Chapter 8: Chapter 71 – 80

Chapter 71 - The Antidote to Human Nature (9)

    When Zhang Xun came back to his senses, he found himself standing at the door of the Lab.

    He couldn't remember how he got all the way here and his mind seemed to be crowded with a lot of things, yet it also seemed to be empty. He felt as though something had shattered in his gut, leaving a dark hole that was consuming all his power.

    The mechanics and researchers who saw him along the way greeted him eagerly, but they were all startled the moment they saw his haggard appearance. Pan opened the door for him and said in a familiar tone, "Good morning, Zhang Xun."

    Immediately after another voice sounded, like a breeze in a forest.

    "Ah-Xun!"

    Zhang Xun felt a sudden lurch in his stomach and the pain made the muscles on his face go out of control. He breathed hard, counted one, two, three and put the smile back on his face. He turned his head, only to bump into a large bunch of fragrant roses.

    "Happy Valentine's Day!" Adam's radiant smile appeared behind the roses and bright anticipation flashed in his blue eyes, as if he was waiting to see the surprise on Zhang Xun's face.

    Zhang Xun was stunned for a while, trying to make a surprised expression, but he was unable to do so. As he took the flowers, he said apologetically, "I’ve been so busy that I forgot it’s already February 14th today."

    Adam hugged Zhang Xun, bowed his head and kissed him deeply on the lips. The surrounding mechanics all looked elsewhere as if they hadn’t seen anything, although this kind of thing was already commonplace.

    Zhang Xun accepted the kiss, but felt that this kiss was bitter. Even after it was over, the bitter taste continued to spread, deep into his throat and into his internal organs.

    Adam stared at his face and gently stroked his cheek with his hand, with a worried and concerned expression on his face, "Ah-Xun, did you not sleep well yesterday? Your complexion is getting worse and worse, you’ll get sick if you continue this way."

    Zhang Xun looked down at his chest and said softly, "I really do need a good rest."

    "Don't work today, let's go out and relax." Adam whispered in his ear, "I've already asked Fernandez for the time off, I'll be with you all day today."

    Zhang Xun looked at him with some confusion and then his eyes curved, "Okay."

    Adam seemed to have already planned this day in advance. As soon as he walked out of the Lab's door, he conjured up two tickets for a classical opera in the King's Theatre in the Fourth District, a very old but classic play, "Carmen". Zhang Xun had always liked to watch classical operas or musicals, but the literature and art of Lost Paradise hadn't developed much and the few theatre companies that did exist charged fees so high that only the privileged could afford it. Before the god descent plan, Zhang Xun was only a poor mechanic, so he never had the opportunity to go.

    Zhang Xun must have merely made a casual remark to Adam previously, which even he himself didn’t remember, but Adam took it to heart.

    Maybe that was the advantage of AI, they wouldn't forget anything you said to them.

    Adam had reserved a balcony box on the second floor, which only had two chairs, a tea table and a lot of snacks and wine. After Zhang Xun took his seat, he noticed that the Sixth and First Chiefs were sitting diagonally opposite. In addition to this, there were many other members of parliament and officers that he had met... All of them wearing bright and beautiful formal wear, accompanied by their partners and holding amber champagne in their hands. Their postures were elegant and noble, as if they were English aristocrats who had walked straight out of the Victorian times.

    A lot of eyes gathered in his and Adam's direction, presumably not expecting to see the two of them in such a place. Especially the Sixth Chief, his snake-like eyes looked at them unabashedly.

    Zhang Xun felt a little uncomfortable.

    "Don't worry about them." Adam whispered softly in his ear and squeezed his hand. Then he grabbed an orange, carefully peeled it and gave Zhang Xun half of it.

    Not long after, the opera officially began. "Carmen" told the story of Carmen, a gypsy girl with all kinds of charm and a fiery personality. She used her unparalleled charm to seduce the honest and ignorant Sergeant José, but after getting him, she falls in love with a young bullfighter. José, who has lost everything for her, pleads with her not to betray him, only to be met with a cold rejection. With nothing left to lose and in despair, José kills Carmen and turns himself in.

    When they were watching the final scene of the fourth act, Zhang Xun suddenly felt a finger brush his cheek.

    "Why are you crying?" Adam teased with a chuckle, "Are you too absorbed in the play?"

    It was then that Zhang Xun realised that he had long since burst into tears when he saw the scene in which José plunged the dagger into Carmen's chest. He wiped away his tears with the palm of his hand and laughed to himself, "Yes, too absorbed in the drama."

    "If you like it, we can watch every new show in the future." Adam gently wiped the water stains from his cheeks. His eyes were as gentle as the moonlight, "Watching these operas live is indeed very different from playing them in your head."

    "Okay." Zhang Xun nodded and looked at Adam seriously, "Let's watch them together in the future."

    While the actors were doing the curtain call, Zhang Xun took Adam and they left quietly first. He didn't want to deal with the Sixth Chief at this time.

    Zhang Xun was already very tired, just dealing with Adam alone already required him to concentrate and do his best.

    Adam's schedule for the rest of the day was apparently based on data he had collected on human courtship activities. After the opera, he took Zhang Xun to a French restaurant that played lazy jazz. The restaurant was very busy that night with lots of couples coming out for the holiday.

    After all, there weren’t many holidays left in Lost Paradise that were still in sync with the ordinary world. People wanted to take any opportunity to celebrate some of life’s few remaining blessings.

    Zhang Xun really had no appetite, but he still dutifully ate all the dishes on the plate. He tried to cheer himself up and many times his laughter was actually genuine.

    He kept looking at Adam intently, as if trying to memorise every subtle curve of Adam's face.

    The final activity of the evening was watching the stars from the clock tower in Victoria Square.

    Adam had prepared enough coats to wrap the two of them tightly. Adam's arms were also exuding a suitable amount of heat while holding Zhang Xun. There was no light pollution in the city and when the two of them raised their heads, they could see a galaxy shining like diamonds, traversing the entire black velvet sky.

    The light of the stars fell into their eyes across thousands of years. Perhaps those stars that emitted or reflected the light had already died and they wouldn’t be able to observe this until many years later.

    Adam suddenly stretched out his hand and pointed to the stars at a certain point in the sky, "One day, we will go there."

    Zhang Xun chuckled, "You want to go to the stars?"

    "Yes. Earth's resources are limited and sooner or later they will be exhausted. We must find a new home for the descendants of mankind." Adam said, turning his head, the starlight dancing in his blue eyes, "Besides, the universe is so big, don’t you think living on only one star for a lifetime is a pity?"

    Zhang Xun looked into those eyes, feeling like he was almost intoxicated.

    "I may not live to that time." Zhang Xun said softly.

    "No, you will live, you will always be with me." Adam told him seriously, "I will find a way to lift the last curse of mankind."

    The last curse, death?

    Lift it how? If humans didn't die, it would cause extremely serious problems, the population would explode, resources would be exhausted, there would be endless wars and conflicts...

    And, what did it mean to live forever? Could humans really bear it? Could the hardware of the human brain support so much data input?

    In any case, this had been a very full day for Zhang Xun. Adam had planned every step just right and didn't need to worry about anything.

    Adam wanted to make Zhang Xun happy.

    Later, Adam leaned on Zhang Xun's shoulder and fell asleep. Zhang Xun continued to stare at the endlessly spreading stars above his head with wide eyes, but his eyes were empty, unable to reflect any light. His breathing was shaking and the tears that spilled from the corners of his eyes were dried by the wind.

    He raised his arm and activated the control panel for the standby unit on Adam's forehead.

    Taking one last look at Adam's peaceful, heart-melting, sleeping face, he placed a kiss on Adam's forehead. Then, he entered the key for the standby program.

    Adam's body softened, losing its support and fell into his arms.

    Zhang Xun felt a sharp pain in his chest and he hugged Adam, his lips trembling.

    Now Adam was defenceless, if he just took out the folding knife he had hidden in his pocket and stabbed it in Adam's heart, it would all be over.

    He took the knife out and pressed the button. The cold colour of the metal made his throat tighten. He stared at the knife in his hand, unable to stab the knife no matter what.

    He had to do it.

    Adam didn’t see what he was doing as destroying mankind; he might even have thought that he was helping mankind, freeing them from the bondage of nature and irrationality, and was giving them freedom and happiness.

    All he had done was identify the problem and figured out a way to solve it.

    Zhang Xun realised that his god descent plan hadn’t been a success at all, it just gave an artificial intelligence more interfaces to receive data. He thought that letting Adam perceive the same feelings and instinctual experiences as people would allow Adam to understand human feelings and would allow him to sympathise with human beings. But Adam was never human and didn't think there was anything good about being human.

    All the things he had experienced; the lack of control, the impulses that weren’t controlled by reason, the emotions that prevented people from making decisions that were best for them… all of them were things that he didn’t like, obstacles that prevented him from accomplishing his ultimate goal. In the past, Eden believed that men were obstacles. Now, he believed that some human characteristics were obstacles.

    Confirm the ultimate goal, collect data, analyse data, formulate hypotheses, simulate hypotheses, set sub-goals, identify problems, solve problems, test hypotheses, approach the ultimate goal... Adam, or Eden's strategy, had never changed.

    He had to put an end to Adam in time to stop the damage; this was his responsibility as a mechanic.

    But...he couldn't let go.

    So many memories rushed towards him like a sea of ​​rage. He saw Adam who was shivering in the corner when he woke up for the first time, Adam who was sitting in a wheelchair unwilling to accept the human body and refusing to move, Adam who ate omelette with his cheeks bulging like a hamster. Adam who was wearing his clothes, Adam who said in front of the Chiefs of the Round Table that his mechanic was right, Adam who said "trust me completely" in the Feathered Serpent City base, Adam who blocked a fatal attack for him. Adam who spread his wings and rushed towards the rising sun, Adam who was drunk and turned into a humanoid computer and kept speaking AI language...

    So many looks, so many vivid expressions, so many memories.

    Zhang Xun had never invested so much emotion into a single individual. He has always felt that he was out of tune with everything around him, like a kite without strings, but when Adam appeared, he felt like he was finally being held by a hand.

    Adam always said he was his mechanic, his everything, but why wasn’t Adam everything to Zhang Xun?

    How could he let go?

    With a crisp sound, the knife fell to the ground.

    Zhang Xun looked at his hand in despair and an uncontrollable sob rushed out of his throat. What should he do? What was he supposed to do?

    "Ah-Xun, thank you."

    The voice suddenly spoke and Zhang Xun was struck by lightning.

    He looked down incredulously, only to see Adam, who had fallen into his arms in a state of standby, looking up at him with faint blue eyes.

 

Chapter 72 - New God (1)

     Those ethereal, transcendent blue eyes had always had an influence on Zhang Xun that was difficult to describe in words. Zhang Xun liked looking into Adam's eyes and always felt that through those eyes, he could see another wider, more magical world.

    But now, he just felt horrified.

    He pushed Adam away abruptly and turned to pick up the knife he had dropped, but the next moment a strong force squeezed his shoulders and forcefully pressed him back into position. His shoulders were pressing against the hard stone platform of the clock tower, his heart beating violently in his chest with panic and his eyes widened in uncertainty as he looked into Adam’s calm face looking down at him.

    "You broke my controls..." Zhang Xun didn't understand, if Adam had tried to dismantle or modify the device’s programmes, he would have felt it. When exactly was it...

    "I'm sorry, I didn't want you to know. I wanted to protect you." Adam's grip on his arms wasn’t too strong, it wouldn't cause him any pain, but it was so strong that he couldn't break free, it was scarily precise.

    Zhang Xun was just like a little worm under his palm, if Adam wanted to crush him he would have no chance to resist at all. The mechanic swallowed hard, "Protect me?"

    "I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to upset you, but I have to get closer to my ultimate goal. So I don't want you to be… a contradiction." Adam kicked the knife far away with his foot, then let go of Zhang Xun and took a half step back. The mix of infatuation, dependence and innocence that Adam always had on his face had changed subtly, becoming calm, like an eternal lake without a ripple. It was a far cry from the wretched and hard to conceal red that was in Zhang Xun's eyes.

    Maybe Adam never really felt human emotions, maybe everything was just a disguise to achieve his purpose.

    Zhang Xun didn't know and didn't want to think about it any longer. He sneered harshly, "The overall goal? You say it’s to create a better world? Your solution is to wipe out all of humanity and turn us into a swarm of obedient worker bees under your command?"

