Stop Thinking Chapter 4: Soft Voice

Chapter 4: Soft Voice

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

The heavy overcast clouds that had been building up over the central part of the capital for two days finally fell like a sponge that had been wrung out of its full capacity and poured down.

The humidity in the air increased suddenly, and the slight sluggishness coming from the joints of his right arm reminded Gu Xiuhan that he hadn’t maintained his mechanical arm for some time.

The more sophisticated the machinery, the more tedious the maintenance, and some steps required manual intervention. Because it was difficult to tolerate outsiders being near, Gu Xiuhan did nearly half of the work that should have been done by the technical mechanics himself.

With his maintenance tools lined up on the table, Gu Xiuhan unsnapped the top three buttons of his shirt and pulled his right arm out of the sleeve.

Above his upper arm, about five centimeters from the shoulder, a circle of skin remained spattered with dark red scars, as if the entire strip had been dipped in strong acid.

Below the scar was an alloy arm with a steel-blue body, the nerve joints of flesh and blood and machinery had long been melded together, a yellowish aura suggests that the current mechanical maintenance level is C +, there were a series of problems such as poor contact with electronic components.

Gu Xiuhan cut off the nerve sensing, about to start work, the door of the underground maintenance room suddenly opened.

Ruan Yu peeked out half his head, his silver hair was fluffy from the hallway lights, and his big eyes just met Gu Xiuhan’s cold black pupils, and his tail fins swished with a wind-breaking sound, like a white puppy searching from room to room for signs of his handlers.

Gu Xiuhan was silent.

This little tail was absolutely impossible to get rid of.

“Brother Xiuhan.” Ruan Yu came out from behind the door with a box of tools instead of the little blanket in his arms, “I feel like your mechanical arm is due for maintenance…”

These days his fishtail was hurting more frequently, and when Gu Xiuhan gave him a massage, he noticed a very subtle lag in the mechanical arm.

Ruan Yu did not finish his sentence, his eyes swept to the tools set out in front of Gu Xiuhan, because of this tacit understanding, proudly cocked his tail and manipulated the mobility scooter to drive in.

Gu Xiuhan’s thin lips pursed into a line, coldly said, “No need for your help.”

His shirt was about to be removed, revealing a large area of light wheat skin on his right shoulder and neck and forehead. From the blood and fire in a thousand refinements out of the body as strong as iron, muscle groups undulating, light and shadow staggering like a sculpture, his neck tendons slightly moved for unknown reasons.

This was inconvenient.

Gu Xiuhan was about to put on his shirt when Ruan Yu came close and grabbed his empty right sleeve, childishly tying a dead knot to prevent him from putting his arm through.

“…”

Gu Xiuhan expressionlessly turned his face and glanced at Ruan Yu.

Ruan Yu, even if he was slow to react, could sense that Gu Xiuhan was trying to avoid confrontation, and the last time he said he wasn’t glaring at him, this time he was glaring at him regardless of how he defended himself, and Ruan Yu hesitated and whispered an explanation and a rhetorical question. 

“You have to use your left hand to maintain yourself, it’s much slower than if I were to do it… What are you afraid of me seeing? Don’t I look like this too?”

Like this?

This statement, as if giving Gu Xiuhan permission to scan Ruan Yu’s body, his eyes skimmed over Ruan Yu’s white, clam-like waist and belly in a slapdash manner.

Fine.

It’s so fine and tough that people have the illusion that they can hold it in their palms, lean, no extra flesh, but inexplicably soft.

Gu Xiuhan’s left hand on the edge of the table curved inward at an imperceptible angle, like a shallow virtual grip on a handful of air, but also like a small, unconscious action that would not attract anyone’s attention.

Ruan Yu and him… Obviously, they don’t look alike.

But exactly what was different, it was difficult to explain.

Saying it out loud would be like sexual harassment.

Gu Xiuhan pressed down the hot current surging in his belly, splitting the mecha in his head to divert his attention, and stared ahead without saying anything.

