Chapter 1 The Truth

To be honest, Hao Ren never expected that the first "survivor" he discovered here would be a robot.

Only after getting closer could he see just how miserable the robot's condition truly was: not only was half of its body blown off, but the remaining half was practically in tatters. The great fire following the aircraft's crash had scorched most of its outer shell and biomimetic skin, causing some of its skeletal structure to warp from the heat. One arm appeared to have fallen off during a crawling escape attempt, lying less than two meters from the torso, with only some skeletal remains and cables connecting to the remaining arm. Because the facial skin was also severely burned, Hao Ren couldn't discern what the robot originally looked like, but from the shape of the torso, he could tell it was designed with a female appearance—therefore, Hao Ren decided to refer to this crashed pilot as "she."

"Judging from the state of the wreckage, this robot was still somewhat active at the time of the crash. She crawled out of the cockpit, enduring continuous fire damage, which caused her to lose mobility here," the data terminal analyzed while scanning the robot's condition, marking the path of the crash victim before she lost mobility with a blue light beam. "Her main energy and control systems are primarily concentrated in the torso, which has a very sturdy protective shell. Therefore, even after losing mobility, she maintained a minimum level of standby operation—Lily's approach probably activated her automatic defense program, so she retaliated. However, the recoil from firing the weapon damaged the safety circuits in her torso, which were already brittle from being burned, causing a short circuit and a system crash."

Lily poked her chin with a finger: "... Doing an autopsy report on a robot sounds weird."

"It's not quite autopsy report level yet," the data terminal swayed slightly. "It's just a system crash. This unit believes there is still hope for salvaging her logic circuits and memory banks. As long as the hardware is intact, robots don't die that easily."

"Logic circuits and memory banks are still intact?!" Hao Ren immediately perked up at this. "Then hurry and salvage her! I have autonomous machines with me..."

"Can't save her here," the data terminal shook from side to side. "The autonomous machines are good at repairing spaceships according to blueprints, but they don't have research and analysis modules—this robot was manufactured using local indigenous technology. While the level isn't high, we still need to analyze it to figure out how to handle it. Let's take her back and have Nolan use the lab equipment on the ship to dismantle her and see how to repair this thing..."

Hao Ren nodded and quickly directed the autonomous machines to carefully excavate the robot, which was practically scrap metal, from the wreckage. Nangong Wuyue watched this scene thoughtfully. "My healing abilities are useless in this situation... It's really amazing how different life forms are."

"Of course, if you threw your healing magic at her, it would be all over," Lily rolled her eyes at the sea妖姑娘 (hai yao gu niang, sea妖 girl). "Water damage to the motherboard?"

Hao Ren was quite moved. One of the reasons he brought Nangong Wuyue along was in case they encountered any survivors who weren't quite dead, so she could help rescue them. But plans never kept up with changes. A survivor who wasn't quite dead did appear, but apparently, she wasn't waterproof...

"I didn't expect those aircraft we saw yesterday to be piloted by robots," Vivian frowned and muttered, seeming a bit disappointed.

The data terminal was staring at the autonomous machines' metal-cutting process. After hearing Vivian's words, it said, "No, if this unit's judgment is correct, this robot's role is that of a co-pilot and auxiliary computer. There's a string of code and an identification tag on her internal skeleton. It should have been printed at the factory. The tag indicates her model and applicable range."

"Co-pilot?" Hao Ren raised an eyebrow. "Then let's call her Robot 副官 (fu guan, adjutant) for now. Speaking of which, since she's the co-pilot, there should be a pilot... Would the pilot be human?"

"Logically, that's correct," the data terminal floated up and down, indicating agreement. "But if it were a human, probably not even the remains would be left—this piece of the cockpit is already the largest piece of wreckage from the crash. The robot co-pilot inside was damaged to this extent. You can imagine the condition of the other wreckage. Fragile carbon-based life forms wouldn't even leave ashes in such high temperatures and explosions."

Hao Ren clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction: "Tsk..."

The autonomous machines took a lot of effort to safely cut the robot out—due to the previous high temperatures, the robot was firmly bonded to the surrounding metal, as if welded. Her own structure was on the verge of collapse. Even with the autonomous machines' excellent skills, it was quite difficult to transfer her out without damage. The severed female robot consisted of only part of a torso, one arm, and a relatively intact head, and the connections between these parts didn't look very secure. When placed on the ground, it looked like a horrifying dismembered corpse scene, so Hao Ren quickly put her into a secure container and stored her in his personal space.

After completing the retrieval, Hao Ren ordered an expansion of the search area with a last glimmer of hope, instructing the data terminal and autonomous machines to search the surrounding several kilometers, but the result was disappointing: they found numerous crash sites, but no remains of human pilots, no intact cockpits, and not even a second robot adjutant.

