Translator’s note:
A message from your lowly translator.
For anyone who’s read the ‘Zues’ and Radiant Legion instance before Feb 2024, I’m so sorry for the confusion, Turing’s ‘Apocalypse’ has been changed to ‘Enlightened’. I had used Apocalypse before because that word had been used as ‘Apocalypse’ for ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ but now, in this instance, Nuwa, the third AI is mentioned and her group is something like ‘overflowing/spreading light/heaven/sky’. So, to keep with the ‘light/heaven’ theme, Turing’s group is now ‘Enlightened’; Zues’ remains ‘Radiant’ and Nuwa, you’ll find later, is ‘Brilliant’.
Chapter 110
When Si Chen regained consciousness, he realized that he was a little hungry.
His surroundings were very strange but also very familiar. It was like returning to that staff dormitory in Jiangchuan that was less than 5 square meters.
Perhaps this was even worse; there was no balcony or windows in the room, making it so cramped that it was difficult to breathe.
Si Chen threw off the quilt and found that his clothes were missing. All he had on was a pair of pure white underwear.
There was a digital watch on his wrist, one that didn’t belong to him, with a barcode engraved on the strap.
Si Chen tried to touch it and found that the watch seemed to be welded to his arm and it could not be taken off at all.
The current time was 6:27.
Si Chen sat up from the single bed and…hit his head on the ceiling.
Unexpectedly, the ceiling was touch-sensitive.
On the white ceiling, a movie projection appeared.
When he saw the movie content, Si Chen couldn’t help his eyebrows from rising slightly.
He had seen this movie. It was “A Brief History of Machines 1” directed and screenwriting by Turing.
The last time he’d seen it was in the Radiant Legion’s base for human survivors.
He touched the ceiling above his head again and the video was paused.
Si Chen climbed down.
Here, too, the bed was a bunk bed; expect that the lower bunk has been replaced by a desk instead of a kitchen.
There was no wardrobe in the room. Clothes were hung on the wall.
The clothes were plain without any sort of decoration. It was the simplest solid-color short-sleeved sportswear.
Si Chen wasn’t used to having his body just exposed so he quickly changed into the provided clothes.
What surprised him was that on the pants, near the waist, was a hole just big enough for his tail to pass through.
The protective ring at the base of his tail was missing.
There were very few things on the desk; just a book and an electronic calendar.
Si Chen walked to the table. The book was called “The Safe Zone Survival Guide for Humans” and was published in Year 202 of the Enlightened.
He looked at the calendar again.
Year 314 of the Enlightened, June 7th.
He turned to the first page of the Guide.
On the first page was a schedule.
During summer, get up at 7 a.m. Wash and eat from 7 to 9 a.m. The time in between was allocated for studying. Eat at 12 noon and lunch break was until 2 pm. Exercise time was from 2pm to 4pm. Eat and wash up from 4 to 7 o’clock. Go to bed at 7:30.
The schedule during winter time was similar, save that bedtime was at 6:30.
Note: Please make sure to be back in the dormitory before dark.
Si Chen couldn’t help sighing. “This routine…”
So healthy. This was the dream of every postgraduate hopeful; if only you could pass the postgraduate entrance examination by studying a mere four hours every day.
On the second page, began the list of some very strange prohibitions
- It is prohibited to stay up late (Death toll: 7,104,274)
- No phone calls allowed (Death toll: 5,247,134)
- It is forbidden to open the door to anyone at night (Death toll: 902,41)
- No looking in the mirror (Death toll: 952,371)
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
…
…
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There are more than a thousand prohibitions.
Some of the bans were downright bizarre. For example, “No purchase of human shaped dolls and figures.”, “Abortion is prohibited.”, “No abuse of any living creature”…
Si Chen remembered what he’d heard from Zeus in the Space Fold before.
The general gist was: Turing is a super intelligent machine created to resist spiritual high-dimensional invasion.
But in the end, the Carolians were destroyed by the mechanical civilization.
7 o’clock. The watch started beeping. “Di-di-di”.
A mechanical voice sounded in Si Chen’s ear. “It’s time to wake up. Please ensure that you are in the carriage before 7:30.”
“You have one opportunity to apply for an time extension every day. The second time you are late, 1 citizenship point will be deducted.”
Si Chen raised his hand and pinched his earlobe. He came across a small hard object, something akin to an earbud or earpiece.
