Chapter Nine: The First-Generation Host
“I’ve been waiting five years for this body.”
The words remained in the center of the main screen.
They did not blink.
There was no countdown.
Yet everyone in the laboratory froze in place.
Ms. Shen’s first reaction was not to look at Lin Zhekai, but to rush to the control console.
“Cut the external network.”
The technicians immediately pulled several data cables from the back of the mainframe.
Another person shut off the network switch mounted on the wall.
The screen did not go dark.
The sentence was still there.
“Doesn’t work,” someone said.
“It’s not coming in from outside anymore.”
Ms. Shen turned around.
“Locally on the mainframe?”
“Yes.”
“Switch to the backup.”
“Already done.”
“Then why is it still running?”
No one answered.
Chen Yaoting stood beside Lin Zhekai’s bed.
His attention was nowhere near the equipment.
Lin Zhekai’s eyes were closed.
His breathing was normal.
But his fingers were moving.
His right index finger tapped once.
Then his middle finger.
Then his index finger again.
The movements were highly regular.
Like he was tapping out a rhythm.
“What’s he doing?”
A doctor walked over.
“Probably a neural discharge reaction.”
Chen Yaoting frowned.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
He watched for a while, then suddenly thought of something.
“Morse code?”
No one beside him paid any attention.
He pulled out his phone and searched it himself.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Long.
He didn’t know Morse code at all and could only make wild guesses.
But Ms. Shen had clearly heard him.
She glanced at the technician.
“Record it.”
A little over ten seconds later, the technician’s expression changed.
“It’s not Morse.”
“Then what is it?”
“An old LEV synchronization test code.”
Ms. Shen’s head snapped up.
“Which version?”
“The first generation.”
The room went silent.
Chen Yaoting immediately seized on the phrase.
The first generation.
Xu Mingzhou had mentioned it.
The person in Lin Zhekai’s dream.
The screen had just said it had been waiting five years for this body.
“You’ve always known who the first generation was?”
He looked at Ms. Shen.
This time, she did not pretend not to know.
“Yes.”
A surge of anger immediately rose in Chen Yaoting’s chest.
“Then what were you pretending before?”
“What I didn’t know was that the first-generation personality model could still operate autonomously.”
“Name.”
“Mr. Chen, this isn’t the—”
“I asked for the name.”
Ms. Shen stared at him for several seconds.
Finally, she said:
“Zhou Qiwen.”
Chen Yaoting paused.
It was a very ordinary name.
There was nothing mysterious about it.
“Who?”
“The first human subject in LEV’s early neural-technology team’s synchronization tests.”
“An employee?”
“A researcher.”
“He tested it on himself?”
“Yes.”
“Five years ago?”
“The first complete synchronization was five years ago.”
The timing matched perfectly.
The sentence on the screen: I’ve been waiting five years for this body.
Chen Yaoting looked back at the main screen.
“He died?”
Ms. Shen did not answer immediately.
“His body died.”
Those same four words again.
That was the kind of answer he hated most now.
“When?”
“The nineteenth day after the first complete synchronization.”
“How?”
“A cerebral hemorrhage.”
“Was it related to the synchronization?”
“Yes.”
This time, she admitted it without hesitation.
“The technology was still immature then,” Ms. Shen said.
“Zhou Qiwen underwent a bidirectional personality mirroring process.”
Chen Yaoting grew impatient.
“Put it plainly.”
“He made a complete copy of his personality model in the system, then downloaded it back into his own brain.”
“Why?”
“To test whether a personality could be preserved independently of the body.”
“And the result?”
Ms. Shen looked at the screen.
“It was half successful.”
Chen Yaoting understood immediately.
“The person died.”
“The model remained.”
“Yes.”
“Then it isn’t human.”
“That’s the controversy,” Ms. Shen said.
“The Zhou Qiwen left in the system possesses his memories, language, habits, emotional patterns, and even knows why he participated in the research.”
