Chapter 486: Deep Network

Anyway, it was just like that. Now, in addition to Mr. Sun’s construction team and disciples of Qianfeng Lingshan like Xuan Che, there was another “outsider” coming and going in the valley, a snake demon.

In fact, Snake Queen could not understand how far the border area was from Taixu Lingshu, and she did not understand what "light-year scale" and "different space" were. She seemed to simply think that this valley was somewhere near Qianfeng Lingshan - the reason was that it was just a door away, making it very convenient to go home.

Yu Sheng briefly chatted with the monster and then gave up the idea of explaining to her.

Now that the children had been called back to class by Teacher Su, the snake demon began to wander around bored. The fairy tale town was not big, and she quickly crawled from one end of the town to the other, and then ran from the town to the nearby farmland, where she nibbled on a few vegetable seedlings. After being beaten by Luna, she ran back and hung herself on the king's cat climbing frame to bask in the sun.

After basking in the sun for more than ten minutes, she realized that there was no sun in the valley, but it was still hanging there.

Little Red Riding Hood thought she was going to be beaten by the King next.

Yu Sheng was quite surprised by the monster's current state of mind and lifestyle. Snake Princess's carefree, almost wild-animal state even exuded a sense of "Taoism follows nature." But if you must call her a wild animal... while hanging there basking in the sun, she would use the spiritual mirror to watch short videos and like videos about reptiles...

Yu Sheng, Hu Li, and Little Red Riding Hood sat together on the castle wall, watching the snake demon clinging to the giant cat climbing frame from afar. After a while, Hu Li suddenly asked curiously, "Where does she live?"

"Actually, there are several empty houses in this town—they're all extra houses we've built," said Little Red Riding Hood. "But she saw them all and said she didn't like them, so I guess she'll have to live in the woods to the north."

"I've seen her 'cave'," Yu Sheng said casually. "It's just a messy grass nest with a bunch of rocks collected from the river and hillside... I'll give her some building materials later. If she really wants a house to live in, let her build it herself. Besides, this place is connected to Qianfeng Lingshan anyway, so she can go back home to sleep when she's had enough fun."

Hu Li uttered an "oh," and then suddenly his ears twitched, and he stared at the cat climbing frame with wide eyes: "Hey, the king has woken up... The king found a snake on the cat climbing frame!"

Little Red Riding Hood opened her eyes wide as well. "The King came over... and he exhaled! They both exhaled at the same time! The King raised his paw... Oh my god, the Royal Guards Magician Corps!"

Then they both stared at the battle on the cat climbing frame, commenting on it. After a while, they sighed in unison. Little Red Riding Hood shook her head: "Sure enough, he was thrown down."

Yu Sheng was standing by and watching Hu Li and Little Red Riding Hood putting their heads together to watch the fun. He felt a lot of emotions in his heart, but he was too embarrassed to say the words "fox friends" for a long time - mainly because he was afraid that Little Red Riding Hood would get stressed out.

After all, the dark history of this girl and Hu Li's arm in arm is still stored in one of Rapunzel's network drives...

Thinking of this, Yu Sheng suddenly remembered something and asked curiously, "By the way, how did you do on your driver's license test?"

Little Red Riding Hood, who was watching the fun with Hu Li, froze when she heard this, and then became visibly embarrassed.

“…I failed the second part of the test,” she muttered. “I just took the make-up exam the day before yesterday—and I didn’t pass it either.”

"Um, the second part of the test is quite difficult," Yu Sheng had just been asking, but he hadn't expected this to happen. He could only quickly console her and casually asked, "Which step are you stuck on?"

Little Red Riding Hood blushed, lowered her head and said nothing.

Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment: "Fell into the ditch again?"

Little Red Riding Hood continued to lower her head.

Yu Sheng understood in his heart, and after a moment he sighed: "You... try harder next time."

…

At the same time, in the "border" area of the junction, there is a large villa on a broken floating island.

The circular hall was brightly lit. Countless cables extending from above intertwined on the roof like a tree canopy, converging into a "trunk" in the center of the hall and connecting to a large base on the floor. Countless tiny flashes flickered and moved inside this "tree," like vibrant vitality flowing through the interwoven trunks and branches.

The entire hall was filled with a low, pleasant humming sound, and small sounds like wind chimes occasionally emanated from deep within the "tree canopy."

Marlene sat on the base of the "tree", a cable extending from the back of her neck and merging into the trunk behind her. The clockwork maid, Maris, sat beside her, leaning against her. Several other cables extended from around Maris's clockwork hole and connected to several wire grooves in the base.

This is the data processing center of the base, and also the "node" of the "Garden" matrix network set up at the intersection.

Under normal circumstances, the connection between the Alice doll and the "garden" does not require physical contact, but today's situation is obviously a little special.

