A Scroll of Infinite Glory

Chapter 313 A Blatant Design

"This isn't a computer; it's a new type of projector."

Snap! The jagged mouth swallowed the projector whole.

"Ah, right, right, this is a computer, but you... um, God, why did you break the power cord?"

"Huh, you can actually discharge electricity? Good, good, it's lit up! Yes, that's the frequency! Wait, that's too much, it's smoking!"

Click!

The computer was swallowed whole, with only a small wisp of black smoke seeping out from between the bright red, interlocking teeth.

"We'll have to be more careful this time. Yes, let's keep it at this frequency."

After operating the system for a while, Liu Anshan said in frustration, "There seems to be no signal here. Where are we?"

A new picture is drawn on the whiteboard.

The ground is covered with towering buildings, and the city has a magnificent and solid foundation and drainage system.

The next layer down contains soil and rocks, animal skeletons, and the remains of cows, pigs, and rats.

The groundwater is wavy and linear.

Red lava, several giant rocks.

Dinosaur bones.

The underground structure is divided into layers by simple drawings, with the bottom layer being a wavy line diagram containing a floating sphere.

"Since we're so deep underground, is it possible to find a place with a signal?"

Liu Anshan instructed, "Don't get too close to the ground; just barely get into an area with signal coverage."

The sphere wobbled and seemed to begin to rise slowly.

With her arms wrapped around her knees, Liu Susu, who was squatting beside him, seemed to only come to her senses at this moment, looking at her father blankly.

"Dad, what happened? We were eating, how did it suddenly..."

She gestured with her hands a few times, unsure how to express herself, "Is that all?"

"It must be because our identities have been exposed. Mr. Guan, who is also your Uncle Li, sent us underground to hide for the time being."

Liu Anshan looked at his daughter, patted her back, and comforted her, saying, "These things are a long story. To put it simply, I have been working as an agent for the United Regime for the past few years. Recently, I planned a big operation, but I don't know where I slipped up and it led to the Hachiyoin's surprise attack."

Liu Susu was stunned. After a long while, she finally said, "Agent, why didn't I know anything about this?"

She panicked. "So that means we're wanted criminals now? Is there any way we can escape?"

"Dad! You're a good researcher with a decent salary, why did you want to become a secret agent?"

Liu Anshan hugged his daughter tightly, stopping her increasingly flustered movements, and sighed deeply.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, it's all Dad's fault. I had prepared a plan over the past few years to send you away in a reasonable way, but it was exposed too suddenly."

Liu Susu wiped away her tears, calmed down a bit, and said, "But, if Dad, you do a good job as a researcher..."

"Sigh, I never thought I'd become a secret agent."

Liu Anshan stroked Liu Susu's hair and said, "When I was your age, I always felt carefree. Nothing could bother me. I could easily learn the school courses. Like the good students in a thousand stories, both my parents and teachers were very lenient with me."

"I could easily get the best rating and be ranked at the top of the region for any computer game I wanted. At that time, I could solve problems for many people. Even hooligans outside of school needed my help."

A look of reminiscence crossed his eyes. "Back then, the only thing that bothered me was being a single-parent family, and your grandmother's health was very poor. But thanks to my skills with the internet, I was able to supplement the family income, and then I met your mother. Everything was going well."

Liu Susu understood something: "So your becoming a special agent is related to your mother? But I remember, your mother died of illness."

"Yes, she died of illness when you were a child."

Liu Anshan's voice was low and deep. "It was an acute and severe illness caused by the collapse of the immune system. Medical treatment couldn't make up for it. In less than half a month, I watched her grow pale little by little on the hospital bed. Many times, when she just closed her eyes to rest, I thought she was already dead. I was always flustered and woke her up, which made her sleep even worse."

Tears welled up in Liu Susu's eyes again.

"I used all my connections and every possible channel, but the disease had already reached your mother's brain and was incurable. It was around that time that I stumbled upon some other information."

