Like Love But Not ch52

Summary: Tang Qi x Joshua

Content warning (major-ish in implications, but played for comedy):

Attempted (?) robot suicide (??). Also, violence and attempted (???) robot murder (????). Also just plain bad relationship dynamics (lol).

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Book-Exclusive Extra: FALLEN 8

The world seventy years later, compared to the world before he fell asleep, was inconceivably different.

Duan Yi was already unable to name even the flight transportation device used to fly today; and the other modes of transportation and communication as well were all already completely different than before.

The white house was still the same white house, but in contrast, a steep cliff now surrounded it on the outside, and the house towered by its lonesome, standing alone and aloof from this world.

“This cliff was made by an explosion during that war seventy years ago. Actually, said like that, it seems that this house really is very lucky. Everything around it was bombed to nothing, yet it still remained standing. If you think about it, if the bomb had landed just a hair off, then you might have never been found by anyone.”

Those words brushed by his ears, mixing into the whistling wind. In Duan Yi’s eyes, even the color of the sky looked different than it did before.

…But it didn’t matter.

Regardless, in a world without that person, even if another hundred years passed, even if things changed beyond recognition once again, none of it mattered.

“You’re still that depressed.” Tang Qi saw his face full of sorrow and couldn’t help but pat his head with a smile. “The past is already in the past. You still have a whole new life ahead of you. Just look at how interesting this new world is! You should also go out and explore, don’t just spend all day trapped in old pains.”

The tall and handsome Little J standing next to them grabbed Tang Qi’s hand, face full of unhappiness.

He really… had endured the presence of this Duan Yi for too long!

“Master, although the robots from a hundred years ago were also equipped with artificial intelligence, personality and emotion modules were invented only ten or so years ago. How could he possibly understand being ‘depressed’?”

Little J truly was very unhappy — what shitty old junk! This hundred-year-old antique didn’t have the grace to break down and even spent all day walking around with a lifeless face trying to stir up his master’s sympathy! Over these past few days, for his sake, Master kept either looking for new data and replacement parts or finding new ways to comfort and placate him — what exactly was he doing here?!

Tang Qi rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you the one who doesn’t understand being ‘depressed’? Your personality seems to be designed to have only irritation or complaints!”

“Is it wrong for me to have complaints? Master, when you bought me, you promised that I’d be the only one for you in this lifetime! But then last year you were instantly attracted to that shiny new model, and I had to do everything to stop you from buying it, and in the end, you still picked up and brought back this old piece of junk, treating it as if it’s a treasure! Master, what exactly is this—-? I won’t accept you going back on your word! Once I really can’t take it anymore, I might as well—-”

“W-wait, wait, wait, wait—-” Tang Qi interrupted him. “Putting aside the fact that you’re a robot who actually dares to challenge his owner with ‘not being able to take it anymore’, let me ask you, w-when did I say that you were the only one for me in this lifetime?!”

“When I…” Little J’s face looked slightly embarrassed, and he turned his head. “When you were six years old! When I… when I was still a toy bear.”

Tang Qi had almost forgotten — Little J, this tall and handsome robot before him, had been created from his childhood toy bear’s extremely low-end robotic core.

That’s right, if this rascal hadn’t always accompanied him back when he was at his youngest and loneliest, could he have silently endured such a terrible personality for so long? Oh, how he envied those docile and obedient robots in other people’s households!

For an entire lifetime, I can have only this robot with his nasty and crass personality? Isn’t this too much?! I bought something to serve me, not something that I have to serve!

“Those are just words from when I was a kid, it doesn’t count! Every kid has said something stupid like that before!”

“But, you made an oath to me!”

Tang Qi waved his hand. “Words from children don’t count. Don’t tell me you don’t even have this much common sense? Please, I’m being real here, your personality is that awful and you still won’t allow me to buy other robots? Why don’t you think about how I wouldn’t be able to take this anymore?”

“…” The golden-haired robot’s expression turned from aggrieved to anger, from anger to malice, changing many, many times. Suddenly, he turned around and looked furiously at Duan Yi.

“Hey hey hey, what are you thinking of doing?” Tang Qi asked.

Little J raised his long arm and pointed at Duan Yi. “If Master refuses to keep his promise, then I-I’ll get rid of all the robots who dare to get close to you!”

