Chapter Two

“Are you sure?” The voice sounded somewhat uncertain.

“Cut the nonsense! Come out and say that to my face!” Ye Chong’s expression was tinged with impatience, but the gravity in his eyes betrayed his true emotions. His entire body was half-crouched, like a fully-drawn bow ready to release a lethal arrow at any moment.

“Then I’m coming out.” The voice remained as calm and flat as ever.

No sooner had the words faded than the room plunged into darkness. Ye Chong barely had time to react before a thunderous crash resounded. A tidal wave of trash crashed down, engulfing him completely.

The garbage planet remained as tranquil as ever.

After a long while, near the pulse signal relay station, a pile of trash suddenly shifted. A pitch-black hand emerged, followed by a filthy figure crawling out of the heap.

“Cough, cough, when it rains, it pours… cough…” Ye Chong cursed as he brushed off the dirt and sand that had gotten into his clothes. Even now, he had no idea what had just happened.

Was this some kind of legendary suicide attack?

Surveying the devastation before him, Ye Chong realized that the entrance to his home had completely vanished. Everywhere he looked, there was only more trash. His heart sank—how long would it take to clear a path back in?

Muttering under his breath, Ye Chong seethed, “Just wait until I find you, you little punk—I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget!” His anger burned like an unquenchable fire.

He glanced at the culprit behind the disaster and found himself speechless.

Clearing out a passage took Ye Chong three full days. The hardship and sweat only fueled his rage toward the perpetrator, pushing it to new heights.

Yet when he finally stood face-to-face with the culprit, Ye Chong found that all his anger evaporated.

A beautiful, powerful metallic shell gleamed with a blue-and-white laser coating as pristine as new. Even surrounded by the filthiest of refuse, the mecha’s surface was spotless. When Ye Chong first discovered it, it stood there in silent majesty, steady as a mountain, as if nothing in the world could shake it.

At first glance, Ye Chong knew he had stumbled upon a treasure!

If his first glance filled him with joy, his second was bittersweet—he now understood the phrase “pain mixed with pleasure.”

A massive scar ran from its left shoulder down to its waist, exposing even part of the engine to the open air. The entire left arm was missing. It was like a masterpiece of art, perfect and peerless, brutally torn in two.

This was a humanoid mecha, around twelve meters tall, its frame slender and streamlined in blue and white, utterly unlike the stocky, heavy Winnie. Its chassis shimmered with an odd metallic glow, the plate armor on its chest like sculpted muscles—imposing, yet never bulky. The cold face was all sharp lines, as if carved by a blade, while the deep blue electronic eyes blinked rhythmically, lending it an almost otherworldly allure.

Ye Chong stood there, utterly dazed, staring at the battered mecha that had crashed through his home. At that moment, his mind was completely occupied by this incomplete yet alluring machine, as if entranced by a spell.

“Self-diagnostic complete. Engine at 86% functionality. Left arm at 0%. Cockpit at 97%. All other systems operational.”

The neutral voice snapped Ye Chong out of his reverie.

“Whoa! This mecha can run a self-check!” he blurted out, unable to contain his excitement. If one looked closely, they’d see a glistening trail of drool hanging from his wide-open mouth.

The crippled mecha suddenly spoke, “Hello!”

A talking, crippled mecha—Ye Chong was stunned. Reflexively, he replied, “Hello!”

“I am Mu Shang,” the mecha said. “You may call me Mu.”

Ye Chong was still in a daze. “Oh, I’m Ye Chong. You can call me Leaf.”

Suddenly, coming to his senses, Ye Chong jumped to his feet as if he’d been scalded, pointing at the mecha and stammering, “You… you… you can talk?”

Mu Shang nodded gracefully. “In a manner of speaking, you are not incorrect.”

Ye Chong repeated in disbelief, “A talking mecha?”

“Yes.”

With Mu Shang’s addition, Ye Chong’s home was now three times its previous size. From Mu Shang, he learned that the trinket he’d picked up was actually Mu Shang’s spatial button. However, Mu Shang seemed to prefer being outside rather than in subspace. Ye Chong didn’t mind the company; for a sixteen-year-old, loneliness was the hardest thing to endure.

