The End of the Universe Is Live-Streaming E-commerce – CH15

Chapter 15: The 15th Day of Livestream Selling

Lin Zhao was not a military enthusiast, but when he heard the optional configurations Mechanic could provide, he was still very tempted. He silently recited several times in his heart, “Arms smuggling is illegal. According to Article 128 of our country’s Criminal Law, anyone who illegally possesses firearms or ammunition shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, and in serious circumstances, not more than seven years,” before finally stopping himself from switching careers from a future giant of cross-border e-commerce to becoming Viktor Bout.

Faced with Lin Zhao’s deeply moved yet firm refusal, Mechanic, half of whose face was covered by cold, hard silver metal in the private message, understood.

The world Lin Zhao was in should be very peaceful. At the very least, it still possessed a sound set of laws and moral order. Its social rules had not collapsed.

It was very much like those old-era humans from before the nuclear winter in urban legends.

How nice.

A flower living in a greenhouse.

This Mechanic, whose mental state did not look particularly stable, tapped the tablet before him with his overly pale fingers and felt that things had truly become interesting.

After the collapse of civilization, Kaman’s basic communications had basically become nonexistent. Most of the old communication devices had turned into bricks that could no longer connect to any network. Mechanic liked collecting these past “artworks,” treating them as offline databases, electronic notebooks, or some slightly more advanced toys.

On an ordinary, unremarkable morning when the radiation concentration outside had reached as high as 78%, one item among Mechanic’s many electronic collections suddenly lit up without warning.

This tall, thin genius with extremely unhealthy, deathly pale skin had originally been standing beneath the overly bright lamp above his workbench—a lamp modified from a surgical light, which should have been the only light source in the room. He was using a micro-carving knife and a microscopic probe to study a circuit board stripped from a prewar server, trying to awaken the last trace of data that might be sleeping inside it.

Then the abnormality happened so abruptly.

A gentle, beautiful young man suddenly appeared on the screen of the lit-up tablet.

Mechanic’s first reaction was to evaluate the other party’s external structure:

Rosy complexion, subcutaneous fat reserves, indicating periodic excess energy intake. However, muscle dimensions were insufficient, and basal metabolism appeared to be at an extremely low level relative to the survival tasks he might be expected to undertake, indicating a stable and abundant energy supply. And most importantly, the integrity of the skin covering was extremely high. No large-scale genetic collapse, no mechanical enhancements or functional prosthetics, lacking additional torque joints or pop-up weapon ports needed to deal with sudden attacks. Defense rating—extremely low.

Could such a person truly exist in this world?

Even the pampered Saintesses pushed out by those priests of New Hope under the so-called premise that God loved all beings would absolutely not be like this.

Then who exactly was this person before his eyes?

This person was, of course, Lin Zhao, who had connected to Kaman for the first time back then.

If Mechanic had not later tasted an entire piece of yellow peach that appeared out of thin air, he really would have thought that everything was nothing more than a hallucination after radiation-induced brain lesions. The frequency of his specially modified respiratory throat port could not help speeding up slightly—not because of fear. Fear, to him, was merely an emotion with an extremely inefficient conversion rate.

It was because of curiosity so immense it nearly tore apart his skull.

This display technology, this video connection appearing out of nowhere inside a “brick,” even the translation mechanism that directly acted upon cognition, and so on and so forth—every single item exceeded the existing knowledge Mechanic possessed.

They filled him with an unprecedented desire to explore and learn.

He truly had too many things he wanted to discuss with Lin Zhao. For example, the UI efficiency of the image seemed somewhat low. Since you possess such miraculous technology to enter Kaman, why is the information density on the screen still below 30%? The interaction hierarchy is vague, and even the design of the visual flow somewhat violates everyone’s reading habits…

But after reconnecting this time, Mechanic quickly realized that Lin Zhao was not the designer of all this. At the very least, his understanding of the various actions happening before his eyes was vague. He did not have a clear and definite concept of it. He was merely a passive participant.

Although it was regrettable that they could not discuss technology, that was fine. He was also very curious about the existence known as Lin Zhao himself.

For example, did he know that they were in different worlds?

Mechanic felt that Lin Zhao did not know. He was also very curious about how Lin Zhao positioned the relationship between them now.

