Chapter 487 She is very brave

When the scavenger program appeared for the third time and began to scan herself repeatedly, Marlene was finally sure that something was wrong.

The grayish-white light swirled in the surrounding darkness like some kind of constantly wriggling and deforming snake-like mechanism, repeatedly scanning Marlene's mental body characteristics. The entire scanning process lasted about twenty seconds - a very normal operation process. After that, it seemed to find nothing unusual and turned away like the two scavengers before it, disappearing into the boundless chaos deep in the garden network.

Marlene didn't dare to act rashly and stayed where she was cautiously.

But apart from the scavenger program repeatedly scanning, nothing else seemed to have happened - her mind body was not attacked, nor did she receive any risk warnings from the "Garden" system.

"Maryse." In the darkness, she cautiously called her servo assistant.

"I'm here." A calm voice came from the dim light.

"Check our connection environment."

"Checking... The connection environment is normal, the Alice Tree pollution index is zero, and the Garden Network full node is unobstructed."

"From your perspective, is there something wrong with the functioning of my mental body?"

"There's nothing wrong, Miss Marlene. Your mind and body are in perfect health."

"But the scavengers are scanning me repeatedly," Marlene said, her voice tinged with worry. "They seem to think there's something wrong with me."

"Perhaps there's something wrong with the Scavenger program?" Maris analyzed. "After all, the Deep Web is very old, and the Scavenger program has been running here for quite a long time..."

"This has never happened before," Marlene shook her head. "Besides, the scavenger program is constantly being updated. It shouldn't be prone to repeated misjudgments like this."

As she spoke, she lowered her head and carefully observed her body - this was not her body in the real world, but the projection of her mental body in the garden network. In a sense, this was her soul form as an "Alice doll".

Marlene suddenly frowned.

She seemed to have discovered something and raised her hand to examine it carefully.

A faint thin thread was wrapped around his right wrist, floating in the chaotic cyberspace, extending into the depths of nothingness.

"What is this thing..."

The living puppet frowned and carefully pinched the thin wire with his left hand. He found that it was as light as nothing. After pulling it twice, it became extremely tough. The part wrapped around the wrist was very firm, and it seemed to have been fused with his joints and could not be removed.

The dark and thin thread reminded her of spider silk.

Marys's ball of light immediately came over.

"I heard that the Alice doll with the highest level of blessing can observe the soul thread just like the ancestor of the doll. Miss Marlene, you..."

"It's not that," Marlene shook her head before the other person finished speaking, her face extremely solemn. "It's something else. I don't know when it got contaminated. Could it be with that little..."

Before she finished her words, another gray light suddenly appeared not far away: the scavenger program came again.

Marlene stood tensely in the darkness, watching the light approach, scan, and then leave as if in great confusion.

"It's scanning this thing," she finally understood, her eyes widening slightly as she looked at the black thread wrapped around her wrist. "The scavenger program identified it as an intruder, but for some reason, it didn't trigger any further alarms."

Maris's light flickered slowly in the darkness. "...Why does this happen?"

"I don't know. The scavenger program has always been very strict. Logically, once an intruder is detected, even the mind of a higher-level puppet will be immediately expelled..." Marlene frowned, her eyes fixed on the black spider silk wrapped around her wrist, "Unless..."

"unless?"

"Unless someone tampered with the Scavenger's program ahead of time," Marlene said solemnly, "or the information characteristics of this 'spider silk' have already sunk into this layer many years ago and been included in the Scavenger's exemption list."

Maryse's light ball flashed twice quickly. "...Who can do such a thing?"

"...Perhaps, it's a puppet that disappeared 3,700 years ago?"

Marlene said softly, raising her hand and observing the direction of the floating silk thread.

She found that no matter how she adjusted her position, the "spider silk" extending from her wrist always pointed in the same direction.

After a slight hesitation, she walked in the direction indicated by the "spider silk".

Out of caution, whenever a scavenger program approached, she and Marlys would stop immediately and continue forward after the scavenger program completed its meaningless scan.

They "walked" for a long time, even exceeding the recommended safe time limit under normal circumstances.

"Ms. Marlene, I must remind you that we are already 'over-diving,'" Marly's light ball began to chatter. "The data sedimentation area deep in the Garden Network is placing a heavy strain on your mind and body. Even a high-level puppet shouldn't be active in this layer for long. The program imprint I received requires me to remind you every five minutes from now on..."

