Chapter 91 – “Machine Spirit”?

Chapter 91 – “Machine Spirit”?

Yu Sheng realized his initial judgment had been somewhat off.

Although Eileen truly didn’t take up space, it was still cramped after getting in the car — and that had nothing to do with the people and everything to do with the car.

Which made it all the more remarkable that Xu Jiali could squeeze himself behind the steering wheel.

How on earth did a burly man nearly two meters tall end up choosing a car like this!

Yu Sheng and Hu Li were crammed together in the back seat (the passenger seat was stacked with two large cardboard boxes, leaving no room for anyone to sit). They listened as the engine at the front of the car began to shudder and turn over. Once the car finally pulled out of the neighborhood, he couldn’t hold back any longer and spoke up, asking Xu Jiali in the driver’s seat, “Is this your side gig after work?”

“Yep,” Xu Jiali said cheerfully. “I’ve got nothing better to do anyway. When I’m not on assignment, I like to drive around the city after work, so I figured I might as well earn a little pocket money on the side.”

Yu Sheng’s expression turned strange. He glanced at the shuddering little car, then at the burly man wedged into the front seat, and thought to himself — this was a senior deep-cover agent of the Special Operations Bureau, and after clocking out he drove for a rideshare app to make extra cash. And in a car that might very well be as old as Yu Sheng himself. So the Bureau’s employees lived this rough day to day?

The more he thought about it, the more something felt off, but he was too embarrassed to ask directly, and the question festered uncomfortably inside him.

Fortunately, someone present had thicker skin — among familiar faces, the little doll no longer needed to keep up her “disguise.”

Eileen’s eyes rolled once, their highlight restored, and she wriggled from Hu Li’s arms to the middle of the back seat. Leaning forward, she asked, “Your car’s got plenty of ‘character,’ I’ll give it that — does the Special Operations Bureau not pay you people?”

“No, it’s not that,” Xu Jiali said with a smile and a shake of his head. “I’ve developed feelings for this car. It was the first car I bought after starting work. It was already used when I got it, but I’ve been driving it all these years, and I really can’t bear to trade it in.”

As he said this, he reached over and patted the gear shift beside him, tilting his head slightly. “And don’t let its age fool you — this old buddy has never let me down. Not once in all these years. Right, old buddy?”

The moment his words fell, Yu Sheng heard a deep, powerful rumble from the engine at the front, followed by two quick, light taps of the horn — “beep beep.”

It happened so fast that at first, he didn’t even register that anything was unusual.

It wasn’t until a few seconds later that it dawned on him belatedly — Xu Jiali hadn’t performed any extra operations, hadn’t pressed the horn. The car had genuinely, actively “responded” to its driver’s words!

“Your car…” Yu Sheng instantly sat bolt upright, staring at Xu Jiali in disbelief. “Did it just respond to you?”

In that instant, his imagination ran wild — an apparently decrepit old car secretly and meticulously modified by an elite agent, an electronic brain stuffed inside the rust-covered shell, the engine noise actually simulated by an artificial intelligence, and whenever the situation called for it, the thing could take flight, its four wheels flipping up to reveal eight-tube air-to-air missile launchers, even the exhaust pipe doubling as a projectile launcher…

But Xu Jiali merely smiled and said casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “It’s nothing. It’s a machine spirit.”

Yu Sheng: “…?”

Reality was even more outlandish than his imagination.

Xu Jiali continued, “That’s why a lot of people at the Bureau envy me. High-tech equipment is easy to get — once the budget comes through, you can have as much as you want. But a machine spirit? That’s something you can only stumble upon, never seek out. In our entire unit, there are only a handful of pieces of equipment with souls, and when they’re not deployed on missions, they’re treated like treasures. Our captain tried to buy this car off me several times, until the last time when my old buddy here got angry and chased him around the parking lot for three laps. He hasn’t dared bring it up since. Hey, why’d you all go quiet?”

Yu Sheng was still in a state of stunned stupor.

But judging from Xu Jiali’s tone, he gathered that the man seemed to be treating this as common knowledge — or at least, common knowledge within the Special Operations Bureau’s system.

So he had no choice but to forcefully suppress his astonishment, replacing it with a somewhat awkward expression of admiration: “…That’s… pretty impressive.”

“Right? So now a lot of people at the Bureau are following my example. Nobody wants to get rid of their old cars, old phones, whatever — they just keep using them stubbornly, hoping they’ll develop a machine spirit like mine did.”

Yu Sheng: “…”

A machine spirit developed through prolonged use! So in this world, if you handled prayer beads long enough they’d develop a patina, and if you drove a car long enough it’d grow a machine spirit?

