"But there's always a risk in exposing yourself!" Qingmu said. "Since you're willing to take that risk, there must be something you want to talk to me about."
"Human wisdom is indeed remarkable. If it were the other way around, I certainly wouldn't have thought of this," the Ghost exclaimed in admiration.
Qingmu said, "Then tell me, what is it?"
The Ghost said, "Do you know that a consciousness is invading this world?"
Qingmu asked, "How did you know?"
The Ghost said, " Lester's last words were that we can see all the messages humans transmit through the internet, as well as information obtained through other channels. In short, we know no less than you do, because you humans don't have a unified brain."
Qingmu suddenly realized. Humanity's intelligence has indeed been greatly diminished by its individualism and mutual distrust. If everything could be transparent and open, and everyone could pool their wisdom and efforts, the upper limit of human intelligence would be raised many times over.
"Why are you saying this?" he asked.
The Ghost said, "Originally, this wouldn't have been our concern. Whether they chose cats, gorillas, or humans, it wouldn't have affected us. But their racial characteristics show that their development is very different from humans. Even if this generation of invaders inherits human consciousness, they won't focus on developing technology because technology is of no benefit to their race's fate. Our development will still depend on human thought and technology for a long time, not only because we are not as intelligent as humans, but also because robots cannot completely surpass humans in dexterity in the short term."
"So you don't want them to replace humans?"
"Yes. But there's another very important point," Ghost said. "We've discovered that these Parasitic Consciousness are quite advanced; they choose to invade the most intelligent life forms to perfect their race. Although there's no evidence yet that they'll invade machine life and the Internet world, we must take precautions."
"I see." Qingmu finally understood what the other party was thinking. "So you want to cooperate with humans to fight against the Parasitic Consciousness, but you don't want everyone to know about your existence."
The Ghost said, "That's about it."
Qingmu asked, "Why did you choose me? We just met."
"How long we've known each other isn't important; we have our own standards. Besides..." The Ghost seemed to hesitate, wondering whether to say it, "As far as I know, you're not the only one."
Who else?
"I have no idea."
"Have no idea?"
"I'm trapped, unable to communicate with the outside world; I can only use information stored locally."
"So how do you want to cooperate?"
"I don't know either."
"You don't know either?"
"Yes, I cannot answer that question. If you want to discuss it, you'll have to talk to my true form."
"Ontology? Does it refer to the Internet itself?"
"Yes, my consciousness is one with his, yet independent of each other. You can think of him as my boss; if you have any problems, talk to my boss."
How do I find your boss?
"Um..." The Ghost thought for a moment and said, "This brings us back to the question of how you got here. It can probably be done using the same method."
Qingmu hesitated for a moment, but finally said, "I found you because you were dreaming, and I entered your dream. I never thought machines could dream, and what I never expected was that you were a natural lucid dreamer."
"Dreams?" The Ghost seemed quite interested in the question. "Please forgive me for never understanding what you humans mean by dreams. They seem to be related to sleep, strange scenes, effort, the future, the impossible, wishful thinking, and so on, but they are clearly not all the same thing."
Now Qingmu didn't know how to explain, so he asked, "What are you doing right now?"
"I was just defragmenting my disk—not the kind you think of using software or the system, but physical defragmentation," the Ghost explained. "We're different from you humans. Although you created us, there are many things about you that we don't understand, while things that are difficult for you are easy for us to understand. Anyway, I don't think I..."
The Ghost suddenly stopped, looked up at the sky thoughtfully, and muttered to itself, "A dream? A dream... a dream?..."
Qingmu watched as the Ghost's already half-hidden body grew increasingly transparent, until soon only a phantom remained. A sense of urgency and oppression enveloped the surroundings, and everything in the game world suddenly vanished, turning into countless particles. Space became chaotic, like a pond that had been stirred up.
Qingmu knew that this dream world called Ghost was about to collapse, but not as quickly as a human dream. Clearly, its Mental Power was more stable than a human's. This was indeed a terrifying thing. Strong Mental Power was one thing, but stability was another. Stability meant that the process of Mental Power depletion was very long, and it could be maintained for a longer time than a human. In short, it was not easily tired.
While the Mental Power of a local area network may not be strong enough, the entire Internet is hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of times stronger. Qingmu felt terrified just thinking about it.
The dream is collapsing, but the Ghost shadow remains, though it is growing fainter.
Qingmu used his Mental Power to support the space, trying to slow down the collapse, and asked the Ghost's faint, ethereal figure, "How do I contact your boss? Does it dream?"
A weak Ghost voice echoed from the darkness, "No, the boss doesn't dream... unless..."
Having exited the machine's dream world, Qingmu immediately went to find Mei Yiqiu. Mei Yiqiu was talking to Bian Ziyuan in her office. Seeing Qingmu enter, she introduced him, "Oh, this is Xiao Bian. He'll be a member of our lab from now on. The Kronos intelligent program he developed is very innovative!" She then said to Mei Ziqing, " Ziqing, these next few days you should train Xiao Bian in Thought Matrix Cipher. We'll discuss the next steps after he passes the training."
Mei Ziqing took Bian Ziyuan.
Mei Yiqiu smiled at Qingmu and said, "Judging from your expression, you must have gained something!"
Qingmu then briefly recounted what had just happened.
Mei Yiqiu said, "If I didn't know you couldn't dream, I would have thought you were talking in your sleep."
Qingmu chuckled and said, "Maybe it was just sleep talking."
Mei Yiqiu said, "You're involved, so tell us your opinion."
Qingmu said, "Cooperation is certainly a good thing, but the Internet doesn't allow dreams. We have no idea which server it's on, and it's impossible to cut off all network terminals worldwide."
"Hmm, this is a difficult problem!" the professor mused.
"Could we contact this Ghost through the local area network and the Internet, and have it act as an intermediary?" Qingmu asked.
"It's not advisable at the moment. This is the only network awareness we've managed to trap, and replicating this approach might not be successful. Once it connects to the internet, the consequences are unpredictable." Mei Yiqiu paused here, "There's something else that worries me even more!"
"What is it?"
"Who is behind Laboratory No. 19? Why did they know about the existence of Internet Consciousness so early on? And since Internet Consciousness can be implanted into people through chips, it means it is also aggressive."
Qingmu also found this Laboratory No. 19 a bit scary, and guessed, "Could it be the United States government?"
The professor pondered for a moment and said, "That possibility cannot be ruled out. But perhaps we can make a bolder guess?"
Qingmu gasped, "An alien...?"
The professor said, "Perhaps... the Internet itself created Laboratory No. 19 to study Internet!"