"I don't understand," Toba said.
Ji Xun turned his eyes to him. That was a polite gesture, since he could actually see any corner of the room at any time. Toba's arms swayed, and a slight rotten smell filled the air.
"I still don't know how he did it," it said. "He walked into the computing center."
"He didn't breach the boundary."
"But he comes back," Toba emphasized. "Every time, he comes back as if nothing happened. This is not the way it should be. No one comes back after crossing the border."
"The facts are information that you can confirm by yourself." Ji Xun reminded calmly, "Yes. He is indeed back."
"How did he do it?"
This was not the first time Toba had asked this question, but this time he no longer cursed in that sinister and tortuous tone. Something seemed to stir it up that night, prompting it to demand an answer seriously.
Ji Xun sat at the table and chose a legal statement.
"Where I come from," he said, "there are many explanations for this. If you just want to know why he didn't die, it's because his life is not here. It's not the image you see before you. When you know He will not be visible to you until you reach him—so if you just attack the projection, you can't really damage his essence."
"You are saying that it is just an illusion of his. But that doesn't make sense. If he can make the illusion move in and out of the computing center freely, and can also pass messages to the main body..."
"That's not the case." Ji Xun replied, "There is no entity hidden by him here. He exists because of a certain fixed thought, but for him, that body is the only one. That is his living body. "
Toba thought about it for a moment.
"You're hinting to me that he's a wish creature," it said, "and more powerful than the one in this city."
"That's a possibility."
Ji Xun was silent again. He stretched out his hand in front of Heita's desk and let an album on the shelf fall into his palm. The pages of the book opened automatically, and Tuoba saw many paintings painted in light ink. Mountains and rivers. Birds and beasts. Waves. Strange and huge tripod.
Toba stared at the album with suspicion and caution.
"This is his hometown." Ji Xun said, "The core of the old theory is that the place itself is an independent desire, and it is very likely that it is a system with a strictly defined domain. Logically speaking, it does not Will be interfered with by other low-level wish machines. He also has this characteristic, which leads us to speculate that he is part of the entire wish system."
"So, he is the embodiment of a world?"
"Maybe." Ji Xun said. But after a while he denied it again: "No."
"what is this?"
"He's special."
Ji Xun pondered for a while, and then said: "He may be alive in essence, not just a phenomenon."
"What is essential destruction?" Toba asked. "Look at me. When I was first thrown into that dark wasteland, I thought I was dead. Was my body dead? Yes, I was utterly devastated. I endured the whole process of decay until at the end I felt nothing, like a long dream. Death is really a long dream - do you have a similar expression there? But behold, I Then I woke up again. I was this stinky pile. Not a bone or flesh was my own. But I still knew who I was. Why would a piece of moldy grass know who I was?"
"This is a simple question." Ji Xun replied calmly, "This kind of hyphae devours the original biological structure of the corpse. A protease structure with memory will replace the memory tissue. When the environment is suitable, it It will restore part of the mycelium to your thinking center. However, it was not originally intended to give you the ability to move. It was designed to create a plant with memory and thinking..."
"This is not the answer I want!" Toba shouted, "I am feeling it! That is living! It has nothing to do with its principles!"
"So," Ji Xun said patiently, "how do you explain your short sleep? Are you alive before your old body has been completely destroyed and the new thinking body has not been formed? Or is life and death just a mechanical activation and Closure? Do you think you're the old Toba, or a new one who's got his memories?"
"I am I!" Toba said, "I am the person you are perceiving and speaking to you now. I am the executioner of the woman, the avenger of the plunderers. I am reduced from flesh to ghost. , that is exactly the death date they arranged for themselves!"
"Or," Ji Xun continued, "you are a bunch of fungi activated by a life-support virus. The protein structure leaves you with the memory of a corpse, as well as his anger and pain. But that doesn't mean you Inheriting everything...Did you lose the legitimate reason to take revenge on them at some stage? If we find a wishing machine, we can verify this immediately."
Toba's slanted plural eyes glared at him fiercely under his blouse. As the carpet spreads, a strong putrid smell spreads in the air. But this time Ji Xun didn't stop it, but gently stroked the album.
"This is a basic level question." He said to himself, "He, you, or me. Regarding the order of structure and essence, if the order of cause and effect does make sense-"
He stopped talking and turned to look out the window. Once again, Jing Huang stood on the spiral steps of the black tower and walked slowly towards the room.
Compared with the night before, the mountain people seemed more tired. He holds a blue birch branch in his imaginary left hand, and the markings on the leaves on the branch are like a pink eye. Tuoba looked at the branch from a distance through the window and made a slight chirping sound.
Other than that, everything was the same as every other afternoon. When the little mental fog between them cleared, Jing Huang once again cooked the house owner's internal organs half-cooked. All the reset collections in the study melted to the ground.
"I think," Ji Xun said after repairing, "the exploration in the computing center didn't go well?"
Jing Huang sat down opposite him and threw the blue birch branch on the table. Ji Xun didn't look at it. In fact, before Jing Huang came in, he already knew every minute texture on its leaves.
"I don't see what's special about it." He asked bluntly, "Is this what you gained in the computing center?"
"Things have changed." Jing Huang said.
Toba's body shook slightly. It was doubtless wondering—its knowledge of the third occupant of the house was still vague. But it noticed that Ji Xun seemed very concerned about this sentence.
"We'd better know what kind of change it is." said the owner of the house. "As far as our situation is concerned, 0312 is the most ideal helper. Before you come, I always hope that he will pay attention to the instructions I gave. clue……"
"What about 0206?" Jing Huang asked, "Isn't he the one who knows Gao Lingdai best? Or 0203? 0211? 0225? Don't you hope to recruit your accomplices?"
"I'm sure 0225 has been recycled." Ji Xun replied, "And I need someone with enough particles and threads. If 0206 comes, it will be difficult for me to give him a safe enough restricted domain. Maybe he will first Try to eliminate the two of us, or at least, he'll be the master of one house. That would be detrimental to both of us."
"Do you think 0312 is harmless to you? He is the one who wants to arrest you, right?"
"He is a person who facilitates negotiation." Ji Xun said. He smiled slightly for some reason. At this time Toba tapped his heels.
"Two," it said, "if you insist on discussing some common acquaintances that I don't know, I can leave first. But please forgive me for reminding us that we are gathered here today not to quarrel about the past, but to Let my beloved ancestors die in peace. Also, if you don't mind, I'd like to throw this branch out of here."
"Why?" Ji Xun asked with interest, "This branch is not poisonous, it just has some special pigment production mechanism."
"It reminds me of my respected mother." Toba said, "That bitch, a mad animal, a poisonous woman who will not die a good death. What a beautiful job! She threw me into the wasteland and gave me the last Those eyes are so beautiful when you hug her - but forget about her for now. A living dead, a pile of living rotten flesh, let her get out of the way."
Without any warning, Ji Xun and Jing Huang glanced at each other. They immediately looked away from each other like an electric shock, as if it was just an unintentional coincidence. Toba rolled up the birch branch with a soft, boneless black arm and threw it out of the window, far away into the dark void beyond the ice field.
