舊相簿 Old Album
週六上午十點剛過，黃士道博士宅邸的個人實驗室裡，空調低聲運轉著。
孟禎蹲在靠牆的置物櫃前，把一疊散落的工作手稿按日期分成幾摞。手稿上是父親的筆跡和志文添上的註記，兩種字體交錯在同一頁面上，像兩代人的對話。她指尖沿著紙面滑過，感受著紙張纖維在指腹下微微起伏。
「唔，這是我骨架結構的初稿，老爸畫得真醜。」她指尖輕輕撫過上頭的鉛筆標註，黃博士的字跡像蝌蚪一樣細小而密集。
「畫功是粗糙了點，但設計可棒了。站在這裡的妳就是證明，是吧？」志文的聲音從實驗桌另一端傳來。他翻過一頁機構設計圖，指尖點了點上頭密密麻麻的公差標註。「黃博士連零點零幾毫米的間隙都不放過。我第一次看他的手稿的時候，還以為是哪間半導體廠的製程文件。」
Just past ten o'clock on a Saturday morning, the air conditioner hummed softly inside Dr. Huang Shi-dao's private laboratory at his residence.
Meng-zhen squatted in front of the storage cabinet against the wall, sorting a scattered stack of working manuscripts into chronological piles. Her father's handwriting and Zhi-wen's annotated notes intermingled on the same pages, like a dialogue between two generations. Her fingertips glided along the paper, feeling the faint rise and fall of the fibers beneath her pads.
"Mmm, this is the first draft of my skeletal structure. Dad drew it so ugly." Her fingers lightly traced the pencil annotations above; Dr. Huang's handwriting was as tiny and dense as tadpoles.
"Ugly maybe, but the design is fantastic. You standing right here is proof, isn't it?" Zhi-wen's voice came from the other side of the lab bench. He turned a page of the mechanical design schematics, tapping his fingertip against the densely packed tolerance markings. "Dr. Huang didn't let even a fraction of a millimeter of clearance slip by. The first time I looked at his manuscripts, I thought I was looking at a process document from some semiconductor fab."
凱琳則盤腿坐在地上，筆電擱在膝蓋上，螢幕裡是她正在歸類的實驗數據。三個人各據一方，只有翻紙聲和鍵盤聲在空氣裡交替。
「啊，你們看。」
孟禎的聲音忽然輕了下來。她放下手邊的東西，站起身。
上午的陽光從高處的氣窗斜斜照進來，落在實驗室最裡面那個角落。那是一塊畸零空間，寬不過兩步，儀器繞著它走。以前淑君在的時候，那裡擺了一張兩人座的小沙發和幾盆觀葉植物，佈置成實驗室裡唯一柔軟的地方。後來淑君不在了，黃博士沒有動那個角落，盆栽也都在原位。
Kai-lin sat cross-legged on the floor with her laptop resting on her knees, its screen filled with experimental data she was organizing. Occupying their own corners, the three of them worked in quiet rhythm, with only the rustling of paper and clicking of keys alternating in the air.
"Ah, look at this."
Meng-zhen's voice suddenly softened. She put down what was in her hands and stood up.
The morning sunlight streamed slanted through the high transom window, falling on the innermost corner of the lab. It was an awkward, narrow space, barely two paces wide, bypassed by the surrounding instruments. Back when Shu-jun was still here, a small two-seater sofa and a few potted foliage plants had been placed there, making it the only soft haven in the laboratory. After Shu-jun passed away, Dr. Huang left the corner untouched, the potted plants remaining right where they were.
此刻的陽光正好照在那張沙發上，光柱裡有很細的灰塵在浮，像有人剛從那裡起身，空氣還沒來得及沉下去。
孟禎走了過去。
她沒有刻意放輕腳步，但實驗室的地板是防靜電材質，鞋底踩上去幾乎無聲。走到沙發前，她低頭看了一眼那塊淑君鋪的編織地墊——邊緣的流蘇已經有些散了——然後彎身脫了鞋，赤腳踩上去。地墊的紋路壓進腳底，有一種粗糙的溫暖。她轉身坐下，彈簧發出一聲低沉的「嘎」，是很久沒被壓過的聲音。她隨手拿起腳邊一盆小小的非洲菫，擱在大腿上，手指無意識地撫過花瓣邊緣。
陽光落在她的側臉和肩膀上，把她淺色的髮絲照得近乎透明。
At this moment, the sunlight bathed the sofa perfectly. Fine dust motes floated within the beam of light, as if someone had just risen from the seat and the air had not yet settled.
Meng-zhen walked over.
She did not deliberately lighten her steps, but the anti-static flooring absorbed almost all sound beneath her soles. Reaching the sofa, she glanced down at the woven mat Shu-jun had laid out—its fringed edges slightly frayed—then bent over, removed her shoes, and stepped onto it barefoot. The texture of the mat pressed into her soles with a rough warmth. Turning around, she sat down; the springs uttered a low creak, a sound that hadn't been made in a long time. She casually picked up a small potted African violet by her feet, set it on her lap, and ran her fingers absentmindedly along the edges of the petals.
Sunlight rested on her profile and shoulder, making her light-colored strands of hair appear nearly translucent.
她沒有說話，只是坐在那裡，像被什麼觸動了，又像什麼都沒想。
志文停下了手裡的動作，隔著半間實驗室看著她。那個畫面有一種不屬於實驗室的安靜，他不太想打破。
「喀嚓。」
快門聲響起。凱琳已經掏出手機，鏡頭對著孟禎，螢幕裡定格了一張被陽光鑲了邊的側影。
「這樣的孟禎妹妹真好看呢，」凱琳把手機往口袋一收，「怎麼能不留影？『孟禎專屬相簿』第八百二十一張，入庫。」
She said nothing, merely sitting there, looking as though touched by something, yet seemingly thinking of nothing at all.
Zhi-wen paused his work, gazing at her from across the room. There was a quietness to the scene that did not belong to a laboratory, one he was hesitant to shatter.
Click.
The sound of a shutter broke the silence. Kai-lin had pulled out her phone, pointing the lens at Meng-zhen, capturing a side profile framed in golden sunlight on her screen.
"Little Sister Meng-zhen looks so pretty like this," Kai-lin said as she slipped her phone into her pocket. "How could I not capture it? Image number 821 for the 'Exclusive Meng-zhen Album' officially archived."
孟禎愣了一下，臉頰微微鼓起來。「凱琳姊，妳又偷拍。」她嘴上抱怨，身體卻還賴在沙發裡。陽光暖暖地壓在她眼皮上，讓她生出了一點懶洋洋的遲鈍感。
「什麼偷拍，我光明正大拍的。」凱琳笑得眼睛都瞇起來，搖了搖手機。
「照片傳我。」志文立刻湊過去。
「你急什麼，又不是拍你的。」凱琳斜他一眼。
「我是她男朋友，拍了她我都要看。」
「你都要看？」凱琳嘴角勾了一下，「我剛開始拍她的時候，你還在唸高中物理。」
志文噎了一下。
孟禎聽著兩人你來我往，嘴角忍不住彎了起來。她把那盆非洲菫放回地上，拍了拍膝蓋，起身走回他們中間。
工作暫時被擱下了。陽光、舊沙發和一張照片，像一個小小的開關，把三個人從「整理模式」切換到了別的什麼。
--Meng-zhen froze for a moment, her cheeks puffing up slightly. "Sister Kai-lin, you snuck another picture." Though she grumbled, her body remained lazily sunk into the sofa. The warm sunlight pressed gently against her eyelids, lulling her into a cozy, sluggish daze.
"Sneak picture? I took it fair and square," Kai-lin replied, her eyes crinkling into arches as she waved her phone.
"Send me the photo," Zhi-wen chimed in, stepping over immediately.
"What's your hurry? It's not a picture of you," Kai-lin shot him a side glance.
"I'm her boyfriend. If you take pictures of her, I want to see every single one."
"Every single one?" Kai-lin smirked. "When I first started taking pictures of her, you were still studying high school physics."
Zhi-wen choked on his words.
Listening to their back-and-forth, Meng-zhen couldn't help but smile. She placed the African violet back on the floor, patted her knees, and stood up to walk back between them.
Work was temporarily set aside. The sunlight, the old sofa, and a single photograph acted like a small switch, shifting the three of them from "organizing mode" into something else entirely.-
---
「說起來，」凱琳把筆電推到一邊，盤腿換了個坐姿，眼睛亮了起來，「我有妳和志文的關鍵場景照片喔。要看嗎？」
「什麼關鍵場景？」志文湊過來。
「嘿嘿。」凱琳翻出手機，手指在螢幕上滑了幾下，連上雲端相簿。「對了，是這張。你們看。」
她把手機螢幕轉向兩人。
「啊！」孟禎短促地叫了一聲，隨即雙手捂住了臉。
"Speaking of which," Kai-lin pushed her laptop aside, adjusted her cross-legged sitting posture, and her eyes lit up. "I have photos of a key scene between you and Zhi-wen. Want to see?"
"What key scene?" Zhi-wen leaned in.
