MC Creative Mode: Wholesale Perpetual Motion Machine

Chapter 276 I! Am! Me!
In short, from Fang Zheng's perspective, life has long ceased to matter.

Everything exists in parallel, and everything is chaotic and disorderly.

All of Founder's actions are essentially self-selections, a form of self-referentiality.

However, Founder Group still respects life.

He will not create life, nor will he actively create life that is capable of self-referentiality and self-selection.

But Fangzheng had no intention of stopping it.

Fang Zheng, carrying the disheveled humanoid figure, walked up to Batman, who remained silent and perhaps somewhat bewildered, and said, "Batman, your challenge to me is logically meaningless. But the act of challenging me itself contains meaning."

“You know very well that your so-called free will does not exist in front of me.”

“You know very well that in front of me, you are no different from those who only exist in fragments of your memory and have only a partial understanding of the information.”

"Whether it's the 'passersby in the news' or 'the perpetrator of a murder case' that existed in my memory from the very beginning, or 'the sound of someone's footsteps on the street' or 'the owner of a footprint on the ground', they are all part of my life."

"No matter where these fragments of information are scattered, no matter if they are just vague existences in someone's memory, or even just imagined 'humans,' who exactly are they, and what kind of settings do they have..."

"It means nothing to me or to you."

"However, life itself has no inherent meaning. Meaning is something that people must find for themselves."

"The most important thing is to decide for yourself how to treat the world and others."

"After I broke down these storyboards, merged the borders, inserted processes, and constructed a completely new world that was logically rigorous, causally connected, and chronologically ordered..."

"Indeed, those 'lives' that merely exist in someone's memory or impression, lacking detailed information and only having the minimalist label of 'that person,' will not be created by me."

“Of course…” Fang Zheng’s figure swayed and he transformed into the appearance of Batman.

Two identical Batmen stood face to face, and simultaneously announced, "I am Batman..."

Her form changed again, and Lois Lane stood in front of Superman: "I am Lois."

Countless faces passed across Fang Zheng's face: "I am you, and I am me."

"As long as I am willing, whether they exist only in your impressions, only in a few words, or exist in your imagination, in the most absurd dreams, they can be me, and I can be them."

"But I don't want to."

“I respect life, so I will not create life, nor will I deliberately try to impersonate it.”

"The essence of man is the sum total of all social relations. I can be part of any social relation, but I refuse to be."

"Batman, look..." The figure of that young boy reappeared.

Fang Zheng pointed to a spot not far away, in front of the three-meter-tall giant who had just killed many gang members, where a figure that Batman knew all too well and hated all too much was trying to corrupt the newly empowered child with words.

He wore a sharp purple suit, had pale skin, blood-red lips, and green hair—he was the Joker, the king of crime in Gotham City.

With a maniacal grin on his face, he calmly stood before the little giant: "Look what I've discovered. What a lucky child, to possess such immense power."

"Interested in coming with me?"

According to the story pattern in Batman's memory, a child named Kelly would generally be easily persuaded and manipulated by the Joker, drawn into various criminal conspiracies, and ultimately discarded like a worn-out shoe after being squeezed dry, dying a tragic death.

But this time...

"What are you babbling about?" Kelly had no interest in listening to the green-haired madman's nonsense. As a homeless child living in the sewers, he had no recollection of the so-called King of Crime. He simply slapped the man across the face after confirming in his mind that the man deserved to die.

With a "smack," the clown, still smiling, was smashed to pieces.

But a strange green poisonous mist, a deadly poison that could erode the soul, began to entwine around Kelly.

Anyone who kills the Joker will become the Joker.

This is almost a fundamental principle.

Whether it's Batman or Superman, the moment they actually kill the Joker, the Joker virus will infect them, turning them into another Joker.

however……

"What's that smell? It's so stinky!" Kelly sneezed casually, and the clown-like poisonous mist, which seemed to be twisting with life, was immediately dispersed. Then, a huge fire broke out and burned away the remaining residue.

The Joker, who had repeatedly fought Batman in the backstory, used countless schemes and tricks, and killed countless people, was casually swatted to death like a dead dog on the eve of this new world's arrival. "Batman, you're right," Fang Zheng turned to him, "In a world where there is no past, no future, not even a process, and where supervillains who committed numerous crimes are merely part of the background setting, they never actually committed any crimes from the beginning."

“It is indeed wrong to accuse them of crimes that did not exist, or even to kill them.”

"But so what?"

Fang Zheng laughed: "If you're not happy, come and hit me!"

“There is no causal relationship, and the order of time doesn’t matter. There are only self-referential engines that are making their own choices.”

"It's like picking out your favorite candy from a candy box, choosing the part you like from all the possibilities, from everything that exists in parallel."

“I just don’t like them, so I refuse to let them exist in my world.”

"It's that simple."

Similarly, I am unwilling to play the role of social relationships that only exist in words and phrases.

“But,” Fang Zheng repeated once again, “the essence of man is the sum total of all social relations.”

"Batman, you are Batman, but you are only part of the concept of 'Batman'."

"The real Batman is you, is other people's imagination, is other people's opinion of you, is the node in the entire social network that is called 'Batman'."

"I will not actively create nodes in those relationship networks."

"But your views and imaginations about these nodes, about those lives that exist in impressions and in fragmentary records, the collection of all of this, is itself a part of them."

“I am Fangzheng, I decide for myself, I refer to myself, I am an infinite self-referential engine.”

"I am who I am!"

"And you, you can also be you."

"You! Are! You!"

Fang Zheng grabbed the humanoid figure in his hand and slapped it a few more times to fully wake it up, saying, "The entire network of relationships that makes up you can also be life itself."

“You can decide who you are, and he can decide who he is just as well.”

“Those things that do not exist in themselves, that are just words or fragments of memory, will be completed by themselves and by the social networks themselves.”

"I am who I am, and you are who you are."

The challenge that Batman is launching against Fang Zheng is logically nonexistent.

But the act of challenging itself is meaningful.

There is no causal process, no past or future; it is simply that the information in the many panels, lacking causal relationships and riddled with logical errors, becomes an entity because of the act of challenging itself.

A self-referential being that determines its own existence.

After a long silence, Batman sighed deeply and removed the bat mask from his face.

In the torrential rain, large raindrops pelted my face, causing a stinging sensation.

Batman gazed into the distance at Kelly, the little giant who, having just finished a massacre, seemed to have temporarily exhausted himself, or perhaps was simply tired, and plopped down on the ground to rest. He sighed, "Well then, in this new world that will soon have a past and a future, continuity and logic, it's time for Batman to retire..."

"Oh, really?" Fang Zheng pointed to a spot not far away. "If you want to retire, you're probably still a little short."

Batman looked in the direction Fang Zheng was pointing, puzzled.

There, the humanoid silhouette formed from the convergence of their consciousnesses, after being slapped several times by Fang Zheng, seemed to harbor resentment and shattered the void with a punch. From it emerged a pale-skinned man wearing a thorn mask and with yellow teeth, and a naked man with blue skin, who was brutally beating him.

Fang Zheng pointed there and said, "Your storyboard world has no logic, no causal relationship, no past or future. But in the realms close to yours, there exist other universes that are similar to yours, but which do have causal connections and logical relationships."

"Now, your new world will be self-referential, self-determining, and will naturally encompass those universes similar to yours."

“Your participation is not required in this process. But I imagine you would find it unbearable to see what is happening in the universe.”

“Is that so…” Batman took a deep breath, “And have a world where we are neighbors, with other Batmen? I understand now, with your logic complete, we simply cannot tolerate such an existence…”

(End of this chapter)