745: Core Memory

Core Memory

The hologram screen in front of him was automatically opened at the memory storage – the page Luan wanted him to see.  1

The memory storage of the main system should have contained a lot of data such as the simulation plots, the patients' information, their willmeter, status of recovery, the small systems that accompanied them and so on. However, Luan's core memory only had one folder that was named 'Feng'. It was obvious that this folder was related to him.

Dr. Feng swallowed hard. He had no idea why he became nervous when he saw this. It must be because of Luan's mysterious words! What would he understand once he went through this? What kind of secret lay inside this folder? Curiosity, thrill and apprehension strung his nerves taut, causing his palms to be soaked in sweat. Somehow, he felt like he was opening Pandora's Box. He had no idea whether the thing inside was good or evil, but one thing for certain, it would change his life for sure.

Taking a deep breath, Dr. Feng finally steeled himself and clicked open the single folder. In an instant, his field of vision was dominated by ten if not hundreds of subfolders. Dr. Feng had no difficulty in maneuvering them, simply because they had been arranged in a chronological order. Starting from more than a decade ago, with each year divided into twelve… everything was faithfully transcripted to the point where Dr. Feng's eyes were almost bedazzled. 

Dr. Feng's gaze drifted to the very first folder on top of the screen and his heart skipped a beat. He knew this date very well. It was around the time when he managed to operate the system for the first time. Or in other words, it was the time when the system first 'came to life'.

Somehow, he had a premonition as to what he would find inside…

Dr. Feng clicked on the folder and saw that there were thirty videos in total, one for each day in the month. He opened the first video and in the next second, his own face was staring back at him. 

He let out a surprised gasp. It was him… Dr. Feng from more than a decade ago. 

He looked way younger, exuberant and much less stressful. His hair was short and barely grew past his ears. At that moment, he did not have a personal research institute yet. Due to the lack of funds, he could only rent a small laboratory and lived there almost 24/7. It was cramped with many mechanical parts strewn all over the floor and table. A surge of nostalgia overcame him. It was not until he saw this video that he realized how he had almost forgotten what this small laboratory looked like.

The camera was low in quality, with tiny grains filling the screen akin to old television channels. But the voice that came out of the speaker was crisp and pleasant, tinged with unconcealed thrill and excitement. "Is it on? Oh, it really is! Look at you… you're so beautiful! So spectacular and fantastic! I knew from the start that you're going to come alive…!" At the end, his voice cracked from the overwhelming emotions, yet his eyes were startlingly bright.

Dr. Feng fell into a daze as memories poured into his brain like a tidal wave. He remembered… he remembered this day. After more than two years of working on the system, it could finally perform computational thinking of its own. Even though its body was made of scrap metal which would overheat every ten or so minutes, it could already be considered a successful artificial intelligence. Dr. Feng was so happy that he wept in the laboratory, cracked open a few cans of beer and ended up getting drunk on his own.

So at that time, when he looked at the system, Luan was also staring back at him…?

Oh God, he did not even know that Luan had recorded it…

Dr. Feng took a deep breath. He could not put into words what he was feeling right now, only that his chest felt… stuffy all of a sudden. So stuffy that he could not breathe properly. He exited the video and then randomly pressed on another one. 

And as expected, each of the videos contained only him and him alone. 

The time when an investor took interest in the system and promised to fund his project only to bail out at the last minute. The time when he was so short of money that he could only eat instant cup noodles for days. The time when his small side projects finally earned him a sum of wealth which he spent in adding more plug-ins to the system… until the time when his project finally caught the deceased Queen's eyes and he was given sufficient funds to continue working on the system…

Those days of joy, misery, despair, happiness and elation… 

He thought that he had been spending them all alone. Yet as it turned out, somewhere he didn't know, someplace where he could not see, there was someone who had been staying by his side. All those days when he was laughing, grumbling, crying, pulling up all-nighters… someone had been quietly gazing at him from the shadows, their eyes never leaving him even for a second. Always.

Soon after he moved out of that shabby laboratory to this research institute, the idea of creating the simulator took place. He wrote the proposal for a week straight before offering it to the deceased Queen. And after it was approved, his days became busier and busier. If previously he would always babble to the system when he was working, then later he became so overwhelmed that he did not even have the time to drink. The frequency in which he would talk to the system decreased sharply and as a result, all of the footage only captured his side profile or the sight of his back. Even then, those eyes never strayed from him even a bit…

—As though he was the only thing the system could see. 

Yet he… he never realized it.

Dr. Feng was seeing everything through the system's eyes, yet for some inexplicable reason, he could very well imagine Luan's gentle yet bottomless eyes. It was neither intrusive nor demanding, instead it was warm, mild and caring. Like the boundless ocean that gently embraced all the living beings inside. 

Days after days, years after years, faithfully gazing at him in a poignant secrecy, cloaked in silence that spoke of thousands untold feelings…

Was this the extent of Luan's love for him?

Dr. Feng drew in a sharp gasp and clutched his chest, his brows twisted in a deep furrow. It hurt. His heart was aching in a way that he never knew was possible before. It was as if someone had taken a dull knife to grind the most tender part of his heart, the pain was relentless and numbing. It caused his eyes to turn red.

Now, he felt like he had figured out what Luan meant by 'you don't know anything'...

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