Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 52, Part 51: The Painted Skin (Part 1)

Socrates looked at the view on the table.

He hoped to meet them in a place away from them, such as the Six Desire Realms or the electromagnetic shielded area under Fengyu.

Even if there were bystanders, he believed that if Jiang Ning was an ally, they could confirm each other's identities based solely on the hints in their conversation.

He suppressed his excitement, but couldn't help but have some doubts about Bai Miao's identity. He had already been deceived by the general once in matters related to the organization.

Aside from Shen Ke, whose identity he had obtained, he couldn't verify anyone's true identity. Videos, voice recordings, and virtual avatars could be faked, and real people could be impersonated using prosthetics. He tentatively asked, "Excuse me, Miss Bai. Could you please confirm your identity first?"

"I have no obligation to prove my identity to you," Bai Miao said expressionlessly. "This isn't a case."

Su Ge sized up Bai Miao, considering that if something happened to her, he might hack into her brain to protect himself.

Bai Miao suddenly felt that the hibernator's eyes had become sharp and dangerous. She frowned slightly, but the feeling was fleeting. Her brain-computer interface didn't detect anything worth worrying about. Su Ge smiled and said, "Then I'll trouble you. Contact him from here."

The room was set to accessible mode, with the table, chairs, and bed folded into the wall. The surroundings were shrouded in a monotonous and gloomy atmosphere. Suger sat in the center of the room and put on his glasses.

You are currently accessing a private virtual space where your view will be augmented reality.

Please do not treat virtual scenes as reality. Please remain still or move around in a safe, accessible environment.

[Load scene?]

The moment he chose "yes," Su Ge felt a little uneasy.

Some color emerged from the monotonous walls, and an old-fashioned tourbillon clock hung from the wooden edge of the ceiling; it was 1:12 p.m.

The second hand ticks away, and colors spread.

A wedding photo hangs on the wall, showing a man and a woman in red bean-colored suits and wedding dresses. In the next photo, the woman holds her one-month-old baby on her lap, while the man holds her shoulders from behind.

There were also some photos of outdoor activities and road trips, and Su Ge seemed to be seeing a middle-class family in the early 21st century.

The rest of the scene has also finished loading. The sound of water can be heard from the kitchen separated by a glass door. A woman with her hair tied up is washing grapes. A carpet is laid under the black walnut sideboard in the living room, and a three- or four-year-old girl is playing with building blocks.

Across from Su Ge, across a tea table, Jiang Ning sat on the sofa.

He was a slender, refined man, dressed in loose blue loungewear, with a clean-shaven beard and black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

"My name is Jiang Ning." The man smiled at Su Ge. "This is the first time I've seen someone from the same generation. Do you think we're from the same hometown?"

Su Ge barely heard what Jiang Ning was saying; for the past two weeks, he had frequently dreamt of similar scenes.

It took him two seconds to come to his senses.

"Yes, of course."

“It’s nice here, isn’t it?” Jiang Ning seemed to have anticipated Su Ge’s reaction. “Living here is not much different from before, and it’s much more convenient. There’s not much to worry about anymore.”

"You have a brain-computer interface?" Soger asked.

“Of course.” Jiang Ning smiled. “No matter how you use external devices, you can only simulate your senses. Only brain-computer interfaces can input neural data and allow you to truly enter the virtual world.”

Jiang Ning's words gave Su Ge a bad feeling. If Jiang Ning was also from the organization, he shouldn't have been able to have a brain-computer interface implanted so easily.

A plate of washed grapes was placed on the tea table. Following the hand that was carrying the plate, Su Ge looked at the woman. The woman smiled slightly at him and turned to leave.

"This is……"

"My wife." Jiang Ning looked at his wife's back, his eyes overflowing with happiness.

"Your wife and daughter... are they both hibernators?"

Suger looked at the girl playing with building blocks on the ground. He remembered clearly that the hibernation service could only be purchased by users who were over fourteen years old and whose basic development was complete.

“They didn’t hibernate with me,” Jiang Ning said with emotion. “When I first woke up and found out that hibernation had been extended, I almost went crazy. Later, I had a brain-computer interface installed, which replicated my old home in the virtual world. My wife and children are virtual, but honestly, what’s the difference between them and the real ones? If I had to say what the difference is, it’s that my wife and I don’t argue over trivial things anymore, and my daughter is much more well-behaved.”

