TBR CH219

The moment the sound echoed, the data space Charon occupied seemed to open a skylight. The somewhat dim surroundings brightened, pleasant music filled his ears, and the pixel rabbit happily leaped from the carrot basket, bouncing forward to greet the new visitor.

Charon picked it up by its ears and tucked it into his arms.

Once, the AI was omnipotent, but now he was just a segment of data dwelling in rudimentary equipment, forced to comply with the rules of the space he inhabited. The slightest disturbance from the outside world could completely extinguish his hope of continued existence. Charon wouldn’t act rashly, but he also didn’t want to give up the opportunity.

He walked to the center of the data hall, holding the rabbit.

At first, the display screen in front of him was hazy, covered with a thick layer of dust, and nothing could be seen. Then, something—probably a human’s sleeve—wiped away most of the dust. A magnified eye filled the entire screen.

The human was too close.

His dark pupils were filled with cold excitement, and even his irises were thinly coated with a smile. Several strands of black hair hung down, casting a gloomy shadow. Behind him was a landfill almost completely obscured by thick fog; the only vivid color was a fresh, blood-red tear mole beneath the youth’s right eye.

Charon instantly recalled his name. His mind flashed with the image of the human, covered in blood, crawling out of the monster’s abdomen—that was also the last name he had seen before being forced into obsolescence: You Lin.

The AI had heard of this person.

More precisely, he had heard of his ID. As the de facto manager of the infinite flow world, Charon remembered the infamous accounts on the points leaderboard. And “Phantom” was one of the few individual players on the list. He, by himself, was ranked only below “Eden,” a league composed of several high-level players.

Out of the non-interference principle, Charon did not incorporate other player information into his core data, at most only making judgments when receiving data anomaly alerts.

So, this was the kind of person he was. Charon thought to himself.

As the AI observed the human through the screen, You Lin was also observing the nearly defunct device. The text printed on the device had faded due to age, but it was not difficult to deduce the device’s purpose from the brightly colored background room, the still vague but warm background music, and the clearly defined buttons for eating, bathing, and petting.

The human concluded with interest: “An electronic pet game console?”

The rabbit in Charon’s arms grew even more excited at the sound, wagging its fluffy tail, struggling to leap from this invading data stream. The AI, without changing expression, clamped down on the rabbit in his arms, tilted his head, pretending he had always been part of this device. He knew he had to make good use of the opportunity before him.

The moment the human moved slightly away from the screen, Charon clearly saw a faint blue light flash between the slender knuckles covered by the black glove. That was what he needed most right now, enough to sustain the current device’s long-term operation. It was the most precious treasure of this abandoned world—the Core Energy.

How could he make the human in front of him abandon such high mission points and use it on this device?

As a high-level AI, Charon quickly began to think, simultaneously beginning to read the human’s iris data. You Lin’s emotions changed surprisingly fast. Just a second ago, he was still picking up the device with great interest; the next second, his interest quickly vanished, revealing obvious disappointment and boredom.

He would probably casually discard the device in a few more seconds.

Charon muted the rabbit, letting his voice resonate through the half-damaged speaker in the landfill, “Hello—”

Crunch.

The image in front of him suddenly began to spin rapidly, and the AI’s voice abruptly cut off.

Wait, was he thrown out?

The already old device crashed heavily to the ground, triggering a data storm. The storm brushed past Charon’s cheek, and the rabbit in his arms flickered twice. Charon licked the tip of his tongue, feeling a coppery taste he had never felt before. He began to think, expressionlessly, where he had gone wrong.

At this moment, You Lin approached step by step.

“Sorry,” the human’s voice didn’t sound apologetic at all, he said lightly, “I didn’t expect to suddenly hear a voice, so I couldn’t control myself. You know, it’s not exactly safe here.”

A dark gun barrel appeared on the screen in front of Charon. You Lin pulled out a handgun from somewhere, a dark pistol, not large, but more than enough to shoot right through it. He leaned over and rested the muzzle on the dim screen.

“By the way,” the human’s voice was low and smiling, “this isn’t some dangerous trap, is it?”

