Your Distance

At the same time, Ting Shuang was running down through the emergency passageway, hugging Yan Liqian’s laptop and the document file. Aside from the fluorescent ‘Safe Exit’ signs, there was no other light around him.

He didn’t know how many floors he had descended when the ceiling lights suddenly turned on.

They’d probably gotten the circuit to work again.

Ting Shuang glanced at the sign on the wall. It was the fifth floor.

He continued running down, but upon reaching the third floor, he heard the security intercom announcing that the main entrance of the building was closing, and that the garage exit would also be closed. At the same time, footsteps sounded from both above and below him.

Where should he go now?

It was too high up. Although it was only the third floor, he would probably fracture something if he jumped down.

He could only go to the office area first.

The second to sixth floors were the R&D department’s office. Currently, the staff inside were complaining about the damage caused by the power outage, but fortunately, important documents were protected at all times, so the damage was not severe.

Ting Shuang spotted a familiar face. It was a young employee whom he had eaten with at the Hannover Robot Industry Exhibition, but he suddenly couldn’t remember his name.

“Ge.” Ting Shuang walked over with a smile, “Are you going to work?”

When the employee saw Ting Shuang, he also remembered that he was the boss’s son. As a technician, he not only knew nothing about Zhu Ao’s accident, but he also didn’t know a single thing about what had just happened on the eighteenth floor. He just figured Ting Shuang had come to take a look at the company.

“Yes, it’s just about time to start work,” He joked, “Did you come to the R&D department for inspection?”

Ting Shuang saw the badge on his chest. R&D department, Dou Jie. Now he had an impression.

“Not for inspection, I wouldn’t dare do that. I just came to learn,” Ting Shuang looked around as he spouted nonsense. As he walked by the window, he caught sight of a police car parked under the marble steps in front of RoboRun’s entrance.

The heavy rain had stopped. Yan Liqian’s secretary was standing beside the police car and smiling at the two policemen, but the police had no intention of leaving.

Ting Shuang quickly opened the window, waving and shouting at the police as loud as he could, “Police!(1) There are bad guys here who want to catch me!”

The two police officers raised their heads at the same time, looking towards the windows on the third floor.

Yan Liqian’s secretary immediately took out his phone to make a call.

Dou Jie and his other colleagues were taken aback, “What happened?”

“Dou ge,” Ting Shuang touched a giant robot that was standing by the window, “This is a C-type robot that has commands to raise and lower its parts, right? How long is this robot arm when straightened?”

Dou Jie didn’t know why Ting Shuang was asking that question, “It should be at least ten meters. This is the kind that’s normally placed in the factory. There’s no way you can extend that arm in the office. It’s only placed here for the customers who come to the headquarters.”

Ting Shuang opened the control panel, “Can I use it?”

“Don’t, don’t touch it.” Dou Jie said quickly, “Theoretically, you can, but if you move it here, it’ll hit the floor. What do you want to look at? I’ll do it for you.”

“Don’t worry. I am a proud student of the great Professor Bai, how could I possibly write the kind of code that would let it hit the floor?” Ting Shuang sandwiched the laptop and the document file between his legs and pulled up the dual-handed code-writing programme.

Dou Jie frowned as he watched Ting Shuang programme, “What kind of movement code is this? What do you want to do?”

Ting Shuang mumbled the code, not speaking.

A group of security guards appeared at the entrance of the R&D department on the third floor.

The security guards had already surrounded him by the time he finished the last line of the code.

A step behind, Yan Liqian and Weng Yunyi also rushed to the R&D department. Yan Liqian said, “Ting Shuang, put down my computer immediately.”

“Just a moment.” Ting Shuang pressed the run button.

The programme started-

The huge robotic arm began to rotate, and if the surrounding security guards hadn’t ducked out of the way quickly, they would probably have been knocked down.

“What are you doing?!”

No one dared to approach for a while.

The robot arm seemed to be out of control, rotating without any obstacles around. It moved forward, then suddenly stuck out of the window. From the outside, the whole building seemed to have opened its mouth and stuck out its tongue, trying to make a face at this hideous world.

The moment the mechanical tongue stuck out, Ting Shuang picked up the laptop and document file in his left hand, and jumped over the window sill.

Everyone in the R&D department watched this scene in disbelief, almost forgetting why they were standing there at that time.

The moment he flung his body into the air, time for Ting Shuang stretched on for a long time. It felt like a few months, or maybe more than ten years.

In the air, he saw the whales and rainbows he’d seen at sea, heard the songs he’d sung on stage as he held the guitar, and smelled the scent of cherries all over the ground.

He even saw the young Bai Changyi as he sat shirtless in the studio, a beam of sunlight shining in from the windows, flowing slowly over his skin like honey.

Then, his right hand firmly grasped onto the lower part of the robotic arm.

He returned to reality.

In reality, the gravitational force almost dislocated his right arm.

Amidst the severe pain, he turned his head and said to Yan Liqian and Weng Yunyi coolly, “Bye bye, see you in the Public Security Bureau—”

Before they could react, Ting Shuang’s figure disappeared outside the window.

The foldable robotic arm followed the programme and quickly extended outside the building as if it was alive. In just a few seconds, the last joint of the robotic arm was less than two meters from the ground.

Ting Shuang loosened his right hand grip and landed on the ground.

“Fuck, I’m about to die from the pain.” He shook his numb right hand, ran to the police car, and said to the policemen who had witnessed how he had just gotten out of the building, “I’m the person who called the police about someone forging documents to commit fraud. The evidence is all here, and the amount involved is huge. You probably don’t have to worry about this year’s KPI assessment anymore. Let’s hurry up, I have to go to the jewelry store to buy a ring for my partner in the afternoon.”