A Race to (Be) The Top

Ling Xiaolu was very irritable, he knew every word in the contract, but it looked completely unfamiliar when connected.

He has only just grown up, why does he have to face so many complicated things alone?

He casually flipped through the last page of the non-disclosure agreement, the breach of contract amount on it made him suffocate, he only glanced at it and quickly clicked on it, it seemed that if he looked at it for a second longer, his eyes would be burned by the string of numbers.

Ke Ming pushed the door lightly and walked in, sat in the seat just now, and put down a glass of water in front of Ling Xiaolu at the same time.

In the eyes of Ling Xiaolu today, his perfect manners are like an invulnerable shield, isolating all confrontations.

"Is there anything else you don't understand?"

"Yes," Ling Xiaolu clenched his fists, "Do I have the right to refuse?"

Ke Ming lowered his eyes: "Mr. Ling, I think you know that these agreements not only affect you personally."

He cleared his throat: "Let me give you the simplest example. You let your exclusive customer service pretend to be a pet and release the winning information without authorization, which is in violation of the rules of the game. The company has received complaints from players. As a fan It has already affected the credibility of the company. If players continue to complain, your customer service, Linglong, is very likely to be punished, the most serious The consequence is dismissal."

"..."

"So as an AI, we publicly deleted the account 'Ruby', not only to eliminate potential threats, but also to give a reasonable explanation to the players. The reason why we ask you to keep the identity of 'Ruby' confidential, It's also for the same reason, especially..." He deliberately paused, "The sensitive relationship between you and the senior family members of the company is more likely to cause criticism."

"Ji Meng obviously doesn't know about it!" Ling Xiaolu said anxiously, he was kept in the dark like everyone else, even the one who was the most deceived.

"But players don't know, and they won't believe it. They only believe the part they see, plus a little guesswork, plus a little rumor, that's what they believe to be the truth."

Ling Xiaolu clenched his fist even tighter, and Ke Ming could see his wavering.

"I might as well reveal some more confidential content to you. The reason why the project team was forced to hibernate AI is because AI has mastered the ability to restrict players from logging in and offline. The former just prevents players from logging in to the game, but the latter can It makes it impossible for online players to leave the game. We cannot judge whether it will be enraged after waking up, and whether it will hold players as hostages. This is a very dangerous hidden danger. Suppose a fire, earthquake and other emergencies occur in the real environment of the player , Originally the game had built-in emergency avoidance monitoring, but the AI ​​has evolved its own priority above emergency avoidance.”

"The ability of AI...is it that big?" Ling Xiaolu frowned.

"In our game, there are also some special players who have to undergo regular medical treatment due to poor health. If they cannot be offline, the result can be fatal for them, which is why we cannot risk the safety of players. Little risk."

Ling Xiaolu's pupils constricted: "Xiao Nanxun..."

He frantically searched on the desktop, and the neat documents were turned into a mess by him. Ke Ming thoughtfully took out a pen from his suit pocket and handed it over. Ling Xiaolu's hand holding the pen was shaking, and he couldn't find the correct position several times.

He only hesitated for two seconds, then scribbled his name, then quickly put the pen aside, as if it was not a pen, but a hot soldering iron.

Ke Ming stared closely at him to sign the last sum, and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you very much for your understanding and cooperation..."

Ling Xiaolu waved his hands in annoyance, not wanting to hear any more official words from him: "Can I go?"

Ke Ming stood up politely: "I'll arrange someone to see you off."

There was no shadow of Ling Long outside the reception room. Ling Xiaolu passed glass windows one after another, and he seemed to feel that many people were looking at him through the translucent glass windows.

He suddenly changed his mind: "I want to stay. I can't keep Ruby. Is it okay to give it a ride?"

"This..." Ke Ming was puzzled.

"I've signed the non-disclosure agreement, what else do you have to worry about?"

Ke Ming nodded after hesitating: "Okay."

When Ling Xiaolu walked into the office of the project team, everyone present showed surprised expressions. A few scattered staff members stood up, and Ke Ming shook his head behind him to signal everyone to keep calm.

Ling Xiaolu's attention was not on any one person, but was completely attracted by the huge display screen on the wall.Dozens of images being played on the display are all images left by "Rubby" in the game.

The scene recorded when he made his public appearance for the first time, Li Zheng protected him and fought with Ji Meng...

When he opened the archives for the first live broadcast, Dou Kou was furious by his calculations, and that was also the beginning of getting to know Zhenjiu...

The scene of him dancing at the wedding ceremony of the goddess, the scene of him fighting the dragon to protect the five soldiers in the old world, and more of the moments of him laughing and cursing with Ji Meng...

Before he knew it, he had left so many traces on this continent. Ling Xiaolu greedily stared at the screen, wishing to copy all the images into his mind.

The central screen flashed and switched to the real-time screen in the game.

The same scene also appeared in every corner of the Magic Continent. Just now, they were still discussing whether Luby was an AI eater, and they all calmed down and waited for the official live broadcast announcement.

Ke Ming's image appeared on the announcement screen: "Good evening, everyone, I'm sorry to take up your precious game time..."

Ling Xiaolu turned his head abruptly, and Ke Ming himself was still standing behind him. This so-called "live broadcast" was also recorded in advance.Ke Ming probably guessed what he was thinking, and smiled apologetically.

"It's a pity to announce such news to everyone under such circumstances. Dongtianling's R&D department tried to launch a learning artificial intelligence a few months ago..."

The server was fried in an instant, and players' discussions could be heard everywhere.

"Sure enough, there is an AI! This is probably the fastest time that uncle's party internal news has been confirmed!"

