Book 2, Chapter 85 - Hold On

Love Code at the End of the World

Uncle Mason looked at me, unusually solemn. That solemn expression carried notes of pleading as he said, “Luo Bing, remember, when you find Harry, warm up his heart. As long as his heart is fine, the other parts of his body would recover slowly. You must save his heart!” Uncle Mason emphasized, his tone laced with worry. He was putting Harry’s life in my hands!

“Yes, sir!” Harry, this idiot! Why is he so reckless? This is not like him who is usually calm and composed! He is making everyone worried!

But…

He came to save me…

Suddenly, I realize that Harry and I are very similar. We will feel duty-bound to do what needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. 

Didn’t he say that he had only pitied me?

Didn’t he say that he didn’t want to entertain me?

Didn’t he say that he didn’t want to bother with me?

In the end, he still came to look for me like an idiot. It turns out that men say one thing and mean another too! Harry is an idiot! 

Ice Dragon suddenly dived. I saw a huge hole on the ground that looked like it had been bombed. Lake water reflected the light from Ice Dragon’s headlamp in ripples. 

*Pak!* Ice Dragon dived into the lake, moving much faster and smoother than when he had entered Kro earlier. I had been the one to drive when we had entered Kro. Now, Ice Dragon couldn’t wait to see Noah and overrode my rights to drive.

The surroundings were pitch black. If it wasn’t for Ice Dragon’s lights, we wouldn’t be able to see the situation underwater. I could faintly see a tunnel at the edge of my range of visibility. Perfectly preserved, the tunnel wasn’t like the subway tunnels of our world; instead, it had metal rings like a railway tunnel.

Ice Dragon released blue light beams to start scanning. The protective shield before me switched to night vision mode. I could clearly see the tunnel in front of me. By the side of the tunnel was a huge platform. Many overlapping round tunnels connected to the tunnel; presumably the people of the past entered the so-called shuttle machine directly from these tunnels.

On one side of the platform, there was a piece of glass depicting a route map of the entire tunnel. Ice Dragon scanned the map, recorded it and calculated the directions to where Harry was. Once he locked it in, he started advancing at full speed.

“You move so swiftly when you’re going to see Noah, yet you dragged your feet when I asked you to come to Kro with me,” I couldn’t help but complain. I started pulling on the cold-proof suit in the narrow cabin.

The cabin was too small; I couldn’t even stand up. I put on the cold-proof suit and Bang! The suit filled up the entire cabin like an orange Baymax squashed into a small egg.

“Because Noah is my lover,” Ice Dragon said smilingly. “To me, Noah is real whereas you are illusory. I can be in a relationship with Noah but I can’t even touch your hand.”

I struggled to pull open the cold-proof suit’s mask. “If I was in danger, would you come and save me?”

“No,” he replied straightforwardly. I started considering getting Raffles to make this program stupider.

“Because Harry will come and save you,” Ice Dragon continued. He sounded extremely rational and calm. “As a robot, I surmise that I would not be able to deal with sudden situations like today’s emergency. I would first analyze the situation in front of me. After analyzing, I would have reckoned Harry’s survival rate to be zero. The outcome would be the same regardless of whether I save you or not. I would not be like you humans to attempt so recklessly to save someone out of emotion. I find it hard to understand the phenomenon of you humans risking your own life to save another’s life. Like how Harry came to save you, for example.”

What he said made me feel even worse and my worry heightened.

Harry was a reliable and trustworthy person, and a captain who highly valued friendship.

He usually treated Williams, Xue Gie and the others as his family members, his siblings. 

When he was out on a mission, he would take up his mantle as captain of the scouting troop and be responsible for each and every one of us. Like when he had brought me out for a mission, he treated bringing me back perfectly intact as his duty. He took it upon himself to guard everyone’s lives.

I could see him doing the same for any one of us should they be in danger. He would stop at nothing because that was the kind of man he was.

“Can you connect to Noah and check on Harry’s situation?” I asked worriedly.

“Hi! Noah, I am rushing to you right now,” Ice Dragon was so excited. While I was worried about Harry, he was busy flirting with Noah.

Noah’s hologram appeared before me, looking gentle and graceful. She ignored Ice Dragon as she told me, “Harry’s vital signs are low. I’m afraid that he might not make it before you arrive.”

“Noah, figure out a way!” I urged anxiously.

Noah thought for a while then looked at me. “Alright, I will try to heat up my engine, after which I can transfer some heat to him. I will fight to buy some time for you but my engine would be busted after that.”

“Noah! No!” Ice Dragon’s eyes were full of heartache for Noah.

Noah rolled her eyes at him. “Guarding our masters is our duty. I won’t be like someone who gets cold feet right before going to the frontline. Plus, we are only a program. Please do not prize our bodies so highly.”

Ice Dragon’s expression stiffened. Even a cunning fox like him had difficulty refuting what Noah had said.

“Alright! We are reaching soon!” Harry, hold on! I promised Sis Ceci that I will beat you up!

Ice Dragon moved swiftly underwater in the dark waterway. I didn’t absorb the radiation from Ice Dragon because Raffles had said that the layer of radiation was our best protection. It could prevent the unknown living creatures from approaching.

“There’s an unknown living creature in front!” A dark human-like figure loomed in front of Ice Dragon in the light, its silhouette resembling a flying corpse. I could clearly make out that its four limbs were arms and legs!

The figure seemed to sense something and left as we continued speeding forward. He moved extremely fast in the water, vanishing into thin air in the blink of an eye. In that instant, Ice Dragon captured his image. He was a human-shaped monster!

His palm had sharp claws like the flying corpses, but his kind had evolved webbing between the claws. Likewise, he had webbed feet that looked like those flippers that divers wore. If it weren’t for his barb-like toenails, I might have mistaken him for a human wearing flippers.

After the human figure disappeared, no other human-shaped monsters approached us. Raffles was right. They were afraid of the radiation we carried.

“We’re here!” Ice Dragon said. However, the surface of the lake had become a thick layer of ice!

“Ready and shoot!” I grasped the operating lever, aimed and pressed the button. A light ray immediately shot out from beneath Ice Dragon. As the ice shattered, we burst out from below the ice and charged fearlessly into the world of snow above!

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