[Light Cut] Dwelling Skin

"You're jealous again, who taught you? I don't know."

"When did I learn to be jealous? It was you who taught me!" ①

In Minamoto Yorimitsu's study room, books from all over the world are collected, stacked high on the bookshelves, all the way to the roof; when Onikiri went there for the first time, it seemed as if he had entered a different world, and he was almost shocked.

"Is this a book?" he said.

"I think you've never read these books, have you?" Minamoto Raimitsu's tone seemed to be mocking, but also seemed to be narrating the facts.

"Ah, no, I've read some." Onikiri admitted, "It's just that it's an e-book."

In this era, printed matter made of tree sap is the most outdated way of information transmission; nowadays, people have long been accustomed to the convenience and lightness of getting the information and knowledge they need on various terminals with just a flick of a finger ——Newspapers, magazines, and books are just a concept in a dictionary, a word with a picture.He can follow the ideas instilled in them by the daily media, and give a hundred reasons why e-books are superior to paper books, but this does not prevent him from wandering in front of the bookshelf, smelling the smell of stale ink and bark fibers, I feel very novel, just like a child visiting an amusement park for the first time: eager to try various sightseeing items, but feels timid because of lack of experience.

On the waist of a book, he found an obvious typo and exclaimed childishly:

“Look, that’s the bad thing about paper books,” he said. “If there’s a typo, the publisher of an e-book can immediately issue a patch to fix it. You can’t do that with a paper book.”

"It cannot be modified, which is the charm of paper books." Minamoto Raimitsu nodded solemnly.

Not sure he understood Minamoto's words, he turned his attention back to the books.

As he walked along the bookshelves, he looked at the spines of the books from bottom to top, identifying the words on them.

At this moment, a book title caught his eye:

The Tale of Genji.

An inexplicable longing gripped his fingertips, prompting him to take the book down, and seeing Minamoto staring at it, he said:

"The title of this book has your surname in it." He joked, "Maybe it's the story of some ancestor."

"Maybe that's true." Minamoto Raimitsu shrugged.

"Can I borrow it back to read?" Guiqie asked hopefully, even though he knew that as long as he was interested in this book, he could buy it on the reader later, and he could put the reader in his pocket, Read it anytime, anywhere, and you can finish it in a few days—but Minamoto’s collection is different.

Minamoto Larimitsu rejected him almost immediately: "No."

Onikiri languished, and he became tolerant again: "But you can watch it here."

Onikiri made a compromise: "Okay."

He sank down on a chair and carefully flipped open the cover, running his fingertips over the flimsy paper that felt like the cold pastry of a croissant.

"What is this book about?"

"A love story." Minamoto Raimitsu said solemnly.

Since then, he has come to Raikou's study every night-on Sunday night of the second week, Onikiri finally finished reading the book.

"How do you feel?" Minamoto asked him.

"You said it was a love story." Onikiri said, "But after reading the whole book, there is not even a word 'I love you'."

Minamoto Raimiko was taken aback for a moment, then laughed out loud, and the relaxed laughter echoed in the dark study room.

Onikiri was dazed by his laughter, totally at a loss.

"It's a waste of your face to be so incomprehensible."

"What's wrong with me?"

"There are many euphemistic ways to express love in the world, not only 'I love you' is true love."

"I thought that was the way to go."

"Some expressions have been used since ancient times."

"So, if it were you, what kind of words would you use to express your love?" Onikiri asked him.

"I?"

"Yes."

"Why are you asking that all of a sudden?"

"It's nothing, I just want to hear about your experience." Guiqie said cautiously, "Is it okay?"

"of course can."

He immediately pricked up his ears to listen to Minamoto Raikou's reply.

"I'll call that man...my Genji heavy weapon."

"that's it?"

"that's it."

"It sounds very old-fashioned." Guiqie smiled, "What does that mean?"

"My most precious treasure." Minamoto Raimiko said softly.

The study room is warm and dim, and the light shines on Minamoto's side face, casting deep shadows on the walls and bookshelves.

——In front of him, in this ambiguous atmosphere, Onikiri almost had an illusion: what he said was speaking to himself.

The artificial girl numbered 6477 near her home, since that day, whenever she meets Onikiri, she will come to greet him proactively.

At first she was a little timid, always looking around, and the hell she didn't reject him, but gradually she relaxed, and later even chatted with him.

"Nobody wants to talk to me but you," she said.