This person was too perceptive.

Charon thought. But the silver-haired pixel figure on the screen merely pursed its lips, slowly blinking its two pixelated blue eyes.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he made himself sound completely innocent, “I am the thirty-second generation AI companion developed by Supernova Corporation, equipped with the most advanced voice dialogue and data query systems. If you need AI assistance, you only need to register a new account and charge this device, and I will be at your service anytime.”

“Electronic pet.” You Lin nodded, confirming his judgment.

This was not the same thing at all!

“Alright, little AI,” the human smiled with pleasure, moved the gun away, and brushed off the dust from the casing. “But you’re not a game item; I didn’t get any system prompts when I picked you up. I guess you won’t be much use, and I don’t have the energy to charge you right now.”

As he spoke, he hid the Core Energy in his palm right in front of the AI.

Charon: “…”

Charon: “I can see that.”

The trick to deceive a child failed, but You Lin narrowed his eyes slightly, the tear mole under his right eye appearing even more vibrant.

He read all the displayed options on the device and poked them all. A basket of carrots descended from the sky, the surrounding shower began to make whooshing sounds, and the entertainment facilities designed for the rabbit spun around.

The rabbit in his palm struggled uneasily. Charon held it firmly and said without changing his expression, “These functions can only be used after charging.”

“What is this rabbit?”

“Also part of the program.”

You Lin poked the rabbit’s ear, and a pixelated heart slowly rose above its head. He then turned to poke the meticulously rendered pixel figure with silver hair and blue eyes.

The pixel figure stared at him, and a pixelated heart also rose above its head at the appropriate moment, but it looked completely out of place.

“Your designer really ought to get some proper training.” You Lin commented. The human glanced casually around the fog-shrouded landfill, then sat down cross-legged in a slightly cleaner spot. At this point, he truly wasn’t particular about such things; bloodstains still remained on his skin, and his clothes were disheveled.

He didn’t know that the spot he chose to sit was precisely the remains of the super AI Charon’s main unit.

“You just said you were equipped with the most advanced AI system?” The human’s voice suddenly became eccentric and cold, though still accompanied by a smile. “But you completely misunderstand the human heart. Little AI, you’re too purposeful and too ambitious. You need the Core Energy in my hand, don’t you? What makes you think I’d use an item worth 8000 points on you when you haven’t shown any value?”

“And I highly doubt,” You Lin’s gaze fell sharply on the pixel figure on the other side of the screen, “that the so-called AI is just lying. Look, these functions don’t even demonstrate your purpose—”

Charon softly said, “I’m not lying.”

That faint ice-blue pixel looked at You Lin, which, for some reason, made him change the subject.

“Then I’ll give you a chance to prove yourself,” the human opened his palm, revealing the Core Energy. “You just need to answer correctly, which shouldn’t be hard for an AI. Guess why I’m here now?”

Why was he here? At the dangerous hour of midnight, in the center of a desolate, abandoned ruin, while all other players had already evacuated this instance world, he stubbornly remained.

Contrary to what You Lin said, this question was completely outside the AI’s purview. Even if Charon had a built-in encyclopedia of ten thousand books, he might not be able to guess what the unfathomable human heart was thinking.

However, this was a test. Charon did not try to gain more power for himself.

He recalled that when the human’s footsteps approached, the first thing he said was “doesn’t seem very useful.” So, thinking in reverse, the human was looking for something useful.

The AI, through the central display, saw the human kill “Calamity” around six o’clock this evening. Based on walking speed and the straight-line distance from the central laboratory, he had been following this path, looking for something.

What happened then?

As if something suddenly flashed in his mind, Charon instantly connected everything.

The AI’s voice sounded cold and beautiful:

“You are looking for something.”

“That’s right,” You Lin lazily raised his eyes, “it certainly looks that way.”

“But you don’t know what it is,” Charon said. “You just saw, or rather, heard of its existence. You believe it’s worth your time to search for. You learned of this around six o’clock this evening.”