So when Lin Zhao asked how much a transport-type robot would cost, the reply he typed on the tablet was:

[I don’t need bullets, or in the words of your world, money. As long as I want it, I can have a great deal of it at any time. I only want to exchange something else with you.]

Lin Zhao replied without even thinking:

[Then what do you want?]

Mechanic continued, speaking even more directly:

[Books. I want to understand your world. Physical constants and laws, materials engineering and design logic, even religion, culture, and social structure. As long as it is knowledge, anything is fine.]

Before such wording, Mechanic did not believe anyone could fail to understand what he meant.

Lin Zhao definitely understood.

From the moment the other party said “your world,” he understood why Mr. Gray had said that Mechanic was a genius and also a madman…

So he was mentally ill in the literal sense.

Understandable. Lin Zhao nodded, thinking that there was always a fine line between genius and madness. When he was little, because of extracurricular reading assignments, he had read quite a few biographies of famous people and discovered that some people with extremely high intelligence often suffered from genius syndrome of varying severity. It gave them wisdom far beyond ordinary people, but also caused them some small mental troubles.

The fact that this Mechanic could communicate with him normally was already quite good. What did a little delusion matter?

Unlike Mechanic, who wanted to pierce through Lin Zhao’s perception, Lin Zhao chose to take care of the other party’s emotions. He said:

[Okay. A low-tech transport robot like the kind you mentioned is estimated at about twenty-nine thousand transaction points. But because our trading method can only transmit modules, we’ll need to assemble it again on our side. Can you make it a little cheaper? How about twenty thousand per unit?]

Mechanic curled his lip.

[I said, I don’t care about money. This kind of low-tech garbage isn’t worth wasting my discussion time.]

Lin Zhao was even more certain. The other side was a tech nerd who did not understand worldly ways and was very easy to take advantage of.

[I know. I’m only doing this for easier conversion. On our side, the average market price of a book is usually anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred. After deducting translation fees, packing costs, transportation costs, and so on, can I calculate it as one hundred eighty to three hundred sixty books for you? The exact number will be decided by the final price. I’ll pull together a detailed price list for you in the end.]

Mechanic: ?

Were you listening to me at all?

Although Mechanic had always felt that communicating with other brains that were like paramecia was somewhat difficult, he had never before felt this kind of confusion and helplessness.

They seemed to have been communicating the entire time, yet also seemed to have completely failed to speak to each other’s point. He did not even know in which direction he should apply force.

Mechanic simply laid his cards on the table directly:

[Do you know we live in different worlds?]

Lin Zhao, master of fooling people, nodded without hesitation:

[Yes, I know.]

Mechanic raised an eyebrow.

[Then you still dare to trade with me?]

Lin Zhao asked seriously:

[Is there any law that says I can’t do business with people from other worlds?]

Mechanic gave up and went all in:

[Aren’t you afraid that after I collect knowledge from your world, I’ll physically invade it one day?]

Joy appeared on Lin Zhao’s face.

[You can do that? Then can it be tomorrow?]

Mechanic: “…”

Lin Zhao could swear to heaven that he was not talking nonsense. At least the last sentence came sincerely from the bottom of his heart.

Back when he was still a corporate slave, every day he was either pressing a calculator to count how long he had left until retirement, or sincerely praying that the world would explode the next day so everyone could die together, and he would no longer have to get up early and drive into the morning rush hour traffic on the Second Ring Road.

Of course, he no longer needed to go to that damned job that made him want to shoot the entire world to pieces, so the next day, right on time, he sent the carefully calculated book list prepared by 1114 to Mechanic.

From textbooks and workbooks for all subjects in the nine-year compulsory education system, to educational children’s popular science books like Let’s Learn Interesting Astrophysics Together, and even for some odd leftover amounts that were hard to calculate, he directly converted them into canned goods for the other party.

Mm. Canned goods really were as useful as candies used as change at convenience stores.

[If you don’t like canned goods, I can also change them for something else. Do you smoke? Or beer? Oden?]

Do not ask why oden appeared as an option at a time like this. The answer was that Lin Zhao wanted to eat it.

Ever since taking over the small supermarket next to his aunt’s shop, he had developed the various machines in the store that the previous owner had sold to him at depreciated prices. Among them were a sausage grill that was neither new nor old and a clean oden case.

That day, while working together with Qin Xiaoman, it was already bubbling away beside them.

There was the most radish, because one white radish really could be cut into many pieces.

