Chapter 96
That night.
The lights in the nursing home were turned off on time at 10 pm. In the pitch-black darkness, the maid held candles and led him to the guest room that had been cleaned in advance.
"If you need anything during the night, please ring the bell and someone will come."
Under the candlelight, the wooden floor was clean and shiny. In the middle of the bedroom was a light-colored carpet of the same color as the wallpaper. There was also a fireplace here, but it was just for decoration. Above the mantelpiece hung two paintings, the left one was the nine planets of the solar system, and the right one was a blooming Louis XIV rose.
Gongye Shengliang didn't say anything, but saw the maid quietly close the door and leave the room.
After checking the system map to make sure there was no one around, his tense shoulders finally relaxed. The chair left a heavy scratch on the waxed floor, and the weight of his entire body was placed on the back of the chair. He was so tired that he didn't even want to move his fingers.
After calming his breathing for a while, Gongye Shengliang opened his eyes. His mind went blank for a few seconds before he slowly came into his senses.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice a little hoarse from the cold, and called the system: "Didn't you say before that you wanted to test the energy system of this world? How long do you think it will take?"
The light ball immediately replied: [Originally it would take 24 hours, but... the world line has changed, so it might take twice as long.]
Kouno Seira nodded nonchalantly, "Let's get started. -- Um, can I see the CG and save records of the test?"
[Those that have been uploaded are fine.] This time the light ball paused for a few seconds, and the electronic voice sounded a little more hesitant, [Contractor, are you sure you want to choose to test now?]
[Based on the data showing your physical condition and mental fluctuations, I suggest you take a rest for a while before making long-term plans.]
"This place is much safer than home and the base." Kono Seiryoshi moved the candle tray closer, and the candlelight illuminated his eyes, reflecting a calm after the precipitation. "I have remembered everything that should and should not be remembered. Don't worry, I will be safe before the mission is over."
His tone was gentle and casual, like chatting with a friend, but after being together for so long, the system already knew the personality of its contractor. He seemed easy to talk to, but once he decided to do something, no one could change him.
It had no choice but to withdraw silently, dividing half of the data stream to deal with the extremely unstable world line.
Kono Seiryoshi opened the system CG collection. He hadn't used this thing for a long time. The last time was when the six of them took a group photo, leaving their silhouettes under the brilliant sunrise.
His gaze paused above for a moment, then moved to the new CG.
The person who went over was him and not him, but he did the same thing in the afternoon, so it was even.
The opening of the long poem in hand tells the story of the poet who mistakenly entered a dark forest and was blocked by wild beasts. With the guidance of the sages, he passed through hell and purgatory and finally came to the abode of the soul, the rose of the happy, and saw God.
The page under the bookmark describes the poet stumbling for a long time on a harsh wilderness journey, finally coming to the entrance of a dark cave and seeing faint words on the door.
He took off his bookmark and whispered with the poet the inscription on the door:
“…Anyone who enters this door will abandon all hope.”*
This nursing home took many years to build, during which time it had more than a dozen managers. These people were either not strict enough in their words or were not competent for the job. In the end, they were all fired by the suspicious boss.
After the first snow of every year, no matter where he was, he would rush over as soon as possible and recite poems to the old man on the hospital bed as if completing some solemn ceremony.
Even if the opponent's limbs have long been atrophied and he can hardly move, and even blinking requires the help of machines.
Even if the other party can't hear what he is saying.
The turbid soul is imprisoned in the old body, and the rotten body is nailed to the narrow bed.
Then, I don’t know since when, all that was left on the bed was a bald skeleton.
According to the progress of reading, the poet should have followed the guidance of the sage to heaven, but the book in his hand has always stayed on that page, like a soul forever trapped and wandering in front of the gate of hell.
During the two hours and thirty-six minutes of delay, Seiyoshi Kono recovered from a severe headache and slowly completed this year's ceremony.
After finishing reading, he closed the book and placed it on his knees, tilting his head slightly so that he could better see the furnishings in the dim room.
In the dim light, the deep red eyes look like a pair of beautiful, clear glass beads.
He determined the direction, frowned, and nodded towards the bones on the bed.
"Good night, sir."
"Good night."
——Huh?
CG is recorded from a third-person perspective, and every blind spot and detail that cannot be seen by the naked eye are clearly visible.
Kono Seiryoshi enlarged the picture and looked at his own face in confusion.
——Were he smiling when he said this?
--
--
Man cannot attain immortality, but he can maintain immortality.
After being jointly expelled from the group by 16 international laboratories and faced unanimous boycott by the scientific community, Freya Hopz still firmly believed that her theory was correct.
This belief swelled once again when she received a secret invitation from the Karasuma Group.
Her hypocritical colleagues keep talking about "morality", "conscience" and "bottom line", but everyone knows that scientific progress must be based on bloody sacrifices.
After arriving at the Karasuma Group, Freya met the "Mad Scientist" Atsushi Miyano, who was also expelled from the scientific community a few years ago. She was excited to find someone like him, but she also sneered at the research results of the Miyano couple.
The drugs developed by the latter focus on the proliferation of the body's basal cells, causing the user to regress to the age of a child. This is completely contrary to immortality - or what the Karasuma Group requires of their research!
