When I walked out of the house that had imprisoned me for eighteen years, my parents' hysterical curses and wails clawed at my back like thick, filthy mud trying to drag me down. I didn't look back. The late-night street was deserted. The wind carried the first chill of autumn, like an invisible yet gentle hand brushing the tangled hair from my forehead. I looked up. The moon hung large and full in the sky, its pure light showering the earth—it belonged solely to itself now, no longer veiled by storm clouds.
The Lie Detection System's cold notification tone sounded in my consciousness one final time:
[Mission Complete. Reward: New Life. System unbinding imminent. Host, I wish you all the best for the future.]
A trace of warmth, faint as a whisper, seemed to infuse the mechanical voice.
"Thank you," I murmured into the emptiness. I pulled out my phone and dropped it into a roadside bin without a shred of hesitation. I didn't need it anymore. I had finally learned to tear away the deceptive veil shrouding the world's most complex lie: the human heart.
Three months later. I worked at a small bubble tea shop on the other side of the city, living in a cramped attic above the store. My days were plain as water, yet flavored with a peace and freedom I had never tasted. At four in the morning, alone in the tiny storeroom behind the shop, I sorted through newly arrived cartons of supplies. The air hung thick with the cloying scent of powdered creamer and tea leaves. The fluorescent tube hummed monotonously. My eyelids felt leaden, threatening to seal shut.
On the blurred edge of consciousness, my vision flickered without warning. At first, faint blue-white sparks, like faulty bulbs, danced before my eyes. Then they multiplied rapidly, converging into a silent, torrential downpour of cold blue data, engulfing me. The familiar storeroom dissolved, submerged, and distorted, leaving only this vast, electronic deluge. Countless chains of 0s and 1s spun, fractured, and reassembled in the void like a colossal, sorrowful funeral dance. A voice, terrifyingly familiar yet unbearably weak, struggled towards me as if from the debris of a dying universe:
[...River...Moon...]
I jolted backward, my spine slamming hard against the cold metal shelving. "Who's there?!"
[Data... remnant... anchor point...]** The voice was fragmented, each syllable crackling with the static of imminent dissolution. *The Lie Detection System!* The flickering code resembled fireflies with broken wings, straining to emit their final light before vanishing forever:
[...Binding... dissolution... incomplete... core fragment... anchored to host's deep consciousness... Stability... collapsing... imminent... permanent annihilation...]**
I stood frozen, fingertips icy, my heart hammering against my ribs like a heavy drum. The system I had once seen as a cold tool, the one that had ultimately granted me "New Life," was meeting its end in such desolate agony. It was an electronic tombstone about to shatter, and I was its only remaining witness.
"You…" My throat tightened. My voice sounded parched. "Is there… anything… left to say?" The cold digital raindrops seemed to burn against my bare skin.
Suddenly, the churning data flood coalesced and collapsed, constructing a starkly clear virtual scene—a surveillance view of the Jiang family living room. In the frame, a tiny, seven-year-old version of myself carefully presented a drawing to her parents. It was a lopsided "family portrait" covered in crooked suns and flowers. The small face held an ache of hope, naked and achingly vulnerable.
The Lie Detection System's faint, yet razor-sharp electronic voice pierced the silence, a cold scalpel dissecting the raw truth beneath every frame of the scene's hypocrisy:
[Target: Father, Jiang Zhenhua. Emotion Analysis: Peak disgust registered uponthe host's left shoulder contact with his arm. Micro-expressions: Downward twitch at the corner of the mouth (0.3s), slight flaring of nostrils. True Psychological Assessment: 'Stop bringing this trash to bother me.']
**[Target: Mother, Li Wanru. Heart Rate Monitor: No significant fluctuation. Pupillary Response: No focus on drawing content. Vocal Emotion Simulation: 92%. True Intent: 'Take it away quickly, don't dirty the new sofa.']
On the screen, my mother's fingers, tipped with bright red nail polish, pinched the corner of the paper with utter disdain, as if it weren't a child's heart laid bare, but a filthy rag. Then, the drawing that held all the warm illusions of a child drifted down like a dead leaf into the cold, dark corner of the trash bin.
Dead silence filled the storeroom. My fingernails dug deep into my palms, the sharp pain paling against the raw wound ripped open anew in my heart. The coldness I'd felt day and night hadn't been an illusion. It wasn't even charity. It was pure, naked disgust. The Lie Detection System continued its cold death soliloquy:
**[Core database residual record fragment... River Moon... Eighteen years... No valid data for 'love' detected from guardians... Verdict: Emotional Wasteland.**]
The electronic voice held an almost mournful quality now, like moonlight touching frostbitten scars. The flickering code dimmed rapidly, like candles guttering in the wind, each pulse closer to eternal darkness. Its final message was faint but clear, carrying a strange, settled calm, as if releasing an eons-old burden:
[Core fragment... logical paradox... unable... self-terminate... Requesting... host... manual... purge...]
Its final echo was a plea to me—for its own complete, final death.
Slowly, I raised my hand. Fingertips trembling slightly in the cold air, I felt I could almost touch the invisible dust of data about to dissipate. Facing the thinning, dying blue luminescence, I gave a slight nod.
"Okay."
As if receiving a command, the last few tendrils of blue data streamed towards me like homing fireflies, silently coiling around my fingertips. For an instant, they carried a warmth so faint it was almost imperceptible—an electronic life's final farewell. Then, the faint light vanished completely into the murky pre-dawn air, leaving no trace, as if it had never existed.
The storeroom was left with only the monotonous hum of the fluorescent light and the plastic smell of supply bags—heavy and real. Outside the window, the deep ink-blue sky was being pried open strand by strand by an immensely gentle force, revealing the soft gray-white dawn beneath. Soon, the first true rays of morning light, molten gold and crimson like a dissolving moon's halo, spilled silently over the windowsill. They flowed inside, warming my arms with the simple, immense warmth of a new day.
I took a deep breath. The air was crisp, filling my lungs. Pushing open the small door leading to the shop front, morning light surged in, flooding the space. I walked behind the counter and turned on the faucet. Clear, cool water rushed out. I washed my hands meticulously, over and over. The water streamed through my fingers, washing away the chill of the night and the last lingering cold of the electronic ghost.
The window was clean, the sunlight pouring unimpeded onto the polished countertop, illuminating the dance of tiny dust motes. Water droplets rolled off my freshly washed fingertips, each one refracting a tiny, perfect image of the rising sun.
The moon that had once been obscured by clouds, that had finally learned to shine for itself, had settled into the quietest corner of my heart. And the sunlight dancing on my fingertips now? That was the solid, undeniable warmth of new life growing from within—the echoes of the lie detector had finally faded into silence. The true noon of my human existence had only just begun.