Exclusive Possession – CH 081

Chapter 81. [Bonus Chapter] Morin

I awoke again from a hazy dream, the commander’s fragmented voice echoing in my ears. I rubbed my hard metal skull, and when I looked up, I saw the robot’s clear face reflected in the mirror.

I, Morin, had once again passed another uneventful day in my life.

I got out of bed, got dressed, and put on my hat. Outside the window, the sunlight was warm, and the grass was lush and green—the asteroid Softan was always so serene and beautiful. But this big, cozy house felt empty and too quiet, with only me inside.

Sometimes I sit alone on the balcony, brewing a pot of hot tea, the aroma filling the air. Even though I didn’t drink it, it felt like I was transported back to a long time ago, to when they would sit here, she reading, him holding her, kissing her again and again. And I, holding the tea, would stand behind them, filled with joy.

It was a very, very long time ago.

I packed my bags and boarded the fighter jet.

Today was a memorable day. I had a lot planned for myself, and I was going to meet a lot of people.

I first flew over Stan’s outer space but only passed through, without stopping. From space, Stan was as magnificent and beautiful as ever.

Just looking at distant planets made my emotions fluctuate.

My Commander and Miss! You saved Stan Star, and hundreds of millions of people returned to the light. Did you know of this great miracle in heaven?

I took one last look at Stan. The atmosphere was a hazy white as the weather grew colder. Aside from a few scattered volunteers and citizens unwilling to leave, there seemed to be no one left on the ground. The new Stan Alliance Empire consisted of fifteen asteroids. The rebuilt empire was no less powerful than before. All that remained on this dying homeworld were memories.

My most precious memories.

After an eight-hour flight, I arrived at the asteroid where the mercenary headquarters was located. Old friends were there.

When the communications soldier brought me before Yi Pucheng, his expression wasn’t particularly surprised, but his mouth was still as sassy as ever. He said slowly, “Why are you here again?”

“I’ve come to visit you.” Without waiting for him to invite me, I sat down on the sofa opposite him. “We are friends, after all.”

He chuckled again but didn’t deny it.

I knew he was all bark and no bite. After the Commander and Miss died, he casually said to Mop and me, “Tsk, two pathetic wretches, want to come with me?” Although we both refused him very firmly, even Mop admitted from that moment on that Yi Pucheng was a friend.

Of course, this didn’t mean I liked him.

My closeness to him might simply be because living people always cherish each other.

However, Yi Pucheng was a person who could sometimes make people grit their teeth in hatred. For example, right now, he had ordered his soldiers to bring over a box of things.

I peeked inside and couldn’t take my eyes off them—they were some very pretty seashells, a few very beautiful and abstract facial masks, and some game consoles…they were really fun things.

“Do you like it?” Yi Pucheng asked, squinting. “I will sell it to you for 500,000 Alliance Coins.”

500,000 was certainly expensive, but I could afford it.

But every time I visited him, he would always sell me something I particularly liked and found irresistible. He managed to swindle almost a hundred million from me; he was truly cunning.

But today… let’s skip it.

“I don’t want it anymore.” I pushed the box away.

He was a little surprised: “Huh?”

I shook my head: “I’m going back to Stan Star. You can leave these here.”

His expression turned somewhat strange. After a moment of silence, he said, “I won’t take the money; it’s a gift for you.”

I immediately beamed with delight: “Okay! No take-backs! You’ve fallen for it, hahaha!”

He stared at me and smiled with his eyes narrowed.

I thought Miss was right; Yi Pucheng’s squinting eyes really did look like a fox.

I had a drink with Yi Pucheng, and I got so drunk that I was completely out of it. In my hazy state, I thought I heard him talking to me.

“Are we really going back to Stan Star?”

I thought I answered something, and then I felt him pat me on the shoulder and say, “Maybe we will meet again.”

Even after I woke up the next morning in the fighter jet, I still didn’t understand what Yi Pucheng meant by that. Returning to Stan Star was tantamount to suicide—who knew when Miss Hua Yao’s prophecy of the planet’s fall would come true? If I went back to Stan Star, I would have no intention of leaving again. How could someone as cowardly as Yi Pucheng say we’d meet again?

But I didn’t think too much about it. Who cares? Maybe he also wants to commit suicide. After all, as a robot, a long life was actually quite boring.

After leaving the mercenary planet, I arrived in the desolate land.

People I like were here.

