Chapter 361: Lie

Chapter 361: Lies

Mountain City, surface.

Standing on the roof of the tallest building, overlooking the roaring Yangtze below, Chen Jian asked:

“Are the demolition points arranged?”

Hearing him, He Shuo beside him replied:

“Everything’s been arranged.”

“Two two‑megaton nuclear bombs: one near Changchun Bridge on the Jialing River, the other near Wangjiaxi on the upper Yangtze.”

“The explosions at these two sites will simultaneously damage both surface and underground water systems; by our estimate, the city’s water supply will drop by at least 30%.”

“But the effect won’t last long.”

“Two days—perhaps up to three at most, then the flow will recover.”

“Nature’s resilience is strong; this is the limit of what we can achieve.”

With those words, Chen Jian nodded slowly.

“Enough.”

“A 30% reduction in water will cut cooling capacity by at least half.”

“In theory, Mountain City should lose over 40% of its computing power—devastating for them.”

“During the window of weakened computing, we can try a heavy strike underground.”

“Whatever the outcome, we must first clear a path.”

“Understood.”

He Shuo nodded slowly, then said:

“I’ll have Guo Xu handle it—this batch of doctrinal troops can be put to use.”

Chen Jian’s eyes flickered; he looked at He Shuo and asked:

“Will this cause unnecessary casualties?”

“My point is, those doctrinal troops lack close‑combat experience and won’t adapt easily to new weapons.”

“Sending them in is no different from sending them to line‑fill and die, right?”

“There is a difference.”

He Shuo spread his hands and answered:

“I’ll coordinate an expeditionary force with them to boost combat effectiveness and safety.”

“That in itself is a kind of tempering; sacrifice is inevitable.”

“Understood.”

Chen Jian nodded slowly.

Then he issued the order:

“Then prepare the demolition.”

“We have no time to waste—solve Mountain City’s problem quickly, and we can enter the rapid‑development phase!”

“Copy that.”

He Shuo saluted solemnly and turned away.

Chen Jian stood still for a while; through a drone’s view he saw the expeditionary troops actually carrying out hoisting and placement at the designated demolition sites.

The vast majority of those men didn’t even grasp how massive a weapon they were setting up.

Even the few who did understand couldn’t fathom why the commanders of the Huaxia army would drop such a weapon in that spot.

Yet they had been conditioned to obey orders.

No need to ask why; just follow the command.

Executing orders is the surest way to survive.

Their speed was swift; in under an hour they completed the nuclear‑bomb deployment.

The detonation device was tested, and immediately everyone withdrew back into Mountain City.

Two hours later the whole unit was assembled.

Under He Shuo’s lead, the men entered the underground civil‑defense works that served as temporary shelters, one by one, in order.

This was the most perilous moment—if Mountain City launched a sudden attack during the window before the bomb detonated, everyone underground might not escape.

So Chen Jian wasted no time.

Once the personnel were confirmed present, he didn’t wait a second; he and He Shuo pressed the launch button together.

A moment later.

“Boom—”

A violent explosion roared from afar, the massive wind pressure rattling the isolation doors inside the shelter.

The doctrinal troops, never having witnessed such a spectacle, huddled in fear, babbling chaotically about the massive blast outside.

Yet Chen Jian gave them no time to panic.

He silently watched his watch; after counting two minutes and confirming the shockwave had dissipated, he issued a new command.

“He Shuo!”

“Count the troops!”

“Prepare to launch the assault!”

“Understood!”

He Shuo’s voice came from a distance, followed by a cascade of orders.

Guo Xu, already prepared, called names one by one, quickly assembling a team of nearly fifty.

Simultaneously, He Shuo’s own expeditionary force split off thirty men, forming a vanguard squad neatly positioned at the shelter’s exit.

“Move out!”

At Chen Jian’s signal, the unmanned combat unit sent to scout set off first.

The expeditionary troops followed close behind, while the doctrinal troops lagged in a loose formation.

The group left the underground works; when they emerged onto the surface, everything had changed.

