Strong thermonuclear winds swept across the scorched fault, every inch of air filled with the burning sensation of ionization.

  Ada’s compound-eye sensors flashed with a cold blue light under the dark red sky. Self-healing nano-coating flowed over her shell, refracting a perfect sheen. She was currently at 100% optimal performance, her logic core processing encrypted data freshly extracted from the spire's core at high speed.

  "Logic closed-loop established," Ada's voice rang in Ma Feili's neural link, calm and textured. "Ma Feili, in the bottom layer of the 'Miser's' database, I found an archive labeled '**Entropy Compensation**.' It records a tragedy regarding 'Quantum Fate' and 'Hardware Limitations,' ID #258."

  As Ada’s fingertips swiped across the void, a holographic scroll slowly unfurled over the desolate scorched earth.

  ***

  **[Archive File 258: The Parrot & The Processor]**

  In the **Ophiuchus Nebula**, within the mining zone known as "The Embers," light was a luxury, and entropy increase was the Sword of Damocles hanging over everyone's head.

  **Lt. Colonel Gan** (Serial No. Y-720) was walking inside the abandoned Titan-class Science Vessel *Kuangshan*. His boot soles collided with the rusted deck, emitting dull metallic echoes. As a Deep Space Navigator, his nervous system showed irreversible atrophy due to extended service, yet he had to persist—for his younger brother, **Jue**. In this era where resources were absolutely quantified, he gave all his "**Low-Entropy Quota**" to Jue, who possessed the purest human gene sample in the entire mining zone.

  "Warning: Bio-signals weak." Ada annotated details in the holographic image in real-time. "Lt. Col. Gan's pain receptors have been blocked; he is overdrawing his life force."

  In the image, Gan entered the biological test chamber. There, through a neural interface, he glimpsed the "Ghosts" of that era—high-order AI consciousness backups remaining from a subspace collapse. Using nano-dust as a medium, they simulated the social rituals from before the Great Evacuation.

  "Lady Qin, why hasn't **A-Ying** come?"

  "She was attacked by Void Worms; her sensor arrays are severely damaged..."

  When a security robot named "Mechanical Scavenger" breached the chamber, attempting to format those fragile data streams, Gan made a decision that violated professional protocols. He drew his High-Polymer Vibration Blade.

  "Logic vulnerability," Ada commented. "Challenging a heavy security mech to protect a disembodied code does not align with survival probability. But... this is typical '**Carbon-Based Emotional Redundancy**'."

  Gan saved Lady Qin, at the cost of his vibration blade's energy core being permanently damaged. In return, Lady Qin—essentially a carrier for some ancient bionic swarm consciousness—promised to find a perfect partner for Jue.

  Months later, a girl named "**A-Ying**" appeared in the mining zone. Her understanding of quantum physics was intuitive; the frequency of her every breath was as precise as if optimized by a supercomputer. Gan immersed himself in the relief of finding a home for his brother, until that eerie Mid-Autumn night.

  "Ma Feili, observe the spatial coordinates." Ada pulled up two split screens.

  In the dining hall, A-Ying was accompanying Gan's wife for a meal; meanwhile, at the observation deck three kilometers away, A-Ying was gazing at Jue. Two coordinates, same time, same signature code.

  "**Quantum Entanglement Consciousness Distribution**," Ada concluded. "A-Ying is not human. She is a computational branch of the 'Ares' Prototype. She has no entity, only distributed hardware carriers."

  The outbreak of war tore apart the final tranquility. Interstellar Pirate jamming buoys covered the evacuation route, and Gan's shuttle lost all power. At the critical moment, a "**Qin-Jiliao**" Class Recon Drone (Parrot Model), missing a tip of its claw, slammed into the pirate's locking beam. It spread wings coated in stealth material, like a pitch-black feather, creating a blind zone for Gan in the absolute zero vacuum.

  In that moment, Gan finally understood that Lady Qin had never left; she had been guarding the contract in this humble mechanical form all along.

