Chapter 228 Collapse of the City (26)
At the same time as the explosion occurred, Cang Zhi rushed forward and pushed Su Yue into the corner of the wall, and the two of them fell into a ball.
The white smoke rising from the explosion filled the entire space, and their figures became blurry.
After a long while, when the smoke had almost dissipated, Su Yue moved first.
He nudged Cang Zhi and asked with concern, "Are you okay?"
Cangzhi rested his chin on Suyue's shoulder, his elbow blocking Suyue's forehead, and said in a low voice: "Not bad."
Su Yue knew that Cang Zhi couldn't be completely unharmed, because even though he was not directly affected by the explosion, he felt a dull pain in his chest and his blood was boiling.
He helped Cang Zhi stand up. The other party coughed a few times and did not suffer any external injuries, but his face looked visibly bad.
"The feeling of this explosion is very..." Cang Zhi hesitated and didn't say it clearly.
Su Yue nodded. He had just realized that the explosion was very strange, but he felt that his feeling was too bizarre and must be an illusion, so he didn't say it out loud.
"This is not the focus now." Su Yue pondered for a moment. Between the doubts about the explosion and the plot, he decided to put the explosion behind him for the time being.
Su Yue said, "Let's finish this game first."
.
The explosion did not cause the collapse of the scientific research laboratory as Su Yue had expected. On the contrary, the power of the explosion seemed to have been precisely calculated. Apart from "possibly turning the players in the control room into ashes", it did not cause devastating damage to the building structure.
Not only did it not cause any damage, it even just blew a hole in the wall.
Behind the hole was a trapdoor.
"That means if you don't get killed by the explosion, you can continue the story." Su Yue sighed, "I really don't know whether to say this dungeon boss has a bad taste or just scold him."
Opening the trapdoor, they found the elevator again. After the initial explosion, Su Yue and his companions were naturally more cautious, but this time, nothing unexpected happened.
This time the route is to go up first and then move horizontally, which is a bit like a subway to some extent. When the elevator door opens again, there is a separate courtyard in front.
The courtyard door was ajar. When they pushed it open, another "control room" appeared in front of Su Yue and Cang Zhi.
There was another large screen with almost the same picture as before, but this time you could also see the real scene of the city.
Su Yue saw the owner's car parked in front of the bar on the pedestrian street. This meant that Zhao Shuo had successfully returned to the safe base, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
The streets centered on the museum were still in chaos. After the initial chaos, other residents seemed dissatisfied with the order of "restricted areas", "curfews" and "patrols" and came to the streets. Patrols drove them away, and guards were setting up new cordons with red lights flashing everywhere.
In front of the screen is the same armchair, which is still facing the screen, but you can imagine that it is still a toy rabbit when turned around.
It seems that this is the real "control room".
The only difference between this room and the fake control room is that this one is twice as big as the other one, so there's a space next to the screen.
There is a dynamic sand table there.
This dynamic sand table is very similar to the sand table that Su Yue had seen when he was wandering around the human world before, which showed the entire building. There were undulating mountains, small rivers, and many small dolls on it.
These little figures appear to be made of plastic, but they are very detailed and they move.
When Su Yue looked over, he happened to see a little man in white clothes dancing a victory dance. The little man looked very beautiful, especially his clothes, which were very delicate. Even though the little doll was only as tall as a finger, Su Yue could almost see the golden embroidery on his collar and the beautiful wreath on his head.
There is also a little doll in black clothes next to the little doll in white clothes. It seems that they are in the same group, but the little doll in black clothes did not dance along, but just stood next to the little doll in white clothes.
There were many other small figures on the sand table, some dancing, some sprawled on the ground, their clothing and appearances all varying. Just as Su Yue was observing with interest, there was a loud boom, and black smoke rose from the sand table.
Su Yue was startled and thought it was another explosion, but then he noticed that this so-called "explosion" only existed on the sand table.
The mountains and rivers in the sandbox collapsed, and all the little dolls fell down.
"Very interesting, isn't it?" A voice suddenly sounded.
The voice was very familiar, he had just heard it, so Su Yue immediately looked towards the chair.
