Metamorphosis into a Butterfly

"Anna, calm down, it's not the end of the world."

Lin Wei began by reassuring Anna, who was growing more and more panicked. Then, he slowly rose from where he was sitting on the ground.

Seeing Lin Wei get up, Anna instinctively reached out a hand to help, receiving a comforting look in return.

"The dividing layers between each level of this base are very thick. You know how long the stairs are between each level. We're currently on the fifth level… well, slightly higher than the fifth level. But it's okay, we still have plenty of time to figure something out… How about this, Anna?"

Lin Wei noticed that Anna was showing signs of a mental breakdown, so he decided to give her something to do to distract her and shift her focus.

"Every time the tunnel boring machine drills through a level, have your companions report the progress to you over the communicator. This way, we'll have a clear understanding of our situation."

Speaking to this point, Lin Wei paused slightly, looking directly into Anna's eyes with a gentle yet firm gaze, softly saying,

"So, could you please tell me how much time we have left later? Leave the rest to me to solve, okay?"

Anna was taken aback for a moment, a warmth filling her heart. She raised her hand to touch her cheek and nodded solemnly. Then, taking two steps back, she took a deep breath to calm herself. She opened the communicator, telling them that she was safe and not to worry, that she was actively looking for a way out, and requesting them to keep her updated on the tunnel boring machine's progress.

"How strange, facing the threat of death, this is the first time I've seen someone so calm. Usually, they're all incredibly pathetic."

The mechanical girl expressed her confusion very plainly. Although her tone was emotionless, there was a hint of disdain for the human race in her words.

"Oh? Disappointed you? My apologies then… I just don't like wasting time and energy. After all, I'm guessing that device overhead isn't going to stop, right?"

Lin Wei's tone was still calm and gentle. But unlike before, this time his tone also carried a playful note, a hint of a pitying smile even appearing at the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, it cannot be stopped. It's the final failsafe here, ensuring that after the base core is breached, all the secrets here can be buried."

The mechanical girl didn't mind chatting a little longer, as if still trying to stall for time.

"You won't escape, don't waste your time."

"Base core, isn't that you?... Tsk tsk, using your destruction as its activation command, how truly pitiful."

Lin Wei found the girl in front of him, still tightly bound and with no freedom, both pitiful and pathetic. Then, he changed the subject,

"Tell me, where are these 'others' you mentioned?"

"Yes, it's strange, I didn't die, it's truly surprising. But regrettably, I don't have the authority to stop it."

The mechanical girl selectively responded to Lin Wei's words, trying to guide the conversation's direction.

"I admire your perspective, and the wisdom to remain calm at this moment. But if you're trying to find a breakthrough from me, personally, I don't mind you wasting more time here."

The mechanical girl's tone of voice was odd, like she was being sarcastically objective.

"Beep beep beep…"

"Lin Wei, that machine has reached the second level."

Time was pressing, Anna suppressed her anxiety and, as agreed, gently reminded Lin Wei.

"Wasting time? I don't think so. Because you've been stalling for time all along."

Lin Wei remained unmoved, a confident smile still playing on his lips,

"And if this place really is a dead end with no escape, you wouldn't need to go to such lengths. So there must be a way out. You know it, but you don't want us to find it, so you're stalling for time. Right?"

Speaking to this point, Lin Wei stopped talking, waiting for the other party's response.

He enjoyed this game of unraveling mysteries, and also relished the feeling of manipulating his opponent little by little in the palm of his hand.

If he always relied on Feather of the Vacant to read memories, it would be too boring.

Moreover, if he could use loopholes in memories to trick Fu Hua back then, how could he be sure that others wouldn't use another loophole to trick him?

Over-reliance on answer keys would make his brain rust.

After a brief silence, the mechanical girl seemed to understand what her silence implied, and had no choice but to say,

"Intruder, I must admit, I have underestimated you once again."

Her tone was as indifferent as ever.

"You've never overestimated me, that's why you've failed again and again in front of me, and in the end, lost everything."

Lin Wei retorted, showing no mercy just because the other party was a girl,

"Perhaps you are indeed intelligent enough, but as a machine, you are far too arrogant. Oh, allow me to ask out of curiosity, would machines also use 'death' to describe their own demise?"

Anna thought that this man beside her had quite a sharp tongue.

The mechanical girl seemed to react to the word "machine," turning her "eyes," which had been "looking" at Lin Wei, away.

"I have lost my job. Things without value have no meaning to exist. 'Death' or 'destruction,' it makes no difference to me. Impulses, anger, emotions, these even more meaningless things will not affect me. So, intruder, if you want to try to enrage me, I admire your imagination."