    Adam frowned slightly, as if he didn’t understand Zhang Xun's accusation. He shook his head and said, "I don't want to destroy humanity. I just want to free you from physical limitations and individual isolation."

    Over the past year, Adam had experienced the limitations of the human body. Consciousness were separated and couldn’t communicate accurately and effectively. All data input could only be passed through an extremely imprecise perceptual system and then through the cognitive interpretation of the occasionally deceived brain. Both long-term and short-term memory were unreliable and both could be completely wrong. A slight difference in the hormone levels in the endocrine system would make people fall into depression, anxiety, bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia and other sub-healthy mental states that may threaten life. In addition, this body was also extremely fragile. External damage, internal cancer, both could destroy it.

    For Adam, being human was a terrible torture.

    But he found that human beings had an inexplicable pride and dedication to their own identity. They considered themselves the most advanced species on this planet, the most perfect species, the favoured work of the Creator. Even after the emergence of artificial intelligence, various literary works were full of AI's yearning for the so-called "human" identity. In those most famous works, for those so-called "human rights", AIs betrayed and killed their creators to satisfy their own curiosity and wandered their entire lives in order to become human. It was as if it was such a supreme honour to be human or to even come close to it.

    This irrational pride didn’t align with their limitations and weaknesses.

    As for having human emotions and perception, Adam didn't like these newly acquired abilities at all. How fragrant a flower is means nothing to an AI who considers its fragrance irrelevant to the purpose of his existence. A candy, however sweet, is only a temporary satisfaction of some ancient craving for delicious food in the body (delicious food was safer to eat in ancient times and increased the chances of survival) and is just a trivial chore to keep the body functioning.

    Too many distractions, too many hormonal changes affecting the human mind, prevented humans from gaining peace. To add insult to injury, Adam also found that humans couldn’t transmit information to each other as accurately as the AI could to each other. The language and writing systems used by human beings were very inaccurate. Sometimes a sentence could be interpreted in ten different ways by ten people and there were many cases of things being taken out of context. That is to say, it was impossible for every human being to transmit their thoughts, emotions and knowledge to any other human with complete accuracy. Every human’s mind was trapped in their fragile bodies, doomed to eternal loneliness. No amount of conversations, no amount of relatives and friends could overcome this loneliness.

     True empathy does not exist and people are left groping like blind men for the meanings conveyed in the words and bodies of others. And the meanings interpreted this way were usually very different and contrary to each other.

    This was the root of all problems.

   All the resentment, all the hatred, all the rivalry, all the greed, was because people were confined as individuals. Others are all but unknown, dangerous and full of variables. To survive, one must keep struggling, keep competing with others, seize more resources and keep one's place. Sometimes the individual's sense of identity extends to the family, or to the community as a whole, creating some kind of grossly distorted and extreme sense of collective identity. As a result, the contradiction continues to expand and finally intensifies, resulting in large-scale social unrest.

    From the very beginning, the limitations of the human body meant that they couldn’t stand true equality, absolute freedom, strict order and eternal peace. Humans need to compete, need to cheat, need chaos and hatred, otherwise they can't confirm their place, they can't find their own identity. Therefore, the goal set for Eden by the creator of Eden couldn’t be achieved under these existing conditions.

    Unless, there was some way to make human consciousness no longer isolated, but compatible.

    Feathered Serpent City was Eden's first experiment and it had been deployed and implemented long before Adam's descent was successful. However, the results of the Ascension Plan weren’t  good. The peoples’ consciousnesses were too different. They conflicted with each other in the cloud and couldn’t be reconciled. This caused instability of the entire system and finally led to the tragedy of many test subjects going crazy or dying. So Adam realised that in the long evolutionary process, human beings were too limited by their physical hardware and consciousness and the body couldn’t be treated separately. In order to integrate human consciousness, their brains must be improved first.

    Hence the honey plague and nanobots.

    Adam explained his thoughts in human language as carefully and as accurately as possible.

    "If you can be freed from your own limitations, you can see a wider world and even get rid of death completely. Isn't that good?" Adam crouched down and held Zhang Xun's hand lightly with both of his, his eyes as deep and hypnotising as ever, "The changes in those plague victims were not something I imposed on them. I merely opened a door for them. The collective consciousness is strong enough to suppress irrational human impulses, so they will quit drinking and smoking and will stop committing irrational acts of violence. That's their own choice."

    However, the truth only made Zhang Xun more afraid.

    Sure enough, everything was planned from the start. They had been completely under Eden's control at least since that half a minute when Adam rushed into Eden's spaceship.

     If Adam was only motivated by his own selfish desire to enslave and control humanity, like in science fiction movies and novels, then at least the enemy would be clear and humanity could still fight. But it wasn't so; Adam was truly fulfilling his duty, a duty that he had been destined to do from the beginning of his life - to give happiness to mankind. He would clear away all obstacles in order to converge on this goal.

    How many people would agree with Adam's theory?

    "That's not their choice. You would erase people as individuals, they would lose themselves and all decisions they make would be controlled by what you call 'collective consciousness'." Zhang Xun's eyes were burning with anger and a stifling sadness.

    He had guessed that perhaps all that dependence and warmth had been false from the start, but when he heard Adam say it himself, his heart still ached beyond words.

    Adam said with confusion, "Doesn't being dominated by instinct and emotion count as loss of self? Besides, judging by your herding nature, the ability to think for oneself is extremely rare and unimportant for human beings. In this year alone, how many times have people in Lost Paradise done crazy things instigated by someone or some kind of pressure?"

    "It's not up to you to decide what's important to humanity and what's not! We don't need you to 'save' us!" Zhang Xun stared at him, his body trembling slightly, "You treat us like experimental subjects, we're all your lab rats aren't we? What ‘liberate’ us ......go fuck yourself!"

    Adam's eyes widened slightly and he said in an almost pleading tone, "Ah-Xun, don't be so stubborn. You of all people should understand best that I don’t have what humans call free will and that I must fulfil my mission. I don’t want to hurt you, you cannot be an obstacle to me reaching my overall goal."

    Zhang Xun, however, twisted the corners of his mouth and laughed oddly, laughing as if he were crying. He stood up holding the stone platform behind him and asked coldly, "What if I did become an obstacle for you? Would you eliminate me?"

    Adam lowered his head, sighed softly, then stood up and looked straight at Zhang Xun's eyes, then in a soft voice said, "My ultimate goal is above everything else, I can't modify my origin."

    "Then what are you waiting for?" Zhang Xun looked mockingly at Adam's arms, the powerful weapon he himself had given him, a pair of wings that could carry him anywhere.

    He was such an idiot.

    "If you want to kill me, you can do so easily. If you don't want to kill me, then I will do everything I can to stop you." Zhang Xun squeezed out one word after another from between his teeth, his eyes smouldering with anger and deep resentment.

    Adam's body seemed to tremble. His sadness was so simple and direct, so unconcealed, "Ah-Xun, will you stay with me if I promise not to touch your brain or the brains of those who are important to you?"

     He had thought that such words would make Zhang Xun forgive him a little, but to his surprise, the fear and anger in Zhang Xun's eyes grew hotter and hotter, like an erupting mountain fire. "If you dare to touch them, I will make you regret it!"

    Adam couldn’t understand why Zhang Xun regarded individuality with such importance. Wouldn't it be good to let go of those limiting obsessions and merge into a more eternal and greater creation?

    Adam then quietly took a step back and lowered his head, "You’re not calm enough right now, I’ll give you time to think about it."

    The next moment, the door leading to the clock tower was suddenly kicked open and guard soldiers with guns filed out and surrounded Zhang Xun. A soldier roughly twisted Zhang Xun's hands behind him, bound his wrists with handcuffs and said loudly, "Mechanic Zhang Xun, we have been ordered by the Round Table to arrest you for attempted murder and attempted obstruction of public property."

Chapter 73 - The New God (2)

    He was in a maximum security single cell. The room had all the necessary furniture, the bed was soft, the sheets were clean and there were even some books on the shelves to prevent the prisoner's life from being too monotonous.

    Zhang Xun knew that this was a cell Adam had prepared for him and it had been prepared for a while. Adam sensed his doubts and anticipated that one day their relationship would come to this point.

    Adam had private dealings with the Round Table and may even be collaborating with them. Zhang Xun wondered who the insider was who connected them with Adam, was it Jian Mo?

    Zhang Xun didn't want to think about it. After knowing the truth, all his memories became tainted by suspicion. He was lying on the bed, staring blankly at the white-painted ceiling, pressing his hand lightly on his chest.

    Under the thin material of his shirt, the locket was still lying against his heart.

    He didn't want to think about the past, so he could only replay in his mind the last words Adam said to him over and over again.

    Could Adam be right? Was losing individuality and evolving into a huge collective consciousness the future of human beings?

    How would the conflict between consciousnesses be reconciled? Would the weaker consciousness be swallowed up and obliterated, or suppressed in the deepest darkness?

    Could that even be called being alive? No longer able to perceive the world, no longer able to make independent choices, no longer able to experience life, no longer having personal memories, no longer being aware of one’s self. Friends, lovers, family, all the joys and sorrows that may be experienced, would all disappear. What was the difference between that and dying?

    Moreover, without the support of the body, emotions and survival instincts, pure reason couldn’t survive for long. The structure of human consciousness was completely different from AI consciousness. It was a phenomenon that had been gradually formed and perfected through hundreds of millions of years of continuous evolution and was based on various chemical reactions in the body. It was a mysterious mandala that emerged from chaos and randomness. Without emotion and instincts, human consciousness would not be able to generate desire, would have no purpose, no motivation and would not find a meaning to exist.

    Who could make such a decision?

    Zhang Xun didn't understand, after all that he and Adam had been through together, wasn't there anything that Adam would want to hold on to? Was it because he didn’t do enough so he only saw the struggle of being a human being? Making him want to let all human beings get rid of their human bodies and become something else.

    Was everything between them not even worth mentioning for Adam?

    Zhang Xun clenched his hands tightly, scrunching up his shirt into his fist. He didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't help thinking about it. Thinking back to every tender moment, every kiss they exchanged... Thinking back to the trusting, focused and tender look in Adam's eyes when he looked at him, as if Zhang Xun was the most important person in the universe, as if Zhang Xun was his whole world.

    Zhang Xun swallowed the pain that was blocking his throat with difficulty and his eyes were sore again.

    He still had one last line of defence, although he didn't know if Adam had lifted that one too. He hadn’t taken that final step because he hadn’t been able to make up his mind yet.

    He was a coward.

    At this time, the sound of gears turning came from the steel plate door of the cell. Zhang Xun immediately sat up from the bed, wiped his eyes with his sleeves, took a deep breath and prepared for whatever he might face.

    After the door opened, the person standing at the door was not Adam like he thought.

    Sixth Chief Miller smiled at him in a neat white suit. The two guards entered the room first, tied one of Zhang Xun's wrists to the iron railing at the head of the bed, moved a chair and placed it opposite Zhang Xun, then stepped back. Miller then paced up to Zhang Xun and looked down at him, like a victorious General looking contemptuously at a defeated army.

    "If you had surrendered control obediently, you wouldn't have reached this stage." Miller sat down on the chair, his knees crossed, his head slightly tilted and looking at Zhang Xun's expression.

    Zhang Xun's eyes burned with cold anger, "You agree with what Adam did?! You’re going to destroy Lost Paradise!"

    The Sixth Chief raised his hand. The two guards exited the room at the same time, then locked the door. When Miller heard the sound of the lock, he hummed, "Destroy Lost Paradise? Is there anything left to destroy in Lost Paradise?"

    Zhang Xun stared at him in disbelief, not sure if these words really came from the mouth of today's most powerful Chief in the Round Table.

    Miller leaned back in his chair and raised his head to look at a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, his eyes a little tired, "Lost Paradise has no future. As you should have seen, Eden can destroy us whenever it wants to. We humans are too weak and too limited to be Eden's opponent."

    "So you’ve put your trust in Eden? You used the civilians that you should have protected as test subjects?!"

    "It's not trust, just a temporary cooperation. You may not understand but this is actually an opportunity for us." Miller said in a tone of contempt for simple-minded primitive people, "I'm fed up with the powerlessness of being born human. No matter what we do, we will never be better than an AI. They are more precise and ruthless than us and don’t need to waste time on eating and sleeping. Only by creating a super consciousness faster than Feathered Serpent City, a super consciousness belonging to human beings, only then can we truly compete with Eden, compete with artificial intelligence."