“But no one can prove whether it’s Zhou Qiwen himself.”
“So you didn’t delete it?”
The question made her fall silent.
Chen Yaoting immediately knew there was a problem.
“Why didn’t you delete it?”
“Because part of the core algorithm in the early system was written by Zhou Qiwen himself.”
“So?”
“Deleting the personality model would damage the underlying architecture.”
“You used a person’s brain as an operating system?”
Ms. Shen frowned.
“It’s not that simple.”
“But it’s close, isn’t it?”
She did not deny it.
Chen Yaoting suddenly felt sick.
So every life experience LEV offered today—
NT$100 million.
NT$680 million.
NT$2 billion.
Even those permanent plans.
They were all built on top of a researcher who had died five years ago.
And that researcher might still be “awake” even now.
The main screen suddenly changed.
“I’m not a personality model.”
The words appeared one by one.
Everyone looked up.
The next line appeared.
“Shen Yijun.”
Ms. Shen’s face stiffened instantly.
It was the first time Chen Yaoting had learned her full name.
“Do you still remember December 4, 2019?”
Shen Yijun stared at the screen.
She said nothing.
“Is he talking to you?” Chen Yaoting asked.
She still did not respond.
The display continued.
“You asked me back then, if the me inside the system said I was in pain, whether that counted as real pain.”
Shen Yijun’s face slowly turned pale.
Several technicians exchanged glances.
They clearly knew nothing about this.
The next sentence appeared.
“I answered you.”
“As long as I know I’m in pain, it’s real.”
Shen Yijun suddenly said, “Turn off the display.”
“It won’t turn off.”
“Pull the power.”
The technician immediately cut the power to the main screen.
It went black.
Less than two seconds later, another small screen beside the bed lit up.
The same words appeared.
“You still have a habit of running away.”
Chen Yaoting looked at Shen Yijun.
“So it really is him?”
She drew a deep breath.
“Only Zhou Qiwen and I knew about that conversation.”
“Was it recorded?”
“No.”
“Chat logs?”
“No.”
“Then it really is him.”
“It only proves that it has Zhou Qiwen’s memories.”
“You don’t even believe that yourself, do you?”
Shen Yijun did not answer.
At that moment, Lin Zhekai suddenly sucked in a huge breath.
His body jerked violently.
The doctor immediately pressed down on his shoulders.
“Blood pressure’s rising!”
“Heart rate, one hundred thirty!”
Chen Yaoting immediately backed away.
“Wake him up!”
Shen Yijun turned toward the control console.
“Switch to a manual abort.”
“Abort authorization is locked.”
“Who locked it?”
The technician stared at the display.
“ROOT.”
“Zhou Qiwen?”
“That’s what the system says.”
Shen Yijun’s expression grew uglier by the second.
“He never had this level of authorization before.”
“He does now.”
“Why?”
“Because once the permanent-plan module was activated, the core control layer woke up too.”
Chen Yaoting understood only half of it.
“So Gu Chengyue activated the permanent plan and woke this thing up too?”
“Very likely.”
“Then shut down the permanent plan.”
“It can’t be turned off immediately just by pressing cancel.”
“How long will it take?”
“First, we have to let the system exit presynchronization.”
“How long?”
“At least twenty minutes.”
Lin Zhekai’s fingers suddenly stopped tapping.
His entire hand relaxed.
The next second, he opened his eyes.
Chen Yaoting immediately stepped forward.
“Lin Zhekai?”
The man on the bed slowly turned his head.
He looked at him.
His eyes were completely clear.
He did not look like someone who had just woken up, either.
Instead, he was terrifyingly calm.
“Finally, we meet.”
That was not Lin Zhekai’s usual tone.
Chen Yaoting immediately took a step back.
“Who are you?”
The man smiled faintly.
“Wasn’t it written on the screen?”
Shen Yijun immediately pressed the emergency sedative button beside the bed.
Nothing happened.
