Chapter 343 - 340: Lin Nian

Chapter 343: Chapter 340: Lin Nian

"Ms. Lin Nian, are you the one in charge of the sixth-generation intelligent machinery?"

"Yes."

"The sixth-generation intelligent machinery must be destroyed. Do you object?"

"I don’t. I just want to know why."

"Because humanity doesn’t need a predictable future. That is all I can tell you. However, please trust the officials. We will compensate both Yuanxin Technology and you for your personal losses in other ways. I’m sorry."

"I understand."

"Thank you..."

In the endless darkness, Mo Ling saw the scattered fragments of memory. He could no longer control Lin Nian’s body, but he could still feel everything she was feeling.

A project she had poured her heart into, a chance at fame and success, had turned to dust with a single sentence from the officials.

’This was a major leap forward that could have changed human technology, and they just killed it in the cradle.’

Lin Nian simply could not understand what it had to do with the future of humanity. Although she’d said she understood, the matter became a heavy burden on her heart, one she could never overcome.

She often found herself connecting the incident to the conspiracy theories people at Yuanxin Technology were always gossiping about.

Power plays and mutual deception. The officials were just looking for an excuse to keep a private tech company from gaining too much influence, and the executives could only swallow the bitter pill and suffer in silence.

To others, these unsubstantiated rumors were just idle gossip, but to her, each one felt like a needle to the heart.

’Why was my project the only one they shut down?’

The whispers and slander always managed to hurt her when she least expected it.

Some said she was too young and had connections in upper management, and that the institute’s director, wanting to block her advancement, had reported her to the officials anonymously.

These suspicions ruined her relationship with her director.

Her colleagues would sometimes whisper amongst themselves, only to feign innocence and busy themselves with their work the moment Lin Nian appeared.

Lin Nian could decipher complex formulas and make sense of chaotic blueprints, but she could never figure out the tangled web of interpersonal relationships.

Eventually, she chose to leave Yuanxin Technology.

She never imagined that a single project would end up affecting her entire life.

’Maybe I shouldn’t have confined my gaze to this tiny laboratory. I should go see what’s in the Abyss...’

Lin Nian’s turmoil and wild thoughts seeped into Mo Ling’s mind.

The black fragments slowly drifted down.

Mo Ling snapped awake, his palm springing back from the black brain.

Even though he had been through this many times, Mo Ling always felt a wave of depression wash over him whenever he absorbed these memories.

This time was no exception.

The worst part was that Mo Ling found it difficult to detach himself from the identities within the memories.

He had to spend a long time telling himself, ’I am not Qi Qi, not Mr. Guo, not Lin Nian...’

Mo Ling could only keep recording the events from the memories onto the electronic screen. Writing these stories out from a third-person perspective was the only thing that made him feel slightly better.

Phew~

After he finished recording Lin Nian’s story, Mo Ling threw his head back and flopped onto the bed.

He was finally starting to feel like himself again.

’I wonder what’s going on outside.’

Mo Ling extended his field of view outside.

The Prophet’s figure had vanished, and so had the black smoke that had shrouded the area.

However, the figures lured by the Prophet were still there, now frozen stiff in place.

The black smoke obscuring their faces had slowly dissipated along with the Prophet, and they no longer swarmed the damaged safe house.

They stood there like statues, lost in a daze for an unknown amount of time.

Li Luo and Jin Lou watched the bizarre scene warily, not daring to make a move.

"What’s going on with them? Where did the Prophet go?"

"I don’t know."

Li Luo whispered to Jin Lou, "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

Jin Lou shook its head. "No. In the past, they’d go crazy whenever they saw a robot. Never this vacant. But this should be a good thing."

Time seemed to freeze. The figures outside remained motionless, while Li Luo and Jin Lou stayed quiet inside the safe house. The standoff continued.

’They’re all frozen?’

Seeing this, Mo Ling was completely baffled as well.

But this was the perfect opportunity to deal with these figures.

He expanded his field of view, beginning to search for the figures’ true forms.

Although the figures looked bizarre, Mo Ling knew their core was usually a specific object they carried.

Mo Ling quickly located the core object on the towering Giant God.

It was a black ribbon, tied around the Giant God’s wildly flowing hair.

The moment Mo Ling teleported the ribbon into the Block, the Giant God’s figure rapidly dissipated. The other figures remained unaffected, still frozen in place.

Without touching the ribbon, Mo Ling quickly shifted his focus to the other figures.

This wasn’t the time for reading memories; he had to hurry.

And so, one by one, Mo Ling teleported the black objects into the Block, where they piled up on the metal floor.

The eerie figures vanished, one after another.

Li Luo’s eyes widened. She turned to look at the Block. "Was that you?"

Mo Ling made the Block tremble in affirmation.

Jin Lou, standing nearby, was also stunned. "How did you do that?"

The dense swarm of figures from moments ago had vanished completely, and now the Block was piled high with objects.

’Good thing there’s still enough space.’ Mo Ling looked at the pile of black objects and breathed a sigh of relief.

He didn’t dare to simply toss the black objects out, afraid of what might happen.

But looking at the large, scattered pile of black objects, Mo Ling grew worried.

’If I actually read all of these, my brain will probably explode.’

One or two was manageable, but Mo Ling truly didn’t dare to casually absorb so many memories.

The feeling of being lost in the memories still terrified him.

Absorbing these memories wasn’t like watching a simple "video." It was about experiencing a complete "story" as its owner, which could easily lead to a confusion of his own identity.

The few memories he had just absorbed had left him reeling for a long time, to say nothing of the entire pile of black objects now on the floor.

But without reading them, he would never know what had really happened on this island.

After turning it over in his mind, Mo Ling couldn’t come up with a solution. He had no choice but to use the electronic screen to explain the situation to Li Luo.

Li Luo stared at the electronic screen, her brow deeply furrowed.

"Black objects? So that Lin Nian from before really was a memory construct."

After reading the dense wall of text on Mo Ling’s screen, Li Luo finally understood everything.

She patted the Block and said with a sigh, "You should have told me sooner. You don’t have to bear all this alone. You’re just a relic, you know?"

Jin Lou, standing beside them, had also read the screen’s contents.

"Mr. Block, or Ms. Block... could you send those fragments back out? Let me try to help you read those memories."

Li Luo looked at it in surprise. "Aren’t you afraid of getting trapped in those memories?"

Jin Lou shook its head. "I’m a robot. Storing all sorts of junk data is what I’m made for. I can just sort them into a folder, lock the permissions, and it won’t affect my core programming."

"The only question is whether I can even read these memories," it said, scratching its head in frustration.

"Want to try?"

"Let’s try!"