Night Hacker - Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Indeed, as long as one accepts their strange attire choices, the group of muscular male consumers will no longer have anything distinctive.
The five of them work as hair stylists in a local barbershop and have a lengthy history of working with the Li Cai club. Many of the “Smart”(1) fashions in the neon signs outside Li Cai’s door are their masterpieces.
The five were busy all night, they only came over for breakfast and a drink,
“Bro, your hair isn’t very good.”
“Come to our Flying Shears barber shop and I will get you the trendiest haircut, and there will also have good things to see~~”
Gu He was sitting at the bar, maintaining a professional smile, from time to time saying a few words :
“Miss Kumiko asked me to grow my hair long first, so maybe I’ll not only be like your father but also your mother.”
The five of them were immediately joyful, Gu He had recognised their personalities and requirements. He was risking his life here to tell jokes to the others. (2)
“It’s worth having breakfast with dad and mom.” The old dog Jackson patted the bar with a big laugh.
Gu He was also smiling, but a sudden situation in his mind almost made his smile collapse.
The light and shadow above the [Database] option on the electronic panel became plainly apparent, but it was a program progress bar, like a half-filled energy tank, filled with more than half of weird purple energy, displaying 86%.
Transmigration Fortune? Or sub-personality?
Gu He kept an eye on the changes in the progress bar while serving the customers and eventually noticed a link between the two.
It’s not a number that rises with time, but it would seem like the energy rises whenever the customers are pleased and laughing.
He watched as the progress bar filled up, from 86% to 90%, then 95%…
Could it be…
Gu He suddenly remembered how he time-travelled again: using the computer to chat with the female clients to make them happy, but the computer short-circuited… This program’s progress bar, obviously increase when he made the clients happy.
Psychiatrist Value? x
Cowherd value. √
After a while, the old dog Jackson left the fish pond in a satisfied mood, saying that he would be a repeat customer.
Five people came in for half an hour, had breakfast, and spent more than 600 Liuguang Yuan, and Fan Debao was still not satisfied.
At the same time, Gu He watched the purple program progress bar reach 100%, and suddenly the light flickered.
Next to the progress bar, a button [Start] becomes clearly visible, and several prompt boxes pop up:
“A console program has been activated”
“This software is used for data recovery.”
“When the progress bar’s energy reaches 100%, you can begin the programme. If it does not start, the energy will be overlaid again, and the progress bar will be upgraded to a higher level, allowing it to recover more data at once, and the progress bar’s energy will be reset to zero after usage.”
“The progress bar has seven gears: first gear (purple), second gear (indigo), third gear (blue), fourth gear (green), fifth gear (yellow), sixth gear (orange), overdrive (red) “
“Current gear: first gear 100%”
Gu He looked at the full purple progress bar in confusion and the optional [Start] button.
Data recovery? What data to recover?
“Old Fan, I’m going to the bathroom!”
“Even if you shit there’s no issue, but you better shit within five minutes,” Fan Debao said sharply, strictly preventing him from being lazy.
He’s really a fat vampire, but Gu He didn’t mind this time, so he hurried to the small aisle.
Gu He walked across the narrow aisle. He strolled into the little bathroom with his brow furrowed, shut the door, and examined himself in the mirror over the washbasin.
He turned on the faucet and furiously scrubbed his face, the water rinsing noisily.
After washing his face, he cleared his head a little, and then he carefully clicked the [Start] button on the electronic panel.
In an instant, like a malfunction, the entire panel flickered with a strange light, and the purple progress bar burst into a dazzling brilliance.
Gu He was caught off guard and felt that his entire mind was turning back and forth. He lost gravity, lost his senses, and was submerged in a strange sea. The seawater was a myriad of chaotic figures, lines, images, and words, composed of endless 0s and 1s.
Sometimes he passes through a figure, sometimes enters an image, sometimes becomes a pile of words…
Am I really gonna die in the bathroom?