He collapsed onto the ground, exhausted from his labor. Mu Shang imitated his posture and sat down heavily at Ye Chong’s side with a thud, sending up a cloud of dust. Caught off guard, Ye Chong was blown rolling to the wall by the gust. When he lifted his angry face, he saw that Mu Shang had left a large crater in the floor and was looking at him innocently, his posterior still sunk in the hole.

Two figures, one large and one small, sat together under the lamp.

Curious, Ye Chong asked, “Mu, how did you end up in this state?”

“Data corrupted. Unable to determine,” replied Mu Shang.

Ye Chong took a swig of water and laughed, “Ha, must be you weren’t strong enough and got beaten up!”

“Insufficient data. Unable to make a judgment.”

Ye Chong’s laughter died abruptly, and he pulled a face. “Come on, can’t you be a bit more interesting? Enough with the data, data, data!”

Mu Shang tilted his large head in confusion. “Interesting? What is interesting?”

Ye Chong scratched his scalp helplessly, stumped by the question. “Uh… well, that’s a complicated question. Let’s change the subject. Mu, are you male or female?”

…

Ye Chong sat in Mu Shang’s cockpit, eyes wide with disbelief, caressing every lever and button with palpable yearning. “Mu, you must be one of the strongest mechas out there, right?”

Mu replied calmly, “According to database information, the answer is negative. After calculation, the probability of being within the top 500 is 26%. Between 500 and 600, 63%. Beyond 600, 11%.”

Ye Chong was amazed. “Top 500? There are that many powerful mechas? Still, top 500 isn’t bad at all! At least it’s way better than Winnie!”

Of course, Ye Chong had no idea what it meant for Mu Shang, so badly damaged, to still rank among the top 500. His dream had always been to own a mecha just a little more advanced than Winnie—then he could challenge the fiercest mutant creatures on the garbage planet. He wondered what iron python lizard meat tasted like, licking his lips subconsciously. Ha, then I’ll be king of the garbage planet!

Mu Shang shattered his daydream. “Winnie’s capabilities cannot be calculated.”

Ye Chong pulled a long face. “Yeah, I know.” Then, with hope, he asked, “Mu, can you pilot this mecha yourself?”

“I can.”

So it seemed he’d be stuck piloting Winnie after all! Ye Chong was crestfallen, though a strange thought crossed his mind. “Then why do you have a cockpit?”

Mu Shang was silent for several seconds before answering, “Data corrupted. Unable to determine.”

“Do you remember who made you?” Ye Chong asked curiously.

“Data corrupted. Unable to determine.”

Ye Chong, starved for company, was in a chatty mood and was about to continue when a faint alarm sounded. Mu Shang said, “Energy insufficient.” Checking the energy gauge, Ye Chong saw it was one sliver away from empty.

The garbage planet, being just the right distance from a star, had inexhaustible solar energy—at least, Ye Chong had never worried about power before. But when he gathered all his backup power cells, he found they didn’t even reach a tenth of Mu Shang’s indicator. He was stunned.

When Mu Shang connected a solar panel directly to himself, Ye Chong was at a total loss for words. All he could do was pray that the energy cell powering his home would last until Mu Shang was recharged.

Mu Shang silently absorbed energy, and Ye Chong, bored, soon drifted off to sleep.

When Ye Chong awoke the next morning, rubbing his sleepy eyes, he noticed something different about Mu Shang. The metallic surface now seemed to glow, making Mu Shang appear even more mysterious.

Ye Chong exclaimed, “Mu, you’ve suddenly become more beautiful!”

Mu Shang clearly understood what Ye Chong meant by beautiful and explained, “This is the photon activation effect. When energy is sufficient, the metal surface produces a luster. The basic principle is—”

Ye Chong, eyes drooping, yawned repeatedly.

Mu Shang, apparently relishing the role of teacher, droned on, “The other relevant knowledge is actually quite simple and can be summarized in the following aspects—”

Ye Chong sat with his head bowed, like a meditating monk. If one looked closely, a “water line” had already dripped onto his leg, soaking a large patch of his trousers.

As Mu Shang continued, “So, from this, we can conclude that a mecha’s capabilities—”

A small but distinct sound interrupted Mu Shang, who glared in irritation at its source. Ye Chong was snoring rhythmically, each wave louder than the last, his shoulders rising and falling in time.

Mu Shang was instantly petrified.