When I heard this confession for the first time, Ren Zhong was very touched, and even thought that he was hallucinating.
In his mind, Ma Xiaoling is a heartless and silly elder sister. She is very talented in fighting and quite smart, but she is always too lazy to use her brain and treats people very straightforwardly.
Ren Zhong regarded her as a good friend, and he never thought that a relationship between a man and a woman would develop between them.
In a certain timeline that Ma Xiaoling himself didn't know about, Ren Zhong had even taken the last step between a man and a woman with Ma Xiaoling in order to enter the Shenxun Ma family.
But Ren Zhong kept this secret deep in his heart and only continued to owe her.
In fact, Ren Zhong had never forgotten that incident, but it was hard to talk about it. He couldn't say to Ma Xiaoling, "In a timeline you don't know, we had a relationship. So, we are together," right?
After all, in Ren Zhong's perception, Ma Xiaoling is indeed such a simple person. When Sister Ma agreed to his request, the reason she gave herself was "to help her brother."
What she said when urging Ren Zhong was "Hurry up. Finish your work and go to bed early. Since I have to leave tomorrow afternoon, I can seize the time to take people out to lay some minefields and build some automated defenses tomorrow morning."
and "Come on, who is afraid of whom?"
Sister Ma is so free and easy.
In a sense, she is also very good at pretending.
She is truly a born actress, able to deceive even a time-traveling peeper like Ren Zhong.
Until now, she first half-stepped into the gate of hell, then took it back, faced life choices again, re-examined her heart, faced regrets, and then decided to die. After this intense emotional ups and downs, Ma Xiaoling
For nearly half an hour, Ma Youjuan wrote and thought wildly. Finally, she couldn't hold it back any longer. She finally broke away from her disguise as a pure man and woman, and decided to be honest for once.
In fact, as long as there is still a glimmer of hope to continue living, she will never say it.
Because she really wants to save face and suffer the consequences.
She knows Ren Zhong very well, and she also knows Ren Zhong’s principles as a person. She is afraid of being embarrassed by each other after speaking out, and she is even more afraid of being rejected by Ren Zhong, who has a primitive and pure view of love.
That's so embarrassing.
Her courage comes entirely from the absolute expectation of death.
Anyway, he won't have the chance to laugh at me after I die.
Anyway, he had no chance to reject me. He even had no chance to point at my nose and say, I treat you as a brother, but you actually want to sleep with me.
It's nothing to lose. So, let's do it.
With this belief, Ma Xiaoling brandished a big gun that fired plasma and fought with the snake-shaped beast that fell from the sky on time.
Ren Zhong's ears rang with the clicking sound of Qian Wangshen controlling the robotic arm to quickly replace armor parts.
He raised his neck, looked through the one-way optical camouflage barrier, and looked quietly at Ma Xiaoling, who was shining brightly in the sky above like a real Valkyrie.
At this time, Ren Zhong's heart was full of emotions.
He really didn't know how to describe his feelings.
He actually wanted to ask Ma Xiaoling whether you were outspoken or reserved and pretentious.
Ren Zhonggeng realized from Ma Xiaoling that he was not omnipotent.
After being together for so long, I still can't see through her heart, and I have to ask her to speak out to understand.
At the same time, another kind of pain appeared in Ren Zhong's heart.
He is afraid and questioning himself.
We are only one step away from success, there is no doubt about it.
But looking at Yuanxing, the only one who can deal with the snake-shaped beast in front of him and the next six beasts with different abilities at this moment is Ma Xiaoling who uses electronically controlled crystals.
Ren Zhong knew that in three minutes an extremely powerful super-level ruin beast would appear. It was an invisible monster that was not recorded in the ruin beast illustrated book. It was invisible and shapeless, but could decompose all matter quietly.
Only by Ma Xiaoling activating her plasma gun to the extreme and pouring the terrifying current into the body of the beast can it activate. Then Ren Zhong can join forces with others to kill it.
Moreover, in this process, everyone except Ren Zhong himself will die here.
So, in a sense, to understand at this moment, if Ren Zhong wants to win the nine old popsicles, Ma Xiaoling must die here, like other lost comrades.
Ren Zhong will have to face the real sacrifice he has been trying to avoid.
Then, Ren Zhong has to regard everyone, including Ma Xiaoling, as passers-by in his life.
Ren Zhong thought to himself, should he respond to her at least once?
Fulfill her last wish?
In the previous six hundred and twenty-two confessions, Ren Zhong chose to remain silent because he did not want to interfere with Ma Xiaoling's battle.
Since she is destined to move forward, she should not be allowed to disappear with regrets.
But do I like her? Does it really matter?
Ren Zhong was thinking like this in his mind.
Judging from ordinary people's thinking, Ren Zhong's hesitation and entanglement at this time is very unreasonable.
