I. Ouyang SOS Tie Xin#
The air always has a certain smell. When a person stays in the air for a long time, they naturally absorb this smell, which seeps into the pores, flavoring the skin along with the flesh and blood, becoming a part of the body, unnoticed. After leaving the city, where apart from the huge signal tower and the off-road vehicle he was riding, there were no other man-made facilities in sight, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin smelled the scent on himself—a smell that resembled a blend of plastic, metal, and chemicals. This smell enveloped his entire body, quickly making him feel nauseous.
He took a deep breath, seemingly wanting to completely exchange the air in his lungs; then he stripped off his clothes and tossed them into the off-road vehicle. After taking a couple of steps out, he turned back, put his shoes back on, and sprayed insect repellent all over himself.
The air in the forest seemed to have the power to cleanse the soul, creating a relaxing sensation at what felt like the surface of Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's left brain, tingling and clear, reminiscent of the intermittent experiences he had during his first real sexual encounter with another person. That was at least ten years ago; in the past decade, he had had a few more encounters with real people, but he had never felt that way again, and the pleasure and climax he experienced were not as intense as those from virtual sex. Perhaps for this reason, intimate contact between people had become increasingly rare, and Ouyang SOS Tie Xin even felt that it might eventually disappear entirely, with everyone living in their own virtual worlds, spending their lives on their own isolated islands.
The damp and cool air soaked into his skin, causing a layer of goosebumps to rise on Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's surface. He couldn't help but shiver as he continued walking into the forest, for what he called the purpose of today—experiencing reality.
Reality, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin thought, if examined closely, is actually just relative, and one cannot find a clear and indisputable definition in the hearts of people. Humans had long hypothesized that they were not in the real world, and if everything were unreal, even the basic scientific logic under modern civilization would be called into question, then the speculation about the reality of the world became an unprovable proposition, thus ceasing to be scientific, turning into something dreamlike, akin to faith.
The moist air carried a refreshing fragrance, and Ouyang SOS Tie Xin watched as a green beetle crawled up the trunk and then disappeared into a tree hole. Just then, his embedded augmented reality system pushed a "program you might be interested in" notification to him. Although Ouyang SOS Tie Xin was somewhat annoyed that he had forgotten to turn off this system while experiencing reality, the program pushed based on big data analysis did indeed pique his interest—"Live Show of the Real World! Artificial Induced Volcanic Eruption on Europa."
In this era, live broadcasts of the real world that are not boring could almost be said to have become extinct; even such a live broadcast of an artificially induced volcanic eruption might not stir any ripples in many people's hearts, after all, even if one wanted to experience grandeur and magnificence, the artificially designed or machine-generated virtual worlds would always be much more shocking. But in Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's eyes, the most attractive aspect of this program was not its grandeur but its reality. Even if the watchability of this program might not be as dazzling as the virtual world, "reality" could provide it with a different charm; just as some people find the ups and downs of artificial stories unappealing, the mundane and repetitive family gossip and tabloid news are more captivating.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin added this program to his favorites, then turned off his embedded augmented reality system, disconnecting it from all his sensory nerves, and continued his journey to experience reality.
II. The Live Broadcast Team#
The live broadcast began before the spaceship entered Europa's orbit. The chief planner, Shao Deng Wu Te, said it was "necessary preheating," but it seemed to have no effect. Apart from a brief period when 11 viewers appeared simultaneously when the broadcast went live, the number of online viewers had never exceeded 4, and none of them had a continuous viewing time of more than 3 minutes until the shuttle left the spaceship and landed next to the temporary base built by robots on Europa.
"What a complete failure," Shao Deng Wu Te admitted, but the planned schedule continued. After leaving the spaceship, six staff members were each assigned four dedicated drones for automatic tracking live broadcasts, and some non-fixed personnel and scene shooting drones also began to find their positions under the coordination of the spaceship's central computer and distributed networking.
"Actually, this was to be expected," said Xiu Sheng Mia, dressed in a white top and black skirt, "There are so many live broadcast programs, and ours hasn't really started yet." She was the entertainment designer for the program, and her main task was to increase the "drama" and "watchability" of this live broadcast. It was at her suggestion that the six staff members came to the surface of Europa instead of remotely commanding the broadcast from the spaceship or even further human settlements on Earth. At that time, she said, "The only difference between live broadcasts and virtual generation is reality; if we don't come in person, then the broadcast is meaningless."
Lin Dao Fei Fei agreed with her proposal. He called himself an "experiential photographer," saying that only on-site investigations could confirm the best shooting positions for cameras, while artificial intelligence could only find the most reasonable positions, not the most beautiful ones. He put on his protective suit shortly after the spaceship landed and took along aesthetic expert Rojobo Limk and two assistant robots.
An Bao Fei Xue was a volcanic research expert. She was lying on a massage chair, sipping what seemed to be an overly hot cup of coffee. She certainly had the right to do so, as her work was already done, and the robots could execute it. However, most of the work she completed was done by artificial intelligence; her job was merely to understand the logic of the artificial intelligence's design and installation of the induction device and then authorize it. However, Xiu Sheng Mia still assigned her a new task, which was to supervise (in reality, just observe) the construction process of the robots, watching as they buried those bombs one by one underground. But clearly, An Bao Fei Xue was not in a hurry; at least she wanted to finish her cup of coffee first.
The last staff member was the host of this live broadcast program, Wa Wa San San, who was browsing current internet memes in his exclusive studio. Tasks such as tracking camera control and main channel switching were temporarily handed over to artificial intelligence, as there were no effective viewers at the moment.
The current trending memes were still unoriginal; if one looked closely, they would surely find the same themes in historical data. What was trending now was merely a rebranding of those themes, and that branding was mostly uninspired. Across the internet, the hottest topic was "The Death of the Last Person Born in the Second Millennium." That person was named "Zhou Zhi Han," born in 1997, who quietly died three days before her 204th birthday on a luxurious nursing bed in a Shanghai sanatorium. Undoubtedly, she died in the truest sense of old age. Modern medicine had done everything possible.
The discussion surrounding the death of the longest-living person in history was not centered on her longevity but rather on the context of her death representing the end of an era or the true arrival of another era. And this era was marked by millennia. After Zhou Zhi Han's death, the longest-living person in the world became Sakamoto Muka, born in 2002. In other words, there were no longer any living people born in the twentieth century.
But this was also an era where the dead did not truly die. Shortly after Zhou Zhi Han's death, her digital avatar went online. This digital version of Zhou Zhi Han was placed in the publicly accessible digital museum "Hall of Longevity." This was a vast park-like virtual world, home to digital models of all those who had been the longest-living individuals at some point since the museum officially opened. Anyone could access copies of these digital models at any time and have intimate conversations with them. According to follow-up survey statistics, the most common topics people discussed in the Hall of Longevity were "death" and "longing."
Wa Wa San San logged into the Hall of Longevity, summoned a copy of Zhou Zhi Han, and then waited for a while for it to load into the local environment. His stylish digital avatar walked alongside the seemingly frail yet sharp-witted Zhou Zhi Han on a path where bright yellow ginkgo leaves occasionally fell, and then he posed an old-fashioned question that could be placed in a museum: "What is it like to be the last person to die in the second millennium?"
Grandma Zhou Zhi Han chuckled a couple of times, "Today, too many people have asked me this question. I'm already dead; what experience could I have?" Grandma shook her head, "Living long makes everything meaningless. When I was young, smartphones had just emerged, and then there were waves of virtual reality and digital currency; I can't even remember which came first, and then it was just robots all over the streets. Some programs were even written by me, but I can't remember; people get old, and their intelligence declines, and their brains just can't keep up. So, what experience could I have? It's just living a few more years. Moreover, this so-called millennium is just a human construct; why pay so much attention to it?"
