Chapter 1 Colonel Conrad

Colonel Conrad spent about ten seconds reciting a code, neither short nor long, with unclear meaning, spelling out each letter.

After she finished, all the rebel soldiers in the room showed nervous expressions... staring intently at Feng Bujue.

"May I ask... what does this mean?" After a few seconds, Feng Bujue asked.

For some reason, when he asked this question, the people around him seemed to relax.

"Heh... I see." At this time, Conrad also slightly eased her stern expression and softened her tone. "Sorry, Mr. Feng Bujue, it's not that I don't trust you... but based on past experience, I have to be careful." As she spoke, she turned around and returned to her desk, raising her hand to gesture towards a chair on the other side of the desk, "Don't be nervous, please sit down."

Jue-ge didn't hesitate much before walking over and sitting down. After settling in, he said, "You still haven't answered my question..." He paused for half a second, then asked again, "What did you mean by those things you said earlier?"

"Hey! Be polite when speaking to the colonel!" The next second, the crew-cut standing behind Jue-ge spoke sternly.

However, the colonel immediately waved her hand and winked at her, signaling her "I'll handle this."

"Mr. Feng Bujue." After a brief silence, Colonel Conrad leaned her elbows on the desk, looking at Jue-ge with an "I'm seeing through you" expression, and continued, "I think you should know about 'PM', right?"

"I know that abbreviation can represent at least twenty or thirty meanings, can you be more specific?" Feng Bujue replied.

"Parasitoidmen." Conrad responded immediately, "A special type of soldier that Pi Ta created for this war."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes and said, "Judging by the name... could it be a partly modified cyborg?"

"More precisely, humans parasitized by nanobots." Conrad explained, "Pi Ta began implementing this plan in the fifth year of the war... They gathered captured soldiers, common criminals, and those they deemed 'unproductive' and forcibly modified them, implanting nanobots into their bodies. The effects of this implantation are irreversible. The nanobots immediately destroy part of the implanted person's brain tissue and replace it, turning them into puppets of the AI. Once those nanobots stop functioning, the PM will also die, which means..."

"...which means," Feng Bujue took over, "that at the moment they accept the modification, those people are essentially already dead."

"That's right," Conrad replied.

After answering that, she sighed thoughtfully, then continued, "Hoo... When this technology first appeared, we knew nothing about it. Because nanobots are extremely small and have anti-scanning programs, ordinary scanning equipment couldn't identify them at all... Therefore, during that period, a large number of PMs infiltrated our ranks... causing us huge losses."

Speaking of this, she couldn't help but frown and shake her head. Although she only looked a few years older than Jue-ge, she exuded an air of experience and weariness, which was not surprising for someone who was born in a time of war and participated in it.

"Fortunately, we weren't completely crushed." After a moment's pause, Conrad continued, "Our intelligence personnel quickly obtained relevant information about the PMs and found several ways to verify them."

"Such as the string of code you just mentioned?" Feng Bujue said.

Conrad nodded slightly and replied, "All intelligent robots manufactured by Pi Ta are assigned an 'emergency stop code'. Naturally, the nanobots in the PM's brain also adhere to this principle."

"Then how do you know..." Although it was unfavorable to him, Feng Bujue couldn't help but say it, "...that the code you just recited isn't outdated? Pi Ta could completely change a different set of codes for each batch of nanobots, right?"

"No, it can't." Conrad didn't react much to this question, "Because the human brain is a very complex organ, the structure and operating principles of those PM robots are also subject to fairly strict specifications and limitations. Simply put... if the code is changed, those robots won't work, and that costly implantation surgery would become a simple murder... meaningless."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue asked, "Then let me ask... when did you learn that code?"

"One month after the first batch of PMs struck us." Conrad replied.

"So... from that moment on, the PMs were essentially useless?" Feng Bujue said.

