"According to the current technology and concept of your earth, the marginal world is actually just a very real virtual world in your view."
The old man prepared some simple food for Jin, and after Jin had finished eating, the old man walked to the fireplace again, picked up the wood that was placed beside him, and added fire to the fireplace.
He also added some water to the kettle on the steel frame of the fireplace and reheated it to boil. While boiling the water, he said to Jin: "A virtual world is a virtual world, even if you have real The physical body, with all five senses, can read, study and think, and can also be injured and ache.”
"But that doesn't mean you have a real life."
The old man said: "Back in the real world, you are still dead people, only a broken soul that is about to collapse."
"Perhaps one day, this soul will be called by that unknown space, and you will have the opportunity to go to another world, another universe, but that is only a chance... The probability of such an opportunity happening is very small."
"After the death of most lives, the soul is completely extinct during the long wait, turning into the most primitive energy and integrating into the heaven and earth. Most of these energies will turn into wind and rain, adding bricks and tiles to grassroots life such as flowers and plants."
The water in the kettle was slowly steaming, the old man narrated slowly, and sighed: "I am different from you humans, I come from a name called... Translated from your human language, it means 'the most beautiful' planet."
"This planet is very far away from the Milky Way, and it is not even in your universe. Starting from the earth, if calculated in human light-year units, it takes about 34.62 billion light-years to reach a planet."
"But because our technology is far more advanced than human beings, we will use space folding technology to continuously shorten the distance, so it doesn't take too long to reach the earth from us, which is about a hundred years."
The old man told Jin: "When I first came to the earth, it was around 1700 in the Gregorian calendar. At that time, my spaceship had some accidents and was damaged during the flight, so that I had to make an emergency landing on the earth to rest my spaceship. spaceship."
"The environment of the earth is not suitable for me to survive. The aerobic environment on the earth is a kind of poison to me. My original body would be poisoned to death in less than a minute on this planet, so I put my body Locked up in a hibernation pod for preservation, while my soul is attached to a reindeer."
"You must be surprised, but in our place, the body and the soul can be separated. If the body is aging or damaged due to various reasons, we will save the soul in the virtual world... yes, a virtual world similar to the edge world .”
"We keep the soul in the virtual world, and then wait for our companions in the real world to help make a new body, and then extradite the soul into it, so as to achieve a purpose similar to 'immortality'."
When Jin Momo heard this, he was terrified and exclaimed, "So you can really live forever, right?"
"No." The old man shook his head, "It's not as easy as you think to change the body. If we regard the soul as water and the body as a container and a cup, how much water can this cup hold? Depends on the capacity of the cup."
"A cup may hold your soul, but if the cup is not full, your soul will not be able to fill it completely. A little water may overflow, and the overflowing water will be lost in vain. "
Jin understood what the old man said: "That is to say, if you keep changing the container, sometimes it will consume your soul, right?"
"Yes, even if our body-making technology continues to improve, the resulting body tends to be perfect. But helplessly, these containers still cannot match the soul 100%, so we still cannot completely prevent this consumption."
"Moreover, the lost soul cannot be repaired, and the lost soul will also make our memories and feelings gradually disappear, and we will gradually become cold and weak in the process of constantly changing the container."
"Usually those souls who are extremely weak will not continue to change containers. They will always stay in the virtual world and live with that false posture."
"This is only a small part. More souls chose eternal death, and chose to turn into wind and rain to moisten the earth."
When the old man said this, the water in the kettle had boiled, so he picked up the kettle, poured the hot water into a bucket, mixed some cold water, and said to Jin: "Come and warm your hands and feet, it's too cold Now, even though it's not your own body, I hope you'll be kind to others."
Jin stood up obediently, took the towel handed to him by the old man, washed his face with the hot water in the bucket, and began to soak his feet under the old man's signal. I have to say that this was very pleasant. comfort.
The old man himself began to wash his face and feet with the remaining hot water. After tidying up, the old man went to make Jin's bed, and Jin helped pour water and wipe the floor.
After everything was sorted out, the old man pointed to the temporary wooden bed in the room, covered with thick blankets and quilts, and let Jin go to sleep.
