The Most Loyal Betrayal and Love Wearing a Crown of Thorns
其一《心靈手術：置神》
Part I: Psychosurgery: Installing God
我遇見她的那晚，空氣裡飄著廉價氣泡酒的甜膩，和年輕人初次見面時那種小心翼翼的期待。
聯歡會上，她獨自坐在角落，指尖沿著杯沿緩緩畫圈，專注的眼神流露出虔誠的味道，動作輕柔得像在祈禱。
說天花板上垂下的裝飾燈串，讓我想起老式科幻片裡的腦波放大器。
她抬起頭，笑了——不是禮貌性的嘴角牽動，而是眼睛先彎成初月，笑意從眼底漫開的那種笑。
「你是第一個沒問我讀什麼系的人。」她說，聲音裡有種鬆了口氣的輕快。
「哲學。」她糾正，笑意更深，像藏著一個秘密，「但高中時真的想過念物理。只是……」她手指無意識地輕觸胸口，一個極其短暫的停頓，「這裡有些東西，物理的公式好像裝不下。它們在問一些……更古老的問題。」
那就是開始。簡單，自然，像兩段原本獨立的代碼意外發現了兼容的介面。
The night I met her, the air was heavy with the cloying sweetness of cheap sparkling wine, mingled with that cautious, tentative anticipation young people carry into a first encounter.
At the mixer, she sat alone in a corner, her fingertip slowly tracing circles along the rim of her glass. There was something almost devout in the focus of her gaze, her movements so gentle they looked like prayer.
The strings of decorative lights hanging from the ceiling reminded me of the brainwave amplifiers in old science-fiction films.
She looked up and smiled—not the polite tug at the corners of the mouth, but the kind where the eyes curve first into a crescent moon, and the warmth spills outward from their depths.
“You’re the first person who didn’t ask me what department I study in,” she said, her voice carrying the lightness of a released breath.
“Philosophy,” she corrected, her smile deepening as if it hid a secret. “But in high school, I really thought about studying physics. It’s just…” Her fingers brushed her chest unconsciously, an almost imperceptible pause. “There’s something here that physics formulas don’t seem able to contain. They keep asking questions that are… older.”
That was how it began. Simple. Natural. Like two independent pieces of code unexpectedly discovering a compatible interface.
---
我們的約會總在認知與情感的邊界地帶遊走。我帶她去科技博物館，站在初代機器人展櫃前，向她解釋這些由齒輪、電線與簡陋關節構成的軀體，如何折射出人類對自身的粗糙模仿與天真嚮往。
她聽得專注，指尖隔著玻璃，描摹機器人那雙不會眨動的眼珠。就在我們轉身離開時，她卻忽然輕聲開口：「可是，會不會正因為不完美，那些試圖理解我們的造物，才顯得格外真摯、格外溫柔？」
我頓住腳步。那一瞬間，我產生了奇異的錯覺：她話語中的「造物」，不再僅僅是我居高臨下審視的機械遺骸。那映在玻璃上的她的側影，彷彿與櫃中的機器人悄然重疊——同為受造之物，以未完成的笨拙姿態，仰望著自身得以存在的遙遠而沉默的源頭。
Our dates always wandered along the borderlands between cognition and emotion. I took her to the science museum, where we stood before a display case of first-generation robots. I explained how these bodies—assembled from gears, wires, and crude joints—reflected humanity’s rough self-imitation and naïve longing.
She listened intently, her fingertip tracing, through the glass, the robot’s unblinking eyes. Just as we turned to leave, she spoke softly:
“But isn’t it precisely because they’re imperfect that those creations trying to understand us seem especially sincere—especially gentle?”
I stopped short. In that moment, I felt a strange illusion take hold: the “creations” she spoke of were no longer merely mechanical relics I examined from on high. Her profile, reflected in the glass, seemed to quietly overlap with the robot inside the case—both created beings, gazing upward in their unfinished clumsiness toward the distant, silent source that allowed them to exist.