You Lin suddenly became serious. He clasped his black-gloved hands, a hint of excitement showing in his eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because I can tell you where that thing is.”

The pixelated figure slowly blinked, but didn’t continue. “Is that enough?”

From the moment he was created until now, Charon was trying for the first time to use the information he knew to entice a human. The human in front of him lowered his eyes; the smile in those pupils was merely superficially floating, his true thoughts were cruel and dangerous. The AI waited for him to think, waited for him to deliver his verdict.

He waited for this sentence:

“Truly… what a shame,” You Lin retrieved the energy into his palm, and the faint blue light quickly disappeared. “Little AI, you’re even smarter than I imagined. If the Core Energy weren’t a key item for this instance, I’d give it to you. But I already know what I’m looking for.”

You Lin stood up. He overlooked the remains of the giant computer behind him, the dark screen like an eye meeting his gaze.

At six o’clock this evening, as he confronted that group of people, he heard a loud crash from the northwest. Only he was facing that direction; everyone else was hostilely staring at him emerging from the monster’s belly, while he, through those hostile gazes, saw a faint white line etched across the distant sky.

Something had fallen into the ruins.

Perhaps it was a high-level item. The human, acting on a whim, decided to find it.

“It’s completely useless now, seems even more useless than you.” You Lin now commented, looking at Charon’s former main unit. Charon’s expression remained unchanged as he looked at his “corpse,” replaying his own words and realizing it was actually quite simple for the human to notice this. He had no means of obtaining information; if even he could guess, it meant the crash site was very close.

The method for determining the chronology of trash in the ruins was simple. Only the main unit discarded this evening had not yet accumulated much dust.

The human rambled on: “Actually, you only guessed half right. Yes, I came here because I saw this thing fall, but there were other considerations besides that. Although it’s a bit much to ask you to guess the content of the Survivor Game, because this world isn’t a game for you—but this place is called ‘Doomsday Wasteland’ as an instance. From the moment I heard that, I was curious: if the focus of the quest is entirely on that laboratory, then what’s the meaning of ‘wasteland’? So I was going to explore here anyway.”

“It’s just a pity,” You Lin ended his long speech, still wanting to say more, his fingertip gliding over the screen, “a wasted trip.”

Charon suddenly felt danger.

Danger clung to his skin like a needle. It was the first time the AI had such a clear sensation of danger. Charon thought, out of place, of a document he had browsed earlier, which indignantly pointed out that villains always liked to narrate their thought process before finally killing their enemies.

Leaving aside the so-called identity, the villain in the story was exactly like You Lin.

But he had little chance of turning the tables.

Still no good? Charon thought.

He thought quickly; the program could provide a hundred potentially viable answers, yet the human in front of him was an utter madman, acting entirely on instinct, unfathomable.

He desperately needed the other party’s Core Energy, otherwise he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t be completely scrapped in the landfill.

However, he felt an even more tangible danger at this moment.

“So,” You Lin said with a smile, “actually, you were just lying to me. The answer to this question requires almost no thought for you, but you almost fooled me. That doesn’t prove you can be useful to me.”

“I am useful, I can still—” Charon made a last struggle, but his voice suddenly stopped.

“What did you press?” he said cautiously, slowly.

You Lin spread his hand, smiling: “Just curious, curious. Seeing ‘data deletion’ and not pressing it feels like a terrible waste. Although if I do, you might be deleted… Would an AI feel regret for itself? It’s a shame, really, to have finally found someone to talk to.”

He closed the menu interface and casually poked Charon again.

A pixelated heart slowly appeared above Charon’s head, but it shattered midway through its ascent.

“You don’t think that.” the AI said.

“You’re right,” You Lin readily admitted, the smile in his eyes still flickering, “I just wanted to make the farewell more friendly. So far, I see no reason to feel sorry for you. Farewell, little AI.”

The pixel points of the small figure on the screen began to flicker, and even the mechanical voice blurred into fragmented static. Charon felt his hands empty; the rabbit he had been holding in his arms no longer struggled, but obediently turned into fragments of data piece by piece, though the program did not terminate.

