Synopsis Sunday: Legend of the Maestro
Chapter 1
Garbage Planet #12 is a garbage planet in the Faer Region.
As its name says, it is used for placement of garbage. Along with the endless development of science, after entering the Great s.p.a.ce Travel era, there was a fundamental change in the lives of humans—they started to have comfortable, stressless lives. The initial issues in energy and ecology due to the rapid expansion of humans’ footsteps were relieved. The successive discovery of new planets and the maturation of interstellar development technology made the lives of humans become more fast-paced and humane. But along with that, the production of many types of garbage sped up greatly. The costs of reusing the garbage was excessively high; yet if they were left alone, there would be an extremely negative impact on the environment of citizens, leading to complains from the locals. So, all countries transported the large amounts of garage onto these garbage planets. They were planets that either had no bids to them, or were useless ones that had have their minerals all extracted. There were no one who lived on those planets, so they became the optimal areas to pile garbage on.
Beneath the grey, murky skies, the mountain peaks formed by various garbages stacking up stretched out endlessly. It was silent, as if nothing were there. Not a single traces of life. The remnant of icy cold metals emanated chilliness unique only to metals, but the dust atop veiled their original glory. Only the occasional small, uncorroded bare surface allowed one to recall its former brilliance.
Pretty much everyone believed no humans existed on the lifeless Garbage Planet because in such horrid environments, there was no water. There was no food. Everything that a human needed . . . there was none. Only one thing existed here—garbage!
But is the Garbage Planet truly as lifeless as it appeared on the surface?
Ye Zhong raised his head and looked at the ancient a.n.a.log watch on the wall. He picked it up three years ago from the foot of a garbage hill ten miles away. Back then, the watch’s hand was damaged, and Ye Zhong had to spend a week to finish repairs. It also eliminated the even more ancient pendulum clock that was hung on the wall before.
Faer time, 3:42. Ye Zhong knew after thirteen more minutes, the temperature outside would reach the most suitable point of the day for heading out, and that period would end at Faer time, 6:17. For the other periods of time, if it wasn’t as scorching as an oven outside, it would be as freezing as the dead of winter.
If there were no incidents, then last night, there should have been a garbage dump. Ye Zhong considered to head outside to see whether he could grab some new goods. He wasn’t short on food at home—he still had over a half of uneaten Hundred Devourer Rats from his last hunt, so he didn’t need to worry about insufficient food for three days. Besides, there was still quite a bit of organic liquid food. It was just that in comparison to fresh meat, the taste was very lacking. Eating it was akin to eating wax; Ye Zhong hadn’t eaten those things in a long, long time.
Faer time, 3:55. In nearly the same second, Ye Zhong was like an arrow that had just left the bow as he shot out the door. To Ye Zhong, time was really too precious. This time, the location at which the unmanned garbage ship dropped garbage at was half an hour of distance away from Ye Zhong’s home. That also meant Ye Zhong had to spend an hour on the road, and the rest of time remaining for him to look for goods was less than an hour and a half.
Ye Zhong was like an agile wild beast. Within the chaotic garbages, he leaped through tiny gaps without a single trace of being slowed. Ye Zhong knew that region as well as the back his palm, and likely, even if he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t head the wrong direction.
The wind colliding onto his face whistled past his ears as Ye Zhong satisfiedly enjoyed the thrill of that speed. But, he was still being cautious of his surroundings. To wish to leave on a Garbage Planet, one had no choice but to fight against mutated organisms that could appear at any time.
Although Garbage Planets were not suitable for the survival of humans, to mutated organisms, they were undoubtedly a paradise. To mutated organisms that had overwhelming powerful survival abilities, the squalid conditions had a negligible effect on them. There was an abundance of resources here—garbage. For organisms like the Hundred Devourer Rats, almost anything was food of theirs. So, in this Garbage Planet, they grew with frightening speeds.
This place wasn’t like other undeveloped untouched planets, where many Maestros would go forth for adventuring. In this world, there was absolutely not a single Maestro who would be willing to come to a place like this and stay for even a single second. Without the hunting of Maestros, mutated organisms lost their greatest enemy.
Ye Zhong’s home was the inside of a garbage mountain. The tunnel to the outside was a large crack less than four meters wide. Occasionally, the metal branches that stick out made the path seem full of danger.
Ye Zhong’s speed was not lowered in the slightest. His legs were full of explosive strength, and with every step, he would cross a lengthy distance. Perhaps his current movements seemed more like a certain type of ape; his agility was unbelievable. But, there was not anyone else on the Garbage Planet, so the shocking scene could only be enjoyed by Ye Zhong himself.
Ye Zhong put strength into his legs and leaped into the air. When his rising momentum reached the end, he grabbed a horizontal t.i.tanium pole sticking out, then he flashed away, and after a few air flips, he stably landed on the surface of the garbage mountain.
Ye Zhong did not continue running forward. With his right hand’s index finger, he rubbed an ordinary-looking shiny black metal ring worn on his left hand’s middle finger, and shouted lightly, “Winni!”