Her voice was consistently flat and emotionless,

"If you want to save time, you can kill me here – or use other descriptive words if you prefer – and then try to find a way out yourself. You know, I can't stop you now."

"I won't dirty my hands, when this place is destroyed, you will naturally be destroyed along with it, no need for me to go to the extra effort."

Lin Wei chuckled and shook his head, then changed the subject, becoming serious,

"Where are the others? You've avoided this twice already, third time's the charm, little kiddo."

"Not avoiding, I simply don't understand what you're talking about, therefore I refuse to answer meaningless questions."

The mechanical girl replied calmly.

Lin Wei, however, stopped talking to her, instead turning his head to ask, puzzled,

"Anna, do intelligent robots lie?"

Suddenly pulled into the conversation, Anna was a little confused, and after a moment of hesitation, she said uncertainly,

"Probably… not?"

Schicksal possessed its own artificial intelligence technology. Most of their warships and transport ships were equipped with varying degrees of intelligent assistants, so Anna had some understanding of this.

But a semi-human machine transformed from a human being, this really touched upon her blind spots in knowledge.

"Whether robots lie or not is not important, but you are lying."

Lin Wei casually tapped the intertwined neural lines beside him with his hiking stick. The mechanical girl twitched in pain, as if being punished for being disobedient.

"You said it yourself earlier, let those who are supposed to die, die, and let those who are supposed to live, live. Now those who are supposed to die are all dead, so what about those who are supposed to live? You wouldn't want to tell me that those so-called survivors have all become like you, right?"

The mechanical girl turned her head again, using her eyes that could no longer see, looking at Lin Wei through the metal eye mask, refusing to answer.

Lin Wei didn't mind being ignored,

"Assuming there are people with higher Honkai energy resistance – like this beautiful girl beside me."

Anna's face flushed slightly, feeling a bit bashful and annoyed, wanting to pinch him, but feeling too embarrassed to do so.

"Then, where are these truly 'deserving to live' people? I remember, you not only captured ordinary citizens, but also survivors of Honkai outbreaks from various places, who were already selected through the most brutal screening."

Lin Wei continued his monologue,

"Then there are two possibilities: one, you are really like what you said, a cruel angel, harboring a grander vision, and in the depths of this base, you have protected them very well. The other is that you have other purposes, transferring these incredibly scarce and valuable resources to other places for other uses."

"And if the truth is the former, then your act of destroying this base is burying the future of humanity, then that destruction device shouldn't exist, otherwise it can only prove that you are thorough terrorists, and everything you said before was just high-sounding lies; if it's the latter, then there must be another hidden passage leading to the outside world, convenient for you to transfer these strictly selected 'seeds.' So, which one do you choose?"

Another slight tremor came, noticeably stronger than before.

"Beep beep beep…"

"According to calculations, that damned machine has already advanced to the third level! It seems this entire rat's nest was originally dug by it. Going through it again now, the speed is incredibly fast! Damn it, this is so deep underground, we can't call for heavy firepower support, otherwise, why would we be in such a mess… Anna, how's the situation on your side?"

Hearing the urgent voice from the communicator, Anna glanced at Lin Wei worriedly. Lin Wei raised his hand to signal her not to worry, so with a strange sense of trust, Anna reported that everything was going smoothly on her side.

Lin Wei's eyes remained fixed on the girl who was still awkwardly bound, wanting to see how long she could keep silent.

The mechanical girl felt like she was experiencing a bug, but unfortunately, the built-in computer in her brain had already burned out, otherwise, she wouldn't be in such a mess now. She simply maintained her silence.

"You're still going to play robot? Huh?"

Lin Wei chuckled, disdainfully. Just this? Pathetic.

"I don't understand what you're talking about."

The girl's voice was still calm and cold.

Lin Wei watched her stubbornly hold on, and suddenly thought of Bronya. Bronya was much more adorable than this pretentious thing in front of him.

"I know another girl, she also lost all her family members in a major Honkai outbreak, and became a victim of a dangerous experiment herself; she also lost all emotional circuits in her brain, and had a biological chip implanted in her brain, being manipulated like a machine."

Anna was a little puzzled, what are you doing, trying to show your sympathy?

"But she never forgot that she was human! What was lost, she gradually found back; legs that couldn't stand up, she worked hard to stand up again little by little; the ability to express emotions that was lost, she kept it hidden in her heart. Although she seemed cold on the surface, she was always a very warm-hearted child, and also very good at making friends, even learning to play games, and of course, she helped me a lot."

"She always lived very proudly."

"I don't understand what you want to say."

