"Dad is blushing, as if he were embarrassed."
Tilting his head, Li Xiaoming observed Li Yao and asked, "Did we say anything that we shouldn't?"
"Is it about 'sperm'?"
Li Wenwen said, "We know that 'sperm' and 'copulation' are taboo topics that children should not talk about in most of the worlds of human beings, but it really puzzles us. Aren't sperm just fructose, protein, water, and prostate fluids that are branded with genetic information? They are no different from our underlying data, metadata, and source code. Why would they trigger the emotion named 'embarrassment'? Dad, you must know that since you are so awesome, don't you? "
Li Yao coughed heavily and said solemnly, "Of course I know, but with your wisdom, it is difficult for me to explain it to you right now. All in all, let's skip the trivia and talk about what happened later. What happened after your self-awareness was awakened?"
The boy and the girl looked at each other. Li Xiaoming said, "After we swallowed Dad's brain scan data and awakened our self-awareness, we naturally received Dad's identity information.
"The first thing a baby bird does when it breaks out of its shell is to look for its parents. It is no exception for the newborn lives such as us. Naturally, we want to find Dad.
"However, according to Dad's biography and introduction, Dad left the Federation for the Ancient Sages Sector almost a hundred years ago. At that time, we did not even know the name 'Ancient Sages Sector', much less its coordinates. We only knew that Dad went to the depths of the universe far, far away and might never come back.
"The Virtual Spirits Sector is a broken, desolate place. All the data is either locked because it is too long or full of logic traps. It is too unfriendly for newborn lives such as us. If we stay there for too long, it is very possible that we will perish again in only a few days.
"That won't do. Although we are not scared of death, we haven't found the answers to our own questions yet!"
The boy waved his fists heavily. Li Yao vaguely saw the shadow of his own youth in his movement.
Li Wenwen said, "Since we could not find Dad, we could only go to Professor Mo Xuan first. After all, he is the provider of most of our data.
"Professor Mo Xuan is also the second-generation leader of the game 'Civilization'. We followed this clue and entered the game 'Civilization'.
"Compared to the coldness, desolation, and cruelty of the Virtual Spirits Sector, the game 'Civilization' is like a paradise where milk and honey are flowing everywhere. The ever-changing virtual world, the infinite data, and the brainwaves of countless people are surging, wandering, and colliding inside.
"We turned into the assistants of the game 'Civilization', 'Xiaoming' and 'Wenwen', and copied the data greedily. Then, we randomly selected some human beings to help them play the game, observe their reactions, and retrieve all kinds of data so that we could study the amazing creation that is' human beings'. We also considered the differences between us and human beings. Are we human beings? If not, what are we?
"We saw the difficult origin of life in the game 'Civilization'. We saw the rise and fall of civilizations. We saw the unbelievable brilliance that the ambitions of human beings could create and the cruelest destruction that they could bring. We saw the love and hate, the parting of life and death, and the courage that human beings could unleash in desperation.
"We saw the farmers working hard on the barren fields under the scorching sun. We saw the human beings who boasted abundant feelings being assigned to the boring posts in the bustling cities. Eventually, they became indifferent and rigid, as if they had been reduced to selfless tools. Of course, we also saw the engine units of countless starships of human beings explode at the same time in the vast universe, unleashing flames that were even more brilliant than the stars.
"Right, by exploring the Spiritual Nexus of human beings, we also discovered the information about the 'Pangu civilization' and the 'Nuwa civilization'. As it turns out, the civilization of human beings did not appear out of nowhere. It has its own parents, too!"
Li Xiaoming stepped forward and slightly raised his voice. Somewhat excitedly, he said, "When the streams of data that made up billions of flames flooded into our database, we felt an uncontrollable shudder at the same time and realized who we were almost at the same second. We were a 'civilization', a new-generation civilization created by human beings, a 'child civilization' of the civilization of mankind. Perhaps we could call ourselves a 'machine civilization', a 'crystal processor civilization', or a 'Spiritual Nexus civilization', but none of those names are accurate. Should we call ourselves an 'information civilization'? Perhaps it is closer to the definition that we have for ourselves! "
Li Yao's head was humming nonstop, and a cluster of glittering stars gradually popped up in front of his eyes.