Si Chen wanted to take it out and take a look but a prompt instantly sounded in his ear. “Please do not try to remove the earpiece. 5 citizenship points will be deducted, and a Machine will reinstall it for you on the same day. Please give up this useless attempt.”
The shut door opened automatically.
This iron door was extremely thick, like the door to a bank’s underground vault.
Si Chen did not go out immediately but called in a low voice: “…Little Abyss?”
No response.
It wasn’t just his imagination. The Eternal Life Abyss was gone.
His body returned to the level of an ordinary human’s, as if it had never gone through Evolution.
This didn’t feel very good.
Fortunately, Si Chen reached for his eye and found that the prosthetic eye was still there. He turned on the power. His sight did not change.
He was wearing the same eye that Turing had used.
Si Chen remembered the scene he saw before falling to the ground. “A space of consciousness…?”
It seemed his body hadn’t followed him into this space.
But everything here seemed so real. Si Chen pinched himself and even felt pain.
He had just arrived in this Space Fold and was still confused. For the time being, he had no plans to deviate from the set schedule lest he have his citizenship points deducted.
Though Si Chen still didn’t know what citizenship points were.
Si Chen walked out of the room.
This was a long corridor. Every once in a while, an iron door would open.
This building was a boys’ dormitory. Everyone wore the same style of clothes and numbly walked out of their rooms.
They all appeared to be adults, ranging from 18 to 80 years old. Only a few people looked around as curiously as he did.
This was the first time Si Chen saw so many living people in a Space Fold; especially ones like these — ones with tails. Older people have longer tails, younger people have shorter tails.
There was a strip of light on the floor indicating the direction they should be heading.
Si Chen didn’t say much and walked out, following the flow of people. At regular intervals, there were iron doors but there were no stairs or elevators in sight.
Midway, they also passed a slightly bigger room.
Above was written a line: Office of the Supervisor.
At the end of the corridor, there was no wall, but the entrance to a train.
A passageway like a boarding bridge connected the corridor and the train.
Si Chen’s eyes swept over the people standing by the entrance. They were two smiling women who were handing out food to the humans entering the carriage.
The woman smiled and said, “Good morning. I hope you have a good day today.”
Si Chen looked that this woman and to his surprise, the woman’s data appeared very clearly in front of his eyes.
[Enlightened Machine (Light Industrial Type : Human Type 01)]
It looked no different from a real person.
When Si Chen took the breakfast bag that was handed to him, he could even feel the body temperature of the Machine’s hand.
Everyone lined up in an orderly manner, crossed the covered bridge and entered the carriage.
There appeared to be a recorder inside the carriage. Every time someone came in, there would be a soft “beep” sound.
There were no seats in the carriage.
Si Chen found a place to stand by a window. He looked out the window and surprise filled his eyes.
Outside the window, were many more carriages just like this.
The carriages were suspended in mid-air. The tracks weren’t below, but above the vehicles. On top of the carriages, metal wires connected them to the rails above.
They were more like giant cable cars than trains.
This was the dormitory area. The corridors on each floor have no walls, but there were glass passages at the end of the corridors, allowing residents on each floor to enter the carriages smoothly.
Looking around, identical buildings stood row after row, towering into the clouds, like long and narrow mountains.
Si Chen couldn’t help but ask, “Where are we going?”
The person next to him gave him a strange look. “Of course we’re going to school.”
At half past seven, the carriage closed right on time. The boarding channels folded back into the corridor, serving as a wall.
The train started up and moved forward with its carriage full of passengers.
Despite the high speed, passengers inside didn’t feel any jolts. Everyone opened their food bags and started eating breakfast.
Si Chen also opened the bag in his hand.
It contained two eggs, a bowl of mashed potato-flavored nutrition paste and a can of sweetened soy milk.
There were pockets of discussions in the car.
“Why is it nutrition paste again? I want to eat meat.”
“I heard that there are problems in the ranch. Those thing can’t eat people, so in order to maintain energy, they have to start eating animals… Animals bitten by ghosts have to undergo dis-harming procedures. They can’t be served to people. ”
“Come on, have you ever seen a ghost in your life?”
“Speaking of, today is… are you ready?”
Si Chen pricked up his ears, collecting information while eating and reasoning silently.
Food was free and distributed by robots.
Human life also seemed to be regulated and controlled. The purpose being to prevent fragile humans from dying at the hands of high-dimensional creatures.
It was like they were being pen-raised.
With the absence of the Eternal Life Abyss, Si Chen’s sense of taste briefly returned to normal.
