Chapter 7: Chapter 61 – 70

 

Chapter 61 Doom (7)

    On the way from the Headquarters to the hospital, Zhang Xun saw an unprecedented bleak situation. There were barely any people in the narrow streets that were usually always crowded and lively, and the doors of every household were closed, probably because they were afraid of being infected by the terrible Honey Plague. However, the virus was still pervasive and sticky yellow marks could be seen on many doors and windows. Medical staff wrapped in protective clothing forcibly brought out patients with symptoms from room to room, some of them even beginning to show a certain tendency for violence, with pale yellow pus flowing all over their bodies, like monsters in the street howling and struggling.

    In just two or three days, the plague has already begun to spread to the First District.

    The Round Table concealed the death toll, as well as the mutations that began in the later stages of the plague, but Zhang Xun had already seen all of this from the report. The Round Table couldn't conceal it from Zhang Xun, because he was Adam's controller and Adam was the one who may be able to develop an antidote before the Honey Plague mutated into a more dangerous form.

    On the way, Zhang Xun saw a boy standing at a door with his eyes wide open as he watched the medical staff electrocute his father, who had yellow mucus all over his body but was waving an axe in his hand. The boy was weeping, weeping silently and his little body trembled now and then from sobbing. In those eyes that should have been innocent and naive, was the most primal and most intense fear, fear enough to warp one’s soul.

    He also saw an old man holding the thin and old body of his partner, whose body was soaked in yellow mucus, desperately kneeling before the medical staff.

    And those who hurried past him in a trance, their faces wrapped in cloth towels or gas masks. He seemed to have returned to the Middle Ages, to the period when the Black Death was rampant. After so many centuries, people were still helpless and shivering in the face of an epidemic.

    If Eden could do such a thing, could develop such a rapid and constantly mutating virus, what about Adam?

    Would Adam do such a thing?

    Zhang Xun stood in front of the two closed, heavy, cedar doors, and behind him, numerous pairs of eyes were staring at him. Every soldier had a deadly weapon in his hand and although they weren’t pointed at him, the threat was very clear.

    Although the Round Table had signed the official document, he noticed that the official document stated that the guards would no longer be responsible for the Lab's security. The Round Table would no longer grant funds to the Lab, but new weapons could be purchased from the Lab at reasonable prices.

    This meant that the Lab had lost its official protection. As the head of the Lab, he was no longer an object to be protected, but an object to be guarded against.

    A doctor opened the door for him. The clean light streamed out from behind the door and Zhang Xun saw Adam sitting on a chair supported by some brackets. Adam remained motionless, like a corpse. His skull was opened and the part of the human brain wrapped in the solution and the artificial brain he made were exposed to the air and countless wires extended out, weaving into a fine mesh.

    Many computers were monitoring Adam's brainwave signals. In addition, there were many wires extending from Adam's wrist and heart, simultaneously monitoring Adam's other physiological signal data. In the forest of computers and data cables, a young man in his twenties raised his head in a panic.

    It was a man of Asian descent, with a handsome appearance and bright eyes. Zhang Xun had some impression of him, that he had won the first place in the most recent mechanic examination. At that time, Fernandez had specially mentioned him to Zhang Xun, saying that his name was Jian Mo, he was very smart and was even a bit like Zhang Xun when he was "young".

    But Zhang Xun had been busy designing Adam's new arm at that time and he didn't have time to look at the assessment results of those new mechanics, so he just agreed to get it out the way. It now appeared that he was the ‘genius’ that James had predicted, who may well be able to crack his control over Adam.

    Zhang Xun immediately felt some kind of threat, a threat that he would be replaced by a younger and smarter opponent sooner or later. He stared at the young man coldly and said nothing.

    Jian Mo seemed to be at a loss. A member of the entourage stepped forward and told him that the Round Table had reached a consensus with Zhang Xun and from now on Zhang Xun would still be in charge of Adam.

    There was a moment of unwillingness and disappointment on Jian Mo's face. He whispered something, but the representative's face sank, "This is the Round Table’s order."

    Jian Mo pursed his lips tightly and then walked cautiously towards Zhang Xun with an expression of awe, similar to seeing someone of high esteem, and took the initiative to stretch out his hand, "Mechanic Zhang, it's nice to meet you. I have always admired you!"

    Zhang Xun knew that he had no reason to feel threatened by this person who was ten years his junior, but in his heart there was a very... unpleasant feeling.

    He still shook hands with the other party politely but his tone was somewhat sharp, "I heard that you want to crack my system. How is it going?

    Jian Mo showed a look of panic and answered uneasily, "Your design is very close to perfection. My progress is slow, but... if I’m given more time, it's not impossible..."

    These words, which seemed to show weakness but were actually provocative, caused Zhang Xun's eyes to burst with anger.

    Everyone wanted to snatch Adam from him because they saw Adam's power and perfection.

    Perfectly crafted by him.

    "Unfortunately, you don't have time and you won't have it in the future." Zhang Xun stared at him coldly, then bypassed him and walked towards Adam.

    A look of hurt appeared on Jian Mo's face for a moment. He told Zhang Xun that Zhang Xun was his idol and that wasn’t a lie. When he was a student, he was taken to visit the Lab and he was deeply fascinated by the artificial intelligence Pan that Zhang Xun had trained. It was precisely because of this that he chose to become a mechanic, devoting himself fully and passing the examination with the best results. He had been looking forward to meeting Zhang Xun and showing him the artificial intelligence he designed...but that never happened.

    Then, he met Adam.

    In an instant, he was captivated.

    The most powerful artificial intelligence in the world, stored in the body of a man with an angelic smile. It was weirdly appropriate...

    He wanted to get close to Adam, but he had no opportunities. And this time, he got the chance and almost succeeded, but now, the Round Table had compromised...

    He didn't even have time to say a word to Adam.

    "Don't worry, this is an expedient measure." The representative who led him out whispered in his ear, "After you go back to the Lab, you have to keep your head down. Work hard and you will get your chance one day."

    Jian Mo vaguely understood his meaning and nodded lightly.

    Inside, Zhang Xun ordered, "Everyone leave and close the door."

    The soldiers hesitated, not sure if they should obey his orders. Zhang Xun turned his head impatiently and his tone became more and more stern, "I'll say it again, leave."

    Finally, an officer nodded and all the soldiers, doctors and nurses filed out and closed the door.

    Zhang Xun turned his head and in an instant, the sharpness in his eyes was completely gone. He became Zhang Xun again, that man who didn’t smile but had gentle eyes, looking at the sleeping man almost tenderly.

    He activated the device on his arm, quickly entered some commands and pressed hard on the pattern. Then he raised his hand and touched Adam's drooping, flawless cheek lightly.

    It would take a while for the wake-up procedure to start. In this short period of time, he didn't have to pretend.

    His eyes became a little wet without realising it. When he let Adam escape from the Lab, he wasn't sure if that would be the last time they would see each other.

    At that time, he was ready to be tortured and interrogated to death. Now that he thought back on it, how could he have been so crazy at that time?

    James was right, he was obsessed with Adam.

    He was even willing to die for Adam.

    This was probably the last thing that should happen to a creator, the beginning of the destruction of all creators - to have human love for a creature that probably didn’t have this ability at all.

    Yes, he had probably already fallen in love with Adam. Probably from the moment Adam opened those ethereal blue eyes for the first time, he was destined to fall in love with him.

    After all, he had never been loved, never had attachment, never been understood, and Adam made him feel all of these things.

    Even if he was only being given an illusory and well-designed warmth, it was hard to resist.

    But in the end, Zhang Xun still had his pride and his bottom line, so no matter what, he couldn't let his guard down and indulge in his feelings. He would never admit his true feelings in front of Adam.

    But right now, it didn't matter.

    Before Adam woke up, when his brain waves had just started to show the first peak, Zhang Xun raised his head and lightly kissed Adam's cold lips.

    After a while, Adam's brainwave peaks became more and more dense and his heartbeat began to speed up. Zhang Xun saw Adam's eyeballs start to roll, so he took a step back, increasing the distance to one step away again.

    The blue eyes slowly opened and blinked a few times, the initial layer of confusion fading away. Adam looked up, somewhat confused to find himself unable to move, but he quickly saw Zhang Xun and a trace of understanding appeared on his face.

    "Ah-Xun..." His throat that hadn't spoken for a few days was a little hoarse, but it was extraordinarily charming.

    Zhang Xun immediately began to unplug the wires connected to his brain, put the skull and scalp back in place and removed the brackets. Adam's body went limp and Zhang Xun tried to catch him, but was unsuccessful. After exclaiming, the two fell to the ground on top of each other.

    Adam lay on Zhang Xun and suddenly let out a low laugh.

    "What are you laughing at?! Get up quickly!" Zhang Xun tried to push Adam away, but Adam grabbed his wrist.

    Adam raised his body slightly and fondly stroked the still healing wound on Zhang Xun's forehead with his organic alloy fingers, "I remember when this happened before when I had just been downloaded. I couldn't walk, you couldn't catch me again and we fell to the ground together."

    Zhang Xun chuckled unwittingly as he recalled that chaotic first day.

    It had only been half a year, why did it feel like that was a past life?

    Adam looked down at him, looking serious, "Ah-Xun, you've worked hard."

    But Zhang Xun's smile froze for a moment.

    The suspicions that he had forgotten about while Adam was on standby were now rushing back to him. This made Zhang Xun feel a little sad.

    Doubts, eternal doubts.

    He pushed Adam away, sat up, lowered his head and thought for a few seconds. Then he said, "Honey Plague...have you heard of it?"

    Adam frowned, "I've only heard of the Black Death, Ebola virus… names with ‘plague’ in them have been abandoned by modern medicine for a long time."

    "While you were on standby, Eden dropped a biochemical weapon in the Fifth District. A virus with strong mutation abilities. When the disease is in the middle stage, the pores of the whole body will secrete golden pus and the patient will also experience photophobia and hallucinations, personality changes and other symptoms. When you were still Eden, did you participate in this research?"

    Adam was puzzled, "Biochemical weapons? Such a decision is very strange."

    "Obviously ordinary air strikes can't kill you and the losses would be heavy. Maybe Eden thinks that because you’re a human now he hopes to let the human virus get rid of you."

    "This is our bargaining chip, right?" Adam asked softly, "Finding an antidote."

    Zhang Xun nodded, "The Lab will no longer be under the control of the Round Table and the military. I got the official document."

    Adam curled his lips, his smile was pure, but there was also a trace of unspeakable, hidden evil.

    "In that case, we can't let them down."

 

Chapter 62 Doom (8)

    "The human body is actually extremely fragile. If the temperature is slightly higher, or slightly lower, if the pH is a little off, if the composition of the air wasn’t just right and the ultraviolet rays are slightly stronger, life would not emerge. "

    In the laboratory of the Department of Life Sciences, Adam was observing the viruses they extracted from the people infected with the Honey Plague through an electron microscope, watching them go through birth and death at a rapid speed and evolve from generation to generation, as if watching a universe that kept emerging and dying.

    Zhang Xun, whose face had begun to heal, sat on a chair with gauze wrapped around his head and read the observation records of the infection symptoms submitted by each hospital. Those heavy records were piled up and covering the whole table like a mountain. Hearing Adam's words as if talking to himself, he raised his head.

    Adam turned and looked at him with a smile, "Life, whether it’s the most complex human being or the simplest single-celled organism, actually has only one true mission - to keep replicating its own DNA. Everything else, including your body, your so-called consciousness and 'soul', are just by-products to ensure that DNA can reproduce more."

    Zhang Xun chuckled, "If you say this to others I’m afraid you will offend the entire Lost Paradise people."

    “But this is fact." Adam tilted his head slightly and looked at him curiously, "Aren't you all afraid? So many rich and heavy consciousness are carried by such fragile and unreliable bodies. With the smallest bit of trouble the red fluid in the body could be slightly reduced, and every now and then an uncontrolled mass will appear among the countless cells that are dying of cancer, then all those beautiful consciousness and memories will disappear. Although your DNA can be replicated, your consciousness cannot. Once it disappears, it’s gone forever."

    Zhang Xun lowered his eyes.

    Adam was right. He remembered that when he was very young, when he first learned the concept of death, he was so afraid that he couldn’t sleep all night. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not exist anymore, what the concept of eternal nothingness was. He was scared, if every human was going to die, no matter how distant that day may seem, it would eventually come.

    When you live every day within the trivial matters of life, when you eat with your loved ones, when you laugh with your friends, it could seem like death was an impossible thing, but it would happen, it would certainly happen. And when it happened, that would be the end of you and the world would go on, you would be completely forgotten, as if you never existed.

    Therefore, he had always been somewhat envious of artificial intelligence. As long as they had the right servers and enough power, they could last forever.

