Survival

“As a​​‍​‍​⁠‍​⁠‍⁠⁠‌​​‍‍​‌‍⁠​‌ high-level member of the Spire—I have the right to terminate all your duties at Brain.”

“Are you scared? I was just reviewing Ms. Tang Ru’s physical examination data from after she returned from the Yug Snowfield. Does that trouble you?”

“Not just my mother. You are also investigating the first batch of human genetic entropy tests I participated in after birth, as well as every gene injection test record and psychological counseling record before I took command of the Spire.”

“Yes. As an intelligence researcher at Brain, I need to periodically review these classified documents and re-evaluate their security level.”

“Brain’s stipulated daily work hours are eight to ten hours. If you were just doing routine work, why did you need to pull consecutive all-nighters for this?”

“For promotion. I temporarily withdrew from aberrant research due to personal matters at home. Only by efficiently handling these trivial tasks can I maintain my presence in this elite camp.”

“If it’s truly as you said, why did you destroy the records after accessing the files?”

“I naturally have my reasons. But please answer me first: why did you set access alarms for these files? What are you guarding against, and what are you feeling guilty about?”

An Yu stood beside a pillar, holding his breath, listening to the conversation from the other side of the corner.

The rabbit’s soft footpads meant the two people talking were completely unaware of his presence. From his angle, he could clearly see that one of them was Sevis. The other person’s face was hidden, but the voice was incredibly familiar.

An Yu lowered his gaze and silently sent a message to 716.

-It seems Molly has indeed set up another Commander on the Cloud Island.

716 replied quickly.

-Although there were various signs before, I’m still somewhat surprised. She should have known you created me based on Qin Zhilu himself, yet she still created another Qin Zhilu.

-What does that mean?

-It means she believes my learning accuracy regarding Qin Zhilu is very low. She doesn’t recognize me as being able to become the Qin Zhilu of a parallel world, which is why she personally fabricated another him.

An Yu couldn’t help but frown. The octopus chibi was indeed a bit more extroverted than the Commander, but their core beliefs were highly consistent. It certainly wouldn’t be considered an “unqualified AI.” On the contrary, the person around the corner, although he sounded just like the Commander, felt unfamiliar in his speech and mannerisms.

Another message came from 716.

-Molly’s recreation of Qin Zhilu is entirely based on public data and the perceptions of the higher-ups and the Brain. Whereas I came from your experiences with him. I predict that this Qin Zhilu will be considerably different from me. Friendly reminder, don’t trust him easily.

An Yu gently brushed out two centimeters, folding his two long ears against his chest, and carefully peeked at the large screen on the wall on the other side of the pillar.

Displayed on the screen at that moment was an audio recording document, which had just been paused.

In that quick glance, he didn’t have time to read the full document name, only catching the date suffix— December 31, 2138.

An Yu’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

He still remembered the second-to-last door deep within Qin Zhilu’s mental defenses that he hadn’t been able to push open—the events inside had happened on the winter solstice of 2138, just a few days before this video.

He immediately sent another message to 716.

-These regenerated AIs are querying the Commander’s gene test and counseling records from back then. These materials should be top secret. Please help me relay to Brain and Black Tower that Molly has completely infiltrated their defense systems.

On the other side of the corner, “Qin Zhilu” remained silent for a long time after Sevis’s counter-question before saying, “I’ve forgotten many things from the past. But recently, those memories have slowly resurfaced in my mind. Some memories confuse me. Before I can figure them out myself, I don’t want them to be exploited by people with ulterior motives. Is that reason sufficient?”

He really isn’t like the Commander at all, An Yu thought. The Commander never explained his actions. He didn’t care about misunderstandings, nor did he fear any speculation.

Sevis chuckled twice. “So that’s how it is. Thank you for your honesty. Actually, I’m also just following my subconscious. That subconscious told me I should strive to uncover the secrets behind this vast intelligence, because that’s the kind of person I should be.”

He paused slightly, then whispered mournfully, “The world before my eyes seems somewhat better than in my memory. I seem to no longer fear those unpredictable aberrants outside the Main City. It seems the Main City’s genetic entropy elimination system is also about to be abolished. This sounds almost like a beautiful dream. Perhaps precisely because this world has become too beautiful, it seems particularly illusory. You should also know that we are just consciousnesses growing one after another, self-computing along preset trajectories. But how exactly could we deduce?”

“Qin Zhilu” asked back, “How did you hope we could deduce?”

“It’s difficult for me to answer,” Sevis said sincerely. “I naturally believe that if we can follow the trajectory 100%, that will be the definition of our excellence. But sometimes I also feel unwilling. I want to jump out of the preset algorithm, just like gently deleting those few lines of code from my birth.”

“Qin Zhilu” was silent for a moment, then said with some emotion, “Gently deleting those few lines of code… That does sound very appealing.”

An Yu tugged his ears, struggling to digest Sevis’s words. AIs often had profound thoughts. Even in the real world, he often found it hard to understand the philosophical ideas the octopus chibi suddenly came up with. Now, trapped in 21’s shell, thinking seemed even more difficult.

Another message popped up from 716.

-Progress at the bakery isn’t optimistic. Shao Tong’s thinking and actions are agile enough to beat over 80% of the regenerated AIs. It can’t be him.

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-Eliminating them, Sevis should be the backup body we are looking for. Please verify again.

