Chapter 11 chapter Ten

The clockwork girl didn't make any moves to protect herself.She just yelled in pain, but when the knife fell on her, her body couldn't even react subconsciously. "Bai!" Anderson shouted to Lao Gu, "Hurry up!" The rickshaw accelerated sharply as Anderson pushed the attacker aside.The Thai flicked the knife awkwardly at Anderson, then at the Clockwork Girl.She didn't hide.Blood splattered everywhere.Anderson pulled a wind-up pistol from under his shirt and slammed the barrel into the man's face. The man's eyes widened, he jumped out of the rickshaw in a hurry, and ran for cover.Anderson kept his eyes on him, wondering whether to shoot the man in the head or let him run away.But the man ducked behind a Mammoth van and didn't give him a chance to make up his mind.

"Damn it." Anderson looked over there for a while through the gap in the crowd, making sure that the person had escaped, and then put away the pistol.He turned to the girl lying in the car, "You are safe now." The clockwork man lay there motionless, the clothes on his body had been cut into several gaps, and were already torn.She closed her eyes and was breathing heavily.He placed his palm on her flushed forehead, and she shivered, her eyelids began to flutter.Her skin was burning hot, and her dark, lifeless eyes were fixed on him. "Please," she whispered. Her skin is surprisingly hot.She is dying.Anderson tugged at the top of her chest to cool her off.Her body was on fire, overheated from the rush of running and malevolent genetic design.Who would do such a thing to a life?It's unbelievably ridiculous.

He turned around and shouted: "Old Gu! Go to the sea wall!" Old Gu looked back at him, not understanding what he was talking about. "Water! Nam! Go to the sea, damn it!" Anderson explained in Chinese and Thai, and gestured towards the dam, "Hurry up! Hurry up!" Lao Gu nodded quickly.He stood on the pedals and accelerated with all his might, trying to make his way through the dense traffic.He kept yelling cursing words, letting the pedestrians and animals pulling carts get out of the way.Anderson fanned the Clockwork Girl with his own hat. Below the sea wall, Anderson carried the Clockwork Girl on his shoulders and climbed up the uneven steps.The steps were flanked by the figures of the naga guards, their long, undulating, serpentine bodies guiding him, and they watched him climb higher and higher with expressionless faces.Sweat trickled into his eyes.The wind-up girl on his shoulders scorched his skin like a furnace.

He climbed to the top of the sea wall.The red sun shone on his face, and the submerged city of Thonburi in the distance showed a black silhouette on the water.The heat of the sun was almost as hot as the body he was carrying.He staggered towards the beach and threw the girl into the sea.The salt water splashed all over him. She sank like a stone.Panting, Anderson jumped into the water too.You fool.You stupid fool.He grabbed one of her arms and pulled her up from the depths.He supported her with one hand, keeping her face above the water, while the other kept paddling to keep from sinking again.Her skin was still hot as fire.He almost thought the sea around her was about to boil, her black hair was all loose, undulating in the waves like a net.He could barely hold her.Lao Gu also jumped into the sea.Anderson waved him over. "Come here. Grab her."

Old Gu hesitated. "Get her, damn it. Get her." Lao Gu reluctantly put his hands under her armpits to support her.Anderson reached up and felt her neck to see if she still had a pulse.Has her brain been burnt to a ball of paste?He tried his best, but the one he rescued might just be a vegetable. Clockwork Girl's pulse beats as fast as a hummingbird's.A creature of her size shouldn't be so fast.Anderson leaned over to listen for her breath. Her eyes popped open.He dodged subconsciously, she began to struggle, but Lao Gu couldn't catch her.She sank again, out of sight.

