Chapter 1 The Truth

Nolan finally understood the truth about retaining her memories in the cycle, but this truth was not so pleasant for her.

More unacceptable than knowing that this world was a false program was knowing that she was also a product of the program. Although Nolan possessed calmness and wisdom far surpassing others, she was equally unprepared to face such a fact.

"Actually, you don't need to be too troubled," Lily said, leaning next to the control panel to enlighten Nolan. "Oh, right, I haven't introduced myself yet—I'm Lily, and I helped out when you guys were 'moving'. I heard the landlord talking about your world, that humans were all transformed into a virtual world, right? Thinking about it that way, they were actually transformed into data, and you are data, souls are data, so there's no difference between you."

Hao Ren glanced at Lily. This husky could always help out at unexpected times, and her open-minded thinking was really suitable for the current situation.

Nolan just smiled when she heard Lily's words: "It's okay, you don't need to specially enlighten me, I understand the reasoning, it's just a little uncomfortable after suddenly knowing my origin. When I first learned about the existence of the real world, I wondered what I looked like in reality, and what kind of life I lived before entering the virtual world... but now it seems, I was really overthinking it. Did my life really begin when the virtual world started?"

"All the Zorm people are on the same starting line. That planet has been completely burned on a material level. Everyone is only left with data. In this regard, you are no different from them," Hao Ren reminded, but he had to admit Nolan's other statement, "However, not having a 'past' is indeed a problem. After the Zorm people wake up, they will recall their entire lives until the ten-year period of entering the virtual world, but your memory... I'm sorry, the beginning is indeed 0 and 1."

Nolan lowered her head, and her expression didn't reveal what she was thinking. After a long time, she finally raised her face: "It doesn't matter, any kind of life is still life, at least I'm still alive now, which is better than dying in the apocalypse. More than that... what will happen to me in the future?"

Finally, this topic was brought up, and Hao Ren immediately felt like he was sitting on pins and needles. He shifted uncomfortably, and this action was keenly captured by Nolan: "Could it be... something else happened to me?"

"According to the original plan, you should be with the other Zorm people. After the Eldest Son reshapes the ecosystem, you can also obtain a new body and enter the real world with them, but there was a small problem in this process..."

As Hao Ren spoke, he observed Nolan's expression. After seeing the latter's calm attitude, he hardened his heart: "Because your data encoding is not compatible with the drone link, I can only forcibly store you on my ship's main computer, and during this storage process, your soul was damaged to a certain extent. Now the ship's main computer has re-encoded the damaged part. The good news is that you survived as a result, and the bad news is... you have become a part of this ship."

Nolan's eyes widened, as if she didn't quite understand what this meant.

"In other words, you have now transformed from the Dreamweaver's mechanical AI into the mechanical AI of the Behemoth. Because your soul is incomplete, it is now operating by calling up the public data in the ship, which is equivalent to a program that can only run in a specific system environment. You cannot leave this system now," Hao Ren told the other party as simply and understandably as possible, "The deficiency and complementarity are very complex, and conventional technical means can hardly solve this problem without damage. To prevent secondary damage to your soul, I cannot perform a separation surgery on you for the time being."

The look of astonishment on Nolan's face gradually faded after more than ten seconds. She looked around uneasily—she wasn't looking at the scene in the ship's control room, but the bizarre world of data she saw from the perspective of a built-in program inside the ship's main computer. She murmured to herself, "Am I going to be trapped in this place from now on?"

"It shouldn't be permanent," Hao Ren told the other party the best-case scenario. "The soul has the ability to self-repair, and the subtlety of this self-repair is more ingenious than any artificial intervention. Perhaps one day your soul will replenish itself, and then I will be able to separate you from the ship."

Nolan listened quietly to Hao Ren's words, but suddenly asked a seemingly unrelated question: "Do I also have a soul?"

Hao Ren nodded as a matter of course: "Of course you do, didn't I say it several times just now? You have a soul."

"Oh... so AI also has a soul..." Nolan murmured to herself, but since she was now just a part of the ship's system, this murmur was automatically amplified by the shipboard main computer, and Hao Ren still heard it clearly.

Nolan seemed to notice this too. She frowned awkwardly, and then smiled to change the subject: "In any case, there's nothing I can do but accept it. But what should I do next? What can I do here? What should I do? Is this empty place... always like this?"

Hao Ren was about to speak when a voice that no one expected suddenly interjected: "This machine is just curious. You a bunch of amateurs have been researching for so long, why didn't anyone think of asking an expert? This machine is totally clear on this aspect!"

Hao Ren looked back and saw a blue light "swish" out of the console slot. The data terminal jumped to the front of the holographic projection and began to shout loudly: "Hey, newbie! From today on, you and I are colleagues. No matter how many years of human experience you had before, you have to reset everything from the moment you became a plug-in on the main computer. Today, this machine is going to tell you some truths as an elder..."

Nolan was stunned by this suddenly emerging alloy brick: "What... is this thing?"

Hao Ren poked the data terminal's shell, making it somersault in the air: "You've seen it, this is Patti—'she' looks like this in the real world."

"This machine looks much cooler than before, right!" The Terminal proudly turned around, "Look at this machine's edges, look at these corners, look at the SpongeBob on this machine's shell... why is there SpongeBob on this machine's shell!"

Lily took a half step back: "You probably won't believe me if I say the bat put it there..."

Hao Ren looked at the terminal in surprise: "Can't you see the decals on your shell?"

"This machine suddenly found this function, can't it!" the terminal shouted loudly, suddenly realizing something, "Hey, wait a minute, listening to your tone... Holy crap, do you guys often put decals on this machine's shell?!"

Hao Ren immediately silently looked at Lily: Usually, only this open-minded husky puts decals on the terminal.

Nolan stared blankly at the scene in front of her, and it took her a long time to remember who "Patti" was. The memory of that pitiful blonde girl could not be reconciled with the chattering alloy brick in front of her: "You were originally a... what is this exactly?"

Hao Ren held up the terminal to show Nolan: "This thing is called a data terminal. People in my line have one, it's like a work assistant, it's given out in the first month of work."

Nolan murmured: "Is this really given out at work?"

The data terminal jumped out of Hao Ren's hand and waved in front of Nolan: "Look all you want, isn't this machine's shape more streamlined than that blonde bimbo before? And you don't need to worry about anything AI or not after seeing this machine, right? This machine has looked like this since it came off the production line, and has always been an AI, look at how well this machine is living! If you're not a human, you're not a human, in the future this machine will have the opportunity to tell you the benefits of being an AI..."

The data terminal babbled a lot, startling Nolan, and Hao Ren realized something by patting his forehead: No matter how much he and Lily tried to persuade Nolan to see the bright side, it was useless. The most useful thing was really to let the data terminal show Nolan the superiority of AI. To put it bluntly, the reason why Nolan felt down after suddenly knowing that she was not human was actually twofold: one was confusion about her identity, and the other was the sudden feeling of loneliness.

Now that the terminal jumped out, she had a companion.

And after Nolan finally recovered from the terminal's babbling, the first thing she did was to look at Hao Ren, her eyes making the latter feel prickly. Hao Ren scratched his face: "What... are you looking at?"

Nolan had a subtle expression: "It's nothing, I just find it incredible. Your female companion was a dead person at first, then she became a veteran with cerebral thrombosis, and now she has simply become a brick... has your life always been so wonderful?"

Hao Ren: "...It has always been so wonderful indeed."