Chapter 1 A Cryptic Code

Colonel Conrad spent about ten seconds reciting a piece of code, not too long and not too short, its meaning obscure, spelling out each letter one by one.

After she finished reciting, all the rebel soldiers in the room showed nervous expressions... their eyes fixed intently on Feng Bujue.

"May I ask... what does this mean?" After a few seconds of waiting, Feng Bujue finally spoke.

For some reason, when he asked this question, the people around him visibly relaxed.

"Heh... I see." At this moment, Conrad also slightly eased her stern expression, her tone somewhat softened. "I apologize, Mr. Feng Bujue, it's not that I don't trust you... but based on past experience, I have to be cautious." As she spoke, she turned and went back behind her desk, raising her hand to gesture towards a chair on the other side of the desk, "Don't stand on ceremony, please sit."

Brother Jue didn't hesitate and went over to sit down. After settling in, he opened his mouth and said, "You still haven't answered my question..." He paused for half a second, then asked again, "What was that you said just now... what does it mean?"

"Hey! Show some respect when you're talking to the Colonel!" The next second, the lightning-haired soldier standing behind Brother Jue spoke sharply.

However, the Colonel immediately waved her hand and gave her a look, signaling her, "I'll handle this."

"Mr. Feng Bujue." After a brief silence, Colonel Conrad leaned her elbows on the desk, looking at Brother Jue with a "I'm seeing through you" expression, and continued, "I think you should know about 'PM', right?"

"I know that abbreviation can stand for at least twenty or thirty different meanings, can you be more specific?" Feng Bujue replied.

"Parasitoid Men." Conrad responded immediately. "A special type of soldier created by Pi Ta for this war."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue said, squinting his eyes, "Judging by the name... could they be cyborgs that have been partially modified?"

"To be precise, they are humans parasitized by nanobots." Conrad explained, "Pi Ta began implementing this plan in the fifth year of the war... They rounded up our captured personnel, common criminals, and those they deemed 'unproductive' and forcibly modified them, implanting nanobots into their bodies; the effects of this implantation are irreversible. The nanobots immediately destroy parts of the implanted person's own brain tissue and replace them, turning them into AI puppets. Once those nanobots stop working, the PMs will also die, which means..."

"...Which means," Feng Bujue took over, "that the moment they accept the modification, those people are as good as dead."

"That's right," Conrad replied.

After finishing that sentence, she sighed thoughtfully, then continued, "Hoo... When this technology first appeared, we knew nothing about it. Because nanobots are extremely small and have anti-scanning programs, they couldn't be identified with ordinary scanning equipment... Therefore, during that period, a large number of PMs infiltrated our ranks... causing us tremendous losses."

Speaking to this point, she couldn't help but frown and shake her head. Although her age was only a few years older than Brother Jue, her eyebrows revealed a kind of world-weary temperament. Of course, for someone born in a time of war and participating in it, this was not surprising.

"Fortunately, we were not completely destroyed." After a moment's pause, Conrad continued, "Our intelligence personnel quickly obtained relevant information about the PMs and found several ways to verify them."

"Such as the string of code you just mentioned?" Feng Bujue said.

Conrad nodded slightly, replying, "All intelligent robots manufactured by Pi Ta are equipped with an 'emergency stop command', and the nanobots in the PM's brain naturally also follow this principle."

"Then how do you know..." Although these words were unfavorable to himself, Feng Bujue's temperament couldn't help but say it, "...that the command you just reported isn't outdated? Pi Ta could completely change a different set of commands for each batch of nanobots, right?"

"No, they can't." Conrad didn't react much to this question, "Because the human brain is a very complex organ, so the structure and operation principles of those PM robots also have very strict specifications and great limitations. Simply put... if the command is changed, those robots won't work, then the costly implantation surgery becomes a purely murderous surgery... meaningless."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue asked, "Then, let me ask... when did you find out about that command?"

"Just one month after the first batch of PMs struck us." Conrad replied.

"Then... from that time on, wouldn't the PMs be useless?" Feng Bujue said.