"No!" Anderson plunged down. She floated up again, struggling, coughing, and reaching out to him.The hands of the two touched and then held together.He pulled her to the shore.Her clothes were tattered and tangled like a tangle of seaweed, but her black hair shone like silk.Her dark eyes stared at Anderson.Her skin miraculously cooled. "Why are you helping me?" The flickering lights of the methane lamps in the streets cast the city in ethereal green shadows.It was already dark, and the street lamps hissed, fighting the darkness with their faint light.Moisture condenses into beads on the pebbles and cement.People huddle together around the candles at the night market, the light illuminating their skin.

The Clockwork Girl asked again: "Why?" Anderson shrugged.It pleased him that the night had obscured his expression.For this question, he himself has no answer.If the man who had attacked her complained to the higher ups about a Farang and the Clockwork Girl and so on, there would be a lot of questions, and White Shirt would come and investigate him.It was a foolish risk, especially considering his identity had already been exposed.His physical features are too obvious, and the place where he met the clockwork girl is also quite close to Sir Francis's bar. As long as the authorities can find out there, he will be in more trouble.

He suppressed the emotion of fear.He was about to become a paranoid like Fu Sheng.The villain was clearly in a drugged-out state, and he wasn't going to tell White Shirt about it.He would just sneak away and lick his wounds somewhere unknown. Even so, this behavior is stupid enough. After she passed out in the rickshaw, he was sure she was going to die, and a part of him was even happy about it.But going back to the moment when he recognized her on the street, he would still go against all the training he had been trained to connect his fate to hers.The thought comforted him. He glanced at her.Her skin no longer had that palpitating blush, nor did it emit heat like a furnace.She held the remnants of her clothes to her chest, maintaining her dignity.Such behavior, of course, only arouses pity in him—even a lowly creature, so obsessed with owning his own dignity.

"Why?" she asked again. He shrugged again. "You need help." "Nobody's going to help the Clockwork Man." Her voice didn't waver. "You're a fool." She brushed the wet hair off her face.The unnatural mechanical pause movement is her characteristic as a clockwork person.In the torn part of the top, her smooth skin was looming, and her breasts were slightly raised.What does it feel like to touch her?The radiance on her skin looked so alluring. She noticed the look in his eyes, "Do you want to use me?" "No." He looked away anxiously, "There's no need to do that."

"I won't fight," she said. Anderson couldn't help but feel a pang of disgust at the tacit acquiescence in her words.If the situation hadn't been the way it was now, he would probably have tried her out and wouldn't have thought about it so much, but now, considering how low she expected of him, he couldn't allow himself to do that anymore.He forced a smile. "Thanks. I wouldn't do that." She nodded, looking out at the dank night and the green light of the street lamps.He didn't know if she appreciated him, or if she was surprised; he wasn't even sure if his behavior had any effect on her at all.Although she had temporarily shed her disguise when she was terrified and finally rescued, her mind was locked tightly now.