"That's true; the Gregorian calendar is just a common convention, but people like festivals, so they assign meaning to these dates. Now people feel that your death marks the complete end of the primitive era of humanity. Now is the era of human-machine symbiosis."
"What era of human-machine symbiosis? Humans have relied on tools since the beginning; it's just that modern tools are a bit more advanced, allowing the dead to come back and speak."
Wa Wa San San did not expect Grandma Zhou Zhi Han to speak so sharply, but then he thought, if everyone around you sees you as an antique from the last millennium, it would be hard not to be sharp. He couldn't help but wonder what it would be like when he died. Would anyone remember him?...
At that moment, Wa Wa San San received a prompt and switched back to the studio located in the shuttle on Europa.
It was Lin Dao Fei Fei, saying that the live broadcast drones tracking him and Rojobo Limk had captured some very interesting footage.
III. The Orange Cat#
Speaking of Lin Dao Fei Fei, one would have to be out of their mind to believe what he said, even though he always stared at the other person with his bright eyes, giving the impression that it was necessary to believe him. "Angels and demons hide in human society," he once said, claiming that this was enough to explain all the miracles and misfortunes in human history; another time he said that humanity was destined to be destroyed by some ideology, but it wouldn't be nihilism or anti-humanism. Although Lin Dao Fei Fei often couldn't distinguish between the virtual and the real, saying some nonsensical things, he was indeed a competent photographer, seemingly always able to find the best angles for automatic cameras, claiming that even the best AI camera planning programs were far inferior to him.
Wang Xiu Hui Shan's field investigation work was as boring as expected; after all, the three-dimensional dynamic models constructed by AI using drone monitoring data had almost completely captured all the details. Yet Lin Dao Fei Fei still wanted to take a careful look at everything; he said there was something that AI could never capture or understand, which was his personal "self-feeling," and the experience gained from virtual reality was incomplete because everything inside virtual reality was ultimately just a model, always missing something, even though Lin Dao Fei Fei himself couldn't articulate what that missing thing was. "Maybe it's geographical location?" he said to the aesthetic expert Rojobo Limk beside him on the automated ground vehicle, "When experiencing in person, your body is in the same position and time as the scene you are experiencing, while virtual reality, no matter how good the real-time technology is, will produce delays, and spatial deviations are even more needless to mention."
"But I believe the human body does not have the ability to process such temporal and spatial deviations," Limk's view was different, "As long as the signals input to the brain or body are the same, human experiences are indistinguishable."
"Your statement overlooks the subjective experience of humans. Humans instinctively predict the future; when facing real scenes and virtual realities, the psychological activities during the preparation stage are already different. Even if the same signals are superimposed, there can be no consistent experience."
Limk merely shrugged, showing little interest in this issue that had been discussed by philosophers for thousands of years.
In front of the cabin's protective shield, Wang Xiu Hui Shan looked like an orange jelly placed on the plain, and the white substance on top looked like delicious yogurt.
This was the volcano that was about to be induced to erupt. If it weren't for this induction, data predicted the next eruption would occur in about 740 years. But now, through directional induction, the energy accumulated for tens of thousands of years beneath it would erupt ahead of time, melting the surface ice and creating a spectacle that showcased "the most primitive aesthetic of cosmic violence"—at least that's what aesthetic expert Rojobo Limk said.
The autonomous exploration vehicle, which could switch between wheeled and footed modes, finally stopped on a flat area halfway up the mountain. After securing their jetpacks on their suits, Lin Dao Fei Fei and Limk crawled out of the exploration vehicle.
"Yee~ah~" Lin Dao Fei Fei knelt and stretched his arms, letting out a very exaggerated yawn accompanied by a strange sound.
"Can you give a warning before doing such things next time?" Limk seemed startled and a bit annoyed.
"Mia said that occasionally doing unexpected actions would be more watchable," Lin Dao Fei Fei said in a strange voice, "Now I'm just following her orders!"
At that moment, the two humanoid assistant robots mounted on the exploration vehicle also released their locks and walked to the two of them.
Limk stepped forward, following the AI-planned best route; Lin Dao Fei Fei looked around for a while before following him. Their goal was to walk around Wang Xiu Hui Shan, partly to allow Lin Dao Fei Fei to gain his "self-feeling," but more importantly, to attract potential viewers by executing some seemingly dramatic actions along the way. After all, the cost of this event was not low, and at the very least, they couldn't let the sponsors lose their 140 million coins.
"As an aesthetic expert, aren't you a bit dull?" Lin Dao Fei Fei said over the communication channel.
"You can totally think of me as performing drama or laying the groundwork for it."
Lin Dao Fei Fei stopped, glanced at a live broadcast drone hovering above his left shoulder, then stared at Limk's back, seemingly weighing how serious she was about that statement. "From a dramatic perspective, what is aesthetics?" Then he stepped forward again.
"What else could it be but drama?" Limk still spoke harshly but added, "The unexpected."
"What do you think is the point of doing such things?" Lin Dao Fei Fei asked next, "Regardless of whether from the perspective of an aesthetic expert or your personal standpoint. Speak up; maybe there are viewers in the live broadcast room who are curious."
After a moment of silence, Limk spoke up: "From the standpoint of an aesthetic expert, this is a job, a job I enjoy. I hope these work experiences can give me the opportunity to develop a new aesthetic interpretation system in the future, one that differs from the currently popular formulaic aesthetic interpretations. For me personally, this can create memories and experiences, although in the end, these memories will only become vague impressions and feelings."
"Sounds like a very formulaic answer."
"We are born in a program and will die in it, so formulaic outcomes are also quite reasonable." Limk stopped, "Can you escape your genes and the constraints of this information age to give an unformulaic answer?"
"I can't." Lin Dao Fei Fei answered immediately, as if he knew Limk would retort and had prepared a negative answer in advance. "All I can think of is that we actually have nothing to do, so we came here to blow up the volcano because we know our lives have no meaning, but we don't want to give up directly."
"Struggling?"
"Life is always full of struggles." Lin Dao Fei Fei was about to sigh to express his feelings when he saw something incredible in the optically enhanced view. To say it was incredible was because it shouldn't be here, at least not in such an unprotected state.
It was an adult-sized fat orange cat, its pupils fully dilated, as if it wanted to absorb every photon entering this place 30 astronomical units from the sun. It was staring intently at Lin Dao Fei Fei and Rojobo Limk.
"What is that?!" Lin Dao Fei Fei's voice changed due to excitement, "How could there be a cat here?!"
Among the eight live broadcast drones surrounding the two, four flew towards the orange cat.
"What the hell!" Limk clearly saw the cat too.
But the orange cat did not wait for these drones and the two humans behind to approach; it leaped into the scattered rocks and disappeared from the ultra-high-resolution machine vision.
IV. The Game#
If one had to say what the difference between the real world and the virtual world was, it would be that the troubles of the real world always last longer.
The insect bites left on Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's back from yesterday's naked wilderness experience still itched unbearably, but sometimes he vaguely felt that this itchiness stemmed from a certain illusion of his own consciousness; after all, the artificial intelligence said there was nothing serious. Perhaps what he experienced was just phantom pain, but since he had already experienced it, he could no longer eradicate it from his mind.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin, feeling restless, opened the favorites folder in his embedded augmented reality system and saw the tag for the program he had saved yesterday, "Live Show of the Real World! Artificial Induced Volcanic Eruption on Europa," then issued a command to enter this live broadcast room.
This live broadcast room had 25 views, 24 of which were information streams directly output by 24 live broadcast drones, and these drones were mostly automatically controlled by artificial intelligence; the other was the exclusive main channel of the program host.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin chose the main channel.
In the live broadcast footage, the main content was a photo of a cat. It was an orange cat standing among the scattered rocks and clearly looking in the direction of the camera—it looked quite fat.