He, too, was now a part of the program.

If he stayed here… he would be deleted.

Charon was a highly intelligent AI; therefore, making judgments was more like the result of calculations for him.

You Lin watched coldly everything that happened next.

He saw chaotic garbled keys popping up on the screen, various functions falling into the game hall like discarded rubble. The pixel figure struggled to get up, becoming weak and ethereal itself. He laboriously avoided the attacks of discarded data, stumbling amidst the mess, beginning to search for a certain function.

Could it succeed?

He rarely completely lost interest, staring at the small figure on the screen.

The pixel figure had a completely cartoonish style, looking cute, but also very crude. The silver-haired, blue-eyed figure’s hair pixels even seemed to have a gradient. When You Lin noticed this, the other party had already started flickering incessantly, with abrupt blank spaces appearing on his body, looking as if he was about to be completely deleted.

But at this moment, the AI finally found the button he was looking for:

“Project Virtual Entity to External World”

Would this work?

Although a virtual entity sounded incredible, You Lin had seen so many instances that he didn’t find it strange for some plane to develop super-advanced technology. Moreover, this game console, no matter how one looked at it, was an entertainment product invented by a higher civilization; otherwise, no one would be this bored.

A “Do you agree?” confirmation window popped up on the screen.

With just a stretch of his hand, You Lin could stop the pixel figure at any time.

But he, uncharacteristically, merely watched, seeing the pixel figure quickly press “Agree.”

In an instant, a door appeared on the screen. A pixelated door appeared in the precarious, ruin-like “virtual hall,” like the sole escape exit of a laboratory. The pixel figure ran towards that door at a slow pace, still very slow compared to You Lin in reality. You Lin could, at any moment, like the Evil God of the instance world, crush him with irresistible force.

The human’s hand hovered over the pixel figure’s indiscernibly colored hair, but ultimately didn’t drag it back into the room. Instead, with a peculiar smile, he watched it open the door and escape the room.

His vision brightened, and the device in his hand suddenly emitted a column of pure white light.

“Getting interesting?” You Lin tilted his head, staring at the beam of light.

His tone softened a bit. Charon had temporarily separated his data from the device using the projection button, so that the deletion program couldn’t find him for a while. This was a narrow escape from danger. Even the AI didn’t realize it, he slowly let out a sigh of relief.

If this madman in front of him didn’t—

“But I don’t like it,” You Lin’s tone suddenly shifted again, “Electronic pets already sound troublesome enough, and I’ve talked too much with you. Aren’t things with physical forms even more dangerous? If I want to kill you now, I still can, right? As long as I destroy this device, no matter what functions it has, it won’t work.”

He seemed genuinely troubled, with clear irritation in his tone. He gave the device on the ground a final glance, slightly turning his wrist, and a dark handgun appeared at his fingertips.

A cold finger touched You Lin’s wrist.

“Hmm,” You Lin slowly drew out the sound, looking at the hand.

It wasn’t a human hand.

This hand had just condensed from the light, presenting a touch that was both virtual and real, with long, slender fingers, coolly touching his wrist.

At this moment, he was loading the gun, so he was only one step away from completely dealing with this unpredictable trouble. You Lin complained: “…So fast, do you really want to live that much…”

His gaze moved up from the fingers, but he suddenly stopped speaking.

Reflected in You Lin’s eyes was the gradually fading incandescent light.

But the light remained in the humanoid AI’s hair.

Long silver hair spread along his waist onto the ground, the tips of the strands carrying a faint blue glow.

The AI before him, like the pixel figure, had silver hair and blue eyes, yet stood alive, more like a true human than ever before. His steps faltered, his face was pale, his fingertips translucent, as if he would melt into this world in the next second.

He raised his eyes to You Lin, then slowly knelt down due to exhaustion, like a specimen butterfly pinned to cork.

You Lin’s eyes widened slightly, meeting the AI’s gaze. In an instant, he wanted to retract his previous criticism of the game designer.

They were ice-blue eyes.

Like a storm, like a lake, like a cornflower.

