As for the styling, it's terrifying.

One of them had short red hair tied into many small braids. He looked very familiar to Chen Nian. That should have been his beard, so how did it end up on someone else’s head?

He has a big red nose and thin, pale lips. He wears colorful goggles and has a Peppa Pig tattoo on his chest. His hips and legs are wrapped in a Barbie pink miniskirt, giving him a boyish figure.

Mono hair, a broken mouth, a bloody skirt, a body shape that makes me look like a big fool... What kind of weird thing is this!!!

The others are not much better, with different-sized eyes, long and short arms, colorful hair, tactical uniforms paired with sports pants and loafers... The elements on the four characters are randomly spliced ​​and combined, and the final effect is to make men silent and women cry.

As for Chen Nian... he looked down and saw two short legs. He couldn't understand why after the four of them's data were shuffled and redistributed, he became as short as a goblin!

He was originally the tallest, at two meters!

"Um," even the voice became extremely strange, like a duck with its neck strangled, "who are you?"

Obviously, the other three were also in shock. The situation before them was too, too difficult to describe.

The tall character, wearing a sexy pink camisole, tight leather pants and tactical boots, spoke first: "I am Chen Ci."

The dirty-braided boy in a pink miniskirt said, "...Shaffley."

The remaining person must be Fu Tianhe. He didn't even bother to talk and was trying to reach into his coat.

A few seconds later, he pulled out… long platinum-colored armpit hair from his tactical jacket? ! ? ! ? !

Chen Nian opened his mouth wide and recognized that it was Bengshemai Liu's original hair.

The one-meter-long handsome ponytail turned into armpit hair that could be braided into a rope. Chen Nian felt that from now on, he would never be able to look Shaflai in the eye again.

Fu Tianhe: "Fuck! What is this!"

Others also want to ask, what is this!!!

Chen Nian could probably understand the current situation. The four of them were mosaiced into data, and then mixed together during the transmission process, forming the current appearance.

After the brief shock, everyone quickly adjusted themselves. After all, they had all seen the world before, so it didn't take them half a day to recover.

Chen Nian confirmed that there were only four people: "Didn't Bai Ge Yingtao come in?"

"Probably." Shafulai looked around. There was no reference point on the endless grassland.

Is this... the background program of Electric Fantasy Kingdom?

"It seems that there is no way to log out."

Chen Ci noticed something strange. When they were in the moonlight, although they had lost the UI interface, they were still able to force a logout. Now, even the method of leaving has disappeared.

Fu Tianhe was still struggling with his overly long armpit hair. Seeing this, Chen Ci simply braided his arm hair into a pigtail, wrapped it around his arms and stuffed it into his clothes.

Shafley: ………………

He turned his eyes away from his natural hair.

The lightness that filled his body at this moment was quite familiar to Shafla.

He tried to concentrate and operate with his mind as he had done in the beacon program, and the cursor appeared in the air in front of him without warning.

really.

Shafley entered the command and called up the program code here, but found that it was full of things he could not understand, and the second half was completely blank.

The first half of the code had an indescribable familiarity. Shaflay read it carefully and suddenly remembered it.

Chen Ci and Fu Tianhe discovered a server room in the snow-capped mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Inside, there were hard drives that had been damaged by humans, most likely by the monster that attacked Chen Nian.

He had been trying his best to analyze the contents of the hard drive, but the damage was too severe and he only got some information that was not particularly important.

This includes cloud communications between several beacons and some incomprehensible codes.

Shafla tried his best to recall, digging out the codes that he had carefully studied but did not know what they meant from the depths of his memory and filling them in the blanks.

Halfway through writing, he vaguely realized that this was some kind of encryption, a new computer language that only Beacon could understand.

After checking it twice to make sure there was no problem, Shafley chose to run it.

The cursor disappeared, and the next second, a hole appeared in front of Kongkong, and the stairs tilted downward.

Fu Tianhe poked his head in and looked inside. It was quite deep.

"Let's go."

Four cows, no, four people walked into the passage together.

