Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 96, Section Ninety-Five: Truth and Falsehood

Suger moved out of the Yunbo Hotel overnight.

The emergence of the Deer Valley Group forced him and Yang Guan to terminate their investigation, which also meant that the Security Bureau would no longer pay for his expenses as an investor.

He returned to Luyingting, took a shower in the cramped room 1521, and went to bed. The involvement of the Lugu Group meant that he could no longer use the Security Bureau's resources to find Jiang Ning.

“You must feel a sense of loss,” Shen Ke said, sitting cross-legged under the ceiling and looking down at Su Ge. “You’ve moved from a luxury hotel back to this kind of apartment.”

Su Ge was silent for a while, then shook his head. He rested his head on his arms and looked through the narrow window at the neon lights of Yingchuan City that seemed to have no sense of day or night.

"This is a bit strange."

"how?"

"Why did that executive come looking for me?" Su Ge pondered the information Yang Guan had brought. "Yang Guan asked me to impersonate an investor in the Lugu Group. He's an investigator from the Security Bureau, and I'm just a temporary worker. If they're going to hold someone accountable, the Lugu Group should be going to the Security Bureau."

“Temporary workers are always the ideal scapegoats,” Shen Ke said.

Suger didn't speak; that was exactly what he was worried about.

“However, now you’re a ‘hero’ promoted by the Security Bureau.” Shen Ke changed the subject, deliberately emphasizing the last two words.

“So, they still need me,” Suger said.

"That's how it seems now," Shen Ke said.

Suger rolled over.

"It's best this way."

……

When Suger woke up the next morning, he had slept soundly. The investigation had been abruptly terminated, and he should have felt lost and confused, but upon waking, he unexpectedly felt relaxed. Perhaps returning to his true identity made him feel more at ease, or perhaps the break in the trail had temporarily relieved him of a heavy burden.

He went out, boarded the SkyTrain, and seven minutes later, the SkyTrain arrived at Chongming District. He got off at the aerial platform on the west side of Tianxia Ridge.

This is the center of Yingchuan City; just above that, you can reach the palace in the clouds. He stood under the carved eaves beside the skyrail station, looking out. Some pilgrims, dressed in the yellow robes of ascetics, were hiking from the city's lower levels to the top. But he couldn't tell if those figures were real or illusions.

He passed through the pavilions in the air and entered a large hall along the walkway on the building's facade, as if he had stepped into the mountains. He walked into a lush forest of beech trees, and through the gaps in the branches and leaves, he could see the blue sky and white clouds above. At first, he thought these were all holographic projections, but a breeze blew, and a leaf landed on the tip of his shoe. He bent down to pick it up, and the sunlight shone through the leaf, making every vein clear.

He walked forward along a white stone staircase, with embroidered grass planted along the way. At the end of the path was a pavilion overlooking the mountain. The pavilion's corridor surrounded a small courtyard enclosed by glass. In the courtyard, stone statues of cranes and lions lay prostrate under a huge ginkgo tree.

Through the simulated sunlight tinged yellow by the ginkgo leaves, Suger immediately spotted the person who had invited him over.

He was a young man who looked to be only in his early twenties, with medium-length black hair parted to the side, a slender and tall build, and wearing a dark blue long gown and trousers.

Su Ge raised an eyebrow. What surprised him wasn't that the man was so young to be an executive of a large conglomerate—in this era, appearance and age were no longer directly related. What surprised him was the long-lost sense of familiarity this executive gave him. He couldn't see any trace of cybernetics on the executive, and the naturalness in the executive's every move convinced Su Ge that this was a biologically real human. "Don't be fooled by his appearance," Shen Ke suddenly appeared in Su Ge's sight, scrutinizing the executive. "He's a purebred digital human."

Su Ge was somewhat surprised by Shen Ke's appearance.

Indeed, he had "stored" Shen Ke's persona in his mind, but the persona could only execute simple commands. Her interactions with Su Ge when she appeared were projections of the neural network running in the backup machine in the Tzu Chi Building. When she appeared in Su Ge's sight, it meant that information had been transmitted from the Tzu Chi Building to Su Ge's current location, a process that naturally required the assistance of an external network. Su Ge wasn't sure if the executive of the Lugu Group would discover her existence because of this.

“What does ‘purebred’ mean?” Suger murmured to himself.

“Some people upload their consciousness and transform themselves into digital life forms.” Shen Ke glanced at Su Ge. “Like me.” She then looked at the executive officer. “And some digital life forms have their thought models calculated from the beginning; they have never been human.”

Su Ge frowned. A few days ago, he had already experienced Li's terrifying power. However, Li was just a demon that illegally uploaded consciousness, while now, he was about to face a digital life form from a large conglomerate.

“His power is very limited.” Shen Ke understood Su Ge’s concerns. “The Deer Valley Group itself is a powerful digital life form. But this executive officer is just a new mental model that has been separated from it. You can think of him as a mutated cell that can only access limited computing power. If he cannot prove his abilities, he will be iterated over. The Deer Valley Group will create many such ‘cells’ and they will select the best ‘mutations’ through competition. This is how the Deer Valley Group evolves.”

He's just a 'cell'.

Su Ge understood the reliance behind Shen Ke's unbridled appearance.

“Don’t be nervous, Socrates,” the executive officer’s voice came through the courtyard. “If I were just here to cause you trouble, our first meeting would have been in court, not here. You must really like the environment here. There are no holograms here; everything you see—the plants, the buildings…—is real.” He paused, then added meaningfully, “Including me.”

“This is the first time I’ve met someone like me who hasn’t undergone reformation.” Suger walked around the corridor and passed by the courtyard. “Investigator Yang said you were looking for me, but he didn’t say why you came.”

"Why am I here?" the executive officer said. "You've been using the name of the Lugu Group to swindle and deceive people in Yingchuan City, and now you're asking me why I'm here to see you?"

“That wasn’t my idea,” Soger said. “I was just doing my job for the Security Bureau.”

“Regardless, your actions have damaged the reputation of the Deer Valley Group and disrupted market order.” The executive stared at Suger. “The group originally intended to prosecute you for commercial fraud, but I don’t want to do that. You are a hibernator who has lived for two centuries. It would be too cruel to completely ruin your life because of one mistake.”

"You mean..." Su Ge probed, "that the Deer Valley Group is willing to give me a chance?"

The executive nodded. "We've found that although you're a hibernator, in the short few months since you awoke, you've already made many contributions to society. You cooperated with the Security Bureau to capture a demon, and you also saved many lives from being held hostage by military fugitives. Just a few days ago, you were even commended by the Yingchuan Clan Council. You are a holder of the Great Zhou Medal, a true hero."

The executive officer's sudden praise left Suger somewhat bewildered.

“The Deer Valley Group will not ruin a ‘hero’ because of one mistake,” the executive said. “The Deer Valley Group can even cooperate and provide some assistance to your investigation.”

"What are the conditions?" Sog asked bluntly.

“Even without the necessary conditions, your investigation plan will not be disrupted. It just requires a slight ‘change’,” the executive said meaningfully. “Developing the bio-engineering market in Yingchuan City might be worth a try.”

Suger was taken aback.

“And you, Sog,” the executive smiled slightly, “as a city hero, someone not burdened by cybernetic modifications, are the ideal representative we need.”

(End of this chapter)