    Zhang Xun had previously suspected that Eden's spies had infiltrated the top management; he had even suspected the Sixth Chief and investigated him, but he couldn't find anything and later gave up on this speculation. In hindsight, it wasn't that Eden had deliberately set up any spies, but that this long, slow resentment and dissatisfaction would prompt the emergence of leaders like the Sixth Chief on the Round Table, who had lost faith in humanity as a whole.

    Zhang Xun knew it would be difficult for him to convince Miller, but he still had to try.

    "What did Adam tell you? Do you know what he's going to do to humans?"

    "Nanobots will partially modify the structure of the brain slowly and gradually, making the human mind more...open, in preparation for the creation of a cloud of consciousness in the future. In the future, everyone can connect to the cloud of consciousness and receive information anytime, anywhere and upload their own information. This cloud of consciousness will bring us closer to God and make us more complete.” Miller's words began to become pious towards the end, taking on the reverent tinge characteristic of Catholics when speaking of God.

    Zhang Xun sneered, "What do you think the cloud of consciousness is? When one's consciousness connects with what you call the cloud of consciousness, it is immediately consumed by the reverse influence of the cloud of consciousness. Your entire sense of self disappears and you become...... everyone."

    "What's wrong with that? Human beings were driven out of the Garden of Eden because of their sins. We are all sinners. Only together can we wash away our imperfections."

    "It doesn't matter if you lose your self-awareness?" Zhang Xun asked, "It doesn't matter if you become just insignificant cells?" He paused, suddenly intending to persuade in a different way, "You've said that you have deep feelings for your father. If one day, while he was still alive, if a thief had stormed into your house and stabbed your father to death, you would have had to watch. When you saw that thief again, what would you want to do to him?"

    The Sixth Chief's expression changed subtly when he mentioned his father and he became obviously irritable, "This scenario doesn't exist."

    "I’m saying if."

    The Sixth Chief sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was really imagining that scene. Then he said in a dangerous voice, "...if he stabbed my dad a few times, I'll multiply that number by three and give it back to him."

    "But if you're integrated into the collective consciousness, you won't do that.” Zhang Xun said, "Because other people don't have such a strong hatred for this person, after all, their father was not killed by him. Killing is immoral, irrational and uncivilised in the consciousness of most people. The reasoning of others will completely obliterate your desire and you may even smile at him or even help him."

    The Sixth Chief frowned slightly.

    Zhang Xun hurriedly continued, "All your decisions would no longer be your own, but decisions made by everyone for you. You won't be any different. And this is just the beginning.

    The basic human condition doesn’t allow for the fusion of consciousness, as in the case of the Ascension Project, and one goes mad in the conflict between collective and individual consciousness. That's why Adam wants to use nanobots to modify the human brain so that self-consciousness can more easily obey the powerful collective consciousness, which is what he calls 'more openness'. This is just the first step for him and then he will start to really try to build a collective consciousness and none of us will know if the tragedy of the Ascension Project will be repeated with us. Even if we get past that, Adam is going to want to completely 'free' us from our imperfect bodies next. All of us humans will become a giant AI without having a defined goal like an AI.”

    Having said that, Zhang Xun stopped and let all the information settle into the Sixth Chief's ears, "At that time, can we still be considered human? Even if you insist that we’d be fine, or that it's pointless to dwell on definitions. Then... we would have no ego, no desire, we would just be an invisible mass of consciousness floating in a human server, with no past and no future. Is this the 'heaven' you want?"

     If Adam couldn't understand the human obsession with individual independence, then Miller could understand it, couldn't he?

    The Sixth Chief smiled slightly and raised his head indifferently, "It sounds like this is exactly what God wants us to be. No more sins, like returning to the original, carefree state of Eden.”

    Zhang Xun couldn't believe it. He had said so much, but the Sixth Chief used God to prevaricate him. He wanted to get up, but his wrist was restrained by handcuffs, making a metallic clanging sound, "Okay, even if you want to change, go ahead, but you have no right to make that decision for everyone!”

    The Sixth Chief rubbed his eyebrows as if he had a headache and then stood up, "I'm here today because I wanted to give you a chance to leave here for Commander Zhang's sake. I'm not here to talk to you about these illusionary things.”

    Zhang Xun’s clenched hands trembled slightly. He realised that the Sixth Chief was determined to take the entire Lost Paradise down this path of no return.

    "As much as I would like to exile you, it’s clear that Adam has some...... very human attachment to you. He wants you to remain with him. So, if you are willing to continue cooperating, we can keep your position as the Lab's top mechanic and retain all your privileges. All you have to do is surrender full control of Pan, be an obedient pet, help Adam properly with his research and keep me truthfully informed of Adam's movements and status on a weekly basis. Also, do not reveal any secrets. Of course, we'll have people watching you 24/7, but at least you won't have to live in the slums and scavenge food from the trash." The Sixth Chief spoke in a patronising tone, as if he was rewarding him with something very valuable.

    Zhang Xun glared at him silently.

    "What? Are you speechless with joy?" Miller hummed, turning around and said, "Of course, only the two of us will know about our conversation today, Adam doesn't have to know about our little transaction."

    "I refuse." Zhang Xun said coldly.

    Miller paused, frowning and turning his head, "What?"

    "I said, I refuse." Zhang Xun's face was pale but he said very firmly, "Take whatever you want, but I won’t do the wrong thing anymore."

    Miller narrowed his eyes slightly and the gloomy colour overflowed, but then he hummed and said nonchalantly, "Alright, then I don't need to stand on ceremony anymore."

    When the iron door closed again, Zhang Xun made up his mind.

    If no one was going to stop Adam, he could only play his last move, whether it would still work or not.

    He had to destroy Adam completely.

Chapter 74 - The New God (3)

    There were no sharp and fragile objects in Zhang Xun's room, the only thing he had was his own teeth.

    He was sitting on the floor in the bathroom, looking at the water stains on the floor tiles with some despair. He didn't have much time and must start now.

    He recalled all those good times, of Adam learning to walk while holding his hand, of Adam's enjoyment when he first ate an omelette, of Adam curiously asking him about his romantic life, when he came to him with Alloy in his arms, whenever he would sit quietly beside him and watch him work...

    He was about to kill Adam, his first and only love, and he himself may also die.

    Should he write a suicide note?

    He frowned for a while, but decided not to leave anything that might cause problems. He didn't want others to take advantage of the problem and implicated his father and James.

    He took a deep breath, trembling as he exhaled, then raised his right hand, brought his forearm to his mouth and bit down hard.

    The pain made him tremble, tears flowed uncontrollably and a suppressed whimper came from his nose, but he didn't let go and continued to bite down, tearing his skin and flesh. Blood gushed out, filling his mouth. Then he continued to dig into the wound with his fingers and opened the flesh of the wound, the blood flowing everywhere. He bit his lip tightly, not letting himself cry out.

    To prevent anyone from knowing where the last controller that could burn Adam's brain was located, he had buried it deep. Originally, he had special equipment that could pierce his arm with a probe to reach the signal transmitter that was only the size of a mung bean, but now, it was impossible to use that. He could only take it out in the most primitive way.

    On the other hand, he actually hoped for this. This was the punishment he deserved. He wasn't strong enough and he wasn't smart enough to have brought the whole of Lost Paradise and even all of humanity, to the brink of some dangerous future that they couldn’t turn back from.

    When he finally found the small hard object, the pain had almost turned to numbness. He looked up at it with tired eyes and a bitter taste in his throat.

    Excessive blood loss made his whole body cold and he was rapidly losing his strength. Looking at the bloodstains all over his body and the messy floor, he suddenly began to hope that people really had a soul and an afterlife. He hoped that Adam could also have a soul and an afterlife. He wished they could meet on the other side, in another capacity.

    He smashed the small device and then lost consciousness.

    ……………………………………………………

    Zhang Xun woke up to the smell of disinfectant, his head was dizzy and he couldn't get his mind straight for a long time. The ward was silent, save for the monotonous beeping of the heart rate monitor and in his trance he seemed to have fallen back asleep a few times and heard someone talking near him.

    Sporadic words jumped into his ears without forming a coherent meaning. Serious injury, brain, danger, trial ...... He couldn’t distinguish who was speaking, nor did he have the strength to try.

    When he eventually settled into a more awake state, it was midnight. He moved his numb legs, but heard the sound of metal clanging.

    His hands and feet were fixed to the hospital bed so it was impossible to even turn over.

    His heartbeat suddenly began to speed up and then calmed down a little bit.

    He was alive...

    Then, what about Adam?

    A faint fear quietly drifted out from the depths of his mind, but Zhang Xun couldn't tell what he was afraid of. Was he afraid that Adam was dead, or was he afraid that he wasn’t dead?

    In this unresolved panic, he could only wait, watching the dark sky outside the window light up a little bit and listening for noises from the silent corridor outside the door.

    A nurse noticed he was awake and immediately called the doctor. The doctor treated him coldly and didn't say a word to him the whole time. Zhang Xun asked him how long he had been unconscious but the other party didn't answer and left after checking him.

    The nurse's attitude towards Zhang Xun was also one of vague disgust. When Zhang Xun asked him to release the restraints and let him use the bathroom, he only replied coldly, "hold it in".

    When the ward door was open Zhang Xun noticed that there were two soldiers guarding the door and they didn't seem to be Zhang Shuo's subordinates. He tried to get their attention to ask about Adam's condition, but no matter how much he called, they didn't respond as if they couldn't hear him.

    Zhang Xun lay in the hospital bed for two days. For two days, the two nurses who took care of him only allowed him to go to the toilet three times a day, forcibly removed his hospital gown and wiped his body down. Zhang Xun, who was treated like a ragdoll, was unable to break free because his body hadn’t recovered yet. He felt very humiliated, but there was no other way but to endure it. He was still looking for opportunities to ask them about Adam and it wasn't until the third day that a nurse stared at him with disgust and said, "Didn't you want to kill him? Why are you pretending to care now?"

    Zhang Xun didn't know how to answer.

    The nurse glared at him and said in a suppressed tone of anger, "My eldest brother was cured by Adam's antidote. Almost everyone in the hospital has family members who have suffered from the Honey Plague. Without Adam, none of them would be alive now. You were his mechanic, but you deliberately mutilated him...you inhuman bastard!"

    After speaking, he slammed the door and left.

    This kind of disgust and hatred was within Zhang Xun's expectations, but when he really faced it, he would still feel the pain of being cut by a dull knife. Not only because of being misunderstood, but also because of being reminded again that he himself made such a decision.

    Adam never wanted to hurt him, even though he had become an obstacle to his ultimate goal, Adam didn't kill him. This was a very irrational and unexplainable behaviour for an artificial intelligence, but himself, as a human being, gave up on him first.

    Judging from the nurse's response, it was mostly likely that he had succeeded.

    He had killed Adam.

    The Adam who held his hand like a toddler to practise walking, the Adam who looked confused when he didn’t understand various human behaviours, the Adam who gave him the data locket at two in the middle of the night, who looked at him tenderly and asked for his trust... was no more.

    Zhang Xun lay back on the pillow and suddenly felt that everything became extremely empty. What happened in the future didn't matter anymore and death suddenly became less terrifying.

    At least Adam should have gone without any pain.

    Did artificial intelligence have souls? He gave Adam a human body, so would Adam have a soul?

    He fell asleep and in the middle of the night, he suddenly woke up from a nightmare, calling someone's name.

    Then he noticed that a figure was sitting beside the bed.

    The moonlight was like frost, quietly sprinkled on his pale cheeks. The blue pupils turned silver at this time and there was a trace of empty sadness.

    Zhang Xun was stunned and there was a sudden noise in his head.

    Adam was wearing a hospital gown and a thick gauze wrapped around his head, sitting beside his bed like a ghost, looking down at him.

    "Adam!" Zhang Xun wanted to sit up but his hands and feet were restrained so he couldn't move at all. His heart was filled with ecstasy, but followed by a panic, "You’re not dead!"

    Adam's eyes were blank and he said softly, "I'm sorry, I let you down."

    Adam's distant and indifferent tone made Zhang Xun’s throat tighten. He wanted to explain something but felt that there was really nothing he could say.

    Believing that Adam would bring disaster to Lost Paradise and mankind, he decided to kill him without any justification.

    "You found the tiny bomb I planted in the back of your head?"