"Daddy!" The girl sat on the carpet, holding up the astronaut-themed building blocks in one hand and rubbing her nose with the other, showing off to Jiang Ning with a grin. "Look!"

"Wow, you're really something, girl," Jiang Ning replied with a chuckle, speaking with a slight Hebei accent.

Everything is virtual. Virtual grapes don't need washing, and virtual carpets won't get dirty with tea stains or cat hair. But these real-world details are presented realistically. The sounds of cars and construction work can be heard outside the window, and sunlight shines through the coffee-colored curtains, casting irregular bright spots on the sofa and coffee table.

“If you have someone you can’t bear to part with, you can do it like me. They’re not digital lives, just AI simulations, so they don’t require much computing power.” Jiang Ning turned his head. “Two hundred years from now, I’ll still be living in the past. Pretty romantic, right?”

"Yes, it's good."

Su Ge noticed some contradictions in Jiang Ning. He didn't use virtual reality technology to indulge his desires, but instead replicated his past family. This man was very attached to his home, yet his statement "it doesn't require much computing power" revealed a sense of indifference.

What did you do before?

Suger's gaze swept over the photos on the wall.

"He was trading futures, at the peak of his career, when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness. What about you?"

"Me? I work in software."

……

The two hibernators were complete strangers, and their conversation was rather mundane, ranging from their hometowns to their careers, and the changes from the past to the present.

Su Ge secretly probed Jiang Ning's true identity, but Jiang Ning acted as if he were just an ordinary futures trader.

This dialogue continued without any breakthrough.

Suger reached for a grape, but found nothing. He paused, then smiled wryly and said, "I forgot, this isn't real."

"It'll be real once you get the brain-computer interface installed," Jiang Ning said with a smile.

“Who knows when that will be?” Soger said. “How about we meet up in person?”

“Okay, I’ll come to Yingchuan to see you when I have time,” Jiang Ning readily agreed. “Actually, there’s not much to do in the real world anymore.”

“You used to seem to really enjoy outdoor activities,” Suger said, glancing at the photos on the wall.

“There are no tourist attractions left to develop these days,” Jiang Ning chuckled. “But in the virtual world, you can go anywhere. You can even sleep in the Forbidden City at night.”

"By the way, this looks like Namtso Lake?"

Su Ge looked at a photo on the wall. In the photo, a few cotton-like clouds were scattered in the blue sky. The snow-capped mountains in the distance were reflected in the lake. A black Land Rover was parked not far away. Jiang, wearing sunglasses, smiled very brightly on the lake shore.

"You've been there too?" Jiang Ning asked.

"The navigation system broke down halfway through the journey, and I almost couldn't get back."

"Hehe, then I'm not that unlucky."

"By the way, what year did you go?"

“26 years,” Jiang Ning said with emotion. “Back then, I thought I didn’t have many days left to live, so I decided to travel around.”

"You have a good attitude."

"I guess I just have to let it go," Jiang Ning said with a smile.

……

The mechanical clock on the wall kept turning, and half an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

Su Ge and Jiang Ning bid farewell, and the augmented reality images faded away, revealing the original appearance of the monotonous gray walls.

In the dim light, Suger took off his glasses and wiped the fine sweat from his forehead.

Although the war he participated in was conducted in secret, some of its effects had already spread throughout society.

In order to obscure their ability to locate the real world, the world's four major satellite navigation systems—BeiDou, GPS, Galileo, and GLONASS—have all announced that they will cease to be used by the public.

This was humanity's act of rebellion against them, and it was erased like a major power outage, leaving no trace in the endless data of the internet.

This is a historical truth that only those who came from the 21st century know.

Jiang Ning, however, ignored this fact.

Su Ge probed Jiang Ning from various details in order to deduce Jiang Ning's true identity. When Jiang Ning mentioned that he had used a navigation system 26 years ago, Su Ge suddenly realized that the Jiang Ning in front of him was definitely not the Jiang Ning of the 21st century.

To avoid alerting the enemy, he forced himself to talk to the thing that was impersonating Jiang Ning for half an hour before finding a chance to say goodbye.

I'll come to Yingchuan to see you when I have time.

As if hearing Jiang Ning's words, Su Ge looked at the world in his hand and felt a chill run down his spine.

(End of this chapter)