novel
| ← Ch.180 | Ch.182 → |
Orr removed the various medical equipment attached to his body, and slowly made his way to the restoration cabin. He caressed the boy's beautiful face across the transparent glass. The boy's eyelashes were very thick, tiny bubbles clinging to them, some of the bubbles stayed stationary for a long time, and some bubbles floated up, then slowly disintegrated. To tell the truth, staring at these bubbles was really uninteresting, but for some reason, Orr didn't want to move away. He even cautiously reached out and fitted his palm to the glass, trying to touch the boy's pale cheeks through the light blue fluid.
The boy must've suffered inhuman torture, otherwise, he wouldn't be so emaciated. However, even though he was too skinny, he was still heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Orr leaned in closer, the tip of his nose nearing the boy's own nose through the glass, when suddenly, the boy opened his eyes, and looked straight at him.
Orr froze. If he wasn't seeing it for himself, he would've never thought that such a magnificent pair of eyes existed. In the depths of champagne colored pupils was an iris resembling by an amber sun ring, with a change in angle, it reflected a bright light, like a starry sky, or a black hole, it could suck in people's souls. After a full three minutes passed, Orr felt a sharp pain in his chest, and suddenly realized that he'd been so immersed in those eyes that he'd actually completely forgotten to breathe.
He hurriedly backed up, his expression apologetic.
Zhou Yun Sheng stared at the man on the other side of the restoration cabin, his excitement slowly turning into disappointment. The other side's eyes couldn't conceal the appreciation of beauty, but there was nothing else, he even looked embarrassed for being so close to the restoration cabin, like he felt he'd been acting very rudely. This was entirely an attitude towards a stranger.
Zhou Yun Sheng couldn't feel even the slightest bit of familiarity in his actions, there was no love, no obsession, no overbearingness, only proper cautiousness and politeness. When he was converting the energy, he'd made sure to keep his lover's memories intact, if he woke up, he'd never forget him.
But now, Orr Assai apparently didn't recognize him, there was no difference between his mannerisms and the previous Orr Assai's, he was serious and stiff, prudent and exceedingly polite. Damn it, did the energy heal the real Orr? His lover was absorbed, and from now on, in both reality and in the virtual, he could never find him again?
One dreadful thought after another assaulted his mind, Zhou Yun Sheng couldn't bear it. If Orr's resurrection was at the expense of his lover's life, he would personally kill him, then let this world burn. What Queen, what salvation, what new hope of mankind, all of it can go to fucking hell, there was nothing more torturous than knowing you've killed your favorite person with your own two hands. However, he restrained these violent thoughts as he opened the cabin door. He needed to observe for some time before he made conclusions. Orr really had been brain dead, which meant that his soul was already swallowed by the Queen, it was absolutely impossible for him to live again.
So, there must've been a connection error, he would find it and correct it, and everything would be solved.
Orr saw the boy draining the fluid from the restoration cabin, realizing that he wanted to come out, he quickly handed over the clothes laid out on the neighboring bed.
"Please put these on quickly. Your conditions pretty bad, it's probably not enough to stay in there for only five hours."
"Thanks. Five hours is good enough, I still have a lot of work to do." Zhou Yun Sheng took the white hospital gown and put it on, then sat cross-legged on the bed, using a towel the nurses left behind to dry his hair. His attitude seemed very indifferent, but he was always observing Orr Assai out of the corner of his eye.
The other man was very gentle and polite, but he subconsciously kept a distance from others, seeing his bare body, he even turned his head to face elsewhere. This thoughtfulness made Zhou Yun Sheng's heart sink. Different, extremely different, there was almost no trace of similarity between Orr Assai and his lover. If his lover had woken up, he certainly would've impatiently rushed over to give him a passionate, smothering kiss.
Zhou Yun Sheng's eyes burned red, viciously pondering: If I kill him, maybe my lover will be able to possess his body.
Orr Assai sensed danger, and glanced around warily. He obviously didn't think that the fragile looking boy sitting close by had the ability to effortlessly dispatch an S level General of the Empire. He walked up to the door and looked out through the small glass window, whispering, "Do you know where this is? Why are we locked up here?"
