"Mediator No. 7, what are you planning?"
In the room with flickering candlelight, behind Zhao Haiyang, who was wearing a Chinese tunic suit, a dark shadow swayed and extended into the darkness of the room.
There is a chessboard in front of Zhao Haiyang. The black and white stones are scattered on the chessboard. It is a Go board. The black and white sides on the chessboard are attacking and defending each other. The situation is tense. If you look closely, you can find that the white side of the chessboard at this time is slightly better than the black side. Half an eye.
Opposite Zhao Haiyang, there was an old man wearing a lotus leaf scarf sitting, holding a whisk in his hand. The fly whisk swept across the chessboard in the air, and the black and white stones on the chessboard were swept back to the left and right chess boxes.
"You win, Zhao Haiyang."
The old man blew his beard, then stretched again and said:
"You can tell me your plan now."
But Zhao Haiyang shook his head and said,
"It's not time yet...it's not time yet, No. 5."
"In your move, it looks like I win half an eye, but if we follow the rules from a hundred years ago, I actually lose half an eye."
Zhao Haiyang made a "please" gesture towards the chessboard.
"I mean, we can have another round."
Under the wide hood, the corners of the old man's eyes couldn't help but twitch.
"I can't help but ask you again, Zhao Haiyang, what exactly are you planning on using my chessboard?"
Zhao Haiyang smiled shyly, and a hint of cunning appeared on the middle-aged man's face:
"It's nothing, I just want to play another game of chess with you, Taoist Master, and figure out the situation."
The old Taoist tapped the whisk with his fingers, and after thinking for a moment, he raised his eyebrows:
"It's not that I'm curious, it's just that I really want to know, what kind of situation is it that requires me to play chess today to count two games?"
Zhao Haiyang stretched out an index finger, but after thinking about it, he put it down again and shook his head.
"It's not yet time...can't say."
The whisk that the old man lifted up was put down again.
"The more you say that, the more curious I will be aroused by you."
"It would be better to say that there are still problems in this world that you, Zhao Haiyang, can't solve. Do you need me, an experienced and experienced person, to help you feel at ease?"
The old Taoist's expression hidden under his lotus leaf hat seemed to be a smile but not a smile. He lifted up the whisk in his hand and slowly swept it over the empty chessboard.
A sunspot fell with the sweep of the whisk.
The star position is three and three, a common Go pattern in the post-AI era. If chess players often play chess with artificial intelligence, this three-three formula will inevitably appear frequently, which goes against the normal intuition of human chess players. However, after careful consideration, I found that it has a unique flavor. Even if it is not a master, it can still be called a master. My own hand.
Zhao Haiyang raised his eyes to look at mediator No. 5, and followed after a few seconds.
"Your guess is good, but I can only say that the outsiders behind the digital miracle cannot yet penetrate my eyes."
The old Taoist raised the whisk in his hand a little straighter. He pondered for a few seconds, then smiled and put the black hair on it again.
"The direction I guessed is good, but the range is wrong. Then this range is probably going to go higher."
Zhao Haiyang makes another move.
"Yes, up."
The old man continued to make moves.
"Up, to which step? Four and a half steps? Or the fifth step?"
Zhao Haiyang shook his head and made another move.
"It has nothing to do with this superhuman realm...maybe even higher."
The old Taoist was stunned for a moment, then took a breath of cool air while making a move.
"Then I probably understand."
Zhao Haiyang laughed hoarsely:
"What do you understand? I didn't even understand it."
The old Taoist was stunned again and said "Hey".
"You haven't even thought about it, so you're going to force me to play chess today and save my life?"
Zhao Haiyang waved his hand and said,
"We have to try, Qingxu, we have to try."
"The only thing I understand is that no matter what my plan is, if I lose, the world below us may not see the sun the next day."
The old Taoist known as Qingxu heard this but didn't care. He yawned and said:
"If you lose, you lose. Anyway, the node of the world is with that kid. No matter who [they] are, they can win you, but can they stop you from restarting? You pinched that kid's neck and let Wouldn’t it be enough to recycle the whole world?”