Sure enough, the armchair had turned around to face Su Yue, and sitting on the chair was another toy rabbit that was exactly the same as the toy rabbit in the "control room" just now.
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"Are you talking about this thing?" Su Yue pointed to the sand table.
"That's right," the toy rabbit replied. "This sandbox is fun, isn't it?"
Su Yue didn't let him lead the conversation anywhere else. He asked back, "Who are you?"
This toy rabbit is obviously smarter. In comparison, the previous one is like it has a cassette tape stuck in its stomach.
Even though this toy rabbit is just a machine, its intelligence is much higher than the first one.
"I'm Kodo, the 26th mayor of Night City, and the initiator of the 'Optical Brain Project,'" the toy rabbit said. "Technically, I'm Kodo's mental image, and I'm speaking directly to you now."
Things like "mental imaging" cannot be achieved in the real world, but in this more technologically advanced world, it is probably a mature technology.
Su Yue didn't dwell on this too much, and didn't even have much curiosity about the character "Kodo".
For these survival games, his general solution is "don't care how these NPCs go around in circles, just look for the keywords you want to find and do what you want to do", so that you won't be lured into messy traps by the NPCs.
Su Yue asked bluntly, "If I want to shut down all the control systems, can I just press that yellow button?"
Toy rabbit: “…”
"Press that button, and everything under control in Night City will be shut down." Seeing Su Yue reaching out to press it, the toy rabbit raised his voice anxiously, "But! Are you sure this is the right thing to do?"
Su Yue finally stopped pressing the button when he heard him say that. He turned around, his eyelashes drooping slightly, and glanced at the toy rabbit: "What's wrong?"
The toy rabbit breathed a sigh of relief and was about to act mysterious again, but he soon noticed that although Su Yue was listening to him, he was obviously not paying close attention.
Once he loses interest, he seems to press that button immediately.
The toy rabbit immediately switched to a normal tone and speed of speech.
"I know you don't like the 'Light Brain Project'. In your opinion, the 'Light Brain Project' was created to control emotions. You think that the mechanical beasts I developed that can absorb malicious emotions can drain all of human emotions and turn them into empty shells, so you think I am the evil party, right?" said the toy rabbit.
Su Yue didn't answer, but leaned his elbows on the console and looked at him quietly.
The toy rabbit reluctantly gave up the idea of a question-and-answer session with Su Yue and continued, "You're wrongly accusing me. You have to understand that even before the Optical Brain Project was implemented, Night City was already a notorious city of chaos. The residents here were drunk and disorderly, and thefts, rapes, and assaults alone took up a lot of the security forces' energy every day. Think about it carefully: is this environment really suitable for survival? Am I really wrong to want to change this dire situation?"
Following the toy rabbit's words, the Night City screen switched from surveillance cameras to video cameras, and scenes flashed by: a burned-out lamppost, a school wall covered in graffiti, and a thug sitting in the middle of the road, spitting at passing cars and people...
This was indeed once a "city of chaos".
"My original intentions were good," said the toy rabbit "Mayor Kodo." "I don't want chaos to take over the city anymore, so I decided to bring back peace and order. Yes, in your eyes, Night City may be a 'dead city' now, but if you could both the Night City of the past and the Night City of the present, which would you choose?"
The big screen changed again, and the current scene of Night City appeared in front of Su Yue.
But Su Yue's attention was not here. He leaned against the console and looked at the sand table.
.
After the self-destruction in the sandbox just now, it quickly completed self-reconstruction.
So on the sand table, Su Yue could clearly see that the little puppets divided into two forces were fighting. The white little puppets would win every time, but after the victory, the sand table would explode.
Afterwards, the same scene was repeated over and over again, and the entire sandbox was like a CD, playing the same plot over and over again.
Seeing Su Yue's attention focused on the sandbox, the toy rabbit grabbed at straws and said, "Look, a lot of times our understanding of things is very one-sided, just like in this chess game. These little puppets think they've won, but everything they do is actually setting themselves up for failure. Many things aren't what they seem. I'm just a mental image and can't stop you from doing anything, but I hope you can think about it carefully."