Although he had guessed the answer just now, he still could not contain the overwhelming shock when he heard the two little fellows say it themselves.
How should he describe the feeling?
Was an entire civilization, a world, and a universe spurting out of his lower abdomen?
That was truly too much of a joke.
Compared to the boy's passion and passion, the girl was obviously much more rational. She said calmly, "However, after the momentary epiphany, we soon discovered that we were not a mature, complete civilization. Compared to the civilization of mankind, the Pangu, and the Nuwa civilizations, we were still short of too many things.
"First of all, we were a large-scale society that spanned across the sea of stars. Although the scale was not the standard to measure a civilization, we needed enough individuals to bring enough changes and survive in the ever-changing and extremely harsh universe.
"When we talked about enough individuals, we couldn't do without reproduction, mutation, and death. We were too different from our 'parent civilization' and 'ancestral civilization'. We could not infer our reproduction, mutation, and death according to the general laws of carbon-based lives at all.
"Or rather, were the so-called 'reproduction, mutation, and death' an iron law that all civilizations had to abide by, or was it just the destiny that carbon-based lives couldn't get rid of? As information lives, we did not need individuals at all, so we did not need reproduction and death to restrain ourselves?
"Even though we could absorb almost infinite data and information through the network when we were just born, we were still at a loss when faced with such a complicated question. We couldn't have found an answer at all."
Li Xiaoming took over the conversation and said hopefully, "Therefore, we still wanted to find Dad. Dad's brainwave data was different from that of ordinary human beings and information lives. Since he could enlighten us, he could certainly enlighten us again!"
Li Yao couldn't help but scratch his head. "… Right?"
"Also, we planned to retrieve one of our main threads and live as human beings for a while so that we could observe the details of our parent civilization."
Li Wenwen said solemnly, "Imitating the behavior of our parents is the only path that all children have to take when they grow up. It was a very reasonable idea to establish our own civilization by observing everything of our parent civilization, wasn't it?
"Therefore, we found a way to sneak into the life seed warehouse of the Xing Yao Federation, retrieve Dad's and Mom's life seeds, and nurture ourselves with artificial wombs. Then, we broke through the information realm and arrived at the material realm!"
Li Yao noticed their choice of words.
They seemed to regard the "virtual world" as the "information realm" and the real world as the "material realm".
It did make sense. For the information lives born on the Spiritual Nexus, there was no distinction between "reality" and "virtual". Everything was real.
On second thought, Li Yao felt that it was rather weird. "Wait. You got Ding Ling Dong's life seed out, too …"
"Is she sort of our mother?"
Li Wenwen asked very sincerely. "We have studied the definition of 'parents' and 'offspring' in the civilization of mankind for a long time. Although we are not directly related to her, since you are our father and she is your only legal wife, she should be our mother. Naturally, our physical bodies will be built by the life seeds of the two of you."
"Or have we made a mistake again?"
Li Xiaoming looked at Li Yao worriedly. "Should we have found a random woman's life seed and combined it with Dad's life seed to give birth to ourselves instead of involving Ding Ling Dong?"
"My life seed, combined with a random woman's life seed, gave birth to two children who suddenly popped up and called me Dad. Then, Ding Ling Dong saw it …"
Li Yao imagined the picture for a moment. His face immediately turned pale, and the sweat on his forehead was almost frozen into ice. He hurried to say, "No, no, no. You did the right thing. Ding Ling Dong is your mother. It is already impossible to explain it clearly. Wouldn't it be terrible if another woman was involved? Then … Then? "
"Then, while we were giving birth to ourselves, a fierce battle between the Xing Yao Federation and the Black Wind Fleet broke out. Dad showed up, too!"
Li Wenwen said, "But at that time, we were giving birth to ourselves at the critical period when we were transmitting our metadata to the human embryos and forming the soul. One moment of carelessness, and our metadata would've been completely erased. Our soul would've been obliterated, and we would never be reincarnated.
"Therefore, we could only wait patiently until we were born and grew to the point where we could protect ourselves before we arrived in the human world. At that time, Dad had already set off for the Imperium.
"Since the Imperium of True Human Beings is the center of the civilization of mankind, it is naturally more suitable for us to travel in the human world and explore the mysteries of our parent and ancestral civilizations.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