The candlelit room suddenly fell into a long silence.
Then Zhao Haiyang threw the white piece in his hand back into the chess case.
"That's the problem."
Zhao Haiyang looked into Taoist Priest Qingxu's eyes.
"That's the problem?"
Old Taoist Qingxu also looked at Zhao Haiyang, and then his eyes suddenly showed emotional fluctuations.
"You mean...that boy is gone?!"
Zhao Haiyang sighed.
"Yes, the looper is gone."
The expression on Qingxu's face changed from shock to confusion to puzzlement and then to doubt. After a few seconds, he spoke.
"This...isn't this right? But the node is still fine, right?"
Zhao Haiyang sighed again.
"The nodes are still there, but the loopers are gone."
"That kid Xie Zhi deceived all the mediators and escaped from reality."
…
A liar.
This is Zhao Haiyang’s attribution to Xie Zhi.
The Xie Zhi mentioned here is naturally not the message left by the former owner who is currently comprehending the body in Klein Paul, but Xie Zhi himself who has circulated tens of thousands of times in this world as a circulator.
Obviously, Zhao Haiyang and the mediators knew Xie Zhi. For them, although they could not participate in Xie Zhi's 30,000 deaths, nor could they know what would happen in the future, they obviously knew Xie Zhi. The ability to cycle time.
The Mediators are aware that the entire world has been restarted many times.
They have no memory of the future, but they can sense the center of this rebooting energy.
Xie Zhi is the center of the cycle.
And "Looper" is exactly the name given by the mediators to Xie Zhi's special characteristics.
Of course, there is another way of naming, which comes from Digital Miracle. The core elders of Digital Miracle call Xie Zhi "Kill the Soft".
It's not a homophone, it means anti-virus software.
The mediators believe that the existence of Xie Zhi is a strong proof of the "self-regulation ability" of the entire giant moon world. When the world suffers a huge blow, it only needs to be restarted through the cycle node of Xie Zhi, and the entire world can be restored. Let the whole world find a way out again as it was before the disaster.
Digital Miracle has another calculation. Digital Miracle believes that the existence of Xie Zhi is a directional and powerful anti-virus software. It has only one function. If the entire huge moon world is regarded as a computer, then , whenever this computer is invaded by a virus, Xie Zhi can restore this computer to factory settings.
restart.
Based on this particularity, Xie Zhi will immediately fall into endless conspiracies every time the cycle restarts. It may be a pursuit, a containment, a kidnapping, or coercion, inducement and sugar-coated tenderness. Township. No matter what force they are, they all want to control Xie Zhi as soon as possible.
Because controlling Xie Zhi is equivalent to controlling the nodes of the world cycle.
It is equivalent to controlling a huge nuclear bomb.
If the future development is not satisfactory and the force controlling Xie Zhi may be defeated in the future situation, this force will immediately kill Xie Zhi as a cyclist and return the world to the starting time of the cycle. , let everything return to zero.
Reshuffle.
Of course, no matter which force gets Xie Zhi, they don't really want to do it.
But if they can control Xie Zhi, they can have a node to negotiate with all other forces at the same time.
Because in a general sense, once the world restarts, everything you have now will be lost.
Few people are willing to give up their hard-earned wealth, fame and status. Therefore, in order to prevent the server from reopening, the forces that cannot own Xie Zhi must surrender to the forces that have Xie Zhi, continue to pay, and continue to pay tribute. In exchange for the long-term commitment of "We have Xie Zhi but we will never kill Xie Zhi."
Xie Zhi, it’s amazing.
This is what is called, using Xie Zhi to order the princes.
Of course, this kind of long-term promise, like a blank check, is a piece of paper most of the time.
As a result, the forces that possess Xie Zhi will become more and more rampant, and the continuous appeasement policy will make the forces that cannot control Xie Zhi become even weaker.
Among Xie Zhi's 30,000 deaths, more than 15,000 were caused by the joint strangulation of other forces after being controlled by a certain force for a long time. And the reasons for the remaining 15,000 deaths are also related to this special characteristic of himself.
