53
The world in the simulated universe, the underlying sea of data——
This place was frozen in eternal night. A blue-gray sky hung low, a crescent moon motionless at the junction of sea and sky. The moonlight was cold, casting a pale, phosphorescent path across the surface of the water, extending into the darkness beyond the reach of the eye. There was no wind, even the sound of the waves crashing against the shore was swallowed up. Only the still water shone coldly in the moonlight, like a vast, motionless sheet of mercury.
The blue coastline meandered like satin in the moonlight, the tides pulsating with pearly foam in an unchanging rhythm. The sea shimmered, each wave seemingly coated in a layer of fine silver, flickering with the tide. The water was crystal clear, as if filtered free of all impurities. The moonlight penetrated the seabed, casting flickering specks of light on the fine sand. The water in the shallows was nearly colorless, like molten crystal, revealing the texture of every grain of sand.
The moonlight made the sea appear an almost unreal blue-black color, like a melting night sky.
When the tide recedes, only a thin layer of water remains in the shallows, and the sunlight casts fine ripple shadows on the sand, like flowing silk.
“It’s full of surprises.”
As expected of a man praised by Hipper as infinite, he truly possessed limitless possibilities. Even if he died, he could be brought back to life. He thought all he had to do was wait for the corpse to be recovered.
This is the first time a living person has come in.
Strolling along the tidal-washed sand, each step stirred up a splash of water as translucent as glass, yet the water droplets never soaked my shoes. Upon closer inspection, this wasn't seawater, but a 'tide' formed by billions of lines of shimmering code, each wave a flowing trace of binary light. When the waves broke, they splattered not with droplets but with tiny pixels, like shredded digital fragments, reassembled the next second.
Fluorescent blue and electronic cyan data links flow against a deep blue background, flickering like breathing. At certain "peaks," the data flow accelerates, bursting into a dazzling neon purple, like the energy eruption of an overloaded server.
Beneath the distant "sea" lies not darkness, but countless strings of flowing green characters, swimming, colliding, and reorganizing like schools of deep-sea fish. "Occasionally, a huge shadow passes by—perhaps a massive, unloaded data packet, or forgotten, redundant information."
The ebb and flow of the data tide is not formed naturally, but follows a certain algorithmic law - when the tide is high, the information flow pours down like a waterfall; when the tide is low, the remaining fragments disappear like being emptied by a recycle bin.
This isn't the sea, but the entire memory of human civilization—a vast expanse of data, compressed, encrypted, and discarded, circulating here in perpetual circulation. Blurred faces or city images flash across some of the waves, like collective memories uploaded and then forgotten.
This sea of data is eerily silent, with only the flickering dots of light on the retina proving that it is still flowing - like a muted video, with only the screen flashing wildly.
Her long hair cascaded down her back, spreading slightly with each step. Ten steps away, a shirtless man lay face-up in the waves, like a puzzle spitted back by the deep sea.
The moonlight dyed the waves into millions of pieces of silver, and also reflected on this man.
“How can I tell you apart?”
The primordial body bent its knees and crouched, stirring a tiny ripple, not from the ground itself, but from the trembling of the tide itself. Moonlight penetrated its fingertips, creating a silver void on the sand and the tide—where a shadow should have been. It was like passing through a cloud of condensed mist. From beginning to end, it had never truly touched this world.
Her fingers hovered over his exposed waist—a centipede-shaped scar running across it. The blow from Ryomen Sukuna had been fatal. Later, Hipper resurrected him through a trade with the Libra. She had assumed that Libra's greedy nature would only take, not spit out data or life even if it failed, but she hadn't expected the trade to succeed.
Hipper thought he was doomed. What a surprise, right? He was the one wreaking havoc in the Sunless Sea a while ago, and he didn't go crazy and ended up here.
The simulated universe is the activity range of the primordial celestial body. If Hipper had not deliberately checked, he would not have discovered that there was an extra little thing in his home.
"I'll just call you Resurrection Wu."
A simple and clear name.
Hipper's life is truly fascinating: a 15-year-old classmate, Gojo Satoru, a 28-year-old teacher, Gojo Satoru, and now a 29-year-old resurrected Gojo Satoru. Is she going to have a party?
Haha, as long as she is happy.
Where Gojo Satoru had been staying for a long time, red error codes began to appear on the ground, like an area infected by a virus. The moment these red data touched his skin, they collapsed and disappeared.
Data ripples rippled deep within its crimson pupils, like a pool of stirred electronic blood. Fragments of code devoured by the void reassembled into distorted projections within its visual matrix. Those annihilated data, like iron sand drawn to a magnet, now silently returned to its course under its command.
Apparently, someone had unknowingly stolen some of its power.
It is not authorized to anyone other than Hipper...I see.
This wasn't a simple transfer of energy. As Schipper's life and data flowed into his body, certain keys to her authority were also transferred. Strange commands took root within him—Schipper's authority became his key. Her subconscious began to cast a shadow on his sea of logic, syncing with every heartbeat, searing itself into the depths of his soul.
Perhaps part of her memory also flowed into the resurrected Satoru's body along with the data.
