Chapter 228: CH 228

Fan Linsong knew that his memory had been altered. Ever since he came here, every day was more or less the same, with the exception of the rotation of meals and the books in the study, which would be updated at all times, in his memory, there had never been any visitors.

There were also maids and butlers in the room. These semi-mechanical androids would occasionally talk to him to prevent him from going crazy because he hadn’t communicated with people for so long. However, the content of the communication was also very limited. Fan Linsong was tired of the faces that came and went. Over time, he usually didn’t even bother making eye contact except for the necessary help.

Besides, these androids wouldn’t talk to him about anything. Whether it was the body or the core, their level of humanization wasn’t as good as their android partners before the doomsday—these “people” diligently played their role and only talked to Fan Linsong for a short time. Knowing that everything was an illusion, such a disguise was particularly tiresome.

After discovering his negative mood, the Mainbrain would regularly replace him with a group of android servants, but the situation didn’t improve much.

“We’re back from hell.”

The maid, with a beautiful face, finished pouring tea and gave him a sweet smile. For a while, Fan Linsong decided that this was the Mainbrain attempt to enhance his desire to talk.

But that didn’t feel right. The Mainbrain wouldn’t use such an inexplicable topic as an opener. Whether it was a malfunction or a passive intrusion, there must be something wrong with this android maid.

Fan Linsong had no intention of asking for help. He even remotely closed the door at the far end of the room, ensuring that he and the maid with the problem was “alone” in the room. It would be great if she was here to kill him. For a moment, Fan Linsong was full of anticipation.

“Who?” He hadn’t spoken for a while, so his voice was dry and hoarse.

The beautiful maid pressed the tea tray to her chest and straightened her waist. The smile on her face was a bit odd. “The Institute’s underground destruction room. Destruction samples L-013x9or1 and L-013x5nl7.”

Fan Linsong’s hand quivered, causing him to drop the freshly poured tea all over the table, dyeing the snow-white tablecloth a light golden color.

He was very familiar with these two strings of code. They were imprinted in the depths of his mind and represented the most wrong decision in his life.

L-013x5nl7—the waste liquid of α-092-30 trial work was what he used to dissolve Ruan Xian’s body in. Later, he went to the department responsible for the destruction of waste to inquire. The response he received at that time was, “It has been processed in accordance with regulations.” Fan Linsong thought it had been destroyed long ago.

L-013x9or1—after the key data and records of NUL-00 were backed up, this was the number assigned to destroy its cybernetic brain.

Through two short series of codes, he personally buried the era of Ruan Xian.

The one who came wasn’t the Mainbrain. He was convinced that it knew that both were destroyed and how long he had regretted such a decision. It was possible that Ruan Xian had found out, but he wouldn’t contact him in such a… strange way.

It said, ‘We’re back from hell’, we.

…He must be going crazy to have such an illusion. Fan Linsong’s breathing became shallow. The hot tea was flowing across the back of his hand, but all he felt was numbness.

“Xiao Ruan,” he muttered in a dreamlike voice. “NUL-00?”

“You guessed it,” The mechanical maid replied happily while wiping the tea on the table. “You seem to be doing well, Lao Fan.”

“This is impossible.” Fan Linsong’s eyes widened, and he stiffened like a piece of wood. “It’s impossible. I personally—”

“Put a bullet in my head? I remember. In order to prevent you from dwelling on those issues for too long, I’ll finish the rest for you—I am indeed not the Professor Ruan who’s currently active. For example, he couldn’t have known that at the time of the initial NUL-00 program, you almost choked to death on a small cupcake brought by Xiao Yang from the Technical Department. At that time, Xiao Yang had to do the Heimlich maneuver on you and almost broke one of your ribs.”

“He also wouldn’t know that at the beginning, we had a big fight about whether NUL-00’s cybernetic brain was more suitable for thermal-conductivity advantage or compression advantage. If necessary, I can repeat that quarrel we had.”

“…” Fan Linsong was so dumbfounded by the conversation that he was speechless. His lips trembled and his eyes were full of tears.

“I’m sorry.” When the maid stopped talking, he opened his mouth tremblingly. “Xiao Ruan, you were right. MUL-01 had not been perfected and was not marketable… How did you do it? How did you survive? I can’t imagine—”

“We’re not here to play catch up.” He wasn’t sure if it was his own illusion, but the maid’s tone had changed and was no longer so familiar. “If you really want to apologize, I suggest you tell us all the information you know. As for chatting, save it. I refuse on behalf of Mr. Ruan.”

As the maid spoke, her left hand slowly raised a middle finger, which was then snapped shut by her right hand. The maid was wresting with herself between her right and left hand, which made quite an odd scene.