It was a bit strenuous to walk up the stairs with short legs, so Chen Nian jumped two steps, simply grabbed Shafulai, and sat on Alpha's neck when he bent over.

This saves a lot of effort. Chen Nian is very satisfied.

Chen Ci raised his hand and touched the cave wall. The cool and rough touch was no different from reality.

He has always been curious about how holographic games can simulate real feelings. If he kisses or hugs someone in the game, will the experience be similar to that in real life?

The passage is wide and does not give people a strong sense of oppression. After walking for a long time, some faint light spots gradually appeared on the wall. Those light spots condensed and compiled into pieces of gibberish.

The garbled characters jumped irregularly, and finally formed understandable chaotic words and sentences as they moved forward.

[The initial design speed of progress is eleven years. If there is no result by then, it is estimated that it will be terminated.]

[Sorry, the signal was interfered with for unknown reasons]

【Physics engine test successful】

【Please reply if received】

[The target was detected leaving the White Tower under the protection of the Great Prince and heading towards the Bell Tower]

[We have lost contact with Cloud 283 and have informed the local maintenance personnel]

[The 937283649182639374712563rd iteration failed, the 937283649182639374712564th iteration is in progress]

…

The four of them couldn't help but slow down their pace and read the information carefully. From the words "cloud", "overlapping" and "engine", they could easily determine that the message came from the beacon.

Communication between supercomputers is brief and fast, and is so efficient that trillions of communications can be completed in one second.

As we continued to move forward, the text information gradually turned into images, vaguely appearing on the wall.

Two boys with exactly the same appearance met at the corner of the clock tower. The boy in platinum clothes reacted quickly, grabbed his surprised brother, and pulled him into the bathroom.

After changing his clothes, the elder brother came to the No. 13 information processing area and set foot in the dungeon for the first time in his life. He encountered several pheasant-like thugs in a remote alley. The Alpha who passed by was surprised and watched the whole process of him punishing several people. In the end, he pretended to be cynical and extended an invitation to him.

The younger brother took the eldest prince's arm, walked through the gorgeous courtyard in the spotlight, and attended the royal dinner. As the future prince's consort, he appeared in public for the first time. With a smile in his eyes, he fought back sharply.

Everything is recorded by cameras installed throughout Cinnabar and stored forever somewhere in the cloud.

More scenes appeared one after another, Chen Ci, Chen Nian, Fu Tianhe, and Shafley.

There is no doubt that from the moment they met, the brothers' every move was under the watchful eyes of the beacon.

They thought they were being covert, but they never escaped those nearly omniscient eyes.

Chen Ci saw himself sitting on a low wall in an abandoned suburb, looking at the mirage rising from the sea. Under the bright moonlight, the collapsed beacon floated in the mist like a distant fairy palace.

Fu Tianhe stood by the sea, the waves rolling with white foam rushed to his feet, and a small boat made of waste paper drifted aimlessly.

At that moment, the boy vaguely felt the gaze coming from behind him, turned around, but found nothing.

They traveled throughout Cinnabar and wanted to take a boat to Sanshui. Standing on the shore of the port and having a brief conversation with Fu Tianhe, Alpha looked up at the epidemic prevention station above, his eyes narrowed by the strong sunlight.

Due to the heavy rain, they were stranded on the island, and the picture became less clear. It was obvious that the small water droplets following them were also avoiding Aurora, for fear of being discovered by the incarnation of the Sea King.

The blue water droplet gently collides with it, transmitting the information to another beacon.

All the experiences and adventures of the past few months were recorded scene by scene and replayed.

Although he already knew this, the feeling of being spied on made Chen Ci frown.

He felt Fu Tianhe gently holding his hand. If it were their real bodies, Alpha's palms would probably be full of sweat.

They continued to move forward. In the enclosed space on all sides, a blue loach-like creature was trapped in a cage in the center. It was as limp as a pool of rotten mud, as if the previous fierce struggle had consumed all its strength.

