Apocalyptic Island - Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Wen Yishu immediately nudged Bai Mi. Having been exhausted to the limit, Bai Mi was sleeping very soundly and didn’t wake up from the first push.

The knocking at the door did not stop.

Tuo-tuo-tuo-tuo-tuo-tuo.

This time, there were more of them. The small clusters of dark shadows outside the door had multiplied; it looked as if many small hands were knocking simultaneously. Wen Yishu sat bolt upright, all traces of sleepiness vanished. There was no way this many ordinary people would be out at night—were they all courting death?

Wen Yishu gave Bai Mi another hard shove. Her body swayed significantly before she finally opened her eyes, looking at Wen Yishu with a dazed, uncomprehending expression.

Wen Yishu covered Bai Mi’s mouth and lifted her whole body up. Bai Mi saw the dark shadows outside, pulled Wen Yishu’s hand down, and the two exchanged a look before slipping off the bed from opposite sides.

The fear receded slightly once Bai Mi was awake. The guesthouse door featured semi-transparent frosted glass. They didn’t turn off the lights, hoping to prevent those outside from knowing their exact movements.

Wen Yishu looked up at the flickering emergency lights on the ceiling; the cold blue light cast cage-like shadows across her face. Her finger never left the trigger of the flamethrower. The blue ammunition inside the tank sloshed slowly as she moved. The knocking grew increasingly frequent, as if it would never end.

Wen Yishu slid wordlessly to the window and lifted a corner of the blinds. A large face right against the glass gave her a jolt, and she snapped the blinds shut immediately.

“What the hell!”

Through the gap in the curtains, Wen Yishu saw a line of robot housekeepers knocking on the door. A spark of realization flashed in her mind. She had been following Bai Mi without checking the map, but now she knew where they were. This was likely the famous scenic spot of Binhai City: Robot Town. It was famous for its fully automated service, featuring absolutely no trace of human staff. It was an industry owned by a tech company sponsored by the Federation.

She glanced at Bai Mi standing by the window. Suddenly, the knocking at the door vanished. The night became terrifyingly silent. Just as the two were standing before the door with their nerves taut, the second wave of knocking arrived—and simultaneously, a click echoed from the counter behind them.

The robot housekeeper, who should have been immobilized after her power was cut, was now using her mechanical arms to grip the edge of the counter, attempting to crawl out. The smile on her face had twisted; her features seemed to act independently of one another, turning her expression into a grotesque jumble.

Wen Yishu pointed the flamethrower at the door while catching sight of the robot fully standing up in her peripheral vision. Horrifyingly, she began to recite advertising slogans in a synthesized voice. The off-key syllables, mixed with static, sounded like a broken old music box.

“Making every guest feel at home is our duty… Please queue in an orderly fashion for check-in… You will experience all-around automated service…”

Wen Yishu lowered her voice: “Take out the one inside first.”

Gripping her flamethrower, Wen Yishu strode toward the counter. At that moment, the robot abruptly stopped moving. She leaned over the counter, her expression returning to normal—retaining that eerie smile—and stared fixedly at Wen Yishu.

She spoke in the same standard service tone as before: “Detected that the checked-in guest has not completed identity registration. According to Article 37 of the Binhai City Safety Act, all unregistered lifeforms will be…”

The sound of synchronized mechanical movement came from outside. At least twenty different synthesized voices completed the sentence in unison: “…be temporarily detained.”

The robot housekeeper behind the counter suddenly lunged at Wen Yishu, her mechanical arm ejecting a metal needle like a syringe, aiming straight for Wen Yishu’s eyes. The blue flame of the flamethrower instantly enveloped her. The robot stiffened mid-air and plummeted straight onto the tiled floor.

But the noise outside grew louder, sounding like something was sawing through the door frame. The moment Wen Yishu ignited the flamethrower, she saw countless red light-spots floating outside the window. Those were the robots from the entire street; they stood neatly in the rain, their cameras all aimed at the guesthouse like a flock of electronic vultures waiting to pick apart their prey.

“Dear guest,” the counter robot twitched on the ground, still insisting on playing its recording, “Our shop provides… ultimate… permanent… accommodation services…”

Wen Yishu kicked away its reaching mechanical arm, stepped forward, and crushed its head to pieces. The syringe in that arm contained traces of a glowing white liquid. The smell was foul. Wen Yishu grabbed a piece of cloth to cover it.