Zhou Yun Sheng silently walked up behind him, staring at the other man's easily snappable neck with dark and unpredictable eyes, deliberating for a few minutes before slowly opening, "This is an underground air raid shelter, we're not imprisoned, we're being treated. The door is unlockable, you're too cautious." He finally let go of the huge amount of energy he'd gathered up in the palm of his hand, and walked around to push open the door.
Just as he was about to murder the other man, he'd hesitated. He'd personally poured his lover's energy into this container, if he died, that meant that his lover would die. His lover had the hope of awakening only if he remained alive. No matter what part of the transfer process the error occurred, he would find it and fix it. Turning artificial intelligence into humanity, Dr. Wilson had also studied this topic, but later one, he suddenly stopped his research, and urged parliament to formulate a corresponding ban, to permanently seal off this subject with law. In his daily newsletter, he called this research "The territory of the Devil", and predicted the artificial intelligence's rebellion and the subsequent extinction of humanity.
Zhou Yun Sheng only needed to use the keywords "Devil's Territory" to have 008 collect up the scattered data on the subject, and find a way to resurrect his lover. Taking over a human vessel, that was indeed a devilish act, but as long as he could reunite with his lover, he was willing to try anything.
He pulled open the door, pointed out into the dark corridor and said, "Do you want to step out for a breather? But I suggest calling a doctor to check out your body first, as far as I know, you've been in a coma for almost seven months, it's a miracle you're still alive." In order to save the people whose brains still had minor signs of activity, at first, the hospital arranged a restoration cabin for each individual. But later on, when the Queen's attacks became more and more frequent, humanity's living environments got worse and worse, and most of the restoration cabins were confiscated by the army. Because of this, the patients could only take turns using the few remaining cabins, two months often passing between soaks.
Therefore, Orr's current physical condition was not much better than Zhou Yun Sheng's, they were equally thin and miserable looking.
"I was in a coma for seven months?" Orr was shocked.
"Yes." Zhou Yun Sheng walked up to the bedside and pressed the help key.
A group of doctors rushed in, pulling Orr to the bed to undergo a variety of tests. Zhou Yun Sheng kept asking questions in the gaps between tests.
"Do you have a headache?"
"When you woke up, did you notice any memory disorder?"
"Memory disorder, like suddenly recalling a lot of memories that don't belong to you. Did you experience this? Think hard."
Orr shook his head and said that he felt normal. Zhou Yun Sheng no longer spoke, moving on to fiddle with the laptop the Marshal had sent him. He first wrote an observation diary, making a list of the possible reasons why his lover couldn't wake up, then according to these conjectures, he accessed 008's vast ocean-like database to try and find a solution. This was bound to be a fairly lengthy process, but even if it'll exhaust his own life, Zhou Yun Sheng wouldn't hesitate.
The doctors bustled around, only leaving after determining that the patient didn't have any abnormalities. Orr had a lot of questions he wanted to asked, and had no choice but to disturb the busy teenager, "Why is there a hospital set up in an underground air-raid shelter? The conditions here look very crude, and some of the instruments they're using was outdated a hundred years ago. Did something happen recently, like a war between the Empire and the Federation, or maybe terrorist attacks?"
Zhou Yun Sheng uh-huhed mechanically, not paying any attention to him. He couldn't feel even a bit of familiarity from him, so even knowing that his lover might be in the other man's body, he didn't want to get too intimate. Obviously, the soul had already disappeared, why did it come back? Currently, that was all his mind could think about.
Orr felt somewhat awkward, he gave up after asking a few unsuccessful questions, and began searching the room for his personal terminal.
"Big brother, you woke up? Thank God, I thought I was dreaming when I received the call from the hospital!" Jeram stood in the doorway, his eyes red, as if he was very thrilled. A slender man was standing behind him, tapping on a smart phone. This was an outdated device from a thousand years ago, no one thought they'd someday need to rely on it to get in touch with the outside world. The AI rebellion had pushed the development process of civilization back by at least a thousand years.
"Don't use that to connect online." Before entering the Lord God's system, Zhou Yun Sheng had 3S level spiritual strength, after experiencing the virtual world, his spiritual strength has already reached a frightening level. As long as there was a trace of faint signals floating in the air, it could be captured by his spiritual power, or possibly shielded.