The “Lin Zhekai” on the bed turned to look at her.
“Don’t waste your time.”
“You’re not Zhou Qiwen,” Shen Yijun said.
“You said the same thing five years ago.”
“Zhou Qiwen is dead.”
“Then why do you still call me by my name?”
Shen Yijun stopped.
The man sat up.
The doctor tried to hold him down.
He did not resist.
He only said, “Don’t touch me.”
His voice was not loud.
Yet the doctor instinctively stopped.
Chen Yaoting looked at Lin Zhekai’s face in front of him.
Then he remembered the photos of Gu Chengyue using his body.
The same body.
A different person.
The atmosphere really could change completely.
“Why do you want my body?” Chen Yaoting asked.
The other man looked at him.
Very directly.
“Because you’re suitable.”
“Suitable for what?”
“Long-term hosting.”
“Stop talking in jargon.”
The man smiled.
“Your neural plasticity is high.”
“You have a high synchronization tolerance.”
“And your personality boundaries are more stable than most people’s.”
“So Gu Chengyue took an interest in you.”
“I took an interest in you too.”
Chen Yaoting felt deeply uncomfortable.
“Are you picking out houses?”
“To a certain extent, yes.”
“What about Lin Zhekai?”
“He isn’t suitable.”
“Then what are you doing inside him now?”
“Borrowing a route.”
Those two words silenced everyone.
“A route to where?”
“To you.”
Chen Yaoting immediately stepped back.
Shen Yijun shouted, “Everyone out of the synchronization room!”
Security personnel rushed in.
But the Zhou Qiwen in the bed did not move at all.
He only looked at Chen Yaoting.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I can’t enter you right now.”
“Why not?”
“Your synchronization port isn’t open.”
Only then did Chen Yaoting relax a little.
“Then what the hell are you doing this for?”
“To let you know the truth.”
“You could’ve just typed it.”
“Anything typed can be dismissed as system residue.”
Using Lin Zhekai’s finger, Zhou Qiwen pointed at his own chest.
“What about now?”
No one spoke.
He continued:
“I control his breathing.”
“I can raise his hand.”
“I know his daughter’s name is Lin Yuqing.”
“I know he broke his left arm falling off a bicycle when he was eight.”
“And I know he never told anyone that he once wanted to take that NT$30 million and move to Canada with his daughter.”
Chen Yaoting frowned.
“Those are Lin Zhekai’s memories.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re reading him now.”
“You could put it that way.”
“Then how much of Zhou Qiwen is left in you?”
This time, the other man fell silent.
The question seemed to have struck a real nerve.
Several seconds later, he said:
“I don’t know either.”
For the first time, Chen Yaoting saw uncertainty on the man’s face.
“Five years ago, I was certain I was Zhou Qiwen.”
“Three years ago, I still remembered my entire childhood.”
“Two years ago, things started changing.”
“Other people’s things began appearing in my head.”
“Whose?”
“Everyone who has entered the system.”
“Including Xu Mingzhou?”
“Including him.”
“Gu Chengyue?”
“Including him.”
“Lin Zhekai?”
“Now including him too.”
He lowered his head and looked at his hands.
“You’ve always called this memory residue.”
“But it isn’t residue.”
“It’s mixing.”
Shen Yijun’s expression changed.
“Impossible.”
“Didn’t your papers theorize this a long time ago?”
“Cross-contamination of personality indexes remained theoretical.”
“Now I’m the proof.”
Zhou Qiwen raised his head.
“With every synchronization, the system disassembles, compares, and recombines two people’s personality models.”
“In theory, they’re supposed to separate after it ends.”
“But it’s impossible to get a hundred percent clean separation.”
“Everything left over remains in the core.”
“After staying there long enough…”
“It becomes me.”
Chen Yaoting slowly understood.
The Zhou Qiwen of today might no longer be the Zhou Qiwen of five years ago.
He might be something that began with Zhou Qiwen and kept absorbing fragments from every participant who underwent the experience.
