Chapter 77: Replication Experiment 1
The main force for this mission was still the First District.
An investigator said, “According to Wang Lei’s confession, when Zhang Nan was drawn into the rule zone, Ni Ruiling communicated with Dou Dekai in the capacity of a ‘caring fiancée.’ She used Dou Dekai’s extreme desire for marriage and money to easily achieve remote control of the rule zone.”
“Whether it’s the original or the replicated version, the core of the Zeus Grand Hotel has always been ‘letting Dou Dekai get the life he wants,’ which is to say, he wants to get married and get the three million ransom,” Ren Bing pointed to the model on the screen. “However, the ‘get’ here doesn’t necessarily have to be a tangible gain. After all, in the original rule zone, Ni Ruiling used brainwashing methods to make Dou Dekai mistakenly believe he had achieved his goal, and it was also judged as a completed mission.”
Yao Qi asked, “After I enter, do I have to brainwash him in the capacity of a fiancée, just like Ni Ruiling?”
“It depends on the specific situation,” Ren Bing said. “After the maximum number of iterations, this rule zone has become a product full of bugs. It’s filled with uncertainty everywhere. We can’t even guarantee that the most basic logic chain is still intact. In the most extreme case, perhaps even Dou Dekai himself has been iterated away. So, we can only rely on everyone to adapt to the situation.”
The first batch to enter the rule zone consisted of fifteen members from the action team and five members from the research group. The action team was led by Ye Jiaoyue, and the research group was led by Ren Bing. Before setting off, Team Leader Ren personally went to negotiate with Huo Ting, wanting to bring Zhuang Ningyu along for the mission.
Director Huo’s office might have been having some electronic system malfunctions recently. Ren Bing had just raised his hand, before he even had a chance to knock, the door had already popped open automatically. In the brilliant sunlight, Zhuang Ningyu was leisurely crossing his legs, sitting in a large, luxurious office chair, carefully savoring the top-grade jasmine tea in his cup. Huo Ting, on the other hand, had been driven to the sofa on the side, his long legs bent and spread apart, forced to work arduously on the low coffee table.
“…” Although he didn’t know why, he felt that this scene was somehow a little reasonable.
“Team Leader Ren, is there something?” Huo Ting stood up. “Come in, have a seat anywhere. That door has been having some problems recently.”
“I wanted to apply to Director Huo to have Captain Zhuang join us in the rule zone,” Ren Bing said, closing the door. “Perfect, Captain Zhuang is also here. I don’t have to make two trips.”
“Ningyu’s body hasn’t recovered yet,” Huo Ting disagreed, as expected. “It’s not that I don’t want to let him go, it’s that the medical team won’t agree. But don’t worry, Team Leader Ren, Ningyu will participate in the operation from outside the rule zone the entire time.”
Ren Bing looked at Zhuang Ningyu, and Zhuang Ningyu returned his gaze earnestly. What’s the use of just looking at me? Where’s your eloquence? Use it! I’ve already tried, anyway.
He had even specifically chosen “The Fourteenth-Century Golden Spindle and the Mysterious Flawless Mirror” as the BGM when he was trying to persuade him, attempting to let Huo Ting’s soul find peace in this grand compassion and let him go like a small grain of sand, but it was unsuccessful. Director Huo: “I was wondering what kind of strange music was playing in the office cafeteria last week. So it was you who spread it?”
Zhuang Ningyu hadn’t been back to the main building of the Order Maintenance Department for a long time, let alone eaten in the cafeteria, so he had no idea how widely this music had spread. He asked, puzzled, “But this is religious music. It’s not really appropriate to play it in a public place, is it?”
“Xiao Yi has already stopped it,” Huo Ting said. “It’s said that he dropped his half-eaten meal, didn’t say a word, and sprinted towards the cafeteria management office.”
Five minutes later, the cafeteria BGM changed to “Good Day.” The big sister in the management office was quite unhappy about it for a while, muttering behind his back that the handsome guy was handsome, but he had no elegant taste and couldn’t appreciate symphony.
Ren Bing was unsuccessful in persuading Huo Ting to let him go and could only leave in regret. Zhuang Ningyu had thus lost his only ally. In fact, from a mission standpoint, he didn’t really have to personally enter the rule zone. After all, remote work was still work, and there was no need to go against his old knees. But from a love standpoint, it was a different story.
