Rule Strange: Urban Legends That Don't Exist

The "freshness" of the city in front of Chen Yan exceeded his previous knowledge of the BIOS world.

Countless suspended buildings make up the blocks, and the roadways between the blocks, which are entirely made of air, make up the city itself.

There are still many high-rise buildings in the suspended city, but the high-rise buildings here are much "newer" than those seen before. They don't look like the dark and haunted high-rise buildings before -

As long as Chen Yan raised his head, he could clearly see the white-collar workers working in every office building. They were busy and happy. It was the passionate appearance of countless such workers that added a lot of vitality to the city and made the entire city more vibrant. The atmosphere of the city comes alive.

The vehicles suspended above the "air roadway" are moving forward according to rules that Chen Yan does not understand. Although there are many, even if they move forward at the same time, the entire road system will not look bloated.

There is a transparent isolation fence outside the sidewalk around the building. Beyond the isolation fence is the airway. Pedestrians on the physical roads around the block seem to be accustomed to this unique design aesthetic and have no regard for such dangerous road conditions. care.

Although it was still dark, it looked like the private world.

As for pedestrians…

Pedestrians here couldn't tell what ethnic group they were, and they were different from any ethnic group Chen Yan knew, but their facial features seemed to be slightly similar to every ethnic group in Chen Yan's memory.

The only thing Chen Yan can be sure of is that from his aesthetic point of view, although the pedestrians here generally look strange, they are not related to "ugly". Although the men are not like men and the women are not like women, they are not "ugly". It seems that no one stipulates that men must be like men and women must be like women.

'How strange. ' Chen Yan thought to himself.

He realized that this should be a new facial feature system born under a unique aesthetic standard - of course it was man-made.

He had no intention of analyzing the causes behind this phenomenon.

When he retracted his thoughts, he realized that the wish had also changed into an appearance similar to that of the pedestrians here. She was now walking among the crowd. Chen Yan glanced forward from her perspective and felt as if he had been embarrassed. Blindness.

He didn't call her immediately, but followed her gaze forward.

After wishing to walk two blocks, he entered an inconspicuous-looking jewelry store and gave the owner a gold chain to gain access to the workshop.

Wish entered the small workshop of the jewelry store, took an elevator that looked like a restroom in the corner of the workshop, and began to move upward.

The elevator did not go up vertically as Chen Yan imagined. Instead, it shuttled in irregular directions within the building. During this period, the lights and shadows flickered and various lights flickered on and off, as if they had entered a bizarre time passage.

The elevator changed directions so many times that Chen Yan had long lost his sense of direction and didn't know which direction he was heading in.

After a long wait, the elevator finally stopped. Desire walked out of the elevator door and entered a white passage made of some kind of enamel. There were densely packed doors on both sides of the white passage. This structure reminded Chen Yan of the world he lived in. A certain encrypted channel underground in the Internet world.

'This should not be the Internet world. '

There is no data flow visible to the naked eye. This should not be the online world that Chen Yan knows... Even if it is similar to the online world, the degree of simulation of this online world is extremely high.

Wishful stopped outside a certain door in the white passage, raised his hand and knocked on the door.

The knocking sounds are even in rhythm, three long and one short.

The door opened, and it was pitch dark inside. When Xixi turned around and closed the door, the faint light in the dark environment seemed a little brighter.

The room was not big, and Wish came to the center of the room in two steps, so a cylindrical machine connecting the ceiling and floor appeared in front of Chen Yan. The upper and lower ends of the machine looked like they were made of alloy, and there was a cylinder about thirty centimeters high in the middle. The body area is the only source of light in this room - the faint light coming from some kind of liquid.

There is a brain soaked in the liquid.

Chen Yan realized that he could no longer lurk, he had to know what Wish was doing.

'I am coming. '

Faced with Chen Yan's greeting without any warning, Xi wish was not surprised at all, but the movements of his hands paused for a moment.

'You're here. '

While wishing to take off his shirt, he responded to Chen Yan through the brain computer:
'The person I want to contact today has long since died, but he has a special status, so his descendants always keep a backup of his memory. '

It turns out that the head is some kind of memory backup.

Chen Yan felt less uncomfortable in his consciousness.

Wish continued:

'He is a manager of a special department of the company. He was exposed to many confidential matters at the beginning. He served a person named [Chen Yan] for a long period of his working life. I am very sensitive to this name. So he needs to be investigated. '

Chen Yan had mentioned the name "Chen Yan" to Wishes before. The digital underlying ID of the data life god "Saphant" in the neighborhood outside the company suddenly changed to "Chen Yan". Wishes remembered this strange situation. .

As he spoke, Xixi opened his chest, revealing densely packed integrated circuits and modular microelectronics areas. He pulled out a neural pipeline from an inconspicuous "organ" and connected it to a certain mechanism under the machine in front of him. in an external docking station.

'Concentrate on my vision and I will show you my conversation with him. '

As he spoke his wish, the field of vision in front of Chen Yan's eyes had changed——

The clear world in front of him began to become blurry, and the blur returned to clarity in a short period of time. It looked like the pupils were focusing.

When the pupils finished focusing, everything in front of them became clear——

This is a small room that looks very warm. The fire is burning brightly in the stone fireplace. The red checkered carpet on the ground completely covers the ground. The old man sitting on the lounge chair is sleeping deeply with a star blanket on his back. The black-tailed cat also lay on his legs and fell asleep with him.

Desire whispers:

"Mr. Lawrence."

The old man was awakened by the call, and the cat on his legs howled, jumped off his legs, and disappeared under the sofa.

