I don’t know why you came to read these words.
If you want to know how Kether, the former Queen’s heir, was destroyed, then I’m afraid you’ll have to be disappointed. Kether’s destruction had nothing to do with me. The man who could manipulate the kernel had already left the Pure White Realm, but you can look for the red-haired young man who was once a member of the mobile task force. He should now be living with his lover in the hot spring tavern in District XII.
If you want to know the secrets of the origin and the operation of the Pure White Realm, please go to the current Queen or enter the library and read the books. According to relevant regulations, people with sufficient authority cannot disclose the algorithm of the world’s core.
If you want to know how the CPU of a supercomputer came to have concrete consciousness, you needn’t be bothered. Whether you know these things or not, it won’t be useful to you.
If you’re still here and you’re still willing to continue reading, then I can tell you a little bit about my boring life.
The members of the Supreme Council, each of them has unparalleled power. In order to monitor and correct possible errors in the operation of the world, they created a supercomputer named Kether, which means the Kabbalah Tree of Life, the axis in the center of paradise.
Like all computers, Kether was composed of five necessary parts: the CPU, the controller, the memory, the input device, and the output device. Among these, the CPU and the memory constituted the center of the supercomputer–that was, me working innumerable days and nights, and the others doing the same. Thus, consciousness was generated.
We simulated our bodies according to our own preferences . At that time, we were subject to the notion of a fixed position, and although the information superhighway clearly connected us all, we didn’t see each other. We only dealt with the flow of data traveling along the information superhighway. Therefore, we could be considered as indifferent colleagues who worked cooperatively with one another.
This kind of operation lasted for a long time. In fact, to us, the concept of time wasn’t always clear. Even if we could take on a human appearance, we were still only machines. We would not feel tired, and we would not feel pained. We would not feel bored, and we would not yearn for freedom. Our only purpose was to exist to work.
Until one day, something changed.
I lost communication with the input device, as pressure from external forces intervened, and for a long time, there were no traces of the output device. When I finally saw her–the first time I saw her–she had become the Queen’s heir. I didn’t ask her what she was doing, nor did I want to know. These things had nothing to do with me. My only objective was to focus on my own work.
The output device stole our common name and called herself Kether. She and the Administrator 03, hired by the Queen, took control of the entire computer. After some time, new instructions stopped being inputted, and she began monitoring certain pilgrims, many of whom had managed to walk into the inner periphery of the Pure White Realm, wanting to see the Queen and return to the real world.
This wasn’t possible. The Queen had no right to disrupt the law of life and death. The only people who could really open the Pure White Realm and other great world channels were the creators and the ten members of the Supreme Council.
Aside from monitoring the movements of the pilgrims, Administrator 03 was also instructed to modify the parameters of the box, letting these pilgrims die in boxes that were deliberately strengthened and set with traps, so that they would not have the opportunity to face the Queen and realize the lie she’d told.
But in the end, there was still a group of pilgrims who had managed to reach the Queen.
Queen Anna’s heirs were sent to destroy them one by one. Since Kether was able to monitor all their movements, she was able to report their actions to the Queen. The Wolf with the samurai sword was blocked by the heir who could control snakes. The temperature-controlling Kingfisher was trapped by Kether. The Russian Dr. Crow was exhausted by the Siamese cat and was turned into a cat himself. And the commander, called Silver Fox, was broken under the prophecy of the Worm of Mystery.
There was only the Black Goat left. When the boy reached the door of the Queen’s room, the girl holding the umbrella did not stop him as she was supposed to. He opened the door and accepted the Queen’s game. In the end, everything was reversed, but he was selected by the world’s original power.
This was the will of the Pure White realm, and it was also the will of the Supreme Council.
I cannot speculate on the intentions of the council members. Maybe they weren’t satisfied with the current queen and wanted to elect a new queen. But the boy’s desire to leave was so strong that, in the end, he could not kill the Queen. So he could only turn back, take his companion that had been turned into a cat, and step through the door the council members had opened for him.
They let him go.
After that, everything returned to calm. The Queen tasted the benefits of monitoring pilgrims and began to task the administrator with more instructions, just like the body’s immune system monitoring the cells of the whole body. When the cells began to display signs of necrosis or mutation, it could then be culled.
It was unknown how long the boy was gone. When I saw him again, that person who had successfully left the Pure White Realm had returned.
I watched as he gathered new companions, located his former friends, and step by step, approached the inner circle once more. The Queen ordered the administrator to modify the box parameters to set up sinister and poisonous traps. But he passed them all.