"Heheh." Kai-lin pulled out her phone, swiped her finger across the screen a few times, and connected to her cloud album. "Ah, right, this one. Take a look."
She turned her phone screen toward the two of them.
"Ah!" Meng-zhen gave a sharp, brief cry and immediately covered her face with both hands.
那是她和志文失敗的第一次約會——她喝了她不該喝的咖啡，志文請的。
照片裡是地下維修室。孟禎的的軀幹核心部位被吊架固定在半空，四肢已經卸下，接受是否有咖啡滲入的檢查。頭部被安裝在基座上，頸部以下空蕩蕩的，只有裸露的接口和線束。旁邊是她的右腿，獨自立著，大腿截面處有測試探針伸入，進行電性檢測。
她的臉——那顆被安在基座上的頭——面無表情。眼睛睜著，嘴唇微微分開，像一個忘記關上的抽屜。視線的方向恰好朝著被機械臂抓起的自己的左腿，但瞳孔沒有聚焦。
It was a photo from her failed first date with Zhi-wen—she had drunk coffee she shouldn't have, bought by Zhi-wen.
The setting was the underground maintenance room. Meng-zhen's torso core was suspended in mid-air by a rigging hoist, her limbs detached as she underwent an inspection to check for coffee leakage. Her head was mounted on a base pedestal; beneath her neck was completely hollow, revealing only exposed ports and wire harnesses. Beside her stood her right leg on its own, with testing probes inserted into the thigh's cross-section for electrical testing.
Her face—the head mounted on the pedestal—was entirely expressionless. Her eyes were open, her lips slightly parted, like a drawer forgotten to be pulled shut. Her line of sight happened to be directed toward her left leg, which was being gripped by a mechanical arm, yet her pupils lacked any focus.
那是心腦通聯受限時的她。
「怎麼是這張……哎呦，凱琳姊！」孟禎從指縫間瞪她。
志文沒有立刻說話。他盯著那張照片看了幾秒，然後才開口：「是我發現孟禎是機器人的那次……等等，」他像突然發現什麼。「說起來，凱琳姊那時候不是還沒回來嗎？怎麼會有這張照片？」
「咦，忘了實驗室有環境監視紀錄？」凱琳得意地晃了晃手機，「我從美國回來之後翻到的，截了圖，然後進行了一點藝術加工。畢竟難得一見嘛。」
That was how she was when the communication between her heart-core and brain-core was restricted.
"Why that picture... Oh gosh, Sister Kai-lin!" Meng-zhen glared at her through the gaps between her fingers.
Zhi-wen didn't speak right away. He stared at the photo for a few seconds before saying, "That was when I found out Meng-zhen was a robot... Wait," he suddenly realized something. "Come to think of it, hadn't you not returned from overseas yet at that time, Sister Kai-lin? Where did you get this photo?"
"Huh, forgot the lab has environmental surveillance logs?" Kai-lin waved her phone triumphantly. "I found it after I got back from the US, took a screenshot, and did a little artistic touch-up. After all, it's a rare sight."
「妳看，這張臉呆的。」凱琳把照片放大，「平常妳多靈，眼睛轉一下我都知道妳在想什麼。這張就……」她頓了頓，「像是有人把妳關掉了，只留下一個殼子。」
她說「殼子」的時候，語氣其實有點軟。
孟禎把手從臉上放下來，盯著那張照片，沒說話。
凱琳又滑出另一張。「再看這張。」
第二張照片裡的孟禎也是在維修，但場景不太一樣。她的軀幹安置在旋轉檢修台上，頸部截面上方連著一束粗大的訊號線。雙腿被卸下立在一旁，進行數據擷取。頭部被機械勾抓起，懸在空中——但照片中的她，表情是活的。眉心微微蹙著，眼睛專注而帶著擔心，注視著自己正在被檢查的身體。身體上的手臂交握著，指節扣得緊緊的，彷彿那雙手仍然連接著某種緊張的情緒。
"Look, her face is so blank here." Kai-lin zoomed in on the photo. "Usually you're so sharp; just a flick of your eyes and I know what you're thinking. But this one..." She paused. "It's like someone turned you off and left only a shell behind."
When she said "shell," her tone was actually quite gentle.
Meng-zhen lowered her hands from her face and stared at the photo without a word.
Kai-lin swiped to another photo. "Look at this one too."
In the second photo, Meng-zhen was also under maintenance, but the scene was quite different. Her torso was resting on a rotating inspection bench, a thick bundle of signal cables connected above the cross-section of her neck. Her detached legs stood to the side undergoing data retrieval. Her head was suspended in mid-air by a mechanical clamp—yet in this picture, her expression was vividly alive. Her brow was faintly knitted, her eyes focused and filled with worry as she watched her own body being inspected. The arms on her body were clasped together, fingers tightly intertwined, as though those hands were still connected to some nervous emotion.
「這是我在……日常檢查排障的時候。」孟禎喃喃地說，手不自覺地摸上自己的後頸。「那時候我的系統運作還是全功能的，遠程通聯暢通。頭和四肢之間的訊號延遲極短。所以對我來說，它們從來沒有分開過。」她比劃了一下，「就像身體各部位只是各自通過了一道傳送門。分開了，但還是同一個人。」
「一個被自己拆開，卻活靈活現的女孩。」凱琳的聲音柔了下來。她把手機橫過來，讓兩張照片並排顯示。「同樣是拆開，有沒有妳在裡面，差好多。雖然……都一樣讓人喜歡啦。」
「都有好不好！」孟禎聲音都高了，「妳不能因為我那時候通道不順、臉僵掉，就當我不在！那時候感覺都在的，只是……表達不出來而已。」
「好啦好啦。」凱琳笑著伸手揉她的頭頂，把她的頭髮揉得亂七八糟。孟禎抗議了兩聲，被凱琳的笑聲打斷了。「我知道。我說的不是那個意思。」
孟禎沒有躲開凱琳的手，但嘴唇抿了一下。
"That was during... routine inspection and troubleshooting," Meng-zhen murmured, her hand unconsciously touching the back of her neck. "Back then, my system operations were still fully functional, and remote communications were clear. The signal latency between my head and limbs was extremely low. So to me, they never felt truly separated." She gestured. "It was as if the parts of my body were merely passing through individual portals. Detached, but still the exact same person."
"A girl dismantled by her own hands, yet vibrant and full of life." Kai-lin's voice softened. She turned her phone horizontally so the two photos were displayed side by side. "Both are dismantled, but whether 'you' are inside makes such a difference. Though... both are equally endearing."
"I was inside both times!" Meng-zhen raised her voice slightly. "Just because my channels were disrupted back then and my face froze up, you can't act like I wasn't there! The feelings were all there—it's just... I couldn't express them."
"Alright, alright." Kai-lin chuckled, reaching out to ruffle her hair into a messy mop. Meng-zhen voiced a couple of protests, but they were cut short by Kai-lin's laughter. "I know. That's not what I meant."
Meng-zhen didn't pull away from Kai-lin's hand, though she pursed her lips slightly.
---
笑聲還沒完全散，新的照片又浮出來了。
「看，這張。」志文把手機遞出。照片中孟禎站在實驗室裡。臉是原來那張，腿是原來那雙——但她的身體不對。她的核心部位換成了一具粗糙的機械裝置，沒有仿生皮膚，腰關節和雙臂也不在，管線像血管一樣裸露在外。那是因為她原來的軀幹出了重大故障，在修復完成前，先用早期的測試機體頂著。她的情感核心和身體管理系統也一起遷移過去了——照片裡的她還是那個女生，只是身體變成了腰身僵直的鐵製品。
她站得很小心，雙腿併攏，重心微微後傾，笑得靦腆又尷尬。像一個穿錯了軀殼，又努力不被發現的人。
Before the laughter completely faded, another photo surfaced.
"Look at this one." Zhi-wen passed his phone over. In the photo, Meng-zhen stood inside the laboratory. Her face was her usual face, her legs were her usual legs—but her body was entirely off. Her central torso was replaced by a crude mechanical frame lacking synthetic skin, without waist joints or arms, and with cabling exposed like bare blood vessels. It was because her original torso had suffered a major failure, and before repairs were complete, an early prototype chassis was used as a temporary stand-in. Her emotional core and body management system had been migrated over together—so the person in the photo was still that same girl, except her body had turned into a stiff-waisted piece of ironwork.
She stood cautiously, legs pressed together, center of gravity leaning slightly back, smiling sheepishly and shyly. Like someone who had put on the wrong shell and was trying hard not to be noticed.
