I'm not Yingjie

"..."

It seems that this news reminded her of the Fifth Branch. After all, both of them are killers.

Both of Hun's parents died in the first wave of explosions. His mother was at the center of the explosion and her body was not intact. His father was hit on the head by the rubble from the explosion in front of Hun's eyes and died on the spot. This way of death will undoubtedly leave Hun with lifelong trauma. If his psychological endurance is not strong enough, he may even be unable to live a normal life due to PTSD.

Therefore, it is quite difficult for the soul to come out in a few months.

"Team Leader Lin, why do you think there must be 'death'?" Hun turned around and looked at the people of all kinds. The traffic outside the window was flowing rapidly in front of him, full of human vitality and vigor. "'Death' separates people from each other, turning the originally vibrant life into a motionless corpse. All emotions disappear at the moment of death. Isn't this too cruel?"

“It would be great if there was only ‘birth’ but no ‘death’. People would keep meeting each other and never leave each other.”

The topic of life?

Lin had often wondered what the state of a person is like after death. He could not analyze whether the soul existed after death from the perspective of professional science, theology, and philosophy, but after thinking for a long time, he made a judgment based on his intuition.

There is no soul and no afterlife. Death is death, and that is the end of all life.

The mind stops at the moment of death, and the body stops beating at the moment the physiological characteristics disappear. It is fair, just and cruel.

"...Soul, what do you think it takes for a person to be alive? And what does it take for a person to be dead?"

There was a fairly sumptuous meal in front of Lin, but he didn't eat a single bite. He pushed his sunglasses and looked at Hun, who was in a daze.

Only in this outfit would his facial muscles move slightly, but judging from his appearance, even without the helmet, he would still be expressionless.

"What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to be dead..." This question is obviously not a simple physiological question. What Hun thought of at this time were the three classic deaths.

A person will die three times in his life. The first is brain death, which means the body is dead. The second is funeral, which means death in society. The third is oblivion, when no one in the world remembers you anymore, which means you are completely dead.

But the core idea of ​​this sentence cannot enlighten everyone, and the same goes for Hun. She can understand the meaning it wants to express, but it is impossible for her to really think that as long as she still remembers the dead, then those people are still alive.

Did Lin think so? Was that why he remembered those who died?

“I believe that a person’s life begins when he or she realizes that he or she is alive. Death is determined by others’ judgment of one’s death.”

However, what Lin said was exactly not what she thought.

"That is, a person's 'creation' is perceived by himself, while death is perceived by others."

Chapter 70: Research on the Herrscher's Consciousness

"People cannot know they are dead after they die, unless there is an identical person with the same memories. But if you clone an identical person and give him all the memories before his death, it is hard to say that the two are the same."

Lin's life, including his unknown past life as a "time traveler", has seen too many deaths.

At the beginning, Lin firmly believed in his time travel and thought that it was his soul that traveled to this world. But after experiencing some things, Lin became negative about his so-called "time travel".

There are no such beautiful things in this world, and the truth behind his "time travel" is... complicated and simple.

“Even if one steps into the River Styx at the moment before death, one will not know what death really feels like.”

Lin paused when he said this and thought of Ritt. In his opinion, Ritt's lack of awareness of his own death might be a special kind of tenderness.

But his daughter is someone who can understand the meaning of death, just like a soul.

Lin did not forget Ritter's daughter. Afterwards, he risked being discovered and found Ritter's daughter, who was hanging on to her life in the intensive care unit of a hospital under the Fire Moth.

Lin thought that after Ritt's death, his daughter would also be abandoned, and he made plans to take her in. But surprisingly, even after Ritt's death, his daughter was still taken good care of, which meant that the senior executive who promised Ritt to treat his daughter did not break his promise.

After considering many factors, Lin finally handed Ritter's daughter's case to Mebius, and the answer he got was "If you are interested, I will take a look."

“So human death should indeed be considered cruel, but that is not to oneself, but to the people around them.” Lin finished speaking in one breath, looking at the stunned Hun.

After being stunned for a few seconds, Hun slowly put on a sweet smile, and his expression was much relieved: "This... is really a speech in the style of Captain Lin."

Lin never comforts people, he only expresses his own opinions and views, even if he knows how to make people feel better, he only expresses his opinions. He only tells gentle lies to two kinds of people: dying people and children.

Admittedly, Lin's style will not be accepted by everyone, but those who can listen to his views will generally be infected by his rational thinking, and will feel much better if they logically sort out the roots of their emotions.

