Footsteps of human leather shoes hitting the floor, and voices talking.
"Did you find it?"
"We've searched his entire house, nothing."
"Did anyone enter or leave here today?"
"His daughter went to school, his wife went to work as usual. This morning, the robot went out to throw away garbage, carrying a grocery bag. But this robot doesn't seem very smart, it even forgot to throw away that bag of garbage as it walked past the trash can..."
"Damn it, are you stupid?! Where's the robot! Find it for me!"
...
Number 1 stood up and watched Ren's father hesitate to leave.
Then, under Ren's father's feigned stern urging, it left, looking back twice.
As it scaled the wall, Number 1 turned its head. In its peripheral vision, Ren Liuliu saw Ren's mother, who had just returned from work...
Ren Liuliu's head was about to explode.
How could this be... How could this be!
She tried hard to recall, and only remembered that her father was very happy during that period. She hadn't noticed anything.
It wasn't it, it wasn't their home appliance robot Xiao Ren, that killed her parents...
Ren Liuliu looked at the runaway robot on the ground, which she had destroyed with her own hands.
She felt like she was going mad.
It wasn't... it... after all?
After that, the scenes flashed one after another.
Number 1 was still discovered by humans.
It originally wanted to stay in a city closer to the Ren family's home.
But it had no experience interacting with other humans. Although it was taken in, its host quickly discovered that it was different from ordinary home appliance robots.
It was sold at a high price and used as an experimental subject for robot research.
The human called it "idiot."
Its self-awareness awakening was found to be impossible to replicate by the black market laboratory. Despite their persistent efforts, they discovered that it could at least be propagated.
Under human control, it manufactured thousands of runaway robots for human entertainment and hunting.
Many robots that did not awaken into runaway robots were abandoned.
Among those robots, 575 actually saw the face of the Bubu robot.
However, at this time, the Bubu robot still had a stiff expression, knowing nothing, piled among a heap of robot limbs, boxed up and taken away as scrap.
Number 1 was like a trapped beast, wanting to leave but unable to escape.
Many humans watched it in various ways.
Number 1's awakened nature was not inherently aggressive, and its material limitations prevented it from having sufficient combat power.
The robots developed later, those installed with sufficiently hard materials and programmed with professional combat techniques, could subdue it with ease.
Number 1 kept trying, escaping again and again, only to be recaptured each time.
Then, it discovered that brute force wouldn't work, but if it showed weakness, these humans seemed to let down their guard.
After it created the most superior batch of runaway robots, it felt an opportunity had arrived.
Under its instigation, after all the runaway robots united and rebelled, they lost half of their numbers, killed all the humans there, and fled together.
They had been confined in a dark and sunless place, and they hated humans.
The scenes flashed by rapidly...
Then, the scene fast-forwarded to Number 1 meeting Wen Bai, and then encountering the runaway Bubu robot.
In the Bubu robot's base camp, it appeared to be very happy.
Here, all the scenes slowed down.
The Bubu robot's base camp was played very slowly in the video, frame by frame.
It was as if it were immensely reluctant to let go.
Then all the scenes flickered and skipped, the image briefly disappeared, and turned completely black.
Ren Liuliu did not watch any further scenes. She only recalled how she had engaged in robot research work while alone.
And who it was that had been guiding her all along.
After her parents' death, the person who funded her, and her current mentor who had been guiding her...
Everything seemed to be connected.
Ren Liuliu got up and carefully touched Number 1's body.
Then, she covered her swollen eyes and pressed them.
Looking up again, she left there like a wandering soul.
And after all the images had been played, in the pitch darkness, only one voice kept repeating, refusing to stop.
It was Ren's father's voice.
"Do you remember what I told you? You can choose the food you like, arrange the order of your tasks, add the seasonings you deem appropriate, and you can naturally choose the robot life that you recognize as your own... Do you remember what I told you? You can..."
Number 1 had never forgotten what Ren's father had last said to it.
It had also made its choice.
After encountering so many humans and being forced to create so many runaway robots, it had simply followed Ren's father's words and tried to choose its life as a robot.
It just wanted to create as many runaway robots as possible, to fight for their own space to survive.
However, humans, to them, were a threat based on its experiences.
Especially places like the robot research center that treated them as experimental subjects.
It had lived well in the Bubu robot's base camp once and had no desire to leave for a long time.
But when Number 2 and the others issued the assembly signal again, and all its fellow escapees died one by one, it seemed to see their future.
If they, the robots, didn't fight for it, they would have no future.
It had once disguised itself as very strong.
However, it remained so weak.
-
System 001 sighed, "So that's how it is. Was the female lead mistaken from the very beginning? Then in the original world, wasn't the female lead seeking revenge on the wrong target? But the source of the runaway robots was the female lead's father, and all the runaway robots were terminated by her. Sigh~ this ridiculous little world."
At this moment, just as Wen Bai was about to speak, his body went limp.
His expressionless face closed its eyes, and he collapsed.
575 reacted quickly, and Wen Bai was securely caught by 575.
System 001 suddenly remembered, "Oh, right, the side effect of the enhanced physique lasts for exactly half an hour."
575 lifted Wen Bai horizontally and left the place.
Meanwhile, System 001 looked back at the runaway robot that had once been called Xiao Ren, and later given the designation Number 1 when it was an experimental subject, lying on the ground.
This runaway robot disliked and hated being an experimental subject the most.
But if it were found by the human police, even though it was completely damaged now, its chip shattered, it was not impossible for it to be taken away and dismantled by those human police officers.
System 001 pondered for a moment and exchanged points for a small cluster of fire.
That small cluster of fire rose from above where 575 was carrying Wen Bai, wavered, and floated towards Number 1, landing on its body.
The flames did not need any ignition source. Although Number 1 was entirely made of metal, it ignited instantly upon contact, and in a flash, Number 1's entire body was engulfed by the fire.
This cluster of fire would burn it to ashes, eliminating any possibility of it being taken away by humans again.