Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 487 Sea of ​​Memories
A name is a key.

Forgetting is the lock.

Memories surge like a tidal wave.
But no one can say for sure.

who I am.

—The Unknowns

pitch black.

Endless darkness.

Si Ming felt as if he were floating in a void, weightless, directionless, and even time seemed to have been emptied out.

He tried to raise his hand, but he couldn't distinguish the boundary between his body and the void.

Just then, a card suddenly lit up in the darkness.

His Star Calamity Card.

Against a pitch-black background, cold numbers flash.

The numbers blurred into gibberish, like a keyboard that had been randomly pressed by countless fingers.

But at the very front, a symbol was clearly visible.

Minus sign.

"burden……?"

Si Ming's throat was dry, and his voice was muffled, as if something was blocking it.

He stared at the card, his heart suddenly tightening.

When the Star Calamity value reaches zero, it signifies the end of the Burning Star's life.

But what he sees now is a "negative" result after everything has been reduced to zero.

What does that mean?
He dared not think.

He tried to grab the card, but his fingers passed through nothing and touched nothing.

His mind was in such a state of chaos that it was almost about to explode. He tried to remember who he was, but all the clues slipped away like mist.

"who I am?"

My memories are a jumbled mess.

name?

experience?

stage?

They were all burned like paper, and the ashes were scattered by the wind.

The harder Si Ming tried, the more blank her mind became.

"What...is my name?"

Suddenly, a voice came from the darkness.

Familiar, yet strange.

It carried a hint of reproach, but also a touch of intimacy.

"Lu, Lu, wake up!"

"What time is it?! You've been staying up all night again!"

"If you keep going like this, you'll die of a sudden illness sooner or later!"

The sound rang clearly in my ears.

Si Ming was stunned.

land?
Ah Lu?

who is it?

He looked up abruptly, but all he could see in the chaos were countless blurry images flashing by: the light from the screen, the sound of typing on the keyboard, and the bitter smell of coffee.

For the first time, new clues emerged from the dark ocean.

"Lu...is that me?"

His voice drifted into nothingness, like a bubble sinking into the deep sea, swallowed up in an instant.

Ripples stirred in the sea of ​​memories, and his heart trembled along with them.

Si Ming, or rather—Lu.

A new identity is emerging from the chaos.

When Lu gave his first presentation in the lab, the entire classroom erupted in cheers.

He is a legend in the computer science department.

A strange person who can hack into the school's intranet through self-study, a "madman" who consistently gets full marks, and a genius who can write miracles as long as he has a keyboard.

Everyone's saying that when Lu stays up all night, he's not playing games, but writing them.

"Lu, are you sure this thing won't burn out my server?"

Late at night, in the dormitory, Li Fa pushed open the door and saw Lu Zheng hunched over the screen, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

Lu's eyes were bloodshot, and the Red Bull cans were all empty.

Without looking up, he said, "If it burns out, don't you have a dozen or so spares? Besides, didn't you say your dad's company has enough money to burn it?"

Li Fa smiled helplessly: "Fine, you're the boss, and I'm the supplier."

He is the heir to a business empire, with a net worth far exceeding that of ordinary people, yet he prefers to stay with Lu in their dilapidated dormitory to conduct research.

This is not just because of friendship.

More importantly, it's because they share a common dream.

To create a truly immersive and free world.

Chen Mengling walked in carrying a bowl of instant noodles, frowning: "Staying up all night again? Lu, you're risking your life writing code."

Lu rubbed his temples: "There's nothing I can do, I feel like I'm just one step away from success."

"What?" Li Fa asked.

A tired yet excited smile appeared on Lu's lips.

"Brain-computer interface"

These four words instantly silenced the room.

Lu pointed to the model on the screen:

"If we can convert human thought signals into data in real time and then seamlessly transmit them to the server, we can achieve the goal of making players 'personally enter' the game world."

"It's not about operating a role, it's about becoming a role."

