"Both jokers. Bomb."
"An ace and a six. Beats it."
Across the table, the rust-covered robot scratched his metal head. "Don't pull my leg! How can you play an ace and a six together? Has your brain gone rotten?"
"Foolish Boy, there's something you don't know."
"Back in the old days, there was one official car more lawless than any other. Its model was the A6. It ignored every rule."
Cheng Qi tapped the frayed playing cards on the table and said earnestly, "Play an ace and a six together, and you get an A6. I drive my A6, floor the gas, and zip straight out of your blast radius. So your bomb doesn't work on me."
The optical lenses in Foolish Boy's eyes shifted slightly, focusing on the table. "Good grief, what kind of game is this? So many rules, it's making my head spin!"
Cheng Qi grinned wickedly.
Foolish Boy grew even more flustered and raised his rust-covered arm. "Master, quit laughing! I'll get you next round!"
Just then.
The entire ground began to shake, and a rumbling tremor came from outside.
"It's finally here!"
Cheng Qi's eyes lit up. He rose, went to the shack's entrance, lifted the heavy radiation-shielding tarp, and looked up into the distant sky.
Against the dark gray atmosphere, a thirty-two-kilometer-long, galactic-class transport starship slowly approached, bringing immense atmospheric tremors and an oppressive presence.
And on the ground outside the dilapidated shack.
Nondegradable garbage stretched as far as the eye could see.
Dark silver metal wreckage, pitch-black chemical fuel drums, and the rotting bodies of unidentified creatures lay everywhere. Even the atmosphere was dim and lightless, filled with countless particles of metal dust.
This was Earth.
Many years ago, a man whose merits and faults were equally great had invented Directional Stargate Technology, ushering humanity into the age of the greater cosmos.
In just sixty years, humanity's mother planet beneath their feet had been drained of all its energy resources.
Now.
She had become the largest garbage dump in the Milky Way.
She was no longer that beautiful blue planet. Viewed from outer space, her surface was covered in thick layers of garbage, dull and gloomy, making her look like a moldy prune.
Year 024 of Humanity's Second Era.
Earth had become a symbol of tragedy in the universe.
Human civilization had moved away.
Only a handful of humans remained, barely scraping by, and they all shared one identity-scavengers.
Cheng Qi was a scavenger too.
Foolish Boy was a B343 nanny robot he had salvaged from a garbage heap three years earlier.
Perhaps because of his previous owner, his speech system was actually a Sichuan dialect version.
Vrrrr!
High overhead, the enormous starship hovered, and its heavy cargo doors slowly opened.
Then millions of tons of garbage showered down from the sky to the ground in a spectacular sight.
"More new stuff!"
"Come on, let's go grab it!"
Foolish Boy flexed his mechanical arms, sending a screw flying, but he was excited.
"I'm not asking for much."
"A few kilograms of rare alloy, a few usable P7-grade circuit boards, or even one intact fuel cell would do."
"After all, I staked everything on this one."
Cheng Qi's eyes flickered. He took a deep breath and slowly stepped out of the shack.
The starship's engines whipped up immense air currents.
The eighteen-year-old's face was resolute. Behind him, his dark blue scavenger's cape, riddled with holes and oil stains, billowed in the wind with a sharp snapping sound.
Far up in the sky.
The transport starship finished dumping its cargo and roared away, disappearing into the atmosphere.
It came and went in a hurry. No one would spare any pity for the garbage here.
And on the ground.
A gigantic garbage mountain nearly five hundred meters tall had appeared.
Dirt, metal dust, toxic chemical gases, and unknown radiation spread unchecked.
Cheng Qi and Foolish Boy climbed one side of the garbage mountain.
An unidentified spore exposed to nuclear radiation landed on Foolish Boy's brass head, took root, and blossomed.
Foolish Boy gave his head a slight shake and let the spore grow.
They needed to insert the detector they carried into the very top of the garbage mountain, allowing its scanning waves to travel downward and locate valuable objects.
Foolish Boy's arms could lift roughly three tons. Once they determined the location of something valuable, he would start digging with his bare hands. The two of them had worked together this way for a long time, assistant and master, but also companions who depended on each other for survival.
As they climbed, the detector began to beep.
Cheng Qi grew increasingly delighted. This shipload of garbage seemed to be high quality.
But things did not seem likely to go so smoothly.
The roar of a small engine came from the other side of the garbage mountain.
Cheng Qi frowned.