Sharing life with another person is not something the Primordial Celestial Being approves of. The person being given life might gradually become addicted to her life signals and even begin to actively demand more, which would weaken Hipper and hasten her death.
"You two shouldn't meet."
Maybe locking him up here and never letting them see each other again is a good option.
Just as the Primordial Celestial Body was about to take action, Fuxing Wu opened his eyes.
What a pity, we missed the best time.
The moment those eyes opened, they locked onto the figure in the center of their field of vision. Their pupils reflected the other person's expressionless face.
The air froze the moment their eyes met, and his gaze possessed a kind of almost divine focus.
"Where is she?"
The first thing he said after waking up was straight to the point. Even though they had the same face and had only met once, Gojo Satoru could tell who saved him.
"Does it have to be her?"
The Primordial Body tilted its head to look at him, its white hair cascading down. But it had forgotten that no matter how much it imitated that person, its eyes and expression remained unchanged. It was an empty shell, unable to bear any emotion, and possessing no feelings.
Its face was a one-to-one replica—the height of its brow ridges, the curve of its lips. But when it smiled, its muscles moved like a puppet being pulled by strings, and the moment its mouth curled up, a dead blankness filled its eyes.
The man's eyes glowed a warm orange in the sunlight, their pupils constricting like blades in anger, their eyelids trembling like a dying butterfly in sorrow. And this one? Its eyeballs were forever frozen in a hollow calm, even the reflected firelight seemed to be through a layer of glass.
Its beauty is like a painting, but no matter how charming the scenery in the painting is, it cannot compare to the real world.
"It's a bit clumsy."
He remembered the blue eyes that were similar to his own, empty, stubborn, and tough, not the soulless, inhuman creature before him.
"The sound isn't similar either."
He remembered the tired yet melodious voice of that person, not the electronic voice of this... monster. Even if they were similar, they were not the same person.
A bit of an eyesore.
"Can you change your face? I like this face better in person."
Coarse sand clung to the fabric, sliding down as he lifted his upper body from the sand. He stretched his stiff neck and shoulders, but his gaze, like a nail, was already fixed on the man's face. Without the blindfold, he could clearly see the deep, almost burning desire in his eyes.
Gojo Satoru raised his arm and extended his index finger. Not with a frivolous touch, but with a firmness that bordered on scrutiny, he used the tip of his finger—the slightly rough, calloused tip—to poke directly at the softest patch of skin on its cheek. The touch beneath his finger was, as expected, delicate and soft, like fine silk, yet taut, as if something hard lay beneath. Its eyelashes trembled imperceptibly, like the wings of a startled butterfly, but otherwise, its face remained motionless, as perfect as a carefully crafted mask.
"If you touch a girl's face when you first meet her, she'll be disgusted."
The touch feels very real, not fake, but... senses can sometimes deceive people.
"Hmm?" He looked up at me, "Are you considered a girl too?"
"That's very rude."
Compared to the insignificant touch of his fingers, his eyes were the real intruder—a naked desire to tear it out from this carefully painted surface, as if its face was not covered by skin, but a thin, obstructive layer of paper.
"Can't I really change my face?"
I want to see her and destroy everything that stands in my way. The desire deep in my soul becomes more and more uncontrollable after I wake up.
The soft touch beneath his fingertips failed to calm his restlessness. He wanted to tear this face apart. He wanted to see what would be revealed beneath the disguise? A distortion? Or... a hollow nothingness? The thought made his knuckles unconsciously tense, and the audacity in his eyes practically solidified into a blade.
The man's fingertips suddenly intensified. A faint blue light appeared at their tips. The moment they touched the skin, the flesh around them didn't burn, but like flames slicing through paper, the skin was instantly destroyed by the erosion of the cursed energy.
Then, a strange scene unfolded. Centered on the point of contact, its entire body began to flicker and tremble violently, like an old television screen with an extremely unstable signal. Vivid skin tones and clothing textures instantly faded and distorted, with jagged, snowy noise and color tearing appearing at the edges. After just two or three violent flashes of light and dark, a humanoid silhouette, composed of countless shifting, translucent blue data and specks of light, replaced the original physical form. This humanoid data object was extremely unstable, its edges blurring and trembling, and the light spots within it flickered, leaving a fleeting afterimage.
The terrifying transformation had just begun. From the core where the man's fingertips met flesh, a glaring, ominous crimson suddenly burst out. This crimson was not flames, but rather countless tiny, frantically squirming "ERROR" garbled characters and broken prohibition symbols.
"Do you want to kill me? Resurrection Satoru."
"You have great courage."
Instead of preventing it, it allowed the spread of this erroneous data.
Carrying a destructive aura of logical error, they spread with astonishing speed along the energy veins of the blue data body, corroding the surroundings. Wherever the crimson passed, the previously stable blue light flow instantly became disordered and fractured, and the light spots that constituted the body were extinguished in large swathes, annihilated into fine black data dust. The crimson errors, like a voracious virus, frantically gnawed at the very foundation of the data body's existence, emitting a shrill, debilitating electronic buzzing alarm that could only be "heard" in the depths of consciousness.