Liu Anshan's voice grew even lower, "Do you know that once that disease flares up, even if an ordinary person like your mother were to receive treatment and recuperate, there would be no way to cure it completely, let alone a high-level spiritualist like you. However, there is actually a very simple method that can eliminate the possibility of contracting this disease from the source."

Liu Susu asked, "What?"

"Psionic energy, as long as a tiny psionic chip is implanted at birth, even without the talent to become a formal psionicist, it can resist the vast majority of diseases, nip them in the bud, and eliminate more than 92 percent of the diseases we hear about in our lives. The remaining ones can basically no longer be called incurable diseases."

Liu Anshan said, "I know what you're trying to say. The standards for assessing psychics are very difficult. Psychic chips are extremely precious. Only one in a thousand people can possess one. Even if someone obtains a psychic chip, they will only trigger potential dangers if they fail the test."

"The resources for supporting psychics are extremely limited, so you must be better than your classmates and more diligent than your colleagues in every aspect. You must work day and night, neglecting sleep and meals, to do your best in order to obtain the qualification certification of the Eight Leaves Institute."

Liu Susu asked, puzzled, "Isn't that right?"

Liu Anshan said, "Haven't you seen the news about the coalition government?"

"But the news keeps saying that the coalition government is a dictatorship. They inject substandard chips into all newborns without the consent of the families, just to squeeze out their mental potential. The chips even contain things that can control the brain, which can gradually brainwash people and turn them into fanatical supporters of the dictator."

Liu Susu said, "Furthermore, many news reports have mentioned that high-ranking officials in coalition governments can use chips to control the public and turn them into human bombs to attack political opponents."

Liu Anshan said, "My thoughts were somewhat similar to yours at that time, but after your mother died, I didn't know what to do, so I simply did some research myself."

He recounted one by one the things he had personally witnessed and experienced when he was young.

Liu Susu was so engrossed in listening that she even forgot her earlier panic.

After hearing all this, she finally understood: "So, Dad, you became a secret agent later?"

"Of course not."

Liu Anshan shook his head. "Being a secret agent is too dangerous. I wouldn't dare to do such a dangerous job. At that time, I saw how well the people in the United Regime lived. I just wanted to come back and find a way to bring you away so we could live together in the United Regime."

"My awareness isn't that high. If I can live a peaceful life, why would I want to risk my life?"

"But you were still young then, and it was really difficult to bring a small child over. I thought about it for a long time, and many methods didn't seem safe enough. It was during that time that I researched some things and changed my mind."

Liu Anshan paused for a moment, then said, "I found out about the psionic chip storage inside the Eight Leaves Institute."

Liu Susu didn't quite understand what this meant, but she continued to listen.

"The Hachiyoin focuses on prosthetic technology, but they have not given up on the research and development of psionic chips. They have collected many chips from other forces for research, and they also need a sufficient number of the new generation of chips they have developed to test them."

"After the testing is completed, if improvements are found and new chips are developed, the old batch will be stored. So, although they are called old, many have only been used once or twice and their basic functions are intact."

"With this accumulation from generation to generation, when I finally checked, do you know how much the Hachiyoin chip warehouse actually contained?"

Liu Susu shook her head.

"That was three times the population of the Hachiyoin territory at the time."

Liu Anshan emphasized again, "Three times! Because there are just too many, the earlier batches, even if the chips are intact, will be treated as garbage and disposed of very cleanly to prevent them from circulating to the grassroots level."

"Trash, hahaha, trash..."

Liu Susu heard laughter, but saw her father's eyes wide open, with large tears rolling down his cheeks.

The man didn't cry when he talked about the passing of his mother and wife, but he cried now.

"Hahaha, if we don't have the technology or the resources, that's fine. If we're really not qualified enough to get the treasure, that's fine too."

"But that's garbage, three times the amount of garbage, and it's still growing. My wife, my mother—their lives aren't even worthy of being garbage?!"

Liu Anshan covered his face with his hands, trembling for a moment, then wiped it hard. With red eyes, he said to his daughter, "So, Susu, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, it wasn't for any lofty ideals, nor can I say it was to save the masses. I'm sorry..."

