Chapter 677
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Chapter 677: Yuzu Pear Waterfall
“Identity verification in progress… Warning, identity verification failed… Identity verification successful, please proceed.”
The cold electronic voice stopped abruptly, and then Jiang Er’s voice came through. The metallic door in front of An Qingyu slowly lifted, and lights along the dark corridor began to illuminate section by section.
An Qingyu calmly stepped inside.
At the end of the corridor, a massive room occupied nearly a third of the experimental area. Huge one-way glass surrounded the room, and standing outside the glass, An Qingyu could clearly see the scene inside.
White floor tiles, white beds, white walls, white ceiling… Inside the immaculate white room, a figure dressed in a deep blue surgical gown was curled up on a single sofa, holding a controller connected to a television on the opposite wall.
On the TV screen, a plumber in red overalls was throwing his red hat like a boomerang, skillfully picking up gold coins from the ground while running towards a green chimney ahead.
He was a tall, slender boy, with delicate and three-dimensional features, handsome and striking, even more so than a young Jingjie. He looked like a beautiful youth straight out of a fairy tale, with snow-white long hair that was almost taller than his entire body, cascading like a satin waterfall over the sofa and onto the floor.
His skin was an unhealthy pale, but his eyes, fixed on the screen, were bright and spirited. If one looked closely, they could see that his pupils were somewhat different from those of a normal person; his eyes resembled a pair of cross-shaped stars, faintly shimmering in the black irises.
“Is this a thirteen-year-old child?” Jiang Er’s surprised voice sounded beside An Qingyu. “With this height and looks, he seems to be eighteen or nineteen at least, right?”
“The Oracle injected him with a large amount of artificial hormones during the experiment, accelerating his physical growth process. So his physical age is far beyond thirteen. As for his white hair… it should be the result of long-term accumulation of the drugs in his body,” An Qingyu explained.
“That’s truly insane…”
An Qingyu observed him for a moment from outside the one-way glass. “Open the door; I want to talk to him.”
“But we still can’t determine if he is safe,” Jiang Er said with some concern. “In the past, it was always the Oracle who interacted with him. If you suddenly change that, he might do something unpredictable. No one knows what kind of person the Oracle has turned him into over the years. If he has really been raised as an artificial god, he could be an extremely terrifying existence…”
“It’s fine,” An Qingyu smiled gently. “Open the door.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the metallic door beside him slowly lifted. An Qingyu adjusted his collar and stepped inside.
Inside the room.
Yuzu Riku was fixated on the screen, his fingers rapidly pressing the buttons on the controller. Even as An Qingyu approached him, he didn’t look up.
An Qingyu sized him up for a moment, then sat down on the floor beside him, smiling as he spoke in standard Japanese, “Hello.”
“Hello,” the white-haired boy replied politely, still not looking at An Qingyu, but calmly said, “I thought you would continue standing outside, too afraid to come in and see me.”
An Qingyu’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He turned to look; indeed, the room was a one-way glass, appearing as just a mirror from the inside, making it impossible to see the outside.
How did he know someone was standing outside in such a tightly secured laboratory?
“You don’t need to look; the naked eye can’t see outside from here,” Yuzu Riku said flatly.
“Then how did you see?” An Qingyu asked curiously.
“I saw it on the mini-map.”
“Mini-map?”
“Yeah.” Yuzu Riku slowly explained, “You can’t see it, but it’s in my mental world. I can see that on the current map, there is only one red dot for you, and a translucent red dot that covers every corner of this place…
This is the first time I’ve seen such a situation. Is that sister a ghost? Or is she like ‘Yuzuki’, an artificial intelligence?”
Hearing this, a flash of shock crossed An Qingyu’s eyes. After hesitating for a moment, he continued to ask:
“You can see the mini-map? What else can you see?”
“A lot of things, like… levels.”
On the TV screen, Mario successfully passed through layer after layer of levels and entered the green sewer. The words “Level +1” appeared on the screen along with Mario’s cheers.
Yuzu Riku slowly put down the controller and turned to look at An Qingyu. His cross-shaped pupils seemed to see deep into An Qingyu’s heart, profoundly…
“Level?”
“Your level is lv68, and that sister’s level is lv63.” Yuzu Riku glanced at the surveillance camera in the corner. “With your abilities, you shouldn’t be able to kill an lv84 Oracle, right? What trick did you use to lure them away?”
An Qingyu stood frozen in place.
Mini-map, levels… Was this child talking about a game?
Could it be that this world, in his eyes, was just a game?
No… that’s not right. He could clearly know his position and Jiang Er’s existence, and even visualize realms as levels. This was no simple cognitive bias… His ability itself was “the game”?
An Qingyu pondered for a moment and asked:
“What about you? What is your level?”
“Me?” Yuzu Riku’s pale lips curled into a faint smile. “My level is lv97.”
97…
An Qingyu frowned in thought.
If this child’s classification of levels is correct, his lv68 represents the “Sea” realm, the Oracle’s lv84 represents “Klein,” then the lv97 he mentioned corresponds to…
The pinnacle of humanity.
An Qingyu’s gaze towards Yuzu Riku had completely changed.
This group of Oracles had actually managed to secretly create a being at the pinnacle of humanity through artificial experimentation?
How did they accomplish this?
In An Qingyu’s eyes, a long-lost spark of excitement and curiosity flickered!
“Qingyu! I think this child is not quite right. It’s not safe for you inside; hurry and come out!” Jiang Er’s voice came through the Bluetooth headset, filled with unease.
Before An Qingyu could respond, Yuzu Riku, sitting opposite him, seemed to have heard those words. He expressionlessly raised his head and looked at the surveillance camera in the corner.
“Sister, you don’t need to be so nervous,” he squinted and smiled. “I’m… very safe.”
In his eyes, that cross-shaped pupil flashed with a glimmer.
Sizzle—!!
The entire power supply system of the “Pure Land” was instantly cut off, plunging the surroundings into darkness.
In the entire silver circular space, only the television hanging on the wall in this small room continued to flicker with light, pixelated text assembling together, swirling between black and red light:
——YouDead!
