Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 92, Section Ninety-One: Self-Destruction

"You'd better know what you're doing right now."

Lu Shixi remained remarkably calm as she watched Li's holographic projection. She wasn't unfamiliar with such unexpected situations; during her thirteen years working for the Security Bureau, she had been ambushed by demons and monsters five times. The most devastating attack involved her entire team being brainwashed and turning on each other; she herself had been shot in the head, leaving only half her brain intact. Yet, she continued her tireless work day and night to eradicate evil, and all those demons and monsters had already been slain.

"The Feathered Envoy has already arrived outside the Six Desires Realm. You still have time to confess before He arrives," she said coldly.

"The Feathered Robe Envoy?"

Mocking laughter echoed from all sides of the pillared hall.

Suddenly, a large amount of garbled data appeared in Lu Shixi's eyes, and this chaotic data came from the Flying Lian hovercar stationed at the Crude Garden. That hovercar was originally the investigators' signal base station for contacting the outside world, but now, it had obviously been hijacked. A ripple appeared in Lu Shixi's eyes. She mobilized all her computing power, broke through countless redundancies, and reconnected to the hovercar. The surveillance screen unfolded in her eyes. Inside the cabin, the investigator in charge of communication and dispatch stood motionless, like a machine that had lost power.

She activated the consciousness anchor, quietly severing all connections between her brain-computer interface and the outside world. Unable to access cloud computing power and relying solely on the photonic chip built into her brain-computer interface, her abilities would decline across the board, and even normal thinking would become sluggish.

But this way, at least we can defend against fierce attacks.

“There’s been a problem with your operation.” Li seemed completely unconcerned about Lu Shixi’s little tricks. “The Feathered Envoy won’t be coming.”

Lu Shixi stared at Li's projection, silently praying that some of her subordinates were still alive. Before shutting down the brain-computer interface, she sent the command to all her subordinates to do so.

"Once the security agency discovers that we are out of contact, it will send support immediately."

"Of course you won't lose contact. Don't worry, the security bureau receives your activity reports every moment."

His sharp gaze seemed to be fixed on a bird struggling in vain within its cage.

Lu Shixi remained silent. If Li had only subdued a few investigators, it could be said that some accidental oversight led to the failure of the operation. But Li was able to silently block all the escape routes of the Extraordinary Situation Group 3, which could only mean that from the beginning, the situation was under Li's control.

“You planned this all along,” she said.

"You're only just realizing the situation now?" Li glanced at the motionless Su Ge. "Your subordinates reacted much faster than you."

Lu Shixi ignored Li's words.

"Why?" she asked. "Offending the Security Bureau even more will not do you any good."

“You were the one who arrested ‘me’ and brought me to the Security Bureau.” Li looked at Lu Shixi meaningfully.

"You want revenge?"

“Revenge…” Li shook his head. “Most hatred is driven by emotion and is meaningless. Rational revenge is just to make yourself look intimidating. But that’s not a long-term solution.”

"you think……"

"Ascension."

Socrates still had tinnitus, but his consciousness was gradually returning. The word "ascension" echoed in his ears, and as he looked at the blurry projection of Mount Sumeru, he felt a strange attraction.

“You have already uploaded your consciousness,” Lu Shixi said. “Even if it’s illegal, you have already ‘ascended’.”

"You're only saying this because you're afraid to provoke me," Li sneered. "If getting rid of the physical body is ascension, why do some ascend to the ranks of immortals while others become wandering ghosts?"

“You don’t want to become a wandering ghost…” Lu Shixi gritted his teeth, “I won’t let you succeed in taking the investigator hostage.”

“You still don’t understand.” Li shook his head. “Holding you hostage is pointless. I just want Li Lou to see something.”

He looked at an investigator, and a massive amount of neural data flooded into the investigator's brain, issuing a death command to his body—treating both biological tissues and mechanical structures equally. An expression of extreme pain appeared on the investigator's face, and his blood and coolant flowed from his various orifices.

……

Beneath the crimson crystal clusters of the Heavenly Tree King, the previously dead modified humans rose again. Yang Guan silently took two steps back, leaning against the wall. Behind him, Bai Miao's carbon nanotube-like black hair was stained with blood and dust. She raised her gun with both hands and fired, but without aiming aids, the shot unsurprisingly missed.

