The air was filled with a pungent smell similar to ozone, and also a... indescribable smell of old circuit boards charred and mixed with dust.
She struggled to lift her head.
This was a vast, seemingly endless, cold space comprised of countless enormous metal frames and pipes. The framework was exposed, covered in rust. The pipes varied in thickness, some wrapped in cracked insulation, revealing thick, irregularly glowing cables inside.
Countless indicator lights flickered like will-o'-the-wisps in the darkness, red, yellow, and green dancing haphazardly. A massive cooling fan roared in the distance, stirring the stifling, sweltering air.
There is no sky, no earth, only cold metal, tangled fiber optic cables, and pervasive dust. Compared to the dreamlike beauty of "Azure Shore" and "Universal Celebration Plaza," this is a garbage dump! A filthy and chaotic backstage workshop!
Is this the other side of the clouds?!
Jiang Chan tried to stand up, bracing herself against the cold, rough ground. Just then—
Ooh-ah-ah-!
A piercing, indescribable wail suddenly exploded in her ears! The sound was sharp, distorted, and filled with extreme pain and fear!
It was like the agonizing screams of countless people being simultaneously thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, their souls instantly being tormented and melted! The sound directly impacted the core of her consciousness, causing her very soul to tremble!
She quickly covered her ears, but the sound was everywhere!
Then came the second, the third… one after another! Countless wails, cries, and desperate roars, all filled with the same pain, surged in from all directions, from the depths of the pipes flowing with data light, from the gaps in the roar of the huge fans in the distance… like a tidal wave! They overlapped, intertwined, and converged into a boundless ocean of pain!
Jiang Chan froze, her blood seemingly freezing instantly. She abruptly looked up, her gaze fixed on the joint of the nearest thick pipe. The joint was loosely sealed, and dangerous sparks flickered from it.
In the instant the sparks flew, an extremely faint, viscous, blood-red data stream was squeezed out from the gap and vanished in a flash! But in that instant, Jiang Chan's consciousness captured the thick, unyielding grief and despair contained within that data stream!
That wasn't simulated emotion! That was the real, living cries of fragments of consciousness in excruciating pain!
Her gaze swept around. Those rapidly flowing, multicolored bands of light... those were countless streams of consciousness data that had been cut, scattered, and transmitted!
They were being transported at high speed through pipelines, their destination unknown. In the distant darkness connected by those pipelines, the vaguely visible silhouettes of massive, mountain-like, and intricately structured shadows flickered with a dangerous red light, each flash accompanied by a peak of agonizing screams!
Jiang Chan finally understood where that terrifying data scream before the upload came from!
Now I understand what Zhu Laoqi meant by "massive data stream"!
I understand now what the relatives of those who uploaded this video felt about the "coldness" and "estrangement"!
I understand those brief, corrected "emotional overflows"!
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