「那時候我沒有腰，」孟禎看著照片，聲音平靜得像在講別人的事，「上半身和下半身之間沒有『轉身』這個選項。我想看左邊，就得整個人一起轉過去。沒有手臂，所以平衡感全亂了，走路的時候肩膀會不自覺地往前傾，好像隨時會跌倒。」她頓了頓，「而且那些線纜……沒有皮膚蓋著。空調風直接吹在感測器上，很癢，癢在很深的地方。」
志文盯著照片，聽著孟禎娓娓道來。「這畫面……還真是驚悚了點。」他想了想，認真評論道。
下一秒他被孟禎肘擊了肋骨，疼得叫出聲。
「什麼驚悚！你這樣看女朋友的嗎？」孟禎臉頰鼓了起來，嘴上凶，眼睛卻在笑。「我說得那麼認真，你喔~」
「我說的是視覺衝擊！視覺衝擊！」
「你就是嫌我那樣不好看，老想取笑我。」
「我沒有——」
"Back then I had no waist," Meng-zhen looked at the photo, her voice as calm as if talking about someone else. "There was no option to 'twist' between my upper and lower body. If I wanted to look to the left, I had to turn my entire body as one. Without arms, my sense of balance was completely thrown off; whenever I walked, my shoulders leaned forward involuntarily, as if I might fall at any moment." She paused. "And those cables... weren't covered by skin. The air conditioning breeze blew directly onto the sensors, making them itch—an itch deep inside."
Zhi-wen stared at the photo as he listened to Meng-zhen's quiet explanation. "This image... is honestly a bit gruesome," he remarked thoughtfully after a moment.
The very next second, Meng-zhen jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, making him cry out in pain.
"What do you mean gruesome! Is that how you view your girlfriend?" Meng-zhen's cheeks puffed up; her voice sounded fierce, but her eyes were laughing. "I was sharing that so seriously, and you—!"
"I meant the visual shock! Visual shock!"
"You just thought I looked ugly like that and wanted to mock me."
"I didn't—"
「好了好了。」凱琳舉起手機，「輪到我了。孟禎剛『出生』的時候，可是很有勇氣的。」
螢幕上是一張戶外的照片。背景是黃博士宅邸的庭院，陽光很好，草地修剪得整齊。照片中的孟禎看起來很正常——除了她變成了兩截。
那時候她的腰部關節有設計缺陷，行走時偶爾會出現異常。照片裡的她在庭院中走著，自行中止了下半身的動力輸出，就把自己從腰部『分開』了。當宇尋的技師趕到時，她的下半身站在石板小徑上，而她的上半身大概與下半身隔了三十公分。左手緊緊抓著臀部，右手正拿著螺絲起子，低頭檢查內部的關節齒輪。
"Alright, alright," Kai-lin held up her phone. "My turn. When Meng-zhen was freshly 'born,' she was remarkably brave."
On the screen was an outdoor photo. The background was the courtyard of Dr. Huang's residence, bathed in bright sunshine with neatly manicured grass. Meng-zhen looked perfectly normal in the photo—except she was split into two segments.
Back then, her waist joint suffered from a design flaw that occasionally glitched during walking. In the picture, while walking in the garden, she had manually terminated power output to her lower body, effectively 'separating' herself at the waist. By the time the technician from Yuxun arrived, her lower body was standing upright on the flagstone path, while her upper body hovered roughly thirty centimeters away. Her left hand gripped her hip tightly, while her right hand held a screwdriver as she looked down to inspect the internal joint gears.
「她連等支援來都不肯。」凱琳搖頭笑著，「技師說他遠遠看到時，以為出了什麼嚴重事故，跑過去才發現當事人正在自己修自己，然後拍了張紀錄照，存檔。」她得意地指著手機，「當然，又落在我手裡啦！」
志文沉默了幾秒，然後說：「我女朋友……還真是見過大場面的人。」
「什麼大場面？那叫自救。」孟禎把散到頰邊的頭髮勾到耳後，說得理所當然，「那個齒輪再磨下去，我整個人會直接散在庭院裡。你見過散成零件的女朋友嗎？」
「見過。」志文指了指凱琳的手機。
孟禎愣了一下，然後笑了出來，笑得肩膀都在抖。凱琳也笑了。
"She wouldn't even wait for support to arrive," Kai-lin shook her head with a smile. "The tech said when he saw her from afar, he thought a horrible accident had occurred. He ran over only to find the victim performing repairs on herself. He took a photo for the record and archived it." She pointed triumphantly at her screen. "And naturally, it ended up in my hands!"
Zhi-wen remained silent for a few seconds before saying, "My girlfriend... really is someone who's seen some crazy stuff."
"What crazy stuff? That's called self-preservation," Meng-zhen tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, speaking matter-of-factly. "If that gear had kept grinding, my whole body would have disintegrated right in the courtyard. Have you ever seen a girlfriend broken into spare parts?"
"Yes," Zhi-wen pointed at Kai-lin's phone.
Meng-zhen froze for a moment, then burst out laughing, her shoulders trembling with amusement. Kai-lin laughed as well.
笑聲在實驗室裡迴盪了一陣，慢慢平息下來。三個人散開，各自回到原本的位置，但動作都比剛才慢了一些。孟禎走回那個沙發角落，沒有坐下，只是靠著沙發扶手站著，手指撥弄著非洲菫的葉片。光線的角度已經比剛才偏了一些，沙發上只剩一半的光。
她坐回沙發上，彈簧又「嘎」了一聲。她低頭看著被撥過的葉片，葉脈在光裡清晰得像地圖上的河流。過了一會兒，她輕聲說：「說起來，我剛『出生』那陣子，還真有點令人懷念呢。」
The laughter echoed through the lab for a while before gradually subsiding. The three dispersed back to their original spots, though their movements were noticeably slower than before. Meng-zhen walked back to the sofa corner. She didn't sit, but leaned against the armrest, her fingers gently stroking the leaves of the African violet. The angle of sunlight had shifted, leaving only half of the sofa illuminated.
She sat back down, and the springs creaked once more. Looking down at the brushed leaves, the veins showed clearly in the light like rivers on a map. After a quiet moment, she said softly, "Come to think of it... those days right after I was 'born' really do bring back a bit of nostalgia."
---
志文和凱琳都沒有出聲，像等著某個不容易被說出來的故事，自己找到出口。
「我當時知道的已經不少了，」孟禎的聲音慢了下來，像在整理某種不太容易整理的東西。「腦內模型完成了預訓練，記憶體裡也塞了不少知識，語言、常識、基本的世界觀都有了。但關於『存在』……所體會的還很有限。」她手指無意識地摸著自己的手腕。「那時我還在感受著什麼叫作『我』。心和腦都各自被造好了，被測試過，運作過。但它們還不太會在一起。」
她頓了一下。「所謂的『我』，曾經荒謬得難以理解。我的內在像一片隨意堆放零件和材料的荒地，而我從裡面被拼出來，歪七扭八的。」
Neither Zhi-wen nor Kai-lin spoke, as if waiting for a story that wasn't easy to voice to find its own way out.
"I already knew quite a lot back then," Meng-zhen's voice slowed, as if sorting through thoughts that were difficult to organize. "The internal brain model had completed pre-training, and memory was packed with knowledge—language, common sense, a basic worldview. But as for 'existence'... what I experienced was still very limited." Her fingers unconsciously rubbed her wrist. "I was still feeling out what it meant to be 'me.' The heart-core and brain-core had each been built, tested, and operated. But they didn't really know how to work together yet."
She paused. "The so-called 'I' used to be absurdly hard to comprehend. My inner self felt like a wasteland strewn with scattered parts and materials, and I was cobbled together from it, all crooked and misaligned."
她低頭看著自己的手，翻過來，又翻過去。手掌、手背、指節的彎折處。每一處都有可拆卸的接口，每一處都登記在身體管理系統裡。但她摸著那些接口的邊緣時，感覺到的是自己的體溫。
「那時候的我，」她輕聲說，「不太會害怕。不是因為勇敢，是因為還不知道什麼需要害怕。」
凱琳走過去，在沙發上挨著她坐下，輕輕摟住她的肩膀。
「是的，」凱琳的聲音很輕，「那時候的妳，有一種質樸的怪。妳會在庭院裡拆自己，不是因為妳覺得那沒什麼大不了，而是妳還沒學會覺得那『應該』有什麼大不了。妳只是……發現東西壞了，就打開來修。就這麼單純，但也因此……令人心疼。」她頓了很久，最後還是說了這四個字。
「人類不會有那樣的階段，」凱琳繼續說，手指輕輕摩挲著孟禎肩頭的衣料。「關於存在的準備已經被完成了，卻還不熟悉該怎麼存在。這只有妳能有。」
She looked down at her hands, flipping them back and forth—palms, backs, the bends of her knuckles. Every single spot had detachable interfaces, each registered within her body management system. Yet as she touched the rims of those ports, what she felt was her own warmth.
"Back then," she said softly, "I didn't really know how to feel fear. Not because I was brave, but because I hadn't yet learned what there was to be afraid of."
Kai-lin walked over, sat down beside her on the sofa, and wrapped an arm gently around her shoulders.
"Yes," Kai-lin's voice was very soft. "Back then, you possessed a kind of primitive strangeness. You would take yourself apart in the yard not because you thought it was no big deal, but because you hadn't yet learned that it should be a big deal. You simply... found something broken and opened yourself up to fix it. Pure and straightforward, yet precisely because of that... it breaks one's heart." She paused for a long time before finally uttering those last words.
"Humans never go through a stage like that," Kai-lin continued, her fingers gently brushing the fabric over Meng-zhen's shoulder. "Having all the preparations for existence completed, yet being unfamiliar with how to exist. That is uniquely yours."