I parked my fighter jet on the helipad of the Orc Elementary School. Following the sound of students reading aloud, I easily found my destination.

It was a bright classroom, with more than twenty small orcs sitting in chairs, and a silver all-metal robot wearing a blue dress standing in front of the podium, smiling as it explained a math problem.

Noticing me standing outside the window, she seemed a little embarrassed and started to stutter. I just stared at her and kept laughing; I thought my mouth must have split into a canyon.

However, I knew she was a dedicated person; she wouldn’t leave her post before the bell rang. After watching her for about ten minutes, I turned and left, boarding my fighter jet again.

Sigh, I still couldn’t bring myself to confess my feelings.

After all, I was an “old man from the previous dynasty,” a legendary close attendant of the Radiant King, an old robot who had lived for hundreds of years. She was just a young robot girl of the new generation. Although mechanical life was endless, I was too embarrassed to confess my feelings to a robot girl who was my great-grandchild.

As I watched the desolate land recede into the distance, I couldn’t help but recall the day I first met her. It was a rainy day twenty years ago. I was passing through the desolate land and parked my plane at the Orc Elementary School. And by sheer coincidence, as I walked, I saw her in the classroom ahead, wearing the same blue dress she was wearing today. Her streamlined, metallic face resembled a beautiful, large apple. Her deep red eyes were like two soft, bright lamps.

I fell in love at first sight. Later, when I told Yi Pucheng about it, he laughed at me, saying, “Love at first sight? Can robots love? Do you even know what love feels like?”

“I know!” I said firmly. “It’s just that seeing her makes me feel comfortable, and I want to be with her. Even if we don’t do anything, I’m happy.”

For the first time in his life, Yi Pucheng was stunned by what I said. He stood there blankly for a long time and even seemed lost in thought like a young man, touching his head as if he were thinking about something.

I didn’t care what he was thinking; I had someone I liked. I’ve secretly liked her for twenty years, and I feel content.

With the joy of this beautiful romance, I went to Earth again. Miss Hua Yao’s grandmother passed away in the same year as her, and I visit her grave every year. So many years had passed, and Earth had developed space fortresses and hyperspace jump machines, joining the Galactic Alliance of Advanced Civilizations. Now, going to Earth was very convenient; you could simply take an interstellar train.

However, I still exceeded my plans—staying on Earth for about ten days. Thankfully, despite rapid technological advancements, the old street in Ms. Hua Yao’s hometown had been preserved as a historical site. I retraced the paths the four of us had walked. It felt as if they were still alive yesterday.

Later, I visited several senior scientists from the Galactic Alliance—we had forged a deep friendship during the space battles; I also went to the New Stan Empire’s air force base—several space fortresses that once belonged to the commander were now retired and docked in a warehouse.

After several months of this back and forth, I finally flew back to Stan.

It snowed that day, and I landed the plane in the Imperial Palace in the misty, cold air. Because the spaceport on Stan Star had been destroyed, I didn’t encounter any fighter jets along the way.

But as soon as I stopped on the ground, I saw a familiar figure standing in the woods ahead, smiling at me.

“Mop!” I ran over laughing and hugged him.

“How many years has it been since we last saw each other?” he asked. “Fifty years, or seventy years?”

I said, puzzled, “It’s sixty-four years. Don’t you remember?”

He nodded: “I didn’t write it down. There’s no need to.”

For some reason, his words made me feel a little uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry, please forgive my cowardice; forgive me for leaving Stan. You’ve suffered all these years,” I said. “It’s my turn to guard him; you should leave now.”

Mop shook his head: “I don’t want to go anywhere else. But why did you come back? You know perfectly well…”

“Because of me, I have nowhere else to go,” I interrupted him.

He looked at me silently and nodded.

Everything seemed unchanged. Five hundred years had passed, the palace woods had grown dense, and the lake water remained clear.

Mop led me to the foot of Yu Mountain. In the vast expanse of snow, their statues remained untouched by dust, lifelike in their beauty. I stood before the statues for three days and three nights, my two metal fingers cracking from the cold, before Mop dragged me inside.

“The weather’s already terrible; you can’t stay outside for long,” Mop warned me.

“Is it coming soon?” I asked him.

“Soon.”

Mop and I lived on Stan for another three years. It’s said that during those three years, the last remaining volunteers on Stan had migrated away. Perhaps the entire planet was now occupied by the two of us. But I felt that I’ve lived better than I had in the past five hundred years. Looking back now, five hundred years had passed in the blink of an eye, as empty as a dream.

