That voice echoed in the void. It is laughing, like a pot of boiling water. Even in a vacuum lacking a medium, it somehow still conveys the disturbing material vibrations to its intended audience.
"Come on," its childlike voice filled the bridge room, "come on, you little dwarf."
Yaleriga slightly pushed away the visual observer on her right eye and used her naked eyes to observe the reaction of another member of the spacecraft to this situation. Jing Huang—about five hundred hours after they had been together, he said this name during a meal and asked her to use this name instead of "Ji Zangyu"—was gloomily holding a latest date. Law social learning machine. It was a matching gift for the latest check-in event at the Maodutuntunmencheng branch. Although they didn't have time to go to the fast food restaurant that Yaleriga had booked, she still bought one separately through online shopping.
She made some necessary disguises, such as throwing away the packaging box with shiny chips and gems (purchasing the dragon version may not be the best choice), and scratching off the "Press Button Lele" engraved on the machine's casing. ” was renamed “Socialization Guidance Instrument”.
Her repackaging strategy was so successful that even after Jing Huang learned to watch entertainment programs, Mao Tummy's pervasive promotional ads still aroused no suspicion in him. According to Yaleriga's observation, her ancient travel companion obviously has a very vague concept of commercial advertising, and sometimes he can't even distinguish the difference between advertisements and entertainment programs, but Yaleriga thinks that is not entirely his fault. . Even she has to admit that the advertising style of Mao Belly Tuntun is gradually developing in the direction of TV series recently. She also discovered that Jing Huang had a strange misunderstanding, which was that he tended to regard all entertainment programs as something that really happened, or at least must have a real prototype.
That concept works in some cases. When she dug out a video of a stage play based on the Yongguang tribe, Jing Huang could easily understand the relationship between the actors and the characters. He knew that the Yongguang tribe did exist, and he also understood that the actors were not actually the Yongguang tribe. However, when Yaleriga showed him a comedy with a purely fictional race as the protagonist, Jing Huang began to ask her about the reason for the existence of this series. That doesn't mean he doesn't understand how photon players and recorders work, and he also has a good feel for art or interpretation. Yaleriga realized that he just didn't understand "fiction" or "meaningless fantasy". She had heard that some highly closed intellectual civilizations would exhibit such thinking characteristics, but for a typical and rare ancient law like his, that was a rather strange stance.
She was gradually teaching him this. At first, it was just a free passenger in return. Jing Huang didn't think she would stay on the ship for a long time, and she had no clear plan. However, when thousands of hours passed, Yaleriga found that instead of drafting a farewell letter, she had already considered whether to add some new equipment to the ship. She wanted to conduct a comprehensive modern renovation of the bridge room, at least introducing accessory-free visualization and an intelligent driving system.
Now she has the full position and qualifications to do this: after a certain radiator failure, Jing Huang sadly handed over the driving rights to her, and from then on, her biological information was recorded on the ship. She also received the right to comb her hair and order food, but the latter two did not seem to frustrate Jing Huang too much, and could even be said to be quite submissive. From this, Yaleriga realized that he used to live a life of being cared for. He has not been wandering among the stars for a long time, but has just arrived in a strange new environment.
But why is he wandering now? Yaleriga once asked tactfully, but saw that the other party was silent. But she remembered what happened when they met, and the girl in black who killed the aconite. She realizes that something very unusual is brewing, and it may bring unspeakable dangers. She secretly observed the irregular sailing route of the Silence, which seemed to be determined by the owner's fickle mind, as well as the few words that Jing Huang accidentally leaked from his mouth, and finally decided that Jing Huang was looking for someone. or a certain type of person. He always wanders in the trap zones in various star realms, staying on every planet with strange rumors or phenomena.
Most of these visits and explorations were unremarkable, and a few moments brought them more or less trouble. They once encountered an extremely evil mad mage who loved to cause all kinds of thermal weapon accidents and even caused damage to Yaleriga's own modified part. In the end, she had to give the mage a long kiss. He asked him to share his painful memories and took away some knowledge about weapon construction along the way. Another time they ran into a plague that was spreading across the planet, and it was finally determined that it was just a genocide and colonization operation with nanobots at its core. Although it could not be regarded as a humane behavior, Jing Huang's anger still made Ya Lailijia secretly surprised.