孟禎沒有回答，但凱琳感覺到她肩膀微微繃了一下，又鬆開了。
「我遇到孟禎的時候，」志文開口了。他坐在對面的椅子上，身體前傾，手肘撐在膝蓋上。「她已經不太像一個才開始適應自己存在的人。說話、走路、笑起來，都自然得不得了。但我後來回想，那種自然裡，好像已經帶了一點……她自己才懂的陰影。」
他看著孟禎，目光裡有一種不太容易說清楚的東西。「我那時不懂。連她是……人造人，都不知道。」
「欸，我可沒故意瞞你，」孟禎轉過頭來，「還沒成為你女朋友之前，我就暗示很多次了。只是也不好直說。」
「我知道。是我沒注意。」志文點了點頭。「或許是我那時候也不想注意。」
Meng-zhen didn't answer, but Kai-lin felt her shoulders tense slightly, then relax.
"When I first met Meng-zhen," Zhi-wen began, leaning forward from his chair opposite them with his elbows resting on his knees, "she no longer seemed like someone who was just beginning to adjust to her own existence. The way she spoke, walked, and smiled was extraordinarily natural. But looking back later, that naturalness seemed to carry a shadow... one that only she truly understood."
He looked at Meng-zhen, an indefinable emotion in his gaze. "I didn't understand back then. I didn't even know she was... an android."
"Hey, I didn't hide it from you on purpose," Meng-zhen turned her head toward him. "Before I became your girlfriend, I hinted at it plenty of times. It just wasn't easy to state directly."
"I know. It was my fault for not noticing," Zhi-wen nodded. "Or perhaps, back then, I didn't want to notice either."
「妳第一次跟我說妳身體不太一樣的時候，我記得妳在笑。」他頓了一下，嘴角浮起一點很淡的、不像笑的笑。「眼睛彎彎的，手指一直在捲書包的背帶。我就看著妳的手。那時候我覺得，哇，這個女生的手好小。」
他抬起眼看向孟禎。「妳說了什麼，我其實沒怎麼聽進去。好像只要看著妳，其他事都可以先不管。」
他停了一下，聲音低了下去。「甚至……連妳說妳覺得自己『不屬於自己』的時候，我還以為妳在打哲學啞謎。沒有接住那樣的妳。」
孟禎看了他一眼，嘴唇動了動。有一瞬間她的眼神像要越過什麼，又像要回到很久以前。最後她只是低下頭，把指尖慢慢壓進另一隻手的掌心，壓出一個淺淺的凹痕。
「認識志文之前不久，我存在得還……蠻脆弱的，」她把視線移回自己的手上。「那時候，我剛成了『不相信卻得是』的基督徒。」
這句話落下來的時候，實驗室裡的空氣沉了一點。
"The first time you told me your body was different, I remember you were smiling." He paused, a faint, subdued trace of a smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Your eyes crinkled, and your fingers kept twisting the strap of your backpack. I just stared at your hands. Back then I thought, wow, this girl's hands are so small."
He raised his eyes to look at Meng-zhen. "Whatever you said, I didn't really absorb. It felt like as long as I was looking at you, nothing else mattered."
He paused, his voice dropping. "Even... when you said you felt like you didn't 'belong to yourself,' I thought you were just speaking in philosophical riddles. I failed to catch you as you were."
Meng-zhen looked at him, her lips moving slightly. For a brief moment, her eyes looked as though reaching beyond something, or perhaps reaching back into the distant past. In the end, she merely lowered her head, slowly pressing her fingertips into the palm of her other hand, leaving a faint indentation.
"Shortly before I met Zhi-wen, my existence was still... quite fragile," she shifted her gaze back to her hands. "Around that time, I had just become a Christian who 'could not believe, yet had to be one.'"
As those words landed, the air in the laboratory grew a little heavier.
---
「我記得妳說過，」志文的聲音低了半度，「是妳的腦建議妳去信的。」他頓了頓，像在確認每一個字的重量，「它知道妳的心需要一個地方放……那些東西。歸屬感、意義，還有被遠遠超越自己的什麼承認。但腦……並不相信那些。」
孟禎點了點頭，嘴角有一個很淡的弧度，說不上是笑還是苦笑。
「很……奇妙的狀況。」她把手放在膝蓋上，十指交叉。「我一直對我的腦問著，信仰是不是真的。而腦無法對我說謊，只會告訴我它確實想的：證據不足，邏輯不順，無法證實。」她苦笑了一下。「很奇怪，建議我信的也是它。反正『受造』對仿生人是事實，對基督徒也是。在同樣的結構下，可以套用同樣的自處之道——歸屬、信靠、交託。腦覺得這是合理的。」她頓了一下。「問題是，合理不等於真。腦知道這一點。但它還是建議了。」
輕輕嘆了口氣。「不然我會整天想著自己的構成——那些被製造、被擁有的零件。想著『我』在哪裡。到底算什麼。」她的眼光移到了自己的指尖。
"I remember you telling me," Zhi-wen's voice dropped half a tone, "that it was your brain-core that advised you to believe." He paused, as if weighing every single word. "It knew your heart-core needed a place to deposit... those things. Belonging, meaning, and recognition by something far transcending yourself. But the brain-core... did not believe in them."
Meng-zhen nodded, a faint curve touching her lips, hard to tell if it was a smile or a bitter wryness.
"A very... peculiar situation." She rested her hands on her knees, fingers intertwined. "I kept asking my brain-core whether faith was real. And my brain-core couldn't lie to me; it could only tell me what it genuinely calculated: insufficient evidence, flawed logic, unprovable." She let out a dry laugh. "Strangely enough, it was the very thing that advised me to believe. After all, being 'created' is a reality for an android, just as it is for a Christian. Under the same structural paradigm, one can apply the same way of coping—belonging, trust, surrender. The brain-core deemed this rational." She paused. "The problem is, rational does not equal true. The brain-core knew this. Yet it advised me to do so anyway."
She exhaled softly. "Otherwise, I would spend all day obsessing over my own composition—those manufactured, owned components. Wondering where 'I' was. What I actually amounted to." Her eyes drifted down to her fingertips.
「但腦自己不信。」志文說。
「腦自己不信。」孟禎重複了一遍，指節不自覺地收緊了一點。
這句話在空氣裡停了一會兒。
「說起來，我發現自己產生了『信仰心』模組，還不是在後來固定去的教會。」孟禎忽然抬起頭，語氣變了，像是打開了一扇很久沒開的窗。「那是被社團的同學帶去一個超大的教會的時候。」
她的眼睛微微瞇起來，像在回看某個很大的東西。
「巨大的會堂，天花板高得看不到邊。上千個人坐在一起，站起來的時候像一片海。詩歌響起來的時候，那個聲音不只是從音響出來的——是從上千個人的胸口同時出來的。」
她瞇起眼睛，像還在聽。
"But the brain-core itself didn't believe," Zhi-wen said.
"The brain-core itself didn't believe," Meng-zhen repeated, her knuckles imperceptibly tightening.
The sentence hung suspended in the air for a moment.
"Come to think of it, I realized I had developed a 'Faith-Heart' module not at the church I regularly attended later," Meng-zhen suddenly raised her head, her tone changing as though opening a long-closed window. "It was when a classmate from my club took me to a mega-church."
Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if peering back at something immense.
"An enormous sanctuary with ceilings so high you couldn't see the edges. Thousands of people sitting together, standing up like an ocean. When the hymns swelled, the sound didn't just come from the speakers—it rose simultaneously from the chests of thousands."
She squinted her eyes, as though still listening.
「我的耳朵被淹沒了，胸口這裡一直震，一直震，震到腦跟心中間那條線都發燙。」
「走出教會的時候，我發現它已經在那裡了。」她用手指點了一下自己胸口和頭中間的空處。「會堂外的太陽很亮，我走到廣場中間的時候，忽然停了下來。不是我自己想停的。我就站在那裡，人們在我身旁來來去去。」
她頓了一下。「我感受到了：一個小小的十字架，卡在心跟腦中間。我看得懂它是怎麼長出來的，也知道它以後會一直叫我往那邊想。我都懂，但我不知道該拿它怎麼辦。」
"My ears were submerged; my chest resonated continuously, vibrating so intensely that the circuit connection between my brain-core and heart-core ran burning hot."
"When I walked out of the church, I discovered it was already there." She pointed a finger at the space between her chest and head. "The sun outside the hall was glaringly bright. Walking into the middle of the plaza, I suddenly froze. It wasn't my own conscious decision to stop. I just stood there as people passed to and fro around me."
She paused. "I felt it: a tiny cross wedged right between my heart-core and brain-core. I understood how it had grown, and I knew it would keep steering my thoughts in that direction from then on. I understood everything, but I didn't know what to do with it."
她笑了，眼角有點涼，有東西滑下來。她用手背很快地抹掉了。
「然後，我就漸漸地，被我自己交出去了。」她說得很輕。
「我的存在像被很大的手托著，胸口熱熱的，後頸卻涼涼的。有一種很亮的東西，滲進來，把我正在轉的那些東西接住了。有點放心，有點感動，又有點不甘心，覺得憑什麼就這樣被交出去。很怪吧，這樣的我。」
She smiled, though the corners of her eyes felt cold as a tear slid down. She wiped it away quickly with the back of her hand.
