The Real World
Zhao Xuan really fulfilled his promise and sent Zhou Yun Sheng back to the capital, then he went to the Northwest by himself. The Northwest’s chaos was originally incited on his orders, so he went to the Northwest and once again suppressed the barbarians’ rebellion after a few months. Then he hurried back to the imperial court in triumph, and never again stepped foot out of the capital. When the Emperor turned 37 years old, he abdicated the throne to the First Prince. The First Prince was barely fifteen, quite immature, so there was worry that he wouldn’t be able to control the officials, especially the overwhelmingly powerful Northwest King, Zhao Xuan. But surprisingly, after the abdication ceremony, Zhao Xuan also handed over his accounts book and announced his retirement.
The consecutive withdrawal of two influential figures from the stage of history caused no small shake up in Da Qi. Fortunately, the First Prince had inherited the pervious emperor’s ingenuity, and after learning through experience for a few years, the country slowly stabilized. But he often missed his Father Emperor, who was out traveling the world together with Duke Yu Guo.
Zhou Yun Sheng received a lot of code from Zhao Xuan, but when only the last section was remaining, the man was reluctant to hand it over for some reason. Helpless, Zhou Yun Sheng could only accompany him, slowly dilly-dallying. Finally, when they were old and white haired, teeth dropping out, unable to even travel anymore, Zhao Xuan pulled him into a shaky embrace, and kissed his earlobe for a long time.
The last string of code entered 008’s database, and Zhou Yun Sheng cried tears of joy, exhausting all his strength to hug his lover back, saying over and over, “Zhao Xuan, I love you. No matter who you are, or what name you have…I’ll always love you! You must remember that!”
The nurses noticed that the boy lying in the restoration cabin was silently crying, his heart rate gradually increasing. Thinking that he couldn’t support himself anymore, they quickly pressed the help button. When the doctors rushed in, the boy suddenly opened his eyes, his expression confused.
He half sat up, and pushed the doctor blocking his line of sight away. Seeing Orr Assai quietly lying on the neighboring sick bed, his EEG very stable, he finally let out a relieved breath.
“Prepare the most advanced workshop for me, I need four MYS097 model computers, four Noma processors, two satellite signal receivers… …” He stepped out of the restoration cabin relaying clear instructions. Two nurses toweled off the blue restoration fluid on his body, while another nurse dutifully recorded his demands, then they excitedly asked, “Mr. Zhou, did you find a way to break into the Queen’s terminal?”
“Yes, go quickly.” Zhou Yun Sheng asked the doctor for a white lab coat and casually threw it on, then walked up to the bedside to carefully look over Orr’s condition.
“Nothing happened to him, right?” He gently smoothed the other man’s disheveled hair, seeing the rough stubble littering his jaw, he couldn’t help but rub it, then his lips hooked up in a tender smile. He would definitely resurrect his lover in this empty vessel.
“General Orr’s condition is very stable, but there’s still no signs of awakening. When we saw his brain signals suddenly so active, we thought he’d be able to return to normal. But recently, the hospital has to daily shut off the ventilators of patients who’ve died of brain death, it’s so unbearable, I hope General Orr isn’t the next one to go.” The nurse performed a “God bless” gesture. Once General Orr’s EEG stopped fluctuating, in order to save on energy and costs, thereby saving more people who needed recovery, the hospital would need to euthanize him.
“No, he won’t die.” Zhou Yun Sheng gave a very confident smile.
The Imperial Marshal rushed over when he got the news, pointing to the soldiers carrying in equipment behind him, he said, “Everything you’ve requested is ready. Are you thinking of connecting them through the Star Network? Won’t this expose our location?” Currently, humanity could only hole up in the air raid shelters their ancestors built hundreds of years ago. Because these air raid shelters were not accessible from all sides, and not covered by any network signals, they were in the Queen’s blind spot. But once a satellite signal receiver was used, the Queen would be able to follow the trail to them.
She was already completely wrathful, constantly dispatching robot armed forces to suppress human beings, and she’d even started using several munitions factories, manufacturing a steady stream of robot soldiers. If they let her get the drop on them again, humanity would eventually go extinct.
“I have a way to shield the signal from her. Since you’ve selected me for this mission, you should believe in me.” Zhou Yun Sheng caressed Orr Assai’s emaciated cheek and carefully instructed, “Please help me look after General Orr, don’t let anyone touch him before I come out of the studio, including his family. Can you do that?”
“What’s your relationship with Orr?” The Old Marshal asked in reply.
“I’m his biggest fan.” Zhou Yun Sheng grinned.
The Old Marshal looked skeptical, but he still nodded, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him. I’ll make sure no one touches a hair on his head before you come out.”
Zhou Yun Sheng made an ok gesture, then helped the soldiers assemble and install the devices. The he holed himself up in the studio for two months, transforming his lover’s source code from data to a pure energy form. During this process, he accidentally found that as long as he reverse sorted his lover’s source code, he could get a different body of energy. Seeing this ball of red energy about to solidify, he immediately scattered it with an ion pulse device, his forehead breaking out in a layer of cold sweat.
Unquestionably, his lover’s source code had a sister code, which was none other than the Queen’s source code. Just now, he’d almost created an avatar for the Queen to come out, too close! After almost dooming the world, Zhou Yun Sheng proceeded more carefully, analyzing the Queen’s source code. Two months of repeated scattering and combining later, he finally developed a specialized virus for the Queen. As long as the chip containing the virus was inserted in the Queen’s terminal system, she would immediately collapse. In this way, his lover didn’t need to die with her.