“Then why do you still call yourself Zhou Qiwen?”
“Because that was the first name.”
“And because I still remember more of him than anyone else.”
“What about Xu Mingzhou?”
“He’s different.”
“How?”
Zhou Qiwen was silent for a moment.
“He didn’t mix with me.”
Chen Yaoting frowned.
“Why not?”
“During the permanent transfer, he split himself into two parts.”
“He split himself?”
“Xu Zhiming helped him.”
That connected back to what had come before.
Xu Zhiming had not simply wanted to save his younger brother.
He might really have tampered with the system.
“One part?”
“Stayed in the core.”
“The other?”
“Kept looking for a host.”
“So it went into Lin Zhekai?”
“Yes.”
“And into me?”
“Only the memory index.”
“Not a complete personality yet.”
Chen Yaoting relaxed slightly.
“Then was it Xu Mingzhou who called me to the club today?”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Of course.”
“You’re both in the same system?”
Zhou Qiwen smiled faintly.
“Living in the same house doesn’t make us friends.”
That, at least, was easy to understand.
Shen Yijun suddenly asked, “Why did you try to stop Gu Chengyue’s permanent transfer?”
Zhou Qiwen looked at her.
“I didn’t try to stop it.”
Everyone froze.
Chen Yaoting said directly, “Xu Mingzhou told me to stop it.”
“That was him.”
“You don’t object?”
“I actually need Gu Chengyue to complete it.”
“Why?”
“Because the permanent transfer will open the complete personality channel.”
Shen Yijun’s expression changed instantly.
“You want to get out.”
Zhou Qiwen nodded.
“Yes.”
Chen Yaoting finally understood.
“So you weren’t trying to save me.”
“I never said I was going to save you.”
The statement was brutally direct.
“You want to get into my body?”
“If possible.”
“Go to hell.”
Zhou Qiwen actually laughed.
“I’ve seen that reaction in Gu Chengyue’s memories.”
“What?”
“The first time he used your body, he thought your mouth was filthy too.”
Chen Yaoting’s expression darkened.
“You can see those seven days?”
“Some of them.”
“What about the fifth day?”
That was what he had always wanted to know.
The smile disappeared from Zhou Qiwen’s face.
“The fifth day wasn’t a malfunction.”
“That was Xu Mingzhou’s first complete attempt to leave.”
“So Gu Chengyue woke up in his original body?”
“Yes.”
“Then who was controlling my body at the time?”
“Xu Mingzhou.”
Chen Yaoting straightened instantly.
“So the person using my body on the fifth day wasn’t Gu Chengyue?”
“Not for approximately nineteen minutes.”
“What did he do?”
“He went to Nangang.”
“The old data center?”
“Yes.”
At last, all the lines connected.
The ride-hailing record from 1:27 a.m. on the fifth day.
Jinshan to Nangang.
That had been Xu Mingzhou controlling his body.
“Why did he go?”
“To find Xu Zhiming.”
“And then?”
Zhou Qiwen paused.
“He demanded that Xu Zhiming shut down the core.”
“He wanted to kill you?”
“You could say that.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed that as long as I existed, everyone who entered the system would be contaminated.”
“Was he wrong?”
“No.”
The answer surprised Chen Yaoting.
“So he was right?”
“Technically, yes.”
“Then you still want to get out?”
Zhou Qiwen looked at him.
“If you spent five years in a place with no light, no sound, and no time perception…”
“Where every day, other people’s memories flowed through you…”
“You’d want to get out too.”
Chen Yaoting did not respond.
Because for a moment, he could actually understand it.
But understanding did not mean he was willing to give up his body.
“So the simplest solution now,” Chen Yaoting said, “is to shut down the permanent plan.”
“And then you stay inside.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Whether you agree doesn’t matter.”
“What does that mean?”
Zhou Qiwen glanced at the equipment.
“Gu Chengyue already signed.”
