Starting as a Wallfacer, his defection to the Three-Body Problem shocked the world.

Chapter 384 The Manufacturer

"How will you be here?"

Lin Xuan looked at the woman in the blue kimono in front of her, and her vigilance instantly rose to its highest level.

As he spoke, Lin Xuan opened his palm, and the silver threads composed of nanobots, like small snakes, crawled up his arm and gathered in his palm to form a cylindrical handle.

"Structural Reorganization: Demon Blade".

"Buzz!"

Lin Xuan suddenly grabbed it with her hand, and then used the momentum to slash directly at Zhizi's head. The assembly of the blade and the attack were completed almost simultaneously.

The speed was so fast that even from a third-person perspective, an outsider would probably only see Lin Xuan's afterimage.

"when!"

With a crisp metallic clang, Lin Xuan's downward slash was blocked by Zhi Zi's black gold scabbard with one hand. However, at the same time, Zhi Zi was also forced back two steps by Lin Xuan's powerful slash.

Just as Zhizi was about to speak, Lin Xuan released the knife in her hand, and the nanobot instantly disintegrated, while a revolver was simultaneously reassembled.

"Bang bang bang!"

With three gunshots, Zhizi's head exploded, but inside there was no flesh or blood except for liquid metal.

"Is this interesting?"

Zhizi's voice appeared in Lin Xuan's ears. At the same time, a new head began to slowly regenerate from the severed neck of her headless body.

This is somewhat similar to the nanorobot repair within Lin Xuan's body, but there is a fundamental difference between the two. Sophon can repair itself because it is not human to begin with, but Lin Xuan can repair herself because the nanorobots are incredibly powerful.

At this moment, Zhizi, whose head had been repaired, no longer had the kind expression she had when she first met Lin Xuan. Instead, she had a cold expression on her face, as if she was speechless at the man in front of her.

"Can't you wait until I finish speaking? You can't kill me anyway."

Lin Xuan smiled, stretched, and casually tossed the revolver behind him. The nanobots then began to disintegrate in mid-air and returned to his body.

"What do you know? This is called 'when fellow countrymen meet, they fire three shots first.' Besides, didn't you just shoot at me too? This is just my way of returning the favor."

Zhizi remained expressionless. Her program told her that the man in front of her was not worth her expending neural network calculations and providing emotional feedback.

"Mr. Lin Xuan, it's been many years, but you are still the same shameless guy I know."

Lin Xuan was somewhat surprised upon hearing this.

"Years? Haven't we only been apart for a year?"

"Um, don't you know that the Elbato Cluster, due to its unique structure, has a different time flow than the outside world?"

Tomoko tilted her head, her face still expressionless, but Lin Xuan sensed a hint of doubt in her tone.

"What? The flow of time is different!"

Lin Xuan was secretly shocked; this matter had truly surprised him.

Clearly, judging from Tomoko's expression, this was yet another piece of information that he should have known, but in reality, he knew nothing about.

"Damn it, it's really disgusting that transmigrators can't inherit the memories of the original body's owner."

If he had known that time flowed differently inside and outside, he wouldn't have entered this place so easily. He originally just wanted to gather information first, but now, if time flowed too fast, hundreds of years would have passed outside by the time he got out.

But judging from Zhizi's words, the variance in the flow of time inside and outside shouldn't be that large, otherwise the other party wouldn't have gone without seeing her for a few years, but rather for decades or even centuries.

"That's a lot of years for you, but to me it's only been a little over a year since we last met. Tell me, how did you escape from the Earth Alliance prison to get here?"

Lin Xuan casually covered up the lie, but he was now more curious about whether anything new had happened in the outside world while he was away.

Also, how did Tomoko find her way here?

Zhizi shrugged.

"You don't really think that thing can trap me, do you?"

"My consciousness can control multiple clones at the same time, just like the three of me you saw before."

“Those bodies are just vessels for me. You’ve trapped those vessels in prison. This kind of escape is almost effortless for me.”

"It's just a pity that all three of my bodies were destroyed by you at that time, and I had no new bodies available. During the waiting period, I chose to be imprisoned by you."

Sophon's answer was similar to what Lin Xuan had guessed. They didn't intend to trap Sophon. The Trisolaran civilization had been completely destroyed. What big waves could Sophon possibly make?

However, there was one question that piqued Lin Xuan's curiosity.

"So right now... is it AI executing a fixed program, or is someone else controlling it behind the scenes?"

This question made Zhizi think for a moment.

"It's hard to say. My current state is somewhere in between. I have self-awareness, but this self-awareness doesn't belong to me."

"Separation of consciousness?"

"You didn't actually transfer the consciousness of that leader of the Trisolarans to yourself, did you?"

Upon hearing the other person's description, Lin Xuan immediately understood what was going on.

Humans cannot create AI with self-awareness, and the Trisolarans obviously cannot either.

The only way to give AI some autonomy is to take a portion of a person's existing consciousness and give it to artificial intelligence!

Just like Cheng Xin, the artificial intelligence she created was formed by combining a portion of her consciousness.

Theoretically speaking, if Cheng Xin were to die unexpectedly, the artificial intelligence that acquires her consciousness would, in a sense, be a new version of her.

"You got it right, but only half right."

Zhizi gave a happy smile, the most appropriate expression it could make based on data calculations.

“I did use someone else’s consciousness, but… this consciousness did not come from the Trisolarans, but from my creator.”

"Number one!"

"Which number one?"

Lin Xuan's heart skipped a beat when she heard the word "Number One" come out of the other person's mouth.

But Tomoko's next words confirmed this unease.

"Who else could it be? Of course, it's that Number One who, like you, is an observer."

Lin Xuan remained silent. He knew very well that Zhi Zi knew more about the six Earths than he did, and if he spoke, he would easily expose his ignorance again.

"I'm a little confused. Let me sort this out. So you weren't created by the Trisolarans? The one truly hiding behind you has always been Number One?"

Zhi Zi neither confirmed nor denied this.

"To be precise, the title 'Sophon' was given to me by the Trisolarans, but Mr. Lin Xuan, please feel free to call me whatever you like."

"Then can you call me Dad?"

Tomoko: ...

"Shock level from Zhizi +14".

Seeing the system notification pop up also indirectly confirmed the truth of Zhizi's words.

If someone were controlling Zhizi, the system would have directly displayed that person's name. But as it is now, Zhizi is being treated as a self-aware and independent individual.