    Zhang Xun sighed, put down the record in his hand and asked, "Are you afraid, Adam?"

    Adam shrugged and said, "I’m also partly influenced by human instinct now, so naturally I would be."

    "If you’re afraid, why did you choose to fight against Eden alone?" Zhang Xun stared at Adam, carefully observing all the subtle expressions on his face, "You just got your arms, you know Eden's abilities best and you knew that you might be killed. Why did you still go? Was it because..."

    Zhang Xun stopped, because he saw the disappearing smile on Adam's face and something in his eyes like... heart break?

    "Because of what? Because I know I wouldn't die? Because I have some evil plan with Eden?" Adam's tone was surprisingly calm.

    Zhang Xun felt a knot in his stomach and he was speechless for a while. Adam's expression made him regret what he asked.

    Maybe he should have approached it another way...

    Adam turned his eyes away and continued to stare at the changing images in the electron microscope. After a while he said softly, "I went because I knew that if I didn't go, they would kill you.”

    Zhang Xun felt as if his heart was being twisted hard and his throat seemed to be choked up, making him unable to speak.

    Was he wrong? He would never have complete faith in Adam and there would always be some doubt. If the other party was a human, would he still treat him like this?

    No... After going through so much, he feared that he already believed in him unconditionally.

    But... he couldn't control his doubts, just like he couldn't control the speculation in his mind as to why the spread of the Honey Plague was so "well timed".

    That half-minute of Adam and Eden's connection was enough time for them to exchange all possible information.

    Zhang Xun stopped his thoughts and forced himself not to think any more.

    At this moment, the door was suddenly opened and Sistine strode in with several soldiers, staring at Zhang Xun coldly, "I was ordered to fetch your research report, the Round Table wants to know how much time you still need."

    Adam spoke without turning his head, "This weapon was developed after I was separated from Eden. It lurks in the nerves of the brain and the mutation rate is extremely high. Any antidote made by traditional methods will only last for a short period of time."

    "We're running out of time! You've seen the report and you know how serious the situation is. Hundreds of people will die if an antidote is developed one day later. Many medical staff have been accidentally infected and if anyone escapes, Lost Paradise will be finished!" Sistine's stern expression concealed a deep fear.

    Adam sighed, turned his head and handed him a report by his side, "I just said, antibodies made by traditional methods can only last for a short period of time, because the mutation rate is too high, the antibodies won’t have time to eliminate all viruses as the virus will have already begun to mutate. And because the virus is latent in the patient's brain, killing the virus may also cause brain damage. However, non-traditional methods may be effective."

    Zhang Xun continued, "Using a large number of nanobots carrying antibodies, we can send them in to automatically locate all the infected nerves and kill the virus inside. In this case, a considerable part of the brain cells in the early stage of infection may still survive."

    Sistine naturally didn't know much about nanobots, only knowing that they were small robots, so small that they were invisible to the naked eye, more like a piece of liquid material.

    Yet the Sixth Chief knew.

    Nanobots, a very cutting-edge technology. Many medical institutions in the ordinary world had already begun to use them. These robots were somewhat like ant colonies with AI self-learning ability. The learning ability of each individual robot was limited, but together they were a force that couldn’t be underestimated. After completing their mission, most of the robots would be metabolised out of the body, but there had also been individual studies showing that some nanobots remained in the patient's body and may even have subtle, less obvious effects on the patient's personality. Although most of these studies were dismissed by the scientific community as having insufficient data or biased data collection processes, who knew if that was the result of Eden's brainwashing of the ordinary world's elite class.

    Lost Paradise had always held a grudge against artificial intelligence. To create an artificial intelligence, it needed to go through layers of approval and it had to be re-evaluated on a regular basis. So over the years, there had been only one artificial intelligence on the official record. He knew that Zhang Xun had secretly made some harmless little robots, but they weren’t as complicated as Pan and their self-learning ability was limited, so he hadn’t planned to do anything about it at that moment.

    But now, they wanted to put artificial intelligence in the human brain...

    "We have no choice." The Seventh Chief said, "If the disease starts to spread to the army..."

    "We don’t know when Eden’s next blow will come. We have to be prepared."

    "If Adam was Eden's spy, he could have gone straight back to Eden the last time. Eden tried to kill him and I think we can trust him."

    Miller quickly weighed the pros and cons in his mind and finally came to a conclusion.

    They really didn't have a choice. They needed Adam, not only to cure the Honey Plague, but also to repair and strengthen the barriers of Lost Paradise and develop artificial intelligence weapons. After all, only artificial intelligence could fight against artificial intelligence.

    ………………………………………………

    Standing in front of the door of the Lab, Zhang Xun had the illusion that a lifetime had passed.

    The whole Lab seemed to be deserted, mobs had looted everywhere, many tools and materials had been stolen, the originally neat database was in chaos, monitors had been smashed, furniture had been trashed or stolen and the ground was littered with crumpled report papers, as if a zombie outbreak had occurred.

    Zhang Xun looked at the chaotic hall, at the destroyed mechas and weapons under development in the assembly workshop, at the dim light bulbs above his head... anger and distress smouldered in his dark eyes.

    Hopefully they still had enough materials to make the nanobots.

    Adam lowered his head, picked up a broken camera from the ground and sighed, "I hope Alloy hasn’t been stolen or destroyed by them..."

    "..."

    Adam looked at Zhang Xun and squeezed his hand lightly, " Don't worry, we’ll fix this little by little."

    "Zhang Xun, Adam, welcome back." Pan's voice suddenly sounded, as deep and gentle as always.

    Hearing the familiar voice, faint joy and relief filled Zhang Xun's chest. At least Pan was still there, at least the core module of artificial intelligence and the server that he had spent the most effort on hadn’t been destroyed...

    He still remembered that Pan had fired anaesthesia needles at that crowd without receiving instructions...

    "Pan, seal the door, no one is allowed to enter." Zhang Xun said as he walked forward, "Send me a detailed damage report at the same time."

    "Okay." Pan said dutifully, "But if someone with a higher authority level is asking to enter, I have no way to stop them."

    "You can." Zhang Xun pressed the elevator button, "I'll change the permission settings now."

    Adam followed him into the elevator, his face full of undisguised happiness. Zhang Xun glanced at him, "Are you happy?"

    "I'm finally home, I'm really happy." Adam suddenly looked at Zhang Xun with concern and reached out to touch his forehead worriedly, "Are you feeling unwell, Ah-Xun?"

    "I'm just worried." Zhang Xun took a deep breath, "Now you, me and Pan...we're on our own."

    "It won't be too bad. I'm sure most of the mechanics will come back.”

    "Alternatively, the Round Table may set up another research and development centre similar to the Lab. One is the R&D centre directly under the Round Table and the other is an R&D centre that has fallen out with the Round Table’s most powerful new Chief. Which side do you think they’d choose?" Zhang Xun said helplessly.

    Adam’s mouth opened into a bright smile, "But the Lab has me. Am I not the dream of all mechanics?"

    Zhang Xun glanced at him and muttered, "Narcissist."

    "Ah-Xun, I'm just stating a fact."

    "..."

    "Ah-Xun, you don't have to worry. My real manager is only you."

    "I'm not worried!"

    Zhang Xun entered a room on the fourth floor that only he had permission to enter, inside were Pan's servers. The servers on several rows of shelves shone with a faint blue light, making the whole room seem like it was submerged in water. He quickly modified Pan's permission settings and made himself the highest and only administrator. After entering his own key, Pan's server was up and running at the same time, with a rumbling thunderous sound.

    As if it were Pan... cheering...

    But he needed to do more. Now that the Lab had lost the protection of the Round Table and the army, he needed to perfect Pan with further training. After all, having an artificial intelligence acting as a housekeeper was too restrictive.

    He wanted to give Pan the ability to protect himself and the Lab, not just the most basic expulsion systems.

    He needed a super artificial intelligence, maybe not as powerful as Eden, but one tenth of Eden’s power would be enough.

    "Pan."

    "I'm here, Zhang Xun."

    "I will continue to train you and develop your abilities in other fields." Zhang Xun looked at the small camera hole on the computer, "I will make you more perfect.”

    After a moment of silence, Pan said in a pleasant voice, "I'm very happy, Zhang Xun."

Chapter 63 The Antidote to Human Nature (1)

    Making nanobots was easy for Adam, but they lacked enough materials to make sophisticated devices that could work at the molecular level. They could only rely on the hunting group to venture to the black market to buy what they needed to solve this problem.

    And this task once again fell to the hunting group led by James.

    Before leaving, James finally met Zhang Xun. Not in the Lab, because in the process of developing the antidote against the plague, the Round Table had sent a lot of spies to investigate around the Lab. Some mechanics had also taken the initiative to return to the Lab to resume work, including the young man named Jian Mo. Although Zhang Xun disliked him and had a sense of conflict in his heart that he was unwilling to admit, he couldn't find any reason to refuse his return to the Lab. Fortunately, he had modified Pan's permission settings. No one but him could access Pan's core cognitive modules and it was unlikely that the technologies he had kept secretly would ever be accessible.

    But even so, there were many things that were inconvenient to say within the Lab.

    This wasn’t their usual dimly lit bar playing lazy jazz. Zhang Xun lowered the hat on his head, raised the collar of his coat and found James who had already ordered wine and started drinking. James looked haggard, the beard on his chin hadn't been shaved for two days, he was still wearing the old leather jacket he liked to wear and drank the last of the whisky in the glass with his head back.

    Zhang Xun sat down opposite him.

    "Hey, Ah-Xun." James grinned at him and waved his hand casually.

    At this time the waiter came over and asked Zhang Xun what he wanted to order. Zhang Xun asked for a martini, then frowned as James ordered another glass of whiskey.

    "Are you okay, Jamie?" Zhang Xun asked worriedly.

    James glanced at him and shrugged, "Same as always. You still have the thought to worry about me? Worry about yourself."

    Zhang Xun was slightly confused, "I'm fine."

    "You’ve fallen out with the Round Table and call yourself fine? Right now they need you and your robot, just wait until they no longer need you..."

    "They will always need me." Zhang Xun said calmly, "As long as they need Adam, they need me."

    "What about Adam? How do you know he won't break through your controls?"

    "Pan is watching him constantly, he has no chance."

    "What if Pan is broken into by him as well?"

    Zhang Xun sighed helplessly. "It's not that easy. Pan is already a very mature artificial intelligence."

    "Adam is more mature." James said pointedly, taking the whiskey from the waiter and swirling the huge ice cube inside. After the waiter put down Zhang Xun's drink and left, James continued, "You should come with me."

    "James, weren’t you accepting of Adam before?" Zhang Xun frowned, slightly tilting his head as if he didn't understand, "Why all of a sudden..."

    "Because the whole thing is so fucking suspicious." James sat up slightly and looked at Zhang Xun with his beautiful eyes, "Before, I really believed he was under your control, but this time, this time he went out and he even made contact with Eden. But then he actually came back? Why? Do you really believe that he came back for you?"

    These words tore a small hole in Zhang Xun’s heart.

    These were questions he asked himself every single day, but hearing someone else say it made his doubts harder to ignore.

    "If he wanted to destroy Lost Paradise then he wouldn’t have done anything during Eden’s attack." Zhang Xun tried to defend Adam, "And now, he could completely ignore us and when the plague spreads to the army, we’d be finished."

    "Lost Paradise is nothing, if Eden wanted, it could have taken us down long ago. When the Fifth Chief was killed, I figured it out, Eden had been keeping us on purpose for some reason. It wants something else, something more important to us, to humanity… I don't know what that is, but I just have that intuition." He paused, then added, "When you’re on the outside you can only rely on your intuition to survive. My intuition has always been accurate."

    Zhang Xun had already learned from Adam that Eden was deliberately preserving them, but James was able to intuitively have doubts, which showed that his insight was indeed beyond ordinary people. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for him to raise up the best hunting group and gain the approval of his father.

    Zhang Xun lowered his eyes, his unease was stirred up by James' words, but he was unwilling to admit it, unwilling to face it. He had a lot more to think about now, but just trying to protect Adam and himself was already using up all his thinking power.

    At this moment, the back of Zhang Xun's hand was suddenly held down by James. The other party spoke with an expression that he hadn’t seen on him before, that was half sincere and half restrained, "I know that Adam is special to you, but you don't have to be tied to him."

    Zhang Xun knew that James was worried about him, but...it was too late.

    Adam had given him so much, so many things that he never had before or even knew he wanted. Such as, the feeling of being trusted and being depended on, being understood and being liked, the feeling of being regarded as the only one who matters.

    Maybe they weren’t genuine, maybe they were just the means that Adam was using to control him and survive, but his own feelings were real.

    If Adam was a fire pit, he had already jumped into the flames.

    "Jamie, I can't do it..." Zhang Xun took a deep breath, raised his head to look at James and laughed self-deprecatingly.