For Xie Zhi, the identity of this looper is actually a clear and inescapable curse.
And this is why Xie Zhi finally decided to find a way to get out of the cycle.
…
"It's understandable if you think about it carefully."
"After all, even if it is indeed a video game, if you die tens of thousands of times and restart it tens of thousands of times, you will still vomit."
"What about the real world?"
Old Taoist Qingxu scratched his hair through the lotus leaf scarf, but after thinking about it, he couldn't help but sigh.
"So, what you are saying is that this guy Xie Zhi grabbed this substitute called Zhou You from another dimension, used this substitute to replace his identity as a circulator, and then he ran to the world where the substitute is. went?"
Zhao Haiyang nodded.
"exactly."
Old Taoist Qingxu once again scratched his hair through the headscarf, this time harder.
"On this basis, the new cyclist he captured as a substitute actually does not have the status of a cyclist? Is he just an ordinary person?"
Zhao Haiyang nodded again.
"Although you are a bit older, your understanding is still good."
Taoist priest Qingxu fell into silence for a long time again.
"So...how many times can he reopen? I mean, the new kid who replaced Xie Zhi."
Zhao Haiyang sighed.
"Two or three times at most, the instantaneous pulse of the world's restart will destroy his entire body."
"But before that... considering the mental stress required to start the cycle..."
"I think he may not be able to do it even once."
The small, dark room had only a few candles flickering in the corners.
The reason why candles are used to provide weak light instead of electric lights is because Qingxu Lao Tao believes that all electrical equipment will interfere with the deduction ability of the Tianyan chessboard.
But at this moment, the old man looked left and right, suddenly felt upset, and finally waved his hand.
Two boys with buns came out from behind Lao Dao. One of them put out all the candles, and the other helped Lao Dao turn on the lights in the room.
A closer look revealed that these two boys were not living people, but were made of wooden mechanisms from top to bottom. They were clearly another version of Muliu Niuma.
The room that was suddenly lit up seemed extra bright, so bright that it was blinding.
The faces of Zhao Haiyang and Taoist Priest Qingxu were clearly displayed in each other's eyes with such dazzling light.
"Do other forces know this news?"
Old Taoist Qingxu was silent. He held up the chess pieces and looked at the chessboard in front of him for a long time, and then finally spoke again.
"Unless they come to step four like you and I did and have seen the new kid up close."
Old Taoist Qingxu sighed and followed Zhao Haiyang's example of throwing the chess pieces into the chess box.
"Then I don't know."
"So, I can understand the current situation. Every force that knows that Xie Zhi is a looper is trying to achieve Xie Zhi's 3001st loop. For them, it is to get Xie Zhi and control Xie Zhi. It doesn’t matter whether you kill Xie Zhi or not, as long as Xie Zhi doesn’t fall into the hands of other forces, they will still have a chance in the next cycle.”
"But what they don't know is that Xie Zhi, also known as Zhou You, no longer has the ability to cycle. In other words, if he dies, he is really dead and will not restart the cycle again? "
"At the same time, the more terrifying thing is that although Zhou You doesn't have Xie Zhi's circulator physique, because he replaces Xie Zhi's ecological position in the entire huge moon world, for the world we live in, killing Xie Zhi still means giving the order to "restart a new cycle" to the entire world, so..."
Taoist Priest Qingxu swallowed, but could not say the second half of the sentence.
Zhao Haiyang sat back on the chair, sighed, and tried to relax his head, shoulders and neck.
"You're right."
"If Zhou You dies, the world will still start a new cycle."
"Or the world will try to start a new cycle."
"But then something interesting happens."
"Because Xie Zhi ran away, the cyclic function bound to the circulator has failed."
"Then the story will be like those console games we played in the early 2000s that went wrong when loading."
"The archive failed and could not be read, and another error message appeared."
"Oh, I forgot that you are thirty years older than me. You didn't necessarily like playing video games when you were young."
Taoist Master Qingxu took off the lotus leaf scarf on his head and twisted his smooth hair into a bird's nest:
"I got you."
"You mean, if the new kid dies, the world will be destroyed."