In Ruan Yu’s perception, in this short minute or so, Gu Xiuhan’s mental body first turned from a somber dull blue to an uneasy light red, then rapidly warmed up to a blazing white, and finally fell abruptly back to dull blue.

“…”

Ruan Yu wrinkled his brow slightly in confusion, withdrew his mental energy, and his hand that was picking out tools paused.

Ruan Yu had never seen anyone else’s mood swings, but most of them were only for people who were jumpy or sensitive and emotional. Gu Xiuhan had always been calm and serious, self-sufficient like a machine, unless it was an outbreak of mental energy or on the verge of one, otherwise his mental body would never jump up and down like this without logic and madness.

Brother Xiuhan’s mental state was really unstable…

Maybe the jet lag syndrome wasn’t cured.

Ruan Yu, who had been watching Gu Xiuhan take his medicine for the past few days, pursed his lips, pulled off a piece of medical cotton, sprayed some mechanical disinfectant, and dusted the shell of Gu Xiuhan’s right arm.

It may be possible that spending too much time in the hard and closed border star that lacked sunlight, had caused psychological problems without them perceiving it.

He still needed to be observed.

Ruan Yu pondered while carefully removing the alloy shell of the arm and cleaning the inside.

This task had been done by Ruan Yu too many times since he was a child, and the structure diagram of each model of Gu Xiuhan’s robotic arm existed in his head, so clear that he was so skilled that he could find the hair-thin wires inside it even with his eyes closed.

But even if he was skilled, Ruan Yu was careful during each maintenance as if it were his first time.

Because Ruan Yu concentrated too deeply, his mouth was tightly closed, and his lips were thin but fleshy, soft and red, and when he encountered a delicate place that was not easy to clean, he pursed them even harder and the shape slightly changed…

Gu Xiuhan averted his eyes and breathed out heavily like he had been tortured.

To Ruan Yu’s ears, it was interpreted as Gu Xiuhan’s regretful sigh due to the lack of a limb.

Now Ruan Yu’s lips were not only red, but his eyes were also slowly filled with a touch of red.

When Gu Xiuhan swept his eyes away again, he saw Ruan Yu’s eyelashes clinging to one lock, silent, and the tear crystals that hadn’t solidified before they broke on the fishtail waved out a shattered light.

Because of the fear of tears falling into the mechanical arm, the body also twisted back, poor and cute.

“Go wipe.” Gu Xiuhan immediately understood, and his heart suddenly softened, trying to lighten his voice, word by word, “I do not care.”

Ruan Yu obediently drew a few tissues, and his face was wiped clean, but it was still clouded with sorrow.

How can you not care?

Putting the heart in the right place, not to mention the loss of an arm. Ruan Yu felt that even if only one fin was missing he would be very sensitive.

His chest ached, as if there was a very acidic clot between his lungs that had been soaked up by tears, and he had cried once, but the pain was even worse.

Heartache, distress… Ruan Yu had tasted these complex feelings when he was very young.

It was when he first understood why Gu Xiuhan had to get a stiff and unattractive metal arm.

It was because his real arm didn’t function properly. It was destroyed by a monster that looked like a big bug.

But the new machine arm also worked very well, and the strength was even greater than before…

— Shen Jingya did not want to coax Ruan Yu, in the face of Ruan Yu’s questioning, tried to explain to him in simple and easy to understand statements.

The two-year-old Ruan Yu looked at Shen Jingya in a daze for a while, then suddenly hugged Gu Xiuhan’s mechanical arm and bawled, crying, hiccuping, breathless, teardrops crackling all over the floor. Crying and weeping, little fish baby cried himself dry, he clung to the mechanical arm, clutching the water bottle as he guzzled his fill, and then started crying again.

In the face of such a crybaby, teenager Gu Xiuhan could only stare with a cold face, but fortunately there was Shen Jingya there.

She made every effort to calm Ruan Yu down, told him it was not his fault that his brother was injured, and asked him why he was crying so much.

