Chapter 67#

Gears of Fate 09#

With each person equipped with an empty bucket as a buffer, even a misplaced stone could be recovered. Under such layered safeguards, if something went wrong again, it would be a waste product slipped through without anyone noticing—the person at fault wouldn’t even know. What one didn’t know wouldn’t cause panic.

Yu Feichen returned to his position. Anphiel beside him had already resumed sorting, and Ko An worked with her head down. When Anphiel made that gesture, she had avoided the angle where Yu Feichen could see it, and Yu Feichen had no intention of bringing it up. Anything could become a weapon that harvested lives. Good intentions could turn into misfortune. Parables could become prophecies. A fragmented world was such a place.

Lillia grieved for the Eight-Legged Gentleman, wiping tears as she picked stones. Yet as she continued, her tears dried on her face without her noticing, and she couldn’t spare any emotion for grief anymore—all her focus went to rapidly sorting stones.

With one person gone, the total number of crystals remained unchanged. The workload distributed among everyone had only increased.

Chen Tong hauled the crystal bucket between the eleven conveyor lines, moving swiftly. His work didn’t require much brainpower, but he used what he could: placing more stones for faster workers, calling out a few hurried words to slower ones, or patting the shoulders of the big sister discreetly wiping tears.

Finally, when the hour hand turned past the first 15-degree angle, they finished processing all the red crystals. Roughly a hundred pieces of waste had been sorted out and placed into a waste bucket marked with an “x.” After transporting all the red crystals, the conveyor belt paused briefly before moving in the opposite direction, and they relocated to the other end. Since all red crystals had been removed, only black ones remained, eliminating the need for the first sorting stage. Chen Tong came to the position originally occupied by the Eight-Legged Gentleman and voluntarily took over his work.

When they finished processing this batch of black crystals, the magic furnace trembled and roared. The sealed furnace doors opened, metal plates descended, and a new batch of crystals poured out with rolling heat waves. A new round of work began. They had to process six batches in total before the day ended.

The third batch was processed fastest. Everyone worked with unusual proficiency, finding the quickest movements, and their focus peaked. After finishing this batch, they even had time to rest for ten minutes. But the fourth round slowed down, barely completed within the time limit.

By then their bodies were tired and aching, every movement sluggish. By the fifth round, they could barely hold on. Lingwei Daoist voluntarily stood and “sealed the meridians” for everyone—tapping several specific points on their shoulders and backs. Light taps, yet they brought some relief. During the sixth round, Chen Tong became talkative, either encouraging everyone to work hard, cursing the damned mechanical school, or earnestly explaining how disastrous failure would be.

Whether it was the thought of “last round, finish strong” that motivated everyone, or Chen Tong’s encouragement that worked, or whether the fates of Nini and the Eight-Legged Gentleman were too horrifying—no one wanted to die like that. In a state of extreme physical and mental exhaustion, they simply endured through it and completed the sixth round.

The broadcast voice remained sweet: “Class is over! You’ve worked hard, dear students~”

——Finally finished. Chen Tong nearly collapsed. His voice had already become hoarse from so much motivational talking: “Damn loudspeaker, I’ll smash you eventually.”

Anphiel leaned against the work chair, his complexion not good. Yu Feichen walked over and massaged his temples a few times.

Bai Song stood too quickly from the chair, causing the world to spin and stars to appear before his eyes. He was about to rush to Yu Feichen’s side to complain, but his blurred vision caught sight of someone caring for a minor, so he changed direction and searched the floor near Lingwei Daoist for his consciousness.

Almost ten minutes passed after class ended before they staggered out through the classroom door.

Fortunately, what awaited them at the entrance was no longer a makeshift roller coaster, but a school bus identical to the one that brought them here. After fastening safety belts, they experienced another bout of dizziness. It wasn’t adding insult to injury—they were completely falling apart.

Only after finishing their dinner that evening did they truly recover.

Yu Feichen drained his portion and watched Anphiel slowly drink from his cup. The porcelain person had regained some liveliness. He was witnessing what it looked like to see a cat with folded ears waking up.

Physical exhaustion had disappeared, but mental exhaustion lingered. For a moment, no one in the cafeteria spoke. Vincent stared at the ceiling, Xue Xin buried himself in thought, Ko An lay motionless on the table.