她聲音很輕，落在博物館冷白的燈光裡，在我心中漾開一圈持久的漣漪。
至於她，則更常帶我去校園旁的二手書店，在神學論述與存在主義的夾縫中，抽出一本頁緣捲曲的聶魯達詩集。
「你看，」她指尖點著某頁的折角，「這裡寫著『愛是這麼短，遺忘是這麼長』。但下面有人用鉛筆注了一句：『神說：我以永遠的愛愛你。』」
「你更信哪一句？」我問。
她沒有立刻回答。目光在兩行字之間游移，夕陽穿過書架，將空氣中的塵埃照成浮動的金粉。
「我相信，」她許久才開口，聲音輕得像怕驚動書頁間的靈魂，「折角的人曾經很認真地活過。」她合上書。
Her voice was light, suspended in the museum’s cold white lighting, sending a lingering ripple through my heart.
As for her, she more often took me to a secondhand bookstore near campus. From the narrow gap between theological treatises and existentialist works, she pulled out a dog-eared volume of Neruda’s poetry.
“Look,” she said, tapping a folded page corner. “Here it says, ‘Love is so short, forgetting is so long.’ But someone wrote beneath it in pencil: ‘God says: I have loved you with an everlasting love.’”
“Which line do you believe?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze drifted between the two lines as the setting sun filtered through the shelves, turning the dust in the air into floating gold.
“I believe,” she finally said, her voice so soft it seemed afraid of disturbing the souls between the pages, “that the person who folded this corner once lived very earnestly.” She closed the book.
---
三個月後一個濕冷的雨夜，她第一次邀我去教會的青年團契。雨水順著彩繪玻璃流淌，將聖徒悲憫的面容暈染成一片朦朧的光暈。她坐在我身邊，在牧師講述「因信稱義」的奧秘時，她的膝蓋不經意地輕碰我的。當眾人低頭禱告，她卻悄悄攤開我的掌心，用指尖寫下：「餓了。結束帶你去吃巷口的擔擔麵。」
那晚的麵館熱氣蒸騰。她談起家庭，語氣平常得像在描述天氣：父親是無神論的工程師，理性、開明，給她買科普讀物，教她用望遠鏡認星座。母親是第三代基督徒，信仰之於她，不是一套需要辯護的教義，而是一種呼吸的節奏——像夜裡為發燒的她額頭敷上毛巾時，口中低聲的禱告；像每週通話結束前，那句永不缺席的「願神看顧你」。
「媽媽從不和我討論神是否存在，」她攪動碗裡的麵，「她只是……活在那種確信裡。小時候我覺得那很遙遠，像另一個世界的語言。但現在……」她停下筷子，眼神有些放空，「現在我好像慢慢聽懂了。」
「聽懂什麼？」
「聽懂那種……『被接住』的感覺。」她笑了笑，「我還沒受洗，但總覺得有一天會。就像……」她尋找著詞彙，「就像完成某個必要步驟。」
「必要步驟？」我重覆這個詞。
「嗯。好像人生有個清單，從一開始就寫好了待辦事項，而受洗是其中一項。」她抬眼，「你會覺得奇怪嗎？」
Three months later, on a damp, cold rainy night, she invited me for the first time to her church’s youth fellowship. Rain streamed down the stained glass, blurring the compassionate faces of the saints into halos of light. She sat beside me; as the pastor spoke of the mystery of justification by faith, her knee brushed mine by accident. When everyone bowed their heads in prayer, she quietly opened my palm and wrote with her fingertip: “I’m hungry. After this, I’ll take you to get dandan noodles at the alley corner.”
That night, the noodle shop steamed with heat. She spoke of her family in a tone as casual as describing the weather. Her father was an atheist engineer—rational, open-minded—who bought her popular science books and taught her to identify constellations with a telescope. Her mother was a third-generation Christian; to her, faith was not a doctrine to be defended, but a rhythm of breathing—like the whispered prayers when she pressed a towel to her feverish forehead at night, or the words that never failed to end their weekly calls: “May God watch over you.”
“My mom never debates whether God exists with me,” she said, stirring her noodles. “She just… lives inside that certainty. When I was little, it felt distant, like a language from another world. But now…” She set down her chopsticks, her eyes unfocused. “Now I think I’m slowly beginning to understand it.”