Ruan Yu, who had already learned a lot of imperial words, pointed to Shen Jingya’s heart and sobbed, “Auntie here, it hurts.”

As a mother, no matter how long it had been, as long as she remembered that her child had endured such a tragic injury, Shen Jingya’s heart would raise a huge wave.

That heartache and regret was so strong that it was captured by Ruan Yu.

“Ruan Ruan here…” Then, Ruan Yu pressed his own heart with his white chubby little hand, his face crinkled, and he was sad to shed tears again, “It hurts too.”

He could not help but ache for Gu Xiuhan.

He still vividly remembered that day.

Those hideous and disgusting monsters came from beyond the sky and invaded their ocean.

Crushed by size and combat power, the mermaid race was as small as ants in front of the alien species and had no power to resist.

The azure water was no longer gentle, the waves were filled with a corrosive pus that made the gills sting, and the white and swollen limbs of the royal guards floated above the surface of the sea.

The guards died together with a medium-sized alien species, and before dying, they stuffed the young prince into a dense grove of coral, just so he could live a few more days with the shelter.

The good young mermaid, in strict compliance with the chief escort’s deathbed instructions, gritted his teeth to stifle the instinct to find his kin, hugged the short fat fish tail and curled into a small ball, the tumbling roiling fin veil firmly gathered, so that the body sunk deep in the coral forest. He had been hungry for days, starving, but obediently did not swim outside to feed, only swallowing seawater in small puffs with white lips, feeding on a little plankton.

Not even dare to cry.

Tear crystals may attract alien species.

These days there were many small and medium-sized alien species swimming through this coral forest, the slightest hint may invite a life danger.

Ruan Yu thought he would die of starvation and turn into a tiny skeleton in the coral forest.

Until that day, through the intricate branches of coral, Ruan Yu saw an incomprehensibly large black shadow floating above the sea.

It was the leader of the alien species, one of several king-fathers of the alien queen, a giant leviathan creature that was almost a hovering fortress in the air.

It cautiously, with the number of hair-like knuckles inch by inch measuring the bottom of the sea, searched for surviving mermaids.

Like cleaning the Queen’s new residence of stubborn vermin.

The long, swollen knuckles of the monstrous species plowed deeply through the white sand of the sea floor.

The fragile coral forest fell apart in an instant.

The smoky sand covered the sky, accompanied by the dull rumbling sound of the shallow ground vibrating, Ruan Yu finally had no place to hide, covering his mouth desperately, the fish tail swung, swimming swiftly and silently like water arrows to the unknown sea to escape capture and death.

The unspeakable fear and despair forced Ruan Yu’s tears that had been stored for days to come out of his eyes and fly like a chain of beads, his small chest heaving wildly.

But baby Ruan Yu’s desperate escape was slow as if frozen in the perception of the leader of the alien species.

A monstrous tentacle gently coiled Ruan Yu, with a speed that far exceeded the limits of mermaid movement and violently dragged him from the deep sea to the surface, the sudden change in water pressure made Ruan Yu dizzy, mouth and nose spraying blood.

In the face of death, Ruan Yu still refused to give up a chance of life that the mermaid guards had fought to the death for him. His short fat fish tail fiercely smacked the tentacle, causing his scales to break apart, and his small round blunt teeth were embedded deep in the keratin of the alien skin. He refused to let go of his mouth even though his gums were bleeding.

The speed of the tentacle tightening abruptly slowed down, becoming extremely sluggish.

The leader of the alien species blinked, the membrane clicked, it was happy to observe this desire for survival of the creature wane little by little, strangled to suffocation in a tragic situation.

“Oooh…”

His last bit of air in the alveoli was about to be squeezed clean.

His strength was also completely exhausted.

The near-death experience made Ruan Yu’s consciousness blank in a flash, and his brain was stuffed with cotton.

And at that very moment.

Ruan Yu’s eyes suddenly went white and bright –

A dozen long-range high-energy particle beams of unknown origin pierced through the hideous and bloated body of the alien leader.