In the lower right corner of the screen, Wa Wa San San's exquisite face wore an obvious look of surprise. He was shouting in an almost hysterical tone, seemingly trying to convince people of something that could never happen: "…How strange! How strange! How strange! Friends! There is actually a cat here! Friends! This is Europa, where you probably can't even find a single active amino acid. There is actually a cat! Incredible! It seems our live broadcast team has a new task. Friends without any attention, hurry up and click, in the next few days we will rewrite the history of Europa and even the entire universe!…"
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin carefully looked at the orange cat for a while and found no significant differences between it and the regular orange cats on Earth, making it hard to imagine it evolved in an environment like Europa. Ouyang SOS Tie Xin thought that if these images were real, the most likely explanation was that it was some robot someone had previously released on Europa. Those guys who went to blow up the volcano surely understood this too; they just deliberately didn't mention it to attract attention.
Thinking of this, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin lost interest, turned off the live broadcast, and entered his most frequently played virtual reality game, "Under the Bright Moon." This was a large-scale multiplayer online open-world game where magic and steam engines coexisted. When the game launched five years ago, it was already a complex virtual world composed of massive AI NPCs—at that time, there were 17 countries divided into four major factions, as well as some non-governmental forces. As human players continued to join the game in various identities, the current "Under the Bright Moon" had become even more complex, with not only countries controlled by human players but also two opposing religions established by human players. In fact, the activities of these two religious factions had already had a substantial impact on many players' gaming experiences. Although the game operators had previously initiated two distributed votes in an attempt to limit religious activities in the game, most players adhered to the principle of non-interference, so progress had been stalled.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's game character was named "Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong," a battle mage adventurer specializing in steam magic and heavy swords. He had not completed a task released by an anonymous player last time, and now he decided to give it a try.
From the task description, the difficulty of the task was not high, no team was needed, and although it required a long time, the rewards were good. Ouyang SOS Tie Xin equipped his character with the heavy sword he had obtained during the "Giant Island Air Battle" task, which replicated the design from the 2006 version of "The Return of the Condor Heroes" by Zhang Jizhong—its prominent feature was its size. This sword was not only exaggerated in shape but also had very high parameters, and its weapon skill "Dominate the World" could reduce the main attribute values of all enemy equipment below level 80 by 28%.
Start Task
Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong was teleported to a player-customized game space.
After a flash, a small fairy with four transparent wings appeared before him.
"Adventurer, your task objective is to reach the distant Flame Mountain," the fairy said, pointing to a large mountain emitting black smoke in the distance, "and then defeat the flame giant that resides there. Good luck, adventurer!"
Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong waited, but the fairy just stayed in place and did not continue to introduce. "Is that all?" he couldn't help but complain.
"Good luck, adventurer!" the fairy repeated.
It seemed that this anonymous player's custom task was very careless, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong thought, and he began to not expect much from the playability of this task.
Although the path to Flame Mountain was not smooth sailing, the occasional small monsters that appeared posed no threat at all, which made Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong secretly decide to clear this task without taking any damage, after all, a task without challenge was indeed too boring.
Upon reaching the foot of Flame Mountain, the number and level of monsters had significantly increased, raising the adrenaline levels of the player’s body.
Wielding the heavy sword, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong hacked his way up the mountain path. His combat skills, honed over two years, allowed him to avoid all enemy attacks, and the slight reduction in health was merely due to using a skill called "Blood Rage" to greatly increase his attack and movement speed.
Since this was a player-customized task, it would not increase the experience points of the player doing the task, but the player who set this task had set a gold reward for every monster on Flame Mountain, so fighting still felt rewarding.
As he climbed the winding mountain path, the difficulty of the monsters gradually increased with each level he passed. Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong stood halfway up the mountain, glancing at the mountain top shrouded in black smoke, thinking that given the current difficulty changes, clearing it without damage should be unlikely. However, the task description from that player mentioned that players of level 70 and above could easily complete it, and since Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong was already level 81, he might still have a chance to clear it without damage. To achieve this goal, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong decided to use a divine item he had obtained last month during a task—"Infinite Defense." This item allowed the user to gain five minutes of infinite defense time, during which they would not take any damage and could not be inflicted with any negative status; however, this item also had a flaw, as its cooldown time was extremely long—up to 1000 hours.
The closer he got to the mountain top, the denser the black smoke became. Not far from the summit, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong encountered a giant skeleton monster. It was equipped with a set of black iron heavy armor, capable of absorbing some impact damage, which had a certain counter effect against Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong's heavy sword. Additionally, the parameters of this skeleton monster had reached a level where using heavy weapons would take a lot of time, so Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong decided to switch to a weapon that could pierce through the gaps in that heavy armor. To be safe, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong chose a weapon that was particularly effective against physical armor—the Ripple Spear. This weapon had a certain probability of transforming into a wave form during attacks, passing through the appropriately sized gaps in armor and then solidifying again. If that gap led to a vital spot of the enemy, it could potentially result in a one-hit kill.
Once Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong was equipped with this weapon and prepared to ambush the giant skeleton monster with glowing blue eyes, he saw a figure emerge from the area obscured by black smoke behind the skeleton monster.
"Another helper?" was Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong's first thought, but as the figure approached, confusion overtook his mind. The figure appeared to be a human girl, around 15 years old, wearing a cyan short-sleeved shirt with a cartoon bear pattern on the front, deep blue shorts, a pair of spotless white sneakers, and shoulder-length straight black hair. It was clear that this was a character that did not fit the worldview of this player-customized task.
Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong quickly took a step back and then scanned the suddenly appearing girl character. But the scanning tool seemed to be completely unable to see the girl, only providing information about the black smoke, rocks, and dead wood in that area. He had to execute the scan again, but the result was no different.
But she was right there, and she was getting closer. She smiled, looking around with a light step, as if she were walking on a peaceful and tranquil park path, rather than a volcanic slope filled with black smoke and violence.
Damn it, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong thought, this might be an NPC with a divine item, deliberately placed here by the anonymous player to harm the players taking the task.
Just as Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong felt angry and thought he needed to report the anonymous player, the girl's gaze suddenly shifted from looking around to locking onto his. Her smile suddenly vanished, replaced by a fierce expression as she licked her upper lip with her tongue. This set of expressions was very fluid and natural, completely devoid of the subtle and vague sense of unreality that typical NPCs exhibited. This made Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong involuntarily feel a jolt in his heart, as if she were a real human being, a potential predator, and he was the prey she wanted to capture.
Then, suddenly, the girl vanished, and in that instant, the giant skeleton monster let out a scream, startling Ouyang SOS Tie Xin, who was behind the virtual reality world.
It had discovered him.
Its hand transformed into a long knife emitting black gas, and then it charged at him.
Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong quickly regained his composure, jumped back, then found a flaw, and the spear unfolded into a wave, propelled forward by the grip held in his hand. The wave struck the skeleton monster's armor, passing through an appropriate gap at its elbow joint. The spear then reformed, and the skeleton monster lost its left arm holding the knife. Following that, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong executed a sweeping strike, severing the skeleton monster's head.
Instant kill on elite monster, receive extra rewards.
Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong received a notification, but he did not let his guard down, remaining vigilant and observing his surroundings, not finding any trace of the girl.
After hesitating for a moment, he continued forward, killing his way to the mountain top, where he encountered the boss—the ancient flame dragon.
At this point, Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong had almost forgotten about the girl; he used the divine item Infinite Defense as planned, then pressed close to kill the ancient flame dragon while enduring its attacks. Then the black smoke began to flow, gathering in the sky to form four large characters:
Task Completed
Gan Yu Qiu Cao Tong received a reward of 100,000 game coins and a rather high-level equipment upgrade material: Sun Crystal.