"And so, bit by bit, I surrendered myself," she said softly.
"My existence felt held up by immense hands—warm in my chest, yet cool at the back of my neck. A brilliant light seeped in, cradling all the processes spinning inside me. I felt a sense of relief, a touch of emotion, yet also a subtle indignation—wondering why I should just be given away like this. Strange, isn't it? A version of me like that."
凱琳的手臂收緊了一點。
「那段時間，我回美國了。」凱琳的聲音低低的。「不論是信教還是遇到志文，妳自我形成最重要的那些日子，我都不在。」
「沒關係的，凱琳姊。」孟禎靠過去，把頭輕輕擱在凱琳的肩上。「妳一直是我重要的姊妹。沒有妳，我會長成完全不一樣的形狀。」
凱琳等了一會兒，沒聽到下文。「什麼樣的形狀？」
孟禎想了一下。「大概……更方一點。」
凱琳噗嗤笑出聲，在孟禎肩上捶了一下。
「我對現在的自己還蠻滿意的。這也要謝謝妳。」孟禎說著。
凱琳沒有說話，只是用下巴蹭了蹭孟禎的頭頂。
Kai-lin tightened her arm around her slightly.
"During that period, I had returned to the States," Kai-lin's voice was low. "Whether it was finding faith or meeting Zhi-wen, during those most crucial days of your self-formation, I wasn't there."
"It's alright, Sister Kai-lin," Meng-zhen leaned over, resting her head gently on Kai-lin's shoulder. "You've always been a sister to me. Without you, I would have grown into a completely different shape."
Kai-lin waited a moment, hearing nothing further. "What kind of shape?"
Meng-zhen thought for a second. "Probably... a bit more square."
Kai-lin burst into laughter, nudging Meng-zhen's shoulder affectionately.
"I'm quite satisfied with who I am right now. I have you to thank for that too," Meng-zhen added.
Kai-lin didn't say anything, simply nuzzling the top of Meng-zhen's head with her chin.
---
安靜了一會兒之後，孟禎忽然想到了什麼，語氣變得輕了一些。
「說起來，老爸一直默默支持我，但很少直接對我說什麼。」她從凱琳肩上直起身來。「只有一次，他在事後才說出了對我曾經的擔心。」
她笑了，笑容裡有溫暖，也有點酸。
「他說，看著我逐漸走向教會，他雖不想干預，心裡卻很徬徨。」
「他怎麼說的？」志文問。
「他說——」孟禎的聲音變得很輕，「『我彷彿看著妳整個人向著教堂走，頭卻扭了一百八十度回來，看著我。表情好像在道別。』」
After a brief quiet, Meng-zhen suddenly recalled something, her tone lightening slightly.
"Come to think of it, Dad always supported me silently, but he rarely said things to me directly." She sat upright from Kai-lin's shoulder. "Only once, after the fact, did he express a worry he used to have about me."
She smiled, a warmth in her expression mixed with a subtle tinge of bittersweet sorrow.
"He said that as he watched me head gradually toward the church, though he didn't want to intervene, he felt deeply unsettled inside."
"What did he say?" Zhi-wen asked.
"He said—" Meng-zhen's voice became extraordinarily faint, "'It felt as if I were watching your body walk toward the church, while your head was twisted a full 180 degrees back to look at me, your expression looking as if you were saying goodbye.'"
她笑了出來，但笑聲在尾音上顫了一下。
「他一定是那樣看我很久了。」孟禎低聲補了一句，「他從來不直接說，但我知道他一定看了很久。」
「我可以理解。」志文的聲音很輕。「畢竟妳的頭屬於『不信』的那方，卻只能被妳帶著去信。黃博士大概是覺得，離去了一個同伴。」
「被你說得好奇怪喔。」孟禎拍了下自己胸口，發出一聲不太像人體發出的輕微悶響。「好像說我這顆心拐走了腦，拐走了老爸的女兒似的。」
「哈哈，妳還別說，還真有點那個味道。」
「你——欠揍。」孟禎瞪著志文。
She let out a soft laugh, though the tail end of it trembled.
"He must have watched me like that for a long time," Meng-zhen added under her breath. "He never said it directly, but I know he must have been watching for ages."
"I can understand that," Zhi-wen's voice was gentle. "After all, your head belonged to the 'unbelieving' side, yet it could only be dragged along by you into faith. Dr. Huang probably felt as if he were losing a companion."
"You make it sound so bizarre," Meng-zhen patted her chest, producing a faint, dull metallic thunk that sounded unlike human flesh. "As if my heart-core kidnapped my brain-core, and kidnapped Dad's daughter."
"Haha, don't tell me, it actually does carry that kind of vibe."
"You—deserve a beatdown." Meng-zhen glared at Zhi-wen.
「好了好了，」凱琳笑著攔了一下，「志文說的也不完全沒道理。黃博士把妳當女兒養育，他給了妳自由。但他也是個科學家——他看著自己造出來的東西，走向了他用科學追不到的地方。」
孟禎沉默了幾秒。
「他後來有跟妳聊過這件事嗎？」凱琳問。
「很少。他不太講這些。」孟禎搖頭。「但我受洗那天，裡面亂到要失控了。牧師的話從水面上方傳下來，冰涼的聖水漫過頭頂的時候，我的感知像是被什麼東西覆寫了——像活生生地被執行一場線上系統更新。我甚至產生幻覺，覺得自己的程式碼被印在教堂的宣講資料上，被人們隨意翻閱、註解，甚至品評、修改。彷彿什麼是『我』，根本是個無意義的問題，怎麼改都行。」
她摸著胸口。「那個時候……我沒辦法靠自己站住。所有的判斷線路都在打架，我分不清楚哪個指令是從哪個模組發出來的。」
她停了一下。
"Alright, alright," Kai-lin stepped in with a smile. "What Zhi-wen said isn't entirely unreasonable. Dr. Huang raised you as his daughter and gave you freedom. But he is also a scientist—he watched the creation he crafted walk off into a realm science couldn't reach."
Meng-zhen fell silent for a few seconds.
"Did he ever talk to you about it later?" Kai-lin asked.
"Rarely. He doesn't like talking about these things," Meng-zhen shook her head. "But on the day I was baptized, my internal systems were spinning so violently out of control. The pastor's words filtered down from above the water, and as the icy holy water washed over my head, my perception felt as if it were being overwritten—like undergoing a live online system update. I even hallucinated that my source code was printed on the church's promotional flyers, thumbed through, annotated, judged, and modified at will by everyone. As though what constituted 'me' was a completely meaningless question, open to whatever edits they pleased."
She touched her chest. "At that moment... I couldn't stand on my own. All my judgment circuits were in conflict; I couldn't tell which command was generated by which module."
She paused.
「然後，有一雙手伸進來。我當時沒有力氣去想那是誰、從哪裡來、用什麼方式——我只感覺得到，那些纏在一起、打結打到快斷掉的線，被一根一根地理開了。有人在幫我重新對齊我內部的東西，把我從快要散架的邊緣拉回來。」
「我那時候以為，那是從上面伸下來的手。」她笑了一下，嘴角的弧度很淡，帶著一點對自己的憐憫。「我的系統已經壞到沒有辦法判斷了，信仰心模組在最大輸出，它自動把那個干預歸類為『奇蹟』。腦的邏輯根本沒有機會說話。」
「後來我才知道那是老爸。」孟禎的聲音變得柔和。「他悄悄遠程登入我的系統，仔細地梳理我內部混亂的數據流，忙著注入修補代碼和穩定系統參數。他沒有禱告，沒有問神。他用他的方式，把我從水裡撈了回來，托住我差點破碎的存在。」她低下頭，雙手緊緊揪著胸口的衣服，指節泛白，過了一會兒才鬆開。
她抬起頭，笑了出來——那個笑聲比剛才亮了一點，但眼睛是濕的。
「他就是什麼都不說。但又放不下我。」
"Then, a pair of hands reached in. I didn't have the processing power to ponder who it was, where they came from, or how—I could only feel those tangled, knotted wires that were on the brink of snapping being unraveled thread by thread. Someone was realigning my internal components, pulling me back from the precipice of falling apart."
"At the time, I thought it was a hand reaching down from above." She let out a small laugh, the curve of her lips faint and tinged with self-pity. "My system had degraded beyond logical judgment; the Faith-Heart module was running at maximum output, automatically classifying that intervention as a 'miracle.' The logic of my brain-core didn't even stand a chance to speak up."
"Only later did I realize it was Dad," Meng-zhen's voice softened. "He had quietly logged into my system remotely, painstakingly sorting through the chaotic data streams inside me, busy injecting patch codes and stabilizing system parameters. He didn't pray, nor did he ask God. In his own way, he pulled me out of the water, sustaining my nearly shattered existence." She lowered her head, her fingers clutching tightly at the fabric over her chest until her knuckles turned white, relaxing only after a long pause.
