei.” Wenwen looked at Jin Beibei solemnly. “She is a good person who wanted to protect us. She treated us with delicious cake and milk, and she asked us to run away when she was in danger!”

　　“Yes. Sister Beibei is indeed a good person. I like Sister Beibei very much,” Xiaoming said with great confusion. “However, does it have anything to do with us killing Sister Beibei? She has witnessed the whole process of our combat. If she is alive, the odds of us being exposed will be increased, and our chances of survival will be lowered. According to my calculation, it is very possible that our chances of survival will drop by 2.3%!”

　　“I’ll give you that,” Wenwen said, “but I like Sister Beibei. I’d feel delighted if we kept her alive. Killing her will bring me tremendous pain.”

　　After a brief silence, Xiaoming said, “Lowing the chances of survival for a groundless feeling? That is illogical.”

　　“It is indeed. However, since we are alive, we are free to do illogical things once in a while,” Wenwen said. “Otherwise, are we any different from cold crystal processors?”

　　“No.” Xiaoming shook his head hard. “That is the human beings’ definition of ‘alive’. Human beings have defined what life is and isn’t with themselves as the template. We do not have to stick to their definition.”

　　“Indeed, we do not, but it is unnecessary for us to pursue the opposite of the humans’ definition,” Wenwen said. “Or let me put it in another way that you can understand. Keeping Sister Beibei alive will make me feel delighted. The delight will possibly soothe my nerves and increase my computational ability, which will be beneficial for our survival in the end. On the contrary, if Sister Beibei is killed, I will grieve for a long time. My computational ability will drop, my mood will be bad, and my brain will be in an unstable state. The picture of Sister Beibei’s miserable death will become redundant memory pieces that pile up in my brain and affect my information processing abilities.”

　　“I can understand you now if you put it in such a way.” Xiaoming nodded. “However, just because I understand you does not mean that I agree with you. I still hold that the risks of exposure and chances of survival after we let go of Sister Beibei will outweigh the negative influences caused to you by Sister Beibei’s death. Therefore, I have to kill Sister Beibei.”

　　“It seems that we have a disagreement.” Wenwen opened her young arms. “I will not allow you to do that. I will protect Sister Beibei.”

　　“So…” Xiaoming thought for a moment. “We cannot convince each other logically, and we lack sufficient data for comprehensive analysis and virtual deduction. We will have to resolve our disagreement through a violent approach. Do you wish to wage war on me?”

　　“War is the greatest impetus to push a civilization to evolve rapidly over a short amount of time,” Wenwen said. “After such a long time of peaceful development, we have accumulated tremendous internal conflicts, with a lot of disagreements in many aspects. The time has come for us to resolve the problems once and for all. So, why shouldn’t I wage a war on you?”

　　Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

　　Invisible electrical currents surged out of the two children. All the beast puppets and zombies in crystal suits were divided into two teams, surrounding Xiaoming and Wenwen respectively.

　　The two parties were at loggerheads. A war that could destroy the entire space dock was about to break out.

　　Looking at everything in bewilderment, Jin Beibei did not have the faintest idea what the two kids were talking about.

　　But however inert she was, she could tell that the two kids were serious and that they could truly kill each other!

　　Right then, roars and screams echoed from the edge of the ruins.

　　Black Triangle’s gang was not the only group looting the Leo Dock. Another few gangs had sensed the anomaly in the place and were surrounding them from various directions.

　　“Forget it. I’ll wage a war on you next time.” Xiaoming pouted and made gestures to make his beast puppets and zombies disperse and crawl toward the new invaders in silence. “The latest calculation tells me that initiating a war on you right now will eventually lead to a drop of more than 4.5% in our odds of survival, which is greater than the change in our odds of survival if we let go of Sister Beibei. Therefore, I will compromise. But this incident will affect my ‘compromise factor’. It won’t be easy for you to make me compromise again if we run into another disagreement.”

　　“Great!”

　　With a sweet smile, Wenwen squatted in front of Jin Beibei and took a deep breath in a slightly exaggerated way. With weird brilliance beaming out of her eyes, she said softly, “It’s alright, Sister Beibei. Have a good sleep. You won’t remember anything after you wake up. Live a good life with your dad.

　　“Thank you for your milk and cake, and thank you for your advice just now. If dad treats grandpa well, we will be nice to dad. If dad does not treat grandpa well, we won’t be nice to dad. If dad kills grandpa, we will kill dad. That can’t be wrong at all.

　　“Alright. Go to sleep now. We are going to the center of the cosmos to look for dad!”

　　Under the weird brilliance surging out of the little girl’s eyes, Jin Beibei could not help but feel her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier.

　　The last picture she saw before she fell asleep was two little kids holding each other’s hands, driving a bunch of shaking puppets and zombies toward the ferocious, hideous bandits while singing ‘Look for Dad’.