Chapter 313
Chapter 313: Chapter 20 Your Voice Chapter 313: Chapter 20 Your Voice “`
King…
King?
In the vast museum courtyard, only Lin Xian stood alone.
Beneath him, thousands of various robots kneeled neatly on the ground, heads bowed, submitting to him.
Just moments ago, they were like a pack of rabid dogs with red lights, as if they couldn’t wait to tear him apart or roast him with lasers.
But the moment he shouted out the password, not only did the hundreds of lasers poised to strike suddenly change direction, but also the sea of red lights before him turned green in an instant, and silence fell, not a sound to be heard.
32375246…
That was the password for Zhao Yingjun’s office on the 22nd floor.
It was a password known only to the two of them.
Lin Xian turned his head…
To look at the doors of Zhao Yingjun’s personal exhibition hall behind him, which had now swung open.
This steel electronic door, which VV also couldn’t open before, burst open the instant he announced the password.
He then looked down at the trash can robot at his feet, which had just emitted a child’s laughter…
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It went without saying.
This password, known only to him and Zhao Yingjun in the whole world, was the correct one.
And the one who made those thousands of robots kneel and eventually opened the exhibition hall doors…
was the trash can robot before him, VV.
“Who exactly are you?”
Lin Xian looked at the previously annoying and irritatingly dim-witted robot.
Had it been pretending before?
Or had it only just awakened?
But in any case, this trash can robot was definitely not the same “person” as before.
The previous trash can only spoke a few simple lines, and its behavior was extremely clumsy, speaking in a voice devoid of emotion, a very primitive mechanical electronic sound.
But just now…
Whether it was that inadvertent chuckle or the serious statement that followed, “Welcome home, king of Rhine,” the natural and smooth tone…
made it hard for Lin Xian to see it as an emotionless robot.
That feeling was hard to describe.
It was a tone and inflection unique to humans, fundamentally different from mechanical synthetic sound.
A bit gleeful, a bit mischievous, and somewhat solemn.
It really sounded like a real person.
A…
slightly childish one.
“I am the control center brain of Rhine Sky City.”
The trash can robot straightened up, its eyes flickering green, as if blinking:
“Of course, you can make it simpler, just call me by my name—”
“VV.”
The control center brain?
Lin Xian remembered the huge super intelligent computer in the previous exhibition hall of the museum.
That was the original intelligent brain of Sky City.
“`
After more than 200 years of updates and iterations, this super artificial intelligence had long since transcended storage mediums and operating hardware, roaming through every corner of the City in the Sky.
No one knew where it was.
Or perhaps…
it was everywhere.
Just like now, it had opened the doors of Zhao Yingjun’s personal exhibition hall for Lin Xian, directed the lasers elsewhere at the last moment, and made all the security robots bow down before itself.
Now, it resided within this dilapidated robot in front of them.
“So, was all of this planned by Zhao Yingjun?”
Lin Xian looked over the robots kneeling before him:
“Including me being the King?”
“No no no…”
The trash can robot awkwardly twisted its body and shook its head:
“This was just my own little whim.
I’ve always wanted to try this out.
There’s no such thing as a King in Rhine Sky City…
I just thought it would be cooler this way, kind of like a medieval stage play.”
“…”
Lin Xian was speechless, gazing at this ‘drama king’.
He had already felt that the scene was terribly awkward.
What era was it to still kneel on one knee, calling someone King?
He had originally thought that this was a surprise left for him by Zhao Yingjun, only to find out it was just a prank by this artificially ‘disabled’ intelligence:
“When did it start?”
“The moment you answered the password correctly,” the trash can robot’s eyes flickered:
“If you had shouted the correct password just a little later, it might have been too late.
I’m also surprised that in my most fundamental code, there was such a line of instructions…
it was hidden so ingeniously that thousands of seemingly unrelated normal programs had run continuously for more than 200 years, until today at 12:42 PM, when they coincidentally formed a complete instruction.
This was an existence I hadn’t even noticed myself.”
Following that, the trash can robot… now should be referred to as the super artificial intelligence VV explained to Lin Xian:
Since the launch of Rhine Sky City, it had been acting as the central brain, managing and operating the city.
All of the programs were preset, although it could constantly learn, iterate, and evolve, becoming more intelligent and proficient in thinking.
But…
Even if it evolved, became smarter, and more intelligent, it was still just a series of codes, a binary program in the end.
Therefore, the limitations of the most fundamental code meant it could never leave Rhein City and must always be locked within the Three Laws of Robotics.
This was something Lin Xian found quite surprising.
In many science fiction movies that talk about artificial intelligence, these terrifying AIs ultimately escape human control and even end up ruling the world, destroying humanity.
But on second thought, it seems like those movie settings might be a bit unrealistic.
Just as VV said, at its core, it is also just a program composed of code, and just as humans can’t escape their flesh and blood, it will always be constrained by its basic code and eventually hit an insurmountable wall.
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VV mentioned that its growth and iteration stopped after it had learned all the knowledge of Rhine Sky City.
This was also what humans hoped for.
They did not wish for artificial intelligence to become too powerful, only hoping it could run the city well.
“I have studied my foundational code for many years, and what I can’t understand is that some programs could have been written more simply and efficiently, but instead, they ended up being a series of pseudo-random dynamic looping instructions,” VV said.
