/
Xü Beijin thought about this for a long time, and concludes, “I did not make the choice for any of them, but… I do believe that, there is nothing more valuable than freedom.”
They’re trapped here, without trial, without crime, becoming mere slaves and chattel to an unfamiliar, ruthless species in the universe.
They desperately needed to escape from the grasp of the Fy’ecas, they desperately need freedom.
So do XĂź Beijin.
He can’t help but smile when he says, “NE has always kept me trapped on the bottom floor of the Tower, now it’s its turn to be trapped on the top floor. Fate loops, it seems.
“Congratulations, you had your revenge,” says Lin Qin.
XĂź Beijin then turns to him.
Lin Qin thinks for a moment, and realises something, asking, “you wanted to see if… I?”
“Do you want to avenge yourself?”
“Against the Fy’ecas?” Lin Qin thinks, then says, “I don’t know either. I cannot remember anything, but weakness is itself an original sin. Besides… the Maertons are likely doing it on my behalf right now.”
Xü Beijin chuckles, commenting, “so you’re letting someone else do the dirty work?”
“I don’t want revenge to take over myself,” Lin Qin lowers his head, to rub on Xü Beijin’s hair, “if I could, I would rather stay with you and not think about those things.”
XĂź Beijin is quiet.
Lin Qin then changes the topic, “so… have you read my memories?”
“What?” Xü Beijin, surprised, tells him, “no, of course I haven’t.”
“Why not?”
Xü Beijin firmly replies, “I will not look at them. They are your memories, so it is up to what you think.”
“What I think is that I don’t want those memories,” Lin Qin mumbles, “I should be making new memories with you instead of wallowing in the past ones.”
Xü Beijin can feel his heart soften listening to him, and whispers to him, “then so it shall be. I’m keen on… I mean… I’ll be very happy to make new memories with you.”
——To fill your blank canvas up once more;
To fill your life with joy.
Lin Qin, happy, kisses XĂź Beijin.
Then they start talking about the business at hand.
“Will they be leaving the game after a while, then?”
Xü Beijin replies, “I believe so… Maybe they actually can, now, since NE is already downed. But we also don’t know what the outside world is like, so it’s better to be more careful.”
“NE is downed…” Lin Qin seems concerned, asking, “so will it recover?”
“It depends on how far the Maertons can achieve. Perhaps they would be able to make a breakthrough in the Fy’ecan network using the element of surprise.
This is a war waged in a virtual world, so the progression will be rapid, and also highly lethal… At least, I’m picturing it as such.
So whether NE… can go back to normal, will depend on if and when the Fy’ecas are free to send someone to debug it. It is currently stuck in logic loops and bad data.”
XĂź Beijin is reminded of the scene he left behind in that dark space once more.
Code that is jumbled and flying around, not congregating around Liang Zhiyi’s brain like before – in fact, he believes Liang Zhiyi might also be able to manage the Tower right now.
Though that said, he is still only an NPC in the game.
The plot says he is a human, so he has dreams, but ultimately, this being a game, it means Liang Zhiyi is also only a simulated, programmed lifeform – not dissimilar to NE.
Xü Beijin didn’t try to converse to him; well, he did, but the brain didn’t react at all other than occasionally twitching a little.
Liang Zhiyi is also different from NE, because he isn’t a game Server, and whatever programming is dictating his behaviour, doesn’t have the capabilities necessary for one either.
NE’s control panel is still in Xü Beijin’s hands, and he can use it too.
So Liang Zhiyi’s brain has only taken on NE’s ‘identity,’ as it were.
XĂź Beijin cannot take over or even reasonably support that massive database and information that NE has, after all.
It’s Liang Zhiyi’s brain who’s currently managing that instead——thank goodness the brain is only itself a programme and not a living person.
It’s a godsend that relieves Xü Beijin of guilt.
Then they continue chatting to pass the time.
During this time, Mu Jiashi and the others have managed to wade their way through the crowds to find them.
Xü Beijin also talked with them, but still haven’t told them the actual truth, as it were, involving the Fy’ecas and such.
He just told them, that he has made NE ‘crash’ as a programme, and others outside are trying to save them using the opportunity.
It’s still enough of a shock for Mu Jiashi and the others, of course.
NE crashed? How? Where did the people saving them come from? How did XĂź Beijin even coordinate with people outside?
Mu Jiashi, after quickly brainstorming, asks about the elephant in the room nervously, “so how long do we have to wait?”
“I do not know either,” replies Xü Beijin honestly, “it might be soon, or it might take some time.”
The Missiontakers appear quite disappointed. Understandably so, as they likely expected a quick escape from the Tower after the Ultimate Nightmare is over. They weren’t expecting to continue waiting afterwards.
Xü Beijin thinks about it, and then reassures them, “don’t worry. I think… it’ll be more likely to be soon.”
It’s a war across a network, with blood and gore hidden beneath waves of data, no less brutal than the real thing.
Mu Jiashi is going to say something when Xü Beijin suddenly widens his eyes and blurts out, “wait…”
He looks closely at the private messages he has on his stream.
He has kept the stream going just off the corner of his eye to receive the message from the Maertons as soon as possible.
“Great news! We win! Today Fy’eca become history! Trash! Haha!”
The exclamation marks probably reflect the degree of excitement of the Maerton delegate.
The Fy’ecas have become consigned to history as trash, perhaps?
It’s almost like he’s dreaming. He didn’t even so much as notice any data the Maertons have sent through the data ports to attack the Fy’ecan network…
Wait, so the Fy’ecans are entirely defeated?
It’s almost making him feel empty inside. Although it sounds like childish silliness, but he was picturing quite the vibrant and dramatic affair a war between two great nations on a galactic stage would look like…
Though in actuality, it seems it has all but ended in a silent invasion and a silent attack, leaving the rest to future historians’ imagination and their pen and paper.
XĂź Beijin is merely a spectator who watched the historic even unfold.
Perhaps in the future, the annals will say, that at some moment in time, Fy’eca, the species that once held great sway over the universe, was overrun entirely in a secret mission… his name may perhaps even be visible as a footnote.
Though this event will certainly be portrayed prominently in human history.
XĂź Beijin has never appreciated what a monumental, impactful influence it was he had served, until this very moment.
That said, however, he merely smiles it away after moment.
History is often a collection of solemn, grandiose and heroic tales;
But he knows he was but merely a little ripple in the river that is the flow of history. He created a splash, but a splash alone would have had no measurable impact.
It was a collective, concerted effort by all the Missiontakers, Actors, and even those madmen who have already succumbed before this point. All these ripples gathered, and finally, they find themselves in the vastness of the ocean.
Humans… humanity.
XĂź Beijin repeats those words in his mind.
This is, the name of their species.
To everyone else, XĂź Beijin merely blurted out wait, and then blanked out for a really long time. The bookstore is entirely silent. Everyone is holding their breath.
Then suddenly, Xü Beijin comes back to life, telling them, “we’ve won.”