Chapter 134 Returning to the First Level of the Logos Simulation...
The first floor of the Logos simulation, in a London hotel.
He was in the wedding church one second and lying in the laboratory the next.
[The comments drifted by: Wow, the scene transition was lightning fast.]
Miyano Shiho opened her eyes.
The ceiling was blindingly white. A faint sting of electricity tingled through the sensor patch connected to my body.
Well, the dream feedback system was a huge success. She calmly gave it an A+ rating.
Shiho raised her hand and pressed her fingertips on her solar plexus.
Format. Start the brain memory cleanup process.
The data is looking back: the ecstasy of solving biological problems, clues to the prototype drug APTX4869, and the pain of Vermouth's "death".
And...the wedding of the century that made headlines in social news.
Damn, the immersive experience is too good and the realism is overwhelming.
"Awake? My dear little bride."
A voice drifted from the side. It was lazy, laced with laughter. This voice...
Shiho's biological instincts sounded a red alert.
The steps of confirming identity are omitted.
Her cervical vertebrae creaked in protest, and her head slowly turned towards the source of the sound at a stuttering animation frame rate.
At the edge of her vision, that familiar golden color stamped the final seal on her death sentence.
Vermouth.
She leaned back in her chair, legs crossed.
She looked relaxed, not at all like someone who had just finished an intense dream connection. Instead, she looked like a Parisian socialite who had just finished afternoon tea and had come to observe the release of the mice from their cages.
Her dazzling blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders, her blue eyes sparkled, and her celebrity-like smile was both captivating and provocative.
"I'm so glad you're still alive." Vermouth tilted her head, her tone as sincere as if she were giving an acceptance speech. "Otherwise, we'd have to cancel our wedding tickets midway, which would have been such a bummer."
Shiho:……
Help, it would be better for this woman to die where she is.
She opened her mouth and squeezed out four words from between her teeth.
“…Vermouth.”
The voice is hoarse and embarrassing.
She tried to stand up, but her elbows gave way and she fell back heavily.
No, I have to sit up and take back control.
Calm down, Miyano Shiho. This is just the next step in the experiment. We mustn't let her see the flaw.
She used her elbows to support herself, trying to push up her upper body. The emotions from the dream had consumed her so much that her muscles felt sore and weak.
"Ah, why are you calling me so strange?"
Vermouth chuckled. "Just now in my dream, you didn't call me by my code name. My dear, my only one... Tsk, you're so passionate, I almost melted in your arms."
The heat rushed from Shiho's chest to her head.
She turned her head sharply, avoiding those all-seeing blue-green eyes.
"That's a simulation." She narrowed her eyes, trying to mask her inner devastation with a scientific coldness. "It's preset emotional parameters, a data stream. It's not me."
She had to deny it.
"Oh? Data?" Vermouth smiled, shortening the physical distance between the two.
"Ah, so I 'died' and you cried heartbreakingly while holding my belongings. Was that also data?"
She paused, admiring Shiho's expression.
"You've been working tirelessly, forgetting to eat and sleep, rummaging through centuries-old alchemical texts, tracing back to the origin of APTX4869. Was it just to complete the assigned mission?"
"Also, when I reappeared, you were crying and laughing, like you had found the whole world..."
"Tell me, dear Shirley, was that also a drama orchestrated by Data?"
"Don't..." She protested softly, "Don't call me that."
"Why not?"
Vermouth came very close, almost kissing Shiho's lips.
"In my dream, you loved me calling you that. Especially... when we exchanged vows."
The heat climbed up Miyano Shiho's face and burned all the way to her ears.
Vermouth admired her masterpiece with a smile on her face.
"It seems you love me more than I thought. It was just a simulation, but you even dreamt up a marriage certificate. You even risked your life for me to that extent..."
"The experiment is over." Miyano Shiho quickly switched to the three-no mode, and her voice became a straight line.
"It's over? No, my dear Shirley," Vermouth chuckled, "the real show has just begun."
"You cried so hard in my dream...and when I died, your world would go black."
Shiho's cheeks flushed. She forced herself to look directly into those all-seeing eyes, using scientific theory to build a final line of defense.
"If we talk about science and analyze it from a physical perspective, it's just a random combination of neural currents. The stress response of the cerebral cortex under specific stimuli does not have any emotional value."
Vermouth raised her hand and lightly tapped the monitor screen next to her.
On the screen, the curve representing Shiho's heart rate is dancing wildly.
The heart rate monitor has also been exposed to too much orange today.
"We even got married." Vermouth blinked, her tone frivolous but dangerous. "You walked towards me in a white dress, willingly and voluntarily surrendering yourself."
"How do you know it was a dream?" Shiho decided to speak out. "Maybe it was just a hospice-plus hallucination before you died."
"How cruel, my little scientist. I tasted your kiss in my dream. But in reality, as soon as you opened your eyes, you took out a knife."
"You were the one who chose to log off and disappear first." Shiho raised her eyes, her gaze fixed on the snowless winter night sky, cold and distant. "I'm just getting used to your daily irresponsible behavior."
Vermouth raised an eyebrow and said, "No matter what you say now, you can't deny the fact that you cried for me and laughed for me in your dream. In the end, you willingly agreed to marry me."
The red color could no longer be suppressed and set fire to Shiho's face again.
She turned her head sharply, gritting her teeth. "That, that was just a dream... You could even act out your resurrection from the dead so flawlessly, so how hard would it be to fake a dream?"
"Fake dreams? My dear, that won't fool your heart. As a professional biologist, you know it best. Only you can dream your own dreams."
She paused, then delivered the final blow. "What a shame, the person in your dreams will always be me."
The two of them stared at each other. The air was like pure oxygen meeting a spark, just a millimeter away from exploding through the Earth's core.