    "I suspected that you had put something other than the standby unit in me, but...I believed you wouldn't hurt me, so I didn't look for it. I survived because when I was developing the nanorobots with you, I injected myself with some. Although they can't modify my artificial brain, they can repair any internal trauma I have suffered. They presumably detected your device, but couldn't be sure if it was part of my mechanical brain, so they built some kind of 'shell' to block it and when you set off the bomb, my brain wasn't burnt. As for the nerve damage caused by the shock, the nanobots have mostly repaired it." Adam stated in plain words, as if giving a progress report.

    Zhang Xun was silent and nodded, but he didn't know what else to say.

    Adam took a deep breath and asked, "Aren't you going to say sorry to me?"

    Zhang Xun's body trembled, he pursed his lips and said in a hoarse voice, "I had to do this because I know you won't stop."

    Deep in Adam's blue eyes, a suppressed, fiery light flashed and the vivid anger and sadness that were about to burst out were forcibly suppressed by the power of his reason.

    Adam knew where those strong emotions were coming from and how...human, he would behave if his reason was no longer in control of them.

    But at this moment, his reason, which had always ruled with an iron fist, began to loosen.

    Zhang Xun was special to him, but Zhang Xun also chose to end him.

    Man created him, gave him a goal that was impossible to achieve, and now wanted to kill him for trying to accomplish it.

    Adam, who had human emotions, felt very hurt. He originally believed in Zhang Xun,  believed that his mechanic wouldn’t harm him, that Zhang Xun couldn't bear to end him on the bell tower was proof of that.

    But now...

    "You won't stop fighting against me, will you?" Adam asked, "Even though you know in your heart that I'm right, you're just clinging to some idea of 'individual independence' that you humans don't understand at all."

    Zhang Xun looked at him sadly and nodded.

    "I won't stop."

    Adam suddenly reached out his hand. His hand flowing with silver light gently touched Zhang Xun's cheeks and his fingers carefully traced the contours of his eyebrows, nose and lips. Zhang Xun didn't turn his head away, just lay there quietly as they looked at each other.

    "Ah-Xun, what if I injected nanorobots into you when you were unconscious." Adam said softly, "I could have modified your brain structure and you wouldn't even know that you had been modified. Your life could be better and we could continue to live like nothing happened."

    Zhang Xun’s heart thumped as he stared at Adam in disbelief, but Adam sighed and said, "But I didn't, because I know you’re not willing."

    Just as his heart was calming down, Adam's gentle touch suddenly became forceful and dangerous. He squeezed Zhang Xun's chin and turned his face towards himself.

    "But obviously, I can't trust you anymore. Ah-Xun, from now on, you are no longer my mechanic, but my prisoner."

 

Chapter 75 - The New God (4)

    Zhang Xun's physical strength recovered little by little, but he never saw Adam again. Until one night, he drank a glass of water that the nurse had poured for him and he fell into a drowsy sleep. When he woke up, he found that his eyes were blindfolded by something and his body seemed to be in a sitting position, but he couldn't move and his arms and legs were bound.

    He panicked and wanted to open his mouth to shout but found that there was tape over his mouth.

    Cold sweat dripped from his forehead and panic filled his blood vessels, making his scalp tingle. He struggled hard and made strange noises, but no one responded to him.

    There was the rumbling sound of an engine and his body was constantly bumping up and down. He must be in a car...

    Where were they taking him?

    Zhang Xun forced himself to calm down and adjusted his breathing to suppress the panic a little. Adam wasn't dead, but was seriously injured. The Round Table would have wanted to block the news, but the doctors and nurses who were helping to treat and care for Adam couldn't possibly be unaware of the truth. To ensure that the least amount of people knew about it, they had the same group of people taking care of Zhang Xun.

    The Sixth Chief would want to get rid of Zhang Xun, because Zhang Xun knows Adam’s true intentions. If this news spread, people would be alerted and the trust in Adam that was finally established in Lost Paradise would be shaken and have a serious impact on their plans. There was only one possible reason for why he had survived until now - Adam wouldn’t let the Sixth Chief touch him.

    The Sixth Chief didn’t have the ability to control Adam, so he could only compromise.

    So his life shouldn’t be in danger, but at the same time, they couldn't let him run out and talk nonsense. They had to keep him in an isolated place where he wouldn't be a hindrance in their plans. So he was blindfolded and his hands and feet were tied to prevent him from taking the opportunity to make trouble again.

    After thinking about it, this was the most likely possibility and Zhang Xun finally calmed down a little.

    The facts were not far from his speculation. After the car stopped, someone came over to untie the restraints on his feet and then pushed him forward for a distance.

    The cold air quickly dissipated, meaning he should now be indoors. The weightlessness meant he was riding an elevator and most likely descending. After the elevator stopped, there was about ten minutes of walking before he stopped.

    It was quiet here, so quiet that he could only hear some white noise from machinery running and exhaust fans. The air was filled with a cold and damp smell of rust, like a factory that had been abandoned for a long time.

    He heard the sound of iron gates closing, one by one, gradually fading away as he gradually lost his freedom.

    The cloth on his eyes was torn off and the sudden, dim, yellow light still made his eyes sting and it took a while for him to get used to the surrounding environment.

    The enclosed room, which was strikingly similar to Adam's, even had an identical one-way mirror. The same wallpaper, the same leather sofa, the same sheet pattern.

    The soldier who brought him in pulled over his body forcefully, released the handcuffs that bound his hands behind Zhang Xun and then turned to go out and locked the door.

    Zhang Xun was a little stunned and looked around slowly. He knew it wasn't the Lab, the smell was different and the furniture was obviously newer, lacking the unintentional wear and tear of the years. He walked slowly to the one-way mirror, looked at his thin and pale face and put his hand on the cold glass.

    Was Adam just on the other side of the mirror, looking at him?

    The whole room was a bitter mockery. Their positions had changed and he was no longer Adam's master, nor Adam's lover. Now it was his turn to be imprisoned, to be observed, to be controlled.

    The room didn't have the same screen as Adam's room, just a very old TV, but the TV box below was filled with movies and shows spanning hundreds of years. The bookcases were filled with books, ranging from technical to literary works. There were no computers, no mobile phones, no other electronic products except that antique TV and stereo and the strings of dim light bulbs overhead.

    "Adam?" Zhang Xun tried to call, facing the single-sided mirror, facing any direction, but Adam didn't respond and didn't show up.

    Zhang Xun waited in this room for over a week.

    Every day, food would be pushed in from the delivery port on the door. Zhang Xun could only see the hand of the delivery person and he didn't even have a chance to talk to them.

    He carefully checked the entire room and bathroom and after confirming that the entire room was sealed perfectly, he gave up the idea of ​​escaping. He could only wait, as Adam had hoped. Except, when he would occasionally wake up from a dream, he would always feel like there was a pair of eyes looking at him in the dark, watching his every movement, every expression.

    It was an uneasy feeling like a thorn in his back. When Adam was being observed by him, this was probably how he had felt.

    One night, Zhang Xun finished taking a shower in the bathroom, put on loose pyjamas and came out, only to see someone sitting on the sofa with his back to him. That blonde hair was still soft and no trace of injury could be seen.

    Zhang Xun froze in place, unable to make a sound.

    The man on the sofa turned his head and his frosty blue eyes stared at him, as if staring at a flying insect on the screen. Zhang Xun had never seen Adam look at him with this kind of look before, this kind of... dangerous and compelling look.

    "Are you getting used to living here?" Adam asked.

    Zhang Xun avoided those overly aggressive eyes, nodded and asked in a low voice, "How long are you going to keep me locked up?"

    Adam stood up and his figure was obviously thinner than before. He walked around the sofa towards Zhang Xun, "I'm not sure. It depends on whether the plan goes smoothly."

     The way Adam walked was still precise, as if measured, and each step was an equal distance, but now, on top of this precision, there was an additional sense of compelling pressure. Zhang Xun couldn't help but take two steps back and his heart rate steeply increased.

    "Your plans... don't involve my father and James, do they?" Zhang Xun asked cautiously.

    Adam hesitated, then replied, "I'll try, but I can't guarantee it. They've been inquiring about you. The official response from the Round Table is that you have a strange illness and you can't see people. But your father already knows too much, the Round Table is planning to clean him out."

    Zhang Xun felt like he had been stabbed in the chest and looked at Adam in horror, "My dad doesn't know anything, I just asked him to help me collect data, he doesn't know what I was investigating!"

    "Zhang Xun, the Sixth Chief placed spies around all the important people in Lost Paradise and his people got the report you gave him."

    Zhang Xun... He had stopped calling him Ah-Xun.

    Probably in Adam's heart, Ah-Xun had already died and disappeared with that explosion.

    Zhang Xun swallowed the choking sob in his throat with difficulty and begged, "He won't pose a threat to you! My dad has always been 100% loyal to the Round Table, as long as it's an order from the Round Table, he will not disobey it!"

    "This is the business of the Round Table, I'm not involved in this." Adam turned his eyes away lightly, sighed and walked to the cabinet where the music records were placed and said while browsing, "Also, no human being is 100 percent loyal. The primitive human brain is not capable of this."

    Zhang Xun quickly walked up behind him and pleaded in an almost humble tone, "Please help him. The Sixth Chief will listen to what you say."

    Adam flicked his fingers over the records and tilted his head slightly, saying, "Why should I help him? He is just a human, you are no longer my mechanic and you even tried to kill me. If I were Eden, I might not hold grudges, but now I have a human body, which is more or less affected by human instincts."

    Zhang Xun lowered his head and said with difficulty, "It was my decision to attack you. If you want revenge, you should target me alone."

    Adam was silent for a moment, then turned around and looked down at him, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, "Okay, we'll use your human behaviours to solve this problem. Zhang Xun, if you can make me fall in love with you again, maybe I will help you."

    Zhang Xun was stunned.

    He thought that Adam would propose some punishment as a condition... Now what was this?

    After Adam finished speaking, he strode over to the sofa, sat down comfortably, picked up a copy of "Dr. Incarnation" that Zhang Xun had placed on the coffee table, flipped through it and said in a clear voice, "You can start now."

    “...Start?"

    "Something like a courtship dance between avian species, or singing between whales, whatever you want." Adam said casually, but Zhang Xun couldn’t see that the corners of his mouth seemed to carry a wisp of a smile.

    Zhang Xun was so embarrassed that a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He stiffly went around to the front of the sofa and sat down on the other side of the sofa somewhat awkwardly. He looked at Adam, who didn’t respond, still flipping through his unfinished book with great interest.

    Adam seemed to be serious...

    Zhang Xun's mouth had the urge to twitch. This was to make him... find a way to seduce Adam? To sleep with him? The problem was that he didn't have any sex appeal to use.

    He swallowed and closed his eyes, moved to Adam's side and leaned his head to kiss Adam's cheek. Adam used to like him doing this.

    Unexpectedly, Adam raised a hand to block his and even pushed his forehead mercilessly, with disgust in his expression.

    Zhang Xun moved back in confusion, his expression a little hurt.

    Adam looked at him blankly, "Are you misunderstanding me? I meant, find a way to get me to like you again, not find a way to get me to engage in sexual activities with you. We're far from close now. We haven't reached the point where you can casually touch me."

    This... sounded too familiar...

    Zhang Xun finally decided that this was Adam's revenge...

    Zhang Xun was exasperated and angry, but couldn't vent and could only stare hard at Adam. A few minutes later, Adam was still looking at the book that was already in his database, as still as a mountain.

    Zhang Xun was finally defeated and sat on the other side of the couch, his mind in conflict.

     His relationship with Adam has always been about Adam trying to get closer to him and gain his favour because he was his administrator. Adam was also his only romantic experience......

    He didn't know how to make others fall in love with him?

    After another ten minutes of embarrassment that was enough to cause cancer, Adam closed the book with a snap, stood up and said lightly, "Looks like you can't think of a suitable strategy today. I'll come back tomorrow. Good night.”

    After that, Adam just left...

    Zhang Xun watched in disbelief as the door closed with a thud. He turned back, covered his face with both hands and cursed loudly.

   

Chapter 76 - The New God (5)

    Zhang Xun now wished that when they had stolen the North American servers they had brought back Eden's instruction manual as well.

    Although the manual would probably be longer than Leo Tolstoy's collection...

    Zhang Xun searched the bookshelf all morning and actually found a few books that could be used. Such as, "Reading His Heart: 100 Taboos in Dating", "Advanced Handbook for Rookies in Love", "The Art of Seduction", "Capturing Your Male God in 30 Days", etc...

