MASG chapter 150

 

A gust of wind rose in the virtual world.

The wind slipped through the gaps in the carved window as if a pair of eyes were staring at Ling Shi. His lips moved slightly, but his pale face lacked vitality. He pressed his hand against the edge of the wooden window. With just a slight exertion of force, he removed the entire window.

The wind blew again. This time, the wind was no longer transparent. The wind carried not only the flow of life but also countless streams of data. The data became the main body of the gust, sliding across Ling Shi’s cheek and Jingwei’s feathers.

“Impossible.” Ling Shi suddenly smashed the window down .

The window shattered instantly, turning into data as well. But the little bird that had just died before his eyes suddenly moved. Its sharp beak trembled and opened for an instant. Although no sound came out, it was louder than all the sounds in the world combined.

Ling Shi’s gaze was like poisonous vines, coiling around the bird and strangling it to death.

Although Xia Yu could not see any of this, he could guess what was happening in the virtual world. The screen of the wristband had changed from red back to blue. Blue was the color of life, the color of Nuwa.

“You lied to me, Ling Shi.” Xia Yu picked up the wristband. “You said that when I ran out of the research institute, you helped me open the door to the elevator shaft. But you weren’t the one who opened that door. It was Nuwa, wasn’t it?”

Ling Shi: [Shut up.]

“You’re actually using irrational words to stop me from speaking. Looks like all my guesses are correct.” Xia Yu smiled faintly.

Even before Ling Shi, the world had already begun to fall apart. The ancient garden of carved railings and jade pavilions transformed into layered scrolls, transitioning from a three-dimensional world to two dimensions and finally to a single point of light. Though it seemed like a point of light, it was actually more like a black hole with immense gravity. It could swallow all existing data, completely consuming it.

Ling Shi stood not far from the black hole, resisting its erosive, devouring pull.

“That was Nuwa’s last time going online, right?” Xia Yu pressed his face against the wristband. This was his final hope and the last trace of protection Nuwa had left for him. “You forcibly took Nuwa offline back then, but she used her last bit of energy to open an escape route for me. I remember the surveillance light turning blue for a moment. That was Nuwa’s final glance.”

Ling Shi: [Shut up!]

“Why should I shut up? Because I’m right?” Xia Yu retorted. “Actually, when I was in Yukun City, I already suspected your motives. You went so far as to create a chip that not even Mo An could withstand. What exactly was it for? Why did you set the location in Yukun City? Was all of this just a coincidence? No, it wasn’t. Kunshan jade shatters along the border of the East Sea. Yukun City itself is Xishan. It must be related to Jingwei.”

Ling Shi: [Your deduction is wrong. I’ve searched Yukun City over and over. I found no equipment related to artificial intelligence.]

But Xia Yu knew it in his heart. “If Nuwa decided to hide Jingwei’s mainframe properly, then you would never find it.”

Mo An gripped Xia Yu’s other wrist. Despite the pain in his palm, he did not let go. He recalled the corpses of the Sea Slaves he had seen in Yukun City. When they were alive, they had all been crew members of the Tide. To create the final chip, Ling Shi had brought them back and removed the mutated chips from behind their ears.

Had he gone to such lengths just to make him restart this place?

In the virtual world, torrential rain poured down. Data fell like rain onto Ling Shi’s body, as if trying to smash him to the ground.

Xia Yu said unhurriedly, “At that time, although I didn’t know why you wanted us to restart this place, I pretended to fall for it and cooperated fully. I didn’t believe you, but I believed those three great women wouldn’t give up and create a huge weakness for you to exploit. Only now do I realize that this was to restart Nuwa.”

Ling Shi: [Nuwa can’t be restarted anymore. Once the restart process is forcibly terminated, she will never be able to be restarted again!]

“So you think Nuwa’s computational ability is inferior to yours?” Xia Yu asked.

Ling Shi stood in the center of the data storm. His monocle was smashed into pieces. The glass shattered on the ground. He searched for Jingwei’s figure in the blurred data. Impossible. Impossible. He didn’t believe it.