After all, he has experienced so much and seen too many life, death, and human tragedies. He should have turned into a mature, steady, and transcendent monster.
At least that's how Xiao Xingyue views him now.
But Ren Zhong is actually deliberately opening his mind.
Because, in the first three thousand three hundred and seventy-five attempts before reaching this point, Ma Xiaoling did not confess to him, and he indeed gradually became more and more cold-blooded, and became more and more intangible.
Sex, getting further and further away from human nature, getting closer and closer to the divinity that treats the common people indifferently like ants. Until Ma Xiaoling broke his defense for the first time with his confession, and then used it for another 622 times to express his love.
Pulled him back into the world again.
It was through such constant reflection and self-examination that he rediscovered his humanity.
After a long time, Ren Zhong's eyes suddenly burst into light.
He quietly sent a message to Ma Xiaoling.
"Ma Xiaoling, if... I mean if... you can still live, let's be together."
Ren Zhong immediately received Ma Xiaoling's response.
"Although I know you are just comforting me, I am already satisfied."
…
Another eight minutes passed.
Everyone is dead.
Only Ren Zhong was left standing alone on the empty platform that had stopped.
The platform coated with neutron material is also full of pits.
The neutron coating of the Absolute Wall of Sighs was not broken, but the alloy support underneath collapsed because it could not withstand the too strong impact.
In front of the platform is another spacious hall.
The hall was already riddled with holes in the aftermath of the battle.
The beautiful self-luminous wall that originally looked resplendent was fragmented and mottled, and only occasionally shone with a faint light.
In the dim light, Ren Zhong closed his eyes tightly, recalling a long list of numbers in his mind, and reviewing hundreds of failed operations in the past.
After a moment, he clenched his fists and took a heavy step forward.
Click click click click…
The crisp sound of his red-fronted armor boots on the floor gradually faded away.
When he was about to leave the platform, Ren Zhong paused slightly.
On the ground three meters away from him, there was a piece of flesh hanging down.
This flesh and blood comes from Xiao Xingyue, it should be a certain part of her thigh.
About fifty seconds ago, Xiao Xingyue, who had been walking with him the longest, had to close the distance between herself and the beast because she needed to use her telekinesis ability to contain a level nine beast.
Before Ren Zhong rushed over, Xiao Xingyue was exhausted. The beast lost control and smashed her into pieces. Xiao Xingyue didn't even have a chance to say her last words.
Ren Zhong turned away silently and continued to look into the deep distance.
Finally, we have reached this point, and it’s time to push the gears of time forward.
I don’t know what the future will be like.
He wasn't sure if he could get back the comrades he lost today.
He could only move forward with such confusion, and then...wait for the flowers to bloom.
For the first time in his life, he felt uncertain about the future.
After he walked forward nearly two hundred meters, a dazzling light suddenly lit up above his head.
A human-shaped light and shadow slowly descended.
This is the 365th time Ren Zhong has faced it. This is the last obstacle on his way forward. The high-level weapon from the empire - the empire's special combat force, artificial intelligence killing robot, codenamed 001, is also the source star.
Experimental prototype of all faceless machines in the world.
Without any greetings or shouts, the human-shaped light and shadow suddenly swooped towards Ren Zhong and disintegrated before approaching, turning into a meteor shower and falling straight down, tearing Ren Zhong and his armor into pieces.
Then, the human-shaped light and shadow hit the ground and turned into a pool of golden dust.
Suddenly, there was a popping sound next to the dust.
It was a water balloon that burst.
Water mist flew all over the sky, then drifted down, mixing with the golden dust that was rising again from the ground.
Ren Zhong, who had been torn into pieces, suddenly appeared fifty meters away, safe and sound.
What was torn apart just now was not Ren Zhong, but a disguised shadow. This was the decoy tactic Ren Zhong had learned from Shi Xuan.
In the first encounter with this humanoid light and shadow, Ren Zhong's bait tactic failed. The shadow he left behind was easily seen through, and he was torn apart by the light and shadow on the spot.
Later, he used several full moon timelines to improve the performance of the bait.
During these full moon timelines, Ren Zhong had to transform into the real God of War, hiding in the dark to fully control the direction of the war, and transforming into a millstone of flesh and blood, turning soldiers, colonists, and innocents from both sides
They dragged in the deserted people, ground them into powder, stole many of them, and then sent them into the underground city to become part of the "pseudo network", providing new computing power to calculate the parameters of the bait target.
In the end, Ren Zhong, whose hands were stained with blood again, finally found the spectrum change curve that was enough to deceive the 001 killing robot, and put it into practice.
Ren Zhong actually did something similar more than once in these three thousand resurrections.
Now he is just concretizing all the resources and means he has accumulated in the past, and using them all like a volcano erupting.
