Chapter 1,268 Margin and Rift

Standing in front of me was a completely unfamiliar girl. She was tall, probably about the same height as the female gangster Bingtis. She had long flaxen hair, and her face was featureless but also very beautiful. She has a slightly energetic look and a pair of slightly energetic eyes. She is wearing an imperial uniform, but I am sure this is the first time her face has appeared in a military zone. I was stunned by this strange girl at first, but she quickly greeted me quite familiarly, and then I noticed a small sign hanging on her chest, which said one line Bad words like a dog crawling: "Xiling, if you find it, please contact the military department, thank you."

"Are you Xi Ling?" I looked at the completely unfamiliar girl in front of me in surprise, feeling that the world view was strange and inadequate, "How did you become like this?"

"Well, I was in a daze during the test, and then I forgot what I looked like last time." Xiling said with a smile, looking very happy, and not realizing anything was wrong with him changing like this. I was dumbfounded when I heard the other party's answer. I realized what the so-called amorphous life form was like before... She is indeed a person who has recorded information about all known species and can switch her body shape at will. She usually plays so well. It's advanced - I wonder if Qianqian has tried to turn her into a bicycle?

Anyway, the unlucky slime at home has quickly learned to turn into a bicycle.

My eyes fell on the small sign on the other person's chest. It was the size of a palm and looked like a job sign from some big company. It was tied by Xiling with a red rope and hung around his neck. Qianqian is such a whimsical guy...

"My mistress gave this to me. She said that I run around all day long and always change my appearance. She is afraid that I will get lost." Xi Ling happily shook the small white metal plate, as if using it as a Necklace, "But I feel like this is of no use. As long as the soul remains unchanged, you can recognize others? Oh, of course, I will take it with me. I will also take it with me when I run to other places."

It seems that Xiling already knows many characteristics of Xiling apostles, such as how to identify other people through the unique identification code of the soul, but she is not clear yet that the high-level officials of the empire are not actually normal Xiling apostles at all: We are still used to relying on our faces. Recognizing people. Qianqian probably met such an "unknown" Xiling just like me a few days ago, so she made such a sign for her in a flash of her mind. This thing looks silly, but don't tell me, why does it look so funny when Xiling hangs it around his neck?

Although this was an unexpected encounter, since we met, we naturally wanted to chat by the way. Besides, I don't have anything too important to do now. I have been accompanying Anulili everywhere for the past two days, and I have no time to meet this "big man" who has just returned to the empire. Now is the time to take this opportunity to understand the current situation of this confused super consciousness.

The most relaxing place nearby and the most suitable place to rest and chat is of course Sylvia's shop. That shop is next to the separation wall of the military zone and less than 200 meters away from the assembly square. When I pulled Xi Ling over, it happened to be the moment when the shop was sending away the only few customers of the day: at this o'clock, there would be several mass-produced bubbles coming to buy desserts. Basically, Sylvia can expect They were the only guests. The student guests from the military academy were rare elites. Except on holidays, they rarely refreshed within half a kilometer of the military zone. After all, it would not be fun if your instructor caught you shopping here outside of your days off.

A few nervous and very excited mass-produced bubbles disappeared at the end of the street under my watch. Then I pulled Xi Ling to push open the glass door of the shop and greeted the person who might be in a daze waiting for lunch. Store manager: "Sylvia! We have customers!"

"Call Mao, call Mao, I've seen you two already, aren't we preparing drinks for you two!" A series of brisk and rapid voices like popping beans came from behind the counter, and I stared at the hands and feet of the silver-haired mole with my mouth open. Quickly clear away packaging bags and other debris on the counter. Behind her were coffee beans floating in the air and tearing off the packaging. The creature that looked like Sylvia looked up at me and curled her lips, "Let's talk about it first. There are only coffee and black tea. The orange juice was drunk by 001. Coca-Cola has been ionized by 036, helium-3... You definitely don't drink helium-3. I really don't know if those guys are here to help or to be a disservice. They eat more than anyone else, and each of them takes a pack before leaving... "

Needless to say, this must not be Sylvia...

"Bella Vera? Why do you have time to come out? Doesn't it usually take a lot of energy to come out?" I smiled and looked at the Raven who was complaining because his "daughters" were useless. Wang, she is neither like the slow and lazy Sylvia, nor like the sinister and cold Bella Villa. During the time she lived in the Shadow City, especially after spending so much time with us. After a while, Bellavela became very familiar with everyone. Perhaps in front of outsiders, she is still the terrifying shaper, but in private, she is a pretty good guy: she just has a bit of a poisonous mouth.

"If I don't come out to help, am I going to let that stupid guy continue to receive subsistence allowances and food relief every month?" Bellavilla summoned a big water ball and snapped his fingers. In an instant, the water ball floating in the air began to boil. At the same time, the coffee beans floating in the air on the other side ground themselves into powder. The way she made coffee was really amazing. "I share the same body with her. She usually I was living in a daze and I was also unlucky. Every time I woke up and recalled the life of this body while I was sleeping, I felt very heavy. That guy didn't even know how to buy new clothes..."

