238: Chapter 239: Not knowing is also an answer; don't mold people into standard sentences.

The moment the white pen fell, a part of the world fell silent.

It wasn't that kind of true silence.

Rather, many messy sounds were forcibly erased.

On Zhao Jing's off-white page, it originally read:

[ I don't know. ]

[ Temporarily not awakening. ]

[ Want to read the instructions first. ]

The white pen lightly circled it.

The page changed to:

[ Refuse awakening ]

Zhao Jing's face turned pale instantly.

"I'm not refusing."

"I just don't know!"

But as soon as his voice came out, it was suppressed by the Central Interpretation Court.

[ Uncertain expression affects interpretation efficiency ]

[ Revised to clear intention ]

A-Lu's intention page also began to change.

[ Want to learn characters ]

[ Want to know where grandma used to live ]

[ Temporarily do not want to go to the camp ]

After the white pen fell, the third line was changed to:

[ Refuse training ]

A-Lu was so anxious that his eyes turned red.

"I didn't refuse to learn characters!"

"I just don't want to go to that camp!"

He Chunlian pressed down on his page, but could not hold back that white light.

Wuye City's access rules were also revised.

Original text:

[ Going out does not mean leaving Wuye City, and coming back does not mean refusing the surface. ]

The white pen swept across.

It became:

[ Transferees are managed by the surface ]

[ Residents remain managed by Wuye City ]

Zhong Minglin's expression changed.

"What does this mean?"

"We just said we could walk both sides!"

In South Bank's temporary page, someone wrote:

[ Want to see a doctor first, temporarily not disclosing name ]

It was revised to:

[ Accept assistance anonymously ]

The next line immediately popped up with an old risk prompt:

[ Anonymous assistance requires lowering resource priority ]

The Dead Water Well survivors' pages were even harsher.

Liang Yan's phrases [ Sleep first ] and [ Do not light the way ] were circled by the white pen.

[ Sleep first ] was retained.

[ Do not light the way ] was revised to:

[ Temporarily not restore lighthouse function ]

Shi Nan rushed fiercely to the side of the stretcher.

"Temporarily?"

"He clearly said not to light the way!"

The white pen did not stop.

Zhou Lan's [ Do not restore Healer, only provide experience and advice ] was revised to:

[ Partially restore treatment assistance ]

Chen Ye's [ Seven-minute pressure tolerance, not accepting future backups ] was revised to:

[ Short-term pressure tolerance, can be extended depending on circumstances ]

Beside Shen Tingxue's [ Reduced-load observation period ], an extra line appeared:

[ If the public cooling gap widens, the necessity of permanent residence can be reassessed ]

Every modification was very small.

So small that it even looked more 'standardized'.

There were no longer any wordy explanations.

There were no longer "temporarily", "uncertain", "depends on the situation", "can but does not equal", "want to go but must be able to come back".

The white pen refined the world to be very neat.

Neat to the point of becoming dangerous again.

Lin Jin stood in the Central Interpretation Court, his expression sinking to the extreme.

The Fifth Seat · Revision's afterimage had no body, only that hand holding the pen.

It hovered above the [ Revision ] high chair, its pen tip dripping with white light.

[ The off-white rules contain a large amount of colloquial, emotional, contradictory, conditional, and vague expressions ]

[ To ensure the effectiveness of the underlying review, a unified revision must be conducted ]

[ Revision principles: clarification, standardization, executability, low conflict ]

Chen Ye laughed in anger.

"Low conflict?"

"Of course there's no conflict when you change human speech into system speech!"

Gu Changye's blade back pressed against the ground, his voice very cold.

"Back then, the failure sample's 'I'm afraid' was revised into 'unstable' just like this."

Inspector Han Su looked at those rewritten old pages, the Shizhi Blade trembling slightly.

"It's the same in the Department of Education archives."

" 'The child is unwilling to continue training' was revised to 'weak professional willpower'."

" 'The patient refuses contact with the Healer' was revised to 'uncooperative with treatment'."

Shen Tingxue raised her hand to press the Ice Phoenix pattern on her wrist bone.

"In the Shen Family Records, 'I'm tired' was revised to 'bloodline fluctuation'."

Zhou Heng said coldly:

"Zhou Yubai's 'I'm afraid' was almost revised to 'needs enhanced training'."

The Fifth Seat afterimage did not retort.

It just continued to drop its pen.

[ Individual original expressions can be saved as attachments ]

[ Underlying execution must use revised text ]

"Attachments?"

Shisan looked at it coldly.

"Put what people said in the attachments, and put the nonsense you revised into the main text?"

When these words fell, Zhao Jing's page had already begun to be forcibly categorized.

[ Reject awakened ones' resource paths ]

Zhao Jing panicked.

