Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 865 Temptation
"You don't believe me either, right?" The female voice that Ke Lan heard finally showed some changes... But what surprised Ke Lan was that the other party's voice did not change to Zofia Soma as he expected, but became the voice of Aphrodite, the sixth "lover" of the Undead Crew.
"Why should I believe it?" Ke Lan sneered.
"You have come here with so much difficulty, isn't it to seek the truth?" the voice said, "The truth you want to know is now painted on this dome. As long as you look up, you can see it."
"What a cheap trick." Ke Lan said disdainfully, spitting on the ground. "You told me all this just to trick me into looking up at the dome? If you really wanted to tell me the truth, why would you go to so much trouble?"
"To seek the truth, you must pay a price. Do you know that there was a thinker named Confucius in ancient China during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period? He once said, 'If I hear the truth in the morning, I can die in the evening'... Compared with the truth of this universe, human life is too short and insignificant... Now you only need a simple action to touch the supreme truth. Compared with this, life is insignificant."
The other party suddenly changed the subject: "Or are you afraid of death and would rather live in ignorance, stupidity and mediocrity? No, you shouldn't be that kind of person... If you were, you wouldn't come to this place."
"Is it possible that I had no other choice but to plunge into this shabby place?" Ke Lan suddenly laughed. "There was a person who tempted me with similar conditions before... eternal life of the flesh, endless knowledge, the truth of the universe... He had several more bargaining chips than you. Do you know what his final outcome was?"
"You cut off his head," the other said calmly.
"It seems that you can really read my memory..." Ke Lan pursed his lips. He had not said who the person he mentioned was, but based on this little information alone, the manager of the Upper City District had guessed that he was referring to the "prophet" of the heretical sect.
"Since you know that," Ke Lan continued, "then you know that this kind of temptation is useless to me... That person talked for so long, but in the end he couldn't even save his own life. Not to mention the truth of the universe, he couldn't even achieve eternal life for the body. Do you think I would still believe such words?"
"What he said to you was just an empty promise. He can't believe what he himself couldn't do." The voice said, "But I am different. I have already placed what you want in front of you. All you need to do is raise your head."
"Since you have already put what I want in front of me, could you please be a good person and help me... take the things on top... and really put them in front of me? My cervical spine is not in good condition and I can't lift my head." Since the other party insisted so much, Ke Lan might as well start to throw a tantrum... Judging from the current situation, the manager of the upper city should not be able to force them to look up at the dome, otherwise, it would not have to change its voice and go to great lengths to deceive Ke Lan and Sanshisan.
At least, for now, it cannot interfere with the two people through physical means... As for which direction things will develop next, Ke Lan can only take it one step at a time.
Although he was still wary of "Nietto", the manager of the lower city, it did not mean that he did not believe what he said at all... Being steady did not mean being cowardly... What's more, this "Nietto" from the upper city was so anxious to make him look up at the dome, there must be a big problem.
"Do you know why that person told you that as long as you join the heretical sect, you can have those things?" Seeing that Ke Lan was not moved, "Neto" immediately changed the subject and began to talk about the prophet who had been beheaded by Ke Lan.
"You talk, I'm listening. As for whether I believe it or not, that's my own business." Ke Lan said as he checked Thirty-three's condition. Thirty-three had calmed down by then, only his heartbeat and breathing were a little faster. Ke Lan knew that when this "Nietto" was communicating with him, he must have also said something in Thirty-three's ear that only he could hear. However, after Ke Lan interrupted the "big move" of "The moonlight is beautiful", no matter how much he said, it would probably not be as lethal as the previous two sentences. Thirty-three, who was almost fooled, was already on guard.
The two royal bombs at the beginning were useless, and the subsequent three-on-three attacks naturally could not break the defense of thirty-three at all.
However, to be on the safe side, Ke Lan took out a sedative from the first aid kit and injected it into Sanshisan.
"How are you? Are you okay now?" Ke Lan asked in a low voice.
"Not... not bad." Sanshisan nodded. "Sorry, just now I..."
"It's okay. From now on, you just need to remember one thing. No matter what happens, no matter what that voice says to you, don't look up." Ke Lan instructed, "As long as we don't look up, that voice won't be able to do anything to us."
While Ke Lan was talking to Sanshisan, the voice of Upper City Manager "Nietto" continued to reach his ears: "Are you really not curious about what happened to that person?"
"I'm not curious." Ke Lan said expressionlessly, "The person is already dead. What does his past have to do with me?"
"You should know that you and he are the same kind of people... The story that happened to him once is likely to happen to you again."
"Believe it or not, I will sue you for defamation... Comparing me to that bastard is the biggest insult to me." Ke Lan didn't look up, but raised his right hand and made an "international friendly gesture" to the dome. "At least I won't be like that bastard and not take human life seriously."
"That's just because you haven't reached the point where a single choice will lead to the death of tens of millions of people... If you experience that kind of thing too many times, you will become numb to the loss of life." The other party said, "Human beings are such ignorant creatures. Only individuals who have touched the truth are worthy of survival... As for the others, what is the meaning of their short decades of life? In the thousands of years of human civilization, countless people were born into this world, lived a life that was either long or short, and then died... Has it ever meaningful?"