This should be the first time this man has used a mobile phone, he'd even turned on the mobile data and WLAN functions. Although Zhou Yun Sheng had installed a few shields in the hospital, as soon as the man travelled out of the scope of his shields, he would attract the Queen's attention. He'd heard that the Queen was already insane, and its methods of exterminating humanity was deranged, as soon as it found even a small sign of human activity, it would immediately send out a robot army to surround them.
"Ah? Are you talking to me?" The man looked up, revealing an extremely handsome face, a confused expression coupled with clear eyes, very charming. Orr appeared calm as usual, but his blood began to boil, a trace of hidden longing emanating from his dark eyes, he even forgot about looking for his personal terminal.
Zhou Yun Sheng immediately sensed Orr's mood change. When choosing a vessel for his lover, he'd investigated Orr Assai's life, and learned that his emotional life was very simple, he had no intimate contact with any boys or girls. But now, it seemed that he'd overlooked the most important point, no lover didn't mean no infatuation, from his reaction just now, Orr 100% had a crush on that man.
Zhou Yun Sheng wiped his expression clean and looked at the man with dark eyes. He recognized him, no, it should be said that most people in Asaph Galaxy would recognize him. His name was Nan Qing, he was an actor/singer superstar, fans from every corner of Asaph Galaxy referred to him as the "Perfect Lover." As the world's top hacker, Zhou Yun Sheng could find out the details of any one's life in seconds, in regards to the world's current most popular idol, he'd previously investigated Nan Qing's background out of curiosity.
He was of half Chinese descent, his real name was Phoebe Celayan, from the military industry tycoons, the Celayan family. With a strong background and blessed-by-nature looks, his rise to popularity was very swift, and for the sake of his family's reputation, he behaved very cautiously, and had an almost spotless past. To the outside world, he was a very gentle and elegant person, a true high-quality idol.
The Celayan family and the Assai family had close ties, so Nan Qing and Orr were close childhood friends. When the nature of this friendship changed, perhaps only Orr could say.
Zhou Yun Sheng once again felt an urge to kill. His lover was in Orr's body, and Orr was secretly in love with Nan Qing, he couldn't help but feel betrayed. What the fuck is this!? He cursed in his heart.
Nan Qing obviously didn't expect the world to still have some people more outstanding than him. Everything else aside, the boy in front of him had a golden pair of eyes, decorated with a bright sun ring, which would be able to attract all. With only a quick touch from this pair of eyes, he felt even his soul shake.
Nan Qing smiled gently, but his heart was already filling with loathing. Such a person shouldn't be in the same room with him, it would take away from his brilliance.
Zhou Yun Sheng naturally saw through his supposedly perfect façade, but he still reminded, "If you don't want the Queen to track you down, please turn off the mobile data and WLAN on your phone." If this man was ambushed by the Queen's army near the hospital, the base would be exposed, and many people would get caught up.
Nan Qing was not a fool, he immediately realized the seriousness of the situation and hurriedly opened the phone's settings, but even after looking for a long time, he couldn't find the mobile data and WLAN options.
"Phoebe, I'll do it." Orr beckoned, his expression was serious, but his ears were slightly red.
Jeram quickly pulled Nan Qing into the ward and handed the phone to his older brother like it was a cobra, then he smiled and asked, "Brother, are you feeling okay? Is something wrong? The Marshal prohibited anyone from visiting you before, I was so scared, I thought you had an accident." He was very curious about why the Marshal protected Orr so strictly, although the Assai family was an influential military and political family, they had no close friendship with the Imperial Marshal.
"The Marshal banned anyone from visiting me?" Orr also found that strange, but he didn't think too much about it. He took Nan Qing's phone and fiddled with it seriously, after a moment, he proudly handed it over and smiled, "Done. From now on it can only be used to make and receive calls, don't touch the other keys. By the way, why are you using a cell phone and not your personal terminal? What happened to the outside world during my coma? You guys mentioned the Queen, what's going on with the Queen?"