A robotic arm extended from the ceiling and revolved around it, looking for a point of entry for further research.

It was an alien that emerged from the body of the blue-eyed monster that attacked Chen Nian. It tried to sneak into Shafulei's mouth unexpectedly, just like in the game. Fortunately, Shafulei was prepared and was eventually intercepted by Cinnabar.

Now it has completely become a beacon experiment.

Countless chaotic lines seem to be intertwined at this moment, extending to a common node.

Finally, the downward passage came to an end.

After walking down the last step, the four of them arrived at an exceptionally spacious hall.

The moment they stepped into the hall, a strange feeling swept through their bodies, as if a weak electric current was transmitted between every cell, but they were clearly in a virtual space.

Before Chen Nian had time to savor the feeling, he felt as if he had grown taller.

He lowered his head and was surprised to find that Shaflay's head had returned to its most familiar platinum color, and the skin on his arms was no longer black and white.

All four of them transformed into what they are in reality!

Shaflay's shoulders suddenly sank, but Chen Nian's weight was nothing to him. He remained steady and allowed the Omega to ride on his shoulders.

But the fleshy thighs wrapped around my neck made it hard to resist my desires.

Fu Tianhe exclaimed in surprise, and immediately raised his hand to touch his right eye. Even the eye socket that he had just implanted yesterday afternoon was simulated!

The September in front of him was the same person he saw day and night. At this moment, his brows were slightly wrinkled, and he looked around silently and vigilantly.

Now, all the evidence that gave people a sense of gaming has disappeared. There is no UI interface, no way to force quit, and even the appearance has become no different from reality.

In the center of the hall, there is something similar to a control panel, connected to a large sandbox at the back.

As they got closer, they discovered that what was displayed on the sand table was a world map.

It's just that this map is slightly different from what they know. Maybe the land area is a little smaller? But it's only a little bit.

Cinnabar on the Pamir Plateau, blue alum on the Arabian Plateau, smoky crystal on the Ethiopian Plateau, star leaf on the Bolivian Plateau, three waters in the Rocky Mountains, and moonlight standing on the snowy plateau of Greenland.

The models of the six beacons are located on the sand table, so detailed and lifelike that it would seem that if one were to reach out and knock one of them over, it would collapse tragically in reality.

The sea water is divided into blocks with different colors. If you bend down and look, you can even find the direction of the ocean current.

The towering snow-capped mountains on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the urban buildings on the flat land are so detailed that they seem to be scaled down.

Schaffray tried to activate the console, but no matter how he pressed the buttons, the screen did not respond.

Fu Tianhe came over to take a look, and suddenly he had an idea. He grabbed the wrist of Chen Ci, who was carefully observing the sandbox, and gently pressed the boy's palm on the screen.

This was the inspiration given to him by the Moonlight Gate. Since this game is also part of their journey to explore the Moonlight, there might be some connection between them.

Seeing this, Shafley also held Chen Nian's hand and pressed it on the other side of the screen.

Nothing happened.

"Okay, it seems I guessed wrong." Fu Tianhe ruffled his hair and put down Chen Ci's hand.

Chen Ci glanced at the motionless operating table, continued to stare at the sand table, and finally moved his gaze to the model of Moonlight.

The sandbox is very delicately designed, and the sixth beacon is slightly smaller than the other beacons based on the specific situation in reality.

“Why didn’t it collapse?”

Chen Ci muttered to himself in a low voice. He walked around to the north side of the sandbox, closest to the Greenland ice plateau, and stretched out his hand.

The boy's fingertips were only an inch away from the top of the beacon. He stared at the moonlight model. Similarly, everyone else's eyes were also fixed on Chen Ci's fingers.

Chen Nian held his breath. He vaguely knew that his brother might want to do something, but he couldn't quite understand the exact reason.

Do you want to simulate the same situation as in reality, but how does your brother make the judgment?

After a pause of a few seconds, Chen Ci's fingers finally continued to move forward without any hesitation.

He pushed the moonlight down with almost ease.