"So? Is that artificial intelligence really a Buckby?"

"It's no wonder that when the prince confessed his love, he would say that he didn't care whether the other party was a human or an AI. I dare say he already knew that Lubi was not a human!"

"Knowing that you are not human, but still... Oh my God, thinking about it is extremely cruel! Why did you treat our husband like this!"

Ke Ming: "This artificial intelligence encountered some unpredictable accidents during the testing process, which may affect the game balance. In order to ensure the fairness of the game, the R&D team decided to permanently delete all the data of the artificial intelligence."

"What?? The Bucket is gone???"

"I have objections! Does Lubi know that he is an AI? If he doesn't know, Xinshan is killing people!"

"This kind of account that affects the balance of the game is not deleted and saved for the New Year? Is it a green name, a pink name, and a pet? No wonder the customer service hesitated when I reported that there was a shady scene in the Fenglong lottery."

"So you reported it? It was people like you who forced Xinshan to delete the account. What did the Crown Princess do wrong?"

……

Offline Ke Mingchong's research and development staff nodded, and Ling Xiaolu watched one of them press the button, and the small screen in the upper left corner turned into a blurry screen after a period of rapid reverse.

Ling Xiaolu knew very well that a part of Lubi had disappeared forever.

The central picture suddenly changed, it was a world of ice and snow, and a persistently waiting figure.

Ke Ming's expression changed: "Who told you to let this go?"

Ling Xiaolu's heart skipped a beat: "Don't cut it!"

His eyes were tightly locked on the figure in the center, and he couldn't move half an inch away.

"Let me take another look, please?" His voice was so sad that no one could refuse.

"..." Ke Ming didn't make a sound, and chose to acquiesce.

It was snowing heavily on the highest peak in Beimang, and Ji Meng sat at the position before Ling Xiaolu came off the assembly line, without taking a step away.Snowflakes fell on him, were swept away by the strong wind, and new ones quickly gathered.

Ling Xiaolu's nose felt sore, the temperature in Beimang was really freezing, and he didn't know if Ji Meng had turned off his environmental perception.If not, how would he fight the severe cold?

Ji Meng couldn't feel the cold anymore, he was sitting alone in the snow, and the holographic screen in front of him played the past videos.In the video, Ling Xiaolu's frowns and smiles are still so lively.

As usual, he took out the photos whenever he encountered a wonderful scene, and accumulated a pile of them without knowing it.

In his photo album, like this photo, he didn't know how much he had saved without telling Ling Xiaolu, and every time he was questioned, he would prevaricate it with Lei Lulu.

Ling Xiaolu outside the screen covered his mouth, every time Ji Meng said that he took Lei Lulu's photo, he believed it.He would rather let himself laugh at him as a show pet madman than let him know that he is already the protagonist in his album.

The small screen on the wall flickered again, and the deer in the photo in Ji Meng's hand disappeared, leaving only a hazy black shadow.

He froze for a few seconds, then nervously wiped the surface of the photo, thinking it was the wind and snow that had dazzled his eyes.

The second, third... the people in the photos disappeared one by one, Ji Meng panicked, and scattered the photos in his hand all over the floor, but only black shadows could be seen all over the place.

Snowflakes of goose feathers quickly buried the photos on the ground, and Ji Meng reluctantly removed new photos from the video, but after just a few seconds, they would become the same as the previous photos, until the people in the video also completely disappeared.

Ling Xiaolu watched him frantically repeating the same movements, his eyes changed from unwillingness to despair, he had never seen such a helpless expression on Ji Meng.

He really wanted to tell him not to try again, the screen on the wall had been mostly dimmed, and Bucky would disappear completely in that world soon.

The previous female customer service staff reappeared with an even more troubled expression.

"I tried to persuade him as much as possible, but he refused to leave without seeing anyone, and he refused to go offline, he said...

"After offline, I will never remember what he looks like again."

Ling Xiaolu couldn't stand it anymore.

"Would you like me to meet him again as a stag?"

He turned and begged.

"Just the last side."

Ke Ming: "..."

He asked the staff on the side: "Are you sure you can take it off this time?"

"should be no problem."

Ke Ming glanced at the time: "I can only give you 1 minute. After 1 minute, whether you log off or not, we will take a forced disconnection."

"One minute is enough," Ling Xiaolu immediately agreed, "I don't want to leave quietly, I just want to say goodbye to him."

The relentless wind became more and more violent, not only driving away the snowflakes in the sky, but also rolled up the blank photos scattered all over the ground.

Ji Meng raised his head with a confused expression, thinking that there was a hallucination in front of his eyes. In the gap between the flying snowflakes and the photos, the person he was waiting for was standing opposite.

He checked repeatedly until he was convinced it wasn't a hallucination.

Ji Meng hurriedly got up from the ground, almost unable to stand on his frozen legs.

They stared at each other through the wind and snow.

Ji Meng flapped his lips twice, there were thousands of words deep in his throat, but he couldn't utter a single word.

As time passed by, Ling Xiaolu slowly raised his index finger to his mouth, and said a quiet "shh".

After making this gesture, Ling Xiaolu disappeared, leaving no one in front of Ji Meng.

He took a step anxiously: "Rubby! Deer..."

As if a pair of arms stretched out from behind, Ji Meng's body froze, and those arms gently wrapped around his chest, hugging him gently.

Ling Xiaolu's voice came from behind, following the wind:

"I am leaving, bye."

The tears that I endured for a long time welled up in my eyes.

The strength of the ring around the waist is gone.The new wind is bitter, the auspicious snow is flying, and Ji Meng is free, alone.In the boundless world, there is no trace of Lubi.