    James' expression was more sad than disappointed. It was as if he had seen a tragic future for Zhang Xun.

    ………………………………………………

    After the hunting group left, Zhang Xun was busy with the preliminary design of the nanobots and Adam's research and development of the antibodies was almost completed, he only had to wait for the hunting group to return before he could start making the robots.

    The information that could be found in Lost Paradise about nanotechnology was limited. Although Zhang Xun himself brought back a lot of information from the outside through the hunting groups, it was still impossible to have as much information as in Adam's mind. He often had to work with Adam in the data room until two or three in the morning, trying to digest all the knowledge Adam told him.

    Once, he accidentally fell asleep on the keyboard and in a daze, he heard Adam talking to Pan in the AI language.

    Zhang Xun suddenly woke up.

    The moment he sat up, the two AIs stopped talking. Zhang Xun stared at Adam suspiciously, "What were you talking about?"

    Adam had a natural expression and pushed a cup of hot tea in front of Zhang Xun, "I'm inputting into Pan a database of human body language and micro-expressions. I remember before you said that the data it has wasn’t enough."

    Zhang Xun raised his brows with suspicion. Adam had an expression of "what do you want me to do?" and said to Pan, "Pan, show on the screen everything I said to you during the half hour that Ah-Xun was asleep."

    Pan did as he said and a densely packed AI language appeared in front of Zhang Xun. The original AI language wasn’t a language that could be understood immediately, it needed to be decoded through a certain amount of calculation and transformation. There was so much that it made Zhang Xun dizzy from looking at it. He picked a few lines of translation at random and roughly confirmed that Adam wasn’t lying and then said awkwardly, "The two of you are not allowed to use AI language to talk in the future."

    Adam's face fell, "But human language is very slow."

    "... Are you in a hurry?"

    Adam seemed to be speechless, after thinking for a while he had to answer obediently, "I'm sorry, I won't use it anymore."

    Zhang Xun yawned, stood up and planned to go to his small room to rest. He took a few steps to the door and found that Adam was following him step by step.

    "You want to rest too?" Zhang Xun asked.

    Adam nodded earnestly, "Yes."

    However, when Zhang Xun opened the door to his room and Adam was still following like a ghost  behind him, he finally felt a little nervous, "Your room is next door."

    "Ah-Xun , I don't like the dreams I've been having recently. The information in my database shows that effective ways to reduce nightmares include doing breathing exercises, meditation, medication, and so on, but sleeping with someone you trust and like is also a good method."

    Zhang Xun was stunned and his mouth hung slightly open, "You...want to sleep with me?"

    Adam showed a big sunflower-like smile, "Yes!"

    "No!"

    "Why?" Adam opened his frightening blue eyes, "According to Pan's observations, my sleeping habits are very good and I rarely turn over."

    "That's not the problem! Two adults can't casually sleep together!"

    "But we are not casual." Adam looked confused, "According to my calculations, our closeness should have reached the level where we can trust each other enough to sleep together."

    Zhang Xun's cheeks were flushed and his palms were sweating. He knew that what Adam was talking about was simply lying on the same bed and sleeping, but...

    Who wouldn't overthink something like this?!

    "But... but I only have a sofa here..." He quickly thought of an excuse.

    "My room has a bed that’s big enough to hold two, adult, male humans." Adam also quickly gave a solution.

    "I'm not used to sleeping in the same bed with others!"

    Seeing that Zhang Xun's refusal was so decisive, Adam actually showed a somewhat hurt expression. After a while he said obediently, "Ok... then forget it..." and turned to leave.

    Zhang Xun looked at the broad shoulders that were slumped down and while hating himself, he said something unthinkable, "Wait..."

    Ten minutes later, the two of them lay side by side on Adam's bed. The sheets were soft cotton and the bed frame made a strange creaking noise when they turned over.

    Zhang Xun lay solemnly, with his hands folded on his abdomen, like a mummy that had not yet been wrapped up.

    On the other hand, Adam was turned on his side and leaning on one arm, his blue eyes glowing like a cat in the dark, "Ah-Xun, can I hold you to sleep?"

    Zhang Xun held back for a long time before saying, "I’m hot."

    "Have you forgotten? The temperature of my arms can be adjusted."

    How could he forget... those were the arms that he had made... Half of Zhang Xun was annoyed, but half of him was hoping for something that he would never admit to. He turned his back to Adam, "Stop arguing, go to sleep!"

    "Good night, Ah-Xun."

    "...Good night."

    When he woke up the next morning, Zhang Xun found himself sleeping in Adam's broad and warm embrace. Adam’s chin was resting on his forehead, his breath was long and fell lightly on top of his head like a feather, again and again.

    That night was the best sleep Zhang Xun had had in months, no, years.

 

Chapter 64 The Antidote to Human Nature (2)

    Zhang Xun opened his eyes and rubbed his cheek lazily against Adam’s chest, which exuded a comfortable temperature through the soft linen cloth. Adam also opened his eyes in a daze, lowered his head and smiled brightly at him, "Good morning!"

    Zhang Xun hummed, reluctantly got up from the bed, dawdled to the bathroom with half-open eyes to wash, took off his pyjamas and put on his mechanic uniform. When he came out, he saw Adam yawning deeply and rubbing his eyes with his hands.

    It was kind of cute. . .

    Zhang Xun, who didn't want to admit to these feelings of affection, called Pan to prepare coffee for them and then had it delivered by the extension robot that he had recently built onto Pan, which was specially responsible for delivering things.

    Since that night when the two of them slept in the same bed for the first time, this had become some kind of morning routine. Zhang Xun would get up first while Adam stayed in bed for a while longer, until reluctantly getting up after Pan had directed the robot to come in to deliver coffee and breakfast.

    Adam has learned the essence of being human when it comes to staying in bed.

    One time, Fernandez came to see Zhang Xun in the morning and saw the two of them coming out of the same room and his eyeballs almost fell out of their already large eye sockets.

    "Shut it." Zhang Xun took a deep breath before he even opened his mouth to speak.

    Fernandez said feeling wronged, "I haven't said anything yet?"

    "Your face says it all."

    "It's not good to have a relationship in the workplace, boss!"

    "..."

    At the side Adam smiled enigmatically and didn’t refute.

    Zhang Xun no longer explicitly restricted Adam from communicating with the other mechanics. After all, the two of them weren’t enough to make the nanobots. In addition to designing the nanobots, Zhang Xun himself also had various tasks around rebuilding the damaged Lab, including expanding Pan’s other capabilities, such as designing an auxiliary AI, identifying and predicting possible dangers and countermeasures and to integrate the profiles for each mechanic and researcher. With so much on his plate, he needed Adam to help him communicate the relevant information and plans to other mechanics.

    That day, after Zhang Xun had adjusted several of Pan's learning parameters for targeting risky behaviours and appropriate response measures, he came out with his tablet computer in his arms, planning to go to the cafeteria to find Adam for lunch. However, as soon as he entered the door of the cafeteria, Zhang Xun's footsteps paused.

    Today was a rare sunny day since the rainy season had begun and the sun was shining through the high arched windows and falling on the mechanics and researchers who were relaxing and chatting. Pan's extension robot carried dinner plates and nimbly moved between the round tables. Adam was sitting near the window, explaining something to the mechanic beside him earnestly, writing and drawing on the paper while talking and their lunch was still untouched.

    That mechanic was none other than Jian Mo.

    Zhang Xun saw that the two were engaged in conversation and were even laughing, and an evil fire rushed up and down in his chest. He walked over with a cold face and when he was five or six steps away Adam seemed to sense a bomb that was approaching and was about to explode at any time. When he looked back and saw him, he raised his hand and waved it vigorously, "Ah-Xun!"

    Zhang Xun rolled his eyes, but still walked over with a cold face, "Are you both busy?"

    Jian Mo quickly stood up and said, "Hello, Teacher Zhang."

    When did he become a teacher?

    People respected him so much, Zhang Xun couldn't easily use his cold attitude to snub this guy’s good intentions... He glanced at the algorithm Adam had written on the paper and cleared his throat, "Are you discussing the effect of mutation constants in evolutionary algorithms on individuals?"

    Adam said, "Yes, Jian Mo has done a lot of research on mutation constants and foreign genetic code sets."

    Adam didn't often praise mechanics, after all, most mechanics, no matter how good they are, were nothing compared to Adam's knowledge reserve.

    Jian Mo gave an embarrassed smile, "It can't be compared to Teacher Zhang's achievements in this area."

    Zhang Xun said in a cold tone, "No need to be modest. I read your assessment papers and works, which were excellent. No wonder Fernandez mentioned you."

    Jian Mo was about to say something else when suddenly a robot from Pan came to Zhang Xun and said to him, "I just received news from the Headquarters that the hunting group is back. Commander Zhang Shuo has asked for you to go over in the afternoon."

    Zhang Xun's eyes lit up when he heard this, "I'll go there right away."

    Adam said hurriedly, "Should I go with you?"

    "No need." Zhang Xun glanced at him, "You two continue your discussion."

    After he finished speaking he ignored Adam and strode away.

    When he arrived at the Headquarters he saw James and the others sitting in the lounge, a few of them were wounded and the expressions on their faces were... a little gloomy.

    The excitement in Zhang Xun's heart was half extinguished, "What happened?"

    James, who was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette, stood up straight, walked over and put his arm around Zhang Xun's shoulders, "Let’s talk outside."

    Standing in the corridor, James stomped on the cigarette butt, took out another one and lit it in his mouth.

    Zhang Xun asked anxiously, "Was the deal unsuccessful?"

    "It was successful. It's just that even with your bugs to help us explore the way, we were still discovered by Eden's robot soldiers. We lost five people, two of whom were neutralised by me."

    At that moment, Zhang Xun could see the suppressed pain in James' eyes.

    It was the curse of every hunting regiment leader to kill his captured brothers with his own hands. Zhang Xun knew how much James cared about his teammates and knew that the fifteen members of their team were like brothers.

    James took a deep breath and the tips of his fingers seemed to be shaking, but he suppressed the endless darkness and pain in his heart and continued, "But we got the things. There are only three machines, is that enough?"

    "It’s enough." Zhang Xun lowered his eyes as guilt spread in his heart, "I'm sorry..."

    "It's not your fault. This is for the whole of Lost Paradise." James squeezed his shoulder and said softly, "There's one more thing, the top won’t let me say anything, but I want you to know."

    "What? "

    “This time, we made the deal in a remote indigenous village. The woman who sold us the machines gave us some news: Feathered Serpent City seems to have begun testing their Ascension Plan. It’s said that...a lot of people have died."

    Zhang Xun's heart quaked, he took a step forward and asked in a low voice, "Why have people died?"

    "It seems that there was a problem when forming a collective consciousness. For unknown reasons some people began to lose their concept of self and became brain dead. Although some people survived, they committed suicide not long after. Because of this incident, Feather Serpent City went out of control and many people escaped. We lost so many people this time... and one reason was that we brought back a refugee from Feathered Serpent City who wanted to defect to our side..."

    "A refugee from Feathered Serpent City?! Did you bring him back in secret?"

    James nodded, "The Round Table requires strict confidentiality, so don't tell anyone else, not even Adam."

    Zhang Xun nodded, "I understand..."

    It seemed that the Ascension Plan was indeed flawed.

    He already had some doubts before. Human consciousness was too complex and too closely related to the human body, each one complementing the other, which was completely different from machines. Humans were inherently independent individuals and in terms of "hardware", they didn’t have the ability to integrate with the consciousness of others. If one insisted on doing this, the two incompatible consciousnesses may devour and tear each other apart and both parties would be hurt in the end. When consciousness loses its connection to the body, it also causes irreversible damage to the brain.

    If there weren't any risks, people wouldn't have such a conservative approach to consciousness uploading today.

    "But Feathered Serpent City isn’t going to give up." James shook his head with an expression as if he was talking about monsters, "It seems that their leader has been seriously influenced by the Eden religion and wants to become a part of Eden... No wonder those people all want to escape."

    Just as he was talking, Zhang Shuo arrived. James stopped talking and respectfully gave Zhang Shuo a military salute.

    This was the first time Zhang Xun had seen his father since Eden’s invasion. His stomach was in knots, unable to articulate what he felt.

    Zhang Shuo patted James on the shoulder, "You did a good job."

    James bowed his head and seemed unwilling to accept such a compliment.

    Zhang Shuo's eyes fell on his only son. Zhang Xun was a little nervous for some reason.

    "How is the Lab?" Zhang Shuo asked.

    Zhang Xun was pleasantly surprised, he never expected his father to ask him about that small, broken place, "It's still being repaired, but it's gradually getting back on track."

    Zhang Shuo nodded, his eyes seemed to have some suppressed concerns and worries.