To find dangerous information that may have been hidden from the public network, or "zombie databases" that may have been buried in the data sedimentation layer with the repeated iterations and upgrades of the "Garden", you must use node authentication with higher permissions.

The search has been going on for several hours, but even with the computing power and bandwidth of high-level nodes, it is not an easy task to find those fragments of information that may only remain in such a huge garden network.

What's more, those scattered data may even be blocked by higher-level security systems.

In the light and shadow illusion created by the torrent of information, Marlene's consciousness was sinking deeper into the garden network.

She had already passed the bustling, noisy first-level access layer and the hectic, busy second-level access layer. The surface structure of the "garden" shone above her like a vast, grotesque city. It was bustling and bustling, and countless nodes were filled with all kinds of bizarre data that each Alice doll could capture and upload from every corner of the universe. From the biggest news of a military conflict in a certain star region to the smallest news of a city launching a hair care oil suitable for dolls, astonishing and complex data roared through the network, written, refreshed, reorganized, and discarded in units of terabytes...

The lower level of this "giant city" was a quiet and profound reflection. The prosperity of the upper network was only a distant echo here. The illusion of light and shadow fluttered in Marlene's vision like a thin and fragile curtain, with some signposts used to mark important intelligence passing through. Occasionally, other puppet minds could be seen appearing on this level, each one was blurry and hurried.

But the information Marlene wants to access may be deeper than here.

She used her authority as a "regional envoy" to dive deeper into the garden network.

The surrounding illusions of light and shadow dimmed further, and only a few empty noises were transmitted from the upper network. There were no other Alice doll minds in the dim light, and only occasionally some gray shadows could be seen quickly shuttling through the darkness - they were patrol programs called "scavengers". They shuttled through the depths of the garden network day and night, clearing out the polluting information that occasionally sank to this layer, and were always vigilant to see if a "zombie database" blocked by the main network woke up without authorization.

Data can suddenly awaken, just like a sleeping corpse awakening in a grave. Although the probability is small, it is always inevitable that a zombie database will suddenly come alive and create its own self. In some civilized circles, locals will regard this type of data structure that emerges from the depths of the network and causes chaos as the main cause of "machine soul displeasure". However, in the "Garden" network, these awakened harmful data structures are basically unable to break through the defense line formed by the "Scavengers".

Marlene stopped at this level, looking down at the chaotic depths, the invisible things surging like an endless abyss - that was the projection illusion created by the garden network in her mind, reminding her that this was the end of the dive.

A dim ball of light floated beside her, and Maris's slightly distorted voice came from the ball of light: "Access request submitted. Access keywords: Irene, omen, goddess of omen, black star, dark star, faulty planet, space-time defect, system boundary, super-system event..."

"Well, thank you for your hard work."

Marlene said calmly, turning her head to glance at the ball of light beside her.

The servo robots produced by Algrade-Universe United Industries were indeed very powerful. Marly's simulated mind could even accompany her to dive deep into the Garden Network and still function normally. This saved her a lot of effort and also reduced the mental stress brought about by deep network diving to a considerable extent. Although Marly often behaved more like an annoying servo girl, compared to the role she could play... it was not a big problem.

...Anyway, I won’t become a member.

As Marlene was thinking, she saw a ball of gray-white light suddenly swim out from the chaos, stop in front of her, and then circle around her like a swimming fish.

It's a scavenger.

Marlene subconsciously felt a little nervous, but fortunately, the standard scanning procedure went smoothly—the scavenger left quickly without even checking Marlys's ball of light next to him.

“Why is it only scanning you?” Maryse asked.

"Because your simulated mind is too rudimentary here, it's not enough to pose any threat to this level," Marlene said frankly. "Besides, you were thoroughly scanned when you just passed through the upper area. There's no need to waste the scavenger's computing power here."

"...Honestly, I'm a little hurt," Maryse said dejectedly. "After all, I'm just a mass-produced, outdated industrial product. Even though I've tried my best to imitate you, I can't change my inner nature."

Marlene was stunned for a moment, then subconsciously reached out to the ball of light in front of her: "Maryse, actually..."

But before she could finish her words, the ball of light immediately released the rest of the sentence: "So why don't you try the mind upgrade expansion pack launched by Universal United Industries specifically for this situation? No need to buy a full frame, just one auxiliary unit, and your servo robot can complete the installation by itself. Order now..."

"Shut up."

"Okay, Miss Marlene."

Marlene shook her head and began to wonder which of the more than one hundred pieces of content she had set up when she turned on Maryse's phone was the smart push notification.

At this moment, she saw a grayish-white light out of the corner of her eye.

The scavenger program...why is it here again?

(End of this chapter)