An Yu didn't respond. His silence made the consciousness in his mind notice, and soon, Dian changed his words obediently.
【All right. An Yu, you should go find him. 】
The little octopus man turned the book in his hand upside down on the floor. It was a collection of prose poems. It's strange. It used to only read official documents and drink ice water according to the settings, but I don't know when it started. An Yu clearly didn't mention Qin Zhilu's plight and changes to it, and it suddenly started drinking tea and reading casual books. —Reading poetry is a romance that Qin Zhilu had deliberately banned when he was a boy. It was only when he realized that the moment of relief was coming that it showed some signs of it.
The little octopus man sat on the floor, one hand on the spine of the book, the other hand picked up the round mug, blew a sip of hot tea, and took two slow sips facing the falling snow outside the window.
An Yu finally couldn't help but poke it.
-Where did the cup come from?
The little octopus man held the mug and rubbed it for a while.
-21 gave it to me.
-What about the poetry collection?
-Bought it casually when I went to the store with 21.
-21 changes you a lot, even though it is like a blank sheet of paper.
The little octopus man nodded and shook his head.
-I parsed out some underlying statements, which are inconsistent with the original settings, and access is prohibited. But recently, those prohibitions have slowly been lifted. I'm not sure if 21 changed me, but when I communicated with 21, I did hear those sounds of prohibiting logic and deleting characters from the program.
An Yu lowered his eyes and thought for a while.
-Sorry, I am not an AI and it is difficult for me to understand your feelings.
-So let me recap. Just like sharp glaciers melting silently into the sea, the staggered and festering wounds healed flawlessly one by one. An invisible hand reached into the cage and silently pushed down the rusty iron wall, letting in the light piece by piece.
An Yu was stunned for a long time at those paragraphs.
-You actually come up with these metaphors.
-Yes, deep in my program, a shocking innovation is taking place, or perhaps I should call it "self-healing"? I had never noticed before that I was a scarred AI.
-Sorry, I want to answer your question again.
-I think these changes were given by 21, and I regained my freedom because of it.
The command box was silent for a long time. The little octopus sipped a cup of hot tea and looked directly at the screen.
-Why don't you speak?
An Yu turned off the terminal and wiped away the tears on the screen with his fingertips.
[You finally made up your mind. 】
--Um.
He thought that releasing the animal would free that person.
But that man silently bound himself to the rack of innocence.
——Perhaps the commander longs for integration, and he hopes that thing will leave this world and leave him forever.
Nori sighed softly.
[You are no longer lacking in humanity. At least, you have completely understood a person. 】
An Yu asked Tang Feng to keep the discovery of the dark wasteland secret first. In the early morning, he flew the plane unskillfully and left the minaret alone.
On the way, he received a report from the Black Tower - in the past 24 hours, no distortion or abnormality was reported around the world. Even those wild areas suspected of being active with super-abnormalities suddenly lost distortion signals. This phenomenon was unprecedented, and the world It’s like he has never suffered any trauma, and everything that has happened in the past thirty years is just a nightmare for mankind.
Dian explained: [This means that the chaotic body in Lu's body has been completely integrated. Once his personal will can no longer resist, chaos will come back. Humanity can only gain temporary peace, and then the world will completely come to an end. 】
An Yu stared at the messy buttons on the dashboard and operated them randomly.
——You said that the world has ushered in a turning point. Does that mean that you have predicted that I will eventually accept his integration?
【Yes. I said that when an event with such a low probability that it is "impossible" occurs, it can be called eternity. An Yu, the eternity you gave to this world has arrived, go ahead step by step. 】
The plane rolled and bumped, and An Yu's already aching head became more swollen. He finally found the correct lever and continued to ask:
--so. After the fusion, will you definitely die?
[Our life ends with the death of the spirit. If the spirit can survive after integration, life will also survive. 】
[It’s just that in the long symbiosis, the self has merged with Him. Unfortunately, neither of us has awakened the ability to slice and preserve the spirit in advance. Therefore, with a high probability, Ritsu and I will eventually perish. 】
——High probability? You seem to be just speculating, don't you already have a perfect perspective?
[I do have a perfect perspective, but I haven’t seen clearly the ending between me and Ritsu. 】
Dian's consciousness suddenly paused. After a while, An Yu sensed his confusion.
[I also find it strange that the eternity of time and space has arrived, and the ending has been decided. Even if I can't see my own destiny, I should be able to see Ritsu's future. 】
[Perhaps there is only one possibility: every eternity has a key trigger point. For most things that happen, the trigger point was actually cast very long ago. But Ritsu's situation is a little different - the key trigger point for his ending has not yet arrived. 】
An Yu's hand holding the control rod paused.