"You're using sophistry because you can't win the argument with me, right?" Ke Lan raised his other hand and raised his second middle finger. "Your words may impress the guys in the Undead Crew, but they're useless to me."
"Then you should know that that person is a symbiote just like you... This is your biggest similarity: you have cultivated so many symbiotes, but the only two individuals who can survive stably for a long time are you two."
"They are all human beings, but there are still great men, saints and scumbags... Do you think a normal person would put those great men who have left their names in history and those notorious scumbags into the same category? Not to mention categorizing them, even mentioning them together would make people feel unlucky, okay..." Ke Lan put down his hands, helped Sanshisan up from the ground, and walked towards the entrance of the garbage disposal plant.
"If you don't want to tell me the so-called truth directly, and insist that I go to see that broken dome, then I'm sorry I won't accompany you... I will find out what I want to know by myself, so I won't bother you." Ke Lan said to himself, "Oh, by the way, although you are the manager of the upper city, I think you should have lost control of the upper city, right? Even the guy with the same name as you in the lower city can force me out of this nest, but you can only hide in a corner and talk, trying every way to make me raise my head... You don't have only your mouth left, do you?"
"You have a really venomous tongue." Thirty-three curled the corners of his mouth, "You are so sarcastic..."
"It won't care about this." Ke Lan sighed, "I'm not trying to mock it, I just want to make myself happy..."
"That's right. I don't feel offended. As a being who has been fortunate enough to touch the truth of the universe, how could I have any emotional fluctuations because of human words?"
Before the voice finished, Ke Lan interrupted it: "Do you know that there is a saying on the Internet? It's called 'If you take it seriously, you will lose'... If you don't respond to me, then I can be sure that you really ignored my ridicule... But you insist on explaining it. Don't you think it's a bit of an attempt to cover up the truth? Or... are you deliberately suppressing your anger? But then again, can the AI of intelligent biological computers really have emotions?"
"..." It seemed that there was no way to refute Ke Lan's words. This time, the other party actually remained silent.
"Are you really an AI? Or a resident of a hive city that has been swallowed by the disaster?" Ke Lan asked.
"I used to be, but now, after gathering together the thoughts and consciousness of everyone in the upper city of the hive, I have become a higher form of life... The computing power of the human brain is far inferior to mine. Why do you think that I can't have the emotions that humans can have?"
"So you're admitting that you were really irritated by what I said just now?"
"There's no point in arguing about such trivial matters... Since you don't agree that the person is the same as you, I won't force you. But there is one thing you are lying about... You care a lot about what that person has experienced in the past. You care a lot."
"So what? Did you know?" Ke Lan put his hands behind his head, lowered his head slightly, and stared at his toes as he kept moving forward. "You should have the ability to read our memories, right? How can you know something that I don't even know? Or can you see those things... hidden in the fog."
This is just like Ze Luo's "sense of vision". Through "sense of vision", Ke Lan and Sanshi San can only see what the residents of the nest city saw back then... The same is true in reverse. What "Nieto" can steal from the two people's memories is naturally only what they have seen or experienced. If those things do not exist in the two people's memories at all, how can it steal them?
The only thing that made Ke Lan a little worried was those memory fragments sealed deep in his mind...those things shrouded in fog...but Ke Lan's subconscious kept telling him that those memory fragments had not been touched by "anyone".
If the memory fragments were viewed, whether they were unlocked by Ke Lan himself or "stolen" by other consciousnesses, he would have a subtle feeling. However, this feeling has never appeared since he entered the third level of the hive. He can basically be sure that "Neto" should not be able to see those sealed memory fragments.
"Of course I know what that person has experienced, because he has been here before." The other party said calmly.
"The prophet has also been here... There's nothing to be surprised about. After all, he can read the words of the Alpha civilization, and he has explored so many ruins with the help of the power of the heretical sects. It's entirely possible that he found this place by following the clues." Ke Lan twirled his chin... He hadn't washed properly for almost a week, and the originally short stubble on his chin had now grown to half a centimeter long. Ke Lan's mind moved, and a thin layer of space blade immediately appeared at the tip of his nails. He shaved his beard clean in a few strokes.
Although Ze Luo's spatial power was sealed and could not be released outside the body, it was still a problem to use it on Ke Lan's fingertips to shave his beard.
"Did the prophet look up at the dome?"
"That's why he feels that... human life is meaningless. If he wants to pursue the truth, he must give it up..."
"Wait." Ke Lan interrupted him again, "Since he has seen it, why is he so lame? Not only did he fail to destroy the ark built by ignorant humans, but I chopped off his head... According to this, the things on the dome... should be useless, right?"
"It is difficult for me to describe the truth of the universe to you in words... The language of human civilization is too low-level. The amount of information contained in a sentence is like a drop in the ocean in front of the truth of the universe..."
"What about the language of the Alpha civilization? Is it not qualified either?" Ke Lan asked tentatively.
The language of the Alpha civilization is a leap forward compared to human language - if human language is compared to a 3.5-inch floppy disk that can only store text documents, then the language of the Alpha civilization is a super mobile hard disk with a capacity of hundreds of TB. The gap between the two is extremely huge.
"That language...is also not acceptable."
"Since the truth of the universe cannot be described in words, then 'disaster' should be able to be described, right? The guy on the second floor refused to tell me what happened in this nest city... But I think you should not have such restrictions, right?"
