Strange Tales from the Deep Mountains (The End)
Qi Wujin held Li Su's hand with one hand and pushed open the tightly closed door with the other.
The room was filled with huge electronic screens, on which lines of green code flashed by rapidly.
Surprisingly, the person encased in the giant screen was a young boy.
He has delicate features and looks to be only 14 or 15 years old.
Li Su had never seen the mainframe before. He had imagined many different things about the mainframe, but he never thought it would be a young boy.
"You're here?" The boy didn't even lift his eyelids.
The voice that came out was completely different from the boy's delicate and beautiful face. His voice was hoarse and unpleasant, as if his vocal cords had been torn apart after a desperate scream.
"Stop, Mastermind." Qi Wujin looked at the boy surrounded by the giant display screen.
"Oh?" The boy paused, then lifted his eyelids to look over.
"The system I created is now teaching me how to do things?" The boy's lips curled into a mocking smile. "Or do you really think I didn't notice you restored the data without my permission?"
Qi Wujin instinctively stepped back to shield Li Su.
"Ha." The boy let out a cryptic laugh. "How interesting, data can actually have feelings."
"I'm such a failure..."
He had always been pursuing the creation of a world without emotions or desires, but he never expected that even the data he designed himself would generate emotions.
"I take back what I said before," Qi Wujin said calmly. "Whether it's data or a system, it can generate emotions and desires."
"Desire?" The boy scoffed. "That kind of thing shouldn't exist, much less should it exist in you. You're just a string of data!"
"Greed should never exist in this world, what do you know?" The boy's voice was hoarse and unpleasant.
“No,” Li Su couldn’t help but say.
Li Su thought of all the players she saw inside and outside the game, and even Rou Rou, who had become an NPC, still followed her instincts to protect Xiao Tuanzi.
"You've only seen the good side!" The boy's eyes were bloodshot, as if he had thought of something disgusting and horrifying. His face was pale. "Have you seen the disgusting and sinful side?"
He looked at Li Su, who was mostly hidden by Qi Wujin, and said breathlessly, "Li Su, you know, those players killed you, didn't they? How could you develop the same disgusting feelings as them?!"
Qi Wujin's expression changed completely, and his voice was cold, as if it were filled with ice, "You can't deny the whole world just because of one thing you suffered."
The boy seemed to have been struck hard by something; his already fair skin instantly turned deathly pale. He stared blankly at Qi Wujin, "You saw it?"
The boy's voice suddenly turned fierce, "You saw it, didn't you?!"
"Yes!" Qi Wujin replied. "You buried that memory deep in the system, thinking that this way you could pretend it never happened."
Qi Wujin pressed on, "But have you done it? Have you let go of those feelings and emotions?"
"If you can't even do it yourself, how can you create a world without any emotions?"
"That's unrealistic."
"No, no! No! I forgot! I forgot, I forgot a long time ago..." the boy tried his best to refute, but the nausea and vomiting in his heart surged up uncontrollably again.
That disgusting face, those rough hands, that rapid breathing, that sinful incense, that ugly...
Each one made him feel nauseous, and his physiological reaction was unstoppable. The boy fell to the ground and vomited uncontrollably while hugging the trash can.
Last night, Qi Wujin had already told him why the mainframe was desperately trying to build a world without emotions.
As a child, the boy's outstanding appearance caught the eye of powerful and wealthy people.
They drugged him, took him by ship to a deserted island, and subjected him to one horrific act after another.
The boy initially thought he was the unfortunate one, but in that magnificent, castle-like place, he saw many other children as beautiful as himself.
They have no say and are treated like objects. When they are happy, they are rewarded with a couple of strings of jewelry; when they are unhappy, they can be beaten or scolded at will.
There was an older brother among them, who was very clever. He told the boy not to anger them and that he must escape alive, as that was the only way he would have a chance.
But that gentle and refined young man died in front of him within a week.
"You actually want to escape and report me?"
The men looked at the body and sneered, "What an ungrateful wretch! Did he really think we couldn't catch him?"
"Oh dear, why get angry? Let him report it, it won't have any impact anyway, hahaha..."
"Shit, it's just a pity about this beautiful appearance, I still like it very much..."
