The Fourth Quadrant of Online Games

When the first rain fell, Pu Yiyang was standing outside the quantum computing laboratory of Jiangda Information Technology Center.

It took him a whole day to find out a piece of news.The research project he participated in, which is nominally a collaboration with FREE, has a lot of time to requisition this laboratory every day.As far as he knew, as far as the efficiency optimization requirements of that project were concerned, even the personal computer in their own laboratory could run at any time.Since quantum computers are used, it means that under the tip of the iceberg that is left for outsiders to see, someone must have other intentions.

With his status as a research assistant, he is not qualified to enter and leave this level of laboratory at will.At this moment, he was standing at the door, shaking the identity card in his hand at the access control system, and a bust of ten centimeters in size popped out.

"Welcome, Professor Ding Yixia." The AI ​​female voice of the access control system greeted "him" happily, and graciously opened the door of the laboratory with a high security level for him.

Pu Yiyang, who was at least several decades younger than the rotating head portrait, took back his ID card and walked in smoothly.

He borrowed this card from Ding Miaomiao.This laboratory has the most advanced quantum computer system in the city and even the whole country, and even his mentor Chang Yuan cannot get permission to enter and leave here without an appointment.Ding Miaomiao's grandfather is another matter. The old man is the head of the Department of History of Jiang University, a highly respected old professor. If he wants to enter a school's laboratory, no AI will dare to stop him.

Knowing his plan in the afternoon, Ding Miaomiao coaxed and coaxed the identity card from his grandfather without even asking a single extra word.

"Anyway, I know you, and I can't do anything bad." Ding Daxihua, who had just returned to China, simply became Pu Yiyang's accomplice again, "Take me as your favor."

This favor helped Pu Yiyang successfully deceive the access control system, obtain the access permission of the quantum computer, and call up the calculation file of the FREE project without any effort.

The file contains the simplest text password.Pu Yiyang looked at the blank line, and intuitively entered a string of characters.

With a "ding", it was actually untied.

It seems that someone really likes to make the underlying algorithm of DELTA a cipher.

Numerous air screens were spread out one after another around, and rows of complicated formulas and lengthy numbers jumped out. Pu Yiyang browsed quickly, with an increasingly serious expression on his face.

At this time, another person's footsteps sounded from the direction of the door.

Pu Yiyang cut off the power with a "snap", the cat lowered his back and slid under the table.

A person came in and stopped beside him, in the same position as he had just stood.The dots of light came on again, that person must have opened the same file.

Once again, those data were reflected in the eyes of the people under the table without any omission.

The images of the concretized characters are light golden, about the height of a palm, one after another, standing around the table several times like terracotta warriors.Just like in the game, there is crystal light flowing on them, strings of light spots flow out from them, pulling out a thin golden thread, which is connected with each other, as if forming a golden net , covering the head of the person at the table.

Pu Yiyang also saw another thing.

In front of the standing person, a lump of irregular black shadow jumped out of the table, and it was quite familiar to him, like the disgusting appearance of tens of thousands of tentacles entangled with each other.

It is the black mud monster in the game, the An in the people of the Wa tribe, who is swallowing a huge threat of destroying people's hearts and destroying the world.

The data lights reflected in his eyes merged into one, and finally burned into a fire. Pu Yiyang jumped out from under the table, and his body had already reacted before he thought about it.

He threw a fist at the other man.

Pu Yiyang is an otaku who always squats at home and plays games, but his physical fitness is not bad, and he still has eyesight and judgment honed from playing games for ten years.That punch hit the man's cheek hard, and the person who was beaten was caught off guard, stepped back a few steps, his spine hit the table, and his face was turned to one side, obviously in severe pain.

Under that collision, the communication with the quantum computer was also slightly affected. Those silent figures shook a few times, but they did not disappear. stared at them.

Pu Yiyang was still trembling with anger, clenched his fists, looked at the man and said, "You are really crazy."

When he came here, he didn't have any good hopes. He spent a whole night thinking about something, and now he came here just to prove it.However, he would rather be able to falsify than to prove.

A few steps away, Lu Yuxing slowly stood up straight.A professor who is nearly fifty years old is like a reed bent by the wind in front of his students. Even if he stands up with tenacity, he will fall down at any time due to the next gust of wind.

"I know it's you." The man wiped away a little blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, and his tone was as calm as if the punch just now hadn't happened. Pu Yiyang just knocked on the door of his office and came in to ask a question, "After all, Ding I'm afraid the professor is not interested in my research."

Pu Yiyang frowned even tighter.

Knowing that he broke into the laboratory, this person just walked in like this, and in front of him, openly opened up these secret data that should have been hidden very deeply.

Do you think you can't hide it anyway, so you don't hide it anymore?

"Why?" The anger that had accumulated for a day and night was rampaging in his chest, screaming and wanting to rush out of the body, "Ten years, did you know that he was doing these things back then? Didn't you say that you wanted to stop him , do you regret not being able to stop him? Lu Yuxing, you have been fucking lying to me, you told me not to get too close to FREE, you told me you didn’t want to see me follow his old path, but you just look at you , What are you doing? You are helping the tiger, you are continuing to do these bastard things for him!"