By the time he exited the game, it was already 2 PM. Only then did Ouyang SOS Tie Xin realize he was hungry. Unlike usual, he did not order takeout but decided to go to a newly opened singles dining restaurant two blocks away for lunch. According to its website description, the restaurant only accepted single diners. Diners would be recommended a matching person to dine with after selecting their sexual orientation, and the diners themselves had no right to choose their dining partner—the only right they had was to leave on their own, refusing to dine—but such an action would result in being blacklisted by the restaurant for 30 days.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin wore a set of now-outdated new-style Hanfu and got into the automated taxi that was already waiting for him.
"Hello, are you heading to the Qiang La Hong Xian restaurant? Please confirm." The speaker of the automated taxi emitted a voice.
"Confirm." Ouyang SOS Tie Xin said.
V. An Bao Fei Xue#
"The interests of the wealthy can sometimes be unimaginable," volcanic research expert An Bao Fei Xue said, "Some things they do may seem completely meaningless to us."
"I agree," Lin Dao Fei Fei said, "But it's not just the wealthy; the poor—anyone can do completely meaningless things, and sometimes people don't even know what they're doing. I often can't understand what I'm doing."
"I mean that cat," An Bao Fei Xue rolled her eyes, "That's probably just the boring interest of some bored rich person. With too much money to spend, they just toss a few robotic cats on other planets."
"That robotic cat must have cost a lot," chief planner Shao Deng Wu Te said, "Look closely at its pupils; they change with the brightness of the environment just like a real cat's pupils. To be honest, there's really no need for a robotic cat to have this function from any angle."
"Maybe the rich just want it to look real," An Bao Fei Xue said.
"Real, huh," Xiu Sheng Mia said thoughtfully, "Fundamentally, that's the only selling point of our program. Now that we have that cat, we have added some mystery; perhaps that's a good thing."
"I think so too," Shao Deng Wu Te agreed, "We should include this part in the program."
"I have no objections," Wa Wa San San squinted, seemingly about to fall asleep.
"Can we catch it?" aesthetic expert Rojobo Limk asked.
"Legally, we can, but we may not have the capability," Shao Deng Wu Te said, "We also don't know if that cat is aggressive; if it is equipped with deadly weapons, we would be at a loss."
"Equipped with weapons? Here? There's no need," Xiu Sheng Mia said, puzzled.
"Indeed, there's no need, but as I said," An Bao Fei Xue shrugged, "The rich are very bored."
"Then let's focus on searching and observing; we shouldn't take any hostile actions until we confirm that the cat is safe," Shao Deng Wu Te said.
After a brief meeting, An Bao Fei Xue disconnected the conference communication link. She decided to go for a walk. If luck was on her side, she thought maybe she could encounter that cat, and if that cat was equipped with sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence, perhaps she could even communicate with it and figure out who was so bored.
After putting on her outdoor gear, An Bao Fei Xue took four live broadcast drones and went outside. The surface temperature on Europa was very low; stepping on the frozen nitrogen ice, a thought suddenly flashed through An Bao Fei Xue's mind—what if that cat wasn't a machine but a living creature? But she quickly discarded this idea, as if it were true, it would mean that human science, or at least biology, had significant flaws, and as a nominal volcanic research expert, she certainly had no ability to question biology.
She walked past a pile of scattered rocks, thinking that this was probably the result of the last eruption of Wang Xiu Hui Shan 640,000 years ago. In other words, these rocks had likely been in this position for 640,000 years, as this planet had no wind to move them.
Continuing forward, she climbed a slope and was surprised to find that the pile of rocks had formed a complex symmetrical pattern when she looked back. That was almost impossible to be the work of unconscious nature.
She stared at the pattern, suddenly feeling dizzy, and instinctively averted her gaze, as if that pattern was something that consciousness would instinctively recognize as taboo.
Her heart raced, and driven by curiosity, she looked back at the pattern again; but this time she felt an inexplicable sense of fear before she even saw the pattern, as if a pair of murderous eyes were watching her from behind. She hurriedly turned around to look, but through the enhanced reality view, there was only a wilderness and the shuttle in the corner of her vision. Even so, she unconsciously took two steps back, and then she stepped on a round stone, losing strength in her foot and falling to the ground.
She rolled a few meters down the gentle slope. Lying on the ground, she wondered where that inexplicable fear came from—was it because she was overthinking, or did that fear indeed have some source?
She raised her head to look forward, and a fat orange cat was sitting in front of her like a statue. Startled, she hurriedly tried to get up. Halfway through her action, she remembered that she shouldn't provoke the artificial intelligence controlling that robotic cat, so she slowed down her movements.
She stood up, staring at the cat, and then saw its mouth open, and she heard a "meow."
At first, An Bao Fei Xue didn't pay much attention and was about to reach out to touch the cat, but soon she realized that the thin atmosphere of Europa was insufficient to transmit sound waves so clearly, not to mention that her outdoor walking suit was not equipped with a sound pickup system—because that was a completely useless function. Moreover, since this suit was also equipped with a very effective shock absorption system, even if someone set off fireworks nearby, she would find it hard to hear any sound.
"Is it an illusion?" An Bao Fei Xue shook her head; that "meow" was so clear, sounding as real as the world itself.
"Meow." The fat orange cat called out again.
This second cat call completely dispelled An Bao Fei Xue's doubts, meaning that this cat could indeed transmit sound to her ears in some way, and the most likely method was that it had connected to her radio communication. She was now convinced that this was a cat-shaped robot equipped with radio communication capabilities.
"Hello," An Bao Fei Xue tentatively greeted.
"Meow." The fat orange cat called out again, then stood up, turned its back to An Bao Fei Xue, and walked down the slope with its tail held high.
"Where are you going?" An Bao Fei Xue followed closely.
At this moment, according to Wa Wa San San's instructions, two live broadcast drones had already set that orange cat as the primary focus target, converting the cat's image into electromagnetic waves, transmitting it to the temporary signal station located on the shuttle and orbital spaceship, and then forwarding it to Earth through quantum communication channels. In addition, the host Wa Wa San San provided real-time commentary: "…Friends, old iron, that cat has appeared again; everyone look at its fur, how detailed it is. Super realistic! I dare say, if its pink anus could poop, no one could distinguish it from a real cat. Friends, why not give a three-way support? Collect, like, share! A cat on Europa, or at least something that looks like a cat. I wonder where it will take our volcanic expert; let's connect for an interview." Watching the rapidly rising number of online viewers, Wa Wa San San, feeling satisfied, tapped into An Bao Fei Xue's channel. "Dr. An Bao, where are you going?"
"Ah!" Hearing the sudden voice, An Bao Fei Xue was clearly startled.
"Don't panic; I'm San San; you haven't forgotten me, have you?" Wa Wa San San made a pitiful expression at the camera.
"Oh, it's you," An Bao Fei Xue finally remembered that they were live broadcasting, which meant that her earlier fall had also been fully recorded. "Damn!" she couldn't help but curse—she didn't want to become a comedic character.
"Dr. An Bao is indeed violent," Wa Wa San San quipped, "I hope none of our 9,800 viewers are minors; if there are, uncle tells you, this is the most standard way to curse from thirty years ago; you must learn it well; it will be tested. Old iron, 9,900 viewers, soon to be 10,000; let's work hard to share."
In an instant, An Bao Fei Xue felt an urge to disconnect the channel, but she ultimately did not take any action.
"So, Dr. An Bao, where are you and that fat cat going?"
"I'm just following it," An Bao Fei Xue replied, then asked, "Did you hear this thing's meow?"
"You mean it called, and you heard it?" Wa Wa San San clearly didn't believe it.
"This means it's a robot, probably using close-range automatic communication technology," An Bao Fei Xue said, then added, "It's a boring joke from some rich person."
"Haha, well said," Wa Wa San San grinned at the camera, "Although we don't know what grievances Dr. An Bao has with the rich, I know one thing: we are all very bored and want to do something less boring in this boring life. Dr. An Bao, what do you think?"
"I?" An Bao Fei Xue couldn't think of any comments to give; her complaints about the rich could at most be considered a personal hobby, and she hadn't invested much genuine emotion into it.
