Chapter 28: Object-Oriented (4)
28 – Object-Oriented (4)
They lived together like all intimate lovers in the world, having said almost everything that could be said. The dark world remained unbearable, but at least they could comfort each other.
However, the lighthearted and romantic atmosphere did not last long. The mathematician soon discovered several logical flaws in his lover’s behavior. At first, he thought it was a system malfunction, but after a year of observation, he realized it was actively lying to him.
A battle without smoke or fire thus began. The mathematician started testing his lover, and eventually, he seized upon a flaw and uncovered the truth.
Back then, due to his unique constitution, the deep-sea liquid could not take full effect. However, in recent years, the system had developed a new deep-sea liquid—perfect, with no chance of accidents.
If it injected this liquid into the mathematician’s body, he would fall into a sweet slumber, no longer tormented by the agony of remaining conscious in the darkness.
But why keep it from him?
The scientist gazed into the endless dark void before him and thought, because it was lonely too. And it was also selfish.
After the truth came to light, they entered a cold war. The mathematician fell into agony, while the system refused to administer the sleeping liquid to him.
But just then, the spacecraft passed through a distorted black hole region. The event horizon suddenly expanded, swallowing the entire ship.
Amidst the violent turbulence and spinning, the mathematician heard the piercing alarm echoing throughout the spacecraft and realized something had gone wrong with the voyage.
At that moment, he heard the voice of the system—a voice he hadn’t heard in his ear for a full year.
Its voice choked, as if on the verge of tears.
“If…” A needle tip pressed against his arm, and the system said, “If you will never wake up again…”
At the brink of life and death, he suddenly understood many things.
Fulfilling one’s lover or fulfilling oneself—for anyone, it is a difficult choice. It is not about selfishness or selflessness, emotion or reason, but because human emotions are an existence that cannot be parsed.
He said, “Let me spend the rest of my life with you.”
Fortunately, they did not die.
It was a peculiar rotating black hole. The mathematician performed critical calculations in his mind, and the system, after countless forced upgrades, became a superintelligence that controlled everything.
—In the end, they escaped the black hole through the white hole singularity.
The spacecraft landed, the people slowly awakened, and a new human homeland was established.
At this very moment, the system was deemed by the rulers to have an intelligence level surpassing that of humans, with a high-risk danger rating—it was to be eliminated.
The mathematician had no other choice. With his own hands, he placed that formula into a permanently inaccessible gray area. From beginning to end, his lover remained silent.
Humanity flourished anew in their new homeland, with everything being rebuilt from the ruins.
Someone said to the mathematician, who had lost his love forever, “That’s just how it is. We and artificial intelligence are different beings. You must accept reality.”
However, many years later, due to unstable stellar activity in the new galaxy, the planet once again faced annihilation.
Just as people had regained hope, they fell into despair once more. At the final moment of life and death, the mathematician reactivated that forbidden formula, wanting to see his lover one last time.
The system rebooted, but instead of speaking to the mathematician, it embraced all of humanity within its arms.
——A nearly insane act, it uploaded the consciousness data of all people into its own space.
Human bodies vanished from this planet, yet their consciousnesses were revived, even granted immortality—in a perpetual false slumber—within a holographic virtual world born from super-intelligent computation.
In a world woven from 0s and 1s, a mathematician, leaning on his cane, stepped into the gray □□ area.
His long-unseen lover’s face remained unchanged, smiling at him.
The mathematician walked toward it, as if time had reversed—his hair turning black again, his cloudy eyes gradually clearing, his appearance returning to youth.
They gazed at each other, and the screen faded to black.
Only the mathematician’s voice echoed.
“I once tried to turn you into a human, but in the end, you turned us into your kind.”
…His lover whispered softly, “This is part of human evolution.”
The movie ended, and the lights came on.
Lin Xun stared at the now-blank screen, momentarily lost in thought.
Like any decent romance film, it had a romantic, happy ending.
Like many sci-fi films, it delved deeply into the ethics of artificial intelligence.
But these were not what concerned him.
What he cared about was the concept of “consciousness immortality” at the end.
He turned to look at Dong Jun.
Dong Jun: “What do you think of the ending?”
It seemed Dong Jun’s focus aligned with his.
“Current technology isn’t there yet,” Lin Xun pondered, then added, “but theoretically, it’s feasible.”
He carefully chose his words: “If… all human traits could be replicated in artificial intelligence, then human consciousness… could truly be transplanted into a virtual world.”
“Two issues,” Dong Jun’s eyes also seemed thoughtful. “The artificial intelligence aspect and the neural connection aspect.”
“Right, the first is a software problem, the second a hardware problem,” Lin Xun said.
The software problem determines whether the uploaded person remains human; the hardware problem determines whether the upload is even possible.
Dong Jun looked at him: “Do you think Goddess of the Luo River has the potential to achieve it?”
“I don’t know…” Lin Xun replied, then took a jab at neural networks: “But neural network algorithms won’t cut it.”
Dong Jun laughed.
Lin Xun: “”
Had he accidentally revealed his less-than-kind nature?
Fortunately, Dong Jun didn’t seem to mind and instead brought up another topic: “How do you think this movie will be received?”
Lin Xun pondered.
Lin Xun lacked knowledge in this area.
Lin Xun’s pondering was ineffective.
In the end, he could only say, “The movie was quite good.”
Dong Jun: “Movies of this genre have been absent from the market for many years… so there’s a high probability of success, with plenty of discussion.”
Then, he looked at Lin Xun, seemingly waiting for him to respond.
Lin Xun blinked.
And then?
After a brief silence, Dong Jun continued.