Vermouth's fingers slowly moved upwards, along the pale blue blood vessels on the back of Shiho's hand, and finally stopped at the pulse on her wrist.
Shiho tried to calm down.
Failed.
The heart rate curve on the monitor showed a sudden takeoff.
"What... do you want to do?"
Vermouth stopped moving, her eyes filled with the joy of a successful prank: "I just want to confirm whether your 'immune system' is really that obedient."
The smile of the Hollywood enchantress is both sweet and evil.
Suddenly, Vermouth pulled back half a step, and the fuse was instantly severed, dissolving the high-pressure aura.
Her tone was so light she could sing, "But since Shirley-chan loved me so much in my dream and even picked out her wedding dress, should I open the app on my phone now and check out the wedding venue schedule in Beika Town?"
"...You are such a joker."
Shiho's back sprained at this turn of events, and her cheeks continued to heat up. Using her remaining strength to maintain her composure, she managed to say, "In my dream... I must have downloaded some kind of virus."
Vermouth chuckled: "If it's a virus, I hope you'll never use antivirus again."
Shiho pouted and ignored her.
"Okay, the chit-chat is over." Vermouth's tone changed. "Someone has to do something to spoil the fun."
"Those idiots in the organization," she spat out with disdain, "thought they were pursuing immortality until they died."
"Huh. The truth and their KPI are worlds apart."
"An organization's plan is never just some low-level gadget to keep the body young. It's a backup disk for knowledge and a cloud server for thinking."
The scattered images instantly merged into a 4K high-definition data stream, which was frantically loaded in the background of the consciousness shared by the two people.
The alchemist's yellowed parchment manuscript.
The stone gallery of the medieval university.
The swaying figures of the secret gathering.
The flame of knowledge has been passed silently between countless masters and apprentices for centuries, enduring the fire and ice of both the physical and non-physical levels.
The data stream has been loaded. Shiho's CPU is still spinning at high speed, digesting this massive setting.
Vermouth raised her hand again, and her fingertips touched the monitor screen again.
The heart rate curve that was dancing passionately just now was now as flat as a piece of stretched spaghetti.
"So, you have to get everything back on track." The clues in Shiho's mind were connected frantically, and a background program she had never thought of was completely cracked. "What you seek is not eternal life, but eternal knowledge."
"Correct." Vermouth's thoughts came directly in the form of affirmation, "But I need a companion. One who can exhaust all the science and understand the ethical boundaries. One who has to be quick-witted enough to peel off the layers of nesting dolls and get to the core code."
"It's me."
Shiho whispered that she finally understood what her role was in this massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
"I'm just watching and waiting. Waiting for you to compile the program yourself, from cell regeneration to the ultimate possibility of consciousness uploading."
Logically speaking, Shiho should have exploded on the spot.
Being watched, tested, and silently guided to a predetermined destination was utterly arrogant.
But in this shared consciousness zone, the fuel for anger had been drained. She could clearly read Vermouth's pure, even paranoid, motivation, her respect for knowledge and wisdom, and... the unmistakable appreciation and other emotions that grew over time.
These things burned a hole in her inner firewall.
"Then...what about that time in London last month?" Shiho fought back. That unexpected night of passion was her only argument to refute the other party's claim that "everything was under control."
Vermouth chuckled softly, her laughter was warm, full of honesty and indulgence.
"No, no, that was purely improvisation outside the script. But, it makes this play... a lot more hidden Easter eggs."
The memory of that night popped up automatically without needing to be summoned.
At this moment, memory is no longer a one-way download, but a two-channel stereo surround, 4K high definition, and full senses.
"That's a pretty good experience, huh? One feeling, shared by two. The joy is super doubled. Dreams, after all, are the server backend of your subconscious mind. All the bugs and backdoors are clearly visible. My dear Shirley, dare you look me in the eye and tell me you weren't even a little moved just now?"
Vermouth's fingertips touched Shiho's lips.
"Or should I call you something else?" She squinted her eyes and smiled, "Mrs. Wynyard...?"
Shiho's processor instantly overloaded. Her cheeks soared in temperature, and with a sizzling sound, she felt like she could roast a slice of high-quality, marbled Wagyu beef.
Game over. Again.
In this woman's verbal trap, she was the poor baby who was always being manipulated. She had to retreat! Immediately! Right now!
“Vermouth.” Her voice was stretched into a straight audio waveform. “Your jokes are in poor taste. I’m busy and have no interest in playing with you.”
"Poor taste?" Vermouth snorted, the amusement in her eyes instantly evaporating. "You're always like this, Shirley. A textbook tsundere. You say no, but your subconscious shouts yes. In your dreams, you're much more passionate. You need me so much."
"Then... love me."
The last word was a direct hit, the high temperature welding Shiho deep into the consciousness.
Enough. Really enough. Any longer and the system will blue screen.
Shiho turned around abruptly, using her back to build a firewall, physically blocking the view.
“That’s not love.”
But the dream image was of a flood bursting through a dam, of a server under DDoS attack. Vermouth fell, then stood up again. The ecstasy of recovery, the urge to embrace. The emotion was terrifyingly pure, surging, and completely her own true feelings.
"So that's how it is. My Shirley, in your dreams, the way you choose men... oh no, the way you choose women is truly... quite unique. You rejected so many great and honorable men, but chose someone like me... so special."
"It's better than some people's taste in real life." Her voice was so cold it could freeze the air. "In my dreams, at least you know how to protect and sacrifice."
"Oh huh? So that's the version of me that Shirley-chan likes? The one where I die for you, live for you? Do you want... me to recreate it for you right here?"
The oppressive feeling of language when a Hollywood actress recites her corny lines is sometimes more suffocating than physical distance.
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