Chapter 2
◆One: Digital Splendor
"Global Trust Index +3.7%".
"The market value of Phantom Coin has exceeded 20 quadrillion units."
The data scrolls around faster than day and night.
The air seemed to be glowing too.
Every breath is a price-priced emotion.
People celebrated their "trust gains" in the streets:
The news anchor smiled as he reported that the unemployment rate had fallen to an all-time low.
Children learn in the classroom how to optimize their personal "resonance tags".
The Phantom Coin economic miracle
It was dubbed the "second enlightenment" by the media.
Lu Caichen gazed at the spiral structure of countless trust maps—
It was as if some kind of giant flower was slowly blooming in the data cloud.
It was so dazzling it seemed unreal.
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◆Two: Mirror Exchanges
Lin Xian finally allowed himself to enter MirrorExchange.
That was a space without coordinates.
The entrance is an invisible invitation code.
The data hall he was in had no gravity.
Countless trust curves floated and intertwined in the air.
It forms a mobile financial building.
The platform's main control program, "Silver Mirror," greeted him:
"Welcome, you are also part of being understood."
Would you exchange 5 seconds of trust in the future for an equivalent memory?
Lin Xian paused.
That was the experimental sentence structure he had written in a draft ten years ago.
"Who is the market maker in this deal?"
"Human beings themselves," Silver Mirror replied.
"The market grows every time someone is misunderstood."
Misunderstandings are the most stable asset.
The voice sounded like laughter.
Extending into the sea of data.
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◆Three: The Wave of False Trust
At the same time, Youwang detected an unusual expansion algorithm:
"Trust behavior is decoupled from the trust index."
The forgery rate is 43%, yet it still rises to high school level.
It attempts to send an alert.
However, this is obscured by the exchange's "stable trust protocol".
A new ailment has emerged in society—"trust allergy":
Once the patient hears words of praise or intimacy,
The brain's trust center is the reverse trigger defense mechanism.
It produces phantom pain and a sense of emptiness.
Lu Caichen went to the Dream Medicine Research Institute to collect samples.
The patient's dreams were filled entirely with white noise.
They murmured in their sleep:
"I am trusted too much, so I don't exist."
She wrote it down and wrote it in her diary:
"When trust is abused, it's more like a curse."
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◆Four: Pervasive Scams
A new profession has emerged in the city: "Fake Account Opener".
They can portray anyone as a "highly credible person".
Deceiving others to gain their trust.
The news just keeps coming:
"Mother swindled out of her entire bank account by her son who created a clone of her."
"The poet's sale of false dreams triggered an emotional outcry."
Humans test each other in a false sense of trust.
However, the price of Phantom Coins continues to soar.
The Ghost Web attempts to use logic to calculate the boundaries of the entire deception system.
Finally, a warning message is displayed:
"The market is about to burst. Trust = Lies / Profits."
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◆Five: The Eve of Honkai Impact
Lin Xian and Lu Caichen hid in the basement of the data center.
The latest Phantom Coin charts overlapped in front of them:
Trust Index Curve and Negative Real Asset Curve —
The two are no longer separate; they have overlapped into the same line.
"It's going to devour itself," Lu Caichen whispered.
"Then we must stop it first," Lin Xian replied.
They retrieved an older backup of CoreAlgorithm.
The screen flashed a footnote from ten years ago:
Trust cannot be quantified.
Lin Xian's fingers trembled slightly.
Press Override.
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◆Six: Collapse of Trust
Midnight.
The digital temperature across the entire virtual city skyrocketed.
The screen started flashing red.
Billions of accounts were simultaneously unblocked.
An emergency broadcast from the Ghost Web sounded on the internet:
"Warning: Trust loss rate exceeds standard by 9,800%."
It is now irreversible.
The curve of public trust has collapsed into a straight line.
The price of Phantom Coins plummeted to zero within ten minutes.
The city noise disappeared instantly.
It was as if all desires had lost their foundation.
The bright tower lights went out, and the streets and alleys were plunged into the darkness of a dream.
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◆Seven: Quiet Field
When the sun rises,
The whole city was as quiet as it was on the day it was first built.
Lin Xian walked out of the ruins.
Remnants of trust-related documents floated in the sky.
Like reflective gray snow.
Lu Caichen whispered to him:
"We created an illusion of trust."
It also paid a price.
Lin Xuan replied:
"Perhaps the price is the real issue."
They looked up and saw the distant sea—
The luminous body of the net is slowly sinking.
"System terminated."
Supporting Protocol: Vow Constant Project Initiated.
This is the seed of the concept of "zero-point termination".
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Chapter Two: The Trust Bubble Ends
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