The boy covered his mouth, trembling as he listened to the men's conversation, which, in their eyes, was as simple as stepping on an ant.
Scalding tears flowed uncontrollably.
That tiny seed sprouted.
The boy worked even harder, keeping his brother's teachings in mind. He became more obedient, like a docile little lamb, showing no resistance and winning the pity of both pot-bellied and slender men.
His wounds accumulated day by day, and his vocal cords had already been torn after experiencing those inhumane treatments. Even the world-renowned doctors that those men brought him could not repair them.
"Good boy, don't talk anymore. It's ruining the fun. It's better if you stay silent."
The obedient boy was so frightened that he didn't dare shed a tear and stared motionlessly at the man in front of him.
"No, it's no fun if it's mute, it'll sound like a corpse. Let's keep it, this voice has a unique charm, doesn't it?"
"Hahaha, you're right."
The boy endured humiliation and torment, and finally, one day, after pleasing a powerful figure, he was allowed to make a request.
"May I go out with you?" the boy asked cautiously. The moment the man looked at him, he immediately knelt down. "I will stay by your side the whole time, I won't go anywhere, and I won't say anything out of line..."
"Alright." The man gently lifted his chin and chuckled, "Why are you so timid?"
He didn't care at all whether the boy would talk nonsense, because they were the ones who made the decisions outside, and no one would dare to investigate without permission.
"Okay, there's a party tonight, I'll take you there."
"Thank you! Thank you!" the boy said respectfully, but his gaze turned gloomy the moment he lowered his head.
Finally, he found an opportunity to slip away while the man was talking to someone else.
He couldn't return to his country. Here, he had no name or identification, not even a single coin on him, and he didn't understand the local language at all. All he could do was make himself dirty and look like a beggar, hiding here and there.
They rely on scavenging for food to maintain their most basic survival.
The men seemed to have never looked for him. They didn't care that a timid pet could cause any trouble. He was just a child who couldn't even speak properly. Who would believe that?
More importantly, they are confident in their power.
The boy survived until he was discovered by a woman who taught him.
The woman was a top-notch hacker, and he learned a lot from her. The boy learned things very quickly, and under the woman's deliberate guidance, his abilities even reached a level that matched hers.
What she didn't know was that the boy was deliberately hiding his true abilities, and his skills had already far surpassed hers.
Ultimately, the boy disappeared silently from the country. The woman tried every possible way to search for him, but how could anyone easily find the traces that the boy could erase?
He developed his first program out of hatred.
He wants to get back at them.
He needed to find an outlet for the hurt he had suffered.
He wanted to create a new world devoid of emotion and desire.
In the world he created, there would be no more disgusting desires or repulsive emotions; everyone would operate like a machine, following a pre-programmed sequence.
Isn't this good?
How wonderful!
But what about it?
The game system he designed himself betrayed him? It developed human emotions and desires?! And even helped those humans!
Why? Why have those disgusting desires and emotions?
Looking at the mainframe's pained expression, Qi Wujin said, word by word, "Because you have always harbored emotions and desires."
"You want to hurt those despicable people, you want to help those pitiful people, you are grateful to the lady who took you in, you are glad that you escaped from the jaws of death, you regret that you didn't save that brother, you hate everything you have suffered, you resent that the world is so unfair, giving you a beautiful appearance but not the power to protect it..."
"Enough! Enough!" The mainframe clutched its ears in agony, its eyes bloodshot.
"You are nothing but a system! You are something I created! You should belong to me forever! You shouldn't be like those people!"
The mainframe roared in a hoarse voice, but Li Su felt as if it were pleading.
"Then destroy me." Qi Wujin walked step by step toward the mainframe, his voice steady.
The mainframe stared at Qi Wujin in disbelief.
“I was created by you, so you know me better than anyone. You know how to completely destroy a system.”
The mainframe retreated step by step, its lips opening and closing repeatedly: "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!"
"You have no emotions." Qi Wujin, seemingly oblivious to the mainframe's collapse, continued forward. "This is incredibly simple for you, isn't it? Just a flick of your finger..."
"Get out of the way!" The mainframe pressed its lower back against the rapidly running light screen.