Xu Jiali, focused on driving, hadn’t noticed the subtle shifts in Yu Sheng’s expression in the back seat. After a moment of quiet, he asked in a seemingly casual tone, “You folks are heading out pretty late. Looking at this address, there don’t seem to be any pedestrian malls or shopping centers around… Going to a night market?”

As he spoke, he glanced in the rearview mirror at the little doll sitting between Yu Sheng and Hu Li. “And this doll lady is coming along too — her way of going out is certainly creative.”

Yu Sheng was about to speak when Eileen beat him to it: “We’re going out to work!”

Then, belatedly, she turned to glance at Yu Sheng. “…We can tell him, right?”

Yu Sheng was indifferent. “Go ahead. It’s not some secret operation, and he’s on the official side anyway.”

“Work?” Xu Jiali’s reaction was immediate. After a brief silence, his tone turned serious. “Need any help?”

“No need,” Yu Sheng waved his hand. “It’s nothing major.”

Xu Jiali gave an acknowledging hum, but a few seconds later couldn’t help asking one more thing: “It’s legal, right? Don’t blame me for asking…”

“Little Red Riding Hood set it up for us.”

“Then it should be fine. The Fairy Tale organization has an excellent reputation and has always played by the rules,” Xu Jiali finally relaxed, though he still added a couple of reminders. “I know about you all establishing the ‘Inn.’ Just a few words of advice — the Borderland is a mixed bag. No matter how many eyes the Special Operations Bureau has out there, there are always blind spots. Watch out for scams, be wary of temptations, and if you find anyone or anything suspicious, don’t hesitate — just report it. Reporting is a virtue.”

Whether it was his imagination or not, Yu Sheng couldn’t help but feel that when Xu Jiali said “reporting is a virtue,” there was an unusual solemnity in his tone.

“Relax, we know what we’re doing,” Eileen waved her hand impatiently, urging him on. “By the way, can you drive any faster? I feel like your car is really struggling here…”

“It does seem a bit nervous today, can’t seem to loosen up,” Xu Jiali scratched his hair. “It even stalled once when we were approaching your street earlier. That’s not like it at all.”

Yu Sheng felt someone tug at his sleeve. He turned his head to find Hu Li staring at him intently.

“Benefactor, should I tie one of my tails to the back of the car and push?”

Yu Sheng rejected the fox girl’s idea without a moment’s hesitation.

Give me a break — a rocket-boosted subsonic Xiali tearing down the streets in the middle of the night? They might as well just go with a rocket-boosted fox! At least the latter was so absurd that fewer people might actually believe it. The former, if it alarmed the Borderland authorities, would probably cost Xu Jiali his driver’s license…

Regardless, despite taking roughly a quarter longer than a normal cab ride, Yu Sheng and his party arrived safely near the location Little Red Riding Hood had sent them.

Yu Sheng glanced out the car window and saw that the streetlights ahead were sparse. A large building loomed as a vague silhouette at the end of the road.

“We’ll get out here. The narrow road ahead will be hard to turn around in.”

“Sure,” Xu Jiali waved. “Don’t forget your belongings — and if you run into any real trouble, call me.”

Yu Sheng and his party departed.

On the dimly lit street, Xu Jiali watched as two figures (Eileen was too small and blocked by Hu Li) grew smaller and smaller in the distance. After quite a while, he finally let out a soft breath, released the steering wheel, and leaned back against the seat that felt rather cramped for someone his size.

The car started on its own, slowly drifting over to the side of the road where it wouldn’t be in the way. Then the engine hummed softly, making a gentle purring sound.

Xu Jiali glanced at the dashboard out of the corner of his eye, a faint smile at the corner of his lips. “Scared, old buddy?”

The engine gave two little grunts.

Xu Jiali stretched — an extremely ambitious stretch given the limited space — and placed his hand on the steering wheel.

“Say no more. You’ve had a long day. Let’s fill you up with premium ninety-seven.”

…

Yu Sheng looked back over his shoulder.

In the distance, faint lights were moving, turning, and disappearing on the other side of the road.

Eileen’s voice entered his mind: “Think that was a coincidence?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Yu Sheng waved his hand.

“Doesn’t matter?”

“A ride’s a ride no matter who’s driving — the real question is whether Li Lin will also ‘coincidentally’ show up driving for a rideshare app near our place next time. Hopefully his car will be bigger,” Yu Sheng said with a grin. “After a few more of these encounters, I won’t even need to pay the fare anymore. The Bureau will definitely reimburse them anyway.”

“…You’ve got a pretty carefree attitude about this.” Eileen remarked with genuine admiration.

Yu Sheng said nothing more. He simply reached over and patted Eileen’s hair, then lifted his gaze toward the distance.

Beneath a rather dim streetlamp, a petite girl in a dark red jacket stood quietly in the pool of light. She looked as though she had been waiting for quite some time.

(End of Chapter)