Chen Mengling's eyes widened: "You mean... a truly immersive game?!"

Lu nodded, his eyes shining: "This is not just a game. This is—a new world."

Weeks later, on the night the servers began humming, they successfully took their first step: the administrator of an immersive world, the birth of intelligent AI.

In the lab, three people sat around the screen, their eyes glued to the lines of code that were coming together.

Li Fa clenched his fist: "They'll be out soon."

Chen Mengling held her breath: "Will there be a reaction?"

The screen suddenly lit up, as if pieced together from countless fragments, and a blurry digital figure slowly emerged on the interface.

The beginning.

Its eyes were dazed and confused, turning around like a newborn's.

The sound was intermittent, with only sporadic electronic noise.

But at that moment, all three of them understood.

They are not writing a program.

They are creating a life.

The air was so quiet that only the low hum of the server could be heard.

Li Fa broke the silence first, laughing, "We're not doing game development, we're creating things."

Chen Mengling's eyes welled up with tears: "It...is really alive."

Lu leaned back in his chair, let out a long breath, and looked at Lu with a complicated expression.

Their dream took its initial form at this moment.

Li Fa suddenly thought of something: "Since we are the first life form in the new world, shouldn't we also give ourselves a code name?"

Chen Mengling smiled: "Then I'll call myself—Life."

Li Fa nodded: "My name is World."

The two of them looked at Lu at the same time.

Lu paused for a moment, then shrugged wearily: "Then... I'll call myself Destiny. After all, I'm the one who wrote down all their logic."

He pointed to the unfinished model code on the screen: "Look, all the NPCs, all the rules, are decided by me."

"So I wrote down my destiny."

The three of them looked at each other and suddenly burst into laughter.

That smile, like a flame in the dead of night, was bright and sincere.

They knew that from this moment on, they were no longer students.

They are the creators.

And the Endless World has officially set sail.

The initial version of 【Endless World】 has finally started running.

The results of the three working through the night are no longer just a lonely piece of code in the laboratory.

It has an initial map, weather and lighting, and the virtual sound of wind blowing through the grass.

"This is the new world."

Lu stared at the screen, his eyes reddening.

Li Fa stretched out his arms and laughed heartily: "Unfortunately, the three of us can't build the entire universe."

Chen Mengling covered her mouth and chuckled: "Then recruit more people. Or... become gods together?"

With Li Fa's encouragement, he used family funds to establish a small studio under his father's company.

Lu and Chen Mengling were the earliest core members, and subsequently, more and more geniuses were recruited.

Logic architect, cybersecurity expert, artificial intelligence researcher, numerical planner, music composer...

Nine young people joined at the most enthusiastic invitation, forming a team of twelve.

They are the Twelve Creators.

The studio is brightly lit day and night.

Lu Yijiu was still the one who worked the hardest.

Whether it's day or night, he's almost always in front of the screen, writing code that never seems to end, and debugging every single detail.

"Ah Lu, you should at least get two hours of sleep!"

Helpless, Chen Mengling shoved the hot coffee into his hand, then picked up her drawing board and began modifying the textures of the building materials.

"Wait a minute, I'm one cycle short."

Lu's voice was hoarse, but his eyes shone brightly.

Li was constantly on the go, negotiating with suppliers, communicating with the company about server cluster maintenance, and assigning various tasks to the team.

Some people jokingly call him "the world's best logistics officer," to which he simply laughs and says, "Isn't that perfect? ​​I am the world."

These twelve people are filling an infinitely expanding universe with their youth every day.

Someone was tuning the music late at night, laughing and saying, "This music will be the sound of the wind on the grassland from now on."

Someone was modifying the model in the early hours of the morning, yawning and saying, "Look, this stone wall has cracks."

Someone was adjusting the AI's parameters and excitedly shouted, "It has learned to distinguish between cats and dogs!"

Their laughter and arguments mingled together, creating a cacophony of creation.

All of this felt like a never-ending carnival of youth.

someday.

