Chapter 125 Who am I?
The immortal’s laughter was like a spell. Even though he had gone far away, it still lingered in the room, like a group of invisible birds, flapping their wings and making sharp cries.

The man looked at Ruan Linrui at a loss. Her eyes were filled with tears, her lips were pale, and her body was shaking uncontrollably.

Slowly, the man reached out his hand and carefully eased her to sit down.

“It’s okay, Ruan Linrui.”

He controlled his language module and spoke this sentence in a gentle voice.

Ruan Linrui looked at the man in a trance, then looked at the broken container.

Blood mixed with liquid was flowing out along the bullet holes, and the accumulated water splashed all over the ground, slowly spreading towards the two people.

Zhou Si’s body was curled up inside, with horrific burns and severed limbs all over its body, making it look like a curious specimen.

This is a miserable corpse, Zhou Si’s corpse.

After all, humans are creatures living in reality, and all emotions are mostly pinned on some entity.

Now, the entity named “Zhou Si” shattered before Ruan Linrui’s eyes.

My mind went blank.

Excessive breathing and rapid heartbeat made Ruan Linrui exhausted. She tried hard to cheer herself up and tried to use reason to control her physiological reactions.

Meanwhile, the man was still trying his best to comfort her, even though his own mind was a mess.

“Don’t be nervous, just relax…”

At this point, no matter how gentle the man’s words were, they still sounded pale and powerless.

He couldn’t comfort Ruan Linrui, or even himself.

Ruan Linrui raised her hand and grabbed the man’s arm that was stroking her back.

The man’s body felt very rough. The original bionic coating had been burned beyond recognition, like a large piece of melted and cooled plastic, full of bumps and corners.

“Ruan…”

The man wanted to say something, but Ruan Linrui shook her head and forced a sad smile.

“Don’t comfort me, I’m fine.”

Her lips trembled as she made an inappropriate joke, “But you, you’re dead…”

died.

The man blinked, a strange feeling of surprise running through his heart.

I… died?
Yes, I was dead, and my body lay quietly in the container, my head was broken into pieces, and there was no possibility of rescue.

The man stared blankly until the dark red water flowed over his feet. It was not until this moment that he laughed absurdly as if waking up from a dream.

However, this time his face was burned beyond recognition, and the smile on his face was like the roar of an evil spirit, hideous and terrifying.

“I am dead……”

The man talked to himself, his voice was cold and emotionless.

Perhaps the impact of this fact was too great, and the man did not feel the slightest emotional fluctuation in his heart.

Just like a poor person who doesn’t love himself, he has no sadness for his fate at all.

The man just instinctively wondered what had happened.

Oh… my body is indeed dead, but the consciousness existing in the incarnation shell has not disappeared, so the answer is obvious.

I have upgraded myself.

At a certain moment that he himself was not aware of, his consciousness had already completed the upgrade through the metamorphosis technique.

After realizing this, the man suddenly understood many of the contradictions he had previously thought about, such as why he would not be attacked by the immortals through the high wall and the large system, and why he could still move freely after so many blockades…

The answer is simple. I am not in that cold container. I am here, in this incarnated body.

So……

Was Zhou Si secretly upgraded by the immortal while receiving treatment after the attack on the stone fort, thus giving birth to himself?
The essence of Metamorphosis technology is the replication of consciousness. So when the copy is active in the outside world, what state should Zhou Si, the original, be in?

“Ha ha……”

The man let out a series of whimpering cries and used his hands to support himself on the ground to avoid falling.

The dark red liquid soaked through his hands and seeped between his fingers, as if covered with a layer of reddish-brown rust.

The man raised his head and looked into the broken container again, staring at the corpse that was gradually losing body temperature.

“Have you been waiting like this in the dark?”

The man said with great sadness.

Zhou Si was already dead. Even if he wasn’t dead, his severely damaged respiratory system would make it difficult for him to speak and convey information to the outside world.

But the man still couldn’t help but guess.

Until the moment before the immortal shot, Zhou Si was still alive.

From the very beginning, he didn’t join any bullshit immortality plan. He was just like an ornamental flower, being raised in this narrow container by the immortal.

Zhou Si could not see, hear, or touch. It was as if he was suffering a horrible punishment. His senses were completely blocked and he fell into endless darkness until death freed him.

No… maybe Zhou Si didn’t even realize his own death.

He just stayed numbly in the endless darkness until one moment the continuity of his consciousness was interrupted, putting an end to his tragic life.