The sound of shattering glass came from behind. The first intruder had found an entry through the side window, only to be kicked back out by Bai Mi.

In this moment, Wen Yishu realized she had fallen into another trap. she really wanted to scream at the people in the city who didn’t know how lucky they were; the city only dealt with sudden incidents, but the outskirts were riddled with danger. She had managed to fall for the same kind of trap twice. It felt like the apocalypse was refusing to give her a way out.

But she didn’t understand—what did the apocalypse have to do with these robots?

Wen Yishu looked at Bai Mi and pointed to the earpiece she still hadn’t taken off. The other woman understood her meaning instantly but simply shook her head. Wen Yishu thought of the worst-case scenario: Was Aix the one keeping her here?

Bai Mi sealed the window and quickly walked to the charred remains of the counter robot. She dipped her finger in the black ash and wrote in perfectly neat, bold characters on the floor: Yes and no.

Wen Yishu took a look, and before the army outside could break down the door, she grabbed the handle and threw the door open. The robots in the middle of their work froze, instinctively hiding the crowbars in their hands. They all shared the exact same face as the robot housekeeper inside—likely the same original model from the same production batch. Only their name tags, hair, and clothing decorations differed.

All the red lights vanished the moment Wen Yishu opened the door. Her palms were covered in cold sweat; she could see that the door had already been halfway sawn through. If she hadn’t opened it, the door would have been breached, and these robots would have swarmed them. Two pairs of hands were no match for dozens; there was no telling what would have happened.

But now that she had opened the door, these robots seemed to have triggered a specific command. They stood completely still, paralyzed in place, with no further movement. She finally understood why this place was so “safe” yet devoid of living people. Who would dare stay here? She certainly wouldn’t, and she loathed it.

Perhaps because it was the first time a living person had dared to open the door like this, the scenario hadn’t been written into their code. All the robots stared at Wen Yishu in unison. After lagging for a few seconds, they donned their stiff smiles once again.

“Please proceed to the designated area for accommodation.”

All the robots repeated the same sentence in unison, though the “designated areas” differed. Their eyes wrote out their intentions plain as day: they wanted to dismantle Wen Yishu into dozens of pieces and take her back to their own sectors.

These robots were truly insane. She didn’t know which program had glitched. Bai Mi was equally clueless; she would need to take apart the components and interface with the code to understand. But given the current situation, finding out the cause was likely impossible.

Wen Yishu let go of the door handle, dragged her weapon, and without a word, pulled the trigger, incinerating the nearest robot to ash. Except for some heat-resistant materials, it turned into charcoal in an instant. The charred robot housekeeper collapsed, emitting a foul stench of burnt plastic. All the surrounding robots scrambled back, leaving a large empty circle. Rows of eyes stared unblinkingly at their lifeless companion. The searing heat had triggered their hazard alarms; they froze in place, no longer daring to step forward.

Wen Yishu took the chance to slam the door shut. The red lights outside flared up again immediately. As she prepared to open the door again, Bai Mi caught her hand.

“No, one trick won’t work twice. They’ve iterated!”

She pulled Wen Yishu’s hand and ran toward the second floor. Wen Yishu stumbled from the speed, practically floating as she was dragged upstairs. The lobby door was under frantic attack from the robot horde outside and came crashing down. All the robots from the street poured in.

Wen Yishu watched the scene behind them in horror. Every robot followed its own operating path; they didn’t comically collide as she had imagined. They were like a well-trained army, marching with synchronized steps to invade their sanctuary.

Upstairs, the two had nowhere to go. Bai Mi kicked open a closed door on the second floor, pulling Wen Yishu down a long corridor toward the other side. Wen Yishu’s boots slipped on the wooden floorboards; the boards that should have been dry were now covered in slime, like the inner lining of some creature’s digestive tract. Bai Mi grabbed her backpack strap. When the two tumbled into a guest room, they saw dense red lights flickering outside the window.

They stood by the window inside the room as the biting night wind howled in. Wen Yishu threw herself at the window, her nails digging into the crevices of the frame. The so-called “window” was merely a holographic projection. In reality, it was a welded metal grate, with cables as complex as blood vessels wrapped around the bars.