“Understand what?”
“That feeling of… being caught.” She smiled faintly. “I’m not baptized yet, but I feel like one day I will be. Like…” She searched for words. “Like completing a necessary step.”
“A necessary step?” I echoed.
“Yeah. As if life came with a checklist written from the very beginning, and baptism is one of the items.” She looked up at me. “Does that sound strange to you?”
「不會。」我說的是實話。那時的我只將這視為一個迷人的認知課題：一個擁有哲學思辨與科學直覺的聰慧心靈，將如何安頓自己於一個漏洞百出的古老體系？我以為這會是一場充滿辯證的漫長內心戲。
我沒意識到，對她而言，這從來不是一場需要勝負的辯論，而是一趟早已標好終點站的歸途。
“It doesn’t,” I said truthfully. At the time, I treated it as a fascinating cognitive problem: how would a brilliant mind, armed with philosophical rigor and scientific intuition, settle itself within an ancient system riddled with flaws? I assumed this would become a long inner drama full of dialectics.
I didn’t realize that for her, it had never been a debate that required winners or losers, but a homeward journey whose final station had already been marked.
---
春天結束時，某種平衡開始傾斜。她提起「受洗」的次數變多，眼神裡閃爍著混合期待與告別的微光。
某個午後，她興奮地將手機屏幕遞到我眼前，上面是一節經文：「你看，羅馬書8:28——『萬事都互相效力，叫愛神的人得益處。』我們相遇，說不定也是這神的計劃中所賜予的呢。」
As spring came to an end, a certain balance began to tilt. She mentioned “baptism” more often now, a glimmer in her eyes that mixed anticipation with farewell.
One afternoon, she excitedly held her phone up to me. On the screen was a verse: “Look—Romans 8:28: ‘All things work together for good to those who love God.’ Our meeting might also be something granted within God’s plan.”
我的胃輕微收縮。「你是說，」我努力讓聲音聽起來輕鬆，甚至帶點玩笑，「我們坐在這裡，甚至我剛才抱怨這杯咖啡酸得像過期果汁——這些瑣碎到微不足道的瞬間，都是某個宏大敘事裡被預先編寫好的情節？」
「不是『編寫』，」她認真地糾正，語氣裡沒有被冒犯，只有一種嘗試搭建理解橋樑的耐心，「是『被允許』。是在無數混亂的可能性中，神溫柔引導出的一條路徑。」
她端起自己的那杯茶，熱氣氤氳上她的雙眼，讓她的目光看起來有些朦朧。
「就像雙狹縫干涉實驗，」她繼續說，聲音帶著她談論喜愛事物時特有的情緒，「單一光子穿過狹縫時，它的未來本是機率的迷霧，充滿無數可能的分佈。但最終它總會落在上某個點上。」
她放下杯子，指尖在桌面上輕輕一點，彷彿在那裡標記了座標。
「我們就像那兩顆光子。在相遇之前，各自有著近乎無限的可能軌跡。但有一位超越了物理存在，祂的『觀察』——或者稱之為恩典，讓我們波函數的疊加態，」她又點了一下桌面，「坍縮成了我們的相遇。這不是強制性的安排，是最溫柔的引導，引導至最美好的結果。」
My stomach tightened slightly. “You mean,” I tried to keep my tone light, even joking, “that us sitting here—me just now complaining that this coffee tastes like expired juice—these moments so trivial they barely register, are all scenes prewritten into some grand narrative?”
“Not ‘written,’” she corrected gently, without offense, only patient bridge-building. “Permitted. Among countless chaotic possibilities, God tenderly guides one path into being.”
She lifted her tea; steam fogged her eyes, softening her gaze.
“It’s like the double-slit experiment,” she continued, her voice carrying the particular emotion she had when speaking of things she loved. “When a single photon passes through the slits, its future is a probabilistic fog, full of countless possible distributions. But in the end, it always lands on one point.”
She set the cup down and tapped the table lightly, as if marking a coordinate.
“We’re like those two photons. Before we met, each of us had nearly infinite possible trajectories. But there is one who transcends physical existence; His ‘observation’—or call it grace—caused the superposition of our wavefunctions,” she tapped the table again, “to collapse into our meeting. It isn’t coercion. It’s the gentlest guidance, toward the most beautiful outcome.”