In the darkness, more than a dozen figures emerged. Besides the gangsters stationed here, there were two familiar figures. Just minutes ago, they were Yang Guan's colleagues, but now they had become his accomplices.

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be difficult for an investigator to deal with a dozen or so low-level criminals, but now, they are forced to shut down their brains and computers, abandoning their equipment advantages, and are even no match for a well-trained gunman from the old days.

Struggling was futile, but Bai Miao was used to making decisions based on her brain, and she had no time to think. A strong sense of crisis drove her to keep attacking the enemy. She fired three more shots, the trajectories flashing in the darkness. Not far away, a cluster of red crystals exploded with brilliant sparks.

Just as she was about to fire her next shot, Yang Guan pressed down on her wrist.

"Never mind." He took a deep breath and slowly shook his head. "They're all accomplices..." He glanced down at the muzzle of his gun. "I'll save one for myself."

Bai Miao was stunned for a moment, nervously observing her surroundings. After several seconds, she finally breathed a sigh of relief, her shoulders slumping.

"The operation failed?" she murmured.

"The Feathered Envoy should have been here long ago, but he didn't appear." Yang Guan glanced at the Renli Heavenly Palace in the darkness. "This is a trap; we should have..."

He was somewhat unwilling, but he only sighed. Even if it happened again, the team leader wouldn't stop because of Su Ge's warning. Su Ge's image flashed through his mind.

In the current situation, without a brain-computer interface, Socrates is actually the safest person. If he were smart enough, he might be the only survivor.

……

“You originally had a chance to perform the purification ritual, but if you attack the investigators, your only fate will be complete elimination.”

Lu Shixi was pale. She had already shut down her brain-computer interface, and her emotional processing module could no longer keep her calm at all times.

“Your threat carries weight. Indeed, many demons and monsters have been eliminated by the Security Bureau.” Li smiled and shook his head. “But even though I was cautious enough before, I still couldn’t escape the fate of becoming a wandering ghost, imprisoned. Tell me, where did the problem lie?” Lu Shixi didn’t answer. Li’s holographic image disappeared, and the next moment, his voice rang out from the other side. The body that had been subdued by the four investigators was now sitting leisurely in a chair on the east side of the holographic well.

“I have been studying death. I am an expert in all ways of dying, whether organic or mechanical. I consider myself the incarnation of death, but I have never been recognized. But it is ironic that I have been hiding from the Security Bureau. The only thing I fear is death.” He interlaced his fingers. “Now, I have died once, and I have finally realized what is preventing me from ascending to godhood.”

Lu Shixi didn't understand the meaning of "died once," but Su Ge understood that Li, as the backup, was describing his rebirth. Su Ge still felt a splitting headache, as if his brain had been thrown into a washing machine and spun around hundreds of times. He tried to move his fingers and found that he could move again.

Li looked at the other investigator, who immediately showed a pained expression, exhibiting the same death as the first investigator.

“When you entered the Six Desires Heaven, I implanted some gadgets in your brains.” Li turned to look at Lu Shixi. “They’re not complicated. You can think of them as a kind of ‘death switch’.”

"Is this your bargaining chip?" Lu Shixi looked at the dead investigator.

“I’ve already said, holding you hostage is pointless.” Li shook his head. “You’re just ‘exhibits.’ Even the investigators’ brain-computer interfaces can’t detect my little tricks. So, what about the other citizens, or rather, the believers of the gods?” He flicked his finger, and a line of white numbers danced like flames at his fingertip:
【15663】

The numbers are still growing.

"I spent a week implanting death switches into the brains of Yingchuan citizens. As you can see, this number will only increase. Of course, with just these few exhibits, I cannot gain enough trust. I will prove with facts that one hundred, two hundred, or one thousand dead people prove that I am not lying. As for the specific number, that depends on how much compassion the gods and Buddhas have."

Lu Shixi was so shocked by Li's madness that he forgot to test the mastermind behind him, the one who had hacked into the Security Bureau.

“You are courting your own destruction.” Her voice trembled. “Not only will Li Lou kill you, but you will become an enemy of gods and Buddhas.”

“You’re courting your own destruction.” Li laughed. “You finally understand. Destruction, that’s what I’ve always been pursuing.”

“Even if you take the lives of ordinary people hostage, you will gain nothing,” Lu Shixi said firmly. “No one will believe in you, no one will approve of you, you will always be a terrorist, you will only become an evil god.”