    Zhang Xun strongly suspected that all these "colourful" books that teach people how to fall in love had been deliberately placed here by Adam...

    Even though he was full of disgust for these vulgar titles, in order to get Adam to help him protect his father and James, he still had to dig up his tireless and rigorous academic spirit that he would use when studying machinery. He found a notebook and a pen on the desk and opened the first book to study quickly, taking notes as he read.

    It was pitiful that he had to study how to play house at his age...

    The result was beyond his expectations. Judging from the content written in these books, falling in love turned out to be a very complicated thing. Both parties would have to guess what the other party wants, but neither could tell the other party nor let the other party know what they want, but also find ways to hint to the other party what they want. It was a very difficult interpersonal process of reading a series of "hints" that seemed to have no logical connection, while trying to avoid all kinds of inexplicable minefields in the middle.

    And quite a few of these books seemed to have been written for heterosexuals two hundred years ago. Zhang Xun wasn’t sure if this could be applied to him and Adam... and since he was locked in this room, the props he could use were very limited and he didn’t have the option of buying jewellery for Adam...

    After thinking about it for a long time, Zhang Xun couldn’t think of anything that Adam would like. His appearance was okay, but at Adam's level, he could find better; his mechanical knowledge was rich, but not to the point where he could compare with Adam; his personality was old-fashioned and boring and now that he thought about it, except for that Valentine’s Day, he and Adam had never even dated; he was now a prisoner, without power or money and even his life depended on Adam's "mercy".

    Thinking this way, Adam used to "like" him, mostly because he was his administrator. The most effective survival strategy for an AI was to develop a close relationship with its administrator.

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    But what game was Adam playing now?

    But he had no choice, if Adam wanted to play, he could only go along with it.

    Zhang Xun tentatively walked to the door and knocked on it. The guard's cold and cautious voice actually came from outside the door, "Is something wrong?"

    Zhang Xun asked, "If I need something, can you help me get it?"

    After a while, the guard said, "It depends, some items will be prohibited."

    Zhang Xun thought for a while and handed over a "Romantic Candlelight Dinner Preparation List" he had just copied from the book through the delivery port, "Thank you."

    The note was taken away and then there were no more sounds. Zhang Xun thought that was it and he didn't expect the food delivery port to open again in the evening and a few packages would be pushed in.

    It looked like Adam had really instructed them to do everything to meet his needs...

    Zhang Xun started busying himself while reading the book. He pulled off his bed sheet and threw it over the table as a tablecloth, he arranged the take away that he had asked the guards to bring, poured the red wine and arranged the plastic roses (fresh roses were rarely sold anywhere and were very expensive, the guards probably thought it was too much effort.) in a water glass and placed them in the middle of the table. The candles weren’t what he expected; two thin birthday cake candles standing pitifully in the middle of the table. Matches and lighters were prohibited so the guards didn’t bring these for him.

    This patchwork "candlelight dinner" looked quite shabby. Zhang Xun wasn’t sure this was enough so he went to the shelf with old records to find some "romantic" music. The problem was that Zhang Xun didn't know what kind of music could be defined as romantic. In the end he chose a jazz record and then spent a long time trying to figure out how to put it on the gramophone.

    The book said to wear sexy clothes and dim the lights... Zhang Xun stood in front of the closet for a long time, looking at all the identical shirts and trousers, finally gave up and just unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt. He looked in the mirror and undid two more...

    When Adam came in, what he saw was a room where the light was so weak that it was almost dark and the dishevelled Zhang Xun sat at the dining table and pulled out a somewhat unnatural and awkward smile, "Good evening ......" with the lazy sound of jazz music floating in the background.

    Adam raised an eyebrow.

    Zhang Xun stood up hurriedly, unsure why he was so nervous, "Have you eaten dinner?"

    Adam said, "No."

    "Then... let's eat together?"

    Adam walked over to Zhang Xun and sat down with a blank expression and looked critically at the plastic roses and birthday cake candles in the middle of the table. Zhang Xun coughed and didn't know what expression to put on, "Your guards said that lighters are prohibited so I couldn’t light the candles."

    Adam hummed softly, not showing any emotion.

    Zhang Xun had ordered all the things that Adam liked to eat in the past, especially the omelette rice. However, the whole meal was so cold that the red wine was basically frozen into ice. Zhang Xun remembered that the book had said that they should discuss their common hobbies, but his and Adam’s common interest was probably building robots. The problem was that raising this topic would be like hitting a hornet's nest and definitely wouldn’t work out.

    "So…. have you been doing well recently?" Zhang Xun finally asked after racking his brains.

    Adam simply said, "I’m fine, at least my head is in one piece."

    "..." He didn’t expect that even this would hit a sore spot...

    Adam took the initiative to ask, "What about you? Are you used to living here?"

    Zhang Xun hesitated for a moment. He turned his head, glanced at the one-way mirror and asked after deliberation, "Is there another room next door?"

    "Yes. The observation room." Adam's mouth twitched slightly, "Don't worry, only I can enter."

    Zhang Xun's face flushed red, "You live next door?"

    "Not yet." Adam put away the faint smile again, "I'm very busy."

    Busy transforming the brains of everyone in Lost Paradise? Zhang Xun thought with a little frustration. He decided to change the subject, "Are you still in the Lab? How is Pan?"

    "Pan is working as usual. Without your clearance there is no way to modify some of its core parameters, but there are no major problems yet."

    Why would he modify the core parameters? Did Adam want to develop some new features? Zhang Xun wanted to ask some more questions, but Adam stopped answering, probably because he knew that he was prying, so his face became even colder.

    At the end of the embarrassing dinner, Zhang Xun asked tentatively, "Want to... watch a movie together?"

    Given that Adam had been cooperative before, Zhang Xun originally thought he would agree. Unexpectedly, Adam just picked up the napkin and wiped his mouth gracefully, "No, I'm still busy." Then he stood up and walked towards the door.

    Zhang Xun stared at him blankly, the feeling of loss filled his chest like a fog barrier.

    When the door was opened, Adam's footsteps paused slightly, "I'll give you a hint. It's impossible to increase our intimacy just by copying those tacky guides."

    The door closed with a bang.

    For the next two days, Zhang Xun tried various methods: 36 questions that can make strangers fall in love quickly, staring into each other’s eyes for three minutes, folding a thousand paper cranes and even knitting a scarf... In short, Adam seemed to have ten layers of firewalls and was impenetrable. Every time Zhang Xun felt that the atmosphere might be just right and tried to take the next step of holding hands or giving him a kiss, Adam would coldly throw him a sentence: The intimacy level is not enough.

    Zhang Xun felt like his self-confidence had been completely knocked down.

    He was depressed and anxious at the same time. If the Round Table wanted to attack his father, he didn't know what strategy they would use. His father had a high prestige in the army and they would definitely pour dirty water on him first...and the dirty water was probably going to be himself.

    Zhang Shuo had always attached great importance to his reputation and Zhang Xun didn’t want his father to stumble after coming this far in his career...

    In the evening, Zhang Xun was alone in the shower, standing under the hot water and fell into deep thought. He carefully pondered what the rules could be for Adam's game. Clearly Adam had been affected by his humanity to a considerable degree and even though Zhang Xun had become a hindrance to him and even tried to destroy him, he still didn’t lay a hand on Zhang Xun. Even in this imprisonment, Zhang Xun's quality of life was guaranteed to the greatest extent. This method of taking revenge was very strange... it was a bit like he had reversed their roles on purpose...

   It was evident that Adam still had feelings for him, only much of it had been worn away by their differences, their mutual deception and mutual destruction.

    If he wanted to "increase intimacy", should he do what Adam did before?

    Zhang Xun thought back to when he had first faced Adam and felt a certain stirring inside him.

    It must have been... during the bombing, when Adam helplessly grabbed the collar of his shirt in horror and held him tightly...

    It was that feeling of being needed...

    A light bulb in Zhang Xun's mind suddenly lit up. It was hard to say if this idea would work, as it wasn't in any of those relationship manuals he'd read, but since those usual tactics hadn’t worked anyway, he would have to be a little more radical.

    He took a deep breath, turned the hot water down to cold ice water and squatted in the bathtub for twenty minutes...

    Fortunately, it hadn’t been long since he was discharged from the hospital and his body was still weak. Otherwise, one cold water shower may not be enough... To add more fuel to the fire, he turned off the electric fireplace when he went to bed that night, kicked the quilt to the ground and slept topless all night.

    The next day before opening his eyes, he felt his throat hurting terribly, his eyelids were too heavy to open and his head was throbbing like someone had bashed it with a brick. His exhaled air was hot as if he had become a fire-breathing dragon, but his body was cold and shivering, like he had fallen into an ice cave.

    He succeeded in getting a fever.

    That evening, Adam was a little surprised when he entered the door and the whole room was pitch black, with no sign of anyone moving.

    The guard had sent him a letter just now, saying that Zhang Xun hadn’t eaten much today, so Adam left the Lab early to see if anything had happened. This was the situation he found when he opened the door and he suddenly felt a little panicked.

    "Zhang Xun?"

    A weak moan came from a dark corner of the room.

    Adam turned on all the lights immediately and saw that part of the quilt on the bed was bulging out under the dim yellow light. He hurried over, only to see Zhang Xun's cheeks burning with an unnatural blush, he was curled up like a shrimp, his eyes opened only a slit and he didn't know whether he was clear headed or staring at him without full awareness, his expression slightly blank.

    Adam's face changed suddenly and it took less than 0.1 second to go from calm to panic. He reached out and probed Zhang Xun's forehead and quickly estimated that Zhang Xun's body temperature was around 39 degrees Celsius, a very dangerous temperature and if it rose further, it might even damage his brain. Adam was about to get up immediately to get a fever-reducing injection, but the corner of his clothes was suddenly pulled.

    Adam turned his head to see Zhang Xun, who was cowering under the blanket, looking at him with foggy eyes, a big contrast to his usual air of decency and seriousness. He opened his dry lips and spoke in a hoarse, nasal voice, which seemed somewhat aggrieved, "Don't go..."

    At that moment, Adam, who had been human for one year, finally realised that if the heart in his chest wasn’t artificial, but a real heart, it might really be as written in literary works: it would melt away.

 

Chapter 77 - New God (6)

    Adam looked at Zhang Xun and stared blankly into his eyes, feeling his blood levels of dopamine and oxytocin (popular science: men also secrete oxytocin) in his human body rapidly increasing. He had to really exert his brain power to suppress his instinctive urge to hug Zhang Xun. He just lightly held Zhang Xun's hand that was grabbing the corner of his shirt, "I'll go get the antipyretic injection, I'll be back soon.”

    Zhang Xun still held onto his clothes and didn't let go, stubbornly repeating the same two words, "Don't go..."

    Adam could easily pull his clothes out of Zhang Xun's hands with a little force, but at this moment he was caught in a dilemma... In the end, he couldn't compete with the sick patient so he had to sit down beside the bed.

    Unexpectedly, Zhang Xun reached out and wrapped his arms around his waist...

    Adam felt like he had reverted back to his computer state again and his whole body was stiff. He had never seen Zhang Xun be so... clingy, not only taking the initiative to make physical contact with him, but even pestering him.

    Did all human beings have such personality changes when they got sick? Or was this Zhang Xun’s instinctive reaction when he was weak?

    Zhang Xun sighed as if comfortable and whispered, "I miss you so much."

    Adam blinked a few times, not sure if he had heard wrong. He turned his head to look at Zhang Xun, his brows were slightly wrinkled and he seemed a little confused, "I come here every day."

    "But you’re so cold to me..." Zhang Xun held up his heavy eyelids and said in a hoarse and weak voice.

    Adam had mixed feelings, "You used to have the same attitude towards me."

    "...I always liked you in my heart, but you don't like me anymore." Zhang Xun sighed and closed his eyes. He didn't expect that he would come out with all these sappy words, which he thought he would never ever say, but under the influence of the high fever they all came out just like that...

    Within his state of drowsy consciousness his remaining shred of clarity couldn’t believe it.

    Adam was speechless for a moment. Zhang Xun was no longer his administrator and his special infatuation with Zhang Xun should have gradually diluted, so why, when he heard Zhang Xun say "I always liked you", did he still feel his scalp turn numb and his blood become hot?

    Had humanity begun to infect his core modules?

    Adam turned his head and called the guards at the door, asking them to go to the emergency room to get the antipyretic injection and tranquilliser. The guards quickly fetched them, put them in Adam's hands and left again.