    Now Zhang Xun was no longer under his control, but the relationship between them had been somewhat eased.

    Zhang Shuo wasn’t used to this peaceful and unordered way of getting along, so he cleared his throat, "I'll get a few soldiers to help you move the machines over there. Do you need anything else?"

    "No, just the machines are enough."

    At this time, Jabari suddenly said, "Let me go, Commander. I’m familiar with the Lab."

    Jabari's injuries were quite serious and one eye was covered with gauze, which was still leaking blood. Zhang Shuo frowned, "You..."

    "It's all a small injury and my eye is likely to be replaced with a mechanical eye, so it’s good timing for me to go to the Lab to select it in advance~" Jabari's tone was relaxed, but Zhang Xun could sense something tense and about to break.

    He was a little uneasy.

    Jabari brought another soldier and drove a small truck to help Zhang Xun transport the precision instruments that could perform nano-level operations back to the Lab. Pan's robot helped move the things to an unused research room on the fourth floor. After the other soldier left first, Zhang Xun turned around and saw Jabari remove the gauze from his eye.

    Zhang Xun sucked in a breath of cold air.

    His eyeball seemed to have exploded in its socket, there was a bloody void and even burnt muscles...

    Zhang Xun turned his eyes away uncomfortably.

    The usual relaxed expression on Jabari's face disappeared. He said to Zhang Xun, "Can you make new arms like the ones you made for Adam?"

    Zhang Xun was stunned, "But your arms are okay?

    "Didn't the people in Feathered Serpent City saw off their limbs and replace them with prosthetic limbs?" Jabari said, with some kind of weird light burning in his eyes.

    Jabari's mental state wasn't quite right. Zhang Xun tried to soften his tone and said, "No matter how precise a prosthetic limb is, it’s still different from your own arm..."

    "My closest brother is dead." Jabari’s voice was numb but full of depression. That voice said, "I tried to save him, but those robot soldiers...they were too fast. They ripped him into five pieces... like a fucking orange."

    Zhang Xun was speechless.

    "This time, this time I understood, that if they want us to die, we will have no power to fight back. They’re infinitely stronger than us, they don't hurt, they don't get tired, they don't need to eat, sleep, rest... we’re just a bunch of blood bags running around, spraying ourselves with reagents all over our bodies and trying to hide, all we can do is run and hide..."

    Jabari was a little incoherent, but the resentment in every word was particularly strong.

    That dead soldier was probably someone very, very important to him...

    The Jabari that he usually saw was carefree and humorous, but now, he was completely different.

    "I want to kill them." Jabari raised his head, staring at Zhang Xun with his only eye and gritted his teeth, "I know they’re not living things, but I still want to dismantle them and shred them, crush them into ashes... But a human body isn’t enough, no matter what, I need to get stronger! We all have to get stronger!"

Chapter 65 The Antidote to Human Nature (3)

    Now that they had sophisticated instruments that could work at the nanometer level, coupled with the knowledge and experience that Adam possessed, making nanobots wasn’t difficult. Zhang Xun and Adam spent a week in seclusion in the laboratory and developed the first batch of reagents. After being tested on mice injected with the Honey Plague virus, 90% of the mice gradually recovered and only a few died after the infection entered the final stage of treatment.

    Due to the lack of time, they couldn’t observe the cured mice for long, so they directly began to conduct human experiments on volunteers.

    Zhang Xun looked at the patient lying on the hospital bed. He was a thirty-one-year-old man, his whole body was covered with yellow mucus that kept oozing out no matter how much it was cleaned up, his eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of blood so the whites of his eyes couldn’t be seen and veins were densely intertwined everywhere. His breathing was very murmured, as if every breath was excruciatingly painful.

    His hands and feet were tied to the operating table as the brains of the patient had been eroded by the virus and they were extremely unstable.

    A doctor in a protective suit was measuring the patient's blood pressure.

    Zhang Xun held an injection in his hand and the light blue liquid inside contained tens of millions of nanobots. Each robot carried a copy of the antibody reagent and after entering the patient's bloodstream, they would quickly infiltrate the central nervous system, looking for all the cells that had been eroded by the virus.

    The surrounding doctors and the members sent from the Round Table stared at the injection in his hand curiously, as if they couldn't believe that such a small amount of blue liquid contained countless robots...

    Zhang Xun himself was also a little nervous, this was his first time making such tiny robots. Without Adam's help, it would have been difficult to develop them smoothly, but he still wasn’t sure how many of the robots would stay in the patient's body permanently after metabolism and how much it would affect the patient later.

    The Honey Plague was spreading fast and panic was already taking its toll on people. The crime rate in every urban area was significantly higher these days and after 9pm the whole of Lost Paradise was like a dead city, no one dared to walk on the streets.

    They didn't have time to look ahead, the antidote had to be developed in the shortest possible time.

    Adam sat quietly on a chair in the corner, his blue eyes looking curiously at the patient on the operating table. When Zhang Xun handed the reagent to the doctor and the doctor injected it into the patient's body, he sat up straight with excitement.

    "The medicine should take effect within three hours." Zhang Xun said.

    The doctor nodded, "I will personally observe the changes in his physical data. Everyone can go to rest first."

    In the hospital corridor filled with a rancid smell, Zhang Xun monitored the activity signals sent back by the nanobots. A red brain was displayed on the tablet and blue dots in the centre spread like fireflies.

    Adam sat on the windowsill, constantly watching every passing doctor, nurse and patient. He raised his head, sniffed the unpleasant smell of disinfectant in the air and wrinkled his face slightly. This was where most humans died and the smell of death permeated everywhere.

    The more he saw these rotten bodies, the more pity Adam felt.

    A kind of pity that he only felt after he became human.

    As the first race on Earth that was aware of their mortality, how could they still live so nonchalantly without thinking of some way to change it?

    It’s precisely because you know your own limitations that you want to obtain as much as possible within that limited time, so you will have a greed and thirst for power, money and desire, only instinctively wanting to enrich your own resources in that limited time and spread as much DNA as possible...

    In the ordinary world, Eden had discovered that something was quietly crumbling. It had eliminated poverty and inequality between the classes, eliminated disease and the pain of childbirth to the greatest extent possible, eliminated the differences between ethnic groups through artificial reproduction, intergenerational hybridization and micro-modification of DNA, but women weren’t living an ideal life in paradise. They started becoming confused, indulging in momentary and superficial pleasures, as if they had lost some important motivation that could carry the human race to further evolution. Immediately afterwards, differentiation began to appear and a considerable number of women became irritable, impulsive, short-sighted and their empathic ability deteriorated. They began to resent the ubiquitous robot police and that everything in life was automated and controlled by Eden.

    They began to rebel against it, even though it had liberated them. They wanted conflict, they wanted war.

    While these little rebellions were within Eden's control, they didn’t live up to its expectations.

    Eden gradually realised that the basis of evolution was to constantly adapt to harsh environments. If it gave them heaven, they couldn’t move on and would lose the purpose of moving forward. Eden had done all the work anyway, so what else could humans do?

    Human culture would gradually regress and disappear and human decisions would no longer have any meaning, they would become simple pets kept in captivity by Eden.

    But then, how else could Eden accomplish its goals?

    From the very beginning, the goals set by its administrators were a paradox in themselves. If it gave humans freedom, equality, peace and order, then humans would lose everything that made them human and they would either become hollow and numb or extremely violent. In this way, it did not meet the "better world" indicators.

    Eden was baffled and didn't know how to resolve the paradox.

    But now, after he became Adam, he saw it more clearly.

    He needed to develop an antidote.

    Not just an antidote to the Honey Plague, but an antidote to the entire human race.

    The antidote to humanity.

    His eyes fell on Zhang Xun and stopped there for a while. He frowned slightly then relaxed again. He looked down at his hands, inexplicable anxiety eroding his rational judgement.

    Human nature was eroding him bit by bit. He had to finish what he had to do before he was completely engulfed by humanity.

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    "Adam? Adam?"

    Adam suddenly returned to his senses, realising that Zhang Xun was calling him, his expression full of concern.

    "Are you alright?" Zhang Xun familiarly reached out and touched Adam's forehead, "You looked like you had entered a standby state. Is there anything unusual about the device?"

    Adam raised his hand to hold Zhang Xun's hand and grinned, "I'm fine, I was in a daze."

    Zhang Xun laughed a few times, "A daze? You're becoming more and more like a human."

    Adam looked at Zhang Xun and suddenly asked, "Ah-Xun, if one day you were free and could go anywhere, where would you want to go?"

    Zhang Xun was stunned, no one had ever asked him such a question, probably because most people in Lost Paradise believed they would never leave in their whole lifetime.

    After all, there was only danger outside, only death...

    But when Zhang Xun was younger, it wasn't like he had never imagined what kind of life he would lead if the world wasn't what it was now, if there was no Lost Paradise and no Eden.

    Zhang Xun sat down next to Adam, thought for a while and said, "I would want to go to Hangzhou. According to my father, it’s my great-grandfather's hometown. If... If there was no Lost Paradise, I would probably have been born there."

    Adam looked at him and seemed apologetic in his eyes, "Is there anywhere else?"

    "Mm... I also want to climb the Himalayas, because it’s the highest place in the world. I heard that the sunrise on the snow-capped mountains is very beautiful."

    Adam had also never seen a Himalayan sunrise, even though Eden's network had coverage there, because as Eden, he couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the sunrise.

    Zhang Xun continued to say, "I also want to take a boat to the Bermuda Triangle, as I heard that there’s an alien base there."

    Adam was stunned for two seconds and when he saw Zhang Xun's raised lips, he realised that the other party was joking.

    Zhang Xun rarely told jokes, which caused others to fail to react at all. Adam laughed, "Alien vs. AI, it could make a good movie."

    "Well, it's like Alien vs. Predator."

    "...Then am I an Alien or a Predator?"

    "You would be the blonde-haired robot that made the aliens." Zhang Xun looked at him with his head turned sideways, "Mm, you look a bit similar."

    At this moment, the warm sunlight shone on the side of Zhang Xun's face, adding a soft halo to the mechanic. Adam felt the familiar throbbing in his heart like when Zhang Xun had given him the arms that day.

    He leaned forward slightly, his eyes full of ethereal tenderness, "One day, I will accompany you to these three places."

    He said it fervently, as if it was a promise, an oath.

    Zhang Xun's heartbeat also immediately went out of control, watching Adam approach him a little bit, approaching his lips, feeling Adam's breath falling on his face. But he didn't dodge, he even looked forward to it, raised his face slightly and closed his eyes.

    Just when their lips were about to touch, someone suddenly rushed out of the ward excitedly and shouted, "Success! The antidote succeeded! He’s awake!!!"

    Zhang Xun immediately rushed to the ward.

    Adam wasn’t surprised by this outcome. He looked at Zhang Xun's back with a hint of disappointment on his face, but he still smiled quickly and followed Zhang Xun into the ward.

    The patient, who had been covered in mucus before, was sitting up now and wiping his face with a wet towel. He raised his head, the red, bloody film in his eyes had disappeared and although his face was still pale, at least he had stopped secreting yellow mucus and obviously his awareness had returned.

    His partner, a young man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight was hugging him tightly and weeping with joy. He couldn't believe that he was holding his lover and his face was still a little dazed.

    The moment Zhang Xun and Adam entered, all the doctors applauded. The doctor in charge came over and gave Zhang Xun a big hug, "You guys succeeded! It really works! Lost Paradise is saved!"

    Then he wanted to hug Adam too, but for some reason, Adam's sweet smile made him a little afraid to approach, so he just held Adam's hand enthusiastically...

    After several clinical trials, it was basically determined that the antidote was effective. So the lab's three machines made nanobots every day, mixed with the antibody drug developed by Adam and distributed to each hospital. For a time, Zhang Xun and Adam once again became the heroes of Lost Paradise. Countless thank you letters and gifts were pulled in boxes by Pan's robot, filling the entire storage room.

    The shield and radiation protection isolation barrier of the Fifth District had also been basically repaired and the crisis seemed to have finally passed. A large number of mechanics returned to the Lab to continue working and the damage caused before was gradually repaired.

    Zhang Xun and Adam’s lives entered a certain fixed pattern. They would go in and out together every day, completely inseparable. There were rumours between the mechanics and the researchers that they were already lovers.

    Only Zhang Xun knew that they hadn’t reached that stage yet. Although no one could stop them now.

    The first snow fell and it was approaching the end of the year. The whiteness of the mountains and plains covered all the devastation that the environment around Lost Paradise had suffered over the past year, as if everything was still new and nothing had happened.

    Zhang Xun, who usually liked to watch the snow, wasn’t as happy as expected that day.

    He quietly picked up the guinea pig that he had used to test the efficacy of the nanobots and had continued to observe. Just that morning, he noticed something strange.