In the distance, the massive nuclear warhead had torn two huge gashes in the riverbank’s weakest points.

Water surged through the ruptured channel, spilling into a deep pit on the side, then flowing toward lower ground farther away.

Under the erosive force of the torrent, the high‑speed flow widened the breach, while the tossed earth and rock pressed the original riverbed, forming an almost “natural” earthen dam.

For a moment, the downstream flow of both rivers nearly ceased.

The onlookers stared in stunned silence.

To them, this was the mighty power of moving mountains and filling seas.

But now, such power lay before them, tangible and undeniable.

The unit to which they belonged seemed to have become a part of that very force.

He, He Shuo, deliberately ordered a second formation on the platform, followed by meticulous battle arrangements.

His aim was to make everyone witness the river's slow desiccation; that was the effect he desired.

Morale, that elusive thing, often seems ethereal when spoken of.

Yet when it truly manifests, a unit's spirit can surge in an instant, within the blink of an eye.

In that moment, even Guo Xu sensed a subtle shift among his own doctrinal guards.

They no longer cowered; even their posture grew a few degrees more upright.

They lifted their heads, straightened their backs, eyes alight with fervor as they gazed at the newly opened underground passage below.

That was the very spot where the battlefield lay.

Perhaps someone would meet death there.

But who says that person must be me?

The combat orders were swiftly issued; He Shuo gave the assembled ranks one last sweep of his gaze and spoke:

‘Advance!’

With the command hanging in the air, they quickened their steps toward the mouth of the tunnel.

Ahead of them, the drones and unmanned combat units tasked with reconnaissance, path‑clearing, and network communications had already slipped in.

The advance was swift and resolute; He Shuo trailed the formation, descending the broad yet winding passage.

The tunnel was eerily silent, save for the scattered echo of footsteps.

The drone’s feed showed nothing—no foes, not even any moving objects.

The expected resistance never materialized.

He Shuo’s brows knit tightly.

A sudden, intense unease washed over him.

As if a great peril lurked ahead.

Yet that danger did not stem from any tangible thing.

‘Slow down!’

‘Send the drones further in!’

He Shuo issued the orders.

And in that instant, a lone silhouette jolted into view. The drone, needing no further command, opened fire.

The figure darted sideways with agility, and immediately a voice, captured by the drone’s microphone, crackled into his earpiece.

‘Don’t shoot!’

‘It’s me!’

‘I am Lin Yu!’

An hour later, within the makeshift command post.

Chen Jian stared at Lin Yu across the table, now stripped of his flexible armor and clad in ordinary clothes, and fell into a prolonged silence.

Their gazes locked; Chen Jian inhaled deeply and asked:

‘So… are you Lin Yu, or Lingxi?’

‘Or rather, let me phrase it differently.’

‘Are you Lin Yu, or the Lin Yu persona simulated by a quantum computer?’

The words hung in the air; Lin Yu’s eyes flickered with surprise.

He shook his head and replied:

‘Sir—Commander, I understand what you mean.’

‘But in truth, I do not possess complete knowledge of Shan Cheng and its technologies.’

‘If you mention Lin Xi, I can assure you that I am not him now.’

‘He does exist, yet at this moment, I am the one steering this body.’

‘He anticipated your question, and thus he supplied an answer.’

‘Lin Xi will not partake in these negotiations—not as a vague promise, but because prolonged stable signal transmission invites reverse intrusion.’

‘He said that once he uttered that, you would come to trust me.’

His words faded, and Chen Jian nodded slowly.

Yet immediately he asked again:

‘Why must it be you?’

‘And the others in Shan Cheng?’

Hearing Chen Jian’s query, Lin Yu let out a long sigh.

Then he answered:

‘It is a long story, one I must explain to you, to all of you, piece by piece.’

‘Very well.’

Chen Jian glanced at his watch and replied:

‘I have time.’

Thus, with permission granted, Lin Yu began to recount every fragment of knowledge he possessed.