"I am not refusing!"

"I might awaken in the future, or I might not awaken!"

"I just don't know right now!"

But the white pen tapped lightly on his "might".

[ Expressions of possibility are not executable ]

[ Suggested deletion ]

Lin Jin suddenly raised his hand, the new tool jamming that streak of white light.

"Stop."

The Fifth Seat afterimage responded immediately.

[ Revision process in progress ]

[ The right to suspend revision does not apply to the standardization of explanatory text ]

"It applies."

A-Lu's voice still carried a crying tone, but suddenly patched in from Wuye City.

"It changed my words."

"I'm calling to stop."

Ye Guizhou's seal fell.

[ Suspension request from affected parties received ]

Luo Wensheng immediately recorded:

[ The Fifth Seat revision residue is modifying the person's original words, and the affected party A-Lu has requested a suspension of revision. ]

Zhao Jing also hurriedly shouted:

"I want to stop too!"

[ Zhao Jing's suspension received ]

Zhou Lan's voice trembled, but was clear.

"Stop."

[ Zhou Lan's suspension received ]

Liang Yan could not open his eyes, so Shi Nan knocked three times on his behalf.

Shi Nan translated with red eyes:

"A-Yan stops too."

Suspension requests smashed into the Central Interpretation Court one after another.

The white pen finally paused.

The white light around the Fifth Seat afterimage began to become dazzling.

[ Multiple suspensions will cause the interpretation process to stall ]

[ Too many uncertain expressions will make the three fundamental options untotallable ]

[ Unable to tally, will prolong the temporary status ]

[ Prolongation of temporary status will cause new central risks ]

It spoke very quickly.

As if using "risk" to force everyone to admit: fuzziness must be revised.

Lin Jin looked at it and suddenly said:

"Then let the tally slow down."

The system paused.

Lin Jin raised his head, his voice not loud, but spreading across all channels.

"Not knowing is not garbage data."

"Temporarily is not procrastination."

"Maybe is not noise."

"Not wanting now does not equal permanent rejection."

"Willing to accept a part does not equal total consent."

"Wanting to go out yet wanting to come back is not a contradiction."

"It is human."

The Central Interpretation Court vibrated.

The Fifth Seat afterimage quickly wrote out a new definition.

[ Effective decision-making must revise natural language into standard options ]

Teacher Xu Wenzhou picked up 002.

Lin Jin used the new tool to clamp the definition line.

"Effective decision-making is not stuffing people into standard options."

"It is the standard options that must acknowledge the non-standard words people speak."

The blade fell.

Snap!

The definition snapped.

The white pen shook violently.

Luo Wensheng quickly wrote down the new rules.

[ Principle of original words priority ]

[ One: The person's original expression is the main text and shall not be demoted to an attachment. ]

[ Two: Standardized summaries may exist, but must be marked as 'summary' and cannot replace the original words. ]

[ Three: Ambiguous, deferred, conditional, repetitive, contradictory, and emotional expressions must all be retained. ]

[ Four: During execution, only the parts explicitly confirmed by the individual can be executed. ]

[ Five: Unspecified parts enter pending confirmation and must not be filled in by the system. ]

Ye Guizhou stamped:

[ Original words priority received ]

He Zhibai added:

[ The costs of statistics, communication, and waiting caused by uncertainty shall be borne publicly, and no accountability shall be pursued against the speaker. ]

The Fifth Seat afterimage suddenly turned the white pen toward He Zhibai's ledger.

[ Cost is too high ]

[ Suggest merging similar expressions ]

He Zhibai sneered.

"Similar does not equal identical."

He opened the ledger and directly listed three items.

[ "Not wanting to go to the camp" does not equal "not wanting to study". ]

[ "Temporarily not awakening" does not equal "refusing awakening". ]

[ "Not undertaking permanent residency" does not equal "no longer helping". ]

"If you merge wrongly once, the cost is a person's path being altered."

The white pen wanted to drop again.

Gu Changye's blade back pressed down on the shadow it cast.

"Stop."

Inspector Han Su's Shizhi Blade back also pressed down.

"If text revision changes personal consequences, it should be reviewed as a disposition."

Shen Tingxue's low temperature sealed the light around the white pen.

"Cool down, do not freeze."

Zhou Heng's Thunder Spear diverted the white light, preventing it from sweeping toward the minors' pages.

Chen Ye raised his shield to block in front of Zhao Jing and A-Lu's pages, cursing under his breath.

"I was never this afraid of correcting typos in my essays before."

Shisan stood among all the pages and said coldly:

"If you want to revise, figure yourself out first."

The Fifth Seat afterimage finally showed obvious fluctuations for the first time.

