Lu Xing sat down at the table, and before long, his mother brought out breakfast.
Breakfast in the Future World—or rather, the Virtual World—was something like a salad: vegetables mixed with sweet dressing, plus a glass of milk.
Lu Xing could not taste much from the salad. It only seemed bland, but the milk highlighted the difference. It was vastly unlike milk in the Real World. Simply put, it had no milk flavor at all—only sweetness.
The family of three ate breakfast in silence.
Outwardly, the Intelligent Being parents were no different from ordinary people. They could talk and laugh, show concern for their daughter, and even speak in much the same tone.
But Lu Xing chose to trust Jiang Xuannv.
After breakfast, Lu Xing put down his bowl and chopsticks. The Intelligent Being parents looked at him again, their gazes seeming to carry some kind of question.
Lu Xing decided to say something. "I'm full. I'm going to school!"
His heart pounded wildly as he spoke. This world was full of taboos, and he had no idea when he might violate one.
"Go on. Be careful on the way," his mother said with concern once more.
Lu Xing nodded and picked up his backpack to head outside—though there were no books in it at all. Just like this meal, he could not feel full, nor did he feel hungry.
The Virtual World seemed to be engaging in a completely pointless charade, maintaining the facade of human society while forbidding humans from acting like humans.
Under his mother's smiling gaze and his father's stern watch, Lu Xing walked out of the house and onto the dreamlike streets of a small town.
Everywhere was spotless. The roads were neat and clean, the flowers bright and beautiful, the grass and trees lush and green, and birdsong and floral fragrance filled the air.
The people walking along the streets were neatly dressed. Their steps were unhurried, and their expressions calm and peaceful.
The only strange thing was that there were no cars, electric scooters, bicycles, or other means of transportation in town. There were no cattle, sheep, cats, or dogs either.
The last time Lu Xing had come here, he had mistaken it for a fairy-tale world and wandered around near the house, only to be stared at oddly by passersby.
Fortunately, he had not been punished.
Now that he knew it was a Virtual World, Lu Xing quickly found a way to distinguish virtuality from reality:
Standing on the lawn in front of the house, he bent down, plucked a flower, and crushed it hard in his hand. The flower shattered into seven or eight petals and fell from his palm.
"Warning: Please do not damage public property!" the Smart Hairpin issued a warning.
Lu Xing studied computers. In his eyes, there were only errors, not warnings.
About a minute later, the petals and stem vanished together, and the hole in the ground was covered over by soil.
Lu Xing poked the dirt with a finger, then raised his hand to look. There were no grains of soil on his finger. Clearly, the Virtual World had not bothered creating particle effects.
"Daughter."
At some point, his Intelligent Being mother had come up behind him. She called to him with a smile. "What are you doing?"
Lu Xing's heart skipped a beat. When had they come outside? And he had not heard a sound.
Had damaging the flower triggered an alarm?
"You haven't called a car yet? You'll be late."
His stern father came outside as well. He walked past Lu Xing to the mailbox by the door and pressed the button on it.
His mother smiled. "Go wait for the school bus."
"Thank you, B22. Thank you, B23."
Lu Xing thanked his parents, though it still felt incredibly awkward.
His stern father turned to look at him, his gaze grave. An invisible pressure stiffened Lu Xing's limbs, as though they were not Intelligent Beings but two vicious ghosts in human form, watching him and waiting for him to break a rule.
His mother smiled gently. "You don't have to call us by our numbers. Human forms of address are fine. Just call us Father and Mother."
Lu Xing could only remain silent.
The Future World was far too different from the twenty-first century. Jiang Xuannv could not possibly explain everything to him. He would have to figure out most of the rules himself.
He desperately needed to meet more people, whether Intelligent Beings or hidden humans, and learn how they spoke so he could respond to his Intelligent Being parents.
Fortunately, the vehicle arrived quickly.
A school bus appeared out of thin air in front of the house. Seven or eight students were already seated inside. They were around Jiang Xuannv's age, neither fat nor thin, and dressed plainly. The hairpin Lu Xing wore was one of the few accessories in the Virtual World.
He even felt that Jiang Xuannv should have made him a bracelet instead. It would not have been as conspicuous as a hairpin.
"Daughter, get on the bus and go to school," his mother said softly again.
Lu Xing nodded and stepped through the open bus door.
As soon as he got on, the school bus closed its doors. His mother waved goodbye from the garden in front of the house, while his father stood beside her, looking in his direction.
The school bus did not start moving.
It remained in place for a full half minute. His mother waved for half a minute too. Only then did the bus vanish, entering a bizarre, kaleidoscopic tunnel and arriving in front of another student's house in an instant.
So this was how consciousness transfer worked in the Virtual World?
Thankfully, it was not data transmission. Otherwise, wouldn't the students have to be sliced into pieces?
The students on the bus were all expressionless. Blending in among them in Jiang Xuannv's petite form, Lu Xing looked exactly like them in expression and temperament whenever he did not speak.
At 7:28, the school bus arrived at the school.
Lu Xing glanced outside and found the area in front of the school quiet. There were no parents seeing off students, nor any rows of snack stalls.
The school had no name. Only a school number was written above the gate.
The students got off in a line. Once they entered through the gate, they vanished with a swish.
Seeing this, Lu Xing hurriedly asked the Smart Hairpin. Only then did he learn that he could use the class number for positioning and transfer directly into the classroom.
The school seemed to be a local area network where people could transfer freely.
At 7:29, Lu Xing was seated at his desk. Like the other students, he opened his backpack and discovered that books had somehow refreshed inside. They looked like the materials for today's lessons.
A minute later, morning reading began, and a teacher came by to inspect the class.
The students inserted their fingers into their foreheads, removed glowing memory chips, and plugged them into the computer ports on their desks.
Lu Xing was stunned by the sight.
In theory, everyone in the Virtual World was data and did not need to remove memory chips. But as mentioned before, the Virtual World was full of pointless rituals, so Lu Xing could only follow along.
"Comrade, the host has two chips in her head. This is confidential. Remember to remove the first one."
The Smart Hairpin reminded him at just the right moment.
Lu Xing nodded slightly. Jiang Xuannv had mentioned in her notes that ever since she was born, the Human Resistance Army had secretly implanted a chip in her head. She had learned the name Jiang Xuannv from that chip as well.
In other words, the Human Resistance Army had been cultivating members from infancy. That was also why Jiang Xuannv had only made contact with the organization for the first time a few days ago.
In the Future World, whether human or Intelligent Being, including Resistance Army members, everyone had to have an Auxiliary Chip installed.
There was no particular reason for it. The Auxiliary Chip was simply equivalent to a second brain.
People here were born with powerful memories. They could connect to the network without devices and possessed computer-level processing power.
So-called morning reading meant reviewing the memories inside the Auxiliary Chip, allowing people to absorb as much of the chip's knowledge as possible.
Lu Xing was currently like an elementary school student holding an advanced calculus textbook. His eyes could see the words, but he could not absorb them at all—not because he did not know what they meant, but because the data scrolled too quickly for his brain to process.
He should look at the student beside him instead.
The next moment.
"B73!"