After a while, Zheng Yuan said: “Don’t forget, today’s classroom test hasn’t been conducted yet.”

Last time they were taken back to the dormitory on a homemade roller coaster. This time? What role would the energy crystals they had selected play?

“Do you remember? That loudspeaker knew Nini’s name,” Bai Song said. “Because we registered it on paper. Before class today, we registered the dormitory numbers again.”

Lingwei nodded: “I too suspect the academy will capitalize on this.”

“Red is heat, black is motion. If we really placed the wrong stone, either room temperature goes out of control or mechanical movement does. We take it as it comes,” Xue Xin slammed his fist on the table.

Vincent: “Whatever happens, remember the school rules—don’t leave your room. The rest, we should each think about individually and discuss later.”

Yu Feichen left his seat and walked toward the corridor entrance.

The corridor entrance was suspended in space, impossible to venture far from, but from here one could survey most of the fortress. Unknown giant machinery turned ceaselessly, revealing nothing. The best way to escape a world was to explore it, but now they were limited everywhere. The machinery ruling this place was absolute. Everyone could only passively accept the information the dungeon provided. His thoughts remained calm, but his emotions carried a hint of irritation.

Light footsteps sounded behind him. It was Anphiel.

Yu Feichen assessed his own posture: he sat atop a metal rail, his back against the corridor wall, with a bottomless abyss beneath him. His position was undeniably relaxed—with his seventeen or eighteen-year-old appearance, he looked like a delinquent skipping class on a rooftop. But Anphiel had lost his officer status now, and he didn’t move.

The boy behind him spoke in a cold, detached tone, as if the officer had materialized again: “Are you lying on the rails?”

Yu Feichen: “I won’t die.”

The metal rails extended endlessly. Once a vehicle approached from far away, there would be vibrations here, naturally allowing them to avoid danger. He wasn’t recklessly seeking death; the view here was more open than the corridor.

The rail shook slightly. Yu Feichen turned back and saw that Anphiel had actually come down too. He said: “Be careful.” He didn’t mind wandering this cursed place alone, but if this person was here too, he’d want to pull him back to the corridor’s edge.

Anphiel gave a slight nod, moving steadily. But Yu Feichen still watched until Anphiel sat down beside him.

There seemed to be wind in the fortress, or perhaps it was just an illusion. Either way, it didn’t feel quite real.

Yu Feichen: “What did you come here for?”

But Anphiel turned to him: “You’re unhappy?”

Yu Feichen didn’t deny it. “A bit,” he said. “Lost.”

As the words left his mouth, he realized they were inappropriate. Most of the time, he wouldn’t reveal negative thoughts to others. Yet it came out naturally just now.

Anphiel’s expression remained unchanged. He turned to face Yu Feichen, his frost-green eyes like a calm, gentle pool of water.

“Just two lessons,” he said.

Yu Feichen gave a light hum of acknowledgment.

Two classes were just a beginning. There was no need to demand understanding of the entire puzzle right now. He understood the logic, and his behavior and decisions wouldn’t be affected, but there was an inescapable sense of emptiness to being reduced to a screw that could only move along predetermined tracks.

Yet listening to Anphiel’s light breathing beside him, Yu Feichen found that the irritation he’d felt moments ago had vanished completely. He became peaceful, like an employer who had purchased a service package. Involuntarily, he studied Anphiel.

Anphiel: “What are you thinking about?”

Yu Feichen gestured with his eyes toward the mechanical world below: “What do you think?”

Anphiel: “I don’t know more than you.”

His tone betrayed a refusal, as if deeply versed in the unspoken rules of the employment industry, implying: I could say, but it’ll cost extra. Or as if familiar with tutoring techniques, he was hinting: I think you can understand a bit more on your own.

Yu Feichen had led people for many years. This was the first time he experienced being brushed off like this, and he actually found it somewhat refreshing. He locked eyes with Anphiel and saw the delicate eye lashes with their gentle arc curve slightly upward. On an adult’s face, such an expression was called teasing; on a child’s, mischievous; on Anphiel’s, it was thoroughly deserving of a beating.

After one prolonged stare, mutual understanding was achieved. Yu Feichen thought that after sharing four worlds together until death, this person had finally revealed half his true nature to him.

He turned his gaze back to the metal maze below and said: “Something’s missing.”

