Embers Ad Infinitum

Chapter 286: ‘Principles’

In Genava’s villa.

The two disciplinary robots, Genava, and Susanna cast their gazes at the door at the same time.

They heard footsteps approaching from afar.

The doorbell soon rang.

Ring, ring, ring.

The blue glow in the two disciplinary robots’ eyes suddenly intensified. Inside their corresponding processors, a figure quickly outlined itself. Different parts of a body showed different degrees of redness, and the metal distribution on the body surface also had corresponding labels.

Human... doesn’t carry any heavy weapons... In possession of only four pistols and the corresponding bullets... The two disciplinary robots looked at each other and confirmed that the visitor posed a low risk.

One of them stood up, walked over, and opened the door as the doorbell echoed.

Outside the door was Shang Jianyao in a short, dark-blue down jacket. He politely asked, “Hello, is Genava home?”

Frankly speaking, Genava was a little confused at this moment. His processor couldn’t analyze the situation.

He originally imagined that the help provided by the Qian Bai Team would be to cut the power, attack during the chaos, and create an opportunity for him to escape or do something similar. Who knew that one of them would come knocking on his door openly like they were doing a daily visit?

Could it be that they think they can use reason to get the people from the Disciplinary Chamber to release me? This has definitely been approved by the Source Brain... There’s only one visitor... He’s bait, and the rest are lurking around, prepared to launch an attack... Genava quickly thought of all kinds of possibilities and found an answer that was enough to convince him.

He prepared himself for any developments.

At this moment, the disciplinary robot at the door replied to Shang Jianyao’s question in a business-like tone. “Genava is at home, but he’s undergoing the Disciplinary Chamber’s audit and can’t meet anyone.”

Shang Jianyao raised a new question in confusion. “The Disciplinary Chamber isn’t made up of humans?”

The disciplinary robot fell silent for two seconds. “They are smart bots.”

“Aren’t smart bots also human?” Shang Jianyao asked further.

Upon seeing his performance, Genava had some doubts. Is he trying to create a logical flaw and force the Disciplinary Chamber personnel into a reboot? It’s useless; they won’t hang. Only the auxiliary robots often malfunction... Our main module is equivalent to a human’s consciousness...

The disciplinary robot at the door replied to Shang Jianyao again, “Smart bots are different from humans.”

“Oh, oh.” Shang Jianyao expressed his understanding.

At this moment, the disciplinary robot at the door cast its gaze to the other side.

The disciplinary robot in the room stood up. This was because another figure approached under the street lamps.

She was Jiang Baimian in a grayish-blue camouflage uniform with a high ponytail.

After scanning and confirming that the visitor didn’t have any heavy weapons or dangerous items, the disciplinary robot at the door said to Shang Jianyao, “You may leave now. Come visit later. Don’t hinder our work.”

The disciplinary robot in the room sat down again.

As Shang Jianyao hesitated and didn’t answer, Jiang Baimian walked to his side and didn’t even look at him.

The two of them acted like they didn’t know each other.

Genava watched this scene and felt confused again. Why did the second person from the Qian Bai Team come over so openly? What happened to using bait to attract attention and suddenly launching an attack?

For the time being, Genava couldn’t figure out what the Qian Bai Team wanted to do from his analysis of the current information.

Jiang Baimian ignored Shang Jianyao and asked with a smile, “Hello, is Mr. Genava home?”

The disciplinary robot at the door wasn’t like a human. It didn’t show any anger or impatience because of this. It maintained a business-like tone and said, “He’s home, but he has to cooperate with an investigation and can’t meet guests.”

“I see...” Jiang Baimian sighed regretfully.

Before she could finish her sentence, she abruptly took a step forward, stretched out her left hand, and grabbed the disciplinary robot’s arm at the door.

The disciplinary robot reacted quickly and immediately tried to grab her. To it, this was a small hiccup that was very easy to resolve.

It had never seen a human who could compete with smart bots in strength and technique. Besides, humans were afraid of pain, but smart bots didn’t have such fears. They were natural kings of close combat.

For this reason, it adopted an equivalent response.

The next second, Jiang Baimian’s body turned, pressed, and bent. With her left arm as a pivot, she forcefully ‘plucked ‘the disciplinary robot by the door out.

What kind of monstrous strength is this!?

With a clang, she completed a successful shoulder throw.

At the same time, Genava followed his judgment and reacted without hesitation. He pounced at the disciplinary robot in the room.

The latter had just stood up because of the turn of events at the door.

Crack!

The glass on the other side of the living room shattered, and Long Yuehong—who was wearing a military exoskeleton—jumped in.

