Embers Ad Infinitum

Gu Bo is a thin and small old man, his gray hair is a little thinning, and his dark brown eyes are still bright.

He was wearing a black woolen jacket and holding a silver metal thermos cup in his hand. He pointed to the opposite side of the desk and said:

"Sit, sit."

Long Yuehong and Bai Chen nodded politely, pulled out their chairs and sat down.

"What's the matter with you?" Gu Bo's gray dialect has a slight accent, which is completely different from the local dialect.

Long Yuehong and Bai Chen judged based on this that the local president of the Hunter Guild was a first or second generation Tarnan resident and came from another area.

"President Gu, we have something to ask you." Long Yuehong replied politely.

Gu Bo laughed:

"Shouldn't this be a task that should be posted first and let me decide whether to accept it or not depending on the reward?

"The news or intelligence is valuable."

"..." Long Yuehong was speechless for a moment, and could only secretly sigh that he was worthy of being a senior hunter and the president of the local guild, he did what he did and loved what he did.

Bai Chen responded calmly:

"You can listen to our problems first and then decide how much reward to ask for. This can be done without going through the guild."

Gu Bo unscrewed the lid of the thermos cup, took a sip and said:

“As someone with old arms and legs, aren’t I afraid that you will regret it and not pay me?

"When the time comes, don't get embarrassed if you can't eat mutton, or get beaten if you don't get paid."

Seeing that Gu Boy was getting more and more outrageous, Long Yuehong suddenly missed Shang Jianyao.

At times like this, he can definitely take the topic to the next level.

"How can a local 'chief hunter' be afraid of this?" Bai Chen looked at Gu Bo and asked.

Long Yuehong inquired about Gu Bo last night and learned that he was originally a "senior hunter". After becoming the president, he was awarded the honorary title of "chief hunter".

"A good man is not as brave as he once was." Gu Bo laughed at himself, "When people get older, their health becomes less efficient."

What a joke, he calmed down his expression:

"Tell me, I'll see what the problem is and then decide what to do."

Long Yuehong took out an absorbent pen and a palm-sized notebook, pretended to record the contents, and asked:

"President Gu, do you remember Maximian?"

"Ah?" Gu Bo looked confused.

Long Yuehong quickly picked up the key points and made a prompt:

"In the early days of the new calendar, the man who was offered a reward by 'Machine Heaven'."

Gu Bo fell into memories, and after a while he said:

“He, it’s been decades, what are you asking him to do?

"Do you have any clues about him, that he is his descendant?"

You have quite a lot of imagination... Long Yue sneered and explained simply:

"We want to see the 'Source Brain', hoping to come up with something that the 'Machine Heaven' is interested in."

"Then you might as well accumulate metal minerals and do large transactions with 'Machine Paradise'. Then there might be some opportunities." Gu Bo felt that the young man's whim was completely unrealistic, "It's up to Maximian to do this. It’s been decades, maybe everyone is dead.”

"We are only responsible for this direction." Bai Chen blocked Gu Bo's advice with one sentence.

Gu Bo unscrewed the lid of the thermos cup again, took a sip of water, and moistened his throat:

"Then I'll tell you directly. I don't need any reward from you. I didn't find any clues at the beginning. This person is definitely not in the Chilar Mountains. Even if he is, he probably belongs to some beast or some 'careless person' in stomach."

"What kind of person is he? How was the reward announcement for 'Machine Paradise' originally written?" Long Yuehong asked further while recording Gu Bo's answer.

"What kind of person is he?" Gu Bo recalled, "There were photos and some descriptions at that time... This man was over 1.80 meters tall and had a strong body. His hair was blond, his eyes were light blue, and his nose was It's a bit big, but it looks pretty good. It's said to have been genetically optimized..."

In some places, genetic improvement is also called genetic optimization, and this is a technology that achieved breakthroughs before the destruction of the old world. However, it was later discontinued by most human forces, and only "Pangeosaurs" We continue to move forward and improve on this road with the "White Knights", making it mature enough.

As Long Yuehong quickly recorded, Gu Bo continued:

“I think he’s more of a warrior than a scientist, but the ‘Machine Paradise’ bounty announcement specifically emphasizes his identity.

"Other than this, there is nothing valuable in that announcement. It only says that if you find this person, 'Mechanical Heaven' can satisfy one of your requirements. It does not involve any arbitrary requirement of 'Mechanical Heaven''s life and death and the ability to complete it."

Give me an army of robots, and I will save the world... Hearing the arbitrary request, Long Yuehong couldn't help but imitate Shang Jianyao's thinking.

However, after he changed his mind, he felt that this idea was too common and did not have enough business sense.

At this time, Bai Chen asked:

"You just said you found this person, but you didn't mention why?"

"No." Gu Bo shook his head.