"Do you have anywhere to go? I'll take you." She shrugged. "Go to Raleigh. He's the only one who'll take me in." "But he's not the first to do it, is he? You haven't always..." His voice trailed off.Any wording would come off as rude.Looking at the girl in front of him, he was unwilling to call her a plaything from the bottom of his heart. She glanced at him, then looked out at the moving city again.The dim green phosphorescence of the methane lamps in the street illuminated a small area around it, and the distance between the street lamps seemed to be shrouded in a dark canyon.As they passed under a street lamp, Anderson saw her face, glistening with moisture in the dim light, with a pensive expression.Soon, they were hidden in the darkness again. "No. I haven't always been like this. No..." Her voice became smaller and smaller, "Not always like this." She was silent, as if thinking about something. "Three Xia Machinery Company hired me. I had a..." She shrugged, "a master. A high-ranking member of the company was my master, and I belonged to him. Yan—my master received a temporary He brought me to this country on a foreign trade business. I have a ninety-day entry permit. This permit is automatically renewable due to the friendly relationship between the royal family and Japan. I am his personal secretary: translation, arranging official business , and—accompaniment." She shrugged again—although it was hard to see, but he could feel it, "but the price of returning to Japan is expensive. The airship fare for new humans is the same as yours. My master thinks that his It would be more cost-effective for the secretary to stay in Bangkok. So after the mission ended, he decided to return to Osaka for a new upgraded version." "my God." She shrugged. "I got my last payment at the landing pad, and then he left. Flew away in the airship." "And now, Raleigh is your master?" he asked. She shrugged again, "Thai people don't use new humans as secretaries or translators. In Japan, it doesn't matter, it's even common. The birth rate there is too low, and there are many workers needed. As for here..." She shook her head , "The calorie market is tightly controlled, people only care about Udex rice, and food is precious. But Raleigh doesn't care about that. And Raleigh ... likes novelty." The greasy smell of fried fish wafted over.They passed a night market where people dined by candlelight, laden with noodles, grilled octopus on iron spits, and plates of fried minced meat.Anderson had a sudden urge to raise the rickshaw's awning and draw the curtain so no one else could see him with her, but he resisted the urge.Under the cooking pots, methane gas taxed by the Ministry of the Environment glows green.On the dark skin of the Thai people, the sheen of sweat is faintly visible.At their feet, Cheshire cats circled, waiting for falling scraps and opportunities to steal. A Cheshire cat appeared in the darkness ahead, and Lao Gu had to make a sharp turn.He cursed under his breath in his native tongue.Emiko laughed and even clapped her hands happily, much to Anderson's slight surprise.Lao Gu turned his head and glared at her angrily. "You like Cheshire cats?" Anderson asked. Emiko looked at him in surprise, "You don't like it?" "Where I come from, people are just worried about not killing them faster," he said. "Even the Grahamists offer a bounty for their fur. Maybe that's the only thing I agree with them." "Well, yes." Emiko was thinking, her eyebrows furrowed slightly, "I think they have evolved too much compared to this world. Today, purely natural birds have almost no chance of survival." She lightly He smiled slightly, "Think about it, if they didn't make the Cheshire Cat first, but what would happen if they made a new human first." Was there a malicious look in her eyes?Or a sad look? "What do you think?" Anderson asked. Emiko didn't look him in the eyes, but looked at the Cheshire cats circling under the diners' feet, "Genebreakers have learned a lot from Cheshire cats." She didn't say anything more, but Anderson could basically guess what was going on in her mind.If in the early days, when the gene breaker's thinking was not very clear, her kind was created, then they would have the ability to reproduce, and they would no longer have that special movement characteristic of eating and drinking.They might even be designed to resemble military-style Clockwork Men, with deadly force and fearlessness.This clockwork man is in service with the Vietnamese Army today.If the genetic crackers hadn't learned from the Cheshire cat, Emiko and her kind, as an improved human, might even have the chance to completely replace the original human.But now, their genes cannot survive.They are doomed to have only a single life, and cannot extend their lives like enhanced soybeans and whole-nutrient wheat. The shadow of another Cheshire cat raced across the street, its fur flickering in the dark before disappearing.A great tribute should be paid to Lewis Carroll: his creatures were spread by only a few airships and clippers, and suddenly whole groups of animals were wiped out, unable to fight unseen dangers. "We did recognize the mistake," Anderson commented. "Of course. But maybe I got to know it too slowly." A temple