"Indeed, from then on, Pi Ta greatly reduced the production of PMs." Conrad replied, "But less... doesn't mean none. After all, our personnel changes are also significant. Not every new recruit can memorize the code, and even some veterans can't. And we don't have enough resources to print a handbook with all sorts of codes or precautions for every soldier... Therefore, over the years, there will still be some PMs trying to infiltrate us through various channels." As she said this, she took a cigar from the cigar box on the table, casually cut off the end with a small knife, lit it, and took a puff, "Phew... Okay, any more questions about the Parasitoidmen?"

Hearing this, Feng Bujue turned to look at the people behind him, "You just said there are 'several' verification methods..." His gaze quickly moved to the strange devices in the hands of those soldiers, "The ones they're holding... that's one, right?"

"Our army's specially made pulse guns." Conrad exhaled smoke rings in a middle-aged man's tone, "One hundred percent chance of burning the robots in the PM's brain, about thirty percent chance of causing brain damage to ordinary people."

"Heh... hehe..." Feng Bujue chuckled dryly, without commenting.

"Alright, Mr. Feng Bujue." Conrad replied, "I've already said quite a bit, but you don't seem to have said anything yet..." She paused, "I have to remind you... no matter what, you are still a prisoner of war. I can be very polite to you... or very impolite... understand?"

Conrad was also quite a negotiator. Although she did seem to have said a lot to Jue-ge, in reality... what she said was common knowledge to people in this world. Any rebel soldier or search team member knew these things.

"Captain Sade should have already told you about my situation, right?" Feng Bujue was also a very skilled negotiator, at least he was definitely qualified in terms of thick skin. "Right now, if you ask me to speak, I can probably only tell you about some things from 'another timeline,' because I've forgotten almost everything in this timeline."

This "what if I lost my memory" attitude was very standard - a dead pig is not afraid of boiling water.

"Hmph..." Conrad snorted coldly, "I was going to ask you about things from another timeline anyway."

"How so?" Feng Bujue tentatively asked, "Isn't what I said in the interrogation room enough to prove that I am a Know-Leaper? I have to remind you... that question was asked by Captain Sade, unless he colluded with me beforehand and had me prepare a long answer to fool people, otherwise..."

"I know all this." Conrad interrupted Jue-ge again, "You don't need to tell me how to identify undercover agents..."

"Undercover agents?" Feng Bujue questioned, "Didn't you already verify that I'm not a PM? As for whether I'm a robot, you should have scanned me long ago, right?"

"Ha!" At this moment, the crew-cut laughed dryly from behind.

At the same time, Conrad also laughed.

She leaned forward, blowing smoke into Jue-ge's face, "Pure human spies... are the most troublesome..."

"There really are people like that..." Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes and replied.

But then he thought about it, this was also very reasonable. Almost all wars will produce "traitors," even in settings like *The Matrix*, a human traitor will emerge; compared to that guy who wanted to lie in the pod and enjoy wealth and glory, the traitors in this world can at least enjoy some tangible benefits...

"Alright, stop beating around the bush." Conrad said, "Maybe you can fool Sade, but you can't fool me... I've seen plenty of spies with good memories. With two or three months of training, they can memorize the basic knowledge about video games and on the surface... they're no different from a 'Know-Leaper who awakened after twenty years old'." She blew another puff of smoke, "Phew - but no one can fool my eyes."

"Kid, you're out of luck today..." Immediately afterward, the crew-cut threatened Jue-ge in a proud tone, "The colonel is one of the 'first Know-Leapers to awaken'. Your tricks will be exposed soon."

At this time, a hint of smugness flashed across Conrad's face, and she said to Jue-ge, "I used to expose and capture many pure human spies and used 'unpleasant' methods to extract a lot of information from them, including... the training materials used by Pi Ta's spy agencies."

"I understand." Feng Bujue said, "You're going to ask me a few questions that are not covered in the spy training courses, right?"