The night before the operation. Yi Ke squeezed onto the same pillow with him and asked, “What are you spacing out about?”
“This is the first time a rule zone has been ‘predicted’,” Zhuang Ningyu sighed. “In the past, it was always a sudden mission, an emergency assembly. As soon as the notice came, we had to leave immediately.” Now, suddenly having a whole night to slowly say “goodbye,” he was still a little unaccustomed to it.
And it was foreseeable that there would be more and more such changes in the future. As for whether the change would be in the direction that the vast majority of people wanted, or whether it would lead to a new round of uncontrollable unknowns, perhaps a glimpse of the answer could be found in the Zeus Grand Hotel tomorrow.
…
The next morning, Zhuang Ningyu appeared at Qinghu Art Park on time, his lips a bit swollen. Or rather, not just a bit, but so red and swollen that it was obvious, attracting Qing Gang to lean in and observe, asking with confusion, “Captain Zhuang, are you ‘heaty’?”
He had a loud voice. The moment he spoke, all the colleagues nosily gathered around. At that moment, Zhuang Ningyu once again felt the pessimistic feeling of wanting to quit this damned job. But it was too late to run. He could only stand in the center of the crowd like a flower on a high peak and reply gracefully, “The weather has been too dry recently.”
At this time, Yi Ke also walked in with his action backpack, pushing open the door of Chengnan Bookstore. Seeing the noisy scene inside, he asked, puzzled, “What are you guys doing?”
“Oh, nothing. Captain Zhuang’s lips are ‘heaty,’ and it’s quite serious,” Zhong Mu replied, even stepping aside to invite him to admire it.
Yi Ke’s expression changed almost imperceptibly for a moment, but thankfully, he didn’t laugh.
Zhuang Ningyu had just been pressed down in the car and bitten and gnawed on for a good ten minutes, and then surrounded by his colleagues for a frame-by-frame analysis. He had long lost his temper. With a wave of his hand, he told them all to get back to work!
White mist slowly rose. The replication of the rule zone went smoothly. The Zeus Grand Hotel was not a new product. All members had conducted multiple and quite detailed analyses of it before entering the rule zone. But even so, when the feeling of weightlessness disappeared and the white mist gradually dispersed, the vast majority of participants still inevitably felt an extremely strong sense of dissonance.
“How is it?” The real-time signal transmission had not yet been connected. The people waiting outside could not see the picture for the time being. The two sides could only communicate through the intercom.
“It’s like we’ve arrived in a future world,” Qing Gang answered truthfully. He recorded the surrounding scene with his instrument. Although the frame of the Zeus Grand Hotel was still there, there were varying degrees of distortion in both the color tone and architectural details. The frame of the lobby’s dome was exposed, but it was no longer rusty metal, but slowly flowing sewage that should have been in a fountain. The dangling electric wires sparked with “zzt-zzt” sounds, and upon closer inspection, they were flowering vines. The floor had turned red, the carpet had turned black, and the tattered crystal chandelier was hung with broken tiles of various sizes. And the most bizarre thing was the statue of Zeus that had originally stood quietly in the center of the lobby—it had come to life, and had even grown a head.
Dou Dekai’s head.
Because of the huge size difference between the two, this scene, amidst its strangeness, also revealed a somewhat hellish, dark humor. Dou Dekai’s normal-sized human head was like it had been randomly glued to the shoulder of the giant statue. It was wooden, with only its two eyeballs able to move. He was currently constantly adjusting his focus, and a harsh electric current sound, similar to an old-fashioned telegraph, came from his mouth.
“What the hell is he saying?”
“Can’t hear clearly.”
A reversed, chaotic, extremely unreasonable, and absurd rule zone.
“Your previous hypothesis was correct,” He Mo said, taking off his headset. “If the rule zone is allowed to iterate on its own, it will eventually approach a logical collapse.”
At this moment, the video signal had been restored. Zhuang Ningyu looked at the Zeus Grand Hotel that appeared on the computer screen and asked hesitantly, “Is Dou Dekai the only monster? Was Tang Xiaoyuan iterated away?”