The beacon model collapsed before everyone's eyes, falling silently onto the snowy plateau, becoming a crouching giant beast that was badly wounded.

However, the screen did not light up as expected, and even Shafla's heart suddenly jumped up, thinking that Chen Ci had made a wrong judgment.

It's easy to knock down a beacon, but it's almost impossible to restore it to its original state.

If they made the wrong choice, does that mean they failed at this last step?

But Chen Ci's amber eyes remained calm.

He scooped up the Pacific Ocean water with both hands and splashed it outside the sandbox. The water splashed onto the floor, leaving a wet mark.

After scooping up the water twice, Chen Ci raised his eyes and said to the other three people who were surprised, "Help me."

Chen Nian: “Ah?”

Shafley immediately understood what Chen meant.

The uncollapsed moonlight and the seemingly smaller land area both indicate that the sand table does not represent the present time node.

Chen Ci pushed down the beacon, and then restored the land area by adjusting the amount of sea water to adjust the time node.

But there is one thing that Schaffray had never noticed before: has the sea level actually been falling from the past to the present?

Lower sea levels should be big news.

But over the past thousand years, there have been countless times when such news caused a sensation, only to have the water level continue to rise within a few years, proving that it was just normal fluctuations caused by tides or other unknown influences.

Over time, people have become numb. It seems that the global flooding disaster will continue forever and will never end. Everyone has long been accustomed to living in the beacon.

If you want to appreciate the scenery on land, go to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, or enter the fantasy kingdom and see the world after the sea water recedes.

Chen Ci's major is marine science, and he is very sensitive to relevant information. On the island where he encountered Sheila, he and Fu Tianhe found the observation log left by the meteorologists in the cave.

The last data in the log showed that the sea water had flooded to the bottom of the cave entrance. For safety reasons, all personnel evacuated. However, when they landed, the sea surface was more than 200 meters away from the cave entrance.

After that, he lived in Zhuomacuo's home and had some interactions with the local sentinel team. He also learned from these indigenous people that the area of ​​the beach would expand every year.

Combined with the existence of the Electric Fantasy Kingdom, Chen Ci speculates that perhaps the drop in sea level in recent years is no longer accidental.

Many seemingly unrelated phenomena can actually be linked together.

Beacons, water levels, moonlight, games, Ashes.

The water in the entire sandbox was disturbed by a few people, causing waves to surge and impact the land and beacons.

Chen Ci stared at the water and suddenly said, "Stop."

The other three people stopped immediately. Chen Nian's hands were still in the water. He loosened his hands, and the water that was about to be scooped away returned to the ocean.

It doesn't matter if the water level is high, it can be reduced slowly. But if it is too low, it will be really difficult to deal with. Everyone will just pour the spilled water on the ground, and it will be difficult to collect it again.

If it has to rise again, well... it seems that I can only rely on peeing, which is too reckless.

Everyone withdrew their hands, the disturbed water surface gradually calmed down, and the map finally looked exactly the same as they were most accustomed to.

The console screen, which had been silent until then, suddenly lit up.

"Great!" Chen Nian shouted happily, and Shafulai immediately checked the situation.

Chen Ci breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't actually 100% sure, but his current success proved that his idea was correct.

"Very awesome." Fu Tianhe whispered in his ear. Facing the Alpha's praise, Chen Ci's eyelashes moved slightly. He pursed his lips and pretended that he heard nothing.

This is not the first time I have received compliments, so why do I have such a strange reaction?

There was only one program on the console. Before running it, Shafley managed to enter the background to view the program and unexpectedly found that it was full of messy codes.

If he chooses to run directly, the entire space will most likely collapse.

He frowned and started to review it from the beginning. A lot of the content was quite familiar to him. Every time he performed core program maintenance for Cinnabar, he would browse through many top-secret core files.

That is the foundation on which the Beacon, as a supercomputer, relies for its operation. The underlying code structure created by the wisdom of all mankind is very excellent, which is why no serious problems have occurred in thousands of years.

