White rabbit
by M1zushi“And then what?” Flame asked.
Qin Zhilu casually cut a piece of potato cheese pie. Seeing the large chunks of ham inside, he realized it was Zhu Tao’s version, not An Yu’s improved one, so he put down his knife. “Brute-force machine learning, it only learned very shallow things, nothing of reference value. I’ve already decided to destroy it.”
He didn’t explain further, and Flame didn’t ask more questions. But An Yu couldn’t help glancing at the Commander’s terminal. On his third glance, Qin Zhilu unlocked the terminal and handed it to him.
On the screen was a snow-white, rabbit-eared An Yu.
An Yu suddenly remembered the random hobby tags in Brain’s top-secret database and felt a wave of despair. So even the Commander was deeply entangled in these misunderstandings about him. He helplessly poked the screen.
The rabbit-eared chibi, who was frantically stuffing bread into its mouth, looked up and stared blankly at him through the screen.
The rabbit-eared chibi put away the dagger. His eyes turned blood red, his rabbit ears and white fur fluttered on the screen and his expression became arrogant.
An Yu dragged the few speech bubbles back and forth several times, then looked up blankly. “Isn’t this all very normal, Commander?”
Qin Zhilu: “……”
“If he’s just sleeping, it’s not what Billy expects,” An Yu sincerely extended an olive branch to the Commander. “I don’t need money, or bread. Just to maintain our friendly relationship. Please feel free to invite me anytime.”
Qin Zhilu’s face gradually became blank. “One more question, what if it’s the kind Billy expects?”
An Yu glanced at Flame beside them. Flame was cutting the steak for a second time, but he seemed to be holding his breath simultaneously.
An Yu moved closer to the Commander’s ear, pointing at the screen. “This price is about right.”
Actually, he thought the AI was a bit greedy. In District 53, two loaves of bread would have been enough.
But the Commander was very rich, so he could ask for more.
Qin Zhilu stared deeply at him. “Do you realize you no longer have to worry about food and clothing?”
An Yu nodded. “But I can freeze them and hoard them, and take them out when the world ends. Account numbers are fake. Ling Qiu said that only the bread that you can touch is the truth.”
Qin Zhilu’s face went cold, and he took the terminal away from An Yu.
An Yu thought that the rabbit-eared chibi would probably be mercilessly destroyed by the Commander soon. Just as he was feeling regretful, a faint, almost imperceptible scent passed by. Lumen walked past him with a detached expression, hesitated briefly at several empty seats on either side of the long table, then walked to the seat next to Flame.
He was as cold and arrogant as when An Yu met him in the elevator, not greeting anyone and only casually glancing at the dishes on the table.
Flame pushed the steak plate aside. Lumen looked at the meticulously cut beef and only poked it twice lazily. Flame then ignored him and continued discussing things An Yu didn’t understand with Qin Zhilu.
Zhu Tao, sitting next to Lumen, said, “Sit down and eat. Don’t be formal; everyone’s very casual.”
Lumen politely but distantly refused, “I’ve been sitting all day. I’ll just stand.”
Zhu Tao glanced at the untouched steak on his plate, then got up and brought two foil-wrapped desserts from a distant tray. “I’ve been experimenting with new mixed berry pies recently. Want to try some?”
“Grape’s cooking is excellent,” Flame said. “Try it.”
Lumen, who had already extended his hand, suddenly changed direction, only scooping a spoonful of the nearby steamed egg custard and putting it into his mouth with a stern expression. He didn’t seem to have fully adapted to the wave-like metal ornaments around his lips and the surrounding skin was slightly red.
An Yu’s terminal suddenly vibrated. It was a message from Zhu Tao.
It jumped from 23:58 to 23:59, then quickly back to 23:58.
He thought he was dizzy from eating, and was about to put away his terminal, when the two sides of the dinner table suddenly fell silent. A solemn stillness enveloped the space. The higher-ups and supervised subjects, who had been laughing moments before, simultaneously looked at the electronic clock on the wall.
23:58.
23:59.
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23:58.
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After an unknown number of repetitions, time finally returned to normal.
Don't scrape
Don't copy
“Is it just an electronic time bug?” Flame lightly poked his terminal, looking at the time displayed—23:59. The mechanical clock on the bookshelf had indeed reached 00:00.
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Author’s Notes:
[30: Intersection]
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In fact, no one present spoke many words to each other.
Don't scrape
Don't copy
Perhaps it was already predestined that we four would briefly intersect in a peaceful, silent way, before everything came.
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Snowflake fragments
[Jin Xuyan (1/6)]
[Human Sandbox]
I often feel that the world is a giant sandbox.
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Even if I am just a grain of sand on the sandbox.
Don't scrape
Don't copy
Brain said that Black Rose would give me mental abilities. Perhaps that’s why only I retained my human will.
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Everyone mocked me for being “the second son picking up the scraps,” but frankly, I have some regrets.
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Proving to me once again that I was just a grain of sand. Inexplicably, only that entity had the true ability to manipulate the sandbox.
Sand cannot be controlled.
Nor can it break free.
Snowflake fragments
[Jin Xuyan (2/6)]
[Reluctant]
I am not a kind Protector.
Qin Zhilu, the High Peak, all know this deeply.
Ruthless tycoon, cruel tyrant—these are the labels the outside world affixed to me, and I don’t deny them.
Those aesthetically pleasing aberrants entities, I’d capture them for amusement before executing them, to relieve the urge to kill I had after my abnormality. This was beneficial to both me and humanity, with no harm done.
But no matter how many good-looking humanoid aberrants there were, they could not replace that one fleeting glimpse of him.
The first time I saw him, I already wanted to possess him.
Zhao Ran.
I seriously considered it. As a the Spire’s high-level officer No. 2, and a tycoon holding energy and infrastructure industries, even if it was just to sacrifice a human in the name of pleasing me, the High Peak would probably acquiesce, secretly arranging things for me.
In such an era, humans should not have too many complaints.
But once he came into contact with me, there was a high probability he would become abnormal and lose his will. Such possession could only last for a very short moment.
I would briefly possess him for a moment, then let him fall because of me.
Frankly speaking, I couldn’t bear it.
So I would only watch from afar as he stepped onto the Main City’s stage, enveloped and adored by everyone’s cheers.
I would never proactively step into his world.
Snowflake fragments
[Jin Xuyan (3/6)]
[Taming the Leopard (1)]
He became abnormal. His distortion type was leopard and blood finch.
Abnormality isn’t rare. What’s rare is that he retained his human will, only his temperament became more unruly and difficult to tame.
Unfortunately, he refused to sign the Protector Convention.
The High Peak communicated and tested for a long time, eventually concluding he had potential antisocial tendencies, and decided to secretly execute him.
I stopped it.
My genetic entropy was only lower than Qin Zhilu’s. A tiger could suppress a leopard, not to mention I also had the Black Rose gene type.
This time, he had to submit to me, because I had been watching him for too long.
—
Author: Sorry, this mini-theater felt like I was world-dumping
A quick explanation: the next instance won’t be AI-related yet. It’s just an excerpt from the instance. The orphanage was not time plunder, as stated in the text.
Also, anomalies in time-space are common throughout the text. Simultaneously occurring anomalies are not necessarily from the same source (if this doesn’t make sense, just ignore it, it’s not important).
M1zushi: iirc flame has crazy thoughts, acts as a cold gentleman while lumen thinks like a gentleman, acts like a crazy person (specially later in their arc)
our main CP makes us forget that all the protectors aren’t really “human” lol, flame is the craziest from this bunch of Commanders
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