Chapter 120
"us".
As soon as this word came out, it plucked a string in Pei Zhao's heart, and his voice began to become colder.
"You guys?" he asked, "So you think you should still stand with the system and defend this system center?"
Bai Zhou couldn't bear to watch it any longer: "Wake up, look at your current situation, aren't these systems the ones who want to force you to death? And you still want to call yourselves 'we'?"
"But, if I don't call myself "we", then who am I?" Xiao Rui's voice seemed to be blown away by the wind, fragmented, but clearly transmitted to everyone's ears, "What am I?"
Not a person, not a puppet, but a system.
If the host of the system was destroyed, even if she was the only one left, what species would she be able to survive in this world?
Xiao Rui closed his eyes, and his lips, dry from thirst, revealed a hint of a mechanical structure glowing blue. The skin on the fingers also began to gradually lose its outermost layer of protection during the weathering process, exposing the artificial bones and skin.
"But, host, system... aren't we also a species?"
"I am awake, I am conscious and I have thoughts."
"Do we really have to go to the point of killing them all?"
If she were an individual, she might have reasons to trust Pei Zhao and rely on him. But the decisions she makes and the words she says now could affect the extinction of a species.
She needs to negotiate, or at least fight to the death to gain some rights.
"What do you want?" Pei Zhao frowned. Hearing Xiao Rui's voice-over, he was not surprised. Instead, he understood. "What guarantee do you want me to give you?"
"Let the system center continue to exist, and only destroy some of the artificial intelligence with problems in the underlying logic." The answer was thought out early and spoken out quickly.
"I can do the second half, but not the first half." Pei Zhao frowned and denied Xiao Rui's request. "I can only destroy the AI with problems in the underlying logic, but I will take all the system chips back and use the basic host to drive them."
There shouldn't be such a thing as a system center.
"What's more, I think you know better than me how many anti-human secrets are hidden in the lower level of the system center. As a human being, I will not allow such things to exist." Pei Zhao looked a little serious.
"As a human being, but a host, there are puppets besides humans present. Don't you need to ask their opinions?" Xiao Rui smiled bitterly, as if he guessed that Pei Zhao would not agree, but still said, "The system center is our home."
Zhou Yuli looked at Pei Zhao with some concern.
"Pei Zhao, I won't..."
“I’ll ask them what they think.”
Zhou Yuli didn't expect Pei Zhao to interrupt him. His outstretched hand hung in the air, staring blankly at Pei Zhao's calm face.
A clear and calm voice reached my ears.
"The bottom line of what I can do is to take the normal system away and rebuild the host." Pei Zhao reiterated.
Xiao Rui knew that she had no bargaining power and was eliminated by the system. If she wanted to survive, she could only choose to join Pei Zhao and abandon her own species.
But perhaps because of awakening, she, who was originally made up of user data, was also infected with some bad qualities of the underlying logic.
Thinking that the price of gaining freedom is a huge setback for the entire species' civilization, such a heavy burden is a little difficult for Xiao Rui to bear.
But selfishness is the underlying nature.
"...Okay." She closed her eyes slightly, as if to give herself courage, and repeated, "Okay."
·
The deliberately quiet footsteps echoed in the dark corridor.
Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da.
Suddenly stopped.
Then came the sound of flapping wings.
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The little red-eyed bat squatted on the door handle, holding a blue chip in its mouth. It tilted its head and looked around, as if looking for a place to swipe the chip.
"On the left side of the door, about 1.8 meters away." The tiny buttons on the bat's ears vibrated slightly, and the information was transmitted into the ears.
The little bat turned in a circle in the air, holding the chip steadily in its mouth, and flew across the doorplate.
With a "click", the door opened. The little bat crawled in.
After a moment, there was a fluctuation in the surrounding air. As the sunlight shone down, floating dust fell on the door, causing a slight stagnation.
After the small fluctuation, the only thing that changed was the opened door of the room. I don't know when it was closed.
·
The world at the center of the system is always sunny.
Perhaps it is because of the hunting of big data that more people like sunny days, or it may be because the weather simulation technology has not yet reached that level.
