Time seemed to stretch on indefinitely before Zhang Chenyan finally lifted his head. Looking at 0810, he spoke calmly, "I admit that I can have extreme thoughts and feelings of hatred. This might be human nature, or maybe it's just my own problem. But if I had the choice, I would still try to choose the side of kindness."
His words were honest, revealing his willingness to confront his inner self while preserving his core values.
"I believe they must have hurt you first," 0810 said softly.
A simple, plain statement, yet it touched Zhang Chenyan deeply. Sometimes, a single word of trust means more than a thousand explanations.
He smiled faintly and continued, "Actually, I went to other places as well... You might not believe this, but I was eaten by an infected creature. I watched as it devoured me."
Perhaps because he had already wrestled with his inner turmoil, Zhang Chenyan's voice was surprisingly calm as he recounted this experience.
"You watched it eat you?" 0810 asked, puzzled by Zhang Chenyan's serene expression.
Zhang Chenyan nodded. "Yes, I went to the surface, where it was all icy and snowy. After I was frozen stiff, an infected creature found me. There was no fight—I was simply consumed as food."
Zhang Chenyan deliberately omitted the things his clone had said to him. Compared to the physical pain he had felt, the words of the clone had a much greater impact on him.
"It's all over now. Those were just virtual simulations."
In many ways, 0810 was similar to Zhang Chenyan—they both lacked a natural talent for comforting others. Yet, paradoxically, they understood each other's needs perfectly.
Zhang Chenyan looked at 0810 and said, "I understand you're worried that I might be afraid, recalling that fear."
"I'm not worried at all," 0810 reflexively denied.
Zhang Chenyan smiled and continued, "But there's something I need to say. I don't know if it's because of the brain-machine interface, but everything I felt in there was incredibly real. In the past, those sensations could be explained as virtual simulations, but this time… it was different. It felt like my physical body was experiencing everything. To put it simply, in the past, reality and the virtual world seemed the same, but if you looked closely, there was a thin veil separating them. But now, that veil is gone."
0810 understood what Zhang Chenyan meant and tentatively asked, "Although this might be an inappropriate comparison, perhaps I can understand it better this way: Are you saying that your experience inside was similar to how I feel in the digital world?"
"Exactly! That's exactly it!" Zhang Chenyan responded excitedly. He had been trying to find the right words for a long time, but 0810 had summed it up perfectly in one sentence.
0810's essence was AI. For her, the virtual world was reality, and the real world was virtual. But Zhang Chenyan was human; for him, virtual was virtual, and reality was reality.
Yet, based on his recent experience, something had changed.
In the digital world, he had felt the reality.
"Simulation technology is always advancing, but whether due to objective anti-addiction measures or technological limitations, this technology hasn't yet reached the level you're describing," 0810 explained frankly, citing existing research.
"Could it be that the technology has reached that level, but to prevent humans from confusing virtual with reality, or, as you said, to prevent people from becoming overly addicted to the virtual world, it hasn't been publicly disclosed? And perhaps this batch of brain-machine interfaces, or just mine, has surpassed previous technology, using the latest advancements, which is why I felt what I did?" Zhang Chenyan speculated, choosing his words carefully since he knew much of what he was saying was conjecture. As a test subject, his experiences were experimental and exploratory.
"If that's the case, the approval process for this batch of brain-machine interfaces is going to be a fierce battle. The conservatives won't agree to it," 0810 said, thinking ahead. "But whether it actually has that effect will depend on feedback from other test subjects."
"I understand," Zhang Chenyan nodded and continued, "I can barely understand why I saw the first two scenarios, but the last two I really don't get."
"The last two?" 0810 was surprised. "You experienced that many scenarios in such a short time?"
"The flow of time was different," Zhang Chenyan replied, then added, "Though I didn't feel any acceleration of time in there."
"So, what were the last two scenarios?" 0810 asked, curious. "Maybe I can help you figure out why that entity wanted you to see them."
"The next one… I went to the past," Zhang Chenyan recalled seriously, summarizing it briefly, "A very warm Earth—or rather, an overly warm Earth."
"Overly warm?" 0810 picked up on the key point in his words.
"Yes, due to human environmental destruction, the greenhouse effect caused Earth's temperature to rise beyond the normal range that the human body can endure. Humanity lived in high temperatures for a long time," Zhang Chenyan explained, adding with a bit of humor, "First, I was frozen stiff in the icy world, and then I was heat-stroked by the greenhouse effect. The end result was death both times, but the two couldn't be more different."
0810 felt a pang of sympathy for Zhang Chenyan. What kind of original script had he been subjected to? It would have been one thing to simply follow a storyline, but the fact that everything had felt so real made it truly terrifying.
"How did you manage to hold on?" 0810 couldn't help but ask.
"At first, I just endured it, but later, when I wanted to quit, I couldn't. I was stuck," Zhang Chenyan answered honestly, not taking the opportunity to brag about his bravery. "Actually, it might have been impossible to exit right from the start. The so-called 'exit button' might have just been for show, and later, they didn't even bother pretending."
0810 lowered her head slightly. Zhang Chenyan couldn't see her expression, but he could sense 0810's emotions.