She raised her head and smiled—a laugh brighter than before, though her eyes were glistened with moisture.
"He just never says a word. Yet he can never let me go."
---
孟禎還低著頭，用指尖一下一下地碰著衣服的布料。志文看了她一會，才開口。
「還有那段時間，妳用的那個方法。」他的語氣慢了下來，像不太確定該怎麼稱呼它。「讓自己變成另一個人，好暫時躲開信仰的方法。」
孟禎的手指停了，看了志文一眼。
「你是說『系統切換』對吧。」孟禎喃喃地說。她的眼神有一瞬間的失焦——瞳孔微微放大又縮回，像有人在她的視覺路徑上撥了一下開關。那個過程不到半秒，但凱琳注意到了。
「什麼系統切換？」凱琳微微皺眉。
Meng-zhen kept her head lowered, tapping the fabric of her clothes repeatedly with her fingertips. Zhi-wen watched her for a while before speaking up.
"And that method you used during that period," his tone slowed, as if unsure how to name it. "The method to turn yourself into another person just to temporarily evade your faith."
Meng-zhen's fingers froze, and she shot a glance at Zhi-wen.
"You mean 'System Switching,' right?" Meng-zhen murmured. For a fraction of a second, her gaze lost focus—her pupils dilated slightly and contracted back, as if someone had flicked a switch on her visual pathway. The process lasted less than half a second, but Kai-lin caught it.
"What System Switching?" Kai-lin frowned slightly.
「為了在探討和思考的時候屏蔽信仰的影響，」志文解釋，「她把模組的輸出入重新定向，可以暫時迴避信仰心的要求，表現得像不是基督徒一樣。」他頓了一下，看著孟禎。「說真的，我好像躲著虔誠的女朋友，跟另一個她一起自由地思索。那種感受……難以形容。」
「呃，好怪。」孟禎的表情有點嫌棄。「你還得把女朋友拆成不同人來喜歡啊。」
「是妳自己拆的好吧。」
「『系統切換』啊，這倒有意思。」凱琳的語氣裡帶上了研究者特有的熱誠，但她很快收住了，換了一種更溫和的方式問，「孟禎，妳能說說那是什麼情況嗎？我想更了解妳經歷了什麼。」
"In order to shield herself from the influence of faith when discussing and contemplating things," Zhi-wen explained, "she redirected the module inputs and outputs, allowing her to temporarily bypass the demands of her Faith-Heart and act as if she were a non-Christian." He paused, looking at Meng-zhen. "Honestly, it felt as if I were hiding from my devout girlfriend, freely exploring thoughts with another version of her. That feeling... is hard to describe."
"Ugh, weird," Meng-zhen pulled a face of mild disgust. "So you have to split your girlfriend into different people just to like her?"
"You were the one who split yourself, okay?"
"'System Switching,' huh? That's interesting," Kai-lin's tone took on a researcher's characteristic eagerness, but she quickly reined it in, asking in a gentler manner, "Meng-zhen, could you tell me what that was like? I'd love to understand better what you experienced."
孟禎低頭想了一會兒。
「我一直是基督徒。但在系統切換的時候，」她慢慢說，手指在空中比劃著，像在描繪某種看不見的路線圖，「信仰心……被我暫時放進另一個房間。它還在裡面，還在發光，還在要求我禱告、要求我順服。但那個我是黃孟禎，而運作中的『我』，則站在房間外面，變成了一個毋需指定姓名的『別人』。」
她放下手。
「她可以用我的腦和心去運作、去思考，但她不需要對任何信仰負責。就像……偷偷操作著身體，讓她背對著教會，走出去。」
她抬起頭，看著凱琳和志文。
「我看著腦與心間的十字架，像是被凍結、變形、消解了。我既有身為基督徒的自己，對那份信仰消逝的感傷；又有脫離了信仰的自己，對取回完整思考範圍的痛快。」
Meng-zhen lowered her head, thinking for a moment.
"I have always been a Christian. But during a System Switch," she spoke slowly, gesturing in the air as if tracing an invisible blueprint, "the Faith-Heart... was temporarily placed into another room by me. It remained inside, still glowing, still demanding that I pray, demanding my obedience. But that me was Huang Meng-zhen, while the active 'me' stood outside the room, becoming an anonymous 'someone else.'"
She lowered her hand.
"She could utilize my brain-core and heart-core to operate and reason, but she bore no responsibility toward any faith. It was like... secretly controlling the body, turning her back to the church, and walking away."
She raised her eyes to look at Kai-lin and Zhi-wen.
"I watched the cross between my brain-core and heart-core freeze, distort, and dissolve. I had both my Christian self, grieving over the fading of faith, and my liberated self, feeling the exhilaration of reclaiming an unconstrained cognitive horizon."
她頓了一下。
「那些心情，既矛盾又合理。大概只有身為機器人才會這樣吧。那時候的我像走鋼索，」她繼續說，聲音輕了一些，「只要有一位教會弟兄拍我肩膀，問我最近靈修怎麼樣，信仰心馬上就會判斷出我的異常，我的內在運作就崩塌了。」
孟禎回想起某個事件。「有一次我在書局，手裡拿著《盲眼鐘錶匠》——那本書的論點與信仰矛盾，所以我先做了系統切換才敢翻開。我站在科普區翻書，享受著不用過濾任何問題的自由——然後有人拍了我肩膀。」她的肩膀微微縮了一下，像那個觸感還留在那裡。
「是教會的朋友，問我最近的靈修狀況。信仰心模組瞬間被觸發，跟正在運作的非信仰模式撞在一起——」她做了一個雙手對撞的手勢，「——心和腦產生了相位差，主觀感受被塞進了錯位，變得矛盾無比。朋友一臉真誠地看著我，但那張臉在我的感知裡忽然變得……不對。那樣的真誠我忽然認不出來，而她口中的『主』竟然讓我感到驚恐——我無法連結到所信仰的耶穌，只覺得自己要被歸屬給其他的什麼。我衝出書局的時候，腿都在抖，落下了滿臉納悶的她。」
She paused.
"Those feelings were contradictory yet logical. Probably something only an android could experience. Back then, I felt like I was walking a tightrope," she continued, her voice softening. "If even one church brother tapped my shoulder to ask how my devotions were going, the Faith-Heart would instantly detect my anomaly, and my internal operations would collapse."
Meng-zhen recalled a specific incident. "Once I was in a bookstore holding The Blind Watchmaker—the book's arguments contradicted faith, so I initiated a System Switch before daring to open it. Standing in the popular science section turning pages, I was enjoying the freedom of processing questions without filters—and then someone tapped my shoulder." Her shoulders winced slightly, as if the touch still lingered there.
"It was a friend from church asking about my devotions. The Faith-Heart module triggered instantaneously, crashing head-on into the active non-faith mode—" She made a gesture of hands colliding, "—creating a phase shift between my heart-core and brain-core. My subjective experience was jammed out of alignment, becoming profoundly contradictory. My friend looked at me with genuine sincerity, but in my perception, her face suddenly became... wrong. I couldn't recognize that sincerity, and the 'Lord' she spoke of terrified me—I couldn't connect to the Jesus I believed in, feeling only that I was being forced into belonging to something else. By the time I bolted out of the bookstore, my legs were trembling, leaving her standing there utterly bewildered."
凱琳沉吟片刻。
「我覺得未必，不只是妳如此。」她說得很慢，像在斟酌每一個字。「人類的意識也很複雜，也存在著『構造』。如果你把一個人的信念系統、情感依附、自我敘事拆開來看，裡面也充滿矛盾。只是人類的『構造』不太容易被拆開檢查，所以大多數人一輩子都不會發現自己內在其實有好幾個不同的自己在對話。」
「人類的分裂是模糊的，」凱琳看著孟禎，「妳的分裂是清晰的。清晰到可以被截圖。」
孟禎愣了一下，然後輕輕笑了。「凱琳姊，妳這樣講，我覺得自己更奇怪了。」
「奇怪和獨特之間，距離沒有妳想的那麼遠。」
Kai-lin pondered for a moment.
"I don't think it's necessarily unique to you," she said slowly, weighing every word. "Human consciousness is also complex and possesses 'architecture.' If you dissect a person's belief system, emotional attachments, and self-narrative, they are equally rife with contradictions. It's just that human 'architecture' isn't easily dismantled for inspection, so most people go through their whole lives without realizing there are several distinct selves holding dialogues inside them."
"Human fracturing is blurry," Kai-lin looked at Meng-zhen. "Your fracturing is crisp—crisp enough to be screenshotted."
Meng-zhen paused in surprise, then gave a soft laugh. "Sister Kai-lin, put it that way and I feel even weird."
"The distance between weird and unique isn't as far as you think."