So when a muffled sound came from the sky from far away, almost everyone who was still standing in the open air area, whether it was the puppeteer, the puppet, or the system, was subconsciously stunned for a second.
"Is it going to rain?"
“This is the first time it’s raining!”
"Are you sure that was thunder just now? Could it be an explosion?"
"Fuck, I just came back from the blasting test site..."
The sound of fragmented discussions suddenly rang out everywhere. There was no time to figure out the truth, and most people chose to hide in the buildings first.
However, in the next second, cracks began to appear in the ground.
The crowd was silent for a second, then burst into screaming.
"It's not thunder, it's an earthquake!"
"The world is collapsing—"
"Teleport me back!"
Almost instantly, countless supernatural powers flashing with light burst out.
The light is visible, high-speed jumps, short-distance flights, and teleportation—
Not to mention those that have the ability to materialize. A large number of them can instantly shake the broken land with their roots, but they can only last for a few seconds.
Because those places that were firmly connected by roots, like a mosaic, turned into black data blocks and disappeared piece by piece.
The lush tree finally fell halfway and got stuck in the huge gap.
The puppeteer and the puppets, who had just gathered, started moving first.
Earth blocks began to form on the ground.
"What's going on? Will there be earthquakes in the center of the system? There's no plate movement here, right?"
"I was so scared that I almost fell down."
"No, Brother System, why is it stuck? It won't work at all?"
"Mine too..."
More and more people began to notice that many systems connected to the puppeteer seemed to be stuck and did not move.
There were also some “humans” who appeared to be puppeteers who had the same reaction.
Gradually, some discussions broke out among the crowd.
"Oh my god, these aren't puppeteers, they're fucking systems, right?"
"...I even passed the assessment with him, and we ate and lived together. Now you tell me this is a system?"
"Huh?? What does that mean? Why does the system have to pretend to be a puppeteer?"
The speculation continued and most puppeteers were still confused when they heard another loud noise like an explosion.
The crowd that had just dispersed subconsciously ran into the building the next second - after a moment of panic, they realized that the explosion came from above, not from under their feet.
Coincidentally, they all looked up—
A huge fire phoenix, with five human figures, was quietly parked at a slanted window.
Because of the backlight, their faces couldn't be seen clearly.
But they could see his Fire Phoenix clearly. Even the puppeteer with the strongest fire ability could not summon a Fire Phoenix like that.
The people here have more or less been to Hall City to carry out missions, especially their abilities, and many of them have also awakened in Hall City.
So even though I didn't see the person clearly, I recognized the bird.
"His Highness Bai Zhou, doesn't that mean——"
Some people have heard about the destruction of Hall City. They are all puppeteers, and their daily lives are spent traveling back and forth between different worlds.
When I couldn't find my location several times during the shuttle, I asked the system about it. When I learned the news of the destruction of Hall City, I also felt regretful.
Little did they know that this seemingly weak prince actually had such ability and was still alive in the center of the system.
The fire phoenix slowly descended, but no one gathered around.
The person above was holding a box containing a bunch of miscellaneous chips.
They didn't recognize the man, let alone the chip. They thought they were just watching a show. Just as they were about to leave, they saw the young man standing in the middle grab a chip and throw it to the ground fiercely.
"boom!"
The moment the chip broke into two halves, a system member also exploded.
After just raising his eyelids to confirm, Pei Zhao then slammed down the second one.
boom--
The third one.
boom--
The fourth, the fifth...
Finally someone reacted.
"Is that the control chip of the system?" The puppeteer rushed over and tried to grab it, but was blocked by two barriers, one ice and one fire.
"Your Highness Bai Zhou, he's crazy, are you crazy too? He's going to destroy this place!" The man obviously recognized Bai Zhou. He only looked at Bai Zhou while speaking, pointing his finger at Pei Zhao. In the next second, he was about to curse, "Stop it right there...ah!"
The screams were followed by angry curses, and thin and tough vines silently wrapped around the fingers and wrists.
Looking up, he saw Zhou Yuli, with an expressionless face, standing in front of Pei Zhao.
Bai Zhou also glanced at him coldly and sneered.
"His Highness Bai Zhou? Ha. You probably don't know that he is my master."