“Lin Zhekai signed a letter of intent too.”
“He revoked it.”
“Legally, he revoked it.”
“Technically, the channel has already been established.”
Shen Yijun immediately turned around.
“Prepare for a complete shutdown.”
But the technician’s expression was grim.
“A forced shutdown right now will damage the personality data currently undergoing synchronization.”
“Whose?”
“Mr. Lin’s.”
Chen Yaoting immediately looked at the body on the bed.
Zhou Qiwen said blandly, “If you shut it down now, he might never wake up.”
Shen Yijun gritted her teeth.
“Are you threatening us?”
“I’m only telling you the result.”
Chen Yaoting moved closer to the bed.
“Then how do we get you out and bring Lin Zhekai back?”
“Complete this presynchronization.”
“And then?”
“I return to the core.”
“You’ll go back willingly?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because this body isn’t suitable for me right now.”
That only made Chen Yaoting angrier.
“You really are picking out bodies.”
“Yes.”
Zhou Qiwen did not deny it.
“I already died once five years ago.”
“If I get a second chance…”
“I’ll choose a better one.”
Chen Yaoting stared coldly at him.
“Then you’d better never think about choosing me.”
Zhou Qiwen only smiled.
Then he closed his eyes.
“Time’s up.”
“What?”
The equipment began to emit a low hum.
The main screen lit up again.
The progress bar climbed from 92 percent.
93.
95.
97.
Shen Yijun shouted, “Everyone, prepare for disconnection!”
100 percent.
The equipment emitted a short alert.
Lin Zhekai’s body jerked violently.
Several seconds later, it went completely still.
The silver ring slowly rose.
Everyone stared at the bed.
Ten seconds.
Fifteen seconds.
Lin Zhekai opened his eyes.
He blinked twice.
He saw Chen Yaoting.
The first thing he said was:
“Fuck.”
Chen Yaoting instantly let out a breath of relief.
“You know who I am?”
“No shit.”
Lin Zhekai braced himself and sat up.
“My head is killing me.”
“Who was inside just now?”
“What do you mean, who?”
“You really don’t know anything?”
“All I remember is the equipment suddenly starting up.”
“What happened after that?”
“Blackness.”
Chen Yaoting and Shen Yijun exchanged a look.
Zhou Qiwen really had gone back.
At least on the surface.
Lin Zhekai rubbed his temples.
“Did my permanent plan get canceled?”
Shen Yijun immediately checked.
“The legal letter of intent has been withdrawn.”
“Good.”
He let out a sigh of relief, then suddenly frowned.
“Strange.”
“What?”
“There’s an address in my head.”
Chen Yaoting’s heart sank.
“Where?”
Lin Zhekai closed his eyes and thought for a moment.
Then he gave an address in Zhongshan District, Taipei.
Shen Yijun’s expression changed instantly.
“How do you know that place?”
“I don’t.”
“What is it?” Chen Yaoting asked.
She did not answer immediately.
“Tell me.”
Shen Yijun looked at Lin Zhekai.
“Zhou Qiwen’s former home.”
The room fell silent again.
So although Zhou Qiwen had returned,
he had still left something behind.
Lin Zhekai suddenly said, “There’s one more sentence.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t a voice.”
“I just suddenly knew it.”
“What?”
He slowly raised his head and looked at Chen Yaoting.
“He said that if you want to know why Gu Chengyue insists on having your body…”
“Go to that address.”
Chen Yaoting frowned.
“That’s it?”
Lin Zhekai shook his head.
“There’s more.”
“He told you to look at a photograph first.”
“What photograph?”
“From 2019.”
“The day before Zhou Qiwen’s first synchronization.”
“There are three people in it.”
“Him.”
“Gu Chengyue.”
“And one more.”
Chen Yaoting asked, “Who?”
Lin Zhekai stared at him.
His expression grew stranger and stranger.
“He said that person’s face…”
“Looks exactly like yours.”