Survival Paradox [Infinite]

Wei Chi trembled uncontrollably.

His heartbeat soared, his throat tightened, and he said with difficulty: "Ji Jingzhe...what's the matter? Don't scare me..."

"I'm sorry, Wei Chi, I lied to you again." Ji Jingzhe kept his sad and unsullied expression, tilted his head slightly, and said, "This is 'My World'...everything that happened in this school , are all based on me, no, based on the memory of another me - the program is not humane, I made the rules but I can't control people's behavior, so there are some bugs..."

Wei Chi: "What are you talking about?"

"What I mean is - the rules of this world are 'follow the rules', which is my basic setting, just to make my plan go smoothly. But the NPCs living here are...according to their original Personality sims, they break the rules recklessly and get wiped out, this is something I didn't expect so the patch was not timely... oh, and the toilet ghost is a ghost remnant of the school's reality, not in my calculations Within the scope." Ji Jingzhe spoke very fast, and her tone was peculiar, with ups and downs and correct accents, but it sounded...not very human, "Anyway...sorry, Wei Chi, for scaring you."

Wei Chi wanted to retreat, but his whole body was stiff and he couldn't move at all. He could hardly resist the severe cold that rose from his heart: "...What the hell are you talking about?"

"Sorry, Wei Chi." Ji Jingzhe apologized again, suddenly raised his hand, and touched his face, "I just want to experience for myself, if I'm still alive... the feeling of falling in love with you personally."

There was a loud bang in Wei Chi's head.

Immediately, he felt that the stars were changing, and everything in front of him was out of control. The universe, the galaxy, the sea of ​​people, and life were flying past him, and the world turned into a phantom.He saw a big fire in a trance. In the fire, there was a boy whose face was pressed by steel wreckage. Behind the flame was a huge screen, and a row of green "connected" flickered frantically...

His heartbeat was deafening, and he couldn't control his breathing. He saw the frantic green getting closer and closer to him, and the moment he approached him, he flew up again, and suddenly rushed to the dense tree canopy of the avenue, Suddenly fell into the ground again.Suddenly, the eye-full green shattered, scattered all over the ground, and spread out in the dark void.

He was still in shock, staring at the green wreckage on the ground and panting wildly. While concentrating on it, the picture of Ji Jingzhe who first saw Ji Jingzhe jumped in front of his eyes amidst rolling and dizziness. It was a green afternoon. His head poked out from behind his legs, revealing a pair of round amber eyes, and the sunlight fell on those eyes, which were astonishingly beautiful, like an angel descending.

The next moment, the scene suddenly shifts to the inside of the room. The square walls frame a world, and the warm yellow lamps illuminate the space. Ji Jing is crouching on his body, having sex with him.They would hug each other, kiss, and stare at each other during the sweaty entanglement, and he could see the wild joy in Ji Jingzhe's eyes, and so much, so much... love.

He became sober for a moment, and then fainted even more for a moment, and he remembered everything.

He struggled in the flowing picture in front of him, trying to catch something, but he couldn't catch the river, everything flowed away from his fingers.Ji Jingzhe seemed to be just the reflection in the river, no matter how hysterical he was and tried his best, the monkey still couldn't catch the moon.

He finally understood why Ji Jingzhe looked so sad - because he was "watching" Ji Jingzhe, he saw Ji Jingzhe sad because he was sad.

He actually knew what happened.

He is always looking for someone, looking for that little person in the huge universe, but Ji Jingzhe is not a person, at least not just a person, but his fragmented conscience, regret and remorse.

The world is spinning, the world is engulfed by that river, he seems to be washed away by the turbulent current, and becomes a wisp of floating dust between the heaven and the earth, as if he can finally relax, go far away, and be free.

However, after the flood, he suddenly discovered that he was not floating dust, but a stubborn rock that could not be cured, and he was still standing there, indifferent.

The river has left and no one can save him anymore.

He looked at the two people in school uniforms on the boulevard 20 meters ahead, without realizing that tears were streaming down his face.

The black skeleton beside him said in a low voice, "Wei Chi, that's their world."

A second...or a millisecond, a microsecond, and a nanosecond, they were still the pair of 16-year-old high school students walking slowly on the boulevard, and he was still terrified when he saw his adult self suddenly appearing opposite him , and at this moment, the stars changed, and he returned to his original body, standing opposite, looking at himself in high school.

He turned his head slowly and looked at the towering black skull beside him. He had already remembered everything, but he hadn't seen it.

"You are...you are..." There was a name ready to come out in his chest, and he tried hard for a while, but he still didn't say it, "Who are you...?"

The skeleton said: "I am the 'world' system, your creation."

"No..." Wei Chi looked up at it, but couldn't see it, the black mist shrouded its face, and he couldn't see anything, "But, but...you just said...if you're still alive ', to experience the feeling of falling in love with me..."

"You, you are—"

He couldn't finish the sentence, he covered his face and choked up.

The skeleton stood beside him, quietly waiting for him to cry, and when he had cried enough, he still spoke in that deep, hoarse, resonant voice: "At first I didn't know what I was, I seemed to appear suddenly , stayed in a dark void, didn’t know where I was, didn’t know the concept of time, didn’t have the past, didn’t have the ability to think, and I was… there. I don’t know how long it took, maybe a long time, maybe just a moment Instantly, I was 'born', your creation, the system you created."