In her heart, she let out a silent wail: How can a person be this unlucky twice!

There were even messy footprints remaining by the window. Perhaps others had rested in this town before, and in their desperation, they had chosen to run to the second floor just like them. They had fallen for the same trap. Her gaze scanned the surroundings; there was no blood in the room. Of course, if they had realized something was wrong earlier, they wouldn’t have lasted this long.

More footsteps echoed from all directions. A crowd of robot housekeepers gathered in the empty space below, all smiling through the transparent holographic screens at the two women upstairs. Wen Yishu’s heart sank halfway. There were pursuers in front and behind. She quickly adjusted her state and gripped her ammunition—three shots left. At the very least, she could burn the front-running robots to ash.

Bai Mi pushed a wardrobe over to block the door. As the wardrobe doors swung open, dozens of neatly folded outfits slid out. Every single one had a charred hole over the heart, and the collars were pinned with electronic name tags showing dates.

“June 13th, Gong Ziang.”

“June 13th, Cheng Long.”

“June 14th, Lin Shi.”

The dates were all from the last few days. A significant number of people had stopped here; some had entered this town even the day before them. Wen Yishu’s heart hammered. The overheat alarm on the flamethrower interrupted her reading.

Wen Yishu looked up and saw mechanical arms piercing through the wooden door, five slender metal fingers exploring the room like spider legs. Even more terrifying was the fluorescent liquid oozing from the finger joints, dripping onto the floor and corroding it with hissing small holes.

Who on earth had created these monster-like things! Ordinary robots would never have this many offensive settings.

Wen Yishu raised the flamethrower and let out a frantic burst, attempting to halt the robots’ intrusion. But very soon, the fuel needle dropped into the red zone. With fuel running low, she had to kick open the bathroom door to find a second way out. Bai Mi followed close behind, but they ran headlong into a service robot soaking in the bathtub.

Its metal skull had been flipped open, revealing writhing pink tissue inside. Those tumor-like substances were slowly growing along the water pipes. It looked somewhat like… some unknown spore, or perhaps a fungal colony.

Before they could think further, the wardrobe blocking the door was flipped aside entirely. The robot housekeeper stood at the entrance, her abdominal armor plates fully open to reveal over a dozen loaded syringes.

The moment the synthesized voice spoke, Wen Yishu recognized the tone—it was identical to the virtual idol from the holographic advertisements.

“Please cooperate to complete identity registration.”

The first syringe shot out like an arrow from a bow. Wen Yishu moved nimbly, raising her flamethrower to melt it. The fluorescent liquid atomized in the air. Wen Yishu immediately covered her nose and mouth, but she still caught a hint of bitterness.

Blue spots began to appear at the edges of her retinas, like broken screen pixels. It felt as if she had entered a game world; she could no longer see clearly what was in front of her. A thick film seemed to coat her eyes. Fortunately, she hadn’t inhaled much; after a moment of blurriness, she regained her clarity.

“The window!” Bai Mi suddenly pointed toward the bathroom.

The robot soaking in the tub had sat up at some point. Her decaying mechanical body was dissolving the bathroom’s bulletproof glass, creating an expanding corrosive hole.

Wen Yishu acted decisively, grabbing the lid of the smart toilet tank and smashing it into the robot’s head. Pink fragments splashed against the wall, still twitching as countless bright red tentacles grew from them, gripping the wall tightly.

Wen Yishu was horrified beyond measure. This thing seemed to possess a life force of its own—it wasn’t just fungi or spores!

They lunged toward the melting window while stepping on the edge of the tub, but then heard the click of syringes being ejected behind them.

Sharp pain exploded from the back of Wen Yishu’s neck. She stumbled, falling against the bathroom sink. Her final vision rested on Bai Mi. Bai Mi was lunging toward her with all her might, but the needles from three mechanical arms pierced her neck simultaneously. Fluorescent liquid was rapidly injected into her body, and she instantly lost the ability to move.

Strangely, the robot housekeepers did not continue their attack. Instead, they retreated neatly to the wall. All their chest cameras turned toward the southeast. Something there was observing the two people in the room through them.

The world before Wen Yishu’s eyes turned into a sea of fluorescent light. She could not hold onto her consciousness and could only allow herself to sink into the sea, falling into darkness.

Support Apocalyptic Island