Transformers: Survival of Defective Products

Chapter 19 So annoying

That day, she and Knockout were standing in the front of the stands. A round had just ended, and the cheers from the audience hadn't completely died down yet.

He glanced upwards out of the corner of his eye and saw that familiar dark silhouette again.

Same old spot.

It was so quiet, as if it were in a completely different world from the one below.

She stared for two seconds, then finally couldn't resist and tilted her head to ask, "Hey, do you recognize that machine up high in the main station, the one that's so quiet it looks like it's not connected to the internet?"

He paused for a moment after being knocked down, then turned his head to look at her, barely concealing the surprise reflected in the mirror.

"...You didn't know?"

The vector frowned.

"Should I know?"

He chuckled softly and glanced up in the direction of her gaze.

"That one is a sound wave."

The moment the name was written, the vector subconsciously went through it in its core.

Sound waves.

They're quite a good match.

"He's also a very famous player here," Knockout said slowly. "He's similar to your guy, both the type you shouldn't mess with."

He glanced at him sideways.

"What do you mean by 'my partner'?"

He smirked, a slightly roguish and cheeky smile.

"You're going to Zhen Tianzun's backstage so often now that even the guards are too lazy to stop you. I can hardly continue to categorize you as an ordinary audience member."

Yin Vector couldn't help but roll his eyes: "That's because I'm unlucky, so I have to run around more often."

"Is that so?" Knockout said in a drawn-out tone, the smile in his mirror undiminished. "I think you're almost automatically categorized as being on his side now."

The vector didn't bother to respond to that sentence, and just glanced up again.

The sound waves are still there.

His position and posture remained unchanged, so quiet that the clamor below, which seemed to threaten to lift the roof off, was something entirely different from his own.

After staring at him for two seconds, Yin Vector still asked, "Was he playing really aggressively too?"

"No." Knockout answered quickly, glancing up her head in the direction of her gaze, his tone leisurely, "Completely different from your man."

The vector angle jumps.

"Could you please stop referring to 'your partner' all the time?"

"No." Knockdown said confidently, with a hint of smug satisfaction, "After all, I probably wouldn't be surprised if you walked out of his lounge one day."

The vector was momentarily speechless, so he simply ignored it.

Only after being knocked down did he finish saying the previous sentence:

"Zhen Tianzun is slamming his aura and words into your face, wanting the whole audience to know what he's up to today."

"The sound waves are different."

He paused for a moment, and the slight smile in his eyes faded a little.

"He's very quiet. But when he's on the field, he can still take down a machine."

The vector looked up again.

"It sounds like you quite admire him."

He knocked her down with a soft chuckle.

"I appreciate any method of processing that is neat, efficient, and doesn't turn you into a pile of junk. He really does a good job in that respect."

-

That night, after she got home, she casually removed the outer armor on her side waist to clean off the dust. When her fingertips touched the listening device that she had long since stopped hiding, she paused for a moment.

She stared at that thing for two seconds, and the more she looked, the angrier she became.

The next second, she didn't even bother to wipe the water droplets still clinging to the edge of her armor, and rushed out of the bathroom with the little thing in her hand.

Zhen Tianzun was looking down at the terminal when he heard the noise. He looked up and glanced over, his gaze lingering for a moment on the still-wet water droplets on her body and the half-open side armor before finally settling on the listening device in her hand.

"When exactly can we pick this?" Yin Xiang asked directly.

Zhen Tianzun glanced at her.

"What's wrong, getting annoyed again?"

"When have I ever not found it annoying?" Vector picked up the thing and shook it. "Do you know how much this thing looks like an asset label on me?"

After hearing this, Zhen Tianzun surprisingly did not immediately retort.

He paused for two seconds, then said calmly, "You can pick them."

The vector motion is delayed.

Zhen Tianzun leaned there, speaking in a flat tone.

"But location sharing within the frequency band is always enabled. If anything happens, let me know immediately."

The vector remained silent.

She stared at him for a while, then suddenly clipped the listening device to her thumb.

The next second, a flick of the finger.

The little thing jumped onto Zhen Tianzun with a "thud" and rolled along the edge of his shoulder armor into his hand.

The actions were not blatant.

Zhen Tianzun glanced down at it, but didn't get angry. He reached out, picked up the listening device, and casually tossed it back onto the table.

"You've got quite a temper." He said calmly, not taking her childish provocation to heart. "Don't turn off location sharing."

The vector signal opened the real-time positioning sharing interface in the frequency band, and the tone was very flat.

"understood."

She turned and walked away, but halfway there she turned back and said without looking back, "I'm going to take a shower."

Zhen Tianzun's gaze had already returned to the terminal, but he added, "Dry it up before you come out next time."

"There are so many rules, I know, I know." A voice from afar, clearly not taking it seriously, came from the distance.

After the bathroom door on the other side of the vector was closed again, the room became quiet for a moment.

Zhen Tianzun looked down at the terminal, but his gaze lingered for a long time before finally returning to the terminal.

The listening device that she had just flicked onto the table was still lying to one side, with a few water stains that she hadn't wiped clean from the way she had brought along.

He stared at the watermark for two seconds, unusually taking a moment to stop what he was doing.

This broken machine has been living here for so long!

How long?

So long that when she slammed the bathroom door, he knew she was probably going to continue cleaning the outer armor on her side.

So long ago, he had gotten used to seeing her every move: when she returned from Qingqiu City, when she would stay up late researching on her terminal, and when she would sit down and munch on an energy block with a grumpy face full of jargon from Red Spider's side.

And there's that "goodnight" message I send every night.

My computer is so annoying it's driving me crazy.

At first, Zhen Tianzun didn't think she could last long.

That machine was in such bad shape, missing a lot of things in its brain module, and it wouldn't behave itself. It didn't look like it could survive in this place for long.

He had already thought that if she really had no other choice, or if she couldn't hold on until she found a way out, he would simply find a repairman he knew to take her there and fix her most critical parts first.

At least don't let it actually rot and die right before our eyes.

As it turned out, this broken machine actually managed to be rebuilt on its own and even found its way to Starscream.

Thinking of this, Zhen Tianzun let out a soft snort.

They really do have a way of surviving.

And they're living their lives more and more like that.

His gaze swept over the listening device on the table, which no longer needed to be put back. His expression didn't change much, but he still felt a bit annoyed.

This lousy machine can be quite clever sometimes; it knows how to save itself, how to bargain, and when to pretend it didn't see anything.

But sometimes it seems like they have no concept of the most basic sense of propriety and implications.

Tonight, I was able to rush out with water stains all over my body without even realizing it was a problem.

Zhen Tianzun frowned.

trouble.

He eventually swiped the terminal back to its original interface, as if he didn't intend to continue thinking about these unnecessary things.

Before his fingertips touched the ground, his gaze shifted slightly towards the bathroom.

The sound of water can still be heard inside.

Zhen Tianzun glanced at it, then quickly looked away.

...Tsk.