Chapter 42: AI Girl

The moment the blaring alarms tore through the air, Ming Xie’s wide sleeves snapped and billowed sharply.

Cyan radiance surged from his fingertips, causing the patterns of the Big Dipper to emerge upon the ground, forcibly nailing the trembling mecha in its place.

"Before the cinnabar runs out—" Lin Yiwen lunged toward the control console, a laser scalpel sliding from the cuff of his military uniform, "—sever the link between the River Map and Luo Shu and the energy core!"

Zhuang Yun, however, gripped the hilt of her peach-wood sword with deadly force.

In the instant the armored woman in the illusion turned around, Zhuang Yun clearly saw that face—features identical to her own, yet crowned with a bloody Taiji mark between her brows.

"A-Yun!" Ming Xie’s sharp cry snapped her back to reality.

The final grain of cinnabar in the hourglass was plummeting downward.

Lin Yiwen’s scalpel scraped sparks across the gilded patterns.

"Kun sector, sever the connection!" he roared, slamming down the emergency brake valve, only to watch the ancient copper coins on the instrument panel suddenly spin counter-clockwise.

The copper lamps of the Twenty-Eight Mansions extinguished one by one, replaced by crimson seal script emerging across the cabin walls:

[Zifu Soul Lock, Annihilate]

Ming Xie poured all of his spiritual energy into suppressing the formation.

The entire underground warehouse began to violently oscillate.

Ming Xie’s white hair coiled around Zhuang Yun’s waist, flinging her out of the cockpit just as he was swallowed whole by the formation's crimson glow.

"Back then, your elder brother used this exact trick to trap me for seven days..."

His voice shattered apart within the energy tempest. "Yet you've grown clever now, embedding a lethal formation straight into a mecha."

Zhuang Yun crashed into Lin Yiwen’s arms, watching helplessly as Ming Xie transformed into the phantom of a Kunpeng within the crimson light.

The very second those wings beat the air to pieces, she suddenly remembered—

The ice-bound Kunpeng, the chains, and the Dust Sword she had personally driven into her elder brother's back.

"Disconnect this!" Lin Yiwen shoved Zhuang Yun toward the western side of the console.

He tore open his collar to reveal a pendant, the insignia of the Xuanwu mecha embedded within it locking precisely into a groove.

Amidst the blue glow of dual authentication, the hourglass exploded into fragments.

The blaring sirens abruptly ceased.

As the pendant at Lin Yiwen’s neck resonated with the control console, the metallic walls suddenly shed their rust, revealing a glowing holographic projection:

[Lin Laboratories, Star Calendar Year 3012]

Within the projection, a man and a woman in white lab coats were adjusting two mechas. The gilded patterns upon the chests of the Vermilion Bird and the Black Tortoise were not yet complete, while an experimental log floated suspended in the air:

"Twin Project Test No. 47: Energy resonance between Vermilion Bird (adapted to ancient martial arts) and Black Tortoise (adapted to psychic power) has failed. Backlash rate: 99.8%."

"Note: The River Map and Luo Shu system requires the 'Innate Primordial Breath' to initiate, but the test subjects cannot withstand the shock of the breath pathways..."

Zhuang Yun’s pupils violently contracted.

The female researcher in the projection turned around, her face overlapping perfectly with the armored woman Zhuang Yun had seen in the Vermilion Bird illusion—it was none other than her own face from a past life.

The experimental log abruptly skipped to the final, torn-away page:

"Zhuang Mengzhou forcibly initiated the Black Tortoise, and the backlash of the breath pathways caused the laboratory to collapse. To protect the experimental data, the Vermilion Bird sank into..."

The text abruptly cut off here.

The knuckles of Lin Yiwen’s hands turned pale white. Memories of the day his parents disappeared came rushing back in a overwhelming flood—

At eight years old, he had hidden inside the ventilation ducts, watching a man in Daoist robes drive a peach-wood sword straight into his father’s back. The cloud patterns upon the sword hilt were identical to the one belonging to Zhuang Yun.

Ming Xie transformed into a small bird, closed his eyes, and dropped downward. Zhuang Yun raised a hand to catch him. "I'm fine! Let me sleep for a bit!"

Zhuang Yun activated the Vermilion Bird once more, blue light blooming within its ocular sensors.

The young AI’s voice chimed in: "Little Yunyun! Cuckoo has finally waited for you!"

"You haven't come to see me in ten years!"

Zhuang Yun thought privately to herself: *Ten years? I've only been in this world for two months, where on earth is there a decade?*

"Uh! Where did my weapon go?"

"Target locked—Tenth District History Museum, Exhibition Area B, Dust Sword bronze artifact."

"Little Yunyun, a reminder to go retrieve your weapon soon!"