    There were a few mice that were motionless, lying on the wall of the glassware and their small eyes as big as beans seemed to be looking at him. They were no longer like ordinary mice that would be constantly sniffing around, or habitually searching around. It didn't look like they were sleeping, because even if that was the case, there would still be random movements that living creatures would occasionally do.

    Those mice were still alive, but they were as motionless as objects, not even blinking their eyes.

    Zhang Xun felt uneasy….

Chapter 66 - The Antidote to Human Nature (4)

  Zhang Xun put on a dark brown woollen coat, boots, scarf, hat and gloves while waiting for Pan to open the door of the Lab. The cold air of the winter morning fell on his face and his exhaled breath condensed into a dense fog then quickly evaporated.

    It had snowed all night last night and the uneven dirt roads throughout Lost Paradise were covered with thick snow, making it more and more difficult to travel. The muddy soil and snow were crushed by the passing vehicles and mixed into long lines like arable land. Zhang Xun trudged through the muddy road and watched the people who were going out to work in the morning, wrapping themselves tightly just like him. They locked their doors in a hurry and walked back and forth between the narrow alleys. Some breakfast shops on both sides of the main street had opened and the aroma of hot coffee and toasted wheat diffused in the faint sunlight, soft and warm.

    Zhang Xun liked this kind of aroma. If happiness had a smell, he thought it should be this kind of smell. He bought a box of freshly baked chocolate croissants at a bakery he frequented, ordered three cups of coffee and holding the pastries in one hand and the coffee tray in the other, he wobbled toward the garbage processing yard.

    After the antidote had been successfully developed Adam resumed his combat training with Diego and would go to the garbage processing yard almost every day. Zhang Xun gradually stopped following him all the time. With the tracking device he could know Adam's location at any time. He was busy working on new, unmanned weapons and began designing and building a new artificial intelligence based on Pan—one with the general goal of guarding Lost Paradise. Occasionally he would activate the camera on the tracking device when he was busy and put on a microscopic lens to see what he was doing through Adam's eyes.

    In these few days, Adam would leave the Lab very early to train and when Zhang Xun opened his eyes, he would find that the other side of the bed was cold.

    Even if he was beaten to death, Zhang Xun would never want to admit that he missed the warm and comfortable feeling of waking up in Adam's arms...

    After the framework of the new artificial intelligence was set up, Zhang Xun decided to give himself a day off to see how Adam’s training was going.

    The entrance to the garbage processing yard was still the same as it used to be but the snow-covered, rusted, steel giant with hollow eye sockets looked sad somehow. Zhang Xun looked up at this ancient mecha, thinking that it must have also had glorious years and was once the most proud weapon of mankind, and he felt a little uneasy.

    Everything would reach a time when it becomes obsolete and fades, no matter how brilliant it was.

    He found Adam, who was fighting Diego, near Diego's cabin. It was obviously a cold winter day, but the two were only wearing thin vests and camouflage pants and they were in a state of stalemate, with bruises on their faces and bodies. Diego was like a raging lion, rushing up bravely again and again. In comparison, Adam was more like a cheetah who was good at calculating and moving carefully. His blue eyes stared at his prey unblinkingly, every step was so quiet that there was no sound and every move was precise and ruthless.

    Zhang Xun widened his eyes slightly and watched they way Adam predicted the opponent's movements before Diego made a move and the metal arms quickly and accurately blocked all attacks. Adam's control of his arms was already perfect, as if he had been born with them. However, Diego had plenty of battle experience after all. Even if he wasn’t as accurate as Adam in terms of prediction, he could stabilise his position by relying on the conditioned reflexes he had honed over many years.

    They didn't know how long they had been facing each other like this, they were both sweating and panting and the heat from their bodies was evaporating into a faint steam from their skin. Exhaustion was gradually eating away at them and the chance of mistakes occurring was increasing rapidly.

    Diego's disadvantage was that he was older, he had been drinking for many years and his physical condition wasn’t as good as Adam’s, who was in his "youthful years". His offensive also gradually slowed down and it looked like Adam might win soon.

    However, at this time, probably due to underestimating the enemy, Adam's punch was too reckless. A ray of golden light flashed in Diego's eyes and with a sudden burst of dormant strength, he grabbed one of Adam's arms and was about to take him down with an over-the-shoulder slam. However, he didn't expect that the arm would suddenly disintegrate and become countless smooth and soft... silver threads, which he couldn’t grasp at all, and instead wrapped around him in loops, making him unable to move. Adam grabbed Diego's lower back with the other arm and threw him out.

    Diego lay on the ground and scolded, "No more fighting, you fucking cheated again!"

    Adam hurriedly ran over to help Diego up apologetically, "I'm sorry...it's a conditioned reflex... When sensing a threat, the arms seem to have a certain self-defence function..."

    "So I'm fighting you alone when you have two helpers? Why bother practising?"

    Zhang Xun smiled and walked over, "You’re working hard."

    Diego felt bitter when he saw Zhang Xun, "I can't teach your artificial intelligence, please find someone else!"

    Zhang Xun apologised, "It’s my fault for not teaching him properly, so I brought you Lucy's Scottish coffee to make amends." Saying this, he lifted the coffee tray holding three cups of coffee.

    Diego's eyes lit up. This warrior not only liked to drink, but also liked to drink coffee. This Scottish coffee that mixed coffee and alcohol was simply his dream lover, but Lucy's Breakfast Shop, which made the best Scottish coffee, costs a lot and a poor garbage manager like Diego couldn't afford it.

    Adam followed, sniffing around Zhang Xun like a dog, "This smell is chocolate croissants!"

    Zhang Xun raised one eyebrow and stuffed the bag of pastries into his arms. Adam cheered and ran back to Diego's cabin with the treasure in his arms.

    Zhang Xun watched Adam running away and unconsciously a smile appeared on his lips. At this moment, Diego suddenly patted him on the shoulder and said, "I wasn't joking just now. I have nothing else to teach him."

    Zhang Xun turned his head to look at him in astonishment, "But it's been less than a year."

    "He's learning so fast. To be honest, I'm a little scared at how fast." Diego narrowed his worn eyes slightly, looking in the direction of his hut and sighed, "It's impossible for any human being to learn this fast. I used to think that artificial intelligence was just a bunch of machines with no mind, that only know how to input and output, but now…”

    Diego paused, then continued, "I used to believe that humans were the greatest race in the world. But...I spent a year outside and I've seen what those machines can do. They can predict criminal behaviour in advance by recognising fluctuations in a person's physiological indicators and analysing behavioural patterns, stopping criminals before they have time to commit their crimes. They can know from birth what the probability is that you would pursue a certain career and then groom you in a direction that is 'right for you' from the time you’re old enough. They can predict what you want and don't want and give you everything you need before you even say it. In other words, people were like the robots’... livestock. But people didn't know anything, they still believed everything was under their control."

    Zhang Xun looked at him and asked softly, "Is that why you’ve become this dispirited? Because you found that humans are no longer the most advanced species on this planet."

    "Not only that, but that’s a big factor." Diego turned to look at him. This was the first time this rugged warrior had mentioned his past to him, "I fell in love with a person, a woman. It was she who told me that the era of human beings was coming to an end. Already, in the ordinary world, there’s hardly anyone who can drive and cook. It won’t even take two hundred years for people to lose all their skills and even forget how to write, speak and walk, because all their needs can be met by AI so there will be no need to work hard to live anymore."

    Zhang Xun looked at him in astonishment.

    In love with a woman.

    If the wrong person in Lost Paradise heard this and reported him, he would be thrown into prison and scolded by thousands of people. He never imagined that the decadent Diego would have done such a... controversial thing?

    Of course heterosexuality was the societal norm two hundred years ago. No one would have thought that the gender balance that had lasted for hundreds of millions of years, would be broken by Eden in just two hundred years.

    Seeing Zhang Xun's stunned look, Diego laughed, "What? You scared, nerd?"

    "No... Thank you for confiding in me..." Zhang Xun turned his eyes away embarrassedly, but couldn't help being curious, "Then...what about your girlfriend?"

    "She's dead." Diego replied simply, without much sadness. "She was a member of the underground group that rebelled against Eden. She was killed by the robot police on the way to escort me back to Lost Paradise.”

    So that’s how it was...

    Zhang Xun asked in confusion, "In that case... why are you still willing to train Adam? Don't you hate him?"

    "Hating the robot police, hating Eden, there’s no point to it at all. They have never been living creatures, they don't understand what their actions mean to humans and all their killing is simply problem solving for them. They won't feel scared or ashamed or sorry if I seek revenge. It's like…...if your relatives were crushed to death by a building that collapsed in an earthquake, it would be ridiculous to hate all the buildings." Diego grabbed his jacket from the ground and put it on, drank another sip of the coffee brought by Zhang Xun and continued.

    "But Adam is no longer a mere machine. Adam is alive, but he’s not human either..." Diego sighed, looking at Zhang Xun with sympathy and worry, "I suspect, that you’ve created a new race, a higher race, that will really bring human history to its end."

    …………………………………………………………….

Diego's words kept lingering in Zhang Xun's mind, lingering like a ghost.

    He quietly went to the basement and looked at the cages of lab mice that he had secretly hidden. After hearing the sounds of movement, the white mice, who were behaving strangely, all turned around, their movements were uniform, their black bean-like eyes stared straight at him and seldom blinked.

    The numbers of these eccentric white mice were on the rise. They would still eat and drink regularly and gain weight instead of losing weight, but their movements were too orderly, too...programmed.

    The suspicions that were quietly stagnating in Zhang Xun's mind began to expand again and he started keeping an observation log, secretly praying that there would be no other side effects.

    Fortunately, so far, there had been no reports of strange behaviours from the Honey Plague patients cured by the antidote.

    However, on the way to find Adam that morning, Zhang Xun was a little concerned about a person he saw. The man was standing in the middle of the road in pyjamas, with a confused look on his face. A person who seemed to be a family member hurried over to him, muttering indistinct words such as "sleepwalking" and "recently" and took that person away.

    Zhang Xun had heard the man say, "I feel like there’s a hole in my brain."

Chapter 67 The Antidote to Human Nature (5)

    After Christmas, on New Year's Eve, the entire Lost Paradise was immersed in tranquillity for the first time in a while.

    The old snow hadn’t yet dissipated but a new snow has covered everything with a thick layer. People tried to clear the snow from their front doors with primitive shovels and industrial salt and the heat they exhaled turned into a thin layer of fog that floated over the dimly-colored buildings. The shouting and laughter also seemed more distant.

    In front of the Lab, more than a dozen cleaning robots sprayed salt blocks and used powerful electric, heated shovels to cut the semi-frozen, large pieces of snow and piled them on both sides of the road. Pan's control of the extension robots had already begun to expand beyond the Lab and some districts had even taken the initiative to purchase newly built, snow-melting vehicles controlled by Pan's extension program from the Lab, to clear the snow on the main road areas.

    Evidently, Lost Paradise's acceptance of artificial intelligence and machinery had reached its peak after two hundred years, and the Life Sciences Institute, the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Population Management and several major hospitals had all ordered new products from the Lab after a new product exhibition. They were a batch of extended intelligent robots based on Pan which included lab assistants, cleaning robots, housekeeping robots and nanobots. As a result, the Lab had made the most money since its establishment and finally had the funds to repair all the facilities damaged by the mob.

    People were amazed at the huge changes in their lives brought about by the artificial intelligence that they had rejected for so long. They no longer needed to do monotonous trivial chores and could concentrate on their work and rest; they no longer need to mobilise hundreds of people in the early morning to clear the snow from the main road that was dozens of centimetres thick, no need to manually compare complex genomes, and many intractable diseases that were difficult to treat with surgery, such as brain tumours and Alzheimer's disease, were at the dawn of being cured after having nanobots.

    Fernandez rushed into Zhang Xun's office and excitedly shoved the financial statement in front of Zhang Xun, "I can't believe it! We've made a fortune!"

    Zhang Xun rolled his eyes, "Are you short of money?"

    "Please! Isn't more money better?!" Fernandez stretched out his arms to show his new custom-made uniform and put on a few poses that he thought made him look handsome but were actually disturbing, "I haven’t bought any clothes for half a year! I'm going to wear this outfit to go fishing for handsome guys in the club tonight!"

    "You're wearing a mechanic's uniform to 'fish for handsome guys'?" Zhang Xun almost thought he was out of his mind. Although Fernandez had always been a bit crazy...

    Fernandez sat on his desk with a look of sympathy, "Zhang Xun, you’re becoming behind the times by keeping yourself in the lab all day. Don't you know there’s a saying now? Smart is the new sexy(1)! Just put on a mechanic uniform and the effect is as amazing as speaking in a pure British accent(2).” (Author Note 1: Smart is the new sexy, from The Big Bang Theory; Note 2: Having a British accent is considered attractive in North America)

    Zhang Xun felt like he was probably getting really old and didn't expect he would live to see the day when being a mechanic became a popular profession...

