Chapter 48: Perishing Amidst Filth and Excrement

The two robotic arms threw stones simultaneously. True to Shen Jiang’s words, she held a massive advantage in this kind of task. Arm One precisely struck the first paper cup, but Arm Two missed completely.

"Nice!" 1047 cheered, slamming his fist into his palm.

"Director, your accuracy leaves a lot to be desired..." Wang Xiangbing secretly communicated with Shang Lu. "Aim properly before you throw."

"My dear elder uncle, you're putting me in a tight spot here. I'm not very good at this," Shang Lu puckered his lips. "I can't just turn into a dart master overnight, can I?"

"Damn, 1047 is getting way too cocky. Director, if you honestly can't figure out the target..." Wang Xiangbing said viciously, "just treat 1047 as the target."

Shang Lu nodded: "Okay."

"Supervisor, is there anything in this world that you find genuinely happy?"

"Is exploring my inner world really that interesting?" Shang Lu asked.

"When a weirdo runs into a weirdo, they've just got to probe each other to see what brand of weirdo the other person is," Shen Jiang said with a smile.

"Well, I don't see you squatting outside a psychiatric hospital, Boss. Who doesn't have some mental health issues these days?" Shang Lu said. "What brand of weirdo am I?"

"The captive raccoon stereotypic pacing and circling syndrome."

"What on earth is that?"

"It's when a raccoon is locked in a cage for too long, and no matter how much it scratches and claws, it can't find a way out, so it starts walking in dizzy little circles inside the cage," Shen Jiang replied. "Round and round it goes until it completely disorients itself. By the time you actually open the cage door for it, it doesn't even know how to come out."

"You made that sound remarkably convincing."

"Well, was my guess accurate or not?" Shen Jiang said. "When I first met you, you practically had the word 'lost' tattooed across your forehead."

"Didn't you say you're bad at remembering faces?"

"But a person's vibe isn't expressed through their facial features." Shen Jiang said. "Supervisor, even though you look completely unremarkable..."

"Although I know I have a remarkably generic face, you saying it so bluntly still wounds my ego. Every guy who hasn't gained weight looks in the mirror and thinks he's drop-dead gorgeous," Shang Lu said, sounding somewhat dejected. "Boss, couldn't you have been a little more tactful?"

"Ah." Shen Jiang opened her mouth. "Then... aesthetically average?"

Shang Lu let out a very quiet sigh.

"Oh no, wait, should I say lacking in visual appeal? Or unspectacular? Handsome as P-Pan Changjiang?" Shen Jiang abandoned the effort. "Forget it, my literature scores have always been terrible. I apologize, you can say the same about me."

"Saying you look remarkably generic?" Shang Lu’s tone turned deadpan serious. "That would be going against my conscience. You're very good-looking."

What was Shen Jiang about to say next—she suddenly forgot entirely. Her mind went blank, her retort swallowed back down. After struggling for a long time, she managed to squeak out a "Thank you."

The two robotic arms tossed the second stone. Shen Jiang once again accurately struck the paper cup. Moving like a seasoned basketball player, her stone carved an arc through the air before hitting with a crisp snap, sending the paper cup spinning onto the floor. A wave of enthusiastic cheers erupted from the engineering office. Shang Lu, meanwhile, missed completely yet again, his deviation even worse than before. The stone didn't fly toward the cup at all—it sailed straight toward 1047. Given 1047's position, it was hard not to suspect it was intentional.

"Supervisor, you've missed two shots in a row," Shen Jiang reminded him. "You need to be careful. If the MEG system performs too poorly, some people will start raising objections. You know certain folks around this base are just waiting for you guys to mess up."

"Yeah," Shang Lu said. "And that anti-party, anti-people, anti-revolution, anti-humanity clique is headed by you."

"Hey, hey, don't go splashing dirty water around," Shen Jiang glared.

"What actual value does a BCI system have if it can't even handle basic motor imagery? The iEEG-BCI system is sensitive, mature, and its reliability has been proven repeatedly through actual combat. Why scrap it and replace it with a MEG-BCI when we have zero clue if it'll even work? To make matters worse, we have to waste endless time running tests, and what's even worse than that is we have to sing Wang Feng songs during this damn test..." Shang Lu said. "It's so annoying. Let's just scrap this whole messy pile of junk, shall we?"

Shen Jiang shut her mouth.

This bastard always had her completely figured out.

"The sensitivity, maturity, and reliability of the iEEG-BCI come at the cost of the pilot's life. Its rapid development over all these years hasn't just squeezed the potential of the technology—it's squeezed the life force right out of the pilots," Shang Lu said. "Boss, do you want to know how you're going to die?"

"Pui!"

"Don't want to know?"

Shen Jiang thought about it for a moment: "Well... go ahead and enlighten me."

"You'll die of cranial-cerebral complications triggered by an iEEG-BCI system overload and crash, accompanied by respiratory center nerve suppression," Shang Lu said unhurriedly. "A wretched death, incontinent, with piss and shit flowing everywhere."

Shen Jiang froze for a moment, then wanted nothing more than to rip off her helmet right then and there and smash it over his head.

"If I had a gun in my hand right now, I'd blow your brains out!"

"That's not my death." Shang Lu said.

"Then how do you die?" Shen Jiang asked crossly.

"I'll be shredded inch by inch, from bottom to top, left to right. The process won't be fast; right when the shredding starts, I'll still have sensation, my brain entirely clear, able to watch myself get carved into pieces, and then those pieces get carved into smaller pieces, until finally pulverized into a mist of flesh and blood," Shang Lu described in meticulous detail. "If you could shoot me before all that happens, I'd be very grateful."

Shen Jiang swallowed hard, shivering slightly at the image he painted. She thought to herself that this weirdo was truly ruthless to himself. Compared to a death that sounded even more excruciating than lingering sliced-and-diced execution, dying in your own waste really wasn't that bad by comparison.

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"

"This isn't nonsense," Shang Lu said. "This is the future."

"What kind of shitty future is that?" Shen Jiang said. "I certainly don't want to die covered in piss and shit!"

"Then cooperate with me to finish the MEG-BCI system," Shang Lu said. "It's the only way to spare you from invasive electrode cranial-cerebral complications."

"I haven't bought into your nonsense yet."

"If things keep going down this path, it's only a matter of time. You need to trust my expertise," Shang Lu said. "Sooner or later, you'll die drowning in your own excrement."

"Damn it, can you stop mentioning piss and shit!" Shen Jiang snapped, driven to the brink of madness. "You're the one who dies in your own shit!"

"Well, that would be wonderful."

Shen Jiang had run out of ways to deal with this guy. She took a deep breath to steady her emotions.

"Boss."

"Hmph? What kind of garbage are you going to spew now?"

"Cheer up."

"Damn it, how do you expect me to cheer up?" Shen Jiang rolled her eyes in fury. "You literally just said I'm going to die in a pile of waste sooner or later!"

"What does that matter?" Shang Lu spread his hands, his tone utterly indifferent. "You're only dying amidst it, not dying from eating it."

Shen Jiang looked left and right, patting her pockets to search for a gun.

Today, she was definitely going to put this kid down.

Not even the highest powers in heaven could save him!

"Seriously, Boss." Shang Lu sat in the armchair, his eyes enveloped within the scanner, as if he could already see that terrifying future where he was torn and crushed inch by inch. "You really need to cheer up right now."

He might be able to alter Shen Jiang's future of dying in squalor, but who had the power to alter his?