People.

This entire city was composed of machinery, yet they had never encountered NPCs or other humanoid visitors. Because of this very fact, the entire dungeon felt quiet and eerie. And yet “machinery” as an entity was inherently inseparable from “people,” for it was human-made tool. Without people, there would be no tools.

But one couldn’t apply the logic of the normal world to a shattered dungeon. One had to change perspective and first accept its existence. What if this was simply a mechanical fortress without people? What would its purpose and needs be? Or rather, to maintain its own operation, what would it have to do?

——Of course, capture “people.”

Just as factories need workers, a mechanical world needs intelligent people to maintain itself, repair old machinery, design new machinery. Though vast and intricate, it was far from becoming an independent living thing.

Then, they—these outsiders—had become the power source of this fortress. The curriculum for beginners was the fortress’s method of screening qualified “workers.” After filtering out those incapable, it would continue with the next level of lessons for those who passed, until the cruel selection mechanism transformed ignorant outsiders into qualified maintenance workers.

And outsiders, to survive, could only submit to the machinery’s rule and work frantically. Ancient steam-age records held similar accounts—countless workers became one kind of industrial resource, forced by circumstance to exhaust their lives amid the roaring machinery.

“Can’t count on completing courses and graduating from the academy,” his thoughts grew clearer with the analysis. “That would only trap us deeper.”

The shattered steel fortress had become the master, and it was without life and without feeling—merely extracting human value until there was nothing left.

Anphiel said: “Break it.”

“You’ve thought of something?”

Anphiel shook his head, lazily closing his eyes.

He’d just recovered, and now he was dizzy again? But they hadn’t been in a vehicle.

“It’s not motion sickness,” Anphiel said. “I’m afraid of rotation.”

Yu Feichen: “……”

He glanced at the rotating gears present everywhere in the fortress’s interior—each one turning in circles. Yu Feichen thought this person was far too good at getting ill. On the mothership, motion sickness; in the cold Rubber Valley, lung disease; in the temple at night, when it was most dangerous, narcolepsy. Now arriving at a mechanical maze with gears as its basic unit, he feared rotation.

Yu Feichen said sincerely: “You have problems.”

Anphiel remained with his eyes closed, but smiled softly, helpless yet gentle.

“Why?”

Then he asked: “What did you gain?”

In the temple dungeon, even the Empress, whose ability wasn’t that high, had a male attendant to bear her injuries. There was no reason why a player of Anphiel’s caliber would be fragile.

Anphiel tilted his head slightly, as if considering whether to tell him. But when people close their eyes, their perception of surroundings weakens, and this place was too dangerous. Seeing Anphiel move, Yu Feichen rested his right hand on the rail to his right, supporting himself with his arm behind the other’s back as a precaution.

Anphiel complied and leaned slightly toward him. A moment of quiet followed. Yu Feichen lowered his head, finding the blond boy resembled a lifeless delicate doll.

After a long while, he heard that flat voice: “Used them all.”

“Did you encounter a lot of danger?”

Anphiel shook his head.

“Get some things, pay some prices,” he said.

It was an answer without much meaning, cryptic as Murphy and the painter. Yu Feichen kept watching the teardrop mole beneath his eye and sensed—hovering around the boy’s brow and eyes—a wistfulness both distant and near.

He didn’t ask further. Brass gears rotated slowly, cycling endlessly, like the passage of time or the shifts of fate. The human voice around them had vanished, and it seemed people’s presence had too. They seemed to have become one of countless gears, swept along by something vast and unable to see its full picture.

Silence lasted a long time, until Anphiel said: “Let’s go.”

When they rose to leave, Anphiel stood first. Despite his own precarious situation, once back in the corridor, this person acted as if he feared Yu Feichen might stumble on the rails, and voluntarily extended a hand to pull him up.

Anphiel’s hand was very soft, fingers long and delicate. Yu Feichen wasn’t used to such contact, but this person seemed accustomed to it. Well, Pope Ludwig could lightly hold Jasmine’s hand while playing out a father-daughter moment right before him, and had once half-embraced the Holy Son while speaking in warm tones. Presumably, he had no objection to brushing hands with people.

Different paths, different doctrines. After being pulled back to the corridor, Yu Feichen naturally and calmly severed his contact with Anphiel’s hand.