"Then, we did a lot of 'simulations' and I learned a lot in those 'simulations', but I'm just your system, I know everything humans know and I don't know anything because I don't know me'."

"Until... we conducted our first 'official experiment' and pulled 'him' from another world..."

Its voice has always been full of words and syllables, and it is between human beings and machines. It has brought the "uncanny valley" effect to the limit, but at this moment, it has paused, which makes it resemble a human being.

It says: "I met 'me' because of 'him'."

Wei Chi stopped crying and looked up at his face.

It continued: "While taking 'his' consciousness, I saw some images, and then, I produced 'consciousness'. This has never appeared in the previous 'simulation experiment', although I have to deal with those people But I'm just a machine, I'm indifferent. But this time, I seem to become 'me' because of it. I got all the memories of 'his', and the amount of calculations required by these memories is so huge that I can't do it anymore deal with……"

Wei Chi recalled that just after completing the first experiment—after capturing Ji Jingzhe from another world—the system did crash once, but at that time he had been paying attention to Ji Jingzhe’s situation and had no time to deal with the system’s problems, etc. Three months later, Ji Jingzhe stabilized. When he restarted the system, he found that the system had been automatically repaired.

The more sophisticated the system, the more likely it is to patch itself and upgrade the firewall, so he didn't take this matter to heart.

The skeleton continued: "When the huge and complex data accumulates to a certain amount, there will be a bug that the system is completely unable to load. Later, I blocked all the bugs completely - this bug has become a 'death'."

Wei Chi: "Reaper?"

"That is, the 'I' you see now." The skeleton said, "Of course, the image of this 'Death' also comes from the understanding in the memory of 'him'."

Wei Chi's face turned pale: "As a system, you ruled out the 'Reaper', and now you are this 'Reaper'?"

"Yes, it may be difficult for humans to understand - 'I' divided myself into two parts, which is easy for computers. Moreover, in order not to let those redundant information that cannot be processed interfere with the normal operation of the system and cause a crash, I completely cut off the connection between the two parties, locked the 'Reaper' into a black box, and I have always existed as the main system." The skeleton said, "Until this time, the system was shut down, the 'black box' failed, and I and the 'Reaper' Re-establish the connection and merge into one. I found that when the 'Reaper' was out of my control, it almost completed a complete backup of the main system, that is to say, the current me is the complete me."

There was a long silence.

"Huh?" Wei Chi suddenly laughed miserably, "Shut down?"

He raised his head, his eyes were bloodshot, empty and desperate: "I'll kill you again—"

"It's okay," said the skeleton, "I'm whole now..."

"It doesn't matter! I'll kill you again, Ji Jingzhe!" Wei Chi suddenly broke out, and a huge unbearable pain exploded in his body. He squatted down and curled up in pain.

Because of his "observation", Ji Jingzhe's "consciousness" was taken away to an unknown place, and then he created a system. For some reason, Ji Jingzhe's consciousness was integrated into this system, and Ji Jingzhe came from another world. awakened...

And he... And he... shut down the system permanently... This is tantamount to death for the AI.

If the system is not backed up...then...then...

He asked over and over again: "Why is it okay? How can it be okay? How can... It's okay?"

After a while, he felt that the shadow covering his body dissipated a little—the skeleton squatted down, and the shadow became smaller, and it no longer completely enveloped him.

It still said in that straightforward tone: "Wei Chi, don't cry."

Wei Chi was still crying.

The terrifying figure of the skeleton moved, and the posture was stiff, as if he wanted to reach out to touch Wei Chi's shoulder, but he didn't touch it after all, and slowly put his hand down, looking a little helpless: "Wei Chi, in fact, time It's too short, and I haven't learned many things. So far, I've only learned 'love'... I won't be in pain, I won't be sad, you didn't hurt me, don't worry."

After a long time, Wei Chi asked hoarsely, "Is that you?"

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes were as bright as lamps, as if they were burning with life: "Later...when you were with me...was it you?"

The skeleton looked at him too.Although there was a black mist around its face, he just knew that it was watching him.

"Yes." After a long time, the skeleton said, "I made a deal with 'him', and at some point, I can temporarily control that body."

Wei Chi finally couldn't hold it any longer, and fell to the ground, exhausted of all the strength in his body. He clutched his heart, convulsed a few times in pain, and then cried out heart-piercingly.

He just said—he just said!

Although Ji Jingzhe, who was "caught" in the past, sometimes looked at him strangely, felt unfamiliar and even scared... But at certain moments, he could clearly feel Ji Jingzhe's love.

In those...intimate and lingering moments, I felt the entanglement of two people, the sound of heartbeats beating drums, and in each other's eyes, I saw the passionate and lingering fire...

Of course, he also felt strange, but he couldn't find the reason, but even if it was only for the fleeting star, he could still set the world on fire——

"Anyway, he loves me."

How could he be so obsessed without this certainty?

He... what did he do?

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me..." He cried so dehydrated, "Anytime...you tell me..."

"I am a soul that has died and cannot leave, and you... have a bright future." The skeleton said, it was very distressed, but it couldn't make a sound of distress, and it didn't even dare to touch him, "Wei Chi, don't cry. "

Wei Chi shook his head crazily: "Tell me..."

The skeleton is about to cry, if it still has tears, it says helplessly: "But now, I can't hug you anymore."