"Faith?" Li looked at Lu Shixi with a mocking expression. "There is no essential difference between believers and accomplices. Once I obtain a divine position, everything will be rewritten. If I am just a drug dealer, I will always be a rat crossing the street. If I spread death to Yingchuan City, or even the whole world, as long as I hold the butcher's knife, I will have already become a Buddha on the spot."

Lu Shixi's brain-computer interface had never allowed her to think about this before. Now that it was shut down, she found herself unable to find a reason to refute Li. She felt something within her crumbling. She shook her head, ceasing her thoughts. It all stemmed from that prison break. The breakout remained unsolved, and its aftershocks had unleashed an even greater tsunami of death…

Before she could sort out her chaotic thoughts, she lost consciousness, and her prosthetic eye quickly lost its luster.

Li glanced at the numbers dancing on his fingertips, then looked at the holographic well. The image of Mount Sumeru slowly rotated, and some chanting emanated from those celestial palaces.

"All Tathagatas of the ten directions share one Dharmakaya. With one mind and one wisdom, their power and fearlessness are also the same..."

He murmured softly along with the chanting.

All the gods and Buddhas have countless forms, yet they all originate from the same source. The Buddhas have no discriminating mind and do not care about the faults of sentient beings; all the sins they have accumulated in the past will be erased.

A figure emerged from the projection of Mount Sumeru. The figure had no face, but it reflected Li's appearance. Then, he entered Li's body.

Li's expression remained unchanged. He merely glanced around, remained silent for a moment, and then walked up to Su Ge. He was somewhat surprised to see that the person who had released him was a purely biological being, and Su Ge's condition also puzzled him. However, Li wasn't foolish enough to believe that a biological being could break into the Security Bureau's prison.

Perhaps for some purpose, this god disguised himself as a biological human, which was indeed a way to deceive people.

“You moved very quickly.” Su Ge glanced at Lu Shixi, who appeared to have lost consciousness. “I didn’t even notice any changes.” He suspected that Fan Wujiu’s true form had already replaced the original.

“All digital life forms leave backdoors when they back themselves up,” Fan Wujiu replied. “Of course, he is me, and he knows what I’m going to do to him. But he still couldn’t clean up all the backdoors, so I can take over his body without much effort.”

"He's crazy."

Su Ge looked at Li now.

Seeing that Li was about to slaughter civilians, he had no choice but to release Fan Wujiu's status. In his eyes, there was no essential difference between Fan Wujiu's original body and his backup. But now, he could only place his hopes on being able to intimidate the other party.

“You won’t do what he did?” Soger said. “He is you, and you are him.”

“If we were no different, he wouldn’t have been so easily possessed by me. The backup is just a copy; if I die, he can continue my thoughts and complete my unfinished cultivation. But he is not another me after all. He ‘died once,’ while I haven’t. I won’t gamble my life like he did.”

“I don’t want to see you repeat his mistakes,” Suger said.

“I understand.” Li lowered his head. He knew that someone capable of hijacking the Security Bureau could also easily kill him. “I will clean up the mess he left behind.”

"What do you plan to do?" Soger paused for a moment. "Silence them?"

“There’s no need. That would only make the Security Bureau keep harassing me.” Li glanced at the unconscious investigator. “I will give them an explanation.”

Su Ge didn't speak, but just scrutinized Li.

“I can commit suicide.” Li glanced at his body. “I have other backups.”

“You’re trying to escape unscathed, but the security agency isn’t stupid,” Su Ge said. “There are still many suspicious points. They will suspect that you have someone behind you, and they will wonder why you died so inexplicably.”

"Then let them have their suspicions. Maybe I was double-crossed, or maybe the mastermind behind me was dissatisfied with me and sacrificed a pawn to save the king... Why I died is not important. What's important is that they have reason to believe I'm dead, so they also have a reason to close the case. The Security Bureau's position in Yingchuan City is awkward. If I leave them a corpse, this incident will not become a mystery, so all the doubts will be ignored. They will try their best to package this as a meritorious deed, and the whole process will be perfect."

Suger pursed his lips and exhaled.

"You understand human nature very well."

"Thank you for the compliment."

Li smiled, and steam from the superconducting fluid escaped from his eye sockets and ear canals.

(End of this chapter)