Before being struck by the beams, the leader of the alien species agilely avoided the lethal areas, but was still hurt badly, roared in pain and went into the sea, raising a huge wave.

As the blood spilled thickly, the high-pitched roar of the alien leader made Ruan Yu’s eardrums sting and ring sharply, drowning out all sound.

In the confusion, all Ruan Yu knew was that the tentacles binding him were painfully loosened. He drifted into the sea, struggling to keep his breath and balance amidst the violent shocks and turbulence, and instinctively dived toward the deep to avoid the waves.

The alien leader’s tentacles bounced high into the air, and a huge dark blue mecha was tangled up and plunged into the sea.

The two sides battled together, with the alien leader having the size advantage, but its maneuverability was nowhere near that of a mecha manned by an SSS-class genetic pilot.

The plasma blades cut off bundles of limbs in unison like straws, melting the wounds like hot wax and splashing foul-smelling juices, scorching the mecha’s protective layer with scorch marks.

The alien species could collect and fuse environmentally beneficial genes in the body of prey through feeding autonomously, and the corrosive strength of this leader had gone through a new round of evolution.

A few rounds of exchanges down, the alien species leader was defeated, gradually overwhelmed. When it was on the verge of death, it attempted to force the mecha to retreat by corroding the cockpit in an unsuccessful bid to turn the tide, but the steel giant didn’t give an inch and used its cannon muzzle to hold on to the abdominal cavity of the alien leader against the pain of the acid burn, blasting all those tough organs into pieces…

All was silent again.

The heavy clouds above the sea seemed to have been torn by the battle.

The light of the stars spilled from the edge of the clouds to this ravaged azure ocean.

The waves were churning, the heart of the waves were gentle, and daylight, like crushed gold leaf, dotted the tips.

The steel giant dosed from head to toe with corrosive fluid, its shell mottled and pitted by acid etching, wisps of steam rising.

It aimed its mecha head at the seawater beneath its feet, scanning the waters for vital signs under the Warring Areas Native Protection Act.

The steel giant crouched low and brought the five fingers of its huge left palm together, using the edge of the palm to very gently skim the surface of the water of the limbs and acid, and then probe into the depths to explore.

A few moments later, it picked up a handful of seawater in an almost pitying gesture.

In its palm, the sky blue seawater … There was a very, very young mermaid swimming around.

There were bruises and strangulation marks on his body, and the tail of the fish was bloodstained.

He was fragile like a smear of sea foam that was about to dissipate at sunrise.

Brother Xiuhan’s arm became unusable at that time. It was while saving Ruan Yu…

Little Ruan Yu figured out all the key points, including why the steel giant’s basically intact right arm had been hanging at his side, and only the left arm picked him up and sent him to the storage bin.

Wrapped in great guilt and remorse, Ruan Yu cried and could not stop, Shen Jingya could no longer coax him.

Teenager Gu Xiuhan had no choice but to walk around holding this little crybaby.

He could not understand.

Obviously, he was so young, a small lump, just a little big in his arms, how could he shed so many salty tears?

Due to severe expression disorder, the teenager Gu Xiuhan could not say much, or even mobilize any expression, a paralyzed face, cold enough to drop ice.

Many comforting words were blocked in his throat, unable to spill.

He knew that Ruan Yu could hear the voice of the heart.

So…

He focused his attention and repeatedly meditated on those words that were difficult to reach his mouth.

[Ruan Yu, don’t cry.]

[It stopped hurting a long time ago.]

[It was always on my clearance list, not because of you.]

[Don’t blame yourself.]

[…]

A heartfelt voice, cool and soft, fell on Ruan Yu’s ears.

Over and over again.

After a while, Ruan Yu suddenly pressed his face gently against Gu Xiuhan’s mechanical arm, wiped his eyes as he obediently stopped crying.

Gu Xiuhan was brimming with soft words… He could hear it all.