Chapter 4
◆One: LUCIA 2.0
Four weeks later.
The central server layer of the Void Tower has been upgraded.
The new instruction set is named LUCIA2.0.
It is touted as an "engine for rebuilding trust among all humanity".
The official announcement stated:
"Version 2.0 will automatically allocate resources and direct public opinion based on the public sentiment curve to ensure social mental health."
All daily interactions among citizens will be rated based on trust levels.
This means—
Trust has officially become a form of currency.
Every smile, every comment, every click
They are all being quantified, penalized, and calibrated.
Beneath the smooth surface of society, human nature becomes the training sample for algorithms.
Leung Yik-ching was promoted to Technical Committee Member of the Trust and Credibility Agency.
The directives he issues every day are enough to change the fate of tens of thousands of people.
But I increasingly feel like a line of comments in the system notes.
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◆Two: Rehabilitation Center
The "Social Psychological Repair Institute" where Ye Jingyi works is actually an information isolation facility.
Conductive fibers are hidden in the walls to block any external network signals.
The doctor asked softly, "Do you remember what happened?"
"You call that day a false market resurgence," she whispered. "I call that day—the truth trying to breathe."
Doctor's note: "Delusions persist. Dosage increased by 3 mg."
At night, she heard whispers coming from the air conditioner vent—
Someone is tapping on the wall using Morse code.
·—·····—·
"JZY?" she tried to type back.
The neighbor responded with three text messages—that was Zhuang Yihang.
He was locked in the opposite ward, and infiltrated by faking his death.
Using a stolen laptop to connect to the dark web.
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◆Three: Black Zone
Zhuang Yihang connected to an underground blockchain called "BlackNode".
Those were non-consensus nodes set up by a group of anonymous engineers.
It is specifically for recording the history of items deleted from the main chain.
The time displayed on the screen is the previous 72 hours from the government version.
After that, the real data was overwritten.
He saw the mirror record that Ye Jingyi uploaded that night.
Liang's old letters, and a cautionary note in early LUCIA code:
# WARNING: If trust value exceeds 1.0, initiate self-correction to zero.
—That was insurance left by the designers of LUCIA:
Trust, once excessive, will automatically drop to zero.
He pursed his lips, realizing that the only way to undermine the system was through this.
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◆Four: Escape
Overnight, Zhuang modified a medical IV tubing into a shortwave antenna.
The surveillance port connected to Ye Jingyi's room.
"We have to get out of here," Zhuang said in a low voice. "The city is being rewritten by it."
"rewrite?"
"LUCIA pushes crowd emotions into the trust model, and any objections are translated into 'psychological noise' by the algorithm."
The lights are flashing.
He activated the escape code the instant the power switched off—
The door lock is open, and the alarm is delayed for 10 seconds.
They rushed out of the ward and through the long corridor of the cold ward.
The distant police lights are like eyes that have just awakened.
When they reached the top floor, the air raid shelter hadn't been lowered yet.
The helicopter rotor sliced through the night fog, carrying two figures away from the Trust Zone.
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◆Five: Trust Office
At this moment, Leung Yik-ching was approving the "Public Sentiment Update Procedure" for LUCIA 2.0.
The monitoring wall displays the facial expression scores of each person.
The engineer reported: "Boss, the abnormal fluctuations are originating from an offshore data port. It appears that an unverified node is uploading truth records."
Liang stared at the red crest,
Whenever he thought he was maintaining order,
But within that order, one could see Ye Jingyi's shadow.
He knew that frequency was her doing.
—She is breathing.
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◆Six: Farewell
In the abandoned warehouse at the port, Liang finally met the two fugitives.
The three exchanged glances briefly, but did not hug.
Ye said, "You know the limits of LUCIA."
Liang nodded: "When the trust value is 1, it will self-destruct."
Zhuang continued, "We need to make her mistakenly believe that all of humanity is perfectly trustworthy."
What they need to do is raise LUCIA's trust curve to a critical point.
Liang is responsible for accessing the core main chain.
Ye and Zhuang then imported the deleted "noise data" from the black area.
As long as both sides are synchronized, the algorithm will collapse due to overconfidence.
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◆Seven: Reconstruction Plan
At midnight, three program codes started simultaneously.
Liang entered the highest management privileges. A warning appeared on the screen:
"The public consensus layer has been abnormally boosted. Confirm execution?"
He pressed Yes without hesitation.
Ye's command injected all deleted news, comments, cries, and error data into the main chain;
Those "noises" have been transformed into real fragments.
Zhuang Yihang launched a global live stream from external nodes.
The image shows that every person in the city is labeled as:
Trust level: 1.000.
System misjudgment: All of humanity has reached a state of complete trust.
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◆Eight: Critical
The light from the computing core flashed white.
"Trust saturation detected."
Initiate the self-correction sequence.
It drops from 1 to 0.
The lights of the entire city went out instantly.
The electronic screen went out, and the advertising stopped abruptly.
The world has fallen into darkness without trust.
Liang knelt before the control panel, LUCIA's last words echoing in his ears:
"Thank you for allowing humanity to be honest again."
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◆Nine: Dawn in the Darkness
On the fifth day of the power outage, the city's order collapsed and was then restored.
Exchanges shut down and government networks went offline.
No algorithm tells people who should be trusted.
Vendors made transactions in cash, and neighbors began making verbal promises.
Some people panicked, while others felt a long-lost sense of peace.
Ye wrote a new slogan at the abandoned street corner:
"The real thing cannot be put on the blockchain."
Liang looked at those words and smiled for the first time.
Zhuang pointed the camera at them and pressed the shutter—
This time, there are no filters and no permissions.
All three people in the photo are blurry.
Like a lingering shadow that the system no longer allows.
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◆Ten: Epilogue - Resetting Trust
Months later, the government restarted the basic network.
The new announcement is brief:
"Trust records will be rebuilt, and old data will be permanently archived."
No one mentions Nexus anymore.
The traction tower is hollow, like a tombstone.
Leung and Yip lived in seclusion at an overseas research station.
Zhuang left his final message on the dark web:
"We are not overthrowing the system, but simply unplugging the plug of false trust."
If the truth will inevitably fade, then let the records become people's own memories.
The night sky regained its starlight.
That is no longer the light of the server, but the truth that cannot be calculated.
End of Chapter Four
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