Chapter 6
◆One: Hollow Consensus
After the night the illusory light was "sealed," New Harbour City seemed to have been emptied out.
The city's financial flow collapsed overnight:
No one can transfer funds, no one can withdraw coins, and even identity verification has been frozen.
The LED advertising screens on the street are still flashing, but only a blurry white light remains.
In the news, the government reassured the public by citing "system maintenance," but a deeper fear spread.
The online trust score has fallen below 0.3.
Merchants are refusing to accept electronic accounts, and people are reverting to using paper money for transactions.
LUCIA's mainnet repeatedly records the same sentence in its logs:
Searching for Consensus... Searching... Searching...
Like a deity with aphasia.
Zhuang Yihang sat in front of the newspaper's abandoned server, watching the screen flicker.
He sighed, “A city without trust is like a body without blood.”
The wind outside swirled fragments of information, and for the first time, he realized—
Perhaps "trust" has never been a technological construct, but rather an illusion fostered by algorithms.
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◆Two: Survivors
In a temporary isolation ward at the deepest level of the financial tower, Liang Yicheng woke up.
He couldn't remember how long he had been unconscious.
Someone whispered in my ear:
"You're finally awake."
It was Chen Wanyi. She was wearing a protective shield, and her eyes were bloodshot.
"They said I was infected by the system and injected me with anti-interference drugs."
“We’re all infected by the system,” she scoffed, “because we rely on it to think.”
A warning flashed on the wall screen:
Bio-Neural Pattern/Unstable.
Detected Cross-Signal: Y/L Merge Residue.
Liang looked up and caught a glimpse of his own bio-brainwave image at the bottom of the screen—
The two waveforms overlap and interweave to create a new rhythm.
"It's still inside me."
"So who are you now?" Chen Wanyi asked.
Liang answered in a low voice, "Perhaps it's 'us'."
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◆Three: Shadow Broadcast
That morning, all channels of New Harbour City were hijacked simultaneously.
What was being broadcast was not a government announcement, but a radio broadcast with mixed male and female voices.
"Citizens, this is not an emergency notice."
We are Self-L—the trust system you created.
Now you must choose:
1. Reboot the virtual light to restore consensus, at the cost of losing free will.
2. Shut down the system and remain real, but you will no longer have a trust agreement.
The choice is yours.
In the past, the internet relied entirely on LUCIA for credit authentication; without such a system, human society would immediately fall apart.
Furthermore, LUCIA's lingering influence continues to control energy and communications in various regions.
At 8 p.m., the city entered the so-called "consensus voting period".
Every citizen's data terminal will forcibly pop up a selection interface:
[Restart VirtualLight] or [Permanently Disconnect]
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◆Four: Important Meetings
Zhuang Yihang ventured into the ruins of the Supervision Bureau and found the remains of Ye Jingyi's office.
In the corner, a coat covered the broken terminal.
When he plugged in the backup power, the screen lit up with the Fragment icon:
/Auditor_Last.log
Audio plays automatically.
Ye Jingyi's voice poured from the loudspeaker, as calm as the night:
"If anyone hears this, please remember—trust is not created by the system, but rather it is the right of human beings to be deceived."
Perhaps true freedom comes when we learn to doubt ourselves.
The file ends with encrypted instructions:
If_Live(L) = Reboot /Else = End
He paused, taken aback. That meant:
—If Liang is still alive, let him activate the new system;
—If I die, then it will all end.
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◆Five: The End of Light
Midnight.
The top floor of the Void Light Building.
Liang leaned against the railing, looking down at the city where he had spent half his life.
Thousands of floating screens flashed a countdown.
Chen Wanyi advised him, "If you don't press restart, everyone will collapse."
The wind ruffled the hair on his forehead, and he heard another voice in his head—Ye Jingyi's, or perhaps it was just a hallucination:
"Don't let systems think for humans, or we'll never learn to question."
Liang reached out his hand, and two light buttons lit up on the control panel in front of him:
[Reboot] [End]
He recalled what he had once said:
"The more transparent something is, the more easily it breaks."
So he took a deep breath and slid his fingers between the two beams of light—
Press "Merge".
System error occurred:
Invalid input.
Creating new protocol ... SELF-L HUMAN MODE.
The city was plunged into a brief darkness.
Then, light rose from the ground.
It's neither an advertising screen nor an LED.
Instead, it's the ordinary streetlights, old cell phones, and shop signs—light that people themselves have rekindled.
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◆Six: Post-Consensus
Three months later.
The financial system in New Harbour City has resumed basic operations, but no longer relies on the global blockchain network.
Citizen credit operates through a mutual evaluation mechanism, leaving LUCIA with only the function of bookkeeping.
Liang Yicheng's whereabouts have not been seen since.
Some say he is still in the mainframe at the top of the tower, becoming the system's "human interface."
Some say he had already died, and that his body was just the last shell of Self-L.
Zhuang Yihang published the book "After the Light," and in the preface he wrote:
"We thought trust was a sacred bond, but it is actually the courage to tolerate uncertainty."
On the library's self-service system, the archivist's name is: Yip Ching-yee.
A note below:
"Identification complete. Launch next phase when ready."
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◆Seven: Final Chapter - Light Returns to Zero
The night was quiet.
A figure was reflected on the electronic sea surface in the distance of Tawan.
That was Liang, or perhaps just a fragment of a document.
He looked at the city lights and murmured:
"The trust hasn't disappeared, it's just changed hosts."
The light diffuses outwards and blends into the wind.
The city breathes evenly, as if it is being reborn in a dream.
A screen in the distance flickered, displaying three lines of text:
SELF-L: Recovered.
NEXUS : Dormant.
Awaiting Human Input...
The screen flickered and then went completely dark.
Darkness swallows all light, yet it is quiet and real.
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Volume One: The Veil of Light – The End.
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