I didn't expect Bellavilla to hide such deep resentment, but it's not that I can't understand her resentment. There are three famous poor people in the Shadow City. Of course, the two who top the list are the sisters Asida and Asidora, followed closely by Sylvia... Bella who shares the same body with Sylvia Vera is really destined to be dragged to death by his pig teammates.

"Haha - your way of grinding coffee is quite interesting." I laughed dryly and made no comment on Sylvia's idiot's daily life. Changed the topic by the way. There was a big boiling water ball floating in front of Bellavilla's eyes, and she took a set of filters and prepared to put them under it. Magicians are just different from ordinary people. They can still drink coffee.

"Do you think I'm willing to go to such trouble?" Bellavilla sighed faintly, "001 dismantled the coffee machine and played with it..."

I am now very sure that those mass-produced ravens coming to the store to help are a disservice.

"Here, this is a work of confidence," Bellavilla delivered two cups of coffee to me and Xiling, then raised her fingers at the counter, and a large pile of pastries was directly transferred to the round table, "I made it myself. Okay. You guys eat and chat slowly. I have to go back to bed first. I’m very tired after being out for an hour. I have to go to Tianjie City to help in the afternoon. By the way, I’ll remember to pay the bill later.”

I said thank you, and Xiling across from me had already started stuffing snacks into her mouth, but a few seconds later, Bellavilla was still standing by the table without moving. I looked up at her curiously: "You're not Do you want to go back to sleep?"

The silver-haired woman looked down at me blankly. He said slowly: "Yes - she has fallen asleep -"

Me: "..." Why can't I meet a few normal guys?

"I like the dim sum here!" Xiling seemed not to have cared about the surrounding environment at all, her mouth was bulging. He spoke as clearly as usual, "This is where I ate for the first time."

Then I realized that Xiling’s first stop when she first came to the real world was not Monster Town, but this dessert shop located next to the Shadow Fortress. This is also easy to understand. Although Xi Ling can teleport herself everywhere regardless of distance and obstruction, when she first comes into contact with the outside world, the wandering distance will definitely not be far away from the crystal where she originally lived. Sylvia's shop is farther away than the other one. A monster town in one dimension is much closer. Xiling initially knew nothing about life in the real world. She just casually changed into a similar appearance according to the clothes of the base personnel. Then she wandered here. At that time, she didn't know that there was such a thing as "eating" in the world.

Then she was entertained by Sylvia, the silver-haired mole whose thinking was always out of touch with the real world. She undoubtedly entertained a racial consciousness (pseudo) whose thinking was in tune with the real world for the first time. A life form like Xi Ling has no need for food at all, but she remembered this first reception well and regarded eating as a very important thing: by the way, she also regarded Sylvia as the first Friends - although she is not quite sure about the concept of friends yet.

If you say so. If Bella Vera could wake up just once in those few days, we would have saved ourselves from having to impose martial law throughout the city...

"Have you gotten used to it these past few days?" I looked at Xiling who was eating happily, and I felt like I was looking at an ignorant sister: Of course, this sister is a bit bigger.

Xi Ling nodded. He continued to answer in that way of speaking with his mouth completely full but still articulate: "Well, the outside world is quite interesting. The same things look different at home and outside. The things Tavel gave me are also I’ve finished reading it all, and I’ve remembered it all—although I still don’t quite understand it.”

When Xiling said this, she seemed a little embarrassed and felt sorry for her low understanding, but she quickly cheered up again and smiled confidently: "But even if I don't understand, I will try my best! Tavel said, as long as you know what you should do, don't worry about why you do it for the time being - anyway, the emperor's order is the truth, and this is what the underlying agreement says."

My expression should be a little subtle, but Xiling can't tell. It is not yet certain whether this immature super consciousness can take on a big responsibility, but she must already have the most fundamental principles of the Xiling Apostle: obedience to orders, execution, efficiency, and loyalty.

I talked to her about some things about the spiritual network, which was a way to understand this huge data network from another perspective. As the topic continued in this direction, the long-lost other half of the spiritual network was finally mentioned.

To be precise, it is the other half: during the old empire, there were one hundred and thirty-five sky zones, and the scale of the spiritual network was unprecedentedly large. However, after the catastrophe, only the network of fifteen sky zones survived due to isolation. Hopefully, Flexibility is the remaining consciousness of this one hundred and thirty-fifth network. She was just the most inconspicuous part of the Internet in its heyday, and the backbone of the Internet. It is now in the hands of the fallen apostle.

The huge casualties caused by the catastrophe may have severely damaged that backbone, but I believe that even then, the spiritual network controlled by the fallen apostles is several times stronger than the empire.

"The lost... other half," even though Xiling seemed a little too optimistic, his expression became serious when he brought up this topic, "I have no impression, I can't remember what happened back then, but I really feel like this. , my body is very weak now. And inexplicably I feel... my family is very... very..."

"Very narrow?" I remembered the word Xi Ling mentioned when I met him for the first time.