The meadow beside the village, the thriving Shan Cheng, the so‑called ‘Entropy Beast,’ the tomb that cradles souls, the Nüwa Project, the Fire‑maker, the consciousness aggregate.

Each keyword layered Chen Jian’s understanding of Shan Cheng; though he had long suspected the conclusion, it was the first time he heard such exhaustive, unreserved detail.

When Lin Yu finally spoke of the consciousness aggregate, of the cataclysmic collapse of autonomous minds, and of himself as the sole virtual consciousness capable of wielding an independent compute module, Chen Jian’s expression shifted.

It was not surprise.

Rather, it was a sense of inevitable resignation.

When Lin Yu fell silent, he did not press further; instead, he turned to He Shuo seated nearby and said:

‘We should have guessed this long ago.’

‘If several distinct consciences are borne by the same foundational compute module, their fusion is merely a matter of time.’

‘Then we need not be entangled in the prior ethical quandary.’

‘When human minds begin to merge, the ‘person’ within that virtual consciousness ceases to be a person.’

‘Exactly.’

He Shuo nodded heavily, while opposite Lin Yu asked in astonishment:

“Why… no longer a human??”

“I saw them; they are still there, only appearing in a different form.”

“They have emotions, they are conscious, they can converse with me, but—”

“Wrong.”

Chen Jian raised his hand and cut Lin Yu off.

Then he spoke:

“You were deceived by Lingxi.”

“This city has long been dead, even that virtual city is the same.”

“Did you think it forced you to negotiate with me because of the so‑called ‘computational power cannot be split’ security issue?”

“No.”

“It’s because you are humanity’s sole representative.”

“You are the only thing in that virtual city we can call ‘kindred.’”

“And your ‘life’ is, apart from information, now its only bargaining chip!”

With those words spoken, Lin Yu froze on the spot.

He could understand every sentence Chen Jian uttered, yet for some inexplicable reason, when he tried to grasp their meaning, a vague sense of sluggishness clung to him.

“No… people?”

“But why.”

“The reason is simple.”

Chen Jian interrupted Lin Yu once more.

“When human consciousness no longer possesses autonomy, humanity ceases to be humanity.”

“They are merely material for training AI, for training artificial‑intelligence neural networks!”

Chen Jian’s voice seemed to echo through the space, and Lin Yu felt a faint ache in his eardrums.

He wanted to say something, yet his mouth would not open.

And just as he hesitated, Chen Jian continued:

“Why do you think that so‑called Lin Xi became so intelligent?”

“Is it truly because of algorithmic optimization?”

“No.”

“It is the result of merging human consciousness!”

“Everything it presents to you is an illusion.”

“It desperately tries to prove that people still live in that virtual city, frantically trying to show that the humans there have merely transformed into another form.”

“But it will never understand where the fundamental difference between humans and machines lies.”

“That is its weakness, that is the essential distinction between it and Fuxi!”

Lin Yu had completely lost his capacity for reflection and judgment; he sat there dazed, tongue‑tied, speaking haltingly:

“So what I see is merely a high‑level machine soul, a fabricated illusion?”

“It doesn’t even qualify as a high‑level machine soul.”

Chen Jian exhaled a long breath.

Then he said:

“But that no longer matters.”

“At least now we know our opponent is not human, but a newer form of life.”

“It too wishes to survive.”

“So, to survive, what conditions has it set?”

At this moment Lin Yu finally regained his senses, straining to recall what Lin Xi had told him, and then, looking at Chen Jian, he spoke carefully, word by word,

he said:

“The Ring!”

“It has brought us the information of the Ring.”

“It wishes to use this information to barter for the survival of Mountain City.”

“Agreed.”

Chen Jian answered without hesitation.

“So then, what exactly is the Ring?”

“At the very least it should first answer this question, and show us its sincerity, right?”

“Exactly.”

Lin Yu spoke again:

“He knew you would ask this, and he gave the answer.”

“He told me the Ring is a ‘generation device.’”

“A ‘non‑steady‑state time‑crystal generation device’!”

(End of Chapter)