"Yes."
"I have nothing to say."
"Then," Wa Wa San San said with satisfaction, winking at the camera, "let's hear how that fat cat meows!"
"Meow~" An Bao Fei Xue called out, "Just like this."
"Hahahaha." Wa Wa San San laughed, "I mean, share your device's recording."
An Bao Fei Xue's face flushed; this was the second time she had embarrassed herself, and it seemed this live broadcast might really turn her into a comedic character. "Wait a minute!" she said sternly.
At this moment, the fat orange cat leaped onto a huge volcanic rock, then turned to look at An Bao Fei Xue, and jumped behind that rock.
An Bao Fei Xue hurriedly followed, going around the volcanic rock, and her vision captured a humanoid figure—a girl dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, without any protective gear. The girl was leaning against the volcanic rock, staring at the ground, seemingly lost in thought.
"Robot," was the first thought that appeared in An Bao Fei Xue's mind, but this robot looked almost identical to a human, at least An Bao Fei Xue had not yet discovered any differences in appearance. An Bao Fei Xue then used her voice to issue a command to match and find the identity of this humanoid robot. According to existing laws, the production of highly realistic humanoid robots was strictly regulated, and every humanoid robot had to be registered in an open database for public supervision.
"No matching results." Five seconds later, the intelligent assistant provided the feedback.
"How is that possible?" An Bao Fei Xue felt an ominous premonition.
As if to confirm her premonition, the girl sighed: "Sigh." Then she turned her head to look at An Bao Fei Xue; the fat orange cat walked to her feet, rubbing its head against her fair calf.
This time An Bao Fei Xue heard the sound again. "Hello," she tentatively greeted again.
The girl showed a complex smile expression that ordinary humanoid robots could hardly achieve, like a charming smile, she licked her upper lip and then opened her arms.
"What?" An Bao Fei Xue felt a bit at a loss, "Can you understand what I'm saying?" Since they could create such a sophisticated robot, equipping it with natural language understanding capabilities should be easy; she thought the producers would definitely do so.
But An Bao Fei Xue did not wait for an answer to her question; the girl suddenly took a step forward and raised her fist, charging straight at her face shield. The girl's seemingly soft fist struck like a steel nail piercing through a thin crisp biscuit, instantly penetrating the bulletproof shield, and in the next moment, the protected head turned into a pile of indistinguishable flesh and brain matter.
Wa Wa San San instantly vomited. He was a host who focused on cute and funny content; bloody violence was not his style; he had never live-streamed bloody violent games or watched such movies, let alone witnessed such scenes in the real world.
Then, four live broadcast drones lost connection one after another under the girl's attack.
Prompted by fan comments, he hurriedly reported to the police dozens of billions of kilometers away.
VI. The Girl#
A girl, wearing a cyan short-sleeved shirt with a cartoon bear pattern on the front, deep blue shorts, and a pair of spotless white sneakers; Ouyang SOS Tie Xin saw that shoulder-length straight black hair again, confirming that the girl looked exactly like the character he had seen in a player-customized task in "Under the Bright Moon." Especially the action of licking her lips made Ouyang SOS Tie Xin recall that moment—suddenly feeling like a prey being hunted.
He felt his instincts were not wrong.
The last images seen by the four live broadcast drones were of a violent murder, a murder witnessed by nearly ten thousand viewers through the live broadcast.
Reports indicated that the production team of "Live Show of the Real World! Artificial Induced Volcanic Eruption on Europa" dispatched live broadcast robots, assistant robots, and industrial robots to search for or at least recover An Bao Fei Xue's body, but ultimately found nothing, only some fragments of the shield and solidified blood and flesh debris as further evidence that the incident had occurred. The girl, likely an illegal robot, and the robotic cat also vanished without a trace, seemingly hiding again somewhere.
What was worse was that when the remaining members of the production team prepared to leave the shuttle, they discovered that the shuttle's engine had been damaged, and strangely, its security system had not issued any warnings beforehand, only revealing this fact after everyone had boarded the shuttle.
Wa Wa San San, still in the ongoing live broadcast, said that now they were all very scared and could only hide in the temporary base waiting for the robots to repair the shuttle, which would take at least two days. He said, "There are killer machines roaming outside, and we are trapped in a base—I believe everyone has seen such movies; I don't know if we will all survive."
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin felt he needed to investigate.
He logged into the game "Under the Bright Moon," searched through his "completed tasks" records, and found the previous Flame Mountain task, then clicked on the system default random avatar of the anonymous player and sent a private message:
Hello, do you know about the recent murder case on Europa? I seem to have seen the image of that killer robot in your task; do you know what it is?
After sending the message, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin immediately regretted it. If that anonymous player was the mastermind behind all this, and he was the only one who discovered the clues, then sending this message would be equivalent to providing a warning, giving the other party a chance to eliminate relevant evidence.
Thinking of this, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin hurriedly executed a recall.
But it was clearly too late.
Just as he finished the recall, a brief reply appeared in the chat window:
I don't know what you're talking about.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin felt the other party was lying, and he even vaguely sensed a sense of confidence in the other party. He thought the other party must be wealthy; after all, without money, it would be impossible to invest so many coins in such a rudimentary player-customized task. And the wealthy could afford professional lawyers and had resources to find certain people to help them erase some evidence.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin knew he had no ability to confront them. He was just someone relying on "universal basic income" to make a living, a "leisure person" supported by the intelligent machine industrial era, far from being someone who held resources or had decision-making qualifications; even in public referendums involving social and political issues, his voting weight was only slightly higher than that of criminals.
Forget it, he thought, participating in this matter would not yield any results and would instead land him in trouble, especially since he had no evidence; thus, whether reporting to the police or making it public, he would inevitably be seen as "taking advantage of the hot topic" and ultimately evolve into a sad event similar to a joke. This was the reality of this world; this was the real world. He deleted the conversation and cleared the task record.
After doing all this, a wave of guilt surged in his heart, as if he had become a form of accomplice to some extent.
He felt an urgent desire to escape this negative emotion, as negative emotions were bad for the body and detrimental to mental health.
Fortunately, escaping the real world was not a troublesome matter—he had countless game worlds to choose from.
Although "Under the Bright Moon" was the game he played most often, this time he logged out and chose a casual nurturing game called "Planting Beans to Get Beans." In this game, players needed to go to a forest to collect seeds and then plant them in their own gardens. These seeds would eventually bear "fruits" based on their rarity, which could be real fruits, nuts, and berries, or materials like soil, wood, stones, metals, and special substances, or items like tables, chairs, cups, umbrellas, and sunglasses, or even animals like cats, dogs, caterpillars, scorpions, and elephants, and even fantasy items like unicorns, resurrection potions, magic carpets, and Ruyi Jingu Bang... Every object grown from the "Planting Beans to Get Beans" game was a digital item with a unique code on a blockchain, which could be traded and transferred to a metaverse game called "Dream Earth" for use. In fact, "Planting Beans to Get Beans" was the source of everything in "Dream Earth" apart from the basic framework.
With his digital pet dog Mojimoji, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin let his utterly non-combatant character walk into the seemingly dynamic yet completely safe forest in "Planting Beans to Get Beans." To quietly enjoy some time alone, he chose single-player mode. In this mode, apart from the seed distribution system still synchronizing across the network, all other game environments would be isolated from other players.
The time flow in the "Planting Beans to Get Beans" game was four times that of the real world, and it was currently afternoon. The ground was a bit muddy, likely from recent rain, and water droplets occasionally fell from the trees. Looking at the clear scene after the rain, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin felt as if he had smelled the fresh air of nature and experienced the touch of a cool breeze; of course, he knew this was just an illusion, as the most advanced virtual reality systems had begun to be equipped with exquisite scent synthesis functions, but it was said that the effect was not good, and that was not something Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's wallet could afford.