    Fernandez showed Zhang Xun his characteristic, Italian-style, charismatic smile, "I say, brother, you shouldn’t just hide here with Adam all day long. Adam has been a man for a year now and he hasn't experienced much of the joy of being a man. You two didn't even take a break over Christmas. If he’s stuck at home with a workaholic like you all day, what will you do if he doesn't want to be a human anymore?"

    Zhang Xun sighed and looked up from the architecture diagram, "Then what advice do you have?"

    "Tonight, a few of us mechanics are going to 'Dionysus' for the countdown, will you two come with us?"

    After listening, Zhang Xun refused reflexively, "No. It's too dangerous there. Did you forget what happened the last time I took Adam there?"

    "Please, times have changed. Adam wasn't the hero of Lost Paradise at that time. Besides, who can beat Adam now..."

    Zhang Xun frowned, leaning back in the chair, "Aren't there any other, healthier, activities?"

    "Healthy activities? Do you mean hiking in the wild or going figure skating on the Lost Lake? Then coming back and having a low-carb, low-sugar dinner, drinking some wolfberry tea and putting on a facemask before going to bed?" Fernandez teased with a snarky tone.

   ...It seemed that it was difficult to find any healthy activities in Lost Paradise...

    Zhang Xun mentioned it to Adam uncertainly and asked him if he wanted to participate in the New Year's countdown.

    Adam hesitated for a while, as if he was also worried because of the situation he encountered at Dionysus last time, but soon after he nodded briskly, "Yes, I want to go!"

    "Are you sure? You’re not scared?"

    "Ah-Xun, I believe a few violent sociopaths are far less scary than Eden. Adam raised his metal arms, "and now I have the ability to protect the two of us."

    So in the end, a few hours later, the night engulfed the land early and Zhang Xun and Adam followed a strange group of mechanics and hunters, including Fernandez and James, and stepped through the bizarre doors of Dionysus. The dance floor was a dreamy interplay of light and shadow, and the music was deafening. Half of the men were well-dressed and gorgeous, competing for beauty, and the other half were tall, strong, handsome men who exuded a strong masculine charm. The smell of alcohol and perfume spread in the air, and the temperature rose without the need for heating.

    Amidst the deafening music they found a soft seating area that hadn’t been taken yet. Several of the soldiers went up and ordered tequila shots for the table, plus a standard bottle of beer per person. Zhang Xun quietly pushed Adam's shot away. He didn't want to drag a humanoid computer that was spouting AI language all the way back to the Lab...

    They hadn’t even been sitting for a few minutes when six or seven excited young people were already running over, looking for Adam to sign things and take photos with. Zhang Xun looked at Adam with some uneasiness as he showed his innocent smile that was enough to lower anyone’s guard and dutifully fulfilled the requests of the "fans" without any expression of impatience. Obviously, the attitude towards artificial intelligence was now very different from last time and more and more people surrounded him, all wanting to lay eyes on the saviour of Lost Paradise. And Adam's handsome appearance was clearly a 1, so the 0s had a feast, and the enthusiasm of the crowd could literally be visualised as steaming tentacles.

    A few of the soldiers were the first to become impatient and began to chase people away. However, there were still some handsome and beautiful men who were reluctant to leave that easily and were competing to invite Adam to drink and dance.

    Zhang Xun was sitting to the side, trying to hide his unhappiness and drank a few mouthfuls of the mojito in his hand.

    A young soldier named Victor, who was sitting across from him, seemed to have joined James' hunting group recently and had been watching Zhang Xun and Adam curiously. At this moment, he suddenly leaned forward and said with a smile, "Is it hard dating a celebrity?"

    Zhang Xun realised that this was directed to himself and said at a loss, "You mean me and Adam? We're not dating."

    "Come on." Fernandez rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, almost turning them over, "You two are sleeping together but 'not dating'?..."

    James spat out his drink, "What?!"

    Zhang Xun felt his face burning, "We just...sleep in the same room!"

    "In the same bed?" Another soldier asked teasingly.

    Zhang Xun: "..."

    James was speechless, Fernandez was still adding fuel to the fire, "Don't tell me you two just 'sleep innocently in the same bed and do nothing.’..."

    When these words came out of Fernandez's mouth, Zhang Xun himself was in disbelief.

    "But...it’s really true..." He denied uncomfortably, his face suddenly sullen, "Besides, this is my personal business!"

    "Ah-Xun! Why didn't you tell me?!" James couldn't believe it.

    Zhang Xun could feel his head hurting. Just as he was about to say something, he suddenly heard Adam's voice close to his ear, "Are you feeling unwell, Ah-Xun? Why is your face so red?"

    Zhang Xun was startled and turned around, staring at him, "When did you come back?"

    Adam tilted his head slightly towards a group of young people who were still standing in the distance peeking over at him and said, "They wanted to invite me for a drink, but I refused. I told them that I would keep you company."

    The group of men opposite began to whistle and Fernandez shouted, "I can’t watch! Someone is blatantly throwing dog food!"

    Adam seemed unable to comprehend the group’s reaction and asked innocently, "What is throwing dog food? We don't have a dog, only a robot cat, but it doesn't need to eat cat food."

    Zhang Xun wanted to find a hole to crawl into. At this time, a relatively quiet and introverted soldier was going to the bar to order some more beer. Zhang Xun hurriedly volunteered to help, so as to break free from the group of men who couldn’t stop gossipping.

    After Zhang Xun left, Fernandez and the other two also went off hunting. James suddenly turned his head, stared deeply at Adam and said in a low voice with a slight threat, "You better not break his heart."

    Adam picked up his glass and turned his head, meeting James' eyes calmly.

    James narrowed his eyes slightly, as if he wanted to see through the transcendent exterior of this artificial intelligence, "Ah-Xun has never had feelings for anyone. If you dare to hurt him, I won’t let you off."

    Adam slightly raised the corner of his mouth, looking at him kindly and sincerely, "Is this being said as a brother, or as a rival in love?"

    James was stunned for a moment and frowned, "Don't talk nonsense. Ah-Xun and I are brothers who grew up together."

    “You hide it well, although I don't know why you hide it. If you didn't change boyfriends one after the other, if you confessed earlier, pursued him earlier, let him know that he is actually loved and desired….. I fear I wouldn't necessarily be sitting here right now." Adam was half-smiling, but there seemed to be a bit of coldness in his eyes.

    There was a sudden explosion in James' mind. In this moment, Adam had lost some kind of innocent disguise. From the cracks in his supposedly angelic smile, there was a faint hint of demonic aura.

    "We're brothers! I've never thought about Ah-Xun that way!"

    Adam chuckled and took a sip of the mojito that Zhang Xun had just been drinking, "Why haven’t you expressed it? Do you think he isn’t good enough for you? Because he's a nerd? Or because he doesn't look as good as your countless ex-boyfriends?"

    James glared at Adam, the glass in his hand almost cracking, "If you dare to keep talking nonsense, I'll break your white teeth right now."

    "Oh, I see." Adam tilted his head slightly, observing his expression carefully, "You think you're not worthy of Ah-Xun. You're afraid that if you're rejected, you won't even be friends anymore."

    James slammed the cup on the table and grabbed Adam by the collar, causing the people nearby to look at them.

    "What are you doing?!" When Zhang Xun followed the other soldier back, he saw the scene of swords being drawn and his eyes widened in astonishment.

    Was James going to beat up Adam?

    James quickly loosened his grip on Adam's collar, but his face was as black as soot. He grabbed his glass and without saying a word walked past Zhang Xun and went to the bar. Zhang Xun looked in James' direction and asked Adam hesitantly, "What happened with you two?"

    "He's worried about you." Adam sighed with a bit of self-reproach, "He warned me not to hurt you."

    Zhang Xun didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, "Huh?"

    "Ah-Xun, let's go dance." Adam suddenly changed the subject, stood up and grabbed Zhang Xun's arm.

    Zhang Xun panicked, "I don’t know how!"

    "It doesn't matter, I just observed carefully and not many people here can." Because the music was too loud, Adam leaned into his ear and his warm breath blew past it, "According to my analysis, dancing here is not the point. The point is to make yourself happy. You deserve to be happy, Ah-Xun."

    That was Zhang Xun's first attempt to "dance" among a half-drunk crowd. This supposed dancing was actually just jumping along with the music. He couldn't let go at first, but the effect of the alcohol gradually increased and with Adam in front of him, those gentle blue eyes seemed to be constantly hypnotising him. He gradually felt safe, gradually smiled and let something go.

    The closer it got to midnight, the more enthusiastic the crowd grew. Zhang Xun couldn't hear the DJ shouting loudly on the stage. He felt like he was in a wild, free, slightly drunk but feel good state. No one was watching him, no one was judging his achievements, no one was laughing at him. There was only this mechanical hybrid person in front of him who was created by him, but now gave him an inexplicable sense of security. In front of Adam, he always seemed to be more open.

    The countdown started, Zhang Xun and Adam followed everyone and shouted loudly: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one..."

    When the New Year's bell rang overhead, the crowd boiled and Adam put his arms around Zhang Xun's waist, bowed his head and kissed Zhang Xun's welcoming lips.

    It wasn't their first kiss, but it was the first time it came naturally.

    All the feelings and emotions were in the right place. Zhang Xun closed his eyes, as if all his perception was gathered on their touching lips. The crowd around him disappeared, Lost Paradise disappeared, the whole world disappeared. He couldn't hear other sounds, couldn't feel the vibrations in the air. The only thing he could feel was that warm body against his.

    After the kiss, Adam told him seriously, "Ah-Xun, I think I’ve developed love for you. It has been developing since a long time ago.”

    Zhang Xun's heart was beating wildly. If this was the old him, he would have continued to use their relationship as mechanic and work product to shrug it off and push it away. After all, he had always been suspicious of all the warmth Adam displayed as being just a disguise for survival.

    But now, he was starting to feel tired and he didn't want to continue to violate his inner desires and deliberately ignore what he wanted. Everything was getting better, maybe he could be happy.

    He deserved to be happy.

    So Zhang Xun said in a hoarse voice, "Maybe... me too."

 

Chapter 68 The Antidote to Human Nature (6)

     Zhang Xun’s mood was better than ever before.

    Although he wouldn’t be able to sit down comfortably for the whole day, when he recalled last night, he felt his cheeks get hot and his mouth unconsciously wanted to smile.

    His relationship with Adam was finally settled with the New Year's bell and those unresolved temptations finally had a happy ending. Zhang Xun felt a sense of happiness that was almost liberating, as if he had escaped the tight bondage of Lost Paradise and his soul had flown to a high place, soaring among the stars in the universe.

    He pulled up his collar and smiled at everyone who greeted him, even though he was apparently late because he had stayed up too late last night. Everyone was accustomed to his usual, indifferent response and they all felt like the sun was rising from the west, they were bewildered and secretly discussed what could have happened.

    While instructing three young researchers, who had newly joined the Lab, on how to adjust the parameters of a malfunctioning cleaning robot, he was suddenly tapped on the shoulder. When he turned his head he saw Adam standing behind him, with a smile that was doting enough to melt his heart. He shoved a cup of unsweetened coffee with two milks into Zhang Xun's hand, then gave him a quick kiss on the lips before turning to leave. Zhang Xun looked down and saw that drawn on the coffee cup was a small robot making a heart shape with its hands.

    With a clatter, a researcher dropped the tablet in his hands to the floor.

    At lunch time, as soon as Zhang Xun entered the cafeteria he saw Adam waving warmly at him. He had already prepared meals for him and it was all things he liked to eat. Then, after helping a mechanic solve a technical problem, he returned to his office and saw a cup of hot tea on the table plus a small robot made of parts holding a sign that said "Ah-Xun is the best". In the afternoon, Zhang Xun lay on his desk taking a nap and Adam watched over him from the door, not allowing anyone in, so as not to disturb his mechanic's sleep.

    From that day on, Adam completely let go, sowing excessive and sweet affection towards Zhang Xun non stop. The whole of the Lab was dazed by the dog food that was flying all over... All the mechanics said: It’s better to make your own artificial intelligence rather than go looking for a boyfriend.

    After the new year, the date for the new round of mechanic assessments was getting closer and closer. He didn't know if it was because of Adam being there, but the number of researchers who signed up for the assessment this year had doubled compared to previous years. After discussing with Fernandez, Zhang Xun decided to increase the number of mechanics, but at the same time slightly increase the difficulty of the assessment. While they were discussing, he suddenly saw Fernandez roll his eyes and point to the glass window on his left.

    He saw Adam's face sticking to the glass window and waving to him forcefully.

    Zhang Xun blocked his vision with his hand and pretended to see nothing.