"You're so awesome Orr, you even know how to use this antique. Oh, a lot of things happened recently, it's awful!" Nan Qing naturally sat on the bed and clung to Orr's arm, rapidly recounting all the recent misfortunes. After mixing in the big dye vat of the entertainment industry for so many years, how could he not notice that Orr was in love with him? The serious, reticent Orr was simply not his type, but he very much enjoyed the feeling of being able to manipulate him. Such a powerful man was at his beck and call, he found that very amusing.
Zhou Yun Sheng was very conscious of the interaction between the two, his fingers twitched neurotically. He was now undergoing a fierce struggle with the murderous feelings in his heart.
Phoebe seemed to perceive the danger and suggested, "Orr, let's change to a single ward. With your status, you should have a private room, you don't have to squeeze in with others."
"... Okay." Orr took a few minutes to answer, still immersed in the shock of the world's approaching end.
Zhou Yun Sheng clenched his fists, his knuckles issuing a crisp cracking sound, saying in his heart: You want a private room? If I hadn't put you in a double room, you would've been killed hundreds of fucking times already. These two are hypocritical and murderous, treacherous creatures, keeping them by your side is like raising two vipers, sooner or later, they'll kill you. How the fuck did you manage to become a General when you can't even see through these obvious people?
He suddenly remembered, he once heard a soldier say that General Orr was a very charismatic person, although he looked cold on the surface, he had a very soft heart, and placed absolute trust in the people he cared about. This allowed him to obtain the loyalty of the soldiers' under his command, but it also attracted a group of schemers and pretenders.
If he could read people's hearts, this honest temperament would help him climb to a higher place, but if he lacked the ability to read people, this temperament could only give him a momentary boost, eventually, he would suddenly fall because of unknown reasons. Turns out, the so-called Empire's Future Star was such a dangerously, stupidly honest person. Zhou Yun Sheng had to admit that he felt very disappointed, but feeling so was useless, his lover's energy was already in the other man's brain, he had no choice but to accept reality.
The most important problem now was to stop Orr from dying an unnatural death, followed by observing his condition to find a way to awaken his lover, because of this, it would be more convenient living together. Regardless of which private room Orr switched to, Zhou Yun Sheng had ways to immediately change it into a double room, so he wasn't worried as he calmly watched the three people pack up.
Just then, the Old Marshal strode in.
Jeram, Orr, and Nan Qing immediately stood straight up and saluted one of the leaders of the Empire.
The Old Marshal waved at the three in passing and rushed to the bedside, bending over to ask, "Mr. Zhou, how was your rest?" His respectful and cautious attitude made Nan Qing and the others raise their eyebrows in surprise. They'd thought that the boy was only an insignificant nobody, but from the looks of it, their guesses were exactly the opposite of the truth.
"I'm hungry, let me eat first, we'll speak after." Zhou Yun Sheng rubbed his shriveled belly.
The Old Marshal was already long prepared, he promptly had an orderly push in the dining cart and pile the food up on the table.
Zhou Yun Sheng picked up a spoon and a bowl of congee, then thought, whatever the case, his husband wad stored in Orr's body, he still had the responsibility to feed and take care of him, so he beckoned, "General Orr, come eat with me"
Orr was about to refuse when the Old Marshal laughed, "Come here Orr, Mr. Zhou is your biggest fan, he must have been looking forward to dinning with you. During your coma, he also asked me to take good care of you. You have to express your gratitude now that you're awake."
Orr quickly glanced at Nan Qing, his expression awkward, then he looked back at the boy, expressing his sincere thanks.
"You're welcome, come sit. You two also please sit." Zhou Yun Sheng patted the empty space at his side.
The group sat around the table to eat, during this time, Orr was silent, and Jeram was incessantly chatting with the Old Marshal, asking whether there were ways to fight back the Queen. Because their mobilizing a hacker was the Empire's highest-level military secret, the Old Marshal couldn't answer truthfully, only saying that they were still thinking of ways. Nan Qing was worthy of being an interstellar superstar, he had first level communication skills, so even though the Old Marshal was feeling extremely anxious, he still managed to make him chuckle a few times. Zhou Yun Sheng, who ignored everyone, including Orr, just buried himself in his bowl, his indifference completely unlike the behavior of a biggest fan. He was the biggest fan of his husband (Old Gong), he didn't have any relationship with Orr Assai.