"Is this really good? Do we still have some things to do?" Jin was actually a little uneasy. He came here to complete the task that Amu gave, but it turned out to be like a guest. Not only was he entertained , but also to stay overnight.
"It's useless to worry, it's a failure anyway." The old man didn't care if Jin slept or not, anyway, he seemed to want to sleep, so he climbed into his bed and lay down comfortably.
Jin also sat on his bed. He still couldn't figure it out after thinking about it, and couldn't help but said: "Old man, you said that Amu lied to me, and that he didn't want to complete the task of killing the marginal will. What do you mean? If this is a failure, don't we need to think of some strategies to deal with it?"
"Oh... It seems that you won't let me sleep well if you don't ask the truth." The old man lay on the bed and sighed, "Then let me tell you slowly, you can lie on the bed and listen to me."
"I said before that in our world, the body and soul are separated. The body can be recreated, while the soul is preserved in the virtual world, and that virtual world is similar to the edge world you see now. .”
"When I came to Earth three hundred years ago, because I couldn't use my original body, I had no choice but to occupy the body of a reindeer as a temporary container."
"At that time, I was full of curiosity about everything on the earth. I used the eyes of this reindeer to look around, and I used the body of the reindeer to move around. I ignored the cruel law of the chain of life, so I was attacked by a bear."
"I was seriously injured, but I escaped from the bear's paw. Then I was rescued by a pair of human brothers, and they called a doctor to treat me."
The old man told Jin the story of A Mu and A Xin, but Jin had already learned the details of the brothers from A Mu Muchen, but he still listened patiently to the old man.
The old man said: "Giving the crystal stone to these two brothers is the worst decision I have ever made in my life. I thought that the technology contained in this stone could allow human beings to embark on the road of 'eternal life' just like us. .”
"But I was wrong. Life on every planet has an independent and self-evolutionary history. I should not interfere with human beings at will. Not only can our technology fail to bring immortality to human beings, but it will even allow you to step into the human race." destroy."
"In order to make up for this mistake, I repaired the spaceship as soon as possible and embarked on the return journey. I want to bring back the 'weapon' before the power of the crystal stone destroys you humans, and use the weapon to annihilate the stone."
Jin wondered: "That's why you said that Amu was that weapon..."
"Amu is my favorite candidate, and he accepted the mission I gave him without hesitation, so I implanted the 'weapon' into his spirit."
The old man said: "The crystal stone is not so easy to be destroyed. After all, it is the virtual space we use to store our souls. This virtual space is very special. It has a self-protection mechanism. When it detects danger, it may take the initiative to do something. Something to protect yourself."
Jin was confused by the old man's words, "Take the initiative to do something to protect yourself? What do you mean?"
"Literally, if someone wants to destroy the fringe world and can almost do it, the fringe world will be the first to eliminate the threat by violent means."
"Under normal circumstances, we have no way to destroy this virtual space, so we need special weapons."
Jin still didn't quite understand what the old man said. He tried to make the old man describe it to him more intuitively, but the old man seemed quite tired.
"I don't know how to describe it." The old man didn't bother to continue talking. He pulled the quilt on his body and shrank into the warm quilt. "Anyway, it's too late for me to say these things now. Let Amu handle it."
"Didn't you say that Amu failed?"
"Even if you don't kill the marginal will, there is still a way to destroy the marginal world, but it's a little troublesome." The old man was really sleepy, he yawned and closed his eyes.
Jin couldn't continue pestering and questioning, so he had to lie on the bed, but Jin kept tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling with his eyes open, and couldn't fall asleep.
…
On the other side, Mr. He's partner is leading various armed teams to raid the church stronghold of the fringe religion.
They wanted to wipe out the cult in a short time, and then take back the crystal stone stolen by the cult and return it to Mr. He.
But they came a step too late. After they successively captured all the strongholds of the church, they were still unable to find out the whereabouts of the crystal stone.
After interrogating those believers in turn, they learned that in the hour before they raided the church, someone took the first step and took the stone away.
The whereabouts of the crystal stone was unknown, and Mr. He and his partners exploded.