Chapter 78 – Sin City (12)
◎ Have you heard of synesthesia? ◎
“Long time no see, Zhuang Qingyan.”
Lu Xiaoyu raised his hand, and a small cluster of glowing data branches followed his movement, silently standing up, with the leaves making a “swish” sound.
Zhuang Qingyan dropped the makeshift crutch in his hand and sat against the wall with the help of Song Ke.
His current appearance was extremely disheveled, with torn and tattered prison clothes, bloody blisters on his palms, and several scratches on his face. These were just the visible injuries; who knows how many hidden wounds he had. After all, his wheelchair was completely destroyed, and it was impossible for him to be unscathed.
After Zhuang Qingyan sat down, he had to tilt his head up to speak with Lu Xiaoyu. He made a faint “tsk” sound and said, “Come down.”
Lu Xiaoyu muttered silently, “I am a tree, and a tree only grows taller…”
Zhuang Qingyan interrupted him, “Quit the nonsense and come down.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to look up.”
“…You’re still so finicky.”
The flowing data formed the shape of a tree trunk, and Lu Xiaoyu slowly descended to the ground. Zhuang Qingyan’s gaze finally met his.
He raised his chin slightly, indicating another direction, “Since you’re Lord Hades, what is he?”
Song Ke belatedly realized that there was a fourth person at the scene. From the very beginning, this person had been standing still, not moving a muscle or even breathing. Her attention had been solely on Zhuang Qingyan, so she had overlooked the presence of the other person.
Upon arriving in a well-lit area, the appearance of this prison guard seemed even more bizarre. While his gaze was rational and clear, his facial features and limbs were extremely stiff, like a marionette covered with human skin. No matter how realistic it was, it couldn’t hide the strangeness.
Song Ke’s intuition told her that he was most likely not a “human.”
“He is the warden here,” Lu Xiaoyu said in a casual tone. “When I arrived, he was on the verge of death, but he seemed to want to live and not let others know he was dying. So he found me and said he wanted to do the same as that visionary, to separate his consciousness from his body and transfer it to a new body. He asked me if I could do it.”
“I extracted all of his memories and prepared to transfer them into a new body he had improved himself. However, there was a parameter error in the middle of the process, and I couldn’t fix it using my abilities. In the end, the experiment failed, and only a part of his consciousness was barely preserved. The current him is no longer considered a complete person; he only mechanically repeats residual commands.”
“Well… that’s all that’s left,” Lu Xiaoyu said, moving his fingers, and the blank wall projected fragments of the former Lord Hades’ memories.
He had once been a passionate young man who, as an adult, had willingly entered the prison industry. Starting as a low-ranking officer, he had climbed his way up to become the high-ranking chief warden. He possessed extraordinary talent and a deep sense of strategy, and through centralization, reform, and new policies, he had elevated the existence of the Death Prison to its zenith, becoming a revered and feared Lord Hades.
However, in this world, there was the “Law of Extreme Reversal”—when something reaches its zenith, it tends to transform in the opposite direction.
When a person reaches their peak, they also rapidly decline.
Plagued by illness, growing old, the former Lord Hades gradually became incapable and had to relinquish his power, sinking into the bottommost layer of the Death Prison, where one could never be reborn. While the wardens above him changed continuously, he became increasingly mysterious. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to leave, but his broken body and depleted energy could no longer sustain his ambitions.
Zhuang Qingyan looked at the silent prison guard, witnessing his grandiose history, but the guard seemed indifferent, as if he were a complete stranger. He had once built the glory of the Death Prison with his own hands, but he had also succumbed to his obsession. Lu Xiaoyu was right; he was no longer a “human” but a mere puppet.
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know,” Lu Xiaoyu replied emotionlessly. He had never cared about it and had never asked.
Apart from the code name “Lord Hades”, his entire life had remained unknown to others. Now, even that title no longer belonged to him.
A sigh was all that remained.
The stripping of memories, extraction, transformation, and injection into a new body… These words that Lu Xiaoyu casually mentioned were enough to make one’s heart race. If the former Lord Hades’ experiment had succeeded, he would have achieved immortality in a different way, shaking the entire Alliance.
Lu Xiaoyu’s expression turned regretful, “In the end, it was because the body he chose was too fragile to contain a complete soul.”
He wasn’t fond of conducting such experiments; in fact, he had no interest in them. He wasn’t even proficient in this area, and his only attempt had been at the former Lord Hades’ request. However, that failure had left a lasting impact on him, as geniuses often couldn’t tolerate their own imperfections.