"Now that you have this power, learn to use it."
Use the power that comes from within me.
In those eroded areas, the data structures completely collapsed, leaving behind empty nothingness with a dangerous red glow at the edges. A cold and deadly silence permeated the air. The man's fingertips could feel the faint but distinct vibrations of energy from the data's collapse, as well as the pure, destructive chaos emanating from the crimson error code.
He only touched briefly, and the person in front of him lost his form under his temptation, revealing his true appearance - pure data, the core of how this world works.
Well, it seems like I touched something extraordinary.
"You still look better this way."
He would be very angry if he saw the face he liked.
"Be more restrained. You just came out of the Sunless Sea. Don't go crazy."
He pretended so well that I thought nothing was wrong with him, but he was still affected.
Faced with the crimson garbled code and crumbling blue data madly spreading across its body, the Primordial Celestial Body remained unfazed. The hand, composed of flowing blue light, rose with an almost graceful gesture, one of absolute control. Its fingertips hovered precisely over the crucial point where the crimson error was encroaching, threatening to tear apart the contours of its face. Then, as if pressing the most authoritative confirmation button in the universe, a faint blue glow gently brushed across the restless data cracks.
At the moment when my fingertips brushed past——
A short and dull "hum" sound was heard, as if an energy barrier was activated.
The crimson erroneous code, gnawed furiously forward like bloodthirsty thorns, tearing at the blue data veins, as if it had instantly collided with an invisible wall forged from absolute zero. The entire forward crimson tide suddenly froze, frozen. The code itself didn't vanish, but its kinetic energy was completely stripped away, like a paused movie scene, frozen in its hideous, corrosive state. At the edge of its stilled spread, a fine blue grid of light emerged, like the strongest cage, imprisoning the restless crimson in place. It could only flicker and twist in vain within the grid, emitting a silent, sizzling energy noise.
"Don't run around here, your luck is limited." It would be bad if he encountered an antivirus inspection.
The primordial celestial body collects these small errors - destruction itself is a kind of energy, and data errors are also a kind of data, and both are useful.
The order was given, the confinement was complete. The true miracle had just begun.
The blue streams of data that had once been ripped apart and annihilated by the crimson ripples that made up its body instantly surged to life, as if receiving the most efficient repair instructions. Countless fine, pure blue threads, flowing with the light of order, surged from the edges of the wounds and throughout its body.
They are like silver shuttles in the hands of the most dexterous weaver, or like nano-swarms with collective intelligence. With dazzling "swish" afterimages, they shuttle, interweave and fill in the damaged areas at high speed.
The void, gnawed by crimson errors, its edges flickering with a dangerous red light, was instantly flooded and filled by the surging azure data. The traces of shattered skin tissue that had covered the data vanished like smudges erased by an eraser, replaced by a new, stable, simulated skin texture emitting a soft blue light.
Torn data threads were precisely reconnected, broken light spots were re-lit and recalibrated, and flicker and jitter were completely smoothed out in a ten-thousandth of a second. The entire repair process was so rapid it surpassed the limits of visual capture, as if it were a single, perfect refresh of the screen—one frame still showing the shattered remains of data; the next, a complete, stable, and radiating a cold blue "humanoid" had re-emerged, its entire form radiating a flawless data glow, as if it had never been damaged in the first place.
"Tsk, you did it on purpose." The person who controls this world is right in front of it, how could it not know that there is one more living person in the place it manages?
"I'll let you suffer a little." Remember this lesson.
Gojo Satoru gritted his teeth, thinking back to how long he had been drifting in that ocean. It gave him a headache just thinking about it. Someone was actually deliberately making things difficult for him.
"Aren't you full of life?"
He's still alive, he's not missing any limbs, and he's mentally normal. How can he not endure this little bit of hardship?
"Who else but me can get out of there alive?" Are you kidding me? Is that where humans should go?
"You're the only one." It paused and continued, "Because you are Gojo Satoru."
Tiny blue light particles scattered during the repair process drifted slowly down like stardust, illuminating the small patch of sand beneath its feet. This silent restoration, more than any roar, demonstrated its unfathomable power. The only sound in the air was the low, powerful "hum" of energy flowing smoothly after the repair was complete.
There is good news and bad news.
The good news is: he is Gojo Satoru and enjoys special treatment.
The bad news is: there is more than one Gojo Satoru, and each one has special treatment.
"She's a bit of a playboy."
If everyone is so concerned, it will be a bit troublesome to recruit people.
"Don't talk about her like that."
It's quite true, but its position requires it to refute it now.
"Are you ranked high enough? Defending her like that."
Haha, you Gojo Satoru guys really need to queue up.
"I can cut in line."
Gojo Satoru:......
One is a playboy and the other is a bootlicker, they are a perfect match.
"Don't say bad things about her, resurrect Wu."
The primordial celestial body warned him not to do it a third time.
"Uh-huh."
It didn't refute that it was a bootlicker!
Primordial body: ...
Be more restrained. Do you think it's glorious to queue up?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