"Did you emphasize protecting certain things or tracking the whereabouts of certain information?" Bai Chen asked.

"No, I just said I would try my best to keep the target alive." Gu Bo was still a little impressed by this.

If there were these requirements, he would have changed the direction of the investigation and would not have reached a dead end.

"Remember this." Bai Chen warned Long Yuehong.

Based on her experience, this can be preliminarily judged: the focus of the "Mechanical Paradise" bounty on Maximian is this person, or what he has done, rather than the items and information that may be on him.

She and Long Yuehong asked a few more questions, but because it had been so many years, Gu Bo couldn't remember clearly and couldn't provide more information.

After politely saying goodbye and leaving the Hunter's Guild, Long Yuehong and Bai Chen walked towards the direction of the "Melting Pot Sect", preparing to meet Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao to discuss what to do next.

As she walked forward, Long Yuehong was slightly surprised to find that there were still many street stalls on the roadside, and the bottom floors of the houses on both sides were closed except for those with the signs of "XX Chamber of Commerce" and "XX Grocery Store". , no one operates it.

He walked to a street stall with some curiosity and asked the stall owner:

"Why don't you use a shop facing the street, where you can be exposed to the sun and rain?"

Because he had been to Wild Grass City, he knew the concept of street-facing shops.

And he remembered this piece of information provided by Hongshiji:

In Tarnan, unowned houses can be occupied by themselves, but if they are not used for a long time, they cannot apply for property rights from the intelligent robot.

The stall owner is a woman with rough skin, in her thirties, with a tanned face.

She said in a rather poor, gray dialect that was leaning toward the red stone collection:

“I have to renovate and clean it myself, how can I have so many supplies to put in it?

"Anyway, it doesn't matter whether the robot is setting up a stall on the roadside or not. When it rains, I will hold a big umbrella. Moreover, I can use electric lights for free."

At the end of her words, she pointed to the street lamp above her head.

Well, once you occupy a store and apply for power supply, do you need to pay a fee? Long Yuehong nodded with some understanding.

Because he asked the other party, he turned away embarrassedly and squatted down to look at the stall owner's goods.

There are books left over from the old world, the paper has turned yellow, there are also jade and diamond jewelry and scattered old world sundries.

After thinking about it, Long Yuehong asked Bai Chen who was squatting down:

"If you want to give it to a female elder, which one do you think is better?"

"You, mother?" Bai Chen easily deciphered Long Yuehong's true meaning.

Because "you" and "mom" would be weird when used together, she paused deliberately in the middle.

"Yes." This is not something to be ashamed of, Long Yuehong admitted it calmly.

At this moment, Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao, who had left the Melting Pot Church, saw their teammates here and quickly approached them, each finding a place to squat down.

After asking Long Yuehong's request clearly, Jiang Baimian laughed:

"I can give you some supplies in exchange for jewelry, and you can deduct them from your contribution points when you get back."

Bai Chen pointed to a green jade bracelet and said:

“Given your mother’s age, she might prefer this.

“Although it doesn’t look that good now, it will become moister after wearing it for a long time.

"I used to know a few female relic hunters because they couldn't sell this thing, so they had to wear it themselves. Later they found out that it looked pretty good."

"Yes, yes, yes." The stall owner heard what Bai Chen said and quickly agreed.

Jiang Baimian didn't have much research on this aspect, and he preferred bright diamonds, so he didn't comment and turned his attention to those books.

She found that Shang Jianyao had picked up a book and was reading it intently.

looking at what? Jiang Baimian lowered his head curiously and glanced at the cover of the book in Shang Jianyao's hand.

Soon, the title of the book caught her eyes:

"Actor's Self-cultivation"

"..." Jiang Baimian wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say.

After some bargaining, they exchanged a can for the jade bracelet and a can for four books - the remaining three were picked by Jiang Baimian.

After a simple and boring lunch, the "Old Tune Group" had nothing else to be busy with, so the four members did not go out and took a nap. Each occupied a chair (sofa) and read the book they just bought. .

Leisurely time always flies by quickly. Seeing that evening is coming, there is suddenly some noise in the distance.

"What happened?" Long Yuehong looked at the direction where the sound came from, wondering to herself.

"Go and have a look." Jiang Baimian felt it was time to move his body.

The group of four people immediately left the "Youmeng" hotel and walked towards the Binhe Avenue.

It didn't take long for them to discover the source of the noise:

Hunter Guild.

At this time, the noise had subsided, but there were still many people gathered there, and their expressions were a bit solemn.

Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao stepped into the guild and saw the mission frozen on the big screen at a glance:

"...Investigating the affairs of the 'high-level careless people' in the southwestern mountainous area..."

Didn't Gnawa send the robot guards to solve it? Jiang Baimian looked away in confusion and quickly found a line of description:

"...Ten members of the Robot Guard lost contact..."