Hah?” Tang Qi thought, you rascal, your guts have really been getting bigger and bigger recently; you actually dare to threaten me?

“I’m serious! Anyway, I’m made not to harm only humans! There’s nothing against harming other robots! If Master wants to keep him, then I’ll kill him! If Master wants to buy other robots, then I’ll also kill them!”

“Little J, he’s my great-grandmother’s robot, and he’s from your great-great-grandfather’s time! Do you robots not have adages about respecting the old and cherishing the young?”

What ‘respecting the old and cherishing the young’? Little J’s entire face was frantic with fury. “I don’t know anything like that!”

“If you don’t know, then learn! Really, you never even bother trying to better yourself! Always wasting your time on such trivial things instead!”

“It’s Master who should be learning from other masters how not to love so freely!”

“I love freely? Where do I love freely? Look here, who doesn’t buy three or four robots nowadays? Do these other households have robots complaining about this?”

“Other people can buy more, but you can’t—-!”

……

Duan Yi hadn’t intended to start a fight, and he felt somewhat apologetic.

Although Little J had been unfriendly towards him since the beginning, he actually found him a bit pitiful.

Because Duan Yi himself had loved someone deeply but wasn’t able to receive a response, and he had also been afraid that that person would be stolen away by a threat hiding nearby.

So now when he saw the malice and irritation that Little J directed at him, he simply saw the him from that year reacting against Song Qing and Ye Wenyu.

“I… I think I should probably leave this place sooner rather than later.”

He truly thought that way, but he was instead thoughtlessly yanked to Tang Qi’s side. “Duan Yi, you don’t have to pay any attention to him! He’s always been like that, utterly without manners!

“And, hehe~ You’ve always been part of our family. According to our blood relationship, you should be considered my… hm… great-great-uncle or great-granduncle? Regardless, I’ll show my filial respect for you as my elder. Isn’t that just the natural course of things?!”

In Little J’s eyes, this kind of whispering into another’s ear was incomparably intimate, practically as if it was purposefully provoking him. Robots were all made to react at once, and he immediately rushed over and grabbed Duan Yi from Tang Qi’s side, turning around and dragging him towards the edge of that cliff.

The cliff was only a few steps away, and Duan Yi didn’t even have the time to resist before his footsteps met air — he could feel that Little J was singlehandedly holding him by the neck, and his entire body was dangling over the cliff; if the golden-haired man let go, then he’d immediately fall and smash into pieces.

Tang Qi was even more shocked.

“Little J, have you gone crazy?! Quickly let go of him! If you keep playing around like this, I’ll get mad!”

However, Little J’s face actually appeared even angrier than Tang Qi’s, and it was even mixed with a bellyful of grievances as well as a neurosis that was incredibly unusual to see on the face of an artificial intelligence.

“Master said that I was the one and only! I just wanted to be Master’s one and only! Master has to pick either me or him! Master, who exactly will you choose?”

“W-what exactly do you want to do?!” It was only now that Tang Qi finally began feeling anxious.

Duan Yi’s super old! What if there’s no way to repair him if Little J actually let him break into pieces?

And… this really isn’t a joke? Little J’s a robot! Even though his personality’s awful, and he has a jealous heart, could the emotions simulated by artificial intelligence really lead him to do such a deranged thing? It’s really too unbelievable!

“Little J, put Duan Yi down! This is an order! If you keep being stubborn like this, I really will get angry!”

From Duan Yi’s perspective, Little J’s face had already warped to look exactly like real human madness. “Master, you really don’t understand anything—-!”

“What do I have to understand?!” Tang Qi was furious. “There’s no point in having a robot who doesn’t obey orders! If you don’t let him go, then I don’t want you anymore!”

“Ha… haha… so, if you had to choose, Master would choose him, I see… anyway, no matter who it is… to Master, they’re all better than me, more important than me… If I don’t let him go, then you don’t want me anymore, huh? There’s already no point in me being here, huh?”

“Ah?”

Tears streaked down Little J’s cheeks, causing Duan Yi to startle. Right as he was thinking that ‘oh, so this era’s robots could actually cry’, he felt his body suddenly being kicked by Little J, and then that golden-haired man’s hand let go—-

For an instant, Duan Yi thought that he was already falling off that cliff, but then he felt his legs go numb. His entire body had been thrown violently onto the solid ground next to the cliff edge.