"First, please name at least three pirated game consoles." A second later, Conrad's expression turned stern, and she asked directly.

"Huh?" Feng Bujue's dead fish eyes were activated, "Only three?"

"'Only' three?" This response surprised Conrad, because... based on her past experience, most spies couldn't even name one.

For those who are not Know-Leapers, they know nothing about the events of another timeline. During spy training, they mostly memorize the names and abbreviations of all legitimate game consoles. But... for pirated consoles, only Know-Leapers with genuine "game memories" will have an impression. Even if some people don't have memories of playing pirated consoles, they will at least know a few names.

"Hmm..." On the other side, Feng Bujue considered for a few seconds and began to narrate, "Speaking of pirated consoles... you definitely have to mention FC. In the mid-nineties, when FC's market share was gradually replaced by other new products, it was actually the spring of its pirated products; of course... Japan and Europe were definitely already in autumn at that time, and those that were still in spring... were the countries or regions where it was extremely difficult to get legitimate consoles and cartridges; among them, the Chinese-speaking regions produced the most, widest, and best pirated products... even Russian children grew up playing various mainland and Taiwanese products."

He spoke to Conrad in a super-veteran tone, as if giving a lecture, and for a moment... the colonel almost forgot that she was actually examining the other party.

"There are extremely many FC pirated models. Due to the special historical background at the time, these pirated goods could grandly land on the counters of various large shopping malls, and even register companies and become bigger and bigger..." Feng Bujue's words continued, "Here I will roughly list some brands that have never obtained Nintendo's authorization and basically don't take authorization seriously... such as - Xiaolintong, Zhilibao, Shengtian, Tianma, Sunny, Shanghe, Hai Tian Shi, Pangtian, Subor, Xiaotiansai, Lianhua, Xinxing, Terminator, etc. Some of them are even products that appeared after mutual piracy, which is quite bizarre..."

Jue-ge spoke this paragraph very quickly, almost like a tongue twister.

Conrad was immediately stunned. Halfway through, the entire cigar in her hand fell into the ashtray.

For a time, the room was silent, and the sound of several guards swallowing saliva became very clear.

"You... wait a moment." Two seconds later, Conrad's reaction became very similar to that of Captain Sade earlier. She looked at Jue-ge with a complicated expression, then left her seat, walked to the side of the room, and turned a metal valve on the wall.

Immediately afterward, there was a "creak--," and a storage space that flipped out from the wall appeared.

In that space, there was a flat screen that looked like it was pieced together from garbage (yes, steampunk is like this), and a game console that looked very much like an FC; next to the game console, there was also a special metal frame, on which dozens of circuit boards were neatly embedded (that is, FC cartridges without shells, which we called naked cartridges when we were young. ps: When I was young and ignorant, I always thought that the shell quality of eight-bit machine cartridges was very bad, and they would break if you bent them hard; until I grew up, I saw genuine FC and NES cartridges...). Needless to say, these were the games.

"As far as I know..." After opening the storage cabinet, Conrad spoke again, "...Pi Ta will let spies play some of the more classic FC games so that they can actually understand what video games are. However, Pi Ta only lets them play the first level of each game, in case these people are really attracted to the game and defect after playing it." As she spoke, she turned to look at Jue-ge, "So... I would like you to randomly select five games and complete three of them up to the third level without using Continue (continuing after running out of lives) to prove..."

"Alright... I got it." Before the other party could finish speaking, Feng Bujue himself stepped forward, randomly pulled out a cartridge (anyway, the cartridges didn't have packaging, so it was the same which one he pulled out) and plugged it into the game console. He skillfully turned on the power, picked up the controller, and sat down with a thud, "Tch... I got *Ninja Gaiden III* right off the bat..." When the game screen appeared, he muttered, then looked at Conrad and said, "This game is a bit difficult... and the level divisions are quite strange. It's not clear whether the second train section counts as one level or half a level; otherwise... should I do a speedrun for you?"