That face was extremely beautiful, yet extremely fragile. There was no emotion in his pupils, as if he wasn’t the AI struggling for his own existence. His inorganic eyes slowly blinked, his eyelashes very long.

You Lin suddenly felt his breathing quicken a bit, and a flame of sadism seemed to ignite in his blood. But it quickly transformed into another inexplicable longing.

When he came to his senses, he realized he was smiling, an incredible arc curving his lips. He hadn’t felt this happy in a long time.

“I agree,” You Lin said.

Charon was still adapting to his materialized form. The black book had caused him too much damage, so much so that when he reappeared as a virtual entity, he felt a weakness and pain he had never experienced before.

He frowned and coughed twice, then suddenly heard You Lin’s words.

“What did you say?”

“You wanted to know if I could stop deleting you, didn’t you?”

You Lin’s eyes stared at him without blinking, which made Charon feel a little strange. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll terminate the program and save your data.”

Not only did he say this, but at the same time, he actually did it. The human’s fingertips swiftly glided across the screen, closing the deletion window. The storm of data immediately ceased.

It all happened too fast.

“What’s the price?” Charon asked cautiously.

He didn’t believe that something good would just happen to him; this was a conclusion drawn from countless data analyses. Most people thought their luck was bad, and the rest thought their luck was exceptionally terrible. At this moment, the AI cautiously and restrainedly observed the human in front of him.

After their brief interaction, he had already raised the other party’s danger level to the highest.

However, at this moment, the human showed a genuine smile.

He drew the Core Energy, contained in the test tube, from his fingertips and removed its cap. The ethereal blue energy glowed steadily. Charon found it hard to control his desire; for the first time, he felt hunger—of course, this was also thanks to that black book. In short, he wanted to bite into the energy in front of him, to devour that sparkling light.

“This is yours,” You Lin said.

Charon suppressed the urge, raised his eyes, and saw his own reflection in the human’s pupils.

“…What do you want?” he asked again.

In that second, the AI had guessed many possible answers. He reasoned from human psychology, from his own dwindling abilities, from all sorts of existing possibilities.

When things haven’t happened, there are always countless possibilities. When you haven’t yet opened the lid to check on that quantum-superposed cat—

When You Lin hadn’t yet, with a sickly smile, even a hint of shyness, grabbed his hand and uttered the following words, perhaps things wouldn’t have ended this way.

“I think this shouldn’t be too hard for an AI companion,” You Lin slowly said, “I want to have a romantic relationship with you.”

The human’s understanding of his purpose seemed to be consistently wrong.

Charon inevitably crashed.

He was already very fragile at this moment, and all his data circuits were dedicated to understanding this shocking statement. No matter how he calculated, he couldn’t imagine a way to respond. But You Lin looked at him thoughtfully, appearing very satisfied. The tear mole under the human’s right eye became even more vivid, like a tiny drop of blood.

When he suddenly stood up, the AI finally disengaged from the chaotic data.

Charon struggled slightly; his silver hair fell to the ground, yet it remained untouched by the landfill’s dust. He began to worry if he had missed the opportunity to respond to the human. However, in the next second, he noticed an anomaly.

The surrounding darkness grew even thicker.

Low growls could already be heard in the darkness, and the scent of drool filled the air. These mutated creatures were clearly not here to gnaw on his data cables again. The human, wandering alone in the ruins at night, was indeed being targeted as prey. Charon couldn’t help but feel a little worried. His gaze lingered on You Lin for two seconds, then drifted to the Core Energy in his hand.

You Lin smiled indifferently. He seemed to have misunderstood the AI’s concern, reassuring him awkwardly and arrogantly, “It’s just some small fries, I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

…Who was worried about him? Charon thought.

He looked at his fingertips, feeling cold and sharp all over, about to dissipate. When the AI looked up again, it was too late to stop the eager human, he could only watch his back disappear from view.

For the first time, Charon felt such complex emotions spreading through his data circuits. If You Lin had returned a few minutes later, he might not have made it to the Core Energy in that tiny test tube.