Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 45: The Dark Web
About half a minute later, Su Ge came to his senses and severed the connection with Shen Ke's position.

As soon as the neural data synchronization was interrupted, the illusion vanished, and Sug found himself slightly panting, his body covered in a layer of sweat. The Gu Diao's self-cleaning system activated, illuminating the darkness with ultraviolet light.

He stared at the backup machine in front of him, a sudden, inexplicable pang of fear gripping his heart. Those last few seconds had made him feel like a completely different person.

Compared to the chaotic and dazed state he had just been in, the disorientation caused by connecting the Gu Diao and the cockroach robot seemed insignificant.

But at the same time, he also connected with Shen Ke's abilities, and in a sense, he transformed into the demons and monsters of this era.

Just as he understood the purpose of the Void Realm Mandala, he understood Shen Ke's abilities. In 21st-century terms, she was like a living Trojan horse program, a "cyber ghost."

She silently reads your data, transforms it into a form you can't refuse, and makes your trust, admiration, and infatuation willingly become her puppet, providing her with an endless source of computing power.

"Not used to it?"

Shen Ke rested her forearm on the backup machine, looking at Su Ge.

Suger wasn't wearing a vision device; her virtual image was projected directly into his visual center.

"You have over a thousand 'meat machines' that have taken over their brains. Will they be affected?"

Shen Ke disappeared from the backup machine and sat down in the chair in the shielded room.

“Without me, their computing power would also become a religion, offered to God, Buddha or something like that.” She said calmly, “It’s all the same.”

"If you hadn't been caught, what would have happened if there were more of these 'meat machines'? If there were hundreds of thousands, or even hundreds of millions, wouldn't you be able to..."

"The Investiture of the Gods?" she said.

Su Ge paused for a moment before giving a soft "hmm".

"Who knows?" Shen Ke picked up a cigarette between her fingers, lit it, but then paused, threw it away, and the red light disappeared into the darkness.

"My ascension method, the neural network configuration, are all unorthodox methods from the dark web. With over a thousand 'accomplices,' I'm already finding it difficult to maintain. If there are any more, I'll probably collapse. Or perhaps, quantitative change will lead to qualitative change..."

As she finished speaking, her voice became ethereal and fleeting, like dissipating smoke.

"It's no use saying all this now, because of the security bureau, my botnet is no longer usable."

“Let’s not talk about that,” Soger said. “Let’s check out the dark web first.”

"Now?"

"Now."

“This won’t work.” Shen Ke “teleported” to the backup machine again and knocked on the casing. “At least take me to a place with a signal.”

……

Fengyu Military Base, Missile Silo No. 3.

This place was once the lair of the Fengyu Mountain God, but now it is deserted. The simple shrine at the entrance is covered with cobwebs, and porcelain cups contain dried tangerine peel and tea leaves. Some food packaging bags and medicine boxes are scattered on the ground.

In the corner of the launch silo, there was a Roman blanket. On the oxidized white paint wall, some red engravings read the characters Fangfengshi, Juling, and Kua'e, among others. The characters Wangmang were also present, covering the entire wall. The three-dot water radical of the character "Mang" had been crossed out, turning it into "Mang".

Wangmang Kingdom was another name for Fangfeng Kingdom, an ancient kingdom in the Taihu Lake basin. Wangmang Clan was also an alias of Fangfeng Clan, almost identical to "Wang Mang." This might be a coincidence—perhaps the deceased Wang Mang was truly named Wang Mang. Or perhaps his true name had long since vanished into the shadow of the Fangfeng Clan.

Suger moved the backup machine to the missile silo. The machine weighed nearly 300 pounds. The overall moving work was easy for Gu Diao. The most difficult part for Suger was moving it out of the shielded room. There was almost no power signal on that section of the road, and he could only rely on the trailer and his own strength. Fortunately, the training he had done during this period had helped him recover a lot.

"This is fine." Shen Ke leaned against the shock-absorbing device, watching Su Ge busy himself.

"Then what?"

"There are many channels to access the dark web, but unknown channels are very risky. The channels I used before were all monitored by the security bureau, and now I can only access the dark web through Luo Hou Xingjun."

"Rahu Ketu?"

Do you know about the Nine Luminaries?

“I know about the seven luminaries,” Su Ge took a breath, “the five major planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, plus the Sun and the Moon.”

"Add two more stars, Rahu and Ketu."

As Shen Ke spoke, she transmitted a large amount of data to Su Ge—Rahu was a fierce god who devoured the sun and moon. After his death, he split into two, with his upper body becoming the eclipsing star "Rahu" and his lower body becoming the ominous star "Ketu".

After reading for a while, Su Ge understood that this was an explanation of solar and lunar eclipses in mythology. Rahu's position was also at the intersection of the Earth and Moon's orbits in astronomy. As for Ketu, it was a comet. The information was very long, and it also mentioned Rahu's other two incarnations, "Purple Qi" and "Moon Comet".

He didn't look at it closely.

"What does this have to do with the dark web?"

"The safest way to access the dark web is through the satellite base stations controlled by Rahu. Rahu only has a location in the real world, not a physical body. If you want to say that he has a physical body, it is an invisible satellite base station operating in low Earth orbit."

Shen Ke looked up, and Su Ge received the neural data she had transmitted synchronously once again.

He felt her gaze and looked out at the city through the exhaust nozzle of the launch silo. It was almost noon, and the light was dull and dim.

Soaring from between skyscrapers into the fragmented sky, skimming over the clouds beneath the glazed tiles of temples, persimmons hang green on the branches, and ancient cranes cry out loudly beside me.

The next moment she entered a darkness, where countless white spots resembled floating noise on an old-fashioned television screen, or stars in the boundless universe.

He entered a boundless space where the white spots rapidly magnified and unfolded, transforming into countless pages floating around him—or, more accurately, windows leading to different worlds.

Countless images flashed in the window:

Arched bridge, covered boat, white walls of small buildings stained with water, and a woman by the bridge lifting the curtain of a painted carriage;
Pointed ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, rose windows, and monks wearing crosses below the choir;

With its painted brackets, green glazed tiles, and blue stone Sumeru pedestal, the monks open the scriptures in the revolving sutra repository.

These images also gave him a strange feeling.

A blue snake's tail appeared amidst the ripples in the canal behind the woman; the gargoyles on the church revealed a ferocious smile; and the chanting of the sutra was mixed with bursts of weeping.

Such scenes were endless. He saw Zhulong and the god-king Odin locked in battle, a celestial rooster atop the Jianmu tree rousing the sun, and a giant serpent of the mortal world with its mouth and tail intertwined at its base.

A sense of chaos and confusion overwhelmed Suger once again.

He sat on the vast, damp, and cold bedding, the air thick with the smells of rusty metal and dead rats. At the same time, history and legends from ancient and modern times were replayed and merged in his eyes.

Welcome to the dark web.

Shen Ke's voice echoed in his mind, just as if he himself had spoken it.

(End of this chapter)