It is meaningless to torture the fragile bodies of human beings. No matter how much you try, you can never surpass the limit. Freya once stopped the loss in time on this road, and after several failures, she finally found a feasible way.
A hundred years ago, humans discovered brain waves, and since then countless scientists have come one after another and accumulated rich knowledge and conclusions. But this is far from enough. The brain is the most advanced organ that has only been developed by 10%, and there are still too many wonderful secrets hidden in it.
Some people have used small electric currents to stimulate brain wave oscillations in the human brain, but these gentle and even weak methods seem to Freya like children playing house.
Electric current, magnetic field, radiation, virus... She needs more experimental materials to verify her theory - by replicating brain waves, just like imprinting data on a CD, once it is read and transmitted, she can achieve true eternity!
Brain death is much more troublesome than ordinary organ modification. This research may consume tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives. Freya informed the Karasuma Group without any expectations, but she did not expect to get a reply of consent so soon.
Therefore, when she was taken to the dark room and saw the artificial life forms that looked exactly like the ones in the sheep culture tank, she was not surprised at all.
One reason is that this technology has been documented for centuries, but it could not be made public due to so-called "ethical" reasons.
Secondly, during her time at the institute, she had fully realized how fanatical the Karasuma Group was in its pursuit of immortality.
The two sides happily reached a consensus.
Research is always bumpy. In the first three years, the experiments led by Freya did not make any valuable progress, and the investment of Karasuma Group was greatly reduced. They seemed to focus on other directions, which was said to be something that could "affect the future of all mankind."
Freya felt anxious about this. She knew very well that she had nowhere to go except the Karasuma Group, and could only vent her anger on those experimental subjects who would not speak.
——Speaking of which, she often wondered, why was it made to look so pitiful when it was just a doll used for experiments and was no different from a rabbit waiting to die in anatomy class?
As a replacement for the human brain, they are of course conscious and responsive, but they are also endowed with certain fatal flaws that allow them to be manipulated at will.
When she feels pain, tears would well up in her beautiful eyes.
Defining it as a person is too abusive, and defining it as a doll is too fragile.
It is human nature to be attracted to taboos. These contradictory characteristics are strangely combined together. Even if one accidentally goes a little too far, it is understandable, right?
…
In the fourth year, the person who took over from her in the Karasuma Group changed several times, and finally fell into the hands of an organization code-named after a liquor. The person's code name was "Vin", and it was said that he was a moody weirdo who would cover himself with black cloth.
Freya didn't care who came. The Miyano couple had died in the fire, and there was no one to take over their research, so the Karasuma Group had to reuse her. In addition, she got another good news. The organization intended to combine her research results with the developed program, which really made her proud.
It was on that day that she met the legendary Vin.
In the dark room, through layers of sterile partition curtains, a figure can be vaguely seen standing behind.
Before she could wonder why Vin called her over, she suddenly heard a strange and gentle voice coming from behind the curtain. The voice sounded very young, not an old man as others had guessed.
Vin asked, "Do you think the soul can be divided, Freya?"
Freya frowned. She did not agree with such a vague word as "soul", so she corrected him, "If you mean my research, then the answer is 'yes'. You only need to replicate the brain wave frequency to get a large number of souls."
"Correspondingly, if you change your brain waves, you can also get a brand new soul."
The surroundings were empty, but she recognized that this was the dark room where the experimental subjects were stored. She said unhappily, "Are you asking this because you don't trust my results?"
"Of course I believe you."
The sound was getting closer, the white partition curtain was lifted, and the blurry figure gradually became clearer.
When Vin appeared before her, Freya first noticed the water stains under his feet.
Is the pipe leaking?
Three seconds later, or perhaps less, the scientist's body twitched violently twice, and his eyes widened in shock.
She recognized that it was not water, but the liquid in the sheep culture tank!
She felt a sharp pain in her spine and accidentally fell to the wet floor.
Vin, wearing a soaked white shirt, looked at her quietly, as if he had just crawled out of the water.
Looking up, it was a face that she would never forget in her life.
Freya couldn't make a sound. In the dead silence of the room, the only sound that could be heard was her increasingly rapid breathing.
Looking at her ferocious appearance, Vin seemed to suddenly remember something and tilted his head slightly to look at her.
"Freya, before coming to the base, you had surgery on your heart, right?"
Before the female doctor could react to the question, her body answered first. Her heart rate suddenly became irregular, and the burning sensation in her chest almost made it impossible for her to breathe. The pacemaker that was meant to prolong her life became a murder weapon at this moment. The chaotic current and heat were enough to kill her.
...Magnetic field! Someone has changed the magnetic field in the lab!
Her heart was swollen with blood and threatened to burst out of her chest. Freya opened her mouth in vain, sinking into bottomless fear.
"Vin, save me! Please...!"
Shrouded in the shadow of death, she seemed to have a last burst of energy, bursting out unprecedented strength and trying to grab the corner of another person's clothes that was still dripping with water.
But he caught nothing.
"Be patient, it will be over soon."
Vin's tone was gentle, and he comforted her patiently, as if she was just a unreasonable child clamoring for candy.
"Just need to verify your experimental results. You won't let me down, right?"