It seemed that no one had contacted him for a long time, so when he opened his eyes, his eyes were dazed, like a person who suddenly woke up from a long dream and needed enough time to recover from the stiffness.

"Ah, ah...hello..."

The old Mr. Lawrence waved under the sofa, and the black-tailed cat emerged from under the sofa and jumped back into his lap.

"Mr. Lawrence, I want to ask you about some past events."

Desire maintained a polite posture, which was rare for her. "Tell me everything you know."

Mr. Lawrence seemed like an amiable old man and did not refuse Wish's almost rude inquiry - she did not even reveal her identity.

"I want to know about Chen Yan."

When he heard the name, Lawrence's eyes went blank for a moment.

Then his pupils quickly focused, touched the cat's back, and said:

"That was... a long time ago."

wish said:

“I want to know what happened to her during the time she was working in the company.

I also want to know what kind of person she is. "

Lawrence glanced at the flames in the fireplace. When he spoke, his eyes had already passed through the flames and landed on nowhere.

"That's a very long memory... When will we start talking about it..."

When he continued to speak, his thoughts were completely confused:

"She is a good boss. She always thinks about us. She has no shortage of benefits and subsidies that she can apply for... If I have to talk about shortcomings, it is that she is too unwomanly... Some bad guys scolded her in private and scolded her. It's like taking male hormones...

I met her when I was looking for a job. The major I studied was too eccentric, it was [Priesthood Biology], a subject that studies sacred creatures and religious philosophy. I lost my job as soon as I graduated. I went to many job fairs. Suddenly I met her once..."

As he spoke, his logic gradually became smoother.

"She was very interested in my major and talked a lot with me. We talked about the origins of religion, tracing the origins of the Federation's current belief in thirteen gods, and about religious civilization to the creatures in the entire universe that have been changed by religion. Ethnicity - religion changes people's spirit, and people change the world because of the changed spirit. The changed world environment affects the living things themselves. In order to adapt to the environment, living things must change to adapt to the environment...

This was a long and boring process, but we had a great time chatting.

I answered her questions... not all of them, but still enough for me to join her company and work with her. "

When Lawrence told these things, he was like an old man who often recalled the past, recalling everything in his past clearly, as if this could prove that he had existed.

"It was the third millennium of the Federation. Although the company failed to catch up with the development of the times due to complicated reasons, and its capital operation capabilities were not good on other planets in the universe, it was operating pretty well on its home planet and had a huge industry, operating and investing in many projects.

She is the person in charge of a new project of the company. The main business of the project is to build a paradise for human beings to do whatever they want. The several parks of the park simulate several real eras of human history. The receptionists in the park are They are some kind of more realistic digital beings. They are responsible for receiving real humans outside the park and providing them with enjoyment. "

Wishes interrupted him with an emphasis:

"More realistic."

Lawrence replied:

"Yes, unlike normal data lives, the data lives in the park did not have strong intelligence when they were created, because according to her idea, if those data lives have strong intelligence, the guests who come here will There’s no real sense of experience.”

Wish is obviously interested in this topic:

"Please continue."

Lawrence fell into reminiscence:

"She advocates [self-learning] for data life - she wants to let data life carry out its life in a [natural growth] way. The specific form is:
Let incomplete data lives that only have low-level intelligence, but possess advanced hardware and anthropomorphic learning logic, [grow naturally] in a man-made realistic environment, and grow from infants to youth, adulthood, and adulthood according to the needs of the park's performance occasions. Or old age.

Of course, our employees can intervene in this process at any time. Once there is a bug in the program or the simulated environment, or they find that the world (park) is fake - this is normal - we will take action to correct the error in a timely manner. , and put them back into the park.

In this way, when these data lives reach adulthood, they will be almost indistinguishable from normal people.

They lived in a specific ancient environment, and their food, clothing, housing and transportation all conformed to that specific ancient environment. In this way, when tourists enter their world as "outsiders", they will have a sense of immersion - this is also This project relies on profitability.

In fact, she did a very good job. After only 30 years of investment in this project, it has already begun to make large profits, and the profits in just six months have wiped out all the previous investment——

Rich people who can afford to enter this place can realize any idea here - any idea, noble or dirty, true or false, anything outside the law can be done here.

She was a great success, and the company held a party to celebrate her. "

Lawrence whispered:

"But, her ambition is obviously more than that.

In the third year after the park was put into operation, an accident suddenly occurred. A tourist was cut off while having fun. "

His tone was full of schadenfreude.

“Those people totally deserved it!
It is worth mentioning that this incident was completely handled internally by us. The tourist received compensation and hush money, and no one raised any suspicion about her project itself.

At that time, we all thought it was just an accident.

Until the employee who was responsible for the troubled receptionist resigned, we still didn't find out what happened. We just thought they took the blame and resigned - someone has to take responsibility for such a big thing.

After the accident, the park was still operating vigorously, and the company took the majority of the operating income. After paying dividends that year, the shareholders admired her very much and even gave her some shares. "

"It stands to reason that if you have a stake, you should work hard and run this place as a foundation, right?

But she obviously didn't think so.

Those receptionists... they look more and more like normal people.

Until one time, a receptionist suddenly broke away from the temporary control state we set while we were performing maintenance on the campus. I still remember that day.

That day, we suspended all receptionists as usual and conducted bug troubleshooting and physical maintenance on them one by one. A certain receptionist who was frozen in place suddenly moved.

She came to one of my colleagues in a daze, and asked in an extremely uneasy tone what was going on with the colleague who was checking the chest cavity of a certain receptionist. "