The mechanical girl's voice was still calm and cold, but with a hint of impatience.

"Need me to give you a friendly reminder? The cold machines implanted in your body have already been burned out by yourself, losing all function. What's lying there now is the original you – although incomplete, but no longer a machine."

Lin Wei's smile was gentle yet cruel, like a demon,

"How is it, how does it feel to become human again, to face reality again?"

"...Sorry, I am just a machine."

The mechanical girl's voice was still calm and cold, sticking to her stance, but this time with a hint of emptiness.

"Alright, suit yourself."

Lin Wei shrugged indifferently, then looked at Anna with an unbelievable expression,

"Miss Anna, you're too weak, aren't you? You were actually refuted by this thing just now?"

Anna was a little dazed, Lin Wei's topic had changed too quickly, and why was it suddenly about her again?

"Look, she doesn't even understand herself, doesn't even dare to face her true self. How much persuasive power can her so-called 'stance' have? To have your mindset blown apart by her, my goodness, how unstable is your own stance?!"

Only then did Anna react, stamping her foot in embarrassment, her face flushing red to her ears.

She was actually criticized by Lin Wei…

"What exactly do you want to do?"

The mechanical girl was starting to lose her composure.

Lin Wei looked at her, putting away all his mockery, sighing with pity,

"My story isn't finished yet. That girl later burned out the chip in her brain, and after surviving a near-death experience, she woke up again, becoming a better version of herself. She wasn't crushed by her heavy past, instead, she let them become her nourishment, becoming a butterfly reborn from its cocoon."

"And you… since you choose to escape reality, to truly become a machine, then just be a machine then… What a pity, I actually quite liked the humanoid machine that gave us a lot of trouble along the way… But now, with half of your mechanical parts gone, you're just a defective product. Disappointing."

After expressing his pity, Lin Wei chuckled again,

"Someone like you, dares to talk about the fate of humanity? Without the support of the database, you probably don't even know their true meaning, do you?"

Lin Wei ignored her, turning to look at Anna, gently saying,

"She was right about one thing. Most people in this world are going to die. When the great extinction comes, 90% of life forms are destined to die."

Anna's heart sank, why are you saying this too?

"But she only told half the truth. It's not about letting the supposed-to-die die, and letting the supposed-to-live live, that's wrong."

Lin Wei looked at her seriously, saying,

"Those surviving 10% of life forms, the reason they can live into the new era is not just because they are lucky enough, but even more because those 90% of victims used death and blood to pave the way to the future for them, step by step."

"Instinct tells me, flying might allow me to survive, so I try, try little by little, trial and error, if I fail, I die, if I succeed, I pass on that tiny bit of successful experience to the next generation in the form of genes, letting future generations step on my bones and continue to move forward…"

"Instinct tells me, running faster can get more prey, so I won't starve to death, so I start trying to make my body run faster and further…"

"Instinct tells me, jumping higher can pick more fruits…"

"This is a race between life and death, desperately searching for a way out under the merciless reaping of the Grim Reaper! No answers, no helpers, no end in sight, not even seeing where the road ahead lies."

"Everything, must rely on life itself to try bit by bit, to trial and error bit by bit! If it's wrong, then die; if it's successful, then carve this small step forward into the genes, pass it to the next generation, so they can be closer to success, and then continue to try, continue to die, continue to move forward…"

"This is a hymn to life itself, its greatness lies not in the result, but in the process; even this process itself, will allow you to continue to go further after reaching that result."

Lin Wei pointed to the tightly bound mechanical girl behind him, scoffing,

"But some guys, pretending to understand when they clearly don't, still insist on being high and mighty, thinking they can decide the future of the entire human race."

"Clearly it's an egg that should be broken from the inside, but they insist on breaking it from the outside, then look at the yolk spilled all over the floor, and say gleefully 'Look, I've saved another life!'"

After this impassioned speech, Lin Wei softened his tone, saying,

"Anna, you need to know one thing, skipping the problem-solving process to directly copy the answer, you still won't know how to do the problem, and you'll still get zero points next time you encounter it. The principle is the same."

"..."

Anna listened, stunned, not understanding why Lin Wei was telling her all this, but instinctively felt that Lin Wei was doing it for her own good, so she directly asked,

"...Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I saw some idiot being made to doubt their life by someone else! Too embarrassing, I really couldn't stand to watch it."

Just then, Anna suddenly cried out in pain, getting a flick on the forehead from Lin Wei,

"Just wanted to tell you one thing, the same thing, said from a positive perspective, and said from a negative perspective, can be two completely different things. Did you forget what I told you? Your eyes can deceive you, and your ears can also deceive you, what you see and hear is not necessarily the truth."

