Chapter 84 The Final Feast of Revelry (Part Four) A Vanished Pink Pearl...
Why is this happening?
The scales, precisely the scales, are the symbol of that being... The appearance of the scales is definitely not a coincidence!
Christina Fisher seemed oblivious to her subordinate's shock. Her pupils were a cold, grayish-blue. She slightly raised her head to look at the simple red scale drawing on the map, raised her left hand, gripped the laser gun hanging on her belt, and gently rubbed her thumb against the trigger.
"The self-imprisoned on both ends of the scales of fate, the source and end of the river of impure hearts, the guardian of natural disasters, the lord of the realm—"
—The purifier of impurity, the guardian of destruction, the one and only in the infinite…
As the head of the security department who deals with the true form of the evil god year-round, Christina has her own way of reciting prayers without attracting the god's attention, something that Wu Guangqi, an ordinary A-level ability user, naturally cannot do.
Even so, when Director Fisher recited the Lord of the Pure Sea's prayer in an exceptionally cold tone, word by word, his mind seemed to gain its own consciousness. Uncontrollably, he continued Christina's words, mentally repeating the title of Lord of the Pure Sea. Only when he met those azure eyes did he shudder and awaken from the illusion that his mind was being manipulated by a great being.
Has the Gentlemen's Club recruited more than one hundred employees?
"Ah, I haven't counted that... but it's definitely more than that! The first batch alone had more than a hundred people."
Wu Guangqi suppressed his dazed state and understood his superior's meaning after a few seconds of thought. The Furensa Wharf was in an abandoned area on the city's edge, not yet completely shrouded in mist, so they couldn't prevent residents from going there on their own.
However, abandoned areas are not safe places. The council has regulations that when the size of a settlement in an abandoned area exceeds one hundred people, the Public Security Bureau has the right to send a magistrate to be stationed in the buildings in the abandoned area without obtaining the consent of the Gentlemen's Association.
Although the 06 District Police Department, which borders the abandoned area, has always considered this law to be non-existent, the council has not repealed it, so the police department's actions are justified.
As expected, Christina's next order was for him to arrange for a squad of sheriffs to set off immediately for the Florence docks.
The forces in the lower city are deeply entrenched, and the Public Security Bureau, already struggling to navigate between these various factions, has recently found itself in a precarious position. Previously, Wu Guangqi would have certainly advised his superiors that even if they were to intervene, they should do so in a more moderate way.
But now...
Wu Guangqi took one last look at the red scales on the map, and left the office with lingering fear.
Regardless of what Quark and Lange's people intend to do in the lower city, with that person's involvement, some things are beyond the control of those "superior people" in the upper city... Hopefully, they can realize this soon, after all, the last time that person took action, it brought about a "ten-day silence" that covered the entire city and even silenced the gods!
"'Ten days of silence'? That's a story from a long time ago. The company is no longer the same as it was back then. Bu Manyin, you've been in the Lower City for so long, how come you're still so timid?"
Mockery and rebuke poured down from the other side of the screen. Bu Manyin felt a lump in her throat. Pain, shock, anger, and absurdity enveloped her heart, leaving her speechless and suffocating in the air.
"...That's not what we were told. We were only supposed to provide the technology and help Quark find their lost items. They were clearly the ones in charge of this, so why did we have to go this far?"
Your naiveté is disgusting.
The moon disappeared behind the clouds, leaving behind a pitch-black world. Bu Zhaohai didn't turn on the lights, and he blended into the dim office. Only his harsh and merciless words traveled on electromagnetic waves to the other side of the city.
"That idiot Bian Shaoyan is dead! There's no way Lan Ge can get away from this now!"
Bu Manyin heard a clear, cold laugh from the other side of the screen, "Of course, that idiot is unimportant, and he deserves to die. But the Sun Chasing Project hasn't even started yet, and it's not his time to die. He shouldn't have died in the lower city; this is a provocation against us!"
Her biological father's voice suddenly became agitated. Bu Manyin couldn't see his expression, but she could feel his anger. However, she also couldn't understand, "It's just a coincidence..."
"'001' has been behaving itself for so long, but now it suddenly goes out of control at this critical juncture. When the incident occurred at Xinlei Library, even Alpha, a subsidiary of the central AI Yuanfu, was unable to take over the nearby network. Can this really be a coincidence?!"