Mechanic was completely thrown off. The other party’s logic was far too steep, and the conclusions he gave were truly too tricky.

If one said the other party was a naive little sweetheart, Lin Zhao always seemed to possess a kind of calm confidence from having something to rely on. Mechanic did not believe that such a composed person had no backup plan at all. But if one said the other party was a smart person, Lin Zhao seemed to truly have no defenses against him at all, sincere to a frightening degree.

What exactly do you take me for?

Mr. Mechanic really wanted to ask that.

To be honest, Lin Zhao regarded the other party as an overage child from a war zone who was clever and extremely hungry for knowledge, but had lost the chance to attend school. He was suspected of having some post-traumatic delusions, but despite physical disability, he remained strong-willed and still loved learning.

Really, the more one spoke of it, the more touching Kaman became.

It was out of personal favoritism toward this kind of good student that Lin Zhao ultimately chose those books, hoping to make up a little for the regret that the other party had never had the chance to go to school.

He even gave the other party some extra copies of Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Mock Exams, as well as the full set of Marxist Philosophy and Maoism Introduction materials.

[Confirm whether the book list is okay. If it’s OK, I’ll start sorting and shipping. After you’ve prepared the robot modules on your side, just pack them back into the boxes and send them back along the original route. If there aren’t enough boxes, tell me. Someone will deliver more suitable sizes to you.]

This person was naturally none other than Lin Zhao’s regular customer, Gray.

The boxes used were the very ones Lin Zhao was about to ship to Gray. Lin Zhao only wanted to reuse them. It was impossible for him to give money to the mainframe for nothing.

Lin Zhao was not afraid that the other party would tamper with the machinery either, because…

1114 could run one-click antivirus.

Just as 1114 would carry out a series of scans before they transmitted goods to Kaman, anything transmitted from Kaman would only undergo even stricter inspection and isolation.

1114 had its own set of quarantine and information-filtering procedures, preventing all material or immaterial harm from being transmitted to another world through “smuggled” content in the information blueprint. It had very strong impact control.

Of course, what the mainframe controlled was radiation damage and the impact on the development trajectory of civilization caused by high-tech planes transmitting products to low-tech planes. But in Lin Zhao’s understanding, it was to prevent infectious viruses.

He used to have a colleague who took annual leave to go to Africa to see the Great Migration. Supposedly, before leaving, that colleague had received who knew how many vaccines. But even then, after going there, he still spent several days vomiting and having diarrhea.

There was no such thing as being too careful.

At the same time, the imperial mothership Goddess of Disaster was already on its return voyage after completing its mission.

His Majesty Anderich, emperor of the Yasa Empire, after finishing a day of diligent government affairs, was currently on a call with his full-blooded younger brother, attempting to sound him out indirectly about his thoughts on completing the long-delayed coming-of-age ceremony.

The Yasa people had always had an unwritten rule. After they reached adulthood, that was, officially entered youth, they needed to leave the mother planet Eurybia and embark on a search journey lasting a hundred years or even longer.

What they were searching for, the entire universe knew. Whether they could find them depended on fate.

In short, everyone had to experience such a special coming-of-age ritual. Only His Majesty Anderich’s royal younger brother, who had remained single into an advanced age, still had not.

It was not that without this ritual, one could not be considered an adult. The emperor would not force his younger brother. It was just that occasionally, truly only very occasionally, he could not help subconsciously testing him.

Look, you have already graduated from the military academy. Under your leadership, the Second Legion has always had brilliant military achievements, and your career is extremely successful. Now the universe is peaceful, and everyone is happy. Do you have any thoughts about pursuing your own happiness?

And the answer from his younger brother, whose beauty was like a literary oil painting, was the same as every time in the past.

He stood up directly and ended the call.

The feudal patriarch could only lean back against his chair and let out a helpless sigh.

Until his private communicator received a message from Adjutant Carlos:

[Your Majesty, His Highness really didn’t do it on purpose this time. It’s just that his beloved streamer started broadcasting.]

His Majesty Anderich: ?

Author’s Note:

Nonsense Mini Theater:

His Majesty Anderich: So in the past, he did do it on purpose, then.

Carlos: His Highness might be about to find a partner.

His Majesty Anderich: Which livestream room?

Viktor Bout: The prototype for the film Lord of War, an arms dealer from the former Soviet Union.

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