I'm trapped in a cube

After witnessing the rise and fall of more and more races, the vines also understood that the world was cruel and dangerous for many races.

Peace was hard-won. Killing was part of the ecology. The strong preyed on the weak, and the fittest survived.

From a certain perspective, peace would only bring decline. Killing could stir up the mud and sand at the bottom of the water, enriching the "nutrition" of the entire water area.

The vines had no way to change such rules. They could only try their best to satisfy the wishes of those weak creatures, collect their eyes, and carry those eliminated souls to keep their eyes.

After understanding Wenwen's origin, the vines often trained him. Congying learned very quickly. Not long after, Wenwen could communicate with the vines in a simple way.

"You are Congying." The vines tried to make Wenwen recognize his origin, but as the Everthirst told it, Congying would not think of himself as Congying. Their thinking would automatically distort the racial thoughts and replace them with other information.

"I am Wenwen."

Wenwen stretched out the vine tendrils with increasingly obvious colors, shook them, and answered.

"No, I'm not talking about your name, I'm talking about your race."

"My name is Wenwen..."

It was still a non-answer. No matter what method the vine used to tell it the "truth", Wenwen would find a way to avoid it.

Moreover, as Wenwen looked more and more like the vine, its imitation became more and more comprehensive.

It even began to imitate the vine to collect eyes...

"Why do you collect eyes?" The vine looked at the eyeballs rolled up on the black tendrils and asked worriedly.

"Because you collect eyes."

"I collect eyes to take them to see the world."

"Me too." Wenwen replied.

The vine looked at the ignorant Wenwen, and his heart was full of worry.

It knew clearly that Wenwen collected eyes not for the same purpose as it did, but just to imitate.

Congying didn't know what he was doing at all, nor did he know the meaning of what he was doing. Their thoughts were also "copied" and completely followed the thoughts of the imitated.

They think these thoughts are their own, but they don't know that these thoughts are "shaped" and are exactly the same as the ones being imitated. Just like the cognitive distortion they are experiencing, these slaves don't think there is anything wrong at all. Only "bystanders" can see the reason.

"Wenwen, listen carefully... You don't really want to collect eyes, but because you are a slave, you copied my thoughts, so you think so."

The vine tried to explain the logic to Wenwen, but the cognitive distortion always existed. Wenwen didn't think there was anything wrong with him. When the fact that "I am a slave" could not be established, all explanations about autonomous thoughts and subjective behaviors would become castles in the air.

"Wenwen, there is no self." The vine realized this terrible thing.

Under the limbs that wriggled like a living thing, there was an empty shadow.

The shadow turned everything it received into a "label" and pasted it on the empty black shell, whitewashing the meaningless existence.

"Behavior" is a label.

"Thought" is also a label.

Even "self" is a label.

These labels form a "vine-like" creature. The shadow exists in this world with the help of the biological shell stitched together by these labels, and under those colorful labels, there is still empty darkness.

Shadows are meaningless things. They are just places where light cannot reach. The illuminated area outside the shadow outline is "there", and inside the outline is "nothing".

And the shadow uses the light outside the outline to create itself, but is also trapped by the light.

After realizing this, the vine understands that this is the characteristic of the shadow, which is difficult to change. If it wants to awaken the self-consciousness of the question, it must remove that powerful cognitive distortion.

"Only by letting it understand that it is from the shadow can it lead to self-consciousness..."

But how to make it realize that it is from the shadow?

The vine can't think of any way, so it plans to ask the Everthirst again.

Soon, it found the Everthirst through the jelly left in the Everthirst's library.

"Do you have new knowledge?"

"Yes." The vine gave the Everthirst what he had seen and heard during his recent journey.

"Is there any way to make the shadow realize that it is a shadow?" The vine asked its own question.

"It can't be done." The Eternal Thirst gave a positive answer: "The shadow will never realize that it is a shadow, unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless it is no longer a shadow..."

"If it is no longer a shadow, it can realize that it was once a shadow." The Eternal Thirst gave a strange answer.

"But, what's the point of realizing that you were once a shadow after you are no longer a shadow?" The vine asked back.

It was somewhat unable to understand what the Eternal Thirst meant. Only by making the shadow realize that it is a "shadow" can it get rid of the shackles of the shadow's nature. If it is no longer a shadow, then getting rid of the shackles will naturally be meaningless.

The Eternal Thirst did not answer, but tapped the surrounding jelly with the pipe-like tentacle, and pointed at Wenwen following the vine.

"Can you see its synchronization rate?"

"Of course, its synchronous orbit is exactly the same as mine, and its running position is exactly the same."

"You have to make it change, let it recognize itself as a Slave Shadow 'in advance'."

"In advance?" The vines were a little confused.

"Yes, in advance, let its mind recognize itself as a Slave Shadow in advance, it will change and break the shackles of the Slave Shadow race..."

The Eternal Thirst introduced a mysterious method to the vines:

If the Slave Shadow's mind and body are two different synchronous orbits.

What it needs to do is to speed up the speed of thought and reach the stage of "recognizing itself as a Slave Shadow" in advance, bypassing the powerful cognitive distortion. At that time, the shackles of the Slave Shadow race will be broken, and the Shadow will have self-cognition and will no longer be a Shadow.

At the same time, the body will also change.

"In short, it is to let the mind reach the 'future' that has broken the shackles in advance, and then react to the 'present'."

Since the present has changed, the future will definitely change.

So use a certain future to define a certain present.

As long as the time flow rate of the two orbits is slightly changed, this can be easily done.

The vines quickly understood this method, but it still had a question.

"What if it is always from the shadow? Then wouldn't the mind never reach the stage of 'recognizing that it is from the shadow'."

"Of course, the future is certain, but whether it is or not is not known yet. If it is, it is, and if it is not, it is not. But if it is or not, you have to try it yourself..."