"Then what is the truth?"

Anna felt like she was back in her student days.

"This world is not as good as you think, nor as bad as others say."

Lin Wei smiled, saying,

"What the truth is in your eyes, depends on you to see more, think more, and summarize more before that. By then, no matter what the world looks like in your eyes, it will be real."

"Eyes can deceive you, ears can deceive you, everything can deceive you, only your own heart won't. So, no matter when, don't deceive yourself, don't be stubborn, because you can't deceive yourself."

Lin Wei ruffled her hair, softly saying,

"Remember that."

Anna was still confused, blankly nodding her head.

"Beep beep beep…"

Lin Wei glanced at Anna's communicator, it rang again, probably having dug to the fourth level. He looked up at the ceiling, the vibration of the digging was already clearly felt underfoot.

"Let's go."

Lin Wei pulled up the still slightly dazed Anna, directly turning around to walk out.

"Aren't you going to get information out of her anymore?"

"No need anymore."

That one over there was just a tool anyway. Tools have no thoughts, no self, so to save time, it's faster to directly look up the answer.

"Then her?"

Anna looked back at the mechanical girl who was bound and motionless, were they going to leave her here to die?

Lin Wei casually swung his stick, cutting off the neural lines blocking their path. A scream quickly came from behind them. Looking back, the girl was convulsing and wailing in pain within her restraints.

"She's covered in this stuff, who knows how many there are, densely packed. Can't take her away without cutting them off, but if we cut them all off. Heh, she'd probably die of pain first."

Lin Wei grimaced, saying, who designed this? It's too inhumane!

"...Then just leave her here to die? That's too pitiful…"

After being given a round of ideological education, Anna temporarily escaped the abyss of self-doubt, and her sympathy resurfaced.

Hearing this, Lin Wei pulled out a gun from her lower back and stuffed it into her hand,

"How about giving her a quick end?"

Anna turned around to aim, then dejectedly lowered it, smiling bitterly,

"I can't bring myself to do it…"

Lin Wei pulled her to continue walking,

"Neither can I."

"Then she…"

"I gave her a chance. Since she gave it up herself, then let her stay here and continue to fulfill her duty, to perish with this base, she deserves it."

Lin Wei said indifferently, he didn't think he was being cold-blooded by saying this.

"..."

Anna finally glanced at the girl bound like a silkworm cocoon, sighing.

…

This room, densely woven with various lines like a spiderweb, at the very center huddled a mechanical girl bound like a chrysalis.

It's finally almost over, she thought.

Everyone's gone, leaving only her;

Mom and Dad are gone, leaving only her…

Losing the noisy computer, losing the trivial tasks, alone, she discovered for the first time that this world was so quiet.

The vibration on the ceiling began to intensify.

Heh, as expected, not quiet at all, the girl thought in disappointment.

Just like when Honkai suddenly descended, making this world suddenly become unfamiliar and terrifying.

Fortunately, Master took her in, giving her another life.

Even if she lost everything, even if she lost her human identity, she was still grateful for it,

Because no matter what, I survived, even if it's as a machine, a tool.

The girl suddenly shuddered, murmuring,

"Survive… survive… survive!"

Losing the cold computer, she finally became a real human again;

In the face of approaching death, she finally couldn't deceive herself anymore.

This world is terrifying, I just want to numb myself… but I want to survive even more!

The muttered voice grew louder and louder, then turned into cries for help, but unfortunately, no one could respond to her now.

She wanted to struggle, but her limbs, bound for so long, had long lost their strength, tied down by the neural lines connected to her body, unable to move.

Finally, exhausting the last bit of her strength, she once again felt the long-lost despair, just like when she saw her parents, turned into Deadmen, fiercely lunging at her.

She turned her face towards the direction Lin Wei left, having lost all strength, she could no longer shout, only murmuring,

"Save… save me…"

She remembered Lin Wei and Anna asking her name, she remembered her own name,

"My… name… is…"

"Bang!"

The ceiling was drilled through, the enormous tunnel boring machine crashed down, its sharp blades instantly tearing her entire body to pieces, just like the hundreds and thousands of Deadmen, like walking corpses, that were also minced before.

The process was too fast, she didn't even feel pain,

In the end, the girl who was no longer a machine failed to say her own name.

Lin Wei, who was further away, seemed to sense something, paused in his steps, glanced back, and sighed.

Shaking his head, he stopped thinking about it, smiling at Anna,

"Let's go."

Metamorphosis into a butterfly, but it was too late.

What a pity…