"Chen En?" She stood up immediately, all her attention shifted from the screen to him in an instant, "What's wrong with you?" She keenly caught the inhuman coldness that flashed across the depths of his eyes, and her heart sank suddenly.
Lu Cheneng saw the pure worry in her eyes, and the cold whispers that threatened to tear him apart seemed to fade a little. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he tried to suppress the surging murderous intent. His voice was a little dry, "It's okay. It's the same old thing." He avoided her gaze and looked at the Pandora structure diagram on the screen. "How's the progress?"
Wen Shifei glanced at him worriedly, knowing that now was not the time to ask further questions. He could only suppress his uneasiness and quickly recounted the situation, emphasizing the difficulty of the "consciousness beacon".
"Dr. Wen Yuan's authority..." Lu Chencheng repeated, his gaze fixed on Wen Shifei's tightly pursed lips. He understood her. This expression meant she was thinking of something, and that thought was painful.
As expected, Wen Shifei took a deep breath, as if making up her mind. She sat back down at the terminal and, her fingers trembling slightly, typed a complex, seemingly random sequence of commands on the virtual keyboard. The screen flickered a few times, revealing a previously unseen, extremely hidden subdirectory. She became incredibly cautious, as if defusing a dangerous bomb.
A few seconds later, a pale blue humanoid silhouette, composed of countless tiny dots of light, slowly emerged in the center of the screen. The outline was blurry, but a strange, gentle yet profound wave of consciousness, like a pebble dropped into calm water, spread ever so faintly through the biometric sensors connected to the terminal.
Li Shuo and Dr. Qin held their breath at the same time.
"...Dr. Wen Yuan's consciousness... fragments?" Dr. Qin's voice was filled with disbelief and shock. He stared at the wave pattern intently. "How...how did you find it?"
Wen Shifei didn't turn around. Her gaze was fixed on the pale blue silhouette, a mixture of immense sorrow and a desperate hope swirling in her eyes. Her voice was soft, a barely perceptible choke. "Brother... his last 'gift' for me... a... a data backup stripped of most emotions and memories, leaving only the core logic and highest-level authentication... He... he might have anticipated this day..."
She turned her head abruptly and looked at Li Shuo and Dr. Qin, her eyes burning with a light of near despair: "This backup! Can it... can it be used as a 'consciousness beacon'? It has the highest authority! If we operate carefully and use it to bypass the dynamic lock of the core area, we may be able to open a safe path to the 'Number Zero' mother body! And... and..." Her voice rose slightly with excitement, "If we successfully connect to the mother body, is... is there a chance..." She couldn't finish the rest of the sentence, but everyone understood what she meant - is there a chance to re-inject this cold backup into a complete "Wen Yuan"?
The idea itself carries a chilling temptation and huge risks.
Li Shuo's brows were tightly furrowed, his eyes sharp as a hawk: "Shi Fei, do you understand what this means? This is a 'tool' stripped of emotions and memories! Using it to open Pandora's core? The risks are immeasurable! Moreover, once the mother body is activated or destroyed, this backup..."
"I know the risks!" Wen Shifei interrupted him, her voice sharp. "But this is the only chance! The only chance that will save our people from risking their lives to fill the core area's passage! It's also the only... the only chance that will allow brother..." She looked at the pale blue outline, her eyes instantly misted over, "The chance to come back..."
At this moment, a cold, hard, and strongly repulsive thought suddenly pierced Wen Shifei's consciousness like a physical ice cone! This thought did not come from the outside world, but from her side!
Wen Shifei felt as if she had been struck hard. Her face turned pale instantly, and she groaned, her body swaying. She turned to look at Lu Chenheng in horror.
Lu Cheneng stood there, head bowed, his hair covering his eyes. His body was tense like a drawn bow, emanating a suffocating low pressure and an inhuman violence. His clenched fists were white-knuckled, and veins bulged on the backs of his hands, as if he was suppressing something with all his strength.
That cold voice roared deep in his mind, filled with greedy urgency and cold murderous intent:
[Target path... Confirmed! Optimal solution... Execute! Eliminate interference! Recover the mother body! Execute immediately!]
[Distractions... Clear! Clear her! Clear this useless emotion!]
[Execute! Power...Evolution...]
"Chen En!" Wen Shifei ignored the biting cold thought and reached out to grab his arm.
Just when her fingertips were about to touch him, Lu Cheneng suddenly raised his head!
Those eyes!
Wen Shifei's blood seemed to freeze instantly. Those were no longer Lu Cheneng's eyes, filled with struggle and pain. They were now completely cold, inorganic, like balls of polished black metal. There was no trace of human emotion in them, only the purest indifference, locked on to a target and ready to destroy everything.
"Target confirmed," a completely unfamiliar, flat metallic voice came out of Lu Cheneng's mouth, pointing coldly at the terminal screen in front of Wen Shifei, "Wen Yuan's backup body. High-value resources. Recovery program, start." His hand wearing a tactical glove, at a speed beyond the limit of human reaction, like a venomous snake out of a hole, suddenly grabbed the light blue outline of consciousness on the screen!
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