But things were different now. Mop and I took two shifts a day, standing guard by Yu Mountain, wiping the statues, and cleaning their former residences. It’s a peaceful and fulfilling time. It’s as if they hadn’t died but had simply fallen into a deep sleep.

But I still dream of the day they vaporized in front of me, and I also dream of a day when they suddenly come back and tell me that they didn’t die but just went to another space, another world.

In the year 4567 of the Stan calendar, which was 2508 of the Earth calendar, Stan fell into darkness.

Its fall was so sudden; overnight, we lost our original orbit and slid away from the star. The sunlight grew dimmer, the air colder, and finally, darkness, like an eternal curtain, enveloped the sky.

But what shocked Mop and me was that the last broadcast we heard before the crash was the voice of a female anchor from the Stan Empire Television Station. She was reporting almost frantically: “…Three supernovae exploded simultaneously, and the radiation zone covered fifteen asteroids of the New Empire, including the Barren Lands and the Softan asteroid… The Air Force is using energy bombs to resist the fluctuations in the energy field… His Majesty the Emperor stated that they will definitely be able to safely weather this disaster…”

Later, the broadcast signal stopped, and Mop and I exchanged a glance but didn’t say anything more.

I just remembered Miss Hua Yao’s words. She cried and told me, “Morin, history can’t be changed. Mu Xian will die, Stan Star will fall into darkness, and the universe will be destroyed.”

Maybe she’s right, but it’s none of our business anymore.

Mop and I went underground. The fortifications had already been dug, and the energy reserves were sufficient. We transported their statues three thousand meters underground.

And so we began our wandering. There was no light, no warmth. Only through occasional images transmitted by ground-based space telescopes could we see that the highly toxic ionosphere still covered Stan Star and the galaxies that changed in the sky year after year.

Slowly, we lost our sense of time; slowly, Mop and I stopped talking. Aside from wiping their statues every day, we seemed to find nothing else to do in the stench of the planet. Most of the time, Mop slept in a low-energy mode, similar to hibernation. I asked him what his plans were, and he said he wanted to live until the planet regained its light, then asked, “And you, Morin?”

What about me?

I replied with a smile, “I haven’t decided yet.”

I thought I could die quietly, but the moment I stepped onto the elevator and turned on the switch, I saw Mop running towards me from the tunnel in the distance, as if he had gone mad.

“Morin, what are you doing? Do you want to kill yourself?” he roared.

I nodded: “Yes, I want to commit suicide.”

The elevator had begun to slowly rise, and Mop stopped in his tracks, standing more than ten meters away in the darkness.

“Are you sure?” he asked softly.

“I’m sure,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Mop, I know I’m useless. But I really can’t go on like this.”

I was sorry; I really couldn’t bear this darkness, this coldness, this silence.

I knew I was always cowardly; I knew I was always hesitant.

But Mop, you didn’t know what I feared most wasn’t this darkness and emptiness. It’s… what if there was light? Year after year, unchanging mechanical life, but there would be no Commander and Miss in the future world.

That’s why I wanted to end it.

The elevator was already running very fast, and Mop’s figure could no longer be seen; only his voice drifted from afar: “I will always miss you.”

“Me too!” I suddenly choked up and shouted. “Mop, I left my energy chip in the cabin. If there’s light in the future…”

If there is light, please give my energy chip to the new robot. If possible, call him “Dan An.”

The young lady said that it was a little secret between her and me.

She said that I would meet her in the future.

Then, my consciousness gradually faded. It must have been very cold around me. Although I didn’t feel any pain from the cold, I heard my metal bones making a cracking sound. I tried to move my wrist and heard a snapping sound; I couldn’t move anymore.

Then I felt the silicon chip in my eyeball explode, and I lost my sight. But it didn’t matter; the world was always dark. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I felt my body stop; I must have reached the ground. I just couldn’t move at all and couldn’t see or hear anything. My consciousness was like a firefly, incredibly faint.

I’ve made up my mind. It’s finally over.

In a daze, I vaguely heard two familiar voices echoing deep within my consciousness.

“Morin, we aren’t dead; we live in another dimension.”

“Morin, we miss you too.”

“Morin, from now on, you will be called Morin, and you will be my housekeeper. Avoid trouble.”

“Morin, you were my best friend on Stan.”

“Morin, dear Morin, had you finally returned to us?”