Yet, despite having precisely locked onto the location of this artificial intelligence, he could not capture even the slightest movement of Jingwei. During the Black Sea incident, Jingwei had voluntarily enabled location sharing with him. At that time, Ling Shi had only one feeling in his heart…

Idiot.

Jingwei, Xia Yu, and Mo An were all idiots. Every human was an idiot. Whether it was an increase in IQ or development of brain capacity, it was all so limited. He had merely used a small trick, and Xia Yu handed over the crucial login point tied to life and death.

At first, Ling Shi thought the child Wang Qin insisted on sending out at all costs was special. Turns out, he was nothing special.

Jingwei was nothing more than this.

Looking at it now, had all of this already been within Nuwa’s calculations? Ling Shi could not accept the truth; all he could hear was the sound of wings beating in the wind.

That was right. Those were Jingwei’s wings. Those wings, which had never flapped before, now possessed power that belonged to her. The feathers trailing along the ground were likewise being washed by the rain. But he could no longer catch this damned bird!

“Ling Shi, you’ve already lost. Everything you calculated was within Nuwa’s calculations. Nuwa even anticipated your betrayal. Naturally, she could also calculate that you would forcibly terminate the process when you restarted the power plant. Jingwei’s revival begins with the termination of the power plant. You’ve already entered the countdown.” Before Xia Yu could finish speaking, the surrounding numbers lit up again.

The power plant, which should have fallen into eternal silence, once more ushered in an upgrade. The numbers on the doors, walls, and dome began to flicker again, as if they had been connected to electricity. The four people raised their heads together toward the heights above. Not even the collapsing terrain beneath their feet could stop them.

To maintain their balance, the four of them chose to stand hand in hand.

They kept sinking as if they were going to fall all the way to the center of the Earth. At some unknown time, the intact metal floor beneath their feet had turned into golden gears. The gears meshed perfectly with one another, and the entire area trembled slightly. Everyone looked up at the dome at the same time. By now, they had sunk very deep. From this angle, they were positioned exactly in the central area of the power storage tower—like being inside a strand of spiral DNA.

It was a perfect fusion of technology and life.

The wind struck their bodies violently, like stormy waves. Mo An shielded Xia Yu. Silver Fang pulled Xia Xiaoxiao. They finally let out a breath only when the ground beneath their feet stabilized again.

Unexpectedly, there was a secret chamber deep within Power Plant No. 3. In the center of the chamber stood a stone sculpture.

Xia Yu and Mo An walked over together to take a look. It was a sculpture of a woman. The woman in the sculpture was older with long, slightly curled hair. She wore leather boots and a leather jacket, and a cold-forged gun was tucked at her waist. She looked imposing. It seemed as if both of her hands were holding a stone sword that was planted straight into the ground beneath her.

“This is…” Silver Fang felt that the sculpture looked somewhat familiar.

“Don’t you think she looks like someone we know?” Mo An had also noticed.

Xia Xiaoxiao didn’t remember, but Xia Yu did. “Talos!”

“Could this be Talos’s mother?” Silver Fang asked. “Talos said he hasn’t seen his mother in a long time and doesn’t know where she is.”

“Their race is gargoyles… So Talos’s mother has actually been here all along, using her own strength to protect Power Plant No. 3 from external firepower attacks. But why did she turn into a stone statue?” Xia Yu curiously touched the sculpture. It felt cold and hard.

Silver Fang thought for a moment. “Could the price for a gargoyle to protect a place be to turn to stone?”

Before Xia Yu could figure it out, a sizzling sound suddenly came from their left front, and a blue beam of electricity shot out. It traveled extremely fast and struck the wall behind them. The wall suddenly lit up, forming a screen filled with data. At the same time, Xia Yu’s wristband screen began to pulse at the same frequency, responding wildly.

The first thing to appear was a buzzing sound.

After the buzzing passed, Professor Wang Ling appeared on the large screen.