"SuSu, I just wanted to kill these beasts!"

Liu Susu hugged her father.

After the father and daughter cried for a while, Liu Anshan rallied his spirits and forced a smile, saying, "But they are too powerful. Even if I wanted to kill them, I couldn't do it myself. So I could only gather some intelligence, offer some advice, and do some indirect, useless work."

Liu Susu shook her head vigorously and hugged her father tightly: "No, no, Dad, you're amazing."

A fiber fell down and poked Liu Anshan's shoulder. Liu Anshan quickly looked up, saw that there was a signal on the computer, and immediately sat up straight.

The fiber penetrated directly into his shoulder, and Liu Anshan's spirits lifted instantly, the discomfort from his earlier weeping vanishing immediately.

Having kept it a secret from his daughter for so many years, he finally opened up, feeling much lighter and more at ease, and his fighting spirit soared even higher.

He pulled out a series of 3D projection screens from the touchscreen keyboard, scanned them with his eyes, and operated them with lightning speed.

Liu Susu sat a little further away so as not to interfere with her father's movements.

A dozen minutes later, the projected images in the air changed one after another, and Liu Anshan's movements gradually slowed down.

The whiteboard in the air rotated over, revealing its back, which displayed a large question mark.

"Although I don't know exactly why we were exposed, all of Hachiyoin's network information processing has a super central hub. I tested that thing when I was young. It's very efficient and has a huge capacity, but to be honest, the designer isn't that smart in the field of networks."

Liu Anshan said, "I plan to use my neighborhood and the research institute where I work as a base to spread outwards, mobilize the garbage information within Naroyan Province, and attack that super center, and then take advantage of the chaos to look for clues."

Liu Susu asked in surprise, "Dad, are you a hacker? But with just this one computer and no one else to help, can you really succeed?"

"If I start doing this now, even if I scrap a hundred high-performance computers in the research institute, I still won't be able to do it."

Liu Anshan typed on the keyboard, "But we've been preparing for this for a long time."

The nineteen-minute operation just now was merely to send out commands he had previously set through this computer.

Inside the underground hall, the bulky columns resembled a brain without a protective shell, exposed to the air.

The gaps formed between the rotating shafts and the undulating wires of the crystal components resemble sulci, while the screens are like the full, raised areas of the brain.

It is like a multi-eyed beast, and also like an inflated, heavy, and enormous brain.

"Oh?"

The voice of Brahma's brain resounded.

"You think you can use this old trick against me?"

"A sleeping mountain can only endure the wind and rain, and be covered by rainwater, but a giant as big as the mountain can tear apart the rain clouds with a single breath."

The words "The Sleeping Mountain" were displayed on Liu'an Mountain's screen in bold red font.

Liu Susu was taken aback.

Liu Anshan ignored it and continued operating.

"It's no use."

The computer speakers suddenly turned on, and a confident, aged voice came through: "Liu Anshan."

"On the surface, he is just a mid-to-upper-level researcher, but his level of network technology is extremely high."

"It's amazing. All the teachers and friends you've met in your life, all the textbooks and materials you've encountered, are not enough to cultivate such a high level of technical skills. You could say that your talent in network technology is like a genetic mutation."

"Master Dazhi is a unique genius in the field of prosthetic research. He also considers himself to be among the best in the fields of electronics and the internet. But in reality, he is not even worthy of shining your shoes when it comes to computer technology."

The aged voice was full of praise, as if it wanted to elevate Liu Anshan to the heavens.

"Out of the entire world's population, which is measured in hundreds of millions, your talent in this area should rank third. That's amazing, truly amazing."

"You have the potential to change the world; it's a real waste that you're just a secret agent."

Liu Anshan's eyes flickered, and he continued operating the machine: "Changing the world? That's too much of an exaggeration. In this era, electronic technology is both the most useful and the most useless thing."

"While it seems to have a million uses and endless conveniences, in reality, this technology has very little room to intervene in wars that truly determine the course of the world. The scheduling of psionic satellites does not require a high level of expertise in electronic technology."

