Trafford’s Trading Club

Chapter 1346: Chapter 73: Pseudo-Object

The old man’s answer made the maid show a slightly surprised look… With her Perception blocked by her master, it was hard for her to make the most accurate judgment based on the current information.

Boss Luo at this moment seemed to quite enjoy seeing situations that could put the maid in a bind and make her show a confused expression… He still had no intention of lifting the block at all—of course, he himself was the same.

It was like a little game played between lovers, looking into each other’s eyes and seeing who would be the first to fail to hold back a laugh, or who would be the first to blink.

Maybe it looked a bit frivolous… but after gaining true Undying in the sense granted by the origin behind the club, they more or less had the capital to be frivolous.

Quietly watching the rare, deeply thoughtful micro-expression on the maid’s face, Luo Qiu even felt an urge to take out a camera and properly capture her current appearance, but he was also afraid that in the time it took to fiddle with the camera, he would miss this rare instant.

Better… to let his eyes remember it.

“You… are Cain’s regenerated consciousness?” This was the question You Ye asked after thinking it over… She carefully examined everything about the old man in front of her.

The old man actually nodded, then slowly said, “The original me encountered an unprecedented horror when crossing the dimensional rift… The current me has almost lost those memories, and only vaguely remembers the name of that immense horror… Void Asura.”

“Void Asura?” Luo Qiu pondered a bit—he had run into a creature from the Void Primordial Demon, and the bodies of the club’s Black soul envoys, when remade, basically used the Source of the Heteromorphic extracted from such creatures as the most core material.

“As for the Void Asura, the current me knows nothing.”

The old man shook his head. “The original me fell into this Sub-world. Fortunately, this Sub-world also had a Legend of ‘me’, so the original me used up the last of his Power to embed ‘me’ into part of this mainland’s history, and then completely disappeared. As for the current me, I was born from that part of history and became a new consciousness that inherited some of the original me’s knowledge and memories. Of course… the memories regarding the deal I made with you two were also inherited. I suppose, for the original me, it felt necessary to record that part, so he specially left it behind, right? But the current me doesn’t know whether, in the process of leaving those memories, the original me had any deviation… or perhaps some concealment.”

The old man… Cain had said this much; Boss Luo already understood what was going on.

This Cain’s regenerated consciousness in front of them, in theory, had quite a lot in common with Nan Xiao Nan or 24’s experiences—strictly speaking, they were all visitors from outside Sub-worlds.

“You… the original you, were also exploring the end of the mainland?” Luo Qiu thought of the ultimate goal of these beings that had broken through the limits of their respective Sub-worlds and couldn’t help asking out of curiosity.

The old man… the current Cain gave an affirmative answer.

…

While figuring out the old man’s identity, the boss and the maid followed in his footsteps deep into the end of the cave—a mud hut that looked quite simple.

But before they arrived, there had already been someone else here—those descendants of the once Ancients—a woman who looked about to give birth, and her man.

When this couple saw the old man return, they hurriedly went up to him and expressed their thanks… After expressing their deep gratitude, the man helped the heavily pregnant woman leave—from beginning to end, they acted as if they simply could not see these unfamiliar lodgers.

“In this piece of ‘past,’ I play a role similar to their guide,” the old man said with a slight smile only after the couple left. “I teach them production, daily living, and some basic knowledge. Usually, if they run into difficulties, they come to me.”

“Like the village wise man kind of role,” Luo Qiu said with interest.

“I’ve just lived longer and seen more,” the old man said quite casually. “The long run of time can’t actually improve an individual’s original intelligence, or even if it does, the improvement is negligible. Only knowledge can be continuously accumulated, Infinite and without end.”

“You’re not curious about me?” Luo Qiu suddenly asked.

Ever since he recognized the maid’s identity, the current Cain hadn’t shown any intention of inquiring about the other person—Luo Qiu—which only made Luo Qiu even more interested.