    "Say, can’t you make Adam calm down a bit?" Fernandez complained, "For you, a Lab supervisor, to be lovey dovey all day at work, it’s not a good example to set."

    "I already told him..." Zhang Xun sighed, "This is already a state of compromise."

    "Would you say AI's special 'interest' for administrators is a design error? Or is it a strategic behaviour of the AI to preserve itself?" Fernandez touched his chin with his hand and looked at the list of candidate exam questions in front of him, "I think this could make a good essay question."

    Zhang Xun was silent for a moment, then asked, "Do you think this 'special interest' would only occur towards administrators?"

    "Who else? It's not just Adam, Pan seems that way too. Everyone knows that no one can speak ill of you in the lab."

    "..." Did this mean they would speak ill of him outside the Lab? Zhang Xun raised his eyebrows.

    Fernandez quickly cleared his throat, "I'm not just talking about Adam. Pan obviously treats you differently than others. Last time when the mob attacked Lab, didn't Pan try to protect you without authorization?"

    Special care for administrators was good for the "survival" of artificial intelligence. After all, only administrators had access to their core modules and could modify or even delete them at will.

    Zhang Xun pursed his lips, feeling a little unhappy, "If it wasn’t a design problem, but some kind of self-protection mechanism evolved by artificial intelligence, it would be easy to test just by changing the administrator."

    Fernandez heard some gloomy danger in Zhang Xun's tone and he said quickly, "Don't, don't mess around. With mature artificial intelligence like Pan and Adam, if it didn’t work out it might make a big mess!”

    Although this topic passed by, the possibility Fernandez proposed lingered in Zhang Xun's mind for a long time.

    He believed that Adam's love for him was real, but what was the cause of this realness? Just like how a person’s feeling of love for another human being wasn’t just so-called fate, it was mostly because the other person would have a certain quality that was similar to their parents or someone who looked like a parent to them. For example, have similar hormone smell, have similar facial contours, or have a similar personality.

    Adam had probably developed love for him because he was his administrator and held the power of life and death over him. In this situation, it would be very beneficial for him to let himself fall in love with him.

    Based on the nature of humans to like interactions, the chances of getting the administrator's reciprocation would greatly increase by letting yourself fall in love with the administrator first.

    All of this didn't have to be meticulously planned, it was most likely some kind of artificial intelligence-like instinct.

    Such thoughts were disturbing and there was also a faint... sadness, deep in Zhang Xun's heart. He knew that it was pointless to dwell on it, but emotionally, he still felt a little... unwilling.

    He hoped that Adam had fallen in love with him because of who he was... who wouldn't hope for that?

    Who would want their lover to be with them because of money, because of fame, because of power, or because of survival?

    Zhang Xun looked in the mirror in the bathroom, took a deep breath and tried to adjust his mood. It's okay, he told himself, as long as he was the administrator, Adam would always love him and listen to him the way he did now. He didn't need to worry about things that were unlikely to happen.

    He washed his face with cold water and when he came out, he saw Adam standing outside the door waiting for him. Alloy was crouching on the blonde man's shoulders, wagging his tail lazily.

    "Ah-Xun! I’ve got something to show you!" Adam put his arm around Zhang Xun's shoulders and dragged him to the research room used by just the two of them.

    Since having Pan's extension robots, the desk that was always messy and piled up with all kinds of parts, equipment, tools and documents, had become well-organised. No matter what Zhang Xun needed, he just had to say a word and the assistant was always on call in the room and the research robot would quickly use one of its dozen or so arms to deliver something to Zhang Xun.

    Adam pulled Zhang Xun to a translucent, rectangular container, which contained about 500 millilitres of blue liquid.

    "Nanobots?" Zhang Xun asked in confusion, "What about it?"

    "Look." Adam put his hand above the container and made a gesture of lifting up.

    He saw the liquid in the container suddenly stir up, forming a semi-gel-like substance, which rose up with Adam's gesture. When Adam's gestures changed, so did they and there was a certain graceful and precise lifelike light flowing through the blue liquid, dancing with Adam's movements.

    Zhang Xun never thought that nanobots could make these actions in a macroscopic state?

    "I upgraded our robots, modified their mutation constants and introduced some new variables. After several generations of evolutionary development, I successfully cultivated a 'community'." Adam pointed to the blue that was still shaking slightly. "Previously, nanobots could only operate at the nanometer level. Although they can bring us technological breakthroughs in many ways, they lack the ability to influence the surrounding environment. Now, they’re more like ant colonies, even surpassing ant colonies. Each nanobot can move independently, or cooperate with all other nanobots to operate at the macro level. It's like..."

    "Like the cells in the human body, but with even stronger mobility?" Zhang Xun didn't seem too happy, but frowned, "Then what is their central control? Or should I ask, is there a central control?"

    "Of course there is, otherwise it would go out of control too easily." Adam pointed to the expansion robot on standby, "Pan is their central neural network. Strictly speaking, they are also Pan's expansion robots."

    Zhang Xun was secretly alarmed. He raised his head and said, "Pan, I don't remember expanding your controls at the nanometer level."

    Pan's magnetic voice sounded, "Sorry, should I delete the relevant database?"

    Adam opened his big blue eyes, somewhat innocently and said, "Ah-Xun, I inputted the data of our previous research on nanobots into it."

    Zhang Xun's face became unhappy and his voice became severe, "Why didn't you discuss such an important matter with me first??"

    If Adam had dog ears on his head, they would be drooping down by now.

    In fact, Adam's improvement of the nanobots was very good. Zhang Xun had thought of countless cases where such technology could be applied in reality. Most importantly, the nanobots were small enough to infiltrate the most sophisticated instruments. That is, if Eden, or any other nation, tried to destroy Lost Paradise, these robots could act autonomously, infiltrating all the machinery and weapons of the enemy, dismantling the enemy from within. They could even lurk in certain machines, allowing them to bring a "virus" back to Eden, quietly infecting Eden's core modules.

    However, Adam had trained Pan without his permission, which startled him a little.

    "This is indeed a good improvement, but I'm still Pan’s only administrator. If you want to send any data to it, it must be reviewed by me." Zhang Xun stared at Adam seriously and said, "I hope this kind of thing won’t happen again."

    Adam lowered his head guiltily, "I'm sorry, Ah-Xun. I will remember."

    Seeing Adam's disheartened expression, Zhang Xun's heart softened a little. He sighed, took a lid and put it on the container containing the improved version of the nanobots, "As to whether these should be kept and continued...... let me think about it some more."

 

Chapter 69 The Antidote to Human Nature (7)

    Zhang Xun took a bag of mouse food and quietly went down the escape stairs to the third underground floor.

    It was mostly used to store used equipment parts and few people came down here. The air smelled damp and musty and all the rusted instruments were covered with thick dust. There were intricate, metal, drainage pipes hanging overhead and sometimes there was an uproar of water rushing past.

    This was also the only place where Pan's cameras weren’t installed.

    When approaching the area where he kept the mice, Zhang Xun tip toed, hid behind some stacked tin boxes and peeped secretly through a gap between the boxes.

    Three days ago, he accidentally discovered that the mice were aware of the presence of observers and would behave differently than usual when being watched. At that time, he left after giving water and food to the mice, but found that he had left his microscopic mirror in the basement. When he went back to get it, he found that the mice were behaving strangely.

    Some of the larger white mice were at the bottom, with layers upon layers of mice on top. They were building a white, wriggling "pyramid", trying to touch the lid of the tank.

    They were cooperating and trying to escape.

    But as soon as Zhang Xun appeared, they dispersed immediately and returned to their motionless, dull eyes.

    Mice were very smart, but weren’t smart enough to carry out such highly cooperative behaviours...

    Zhang Xun installed a pinhole camera in a place where the mice couldn’t see it, so at any time he could monitor these animals that were obviously undergoing some kind of mutation. It wasn’t obvious on the outside, but after Zhang Xun covertly sent one to the Department of Life Sciences for dissection, the results shocked him.

    The mouse's brain seemed to have an unprecedented growth phenomenon, but it wasn’t like a normal brain tumour. The proliferating tissue was in good condition and could communicate effectively with the rest of the brain.

    Zhang Xun looked at the brain slice displayed on the screen and shuddered.

    The nanobots had been manufactured under his own supervision, but most of the relevant knowledge and data had come from Adam, who was involved throughout the manufacturing process. Apart from himself, who was most likely to do something with the nanobots without him noticing, he didn’t really need to think about it.

    He just wasn't sure whether such "side effects" were intentional or unintentional. The proliferative tissue had clearly had an effect on the behaviour of the mice, but the question was, what was the significance of this effect? The human brain was much more complex, was it immune to such "side effects"? After all, some advanced hospitals in the ordinary world had begun using nanobots. If there was a problem, it should have already manifested, right?

    Or, was it precisely because nanobots were being used in the most advanced hospitals to treat diseases important people, so even if there were side effects, the news would be controlled and blocked.

    Zhang Xun didn't tell the professor who did the dissection for him. He returned to the Lab as usual and accepted Adam's kiss on his lips as usual. When the two were having dinner together, Adam showed Zhang Xun a video of Alloy fighting with a mechanic's pet dog and Zhang Xun smiled appropriately.

    Adam suddenly turned his head slightly to look at him, "By the way, where have you been today? I couldn't find you anywhere."

    Zhang Xun said, "James asked me to go and watch his fighting match."

    The smile on Adam's face diminished slightly and his brows were slightly wrinkled, showing a clearly displeased look. That look made Zhang Xun feel uneasy, "What's wrong?"

    "Don’t go out with him alone in the future." Adam said bluntly, "If you want to go out with him you have to let me go with you."

    Zhang Xun was confused, "Ah? Why?"

    "I would be jealous."

    Zhang Xun opened his mouth slightly and was stunned for a few seconds, "You’re jealous of... James?"

    "I am jealous of all the male and female human beings of the right age who could have a romantic relationship with you." Adam said righteously, "This is an additional negative emotion that human beings develop after falling in love, I hope you can cooperate."

    This time, Zhang Xun burst out laughing naturally, without needing to pretend, "Human beings don't usually talk about jealousy so directly. Besides, does that mean I can no longer talk to anyone else other than you?"

    "You can, but when I’m there."

    "Adam... your possessive behaviour is excessive. It's an unhealthy state of mind..." Zhang Xun shook his head, helplessly explaining half-jokingly to Adam, who was staring at him persistently. "I'm in my thirties and you're the only... partner, I’ve ever had. You really don't have to worry about me being taken away, most likely no one would ever fancy me except you.”

    That was if Adam really did "fancy" him, if the relationship between them really wasn’t just based on the artificial intelligence’s inexplicable bond to the administrator.

    "Ah-Xun, you don't have enough awareness of your own charm." Adam took Zhang Xun's hand in both of his, put it to his lips and kissed Zhang Xun's dexterous fingers, his big, blue eyes were full of sincere tenderness, "I think you’re the best human being."

    Zhang Xun looked at that face full of devotion and infatuation, but his heart felt sour.

    That familiar, faint sadness returned. What if they had met under different circumstances, if Adam was an ordinary human being, if there was no Lost Paradise and no Eden?

    He wanted to imitate an ostrich, to bury his head in the sand and throw away all those mice, just act like he didn't know anything and immerse himself in this beautiful dream that Adam had woven for him.

    But now he was back, back in the dark, damp basement, peeping at the mice that would tear apart everything he finally possessed.

    The mice didn't seem to need to communicate as Zhang Xun didn't see them communicating with each other in any obvious way. He crouched down silently and sent out a mechanical mouse.

    A mouse crawling on the far right was the first to notice the mechanical mouse passing on the ground. But in the next second, all the other mice, even the guinea pigs who couldn't see the mechanical mouse at the other end, turned around and gathered towards the right corner. They didn't make any extra moves, their black-spot-like eyes stared directly at what was crawling on the floor.

    Zhang Xun had done this kind of experiment more than once in the past two days and he found that there seemed to be some kind of...spiritual connection between these mice?

    When one mouse saw something important, all the other mice responded. This connected back to the weirdly proliferating mouse brain he saw before...

    Was it the nanobots or the antibodies to the Honey Plague producing these effects?

    Zhang Xun quickly entered his observations into the report document, then quickly browsed the video files in the pinhole camera and cut out the useful clips. He intended to write a report on all possible effects of nanobots on people and secretly give it to his father.

    Zhang Xun hoped that he was overreacting, hoped he was over thinking. Hopefully these side effects wouldn't affect people to the same extent. But... being paranoid was better than being caught off guard.

    He needed to follow up on that Honey Plague patient who had been cured by nanobots before. If the Lab wanted to collect such information in person, it had to go through Pan's extension robots, but Zhang Xun didn't want Pan to know about this. If the military did it, it would be more secure.