There were only countless cooled metal fragments in the forest.

It seemed that the female AI adjutant who looked like she came from a dismemberment case was the only survivor of the four crashed aircraft.

By the time all the search work was completed, there was still a short time before sunset—one day-night cycle on this planet was much longer than on Earth.

But Hao Ren didn't plan to stay in the wilderness any longer. He looked up beyond the forest: the vegetation here was already sparser, and the distance to that giant tentacle was only a few thousand meters. As long as he looked up, he could see a "mountain range" of dark brown with strands of green extending to both sides in his vision. If he observed more carefully, he could even see that the "mountain range" was slowly undulating in the dimming light, like a giant beast breathing.

Knowing the true nature of this mountain range made observing it from such a close distance a thrilling experience.

Don't mess around near the eldest son's tentacles, even if he's asleep, because even if this thing just turns over, it's at least an 8.5 on the Richter scale: this was the most important lesson he had accumulated after years of operating in the Dream Plane.

"Let's go," Hao Ren gathered the autonomous machines that were on guard everywhere. "Let's go back and have Nolan research how to rescue the robot小姐姐 (xiao jie jie, young lady) we found today... Speaking of which, where did Lily go?"

He looked around and didn't see the husky's shadow, so he casually asked Vivian next to him.

"She ran into the forest to pick fruit, saying she was hungry."

"... Doesn't she have any sense of vigilance at all!"

"Who knows," Vivian rolled her eyes. "Maybe beasts are very confident in their instincts. She always claims to be a wilderness survival expert, able to survive by gnawing on rocks even if thrown onto Mars..."

Hao Ren had long known the husky girl's nature, so he could only complain a few times at most at this time. After having Nangong Wuyue drag Lily, who was picking wild fruit in the forest, back and scolding her properly, the group returned to the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace.

Nolan showed great interest in the robot adjutant that Hao Ren brought back—as did Little Elizabeth.

In fact, the little devil jumped up and down when she learned what Hao Ren had brought back. The evil energy flames on her head shot up more than half a meter high, and then she held up a small screwdriver and volunteered to help repair the robot小姐姐 (xiao jie jie, young lady), her words were so sincere that they seemed real—if he didn't know the bottom line of this little girl, Hao Ren might have really believed her!

However, with the female neurosis above, the little devil's small screwdriver always prioritized destruction. True, she was now a well-known child prodigy in appliance repair in the southern suburbs, and even the electric fans, air conditioners, and washing machines of the old men and women in the neighborhood were repaired by her, but her level was only enough to deal with everyday appliances. Anything more complex than an appliance would be hammered into a pile of parts in five minutes at most—parts that she herself could never put back together.

Even Elizabeth's ability to repair appliances was developed at the cost of collectively replacing all the appliances in Hao Ren's house. The pile of fragmented electrical products in the backyard were all sacrifices to the little devil's skill training...

"You, prohibited from approaching the laboratory," Hao Ren pressed the little devil's head seriously, pushed her back to Izhaks, and then instructed Nolan, "Prepare the relevant equipment in the laboratory and see if the robot we recovered can still be saved."

Under her father's control, Elizabeth continued to jump up and down, and made faces at Hao Ren: "Blegh blegh blegh..."

Unfortunately, Hao Ren had already turned around and walked towards the laboratory, so he didn't see it at all...

The fragmented robot wreckage was placed on a comprehensive engineering operating table in the laboratory. Next to the main wreckage was a circle of scattered parts: broken metal connectors, small pieces of circuit fragments, black fragments suspected of being chips, and some small things whose function could not even be guessed. Hao Ren couldn't see the value of these things at all, but the data terminal judged that they should be things that fell off the robot小姐姐 (xiao jie jie, young lady). Although they had no repair value, these things could help the main unit analyze and restore the robot's technical parameters, which would greatly help in the repair.

Nolan activated the laboratory's main system. The wreckage on the operating table was suspended by the anti-gravity field, and several robotic arms hung down from above the operating table, starting to disassemble these wreckage into even more fragmented parts at dazzling speed.

Then, scanning beams began to record the parameters of these parts into the system for complex calculations and deductions.

Lily chewed on the fruit she had picked herself, muttering vaguely, "The patient is lying on the operating table... the patient has been broken into more than two thousand pieces... the patient's mood is very stable..."

Hao Ren looked at the husky girl with a strange expression: "Are you sure it's okay to eat this stuff?"

"It's okay, it's crispy and sweet, Wuyue helped test it, it's not poisonous," Lily grabbed half a fruit and handed it to Hao Ren. "Landlord, do you want to eat it?"

Hao Ren was slightly relieved: he thought this girl was completely clueless, but she still knew to have someone test it before eating random things from an alien planet...