"Okay, got the reminder." Marlene didn't pause at all, instead speeding up her search and processing of the surrounding information. She could feel her body in reality heating up, but at least so far, the status of all the connection ports was still normal. "Please help me pay attention to the surroundings. If there are any unusual active signals, alert me - but don't move around."

"Okay, Miss Marlene."

Some tiny debris appeared in the field of vision.

Marlene slowed down her pace and saw some pale fragments of varying sizes, moving in the chaos like plankton in the deep sea, constantly colliding and reorganizing with each other.

Those are useless data structures that have fallen from the upper network and are being decomposed and reorganized by this layer. Some of their codes may become part of the next iteration of the scavenger.

A broken puppet arm floated out of the darkness and slowly rolled in the field of vision.

Marlene frowned and stepped forward to inspect it.

"Is this what you're looking for?" Maryse's voice sounded from the side.

"No," Marlene shook her head. "It was just a careless sister who fell a few hundred years ago. She escaped safely. This is just an afterimage."

She let go of the puppet arm and looked at the black spider silk on the wrist again.

The spider silk is slowly dissipating - it has a time limit. After entering this layer of the network, the information carried by this spider silk has been decomposed by the "garden" and has now reached the end of dissipation.

Marlene had noticed this just now, so she didn't follow Maryse's advice and evacuate directly, because she was worried that she would not have this clue the next time she came in.

Although this spider silk might be related to the little doll that called herself "Erin", judging from the little guy's confused behavior, Marlene suspected that the doll had only unconsciously left this "trace" on her. It might be a one-time thing.

"This should be the place..."

Marlene frowned, looking at the direction pointed by the almost transparent spider silk, but found that there was only a chaotic shadow there, just like most of the "nothingness" areas in the deep web.

The spider silk completely dissipated.

But in the moment before it completely dissipated, Marlene noticed something floating in the chaotic shadow.

She rushed forward without hesitation and stretched out her hand towards the floating light and shadow.

In an instant, countless chaotic scenes of light and shadow flooded into her mind like an uncontrollable tide, and scenes of memories that did not belong to her roared in her mind!

She saw the ancient tower, its shattered structure floating in the cracks of the disordered dimension, huge shadows passing through the cracks in the tower, and terrifying limbs swept through the crooked pointed and narrow windows, bathed in starlight in the night;

She saw the scenery outside the tower, a space-time rift slowly closing, and in front of the rift were investigators and spirit world detectives who were hastily evacuating, as well as corpses that had already lost their life.

She also saw a blond figure, an Alice doll—the blond doll stood among the investigators and spirit detectives, facing the opposite direction of the crowd's retreat, looking up at the top of the tower.

Marlene felt her gaze being pulled by some invisible force, forced to overlap with the blonde puppet's, and gradually turned in the direction "she" was looking at - she sensed a huge danger, a sense that a cold and destructive aura that could almost melt the mind was gathering and brewing at the top of the tower.

She subconsciously resisted this force, but still couldn't help turning her head and looking at the top of the tower.

Beyond the layers of cracked floors and walls, and between the spiral staircases that twisted and entangled like tangled thorns, a scarlet gaze was looking down.

"We can make a deal."

Marlene felt like she only heard a huge noise, but amidst the roaring noise, she clearly understood the message conveyed by that scarlet gaze.

She was stunned for a moment, and then another voice came from the direction of the blonde doll -

"Trade your uncle!"

Marlene was startled, then she felt her sight suddenly regain freedom, and subconsciously looked back.

The blonde doll raised her hand and a cold, frightening frying pan appeared in her hand. The next second, she strode towards the tower.

Marlene: “……?”

A loud noise roared from the tower: "No, I said we can discuss it..."

"Discuss it with your uncle!"

"We may have a misunderstanding. Those people bumped into..."

"Misunderstanding you uncle!"

The blonde puppet roared with full energy, then leaped into the air. Her skirt and hair flew, and she raised the frying pan high in her hand. A streak of golden light shot straight to the top of the tower.

"Fuck you, eat my pot!"

"boom!"

The sky and the earth changed color and thunder roared.

Marlene had only one thought before she lost consciousness: "No, sister...are you so brave?"

(End of this chapter)