Although it was an illusion, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin still enjoyed it. He took a deep breath and walked deeper into the forest.
The seeds in "Planting Beans to Get Beans" could be hidden in many different places, but most seed locations followed the logic of the real world, growing on plant bodies—some hidden inside certain fruits, some located among the branches and leaves of towering trees, and some hanging on the underground rhizomes of inconspicuous herbaceous plants.
Five minutes later, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin left the simple yet relatively flat path in the forest, climbed a slope covered with many vine plants, and along the way, he collected two of the most common white fruits and one medium rare blue fruit. After reaching the top of this small hill, he took a photo of his character and pet dog with the camera system, then looked for the largest tree nearby to start climbing. Although the producers of "Planting Beans to Get Beans" had stated that the distribution of seeds was completely random, players seemed to always intuitively believe that larger trees would yield better luck.
Halfway up the tree, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin saw a snake lying on a branch not far away. The snake's neck was noticeably swollen, as if it had just eaten a prey that seemed slightly large for it—most likely a mouse or a bird. This was a new ecological mechanism introduced after the last update of "Planting Beans to Get Beans," bringing a food chain to the originally peaceful NPC creatures in the game, although players and animals in the game still could not harm each other.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin stared at the snake for a while, watching the bulge on its neck slowly slide down to its abdomen as it wriggled, and then he continued climbing, reaching the canopy.
After searching around, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin did not find any seeds, but he wasn't too concerned. The main reason for climbing up here was to see the sunset. The timing was just right; the sun, red to the point of purity that inexplicably brought a sense of peace, had just reached the distant horizon.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin sat on a horizontal branch, facing the sun, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. The sounds of insects and birds merged into a natural concerto, seemingly narrating the most primal reality of this game. He opened his eyes, thinking that this world was a game made him feel slightly displeased. He sighed and began to concentrate on that red circular sun. The sunset began to sink below the horizon, and the red became increasingly pure, dyeing the sparse clouds in the sky with the same but gradient colors.
Then he saw a figure. It was lying on a patch of green grass by a small lake extending beyond the flat area at the foot of this hill, with both hands seemingly resting behind its head. Next to it, a vaguely visible digital pet was standing at the intersection of land and water, seemingly playing by the lakeshore.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin felt something was off, but he couldn't recall where this feeling came from; he was also a bit unhappy because the figure between him and the sun distracted him, making it difficult for him to calm down and empty his mind, merging himself with this artificial nature.
Soon, he realized the source of that odd feeling—he clearly remembered that he had chosen single-player mode when entering the game, and there were no human NPCs in "Planting Beans to Get Beans," so there shouldn't be a figure there. Ouyang SOS Tie Xin checked the game settings, confirming that he was indeed still in single-player mode.
Confusion overwhelmed him, causing Ouyang SOS Tie Xin to lose interest in watching the sunset.
He climbed down the tree along the path he had come, and when passing through the middle of the tree, he found that the snake had already left, and in the place it had stayed, there was actually an ultra-rare black seed! Just this seed alone was worth a lot, let alone the fruit it might grow into—after all, black seeds were also known as "miracle seeds" in the player community because they often produced very rare and powerful miracle items, such as extraordinarily fast or extremely powerful starships or pets with special skills.
This made Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's mood much better.
After climbing down the tree, he awakened Mojimoji, who had been napping under the tree, and then walked towards the lake.
After passing the last tree, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin finally saw the appearance of the body lying on the grass.
She had shoulder-length black straight hair, which was now spread out like a fan on the grass. The cyan T-shirt she wore had a cartoon bear that was already well-known but whose creator was unknown, and beneath her deep blue shorts were a pair of slender legs, with a pair of spotless white sneakers.
She looked exactly like the murderer on Europa, and the pet cat staring at Ouyang SOS Tie Xin was also the same orange cat seen by the live broadcast drones. Moreover, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin clearly remembered that he had seen her in a player-customized task in "Under the Bright Moon."
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's brain instinctively sounded an alarm, causing his character's body to instinctively take two steps back. He wanted to hide behind a tree to observe. But just then, the cat let out a meow, and the girl's originally closed eyes suddenly opened. It was as if she had known Ouyang SOS Tie Xin was right there, immediately turning her head to stare at him, then slowly sitting up.
Although Ouyang SOS Tie Xin instinctively felt something was wrong, after all, this was the game world, and there were no attack mechanisms within it that could harm player characters, so he did not choose to run away.
He watched the girl stand up, and she finally stopped looking at him.
She patted her skirt, looked down to stroke the cat's head, and then began to stare at Ouyang SOS Tie Xin again as she walked towards him.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin took a few steps forward, then stopped to wait.
"Who are you?!" When the girl was about five meters away, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin shouted.
But the girl did not answer, nor did she slow down, still staring straight ahead at the male character as she continued to advance.
The girl walked right up to Ouyang SOS Tie Xin, just 20 centimeters away from him.
Even though this was in a game, the other party was still a stranger, and being so close made Ouyang SOS Tie Xin feel that his comfort zone had been invaded, especially since the girl was carefully examining his face, but an inexplicable sense of self-esteem prevented him from stepping back. Due to this inexplicable self-esteem, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin also displayed an impolite and arrogant attitude, sizing up the other person. He thought to himself, regardless of whether the other party was directly related to the murder incident on Europa or was a character created after the incident, this character's face was very exquisitely crafted, and the delicate expressions indicated that the other party had likely used precise facial capture technology or high-precision facial expression synthesis software—whichever it was, it was not cheap.
As their eyes met, even though it was just a virtual image in a virtual world, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin began to feel embarrassed. "What do you want?" he provocatively asked, then remembered this was clearly single-player mode, "How did you get here?"
The girl's response was to raise her right hand.
"What?" Ouyang SOS Tie Xin was not worried, as he would not be harmed.
The girl's right hand came down like a knife.
At the moment her hand struck, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's vision shook violently, and at the same time, he realized he had lost control of his character. Two seconds later, Ouyang SOS Tie Xin's vision went black, and he was ejected from the system.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin felt a sense of foreboding and hurriedly logged back into the game, only to find that his account could not be recognized.
Retry.
The result was the same.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin quickly searched for solutions, but upon entering the forum, he saw that complaints and help posts were rapidly increasing. After reading some of the posts, he realized he was not the only victim. The girl with the orange cat had attacked many other players' characters in "Planting Beans to Get Beans," including many single-player mode players like Ouyang SOS Tie Xin. The result of the girl's attack was that these players' accounts were cleared, and all digital items marked with ownership on the blockchain were transferred to the destruction address 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000—everything the attacked players had collected, including seeds, pets, and everything in their personal gardens, was permanently lost and could never be recovered.
"Miracle seed!" Ouyang SOS Tie Xin suddenly remembered his heavy losses. "Mojimoji." He couldn't help but mutter, suddenly feeling an urge to cry; that digital pet dog was the first fruit grown from the first seed he found when he played "Planting Beans to Get Beans." Although its attributes were ordinary, it was the best companion he had while strolling through the virtual forest of "Planting Beans to Get Beans."
Now, even if the character could be rebuilt, he had already lost it forever.
VII. Rojobo Limk#
"Should that robot really attack here, what should we do?" Lin Dao Fei Fei broke the atmosphere filled with sadness and foreboding again.
This atmosphere stemmed from An Bao Fei Xue's tragic death, a scene that no modern human had truly witnessed, a ruthless trampling of the empathy built into the modern psyche constructed by modern civilization. They could not imagine what An Bao Fei Xue felt at the moment of her death—the fear and suffocating despair. That was different from the perhaps more bloody and violent scenes they had seen in games; that was real, a true life being extinguished, never to experience the beauty of this universe or the meaning of life again. They could not imagine what kind of fear and regret they would feel if they were also facing death.
Shao Deng Wu Te originally wanted to say something encouraging but hesitated, ultimately only letting out a sigh.