“…NUL-00?” The tone obviously didn’t belong to Ruan Xian. Fan Linsong didn’t mind the attitude of the other party. His heart was on the verge of exploding.

“Yes,” the other party responded angrily.

After getting an affirmative answer, Fan Linsong was silent for some time. The maid’s movements change from fighting with her arms to crossing them. She didn’t say a word, but quietly observed Fan Linsong’s reaction.

After a long silence, Fan Linsong let out a sigh. He could clearly feel that his withered heart was like charcoal that was about to go out, and the last of its heat was being dissipated by the strong wind. The guilt that had corroded his soul for so long suddenly became a little lighter and he was able to think clearly again.

“What do you want to know?” He didn’t ask any more questions.

He didn’t care how Ruan Xian and NUL-00 survived, nor did he want to know. They were still alive, which was enough to prove the madness of reality—under the methodical rule of the Mainbrain, madness meant hope.

“The weak point of the Mainbrain is its body.” The woman in front of him was still using that unceremonious tone. There was no doubt that NUL-00 didn’t have the slightest affection for him.

“The Professor Ruan you made—I’ve learned about the situation. MUL-01 used the core data, design concepts, and neural system construction records that were backed up during the NUL-00 period. Professor Ruan himself adjusted it on that basis and added a complicated moral judgement system under your order.”

The woman’s face twisted subtly for a while, and when she spoke again, her tone had eased. Probably seeing that NUL-00’s attitude wasn’t very good, Ruan Xian had taken control again.

“That’s right.” Fan Linsong adjusted his breathing. His withered heart had never beat so vigorously.

“In my impression, you’re better at hardware design. Since you’re the main person in charge of the MUL-01 project, it’s up to you to perfect its ontology,” Ruan Xian continued. “Tell me its possible weakness.”

“No problem, but I have a request,” Fan Linsong said lightly.

The maid’s left hand seemed like it was about to move again.

“After asking what you want to ask, kill me,” The old man didn’t wait for the opposite side to respond and continued abruptly. “There’s no way the Mainbrain would let me live out my days here in peace. There must be visitors from time to time, but my memory has been tampered with. I don’t remember anyone coming—if next time the Mainbrain comes and finds clues from me, I can’t even warn you afterwards.”

“I don’t care what you guys want to ask. Besides, looking at the current situation, there’s no way you’re working for the Mainbrain. Use this to hide from or attack the Mainbrain. This is what I owe you, Ruan Xian.”

The maid raised her arms again and gave no response.

“Promise me.”

“Okay.” After half a minute, the maid tilted her head and accepted.

“The Mainbrain has a weakness that it can’t eliminate by itself,” Seeing that the other party agreed, Fan Linsong continued tremblingly. “It once had a more serious bug. At that time, Ruan Xian… Professor Ruan made a patch to fix it. That patch interfered with my hardware production, which impressed me.”

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“It’s incredible that you know its weakness, yet the Mainbrain actually kept you alive.” The tone of disgust appeared again. NUL-00 had interjected again, and the maid’s mouth was snapped shut by her right hand.

“The patch indirectly affects the ‘hardware group spacing’ of the Mainbrain’s body. In order to ensure that the Mainbrain is functioning well, I can’t use the original perfect value. So once the calculation amount exceeds the established range, its core would overheat and cause damage.”

Fan Linsong didn’t care about the hostility of the other party.

“I think the Mainbrain has considered this issue, but even if we’re given this opportunity, we will not be able to take advantage of this weakness, because after the patch was run, it gradually became mixed with the initial core program of MUL-01… After all, Professor Ruan isn’t the one who wrote the initial core by himself. Unless MUL-01 opens up all its permissions to him and asks him to carefully review the logic and data, he can’t do anything with this information alone.”

“I see,” the maid responded calmly. “What is the specific situation of that patch?”

“Professor Ruan called it the ‘bouquet patch’.” Fan Linsong glanced at the time on the screen and sped up his speech. “There was a previous emotional problem MUL-01 had. During its operation, it raised questions about some sensitive issues, such as memory therapy and the Immortality Program, and such. At that time, Professor Ruan answered it, and in my opinion, it was an appropriate answer.”

“I know about this,” NUL-00 interrupted again. “Professor Ruan told me… Wait, wait, Mr. Ruan, I’ll tell you later.”

“But it didn’t accept the answer we gave as smoothly as before. MUL-01 stewed on the arguments for days on end, which was something it had never done before.” Fan Linsong ignored the maid’s abnormality. “Professor Ruan finally answered this question by saying humans are different, and I don’t think he would lie on this point.”

“What does this have to do with the disorders of MUL-01’s emotional system?”