A blue-grey mecha appeared in front of Ye Zhong, and out of habit, he muttered to himself, “It would be great if I could find a mental receiver. Sound controls are really quite bad.” As he spoke, he nimbly flipped into the driving cabin.
Winni had the same height as ordinary humanoid mecha at around ten meters tall. The thick mecha body, thick arms, and even thicker legs made Winni seem like a steel body with b.u.mps all over, and the bald head looked quite amusing. Since a long period of time had pa.s.sed, the surface of the mecha was dark and unreflective, but the chaotically arranged sharp tips lined atop the perfectly round shoulder and knee joints allowed for quite some fierceness to manifest. All sorts of wounds covered Winni’s body: claw marks, bite marks . . . They were quite terrifying. It was, however, clear that the mecha was stored extremely well. There was not a single speck of dust on the entire surface of the mecha. One could see that Ye Zhong cherished it greatly.
If it weren’t for Winni, it was possibly that Ye Zhong wouldn’t have lived up until now. At least, Ye Zhong firmly believed that without the mecha, he would absolutely not be able to hold his own against any more than two Hundred Devourer Rats. Yet, Hundred Devourer Rats never moved around with less than five in numbers. On the Garbage Planet, any signs of weakness implied they could die at any time. Naturally, the principle of the superior living and the inferior eliminated, the strong eat and the weak eaten, is shown here with absolute lucidity.
On the topic of the mecha, a person must be mentioned—Ye Zhong’s foster father. Ye Zhong only knew that he had a foster father named Gao Shichang and for everything else, it was unclear. According to his foster father, initially only he himself was on the Garbage Planet. But suddenly, one day, he discovered Ye Zhong, with the two words “Ye Zhong” written on his body. As for how his foster father came to the Garbage planet and what he did before, he never talked about it.
That mecha set was found by him. Initially, it was an ordinary civilian mecha, but after successive changes, it was nothing like before. According to his foster father, in the outside world, mechas were commonplace, but because the recycling rate was extremely high, you had to have really good luck in order to find one or two items on the Garbage Planet. From his foster father’s influence, Ye Zhong had an extremely strong interest in mechas. His foster father also pa.s.sed down everything he could, and the two of them often surrounded the unbearably old photon computer in their home, entering heated discussions. The photon mecha was then named Winni. According to his foster father, Winni was a cla.s.sic, old brand photon mecha engine.
The only things they disagreed on were their preferences in the mecha’s appearance. It was as if Ye Zhong had an innate intuition and sensitivity in driving the mecha. As a result, Winni had always been driven by Ye Zhong. His foster father had also said that in the future, perhaps Ye Zhong would become an excellent Maestro.
After successfully escaping from an intense battle against five Hundred Devourer Rats, Ye Zhong started to consciously train his fighting abilities. Ever since he ate fresh rat meat, he no longer had even an iota of interest in the organic food produced from the food machine.
After so much experience in real combat, Ye Zhong was no longer the former inexperienced boy. On the Garbage Planet, other than a few horrifying fierce things that Ye Zhong dared not touch, other organisms basically threatened Ye Zhong no more. But, if Ye Zhong were careless, those organisms could take away his life at any moment.
Regretfully, Winni was really too old. Even if he wanted to upgrade it, there were no good spare parts. More importantly, there were no good tools. Winni’s strength had been used to the limit. The most fatal part, however, was that Winni’s photon computer fell too far behind.
Although his foster father was an expert in mechas, he was an idiot in photon computers.
He had once said that for any mecha, the engine was their heart, and the photon computer was their soul.
Currently, as Ye Zhong controlled the mecha, he felt a bit restrained.
The only thing a bit more advanced on Winni was its electronic eye. When Ye Zhong picked it back, he had asked his foster father, but even he didn’t know what model it was. He could only speculate that it was one that came out in the recent years. After all, he had been on the Garbage Planet for dozens of years already. He did not dare to imagine to what degree the outside world had developed to.
It was also with the pair of advanced electronic eyes that Ye Zhong escaped several times from danger.
Even though Winni was old, before finding new mechas, it was Ye Zhong’s only choice.
He carefully set Winni’s highest speed to 80%. With that, he could maintain being rather quick while also having s.p.a.ce to adapt.
On the road, there was the intensity but none of the danger. Ye Zhong successfully arrived at his destination. Looking ahead, garbage stretched as far as the eye could see, but there were clearly a few large regions that were a bit newer than the others. Those were Ye Zhong’s target this time.
“Scanning commenced!” Winni’s voice was neither fast nor slow. The unhurriedness of it made it feel a bit elderly, thought Ye Zhong helplessly. His eyes were sweeping his surroundings carefully. It couldn’t be helped. Whenever Winni started using its electronic eyes to enter scanning mode, it would stop all other activities. Ye Zhong guessed it was because its photon computer was too behind. At a time like this, it all depended on Ye Zhong himself to stand guard.
