lerbook Chapter 235 The End of Algorithms is Diagnosis
Chapter 235 The End of Algorithms is Diagnosis
At 2 p.m., the temperature in Changxiang City reached its peak.
The asphalt road surface was softened by the heat, and walking on it felt slightly sticky.
A full-size bulletproof SUV with an exaggerated design and a matte black paint job was parked rudely in front of Renxin Pharmacy.
The car door opened, and the first thing to step out was a pair of feet wearing limited-edition collaborative sneakers.
The visitor was named Zhou Yuan, 35 years old, a well-known "algorithm fanatic" in the tech circle. He has participated in the architecture of the underlying big data logic of several leading internet companies in China.
Zhou Yuan was dressed casually, but his body was covered with various technological devices.
On his left wrist he wore a smart watch that monitors heart rate and blood oxygen, on his right wrist he wore a smart ring that calculates calorie consumption, on his collar he had a portable air quality detector, and on his nose he wore a pair of smart glasses with AR display function.
He is like a mobile sensor base station, trying to quantify all his physiological activities with data.
"Is this the place Old Shen praised so highly?" Zhou Yuan pushed open the glass door of the pharmacy, and rows of environmental analysis data immediately flashed on the lenses of his smart glasses: "Temperature 24.5 degrees Celsius, humidity 55%, particulate matter in the air is below the standard value... There is a weak magnetic field interference, but the sulfides in this herbal smell are probably too high, aren't they?"
Wang Minyu sat behind the counter, slowly grinding a Chinese herbal medicine with a small copper millstone.
He didn't even look up when he heard the sound.
"Turn left after you go out, there's a supermarket that sells air purifiers. This is a pharmacy, so if you don't like the smell, just hold your breath."
Zhou Yuan wasn't angry.
He walked to the counter and slammed a thick data report on the table.
"Dr. Wang, right? Shen Wanshan said you have some folk remedies that can completely relax people." Zhou Yuan pulled out a chair and sat down, tapping his fingers on the table. "I'm a data enthusiast. I don't believe in metaphysics like Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, which lack quantitative standards. This is comprehensive physiological monitoring data I've collected over the past three months using wearable devices. It includes my deep sleep curve, sympathetic nerve activity, and daily cortisol fluctuations."
He pointed to a chart highlighted in red on one of the pages and spoke very quickly: "Look here. Every day from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., my brainwaves become abnormally active at high frequencies. The physical symptoms are palpitations, excessive sweating, and mild spatial cognitive confusion. Western medicine cannot find any organic lesions, and psychiatrists recommend psychological intervention. But I know that my 'body firewall' is experiencing an algorithmic conflict when processing the overloaded subconscious data."
Wang Minyu stopped grinding the herbs.
He picked up the report, flipped through a couple of pages, and then tossed it into the nearby trash can without a second thought.
"What are you doing?!" Zhou Yuan's eyes widened.
That was a data model he had painstakingly compiled.
"Just get medical treatment, don't try to fool me with these pieces of waste paper from these machines." Wang Minyu picked up a clean white towel, wiped his hands, and then placed his wrist on the counter. "Hold out your hand."
Zhou Yuan sneered and placed his wrist, adorned with a smartwatch, on the wristband. "Taking my pulse? Fine. I'd like to see what data you can glean from me with those three fingers. My watch's current real-time heart rate is 82 beats per minute; you'd better be accurate."
Wang Minyu extended his index, middle, and ring fingers and placed them on the three points of Zhou Yuan's wrist: cun, guan, and chi.
The moment they made contact, Wang Minyu activated both his [Aura Observation Technique] and [Neural Interaction Protocol] for dual perception.
Instead of sensing the mechanical heartbeats, he directly accessed Zhou Yuan's "bioenergy field".
In Wang Minyu's view, a dense, scrambled gray aura hovered above Zhou Yuan's head.
These air currents collide and entangle with each other, forming a series of closed loops.
"Your pulse is thin and rapid, like pressing on a zither string, and it feels hollow when you touch it." Wang Minyu withdrew his hand, his tone calm. "Your liver wood is in a rebellious state, attacking your spleen earth. To put it simply, your emotions have been in a highly tense and defensive state for a long time, causing a disconnect between your digestive and nervous systems."
Zhou Yuan adjusted his glasses, revealing a string of questioning data analysis reflected on the lenses. "These are all ambiguous TCM terms. Liver Qi stagnation? Why don't you just say my sympathetic nervous system is short-circuited? I need a precise diagnosis, not a metaphor."
"Precise?" Wang Minyu's lips curled into a cold, emotionless smile.
He stood up, walked to the medicine cabinet outside the counter, and opened one of the small drawers.
There lay a tiny bit of S-organ "logic crystal" powder left over from the "dimensional reduction therapy" in the backyard.
This powder is harmless to ordinary people, but it can instantly amplify a person's subconscious morbid pursuit of "order".
Wang Minyu used his fingernail to pick up a tiny bit of powder, flicked it into a teacup, filled it with warm water, and pushed it in front of Zhou Yuan.
"Take a sip of water to moisten your throat. Since you want to be precise, let's talk in a language you can understand."