The seemingly ordinary water mist bomb he threw was not real water, but a special gel extracted from the remains of the ruin beast by the Bass Group's R&D center. It has extremely strong adsorption capacity and is extremely high.
Specific heat capacity, strong light absorption.
This water mist bomb also used up several full moon timelines, and is also the highest crystallization of human wisdom in Source Star.
001, covered with water mist, changed several times in mid-air, seemingly trying to condense into a human form again, but it always failed.
Ren Zhong, who was standing next to him, had already put away his swords and instead held up a gun barrel with a caliber of nearly one decimeter in his hands.
I heard loud bang bang bang noises one after another, and dust bombs exploded in the room one after another.
This turns into another kind of dust.
Finally, 001 regained its human form and once again dispersed and turned into a meteor shower towards Ren Zhong. It barely broke free from the restraints of the gel.
As it advanced, the light on it gradually became dimmer.
However, this time it did not succeed in getting close to Ren Zhong. Instead, it seemed to hit an invisible wall and bounced back in place.
This wall is a thin film force field shield made by the iron plate that Ren Zhong threw and lasts only 0.1 milliseconds.
Every move it makes is carefully calculated, of course.
Then, 001 made a circle and pounced on Ren Zhong again.
This time it succeeded, but it was still only the camouflaged bait that was torn apart by it.
It was confused for a moment.
This is not an external manifestation of emotion, but a self-contradictory bug in its artificial intelligence data algorithm, which requires a lot of calculations to correct.
If the "net" still exists, its correction time will only take about a billionth of a second.
But now, it can only rely on its own computing power, and its response is much slower.
A full five seconds passed before it thought of a new way, that is, it no longer pursued Ren Zhong, but exploded on the spot, turning into light and filling the entire hall. It seemed to have spent a long time making logical judgments. It
He could not violate the three lowest robot laws, but he had to kill this person. After precise calculations, he believed that the frozen elders in the next room could survive.
The terrifying thermal energy reaction gradually rose in the hall, like a hydrogen bomb accumulating explosive impact.
Obviously, 001 has realized that it is impossible to capture any traces of Ren Zhong, so he decided to completely evaporate the place.
As a high-end weapon from the empire, this is the first time that 001 has been put into actual combat in the Origin Star, and has been forced into such a desperate situation.
That is to say, it has no consciousness and no emotions, otherwise it would definitely feel extremely aggrieved.
Under normal circumstances, with 001 combat power and lethality, it can kill everyone on the Origin Star civilization batch after batch.
It has nearly infinite energy.
but……
Now it faces a monster that understands it better than itself.
Under the ubiquitous light, Ren Zhong finally had nowhere to hide.
He huddled in the corner of the hall, throwing iron signs out one after another.
The thin film force field shield generated by the iron plate constantly blocks the incoming light.
But as time goes by, the light that can melt everything is still approaching.
Ren Zhong began to count down in his heart.
ten
Nine
eight
…
three
two
one
zero!
The light stopped advancing and began to shrink backwards.
Ren Zhong pounced out, and it was time for him to fight back.
If it continues, 001 will only need two more seconds to kill himself completely.
But it received a cease-and-desist order from the old popsicles and stopped its act of self-destruction.
The old popsicles are afraid that 001 will not only kill Ren Zhong, but also blow up the surrounding area inside the white ball.
Looking at Yuanxing, there is no one who cherishes his life more than the old popsicles. So much so that the old popsicles violated their absolute trust in the imperial weapons and ordered 001 to terminate the self-destruction out of fear of death. They did not believe in 001's judgment.
There was a small conflict between the three laws of human nature and robots at this moment, which instantly changed the situation of the battle. It is this layer that Ren Zhong takes advantage of. This is a psychological game.
When 001 reassembled into human form, Ren Zhong was already approaching.
At this time, 001 could no longer be photonicized again.
Just now, after it completely dispersed its body, the dust that hit it and was swept into its body when it contracted was exactly the body composition of the black round ball that Bai Feng refined before his death.
Ren Zhong still doesn't know what this substance is. He only knows that this thing can forcibly bind 001's body into a solid body, and quickly consume the energy in its body, constantly weakening its ability.
The power of the Red Front Armor has reached its peak level nine.
With the help of the overload agent and relying on the input of combat procedures in advance, Ren Zhong carried out indiscriminate bombing of 001.
Ren Zhong used the specially made double swords to chop for nearly five minutes. Finally, he completely scattered 001. This civilization-level war weapon was destroyed in Ren Zhong's hands in such a frustrating way.
Ren Zhong floated to the ground and stood in front of a neutron-coated door again.
In the past timeline, Ren Zhong once read the internal data of 001.
He knew that after passing through this door, he could see the trembling old popsicles hiding inside.