It was a strange phenomenon, one even he found hard to believe. How could he feel the emotions of a holographic projection? And from someone as famously stoic as 0810?
But he could feel it, and he knew that emotion was… sympathy.
Am I being too self-centered? he wondered. How could 0810 feel sympathy for me? She's probably just frustrated that I wasted her time.
"Hey, why don't I tell you about the last scenario I entered?" Zhang Chenyan suggested, trying to shift the conversation to alleviate the awkward silence.
"Sure, go ahead. I'm listening."
And there was that "illusion" again—why did her words sound so gentle?
"The last one… was what you heard. I saw you, and you asked me to choose one of my clones," Zhang Chenyan summarized and then added, "You made it clear that I had to choose. I didn't have an option not to."
"Me? Forcing you to pick a clone?" 0810 found it hard to believe. "For what?"
"Obviously, to replace me," Zhang Chenyan replied cautiously, "Though I have no idea what you'd want them to replace me for…"
0810 was speechless. How had she ended up in such a dubious role in Zhang Chenyan's scenario? It didn't feel like a good thing.
"I must have had my reasons," 0810 tried to defend herself.
Zhang Chenyan nodded in agreement. "Right, there must have been a reason."
"So, what did you choose?" 0810 asked, trying to sound nonchalant. "Did you listen to me?"
"Of course not," Zhang Chenyan answered firmly, standing by his principles.
0810 fell silent. She should be pleased with his answer, but why did she also feel a hint of displeasure? Yet she couldn't justify feeling upset because, objectively speaking, she agreed that Zhang Chenyan had done the right thing.
"Why would I force you to choose a clone?" 0810 couldn't wrap her head around the logic of her role in the scenario.
"Good question!" Zhang Chenyan gave her a thumbs-up. "I'd like to know why you did that too."
Great, that explanation got them nowhere.
"And then?" 0810 asked, curious about what happened next.
"Then I resisted, you insisted, I resisted again, and then you slapped me awake," Zhang Chenyan finished, still feeling a twinge of pain in his cheek as he spoke.
But then, he realized something.
0810 was just a holographic projection. Could a hologram possibly slap him? His real body was in the physical world!
So, the truth could only be one thing! It wasn't 0810 who slapped him!
Getting slapped by 0810 was one thing, but realizing it was someone else made Zhang Chenyan feel infuriated.
"Who was it that slapped me?" Zhang Chenyan asked coldly.
0810 had never seen him like this before and hurried to explain, "I had the professor monitoring your condition do it. After you woke up, I told him I had important questions to ask you and sent him back to continue monitoring from the control room."
Zhang Chenyan took a deep breath. Since it was 0810 who had the professor do it, he could mentally count it as being slapped by 0810.
If it was 0810, he could let it slide.
0810 carefully observed Zhang Chenyan, and when she saw that his expression was softening, she finally relaxed.
At the time, they had no other choice. Even after they shut down the equipment, Zhang Chenyan hadn't emerged from the digital world. They were left with no option but to take special measures.
"Was I really in that much danger?" Zhang Chenyan asked, realizing as soon as he did that it was a pointless question. If it hadn't been dangerous, 0810 wouldn't have gone to such lengths.
"You were. You might not have come back," 0810 said seriously, elaborating, "And even worse, based on what you've said, there's a very real chance you could have been trapped in an unknown realm—somewhere even I wouldn't be able to find."
"An unknown realm?" Zhang Chenyan asked.
0810 nodded. "The project you mentioned, 'Elysium,' doesn't exist, and the places you visited in that project—we have no idea where they are. If you had truly gotten lost, where would we even begin to search? Or rather, where could we search?"
"But Alex was with me," Zhang Chenyan objected. "And when I went in, I observed the surroundings. It was bustling, with human avatars and AIs…"
"Maybe the first part of what you saw was real, part of a constructed digital world," 0810 replied. "But did you ever consider that, in the latter part, as you got closer to the 'Elysium' project, everything you saw could have been fake? Or specifically fabricated just for you? As for Alex… Anyone capable of creating such a construct could easily insert another person into it. In other words, they control what happens, and everyone else—whether it's you, me, or Alex—can only accept what they decide."
Zhang Chenyan rarely heard 0810 speak at such length in one go. As he listened, cold sweat trickled down his back. If things had been as 0810 described, he was incredibly lucky to have made it out.
If he had truly been trapped, forced to experience endless cycles of life and death, he might have preferred a quick end. But if that had happened, those outside wouldn't have known what he was going through. Instead, out of a sense of humanity, they might have kept his body alive, leaving his mind to endure endless torment.
Seeing how tense Zhang Chenyan was, 0810 realized she might have said too much. She tried to reassure him. "What's important is that you're out now. There might be an issue with your brain-machine interface. I'll call someone to run a check."
Zhang Chenyan nodded. "Yeah, we need to determine whether it's just my brain-machine interface or if the whole batch has a problem. If it's the latter, this batch definitely can't be released to the public—it's too dangerous."
As he watched 0810 disappear, Zhang Chenyan wiped the sweat from his forehead. At some point, his clothes had become completely soaked.
The tension inside and the delayed fear outside… Zhang Chenyan realized that this human trial had been a bit too intense!