Chapter 571

The Administrator stared at the old man's face and looked at it repeatedly:

"Are you new here?"

"Sorry?"

"I don't think I've seen you before. Are you new here?"

The old man took a deep breath, and while saying "I have held my current position for thirty years," he took out his badge and handed it to the Administrator.

The exquisite badge was engraved with [O5-3].

……

At this point, the audience's doubts not only did not decrease, but increased significantly.

For example, why would the Administrator not recognize an O5?

In the impression of the vast majority of the audience, in the power structure pyramid of the Foundation, the Administrator is the well-deserved and unshakable top.

Slightly lower is the current Overseer Council, totaling thirteen people.

"Shouldn't be senile, right?"

"Shouldn't be... could it be that the memory is full and will periodically delete some memories?"

Of course, in the Foundation structure in the file story.

The Administrator not only did not become the uncrowned king of the Foundation above the Overseer Council, but was at the bottom, one of the many prisoners of the Foundation.

Naturally, there is another possibility.

"I'm afraid that since the Administrator was contained, he has never left here, and after the O5 Council completely seized power, they only kept an empty name for the Administrator without any real power. The iterative updates of the Overseer Council have nothing to do with the Administrator; the Administrator neither knows who stepped down nor who inherited the corresponding seat."

"But can this really be explained? If the Administrator is really just a containment object, why would the Foundation let him be responsible for fighting the 'Black Moon'?"

……

The Administrator took the badge to his face, rubbed its surface with his thumb, then straightened the monocle on his right eye, and observed it carefully for a while.

"So you are indeed new here."

The Administrator returned the badge to the old man: "Sorry, sorry... ah, 'Memory Test'. Continue."

O5-3 opened a stack of papers and began to read.

"Do you remember when you were born?"

"Before 'having a name'," the Administrator answered.

"Before?" O5-3 wrote down a few words, "— Could you please explain?"

"The reason you need a name is to avoid confusion in the crowd," the Administrator explained calmly.

"In the era when I was born, the number of humans had not yet expanded to the point where every individual had to be named."

An era where everyone knew each other and could distinguish each other just by their faces... quite ancient... O5-3 added calmly.

"Hmm, I understand."

He continued to ask:

"Do you remember how you acquired your existing anomalous properties?"

"'Balance'?"

"If you like to call it that."

The Administrator leaned back slowly, burying himself in the sofa, his black eyes reflecting the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Scenes flashed before his eyes; his thoughts spanned thousands of years, walked through ten thousand years, and continued to trace forward, until the barbaric era when humans used the sky as a quilt and the earth as a bed.

A moment later, he said:

"We built a village by the sea."

"Put in the present, that's just some tents and caves, but put in that time, this is a village."

"I was still a child then."

"The closest thing to a name back then was your identity, because you were the only one in the whole world."

Speaking of this, the Administrator closed his eyes, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, bulging into a shallow "Chuan" character.

After a while, he opened his eyes and said slowly:

"One day, a newcomer came to the village."

"He called himself a hermit; he looked gaunt, as if he had never eaten in his life, and we were all worried that he would suddenly die, but he didn't."

"He walked to the center of the village, sat cross-legged on a stone, and waited for something without moving — until a few days later, the 'Black Moon' began to howl."

"'Containment-001'?" O5-3 asked.

"'Black Moon'," the Administrator corrected, clearly he didn't like calling Him by a number.

"At that time, the youngest hunter in the village was walking toward his cave — and then he died."

"He had just walked halfway when he turned into a pitch-black sculpture."

"Just four seconds later, he disappeared without a trace like a phantom, leaving nothing behind."

"Then the hermit turned to me and asked me what I saw."

"I told him."

"Afterward, he told me about the 'Black Moon,' and he also told me everything he had learned in his immortal life."

"Took him four minutes."

"He spoke quite fast?" O5-3 joked.

"No," the Administrator looked at the old man calmly and shook his head, "He just knew too little."

Afterward, the Administrator said a number, a number that is very short in mythology and too large in modern times.

"He only lived for a thousand years."

O5-3 opened his mouth subconsciously, his throat rolled a few times, but he said nothing.

In the face of such a short human lifespan, a hundred years is considered a long life, a thousand years is living history, and the Administrator is a history of human civilization.

Except for the Administrator himself, probably no one can add "only" before "a thousand years."

The Administrator continued:

"Then he handed the 'Balance' to me."

"Afterward, he turned into dust, and then I started walking on this land."

"Is that enough? Can we continue?"

"Yes," O5-3 took a deep breath, "That's enough."

"Understood," the Administrator sighed, "Anything else?"

"You passed the memory test."

O5-3 put the note back into the envelope, his ten fingers crossed on the coffee table, "So, how are things with 001 now?"

"Slow. This is not surprising. It has been slow from the beginning." The Administrator's tone remained calm.

"Dr. Moto made a proposal that we were all excited about, and I have always held hope for the 'Conceptual Bunker'."

"Interesting. Can you tell me a little more?" O5-3 put the cap on the fountain pen and set it aside.

The Administrator shook his head slowly: "I have already sent the plan proposal, and both have been approved. That is enough."

"Even so, I still want to chat with you now."

Thus, the Administrator raised those eyes as deep as the night, as if they were forged and tempered by all the dark nights in thousands of years.

Those eyes stared at O5-3, letting O5-3 see his own soul, his own thoughts, and all his secrets in the other's eyes.

Thus, he heard the Administrator ask.

· ·Ask for flowers··· 0

"You think I'm full of shit, don't you?"

"Sorry?"

The Administrator held the coffee cup with both hands, and in the turbid coffee-colored liquid surface, only some images after being soaked were reflected.

"You are thinking of one of the following three items:"

"I am lying;"

"I am delusional;"

"Or I am fighting a meaningless battle."

"Looking at your eyes, I can say that the first two must be one of them, probably the first one."

After speaking, the Administrator drank the remaining coffee in one gulp, then held the cup with one hand.

"I assure you, I hold the utmost respect —"

"— for your position and contribution," the Administrator finished for the old man.