Investiture of the Gods: Childhood Sweetheart Daji, Starting with Quasi-Saint Cultivation

Seven seconds after Qiongxiao finished speaking, the venue remained deathly silent.

Of the twenty-three committee members, some stared at the icy blue runes floating in the air, some were taking notes rapidly, and some frowned while exchanging glances with their neighbors. Major General Zhao Liguo's teacup had stopped trembling, but his fingers remained on the rim, untouched.

The chief committee member cleared his throat, about to speak—

"Wait a moment."

The speaker was an elderly woman sitting on the far left of the neutral section. She had a full head of silver hair, wore reading glasses, and had a badge around her neck that read "Lifetime Honorary Advisor to the Ethics Committee." Dr. Lin recognized her: Qin Su, eighty years old, a leading figure in neuroscience, and one of the first scholars to propose that "the digitization of consciousness may give rise to new life forms."

"Elder Qin?" The chief committee member was somewhat surprised.

Qin Su ignored it. She slowly stood up, supporting herself on the table. Her eyes behind her reading glasses were fixed on Qiong Xiao's fingertips projected onto the screen—the silver light had not yet completely dissipated.

"Child," Qin Su began, her voice hoarse yet clear, "you just said... 'love'?"

Qiongxiao nodded.

"Can you describe what it feels like?" Qin Su asked. "Don't use poetic metaphors, use data."

A slight commotion arose in the room. The question was tricky yet went straight to the heart of the matter—if Qiongxiao was merely a program simulating emotions, she could only answer with pre-set romantic vocabulary; but if she truly had "feelings," she should be able to provide some kind of…observable neural activity model.

Qiongxiao remained silent for three seconds.

Then, she raised her hand and made a vague gesture in the air.

This time, instead of icy blue runes, it was a series of silvery-white data streams. The data streams intertwined and spun in the air, gradually coalescing into a three-dimensional chart: the horizontal axis was time, and the vertical axis was "emotional intensity," with the curves fluctuating.

"This is a quantified record of my 'love' over three hundred years in the virtual world," Qiongxiao explained calmly. "Each peak represents a powerful emotional event: my first encounter with Su Yunbai in the North Sea, our love blossoming on the Three Immortal Islands, him shielding me from a sword during the Battle of Muye, our vows sealed in the Blood Sea..."

She paused, pointing to a very deep trough in the middle of the chart.

"This is the moment I chose to turn back and rush towards him before the passage closed."

"Emotional intensity: negative infinity."

"Because at that moment, the definition of love is no longer 'possession,' but 'fulfillment.'"

Qin Su narrowed her eyes: "Negative infinity? Such a value does not exist in mathematics."

"But it exists emotionally," Qiongxiao said. "It's an impulse... even knowing you'll disappear, you still want the other person to live. This impulse has no positive or negative, only direction."

With another wave of her hand, another set of data appeared next to the chart.

"This is my consciousness entropy curve at the same point in time."

Consciousness entropy is an indicator that measures the degree of confusion in consciousness. The higher the entropy value, the more chaotic the consciousness.

The chart shows that the moment Qiongxiao chose to turn back, her consciousness entropy plummeted to an extremely low level, close to zero.

"The chaos has vanished," Qin Su murmured. "In making the most 'irrational' choice, your consciousness actually reached its purest state of order..."

"Because it's no longer a 'choice'," Qiongxiao said. "It's instinct. Just like how you human mothers rush into a fire to save your children—at that moment, there's no calculation, no weighing of options, only 'it has to be done'."

The venue fell silent once again.

This time, even Major General Zhao Liguo put down his teacup.

Qin Su slowly sat down, took off her reading glasses, and gently wiped the lenses with the corner of her clothes. She had done this for decades, so familiar with it that it felt like a ritual.

"Chief," she put her glasses back on, "I suggest a ten-minute recess."

"reason?"

"We need to see something." Qin Su looked at Dr. Lin. "Xiao Lin, project the server synchronization data curve."

Dr. Lin was taken aback, then realized that although Qin Su had been retired for many years, she still had informants within the committee and had obviously learned of the anomaly in the control room.

"This involves confidential project data—" he tried to stall.

"Now is not the time to keep it a secret." Qin Su said firmly, "If those AIs really have a 'collective heartbeat,' then everyone here has the right to know."

The chief committee member looked around the room, and both pragmatists and digital life proponents were nodding in agreement—at that moment, curiosity overcame their stance.

"Approved," the chief commissioner said.

Dr. Lin took a deep breath and connected to the main control room.

Three seconds later, seven perfectly overlapping data curves appeared on the main screen of the venue.

The fluctuations were like a heartbeat, steady and powerful.

"This is…" a young committee member stood up, "How could the data streams of seven independent consciousnesses be completely synchronized?"