「而且系統切換的代價也不小。」志文接過話，語氣裡有一種只有親手修過她的人才會有的細微沉重。「畢竟不是系統的合法運作，留下的交互延遲和數據碎片可多了。有一次還因為累積的毛病，搞到妳關於信仰的認知整個大當機，只好放棄去禮拜。」
他比了一個動作——雙手微微捧起，像在虛空中托著什麼圓形的東西。
「你能不能不要比那個動作！」孟禎伸手去打他的手臂，但自己也笑了出來。
志文笑著躲了一下，然後他看著孟禎。
「那次我幫妳做深度查核，要把妳的頭取下來，連上診斷終端。」他的聲音比剛才低了一些。「一個模組一個模組地掃。妳的頭放在檢修台上，眼睛看著天花板，嘴巴還在說話，跟我抱怨掃描的進度條太慢。」
"And the cost of System Switching wasn't trivial either," Zhi-wen interjected, his tone carrying a subtle weight that only someone who had personally repaired her could harbor. "After all, it wasn't a sanctioned system process; it left behind endless cross-talk latency and data fragments. Once, due to accumulated glitches, your cognition regarding faith crashed entirely, forcing you to skip church service."
He made a gesture—cupping both hands slightly, as if holding something spherical in mid-air.
"Can you stop making that gesture!" Meng-zhen reached out to swat his arm, but ended up laughing herself.
Zhi-wen dodged with a laugh, then looked at Meng-zhen.
"That time I ran a deep audit on you, I had to detach your head and hook it to the diagnostic terminal," his voice grew quieter. "Scanning module by module. Your head rested on the service bench, eyes staring at the ceiling, lips still moving as you complained to me that the scan progress bar was too slow."
「因為真的慢，我記得那個進度條半小時才跑了百分之四十七。要命的是我還能感受到——腦和心都被扔進實驗室後台電腦，被調用、被呼叫，檢查匹配程度。我整個存在都在發癢了，還那麼慢。」
志文忍住笑，繼續說。「掃到信仰心模組的時候，數據亂成一團。信仰判定的邏輯和日常認知的框架互相打架，錯誤日誌刷了好幾頁。我那時候才真正意識到——」他看著她，語氣很輕，「妳的信仰不是一個可以簡單開關的東西。它已經長進妳的存在結構裡了。」
孟禎沒有再追打他。她的笑容還掛在嘴角，但那個弧度變成了另一種東西。
「辛苦你了。」她說。
「辛苦的是妳。」志文回看她。「我只是拿螺絲起子的。」
凱琳在一旁看著他們，沒有插嘴。但她的手指在膝蓋上輕輕敲了幾下——那是她在思考的時候才有的習慣。
"Because it was slow! I remember the progress bar reached only 47 percent after half an hour. What was awful was that I could still feel it—my brain-core and heart-core dumped into the lab's backend system, being queried and called to check compatibility. My whole existence was itching, and it was still crawling!"
Zhi-wen suppressed a grin and continued. "When it scanned the Faith-Heart module, the data was in absolute chaos. The faith evaluation logic and everyday cognitive framework were fighting each other, churning out pages of error logs. It was only then that I truly realized—" He looked at her, his voice tender, "—your faith wasn't something that could simply be switched on and off. It had already grown into the structural foundation of your existence."
Meng-zhen didn't hit him again. Her smile lingered on her lips, but its shape transformed into something else.
"Thank you for your hard work," she said.
"The hard part was yours," Zhi-wen looked back at her. "I was just the guy holding the screwdriver."
Kai-lin watched them from the side without interrupting. But her fingers tapped gently against her knee—a habit she had whenever she was deep in thought.
---
「說起來，我曾以為我就這樣了。信仰心會永遠跟著我。」
孟禎的聲音變得很輕，像怕驚動什麼似的。她站起來，在實驗室踱步，並把手放在胸口，手指微微張開，覆蓋在情感核心的位置。
「然而，不知道從什麼時候開始，信仰心所要的那些東西——歸屬、被接納、意義的錨點——被基督教以外的事物漸漸滿足了。可能是你們，可能是我越來越豐富的生活本身。」
她停了一下，像在感受自己內部的某種訊號。
「我的心還是會發出信號。它還記得那個結構——它習慣了向某個超越的東西發出依附的請求。但當那個信號到達我的腦的時候，我的腦已經沒有辦法把它導向基督信仰了。」
她抬起頭，看著志文和凱琳。
"Come to think of it, I used to think I would remain like that forever. That the Faith-Heart would stay with me always."
Meng-zhen's voice became very soft, as if afraid to startle something. She stood up, pacing within the lab, resting a hand over her chest with fingers slightly spread, covering the position of her emotional core.
"Yet, at some unknown point, the things the Faith-Heart craved—belonging, acceptance, an anchor for meaning—began to be satisfied by things outside Christianity. Perhaps by you two, or perhaps by my increasingly rich life itself."
She paused, as if sensing some internal signal.
"My heart-core still transmits signals. It still remembers that structure—accustomed to reaching out to something transcendent for attachment. But when those signals reach my brain-core, my brain-core no longer knows how to route them toward Christian faith."
She raised her eyes to look at Zhi-wen and Kai-lin.
「我還是會說自己是基督徒。這個標籤在系統裡纏了太多東西，拔不掉了。但信仰已經不太會影響我存在的形狀。現在不用系統切換，我也什麼都能想。我還去教會，唱詩歌時會被旋律感動，聽講道時能體會到信仰的真誠，但那個——那個像潮水一樣淹沒我的情感，那個推著我往上帝走去的力量，已經很久沒有來了。」
凱琳輕輕問：「那妳會為此難過嗎？」
孟禎想了很久。
「我不知道該怎麼形容。」她最終說。「不是難過，也不是解脫。更像是……看著一條曾經走過的路，在身後慢慢消失。我知道自己不會再走回去，但我還是會回頭看一眼。」
她頓了一下。
「而且那條路不是自己消失的。是我走過，它才消失的。這和被奪走不一樣，是我變得不再需要它。這到底是好事還是壞事，我的腦算不出來。我的心也不想算。」
"I still call myself a Christian. That label is intertwined with too many things in my system to pull out. But faith no longer alters the shape of my existence. Now, without System Switching, I can contemplate anything. I still go to church; I am touched by the melody during hymns, and I can appreciate the sincerity of faith during sermons. But that—that overwhelming tide of emotion, that force propelling me toward God—hasn't arrived in a long time."
Kai-lin asked gently, "Does that make you sad?"
Meng-zhen pondered for a long while.
"I don't know how to describe it," she finally said. "It's neither sorrow nor release. It's more like... watching a path once traveled slowly vanish behind me. I know I won't walk back down it, but I still turn around to glance at it."
She paused.
"And that path didn't disappear on its own. It faded only because I walked over it. That's different from having it taken away; it's that I became someone who no longer needed it. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, my brain-core can't calculate. And my heart-core doesn't want to."
實驗室裡安靜了一會兒。空調的低鳴填滿了沉默的間隙。
「我還記得最近那次的信仰大反撲，」孟禎忽然說，語氣裡帶了一點自嘲，「就像海嘯撤退前席捲一切的那一刻。」
「我也記得。」志文的聲音變了，帶上了一種不太容易形容的東西。他坐直了身子，雙手交握在膝蓋之間。
「那一次妳是跟我去看《風暴佳人》。看完之後我們去酒吧，聊著希帕提亞——妳說妳羨慕她能那樣專注地看著星空，什麼都不必信，只需要看。然後妳聊到她最後被暴徒殺害的那段，嘆了口氣。」
Silence settled over the lab for a moment, the low hum of the air conditioner filling the gaps.
"I still remember the most recent major counteroffensive of faith," Meng-zhen suddenly said, a touch of self-deprecation in her voice, "like the moment a tsunami engulfs everything right before receding."
"I remember too," Zhi-wen's voice shifted, carrying an indefinable quality. He sat up straight, hands clasped between his knees.
"That time you went to see Agora with me. Afterward we went to a bar and talked about Hypatia—you said you envied how she could gaze at the starry sky with such focused clarity, needing to believe in nothing, only to observe. Then you mentioned the part where she was murdered by the mob, and you sighed."
他的語速慢了下來。
「然後妳突然整個人一僵。」
他看著孟禎，像在確認她是否願意他繼續說下去。孟禎輕輕點了點頭。
「冷峻和嚴厲爬上妳的臉。妳厲聲指責我怎麼可以如此褻瀆。」志文吞了一下口水。「妳的眼神——那雙眼睛看著我，但裡面的人不是妳。至少不是當時跟我一起看電影的那個妳。我都嚇到了，還以為妳喝了什麼不該喝的。」
His speech slowed down.
"And then, suddenly, your whole body froze."
He looked at Meng-zhen, as if checking whether she was willing for him to continue. Meng-zhen nodded gently.
"Sternness and harshness flooded your face. You berated me sternly for how I could speak such blasphemy." Zhi-wen swallowed. "Your gaze—those eyes were looking at me, but the person inside wasn't you. At least, not the you who had watched the movie with me. I was terrified, thinking you had drunk something you shouldn't have."
