The night before the promotion

Chapter 50 Falling into the Sea of ​​Dreams
Under the golden sky, tranquility surges here, drowning out all groans and leaving no words behind.

In this golden dreamland, there is no room for any sadness.

Zhou Si didn't care about the impact of the Illusion Disease on himself. He had gotten used to living in a world of illusion anyway, and had learned to recognize the "meaning" corresponding to "symbols". So he allowed the Illusion Disease to distort the world in his eyes, making it bizarre and strange.

It's like a novel where the author's writing style is cold and restrained at the beginning, but at the end, it is full of incomprehensible stream of consciousness.

Now, Zhou Si has come to the end of the story.

At the top of the Skyline Building, a magnificent altar was waiting for Zhou Si. Totem-like pillars stood on both sides of the altar. Further out were cracked caves with golden mist gushing out of them, as if everything that made up this golden sky came from these caves.

Right below the altar, a pale doll was curled up there. She looked tattered and covered with stains, as if she was afraid that someone would hurt her. She hugged her knees tightly and curled herself into a ball like a larva hidden in a cocoon.

Zhou Si cast his gaze towards the altar again, where there was another doll. It looked much more delicate than the one on the ground. Its body was bone white like smooth ceramic, and its contours were extremely beautiful, like the goddess of beauty in the world.

I have to admit that although Shanjun is a heavy-tasting bastard, his aesthetics are indeed good, and the puppets he created, or the human incarnations, are like great works of art.

Even though Zhou Si was affected by the disease of alienation, he could still glimpse its beauty from the confused hallucinations.

The humanoid incarnation noticed Zhou Si's arrival, so he slowly stood up and opened his arms gracefully. Golden feathers gradually grew from his arms and armpits, densely intertwined, and turned into a gorgeous golden feather, just like the feathered man revered in mythology.

Zhou Si murmured, "Pei Dong, you got what you wished for."

The soul that had been bound in the broken body was finally completely liberated. It grew the wings of its imagination and longed to fly high, just like it had done countless times before, as a free bird, unrestrained.

"Zhou...Si..."

A hoarse voice came from the feathered man's mouth. It wanted to say something, but its voice turned into a sharp hiss, full of electric noise.

The winged man's limbs were twisted strangely, like an epileptic patient unable to control his body. It tried to move forward, but ended up struggling meaninglessly in place.

This is a grotesque evil creature built of consciousness and steel. Every part of its body exudes ominousness and oppression, like a demon crawling out of a nightmare, carrying all the curses in the world.

Zhou Si had no idea what the winged man's true appearance was under the illusion, but he had already sensed Li Weiyu's astonishment at what he saw from the exclamation of Li Weiyu beside him.

Li Weiyun still remembered the truth that Zhou Si said, and couldn't help but ask, "Did she... succeed?"

“It succeeded, but it also failed.”

"Pei Dong's consciousness has indeed completed the digital upload."

Zhou Si covered the wound on his abdomen and said calmly, "But her inappropriate mental model caused the self-collapse of the upgraded consciousness. It's like a program full of loopholes. Once it runs, it will only become a bunch of incomprehensible garbled code."

The winged man wailed forward, his distorted mental model collapsed in the integrated circuit, his broken thoughts traveled through the electric current and parasitized in the steel.

It wanted to climb down from the altar, waving its hands helplessly forward, as if trying to grab something... It wanted to grab the broken doll lying under the altar.

Zhou Si asked calmly, "Team Leader Li, what is it doing in your eyes?"

Li Weiyun looked at the humanoid incarnation in front of him. In his eyes, the humanoid incarnation was bare, just a cold metal skeleton, without any silicone filling or bionic skin covering. Even the golden feather in Zhou Si's illusion did not exist.

"It tried to come down and tried to... tried to grab Ms. Pei."

Li Weiyu looked at the ground. The person lying there was not the broken doll, but Pei Dong. She was naked, with her body full of steel nails and skeletons, like a cruel torture instrument. The parts connected to the human body were oozing with faint blood.

"Are you still attached to your old body?" Li Weiyu couldn't help but ask.

