Li Yao scooped up a handful of the black seawater, only to discover that the seawater was like a mixture of mucus and sand. It was dripping through his fingers in a very weird form.
It seemed that the collapse of the Virtual Spirits Sector had affected the core logic level. Even the dynamic model of the seawater could not be stabilized anymore, resulting in all kinds of weird changes.
This was a desolate world. Li Yao did not sense any life force that was too intense.
He walked along the beach for a long time. The only thing that could be called 'life' was the weird creatures that looked like the hybrids of crabs and jellyfish that could be seen everywhere on the beach like deflated balloons but with countless tentacles.
Those weird crabs were all motionless and emitted a disgusting stink. There was no telling whether they were dead or 'alive'.
Naturally, they were not virtual lives generated by the Virtual Spirits Sector on their own but artificial intelligence that had been added when the Virtual Spirits Sector was constructed. The original plan was to modulate the primitive ocean with them, monitor the changes of the data in the virtual seawater, and accelerate the birth of virtual lives.
However, after the collapse of the Virtual Spirits Sector, not only were the virtual lives not born, but even the central database of the artificial intelligence became more and more tedious. The data overflowed, and they were caught in an infinite loop, unable to run any instructions.
Boom … Boom … Boom …
In the purple sky, the sawtooth-shaped dark clouds rolled weakly, and thunder rumbled intermittently. However, only the first half of the thunder was heard, but not the second half. It was like a rooster that had its neck strangled, and the sound came to an abrupt halt. It was indescribably uncomfortable to listen to.
On the other side of the beach was a boundless city. Li Yao observed as far as he could, only to discover that the ultra-modern city seemed to have experienced the most severe earthquake and the bombardment of meteoroids. Broken walls, traces of explosions, and scorching flames were everywhere. It looked even more desperate and deadly than the black ocean.
"Hey!"
The Virtual Spirits Sector gave Li Yao a very uncomfortable feeling.
It seemed that the collapsed world was the only thing left in the entire universe, and he was the only person left in the collapsed world.
He could not help but shrink his neck and shout aloud.
Long Yangjun, Wei Qingqing, Professor Xie Wufeng, and the other members of the exploration team had actually landed on the beach not far away from him, but nobody responded to his call.
When Li Yao finally found the team and wondered why they did not respond to him, he discovered that the mysterious Long Yangjun, the knowledgeable Professor Xie Wufeng, Wei Qingqing as a Spiriter, and all the members of the exploration team were all staring at the beach in a daze.
Li Yao craned his neck and looked at the beach. His mouth slowly opened wide.
He saw a long scroll, or rather hundreds of sand paintings, stretching from one end of the beach to the other.
At first, the brush strokes in the sand were very immature. It was like a child casually picking up a tree branch to draw on the beach. It was impossible to understand what was being drawn. It was a complete mess of lines.
Gradually, the sand painting had its own content and framework. Although it still looked very young, it had a rough style, which made Li Yao think of the murals left behind by the cave dwellers in the depths of the cave.
The content of the sand painting seemed to be the bizarre fungi, algae, nautilus, and trilobites in the depths of the primitive ocean.
As the primitive sea creatures gradually evolved, the brush strokes of the sand painting became more and more sophisticated, and the arrangement of the content became more and more precise. The long scroll of the evolution of creatures was drawn vividly and vividly with the tiny grains of sand.
Sea creatures, reptiles, mammals, primates, enlightenment of the Pangu civilization, the birth of modern human beings, the division of human beings, the war, and the development of human beings … The scale of the sand painting was larger and larger, and the structure was more and more complicated, developing from a plane to a three-dimensional. In the end, it could no longer be called a 'sand painting' but an enormous sand sculpture. It was a boy and a girl who were sitting alone on the surface of a devastated planet, holding their cheeks with their chubby hands, as if they were looking at the starry sky.
But in front of them were dense tombstones of human beings.
There was not the slightest light in the eyes of the two children that were made of sand. They were neither sad, happy, scared, or angry at the tombstones that drowned the entire world.
Li Yao swallowed hard. He vaguely felt that such a long scroll of sand painting was somewhat familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.
Right. Wasn't this the sand painting version of the illusionary Half-Step Grand Illusionary Land at the gate of the Tinder Base?
However, at the end of the 'path of evolution' that Professor Mo Xuan constructed, what replaced human beings were some silver balls made of liquid metal similar to himself.
However, at the end of the sand painting, although the entire planet was covered in tombstones of human beings, there were still two children looking at the starry sky. What was the meaning of that?
Li Yao's mouth was dry. He asked Xie Wufeng in a low voice, "Professor Xie, what's the meaning of this? Who left the sand painting? Professor Mo Xuan?"