According to Jiang Baimian’s instructions, he was in charge of two things: The first was to restrain the other smart bot, Susanna. Susanna—who had been forced into a passive position and had annulled its husband-wife relationship with Genava—was hard to distinguish between enemy and friend. The second was to cooperate with Genava so that he could quickly and quietly finish off the disciplinary robot in the room.

“Enemy attack!” Susanna let out a clearly synthetic voice. It then opened its palm and revealed its laser firing muzzle.

Almost at the same time, the weapons under her white dress rose one by one, or the corresponding panels were opened.

In just a second, this ‘housewife’ had become a terrifying killing machine.

Fortunately, Long Yuehong was wearing a military exoskeleton and had the comprehensive warning system’s help. He could react in advance and avoid the red laser’s attack.

At this moment, the disciplinary robot—who had been thrown to the ground by Jiang Baimian—didn’t feel dizzy like a human, nor did it feel any pain.

The blue light in its eyes became extremely bright as if it were charging up. Then, it raised its arms as the loaded weapons were revealed without reservation.

Target: Jiang Baimian.

At this moment, a figure appeared in its ‘eyes.’ It was the Shang Jianyao with a face of bewilderment.

He was like a qualified onlooker.

At this moment, judgment flashed across the disciplinary robot’s main module. No hostility... Unidentified relationship with the assailant; suspected to not know each other... No heavy weapons... Hasn’t attacked my colleagues and me...

These judgments quickly led to a conclusion. The disciplinary robot on the ground gave up on the first wave of counterattacks because Shang Jianyao would be the one suffering the attack, not Jiang Baimian.

Seizing this opportunity, Jiang Baimian prostrated on the ground and stretched out her hand from the side. She then used her left arm’s strength to open a metal partition on the target’s body, revealing the main interface on its back.

After that, she inserted her finger.

With a sizzling sound, silver-white electric light illuminated Shang Jianyao’s face.

Power overload... Activate protection procedures... A corresponding order flashed across the disciplinary robot’s main module.

While it was in a state of overload protection, Jiang Baimian quickly opened the corresponding socket with her perception of electric signals and took out its two high-performance batteries.

The disciplinary robot on the ground immediately stopped moving.

Phew... Jiang Baimian couldn’t help but exhale when she saw this.

The core of the attack plan she had formulated wasn’t the monstrous strength and high-intensity electric current from her electric eel-like artificial limb but Shang Jianyao’s performance.

This was based on a sentence that the Source Brain had once said: “Make yourselves at home. My core program has very strict restrictions on attacking humans; many conditions have to be met.”

If the Source Brain was under such restrictions, how could the smart bots be an exception? Furthermore, the disciplinary robot in the lead had previously said: “The reason why we smart bots act like humans is to better serve humans, get close to humans, and not harm them. It’s not to treat ourselves as humans. These are the rules our creator wrote down in our core module. The Source Brain can’t violate them either.

From these words, Jiang Baimian came to a conclusion: Smart bots wouldn’t attack humans who didn’t pose a threat to them and didn’t show any hostility, as well as humans who didn’t violate the corresponding rules!

This should have a high priority in their main program!

Therefore, she and Shang Jianyao visited Genava separately and showed signs of not knowing each other.

This wouldn’t have fooled the other smart bots in Tarnan. However, the robots from the Disciplinary Chamber had just arrived today. Their focus was still on investigating Genava’s humanization level, so they definitely didn’t know Tarnan’s situation well.

Of course, Jiang Baimian didn’t dare to say that it had to be the case. The instructions she gave Shang Jianyao were to take things one step at a time. If the disciplinary robots opposite them knew that they were companions, they would deal with them differently.

In short, the goal was to use the amiable third party—Shang Jianyao—to ‘stall’ the target and act as a shield to create an opportunity for Jiang Baimian to finish off her opponent!

If the disciplinary robot on the ground returned to normal, it might curse ‘despicable humans.’

Meanwhile, Genava’s battle with his opponent had also reached a climax. They used various wrestling techniques while attempting to attack the enemy’s weaknesses with different weapons.

Amidst banging sounds, their standard clothes were torn, leaving a certain depression on their skeletal structure.

During this process, they avoided using high-energy weapons to a certain extent because it was very likely to result in backlash when facing such enemies at a close distance.

Of course, they definitely wouldn’t let go of a good opportunity. However, their opponents tried their best to prevent such an opportunity from happening.

In less than a minute, Genava—who had more abundant combat data collected—had the upper hand. With Long Yuehong’s help, he disabled the enemy’s power supply. They made it fall to the ground and not be able to stand up again.

At this moment, Susanna realized that the situation was amiss. She had already fired a grenade outward to inform the robot guards as she retreated to the second floor.

Genava looked at her silently amidst the rumbling and didn’t stop her.

“Let’s go!” Jiang Baimian quickly shouted.