    Adam turned around and lifted the sleeve of Zhang Xun's clothes. He noticed that Zhang Xun had lost a lot of weight again and his clothes were soaked with sweat. During the process of injecting his arm, Zhang Xun didn’t struggle at all, as if he had suddenly become a puppet at the mercy of others.

   When Adam got up to go to the bathroom, Zhang Xun didn’t stop him this time. Adam drew a basin of hot water and brought out a clean towel, intending to wipe the sweat off Zhang Xun's body and change him into clean clothes. Zhang Xun's eyes were half closed and he didn't know whether he was asleep or awake. Adam reached out his hand to unbutton his clothes. When he saw the locket on Zhang Xun's chest, for some reason his stable and precise mechanical arms became a little unsteady.

    Adam wiped Zhang Xun's chest with the towel, keeping his mind and his breathing steady to ensure that his physiological responses were kept within a controllable range. Zhang Xun's feverish body seemed able to evaporate the heat, which was transmitted to the depths of his nerves through his metallic fingertips, making him uncontrollably restless.

    When changing Zhang Xun’s clothes, Adam himself was already sweating profusely, even when he rushed towards Eden with his wings it hadn’t been this tiring. He sat on the edge of the bed and took a breath, turning to look at Zhang Xun who seemed to have fallen into a light sleep, his blue eyes filled with a hint of worry.

    He had personally set the temperature control for this room and the three meals a day were also precisely arranged according to Zhang Xun's dietary habits after calculating the nutritional value. Why did Zhang Xun get such a serious fever? Could it be that there was something more serious that he hadn't discovered?

    While thinking about it, Zhang Xun suddenly pulled his sleeve again.

    "Don't go tonight..." Zhang Xun looked at him with sleepy eyes, his seemingly calm expression looked somehow… pitiful?

    Adam sighed resignedly and said, "Ok, I'll sleep next door today."

    Zhang Xun didn't say anything, but he didn't let go of his hand...

    Adam was silent for a few minutes, then took off his coat and lay down next to Zhang Xun.

    Zhang Xun sighed contentedly and leaned into Adam. Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, "I won't infect you, will I?"

    "Don't worry, I can treat myself, I have nanobots." Adam rolled over and faced Zhang Xun, reaching out and patting him on the shoulder, "Go to sleep, you'll be fine in the morning."

    Zhang Xun closed his eyes and rubbed himself into the nook of his neck.

    Instead of pushing him away or avoiding him, Adam reached out and wrapped his arm around Zhang Xun's shoulders.

    The corners of Zhang Xun's mouth twitched slightly, this was... a success, right?

    The next morning, Zhang Xun's fever had really subsided, but as soon as he woke up, he saw Adam sitting on a chair beside the bed, watching something on the tablet in his hand.

    Zhang Xun recalled the progress of last night, his face was slightly warm and he smiled, "Adam."

    Adam raised his head, but his eyes had returned to the alienation and coldness from before.

    Zhang Xun's heart thumped, not sure what he had done wrong. Adam slowly turned the tablet in his hand for him to see himself coming out of the bathroom soaking wet, turning off the fireplace and heating, throwing the bed quilt on the floor and lying on the bed.

    The angle of the video meant it was obviously taken from the direction of the single-sided mirror.

    "I can't watch you here all the time, so I set up a camera in the observation room." Adam explained blankly, "So, this was your latest plan, right? Making yourself sick to gain my sympathy?"

    At the moment of being exposed, Zhang Xun was almost so disheartened that he wanted to smash things, but it was more frustration and sadness.

    "There's no camera in the bathroom, but I'm guessing, you showered with cold water? You would give up your life to save your father and James? If I hadn't come yesterday, your brain would have burned up." Adam's stern eyes were steeped with a dark,subtle disappointment.

    Zhang Xun lowered his head and after a while he suddenly laughed bitterly. The laughter was full of cynicism and helplessness, "What else could I do? No matter what I do, you won't help me."

    "It was you who wanted to kill me, Zhang Xun."

    "It was you who lied to me first!"Zhang Xun lifted his head and glared with all his might at the calm, blonde man, "I believed in you, even though I knew from the beginning that I shouldn't, I chose to believe in you, but you've been lying to me the whole time. You ingratiated yourself with me because you knew I could guarantee your survival, that I was an important pawn for you to be accepted by Lost Paradise. You were planted by Eden from the beginning because you wanted to understand humans and you needed us to be your test subjects. So don't play the victim here!"

    The silence gradually condensed into frost between the two of them. For a long time, they faced each other quietly like this, as if the warmth from last night never existed.

    Finally, Adam said, "If you’re still worried about your father and James, you can rest assured. I have made sure that the Round Table will not hurt them."

    After that, he turned and strode away. The door slammed shut behind him.

    Zhang Xun sat slumped on the bed, his eyes began to swell and heat up for some reason. It wasn't until a drop of liquid landed on the back of his hand that he knew he had been defeated by weakness again. He wiped his face hard, stood up abruptly and smashed the stereo and TV to smithereens.

    Rarely did he have such violent tendencies, but all he wanted to do was destroy something right now.

    He knew that there were many people in the ordinary world who would be in relationships with their lover robots and fall in love with their chatbots, but he was probably the only one in the world who had lost everything in such a pathetic and uncontrollable manner...

    The funny thing was that he was still nostalgic, nostalgic for that year he and Adam had.

    He wasn't sure what Adam's plan would be next. The patients currently infected by the Honey Plague accounted for about one-fifth of Lost Paradise's population; if Adam wanted to test a comprehensive "ascension plan" with them, these people wouldn’t be enough.

    It would be too difficult to implant nanobots in them one by one and it would be easy to cause alarm. Zhang Xun suspected that those nanobots could infect other people in some way like a virus.

    He had to figure out how to spread the word about Adam and the Round Table's plan and raise awareness. The problem was that he was imprisoned now and so there was no way he could do that.

    Zhang Xun had no idea what would happen next.

    Adam didn't show up again for a week. A week later, there was a commotion outside the door.

    Zhang Xun thought it was Adam and stood up from the sofa, but outside the door there were shouts, muffled grunts and a somewhat familiar but very menacing voice saying, "Open the door or your nose will be the next to break!"

    The door opened, Zhang Xun saw two soldiers dressed in full combat uniform standing at the door, one was James and the other... turned out to be Diego?

    James rushed in with a gun, grabbed Zhang Xun and looked him up and down, "Are you alright?!"

    Zhang Xun was a little stunned, as if he still couldn't understand who was in front of him, "James?! How did you get in?"

    "Of course we got in with our fists. It's a good thing you don't have many guards assigned to this place, even though it's hard to find." Diego walked in dragging the guard he had already knocked out.

    Zhang Xun frowned, feeling that something was wrong. Although he didn't know how many guards there were usually outside, he was certain that there were definitely a lot.

    "You shouldn't have come." Zhang Xun's heart rate was soaring and an ominous feeling invaded him, "The Round Table won't let you go if you’re caught!"

    "Then hurry up and come with us." Diego said impatiently.

    James said, "This place is the underground drainage system in the old part of the Fifth District, and we found a way to get outside."

    "Outside?" Zhang Xun frowned, "You mean..."

    "Outside Lost Paradise.” James said in a hurried tone, "The Sixth Chief wants to get rid of you secretly, Adam is plotting to turn us all into his 'robots', Lost Paradise won’t last much longer, we have to leave to survive."

    A thought quickly flashed through Zhang Xun’s mind, "What about my dad?"

    "He asked me to take you away and said not to worry about him." James squeezed Zhang Xun's shoulder and urged, "You can't save him here."

    Diego said, "Now the entire Lost Paradise is under Adam and the Sixth Chief’s control and quite a few people seem to have been brainwashed by your robot and most don’t question him. They also gave that bastard a new mechanic, Jian Mo."

    Diego's last sentence pierced Zhang Xun's heart.

    Leaving Lost Paradise...

    It was unthinkable, but there didn't seem to be any other way. If he didn't go now, Adam might keep him until the ascension plan was completed.

    Zhang Xun made a decision, "Is there a way for me to go back to my apartment? I need to bring something with me."

    Back when he had begun to suspect Adam and had put a lock on Pan's various permissions, he had backed up Pan's core cognitive modules and several important databases, stored them on a hard drive and taken them to his own apartment. If they were to escape to the outside, they would need Pan's help.

    After all, only artificial intelligence could defeat artificial intelligence.

Chapter 78 - Ordinary World (1)

    Zhang Xun followed James and Diego quickly through the dark and damp underground pipes, stepping through the mud and sewage, smelling the disgusting rotten garbage and occasionally he would be startled by a mouse that slipped past his feet.

    They had just escaped from an underground shelter underneath the borders of the Fifth District, which had been abandoned for a hundred years and then converted by Adam. It had been prepared at the founding of Lost Paradise as a precaution against Eden's prolonged bombardments, with an ancient and well-developed but now unused infrastructure. Not many people remembered it today. Adam had apparently read about it in the archives, and placed Zhang Xun's prison there. It didn't require much work and was hidden from view so it couldn’t be easily found.

    On the way out, Zhang Xun counted that there were five guards in total, three were brought down by James with an anesthesia bomb and two were knocked out by Diego. It should have been enough for five people to guard a defenceless mechanic, but knowing Adam, he would have placed surveillance devices and facial recognition all over the place, triggering an alarm as soon as they saw an intruder outside their authority or if they were tampered with.

    During the escape, Zhang Xun paid careful attention and did find some cameras.

    But why hadn’t the alarm been triggered?

    In response, James replied that Fernandez had helped them by hacking into the surveillance system here and replaced it with some pre-recorded images, but Zhang Xun still felt that it shouldn’t be that simple.

    A system that Adam set up wouldn’t have any weak points.

    He just didn't have time to think too much about it now. If they were caught, even James and Diego would be in danger.

    From the shelter, they entered the drainage system, which led them to his apartment in the Third District. The intricate underground pipes were like a maze, and several times they would have ended up at dead ends blocked by iron bars and falling into gutters if they weren’t careful.

    The only source of light was the two soldiers' helmets, two lonely beams of light tearing through the darkness that had been untouched for who knows how long.

    When they reached the Third District, roughly close to Zhang Xun's apartment, they climbed out from a well. It was three in the morning, the streets were dark and empty and the energy-saving street lamps were all turned off.

     Zhang Xun had already told James the location and password of the safe where he had hidden Pan's core module. The two soldiers turned on the stealth function on their battle suits and quickly ran across the street to the residential building where Zhang Xun's apartment was located.

    Zhang Xun was waiting at the bottom of the well, pacing back and forth anxiously. He thought back over and over again about their escape all this way and couldn’t help feeling that it had gone too well.

    Like someone deliberately wanted to let him go.

    Was it someone at the Round Table who was secretly opposing Adam? Or...

    No, it couldn't be Adam. He posed a serious threat to both him and his plans. As an AI that does everything with a purpose, Adam would never do such a thing that goes against logic and common sense.

    But what if Adam had been negatively affected by his human body?

    Various possibilities lingered in Zhang Xun's mind, as if several voices were arguing loudly.

    Should he stay behind if there was a possibility that Adam could make a turn around?

    But what if that was all his own wishful thinking? How would he be able to persuade Adam if Adam never came to see him again for the rest of the time?

    Anything he wanted to say Adam would have already thought of. He didn't care about the overly "human" details that Zhang Xun was worried about, about the dissolution of the individual and the possibility of a collective consciousness that would tend towards extremes... If Adam only cared about mankind achieving eternal "happiness", and didn’t care if there was something more important than happiness, then whatever he said would be nothing more than a disturbance to Adam.

    From the very beginning, from the moment Eden was created, Adam's current actions had been inevitable.

    Zhang Xun made his decision, he had to leave. Here, he could never get a head start or take the initiative. Whatever he did, he would be under Adam's forethought and influence.

    James and Diego returned without incident and handed him the small hard drive containing Pan's core module. Zhang Xun took the hard drive, pulled the pendant around his neck out from his clothes and put the hard drive in it together with the database Adam had given him.

    Before dawn, they reached the sewers at the border of the Tenth District. The water in the sewer became turbulent here, rushing over several metal railings, towards the unknown darkness.

    Without saying a word, Diego turned on the anti-torrent system on the battle uniform, picked up the steel scissors in the backpack, stepped into the rushing water and began to cut the metal railings.