He was worried, but as he saw the light go out, the progress bar cleared and reverted to 0%.
[New data has been activated]
Gu He panted slightly and noticed that the console’s database and compiler settings had been brightened and made optional.
In uncertainty, he opened the database while pondering.
There was a data file in there, which was a file full of text, so he opened it to look at it.
[Long long ago, when wishing still could lead to something, there lived a king…]
“What the hell!”
Gu He looked at these words emotionally. This file is the first page of the “Call of Adventure” chapter of “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. It’s all there, every word is there, not a single letter missing.
It reminded him of implicit memory.
He had intensively read “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” before, but his superficial memory only remembered its conceptual meaning and particularly impressive sentences. There is absolutely no way to recall the contents of a page verbatim like this.
Psychology, on the other hand, thinks that every word one has read has become an implicit memory, which is stored someplace in the brain.
It’s simply that implicit memory only impacts it at the subconscious level, and one can’t even access it.
However, if the implicit memory can be accessed, it will provide the present effect of reading an entire page without missing a single word.
In theory, every nurse and doctor a person saw in the hospital as a baby had their faces firmly buried in his consciousness.
“That ocean was an ocean of data when the data was restored just now, right? I have no idea how much data there is. It appears to be indefinite. Is that all my subconscious memory?”
Gu He remembered that when he was electrified by the computer, the pain was certain, and his head was numb and exploded.
But there was another feeling at that time, very similar to when I fell into the ocean of data just now as if countless network data poured into my head… Aren’t those my implicit memories?
And, this is the data?
The kind of procedural data that that heroic sub-personality craves?
Gu He saw that the document’s suffix stated “Applicable to Hero Class Sequencers,” and the answer was apparent.
He hit the “Compile into Hero Class data packet” option in the file, but a prompt box appeared:
“Inadequate data capacity to create the lowest level packet”
Gu He looked in detail at this page of “Heroes with a Thousand Faces,” then at the progress bar that required to re-accumulate the Cowherd value after clearing it.
He can earn cowherd value by treating others until the progress bar of this program on the console reaches 100%, upon which he can continue to upgrade to another level, or start the programme directly at the first level.
After restoration, the program can restore a specific amount of implicit memory data and save it in the database.
When there is enough data, the compiler can compress the data into a packet.
So, what is the purpose of the data packet?
There are two options based on the present situation:
1. This is the transmigration fortune; it’s a fortune just for him, as such a development is splendid.
2. He has a mental illness; this is the sub-personality that is deceiving him…
If the former was the case, Nice! But unlikely.
If it was the latter, the more Gu He considered it, the more logical it seemed.
Implicit memory is about learning, about subconscious formation… This sub-personality really wants to grow up…
Data Packets or whatever seems to be food for raising demons.
That female sub-personality is stirring up the wind and rain in his subconscious to produce these consoles, cowherd value, programs, data, and so on, compelling him to call and bring food again…
Her sole goal is to consume his implicit memories and experiences in order to grow and expand.
Gu He was horrified by the restlessness and sinister nature of that sub-personality the more he thought about it.
If this is the case, what should be done now?
Without waiting for him to think about it, the little wooden door to the bathroom was suddenly hammered, and Fan Debao’s enraged voice rang out from outside:
“Only five minutes! Do you want to be castrated or drowned? That female psycho is calling, and she expects you to answer. Get out!”
Captain Lorna, Gu He sighed, it might have been his transmigration fortune, or it could have been dissociation, false time-travel — no, he suffered from a dual memory malfunction…
He himself was in trouble. How can he make time for Captain Lorna?
- Smart 杀马特 is a subculture that appeared in mainland China in the 2000s and is popular among urban immigrant youth. Similar in concept to emo and punk but has nothing in common. TLDR: fashion
- Remember, the five men are trying to entice Gu He for a “family connection”
- Addendum: Data packages, a lot of files; Data packet, singular file/item. For example, Gu He can only send a singular file, as such a data packet
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