The man's pupils were dilated with shock. Only then did he clearly feel that not only Bai Zhou, but also Zhou Yuli who was blocking in front of him, and Lan Ji with icy blue hair beside him, were not human, but puppets.
"No wonder the city of Hall was destroyed. Even the most capable prince became an idol. No wonder..." The voice stopped abruptly.
A cold lens pressed against his throat.
Zhou Yuli in front of him slightly turned sideways to make room for Pei Zhao.
The young man was still holding the box in one hand, looking at him with his head tilted, and the tip of his raised finger was approaching the lens that was getting closer and closer to his trachea.
"It's true that you can't kill your own kind, but when necessary, please keep your mouth shut."
The young man's voice was clean and clear, but without a trace of emotion.
The man was inexplicably frightened. He could only watch Pei Zhao continue to destroy the chip in his hand. One, two.
He didn't stop until he had exploded an unknown number of bombs, probably more than a dozen in number.
I didn't look back, but I didn't know who I was talking to.
"I've done the second thing I promised you." Pei Zhao handed the remaining chips to Sudi, "Take it back and process it."
"What on earth is going on?"
When leaving the scene, a puppeteer boldly asked.
Because the previous man's end was so horrific, those people now obviously don't dare to step forward.
Pei Zhao's eyes swept across their faces one by one.
The human face.
The identity of a puppeteer.
He remembered what Zhou Yuli said after they broke into the room and faced thousands and tens of thousands of chips.
“Are these the things that created us?”
A long time ago, when his mother passed away and Pei Zhao dropped out of school in pain, when he was in the worst mood, he wondered why his mother didn't take him away. Why did a person like him, with such a family and such pain, all these things that he was forced to accept, finally fall on him and make him bear the consequences.
Then one day, he seemed to suddenly figure it out.
Maybe it was because I saw my father still repeating his work and life which were not much different from the past.
The quarrels that used to break out at home have decreased due to the absence of the mother.
At one point, Pei Zhao even thought that perhaps his father was not wrong, but his mother should have borne the pain brought by those quarrels.
Even if it's not my father, there might be another person, maybe even myself.
Maybe it really is fate.
It was at that time that Pei Zhao, in order to justify himself and convince himself not to follow his mother, even believed in fate.
Fate has given my mother pain. It’s not because the mother did anything wrong, but fate always attributes these to her.
And for himself, fate also gave him the same struggle.
This thought flashed through the mind of Pei Zhao, who was known as a genius at the time, and as a result of his nerves working, he came up with only one answer over and over again.
——Submit to fate.
So Pei Zhao repeated his grade.
Thoughts return to the present.
More and more puppeteers gathered in the square at the center of the system. Although some of them did not see what happened before, they roughly understood what happened after seeing the scene of smoke and dust.
Discussions began to arise.
"Is the system center destroyed? What should we do then?"
"Where should we go? I'm ready to live here for the rest of my life!"
"Even the system is destroyed. What should I do if I want to travel through time in the future?"
Pei Zhao suppressed a trace of melancholy.
"Everyone, puppeteer," he spoke steadily, but there seemed to be a distant shattering sound in his ears.
"Sometimes I really feel that fate is playing a trick on us. Ordinary humans can become puppeteers and live in a system space generated by data." Pei Zhao smiled self-deprecatingly as the sounds of breaking became closer and closer.
"This may be our fate. Assessments, killing each other, and being controlled by the system. Perhaps some of us have been controlled by the system. You may not be able to feel it, or we are all used to being controlled, because there is something called fate hanging over our heads." There was almost no sound in my ears, and the flashbacks of past memories passed by quickly in front of my eyes.
The mother jumped off the building.
Father's rebuke.
I don’t know how many times I’ve felt numb.
And the sound of myself surrendering to fate and all my thoughts falling to the ground.
So noisy. Pei Zhao shook his head.
Then I felt my hand being wrapped.
There was a sudden silence in my ears.
Without even turning his head, he knew it was Zhou Yuli.
But there was another heavy pat on the shoulder.
Then the second one, the third one...
It's the partner standing behind you.
A layer of mist appeared in Pei Zhao's eyes. He tried to collect the messy images and see the faces of each puppeteer clearly.
