Anyway, it's all muddled up, and now there's another "outsider" frequently coming to the valley aside from Sun's construction team and disciples like Xuan Che from Qianfeng Ling Mountain—a Snake Demon.
The Snake Princess actually can't grasp how far the Boundary Land is from the Taixu Spirit Hub, nor does she understand what "Light-year Scale" or "Alternate Dimension" mean. She seems to think very simply that this valley is somewhere near Qianfeng Ling Mountain—the reason being that you can open the door and be there, conveniently going home.
Yu Sheng briefly chatted with this Monster and quickly gave up on the idea of explaining to her.
All the children have been called back to class by Teacher Su, and so that Snake Demon began to roam around bored. Fairy Tale Town isn't very large, and she quickly crawled from one end to the other, then ran from the town to the nearby farmland, where she took a few bites of vegetable seedlings, got beaten by Luna, and then ran back, hanging herself on the King's cat tree to swing and sunbathe.
After sunbathing for over ten minutes, she realized there wasn't actually any sun in the valley but remained hanging there anyway.
Little Red Riding Hood thought that she was about to be beaten by the King.
Yu Sheng was quite amazed by the Snake Princess's current mental state and lifestyle—this Snake Princess's almost wild animal-like carefree state even had a hint of "Natural Daoist" flavor, but if you insisted on saying she's a wild animal... when she was sunbathing, she would use the Lingxi Mirror to browse short videos, and even like videos about climbing pets...
Yu Sheng, Hu Li, and Little Red Riding Hood sat together on the high wall of the castle, watching from afar the stubborn Snake Demon on the giant cat tree. After a while, Hu Li suddenly asked curiously, "Where does she live?"
"Actually, there are several empty houses in the town—they're all extras we built," Little Red Riding Hood said, "but she's seen them and said she didn't like them, so she's likely to stay in the little forest to the north."
"I've seen her 'Cave Mansion'," Yu Sheng said casually, "it's just a messy grass nest piled up with a bunch of stones collected from the riverside and hillside... We should really give her some construction materials if she truly wants to build her own house. And speaking of which—since this place is connected to Qianfeng Ling Mountain anyway, she can always go back home to sleep when she's done playing."
Hu Li responded with an "oh" and then suddenly her ears twitched, eyes wide as she stared towards the cat tree: "Hey, hey! The King has woken up... The King noticed a long snake on the cat tree!"
Little Red Riding Hood also widened her eyes immediately: "The King moved closer... he's yawning! They're both yawning! The King raised his paw; wow... Guard Mage Corps!"
Then they both continued to watch the situation on the cat tree with commentary. After a while, they sighed in unison. Little Red Riding Hood shook her head, saying, "Certainly got thrown down."
Yu Sheng watched the playful figures of Hu Li and Little Red Riding Hood with their heads closely together, feeling a multitude of emotions but couldn't bring himself to say the words "drinking buddies"—mainly for fear of triggering Little Red Riding Hood.
After all, the embarrassing history from the last time this girl was cozily hanging out with Hu Li is still stored in one of the long-haired princess's cloud drives...
Remembering this, Yu Sheng suddenly thought of something and curiously asked, "By the way, how's your driving test going?"
Little Red Riding Hood, who was engrossed in the spectacle with Hu Li, froze at the question and suddenly became visibly awkward.
"...Failed the second module," she mumbled, "just retook it the day before yesterday—but failed again."
"Well, module two is pretty tough," Yu Sheng said, initially asking casually but not expecting such an outcome, so he could only hurry to console her, asking offhandedly, "Which part did you get stuck on?"
Little Red Riding Hood's cheeks flushed as she lowered her head, remaining silent.
Yu Sheng hesitated: "Fell in the ditch again?"
Little Red Riding Hood kept her head down.
Yu Sheng understood, and after a moment, sighed: "You... try harder next time."
...
At the same time, in the "Border" area of the Boundary Land, inside a large villa on a broken floating island.
The round hall was brightly lit, with countless cables extending from above, intertwining like a canopy on the ceiling and gathering into a "trunk" in the center of the hall, connected to a large base on the floor with countless small flashes winding within this "tree," flowing through the trunk and branches like vibrant life.
The entire hall resonated with a low, pleasant humming intermixed with delicate sounds like wind chimes, occasionally emanating from the depths of the "canopy."
Marin sat on the base of the "tree," with a cable extending from the back of her neck, merging into the tree trunk behind her. The spring-loaded maid Maris was seated beside her, leaning against her, with several cables extending from around Maris's spring casing, connecting to various slots on the base.
This is the data processing center of the outpost and also the "node" in the garden's matrix network set in the Boundary Land.