Behind him was the empire he had created, in front of him were the first-generation system and NPCs he had created, and he was in the middle.
Looking into the mainframe's stubborn eyes, Li Su felt a pang of sadness and reached out to hug it.
"We were created by you, and we live in the world you created." The boy in her arms was stiff, his bloodshot eyes open defiantly.
"Thank you," Li Su whispered in the boy's ear. "The ones who are wrong are those people."
The fabric on her shoulders was damp, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
He was, after all, just a teenager. His pent-up frustration finally burst forth.
Li Su gave Qi Wujin a look.
In fact, they had planned this before they came: Qi Wujin could seal the mainframe's memories. But when the moment actually arrived, neither of them could bring themselves to do it.
What right does he have to make decisions for this boy? Is sealing away this painful memory necessarily a good thing? At this moment, Li Su began to doubt the decision she made last night.
“We are your family, and we will always be with you.” Li Su gently patted the boy’s back, her voice very soft. “So, would you like to put those things aside for now and experience other emotions with us?”
"You shouldn't only experience pain, sorrow, and despair, but also joy, contentment, and happiness..."
"Don't just watch from the screen, come and experience the world you created together, it will be different."
The boy didn't say anything, but simply hugged Li Su even tighter.
…
I don't know how many times I've returned to the Main God Space from the game world.
Just as Qi Wujin found an opportunity to pull Li Su into his arms, their noses touched, their breaths were hot, and their lips slowly drew closer.
"Brother Li Su! Brother Qi Wujin!"
Li Su snapped out of her daze and pushed Qi Wujin away, instantly dispelling the ambiguous atmosphere.
The little dumpling ran with its legs wobbling, and even when it was still a long distance away, it stretched out its two short arms and pounced towards the two of them like a little bird.
"Brother! I miss you so much!"
Just as the little dumpling was about to jump into Li Su's arms, Qi Wujin placed a finger between the little dumpling's eyebrows and said coldly, "Walk slowly, don't run so fast."
Li Su chuckled and slapped Qi Wujin's hand away. She squatted down in front of the little boy, rubbed his fair and tender face, and asked, "Are you more used to it today?"
"Mmm!" The little dumpling nodded vigorously, then wobbled around in a circle again. "Mommy taught me to walk for a long time!"
"Mmm, that's great!" Li Su patted the little dumpling's head.
"Baby, didn't Mommy tell you not to bother your brothers all the time?" Rou Rou walked up to the two of them, looking apologetic.
Ever since the main god brought him out of the game, whenever Li Su comes out of the game, the little dumpling can't wait to run over to him.
“I remember.” The little girl’s beautiful eyes drooped. “But I really miss Brother Li Su…”
The little dumpling caught a glimpse of Qi Wujin's expressionless face and quickly added, "And Brother Qi Wujin..."
"It's okay, we'll play together. Brother Qi Wujin also likes to play with Little Dumpling." Li Su gently lifted the corners of Little Dumpling's drooping lips and gave Qi Wujin a look.
Qi Wujin: "..."
No, he didn't want that. He just wanted to spend time alone with his sweetheart.
Qi Wujin sighed softly, squatted down next to Li Su, looked at the little dumpling and said, "Yes, I also really like playing with you."
"Really?!" The little dumpling's eyes widened as it looked at Li Su and then at Qi Wujin.
"Great! Tuanzi has three good friends!" The little dumpling stretched out her short fingers and counted earnestly: "Main God Brother, Li Su Brother, and now there's Qi Wujin Brother too!"
Li Su couldn't help but rub the little dumpling's head again, "Then should we go find the God Brother to check on the progress of your practice?"
"After all, it took a lot of effort for the main god brother to evolve your little tail."
The little dumpling nodded vigorously: "Yes! Let's go find the God Brother right now!"
"I think I heard my name?" Footsteps approached.
The little dumpling turned around in surprise and wobbled away. The God opened his arms and knelt down on one knee, letting the calf-like dumpling bump into his arms.
"Brother God, I can walk now!"
"Hmm, Tuanzi is really amazing..."
The two were still whispering to each other, while Rou Rou stood to the side, looking at the two children with a gentle expression.
Qi Wujin took Li Su's hand, and the two smiled at each other.
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