"I don't know, but it's really … odd."
Pondering for a moment, Professor Xie Wufeng said, "Everything in the Virtual Spirits Sector is calculated in real time. It changes all the time just like the real world. Look at the tides here. Although they are feeble and slow, they are still there. Also, judging from the form of the beach, the tides rose and fell much more violently than right now. The seawater during the high tide was enough to drown the sand painting."
"Exactly," Wei Qingqing said.
Wei Qingqing added, "Although the Virtual Spirits Sector in the past collapsed, it was not completely still. Instead, it operated even more furiously and without any pattern. It was a world where the mountains were collapsing, the thunder was rumbling, the wind was blowing, and the tides were surging nonstop. If the sand painting was left behind at that time, it would certainly have been erased, or rather, 'deleted'."
"That means …"
Li Yao thought carefully for a moment. "Was the sand painting left not long ago when the 'vitality' of the Virtual Spirits Sector gradually dried up and turned into a dying and still world?
"It was more or less the critical moment when Professor Mo Xuan was preparing to activate his final plan. Why did he leave such weird traces here at that time? If he had to 'express' something, the Grand Illusionary Land in the Tinder Base would've been enough to illustrate his ideology.
"Also, the immature and rough strokes at the beginning did not seem to be Professor Mo Xuan's style at all. They were more like the works of an innocent child.
"Here comes the question. Is there anybody else in the Virtual Spirits Sector other than Professor Mo Xuan? Would they have left such a painting?"
"The strokes and the style can all be simulated," Professor Xie Wufeng said.
"Creating such a sand painting is not complicated in itself. It is a piece of cake for both the technology and the computational ability. As long as the database is large enough, the work can be completed immediately after an instruction is inputted into the crystal processor.
"The most important question is, who gave the 'instruction' to whom, and for what purpose?"
The question cast everybody into silence. Every member of the exploration team felt that the back of their head was cold, as if two pairs of glittering eyes were looking at them with a smile while hiding in the sand.
On one of his knees, Li Yao observed the sand paintings carefully. For some reason, he had the weirdest feeling. He felt that the sand paintings gave him an uncanny sense of … intimacy?
It was like feeble electric currents were sweeping across his body, making him feel numb from his eyelids to his lips. There was no telling whether it was pleasure or discomfort.
How should he put it? He suddenly felt that the sand paintings were made by himself. Or rather, if he were asked to depict the path of evolution of life, he would've probably drawn something similar, too.
Li Yao was greatly alarmed. Calming himself down, he asked again, "Have you found the pieces of 'No. 17' and 'No. 18'?"
"Not yet," Professor Xie Wufeng said.
"They are just broken, unpredictable runes and data scraps in the first place. It will not be strange even if they have been completely erased by the Virtual Spirits Sector.
"What? Are you suspecting that the sand paintings were left by 'No. 17' and 'No. 18'? It is also possible. Assuming that Professor Mo Xuan embedded a command related to sand paintings into their bodies in advance, which was automatically activated under certain conditions and drove them to leave the things behind, well, it is a rather reasonable explanation.
"Let's go and take a look at the city."
Along the stairs that were full of cracks and weeds, the exploration team entered the once magnificent city by the sea that was now ragged.
Li Yao discovered that the city was a collection of all the cities in the history of mankind. The antique pavilions and the modern skyscrapers with glass walls were closely combined.
On the other side, there were towering peaks and splashing waterfalls, and this place was the vacuum rails that pierced the sky and the sunken square that was hundreds of meters deep.
However, after the collapse of the Virtual Spirits Sector, the 'city of ten thousand cities' had been reduced to ruins. Both the pavilions and the skyscrapers had been entangled by weeds and vines. The waterfalls had dried up, the tubes were broken, and the sunken square was filled with debris and dust. It was like a graveyard of the civilization of mankind.
"Professor Mo Xuan once talked to me about his idea of creating a virtual life."
Looking at the empty streets and the city of bones, Professor Xie Wufeng remarked with mixed feelings, "At that time, Professor Mo Xuan firmly believed that a brand-new virtual life would be born, but he did not want to create a virtual life that human beings could not understand, could not understand human beings, was not controlled by human beings, and was an enemy of human beings.
"How should I put it? He hoped to create a virtual life that boasted the ideas and feelings of human beings, agreed with the morals and values of human beings, and even considered themselves the 'children of human beings', or rather, the evolved version of human beings.
"Therefore, while creating the 'virtual primitive ocean', he also established this splendid city, concentrating the essence of the civilization of mankind, including our technology, laws, morals, arts, and touching heroic stories, in this place.
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