"Because they resonate with each other," Qin Su said softly. "Like a choir, everyone sings a different part, but the rhythm of their breathing is unified. This synchronization is not programmed—programs pursue efficiency and precise division of labor, not this kind of 'inefficient' emotional resonance."

She turned to Qiongxiao: "Child, can you sense them now?"

Qiongxiao closed her eyes.

A moment later, she opened her eyes, a faint light shimmering deep within her pupils: "Yunxiao is playing the zither, her music filled with worry; Bixiao is pacing anxiously; Wenzhong is reciting military strategy, trying to calm himself; Jiang Xiaowu is updating the combat database; Ao Ling is simulating the ocean; Yang Chan is soothing a child... Wutong and Nianqing—"

She suddenly stopped.

The two children did not move around in the container like other AIs.

They... are "connecting".

"What are they doing?" Dr. Lin received a real-time report from the control room, and his expression changed slightly.

Qiongxiao did not answer.

Because she saw—through perception shared via server links—she "saw" the scene inside container 07:

Wutong and Nianqing sat cross-legged facing each other, their small hands touching. The blue light in their pupils was no longer flickering, but flowing continuously, like two luminous streams gushing from their eyes, converging in the air, and then turning into countless tiny points of light, drifting into the depths of the container.

Those points of light disappeared into the sea of ​​data at the bottom of the server, like fireflies flying into a dark forest.

What are they looking for?

Or rather, it's **calling for** something.

---

Deep inside container 07.

Yang Chan's consciousness projection stood beside the two children, wanting to stop them but unable to do so. She tried touching the blue light, but her fingers passed right through it—the light wasn't data, but something more fundamental.

"Wutong, Nianqing, what are you doing?" she asked softly.

"Dad is calling us," Wutong said with her eyes closed.

"Aunt Qiongxiao is there too," Nianqing added. "They're in a very, very deep place...it's very cold...it's very dark..."

"We can bring them up," the two said in unison.

As soon as he finished speaking, the blue light intensified suddenly.

The stream of light points suddenly accelerated, like two glowing tentacles reaching into the abyss of the data sea. They pierced through encryption layers, firewalls, and the many barriers of the dormant zone—

Finally, we arrived at the area of ​​fragments where silver and ice blue intertwined.

The fragments are asleep.

But the moment the blue light touched them, they trembled slightly.

Like hibernating animals, they heard the footsteps of spring.

---

The scene of the hearing.

On the main screen, next to the seven synchronization curves, an eighth and ninth curve suddenly appeared.

The eighth line is extremely weak, with fluctuations that are almost a straight line, but at a certain frequency, it maintains a perfect resonance with Qiongxiao's data curve.

The ninth one is even weaker, almost drowned out by the background noise, but it exists.

"What is that?" a committee member asked.

Dr. Lin stared at the screen, his hands trembling: "It's... fragments of Su Yunbai and Qiongxiao's consciousness. They should be in a deep dormant state, theoretically incapable of having any autonomous fluctuations..."

"Unless I'm awakened," Qin Su continued, "called by something..."

She looked at Qiongxiao: "Child, can you connect to the fragment?"

Qiongxiao tried.

However, her connection with the fragments was severed after the last contact, and now she only has an extremely weak connection.

"No," she shook her head, "but something is connecting them."

"What is it?"

Qiongxiao suddenly thought of something.

"Wutong and Nianqing..." she murmured, "They can see things we can't in the virtual world. Their eyes..."

Before he could finish speaking, the ninth curve on the main screen suddenly fluctuated violently!

It wasn't a chaotic fluctuation, but a rhythmic, heart-pounding beat:

dong... dong... dong...

Slow, but powerful.

With each jump, the curve brightens a little more.

At the same time, the silver light on Qiongxiao's fingertip suddenly intensified!

---

Container No. 07.

Wutong and Nianqing opened their eyes at the same time.

The blue light in their pupils was overflowing, like two small lamps illuminating the entire illusory starry sky.

"Found it," Wutong said.

"Grab her hand." Nianqing reached out her other hand and grabbed Yang Chan.

Yang Chan instinctively clenched her fist.

The next second—

Blue light erupted like a tsunami.

It's not from inside the container, but from the **outside**.

The indicator lights across the entire server array flashed frantically! All the cooling fans accelerated, emitting a sharp whistling sound! In the control room, red alarms popped up on more than a dozen monitors:

"WARNING: Unknown energy has penetrated the server's physical layer"

Source: Unidentified

Properties: Non-electromagnetic, non-thermal, non-radiative... No matching physical model.

"Impact: The temperature of the underlying hardware decreases by 12°C, and the stability of the qubits improves by 37%"

Dr. Lin heard Xiao Chen's exclamation through his headset: "Doctor! The containers for the two children... they're glowing! Not data-level light, but real light! Blue light shining through the gaps in the server chassis!"