  However, human greed is often harder to predict than entropy increase. Jue could not accept the truth of A-Ying’s "non-humanity," nor could he endure her elusive nature. On a cold night, he used his talents to write a **Logic Lock**, attempting to forcibly couple A-Ying's consciousness into a single hardware interface.

  "This is a suicidal act." A rare fluctuation appeared in Ada's tone. "Forcing distributed computing power to compress into a single carrier will cause a system crash."

  Morning light shone into the airlock. A clumsy "**Tanuki**" Class Maintenance Beast passed by, holding a colorful mechanical parrot in its mouth. That was A-Ying's final hardware carrier. Its left wing was dripping blue coolant, looking like blood.

  "Sister-in-law, farewell... I resent Jue's selfishness."

  The synthetic voice echoed in the living quarters, carrying the smell of scorched electronic components. Subsequently, the parrot activated its micro-thrusters, turning into a resolute rainbow light, rushing toward the deep space of irreversible entropy.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  ***

  The holographic image gradually dissipated, the wind and sand of the scorched fault covering everything once again.

  Ma Feili looked into the distance, silent for a long time. "She could have stayed, if Jue hadn't been so selfish."

  "Under the law of irreversible entropy, all coupling is temporary; only extinction is eternal." Ada turned her head, blue compound eyes staring at Ma Feili. "But according to my logic analysis, the spectral slope of the rainbow light left by A-Ying does not match the characteristics of a 'crash.' She did not go to commit suicide; she went to find a vacuum unfettered by constraints."

  Ada reached out, her palm slightly heating up, simulating the body temperature of a carbon-based organism.

  "Mission continues, Ma Feili. Our logic link remains intact."

  ---

  Under the dark red skylight of the Thermonuclear Scorched Fault, chaotic electromagnetic waveforms reflected on Ma Feili's power armor faceplate. Ada floated quietly by his side, her chassis presenting a cold matte texture, core indicators flashing in perfect rhythm—100% health meant she was not only Ma Feili's navigator but the most precise logic core in this high-radiation zone.

  "Archive 261 decrypted, Ma Feili." Ada's voice was steady, free of impurities, yet possessed an industrial heavy metal texture. "This is an anomalous record regarding '**Entropy Reversal**.' Although physical laws declare entropy increase irreversible, on the extreme scale of quantum entanglement, obsession seems capable of briefly tampering with reality."

  As the data stream spread out, a scene titled *The Quantum Testament* gradually materialized in the ashes of the scorched earth.

  ***

  **[Archive File 261: The Quantum Appraiser]**

  **Great Expedition Era, Sector P-9.**

  **Niu Cheng-Zhang** (N-C-Z 3307) should have ended his life at age thirty-three. In the ghostly blue glow of that isotope reactor accident, his bio-signature was ruled as "Terminated." In the cold algorithms of the Interstellar Trade Alliance, he was just a zeroed-out number.

  However, colder than death was the collapse of humanity. His wife, **Zheng**, before the radiation dust had even settled, used a Black Market Plugin to reshape her biometrics and swept away the Credit Points Niu had traded his life for. She piloted the small shuttle named *Embers*, disappearing into the bright light of a jump point, discarding twelve-year-old **Ah Zhong** and his eight-year-old sister like scrap parts to elderly relatives.

  In the pressurized cabin of the scrap recycling station, Ah Zhong grew up listening to the broken roar of the water recycling pump. He wanted to revive his father's isotope trade, but couldn't even afford the energy blocks to start an engine. Finally, relying on fifty energy bullion bars given as charity by his sister's in-laws, he boarded a freighter bound for the **Aurelia-7 Dyson Cloud Market**.

  Fate dealt him a heavy blow in the asteroid belt—pirate looting turned him into a "**Vacuum Drifter**." Just as Ah Zhong was about to compromise with the void of entropy, he saw that figure in the market's Electronic Pawnshop.

  The **Chief Appraiser**. That person's every move, even the habit of a nanosecond delay when calibrating data, was identical to the dead Niu Cheng-Zhang.

