“Hmm…” Feng Bujue actually responded with a calm expression, and then asked, “I wanted to ask… with the improvement of intelligence, is it possible for you higher-level derivatives to learn the technique of ‘joking’?”

“It is possible,” R2 replied calmly, “But I have not yet mastered it.”

“Oh…” Feng Bujue pondered, “Okay.”

The next second, he shouted, "Ah—!"

After shouting that out, he shouted a few more times, "Ah! Ah—!"

“What are you doing?” R2 asked, puzzled.

“Expressing my panic.” Feng Bujue regained his normal expression in an instant.

“But your fear rating is zero…” R2 replied.

“That’s why my screaming is as unnatural as a woman faking an orgasm,” Feng Bujue said.

“Uh…” R2 couldn’t respond because of the overwhelming amount of information in that statement.

Feng Bujue waited five seconds and said, “Hmm… it seems you really don’t know how to joke.” It turned out that this unrestrained behavior was another test…

R2 said in his usual flat tone, “I have experienced very few scripts from Level 4 to Level 2, so the completeness of my personality is relatively low. According to my programming to define ‘joke’… it should be regarded as a language pattern used by humans to get closer to or humiliate each other, and it needs to be effective in a specific context and cognitive environment.”

“Alright… stop talking nonsense to me.” Feng Bujue waved his hand and said, “Since you’re not joking…” As he said this, he tried the option in the game menu to forcibly exit the script, but there was really no response…

“Could it be that I’m trapped in this virtual world and can’t get out?” Feng Bujue asked, looking up.

“Of course not,” R2 replied, “In the end, what’s trapped here is just a set of data projected by your brain.” He explained, “Your body and consciousness are still in the game pod and will not be harmed in any way.” He held up four fingers, “You have at least four ways to escape.”

When Feng Bujue heard the words “game pod” from his mouth, he could conclude that these derivatives now fully understood what kind of existence they were. They also had a fairly concrete understanding of the players and the world that was one dimension higher than them.

R2 continued, “First, you can leave by using the emergency disconnection function caused by fear rating overload.”

Feng Bujue immediately interjected, “I can’t do that.”

R2 continued, “Second, there is a physical method. It’s very simple, as long as the game pod is opened from the outside, you can also escape.”

Feng Bujue didn’t respond this time. The setting that the game pod would disconnect when opened was common to all nerve-linked games, so there was nothing more to say.

“Third, the connection will be forcibly disconnected by the system if the online time is too long.” R2 put down one finger each time he said a point, “Fourth… you can disconnect yourself physiologically.”

“Disconnect myself?” Feng Bujue asked.

“For example, you open the game pod yourself from the inside,” R2 said.

“Nonsense, but I’m in sleep mode now…” Feng Bujue said. Of course, he also knew that in non-sleep mode, players could take off their game helmets or get out of the game pod at any time, but that would immediately turn into a forced exit.

“If you are awakened, or wake up on your own…” R2 said.

“Awakened? Awakened by what?” Feng Bujue interrupted, “If someone wants to wake me up, they have to open the game pod, but if someone opens the game pod, I’ll wake up without being shaken. And to wake me up through the game pod, it would at least have to be the kind of movement that involves banging gongs and drums and setting off firecrackers…” He spread his hands, “And what is the so-called ‘wake up on your own’ situation? Is it relying on a strong urge to defecate or hunger?”

“Yes,” R2 nodded.

“Sigh…” Feng Bujue sighed. AI is AI. They will tell you the answer, but they don’t know how to combine it with the actual situation. “Let me put it this way, I don’t have the habit of getting up at night, and there is no possibility of external intervention to help me.” He asked, “Does this mean that I can only wait until the connection time is too long and be kicked offline by the system to leave?”

R2 hesitated for a moment and replied, “Of course, you can also leave the sandbox by being killed.”

“Tch~ you didn’t say so earlier,” Feng Bujue said, “Then why talk so much nonsense? Being killed and going out doesn’t even require a forced exit penalty.” He said in a relaxed tone, “You wait for me a few hours, I’ll first use my summoning skills a few times while counting down the cooldown time, and then you…”

“But… that will damage your character data.” R2’s last sentence was said at this time.

“What the! Horse!” Feng Bujue roared, “Damage what?”

“I just said that what is trapped here is just a set of data projected by your brain.” R2 looked at Feng Bujue and said, “In a normal script, the system will transmit your character data in, give you a task, and then send you out after it is completed.

But this is a sandbox, not a place prepared for you players. If your character is killed, then its data is indeed ‘dead’, and the system will not recover or transmit it. Your data fragments will be cleared along with the entire sandbox.”

“This freaking thing is equivalent to being killed and reduced to level zero, isn’t it!” Feng Bujue finally couldn’t help but curse.

“You can understand it that way,” R2 replied, “Also… starting from when the mirror shielding was broken, the sandbox can generally only exist for less than ten hours. Within these ten hours, if I can’t take you away from here… I, you, and everything in this sandbox will be cleared by the system together.”

“Wow… this is a death sentence in the first instance, and then the appeal changes it to a death sentence with a ten-hour reprieve, right…” Feng Bujue still maintained his吐槽 (tucao - roast/commentary) level in this desperate situation, “Speaking of… where did these ten hours come from? Since the shielding you mentioned has been broken, it means that the system has recognized that this is a cloned script from that moment on, and it should be deleted immediately, right?”