"Whoa, Little Yunyun, waking up all of a sudden feels a bit disorienting, let me calibrate."

Following that, the Vermilion Bird’s ocular sensors extinguished once again.

Zhuang Yun stowed the Vermilion Bird back into her mecha necklace, cradled Ming Xie in her arms, and walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Lin Yiwen out of the warehouse doors.

Only to discover themselves surrounded by a sea of mechas. Under the night sky, troops had been fully deployed, countless artillery barrels primed and aimed directly at the pair.

The commanding officer looked thoroughly bewildered. What on earth was going on?

System diagnostics had detected another destructive energy fluctuation within the mecha warehouse of Tianfu Academy, prompting the entire Tenth District to mobilize its elite forces for suppression.

Yet out walked a young man and woman looking utterly nonchalant.

Judging by their expressions, one would think they had been out on a romantic rendezvous...

Major Chen Qian had only just laid down to rest in bed when he received the orders, and dammit all, the culprit was Zhuang Yun yet again!

He stared fixedly at the cloud patterns carved into the hilt of the peach-wood sword slung across Zhuang Yun’s back—the pattern was an exact match to the fragments he had scavenged from the laboratory ruins a decade ago.

Major Chen Qian stepped down from his cockpit, strode over to stand directly in front of Zhuang Yun, and ground out through clenched teeth: "All right, care to explain yourself again? What kind of ghosts did you manage to summon tonight?"

Zhuang Yun laughed awkwardly and tried to brush it off: "Not at all, Major! I can truly, genuinely activate the Vermilion Bird now!"

"If you don't believe me, watch!"

To prove it right before the entire military force, Zhuang Yun summoned the antique mecha and popped open the cockpit hatch.

"Cuckoo! Initiate startup!"

The blue light flickered within the ocular sensors, only to instantly extinguish. "Little Yunyun, without my weapon, I cannot fight. I have no mood..."

Zhuang Yun deliberately amplified Cuckoo’s voice so that everyone present wore expressions of utter shock: *What kind of AI possesses this level of... consciousness? (And laziness)*

The academy principal hurried over, caught sight of Lin Yiwen standing there, and looked back and forth between them.

"Principal, I'm alright."

"As long as you're alright!"

Major Chen Qian prepared to place the two of them under arrest once more for interrogation, but the principal gently patted him on the shoulder. "Call the troops back..."

The principal was clearly hoping to sweep the matter under the rug and keep the peace.

"Yes, sir!"

The next day, Zhuang Yun was granted special leave. Armed with the recommendation letter provided by the principal, she headed to the museum to retrieve her sword.

The staff could hardly believe it. Zhuang Yun was claiming this bronze sword was a mecha accessory? But this was clearly an ancient artifact unceremoniously dug out of the dirt!

When they were finally shown Zhuang Yun's mecha, however, they conceded: well, an old antique paired with another old antique was a rather fitting match.

Zhuang Yun gazed down at the sword—it shared the exact shape of the Dust Sword, the personal weapon of her master, Zhuang Fenglu.

Piloting her mecha, she reached out and picked up the heavily oxidized bronze sword.

Cuckoo awakened: "Splendid! The personal weapon has been found!"

As the sword resonated with the Vermilion Bird, Zhuang Yun's spiritual energy radiated outward, causing the rust upon the surface of the bronze sword to emit an even more ancient, ethereal green glow.

"Ah, and here I thought this rust would flake right off."

Cuckoo chimed in: "This rust is actually a treasure. The deeper the rust, the more formidable it is, meaning the older the sword, the greater its power."

Lin Yiwen spoke up: "Give it a try."

Zhuang Yun concentrated her spiritual energy, causing the bronze sword to emit the clear, ringing cry of a dragon. The rust along the blade's body coalesced into patterns resembling azure fish scales, while the crystal sensors on the mecha's faceplates lit up with a mesmerizing peacock-blue glow.

She swung the sword downward to strike an iron pillar, leaving behind only a shallow scratch...

Cuckoo evaluated: "The mecha has been idle for too long, and your synchronization isn't quite sufficient yet. Just practice more from here on out. For now, I'll demonstrate for you."

With that, the Vermilion Bird moved outside of Zhuang Yun’s direct control, raising its blade to slash toward the iron pillar once more. The instant the edge swept past the dark-iron column, three thousand copper-coin phantoms bloomed across the empty air.

The rust-covered bronze sword suddenly felt as light as a goose feather, yet plummeted downward carrying the unstoppable momentum of a falling star.

The iron pillar snapped cleanly in two with a thunderous roar, its cut surface revealing honeycomb-like hollows that mysteriously aligned with the Twenty-Eight Mansions.