Since the father of the Star Network, Dr. Wilson, had foreseen the rebellion of AI, he would naturally create the most secure method to deal with it. In order to avoid re-creating another self-aware AI, the self-destruct program he wrote would cease to exist after encountering the Queen. In other words, he needed the two to kill each other. As a top hacker, Zhou Yun Sheng already saw through the doctor’s thoughts, so he did everything he could to pull his lover out to the real world, because if he stayed in the virtual world, he would be destroyed.
All this took four months, which would usually not be a long time for human beings, whose life expectancies have been greatly extended, but in this world on the brink of destruction, it was harder to endure than forty years. The Old Marshal paced in front of Zhou Yun Sheng’s studio every day, his expression gradually turning from hopeful to desperate. But he hadn’t forgotten the boy’s instructions, so during this time period, no one was allowed to visit Orr, he even repeatedly stopped Orr’s brother, Jeram, at the door, only allowing him to look in through the windows.
Today, as usual, the Old Marshal went to the studio to look over the situation, and was habitually pacing in front of the door. After finishing a cigarette, he was turning to leave when he heard a rustling sound. The door opened, and an unkempt boy stumbled out.
“It’s done, but don’t ask me any questions right now. I need to see Orr, then eat some food, note, real food, with meat and vegetables, not another goddamn nutrient pack, then let me sleep. Afterward, I’ll sit with you and talk.” Zhou Yun Sheng reclined on the door frame, his temper prickly. He seemed to have caught some of Dr. Bai Mo Han‘s bad habits, as soon as he started working, he neglected sleep and forgot about food, often letting two or three days pass by before pouring a nutrient pack into his mouth. Currently, he was skin and bones, alarming even himself.
When the youngster went in, he was gorgeous- snow white skin, red lips, bright eyes, very beautiful. Now, this emaciated, sallow skinned, dim eyed person, the Old Marshal was afraid to recognize him. He stared blankly for a moment before reacting, quickly stepping forward and ordering his bodyguards to fetch a doctor.
“You really found a way to destroy the Queen?” The Old Marshal’s low voice was full of excitement.
“There’s a way, but I need the help of the army. I want to be alone with Orr for a while, you leave first.” Zhou Yun Sheng dragged his weak body to the hospital ward and locked the door behind him, after using an interference device to block out the monitor in the corner, he affixed a computer chip between Orr’s eyebrows. The royal blue chip flashed, it seemed to be transferring energy. Ten minutes later, it slowly began to fade, twenty minutes later, it was thoroughly transformed into a pile of fine powder, the energy inside all transferred into Orr’s brain.
Zhou Yun Sheng brushed away the powder sticking to the other man’s forehead, then held his breath, staring at the EKG. The gray areas of Orr’s brain slowly turned orange-red, that was the sign of brain cell resuscitation, he would wake up soon, his fingers were even twitching already.
Zhou Yun Sheng quickly pulled open the door and shouted, “Doctor, where’s the doctor?! Come look at General Orr, he seems to be responding!”
A pack of doctors and nurses rushed into the ward, half to look over Orr’s condition, half to take care of their only 16 years old Little Savior. Some measured his blood pressure and monitored his heart rate, some were scrubbing his body clean, and some carried over hot congee and supplement soup.
The Old Marshal pointed to Orr’s brain chart, which was already resembling the state of a normal person, and asked, “What did you just do?” He always felt that Orr’s sudden recovery and the boy’s presence was greatly tied.
“I stole a kiss. You’ve heard of those ancient fairy tales, right? The Prince kisses Sleeping Beauty, and Sleeping Beauty immediately wakes up. I’m very lucky!” Zhou Yun Sheng spouted some nonsense as he waited for the nurses to finish inspecting his body, then he quickly began devouring a bowl of congee. The taste of the nutrient packs really was too unpleasant, unpalatable things, they nearly murdered his taste buds.
After drinking the porridge and cleaning himself up, Zhou Yun Sheng gave in to the nurses’ pleas to enter the restoration cabin to restore his strength. He turned on the inner wall’s transparency so he could see Orr’s condition from the inside at all times, as soon as the other man opened his eyes, he would be the first to know.
Probably because he’d stayed too long without sleep, he barely stared at Orr for a minute before falling into a deep sleep, his head tilted towards the bed, his brow furrowed in longing and concern.
Orr felt like he’d been sleeping for a long time, it felt like a whole century had passed. When he opened his eyes, he almost couldn’t remember who he was, it took him half an hour to pull out the memories buried in his brain. His last memory was of entering an induction cabin, connecting to the Star Network, then falling unconscious.
As a soldier, he was very vigilant, finding himself in a strange environment, he didn’t loudly call for help, nor act rashly. Of course, he couldn’t move even if he wanted to, because all his muscles were painfully stiff. He barely managed to turn his neck to assess his surroundings, then he unconsciously held his breath.
If it weren’t for the dilapidated environment, he’d think he was in heaven, and was looking at an angel. A transparent restoration cabin was next to his bed, a teenager was floating in the bubbling light blue restoration fluid, his pure black hair bobbing gently. He was very thin, like he would snap in half if he bent over, his pale skin looked transparent because of the light blue shading. His profound and beautiful facial features were somewhat babyish, but he still looked good.
Orr stared blankly, dazedly thinking: God certainly spent a long time patiently crafting this boy, to make him look like a flawless crystal. Who is he? Why is he in my room?
Because the basement’s surroundings were too simple, it never occurred to Orr that he wasn’t kidnapped by terrorists, but was receiving treatment in a hospital.
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T/N:
Dr. Bai Mo Han- Reread Chapter 9. Not like you guys needed the reminder, that seems to be your favorite chapter lol
I’m surprised you guys waited (relatively) patiently for this one. I guess it’s always bitter sweet when a story you’ve been reading for a long time ends huh?
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