As Ye Zhong examined the surrounding areas where mutated organisms could possibly appear, he murmured, “Old guy, you must work hard today; I haven’t seen anything new in a long time! Go . . . Go . . .” Ye Zhong couldn’t help humming a small beat. Other than himself, there was no one else on the Garbage Planet. If he didn’t speak for a long period of time, Ye Zhong didn’t dare to be certain he would be able to in the future. Even though there was no one to communicate with him, murmuring because one of his habits.
The expression on Ye Zhong’s face was very calm, but his slightly tense body showed his current state of high alert.
“Scanning has completed!” That voice, to Ye Zhong, was undoubtedly like music to his ears. Ye Zhong breathed a long sigh of relief.
“Switch to alert state!” Ye Zhong gave Winni an order. Quickly after, he detailedly looked over the scanning map made by the photon computer. Several red patches on the scanning map were very eye-grabbing. Ye Zhong couldn’t help but be joyed; it seems like this time, he would not need to return home empty-handed.
Inside the garbage pile. Ye Zhong furiously spat out sand that fell into his mouth through the gaps of the mecha.
“Dammit! There’s actually not even a single useful thing. Heavens, I’m not that unlucky, am I!” Ye Zhong wailed. No traces of the excitement from before remained. After searching so many places, all of them were pieces of useless things. At present, there was only one area remaining, also the smallest one. In terms of size, Ye Zhong couldn’t imagine what use such a small one could do, but with the spirit of “willing to kill but not to miss a section”, Ye Zhong still put his head into the mountain-like garbage.
Ye Zhong sat on a sloped chair as he chewed a pre-roasted rat meet while playing around with today’s only harvest.
It seemed to be a metal charm that had dark metal l.u.s.tre. It seemed to be chaotic, yet it also seemed orderly. Sadly, a small portion missing and the marks of sharp blades told him that it was a broken defective.
Ye Zhong muttered, “What is this? What a strange material!”
He lightly slid his thumb across the bent sharp blade. Ye Zhong felt absolutely nothing due to the minuscule wound, but when a drop of blood came out, only then did he feel slight pain.
“So sharp!” exclaimed Ye Zhong. “This isn’t some sort of hidden weapon, right?” Ye Zhong was looking at the drop of blood on the blade after cutting his skin on his thumb.
An odd scene happened!
The blade, like a sponge, quickly absorbed the blood cleanly! Metal that absorbed blood? Ye Zhong was stunned. It is, I touched it just now! It is definitely metal! Ye Zhong would bet that what happened just now was no illusion!
It was as if odd things never seemed to have any traces of stopping.
After absorbing the blood, the charm made a light humming sound. The surrounding curved blade suddenly retracted back into the charm, and there seemed to be a special pattern of a totem starting to move about on the surface. As though there were a machine, the charm started to activate, and Ye Zhong’s drop of blood was the catalyst.
Ye Zhong’s face was completely frozen!
A voice, without any prior warning, entered Ye Zhong’s head: “Double-proton inspection has completed. Brainwave match, brainwave locked!”
Ye Zhong’s entire body trembled. He abruptly jumped up and shouted, “Who? Come out!” A pair of eagle-like eyes shrunk and carefully examined the surroundings. His hands had already went secretly towards the dagger tied on his leg.
“Are you certain?” The voice seemed a bit doubtful.
Introduction
[TN: Why, you may ask, have I put the introduction at the end? It’s because I have no clue what it’s talking about, so the text is reflected accordingly. I would not recommend you read my broken translation below, since it’ll probably leave you more confused (as it did to me, but probably it’s ’cause my Chinese is a bit lacking)]
Ye Zhong, who grew up in a Garbage Planet, inadvertently found a broken set of mecha as he was “combing for treasures” in a mountain of garbage. With the a.s.sistance of the broken smart-mecha, Ye Zhong escaped the Garbage Planet and entered the society of humans.
What was Wu Shang’s, the smart-mecha’s, true ident.i.ty all about? What was Ye Zhong’s ident.i.ty all about? The abnormally distant method of communication between the beauty and the beast; how was Ye Zhong, who only had survival in his eyes, experience his love? How was he going to familiarize himself with the unknown society? How to act certain characters? The rules of the wild are completely different from the ones of human society, what sort of twist would it give his fate?
With a head as calm as a computer, the young man who believes in the cruel laws of the wild madly learns all types of matters like a sponge. No matter if it’s regarding Maestros, or regarding fighting, he is outstanding when developed by either one. Every time he appeared before the crowd, it’s as if a meteor flashed past. His genius is shown immensely!
Pa.s.sive and initiative; death and life; uncaring and absence; Ye Zhong’s growth narrates a young man’s experience in unyielding to struggles, and also created the mysterious legend of a Maestro.
In the vast galaxy, when battles.p.a.ceships and mechas appear, humans once again sink into the vastness in which they cannot pull themselves out of.
Extra Information
Legend of the Maestro (師士傳說) is a finished Chinese web novel by Fang Xiang (方想). It has over 2.1 million characters, and is listed, on qidian, under the category of “Science Fiction” and the subcategory of “Mecha”. There are 606 chapters; the novel was started on 27th February, 2006, and ended on 29th June, 2008.