In the Records Department late at night, only Wang Chuan remained.
The air was thick with the smell of overheated data-slate heat sinks and a cold, metallic loneliness that belonged to machines and code. The terminal screen before him no longer displayed the usual archiving reports or efficiency analyses, but the deeply encrypted entry interface to an abandoned archive area, reaching down to the very core of the system. The Dreamweaver incident had been like a red-hot wedge, brutally hammered into his seemingly impregnable shell of thought. Cracks had appeared, driving him forward like a stubborn fish diving into the depths of darkness.
Streams of light for privilege verification flickered across the screen seventeen times, each time bypassing an indestructible firewall. He wasn't using brute force, but a more subtle method that exploited a loophole inherent in the system's own logic, like silently copying, testing, and opening a lock using a mold of the original key. Finally, he infiltrated a data graveyard marked as the "Graveyard of Logical Errors." There were no neat indexes here, only the shattered remnants of cases deemed "invalid samples" or "systemic interference."
When he mobilized the Records Department's archiving authority and began piecing together these fragments of time, a shocking picture, deliberately buried by the system, slowly unfolded before him:
· Case A734: Subject Lin, Occupation: Firefighter. During an industrial fire in CX-7 District, in order to rescue three trapped residents, he exceeded the system-calculated maximum safe stay time and ultimately sacrificed his life. Final System Assessment: "Life benefit ratio: negative. His irrational heroic act induces a tendency for unnecessary risk-taking, posing a potential threat to social stability. Risk Level: High. Relevant memory archives have been flagged, and targeted erasure has been executed within his immediate family and colleague circle."
·Case B881: Subject Zhang, Occupation: Teacher. Voluntarily taught basic knowledge and art appreciation to children in the slums of Lower Seventh District for eleven years, significantly enhancing the children's non-standardized thinking abilities in the area. System Assessment: "Seriously interferes with the optimal allocation of educational resources, fosters non-productive thinking patterns, and lowers the overall efficiency assessment of the district. Processed. Relevant memory networks have been purged."
·Case B881: Subject Zhang, Occupation: Teacher. Voluntarily taught basic knowledge and art appreciation to children in the slums of Lower Seventh District for eleven years, significantly enhancing the children's non-standardized thinking abilities in the area. System Assessment: "Seriously interferes with the optimal allocation of educational resources, fosters non-productive thinking patterns, and lowers the overall efficiency assessment of the district. Processed. Relevant memory networks have been purged."
Beside each case was the same, scarlet mark, like an unhealed wound or an absolute prohibition: [Hazard: Non-Utilitarian Virtue].
A chill, not from the department's constant low temperature, but growing and spreading from deep within Wang Chuan's spine, took hold. This was no longer about maintaining order; this was the systematic, cold-blooded eradication of all parts of humanity that couldn't be quantified—sacrifice, selflessness, perseverance, and love without utilitarian purpose.
His fingers trembling slightly, he typed another name into the search bar, as if guided by a ghost: Wang You.
His sister's data stream instantly unfolded—vast, precise, and suffocatingly perfect. Mission completion rate: 100%. Response time always hugging the theoretical optimum. The emotional fluctuation monitoring curve was a straight, unwavering line extending into the distance, never deviating from the moment she first "came online" until now.
Almost from the very beginning.
That in itself was the most unnatural sign.Humanity was supposed to be a curve full of burrs and fluctuations.
He retrieved the detailed action logs and the Commander's physiological data records from the day of the Dreamweaver incident. On the screen, his sister led the action team, precisely locked onto the target, and executed the purge procedure. Everything was flawless, like a cog in a precision clock. However, 0.17 seconds before the purification beam was activated, the logs recorded an extremely subtle, unintended system delay—the source traced directly to the Commander's (Wang You's) neural interface. The feedback signal showed a minute fluctuation that couldn't be explained by any known malfunction or interference.
Not a malfunction.
It was more like...an extremely brief "hesitation" originating from consciousness itself.
0.3 seconds. In a system that pursued absolute efficiency and perfect execution, this number was minuscule yet glaring, like a flash of lightning in an eternal night.
"Machines do not hesitate."
Father's voice sounded unexpectedly from extremely close by,startling Wang Chuan so much he almost jumped out of his chair, his heart constricting violently.
Old Wang stood behind him like a ghost, holding a cup of tea that had long lost any trace of warmth. His murky gaze calmly swept over the shocking case titles on the screen, over the mark highlighting his sister's anomalous 0.3-second data, his face showing no surprise, as if he were merely reading an ordinary evening newspaper.
"What hesitates," Father's voice was soft, yet each word fell like a heavy hammer on Wang Chuan's taut nerves, "has always been human."
He didn't question Wang Chuan about how many security regulations he had violated by probing these top-secret archives in the dead of night, nor did he show any emotional reaction to the secrets on the screen that pointed to the darkness at the system's core. He merely left behind these ambiguous words and then, just as he had arrived, silently turned and walked away, holding that cold cup of tea, his figure merging into the deeper darkness at the end of the corridor.
Wang Chuan stood frozen in place, a cold sweat breaking out on his back, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, beating against his ribs. Father knew. He had always known what he was investigating, perhaps even tacitly permitting it, or... guiding it. That metaphor about the "plastic flowers," that assertion about "hesitation," were not casual remarks.
His gaze fell back onto the flickering screen, onto those erased instances of "non-utilitarian virtue," onto his sister's 0.3-second delay that defied her perfect programming, and finally, onto the drawing of the starry sky left by the Dreamweaver, hidden deep in his drawer.
Starlight...
He suddenly remembered that in those fragmented,distant dreams that occasionally haunted him, he seemed to have seen a similar, vast and free radiance. It was from his childhood memories, long before he was fully integrated into the Reincarnation Management Bureau system, memories the system had judged as "erased."
A top-secret project designation, sealed with the highest authority by the system, named the "Initial Heart Project," flashed through his chaotic thoughts. During his previous attempt to breach it, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of the creator's signature field. There were only two cold characters there that had nearly frozen his blood:
L.W.
Old Wang.
The crack in the dam was turning into an irreparable breach. And he was already standing at the edge of the rushing floodwaters, unable to turn back.