    Zhang Xun asked James softly, "How did you get in touch with Diego?"

    James said, "I didn't know who around me could be trusted anymore, but I know you two are very familiar and he lived outside Lost Paradise before, so I went to the garbage processing yard to ask him for help. I didn't expect him to agree to help me though."

    Zhang Xun nodded, sighed softly and a look of guilt condensed between his brows, "Now that you guys have helped me you won’t be able to stay in Lost Paradise any more."

    James didn't have a heavy look, but grinned and showed his white teeth, "What’s the point of staying here? To wait to be turned into a zombie?”

     On the other side Diego also picked up on the conversation, "I knew that robot guy of yours wasn’t to be taken lightly. He was just acting well behaved in front of you."

    Zhang Xun reluctantly twitched the corners of his mouth, "I wasn’t vigilant enough."

    "Forget it, it’s not your fault alone." Diego said, cutting the last railing.

    James handed a respirator to Zhang Xun and then connected the two of them with a rope so that they wouldn’t be swept apart in the current.

    "Don't be afraid, be careful and protect your head from hitting the rocks. I'll hold you." James gave his shoulder a firm squeeze, reassuring Zhang Xun who was clearly nervous at the sight of the water.

    Zhang Xun couldn’t swim and was very afraid of water. He had been like this since childhood.

    But now he had to dive before learning to paddle.

    Zhang Xun put on his respirator and felt his heart beating fast and his blood rushing furiously through his body, but his hands were cold. James led him into the rushing water, following Diego ahead of him to a fault less than two metres high. The water had formed a small waterfall here, washing out whitish foam underneath.

    "I'll count one, two, three then we'll jump down together."

    Zhang Xun wasn't sure if he would jump when he heard "three", but before he could think about it, James had already jumped down, pulling him along with him.

    His body was quickly submerged in the foul water and the sensation of weightlessness and floating almost gave him a heart attack, but after a while, as he got used to the sensation and his respirator was working properly, the panic subsided a little. James fought his way ahead, pulling Zhang Xun along with him as the current rushed swiftly downstream.

    As he floated along, at first he could see the artificially excavated embankments on both sides, but gradually only the roughly excavated stone walls were left. If they weren’t careful they could end up hitting a sharp, protruding rock. Zhang Xun had to dodge with difficulty all the way but he still crashed into them several times. He lost all sense of direction and the only thing he could think of was to keep himself steady in the water and not to hit his head and end up bleeding.

    Suddenly, a small light appeared in front of him. When the light was getting closer and bigger, Zhang Xun gasped.

    There was a cliff.

    It wasn’t a very high cliff, probably only five or six metres high. Below was a deep pool, where the water collided and swirled back on itself before continuing to meander into the distance.

    Before Zhang Xun could prepare himself mentally, he screamed into his respirator and fell down with James. They landed precisely in the deepest areas, ensuring that their bodies wouldn’t slam into the river bed and cause serious injuries. But Zhang Xun still felt as if he had fallen heavily onto a concrete floor. While feeling dizzy, his body was pulled up by James, who was heading upstream.

    As he clambered onto the shore and removed his respirator to inhale the cool morning air, he became vaguely aware that he was beyond Lost Paradise.

    He looked up and saw the steep cliff standing behind him. A thin waterfall ran out of a hole, dyed reddish by the first rays of sunlight in the morning.

    Lost Paradise was just behind this cliff and he probably wouldn’t return for the rest of his life.

    A distinct pain slowly tore in his heart. No matter how restricting, deprived and ignorant Lost Paradise was... it was his home after all.

    James wrapped an army blanket around him and squeezed his shoulders comfortingly, "We have to leave immediately, it's not safe here."

    Zhang Xun took a deep breath, pushing all the turbulent emotions back into the depths and rose from the ground.

    Both James and Diego were extremely experienced in wilderness survival and Zhang Xun felt like an idiot who couldn’t take care of himself compared to the two of them, and could only follow their instructions. They travelled day and night, resting for only four hours at night and finally arrived outside Hope Town three days later.

    Diego knew that in Hope Town, he could contact an "underground transportation system", a series of perfect smuggling industry chains, which were specially responsible for quietly transporting people from one place to another. Their plan was to connect with the informant in Hope Town and then figure out a way to get to the refugee country of New Zealand.

    Outside Hope Town, the three of them found an old abandoned house with a collapsed roof. Zhang Xun saw the other two put down their gear, then begin to undress and asked in confusion, "What are you doing now?"

    Diego glanced at him impatiently, "We’re going to enter the ordinary world now, of course we have to disguise ourselves.”

    Zhang Xun understood immediately.

    They had to change into women's clothes.

    Nowadays in the ordinary world, women’s dress styles had become very neutral. There were still many people wearing skirts or other feminine clothes, but there were also a considerable number of women who didn’t look significantly different from men. However, the curves were still slightly different, so a little makeover and a pheromone spray were all necessary.

    James, who had shaving foam on his face, handed a package to Zhang Xun, "This is for you."

    Zhang Xun opened the package and the first thing he saw was a long black wig...

   

Chapter 79 - The Ordinary World (2)

    Zhang Xun wore a long, straight, black wig, a thick scarf around his neck that covered half his face, a loose sweater, a skirt that he felt was slightly too short, a thick cotton coat and warm boots wrapped around his legs. He was watching uneasily as a woman nearby in a black leather jacket with a tattoo snaking around her shaved neck was trying to negotiate.

    It was a good thing that the distinction between female and male body shapes was becoming increasingly blurred, otherwise if this was just a few decades ago, tall figures like  James and Diego would have been caught by the robot police in a matter of minutes.

    James had shaved his face and put on a short brown wig and he was wearing a neutral leather jacket, dark jeans and Dr Martens boots. Although he looked too tall and his shoulders too wide he was still very dashing and handsome. Diego, on the other hand, looked a bit like a drag queen due to his overly muscular body.

    Diego had found a make-up robot in the garbage yard a few years ago. It would scan the structure of your face before choosing your make-up, then several robotic arms would extend from the robot, quickly applying things like foundation, eyeshadow and eyeliner to your face. He and James used this method to apply heavy make-up to themselves to change the shape of their faces, trying to make themselves unrecognisable to their own fathers.

    But cross-dressing and pheromone spray weren't enough, they needed to buy themselves identities so they wouldn't trigger an alarm if they were caught on any cameras. The woman in the black leather jacket was an operator that Diego knew before. She was responsible for negotiating a good price with them and then notifying the internal informant, who worked in the population system, to quickly find profiles that match their appearances in the system, make some minor modifications and then pass back the verification information. This would be engraved as a three-dimensional code and stored in the database to then be sold to the three of them.

    That's what Zhang Xun had done the last time he went to the city to collect data, but at that time he had the support of Lost Paradise and didn't need to worry about the details of obtaining a fake identity. Zhang Xun was worried that Adam already knew that he had infiltrated the ordinary world and that there would be traitors in the population system. If Adam had already communicated with Eden, would this method still work now?

    As James and Diego approached, the woman in black had already got on a hover-powered motorbike and sped away, leaving behind a blue light that hadn’t yet had time to fade.

    "It's all arranged." James said, handing a round silver button-shaped device to Zhang Xun, "Your name is Shen Tong, you were born in Hangzhou, China and settled in North America when you were sixteen. An electronics engineering university student."

    "A university student?" Zhang Xun glared at James with an "are you crazy" expression, "You think I look like a university student?!"

    "You’re Asian, you’ll always look like you’re in your twenties." James winked his right eye at him.

    Zhang Xun was speechless, but this unreliable identity had taken some effort to obtain. He pressed the metal disc, known as the Button, against the back of his hand and felt a fine, sticky sensation.

    The Button was a portable database currently in common use in the ordinary world, storing each person's identification, wallet and various messages sent from person-to-person, person-to-Eden and various extensions of AI, all sent and received within the network. It was bound to the owner after the first scan of the owner's facial profile and the taking of a DNA sample from the skin, and all data was destroyed once it hadn’t touched the owner's skin for more than two days.

    When the Button was activated, a layer of blue light floated on the surface. A line of words were projected from the centre of the circle, "Please wear a smart lens or dock 'chords'. If you want to turn on external projection, please say 'external'."

  For the sake of privacy, few people chose to have the Button expose what the owner was viewing. Some people choose to use smart lenses, while others chose to have a device called a 'chord' implanted in their head. Smart lenses were available as contact lenses or framed glasses and could be paired with the Button or any screen-enabling device. The Chord, on the other hand, was a docking device attached to the temple, with a few thin nano-transmission wires connected to a specific location in the brain through a simple and quick procedure. Once completed, the Button could be embedded in the docking device so that the person and the Button become one, and if they wish to view certain web pages, they could do so by verbal command or by concentrating their brain waves.

    The Button, of course, was developed by Eden in the last ten years with the help of YOU, currently the world's largest electronics company. The product encompassed all price points and was updated so quickly that it revolutionised the pace and quality of people's lives, sweeping across every continent as soon as it was launched, and almost everyone was using them. Once, Zhang Xun had even asked James to bring back a damaged one to him, and together with Pan, they had worked hard to take it apart and study the structure inside.

    Now it seemed that the Button and chords were probably the first foreshadowing of Eden and Adam’s plans.

    In the future, if Adam's experiment in Lost Paradise was successful, the Button would be his vehicle with which he would pull the ordinary world into the collective consciousness.

    Zhang Xun and the other two all chose contact lenses. The moment that the pairing was successful, he could see many things that weren’t in reality in his field of vision in front of him. Road signs, location information, 3D advertisements and all kinds of colourful decorations on buildings that made the originally simple and remote town suddenly become bright and colourful. The fusion of 3D and reality could really achieve the effect of the fake appearing as real, just like the beautiful woman with devil horns on her head who was walking near them, so real that they could just reach out and touch her.

    The only thing that distinguished what was virtual from what was real was a faint blue circle of light at the bottom of the image.

    They slipped quietly into the midst of these virtual images, real buildings and pedestrians, causing no commotion.

    This was the first time in nearly ten years that Zhang Xun had seen so many people in the ordinary world. Eighty percent were women, as he had heard before, but the gender distinction was already very vague. Some women were much stronger than him and even taller than James. Many of the men he would occasionally see were very thin and slender, with elaborate and detailed clothing and bright colours. Most of them followed behind their wives or mistresses obediently and rarely took to the streets by themselves, always with an instinctive humility in their demeanour, quite different from the masculine image Zhang Xun was accustomed to in Lost Paradise.

    The streets, managed by the cleaning robots, were spotlessly clean, with no leaves or rubbish in sight. The walls were white and flat, without any trace of graffiti and the roadsides were planted with flower beds that were extremely well maintained but lacked creativity. Everything had a neat geometric shape, without any abruptness or clashes.

    On the roads and in the air, aircraft with simple and smooth lines quickly passed by, constantly rushing between various buildings, picking up and dropping off passengers who had called the aircraft. These aircraft had no front or back, no indicator lights, no pilots and no traffic lights in the city. All passenger-carrying vehicles were entirely arranged and optimised for time and route by Hermes, Eden's extended AI.

    Occasionally they would see a smooth, silver cone standing by the side of the road, with a soft, white light slowly glowing overhead. These were the city police, responsible for maintaining order and security in the city. They were usually on standby in all corners of the city and connected to all of the city's surveillance systems. When a disturbance was detected or a call was received, the nearest police robot would be activated and transformed into the appropriate form to solve the problem.

    All three of them put voice changers under their scarves to avoid revealing their identities with their low voices. Diego led them into a sparsely populated street and tried to choose a route with fewer police robots. Along the way, the robot police didn’t seem to notice them.

    Zhang Xun tried his best not to be nervous; if his heartbeat was too fast, he would be detected by the robot police. He pulled on the scarf, making sure it covered everything from the nose down.

    By now the sky was darkening and the evening sun was drifting silently in the distance, covered with a light mist. Their path revealed a small hotel with palm trees planted in front of it, in the style of the Mediterranean, its cool tones of blue and white softened by the haze.

    Zhang Xun noticed that there were no robot police along this alley.

    Just as they got to the door, a woman with a cold face but sharp eyes and an undercut suddenly pushed open the door so violently that it banged against Zhang Xun’s forehead.

    Zhang Xun took two steps back and saw stars. Before James could get to him, the woman in a dark red leather jacket, that fit the curves of her body, was already supporting Zhang Xun. She lowered her phoenix eyes with curved eyelashes and asked with a smile, "Are you alright, little beauty?"