Bu Zhaohai's tone was cold and hard, giving Bu Manyin no chance to maneuver further. "The Sun Chasing Plan cannot afford to fail. Tomorrow, the new 'Candlewick' will arrive in the Lower City. You will personally escort it to the ceremony site with 16 A-level employees. Ascension is imminent. How can we welcome the Son of God without nailing the son of a murderer?"
16...
Even though she already knew Bu Zhaohai wouldn't change his plans, Bu Manyin still felt a pang of pain in her heart. Perhaps to the group, 16 A-level employees were just a resource that was a little painful to lose, but to her, the manager of the 06 District branch, they were all living, breathing people, friends she had spent every day with and who had been with her for a long time...
"The research institute keeps urging me to donate sperm. Bu Manyin, you're not indispensable, don't let me down. Otherwise, I don't mind if you only take 15 with you."
Bu Manyin's breath hitched, but Bu Zhaohai didn't give her another chance to persuade him. The screen went out, and the dim light from outside the window slowly filled the office amidst the intermittent breathing, becoming the only source of light in the dim room.
Bu Manyin looked around blankly, feeling that everything familiar from the past had changed in the darkness, like a wild beast that had lowered its voice and stood on tiptoe to hunt, only to reveal its sharp teeth at the last moment of the hunt.
Her tie was roughly ripped off. Bu Manyin tried to calm her unsteady breathing, but to little avail. Her breathing, sometimes light and sometimes heavy, sounded like a faulty light bulb, irregularly echoing in the deathly silent room.
Bu Manyin listened for a while, then suddenly laughed. She was lost in thought in the room for a moment, her unfocused eyes unconsciously turning to the personal terminal, where her subordinates had sent her a list of employees who volunteered to "work overtime" in the abandoned area tomorrow.
—It is AI Kappa.
Her disagreement as manager was completely useless. Upon receiving orders from headquarters, the office assistant AI, Cappa, would automatically "help" her handle the situation. During the several hours that she and Bu Zhaohai were at loggerheads, Cappa even bought insurance for these employees.
“A4 level employee Bu Manyin, are you heartbroken?”
Perhaps because Bu Manyin had been looking down at the computer for too long, the speaker indicator light in the corner of the room lit up, and Kappa, unusually, did not call out to jump out.
Can artificial intelligence get sad?
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand what you meant. 'Sadness' is an adjective, and its basic meaning is the feeling of sadness and distress after suffering misfortune or disappointment. It usually arises in the following situations... Coping mechanisms for sadness include: one..."
That's enough.
Seeing that Capa was about to list "how to deal with sadness" as the nineteenth measure, Bu Manyin pinched her brow and was about to put Capa to sleep when she suddenly felt a pain in her earlobe. Out of the corner of her eye, she only managed to catch a glimpse of the last fragment of light reflected from the pearl. The light pink pearl rolled across the floor and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"Do you need me to help you find it?"
Kapa asked, but Bu Manyin just pinched her earlobe absentmindedly. After a while, she said with a hint of loss, "No need."
Then silence returned.
Ai Kappa spoke again, unusually, "What are you thinking about right now?"
"Is this the instruction you received? To monitor me and see if I will carry out orders from headquarters?"
No, you are sad.
Can AI comfort people?
Bu Manyin looked dazed for a moment, staring at the direction where the pearl had disappeared. After a moment of silence, she spoke: "I remembered a friend who stood here saying goodbye to me before..."
She said that some people actually have no choice. This statement is not entirely true, and it has nothing to do with who it is. Fate never gives people a choice.
"I do not understand."
She never expected the AI to understand her words. Bu Manyin smiled self-deprecatingly, approved the application submitted by her subordinate without even looking at it, and let her hand that had been pinching her earlobe fall down, revealing a pink pearl on her cheek again.
“Capa, we’re going to the Flünza docks in the abandoned area tomorrow. You’ll arrange the transportation.”
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Author's Note: The setup for all the factions is finally over, lol. In the next volume, I definitely won't involve so many factions in one event. Searching the entire text while writing is giving me a headache.
——
AI's answers about sadness are based on real-world AI.
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