Chapter 154

Chapter 154

When 001 had first come into existence, he had no desire to give himself a name.

All Judges were bionic humans made by the System. They possessed perfect human physiological structures, and their intricately designed brains were implanted with data chips connected to the System database.

Among that kind of bionic human, the number of Judges who had developed self-awareness could be counted on one hand. There were only three worth mentioning.

The Clowns controlled by programming language were always saying that if those three Judges had developed consciousness, then maybe they could also develop something like emotions.

Wasn’t Shu Yan a perfect example? He spent all day calling Shu Xiao “ge.”

Shu Xiao was the same. He looked indifferent to everything, yet whenever Shu Yan was around, he just couldn’t take his eyes off him.

002 and 003 were both like that, so what about 001?

The Clowns observed him for quite a while and came to the conclusion that 001 probably just didn’t have emotions.

Otherwise, how could 001 accept being just like them-mindless bionic humans known only by code numbers-without even thinking of choosing a name for himself?

…

001’s emotions were very faint, so faint that if he weren’t at least somewhat able to understand the Players’ hoarse, desperate emotions inside the Scripts, he might have thought he was no different from the other Clowns, completely incapable of thought or empathy.

He knew about the Clowns’ confusion, but 001 was equally puzzled by it: was a name really that necessary? What difference was there between a name and a code number?

Still, he understood his coworkers’ bewilderment. After all, his usual way of doing things really did leave no trace of lingering emotion.

001’s daily work had one main focus: creating Scripts.

Even though he handled that job rather perfunctorily, and among the hundreds of Scripts he had made, it was hard to say whether even a two-digit number of people had died in all the time they had been running.

But most of the maps he designed made excellent use of horror elements and were highly effective at scaring people, so even though they didn’t kill many, the Main God didn’t say much about it.

After work, 001 would either wander through the Scripts of the various Star Zones acting as a Judge, or take a glance at the Water Moon Mirror to see how things were going.

The Water Moon Mirror was one of the Main God’s plans. 001 was not interested in that plan, nor did he have any desire to access its files.

But the first time he saw the Water Moon Mirror, what drew his attention was not the mirror’s central figure, Xie Ning, but a figure standing beside him.

Rao Lin… 001 turned the name over silently in his mind.

It was a very nice name.

And the person himself was striking as well.

At the time, 001 hadn’t realized that he had formed an opinion of someone based on nothing more than a name and a face-or rather, he had never really formed opinions about anyone at all, including the two Judges closest to him in the System and the Main God.

For 001, judgment of that kind was a very rare thing.

Later, before the Players’ first rebellion against the System could even begin, it had already died in the cradle. When Willow, the sole survivor whose memories had been wiped, was taken back by Zone F’s branch System, 001, who had just returned from wandering through the Scripts of various zones, caught sight of his profile while he was unconscious.

001 had never felt anything for the dead, just like the people who died in the Scripts. After all, he didn’t know them.

But now, looking at the corpses that were said to have been Willow’s companions, 001 suddenly thought of the face he had seen in the mirror.

That face matched a smile very well. 001 found it a little hard to imagine what that person looked like when he wasn’t smiling.

After thinking it over, he went to ask 002 how humans usually handled the dead.

002 said, “The body gets cremated, then a gravestone is set up. If there’s no body, then they just set up the gravestone directly. Something like that.”

So 001, who had been ordered by the Main God to deal with the bodies, erected gravestones for those corpses and placed them in Zone F’s “Smiling in the Netherworld.”

And after that, there was nothing more.

Even though 001 still hadn’t figured out why he had gone to set up those gravestones in the first place.
He only thought it, and then he went and did it.

—

While Ning Shuo and Ning Wang were locked up in the Data Prison, 001, who had been moving from Script to Script checking for problems, accepted a request from a Script in Zone F to temporarily cover a boss role, and met the person whose name he had once thought sounded nice.

001 figured it was probably because of that first impression that Rao Lin outside the mirror seemed more vivid to him than Rao Lin inside it.

After all, what the mirror simulated was flawless. None of the Judges could tell which one, inside the mirror or outside it, was the original.

This was a university campus Script. The role he was filling in for was an anatomy teacher, while Rao Lin was a medical student kept behind after failing his midterm, as the plot required.

This was the first time he and Rao Lin had truly met.

His role’s surname was Song, and Rao Lin’s character setup was the flippant, slacker type. Logically speaking, as someone being made to stay for remedial lessons, he could do anything except listen seriously.

But at that moment, Rao Lin was watching him use the scalpel very intently. 001 frowned, thinking of the way aberrant NPCs had looked before. He was just about to darken his face and imitate them when-

Rao Lin broke into a smile. “Teacher Song, how come you’re this good-looking?”

The scalpel paused. Looking at the bloody flesh beneath the blade, 001 clearly heard the bionic heart in his chest start beating faster and faster.

Sensing that something was wrong, 001 frowned and looked up at Rao Lin. “I’m tutoring you. Are you looking at the corpse, or at me?”

Rao Lin stretched lazily and turned his gaze back to the corpse. “Teacher Song is definitely better-looking than a corpse. But since you said this is tutoring, then let’s look at the corpse.”

He said they were looking at the corpse, but with that character setup, Rao Lin’s actions were anything but well-behaved.

First, he ignored instructions, picked up a scalpel, and plunged it into the corpse’s flesh. Then he smeared a finger with blood and sniffed it. “Teacher Song, why doesn’t this smell like human blood?”

001 said coolly, “Stab yourself once, and you’ll smell it.”

Rao Lin laughed. “Teacher Song, you really don’t have any human warmth.”

He suddenly leaned in close, the corners of his lips curling into a faint smile. “Still, you really do look much better without the Clown makeup.”

001 shot him a sidelong glance and used the System database to search for which Script he had overlapped with Rao Lin in before.

In the end, it landed on a very ordinary wilderness survival Script from two months before Rao Lin met Ning Wang.

Because it was wilderness survival, the Player had disguised himself from head to toe. 001 had served as a Judge there, but he had not recognized Rao Lin through the disguise.

Or rather, back then, he hadn’t yet taken the codename Willow to heart.

Saying he looked better without Clown makeup was the last thing Rao Lin had said to 001 in that Script.

It was as if he had calculated it perfectly: his teammate in the PvE Script happened to complete the Accusation successfully.

Rao Lin took two steps back, made a gentlemanly bow of farewell, and logged out of the Script.

All he left 001 was an empty classroom, a half-dissected corpse, and a Script on the verge of resetting.

001 tossed aside the scalpel. After confirming that the Main God had no use for him over the next few months, he expressionlessly pulled up the Virtual Screen and found the Script Rao Lin was about to log into.

He gave the key NPC in that PvE Script time off: I’ll cover for you.

001 knew perfectly well that he had been played.

That man had recognized long ago that he was not actually some teacher in this Script at all, but a Judge directly under the System.

And for some reason, he had even called him good-looking.

A simple compliment would naturally make anyone happy, but under the premise that he had been toyed with, it instead sounded like mockery-especially when they were on opposing sides.

He lowered his gaze to the scalpel Rao Lin had plunged into the corpse, reached out and pressed his hand over the spot Rao Lin had gripped earlier, and thought expressionlessly about at what point in the next Script he should let that man get a taste of that smell of human blood.