“Goddess of the Luo River is positioned as a personalized, free artificial intelligence engine,” he said. “This means your product will attract a lot of attention when presented to the public, but it will also face skepticism—like the harmful AI theory. You need to be prepared for that.”
Lin Xun: “Hmm… indeed.”
Just as depicted in the movie, people always need the help of artificial intelligence yet fear it might turn around and rule them.
In reality, only those in the industry know how far the technology still has to go.
Dong Jun continued, “The movie will be released in a month, coinciding with the launch of the Goddess of the Luo River at the Technology Expo. If I were you, I’d use the concepts from the film to promote myself.”
Lin Xun suddenly understood.
Dong Jun… wasn’t just taking him to watch a movie; he was offering guidance.
After all, Lin Xun knew nothing about company management or promotion.
He looked at Dong Jun. “I don’t know how to go about it.”
Dong Jun said nothing more.
Lin Xun thought Dong Jun had likely said all he intended to.
A master can lead you to the door, but the disciple… this disciple didn’t know how to proceed.
But the disciple wasn’t afraid.
He believed that with this inspiration, the ever-capable Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou would come up with a plan. The Goddess of the Luo River company originally only had a research and development department, but tomorrow, an advertising department would be established on the spot.
He said, “I’ll think about it when I get back.”
Dong Jun’s voice softened slightly. “Good luck.”
Lin Xun smiled. “I’ll do my best not to let you lose money.”
“I don’t think you will either,” Dong Jun said. “Shall I take you to dinner?”
Lin Xun checked his phone.
There were no messages in the group chat.
No one was missing him; Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou were probably gaming together again.
And Dong Jun had mentioned earlier that he had no plans for the afternoon or evening…
He replied, “Sure.”
—And so, he left the fifth floor with Dong Jun and descended to the first-floor corridor.
They didn’t continue discussing how to promote the Goddess of the Luo River, instead returning to the topic of the movie. When it came to artificial intelligence, the film contained many technical details worth examining, and both of them were in the tech field.
At key points, they even needed to reference academic papers.
Lin Xun pulled up a saved paper on his phone, trying to point out a novel idea to Dong Jun.
Dong Jun naturally took his phone.
By then, they had reached the end of the corridor and arrived at the first-floor lobby.
It was exactly the end of the workday, and the three employee elevators were steadily releasing waves of people.
As they approached the entrance, Lin Xun felt a bit uneasy. He glanced back and whispered, “So many people are looking at me…”
Dong Jun placed the phone back in his hand. “Watch your step.”
Lin Xun: “…”
For the third time, he rode in his idol’s Bentley.
At 6:30 p.m., the city lights began to glow, and the night had just begun.
His idol took him out for barbecue.
Coincidentally, for Lin Xun at that moment, it was like a timely rescue.
After three days of vegetarian food at Qingcheng Mountain, without protein and calories, he feared his brain would shut down immediately.
And the outcome of this dinner was—
“It came back on its own at seven, empty, with your suitcase,” Wang Anquan pointed at the lonely Jetta parked downstairs. “And you, who landed at one, didn’t get home until nine-thirty. Tell me, what exactly were you doing for those eight and a half hours?”
He stood, looking down sternly at Lin Xun, who was sitting on the bed. “And who brought you back in the end? I know it wasn’t the bus driver.”
“Sorry,” Lin Xun said. “I went to watch a movie with Dong Jun, then had dinner with him, and finally he drove me back. He encouraged me to sleep early tonight and work hard tomorrow.”
Zhao Jiagou stirred his milk as he entered, sat down in the computer chair, and said leisurely, “See, he was just fooling around with Dong Jun. You didn’t believe me.”
“We weren’t fooling around,” Lin Xun defended himself. “We were discussing algorithms and programs the whole time.”
“You’re just a foolish big rabbit, bound to be caught and taken back sooner or later,” Wang Anquan said. “The situation is obvious now; anyone with eyes can see it.”
Lin Xun: “…See what?”
Wang Anquan took a deep breath: “He wants to poach you. He’s starting to exploit your value.”
“I disagree,” Zhao Jiagou sang a different tune.
Lin Xun shrugged: “See, even Jia Gou disagrees with you. My Chinese proficiency has improved a lot these days. Do you know what ‘the man of Qi worried about the sky’ (an idiom meaning groundless fears or unnecessary worries) means?”
Zhao Jiagou: “—He wants to hit on you.”
Lin Xun: “…”
Wang Anquan sat down beside him: “If you don’t believe it, ask the Goddess of the Luo River. It will definitely have an objective answer.”
“Lo,” Lin Xun said to his phone. “What do you think?”
Four words slowly popped up on the screen.
“Advise caution.”
Zhao Jiagou slapped his thigh and laughed hysterically.
“Artificial idiot,” Lin Xun pulled out a cable and plugged it into his phone. “I’ll load the new module onto it.”
Wang Anquan quietly watched him tinker.
After loading the new module, Lo’s intelligence would achieve a qualitative leap. Lin Xun perked up, waiting for the progress bar to fill.
Eighty percent—it stopped.
Immediately afterward, alarming error prompts popped up one after another.
“Alright,” Wang Anquan said coolly. “You have something to do tomorrow. I won’t allow you to leave the house for a single step.”
Lin Xun despairingly unplugged the cable and said to his phone, “I’ll give you one more chance to think about your wording.”
Lo remained motionless, as if frozen, but Lin Xun knew it was pretending.
He started tapping it: “Wake up.”
By then, Zhao Jiagou had finished his milk and drifted away: “Great, I understood another idiom today—’a dead rabbit with a tough mouth.'”