Zhou Si shook his head grimly, "It's just that I instinctively don't allow there to be another me in the world."

After he finished speaking, Zhou Si grabbed the electromagnetic pistol from Li Weiyu's waist, adjusted it to lethal mode, and pulled the trigger at the feathered man's head.

Deafening gunshots resounded through the sky.

Zhou Si shot through the feathered man's head with one shot. Sparks flew from the dark, sunken bullet hole and a distant wailing sounded in his ears, like the last complaint of a soul before it dissipated.

Return to tranquility.

Throughout the entire process, Zhou Si acted smoothly without any hesitation or pause, and was as cruel as a cold-blooded butcher.

"you……"

Li Weiyu wanted to say something but was interrupted by Zhou Si's words.

"Team Leader Li, in my opinion, in the contemporary human social environment, the best outcome for the ascended consciousness is death."

Zhou Si was like an absolutely rational bystander, "Otherwise, Pei Dong's upgraded consciousness will be trapped in the cocoon system forever, made into a specimen, and allowed those people to modify the code at will."

“I don’t know if the ascended consciousness would feel lonely, or imprisoned, or even in pain.”

Zhou Si watched the winged man gradually burn, and his beautiful feathers turned to ashes in the flames.

"But as a human being, as a creature capable of empathy, I don't want Pei Dong to be treated like this, even though in my opinion, she is just an illusion of hers."

Zhou Si took a deep breath and asked the puppet lying on the side, "What do you think? Pei Dong."

Li Weiyu was stunned for a moment, as if a thunder burst out in his mind, interrupting all thoughts and burning his brain into shrunken charcoal.

The broken doll slowly began to move, and with the sound of mechanical biting, she struggled to prop up her body and sat up against the altar.

Pei Dong crossed his arms across his chest, as if he wanted to hug himself tightly, but also as if he wanted to tear his body apart. His nails pierced into his fragile skin, leaving bright red marks.

Slowly, she raised her head and looked at Zhou Si with empty and lifeless eyes.

"Zhou Si, why..."

"Why, I'm still here."

Pei Dong remembered that she had undergone the upgrading experiment as Shan Jun had said, and had completely digitized her self-consciousness and uploaded it to the Internet.

Everything is going well. I will break free from the shackles of the flesh and wake up from the vast world of the Internet.

but……

But when I open my eyes, is it still this sick body that carries my self-awareness?
The tiny hope was shattered, and the terrifying despair gripped Pei Dong from the inside out.

Zhou Si sadly pierced her dream, "Because there has never been such a thing as consciousness uploading."

Then, he glanced at Li Weiyun beside him. Even in the distorted illusion, Zhou Si could still see that Li Weiyun's expression was full of shock and panic. Li Weiyun suddenly realized that this was the fact that Zhou Si wanted to verify with his own eyes even at the risk of his own death.

"When it comes to consciousness uploading, many people's first reaction is that self-consciousness is completely digitized, and carbon-based life has evolved into digital life."

Zhou Si softly revealed this terrible secret, "But people seem to have instinctively overlooked that when our consciousness is uploaded, what about our physical body?"

"From a biological perspective, human consciousness originates from a huge network of neurons and activation patterns. In psychology and philosophy, there are many different and complex explanations for the birth of consciousness, but what is certain is that the birth of consciousness is closely related to the healthy structure of our brain."

He knocked his head.

"That is to say, after the upgrade, our brains remain the same as before the upgrade. There is no fatal damage, and no entity called 'consciousness' has been transferred out of the brain structure."

“This is what I have always wanted to verify: when the feathering technology is implemented on the human brain, its true operating logic.

Consciousness uploading is never a ‘cut-and-paste’ process, it’s a ‘copy-and-paste’ process.”

Zhou Si was like a judge, announcing everything about Pei Dong, "Besides, Pei Dong, can you accept the existence of another you in the world?
Do you allow anyone to violate your sacred uniqueness?"

Faint sobbing sounds were heard, and Pei Dong stood up unsteadily, holding onto the altar. Her eyes were red, and she didn't understand, and couldn't accept it.