After all, once people discover the truth behind a miracle, they will no longer be interested in the miracle itself.

"But your opinion does have some reference value. In the early days, people judged a person's death based on physiological characteristics, but in modern times, it has become consciousness. So if there is a way to transfer consciousness to another object, then perhaps immortality can be achieved."

Lin frowned after saying this.

This way of existence actually gave him a sense of déjà vu. He thought of a person, or an artificial intelligence.

Prometheus…

If Prometheus is judged to be "alive", then she has already achieved the transfer of consciousness, and can completely transfer from data to a body, as long as the conversion of electronic data and biological data can be achieved.

Wait a minute, could it be that Velvet borrowed Prometheus to--

"Consciousness transfer... It feels like something from a science fiction work. Oh, no, we are actually already science fiction enough now." Hun's mood improved a lot and he started to joke with Lin.

"No, there is a basis for the transfer of consciousness." Lin's seriousness was indeed not suitable for being alone with a girl. He touched the plate with his fingers, stroking the smooth edge, "The Herrscher Core."

"Eh? The Herrscher Core?" Hun was attracted by the topic that Lin was talking about.

During the time Lin was in Mobius' laboratory, apart from being a cook and making Mobius complain about her gaining a few pounds, she would occasionally talk to her about some topics related to the Herrscher. After all, Lin was the first Honkai beast and human fusion experimental subject "appointed" by Mobius, so it was reasonable for her to discuss the Herrscher with similar principles.

"The birth of the Herrscher is the condensation of a Herrscher core after a large amount of Houkai energy is gathered in the human body. During this process, the host's consciousness will show two states. One is the emergence of a second personality, which has the host's memory and knowledge but insists on carrying out the goal of destroying humanity."

The Third Herrscher and the Second Herrscher are the ones who gave birth to the so-called Honkai personality, replacing their original personality. They possess human memory and knowledge, but show an attitude of indifference to humanity.

"The other is that the original personality was contaminated. The original personality of the First Herrscher had antisocial tendencies, and this tendency was magnified after she became the Herrscher. So in terms of her performance, she is more human than the two Herrschers who came after her, but she is still inhuman."

"After recovering the Herrscher core for research, we discovered that the core, which was initially considered to be a simple key to the Herrscher's energy and power, may also contain the Herrscher's consciousness."

"It also contains consciousness? That doesn't mean..." Hun covered his mouth in surprise, extremely shocked by this result.

If that were true, then the claim that humans "killed" the Herrscher was not true from the beginning.

Lin calmly denied: "No, we don't know whether that ideology is still 'alive'."

"If the Herrscher core is put back into the body of a person with high adaptability to Honkai energy, then the Herrscher will be born again. When the second personality appears, will it be the consciousness of the original Herrscher or the consciousness of the new Herrscher?"

"This... is to say that it is very likely that the Herrscher's second personality copies the host's consciousness and then modifies it?"

"Yes." Lin exhaled. He thought of the strange smile that Mebius showed when he talked about this topic. "So, before the principle of this technology is tested, it is impossible to judge whether it can help humans."

"Team Leader Lin, this technique won't..."

"No."

The quickest way to figure out the principles and results is through human experiments. What Hun is worried about is whether the Fire Moth will conduct human experiments on other people in order to achieve human immortality.

This technology is far from being put into experiments. Even Mebius has only deduced some superficial knowledge through the combination of the Herrscher's corpse and the core, so human experiments are out of the question.

Moreover, after spending some time together, Lin had some other opinions about the rumors about Mebius, and this type of human experiment would not appear on her operating table in the short term.

But it is not known whether other members of the Fire Moth think so.

There was a sudden noise outside.

"Hey, someone's dead. It's Forget-me-not."

Lin frowned, looked at Hun, and stood up.

Chapter 71: The intersection of fate

The murder happened nearby, which happened to be the place mentioned in the file. This strange coincidence made Lin's heart beat fast.

Forget-me-not...is this the name that Hun just mentioned?

Lin pushed his way through the crowd with difficulty and squeezed in to the innermost part. After seeing the body lying on the ground, his brows jumped and he subconsciously glanced at the people around him.

Someone was killed in public, and the police responded so quickly that the wheels seemed to catch fire. By the time the police arrived and wanted to cordon off the scene, two people, a man and a woman, had already started investigating the body.

"Hey! Don't ruin the scene! You..."

"Excuse me, please let us investigate."