The other merely smiled slightly. “It’s not time to be curious yet… By the way, I intend to host the two of you a bit, but you’ll need to fully enter this ‘past’ first, otherwise, I think we can only talk.”

It was actually like being separated by a screen… Luo Qiu and the maid had always been standing in front of the screen, while the ‘past’ was what was on the screen—and Cain was the body of this screen.

The ‘past’ here was in fact a mainland within consciousness constructed by Cain himself—because it was fictional, life here was completely different from the existence in the Corpse Pit described in the leather diary.

The tracks of those who once lived in the Corpse Pit of the Farm and escaped, and the paths of their lives within this ‘screen’ had also become entirely different.

Luo Qiu did not hesitate in the slightest. After he lifted the maid’s hand, he slowly took a step forward—this step was like breaking through an invisible membrane, and he and the maid had entered the world within the ‘screen.’

There was not the slightest change… only that, in this piece of ‘past,’ he and the maid now existed.

Having seemingly sensed their presence, the current Cain began slowly boiling water and making tea inside the mud hut. “Try this… According to the memories I inherited from the original me, this tea is made from the leaves of a rare plant from a mainland where almost the entire land is covered by the Ocean. Of course, it doesn’t really exist, but this is just a world of consciousness… so the taste should be fine.”

Just as [Cain] began making tea, the maid’s fingers flicked lightly, and black flames transformed into several words in front of Boss Luo’s eyes.

[Soul], [Power].

Luo Qiu understood the maid’s hint at once—[Power] was what the former [Cain] had traded for, while [Soul] was what the former [Cain] had paid.

But in the account books of customers that had yet to be fully gathered, Luo Qiu had never seen the name [Cain]—as for those ledgers recording countless transactions, Boss Luo had not continued to read them for some time now; at most he would look things up when necessary, or casually flip through a few pages when they came to mind.

The transaction with the former [Cain] had clearly been completed; whether for the former [Cain] or for the club, the deal between both sides was already finished—when the former [Cain] fell into this Sub-world by accident and finally died, its soul had already, by virtue of the Contract, been automatically entered into the account… this was probably something that happened before Luo Qiu took over the club.

As for the current [Cain], compared to the one that had completed the transaction, they could be considered two different conscious entities—this old man now, although he also bore the name [Cain] and had even inherited quite a bit of [Cain]’s memories, was in essence more like an incomplete copy.

Or rather… perhaps what the former [Cain] had created at the very end, for the self that was about to dissipate, was another form of continuation… a conscious body that possessed consciousness but no Soul, yet could still think on its own.

Luo Qiu was more inclined to regard the current [Cain] as a program that possessed the same thinking patterns as the former [Cain], along with partial memories, and then, under these predetermined settings, carried out complex computations… strictly speaking, the current [Cain] was merely a Pseudo-Object.

He couldn’t help but think of the [Soul Engineering] that the maid had mentioned once, something that had arisen in a certain Sub-world that had already collapsed.

…

After tasting a sip of tea from another Sub-world, Luo Qiu glanced at the tiny resentful spirit hiding behind [Cain]. The Little Wraith only met his gaze timidly at this moment.

Boss Luo smiled slightly. “Right, old sir, you just said that there seems to be something different between you and the [Lost Fangs]… you can’t control the [Lost Fangs] now, can you?”

The current [Cain] fell silent for a while… as if he were thinking, weighing whether to reveal his own information. Luo Qiu only heard him mutter to himself, “Judging from the memories I’ve inherited, even if I say nothing, you seem to possess an almost omniscient, omnipotent capability… concealing it would be unwise.”

So, Luo Qiu’s impression that the current [Cain] was merely an autonomous computational program—sharing the former [Cain]’s thinking patterns, partial memories, and even emotions—grew ever stronger.