"Indeed, from that time on, Pi Ta greatly reduced the production of PMs." Conrad replied, "But less... doesn't mean none. After all, our personnel changes are also very large, not every new recruit can memorize the code, and even some veterans can't; and we don't have enough resources to print a manual recording various codes or precautions for every soldier... Therefore, in these years, there will still be some PMs trying to infiltrate us through various channels." As she said this, she took out a cigar from the cigar box on the table, casually cut off one end with a small knife, lit it, and took a puff, "Fuu—Alright, any more questions about Parasitoid Men?"

Hearing this, Feng Bujue turned his head and looked at the people behind him, "You just said there were 'several' verification methods..." His gaze quickly moved to the strange devices in the hands of those soldiers, "...the things they're holding... count as one, right?"

"Our army's specially made pulse gun." Conrad exhaled smoke rings with a middle-aged uncle-like tone, replying, "One hundred percent can burn the robots in the PM's brain, about a thirty percent chance of causing brain damage to ordinary people."

"Heh... hehe..." Feng Bujue chuckled a few times, not commenting.

"Alright, Mr. Feng Bujue." Conrad replied, "I've said quite a bit, but you don't seem to have said anything yet..." She paused, "I have to remind you... no matter what, you are still a prisoner of our army, I can be very polite to you... or I can be very impolite... understand?"

Conrad was also quite a negotiator. Although she did seem to have said a lot to Brother Jue, in reality... what she said was common knowledge to people in this world. Any rebel soldier or search team member knew these things.

"Captain Sader should have already reported my situation to you, right?" Feng Bujue was also a very good negotiator, at least he was definitely qualified in terms of thick skin. "Right now, if you ask me to say something, I can probably only tell you about things on 'another timeline', because I've forgotten almost everything on this timeline."

This kind of "what's it to you if I have amnesia?" attitude was very standard – a dead pig is not afraid of boiling water.

"Hmph..." Conrad snorted coldly, "I was going to ask you about things on another timeline anyway."

"How so?" Feng Bujue asked tentatively, "Isn't what I said in the interrogation room enough to prove that I'm a Zhijue Zhe (Cognizant)? I have to remind you... that question was asked by Captain Sader, unless he colluded with me in advance and had me prepare a long answer to fool people, otherwise..."

"I know all this." Conrad interrupted Brother Jue again, "You don't need to tell me how to identify a mole..."

"Mole?" Feng Bujue wondered, "Haven't you already verified that I'm not a PM? As for whether I'm a robot, you should have scanned me already, right?"

"Ha!" At this moment, the lightning-haired soldier chuckled behind them.

At the same time, Conrad also laughed.

She leaned forward, blowing smoke in Brother Jue's face, "Pure human spies... are the most troublesome..."

"There really are people like that..." Feng Bujue replied, squinting his eyes.

But then he thought about it, and it made sense. Almost all wars produce "Egui Zi (traitors)," even in settings like *The Matrix*, there would be human traitors. Compared to that guy who wanted to lie in a pod and enjoy wealth and glory, the human traitors in this world could at least enjoy some tangible benefits...

"Alright, stop beating around the bush." Conrad said, "Maybe you can fool Sader, but you can't fool me... I've seen many spies with good memories, as long as they train for two or three months, they can memorize the basic common sense about video games, and on the surface... there's no difference from a 'Cognizant awakened after the age of twenty'." She took another puff of smoke, "Fuu—But, no one can deceive my eyes."

"Kid, you're out of luck today..." Then, the lightning-haired soldier used a proud tone to threaten Brother Jue, "The Colonel is one of the 'first Cognizants to awaken', your tricks will be exposed soon."

At this time, a hint of triumph flashed across Conrad's face. Then, she said to Brother Jue, "I used to expose and capture many pure human spies, and I used 'not very polite' methods to extract a lot of information from their mouths. Among them... there are training materials used by Pi Ta's spy agencies."

"Understood," Feng Bujue said, "You're going to ask me a few questions that are not covered in the spy training course, right?"