A moment later, a heavy motorcycle appeared at the summit, its exhaust pipe belching black smoke.
Both wheels had been modified with multiple metal hooks. With enough throttle, they could churn through the garbage and quickly carry the bike to the top.
Foolish Boy looked up, the spore swaying gently. "This bastard again."
A burly man wearing a black gas mask sat on the motorcycle. His right arm had been replaced with a hydraulic mechanical limb. Though battered, it could crush Foolish Boy without trouble, let alone Cheng Qi.
"Get lost."
The man's voice was low. He wasted no words.
"E Luo."
Cheng Qi looked up. "This pile is 7-12-5. I already paid the Scavengers Association the 'development fee' in advance."
7-12-5.
It meant the load dumped by the fifth garbage ship on July 12.
Cheng Qi had observed it for a long time. Every 156 days, that starship belonging to a certain mechanical conglomerate came to dump garbage. Based on its scheduled route, it would most likely be the third ship of the day.
Garbage from mechanical conglomerates was always highly valuable.
Someone had once dug out a fully functional energy-storage generator, along with various valuable alloy scrap parts. That scavenger had earned a full 7,500 credits.
"I took out a loan from Hyena at sky-high interest to pay the development fee."
Cheng Qi straightened his chest. "But since I've paid, garbage pile 7-12-5 belongs to me."
"Hyena will eat you alive and leave nothing behind."
The man on the motorcycle sounded as if he were offering a friendly warning, but his voice held no emotion. "If you don't find something valuable today, you'll die a horrible death."
As he spoke, more than a dozen scavenger underlings appeared behind him, along with seven or eight crudely assembled engineering robots.
"I heard."
"You reserved 7-12-5, 8-01-22, 9-12-12... all of those?"
The man's voice was deep, his eyes filled with greed. "You've always been a shrewd little beggar. The garbage with those numbers should all be worth something."
"You're going to steal it?"
Cheng Qi had already guessed his intentions. He spoke without backing down or acting arrogant. "Aren't you afraid the Scavengers Association will punish you?"
"The association has another rule."
The man on the motorcycle shook his head, then murderous intent suddenly filled his eyes. "When someone dies, their reservations are canceled."
"Goodbye."
A metal panel at the back of the heavy motorcycle flipped open, and a rust-covered cruise missile rose from within.
Hiss!
White smoke billowed as the missile launched with a roar. Its targeting radar was rust-covered too, but it wobbled straight toward Cheng Qi halfway up the mountain.
Boom!
A wave of heat swept out, the air surged, and countless metal fragments blasted into the sky.
Through the thick smoke, a dark shape could vaguely be seen hurled high into the air before falling into a garbage abyss two kilometers away.
The man on the motorcycle sneered. "7-12-5 is ours. From now on, this whole area is ours too. Don't just stand there. Get to fucking work!"
Earth had once been a place with some semblance of order, but even then, the strong preyed on the weak.
Now, Earth had no meaningful rules at all.
Everyone was trapped at the bottom, struggling with no escape. People devoured one another down to the bone every day.
In the garbage abyss.
Cheng Qi drew a deep breath and abruptly regained consciousness. He found Foolish Boy's rust-covered head shielding his chest, the robot's mechanical arms wrapped tightly around him.
"Foolish Boy?"
"You shielded me?"
"Foolish Boy?!"
Cheng Qi pushed aside Foolish Boy's limp arms, stood up, and looked at his back. His pupils trembled.
Half of Foolish Boy's torso and both his legs had been blown away.
Worst of all, the entire back of Foolish Boy's head had melted in the tremendous heat. His processing core was completely exposed, his memory transistors shattered. The red information-conducting fluid inside had spilled across the ground like blood.
The spore was still on his head, but its life had been as brief as its growth was rapid. It had already withered.
Cheng Qi's body shook.
The memory crystals were shattered, and not a drop of information-conducting fluid remained.
Even if he were repaired, Foolish Boy would no longer exist.
Short-circuit sparks leaped from the back of his head, and Foolish Boy's body shuddered.
His mouth was a green line of energy, now flickering faintly.
He spoke his final words.
"What the heck!"
"Has my brain gone rotten?"
"Guess I'm done for."
"Without me around to keep you company, you'd better take good care of yourself."
"I knew all your little card tricks. The next robot won't let you win."
"Cheng Qi, goodbye forever!"
"I'm... going to sleep."
Before you continue