appeared in the distance in the night. She suddenly changed the subject and nodded there, "It's beautiful, what do you think? Do you like their temple?" Anderson was a little curious.Was she changing the subject just to avoid conflict and argument?Or was she afraid that her fantasies would be refuted by him?He gazed at the emerging pagodas and temple spiers, "much prettier than the Grahamist things in my hometown." "The Graham sect." She curled her lips. "They pay too much attention to ecological location and natural nature. It is equivalent to focusing on building Noah's Ark after the flood." Anderson thought of Hagrid, the sweaty priest lamenting the devastation wrought by the ivory beetles. "If they could do it, they'd keep us all on the continent we belonged to." "That's impossible. Humans like to expand their territories, populating new ecological locations." The gold ornaments on the temples glowed dimly in the moonlight.Yes, the world is shrinking again.With just a few rides in airships and clippers, Anderson can emerge onto dark streets on the other side of the world.This is really shocking.In his grandfather's generation, even the communication between the suburbs and the city center in the era of expansion was almost impossible.His grandparents had told him stories of the post-oil-run shrinkage era, when vast swaths of residential areas were abandoned and people scoured the abandoned suburbs for something usable.Back then, ten miles from home was considered a trip.But look at him now... In front of them, figures in white uniforms appeared at the entrance of the alley. Emiko's face suddenly turned pale, and she leaned towards him, "Hold me." Anderson tried to push her away, but she held on tight.White Shirt stopped and looked at them.As the distance got closer, the Clockwork Girl gripped tighter.He really didn't want to get close to the white shirt in this way.Anderson almost wanted to push her out of the car and run away.But he would never do that. She whispered: "I'm violating quarantine laws now, like a genetically modified weevil made in Japan. If they see me move, they'll know I'm a clockwork man. They'll throw me into the methane In the pool." She leaned limply closer to him, "I'm sorry. Please." Her eyes begged him. An impulse of pity swept over him, and he stretched his arms around her waist, leaning her body into his arms.Whatever protection a Calorie agent could give a piece of illegal Japanese junk, he'd done it now.The Ministry of Environment people yelled something at them with a laugh, and Anderson smiled back and even nodded, despite his skin prickling.The white shirts were still staring at them.One of them smiled and said something to the other, and when he turned around, he revealed the baton dangling from his waist.Emiko trembled involuntarily, but the smile remained unchanged on her face.Anderson pulled her closer. Please don't ask for bribes.not now.please. They passed White Shirt quickly. Behind them there was a burst of laughter from the white shirts, perhaps at the pair of Farang and the girl hugging each other, perhaps because of something else completely unrelated - but none of that mattered, they had been pulled down After some distance, he and Emiko were safe again. She slipped out of his arms, still trembling. "Thanks," she whispered, "I was too careless to come out. I was so stupid." She brushed the hair from her face and looked back.The Ministry of Environment people are backing away rapidly, getting further and further away.She clenched her fists, "Stupid girl," she murmured, "you're not a Cheshire Cat, you can't disappear if you want to." She shook her head, annoyed at herself, "Stupid, stupid, stupid. "She went home with a lesson this time. Seeing her like this, Anderson froze.Emiko obviously can only adapt to another world, not this hot place of barbarism and backwardness.It was obvious that the city would swallow her up sooner or later. She finally caught his gaze, and smiled sadly at him, "Nothing lasts forever, I think." "Indeed." Anderson's throat tightened. They stare at each other.The neckline of her blouse was pulled open again, revealing the line of her throat and the curve of her cleavage.She didn't hide her body anymore, just looked at him with melancholy and sad eyes.Does she mean it?Was she trying to encourage him to do something?Or is it her nature to seduce men?Maybe she couldn't stop herself.Like the cunning and alertness of the Cheshire cat when it hunted birds, it was an instinct built into her DNA.Anderson leaned over nervously. Emiko didn't dodge, but came up to meet her.Her lips are soft.Anderson's hand brushed her hips, pulling her blouse back, groping inside.Panting, she moved closer, her lips parted slightly.She wishes to do so?Or reluctantly acquiesce?Does she have no ability to refuse at all?Her breasts pressed against his chest.Her hands slid off him.He was shaking, shaking like a sixteen-year-old boy.Did the scientists who designed her embed hormones in her DNA?Her body is simply intoxicating. He was no longer able to take care of the people on the street, Lao Gu, and everything else.He pulled her into his arms, holding her perfect tits.In his palm, the Clockwork Girl's heart beat as fast as the heart of a hummingbird.