Hun took out the Fire Moth's ID and pretended to be official as he stood in front of the police. When the police saw the logo on the ID, his tough attitude softened a lot. He turned around and asked others to set up a cordon to evacuate the crowd.

Lin squatted beside the corpse without a care, checking the wounds and pockets.

After finding the Fire Moth standard pistol and an identification card with the word Iberia written on it from the corpse, Lin fell silent.

The corpse was the poisonous pupa killer he was looking for, Ibery.

The Fire Moth's ID is missing. Was it taken away?

"Captain Lin, have you found anything?" After communicating with the police, Hun walked to Lin's side. Lin had already put the gun and ID into his bag to avoid Hun's suspicion.

"There are some." Lin gently pushed up the corpse's head, exposing his neck. "The biggest problem is the fatal wound."

"This is..." Hun was also stunned when he saw this scene.

There was a red line on the neck of the corpse that was so thin that it was almost invisible. If you look closely, you can see the smooth cross-section of the muscle tissue under the skin. Just looking at this wound, you can feel a sharp and fierce feeling.

"There are no other wounds on the body, only a fine cut on the neck. The knife almost cut off the head, but a thin layer of skin was left connecting the body and the head." Lin turned to the side to observe, "Killed him with one blow."

This is similar to the situation in the Far East where the kaishakunin, who is extremely skilled in knife skills, will leave a layer of skin between the head and body of the corpse to ensure the dignity of the deceased.

But that was an kaishakunin, and this was the target of the slashing event, and a killer of the poisonous pupa. To be able to kill him with one strike and leave such a layer, how fast must his speed and swordsmanship be? It was as if time had stopped.

And it wasn't just because of the Fifth Branch's matter that Lin didn't explain to Hun that Ibery's hand was originally on the gun in his pocket, and he looked up as if facing a formidable enemy. He was killed while he was prepared and even ready to strike first.

Hun picked up the blue flower on the body and looked at the beautiful blood-stained petals with a complicated look: "And this flower, it's so pitiful, why would the killer leave such a small flower?"

“It’s a kind of identity proof, like ‘I was here’.”

Lin took the flower named Forget-me-not. It was no different from the flowers he had seen before, except that this forget-me-not was missing a petal, and it was full of incomplete beauty.

The policeman who was organizing the situation was tapped on the shoulder. He turned around and saw the man in sunglasses, mask and hood standing behind him, holding a small flower in his hand and asked, "Was there also a forget-me-not missing a petal next to the corpse before?"

"Ah? Forget-me-not... that's it. Hush, keep your voice down."

The policeman who was being questioned made a hushing gesture and pulled Lin aside.

"Forget-me-not has not been officially released yet, so don't say it in public."

“…It’s already been reported in the news.”

"That's just a rumor. Tsk, this killer always acted in secret before, why would he do it in front of so many people this time..."

"Did the flower have fewer petals before?"

"No, why would you keep a flower with missing petals?"

"..."

Lin looked back at the body lying on the ground, then looked at the flowers in his hand.

A sense of disharmony quietly crept into my heart.

……

"Hu, hu, hu..."

The pink-haired girl ran in the narrow path. Her steps were so light that one could not hear her footsteps at all. She moved through the streets and alleys like a ghost.

While running at high speed, her breathing was even and slightly heavier than usual.

Both the speed and the breathing technique are something that ordinary people can do.

After making sure that no one was chasing her or discovering her, she stuffed the katana back into her tennis bag and put it on her back, then turned out of the alley and walked into the crowd as if nothing had happened.

She carefully spread out her palm and looked at what was inside.

A silver badge with a design that didn't belong to any organization she knew of.

Was that a killer from another organization?

I'll investigate later, but now I'd better go home...Rin must have been waiting for a long time.

……

The last clue about the poisonous pupa was broken, and it might be due to coincidence. This was really an unexpected event that caught Lin off guard.

This means that the full picture of the Fifth Branch incident and who is behind it are all buried in a sea of ​​information that Lin cannot access.

It ended so abruptly...

Lin and Hun left after a simple investigation of the corpse. Their official statement was that if there were any problems, they would contact the Fire Moth to handle it. Of course, Lin would not tell Hun even if he notified the Fire Moth, as the scope of the poisonous pupa was too large, and the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

"Another person died..."

Hun lowered his head, looked at his toes and walked forward with a lost tone.

Even though she knew that human death was inevitable, seeing a person other than a soldier die tragically in front of her again still stabbed her wounded heart again.

When Lin heard her words, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.