"You shouldn't," he said. "You're a pretty girl, and you should be very popular."

His frankness obviously pleased the girl. After thinking about it, she said briskly:

"Then you wonder why?"

Onikiri shook his head.

"—Because it's a waste of time to associate with people like me," she said. "Sims can't reproduce. Tell me, who wants to spend energy on a beautiful decoration?"

Her innocent attitude turned what she said into a cruel black humor. She may not be aware of it, but Onikiri already felt the thorn in his back, so he excused that he had a job, pretended to look natural and walked away, But the girl shouted again:

"You here..."

He turned around, 6477 pointed to Onikiri's neck, Onikiri looked down, and saw a deep bruise on his collarbone - he immediately remembered the source of this scar.

"It's from your lover," she said.

Minamoto's face immediately appeared in his mind.

"No." He tugged on the collar. "It's a rash."

Onikiri turned and walked away, 100% sure of the reason for his lying.

He has sympathy for the simulated people and knows the cause of all these tragedies; but he is also obsessed with Minamoto himself, unable to extricate himself.

I may only be crowned with the word hypocrisy for my sloppy mood, he thought—but, you know, not everyone has the courage to step out of their comfort zone and face the truth.

He has already walked to the center of the city. In the busiest part of the commercial street, he saw the new offline experience store of "Xingyun".

On the top of the facade, there is a huge light curtain horizontal screen, which repeatedly plays exquisite advertisements and promotional short films; due to weekends, there is a huge flow of people, and the transparent automatic door is like a flexible mouth, which is regular. It opens and closes openly, swallowing the customers who come and go.Soon, Onikiri was also among the noisy crowd in the hall, slowly moving his feet, looking at the objects and prices displayed in the transparent window, he immediately noticed that there were only some household artificial intelligence products displayed here ——The most traditional and unethical commodity.

"Where's your emulator?" Someone asked the staff beside him.

"I'm sorry, sir." The staff member in a white T-shirt said, he was a young man with yellow hair and acne. You can go to the exhibition hall to see the related information.”

"That's not interesting." He grunted and walked away, but this aroused Onikiri's interest instead.

"Where is the exhibition hall?" Onikiri asked politely.

The young man showed him the way, and he immediately set off in that direction, delighted to see that the crowd ahead was becoming thinner.

Compared with the difficult hall, the exhibition hall has become a peaceful haven.The walls arched high like a whalebone, and the shaded lamp overhead cast a soft, cool light.

The first thing that caught his attention was what was playing on the wall-mounted TV.He looked at it for a while, and immediately recognized that this was the simulator press conference that shocked the world a few years ago and made "Xingyun" famous in the first battle.

Minamoto's face appeared on the screen.

Onikiri stopped and looked at him intently, noticing for the first time that he at that time was paler and haggard than now.

He couldn't be more familiar with the content of the press conference - Nebula showed the first concept commentary at the conference, explaining the principle of the simulated human, body functions, and genetic defects through graphics and videos. For every detail, he kept in mind With a heart, you can accurately answer the next sentence without looking at the screen.

Nothing to see, he thought, getting bored and about to walk away.

At this moment, on the wide screen, a tiny number flashed by, which caught his attention.

102.

He walked back, touched the TV screen lightly, cut back the picture, and observed it carefully.

On the ankle of the simulated person, numbers were scrawled with a marker:

102, 103, 104.

Onikiri stared at it motionlessly, remembering the dark ink imprint on the nape of No. 6377's neck.

101 is not among them.

He suddenly remembered something.

——That is, Nebula never told the public how many failed experiments were paved before the success of the research.

He walked back to the hall, and when he was about to go out, something slammed over and slammed on the glass door, with yellow juice dripping down—it was an egg, and then, more things slammed over, The bright and clean gates and steps were smashed to a dirty mess.

Onikiri was taken aback, stopped in his tracks, and looked around, not far away, in the central square, there were a dozen or so people protesting with flags and banners, denouncing Nebula's crimes and the corruption of human morality.

"They have been here many times." The young yellow-haired staff member appeared next to Onikiri again, shaking his head, "Don't pay attention to them, the police will take them away later."

Onikiri walked through the egg liquid and fruit juice all over the floor. When passing by these people, someone tried to hold him back, preparing to repeat their slogan to him passionately.

But he just glanced indifferently, turned and left.

Note ①: From "The Tale of Genji", "Navigation Mark" in Chapter Fourteen, translated by Feng Zikai.