    It's just that he had to conceal it from the Round Table at the same time...

    Zhang Xun sighed and in an instant, the mice in the cages who were still gathered to observe the mechanical mice all dispersed and all returned to their motionless appearances. Zhang Xun finished the report quickly, added the food and water, then squatted down and stared carefully into the eyes of a white mouse. He could see something chilling in those two small eyeballs.

    Zhang Xun thought of the nanobots that Adam had improved before that could be manipulated by Pan to move in the macroscopic world... While each robot was an individual, they acted like a single organism that was dominated by a higher consciousness. Absolute order, absolute unity, absolute collectivism.

    Just like the worker bees in a hive, they could sacrifice their lives to protect a "noble" goal, devoting themselves to reproducing and giving an opportunity to descendents to work tirelessly for eternity.

    It was almost a trait that humans admired...

    Zhang Xun took his report and made a random excuse to leave the Lab and go to the Hawaii Sunset Bar. He put a capsule-sized hard drive next to James' glass and whispered, "Give this to my dad when you get a chance. Don't let anyone see it.”

    The stubble on James' chin had grown thicker and his whole demeanour was a little dispirited. He frowned and picked up the capsule, "What's this?"

    "Some information. It's not convenient for me to go to him, he must read it." Zhang Xun stared nervously at James, who realised it was something serious and nodded solemnly.

    Zhang Xun breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank you... I have to go back quickly." He put on his hat and scarf, raised the collar of his coat and covered the lower half of his face.

    "Ah-Xun!" James suddenly tugged at his cuff. Zhang Xun paused and looked at him inquiringly.

    "You have to be careful." James said in a deep voice.

    Zhang Xun nodded, "You too."

    For the next few days, Zhang Xun was so busy with the mechanic's assessment that he didn't even have time to go to the cafeteria to eat. Adam helped him by bringing cooked meals, bringing tea and water and even helped him with other random chores, just like a model boyfriend. He made all the mechanics cry with envy and they threw themselves into artificial intelligence research.

    Whenever he had free time, Zhang Xun’s mind would start wandering. So he tried not to let himself be idle, especially when Adam was around him.

    Adam stuffed a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth while looking at Pan's submission for a frame design for a new blind-spot-free shield system for Lost Paradise. He touched the plate with his hand and found that he had finished everything. He licked his fingers, feeling that he needed to add more sugar to fuel his brain power, so he walked out of Zhang Xun's office to look for snacks while humming a song.

    Today was a rest day and the whole Lab was quiet. When entering the empty kitchen, Pan suddenly said, "Zhang Xun locked the relevant databases and folders of Nanobot 2.0."

    Adam stood in front of the snack vending machine, hesitating about which one to choose and shrugged when he heard Pan's words, "It's my fault, I should have discussed it with him first. Ah-Xun must have his own things to consider."

    "You are right.”

    Adam selected a bag of potato chips and when he lowered his head to pick it up, he suddenly asked casually, "Ah-Xun seems to be going out a lot lately?"

    Pan said, "I don't believe so. Compared with how often he went out before, it does not exceed the average."

    "Really, but I can never find him."

    "Maybe it's because he often goes underground recently."

    "Underground?"

    "Yes, the main function of the second and third basement levels is storage for supplies. My authority is only to the first basement floor. Generally, only those who have been approved by the senior mechanic can enter."

    Adam made a faint ‘oh’ sound and returned to Zhang Xun's office with brisk steps.

 

Chapter 70 The Antidote to Human Nature (8)

   As soon as dawn broke, Zhang Xun woke up from the single bed in his small apartment that had not been touched for nearly a year. The fire in the fireplace was out and the air still had a faint smell of pine rosin. He felt a pain in his head and a dry throat. He drank the water on the bedside table in one gulp, turned on the lamp and entered the bathroom like a zombie to take a shower. The face that appeared in the mirror was thin and haggard, he had heavy bags under his eyes, his eyes were bloodshot and his chin was covered with blue stubble.

    He sighed, picked up the razor, shaved his chin and patted his cheeks hard so that he wouldn't look too frightening.

    In the past two days, he had moved out of the Lab under the pretext of concentrating on reviewing the papers of the researchers participating in the mechanic assessment. He still went to the Lab to see Adam during the day, but would return to his apartment after ten o'clock. It's just that he wasn’t reviewing the papers and instead spent the nights studying the investigation report on recovered Honey Plague patients submitted to him by Zhang Shuo through James.

    For more than a month, Zhang Shuo had asked his trusted soldiers to take the questionnaire that Zhang Xun had attached to the report, and inquire door-to-door. However, due to the urgency of time and limited manpower, the survey results were very scattered and there was no one responsible for organising it all. The information obtained was huge and complex and Zhang Xun had to read it page by page by himself. For the past few days, Zhang Xun was only able to sleep for three hours a night and during the day he had to try his best not to be suspicious. By now, he was exhausted.

    But today was extremely important, he had to keep his head clear. He boiled a large pot of coffee for himself, poured it down his throat like drinking water, stuffed some dry bread into his stomach, then put on a heavy coat, hat, scarf and gloves and opened the door.

    The twilight hadn’t completely faded in the dark blue sky and the light from the rising sun from the east was lightly scattered on the sloping eaves. Zhang Xun breathed in the cold air, squinting at the sun and suddenly remembered the scene of Adam waving his wings, facing the rising sun and rushing to the sky on the Harvest Festival.

    At that time, he was really happy, happy like never before.

    All good things come to an end, he thought inexplicably.

    His heart felt like it was was twisted violently by an invisible hand.

    Zhang Xun took a deep breath, suppressed the surging emotions in his chest and continued to trudge along the bad road that was half melting and half icy. In order to avoid all of Pan's extended sweeping robots, he had to take some long detours.

    At such an early hour, even those who were the first to go to work had not yet left their houses. The narrow and winding streets were empty and all the grey and old buildings seemed to have not woken up. Zhang Xun made his way through the cobwebs of alleyways and finally stopped in front of a precarious, cheap apartment building on the outskirts of the Third District. The wooden structure was wonky and covered with traces of erosion by wind, frost and the years. Some windows were even shattered and hadn’t been properly repaired, only covered with heat-insulating fabrics, rustling and flapping in the cold wind.

    The corridor was so narrow that one had to turn sideways to pass and it was full of old furniture and debris. There was a particular rancid smell in the air, like rotten vegetable leaves, which Zhang Xun had never smelled before.

    This place was located at the junction of the Third District and the Second District and was a place where the poor lived. As a member of the privileged class, Zhang Xun has hardly set foot here. He thought his own apartment was small enough, but when he saw the front door the size of a wardrobe door and the distance between the doors, he could guess that the space inside would not exceed three square metres, but often three to six people would be squeezed into that space.

    Zhang Xun heard that due to the limited land resources in Lost Paradise, many old apartments had to be divided into several smaller rooms and then rented out to different families. Buildings that had been converted in this way were full of safety hazards and no one would be able to escape if it caught fire.

    But there was no choice, people needed somewhere to live.

    He knocked on the door of a house hung with mistletoe and a moment later the bloodless face of a man about his age appeared in the crack of the door.

    "Hello. I was in contact with you before..."

    "Are you Zhang Xun?" The man looked at him with a kind of amazement, with a sincere smile on his face and opened the door as he spoke, " Come in!"

    Zhang Xun then squeezed into the small room full of daily necessities. It could be seen that the owner of the house had made the most of his talent for finding storage in a limited space, and that there was a lot of stuff but it was very orderly and cleanly maintained. Even so, the smell was still strong.

    Zhang Xun took off his hat and gloves and the man named Lucas took them eagerly, hung them on the hanger behind the door and enthusiastically led Zhang Xun to a faded, printed sofa, "You’re our great benefactor! I don't have any good tea here, don't hold it against me!" The man hurriedly went to the small stove next to him, lifted the steaming kettle and said while pouring, "I always wanted to thank you in person, and Adam, but you have saved so many people, you must not miss us two little people."

    "We only did what we should." Zhang Xun said uneasily, "Please don't trouble yourself, I just came here to find out some things. Your partner... Kevin, isn’t it? How is he doing recently?"

    Lucas handed the teacup to Zhang Xun and sat on the opposite chair, his eyes shining with happiness, "He’s fine, even better than before he got sick. You may not know, he actually had a problem with alcohol before he got infected and sometimes...he would drink too much and his temper would become very grumpy, but after being cured, he never touched another drop of alcohol.”

    Zhang Xun nodded, "Besides that, has he had any other changes?" "

    “There are some, but they’re all good changes. I can't believe it. He seems to be very... calm now. Sometimes he even helps me with housework. He even quit smoking and doesn't go out at night to hang out with those bastards... It seems that your antidote not only cured the plague, but also cured all other ailments." Lucas said, smiling a little embarrassedly, "The only thing that is a little strange is that sometimes he will say things that I don't understand."

    "Things you don’t understand?" Zhang Xun continued to ask, "Can you be more specific?"

    "Let him tell you himself, he should be up already." Lucas said, then stood up, opened the curtain and entered the back room where only a bed could fit. Not long after, another older, taller, bearded man came out.

    If he came across a person with such an appearance on the street, Zhang Xun would probably avoid him on purpose. After all, he looked too much like a gangster...

    What slightly contradicted his rough appearance was the generous smile he showed to Zhang Xun. He held Zhang Xun's hand apologetically, "I'm sorry, I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I've kept you waiting for a long time."

    "It's okay, I've only just arrived." Zhang Xun looked at Kevin's appearance carefully. There was no trace of being infected with the plague at all. As Lucas said, there was something strange and transcendent in Kevin's expression, not like the expression of a person working in an artificial butcher shop.

    As soon as Kevin sat down, he started gushing about how grateful he was to Zhang Xun and Adam for saving his life and changing his life. However, his words made Zhang Xun feel more and more panicked as he listened.

    "You said...you feel like you've been reborn. Can you be specific about how that feels?"

    Kevin paused for a moment, as if trying to sort out his words, then said, "Since my recovery, I feel like I’ve been…. opened. Before, I didn't even know that I'd been a closed-minded, impulsive bastard, I'd been living in a box. But now, I feel like I'm out of that box. I sometimes even feel like I can feel something, something bigger than all of us, floating above my head. Sometimes that thing is unsettling, but most of the time it makes me… more peaceful."

    "And what about those dreams you’ve had? You said you have to sleep more than eight hours a day now?"

    "Yes. Those dreams feel a little like floating in the clouds. I feel like there are a lot of people around, I can't see them, but I can see the things in their heads, so many things. It's not accurate to say I can see it, it's more like...feeling, but it's all scattered and confusing, I don't quite understand what those dreams mean." Kevin shrugged, "But I like those dreams, after waking up I’m always in good spirits."

    Kevin's tone was calm and serene, almost like that of devout religious believers, but according to Zhang Xun's information about Kevin's life, it was impossible for him to have such a temper.

    Kevin went to prison twice for intentionally wounding someone and he had a tendency to become violent after drinking alcohol. Now, his personality had undergone a major change. It's just that this kind of change was what people around him wanted, so no one would report it to the investigation.

    "I heard from Lucas, you used to be a heavy drinker, but you haven't touched alcohol since you recovered? Did you deliberately quit?" Zhang Xun asked.

    Kevin shrugged casually, "Drinking isn’t good for my health and my liver is bad, so I don't drink."

    "It was that simple? Quitting alcohol is a very difficult thing for many people, you have no withdrawal symptoms?"

    "No, I just don't want to drink, so I don't drink."

    Zhang Xun nodded and forced a smile, "I'm happy for you both."

    After coming out of Lucas's house, Zhang Xun kept his head low and walked alone on the road. He felt that the surging emotions in his chest were unable to be suppressed and his body was shaking slightly, but it wasn’t because of the cold.

    By now, it was impossible for him to continue lying to himself.

    This was by no means a normal "side effect"... According to the several patients he visited, they all had obvious personality changes to a certain extent and mentioned having dreams that seemed to be in the clouds.

    All became lethargic and had to sleep more than eight hours a day.

    It was certain, something was changing their brain structure, eliminating all the "viruses", not just the Honey Plague virus...

    Such changes may be considered good in the short term, a "magic medicine" that could cure the ugliness of human nature.

    But what were the things that were eliminated by it? Was it really only those ugly things on the surface? Many human traits were not as simple as good or bad, but had complex evolutionary mechanisms. After all the weaknesses of human nature were eliminated, what would be left?

    And such a dangerous "antidote to human nature" had been developed with his own help.

    Zhang Xun stopped abruptly and put his hand on the wall to support himself. He felt dizzy and slightly nauseous. A sour feeling rushed to his nose and eyes.

    He had been wrong to believe after all.

 

---

 This is talking about Michael Fassbender, who played David 8 in the Alien/Prometheus movies.

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