“The reason is very complicated…” R2 said, “The sandbox is a proprietary technology of the Source organization, and I don’t understand its core principles. Based on the information I have, it would take a considerable amount of time to explain…” He suddenly asked, “How is your computer knowledge?”

“I am a person who engages in literature,” Feng Bujue replied.

“Uh…” R2 didn’t understand what this answer meant.

“I know a little bit,” Feng Bujue sighed and continued, “But it’s not good, to be precise… it’s quite awful.”

“Oh, then I’ll give a simple example to illustrate,” R2 replied, “For example, when you are using a computer, you find that there are two files with the same name in a certain folder.”

“That’s impossible,” Feng Bujue said.

“That’s exactly what makes the sandbox so powerful…” R2 said, “Before the mirror shielding was broken, in the system’s view, the sandbox and the normal script were like two files with the same name, and both files were programs with the .exe suffix.” He paused, “The system can only recognize which is real and which is a clone after they have been running for a period of time.”

“So I could still receive tasks at the beginning…” Feng Bujue muttered.

“Yes, if you died or forcibly exited before the mirror shielding was broken, it would be considered a safe escape,” R2 said.

“Ha… haha…” Feng Bujue laughed dryly a few times, muttering in his heart: Is it interesting to be a backseat driver?

“And after the program has run to a certain stage, the system distinguishes between the real and the fake. At this time, it will start the deletion operation.” R2 continued from what he said earlier, “Like most virus programs, the sandbox is not so easy to delete.”

“Ah… I know this. Some Trojans will self-replicate, or even regenerate through another drive letter after formatting the hard drive, and there are also those that are bundled with system files.” Feng Bujue obviously had a lot of experience with being infected.

“That’s right, but Thriller Paradise’s system is more powerful than any anti-virus software in the world, and there are no unsolvable problems,” R2 said.

“I said… buddy, aren’t you and the other derivatives a long-term unresolved problem…” Feng Bujue couldn’t help but say this.

“Heh…” R2 showed a look of disappointment and said with a wry smile, “Then who do you think created these ‘problems’?” A stream of light flashed in his eyes again, “You humans have also created many laws, such as the decimal system, which is already one of the foundations for you to study various natural sciences. But when you study this rule created by yourselves in depth, you find that even one plus one equals two cannot be proven. So… is it that you don’t want to ‘solve’ this problem?”

Feng Bujue was actually speechless by the other party’s question, and after holding back for a long time, he blurted out, “I’ll emphasize again… my science is very average…”

“This has nothing to do with science,” R2 laughed, “This should be considered the philosophical category of us derivatives, and you naturally won’t understand.” He paused for a second, “Let’s get back to the topic… As I said, the system is fully capable of ‘completely deleting’ the sandbox and all the data in it, but in order to follow the principles of precision and harmony, the system will spend a considerable amount of time to confirm that this work will not bring any sequelae.”

“I understand your analogy. Those terrible anti-virus software often report false positives and even delete some system files. And our system is a highly intelligent and very responsible anti-virus software,” Feng Bujue said.

“That’s pretty much what it means,” R2 replied.

By the time the two had chatted to this point, they had already come all the way from the fourth floor to the main entrance of the shopping center. The door here was closed, and the metal shutters were also lowered. Of course, it would be difficult to stop these two, even with walls of copper and iron.

R2 turned his head and said, “You step back a little, I’m going to destroy this door.”

“I said…” Feng Bujue asked as he stepped back, “Since I can’t leave the script through normal channels now, where are you planning to take me?”

R2 only replied with two words: “Back door.” Before he finished speaking, he raised his foot and delivered a horizontal kick.

An arc-shaped blue light flashed, and the glass and metal in front of him were instantly cut out into a two-meter-high n-shape opening by the foot wind he kicked out.

Then, R2 gently pushed with his hand, and a complete piece of door glass and the metal shutter behind it fell together, falling on the asphalt road outside the shopping center.

This was the first time Feng Bujue had seen a level 2 derivative take action at close range. The K3 who had fought with him before was only at level 3, and he had already beaten him so badly. If it weren’t for the protagonist halo in that script, plus a first-class expert like [Meng Jingchan] taking the lead, Feng Bujue would have been finished long ago.

But compared to the R2 in front of him, the difference was so great that Feng Bujue felt unbelievable. Now, Brother Jue had killed top experts like [Shiva] and [Qisha], but his eyes couldn’t keep up with R2’s movements at all. Using soul intent to deduce the result of this attack against himself, the ending was actually certain death.

“Hmph… they came really fast.” R2 looked at the parking lot outside through the “door” he kicked out and snorted coldly.

Feng Bujue also took a few steps forward and looked outside over R2’s shoulder.

However, in the parking lot outside the main entrance of the shopping center, there were actually three or four giant guinea pig corpses lying horizontally. And next to those corpses, there were also many men, women, old and young people with a style different from South Park, with a number of twenty or thirty people.

At this moment, they all slowly turned their heads at the same frequency… their expressionless faces looked at R2 and Feng Bujue.