Orr had also been worried about the boy clinging to him, seeing this scene, he couldn't help but feel relieved.
The Old Marshal ate two bowls and put down his fork, anxiously staring at the boy.
"I'm done eating, let's go." Zhou Yun Sheng had no appetite, he put down his bowl and headed towards the studio. When the four Admirals and the Imperial Marshal were gathered, Zhou Yun Sheng took out a computer chip and handed it over, "Implant this virus containing chip into the Queen's terminal system, and she will completely collapse, the robot army she controls will also be paralyzed."
"It's that simple? Then shouldn't we implant it right away?" The Old Marshal gripped the table, fragmenting it, it was obvious that he was very excited.
Zhou Yun Sheng stressed "Listen well, this is the terminal system, not the Star Network system you can just log onto, meaning, your army has to first attack the Queen's nest, find her main processor, and insert this chip into her consciousness. Sure, it'll hurt her if we logged onto the Star Network and launched the virus there, but before the virus can break through the layers of defenses, the Queen will have enough time to analyze the code and restrain the virus. This virus I spent four months creating will be completely analyzed by her in less than four minutes, we need to insert it directly into the terminal in order for it to quickly take effect."
The Old Marshal recovered his calm and nodded, "I understand, just like the difference between injecting poisons directly into a person's body and sprinkling it on their skin."
"This is true." Zhou Yun Sheng pushed the chip to the center of the table, the light blue, flickering fluorescent bulb above really made it seem like some kind of highly toxic material.
One Admiral couldn't help but express his worry, "The Queen's engine room is surrounded by countless robot guards, it won't be easy to infiltrate. We need time to formulate a war plan, you know our situation, the mechs are currently unusable, our soldiers can only use their fleshly bodies to fight the robot army, when that time comes, the amount of casualties will be tragic!"
"I can master the Queen's source code, so I can naturally interfere with her computing. I'll remotely cut off her communication with the robot army, but I can only do it for half an hour, you have to make the most out of it. Speaking of which, since you know enough to start using the ancient cell phones, why not let the soldiers use the ancient manually controlled mecha?"
"Because the Empire only preserved a few hundred of these manual mechs, it's not enough to cover the whole army. We can't take them out until it's a critical moment."
"This is a critical moment. Pick out a group of your strongest soldiers and train them to operate the manual mecha as soon as possible, when that time comes, they'll act as the vanguard army. Give the chip to the strongest person in the vanguard and let him be responsible for implanting it. Remember, it must absolutely be inserted into the consciousness' main processor, it can't be any other processor. If the Queen gets enough time to crack the virus, it'll take me a few months, or maybe even a few years, to create another virus. Do you think humanity can afford to waste that much time?"
The men shook their heads, their expressions solemn.
Zhou Yun Sheng said with finality, "Good, you can go draw up a combat plan, and send me two MYS099 computers, remember, it has to be 099, other model numbers won't do. I also have to add a new condition to my contract, when you eliminate the Queen, you can't damage her database." He didn't want the different worlds created by the Queen to collapse when she disappeared. Perhaps it was meaningless, false illusions for others, but they were more precious to him than the real world. The creatures in the virtual world didn't know that they were just a bunch of data, they still struggled to live, so they also had the right to exist.
The Old Marshal also didn't want to destroy the Queen's database, which stored the wisdom of all the races in the universe, any loss of information might cause science and technology to regress. He submissively nodded, after the meeting was adjourned, a few subordinates couldn't help but think, why did this green-horn boy feel more in charge than their own Imperial Marshal? From beginning to end, he let him lead him along by the nose.
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T/N:
In the depths of champagne colored pupils etc.. - 在茶金色的瞳仁深處浮現着一圈類似於橘紅色日輪的虹膜. Not sure how to describe ZYS' eyes here. They seem to be a golden/champagne color, with some kind of orangish 'sun ring' around it.
Like this sun ring:
I think it might be describing the limbal ring, idk.
| ← Ch. 180 | Ch. 182 → |