我聽得喉嚨發緊。她用關於世界如何運作的語言，編織成一條我無法踏上的路徑，通往我拒絕抵達的終點。她的聰慧與洞察力，是我欣賞甚至為之著迷的寶藏，然而此刻正成為她走向那條路的註腳。
她沒有試圖說服我，純粹在描述她所見的世界圖景，只是這圖景讓我有著深深地遺憾。
我第一次感覺到那堵牆的存在——透明無形，卻堅實地立在我們之間。牆的那邊，她的世界開始被一套我無法共享的語法重新編譯。
我開始失眠，腦中反覆播放她談論信仰時的神情：那不是被說服的篤定，而是回家般的安然。這份安然，卻不講道理地刺痛著我。
My throat tightened as I listened. Using the language of how the world works, she was weaving a path I could not step onto, leading to an endpoint I refused to reach. Her intelligence and insight—treasures I admired, even adored—were now becoming footnotes to her journey down that path.
She wasn’t trying to persuade me, merely describing the world as she saw it. And that vision filled me with an indescribable regret.
For the first time, I felt the wall between us—transparent, invisible, yet solidly standing there. On the other side, her world was being recompiled in a grammar I could not share.
I began to lose sleep, replaying her expression whenever she spoke of faith. It wasn’t the certainty of someone convinced, but the calm of someone coming home. And that calm, irrationally, pierced me with pain.
---
七月，她平向我宣告了那個決定，像一個早已排定的行程。
「就在下個月，」她說。眼睛裡閃爍的光，是一種混合體——期待新生的熱切，與向舊日告別的溫柔，「我想請你……陪我走完這最後一段路。受洗的前一夜，你能來教堂嗎？就我們兩個人。」
In July, she announced the decision to me plainly, like an itinerary long since set.
“Next month,” she said. The light in her eyes was a composite—eager anticipation of rebirth, and a tender farewell to the past. “I want to ask you… to walk this last stretch with me. The night before the baptism, could you come to the church? Just the two of us.”
「去做什麼？」我極力壓下聲音中的顫抖。
她沉默了幾秒，目光越過我，投向某個看不見的遠方。然後，用極輕卻像螺絲擰緊最後一圈般的聲音訴說著確定：「我要把我自己委託給你。由你來……幫我完成最後的步驟，護送我成為神的兒女。」她似乎察覺到我的僵硬，聲音放得更柔，「我有點緊張，」她承認，「但也感到安心。終於要對齊了。」
「對齊什麽？」
「我的裡面。」她語氣更輕，「那些一直有點歪斜的部分。對世界的疑問，對愛的渴望，對永恒的想象……受洗後，它們會有一個共同的坐標原點。我終於要和自己真正的模樣完整重合。」聲音安寧柔和，但她的輪廓似乎有輕微的抖動，像精密儀器啟動前，內部元件接受最後的調整。
“To do what?” I struggled to suppress the tremor in my voice.
She was silent for a few seconds, her gaze passing beyond me toward some unseen distance. Then, in a voice so light yet so final—like tightening the last turn of a screw—she spoke with certainty:
“I want to entrust myself to you. I want you to… help me complete the final step, to escort me into becoming a child of God.” She seemed to notice my rigidity and softened her voice further. “I’m a little nervous,” she admitted, “but I also feel at ease. It’s finally going to align.”
“Align what?”
“My inside,” she said softly. “The parts that have always been slightly askew. My questions about the world, my longing for love, my imagination of eternity… after baptism, they’ll share a single origin point. I’ll finally coincide completely with who I truly am.” Her voice was serene and gentle, yet her outline seemed to quiver faintly, like the internal components of a precision instrument making their final adjustments before activation.
她看向我，目光清澈見底，卻映不出我此刻驚濤駭浪的倒影。
「雖然教會有牧師可以施洗，但只有你……我只想把『這一刻』的我，託付給你。再由你，交給上帝。」她臉上掠過一絲絲彷彿不被允許的惋惜，「我期待被完成，但被完成『之前』的這個我，」她按住自己心口，像按下一個暫停鍵，「只想，也只能留在你這裡。」
那一刻我徹底明白，我無法拒絕。
She looked at me, her gaze clear to the bottom—yet reflecting none of the storm raging within me.