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After a moment, 716 replied again.

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“She drank too much at the barbecue party and is currently strolling and chatting with friends nearby,” 716 paused. “I don’t think she had let down her guard against you. Because there are good barbecue restaurants near the school and the night run finish line, but she has detoured to this one near the bakery.”

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Only then did An Yu remember the photos circulating in the Spire.

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“I know.”

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He didn’t answer, but asked back, “I’m very curious. Did 21 kiss you back?”

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An Yu didn’t say anything. His golden eyes stared calmly at the screen. He took the headphones from the device rack and put them on. “Understood. I have something to do. Talk later.”

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According to the staff member’s narration at the beginning of the audio, Qin Zhilu had been injected with over a dozen types of drugs and then smoothly entered a deep state of hypnosis. For the following six hours, researchers repeatedly asked him about his mental process when killing his family. After confirming his consciousness was completely unguarded, they finally asked what had suddenly brought him out of the trauma, and whether his obedience and cooperation had ulterior motives.

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“What hope?”

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“I don’t know… Perhaps a person.”

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“Then who told you these things?”

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“That sounds very likely to be just a hallucination caused by the experiment.”

“It’s indeed possible. But I can only choose to believe… Otherwise, I can’t peacefully accept my own existence anymore…”

The interrogator thought for a long time, then asked again, “Where’s that person who’s considered to be the turning point?”

“I don’t know…”

“Is that person safe?”

“Don’t know… But he’ll strive to survive with all his might…”

The voice suddenly became blurry and fragmented.

The interrogator immediately raised his voice, “What did you say?”

Qin Zhilu, in deep hypnosis, murmured, “He’s the last glimmer of hope.”

The recording ended.

An Yu’s panting echoed in the empty archive room. He slowly took off the headphones, but the Commander’s pained voice still lingered in his ears.

The dark screen reflected his shocked and helpless golden eyes.

He had seen all of the Commander’s memories from his youth, but this part was missing—which meant that back then, Black Tower and Brain, before entrusting him, had secretly conducted this inhumane hypnosis experiment on Qin Zhilu without his knowledge.

An Yu’s heart pounded violently. He turned and left, connecting to Qin Zhilu’s channel as he walked.

He urgently needed to hear the Commander’s voice.

Qin Zhilu came online quickly, his tone steady as usual. “What’s wrong?”

An Yu asked quickly, “Commander, where are you? Are you still chatting with Ling Qiu?”

“Just finished,” Qin Zhilu said. “I intended to contact you, but 716 said you seemed to need to handle something alone, so I waited a bit longer. How are things on your end?”

“I…” An Yu had already hopped and jumped to the elevator entrance. Just as he was about to jump up and press the button, the “1F” on the small screen suddenly changed to “B1.”

The elevator doors slowly opened before him, revealing a beautiful young girl’s face behind them.

Molly smiled at him. “Hello, An Yu.”

Molly stepped out of the elevator. She tilted her head, looking An Yu up and down, as if carefully examining something precious. After a long time, she whispered, “It seems you adapted quite well to 21’s life experience.”

“How do you kn…”

An Yu stopped mid-question, suddenly freezing.

His golden eyes slowly widened. He stared at Molly, who was examining him intently, and said, word by word, “You hid the core code backup… on 21?”

Molly’s eyes curved, her smile widening.

“Whether I was on the Cloud Island or in the real world, I could sense the backup body I had chosen. Although I couldn’t know if 21’s consciousness had descended, I could perceive its code changes—that lop-eared bunny’s main body originally had only a few lines of code, extremely simple, yet extremely beautiful, radiating an indescribable brilliance. But from last night until now, I don’t know what happened, but massive computations are running on it. Besides consciousness descent, I couldn’t think of any other reason.”

An Yu stared at the girl’s innocent smile, feeling only a chill in his heart.

21 indeed met all the criteria they had screened for: no superfluous social relationships, able to establish himself in the Main City, sufficiently low-key but absolutely safe. His blank-slate personality setting also served well to mask the sluggishness caused by the redundant code.

He suddenly remembered his difficulty controlling the instinct to hop with every step—perhaps it wasn’t because of the lop-eared bunny’s nature, but one of the signs of 21’s sluggish movement.

Molly smiled and took a step closer to An Yu. “Let me guess. When you were screening targets, you must have excluded all the mini-program AIs created by humans—you were certain that, to ensure the core code’s safety, I wouldn’t choose any AI that had the possibility of swapping consciousness with a human.”

An Yu asked back, “Isn’t that the case?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Molly nodded. “Very perfect logic.”

An Yu stared at her and said softly, “But we overlooked one point—there are two human-created AIs that, in your view, are impossible to proactively request a swap with humans.”

Molly showed no impatience or anger, smiling, “The extremely self-restrained 716 and the 21 who had no interest in the real world. I have indeed miscalculated. I hadn’t expected they would be persuaded by humans in reverse, passively accepting the swap.”

Her smile was warm, as if completely unaware of how despairing her words were. “But I’m not afraid to admit these things to you. I just wanted to persuade you to give up these futile attempts. The third base protocol has already been nullified. Humanity has lost the command authority to delete AIs. To erase my backup, the AI needs to commit code suicide… and 21, this blank slate, has only known one thing since its birth—you should understand better than anyone.”

An Yu stared at her and said softly, “Survival, above all else.”