The aged voice immediately rebuked, "Foolish! Although your talent is high, your vision is too shallow; you are still just a mortal. Electronic life can be created through computer technology. In the world of the internet, anything is possible. The internet permeates reality, which is equivalent to being omnipotent in reality."

"If I wanted to, I could control an army of 800,000 intelligent machines with just one command. Some of them were as big as hills, while others were as small as frisbees. As for nanomachines, they were countless."

"If I wanted to, I could just modify a few steps and completely replace manual labor with machines on the production line, from raw material collection to final assembly, to complete an independent cycle of production. In time, transforming the entire planet would be within my reach."

The aged voice chuckled, "But these are merely grand actions; they do not yet reveal my divine might. On a grand scale, I can overturn the world; on a small scale, I can simply recount my life's story."

"Even someone like you, who is almost a genetic mutation and the third in the world, I can go through every single day, every hour, every minute of your life from childhood to adulthood."

Liu Anshan coldly replied, "Why boast? How can you possibly reconstruct a person's entire life based solely on information available online, even with all the overt and covert surveillance?"

"Because I am the brain of Brahma!"

The old voice said arrogantly, "You can't imagine how vast the information I have is. As long as I break it down layer by layer from the macro level and combine it with some online information, I can calculate the part of your life that is not monitored by the internet."

"but……"

Brahma's Brain suddenly smiled, "I know what you're planning. You want me to waste more computing resources to give your companions a chance, but if it's just for calculating your own, it won't use many of my resources at all."

"Let me show you, from when you were nineteen and in the bedroom with your wife..."

Bang!

Liu Anshan punched through the computer screen, and thick smoke billowed from the hole.

"I know how we were exposed."

He smiled gently at his daughter and said, "My Lord, you should be able to contact Mr. Guan in some way, right? Please find a way to tell him that there is a supercomputer information processing center in the eighteenth underground level of the Hachiyoin headquarters."

"I have tested that information hub many times before. Brahma's Brain is the code name for the artificial intelligence inside that supercomputer. Now it seems that it may have undergone a technological upgrade or a mutation, and gained self-awareness."

The whiteboard spun around, revealing two question marks.

Liu Anshan laughed and said, "Computer technology is both the most useful and the most useless. No matter how powerful the intelligence is, it still needs hardware to provide sufficient computing resources. If we can destroy that central processing unit, the capabilities of this artificial intelligence will be reduced by at least half."

"Moreover, destroying the central hub doesn't require being directly close to it. As long as the three main power lines supplying power to it are overloaded, it can be put into a long period of maintenance."

"As for city circuits, I have provided Mr. Guan with relevant information."

The whiteboard was flipped over, and a clenched fist with a thumbs-up was drawn.

Liu Anshan added, "By the way, let's get out of here quickly. It would be best to go deeper underground, otherwise we might be able to track our location by following the signals."

The sphere wobbled and began to sink.

Suddenly remembering something, Liu Susu said, "Dad, what about your previous plan? You can't send a signal to others to activate it anymore, right?"

"There's absolutely no need for that."

Liu Anshan picked up the broken computer and said confidently, "All the observation devices prepared by our undercover agents are offline. Even if they don't know who is fighting, as long as they notice the commotion caused by Mr. Guan and the abnormal movement of the psionic satellite, they will definitely not give up this opportunity."

………………

At the center, surrounded by eight mountains, lies an underground space.

Brahma's Brain smiled, connected to the Great Master's communication device, and transmitted a message.

"You've exposed yourself?"

The Great Master had a sudden thought, "You did it on purpose, you became the bait, and you narrowed down the possible locations of Guan Luoyang, which are nothing more than the three main power circuits that supply you, or the location of your central processor."

"That's right. But for me now, even if a single line is overloaded, it can be controlled and suppressed. To achieve the best results, Guan Luoyang has no choice but to continue moving closer to it."

The Brain of Brahma said, "Actually, they might be able to see through my actions, but this is an open strategy. At our level, an open game is the most effective."

"We can prepare for battle now."

(End of this chapter)