I'm trapped in a cube

Until leaving the library, Vine's thoughts were still in confusion.

“The future is certain, but or not and not certain?”

If asking about the future can break free, it can break free now.

If you ask whether the future will always be a shadow, it will always be a shadow.

The two states will collapse into a definite fact at the moment it changes its synchronous orbit, and the future and present will be determined simultaneously.

The vine felt a huge terror. During its travels in the world, it had never felt any threat because of its powerful strength.

But in this extremely familiar synchronous orbit, it has glimpsed the mysteries that cannot be touched.

"Should I really do this?"

The vine knows that letting Wenwen gain self-awareness has always been its wishful thinking.

Just like it protects those weak creatures and collects eyes, it is actually just practicing its own ideas.

The vine was a little confused, so he had to look behind him and ask, who had been imitating it.

"Ask, do you want to gain yourself?"

The vine knows that its question has no meaning, and the answer to the question must be "think", because the question is its shadow, and as long as it thinks, the question will definitely think.

Sure enough, the answer to the question was as expected.

"Think, I want to gain myself."

A meaningless black shadow, under the control of thought tags, gave this expected answer.

Hearing such an answer, Vine didn't know whether he was happy or numb.

"Aren't I... just asking myself?"

It's like asking a mirror, already knowing the answer.

But isn’t a copied thought a thought?

To what extent does the self have to be pure to be considered the true self?

For a moment, the vine couldn't tell whether the vine whisker swinging with it was a copy of itself or another life. Light and shadow overlapped in an instant.

Asking is becoming more and more like it...

It looks more and more like a living thing, and less and less like a living thing...

Vine finally decided to give it a try. Anyway, success or failure had already been determined, and it was just going along with the flow.

Pulling on the track of thoughts, the vines sent the questioning thoughts to the future.

As time flows differently, Wenwen's body begins to blur.

Different synchronization rates will cause collisions and frictions, and the mind and body are in the same "position", causing collisions and frictions to be even more significant.

It didn't take long for Wenwen's body to be filled with cracks, the originally colored vines began to fade, and his figure began to twist.

Fortunately, this process did not last long.

When the vines once again brought the synchronization rate of thoughts back on track, Wenwen's body gradually returned to normal.

Yes or no, it's decided.

"Ask, what race are you?" Vine asked the same question again.

"I am... Cong Ying." Wenwen replied slowly, and after a while, it added a few more words: "Used to be."

Hearing this, Vine knew that he had succeeded. He had gained himself and was no longer the clueless Cong Ying.

However, there was not much joy in Vine's heart.

"Ask, do you want to gain yourself?"

It was the same question again, but this time Vine didn't know the answer.

There was no answer to the question, and it seemed somewhat unable to understand the question.

Obviously the copied thought has not disappeared, nor has it become stupid after asking, but it just can't answer the question, and the vines no longer swing, and freeze in the air, as if this question has caused it to fall into great confusion.

Maybe he wasn't used to thinking for himself yet, so he froze there for a long time.

Vine also waited patiently, but after waiting for a long time, there was still no response when asking...

"You can't understand this question? Ask."

"I can understand that my thoughts are telling me what I think, but I know those thoughts are not coming from me..."

The vine understands that the current question has just gained its own identity, but it has not yet gotten rid of the influence of its thoughts. If you ask it at this time, you will definitely not get a positive answer.

"Tell me when you have the answer."

"good."

…

In the days that followed, Vine continued to travel around the world with Wenwen.

But the vines could feel that something had changed.

Although it will continue to imitate the behavior of vines, it no longer imitates everything and has its own thinking.

When the vine collects eyes, he will only watch from the side and will not learn to do it anymore.

Not only that, Qiao started asking various questions non-stop.

"Why do you collect eyes?"

"Why don't you continue to protect weak creatures?"

"Is there any point in continuing those looks?"

It obviously has the mind of the vine and knows the answers to these questions, but it still has to ask again.

Vine also asked curiously: "Don't you already know? You have my thoughts, so you should understand it very well."

The answer to the question is very special:

"This is asking from the perspective of 'me'."

It is using its true self to understand the world and form its own thinking.

If the thoughts copied from the vine are not isolated, they will be easily affected, so it will ask these questions again from the perspective of "others".

After understanding the idea of ​​asking, the vine patiently answered every question it asked.

Even if those questions are very childish and simple, Vine will still answer them seriously.

I thought that such days would last for a long time, but in the process of collecting eyes, Vine discovered a strange thing - the number of extinct creatures during this period was increasing sharply.

It seems that the "level of chaos" in the world is constantly rising.

Biological competition is becoming more and more fierce, and the feeling of "survival of the fittest" seems to be becoming more and more obvious.

"Is it an illusion?"

This is not a normal feeling. These "chaos" have no connection with each other, and there is no intersection between the worlds where chaos occurs.

But they just changed invariably.

Species competition, racial war, conspiracy, destruction of civilization, turmoil, massacre, extinction...

These things would have appeared occasionally over the course of time, but this time there was a sudden outburst, and it was happening non-stop in all worlds.

Vine checked the synchronized orbit and found nothing unusual.

All of this seemed to happen "normally", except that it became more and more frequent and severe, and there was nothing wrong at all.

Only the vines that have been traveling everywhere can feel this change.

It became worried about this and paid less attention to asking questions.

After the investigation proved fruitless, Vine had no choice but to search for the Eternal Thirst again.

"I'll tell you what I've learned recently." This time, without the Ever-Thirstor having to say anything, Vine took the initiative to hand over the recently acquired knowledge.

"The level of chaos is increasing. Do you know what is happening? Why can't I notice anything? The synchronization rate is also normal. Is there some more secret 'parameter' that is changing?"

The vines told the Ever-Thirsty Ones about their doubts, hoping to get answers from them.

Unexpectedly, the Eternal Thirst didn't understand the reasons for these chaos.

"No relevant knowledge was found."

"What's the meaning?"

"I have no idea."

"..."

"Don't worry, the transaction will be completed. You wait here, I will go to a few other races to 'discuss' it, and we will soon understand what happened..."