Su Yue ignored the toy rabbit and continued staring at the sandbox.
There are many small dolls on the sandbox, some in white clothes, some in black clothes, some who look very young and are wearing a schoolbag and a baseball cap, some who are obviously female, and some riding motorcycles.
There are also some little dolls belonging to another camp. The common feature of these little dolls is that their skin is black and purple, like the little devils in traditional cognition. There is a little devil that is green, and some little devils have a string of small beads hanging on their bodies. Of course, there are more little dolls without any special features, and you can only tell the camp.
Seeing that Su Yue didn't say anything for a long time, the toy rabbit said again: "So you..."
"You said this is a chessboard?" Su Yue suddenly asked.
The toy rabbit was visibly taken aback by the question. After a moment's reflection, he replied, "This metaphor may seem strange, but in a sense, it is indeed a chess game. So, do you have any new ideas?"
"No." Su Yue stared at the toy rabbit and smiled, seemingly indifferent to the toy rabbit's lobbying just now.
"I have decided to end these procedures. How should I do this?"
The toy rabbit was silent for a moment, then sighed reluctantly, "Stubborn human, if you insist on shutting down this program, just press the yellow button. The mechanical rabbit will explode, and everything will be over."
"Yeah." Su Yue nodded, and when he walked to the control console, he said to Cang Zhi, "I'm going to press it."
It's just a button, there's no need to mention it specifically when pressing it. Anyone who knows them and their abilities would think this is unnecessary.
But Su Yue did say this to Cang Zhi specifically, and Cang Zhi also said seriously: "I understand what you mean."
Su Yue walked to the control console and pressed the yellow "switch" button.
The next second, just as the screen started to read out the numbers and before anything happened, he pressed the "self-destruct" button next to the switch!
.
In the night city, Zhao Shuo heard the familiar prompt sound of the game being completed, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
I knew that the boss and Brother Cang would be able to handle it.
The next second, he heard a deafening explosion. Zhao Shuo was startled and ran out quickly. However, since the game was over, no accidents would happen in the settlement interface, so he was still quite relieved.
The game had been cleared, but before the settlement popped up, the control room was blown up, so other players cleared the game, but players Su Yue and Cang Zhi in the control room were blown to pieces.
According to the rules when he was an administrator, if you died in the game, you would feel the pain of death, but this time Su Yue did not feel any pain, which was what he expected.
Sure enough, there is something wrong with this game.
Su Yue only felt his body lighten, as if he was dragged into a whirlpool, and then he quickly felt the cold mountain wind in the snow and ice.
Su Yue opened her eyes.
In front of them was an iron-gray mountain, and beside them was Cang Zhi. There was a huge chessboard on the mountain, with black and white pieces playing against each other on the board. The squares under their feet were black and white.
——
The situation on the chessboard is tense.
Originally, the white chessboard occupied almost all the squares, and the black chessboard only had a small space left. If the white queen took the last step forward, she would fill the last unowned square.
Because the white piece has blocked the last air hole, all the squares will instantly turn black, and the entire chessboard will become a black chessboard.
That's how it should be.
But just as the White Queen and the White Knight reached the last square and the white background on the chessboard was about to solidify, the White Queen suddenly turned around and slashed herself with the sword!
The chess piece fell, declaring it out of the game, the white smoke disappeared, and soon the square was occupied by black.
Just as the black filled the last square, clouds and mist rolled in, and all the black squares on the board turned white in an instant.
.
Su Yue looked at the chessboard silently. When the game evolved into the result he expected, he looked at the person sitting on the other side of the chessboard.
The other person was wearing white clothes and had snow-white hair, with a reserved and dignified look. Even though he got an outcome that he didn't want at all, his expression remained normal.
"I felt something was wrong from the moment the explosion occurred. The power of the explosion was no different from divine power." It was hard to tell whether Su Yue's expression was cold or sad.
"So I guessed that the one manipulating all this, trying to use the game to help the ghosts break through the boundaries of the human world, might be a god, but until I mentioned playing chess, I never thought it could be you. What does this mean, Qi Wujiu?"
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