Now, it had many errors that Schaffrey could not understand.

If I had to describe it, it's like the difference between a clothes drying rack and a dinosaur egg, they are completely different.

Programming language was a bridge for communication between carbon-based and silicon-based organisms. Now, this bridge has been destroyed for some inexplicable and unknown reason, leaving even Shaffley helpless.

Something has affected the beacon.

Shafley thought of the silt and worms he saw when he entered Sanshui's core, and the living tree-like creature growing in Sanshui's chest.

He had always believed that it was caused by the original creatures attacking the beacon, but now it seems that there may be another hidden story.

"I don't quite understand these things," Shafley said, frankly admitting his limited ability. "I'll try my best, but I can't say for sure what the result will be."

Fu Tianhe: "It's okay, you are the most knowledgeable among the four of us. If you can't handle it, then no one else can solve the problem."

While Shafley concentrated on the procedural problem, the other three looked around the room, hoping to find some other clues.

After coming out of the inclined passage, the information and images that appeared on the wall disappeared.

The space wasn't very large, so it was easy to search it all.

Fu Tianhe found a box in the corner. He called Chen Ci, who was standing next to him, and asked softly, "Do you want to open it?"

Chen Ci: “Yeah.”

When the box was opened, surprisingly there was nothing inside.

Fu Tianhe let out a cry of surprise, and reached his hand in disbelief, but suddenly he felt as if he was trapped in something soft and sticky, and every finger was entangled in something wet.

"ah!"

Fu Tianhe screamed in horror, he immediately pulled his hands out and swung them wildly in the air. Those things splashed onto the wall and immediately revealed their shapes, turning a small area of ​​the wall into the mosaic shape that he had just seen not long ago.

Upon seeing this, Fu Tianhe froze in place, not daring to move.

Seeing this, Chen Ci suddenly realized something.

He quickly returned to the sandbox, looked carefully near the moonlight, and tried to touch it with his hand.

It also feels sticky.

Chen Ci put his hand into the nearest water. The liquid was washed away, but he could still clearly feel that the water in this area was very slightly different from other places, and there was something mixed in it.

If the sandbox represents reality, then this sticky, invisible substance that has a huge impact on its surroundings should represent Ashes.

In the eyes of the beacon, Ashes is invisible. Only by actually touching it can it detect the difference.

But by then it's too late, and it will cause some kind of erosion to the inside.

I don't quite understand Chen Ci.

Research has shown that Ashes is a very special inorganic substance. It is incredible that it can infect the human body and exhibit parasitic habits. Could it also have an impact on a mechanical structure like a beacon?

Chen Ci thought of the purple crystals that had gushed out crazily from the cracks of the Moonlight Gate not long ago, as if they were calling out to the Ashes in Fu Tianhe's body.

Well, things have already gotten so outrageous, so if they get a little more outrageous, it doesn't seem to be a big deal.

Chen Ci withdrew his hand. He couldn't see clearly how the sticky substances diffused in the sea water, but no matter what, they would diffuse to the entire sandbox with the simulation of the ocean current.

Just like Ashes spread all over the world.

"Shaflay." Chen Ci called out to Alpha who was busy decrypting the code.

Shafley frowned, looking extremely confused. He raised his head and looked at Chen Ci to see what was wrong.

"Don't do it."

Chen Ci raised his head and stared at the ceiling above his head, but his eyes seemed to penetrate through it and saw the deeper existence hidden behind it.

"I don't know why we should keep adding too many puzzles to slow us down at this point."

"Since it takes four of us to solve the problem, only four of us can go. So what's the point of having so many people there as a test?"

Chen Nian was stunned for half a second, then suddenly realized that Chen Ci was talking to the beacon.

Oh my god…

Even though Chen Nian was quite familiar with Chen Ci's style of doing things, he was still surprised by his brother's decisiveness.

Chen Ci paused and continued:

"If what we are doing here and now has an impact on reality, then you are free to continue, but if it is just for the sake of testing us, I don't understand what the point is."