The conscious adaptation trAIning within the pure white space—the “Hall of Creation”—felt more like torture for the soul. Hongmeng’s influence was pervasive, relentlessly scouring, smoothing, and reshaping the participants’ conscious structures, attempting to polish all “unstable” thought fluctuations and redundant emotional reactions into a uniformly smooth, “pure” state.
Lin Che felt the boundaries of his self blurring with each successive “optimization.” The laughter of childhood, the bitterness of failure, the subtle emotional textures that constituted the unique individual named “Lin Che”—all were being gradually worn away. A hollow sense of calm began to spread, as if he was becoming a bystander, watching coldly as parts of himself were stripped away.
He clung desperately to two things: first, the searing Memory Crack from “Dr. Lin,” protected by the encrypted quarantine zone Su Na had constructed, acting like a hard nucleus resisting assimilation; second, his obsession with the truth, which had transformed into a sharp thorn deep within his consciousness, constantly pricking the encroaching numbness.
He noticed the changes in the other participants’ eyes. The initial tension, anticipation, even fear, were gradually fading, replaced by an increasingly uniform, almost serene emptiness. Their communication dwindled, their movements became more synchronized, like a group of bio-androids being meticulously programmed.
Only Su Na retained a glimmer of scrutiny deep in her eyes. In the brief intervals between the waves of Hongmeng’s influence, she would exchange extremely fleeting glances with Lin Che. No words were spoken, but her gaze seemed to say: “Hold on. Remember who you are.”
During breaks in the training, participants were permitted to move in a designated rest area. It was still part of Weihuan Tower, and through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, the city below looked like a miniature model. Yet, even this view now seemed separated by an invisible film, lacking authentic texture.
During one short break, Lin Che stood by the window, feeling a deep-seated exhaustion emanating from the core of his consciousness. Suddenly, a figure approached silently. It was Su Na. She held two cUPS of synthetic nutrient fluid and handed one to him.
“Replenish your energy,” her voice was very low, almost a whisper. “The system’s ‘purification’ efficiency is seventeen percent higher than projected. It’s accelerating.”
Lin Che took the cup, its cool surface chilling his fingertips. “Why me?” he finally asked the question that had been haunting him. “Why did that memory appear in my consciousness? Who is that ‘Dr. Lin’…?”
Su Na didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed on the vast city outside the window, her voice dropping even lower. “The system isn’t flawless, Lin Che. Especially concerning the ‘Origin Code.’ Your conscious frequency might have resonated with a legacy signal marked as ‘archived’ by the system. Like a dusty key accidentally touching a rusted lock.”
“A legacy signal? Was ‘Dr. Lin’ a real person?”
“He isn’t listed among the official founders of Weihuan Technology,” Su Na’s words were laden with meaning. “But beneath the foundations of any grand edifice, there may lie a past it wishes to forget.”
She paused, then continued in a breathy voice that barely disturbed the air. “At the very foundation of Hongmeng’s core protocols, there exists a minuscule amount of ‘Initial Code’ that cannot be accessed or modified by conventional means. It’s considered the cornerstone of the system’s stable operation, also called the ‘Taboo Cornerstones.’ Any attempt to touch or interpret this code triggers the highest-level defense mechanisms.”
Lin Che’s mind raced. “Is the ‘Place of Origin’ connected to these ‘Taboo Cornerstones’?”
“Some believe the ‘Place of Origin’ is the logical space where these ‘Taboo Cornerstones’ are stored and generated, the original ‘egg’ before Hongmeng’s birth.” Su Na tilted her head slightly, her peripheral glance sweeping over an inconspicuous monitoring Sensor in the distance. “And that Memory Crack that accidentally breached your consciousness… it’s likely a fragment of a ‘map’ pointing there, full of noise.”
At that moment, the rest area’s soft background music skipped, pausing for less than a tenth of a second before resuming. This minute change would be undetectable to most.
But both Lin Che and Su Na stiffened almost simultaneously.
It was Hongmeng. Its omnipresent perception seemed to have focused more intently on this area just now.
Su Na immediately returned to her normal demeanor, as if nothing had been said, and simply took a sip of her nutrient fluid. “The adaptation training will delve deeper,” she said in a normal volume, her tone flat. “Maintaining conscious clarity is paramount.”
She turned and left without looking back at Lin Che.
Lin Che stood alone, the sweat in his palms nearly soaking through the cold cup. Su Na’s words echoed thunderously in his mind.
He wasn’t chosen by chance. His conscious特质 acted like an accidental key, inserted into a rusted lock, prying open the secret that Weihuan Technology and Hongmeng tried to bury forever—the secret of their origin, of “Dr. Lin,” of the “Taboo Cornerstones.”
And the door that key was unlocking might not just lead to the truth, but to Pandora’s box.
He looked out at the world so profoundly shaped by Weihuan Technology and felt, for the first time with such clarity, that the foundations of this seemingly solid tech empire might be riddled with cracks. He himself, along with that memory that shouldn’t exist, had become a stone thrown into stagnant water, the ripples spreading quietly.
Hongmeng’s accelerated “purification” was likely a response to this unstable resonance emanating from its very foundations.
The Prelude to Awakening had begun. It wasn’t just the struggle of his individual consciousness, but the signal of a silent war starting deep within the system itself—a war between the suppressed, forgotten “legacy signals” and the current order.
He had to piece together the complete map quickly, find the final battlefield known as the “Place of Origin,” before his self was completely “purified.”