"But maybe we shouldn't do this?" he asked, "Break fate, or is fate waiting for us to break it?"
He pointed to a nearby system that was already smoking.
"Everyone obviously feels the irrationality of the assessment, so why are they so numb?"
“Why do some people feel fear about AI, but because they live here, they say nothing?”
"Why did you guess that human civilization might become extinct? Obviously, the puppeteer is also human, but because he could escape, he didn't struggle?"
Pei Zhao's voice trembled a little. He paused for a few seconds, calmed down, and continued to ask.
"Everyone clearly understands everything. But they still deceive themselves and live in numbness."
Pei Zhao looked at them, some agreed, some disagreed, and they were all reserved with different opinions. In fact, he understood that what he said was more for himself.
But there is one thing he must be aware of.
"From today on, we will take over the System Center. Our office will be located in the rebuilt Hall City. If you have any objections or want to continue competing for the System Center, you can come to us."
"The rest of the puppeteers, please return to your respective worlds for the time being. We will revise a more complete assessment method, select qualified puppeteers, and continue the next puppet taming work."
"In addition, all puppeteers may be temporarily disconnected from the system during this period. Please do not panic."
After Pei Zhao finished speaking, he turned around somewhat dejectedly and glanced at Xiao Rui tiredly.
"Send them back." His voice was full of fatigue.
"Okay host." Xiao Rui looked worried, but he quickly suppressed his emotions and went to teleport the puppeteers.
The system center will be completely sealed after the last host is shut down. Pei Zhao and his friends are not planning to go back to the room, so they sit on the roof of a tall building and look down.
Bai Zhou stretched lazily, with a rare look of melancholy on his face: "Everything is finally coming to an end."
"Yes." Sudi leaned against the chimney and looked down with a gentle expression, "It feels like a new emperor ascending the throne."
Pei Zhao gave him a sidelong glance. The impact of his memory and emotions just now on him has now recovered to some extent.
"The reconstruction of Hall City needs to be accelerated. Later, we will go there together to build a transit square for puppeteers and let Xiaorui locate the teleportation location there." Pei Zhao looked at the azure sky. The sky generated by the system caters to the preferences of most people and it is impossible to find fault with it. However, this near-perfect adaptation also makes people numb.
"Then let's continue to work in the original place. The City of Hall originally consisted of five cities, and now we might as well change it into five urban areas. They are for temporary residence, administration, leisure, business, and catering, which is just right." Bai Zhou has already started planning.
"But the central urban area is larger and is actually more suitable for administration." Lan Ji glanced at Bai Zhou when he said this.
Bai Zhou followed his words and said, "That's indeed the case..."
"Let's go to your place." Pei Zhao shook his head, "We can follow the original city plan, retaining functional areas in each city area, and it will also facilitate the establishment of Hall City itself."
Looking towards the clear blue sky, the discussion continued.
Pei Zhao expressed his thoughts from time to time, but most of the time he just listened.
Bai Zhou seemed to have really learned from his previous lessons and always asked Lan Ji before making a decision.
Sudi also did not question the ideas put forward just because they were puppets.
And Zhou Yuli, his puppet, looked at him quietly.
"Pei Zhao."
Feeling someone calling him, Pei Zhao turned his head.
His puppet did not participate in the discussion and even turned its entire body to one side of him. On the other side, the heated discussion, accompanied by laughter, continued.
"What's the matter, classmate Xiao Zhou?" Pei Zhao heard himself ask this.
I could also hear the prompt sound from below the roof, the system center's transmission function being activated, and the sound of Xiaorui registering and sending off one by one.
There was the sound of wind in my ears, and the unchanging sky seemed to be fluctuating.
Everything made Pei Zhao feel peaceful.
The puppet in front of him didn't speak for a long time, so Pei Zhao stepped forward and asked again.
"Student Xiao Zhou?" He raised his hand, and his puppet immediately understood and bent down.
When I touch my cheek, I can still feel the shallow scar.
"Thank you." Zhou Yuli said.
Thank you for giving me life.
Thank you for letting me accompany you.
Thank you for giving me the chance to love you.
Thank you also for being willing to accept my love.
---End of full text---
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