Under normal circumstances, Alice Puppet does not require physical contact to connect with the "garden," but today's situation is evidently somewhat special.
The dangerous information that may have already been hidden by the public network and might have been buried in the 'zombie database' with each iteration and upgrade of the 'Garden'; to find them, higher-level node authentication is necessary.
The search has been going on for hours, but even with the computing power and bandwidth of high-level nodes, finding data fragments that may only have scant remnants in such a vast Garden network is not an easy task.
Moreover, those scant fragments might very well be shielded by an even higher-level security system.
In the light and shadow illusions formed by the information flood, Malin's consciousness is diving deeper into the Garden network.
She has already passed through the bustling primary access layer and the tense, busy secondary access layer; the surface structure of the 'Garden' shines like a strange infinite mega-city above her 'head', bustling and clamorous, overflowing with all kinds of bizarre data collected and uploaded by each Alice Puppet scattered throughout the Universe, ranging from a military conflict erupting in a certain Star Region to a new hair care oil for Puppets just launched in a city, astonishing and vast data thundering through the network, written in, refreshed, reorganized, discarded in units of billions...
But below this 'mega-city', there's a quiet and profound reflection, where the prosperity of the upper network becomes distant echoes, with the light and shadow illusion drifting lightly in Malin's vision like a thin, fragile curtain, interspersed with some Dao Marks for marking significant intelligence and occasionally some other Puppets' cognitive bodies appearing on this level, all of them vague, coming and going hurriedly.
However, the data Malin wants to access might still be even deeper.
She uses her access as a 'Regional Envoy' to dive further into the depths of the Garden network.
The surrounding light and shadow illusions dim further, with only fragments of hollow noise remaining from the upper network, and in the darkness, there are no other Alice Puppet cognitive bodies, only occasionally some gray shadows swiftly shuttle in the darkness—those are the patrol programs known as 'Cleaners', tirelessly shuttling deep in the Garden network, clearing any pollution information that occasionally sinks to this level and always vigilant about any unauthorized awakening of a 'Zombie Database' blocked by the main network.
Data can suddenly awaken, like a sleeping corpse startling awake in a grave, although the probability is small, the situation of zombie databases suddenly coming to life and developing self-awareness is always hard to avoid—in some civilized circles, local people consider such data structures emerging from the network's depths as the primary cause of 'Unhappy Mechanical Souls', yet in the 'Garden' network, the awakened harmful data structures generally cannot break through the defense formed by the 'Cleaners'.
Malin stopped on this level, gazing below at the chaotic, profound surging shapeless things, seemingly an endless abyss from which her Mind conjures an illusory projection reminding her that this is the diving limit.
A dim light cluster floats beside her, from which Maris's slightly distorted voice comes: "Access request submitted, keywords: Erin, Omen, Omen Goddess, Black Star, Dark Star, Fault Planet, Space-time Defect, System Boundary, Super System Event..."
"Hmm, thank you," Malin said plainly, glancing back at the light cluster beside her.
The servient robots produced by Algerde Universe United Industries are indeed strong, even Maris's simulated cognitive body can accompany her deep into the Garden network and still function normally, sparing her much effort and effectively mitigating the cognitive pressure of deep network diving—though often Maris behaves more like an annoying robotic servant, compared to the utility she provides... it isn't too big a problem.
...After all, I won't enable the membership, Malin thought, then saw a gray light shadow suddenly swimming out of the chaos, stopping before her and circling around like a fish.
It's the Cleaner.
Malin instinctively felt a bit tense, but fortunately, the standard scan program didn't encounter any problems—the Cleaner soon left without even examining Maris's light cluster nearby.
"Why did it only scan you?" Maris asked.
"Because your simulated Mind seems too rudimentary here, not enough to pose any threat to this level," Malin confessed, "Besides, you were thoroughly scanned once when passing through the upper district, there's no need to waste the Cleaners' computing power here."
"...Honestly, a bit hurt," Maris said dejectedly, "I am ultimately just a mass-produced and already somewhat outdated industrial product, despite striving to mimic your appearance, unable to change my inner essence."
Malin paused for a moment, instinctively reaching toward the light cluster in front: "Maris, actually..."
Halfway through speaking, the rest followed promptly from the light cluster: "So why don't you try the Mind upgrade extension pack launched specially for such situations by Universe United Industry? No need to purchase the full framework, just an auxiliary unit; your servient robot can complete the installation autonomously, order now to..."
"Shut up."
"Alright, Miss Malin."
Malin shook her head, beginning to contemplate which of the hundred and more settings she configured when initializing Maris pertained to intelligent recommendations.
And at this moment, the corner of her eye caught sight of another gray light shadow.
Cleaner program... why has it come again?
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