These two things gave Yaleriga a rough basis for assessing risks, and made her understand that if Jing Huang is still searching for his target - a certain kind of person, someone related to technology, disaster and death - they will be in trouble for a long time. And steadily face trouble, or should I say, run towards trouble. At this level of normal risk, she inevitably overlooked some of the more trivial, everyday issues that would lead to their subsequent predicament. While stranded in a trap zone on the edge of Chonghong Township and the Shenguang Realm, they encountered a large group of spaceships secretly docked underground, as well as the local indigenous people who were enslaved by them. When they saw clearly the goods that were carefully handled and processed by the slaves, Jing Huang showed his innocence and incomprehension as an ancient law, while Yaleriga recognized it at a glance as an illegal organization that smuggled sugar. Since the establishment of the first Sugar City, such gangs have been proliferating in the Alliance. They can not only make considerable profits, but also receive much lighter sentences when caught than other counterparts - but this does not include those special sugars with ether elements. kind.
They overcame some resistance and walked into the spaceship warehouse for a brief investigation and determined that there was only monotonous concentrated sugar inside. Yaleriga took this opportunity to explain to Jing Huang about sugar, Sugar City and the feelings they bring to carbon-based organisms. During the whole process, Jing Huang listened politely as usual, but showed an obvious interest. low. Yaleriga knew that there was no one he was looking for here.
She roughly explained the reaction principle of concentrated sugar, and Jing Huang listened without blinking. It was difficult to judge whether he could understand the professional vocabulary she used. Then he pointed to the dozens of tons of wall-board xylose stored in iron boxes and asked her whether they were all edible. Before Yaleriga could emphasize to him the obvious difference between "candy" and "edible", the leader of the base arrived with an entire armed team. He is a male Huanwu man. After seeing Yaleriga, he warmly and forcefully invited them to stay. Although he can be said to be a man with a unique masculine charm, his unique body odor and poor speech made Yaleriga reject him. And he became angry from shame, which was no surprise to Yaleriga. She was ready to fight, but Jing Huang took the initiative and said something that surprised the whole audience.
"How to buy it?" he asked.
The leader looked confused. So Jing Huang said again: "Sugar."
Some time after the incident ended, Yaleriga understood what had happened through repeated reflections. She realized that due to the life that Jing Huang was accustomed to in the past that did not require production and exchange, his understanding of how to obtain materials, if not wrong, was somewhat dogmatic. He had seen Yaleriga spending money to buy things, so he thought that since he came to a strange place, he could conduct a transaction of any size on any occasion, even if it was to exchange a gold coin for a smuggler's lair. A two-pound block of concentrated siding sugar. What does he need this for? Afterwards, Yaleriga also saw the answer with her own eyes. But at that time, when the wrong conversation occurred, she had not yet realized the seriousness of the matter. When the leader figured out the deal Jing Huang wanted to make, he and his men laughed and declared contemptuously that it was impossible.
"Money is not a rule here, kid." He said arrogantly and rudely, "If you want something, then take it. Money, that is just a superficial thing, taking itself is our rule. I think What’s on it is mine.”
This speech, which was very characteristic of the Huanwu ethnic group, did not impress Yaleriga, but it seemed to surprise Jing Huang. He turned his head and looked at Yaleriga, asking for her additional opinions. That should have been a good time for education, but Yaleriga was really slacking off. She actually nodded. Her original intention was to say that this was generally the case for Huanwo people, but Jing Huang came up with a deviant interpretation. He hesitated, hesitated, lowered his head in thought, and then looked at the slaves who were hung in the corner for punishment.
"This is my territory." The leader said threateningly, "You can only follow my rules."
"...that's okay," Jing Huang said.
In any case, this incident finally allowed Jing Huang to get the wall candy he was interested in. Yaleriga was busy arranging and commanding the slaves who had lost their masters. When she went back, she only saw Jing Huang swallowing the last small piece of wall board and gave a regrettable comment - it was unpalatable. She was very amused by the way he struggled to chew the candy but was disappointed and dissatisfied. She couldn't help but find some more suitable snacks for him to eat, thus once again missing the opportunity for education. After a long time, she finally discovered the truth that Jing Huang learned from this incident: money is used for buying and selling, but the way to buy sugar is to steal.