Zhou Si had no one to confide in what he was thinking, feeling, and everything. He could only digest it all alone in the darkness.

The man suddenly realized that he was not unloving himself.

He really loved himself.

Therefore, the man who is the copy feels great sadness for Zhou Si, the other self who is the original.

The man didn’t dare to think about it, nor did he dare to empathize with another self. Just imagining his experience, the huge sense of despair was enough to make him breathless.

Ruan Linrui watched the man’s pain in a daze. At first, she didn’t understand the man’s sudden sadness, but soon, her slow thinking gradually realized the despairing possibility.

“God…”

Ruan Linrui covered her face. After experiencing extreme pain, a feeling of anticipation actually emerged in her heart.

She expected Zhou Si to have died long ago.

Shortly after the immortal upgraded Zhou Si’s consciousness, Zhou Si became brain dead due to severe injuries. All that remained before people’s eyes was a lump of flesh maintained by expensive equipment. Only such an ending could slightly reduce the pain Zhou Si had endured.

It’s just wishful thinking.

Both the man and Ruan Linrui were trapped in a quagmire of emotions. The heavy pulp swallowed them up bit by bit, entering through their nasal cavities and filling their lungs.

After a long period of silence, Ruan Linrui’s hands fell weakly. She asked the man blankly, longing for an answer.

“Who are you at this moment?”

The man was silent. After experiencing great grief, he was also thinking about this question.

Who am I?
Zhou Si? Or, an electronic ghost with Zhou Si’s memories?

The man didn’t know what to do, so he asked back.

“Who do you want me to be?”

Ruan Linrui tried hard to pick up her broken heart and said helplessly.

“I hope you are Zhou Si.”

“If I am Zhou Si, then who was the person who just died?”

Ruan Linrui answered evasively, “Another Zhou Si.”

The man was silent for a while and sighed sadly.

For Ruan Linrui, Zhou Si is no longer just the name of a human being. He is also the object of Ruan Linrui’s emotions and a part of her life.

Zhou Si’s disappearance was like cutting off a piece of flesh and blood from her body, spiritual flesh and blood.

“I read a story. It was a very cliché love story.”

The man suddenly started talking about something else, his eyes drifting off into the void.

“It’s probably like this: a man breaks up with a woman and falls into the pain of missing her.”

“The friend comforted the man by saying that there are many women in the world, hundreds of millions, and you can definitely find someone better. But the man replied that there are indeed many women in the world, but there is only one of them.”

The story came to an abrupt end.

In fact, there is no love story. What the man is telling is the experience of Zhou Si and Ruan Linrui, but the man puts himself in the position of the narrator rather than Zhou Si in the story, like some kind of mysterious metaphor.

Ruan Linrui understood the man’s metaphor. She complained, “It’s so complicated.”

“Yeah, this…”

The man hesitated, but still spoke.

“This matter, which involves the essence of the soul, is what countless philosophers have spent their entire lives exploring.”

“If you are not Zhou Si, then Zhou Si is really dead,” Ruan Linrui asked and answered herself, “but if you are Zhou Si, you are still here talking to me, I can see and touch you.”

“Since you are not dead, then where did the intense sadness I just felt come from?”

The man did not respond, but just looked at Ruan Linrui with pity. She was so broken that people wanted to hug her and put her back together.

“Yes, you are not dead. Zhou Si is not dead.”

Ruan Linrui kept asking herself questions and answering them.

“It’s just that a body is broken and a consciousness is lost…”

but.

If consciousness can be copied, bodies can be mass-produced, and if one’s emotions can be freely placed on any carrier named “Zhou Si”.

What then is the sincerity and depth of human emotion?

Ruan Linrui hugged her head in pain, her heart broken.

“So… who should I cry for and feel sad for?”

The man could not give an answer. He just hugged Ruan Linrui in vain and looked at her tearful eyes.

“It’s so beautiful.”

The man thought to himself that this was an inappropriate exclamation, but it came from his heart.

Ruan Linrui’s eyes are really beautiful, full of brokenness and sadness, like flowers blooming in the cold winter, full of brilliant emotional colors.

Faced with such a pair of eyes, the man even developed a slight sense of inferiority. No matter how delicate and powerful his mechanical eyes were, he could never imitate hers.

She is so real and beautiful that it makes men feel ugly.

“I go first.”

The man said goodbye casually and stood up.

The man picked up a white coat from the hanger and put it on to cover up the burn marks and scars on his body.