"We should be able to resist, right?" Xiu Sheng Mia said, "We still have so many drones and robots."
"These machines are not combat types," Shao Deng Wu Te said, "and we also don't know if the other side is still equipped with firearms." He paused, swallowing, "I think it's quite possible."
"I don't want to die here," Wa Wa San San said, looking anxious, "The only comfort is that if I really die here, at least I will still be live-streaming." Wa Wa San San said to the camera in front of him, "Friends, old iron, maybe I will die young this time. Thanks to Dr. Mao Mao for the 3,000 starships." His tone was weak, even trembling.
After An Bao Fei Xue was killed, the live broadcast room of "Live Show of the Real World! Artificial Induced Volcanic Eruption on Europa" quickly climbed to the trending live show list and became the most-watched live broadcast program in the world—its peak simultaneous online viewers reached 271 million, successfully entering the top twenty of the highest simultaneous online viewers in history, currently ranked just below the "Moon Miss Liu Wang Xiaolan's First Orgy Live Show" from 14 months ago. Therefore, the chief planner Shao Deng Wu Te, who originally planned to terminate the live show, continued to maintain the broadcast under pressure from investors, and Wa Wa San San was forced to continue his work, but he no longer needed to rack his brain for traffic.
However, it was clear that the humans hiding in the base, filled with sadness and worry, were not good materials for broadcasting. The number of simultaneous online viewers in the live broadcast room had been declining, now down to less than 3 million.
"Maybe, as long as we don't provoke it, it won't attack us," Rojobo Limk suddenly said; she was the aesthetic expert in the team. "If An Xue hadn't followed, maybe nothing would have happened." She thought that there were too many possibilities in this world, and sometimes a wrong step could lead to an abyss; it was precisely because of such possibilities that life had a unique beauty.
"If it were me, if I saw that cat, I would definitely follow it," Lin Dao Fei Fei said, "No one would expect such a thing to happen." He snorted, "Anyone would follow."
"Old iron!" Wa Wa San San suddenly shouted loudly, and his voice carried a clear tone of anger, "Don't let us go out; we won't go out; this is not a matter of professionalism. Are we going to go out and die for the broadcast? Besides, we have already sent drones out to search." Wa Wa San San stared at the screen for a while, "Are we going out as bait? What kind of nonsense is that! Even if we get 100,000 starships, we can't say such things. What, do you like to see me angry?" Wa Wa San San was momentarily speechless, his face flushed with anger, and he occasionally made sounds of frustration.
"You're being a bit unprofessional," Rojobo Limk commented on the angry Wa Wa San San.
"You're so calm," Wa Wa San San said sarcastically, and the audience comments section began to flood with "Have a fight!" and "Let's have a fight!"
"Are you so afraid of death?" Rojobo Limk's tone seemed to want to satisfy the audience's expectations.
Wa Wa San San, however, did not answer; he clearly did not want to act according to the audience's "instructions."
"For life, death is the inevitable final outcome. This is also a kind of beauty, a beauty that implies fate and destiny," Rojobo Limk said, not knowing why she said this; she thought perhaps she wanted to use such preachy words to mask her nervousness and resolve the conflict.
"The door is right there!" Wa Wa San San repeated angrily, "The hell with your aesthetic nonsense! Your fate is waiting for you outside."
"Don't say that," Xiu Sheng Mia said, then made a cute gesture at the camera. "I was just thinking, if we really have to die here, I mean if, then this is our last time, shouldn't we spend our last moments in sadness and fear? Instead, we should offer a final performance for this world!" The entertainment designer in a loli dress raised her hands enthusiastically.
The audience in the live broadcast room agreed with her speech, and they excitedly made their suggestions in the comments section:
……
Why not get it started?
Get it started!
Get it started!
Let's have a wild party! The last carnival! Baby
I want to see someone fuck San San's ass
Let's go all out!
You can start by stripping
Wa Wa San San operated for a while and closed the comment section display on his system. "So what do you want to do?" his tone still carried a provocative element.
"We should continue with the plan," Xiu Sheng Mia smiled.
"Do you mean..." Shao Deng Wu Te pondered.
"Exactly," Xiu Sheng Mia affirmed his unfinished words, "Let's continue to induce the volcano! And maybe we can eliminate that threat in the process."
"I agree," Rojobo Limk immediately expressed her agreement; she thought the meaning of life lay in continuously blooming, and in times of crisis, one should not stop; this was a romance that originated from the soul and targeted the soul; and now was an excellent opportunity to embody this. But then Limk thought again that her idea was too mediocre, completely lacking the uniqueness that an aesthetic expert should have—everything she thought was merely a repetition of the past, devoid of novelty.
"The door is right there!" Wa Wa San San repeated forcefully.
Rojobo Limk shrugged, not wanting to argue with Wa Wa San San anymore, but even so, she decided to go out. She believed she was not trying to bet against Wa Wa San San but to demonstrate her aesthetic philosophy. "I'm going for a walk," she said.
No one stopped her.
"Be careful," Shao Deng Wu Te said.
After putting on her protective gear, Rojobo Limk left the base. The scenery on Europa was as usual, but the eyes looking at these scenes had changed, for the brain behind those eyes knew that this was no longer just a common planetary surface wilderness in the universe; it also hid a machine killer and a fat orange cat.
Under the watch of four live broadcast drones and the protection of two assistant robots, Rojobo Limk walked towards the volcano.
Two minutes later, a voice came through the communicator: "Limk, wait."
Rojobo Limk turned around and saw Lin Dao Fei Fei behind her. "Aren't you afraid?" she asked.
Lin Dao Fei Fei did not answer immediately, but his pace clearly slowed a bit, as if he was pondering the answer. Sure enough, after he walked up to Rojobo Limk, he provided an answer that sounded reasonable but was actually meaningless: "Fear is like love; if you don't think too much about it, it won't exist."
Limk stood in place, listening to him finish, then sighed and exclaimed, "Listening to you is like hearing a lecture."
Lin Dao Fei Fei's face broke into a big smile: "Not bad; you've learned to joke actively."
"I'm not a robot," Limk turned back and continued toward the volcano.
"Maybe even a robot would be nice; that host was scared silly by a robot."
Rojobo Limk couldn't smile, and then the topic shifted: "Why did you follow me?" Rojobo Limk had already roughly guessed the answer. During this time together, Rojobo Limk had long known that Lin Dao Fei Fei was not just a pure good person who tried to comfort others when they were in a bad mood; this man, who often spoke nonsensically, was actually driven by his lower half, wanting to have sex with her. Following her now and some of his previous behaviors were merely measures he implemented for this purpose. Men are always driven by their lower halves; the only difference is whether they have the courage.
Lin Dao Fei Fei did not answer immediately.
The two walked silently, which suddenly made Rojobo Limk feel a bit awkward. This mood made him unconsciously speed up his pace, and at the same time, a strange itching sensation appeared in the center of her waist, then traveled up her spine, beginning to vibrate in her neck. She gently shook her head, alleviating that feeling a bit.
"I think you should know the answer," Lin Dao Fei Fei said.
"I think so," Rojobo Limk mumbled; she didn't like this roundabout way of talking; she thought if Lin Dao Fei Fei directly told her he wanted to have sex with her, she would still agree, but he used such a hinting method, making her uncertain.
The two walked silently for a while, stepping onto a stable uphill path.
"Last time you said that a volcanic eruption is the most primitive aesthetic of cosmic violence, so can we say that murder is the most primitive aesthetic of life?" Lin Dao Fei Fei broke the silence with a question.
"Some people think so," aesthetic expert Rojobo Limk said, "and many people liked to express this aesthetic through artistic works during the mid to late twentieth century." She paused, recalling some special cases she had seen in online classes, "And a small number of people have practiced this aesthetic."
"You mean murder?"
"Killing for beauty is indeed very rare, but it does exist."