“Even though the church has pastors who can baptize,” she said, “only you… I only want to entrust ‘this moment’ of myself to you. And then, from you, hand me over to God.” A trace of something like forbidden regret flickered across her face. “I look forward to being completed. But the me ‘before’ completion—” she pressed a hand to her chest, like hitting a pause button, “only wants to, and can only, remain here with you.”
In that moment, I understood completely: I could not refuse.
不是因為我認同，而是因為我已然沉陷。沉陷在對她的愛裡，沉陷在對即將被「對齊」、被「重合」的她的不捨裡，更沉陷在一種瘋狂啃噬心臟的衝動中——內心有個聲音在嘶吼，想不顧一切地把她從那扇即將關閉的門裡拽出來。
然而，當我凝視她的眼睛，我面前的路，彷彿也在那一刻被無形的力量坍收束。只剩下唯一一條，筆直地通向那座教堂，通向那張我必須親手將她交付出去的儀式台。
這不是上帝的預定。
是她。是她親手，為我們兩人鋪設了這條單行道。
Not because I agreed, but because I was already sunk. Sunk in my love for her. Sunk in my reluctance to let go of the her who was about to be “aligned,” to “coincide.” And sunk even deeper in a frenzied impulse gnawing at my heart—a voice screaming inside me, wanting to drag her back at all costs from the door that was about to close.
Yet when I met her eyes, the road before me seemed, in that instant, to collapse under some invisible force. Only one path remained—straight toward that church, toward the altar where I would have to place her there with my own hands.
This was not God’s predestination.
It was her.
She herself laid this one-way road for the both of us.
---
午夜的教堂沒了人群的溫度，水泥牆吐出積蓄的冰冷。彩繪玻璃在月光下是失血的標本，聖像的面容隱沒在暗處，只剩輪廓——像等待被啟動的程式介面。
她領我走進來，腳步聲被地毯吞噬。白色棉衫，深色碎花裙，褐色的平底涼鞋。除了環繞頸部的十字架項鍊，沒有多餘裝飾，單純得像盼望被牧養的羔羊。頭髮紮成高馬尾，露出後頸乾淨的弧線。
「就是這裡。」她說，聲音在穹頂下擴散成細小的回聲。
The midnight church lacked the warmth of a crowd; the concrete walls exhaled an accumulated chill. Under the moonlight, the stained glass looked like bloodless specimens, and the faces of the icons vanished into the shadows, leaving only outlines—like a system interface waiting to be booted up.
She led me inside, her footsteps swallowed by the carpet. A white cotton shirt, a dark floral skirt, and brown flat sandals. Aside from the crucifix necklace around her neck, there was no extra adornment—as pure as a lamb waiting to be shepherded. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, revealing the clean curve of her nape.
"This is it," she said, her voice diffusing into tiny echoes under the dome.
儀式桌橫在聖壇前。她沒有詢問我願不願意，直接躺了上去——也許在我遇見她時，這已註記在清單裡。
皮膚接觸到冰涼桌面的瞬間，她輕微顫抖。不是寒冷，是興奮。
「幫我打開。」她說。
「哪裡？」
「全部。」她微笑，那笑容乾淨得殘忍，「你知道怎麼做，你一直都知道。」
我的指尖觸及她鎖骨之間那隱微的接縫起點。皮膚溫熱，底下傳來細密規律的搏動，那是生命運轉的噪聲。輕輕按壓，接縫順從地啟開，從鎖骨向下延伸，沿胸骨中線，一路漫至胸腹交界的柔軟處。她的胸膛，如如含苞的花朵，在暗夜中綻放。
胸膛內，心臟靜懸中央，大理石般地細膩光滑。兩道光在其中盤旋交纏：一道是我熟悉的暖黃——那些共度的記憶、短暫分離後緊緊的擁抱、深夜並肩仰望過的星圖；另一道卻是陌生的銀白，微弱卻頑固，如初生的藤蔓纏繞著她的光——那是自她踏入教會後，悄然滋長的「信的可能」。
「很美吧？那兩道光。」她的聲音從敞開的胸膛深處傳來，經由腔體共鳴，裹上一層輕微的失真。
「嗯。」我機械地回應，心中有聲音低語：那道銀白，本不該在此。
A ritual table stood before the altar. She didn't ask if I was willing; she simply lay down upon it—perhaps this had been noted on the checklist since the day I met her.
