Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 152 The Truth of the World (Thirteenth Update)

She naturally used her spoon to scoop up a large piece of golden, creamy durian flesh, mixed with a little shaved ice, and held it to Xu Yan's lips, her eyes sparkling with an irresistible anticipation and affection.
"Here, try it, it's really delicious! It doesn't smell bad at all!"

Xu Yan stared at the spoon being offered to his lips, slightly taken aback.

He wasn't used to this overly intimate feeding, especially with durian, which has such a "unique" flavor.

But seeing Chen Zhiwei's expectant, even slightly coquettish eyes, he hesitated for a moment, then leaned forward slightly and opened his mouth to take the spoonful of dessert.

The cool, sweet, and fragrant texture melts in your mouth, and the taste... is indeed not as unacceptable as you might imagine.

"How is it? Did I not lie to you?"

Chen Zhiwei asked expectantly, her eyes curving into crescents.

It was at this perfect moment, filled with a sweet and warm atmosphere.

A slightly mocking, familiar voice suddenly rang out from the side:

"Oh—! Looks like I've arrived at the wrong time? Have I interrupted your sweet time?"

Xu Yan and Chen Zhiwei turned their heads at the same time.

Suddenly, Ah Zhe appeared beside the table.

He was still wearing his signature work clothes, with smart glasses around his neck and that lazy, indifferent smile on his face.

Those eyes, however, were like searchlights, scanning back and forth with great interest over Xu Yan, Chen Zhiwei, and the bowl of durian dessert on the table that had been shared, the corners of his mouth curving into a playful smile.

The warm atmosphere was instantly shattered, and a subtle yet tense electric current seemed to fill the air.

When Chen Zhiwei saw that A Zhe had arrived uninvited and interrupted their precious moment of warmth, she was immediately annoyed. She put down her spoon and said irritably:
"Hey! How dare you show your face? My senior brother kindly helped you solve such a huge problem, and you didn't even say thank you, just ran off like a madman! Is there anyone like you?"

Ah Zhe felt a little embarrassed by what she said, and put away his cynical smile, revealing a rare hint of awkwardness and apology.

The moment A Zhe appeared, Xu Yan's mind began to work like a finely tuned gear.

Energy damper... coordinate positioning...

The only explanation for his ability to find this unassuming dessert shop so precisely is that the little gadget he was given earlier had a built-in tracking function.

They went so far as to use their location to find me, so it must be something really important.

Ah Zhe scratched his dyed silver hair, his tone becoming more sincere:
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! ...I lost my composure. Things were a bit... beyond my control, and I couldn't handle it for a moment. Mr. Xu, Ms. Chen, it was indeed my rudeness. Thank you both very much for your help."

He paused, his gaze regaining focus as he looked at Xu Yan with an eagerness to share a major discovery: "To express my apology and gratitude, if you are interested... I would like to show you the most crucial discovery that Xiao Zhou and I made in the ruins of the 'Tower of Babel'."

Xu Yan's heart stirred.

He was indeed extremely interested in A Zhe and Xiao Zhou's research, especially their crazy conjecture about the "essence of the world," but he had never been able to directly pry into other people's core secrets before.

Now that A Zhe has taken the initiative to offer this, it's exactly what I wanted.

He remained expressionless, simply nodding calmly: "I'd like to hear more details."

Seeing their interest, Ah Zhe immediately perked up. He looked around to make sure he wasn't attracting too much attention, then took out his specially made tablet from his backpack.

The screen lit up, projecting a private light screen that only the three of them could see.

“Although my profession is an energy planner, it’s just to make a living and acquire resources.” A Zhe’s voice was low, with the enthusiasm unique to a tech fanatic. “Technology, exploring the unknown, and understanding the underlying logic of the world, these are my true passions and the shared dream of Xiao Zhou and me.”

He skillfully brought up some incredibly complex interfaces, filled with countless lines of code, mathematical models, and multidimensional structural diagrams that Xu Yan and Chen Zhiwei could not comprehend at all.

“When we first discovered the ruins of the Tower of Babel, we thought they were the remains of some ancient civilization. But the more we studied them, especially after analyzing some remaining fragments of its core database, the more we discovered… things were far more astonishing and… terrifying than we had imagined.”

His fingers swiped rapidly across the tablet, bringing up a series of comparative data and logical derivation diagrams.

“Look here, this is our monitoring of energy fluctuations at the most basic particle level of real matter, and this…” He brought up another interface, which was filled with constantly refreshing “0” and “1” like the binary code stream at the bottom layer of a computer, but it was more complex, like some kind of higher-level encoding. “…This is the simulated running state of the ‘bottom code’ or ‘basic instruction set’ of the basic operating logic of this world, which we reconstructed from the core log of the ‘Tower of Babel’.”

He placed the two interfaces side by side and then activated some kind of comparison algorithm.

An astonishing scene unfolded—the energy fluctuation pattern in the real world and the fluctuation of the simulated "basic instruction set" showed a high degree of synchronization and consistency in macro trends and key nodes!

"This is impossible……"

Chen Zhiwei covered her mouth, her eyes filled with disbelief.

Ah Zhe took a deep breath and dropped that earth-shattering conclusion:
"Xiaozhou and I built a model based on massive data analysis and cross-validation. All the evidence points to one possibility—the world we live in is not a naturally formed universe, but a vast, highly simulated…closed data world! Everything we perceive—matter, energy, even time and space—may simply be data representations of this system in operation!"

Xu Yan's pupils suddenly contracted. Even though he had been reborn and was resolute, he was still shaken by this conclusion.

A closed data world?
The fact that I can start over is not some kind of mysterious time reversal, but rather... that this massive "system" has read a previous "save file" for some unknown reason?
Or perhaps his own "data" underwent some kind of special "migration" or "overwriting" due to the influence of "Yuan"?
Chen Zhiwei, recovering from her shock, asked with a sense of bewilderment and helplessness:

"If... if it's really as you say, that this world is a closed data prison, then what's the use of discovering this secret? We still can't escape, can we?"

"No! Understanding the essence is the greatest power!" A Zhe's eyes gleamed with fanaticism. "Data! Everything is data! This means that whether it's a powerful Gold-level superhuman, a terrifying vengeful spirit, or even the 'Abyss' you mentioned, they are essentially all collections of data, whether simple or complex! Their existence, operation, and interaction all follow the underlying logic of this data world!"

(End of this chapter)