Chapter 64
Chapter 64
“Captain, how much do you know about Ether Group?” Wei Sen asked after returning to the copilot’s seat, her tone as casual as if she were making small talk.
The captain looked out the side window and said, “A company that might redefine the future.”
Wei Sen adjusted her headset. Her knuckles tapped unconsciously against her knee. “To be honest, I don’t know much about them. The product launch later…” She trailed off, her gaze shifting from the instrument panel to the captain. “I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing and embarrass our crew.”
“Xiao Sen, you didn’t do your homework properly.” The captain smiled and shook his head, then began explaining Ether Group’s background to Wei Sen.
Ether Group had a history of more than thirty years. It was a well-known tech giant in Dragon Nation, though its founder, Mark, was from the United States.
Their newly developed “DEEP” artificial intelligence system, however, was entirely the product of an independent domestic R&D team.
Once DEEP was introduced into civil aviation, the changes it would bring would be unprecedented.
For example, it could determine a pilot’s level of fatigue from the sound of their voice. When a sudden malfunction occurred, it could produce the optimal emergency response plan in 0.3 seconds. Its meteorological calculations were so advanced that it could even predict turbulence with accuracy down to a hundred meters.
Wei Sen watched the data streams flickering across the head-up display, and she finally understood why they had been specially arranged to attend this product launch.
The artificial intelligence DEEP?
After listening to the captain, Wei Sen suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity toward this product called “DEEP.”
But this was AI from 2022. The Real World was already in the year 2102. After eighty years, AI technology should have undergone earth-shattering changes.
And yet…
Wei Sen thought back to the year she had spent in the Real World after leaving the Dark Fairy Tale Instance. There had been no AI products at all!
There had not even been a single piece of news related to AI.
In the world of 2102, there was no AI?!
As for Ether Group, after the Zhihui Primary School Instance ended, Wei Sen had searched for it online. But there had not been the slightest bit of information about Ether Group on the internet. This person called Mark had no information either.
She suspected that the timeline of the Eerie World was not the Real World’s past, but a parallel universe existing alongside the Real World!
Otherwise, how could one explain the fact that such a famous group had once existed, yet now there was not the slightest trace of it?
Not even the internet could turn up a scrap of information.
Wait!
Wei Sen’s pupils contracted sharply.
Only then did she realize something that grew more terrifying the more she thought about it…
There was no AI in the world of 2102. Before this Instance, she had never heard anyone mention AI either.
Then how did she know what AI was?
When had she started knowing about it…
Wei Sen’s face turned deathly pale. Her mind felt like it had been thrown into chaos.
The last time she had felt this way was when she had just woken up in the hospital after the car accident.
“Xiao Sen, what’s wrong?” the captain asked with concern.
“I’m fine…” Wei Sen took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. She opened her watch and sent a message.
[Wei Sen: Do you guys know about artificial intelligence?]
The group quickly replied.
[Xia Susu: Huh? What’s that?
Huang Xinze: Never heard of it.
Xu You: No idea.]
How could that be?!
Wei Sen’s pupils trembled violently.
She clearly remembered that AI had already been applied across many fields all over the world. Large-scale pretrained language models and AI assistants had emerged one after another, and they had indeed brought no small amount of convenience.
Right, and many people had lost their jobs because of AI. It seemed to have triggered a wave of mass layoffs at the time, accompanied by a sharp surge in gold prices.
Right. She also had a gold bracelet. It was…
It was…
A gift from someone…
No! No!
What were these memories?
Wei Sen clutched her head as a jumble of fragmented memories flooded into her mind. For one instant, it felt as if her head were about to explode.
What was going on?!
Had she been affected by Contamination from some Eerie power?!
Or had she violated some rule?
No. She was certain she had not violated any rule!
Her head simply felt like it was splitting open, because those scattered fragments of memory were tumbling through her mind like shards of glass.
“One gift a year. Once I’ve given you all three pieces of gold jewelry, we’ll get married.”