Song Ke listened intently, her fingers unconsciously grasping something nearby.
Lu Xiaoyu’s icy gaze suddenly turned to her, “You’re touching me.”
Song Ke: “Huh?”
She lowered her head in bewilderment, only then realizing that she had been grabbing onto an extended branch. She quickly let go.
The branch closely followed and wound around her wrist a few times, its tip touching her forearm affectionately.
“I can let you touch me because I’m the one who called you down,” Lu Xiaoyu said.
Lu Xiaoyu’s gaze returned to Song Ke, and his eyes sparkled like the branches. “I really like your body. How about letting me modify you? I promise it will succeed this time.”
“No,” Song Ke said, expressionless, as she shook her hand to get rid of the branch, but it clung.
Lu Xiaoyu persisted, “Or let my consciousness enter yours. We can learn to share one body. Have you heard of synesthesia? It’s when you have me in you, and I have you in me. You can feel me, and I can…”
“Don’t even think about it,” Zhuang Qingyan grabbed the tip and pulled it away, saying coldly, “Get lost.”
Lu Xiaoyu faced successive rejections, retracted the branches, and pursed his lips in annoyance.
He lost the desire for further social interaction and lazily leaned against the tree trunk.
“Why did you come to the Death Prison? Is this your latest research achievement?” Lu Xiaoyu asked.
“I came here specifically to find you.”
“Find me?”
“Yes, before we have a formal conversation, you need to take care of this first.” Zhuang Qingyan removed Song Ke’s Crime Record and threw it together with his own with a “clink” sound.
Lu Xiaoyu’s branches rolled up the two Crime Records on the ground, returned them to his side, and then paused, his gaze resting on Song Ke for a moment.
Song Ke felt inexplicably nervous, fearing that he might say something startling.
“Don’t worry, she won’t,” Zhuang Qingyan suddenly spoke, his tone calm and his gaze confident.
Song Ke looked at him with confusion, won’t what? His words seemed disjointed.
Lu Xiaoyu responded with a brief “hm,” tapped his fingertips a few times, and then crushed the badges.
Song Ke’s mental state suddenly shifted, and she realized that the feeling of being constantly monitored had disappeared. Was this what unlocked it?
“Did you create the Crime Record?” Song Ke asked, surprised. She recalled the information she had received from Cheng Yi, stating that the crime records were a technology passed down from District B. Could it be that Lu Xiaoyu had casually created them?
“Not entirely. Its original form was a monitoring device and didn’t have punitive functions. After I connected with it, I casually broke through its firewall and felt it was a bit of a waste, so I added some things and made some improvements,” Lu Xiaoyu replied offhandedly.
Even without special abilities, Lu Xiaoyu was a genius-level hacker, and this was certainly something he could do.
“Tell me, what do you need me for?”
“I need your help to hack into the citizenship system and forge a few new identity records. We need to go to District C55.”
Lu Xiaoyu chuckled, “Did you… also get a brain transplant? This new one doesn’t seem to be working very well.”
Zhuang Qingyan remained expressionless, “I’m serious. You’re a gene optimizer who awakened your hacking ability over a decade ago. Something like this should be a piece of cake for you.”
“I’m in a place where using abilities is forbidden,” Lu Xiaoyu reminded, implying that he couldn’t use his hacking ability here.
“I know. You didn’t understand what I meant. I want you to leave with us.
“Before coming in, the biggest difficulty we encountered was how to find you; at least we’ve succeeded in that step. As for how to get out, we can figure that out later.”
“I’m not leaving,” Lu Xiaoyu immediately refused, “Once a tree takes root, it won’t easily move. I’m fine here.”
Zhuang Qingyan sneered, “Yes, you are Lord Hades here, the heart of the Death Prison, and the life and death of all the prisoners depend on your whim. But stuck here, you have no idea what changes are happening in the outside world.”
“I don’t care…”
“Lu Corporation’s supercomputer isn’t dead. It can be reactivated soon.”
“Impossible!” Lu Xiaoyu raised his head abruptly. “Even if she’s not dead, there’s no way she can return to normal.”
“What’s impossible about it? Lu Corporation has found an alternative power source for her.”
“Who?” Lu Xiaoyu’s voice grew colder.
“A super AI with a complete personality and powerful abilities. Before we arrived in Sin City, they had already begun capturing it. Let me think… it might even be operational by now.”