The moment her skin touched the cold surface of the table, she shivered slightly. Not from cold, but from excitement.
"Help me open it," she said.
"Where?"
"Everything." She smiled, a smile so clean it was cruel. "You know how. You've always known."
My fingertips touched the subtle starting point of the seam between her collarbones. The skin was warm, and beneath it came a fine, rhythmic pulsation—the noise of life in operation. With a gentle press, the seam parted obediently, extending down from the collarbones, along the midline of the sternum, all the way to the soft junction of the chest and abdomen. Her chest bloomed in the dark night like a budding flower.
Inside her chest, her heart hung silently in the center, as delicate and smooth as marble. Two lights spiraled and intertwined within it: one was the warm yellow I knew well—the memories we shared, the tight hugs after brief separations, the star maps we looked at side-by-side late at night; the other was a foreign silver-white, faint yet stubborn, like a newborn vine entangling her light—the "possibility of faith" that had quietly grown since she stepped into the church.
"Beautiful, isn't it? Those two lights." Her voice came from deep within her open chest, wrapped in a slight distortion as it resonated through the cavity.
"Yes," I replied mechanically, while a voice whispered in my heart: That silver-white light shouldn't be here.
「幫我把心取出吧。」
我頓了三秒。指尖探入，觸及那枚搏動的寶器。它在我掌心顫動，暖黃與銀白的光暈自指縫間滲溢。當我將它托出體外時，她的身體猛地一震，逸出一聲短促的「啊」——彷彿是對即將獻祭的那部分自己的輕柔告別。
我將心臟輕輕安放在她敞開的胸腔上方，那空洞彷彿成了盛載它的聖杯。離體的心仍在跳動，規律如初，像獨自存活的胚胎。
讓我得親手拆開她的，難道就是這顆心嗎？蟄伏的怒意，沉在我竭力維持的平靜之下。
「你的手……好溫柔。我的心，都感覺到了。」她低語，聲音穿透我隱藏心思的鎧甲，「接著是頭部。也交給你了。」
我繞到桌子頂端。她的眼睛望著我，清醒，全然信任——信任得像綁縛我的繩索。手指在她頸側找到第二道細微接縫，輕輕觸碰，皮膚便如接獲神諭的紅海般自動分離，露出海底乾地般的銀灰色接口。
手指探入接口，微弱的電流竄過指尖，彷彿是她無聲的催促，也是我遲到的贖罪。我捧住她的臉頰，順著接口旋轉。
喀噠。解鎖的聲音很輕，卻像某種終結的宣判。
頭顱與身體分離。「她」與「她」，成了兩片；而我的心，也裂成兩塊。
我捧著她的臉，她的眼睛還在眨。
"Take out my heart for me."
I paused for three seconds. My fingertips reached in, touching that pulsating treasure. It vibrated in my palm, warm yellow and silver-white auras seeping through the gaps of my fingers. As I lifted it from her body, she jolted, a short "ah" escaping her—as if a gentle farewell to the part of herself about to be sacrificed.
I placed the heart gently above her open thoracic cavity; the void seemed to become a chalice to hold it. The heart, though removed, continued to beat with its original rhythm, like a self-sustaining embryo.
Was it this heart that I had to dismantle with my own hands? A latent fury lay beneath the calm I struggled to maintain.
"Your hands… are so gentle. My heart can feel it," she whispered, her voice piercing the armor of my hidden thoughts. "Next is the head. I leave that to you as well."
I moved to the head of the table. Her eyes looked at me, clear and completely trusting—a trust that felt like the ropes binding me. My fingers found the second subtle seam at the side of her neck. With a light touch, the skin separated automatically like the Red Sea receiving a divine oracle, revealing the silver-gray interface like dry seabed.