"Yangyang!" For the first time in so many years, Lu Yuxing raised his voice to Pu Yiyang, his pale lips were pursed into a slightly trembling straight line, "I don't allow you to say that about your father."

Pu Yiyang sneered: "What should I say about him? That he is selfish, disregarding the life and death of his family, and the life and death of the world? Say that he has gone mad, and there is more than a reason for his death?"

Lu Yuxing's shoulders trembled, his face was pale, and his chest heaved obviously.

"You don't know what you're talking about." He looked at Pu Yiyang, as if trying to suppress his anger, "Your father is the most amazing person I know. He is a genius, a genius that is hard to understand. 15 When he first pitched his idea to me years ago... I didn't even get it right."

He turned around, stretched out his palm, and fiddled with the twisted black shadow.

"Your father told me that he improved the mapping algorithm and found the real AVATAR. At that time, I felt a little fear. How can human consciousness be completely separated from the body? If there is no body, is a person still a person? Will a person change? What kind of monster? I flinched and rejected your father's invitation. I watched him indulge in the field that was regarded as heresy day by day. At that time, I didn't believe that he could really make something .” He glanced at Pu Yiyang, “But I was wrong.”

Pu Yiyang's mouth was dry: "He still created a monster."

"It's not a monster, he has created new possibilities for human beings." Lu Yuxing looked at the ugly monster in his hand tenderly, "Many people have misunderstood my junior, and he told me a long time ago that he didn't want a single human being Obtain eternal life. The power of a person is too small, just like a splash of water, even if it can last forever, how much waves can it make? What he wants is the eternal life of mankind."

In his palm, the black shadow squirmed slowly, like a living embryo.

A strange feeling rose in Pu Yiyang's heart: "What the hell is this?"

"It is the AVATAR of human beings." Lu Yuxing gently stroked the outline of the black shadow with his fingertips, "It is not a person, an individual...it is a group, the consciousness of a group. This is exactly what your father wants to do, a A human spiritual network. On this network, individual consciousness is just a node, a relatively independent information receiver, just like the neurons in your brain. All information receivers are organized together and closely connected with each other. Working together—can you imagine, Yang Yang, what a vast world we will be able to 'see'?"

It was almost the same as what the man in the game said.

The black mud monster is a collective consciousness creature in the setting, so there is a bee colony that can decompose and merge at any time. It grows continuously by devouring individual consciousness. These are also different from the group A they are trying to create -VATAR theory fits one by one.

Pu Yiyang pointed to the rest of the golden images that were being absorbed as nutrients, and asked, "What about these people? What about these nodes, these originally independent consciousnesses?"

Lu Yuxing frowned in confusion: "They won't be affected in any way. Yangyang, these 'consciousnesses' are just a data set that has been copied and simulated after collecting some real data."

simulation?

This does not match the situation of Cao Yicong and Qian Yiyi that he saw with his own eyes.

Pu Yiyang stared at Lu Yuxing, not sure if the man was lying to him, or if someone was not telling the truth to Lu Yuxing.

"I told you that I regret it," Lu Yuxing said softly, with a helpless smile on the corner of his mouth, "I don't regret that I couldn't stop your father from choosing this research direction. What I regret is that I didn't change my research direction." Accompany him on this road early. Zhengping is a person who will go through fire and water for his ideals and leave everything behind..."

Pu Yiyang said with an unpredictable expression: "He can even abandon his wife and son."

Lu Yuxing stretched out his hand to him, as if he wanted to touch the top of his head to comfort him like he did when he was a child.

Pu Yiyang took a small step back.

"He is too involved. When a person's mind is filled with too many things that are difficult for ordinary people to reach, the universe and eternity, they will easily get lost and forget the little feelings they have here and now." Lu Yuxing said in a low voice, "How... how I wished that I could be with Zhengping at that time, and I could hold him back and make him... look at the people around him one more time."

A misty mist rose from his eyes, he looked at Pu Yiyang, but what he wanted to see might be another person.

How interesting, over the years, they have often stared at each other, and when they looked at each other, they all saw the same person in their eyes, the shadow of a person who had long since disappeared.

Lu Yuxing said melancholy: "Over the years, I often think, if I can walk this road with him, will the result be different? Will he not easily trust another person? , go to the end like that later?"

Pu Yiyang's lips moved.

For a moment, he really wanted to ask Lu Yuxing who that person was.Who made the man not even want his family, and even give his life for nothing.However, he didn't really ask, because he knew that he already had the answer in his heart.

"Tell me," he only asked Lu Yuxing another question, "is my father really dead?"

The growing wind slammed open the windows of the laboratory, and a rare winter thunder just happened to fall outside.

At the moment when the lightning flashed, Pu Yiyang clearly caught the flash of astonishment on Lu Yu's face.