[ Too much uncertainty will cause fundamental votes to fail to generate ]

Lin Jin looked at the initial three fundamental options.

Retain.

Close.

Voluntary access.

Yes.

If everyone can write "I don't know", "temporarily", "conditional", "depends on whether the bottom line is established", "I support closing a certain part but retaining a certain function", "I refuse occupational naming but need capability interfaces", then this review will not be a simple vote.

The tallying will slow down.

Interpretation will become harder.

The result will be very ugly.

But Lin Jin already understood.

This was precisely what they wanted.

He wrote on the floor of the Central Interpretation Court:

[ Review voting must not accept only three single-choice options. ]

[ Can fill in: Support, oppose, defer, conditionally support, conditionally oppose, only support a certain part, need more explanation, don't know, refuse to answer, talk about it later. ]

[ All of the above are valid responses. ]

The Central Interpretation Court shook frantically.

[ Complex responses cannot make quick decisions ]

"Then don't be quick."

[ Unable to form a clear majority ]

"Then form a problem list first."

[ Underlying review will be long-term ]

"Therefore, setting deadlines and re-reviews is not about revising people's words into fake clarity."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou glanced at Lin Jin.

"This strike is huge."

Lin Jin nodded.

"Strike."

002 fell.

The new tool twisted synchronously.

The two words [ Revision ] on the Fifth Seat's chair split in half.

The white pen let out a piercing screech.

New off-white characters surfaced on the back of the chair.

[ Revision authority downgraded ]

[ Responsibilities: organize, not replace; summarize, not rewrite; translate, not characterize; format, not delete; proofread, not silence ]

[ Any revised text must retain original word links, impact descriptions, and the individual's review entry ]

[ Uncertain, contradictory, deferred, and conditional expressions are valid content ]

[ Must not be deleted ]

The white pen plummeted from the air.

With a snap, it fell onto the floor of the Central Interpretation Court.

It didn't shatter.

Only the white light at the pen tip dimmed, turning into an ordinary recording pen.

Zhao Jing's page recovered.

[ I don't know. ]

[ Temporarily not awakening. ]

[ Want to read the instructions first. ]

A-Lu's page recovered.

[ Want to learn characters ]

[ Want to know where grandma used to live ]

[ Temporarily do not want to go to the camp ]

Liang Yan's page recovered.

[ Sleep first ]

[ Do not light the way ]

Zhou Lan recovered to:

[ Do not restore Healer, only provide experience and advice ]

Wuye City access rules recovered to:

[ Going out does not mean leaving Wuye City, and coming back does not mean refusing the surface. ]

All those "non-standard" words returned to the main text.

Inside the Central Interpretation Court, for a moment, it was full of chaotic echoes.

Someone cried, someone cursed, someone said they almost got revised out of existence just now.

These voices were not neat at all.

Yet they were much more like living people than the silence after the white pen fell.

The system wrote back:

[ Central Interpretation Court Fifth Seat residue authority: Revision, has been downgraded to an organization tool ]

[ Final interpretation right not restored ]

[ Public interpretation process continues to be valid ]

Chen Ye let out a long breath.

"From now on, whoever says I talk too much, I'll say this is valid content."

Shisan said coldly:

"Your nonsense is counted separately."

Chen Ye: "On what grounds?"

Shisan: "Because most of the time you have no content."

Zhao Jing looked at his [ I don't know ] and suddenly smiled slightly.

Very lightly, but it was like spitting a stone out from his throat.

"So even 'I don't know' can be written this big."

Lin Jin was just about to speak when a slow, long sigh suddenly came from the deepest part of the Central Interpretation Court.

Among the six chairs, the last one lit up.

[ The Sixth Seat · continuation residue authority awakens ]

This time, there was no white pen.

No blade.

No lock.

Only a slender timeline extended from the back of the chair, passing through all off-white rules, all unestablished bottom lines, and all seven-day extension periods.

The Sixth Seat's voice was gentle to the point of exhaustion.

[ Since effectiveness is uncertain. ]

[ Since the bottom line has not yet been established. ]

[ Since there may still be no answer after seven days. ]

[ Recommendation: Extend temporary minimum maintenance. ]

[ Until everyone is ready. ]

Chen Ye was stunned.

"This sounds... like there's nothing wrong with it?"

But Cheng Du's expression changed abruptly.

"There is something wrong."

Lin Jin stared at the continuously extending timeline, his heart sinking bit by bit.

Because at the end of the timeline, seven days were followed by another seven days.

Seven days followed by another seven days.

There would forever be unestablished bottom lines.

There would forever be people not yet ready.

Temporary status could continue forever.

The Sixth Seat gently finished the last sentence.

[ If the world is not yet ready to choose. ]

[ The temporary state can continue forever. ]