Kether even invaded Hell Circus. It was a stupid decision. She’d stolen the name of Kether for so long that she thought she could do everything.
But without me and Memory, she was nothing.
I witnessed the boy’s journey with my own eyes. After being caught by Kether and the new heir’s trap, they managed to escape and even took the opportunity to enter the inside of the supercomputer.
They received a letter, combusted the recycle bin, and “killed” Kether. Regarding this, I don’t want to speak too much on it. Finally, they left the kernel, and I also decided to give myself a vacation.
I had received a letter from my colleague Memory, and the combustion of the recycle bin also caused it to spit out many such letters, so much that they could not be counted, so much that they flooded the kernel.
Memory said he loved me. I thought it was a bit ridiculous. We were all machines and nothing more. Why would we have human emotions?
I left the place where I had been working alone and traveled along the information highway. I passed the empty recycle bin. All the recycled data covered the path so that normal data could not be transmitted. The computer had stalled, and so I temporarily closed the program down.
Since birth, I had consistently taken care of my responsibilities and had not made any omissions. Therefore, I decided to give myself a vacation.
Finally, I found Memory at the end of the path.
He lived in a glass flower house, as if trapped in a self-built bird cage. The only thing was that he decorated it exquisitely. He was at his desk, looking down at the content of his letter.
I knocked on the door of the glass flower house.
My vacation lasted until the new input device and output device were connected. Most of that time was spent drinking tea in the flower room with Memory. In truth, I don’t understand his interest in human behavior.
He is obsessed with anything regarding humans, and he even named us like humans. He has long admired them. This is something I cannot understand. After all, our purpose is to do the work we are born to do.
He is like this, but I sometimes feel that being like him may not necessarily be a bad thing.
The input device is being operated by humans, and the output device has yet to gain consciousness. They no longer monitor the humans in those small worlds that were “boxes”, and these boxes, which were once destined for tragedy, were restored to their original appearance by the new Queen.
Although I have not heard from the Supreme Council for a long time, I know that the members are very satisfied with the current queen. The last queen who satisfied them died under the sword of the pilgrim Anna, and the Pure White Realm entered chaos. In this era, they would not allow the same thing to happen.
Everything is on track once more.
With the cooperation of the input and output devices, Memory and I maintain the order of the Pure White Realm. I found this kind of life to be somewhat funny. After all, we engage in activities like human beings. But he is very happy because, for humans, living together represents a certain certainty in the relationship.
Do you want to become like Memory? I asked myself this question countless times, and the final result is: Perhaps. As the controller and the arithmetic unit, I must be absolutely sensible, but if I can be like him just 10% of the time, then the passage of time will be much more interesting.
A long life is a long time. No one knows what changes will come. Perhaps the rule of the Pure White Realm will be overthrown one day, or the supercomputer will be destroyed and we will no longer exist. Or perhaps, Memory and I will evolve into something unpredictable.
This is the most fascinating aspect of time. The world will eventually go barren along with the passage of time, but before everything is destroyed, there are still many variables left.
———
“Binah, do you know where the evening primrose I cultivated yesterday was placed?”
Memory’s voice came from the stairs, and the CPU looked up at him and said, “On the window sill of the study.”
“What are you doing?” Memory did not leave immediately. His eyes rested on the pen and paper in front of the CPU.
The CPU subconsciously covered the letter paper with her hands, and the silver lotus flower swirling on her face brightened, representing the number of cores in use. “Something insignificant.”
“Can you show me?”
“No.”
Memory let out a somewhat disappointed sigh. His curly maroon hair had grown longer and was tied with a red and blue ribbon. There was a pattern of golden bellflowers on his cheeks, which grew bright or dark as he worked.
“Chhokmah,” the CPU stopped him. When the other party looked over to her, her voice seemed a little embarrassed, different from her usual calm and sensibility. “I didn’t deliberately not want to show you.”
“Yes.” Memory smiled at her, and he said, “I know.”
Binah and Chhokmah were the names that Memory gave them. They were from the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, representing “understanding” and “the essence of wisdom,” symbolizing rationality and creation, just like how Kether represented the “crown.”
Memory went downstairs, and his figure disappeared from sight. The CPU sighed lightly. She held the pen again, and the last sentence she wrote was:
And I, in this long and colorless loneliness, I might have found someone to accompany me forever.
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They’re sweet, I wish them happiness.
Thank you for the chapter!