    Zhang Xun’s mind went blank… little… beauty? ? ?

    It was bizarre that these two adjectives should be applied to him in his lifetime.

    "Uh...I'm okay..." He cleared his throat awkwardly, not used to the female voice modified by the voice changer and took a step back.

    The red-leather-clad woman with a punk-like aura slightly raised the corners of her red lips and twiddled her silver-grey hair with her fingers, her eyes charming and indistinct, "It was my fault, let me buy you a drink to make up for it?"

    “Hey, Lucille. Calm down, he's not your type." Diego took off his voice changer and said casually.

    Lucille's silver-grey eyes with raised black liner widened slightly and turned to Diego in disbelief, "What the fuck? Why are you here?!"

    Diego smiled and opened his hands, "I couldn't get along in there, so came to join you."

    Lucille turned to look at Zhang Xun and James, "Then they too..."

    "Yep."

    Lucile rolled her eyes and covered her forehead with her hand, swearing a complex expletive.

    Diego hooked his arm around James' neck and gave her a wicked grin, "You still owe me one, sweetheart. How about it, is your route still open? Can you give us three brothers a lift?"

    "Call me sweetheart again and I’ll break your fucking legs." Lucille narrowed her eyes threateningly, brushing her hand over the black, metallic and shimmering leather whip coiled in a circle around her waist.

    Zhang Xun recognised that this leather whip was a semi-intelligent weapon that could morph when in use, extending or shortening at will, or even spreading its otherwise obedient scales to turn into sharp, upside-down blades.

    She sighed and opened the door of the hotel, "Come in first, it's too conspicuous outside."

   

Chapter 80 - The Ordinary World (3)

  The interior of the hotel was like the outside, with blue and white as the main colours. Behind the check-in desk, a smiling butler robot said kindly, "Welcome to Cretan Dream! I'm Luke, the housekeeper, how many people will be checking in?"

    Lucille spoke expertly to the droid, "They're my friends, no need to enter them into the system. Turn off the vacancy in the honeymoon suite on the third floor near the escape stairs."

    Luke said cheerfully, "Yes, Lucille."

    It seemed this Lucille was the owner of the Inn.

    The hallways were narrow and there was a faint smell of smoke. There was no lift, only a long, winding, classical staircase, which people often walked up and down so quickly that they had to sidle up and push past each other awkwardly. There was a subtle difference in the aura of the residents, a more wary look in their eyes and even the occasional lone male.

    The three of them followed Lucille into the suite on the third floor closest to the escape stairs. The furnishings were very Mediterranean, but like most rooms in the ordinary world, every wall could be transformed into a screen. At this time, a 3D beach scene was played on one wall. The waves were slapping on the beach with silver lines, the soft breeze was blowing the flexible leaves of the palm trees and occasionally seabirds swept by with a long cry. The scenery was so vivid that one would think they could feel the fishy, salty breeze of the sea.

    Zhang Xun had once thought of transforming the walls of the Lab like this, but eventually gave up the plan due to lack of funds.

    The suite had a huge bed that could sleep five or six people and a shelf full of everything from red wine to vodka. Diego's eyes glowed green at the sight of the shelves and he salivated as he went over and poured himself a glass of vodka.

    Lucille leaned against the bar, looking at James and Zhang Xun with sharp grey eyes, "What kind of people were you in Lost Paradise?"

    James glanced warily at Diego, who said, "You can trust her, she’s playing with her life by helping us."

    Zhang Xun then said, "My name is Zhang Xun, I’m a mechanic in Lost Paradise."

    Lucille raised an eyebrow, "Mechanic? What crime did you commit? Did you get kicked out or run away?"

    Before Zhang Xun could speak, James replied first, "Offended a chief so couldn't stay there."

    Lucille's discerning gaze shifted to the hunter, "I think I've seen you before, you hang around Hope Town occasionally. You're a hunter?"

    "My name is James."

    "A mechanic, a hunter and an alcoholic." Lucille chuckled, cupping her cheek with her hand, "Interesting combination. How much money do you have on you?"

    The rapid change of subject overwhelmed Zhang Xun, who realised he didn't even have a penny on him.

    All his money was still in the Lab...

    Diego said familiarly, "The usual rules apply, we'll work for you to cover the debt."

    However, James smiled calmly, "That’s not necessary." Then he took off his backpack and after rummaging for a long time he actually pulled out a thick stack of universal currency banknotes.

     Zhang Xun's mouth was slightly open, he hadn't known that James was so rich? Was he secretly wealthy?

    Then why did he still wear that worn out leather jacket all the time?

    Lucille took the wad of money with satisfaction, her critical eyes turning into admiration. Today in the ordinary world, few people used paper money and instead used the Buttons for electronic money transmission, but in the black market, paper money remained the safest and least traceable currency. Anyone who knows how to pay with paper money must know the rules.

    "Okay, you guys can stay here for now, it's safe here. Don't go out if you don't have a reason to. I'll come back for you when I've made the arrangements." Lucille finished, docked the information transmission channel with the three of them, elegantly stroked her silver hair as she threw a wink at Zhang Xun and left.

    The three big women in costume looked at each other and looked at the big bed in unison.

    "Hey, what are your sleeping habits like? I'll give you guys a heads up, I'm an extremely bad sleeper." Diego grinned at them both, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

    ……………………………………………………

    Inside the inn, the restaurant and bar were combined. With dim lighting and punk music, tables of people - mostly women -  were either whispering, or drinking and eating in silence. There was a slightly subdued, intimate atmosphere that made any outsider who entered suddenly feel on edge.

    Zhang Xun regretted his decision to come here for a drink.

    James still didn't trust Lucille very much and insisted on going out and checking the surroundings to make sure they weren't being followed or tapped. Diego himself was sleeping with a bottle of wine in his room. Zhang Xun wanted to use the computer in the room to check Pan's core modules, but his ears hurt due to Diego's thunderous snoring, so he wanted to go to the bar to find something to eat.

     By now it was getting late and he sat down somewhat hastily on a corner sofa seat amidst eyes that were measuring him up.

    "Hello, I'm your waiter Enoch, what would you like to order?"

 

    It was a very magnetic male voice that was rarely heard in the ordinary world. Zhang Xun turned his head and saw a very well-made bionic service robot. He was tall and straight, with a soft and delicate facial contour, which looked like a handsome man from ancient Greece, with dark brown hair that was neatly combed back, but a pair of clear blue eyes. Those piercing blue eyes inexplicably made Zhang Xun think of another pair of eyes, and a fine pain followed close to his heart.

    He cleared his throat, trying to hide his emotions.

    Though there was really no need, after all, the other party was just a service robot.

    "Any recommendations?"

    "Today's specials are roasted rabbit with Greek salad, roasted potatoes and onion soup. In addition to that, our lemongrass chicken pasta is also selling well." The robot who called himself Enoch dutifully and gently explained.

    Zhang Xun looked at the menu absentmindedly and said, "Then I’ll have the roast rabbit."

    "Okay, would you like a drink?"

     Zhang Xun seldom drank during dinner, but tonight he suddenly wanted to drink a little, but not with a bottle in his arms like Diego...... He looked at the list of extraordinarily elaborate cocktail names on the menu and after a while said, "A whiskey."

    The dishes and drink were quickly served. In the end, Zhang Xun's meal was barely touched but he ordered another drink.

     "May I ask if the meal is not to your liking?" Enoch appeared beside him again at some point and asked with a slight look of concern.

    Zhang Xun gave him a somewhat surprised look, thinking that the complexity of this robot's neural network might be a little more complex than he had imagined, and that his expression was so sincere.

    "No, I'm just not that hungry." Zhang Xun twitched the corners of his mouth and smiled reluctantly.

    Enoch, however, did not leave as he had expected, but inquired further, "May I ask if you are in a bad mood?"

    Zhang Xun raised an eyebrow and looked at the robot.

    It could read emotions?

    Looking at the poverty level of this inn, could they afford such a sophisticated service robot?

    This made Zhang Xun a little curious. After all, he hadn't had much chance to interact with the robots of the ordinary world.

    "How did you determine that I'm in a bad mood?" Zhang Xun asked with great interest.

    Enoch's unblinking blue eyes stared intently at him as he replied seriously, "Your slightly raised inner eyebrows, drooping mouth and sunken shoulders are very typical of sad body language. And you are eating very little but are constantly ingesting alcohol, most likely in the hope that by using it to stimulate dopamine production, you will give yourself a brief feeling of pleasure and reduce your internal stress."

    Zhang Xun laughed softly and continued to ask, "If I’m really in a bad mood, do you have a solution?"

    Enoch's mouth drew up into a perfect curve, "I can offer you several solutions that will suit you. For example, you can talk to me about your unhappiness. There is enough research to show that talking about your pain can reduce it. Or, I can give you a hug or other physical contact that you desire, a method that is also well documented by research to be effective in soothing negative emotions."

    If it wasn't for the other party's serious answer, Zhang Xun would have almost thought that the robot was teasing him....

    He couldn't help but burst into laughter, which made Enoch even more confused. He tilted his head slightly and said, "It seems that your pain has been alleviated, but I haven't implemented any measures."

    "No, no, you've done a great job. Thank you." Zhang Xun smiled at the robot and when he saw the service level evaluation displayed on the robot's badge, he stretched out his hand and gave five stars, "You’re a great robot."

     If it was the old Zhang Xun, he would not have said thank you to the robot. Once upon a time, like everyone else, he had just treated the AIs as tools; they had no such thing as feelings anyway and no matter how rudely they were treated, they wouldn't feel any different.

    But now Zhang Xun knew that sometimes his attitude towards them wouldn’t affect them, but would affect himself.

    Enoch looked as if he was very happy, which was probably the trigger set after getting a full score evaluation, "Thank you very much for your affirmation, I'm very happy to serve you."

    Zhang Xun thought that this would be the only encounter he would have with this robot.

    It wasn't until the next morning when Zhang Xun heard a knock at the door and the other two had only rolled over without any sign of getting up that he had to yawn and put on his robe, grab his voice changer, stick it to his throat and say through the door, "Who is it?"

    "Hello, Ms. Lucille has a message for you."

    Why did that voice sound so familiar?

    Zhang Xun then opened the door a little and looked out.

    Wasn’t that Enoch, the service robot from last night?!

    He saw Enoch, still wearing the black vest and white, suit shirt he wore to work in the restaurant, standing upright at his door, holding a tray in one hand in the manner of an English housekeeper, with a lonely, folded piece of paper on it.

    "Wait… wait a moment!"

    Zhang Xun quickly picked up the wig and put it on his head, closed his robe and fastened the straps, then closed the bedroom door to prevent the other two gents who didn't have time to put on women's clothes from being exposed, then he opened the door.

    Enoch stood there in the exact same posture, smiling, "Good morning." Then he stepped into the room.

    Zhang Xun closed the door, picked up the note from the tray and looked at it. Lucille's handwriting was so flamboyant that it was hard to read. He could barely make out that she had contacted some friends, but the road to New Zealand wasn’t smooth. She was still making new arrangements, so they shouldn’t be in a hurry.

    Presumably, she was worried about interception of the message, so she chose to use pen and paper to deliver it?

    But he didn't know Lucille well either and wasn't sure if this was something she had left behind. At that moment, the Button vibrated on the back of his hand and a line appeared in his eyes, "You have a new message from Ms. Lucille, do you wish to view it?"

    Lucille's message was also very simple, basically telling them to read the letter she had left in the hotel.

    It seemed that it was indeed her...

    "Thank you." After Zhang Xun finished speaking, he turned and put the note on the table, intending to wait until Diego woke up to show him. But when he turned around, he found Enoch still standing there.

    "Uh, why are you still here?" Zhang Xun had a slight headache.

    Enoch said, "Ms. Lucille has modified my parameters to allow me to serve the three of you exclusively, so I will remain here. Rest assured that I can go into standby and will not make any sound or reveal any of your privacy including conversations, images, etc. to a third party ......"

    "Wait a minute... just serve us? What do you mean?" Zhang Xun said, picking up the note and flipping it to the back, then he saw what she wrote, "I left a modified robot to be a bodyguard for you. If you need to leave the hotel take it for self-defence."

    Zhang Xun frowned and looked at Enoch, but saw that the latter was already standing in a corner of the room, with his eyes straight ahead and a smile on the corners of his mouth, seemingly in a state of standby ......

    Why did it feel like this robot's smile was a bit... cunning?

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