"Yes, it's very narrow, and the living space is much smaller, so my body becomes weaker. I can't remember what I was like back then, but subconsciously I always feel that... the current network is not normal, and at the edge Where there is a great rift valley, the place that could have been reached has now become nothingness."

Xiling's way of describing it sounds weird to me, but this is her perception of the spiritual network through her own perspective. This is of great reference value to outsiders. We know that everything about Xiling: her memory, thinking, and soul are all rooted in the spiritual network. The loss of this network will lead to a decline in her performance, and also lead to the "shrinking" of her shelter. She can't remember what happened back then, partly because of this: her processing performance was greatly damaged by the network split that year, so that the remaining system resources were not enough to maintain the original huge consciousness. So she could only give up, or passively lose many memories.

Another reason is related to her hiding in the crystal: a mere memory crystal, no matter how large its capacity is, cannot completely preserve a super consciousness like Xiling. She should have given up when she uploaded herself into the crystal. Having lost a lot of memories, coupled with the wear and tear over the past tens of thousands of years, it is quite good that she still remembers that her name is Xi Ling.

"Do you still remember what happened when you hid in the crystal?" I asked a question that no one could understand. "You seemed to have planned your own escape route back then. You jumped out of the Fifteenth Day Area, avoided the polluted area at that time, and wandered all the way to the far reaches. And then you were picked up by the Merova people... This last one may have been an accident. , but other than that everything seems to be planned.”

"I don't remember," Xiling shook her head, "Was I so smart back then?"

"Well, maybe..." I said noncommittally. Now it has been confirmed that there is a consciousness hidden in the crystal, so Shandora's original judgment instantly has higher credibility: the crystal deliberately planned its own escape route. However, even if this hypothesis is established, we are still not sure whether Xi Ling really planned everything back then. She did not communicate with anyone at that time, and no one in the entire empire knew of Xi Ling's existence. How could she do it alone? Completed such a sophisticated plan?

Or... at an earlier moment, the consciousness generated by the spiritual network was subtly influencing the apostles in the Fifteenth Heaven District through its own power, preparing for her future escape?

The matter is still confusing, and at present, it seems impossible to get the answer from Xiling. So I gave up looking for answers in her messy memories and moved to another topic: "You just mentioned that from your perspective, the spiritual network has an obvious 'margin'? Is there a rift or something?"

When Xiling mentioned these two terms just now, I didn't pay too much attention because I thought it was a high-tech thing. But now that I think about it, I suddenly feel that this is probably not an ordinary incident. As a result - what Xiling said next really made people unable to calm down.

"Well, it's quite an obvious fault zone," Xi Ling stirred the coffee in front of her, "At home... I mean on the spiritual network, the connections between each node should be smooth, even at the edge of the network, where the connection points end. , there should also be a complete termination signal, which is determined by the underlying protocol. But I always feel... there is an abnormal margin at the end of the network, where the mental network does not terminate normally, but as if the thing on the opposite side suddenly disappeared. , cut with a knife, and then without any hemming... Well, I found this metaphor temporarily, and it feels like this. Beyond the margin is a big rift valley that I dare not set foot in, and it seems to be a big hole, where there is nothing. , once I get past it, I feel like I will lose my node forever.”

It is very difficult to understand Xi Ling's unique perspective, but I still try my best to understand her words, because I have already noticed that this is probably an extremely serious matter.

The spiritual network of the empire... it is a fundamental thing. Any situation in it will be magnified dozens of times!

There is a disconnection in the mental network, which reminds me of the concept of separation for the first time. However, of course, it is true that the mental network in the 15th day area is isolated from the main network, but this isolation is also based on compliance with the underlying protocol. Yes, as Xiling said, on the normal boundary of the network, each limit node should have a normal termination signal. This signal is probably the kind of footnote like "the number of available forwardings here is zero" to express this The node has no successor nodes.

The abnormal margin mentioned by Xiling does not have such a termination signal.

People in the real world will not be threatened by this abnormal situation, but Xiling, who lives on the Internet, regards this rift as a scourge.

"Because there is no termination signal, if you are not careful, you may slip into the rift," Xiling said worriedly, "It is equivalent to sending all the data to a memory that cannot feedback information, and I will fall into the hole... …Not long ago, I cautiously took a look at that edge and was horrified.”

After Xiling finished speaking with lingering fear, he poured all the coffee into his mouth, as if to calm down his shock.

This abnormal network termination situation has never been discovered by anyone, and even Bubble, which always monitors the entire network, has not reported a similar situation.

"You haven't told anyone about this yet?"

"Well, because I just discovered it two days ago, I can't figure out what the margin is, so I want to figure it out before reporting... Now, Your Majesty, did I do something wrong?"

"It's not wrong, but it's a bit risky. Don't step into that edge alone for the time being," I frowned, "I want to discuss it with Bubble and Sandora... I have to find a way to translate your perspective into We use the method of real language, and then we determine where those margins are from the real world. It’s too dangerous for you to go alone..."

I didn't say anything else explicitly.

But my intuition told me... I am afraid that this margin came from the fallen apostle, or even from... "that adult". (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian to vote for recommendations and monthly votes.