At last, the old man nodded and began to speak slowly. “[Lost Fangs] is the name later given by the bloodsuckers living on it. In truth, it is merely the body of the [former me] that never decayed after death—strictly speaking, while I inherited the name [Cain], I am in fact more like its descendant. Originally, I also had control over [Lost Fangs], but over these years the portion I can control has begun to weaken.”

Luo Qiu thought for a moment and said, “Because of the Thirteen Clans living on this body?”

The old man nodded. “I’ve said it before, this mainland also has some Legends about [Cain]… actually, many Legends regarding [Cain] do not necessarily match what this mainland’s Thirteen Clans regard as their Origin… the [former me] was actually more willing to acknowledge himself as the first child of Adam and Eve, the sinner exiled by It, who could not be killed by others.”

He shook his head, seeming reluctant to bring up this part. “Because of the reason that [Cain] is the origin of bloodsuckers in this mainland, when the [original me] embedded the existence of [Cain] here, its body also automatically underwent some transformations due to the rules of the mainland’s Will… or rather, it changed into a mode of manifestation that fit this mainland’s history. Mm… we generally call this kind of transformation the [unstable state of the mainland].”

“‘We’?”

He nodded. “Just some like-minded people I met on the road of exploration, coming from different worlds, something we studied in our spare time. At first it was a fellow called [Archimedes] who proposed it, and then it gradually spread… I heard that later he joined a rather large exploration group, seems it was called the [Transcendents]?”

Shaking his head, the old man said calmly, “In fact, the [former me] never truly met him in person. Although the [former me] had once received an invitation from this group, he never joined in the end… from my current perspective, perhaps the [original me] should indeed have joined a group, because then, when the [former me] encountered that immense terror, there might not have been a risk of falling.”

“Relatively speaking, perhaps you would never have appeared.” Luo Qiu, however, said softly, “If he exists, you will not… would you be willing to accept that?”

The old man only said calmly, “I’ve heard that you’re very adept at forcing others into difficult choices… it seems that’s true.”

“My apologies, I’ll be more careful.” Luo Qiu said apologetically.

The current [Cain] shook his head, not minding, and picked up his earlier topic. “…Among the Thirteen Clans, there is a ceremony known as the [Holy Blood]. Through this ceremony, they seek to awaken the consciousness of [Lost Fangs]—because they believe the Origin has not died, merely slumbers… since [Lost Fangs] is alive, or at least, its body still retains activity.”

“They succeeded.” Luo Qiu interjected unexpectedly.

The old man sighed. “You could put it that way… over the endless years, the boundless blood injected into [Lost Fangs] through the consciousness of the [Holy Blood] has come to contain far too many stray thoughts. These stray thoughts include the desires and hopes of bloodsuckers from the Thirteen Clans, as well as the offered hatred and despair… in the end, all these stray thoughts melded into a new conscious entity. It not only shares, as I do, the remnants of the [original me], but since it was created by the native bloodsuckers of this mainland, it suits even better the form of the [Cain] that exists in this mainland’s Legends. Mm, if I count the time, the Thirteen Clans’ next [Holy Blood] Ceremony should be drawing near, shouldn’t it? To be honest, if this ceremony is carried out a few more times, I may well be Devoured by it as well… after all, compared to me, it is far closer to this mainland’s [unstable state].”

“Another newly born conscious entity?”

The old man gave a wry smile. “It’s asleep… and it’s only because of its periods of slumber that I can barely exert some control over the current body of [Lost Fangs]… probably because it is too close to this mainland’s Legends, it also likes to slumber like a bloodsucker, using sleep to integrate the stray thoughts within itself, refining itself into something purer… basically, as long as I don’t reveal any intention of fighting it for control over [Lost Fangs], and only move the body around a little, it won’t pay me any mind. After all… compared to it, I am far too weak.”

“Are you planning to just go on like this until, in the end, it grows ever stronger and then Devours you?” Boss Luo smiled faintly at this moment and asked softly.

[Cain] only gave a bitter smile. “There was never any room not to care, was there… you still gave me a choice.”