"Just like a white zebra," Lin Dao Fei Fei said.
This metaphor puzzled Rojobo Limk; she couldn't think of what connection there was.
"But a white zebra might not be called a zebra anymore," Lin Dao Fei Fei continued before Limk could express her confusion, "It might just be called a white horse. But genetically," Lin Dao Fei Fei shook his head, "I completely don't understand genetics. ATGC?"
Rojobo Limk sighed, feeling that talking to Lin Dao Fei Fei was really exhausting, and then she heard a cat's meow: "Aowu." It was a cat's threatening call when it was angry or at least pretending to be angry out of fear. It was a binaural sound—the slightly different sounds perceived by the two ears made Rojobo Limk aware of a direction, a primitive instinct evolved over billions of years, causing her to instinctively look in that direction, trying to confirm the source of the sound through her biological visual system. For a moment, she didn't think about how the thin atmosphere of Europa was insufficient to transmit such sounds clearly, and with the shielding and active soundproofing effects of her protective suit—she could hardly hear her footsteps.
Extending from Rojobo Limk's line of sight, crossing a section of Europa's desolate surface, a completely fluffed-up high vertical tail was connected to an object resembling a fat orange cat, standing there.
Startled, Rojobo Limk stopped in her tracks. She scanned the surroundings, not seeing the terrifying machine girl, but this only gave her a slight sense of relief.
Lin Dao Fei Fei continued to walk forward, and when he noticed Rojobo Limk had stopped, the assistant robots and live broadcast drones began to act—high-precision machine eyes scanned the surroundings, and artificial intelligence worked hard to retrieve any patterns that might match the target from the data in the visible light and infrared bands. Then Lin Dao Fei Fei also saw the cat.
"Holy mama!" Lin Dao Fei Fei exclaimed, "We really encountered it." His voice trembled slightly, seemingly not out of fear but rather excitement.
Soon they received feedback:
No matching target.
"The killer is not here," Lin Dao Fei Fei made an unnecessary explanation.
"But that cat..." Rojobo Limk felt an inexplicable sensation because the robotic cat could not feel fear and would not have angry emotions, "Is it threatening us?"
As if affirming Rojobo Limk's statement, the cat let out another angry roar: "Wuhou~"
"It shouldn't be; we shouldn't be able to hear its voice," Rojobo Limk said.
"Are you saying you heard its voice?"
Rojobo Limk suddenly remembered that An Bao Fei Xue had also said she heard the cat's meow that shouldn't be heard. Ominous clouds gathered and took shape, exploding a gap in her consciousness, allowing the torrent of thought to sketch out an unbelievable yet fitting answer in her mental world. Rojobo Limk felt her heart race; she pointed at the cat with a very strange tone: "That thing's voice is not transmitted through sound waves but through consciousness."
"What?" Lin Dao Fei Fei acted like a fool.
To verify her thoughts, Rojobo Limk replayed her device's recording. Sure enough, the recording did not contain the cat's meow she thought she had heard, and she believed her mind was not malfunctioning, at least not yet. But those whose minds had malfunctioned probably all believed their minds were intact and reliable, right? Rojobo Limk suddenly became uncertain again—had she reached the edge of madness without realizing it?
"We need to hurry back," Rojobo Limk said nervously.
"I think we should catch that cat and investigate its data," Lin Dao Fei Fei said. By now, two live broadcast drones had already reached the position above the cat, and two assistant robots were slowly approaching it.
Rojobo Limk instinctively felt that was a wrong decision; she suddenly thought that any aesthetic meaning could not compare to the preciousness of life, especially her own life. She looked back at the path they had come from, then glanced at the cat, and then made up her mind to return to the base first. "That might not be a machine," she dropped a sentence and began to walk back.
"Wait," Lin Dao Fei Fei said, "Are you going back?"
"I'm not feeling well; that thing is not right." Rojobo Limk did not slow her pace.
"Ah, aowu~" Rojobo Limk heard a more ferocious call, which made her quicken her pace.
"Meow." Rojobo Limk heard the cat's voice suddenly turn into a clean and cute tone, which made her unable to help but look back to see what was going on, only to see that the cat's fur had flattened against its body, and it had turned around, its high tail gently swaying, looking at its gradually approaching owner—a girl-shaped machine dressed in light summer clothes.
"Run!"
Lin Dao Fei Fei's shout clearly provided the only option.
Running towards the base, Rojobo Limk stepped forward and sprinted.
Lin Dao Fei Fei was now more adapted to running in this low-gravity environment; he leaped high and quickly surpassed Limk with the help of significant horizontal speed. "She's attacking the robots!" Lin Dao Fei Fei shouted as he ran.
Rojobo Limk had no time to look back.
After Lin Dao Fei Fei landed, he jumped up again without slowing down.
"Damn!" Rojobo Limk cursed inwardly.
"Only one drone left!" Rojobo Limk heard an urgent call from Shao Deng Wu Te, "Hurry!" He urged her.
For the first time, Rojobo Limk truly experienced what it was like to fear death. Watching Lin Dao Fei Fei's rapidly receding figure, she almost felt an impulse to cry. But she couldn't; there was still hope; she had to keep running, she had to survive. Only by surviving could she find beauty; without life, all aesthetics would have no meaning for her.
Run, Rojobo Limk! Run!
Rojobo Limk felt warmth in her abdomen, then that warmth turned into icy weakness in her limbs, numbness. Stars were twinkling, not from the enhanced vision of sensors and artificial intelligence, but from consciousness itself, a hallucination triggered by an overloaded nervous system.
Pain!
Rojobo Limk opened her mouth but couldn't make a sound, only letting out a hoarse croak. She lowered her head and saw a right hand withdrawing from her abdomen. The killer girl’s right hand pulled out, and Rojobo Limk's severed spine could no longer support her; her upper body began to fold backward.
Rojobo Limk felt the sensation of plaster coming from what seemed to be the palm of her hand, like her earliest memory, like a dream processed by her later life—she grabbed that fat, round, white unicorn with her soft, warm little hands, and her mother said she could paint it any color she liked.
VIII. Investigation Report#
A violent murder occurred again on Europa, and the image of the killer was identical to that of the game character that appeared in the "Planting Beans to Get Beans" game network attack incident. Any rational person could conclude that there must be some connection between the two, and it was even possible that the mastermind behind all this was the same person or group of people.
A government spokesperson stated: Relevant departments have basically defined this incident, which spans half a solar system, as a "terrorist attack," just waiting for confirmation and authorization from other relevant departments; investigation actions have been fully launched, but for the live broadcast team on Europa, the time required for rescue operations has been minimized, yet due to the extreme distance, the trapped individuals would still need to wait at least a week.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin received an email requesting assistance with the investigation; he agreed without hesitation but requested to remain anonymous—this was not a difficult task, as the development of blockchain technology had allowed people to maintain anonymity while verifying the credibility of their claimed identities, for example, account holders could demonstrate ownership of their accounts by signing transactions.
Ouyang SOS Tie Xin created a randomly generated temporary character and entered the encrypted network chat room created by Officer NET0FACHZ32.
The design of this chat room was very simple, giving a sense of a 20th-century interrogation room in a gray main color tone. This made Ouyang SOS Tie Xin a bit nervous. He had seen such scenes in some war games set in the 20th century, and most of the events that occurred in those scenes were certainly not good things.
The character of Officer NET0FACHZ32, with a standard police image, was sitting on a very simple metal chair waiting. His hands were clasped together on the gray long table in front of him, and on the other side of that long table was another identical chair, reserved for Ouyang SOS Tie Xin.
"You... hello." Ouyang SOS Tie Xin used a voice changer that sounded like a girl's voice; he was a bit nervous, as he had never undergone police questioning—of course, his character's task experience or background story did not count.
"Hello, please don't be nervous; this is just a routine investigation," Officer NET0F