I have made such a great decision, I have given up everything, and freedom is within reach...

why?
Why did I wake up from this broken body again, just like countless days and nights in the past.

Pei Dong looked at Zhou Si in despair, "Are we going to be cursed like this and live in flesh and blood forever?"

"I do not know."

Zhou Si shook his head, and Pei Dong in his eyes turned into the illusion he had seen before.

The puppet's shell began to melt, revealing its fragile skeleton. It was like a rapidly decaying corpse, and in the blink of an eye, only the jagged bones were left.

"I know some similar methods, such as the immortality plan. As long as I stay asleep in the medical cabin, I can ignore everything. Or I can completely transplant my brain into a machine, or... euthanize myself at the moment of upgrading."

Zhou Si lamented, "But in the final analysis, all this is just deceiving oneself."

The tail of the lament disappeared into the air, and no one spoke anymore.

In the silence, a rustling sound crept into Pei Dong's nerves, and something whispered in her ear...

That was Pei Dong’s deepest wish—not in flesh and blood, nor in the shell of an incarnation.

Gradually, the desire buried deep in my heart began to swell, like a life about to break out of its shell, squeezing out cracks, and low sighs were heard.

The crack slowly grows larger until the wish is completely shattered, until the flesh and bone marrow tremble, until the spirit wails and becomes hysterical.

It turned into a clear yet turbid hole, a pitch-black hole, located in Pei Dong's heart, swallowing up everything.

"Zhou Si, I can't stand this kind of world... this kind of me."

Pei Dong seemed to calm down. She looked down at her hands and body. The effect of the pain pump had long since worn off. The heart-wrenching pain was coming from every part of her body, cutting her nerves wantonly and bringing her pain like a tide.

"I want to indulge in dreams, but no matter what, I can't fall asleep," Pei Dong asked Zhou Si, "What about you? How do you view all this?"

"The world is empty and absurd. The only thing that can comfort us is the only truth," Zhou Si sighed tiredly, "How dare I give it up?"

Pei Dong's expression gradually became numb, losing all expression, like a gray stone or a dying rotten wood.

"When I was promoted, I had a dream. I dreamed that I turned back into that flying bird, soaring over the vast Greater Khingan Range."

Pei Dong said reluctantly, "That dream was really beautiful. I could feel the air flow brushing against my wings, and my body escaped gravity and fell freely..."

She suddenly asked, "Do you still dream?"

silence.

After a long silence, Zhou Si revealed his inner thoughts.

"I don't dream, I just see hallucinations."

"Is this so..."

Pei Dong looked at the wounded Zhou Si, with two swords stabbed into his body in such a shocking way, but he seemed to feel no pain and had no expression on his face.

She wanted to say something else but Zhou Si interrupted her.

"It's nothing, Pei Dong, there's no need to apologize."

Zhou Si repeated the words he had repeated countless times, "When patients are in desperate situations, guided by their own survival instincts, anything can happen. Understanding is one thing, and justice is another."

He rarely showed his tenderness, even though it sounded cold, "Also, I'm not here to save you."

"I just want to verify with my own eyes that it is impossible to upload consciousness. After all, the original Immortal Falls accident was to verify this possibility."

Zhou Si hoped that his indifference could make Pei Dong feel a little less guilty, even though it was nothing compared to her huge sadness.

Pei Dong said no more. She staggered towards the direction where the wind was coming from.

Before her figure completely disappeared in the mist, she turned around and looked at Zhou Si with sympathy and pity.

"Zhou Si, I think I understand you."

Pei Dong tried hard to force a smile towards Zhou Si, and his smile was full of determination.

Zhou Si did not answer, but just looked at her silently, watching her standing at the broken part of the glass curtain, spreading her wings with both hands, and leaping into the golden sky like a flying bird.

After an unknown amount of time, a gunshot was heard from a distant place.

The sudden sadness was like a bullet that pierced Zhou Si's heart, but his heart did not break into pieces. Instead, it left an unhealable wound.

A void filled with nothingness.

(End of this chapter)