A cool, detached judge x a laid-back, devoted anchor of the world
Sci-fi with a sense of destiny | System conflict | BE warning
"I govern destruction, and he holds the key to my salvation."
"No one by that name exists in your System."
"Then who are you?"
"Someone... here to help you defect."
As Judge No. 07, Lu Yao's job is to eliminate the world's "viruses": NPCs who discover its flaws. She either deletes their memories or destroys them forever.
Until she "rescues" a woman being harassed at the bar Echo.
The other person's figure is tall and slender, their hair disheveled, their body trembling in the dim light.
Only in the alley behind the bar does Lu Yao lower her guard and shed her disguise. "Don't be afraid. I'm a woman too."
Then she sees the "beauty," who was trembling in fear just moments ago, slowly straighten up. His fragility recedes like the tide, and he grows taller, his oppressive presence bearing down on her. With a casual flick, he removes his wig, revealing a handsome, sharply defined face and an inhuman glimmer of deep blue in his eyes.
He takes a step closer, his voice full of laughter. "You saved me, miss. How would you like me... to repay you?"
Pei Rao.
A freelance photographer, smooth-tongued and never serious.
Also an absolute anomaly, someone who doesn't exist in her judging System.
Memory deletion has no effect on him.
Destruction code is rejected.
His file is completely blank.
He becomes her shadow, her nightmare.
She judges, he watches; she disguises herself, he sees through it; she's cold, and he approaches with a smile.
Always using the most flippant tone to prod at the tender spots she least wants touched.
"You can't do anything to me." Leaning against the cold wall of the judgment room, he smiles easily. "Didn't your Creator teach you how to deal with me?"
She hates how he knows everything. She hates the deep blue glimmer in his eyes, as if he can see through it all.
Until one operation to wipe out the anomalies spirals completely out of control, and a torrent of destructive data swallows the streets.
For the first time, the man who is always so carefree loses his smile and steps in front of her.
Golden light erupts around him like a lighthouse tearing through the eternal night.
The backlash from his power makes blood spill from his lips, but he looks back at her and speaks in his familiar teasing tone:
"Hey, Judge."
"If I survive this..."
"Will you promise me one thing?"
Only later does she learn:
Some beings are born to be destroyed.
And some acts of defection were written into fate from the very beginning.
"If protecting you means going off course, I'll defect for you a thousand times."
"Even if the price is disappearing from your world forever."
Theme: This is a story about two "tools" programmed to serve, and how one quiet act of defection wins every imprisoned soul the right to "become themselves." It hopes to tell readers that the bravest form of rebellion isn't tearing down the tower. It's choosing to look at one another tenderly beneath it, and remembering: we were born human, not gears.
Didi ~ You still have to pick tomatoes that are neither soft nor hard [Let Me Kangkang] [Let Me Kangkang] Lu Yao said that those who pick hard ones actually just think that Pei Nan knows. If he doesn't know, he will take it as revenge [Sunglasses]