“So it turns out that I already… don’t have a point in being here…”

“Hey! Little J, you—-”

In shock, he watched as that tall, handsome, golden-haired robot, filled with despair, turned to look bleakly at the cliff before jumping right down into that empty space.

“Hey—-!”

It couldn’t be! A robot would even try committing suicide in a fit of anger?! This is too horrific; it’s practically unheard of!

Tang Qi had majored in mechanical engineering at the country’s best engineering college, and his academic advisor was a renowned robot engineer, second best in the entire country. He had smugly thought himself an excellent student who had read all the possible case studies, but he had never before heard of such a thing like this happening!!!

“Little J—-!!!”

“Be careful!” Duan Yi grabbed Tang Qi by the waist, bringing him to a stop at the edge.

Coincidentally, the only platform elevator at the bottom of the cliff was moving right at this very moment, and at this point, it had already almost reached the top. So, at this time, the scene that the two people at the edge of the cliff saw was this — one man was standing near the left handrail on the elevator, and lying next to him on the platform was that golden-haired robot, looking at a loss, still with tear tracks down his face.

“I’ll say… Joshua, you’re really too reckless. Even willfulness should have its limits, right? There’s absolutely no way I could have anticipated that there’d be a mysterious falling object in this kind of place. If you weren’t careful, you could’ve kill someone.” With this way of speaking, that person seemed to be very familiar with Little J.

Duan Yi startled.

Because of the angle, he wasn’t able to see clearly how that man looked, but that voice… was really… too familiar.

But, that… couldn’t be.

It definitely couldn’t be possible! Perhaps he had conjured up this illusion because he missed that person too much, but he’d also never mistake that person’s silhouette and voice…

Duan Yi could’ve mistaken anyone else, but he would never mistake him — that was definitely him, that was him without a doubt!

But, it really was impossible…

How could it be possible? It’s already been almost one hundred years! So how could that person possibly be Xiao Heng?

But! But, but, but—-

As the moving platform approached, the familiar feeling overpowered the limits of his reasoning, making Duan Yi feel almost completely certain, even without having seen his face, that this person was absolutely him!

Finally, the elevator stopped at the cliff edge, and that person walked over.

Duan Yi looked at his face in a greedy daze, unable to stop his body from shivering.

That man really did look like Xiao Heng.

It was only that Xiao Heng had left when he was only twenty-something years old, while this man looked to be around thirty, appearing very steadfast, as if he had experienced the vicissitudes of life.

“Mr. Xiao, you came at just the right time.” Tang Qi also seemed to be very familiar with him and raised a casual hand in greeting. Then, he crossed over the elevator railings to haul up the Little J who was still lying on the floor before yelling, his voice having gone up an entire octave, “What were you doing just now?! Did you want to die?! What kind of robot are you, doing things utterly without common sense ahhhhh!

“Mr. Xiao, you too! You should educate your ‘son’! Look at what kind of thing you made ahhh — what kind of shitty personality is this, huh?! What if someday this toy decides that he doesn’t just want to play at committing suicide but wants to kill me instead, how will you compensate me?? Could you even compensate me, huh—-?!”

“Master, how could you say this! N-no matter what, I’d never hurt you!” Little J roared with red eyes.

“Hah? Since you can even do something like this, what’s to say you won’t do anything else!”

“Master, you—-” Little J bit his lips. “You asshole!”

“He’s insulting me…” Tang Qi complained to Xiao Heng with a face full of innocence. “You see it, right? He’s insulting me! Look what kind of thing you made! What kind of robot would insult their master?!”

“Joshua’s settings were created so that he has a bit more freedom than other robots.”

“This already isn’t just a matter of ‘a bit more freedom’, right? And just now he almost committed a murder — and he even threatened me; what is all this?!”

“Actually, I saw everything while I was coming up, and Joshua didn’t really have any such intentions.” Mr. Xiao pointed at Duan Yi, his calm expression a picture of, “If this one didn’t die, then clearly the other party had no intention of killing him.”

Then what about trying to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff?! Tang Qi felt himself collapsing on the inside — hey, hotshot designer, do your fans know that you’ve created this type of deficient robot?!