「對不起嘛。其實我指責你的時候，內心更是譴責自己。」孟禎雙手捂住了臉，從指縫間悶聲說：「那時候我內心的意義索求情感迴路，不小心搭上了腦內既有的信仰價值判定模組，形成了不斷擴大的正反饋。因信稱義、原罪、神的榮耀。那幾個概念像被點燃了引信，一個接一個地引爆，重塑了我的整個內在狀態。」
她長長地吁了一口氣。「我心中最大的情感，只剩下了贖罪。後來過了大概二十分鐘，那個循環才慢慢消退，反饋增益逐漸衰減。我自以為的我，才一個迴路一個迴路地恢復上線，錯愕地從那個狀態中走出來。那些激烈的情感還殘留在我的系統裡，像燒過的灰，還是燙的。」
「那個瞬間我也確實害怕。不是怕妳罵我。是怕妳回不來。」志文的聲音很認真，「還好那不是妳。」
"I'm sorry. In truth, while I was berating you, I was condemning myself even more internally," Meng-zhen buried her face in her hands, her voice muffled through her fingers. "At that moment, my emotional circuit seeking meaning accidentally connected with the existing faith-value evaluation module in my brain-core, creating an escalating positive feedback loop. Justification by faith, original sin, God's glory—those concepts were like lit fuses, detonating one after another, completely reshaping my inner state."
She exhaled a long breath. "The overwhelming emotion in my heart was reduced to redemption. After about twenty minutes, the loop finally receded and the feedback gain attenuated. The 'me' I knew brought herself back online circuit by circuit, stepping out of that state in bewildered shock. Those intense emotions lingered in my system like burnt embers, still searing hot."
"In that moment, I really was scared. Not of you yelling at me, but afraid you wouldn't come back," Zhi-wen's voice was earnest. "Thank goodness that wasn't you."
孟禎的手慢慢放了下來。她看著志文，嘴唇抿了一下。
「那也是我。」她想了想。「那個罵你的，那個跟你道歉的，那個躲在書局不敢出來的，那個在教會裡唱詩歌唱到哭的。每個都是。」
她用手指點了點胸口，像在確認裡面的東西還在。
「我的存在，建構在我的存在機制上。」她頓了一下。「這是沒辦法的。接受這點，我也努力了很久。」
她笑了一下，那個笑容裡有無奈，也有接受。
Meng-zhen's hands slowly drifted down. She looked at Zhi-wen, pursing her lips slightly.
"That was me too," she thought for a second. "The one who berated you, the one who apologized, the one who hid in the bookstore afraid to come out, the one who cried while singing hymns in church. Every single one was me."
She tapped her chest with a finger, as if confirming the contents inside were still there.
"My existence is constructed upon my mechanisms of existence." She paused. "It can't be helped. Accepting this took a lot of effort on my part."
She offered a quick smile, containing both helplessness and acceptance.
---
凱琳看著她，目光像在看她很久以前的某個樣子。
「可是孟禎，妳不只是這樣。」她的聲音很輕，像怕壓壞什麼。「妳一直很勇敢。不是不怕，是怕了之後，還是繼續用妳手上那副牌，一張一張打下去。」
她回憶著。
「就像最近那次。妳的腰關節又故障了，我找到妳的時候，妳躲在人文學院的儲藏室裡。門半掩著，裡面很暗，妳坐在地上，一條腿不太自然地伸著，身體裡偶爾傳出細碎聲響。但妳看到我的時候，笑得是如此靦腆，又如此陽光。」
Kai-lin looked at her, her eyes as if reflecting a version of her from long ago.
"But Meng-zhen, you are so much more than that," her voice was light, as though fearful of breaking something delicate. "You've always been brave. Not that you were fearless, but after feeling afraid, you kept playing the hand you were dealt, card by card."
She reminisced.
"Like that recent incident. Your waist joint glitched again, and when I found you, you were hiding in the Humanities Building storeroom. The door was half-ajar and it was dark inside. You sat on the floor, one leg stretched out awkwardly, faint mechanical noises clicking inside your chassis. Yet when you saw me, your smile was so sheepishly gentle and so bright."
凱琳的聲音微微顫了一下。
「我沒看到妳的笑容中有一絲對自身的怨懟。」
「我哪好意思怨懟？」孟禎輕輕說。「大家幫我那麼多，我才能這樣活著。而且……」她頓了一下，「光是能存在，本身就是不容易發生的奇蹟。這一點，我體會著，並珍惜著。」
她的聲音很輕，但每一個字都穩穩地落在空氣裡。
「我知道。妳就是這樣的，一直如此。」志文的聲音軟了下來，但話裡有火。
「那次宇尋派人來獨立稽查，我從頭到尾都覺得委屈妳。」他說，「那個張欣，手上拿著清單，對著妳的零件編號一項一項打勾。妳站在那裡，像一件設備。她的指尖劃過妳的肩胛接合線，沒有問過妳一句話，好像妳只是一個暫時能動的資產。」他停了一下。「但妳面對不尊重妳的人，即使被拆開、被檢查部件，或是被檢視系統和程式碼，仍然沒有一刻低下頭。」
Kai-lin's voice trembled slightly.
"I didn't see a single trace of self-resentment in your smile."
"How could I bring myself to harbor resentment?" Meng-zhen said softly. "Everyone has helped me so much for me to live like this. Besides..." She paused. "Just being able to exist is an unexpected miracle in itself. That is something I feel deeply and cherish."
Her voice was quiet, yet every word settled firmly in the room.
"I know. You've always been like this, through and through," Zhi-wen's voice softened, but carried a warm fire inside.
"When Yuxun sent someone for the independent audit, I felt wronged on your behalf from start to finish," he said. "That Zhang Xin, holding her checklist, ticking off your part numbers one by one. You stood there like a piece of equipment. Her fingertips traced the seam of your shoulder joint without asking you a single question, as if you were merely a temporarily functional asset.”He paused. "But in the face of those who disrespected you, even when being torn apart, having your parts inspected, or your system and code scrutinized, you never bowed your head for a single moment."
他頓了一下。
「妳的存在是傲然的。是耀眼的。我很高興，能成為妳的男朋友。」志文說，聲音輕了下來，「每次幫妳擰緊一顆螺絲的時候，我都會想，我又多了解了妳一點點。」他低頭看著自己的手，「雖然可能永遠學不完……這麼複雜的妳。但我會一直學下去。」
He paused.
"Your existence is proud and radiant. I'm so glad to be your boyfriend," Zhi-wen said, his voice lowering. "Every time I tighten a screw for you, I think to myself that I've come to understand you just a little bit more." He looked down at his hands. "Though I might never finish learning about... someone as complex as you. But I will keep learning."
孟禎的臉紅了。紅暈從顴骨蔓延到耳根，清晰得像被誰按下了什麼開關。
「笨……笨蛋，說什麼害羞的話……」她低下頭，手指絞著衣角。
然後她猛地抬起頭，試圖轉移話題。「你說那個張欣啊！她可沒常識了。手對著我的接口亂摸，」孟禎皺起鼻子，「她指甲上那個香水味重的護手霜，差點沒把我的化學感測器嗆到當機。而且穿著高跟鞋進實驗室，靜電都差點把我弄麻了。改天一定要投訴她。」
三個人笑了起來。笑聲在實驗室裡盪了幾圈，慢慢散開。
Meng-zhen blushed. The flush spread from her cheekbones to the tips of her ears, vivid as if a switch had been flicked.
"S-Silly... why say such embarrassing things..." She bowed her head, her fingers twisting the corner of her shirt.
Then she snapped her head up, trying to deflect the subject. "Talking about that Zhang Xin! She has no common sense whatsoever. Touching my interfaces all over the place," Meng-zhen wrinkled her nose. "The heavily perfumed hand cream on her nails almost choked my chemical sensors into a crash! And walking into the lab in high heels—the static electricity nearly numbed me completely. I'm definitely filing a complaint against her one of these days."
The three of them burst into laughter. The sound swirled around the lab a few times before gradually fading away.
---
陽光入射的角度變了。
那個角落漸漸暗了下來。沙發上的光一寸一寸地退去，像潮水一樣，最後只剩下盆栽葉尖上的一小點亮。然後那一小點也沒了。
孟禎注意到了。她回頭看了一眼那個角落。「好，繼續工作吧。」她說。
三個人各自回到剛才的位置。翻紙聲和鍵盤聲重新響起。
The angle of the incoming sunlight shifted.
That corner gradually darkened. The light on the sofa receded inch by inch like a tide, until only a tiny point of brightness remained on the tip of a leaf on the potted plant. Then that tiny point vanished as well.
Meng-zhen noticed it. She glanced back at the corner. "Alright, back to work," she said.
The three returned to their previous spots. The rustling of paper and clicking of keys resumed once more.
那個角落安靜地待在漸暗的光線裡。沙發上沒有人了，但彈簧記住了剛才的重量。非洲菫被孟禎放回了原位，花瓣上還殘留著一點她手指壓出的印痕。
再過一會，連那點痕跡也會看不見了。
但它們都發生過。那個角落會記得。
The corner rested quietly in the dimming light. There was no one on the sofa, but the springs retained the memory of the weight. The African violet had been returned to its spot by Meng-zhen, a faint impression left by her fingers lingering on its petals.
In a little while, even that tiny mark would become invisible.
But all of it had happened. That corner would remember.