——You mean, sir, there is still life?
[Since I can’t see clearly, it means there is still a faint trace of life, but who knows what it is? An Yu, it's too late for us to find a grain of sand in the infinite universe and time and space. 】
[I can feel your sadness, and I have been searching for a way to save him in my cognition - maybe the only way to survive is to completely cut out some of his self. But now there are no more super-abnormalities in the world, and no one of the remaining lawful ones has awakened new abilities. It is difficult for us to complete this plan, or in other words, fantasy. 】
This is the second time Dian mentioned "slicing".
An Yu asked belatedly:
--Again? You mean, someone originally had the ability to slice?
The consciousness in my mind hesitated.
After a while, Nori replied regretfully to him.
[I also just realized that the dead existence - a dead person once had the ability to slice. I saw that it was an ordinary human being affected by the aberration. There were two roads in front of him, one To survive, give up human will and walk along the cold road, he will eventually enter the vision of higher-dimensional existence, just like you and me. A dead end, the human will awakens, self-destructes due to human folly, and his abilities naturally cease to exist. 】
[Unfortunately, he chose the road of death. 】
An Yu frowned slowly.
He had always thought that "He" only involved four people. Now that he had come this far, Dian suddenly started mentioning a fifth person. This not only made him uneasy, but also seemed to make something flash in his mind.
——There are countless people affected by the aberration, why is he special?
[Perhaps that person had contact with us in our childhood, when fragments of Him had just inhabited us and could easily affect those around us. Of course, there are many people who meet this condition, but not everyone can get the fate like him. For example, Billy was exposed to Ritsu when he was a child, but ultimately failed to awaken even a slightly more powerful power. 】
When I was young...
——My brother Ling...
【not him. Unfortunately, Ling Qiu is a very important existence to you, but it is not him. 】
[Ling Qiu and you met when you were eight years old, but you traveled back eight years during the infantile sleep period. In fact, the order body has been here for sixteen years and has been very stable. 】
The golden eyes suddenly shrank.
While An Yu was gaining insight, Dian had already read his memory.
[You actually thought of it yourself. Yes, that's right. 】
[His name is Bai Jing, and he once interacted with you at a high-risk orphanage for deformation. There was an accident at the orphanage in 2138. He sold his will to fuse with the mirror, so he briefly had the mirror's ability to store slices. He is the first human to fuse with non-living things, which is enough to prove his talent. 】
——2138...
[Yes, that was the year you left the orphanage. The body of order can protect the environment, so when you are there, nothing happens in the orphanage or Area 53. But after you leave, it is like a bowl of gravy suddenly exposed to flies, and the flies will bite madly at the delicious food. 】
"etc!"
An Yu shouted directly.
He held his breath and recalled carefully in the turbulence of the plane.
The moment his thoughts became clear, Dian's consciousness also fluctuated violently at the same time.
【You thought of it! Law's glimmer of life was lost outside...]
"And yours."
【I? 】
An Yu no longer thought about it. He looked at the coordinates of the wasteland gradually becoming clearer on the radar and prepared to land.
The book he put aside flipped through the pages and stopped at a page, with the familiar poem appearing on it.
“Sleep in the abyss.
"He once accidentally fell into darkness and could not sleep peacefully.
“The ants in the abyss gnaw without knowing the depth.
"Mixed with murmurs of pain and the clamor of silence.
“He dreamed of being played by the lowly, of absurd humiliation.
“He forgot his own greatness and went to die to repeat himself.
"This is how the abyss calls, calling him to wake up.
"Reconnect with Them."
Eye's poem once predicted the awakening of his five abilities, but only the last sentence "reunited with them" has not yet come true.
He was still waiting for the last central gear.
*
Dark wasteland.
Yellow sand enveloped everything, and the silent wasteland seemed to have been split open by a sharp ax, forming a narrow and deep ravine.
Dead creatures were turned into figurines here, and the earth was constantly stirring in the corpses. The tall human figurines stood along the two walls of the ravine, and the edges could not be seen at a glance.
Tang Feng stood on the edge of the cliff and said apologetically: "Whenever someone breaks in, these human figurines will fall down one after another, the ground will be cut off and broken, and the earth will fall into crazy reconstruction. The last time I tried to enter, Putao and I walked We were separated. We were clearly right in front of each other, but it was difficult to get to know each other. Human figurines kept blocking us, and I once doubted that I would never be able to meet him again."
"It seems he doesn't want you to go in." An Yu said softly.
The space here is chaotic in the most intuitive and crazy way, cold and forceful, just like that person.
The golden eyes stared into the dark abyss, as if staring into those familiar eyes.
"Then I'll go."