Zhou Yuan took a sip without any warning.
As soon as he drank the water, he suddenly felt the air around him become thick.
"Your body is indeed like a server." Wang Minyu leaned forward, his hands on the counter, exuding a powerful presence. "But you've made a mistake that programmers dread most—you've activated too many background monitoring programs. Your watch, ring, and glasses constantly send weak electrical currents and data feedback to your brain. Your subconscious is forced to process these useless 'environmental logs' 24/7. This has led to a severe overload on your system's memory."
Zhou Yuan was stunned.
His smart glasses suddenly emitted a piercing alarm.
Due to the weak magnetic field interference emitted by the modified MRI machine in the backyard of Wang Minyu's pharmacy, coupled with the bioelectric fluctuations generated by his own absorption of "logic powder," all the wearable devices on his body simultaneously experienced data conflicts.
"Heart rate...150? Impossible!" Zhou Yuan stared at the soaring numbers on his watch, his face turning deathly pale.
Immediately afterwards, his smart ring showed that his body temperature plummeted to 34 degrees Celsius, while the air quality monitor indicated the presence of deadly toxic gas in the vicinity.
Three completely opposite extreme data points, transmitted through different terminals, were simultaneously and frantically assaulting Zhou Yuan's brain.
"Look, this is the algorithm you rely on." Wang Minyu coldly observed Zhou Yuan's panic. "When the external sensors malfunction, your core logic completely collapses. Your so-called 'precise monitoring' is actually a thick shell you use to escape the perception of reality. You dare not feel your own body; you only dare to believe those cold numbers. Because numbers don't lie, but you yourself do."
The psychological panic caused by data conflicts quickly transforms into a physiological stress response.
Zhou Yuan began to gasp for breath, scratching at his collar with both hands, and he experienced slight hallucinations.
His brain was frantically searching for a plausible explanation to govern this erroneous data, but the logic engine was completely overloaded.
"Ambulance... help..." Zhou Yuan managed to utter a few words.
"Guanshan!" Wang Minyu called out.
Guan Shan strode over, ripped off Zhou Yuan's glasses, watch, and ring, and threw them all into a lead shielding box.
Having lost all data sources, Zhou Yuan was like a vegetable whose internet cable had been cut off and whose senses had been deprived, slumped in a chair, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.
The feeling of weightlessness from losing quantifiable metrics was more despairing to him than the illness itself.
"Now, close your eyes." Wang Minyu's voice carried a strange penetrating power. "Don't think about your heart rate, don't worry about the humidity. Feel your breathing. Inhale, your diaphragm descends; exhale, your alveoli contract. This is the most primitive code, it doesn't need any sensors to prove its existence."
Having lost the crutch of technology and guided by Wang Minyu's words, Zhou Yuan's physical instincts began to take over control.
His breathing gradually stabilized, and the spasms caused by hyperventilation slowly subsided.
Twenty minutes later, Zhou Yuan opened his eyes.
He felt a lightness he had never experienced before.
The tension that had been weighing on him for months, as if a Damocles' sword were hanging over his head, miraculously disappeared.
"What... what happened?" He stared blankly at his empty wrist.
"Physical internet disconnection, plus psychological shock therapy." Wang Minyu sat back down behind the counter. "You're not sick, you're just addicted to data. When the limits of algorithms can no longer explain the complexity of life, you can only turn to metaphysics. The Yin-Yang and Five Elements theory in Traditional Chinese Medicine isn't unscientific, it just uses a chaotic model that your crappy computer can't calculate."
Wang Minyu slammed a printed receipt on the table. "Physical desensitization therapy, plus traditional Chinese medicine internal medicine guidance. Sincerely, 300,000. Also, I will not compensate you for any damage to your junk caused by my magnetic field."
Zhou Yuan looked at the exorbitant bill, then at the scrapped equipment in the lead box, and surprisingly did not object.
He experienced the same fear of being on the verge of collapse as he had just felt, and he also truly felt the relief he felt now.
Data may deceive the senses, but the stretching of the body is real.
His cognitive barriers, which were firmly locked by logic, were finally breached by Wang Minyu's unreasonable treatment methods.
He took out his phone and scanned the QR code to pay.
As the notification sound of a successful transfer rang out, a dense ball of light, filled with awe and relief, detached from Zhou Yuan's head and merged into the starry sky panel in Wang Minyu's vision.
[Emotional personification progress updated. Energy conversion rate of the Spirit Gathering Array increased by 2%.]
"Dr. Wang," Zhou Yuan stood up, his tone less arrogant and more cautious, "I take back what I just said. Your... 'algorithm' is indeed more advanced than mine."
He turned and walked to the door, then suddenly stopped and looked back at Wang Wei, who was meticulously wiping flowerpots in the corner.
"That cleaner..." Zhou Yuan pushed up his non-existent glasses, his eyes flickering, "His motion skeletal animation is flawless; not a single frame is superfluous. If I ran it through my physics engine, it would be a perfect closed loop. Is he also one of your 'treatment devices'?"
"No," Wang Minyu picked up his teacup and blew on the steam, "he's just a humble monk."