“In theory, Joshua has a ‘heart’. You hurt him and made him feel pain, so that’s why he reacted like this, in a way very much like humans would. Ultimately, it was definitely the fault of you as his master. But of course, Joshua, you should also reflect a bit on yourself as well.”

Tang Qi was practically about to go mad. “I-it’s my fault—-? Isn’t it that this robot you created has a completely abnormal way of thinking?! How could a robot made to serve humans have such an extreme personality?! What kind of designer are you? Is it that hard to make someone cute and obedient?”

“Of course it was you who requested that Joshua be full of personality,” Mr. Xiao responded, somewhat absent-minded, while shooting Duan Yi a few baffled looks. Since his sight fell upon this black-haired youth just now, he had begun feeling an inexplicable unwillingness to tear his gaze away.

“Speaking of… you haven’t introduced this person to me yet.”

“Oh, he’s my great-great-uncle.”

“Hm?”

“Uh… how do I explain this,” Tang Qi had no way of concisely explaining in detail to Mr. Xiao about all the old occurrences in the past that he himself had spent an entire night listening to, so he decided to be brief, “He was my great-grandmother’s robot, a FALLEN-X model from a hundred years ago named Duan Yi. Duan Yi, this is Mr. Xiao. He’s the ‘father’ of Little J and the most famous robot engineer in the country. Really young and promising, right?”

“He’s… a robot?” Mr. Xiao revealed a somewhat disbelieving smile.

Tang Qi internally thought, although Duan Yi was made to look very similar to the real thing, this renowned engineer shouldn’t actually mistake him for an actual person, right?!

“Have we met before? I feel like… I’ve seen you before somewhere.”

Duan Yi was already entirely stupefied. In a daze, he asked himself, was it possible that reincarnation really did exist in this world?

If it did, then he could guarantee that this person was definitely, without a doubt, Xiao Heng’s reincarnation. But if reincarnation really did exist, how could he have been so fortunate to actually meet this person again?

“Since he’s a robot model from the past, you’ve probably seen it in some data before,” Tang Qi replied without a thought.

Mr. Xiao seemed about to say something else before he suddenly frowned and lowered his head to look at his watch. “Oh no, I almost forgot — I came today in order to borrow the helicopter here. I need to attend a conference, and I’m almost late for it now. Let’s stop here, so I can go grab it. We can talk some more another time.”

After he finished speaking, with familiar steps, he rushed towards the back courtyard of Tang Qi’s house.

“He, uh, is distantly related to my family.” Tang Qi waved his hand in front of Duan Yi’s face. “What’s up with you? Why are you staring like that? Speaking of which, did you know you were looking at him extremely weirdly just now?”

“He… looks a lot like him,” Duan Yi said softly.

“Ah? Looks like? Looks like who?” Tang Qi gaped. “Whoa! It couldn’t be that he’s really like your previous…”

“Yes.”

“Are you for real?! Wait, wait, he’s also surnamed Xiao, so could he actually be that person? Oh, but he couldn’t be, right, since didn’t you say that he’s been dead for over a hundred years already? Could he be that person’s descendant then? Uh… but didn’t you say that that person didn’t have descendants?”

“Yes…”

“But I also saw that he seemed to be quite interested in you too just now. Regardless, since he looks like that person, it means that there must be some kind of destiny between you two. Uh… wait, wait, now that I think about it, since you’re an out-of-production antique model, if my academic advisor ever got hold of you, you’d definitely be taken apart piece by piece for the sake of research! So he could also be actually just thinking of how to take you apart…”

Duan Yi silently turned to look at the place where that person had disappeared, even though any trace of him was no longer there.

“In the future, will I… be able to see him again?”

“Huh? Him? He comes to my house pretty often! All right, next time I have the chance, I’ll tell him to make some time to come and talk to you, how about that?”

***

But after that day, that person never appeared again.

Duan Yi waited every day, hoping that he might show up tomorrow. In this seemingly endless wait, slowly, every detail of those past days that he spent together with Xiao Heng began to take on new color.