Ruan Linrui looked at the departing white figure, and only when the figure was about to disappear did she muster up the courage and make the promise.

“See you later! Doctor Zhou!”

The man turned his head and glanced at Ruan Linrui, as if smiling, and as if he agreed to her promise.

He was a man of his word, so they would meet again, maybe in a few hours, maybe in a few days.

But what is certain is that the man will kill the immortal and destroy all his data backups.

After that, the man would ask Ruan Linrui to have coffee. Although he had no stomach or esophagus, he was willing to enjoy the comfortable atmosphere and listen to Ruan Linrui’s nonsense.

Step into the elevator, continue to rise, and reach the end.

On the rooftop of the Shenwei Building, the man saw the figure of the immortal. He was standing on the edge of the rooftop, like a king, overlooking his burning capital.

“I do like the viewing platform. Standing there, I can overlook the entire industrial park,” the immortal’s voice came with the evening breeze, “but I like it, but I don’t think it’s good enough.”

The immortal turned around, opened his arms towards the man, and jumped for joy.

“This is what I think is the best place, the highest point of Shenwei Building!”

The man nodded slightly and agreed, “Many stories end on the rooftop. I like this place too.”

“Do you think this will be our end?”

The man corrected, “It’s just yours.”

“Hahaha, you really are Zhou Si’s copy, right? You recover really quickly.”

The immortal walked towards the man with brisk steps, sighing, “I thought you would collapse for a while longer.”

“The fact has already happened. Thinking too much about it is just a waste of time and energy.”

The man also walked towards the immortal. He took every step carefully and his body was tense.

“Oh? So what do you think of this?”

The immortal pointed to his own eyes, then pointed to the man, “You know, I’ve been watching you.”

He continued, “I know you… To be more precise, I know Zhou Si’s wonderful ideas.”

“For example, Zhou Si hates being called ‘Zhou Si’ and prefers ‘Doctor Zhou’ instead. I guess there must be some other meaning behind this, right?”

The man confessed, “Of course, this does have some deep meaning, and it is quite consistent with our current situation.”

“how?”

“You are not Chen Wen Ge, but the immortal. I am not Zhou Si, but just a copy of his consciousness.”

The man saw through the immortal’s heart. Although it had only been a short time since they met for the first time, he understood him, just like Zhou Si understood Chen Wen Ge.

“In fact, you and I both understand that this change of title is meaningless. You can just admit that you are Chen Wen Ge, and I can also regard myself as Zhou Si.

At the level of consciousness, we are one and the same, there is no difference.”

The man thought for a moment and then tried to justify his words, “Of course, this consistency is only temporary. Due to the differences in their bodies and circumstances, the copy and the original will gradually diverge into two completely different people.”

“If you compare this to a game, it’s like choosing a different story line and becoming a completely different person.”

The immortal looked at the man expectantly and asked curiously, “And then?”

“Then?”

The man looked at the Immortal in disbelief and exclaimed, “Have you not realized it yet, Immortal?”

He laughed.

“You don’t admit that you are Chen Wen Ge, so you defend his uniqueness!”

The immortal stood there in a daze.

“When we realize that human beings do not possess that divine uniqueness, a terrible sense of despair naturally sweeps over us all.

Everything is empty, and we have to give it meaning.”

The man looked at the immortal as if he were a fool and kept laughing at him.

“So, we do not recognize ourselves as copies of ourselves, but rather as two completely separate and distinct individuals!”

The man smiled and nodded, looking extremely happy, as if he had realized the truth.

“So, we were born out of this pain.”

As he finished speaking, the man’s arms opened, and sharp narrow blades pierced out, flashing with thunder.

“You are not Chen Wen Ge, and I am not Zhou Si. We are just electronic ghosts who possess their memories.”

The sword blades crossed, emitting dazzling arcs.

“Human beings still possess that sacred uniqueness!”

The immortal looked at the angry man in bewilderment. He seemed to be burning, with flames spilling out of the cracks in the metal like a piece of charcoal smoldering in the wind.

He asked subconsciously, “Since you are not Zhou Si, then who are you?”

“Who am I?” The man laughed. “Don’t you already know the answer?”

The sweeping evening breeze made the man’s clothes rustle. He held up two beams of lightning, and the lightning flashed thousands of feet high.

“You can call me… Doctor Zhou!”

Doctor Zhou strode forward, like a mad warrior.

(End of this chapter)