Song Ke made a surprised sound. Zhuang Qingyan was talking about Ilya, right? But Ilya hadn’t been captured, and instead, he had taken down Lu Xinglan…
She opened her mouth to speak, but Zhuang Qingyan pinched her knuckles at that moment, causing Song Ke to react belatedly.
Oh… Zhuang Qingyan was lying again, and this time it was even more absurd, lying even to his friend.
Lu Xiaoyu’s branches hung down dejectedly.
Zhuang Qingyan continued, “As early as Year 8 in the New Calendar, the Lu family’s starship was born. But for over twenty years thereafter, it remained obscure, overshadowed by other flying terminals. It wasn’t until Year 32 in the New Calendar, after a certain technological innovation, that a new model emerged and became famous overnight in the Alliance, earning the nickname ‘Eternal Soaring Bird.’ No one knew that the person who wrote the core code at that time was none other than you, Lu Xiaoyu.
“You flawlessly integrated the critical energy source, ‘Yiyu,’ into the central calculations, achieving high-altitude supersonic flight under absolute safety conditions. It was you who single-handedly propelled the Lu family starship to its peak.”
Song Ke was left dumbfounded.
Lu family starship, Yiyu, Lu Xiaoyu… So, Lu Xiaoyu was the true creator of the starship!
“The Lu family amassed countless wealth through the starship, becoming the sole owner of District B8. But, do you know that the starship has now completely collapsed.”
Lu Xiaoyu frowned, “The code I wrote, even if it runs for another 100 years, couldn’t possibly go wrong.”
Zhuang Qingyan shook his head slowly, “It’s not the code that went wrong; The Lu family starship reclaimed Yiyu.”
No matter how perfectly a program was designed, without a power source, the starship couldn’t function.
Lu Xiaoyu’s branches gradually tightened.
“Even after learning all this, do you still intend to stay here and be your Lord Hades in peace?” Zhuang Qingyan asked.
Lu Xiaoyu remained quiet for a moment and then suddenly said, “You’re deliberately provoking me. You haven’t changed at all. You may pretend to be all nice on the surface, but deep down, you’re full of evil. As soon as you find someone’s soft spot, you relentlessly go after it.”
Zhuang Qingyan chuckled, “I did it on purpose. I know you have Asperger’s Syndrome. Maybe this place is better suited for you than putting on a mask and pretending to be a normal person in social situations.”
Lu Xiaoyu snorted, “You, a psychopath, have no right to talk about me.”
Song Ke looked at one, then the other, with countless question marks appearing over her head. What are you guys talking about? What’s “A”… and what’s “P”?
Both of them had a cold smile on their lips, not giving an inch as they stared at each other.
“Are you leaving or not? Waste.”
“Shut up, trash.”
Song Ke: “…”
Wait, weren’t they getting along just fine a moment ago? Why are they arguing now?
“Uh…” Both of them looked at her at the same time.
Song Ke’s voice got smaller and smaller, “If you have something to say, please say it nicely. Don’t fight.”
After a while, Lu Xiaoyu twitched his branch and said, “I can’t leave.”
Zhuang Qingyan’s expression turned cold. Lu Xiaoyu shot him a sideways glance and said before he could speak, “Shut up.
“…Leaving the tree would kill me.”
He moved forward a bit, slowly turning around, and Song Ke could clearly see that there were various data conduits in his head, shoulders, and back. Some of these data conduits were even plugged into the nerve endings of his severed legs. If pulled out hastily, he would likely die instantly from blood loss.
Lu Xiaoyu’s eyelashes drooped, and his expression remained unexpectedly indifferent.
Song Ke felt her heart ache. She didn’t know the full story of the conflict between Lu Xiaoyu and the Lu family, but it was brutal. Severing his legs and throwing him into the depths of the Death Prison wasn’t enough; they had to nail him within this pile of data, making his senses and countless sins interconnected, subjecting him to endless torment. Was it necessary to go this far?
“Even so, do you still want to take me with you?” Lu Xiaoyu asked quietly.
After a moment of silence, it was Song Ke who spoke first, “We do, we will definitely take you out.”
Zhuang Qingyan suddenly asked, “How far are we from the boundary where the use of abilities is prohibited?”
Lu Xiaoyu replied, “As long as we leave the super abyss area, it’s fine. It’s about 12,000 meters in a straight line.”
Zhuang Qingyan lightly tapped the ground with his fingertip, a usual gesture when he was deep in thought.
“I have some ideas… Let’s first get Fang Zhixu down.”
“Never mind, let’s get all of them down.”
**TN
Song Ke was confused with the A and P because they said Asperger’s Syndrome and Psychotic in English.
