Chapter 1541: Checks and Balances
Placing the weight of an entire world on Lily's shoulders, asking her to bear such a heavy responsibility in endless solitude, the outlook seemed inevitably bleak, both for the world and for Lily. If Lily ultimately decided not to accept this mission, it would not be surprising.
So before leaving, Lin Sanjiu decided to use her privileges to make some other changes in this game world.
She couldn't stop the core machine from absorbing people, and neither could Yu Yuan; and it was hard to guarantee that the absorbed people wouldn't repeat the same mistakes. Even entrusting the mission of managing the game makers to Lily would only add a sense of purpose to her life, but as for this world, it wasn't necessarily a reliable safeguard.
Her thinking was confined to this dilemma, becoming more and more trapped, to the point where, in her lowest moments, she even entertained the thought that humans are creatures that should never be put together. If every single person lived a lifetime without seeing or touching another person, it could minimize the evil done—whether to oneself or to the outside world.
While Lin Sanjiu quietly waited for Lily's decision, perhaps due to the shock brought by Nüwa finally settling, or perhaps because she saw Lily so intently considering the future, she suddenly realized that this thought itself was only a bit more merciful than Nüwa's "physiological death."
If she really thought that people should be permanently locked in the prison of solitude, why bother with the effort? She might as well go straight to Nüwa!
"People who come and go in this place are indeed mostly confused and lost, but they don't have to be like this forever," Lin Sanjiu murmured. "They don't know what they're doing because they don't have the chance to know... I can give them that opportunity."
Lily looked up at her words. Since hearing her options, she had been thinking blankly and hadn't spoken.
"What do you mean?" Ji Shanqing asked, his eyes bright and clear.
People only begin to learn responsibility when they know they need to be responsible. Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment, then clapped her hands and quickly called the grand prize and Lily back to the room she had temporarily set up. Only in the room could she project the written words onto the ground.
"Think about it, after posthumans arrive in this game world, there is one thing that almost every posthuman will inevitably see," she said, a bit excited. Not waiting for their response, she continued, "Those screens, those signs, they are everywhere telling you that the next game is about to begin, and that we must stop the new game launch... right?"
The grand prize seemed to understand, but Lily was still listening blankly.
"This mechanism is inherent in the game space itself. I don't have to worry about how to change it; I just have to change its original message to what I want to say," Lin Sanjiu said, taking a deep breath, and whispered, "By the time they've read the message I've left, their understanding of this world will be as much as mine."
"Tell them... everything?" Lily asked blankly.
"Yes, not just the world's operating mechanism, the core machine, but also about the previous game makers, the games that were produced, the suffering they caused to people, even Nüwa's plan. Everything I know, I will let them know too," Lin Sanjiu said softly. "How can I hold information in my hand while blaming them for being confused? If they can clearly realize what they will encounter, what their actions mean to others, and what they may face in the future... people's behavior will definitely change."
On the basis of revealing all the information, Lin Sanjiu took another step forward.
"It's not just information about the game world itself. If we want to be open and honest, we have to go all the way," she said as she opened the text settings. "Whenever new game makers are absorbed, their images and the games they write will appear on the screens in real-time. Everyone, including themselves, will know that these are game makers, and within a maximum of ten months, they will be sent out again, back among all the people."
"This way, it's equivalent to putting them all under the pressure of public scrutiny," the grand prize said softly.
Unless someone was a mad dog like Puppeteer, who wanted to self-destruct, no matter who it was, they would start to weigh the weight of their every action when they realized that they might be pitted against the entire world.
"Without the pressure of supervision from others and with absolute power in one's hands, no one can guarantee that they won't become corrupt," Lin Sanjiu replied. "So, we should try not to give them the opportunity to become corrupt. But this alone might not be enough."
"Yeah, there are always those who are foolish, arrogant, stupid, and short-sighted. What do you plan to do, Sis?" the grand prize asked with a bright look and a tone full of anticipation and caution, as if he had noticed Lin Sanjiu's awakening within. Otherwise, he would not care about the lives of the people in the outside world.
And Lily was listening intently.
"If we regard the game makers as a group with absolute power in this world, then the other party, the posthuman players, have no power to resist or balance," Lin Sanjiu mused. "Even in the human society before the apocalypse, if there were such a power imbalance, it would lead to a prolonged humanitarian disaster.
"If the players could revoke the qualifications of the game makers... If we set up a system where people could collectively cancel a game or even expel its creator when a game starts harming people..." she said, somewhat embarrassed under their gaze. "Of course, this is just a rough idea of mine."
Lily nodded. "Indeed, many details need to be carefully considered. But... if you want to realize this idea, you'll need a manager, right?"
Lin Sanjiu paused and said, "Mm."
"But," she added, "The manager also needs to be under everyone's scrutiny."
Whatever the reason, Lily's power as a manager must not be too great or unsupervised. As she herself said, absolute power can lead to corruption, and Lily may well not be an exception. Her authority as a manager, such as expelling a game maker or turning a game on and off, should only be activated when collectively authorized... Nüwa once said that humans as a group were mediocre and beyond redemption, right?
Lin Sanjiu wanted to see if humans as a group, with a clear awareness of their actions, could set a bottom line for themselves and self-correct in difficult times.
She vaguely remembered that during her brief meeting with Nüwa, she had somehow learned that Nüwa called herself a pessimist, and Gong Daoyi was an optimist. Lin Sanjiu didn't know if she was pessimistic or optimistic. If she had to say, she was probably a never-give-up-ist.
Lily said blankly, "I also... You mean, people outside will know about me? I can communicate with them? They can see me, and I can see them?"
Lin Sanjiu suddenly realized that this might be much better for Lily than being a lonely manager in the dark forever.
"If that's the case, then I'm willing to be the manager," Lily said quietly. "But I have a condition."
"What condition?"
"I'm 28 years old this year, and by posthuman standards, I have at least a hundred and some years left to live," Lily said, looking oddly young by ordinary standards. "I don't want to live forever. When my life should end, I want it to end."
Without waiting for Lin Sanjiu to speak, she continued, "Frankly, the only reason I didn't agree when you proposed this was that I couldn't imagine myself being a manager forever, without an end. I hope you can let me choose my time of demise... As for what to do after I'm gone, perhaps the choice can be given to the posthumans outside. Whoever is willing to take over can come in and be a manager for a limited period. Let them decide their own fate. After all, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all system in the world, is there?"