"First, please name at least three knockoff game consoles." A second later, Conrad's expression became serious, and she asked directly.

"Ha?" Feng Bujue's dead fish eyes came to life, "Only three?"

"'Only' three?" This response startled Conrad, because... according to her past experience, most spies couldn't even name one.

For those who are not Cognizants, they know nothing about things on another timeline. When they receive spy training, they mostly memorize the names and abbreviations of all genuine game consoles. But... for knockoff machines, only Cognizants with genuine "game memories" will have an impression; even if some people don't have memories of playing knockoff machines, they will at least know a few names.

"Hmm..." On the other side, Feng Bujue considered for a few seconds, then began to narrate, "Speaking of knockoff machines... you definitely have to talk about FC. In the mid-nineties, when FC's market share was gradually replaced by other new products, it was actually the spring of its knockoff products; of course... Japan and Europe were probably already in autumn, but still in spring... were those countries or regions where it was extremely difficult to get genuine consoles and cartridges; among them, the most numerous, widespread, and sophisticated knockoff products were produced in Chinese-speaking regions... even the children of Russia grew up playing various mainland and Taiwanese products."

He spoke to Conrad in the tone of a super veteran driver, as if lecturing, and in a daze... the Colonel almost forgot that she was actually testing the other party.

"There are many FC knockoff models. Due to the special historical background at the time, these knockoff goods could grandly land on the counters of various large shopping malls, and even register companies and grow bigger and bigger..." Feng Bujue's words continued, "Here I will roughly list some brands that have never obtained Nintendo authorization, and basically don't take authorization seriously... such as – Xiaolintong, Zhilibao, Shengtian, Tianma, Sunny, Shanghe, Hai Tianshi, Pangtian, Subor, Xiaotianshi, Lianhua, Xin Xing, Terminator, etc., etc., some of which are products that appeared after mutual knockoffs, which is quite bizarre..."

Brother Jue spoke this part very quickly, almost catching up with a tongue twister.

Conrad was also stunned. Halfway through, the entire cigar in her hand fell into the ashtray.

For a time, the room was silent, and the sound of several guards swallowing saliva became very clear.

"You... wait a moment." Two seconds later, Conrad's reaction became very similar to that of Captain Sader before. She looked at Brother Jue with a complex expression, then left her seat and walked to the side of the room, turning a metal valve on the wall.

Immediately afterwards, a "kuang chi——" sound was heard, and a storage space that flipped out from the wall appeared.

In that space, there was a flat screen that looked like it was pieced together with garbage (yes, that's the style of steampunk), and a game console that looked very much like an FC; next to the game console, there was also a specially made metal frame, on which dozens of circuit boards were neatly embedded (that is, FC cartridges without shells, we called this kind of thing bare cartridges when we were kids. PS: When I was young and ignorant, I always thought that the shell quality of eight-bit machine cartridges was very bad, and they would break if you snapped them hard; it wasn't until I grew up that I saw genuine FC and NES cartridges...), needless to say, these were the games.

"As far as I know..." After opening the storage cabinet, Conrad spoke again, "...Pi Ta will let the spies play some relatively classic FC games, so that they can actually understand what video games are. However, Pi Ta only lets them play the first level of each game, to prevent these people from really being attracted by the game and defecting." As she said this, she turned to look at Brother Jue, "So... I would like you to randomly select five games, and without using Continue (continuing after running out of lives), beat three of them to the third level, to prove..."

"Alright... I got it." Before the other party could finish speaking, Feng Bujue stepped forward, randomly drew a card (anyway, the cards weren't packaged, so drawing any card was the same), inserted it into the game console, skillfully turned on the switch, picked up the handle, and sat down with a thud, "Tch... I drew Ninja Gaiden III right away..." When the game screen came out, he muttered, then looked at Conrad and said, "This game is a bit difficult... and the level division is quite strange, it's not clear whether the second train section counts as one level or half a level; otherwise... should I give you a speedrun?"