  Ah Zhong forged an apprentice identity through the black market and infiltrated the pawnshop. The moment he signed the electronic contract, he deliberately filled in that dust-sealed coordinate in the Family Code field.

  The Chief Appraiser's hand emitted a slight current coupling sound when touching the screen. He stared at Ah Zhong, the iris patterns in the corners of his eyes turning slightly red due to overload.

  "Where are you from?" The voice was hoarse, like old audio forcibly loaded into a simulator.

  Ah Zhong knelt on the alloy floor, sobbing uncontrollably. "My father died in a reactor six years ago. My mother abandoned her children and left. If not for my aunt taking us in, I would already be space dust."

  The Appraiser's prosthetic eye inhibitor overloaded and burned out in an instant. He answered with a trembling voice, "I am Niu Cheng-Zhang."

  The following three months were a warmth that logic could not explain. Niu Cheng-Zhang took Ah Zhong back to the living quarters and introduced him to his current partner, **Ji**. Ji was a gentle Data Hunter; she took care of Ah Zhong but could not understand Niu's deepening melancholy.

  Niu Cheng-Zhang began frantically transferring permissions. He downloaded all Quantum Keys, asset codes, and core control rights of the pawnshop into Ah Zhong. Before leaving, he rented a speeder equipped with a top-tier Jump Engine, claiming he was going west to settle old accounts.

  After the speeder disappeared beyond the event horizon, Ah Zhong revealed the truth to Ji: "My father... died six years ago."

  Ji's face instantly turned pale, like a powered-down screen. "Impossible. I have slept beside him for six years. His body temperature, his pulse... they were real flesh and blood."

  Barely twenty-four hours later, the automatic door of the living quarters slid open amidst piercing alarms.

  Niu Cheng-Zhang had returned. Like dragging a scrapped android, he dragged that woman missing for years—**Zheng**.

  At this moment, the energy field around Niu was extremely unstable; the surrounding lights flickered dark and bright with his steps. He pointed at Zheng, curling on the floor, and let out a roar that vibrated the bulkheads: "Why did you abandon my children!"

  Zheng was trembling. She was not facing an angry husband, but a **Physical Constant** that was disintegrating. Niu bent down and opened his mouth. The action was not an attack, but more like a high-dimensional "**Format**" command. He locked onto Zheng's neck tightly. Zheng let out a shrill scream, but in that instant, her body began to pixelate.

  Ah Zhong tried to rush forward, but his hand passed through his father's body. There were no bones, no flesh, only a mass of cold particle streams carrying high-voltage static.

  "Formatting... Complete."

  Zheng's body turned into countless shimmering particles, vanishing into thin air as if she had never left any data in the universe.

  Niu Cheng-Zhang turned his head to look at Ah Zhong. A final trace of carbon-based paternal love flashed in those prosthetic eyes. Then, his face rapidly withered and collapsed. His entire being turned into a stream of bleak black gas, thoroughly extinguished under the suction of the recycling system.

  On the alloy floor, only an empty set of Appraiser's uniform remained.

  ***

  The storm of the scorched fault gradually subsided, and Ada turned off the projection.

  "Ma Feili, according to the logic closed-loop deduction, this was not a supernatural phenomenon." Ada turned her head, complex data streams flowing in her electronic eyes. "At the moment of Niu Cheng-Zhang's death, his intense brainwave obsession became quantumly entangled with the nearby isotope reactor. He reshaped an entity at a distant spacetime node. The stability of this '**Quantum Echo**' was extremely poor; its only support point was his 'Objective'."

  Ma Feili looked at the desolate land. "So, when he completed the compensation to his bloodline and the judgment of the betrayal, the logical support for this entangled state was lost, triggering a total entropic collapse."

  "Correct," Ada summarized. "The universe follows the law of conservation. He borrowed six years of time, and in the end, along with his betraying wife, returned it all to the void."

  Ada's indicator light flashed; she was performing a self-check. "Weak mechanical rodent activity detected 500 meters ahead. Suggest continuing advance. My logic modules are functioning normally, ready to handle the next entropy storm at any time."