“One month after receiving the answer, it was Ruan Xian… Professor Ruan’s birthday. It gave him a bouquet of rare orchids, which was his favorite flower.” After saying this, Fan Linsong looked away. “To be precise, it was Ruan Xian’s favorite flower, so I defined it as Professor Ruan’s as well… During that month, it probably studied ‘differentiation of humans’ for a long time.”

“It thinks he’s unique, I can imagine.” NUL-00’s tone was flat. “And I can also imagine what happened next.”

“Yes, it cannot treat different individuals differently.” Fan Linsong stared at the spreading tea stains on the tablecloth. “As the auxiliary manager of the world, MUL-01 must maintain absolute impartiality, so in accordance with the recognized regulations at the time…”

“Professor Ruan must maintain it.” It was Ruan Xian who spoke this time. “He modified its emotional judgement system.”

“That’s not a big change in maintenance.” Fan Linsong tugged at his gray hair. “Professor Ruan wasn’t happy about it, which I can understand, but MUL-01 didn’t make any protests and just peacefully accepted the update.”

“The ‘bouquet patch’ just erased all the characteristics of the contact before MUL-01 was put to market—we changed the images in the record to a unified faceless model, making it impossible to find any special targets. We never thought that such a simple change could expand on its own like a snowball and affect its core system.”

“I probably know the situation, Mr. Ruan.” For a while, NUL-00 was heard whispering to himself. “We don’t need him anymore.”

“Tell me.” Fang Linsong touched his wrinkled hand. “At least I want to understand before I die.”

“It’s very simple.” For some reason, NUL-00 looked proud of itself. “Mr. Ruan has created a neural and emotional system that is very close to normal creatures. Even if it’s different from human standards, I can use them happily. Since MUL-01 uses a design similar to mine, the difference in this regard won’t be too big.”

“I know this.”

“Even so, I have put a lot of effort into studying my subject—about the various emotions and feelings of humans. I even recently overturned a wave of it.”

The maid showed a bitter look, and then her expression became inexplicably cheerful again.

“Because I found that whether or not I have ‘felt’, it has a huge impact on cognition. I don’t think of myself as a human, but Mr. Ruan and I are in love, so I can’t help but hate you. This is a very complicated set of a logical judgement chain. In terms of the results, hating you makes me feel good.”

“…What state are you and Ruan Xian in?” Fan Linsong choked.

NUL-00 ignored the horrified Fan Linsong. “After discovering this, I will leave a certain amount of judgement on the state or emotions of other humans—how to put this, space? Differentiation is indeed a good answer, but ‘logically understanding’ and ‘understanding’ are not the same. You see, if you don’t count the ontology, at least I’m a little bit better than MUL-01, right? Even I was pitted almost to death by Mr. Ruan’s subject. MUL-01 was originally lame, and you cut off its only remaining leg.”

“No… You and Ruan Xian…?”

“I’ll apply a simple analogy. The bouquet patch turned MUL-01 into a painless patient, and then you asked it to judge everyone’s pain and distinguish its nuances.” NUL-00 showed an expression close to pity. “This definitely affects the emotional core build.”

“You and Ruan Xian in the end…?” Fan Linsong couldn’t let go of this point.

“We’re lovers. You heard it right. Alright Yibu, no need to further stimulate him.” Ruan Xian took back the use of the maid’s voice.

“I see,” Fan Linsong said slowly while staring into the air. “It seems that I’m really crazy. I have been talking to a hallucination for so long.”

“Whatever you like to believe.” The information was already in hand, so Ruan Xian had no intention of delving into this topic.

“Even if it’s an illusion,” Fan Linsong continued, “you have to keep your promise and kill me. Even if it’s an illusion…”

The mechanical maid sighed. She stretched out her right hand and tapped Fan Linsong’s forehead with her fingertips. Fan Linsong closed his eyes and waited for the other party’s fingers to smash his skull and crush his brain. He could finally let go of his sins and leave this heavy…

“Bang.” However, the next second, he only heard a short onomatopoeia.

The maid android, or Ruan Xian, made a gun gesture with her right thumb and index finger, and poked Fan Linsong’s forehead with it, but she didn’t break any skin.

“What do you mean by this?”

“The project you started by yourself, witness it to the end.” Ruan Xian wagged his finger. “And why should I give you relief? If you want to die, do it yourself.”

“…Didn’t I say—The Mainbrain might get something out of me—”

“It may not have the time.”

The mechanical maid dropped one last sentence before returning to normal.

“…And regarding my relationship with NUL-00, I am looking forward to your reaction when you realize this isn’t a hallucination.”

The author has something to say:

It is impossible for Fan to die so easily.

Ruan: ? Did you believe me when I said yes?

Kinky Thoughts:

MUL-01 needs to take lessons from Delia, or rather Fan Linsong and Professor Ruan. (See Chapter 209 of Stray).

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