321: Chapter 321 Welcome to Eden

Chapter 321: Welcome to Eden. Dust choked his lungs.

Chen Mo coughed violently.

There was no real smell of dust, only the deathly scent filtered through the air circulation system.

He landed.

The height was about twelve meters.

If the t-10 system hadn't taken over his leg muscles the moment he landed and forced an overload on the knee joint's hydraulic buffers, his legs would probably be shoved into his chest cavity by now.

[Minor trauma to both legs.]

[Structural integrity: 92%.]

[Suggestion: Move forward.]

The red text on his retina was particularly glaring in the darkness.

Chen Mo stood up straight.

A faint light filtered through the hole above his head.

That was the light from the Old Blind Man's clinic.

"Sir?"

The Old Blind Man's voice drifted down from above, echoing like someone calling for a soul at the mouth of a well. "Are you... still alive?"

Chen Mo didn't answer.

He raised his ugly mechanical left hand and brushed it against the wall.

The wall was cold.

Metallic texture.

This wasn't an air-raid shelter.

Nor was it a sewer.

This was a corridor.

A corridor made entirely of an unknown alloy, so pristine white it was repulsive.

Following his movements, the sensor lights overhead flickered on one by one.

A ghastly white light.

It illuminated the door at the end of the corridor.

That was the only way.

Chen Mo started walking.

His military boots stepped on the metal floor, making a crisp clacking sound.

Clack, clack, clack.

Every step was accompanied by the scraping sound of the mechanical claw on his left arm dragging across the floor.

Screeech—

It was jarring.

But the sound made him feel at ease.

At least it proved he was still a dangerous thing, not a lamb waiting for slaughter.

[High-energy reaction detected.]

[Distance: 50 meters.]

[Signal characteristic: Perfect match.]

The black data drive tucked in his pocket was burning hot now.

Like a branding iron.

Chen Mo walked to the door.

The door wasn't locked.

Or rather, this door had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

The sound of a pneumatic valve venting rang out.

The heavy alloy door slowly slid open to both sides.

A blast of cold air hit him.

It was an absolute-zero-like chill that instantly formed a layer of frost on Chen Mo's eyebrows.

If not for that heat-generating Nuclear Heart, he would have been an ice sculpture by now.

Behind the door was a massive circular hall.

In the center of the hall stood a giant glass pillar.

At least five meters in diameter.

Reaching straight to the dome.

The pillar was filled with a pale blue liquid.

Right in the center of that liquid, a person was suspended.

An old man.

He was naked, with black tubes plugged into him everywhere.

Some tubes were inserted into his spine, some into the back of his head, and some pierced directly into his heart.

His skin was wrinkled like withered bark, barely covering his bones.

But he was still alive.

Because those tubes were pulsing rhythmically, as if pumping nutrients into him, or perhaps extracting something from his body.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

That sound rang out again.

It wasn't an auditory hallucination.

It was the old man's heartbeat.

Amplified by the liquid and echoing through the hall, the heartbeat was deafening, like a war drum.

Chen Mo stopped walking.

He looked at the old man.

The old man also opened his eyes.

What kind of eyes were those?

No whites.

The entire eyeballs were pitch black, like two bottomless black holes.

"You're late."

The old man's voice didn't come from his mouth.

It came from speakers all around.

It had a synthetic electronic quality—cold, grand, like a god passing judgment.

"Subject 007."

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes.

The t-10 system's red frames flashed frantically, trying to lock onto the target, but all parameters were garbled code.

[Warning: Target unresolvable.]

[Warning: Mental pollution index rising.]

[Warning: Suggest immediate disconnection of auditory nerves.]

Chen Mo didn't cut his hearing.

He raised his mechanical left arm and tapped on the glass pillar.

Clang.

The sound was crisp.

"My name is Chen Mo,"

he said. "Not Subject 007."

"Names are just designations."

The voice had no inflection. "Just like the name Chen Yuan, which I also used for forty years. Until I discovered that a name does not define existence."

"You are Chen Yuan?"

Chen Mo asked.

"I am."

The lips of the old man in the glass pillar didn't move, but the voice continued to echo.

"And I am not. If you mean that biological father, that flesh is here. If you mean that 'Teacher' who swindled people outside, that was a failure."

"A failure?"

Chen Mo sneered.

He thought of the man who had blown himself to pieces on the ruins.

That man had believed until his death that he was pursuing the truth.

Turns out he was just a failure.

"He was too emotional,"

the old man said flatly. "He tried to use fear to control people's hearts; that's very low-level. True control requires no fear."

"Then what does it require?"

"It requires a sense of belonging."

Whoosh.

The walls around the hall suddenly lit up.

Those weren't walls.

They were tens of thousands of screens.

Densely packed, covering everything.

On every screen, there was a face.

Men and women, old and young.

Some were laughing, some crying, some staring blankly.

Chen Mo's pupils constricted sharply.

He saw familiar faces.

They were victims of every case he had handled in the Cold Case Unit.

The showgirl who had been dismembered.

The contractor who had been bricked into a wall.

The little girl who had been turned into a specimen.

They were all in the screens.

Alive.

"Welcome to Eden."

A hint of fanaticism finally entered the old man's voice. "Here, no one dies. Though their bodies have rotted, their consciousnesses have been uploaded to the cloud. Here, they possess eternal happiness."

"Happiness?"

Chen Mo looked at the little girl's screen.

She was crying.

Clutching a rag doll, she huddled in a corner, shivering.

"That is data residue."

The old man seemed to see through his thoughts. "That is her final memory from when she was alive. Once this code is deleted, she will be happy."

"Bullshit."

Chen Mo cursed.

Simple and blunt.

"You call this Eden?"

Chen Mo raised his mechanical claw, pointing at the screens. "This is a fucking digital prison. You've imprisoned their souls here, making them repeat the pain of their deaths over and over again."

"That is for the sake of evolution."

The old man was unfazed. "Pain is the ladder of evolution. Only by experiencing extreme pain can consciousness ascend."

"Madman."

Chen Mo didn't want to waste any more words.

He had only one purpose.

"Where is Chen Nian?"

He asked.

His voice was quiet, but killing intent was overflowing.

All the screens flickered suddenly.

The old man's black eyes stared at Chen Mo.

"She is not in Eden,"

the old man said. "She is the key."

"What do you mean?"

"Eden is incomplete."

The old man's voice became somewhat regretful. "This system has a massive flaw. It cannot generate true emotion. All happiness and pain are merely data simulations. We need a core. A core capable of generating infinite emotional computing power."

The liquid in the glass pillar began to boil.

The old man's body leaned forward slightly, pressing against the glass.

"Chen Nian possesses the most perfect brain."

"Her capacity for empathy is a thousand times that of an ordinary person."

"She was meant to become the God of Eden."

"Unfortunately,"

the old man sighed, "she refused. She would rather destroy herself than connect."

Chen Mo's heart twitched violently.

The last words in that crystal chip.

[Brother, this is my choice.]

So that's what it meant.

To avoid becoming a component for this monster, she chose death.

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