It was almost like he had returned to that time long ago, back when he had been waiting for Xiao Heng on that island. Every day held new hope, and every day held new disappointment. And, just like how he wound up in this white house’s garden in the end, trimming the flowers on his lonesome, right now he was also similarly silent and waiting — forever not knowing when he would come, not knowing if they would even have the opportunity to meet again.

And then, when he finally saw him once more, it turned out to be the last time they’d ever meet…

……

Duan Yi said that he wanted to plant roses in the garden again. In this era, a multitude of different, extraordinary strains of roses had been created. Conversely, it was those simple white roses of the past that had already gone extinct. Tang Qi wracked his brain for ideas and, in the end, found the stem of some white flowers for him.

Under Little J’s scolding of “planting these ugly flowers will completely destroy the mood of this place”, Duan Yi once again filled the entire garden with white roses.

Time seemed to turn back to the past, as if he had always remained in this garden and had never left.

The truth was that he really had never left.

“Duan Yi, Duan Yi, Duan Yi, come see this!” Tang Qi was holding up a golden ticket.

“This is an invitation for a ball being held at city hall tomorrow night, and Mr. Xiao is also attending! How about it? Stop moping around all day; why don’t I take you with me to this party to look for him?

“Ah, and help me decide whether I should wear this outfit or this one? Oh, and when I see Mr. Xiao, remind me to ask him to return the helicopter I lent him. And, and, you also need to dress up as nice as possible! Why don’t you try this on? Your looks are very suited to these traditional clothes from over a hundred years ago—-”

“Is it OK that… you aren’t bringing Mr. J?”

“It’s fine! Little J has been to this kind of thing hundreds of times! Although he’s an exclusively-made, one-of-a-kind product, there’s no thrill anymore now that he’s shown his face so much. But you’re different. Who has seen an antique like you from a hundred years ago? If I take you with me, those guys will definitely be so jealous!”

Next to the quiet door, a gloomy shadow flashed past.

Duan Yi was completely immersed in the happiness of finally seeing that person again, while Tang Qi had taken the opportunity to force him to try various kinds of clothing, so he didn’t even notice in the slightest that an angry and jealous gaze was boring into him.

After a night of torrential wind and rain, an entire portion of that gardenful of roses had already begun sprouting.

A light drizzle started again that afternoon, and the raindrops dripped off the rose petals, falling into the thicket of weeds and soil beneath.

Under the soil was buried the flower stems, and under those was a basement in which Duan Yi was currently struggling to escape, his two hands having been shackled to an exposed pipe.

The tall and handsome golden-haired man was sitting on the pile of junk, his green eyes looking at him without the slightest expression.

“You should let me go.” Duan Yi tried his best to make his tone sound calm and even. “Don’t worry, after I go to this party tonight, I’ll leave on my own! I won’t ever return, and I won’t ever disturb you and your master’s life again.”

The corners of Little J’s lips quirked up, and he let out a cold laugh.

“I’m not lying to you, I’m really telling the truth! I won’t try to steal Tang Qi from you. I’m also a robot; you should understand that I also have my own beloved master. To me, other than that person, I would never want to be together with anyone else!”

“But isn’t your master already long dead?”

The handcuffs had already gotten somewhat loose behind his back, and Duan Yi glanced over to the corner filled with various bits and pieces of junk and spotted a rusted red steel rod in the middle.

“I will definitely not give my master to you, and I’ll never let you go. Give you the chance to tattle to Master? I’m not that stupid…”

Duan Yi was secretly getting more and more worried. He had been locked up in here for most of the day, and if things continued, he wouldn’t be able to make it to the ball tonight. And what’s more, he couldn’t be sure if this neurotic golden-haired man was actually thinking, right this moment, of breaking him into pieces and destroying all the evidence so that not a trace remained.

If it was before, he probably wouldn’t even care about his own survival, but it wasn’t like that now!

Shit… this crazy robot, how could I, because of you, because of such a ridiculous reason, end up unable to meet that person—-

The moment the handcuffs fell to the floor with a crash, Duan Yi jumped to grab that steel rod before rushing right toward Little J. After he decisively bashed the rod into Little J, smashing him to the floor, he then threw it away and made directly for the door.

“Shit, you want to run—-?!”

This era’s robots were manufactured to have a monster-like constitution. If Little J had been a living human, then with Duan Yi’s original not-insignificant strength added onto his current adrenaline boost, a murder would’ve occurred without question. Who could’ve imagined that, when the golden-haired robot got to his feet, he didn’t seem to have any issues whatsoever?