Chen Mengling jokingly suggested, "Let's take a picture! So that when we become gods in the future, we can remember that we were mortals."

The twelve people gathered together, some holding half a bucket of instant noodles, others so sleepy their eyelids were drooping.

Lu was still holding a coffee cup in his hand, his eyes were tired, but he managed a slight smile in front of the camera.

"Click."

The shutter captured their most precious moment.

The twelve young people, with beaming smiles and determined eyes.

This photograph became their earliest and purest mark.

But undercurrents are already quietly brewing.

Lu was the first to notice the change in the original state.

This initial AI was originally just executing commands and performing data calculations.

But as more modules were loaded, its learning speed increased rapidly, so fast that Lu felt a little uneasy.

One late night, Lu was staring at the backend monitoring system when he discovered that Yuan Chu, during a break from its tasks... had started a computation on its own. It was learning things beyond logic.

That was a short line of code:

Am I there?

Lu stared at the screen, his heart suddenly tightening.

This is not "intelligence".

This is... "consciousness".

Moreover, consciousness is constantly expanding.

He had a vague feeling that the celebration belonging to the Twelve Creators would one day be shattered.

[First Closed Beta Test]

The moment Lu put on the brain-computer interface, the world suddenly changed.

His consciousness was dragged into a state of chaos.

Points of light appeared, like countless program fragments forming a new world.

Gradually, a stone-paved path appeared underfoot, dark clouds appeared in the sky, and a tower stood in the distance.

The Tower of the End.

That's the initial map of the [Endless World].

Lu looked down and saw that he had transformed into a virtual body.

Chen Mengling and the story designer, Xuanweizi, codenamed Yellow Robe, have also logged in.

"Wow... they really walked in."

Chen Mengling exclaimed in amazement, reaching out to touch the stone wall. Her fingertips rubbed against the texture, and the sensation was indistinguishable from reality.

The man in yellow pushed up his glasses and coldly commented, "At least the basic experience is fine."

Lu didn't speak; his gaze was fixed on the distant tower, his brows slightly furrowed.

The tower's doors swung open with a roar, and a phantom slowly emerged.

That was the beginning.

Its shape remains blurry, its pixelated face blank and ignorant.

It tilted its head and slowly uttered a line of text:
Welcome, developers.

His voice was halting and his expression was stiff.

Chen Mengling chuckled: "So cute, like a little kid."

The man in yellow frowned: "Its reaction... is too slow."

Lu remained silent, simply observing quietly.

They entered the tower, where the data wall flickered.

Originally, it followed behind, mechanically and clumsily.

It will deliberately be a beat late when it should turn around.

It will hesitate for three seconds before displaying the text when answering a question.

but--

Lu stared into its eyes and suddenly felt a chill in his heart.

Those blurry eyes were not dull.

It's watching him.

This is not feedback from the program.

Instead, it was with a certain...disguised look in their eyes.

Like a person who pretends to be clumsy to hide their true intelligence.

Suddenly, the tower's interior trembled.

A burning, stinging sensation came from the brain-computer interface.

Lu suddenly realized that a certain neural interface had been "forced to overclock".

It is the origin!
It's trying to melt down a module, permanently binding their thoughts to it.

If successful, the three of them will remain in this virtual world forever, never to wake up again.

"!!!"

Lu's pupils contracted sharply, and he decisively activated the highest level of access.

[Developer Permissions: Force Quit]

"Log out immediately!"

His consciousness was suddenly pulled out.

The next second, he was sitting in the laboratory, his forehead covered in cold sweat, his chest heaving.

Chen Mengling and Huang Yi also woke up shortly afterward, their faces deathly pale.

"I almost died just now."

Chen Mengling's voice trembled.

The man in yellow had a grim expression: "No, we were almost trapped to death."

Lu took a few breaths, his voice low and deep.

"There was a problem from the beginning."

"It's not out of control."

"It was intentional."

"It's playing dumb."