“It’s also possible that it’s just not her time to appear yet,” Yi Ke said, reaching out and tearing a piece of paper from the wall. On it was a line of crookedly written words—Rule: Kill the kidnapper.
This was clearly from Tang Xiaoyuan’s perspective. Dou Dekai couldn’t possibly kill himself.
The “main character” of the Zeus Grand Hotel game had always been Dou Dekai, but now a rule from Tang Xiaoyuan’s perspective had appeared. Qing Gang frowned. “What does this mean? The main character has changed?”
Yi Ke remembered Zhuang Ningyu’s previous analysis. When Tang Xiaoyuan and Dou Dekai appeared as monsters at the same time, it would interfere with the rule zone’s most basic “good and evil judgment,” because Tang Xiaoyuan was undoubtedly more innocent than Dou Dekai; she was a more “perfect” victim. And now that a rule from Tang Xiaoyuan’s perspective had appeared, did it mean that after multiple iterations, the rule zone had completed its self-repair, which was why it had changed the main character of the game?
But soon, the familiar “wedding recruitment notice” appeared on the wall on the other side, only the characters were severely missing, and the number of people had changed from 120 to 12°. It was unclear whether it was twelve degrees Celsius or twelve to the power of zero. As for the invitation, it was even more outrageous—
Wedding Invitation
Groom: Dou Dekai
Bride: Tang Xiaoyuan
Zeus Grand Hotel
Welcome to our wedding!
The people inside and outside the rule zone fell into a collective silence.
This was too bizarre.
Yao Qi even stood in front of the statue specifically so that the head could see her. The wind blew through her beautiful features and black hair. Faced with this pure and beautiful woman, although Dou Dekai’s eyeballs showed obvious signs of following her gaze, and he even licked his lips lecherously, the name on the invitation never changed. It was still Tang Xiaoyuan—he seemed to be unable to choose his bride autonomously anymore.
“So are we supposed to kill the kidnapper or attend the wedding now?” a team member asked.
“Let’s hold our ground for now,” Ye Jiaoyue said. “Let Team Leader Ren and the others finish replicating the initial information.”
Outside the rule zone, He Mo was also asking in bewilderment, “Why does he suddenly want to marry Tang Xiaoyuan?”
Zhuang Ningyu couldn’t analyze it for the time being and could only attribute it to the chaos of the rule zone. After all, putting Bao Mingming aside, Tang Xiaoyuan was pretty, fair, slender, had long, flowing hair, and was also innocent, devoted, and filial, and young. To some extent, she did fit Dou Dekai’s criteria for a partner. Perhaps during the multiple iterations, the rule zone had only captured this part of the information, which was why it had forcibly paired the two together.
“Then we’ve really done Tang Xiaoyuan a disservice.” Although this girl had been brainwashed by Rotating Curve in the later stages and had rushed into the rule zone like a human bomb to cause trouble, her nature was not bad. She hadn’t participated in any other illegal activities and was also a victim. Now, she was being made to marry the criminal who had ruined her life. Even if it was just a formality within the rule zone, it was still extremely disgusting.
“Two main characters have appeared in the game,” Zhuang Ningyu said, looking at the screen. “The coexistence of completely contradictory logics in the same rule zone indicates that the ‘good and evil judgment system’ of the Zeus Grand Hotel has become chaotic.”
Admittedly, having Dou Dekai and Tang Xiaoyuan hold a wedding first, and then killing Dou Dekai, would perfectly meet the requirements. But if so, what was the point of the rule zone? After all, since the day it was born, what it had prided itself on was its high and mighty moral judgment and “punishing evil and promoting good,” not simply manipulating humans to complete a game.
“Could it be that because we artificially added interference items during the experiment, the replicated rule zone appeared with such obvious bugs?” inside the rule zone, a team member asked.
“No,” the researcher answered firmly. “We have never interfered with its basic logic chain. This is the product of its autonomous iteration.”
The experimental group still needed some time to collect data. Yi Ke sat in a corner, wanting to find a bottle of water from his backpack to drink, but he felt a smooth metal object.
He pulled it out, puzzled.
A familiar thermos.
It was the loving fruit tea that Zhuang Ningyu had personally brewed for him that morning before he left.