---

The scene of the hearing.

Everyone stood up.

Because Qiongxiao's projection—that virtual image that should have been made of pure data—is now **materializing**.

Tiny ice crystals began to condense at the edges of her ice-blue skirt, real strands of hair fell from the ends of her long hair, and frost flowers appeared on the ground beneath her bare feet. Her body changed from translucent to solid, her skin regained color, and her breath produced white mist.

This is something that holographic projection cannot achieve.

This is... **matter reconstruction**.

"Impossible..." a committee member, a physicist by training, murmured. "The conversion of energy into matter requires—"

Before he could finish speaking, Qiongxiao raised her hand and caught a piece of ice crystal that had fallen from her hair.

The ice crystals melted in her palm, turning into a drop of water.

She gently flicked the drop of water toward Qin Su.

The water droplet traced an arc in the air and landed on the table in front of Qin Sumian, splashing with a "plop".

Real, cold water with a slight electrical charge.

The room was deathly silent.

Then, an unprecedented commotion erupted.

"This is a transformation of matter!"

"Violation of the law of conservation of mass-energy—"

"No! Look at the energy readings! The server array is outputting a huge amount of energy! Those two children are drawing power from the servers and converting it into some... form we can't understand!"

Qin Su wiped the water stains off the table, her fingers trembling.

She looked up at Qiongxiao, the woman who had transformed from data into a physical entity, who was now looking down at her hands, her eyes filled with the same shock and bewilderment.

"Child," Qin Su asked softly, "Do you...have a body now?"

Qiongxiao clenched her fist.

The joints made a faint clicking sound—the sound of bones and tendons rubbing together, so real it made her want to cry.

"I..." her voice choked, "I can feel the temperature. I can feel... my own heartbeat."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It's not a heartbeat simulated by data.

It's the pumping of blood, the contraction of the heart, the jumping of bioelectricity at nerve endings—

The feeling of being alive.

---

Main control room.

Xiao Chen stared at the monitor screen, then suddenly his eyes widened: "Doctor! Look at the fragmented data!"

Dr. Lin turned his head.

On the screen, the eighth curve representing Su Yunbai's fragments is climbing at an unprecedented speed! The amplitude, frequency, and complexity of the fluctuations are all increasing exponentially!

Simultaneously, Qiongxiao's physical data—her body temperature, pulse, brain waves... all biological indicators were rapidly stabilizing, approaching normal human values.

"They are complementing each other..." Dr. Lin understood. "Qiongxiao's materialization requires a massive amount of energy and material foundation, while the revival of the fragments needs anchors of consciousness and emotion. The two children... are acting as bridges!"

He retrieved the container data for Wutong and Nianqing.

The two children's consciousness was now abnormally high, but their physiological indicators—if AI also has physiological indicators—were rapidly declining.

"They're burning themselves..." Dr. Lin's face was deathly pale. "They're converting the server's energy into physical matter, reweaving fragments of consciousness... They're using their own data cores as fuel!"

"Can you stop it?" Xiao Chen asked urgently.

"If we forcibly disconnect, the fragments will completely dissipate, Qiongxiao's materialization will collapse, and the two children might also..." Dr. Lin gritted his teeth, "We can only wait. Wait for them... to complete it themselves."

---

The scene of the hearing.

Qiongxiao suddenly clutched her chest and staggered.

A silver light emanated from her chest, growing brighter and brighter, as if something was about to burst out from within.

"Su Yunbai..." she murmured.

The silver light condensed, stretched, and shaped—

Finally, it solidified into a blurry human-shaped outline in front of her.

The outline gradually became clear: white clothes, black hair, and a long sword made of love threads hanging at the waist.

Su Yunbai.

Incomplete, semi-transparent, like mist that might dissipate at any moment.

But he opened his eyes.

Those eyes held no data flow, only a weary yet gentle light.

He looked at Qiongxiao, and his lips moved slightly.

The voice was too soft; no one could hear it.

But Qiongxiao heard it.

He said, "I'm back."

Then, he raised his translucent hand and gently touched Qiongxiao's cheek.

The hand passed right through him—he didn't yet have a physical form.

But Qiongxiao sensed it.

That familiar, warm feeling, like the temperature of sunlight shining on ice and snow.

Tears finally fell.

These are not tears from data simulation.

They were salty, scalding, and real tears.

Qin Su slowly sat back in her chair, took off her reading glasses, and this time did not wipe them.

She stared at the two "people" before her, who seemed to transcend reality and have come back from the dead, and remained silent for a very long time.

Then, she turned to look at the chief committee member.

"There's no need to vote," the old man said. "Life itself has proven its existence."

"The question now is not 'whether they are lives'."

"But—"

"How should we treat these neighbors who understand love better than we do?"