“Gold might be a little tacky, but it lasts forever and holds its value!”
“I guess this is a STEM guy’s idea of romance?”
“Shh. There’s a secret hidden here, too.”
…
That person’s voice seemed to echo in her mind. It was a man’s voice, so gentle, exactly the same as the one she had heard before she fell into the Dark Fairy Tale Instance.
Who was this person?
Were these memories really hers?
“Xiao Sen! Xiao Sen!”
The captain slapped the back of her hand hard, his voice tight with anxiety. “Xiao Sen, are you all right?!”
Wei Sen sucked in a sharp breath. Something that had been stretched taut in her mind seemed to snap, and the entire world fell quiet again.
The memories that had been clamoring inside her settled like scraps of paper drifting to the ground, as if a new silence had arrived after some tremendous collapse.
She knew, with certainty, what AI was.
She was also certain that in her memories, a man had given her a gold bracelet, and engraved on that bracelet was a line of English:
You’re my favorite hello and my hardest goodbye.
You are my favorite hello, and the hardest goodbye I could ever say.
“Xiao Sen?” Seeing how abnormal Wei Sen’s condition was, the captain was already preparing to contact the ground.
Wei Sen lifted her eyes to look at him, only then realizing that her eyes were misted with tears.
She raised a hand and wiped the corner of her eye, staring in confusion at the glistening moisture on her fingertip.
Why was this happening?
Why on earth… was she like this?
“Xiao Sen, you’re not in the right state. I-”
“I’m fine.” Wei Sen cut the captain off. Her voice was exceptionally calm, and the panic from moments ago had vanished from her eyes.
She was certain those memories truly existed in her mind. They were simply scattered and fragmented, and she could not piece them together.
That car accident had made her forget far too much, but she was remembering it all, little by little.
“Are you really all right?” The captain was still worried.
Wei Sen took a deep breath.
She desperately wanted to recover all of her memories, but those memories seemed to be locked away. Without the “key,” she could not access them.
Today, for example, the captain had told her about DEEP, which made her remember AI, and only then had she obtained this fragment of memory.
Perhaps she could search for more “keys.” Only then would she be able to recover all of her memories.
[Xu You: Sister Sen, a man in Group B broke the rule and ended up in the same state as Xiaoxue, but that woman killed him!]
When Wei Sen saw the message on her watch, the corners of her lips lifted slightly.
[Wei Sen: What happened to that woman?
Xu You: She disappeared.
Wei Sen: Then that’s right. Xiaoxue isn’t dead.]
She had deliberately had Xu You reveal the method for clearing the Instance to the Blonde Woman. The Blonde Woman would definitely test whether it was feasible. Of course, she wouldn’t use her own life to test it. Instead, she had someone in her group who possessed a Life-Saving Anomalous Artifact break the rule, then personally killed her teammate.
The rule only stated that normal passengers could not be harmed.
The person she killed was an Order Keeper who had broken the rule. Even if that person was not the Doom Beast, killing him did not count as violating the rule.
Now that the Blonde Woman had disappeared, it perfectly proved Wei Sen’s guess.
Wei Sen glanced at the time. 02:33. There were only a dozen or so minutes left before the plane’s accident.
She already knew what to do.
She sent Xu You a message. One minute later, Candy’s voice came through the headset.
“Captain! Something’s wrong. A passenger here is having a sudden heart attack!”
Wei Sen looked at the captain. After a moment’s thought, he abruptly rose to his feet.
“Xiao Sen, I’ll go take a look. Make an announcement and find out whether there are any medical personnel on board!”
“Mm.”
The captain’s expression was grave, and he still seemed uneasy about Wei Sen’s condition. But the situation was urgent, so after speaking, he strode out of the cockpit.
Wei Sen lowered her head and glanced at the time. 02:34.
The moment the captain left the cockpit, Wei Sen stood up and locked the cockpit door from the inside.
She knew how to clear the Instance now.
“System, I want to use Rule Erasure!”