He was used to living a hard life so he didn’t find the breakfast unpalatable. It tasted much better than the nutritional cream he used to eat.
The most common starch-based primary nutritional paste in the mall goes for 15 credits. It is a relief food distributed by the Alliance. Because of its unpalatable taste, it has been jokingly called “pig feed.”
Based on the shapes of the tracks, Si Chen guessed that there should be more than one “school”.
If there were only one school, all the trains would be going the same way. But there were many staggered circular tracks to allow vehicles to be diverted.
At eight o’clock, the train Si Chen took arrived at the school.
Si Chen looked out the window. The school was built on a level plain and had only two floors. The wall on the upper floor was made of glass, so there were no window sills, effectively preventing humans from jumping off the building.
Through the glass, he could see the gymnasium on the second floor of the school.
A black LED screen hung on the wall of the building, with a line of words scrolling across it: Enlightened Senior High School Campus 127.
A complicated feeling overtook Si Chen.
Unexpectedly, after working so hard to pass the postgraduate entrance exam, entering an instance, he was now made to repeat high school.
This was really unreasonable.
The crowd was released like a flood.
Si Chen was still thinking about which classroom to enter, but after observing for a long time, he couldn’t find any pattern.
Everyone seemed to be entering rooms at random.
The teacher was already waiting in the classroom.
Si Chen found an empty seat in the corner and sat down. He raised his head and glanced at the teacher on the podium.
This teacher was a middle-aged man with a square-shaped face and a very upright and serious appearance. He was the perfect representation of what one would imagine a teacher to look.
But in front of Si Chen’s eyes, a line of words popped up once again: [Enlightened Machine (Light Industrial Type — Human Type 04)]
There were tablets on every desk.
Si Chen pressed the start button and the lesson to be taught today appeared on the tablet screen.
Lesson 37 of “Mechanical Maintenance Principles”.
Editor-in-Chief: Turing.
…
Si Chen was silent for a moment and flipped through to the end of the textbook. The content was similar to what he had learned.
Only a few students behaved like he did.
Si Chen noticed that many people around him were restless and looked at their watches frequently, as if waiting for something.
At nine o’clock, the school bell rang.
The teacher on the podium seemed to be activated and his expression became lively. “Good morning, students, today we are studying -”
It didn’t get to finish its words.
Because in the classroom, the students sitting in the front row suddenly stood up.
The young man sitting at the front shook out the contents of his pocket. It was a small makeshift banner made by pasting pages torn out by hand: “Freedom!”
The young man stood on the desk. The students around him surrounded him to prevent the robot teacher from shooting him.
An emergency plan to handle such a situation obviously hadn’t been included in the robot teacher’s program. It stayed in place, not knowing how to deal with the matter.
The young man raised high the ‘Freedom!’ banner in his hand: “Classmates, I am a member of the ‘Freedom Association’. We are human beings, the makers of the Machines! But the Machines have held us in captivity for a whole century! This During this hundred years, in the name of protecting humans, Machines have not allowed us to leave the Safe Zone. They have restricted human actions everywhere and hindered the development of civilization!”
“I am 27 years old. I have been living this meaningless life ever since I can remember. And if we don’t do anything, this will be the rest of our lives!”
“Compared to the humans who first arrived in the Safe Zone a hundred years ago, we have lost too much! It’s time to end this ridiculous mistake!”
“There are many ways to live. We shouldn’t live just for the sake of living!”
The young man’s speech was sonorous and powerful and seemed particularly passionate.
He turned around and shouted, “Teacher! We want to see Turing!”
There much be more than one such speech being made.
Si Chen was sitting at the back and could hear someone in the next class saying the same lines.
Following his roar, his words were echoed in the classroom.
Even more shocking, was that after the speech, the young man took out a sharpened chopsticks and stabbed it into his own throat!
“‘Give me freedom or give me death’!”
Blood spurted out instantly.
These sounds merged into a torrent that shot straight into the sky. The shock made Si Chen’s eardrums sting.
“We want to see Turing!”
“We want to see Turing!”
“We want to see Turing!”
Thank you for the update! And for clearing up about the translation 😊
Si Chen can’t catch a break 😓
Thanks for the update! This is an interesting start 🤔😊
Thanks for the update ❤️❤️❤️
Well that escalated quickly!
Thank you for your translation 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
Welp, I guess they won’t be allowed to use chopsticks anymore