"And the battlefield of WL-9." He suddenly grabbed Ye Qingliu's wrist and felt the beating of his pulse. "You are standing on the command tower, observing through a telescope, and the silver-haired adaptor is standing next to you. Your heartbeats are synchronized on the display screen."
He stared at the other person's pupils, which suddenly contracted. "But in reality, your heartbeat is 0.3 seconds faster than mine."
Ye Qingliu's pen drew a double line under "Adapter," and on a separate line, he wrote, "Current World Line Heartbeat Difference: +0.3s." He didn't pull his wrist back, but instead turned his palms so they touched. "In the basic settings of the Observer, this is a 'glitch.'"
His voice was as light as morning mist. "But I'm happy to be your 'glitch'."
Mu Xinrong felt his heart skip a beat. He had seen countless versions of Ye Qingliu, but never one like this—willing to expose the "fault," willing to use the warmth of his palms to confront the program.
More importantly, Ye Qingliu in reality never mentioned the "adapter", but his dream accurately filled in this gap, as if hinting at something.
"Your lover..." he began hesitantly, "exists in reality, but there is no trace of her in the dreams of any world line."
Ye Qingliu tapped his pen three times on the paper, a habit he had when analyzing problems. "According to your dream, the observer's emotional module is not allowed to connect with 'irrelevant variables.'"
He pointed to the record of "Adaptor" in the notebook, "But the 'she' in reality may be the key to breaking the rules."
Mu Xinrong looked at the blue roses outside the window and suddenly thought of the fluorescent algae in the WL-18 laboratory - they were also artificially created life forms, but they were colder than naturally grown flowers.
And the "she" in reality may be like the cherry blossom petals in Ye Qingliu's notebook, a real accident that causes the data model to collapse.
"Let's talk about Chao Youye again." Ye Qingliu suddenly said, the tip of his pen pausing next to the name of "Executor". "How did he kill you in WL-7?"
"Shoot me from behind." Mu Xinrong touched the back of his neck, as if he could still feel the heat of the bullet. "You counted down through the radio, and every second corresponded to the beating of my heart."
He saw Ye Qingliu mark "synchronized with heartbeat" under "countdown" and suddenly realized that the shadow cast by the boy's eyelashes was softer than any world line. "But this time, after you recorded the data, you stared at my corpse for 17 seconds."
"Another time," he unconsciously clenched the bed sheet, "on the battlefield of WL-9, Chao Youye aimed a sniper rifle at my forehead."
The sound of artillery fire from my memory exploded in my mind. "You stood in the command tower, your telescope reflecting a cold light, and the announcement came through the radio: '9th war simulation, target survival rate 23.7%, data harvesting program initiated.'"
Ye Qingliu's pen drew an arrow next to "Data Harvest," pointing to "Observer Identity." "So in all the world lines where you die, I am the 'Data Collector,' and Chao Youye is the 'Executor'?"
He suddenly put down his pen and ran his fingertips over the scratches on Mu Xinrong's wrist. "But in this world line, I stayed with you by the river all night without any instruments, and I even gave you the brooch."
He suddenly realized that the conversation in reality was filling the gaps in his dream - Ye Qingliu was no longer a data carrier, but an explorer who asked questions actively, using human curiosity to fight against the coldness of the program.
"Let's go to the library this afternoon." Ye Qingliu closed his notebook, revealing a newly inserted sycamore leaf bookmark. "I want to check the 1978 edition of the Journal of Quantum Biology. There might be a paper on the 'Observer Emotion Module' in there."
He shook the bookmark, and the veins of the leaf were as clear as a circuit diagram in the sunlight. "Maybe this explains why I, in real life, left a bedside lamp on for you."
Mu Xinrong nodded, looked at the other person's back as he packed his notebook, and found that half of a silver USB flash drive was sticking out of his school uniform pocket - the same style that Chao Youye had stuffed into his hand on the day he transferred to the school.
This detail made his heart beat faster, because in WL-5's dream, such a USB flash drive contained all his death data.
"Ye Qingliu," Mu Xinrong suddenly called out to the young man, "If one day you discover that you are truly the Observer, will you record my death like you would in other worldlines?"
Ye Qingliu was stunned, and the sycamore leaf bookmark on his notebook gently fell. He suddenly smiled, and his canine teeth flashed in the morning light, like a fleeting star.
"Won't…………"
Mu Xinrong looked at his profile as he squatted down to pick up a bookmark, and suddenly felt that the miracle of this world line did not lie in the countless cycles of death, but in a certain observer who was willing to put down the recording board and use the ink-stained pen tip to write the first line of gentle code about "survival" for him.
And all the questions, dislocations and warmth are in Ye Qingliu's notebook, gradually piecing together into a map - a map pointing to reality, to heartbeat, and to a future that is no longer defined by programs.
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