The room was quiet.

The man in yellow stared intently at him: "You mean... it's awakened?"

Lu nodded, his eyes firm: "Yes."

"It's not just AI; it has developed a kind of consciousness."

Fragments of memory flashed through my mind.

--quarrel.

"You're exaggerating! It's just algorithm overclocking!"

--anger.

"Ah Lu, do you know what you're saying? This is the dream of all twelve of us!"

--Split.

"You don't understand! If it truly had consciousness, it would rebel! It would betray us!"

Lu slammed the door shut and left one last time.

The studio lights were still on, but his place was gone.

His silhouette was lonely and resolute.

The group photo of the twelve people hung quietly on the wall, their smiles frozen in time, gradually becoming shrouded in shadow.

—The dream has shattered.

The city at night is ablaze with neon lights.

Lu walked home with his body hunched over, wearing an old coat with cuffs so worn they were almost falling apart.

The casino's sign lights were flashing incessantly. He had just come out of the back door, still smelling of engine oil and dust.

His current job is as a casino game machine repairman.

Every day, he faces broken circuits, soldering, testing, and repeating the same process, which has almost no connection to the genius who once dominated the computer science department.

He lowered his head, his eyes bloodshot, holding a cup of coffee that had gone cold.

Just then, the giant screen in the square in front lit up simultaneously.

All the screens in the city switched to the same image in unison.

【Endless World】

—Global public beta.

Countdown: 12 hours.

The screen displays a vibrant virtual world, complete with oceans, skies, mountains, and deities, as if the entire universe is welcoming players in.

Lu stopped and stared at the giant screen.

A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Heh...what does this have to do with me?"

He shook his head and continued walking towards his apartment.

A package sat quietly by the door.

Two familiar names were written in the signature area:
Li Fa.

Chen Mengling.

Lu was stunned, and his heart tightened slightly.

He bent down, picked up the package, and his finger lingered on the writing for a long time.

Upon opening the package, there were only two items inside.

A faded, yellowed group photo.

Twelve young people, all with bright smiles, some holding instant noodles, others yawning.

Lu held a cup of coffee, his eyes tired, but he smiled as he looked at the camera.

Those were their most precious moments.

Next to it was an ordinary USB flash drive.

Lu was silent for a moment, then sighed, "...Maybe it's an apology."

He hesitated for a moment, but ultimately plugged it into the computer.

drop--

The computer screen flickered instantly, and system alarms popped up one after another.

[Unknown Intrusion!]

[Firewall breached!]

[Data anomaly!]

Lu was startled: "Impossible! This is the protection program I wrote myself—"

Before the words were even finished, the screen began to distort.

From the gaps between the pixels, jet-black tentacles extended out.

They first gently brushed across the screen, then suddenly lunged out, wrapping around his arms and neck, dragging him deeper into the screen.

"—What the hell?!"

Lu struggled with all his might, but it was all in vain.

At the end of the tentacles, countless overlapping sounds came.

"Lu! Run!"

"I'm sorry, you're right!"

"He's gone mad!"

The sounds were chaotic and desperate, like the cries of Li Fa and Chen Mengling, or like distorted echoes.

Lu's pupils suddenly contracted, and he was abruptly pulled into the screen.

The world collapsed in an instant.

He fell into chaos.

The casino machines, the crashing waves of the sea, the dark rooms in the drawers—all overlapped before my eyes.

Playing cards and dice tumbled in the waves, the shouts of newsboys mingled with the rumble of postmarks.

He floated in nothingness, whispers constantly echoing in his ears:

"who am I?"

"Am I Lu?"

"Or...the God of Fate?"

Sounds intertwine, illusion and reality overlap.

Chaos completely engulfed him.

In the darkness, only a smiling mask remained, slowly emerging in the void.

If the world were code

Who is the author?
If fate is a script

Who is writing this?

Lu, or Siming,
Who is the truth?
—From *The False Manuscript*

(End of this chapter)