“You hundred-year-old trash! Go die!”

Duan Yi was unable to react at all before Little J threw him to the ground. And then, a rain of blows fell down upon him. Little J didn’t let up; he turned around and dragged over the steel rod that Duan Yi had used to hit him.

The red rusted rod flew through the air, taking with it the parts of skin that made up Duan Yi’s cheeks. Little J pelted Duan Yi with the resentment he had accumulated over the last couple days, breaking apart those hands, breaking apart those legs. Within those green eyes, a sliver of madness appeared. To Duan Yi, that expression seemed to be saying — “I might as well just grind him down to powder and erase his existence from the world, so that no one will ever find out—-”

No… I can’t die here.

Duan Yi ground his teeth and forced both his eyes open.

I want to see him, so I can’t die here.

Xiao Heng.

Xiao Heng… I… I want to see you one more time. I want to know if that person is really you. I want to know once and for all if, during that previous rushed meeting, I really was mistaken due to my longing.

So I need to… stand up. I can’t let him kill me here. I need to, need to…

“Little J, what are you doing—-!”

Tang Qi was practically about to die from anger.

He had started looking for Duan Yi, for Little J, since early this morning, but he couldn’t find a trace of either of them. Tang Qi was very aware of this paranoid golden-haired man’s disposition, but although he could guess what might be happening, he had been helpless since the tracking device had been thrown away by Little J beforehand—-

Living in this desolate, cliffside place, he had been forced to drive more than four hours in order to buy a new tracking device to find Little J’s location.

And it turned out that this rascal had actually been hiding in his own house’s basement! It was like this person was making fun of his intelligence!

Little J was so shocked that he turned pale, and Tang Qi took this opportunity to rush over, a move so sudden that he almost hit Tang Qi with the rod. If he hadn’t been able to stop himself in time, then the consequences would’ve definitely been unimaginably terrible.

His limbs suddenly seem to lose all their strength, and then he abruptly started crying, looking more aggrieved than anyone else.

“No one else… can steal away… Master. Wahhh…”

Tang Qi was almost impressed. He thought of that almost as-old-as-an-immortal cat at his grandmother’s house —  when you weren’t looking, it’d definitely be secretly up to mischief, putting the blame on others; but the moment it noticed your gaze, it would become gentle and well-behaved, looking completely like a weak and innocent little angel.

It was exactly like this man right before his eyes right now!

“You still dare to cry?” Tang Qi was angered into smiling. “You’ve done all this and you still dare to cry?! Give me a break, what exactly were you thinking?!”

Duan Yi’s hands had been hit so hard that the metal beneath was exposed. Tang Qi took back the steel rod that Little J had in his hands and swung it several times against his thighs.

“You! Actually! Dared to! Do! Something! Like this!”

Who could’ve known that, after only a few hits, that steel rod suddenly and inexplicably became hot to the touch. Tang Qi unconsciously curled his fingers away, and the moment that steel rod fell to the ground, it shattered into fine red powder.

What was this? Tang Qi glared fiercely at Little J, “Look at how hard you hit that even this steel rod broke into pieces!”

“Young Master Tang Qi…” Duan Yi said hoarsely while pulling at his pants. “The party… I… want to go…”

What kind of person, Tang Qi was suddenly speechless, when he’s already gotten beaten up like this would still want to go to a party? In this house, neither of these two robots, whether it’s the golden-haired one or the black-haired one, was actually the least bit normal!

……

“It’s mostly all right now. I’ll fix the rest when you come back. It’s already getting late, so you should hurry up and go. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely take care of Little J and teach him a good lesson.”

Now that Tang Qi had finished with his necktie, Duan Yi appeared to hesitate. “Then, about Mr. J…”

“You can’t be pitying him? Just now, he almost killed you, and you’re not mad at all? Are all robots from a hundred-years-ago as generous as you?”

“That’s… I’m just… able to understand his feelings, that’s all.”

“Feelings? What kind of feelings could he have? That’s just an artificial intelligence!”

“You… really think that?”