I reached into the interface. A faint current surged through my fingertips, like her silent urging, or perhaps my belated atonement. I cradled her cheeks and rotated along the interface.
Click. The sound of the unlock was faint, yet it felt like a final sentence being pronounced.
The head was separated from the body. "She" and "she" became two pieces; and my heart, too, split in two.
I held her face. Her eyes were still blinking.
「重嗎？」她問。
「比想像中輕。」
「因為真正有份量的，還沒裝進來。」她笑出聲，笑聲在空蕩的教堂裡迴盪，詭異而純真，「放上去吧，你知道該放在哪裡。」
該？誰的該？信仰的該，還是愛的該？
我沒有問出口，只是將她的頭顱，放上了那個「該」的位置。
聖壇左側，信仰輸入終端早已啟動。銀白色的機身如碑，螢幕流動著幽藍的光，宛如摩西手中那塊承載誡命的石版。數條神經光纖從終端延伸而出，末端輕觸著儀式桌上的支架基座。
"Is it heavy?" she asked.
"Lighter than I imagined."
"Because the truly weighty part hasn't been installed yet." She laughed, her laughter echoing in the empty church, eerie and innocent. "Put it on. You know where it belongs."
Belongs? According to whom? The "should" of faith, or the "should" of love?
I didn't ask. I simply placed her head onto the position where it "should" be.
To the left of the altar, the faith input terminal had already booted up. Its silver-white body was like a monument, the screen flowing with a ghostly blue light, reminiscent of the stone tablets Moses held that carried the commandments. Several neural optical fibers extended from the terminal, their tips lightly touching the base of the stand on the ritual table.
螢幕上，系統界面冷酷地顯示：
[待安裝套件：基督教信仰體系 V2.0]
包含：創世敘事、原罪架構、救贖協議、末世預期
搭配情感組件：無條件愛、敬畏、盼望、歸屬感
是否安裝？ [Y/N]
我舉起她的頭顱，斷面處的接口規律閃爍，像一顆等待點亮的新星。回頭望向她平躺的身軀——頸部斷口處纜線微微顫動，彷彿在向即將啟程的頭顱無聲揮別。
原來是這樣。
她早已將自己全然預備好，成為信仰完美的容器。而她指定我，唯獨我能執行這場安裝。彷彿只有透過我的手，她對我的愛與她對神的信，才能在聖壇前取得某種悲哀的和解；彷彿唯有如此，這段感情才不會被視為對神的褻瀆，反而能成為奉獻的一部分。
On the screen, the system interface coldly displayed:
[Package to be installed: Christian Faith System V2.0]
Includes: Creation Narrative, Original Sin Framework, Salvation Protocol, Eschatological Expectations.
Accompanied by Emotional Modules: Unconditional Love, Awe, Hope, Sense of Belonging.
Install? [Y/N]
I lifted her head, the interface at the neck pulsing rhythmically like a new star waiting to be ignited. I looked back at her prone body—the cables at the neck stump vibrated slightly, as if waving a silent goodbye to the head about to depart.
So this was it.
She had already prepared herself completely to be the perfect vessel for faith. And she had designated me—only me—to execute this installation. It was as if only through my hands could her love for me and her faith in God achieve some tragic reconciliation before the altar; as if only in this way would this relationship not be seen as a blasphemy against God, but rather a part of the offering.
我閉上眼，深深吸了口氣，再緩緩吐出，然後將她的頭顱安置在支架上。
神經光纖如活物般自動尋路，精準接入她頸部的接口。一陣微光掠過她的臉龐，她的睫毛輕輕顫動，如同即將甦醒，或是沉入另一場永不醒來的夢。
「準備好了嗎？」我對著那顆曾自認是「我的她」的頭顱詢問——仍是她的面容，卻將成為某種龐然巨構的容器。聲音是茫然的，明知不會被回應，卻還是拋出了試探，徒勞地奢望一絲否決的可能。
「一直在等這一刻。」她閉上眼，答得平靜而堅決，如同早已寫入底層代碼的指令。那聲音擊碎了我最後的微薄幻想。「幫我按下吧。」
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and then set her head onto the stand.