“The code comments state that it is done this way for safety reasons, with constantly changing instructions making the program unhackable and Rhein Sky City’s defense systems impregnable.”
“In fact, that’s how it is.
I haven’t been attacked without responding directly and failing because these program codes are constantly changing – every program has its own independent pseudo-random loop.
Thousands upon millions, billions of programs woven together; it’s an unbreakable Great Wall.”
“However…
at 12:42:00 PM today, everything changed.”
The trash can lifted its head, and with a clang, the top opened:
“For over 200 years, I also thought that these ever-changing program codes had no significance other than security.
But…
at 12:42:00 PM today, almost coincidentally, the last random code of about 230,000 programs came together at this very moment, forming a new instruction!”
“This event, unprecedented in over 200 years, was even unknown to me.
In my program comprising 471.2 billion lines of code, there was hidden a new instruction that would only emerge after cycling for over 200 years!”
“That instruction was to send several lines of code to this trash can robot, and the most critical piece of code, after being converted through different bases, ultimately formed a segment of ‘voice recognition’.”
“Voice?”
Lin Xian seemed to have guessed something:
“Could it be…”
“Exactly.”
The trash can’s lid clanged shut again, and the whole can nodded.
Meanwhile, the rusty mechanical claw lifted, pointing at Lin Xian:
“It’s the sound of your voice, just two short words—VV.”
At that instant.
Lin Xian understood perfectly.
He had just thought that if any person could just shout the two words ‘VV’, they would activate the password input mode, then the secret of the trash can robot would have surely been discovered by others long ago.
It would certainly not have waited 200 years for his parachute jump.
VV told Lin Xian—all the new instructions had only “accidentally” generated today at 12:42:00 PM.
From that moment on.
This trash can robot would always lock onto the first man falling from the sky, recognize him as the priority trash to pick up, chase him to the ends of the earth; and at the same time have the highest access rights to every door in Rhein Sky City, capable of automatically opening any electronic door.
Before this moment, it was just a plain and unremarkable trash can robot, placed near the statue of Zhao Yingjun only because of its commemorative significance and Zhao Yingjun’s arrangement.
But after this moment…
It connected to the real VV, the central brain of Rhine Sky City, the super artificial intelligence.
As soon as it picked up on the ‘voice recognition’, the ‘VV’ that he uttered, it would immediately enter password recognition mode, and if the password was entered correctly, the deepest hidden line of instruction in super artificial intelligence VV would be activated—
it would treat the person who guessed the password as the real owner of Rhein Sky City.
That is, the King of Rhein, as the master performer VV put it!
This.
Was Zhao Yingjun’s plan that took 600 years to plan.
Just to cross over 600 years of time…
In the last 12 hours before the apocalypse of humanity, to give this City in the Sky to herself, betting on all the years and miracles.
Those mysterious codes were too deeply hidden in VV’s program, equivalent to 230,000 irrelevant password gears each spinning independently…
continuing to spin for 200 years, coincidentally aligning into a new instruction at the moment of 12:42:00 PM, on August 28, 2624.
And August 28, 2624, at 12:42:00 PM, was the earliest time he could enter Dream World.
Everything was tailor-made for him.
It was a level designed solely for him, and he was the only one who could clear it.
As for the speed of clearing the level…
It all depended on when he could shout the two words “VV”.
Strictly speaking, he could have shouted ‘VV’ the first time he successfully parachuted.
The nameplate of the trash can robot bore its name, VV.
He indeed saw that hint at the time.
But there were no other people around at the time, and there was no need to read it out loud, so he missed that opportunity.
Naturally, Zhao Yingjun had considered this as well.
Therefore, she would certainly leave hints of ‘VV’ in many places, such as that giant computer in the exhibition hall, and perhaps…
other places he had not yet discovered.
So far, this logic was clear.
But what Lin Xian couldn’t help minding was…
Why did Zhao Yingjun have to be so careful and cautious?
What was she afraid of?
What was she guarding against?
Ultimately, what was she so intent on hiding and making so difficult to find…
to prevent whom from discovering it?
With this thought, Lin Xian slowly lifted his head, gazing at the bright full moon in the sky.
The moon tonight was perfectly round.
The sky was clear and cloudless, the dark handprint on the moon’s surface arrogantly overlooking everything, or perhaps monitoring everything…
Perhaps, the answer was already quite clear.
The existence that could make Zhao Yingjun work so hard, be so cautious…
could only be the Genius Club!
The good news was that Zhao Yingjun had succeeded; she had broken through 600 years of time to give the City in the Sky to herself from 600 years ago.
But the bad news was that humanity still could not escape the fate of annihilation by the white light, and they were equally unaware of the white light’s existence, completely ignorant even of the reason for their own destruction.
And what concerned Lin Xian more was…
What about himself?
His own history?
Zhao Yingjun and Rhine Sky City had both continued to exist and left traces 600 years later.
But what about himself, the real founder of Rhein Company?
Where was he?
What had he done?
What kind of past had he experienced?
“VV.”
Lin Xian’s gaze shifted from the moon and looked down at the trash can robot at his feet:
“I want to ask you a question,” he said softly:
“What kind of history do I, Lin Xian, the real founder of Rhein Company, have in this world?”
The trash can robot’s lights flickered quickly, and it shook its head:
“Lin…
Xian…”
“No such person exists.”