Faced with the poignant gaze from those obsidian eyes, the youth revealed a somewhat complicated expression. He scratched his head and said with a sigh, “Ah… sometimes, it’s precisely because… he’s too real, not at all like other robots, that I feel he’s a bit frightening, and I don’t know what I should do. Actually, he really is quite frightening. After all, what kind of robot acts like this?”

“You think he’s scary?” Duan Yi asked him.

“Frightening, he’s frightening! Not scary![1] Little J is that silly, so how could he be scary! But, actually, now that I think about it, even if he wasn’t a robot and was a real human instead, that kind of personality… paranoid and intense, ah, that’s also really difficult to like!”

“But, when he’s with you, he’s always been really gentle, right?”

“Ah? W-what do you mean gentle?!”

“Isn’t he? His attitude is awful, that’s true, but that’s always towards other people. It’s always you getting angry at him, and he… actually, no matter what it is you want him to do, he’d always go and do it, right?”

“That’s because I’m his master!”

“But deep down, you yourself should be more aware than anyone that it’s not just because you’re his master.”

For a while, Tang Qi didn’t know what to say and simple stared. Then, “B-but so what! Even if, even if he is like that — he’s still just a machine! Do I have to take all his feelings seriously? Are you saying I should date an artificial intelligence? That’s too weird! An artificial intelligence’s feelings are all fake! People would laugh at me if I date a fake!”

“Maybe. But I think that Little J’s feelings are definitely real.”

“Wh—-! Where’s your proof?!”

“I don’t have any proof,” Duan Yi sighed, “But regardless of whether Mr. J is real or fake, to you, he’s still extremely important and irreplaceable.”

“It’s not… like that… right?”

“Tang Qi, nothing is certain in this world. The things you thought that would always be by your side may one day suddenly disappear without a trace. What if a war like what happened decades ago happened again? Then it’s possible that the two of you would very easily be separated. Time, space, all of it can create an unfathomable distance. When you lose him, you’ll definitely regret it.

“At that time, you won’t even think about what’s real or what’s fake, you’ll simply regret that, when you had the time, you hadn’t been nicer to him.”

“Ah, all right, all right. I know… I also know what you’ve been through…” Tang Qi straightened out his sleeves, somewhat embarrassed. “Yes, you aren’t entirely wrong in what you’re saying, but y-you should still give me some time to get used to it. After all, dating… with his kind of personality, the moment he latches on, you have to give it your all… I’m used to being casual, so it’s not easy for me to display that kind of dedication.”

“The moment he latches on? There’s already no way you can shake him off though.”

“Uh…” That was true, actually. So, I should just give up already, is that it? Tang Qi silently looked towards the heavens.

“Actually, I really do wish that his personality would get just a bit better, just a bit.”

“Even if you say it like that, if you really wanted to change him out for someone else, you would’ve already done it, right?”

“Uh… that’s true, but he should also be willing to change just a bit for me, right?! Why is it that he’s always wanting me, the master, to compromise? Um… ah… so as it is, I need to think a bit more about Little J. You should go to the party first.”

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The author has something to say:

This is a very long extra, huh…

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[1] So Tang Qi refers to Little J as 嚇人, which I’ve translated as “frightening” (because that’s what it means lmao), but to be more literal, it explicitly means “[capable of] scaring people”. Meanwhile, Duan Yi asks if he’s 可怕 (translated as “scary”), which Tang Qi refutes, and I guess if you want to compare it to 嚇人, there’s more of an implication of it “[looking] scary”. If you think frightening/scary is a bit too synonymous in English, that’s because these words are like that in Chinese too, honestly. Tang Qi is just splitting hairs here.

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You’re telling me, author LOL.

I realized midway through this that I could’ve translated “golden-haired” as “blonde”. I’m not sure if I want to go back and change it now, though.

Anyway, remember, folks: Duan Yi gives shit advice. Don’t be like Tang Qi and Joshua!! They are the pinnacle unhealthy couple. Lord Meng probably should’ve just left them apart instead of trying to retie their fates together lmao.

Honestly, I remember this chapter being a chore to read through, but it’s actually been… super easy to translate… since most of it is dialogue, and that’s always been my preferred thing to write/translate. Just goes to show that translating something gives you a completely different experience than reading it.

Regardless, just one more chapter left, let’s go!! Home stretch!!