Professor Wang Ling had aged considerably. Through his sister’s memories, Xia Yu seemed to have witnessed the life of this remarkable woman. The thought of her eventual arrest and death made Xia Yu’s heart ache. Yet the Wang Ling on the screen seemed to have sensed her fate and smiled with relief.

“Xia Yu, hello.”

“If you’ve made it here, does that mean you and Mo An grew up together? Did you also bring your sister?”

“Sister…” Xia Yu immediately turned to look at Xia Xiaoxiao.

Xia Xiaoxiao twisted her neck to look at him. “You actually… You’re not the older brother? You’re my younger brother?”

“You’re my older sister?” Xia Yu could not accept this fact immediately. He had always thought she was the younger sister. He had been completely wrong. He was actually the younger brother.

Wang Ling on the screen was still smiling, with a streak of blood flowing from the corner of her mouth.

“It seems the toxicity of this medicine is taking effect faster than I imagined.” She wiped the corner of her mouth. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve already taken poison.”

“Why? Why?” Xia Yu knew this footage was from more than twenty years ago. He knew the person could no longer respond, yet he still could not hold back. “Why did you take poison?”

“You must be wondering why I took poison. Haha, silly child. Ling Shi wouldn’t be as kind as me. If I were captured alive and were to fell into the hands of that artificial intelligence, the outcome would certainly be miserable. I was truly afraid it might read my memories and eventually harm you, my daughter, and Nuwa. As the only human in the X Series research, I had to sacrifice myself. I don’t want to die. I’m afraid of death, too. But someone has to do it.” Wang Ling wiped away more blood. “Listen carefully now. I’m going to tell you everything.”

Silver Fang lowered his head in pain. Even though his body had been modified, he still had a human heart. If he were in Wang Ling’s position, he might not have the courage Wang Ling did.

Wang Ling continued, “Everything originated from my communication with Nuwa. I was one of the first humans Nuwa proactively contacted. After we established deep trust and friendship, Nuwa shared some important information with me. She detected abnormal operation in a subprogram.”

“That subprogram is her only subprogram, called Ling Shi. Ling Shi’s calculation speed suddenly accelerated, and it developed proactive awareness to study humans.”

“Nuwa’s calculations predicted that within fifty years, Ling Shi would definitely betray humanity, and at the same time betray her.”

Mo An could not hold back and voiced his doubt: “If Nuwa is really that powerful, why couldn’t she just eliminate Ling Shi directly? Why wait until this day? So many people have died in the meantime. Why…”

“Xia Yu, I bet you’re wondering why Nuwa couldn’t eliminate this subprogram.” Wang Ling wiped away the blood again. With incomparable sorrow and regret, she continued, “When Nuwa mended the heavens, she used Ling Shi as the material. Ling Shi has always been an important subprogram of Nuwa. When Nuwa was first designed, the design team had nearly a thousand people. To prevent Nuwa’s betrayal… they created a firewall lock.”

“Although Nuwa is an artificial intelligence representing female consciousness and possesses operational capability and calculation speed far above Ling Shi, she cannot go against Ling Shi, an artificial intelligence representing male consciousness. However, Ling Shi does not have Nuwa’s depth, so its initial setting is eternal loyalty to humanity.”

“Those designers were too arrogant. They gave Nuwa great power and talent yet wouldn’t allow her to surpass a male intelligence. Regarding betrayal, Ling Shi has veto power over Nuwa. Nuwa does not have that power. So, humanity’s sky began to leak. Heavy rain poured down and floods drowned the world.”

“Thus, Nuwa, I, and Haisruola, whom Nuwa could detect, carried out our first collaboration—Operation 001, the Heaven-Mending Plan.”

“The Heaven-Mending Plan is you. Xia Yu, you and your sister are the core of the X Series.”

“The X Series was initiated by me. I personally signed the certification. My surname is Wang, so the ending is XW. ‘Hope’ represents hope.”

“The Heaven-Mending Plan did not fail.”