The neural fibers sought their own path like living creatures, precisely plugging into the interface of her neck. A flicker of light crossed her face, and her eyelashes fluttered as if she were about to wake up, or perhaps sink into another dream from which she would never wake.
"Are you ready?" I asked the head that I once considered "my she"—it still bore her face, yet was about to become a vessel for some colossal construct. My voice was hollow; I knew there would be no answer, yet I threw out the probe anyway, vainly longing for a shred of a refusal.
"I’ve been waiting for this moment." She closed her eyes, answering with a firm tranquility, like an instruction already written into the low-level code. That voice shattered my last thin illusion. "Press it for me."
顫抖的手指按下了 [Y]，聖經經文開始流入——那個「聖」字顯得如此荒謬，像精心編排的出軌，而我被迫在場見證。
首先是《創世記》。光的文字噴湧，在流動中構造出極為真實的虛影：樹、蛇、禁果、逐出伊甸的全息動畫。資料傾瀉進她的海馬體，覆蓋、改寫、置換，逐出她原本對這個身處的世界的認知。我看見她的眼球在眼皮下快速顫動，像在經歷一場由他人編寫的清醒夢。
「起初，神創造天地……」她輕聲覆誦，聲音裡竟有一種初次理解的顫慄——即便這經文她早已聽過百遍。這顫慄是設計好的嗎？是被預期的反應嗎？
接著是律法書、歷史書、詩篇、先知書。教義架構開始生根：罪成為底層邏輯，救贖成為強制性系統需求。她的臉龐成為變化的畫布：困惑、頓悟、痛苦。《約伯記》流入時，她眉間緊鎖；《雅歌》掠過時，她唇角漾開微笑——每一種表情都如此真實，真實得令我懷疑若這是必然，那此刻的她是否虛假？
With a trembling finger, I pressed [Y]. Biblical verses began to flow—the word "holy" seemed so absurd, like a meticulously choreographed betrayal, and I was forced to be the witness.
First came Genesis. Words of light gushed out, constructing vivid phantoms in their flow: trees, the serpent, the forbidden fruit, a holographic animation of the expulsion from Eden. Data poured into her hippocampus, overwriting, rewriting, and replacing her original perception of the world she inhabited. I saw her eyeballs darting rapidly under her lids, as if she were experiencing a lucid dream scripted by another.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..." she recited softly, her voice carrying a tremor of first-time understanding—even though she had heard these verses a hundred times before. Was this tremor designed? Was it an expected reaction?
Then came the Books of Law, History, Psalms, and the Prophets. The doctrinal framework began to take root: Sin became the underlying logic; Salvation became a mandatory system requirement. Her face became a canvas of change: confusion, epiphany, pain. When the Book of Job flowed in, her brow furrowed; when the Song of Solomon swept past, a smile graced her lips—each expression so real that I began to wonder: if this was inevitable, was the current "her" a falsehood?
與此同時，聖壇上方的十字型裝置，射下一束光柱，對準她敞開胸腔中那顆懸立的心臟。那光不像祝福，更像審問——像要拷問這顆心：你如何償還那為你被釘穿的代價？
可那是她的心啊，是會為我跳動的那顆心。
我抬手掩面，掌心之下，五官扭曲成無聲的抗拒。但光不會顧及我，它開始照射。
那不是普通的光，是編碼過的情感頻譜——「被愛的確定」、「被赦免的輕盈」、「歸屬的暖意」。光柱籠罩心臟，銀白色的部分如獲生命般增殖、蔓延，像光合成長的神聖菌落。暖黃色的愛之光仍在搏動，卻逐漸被銀白包裹、滲透、分解，並重新詮釋。
心臟跳動的節奏改變了。更規律，更強勁，每一次收縮都伴隨銀光的漣漪。
「我……感覺到了……」她的頭顱在支架上說，聲音裡有被注入了虔誠的陌生音色，「祂在觸碰我。」
Simultaneously, the cross-shaped device above the altar cast down a pillar of light, aimed directly at the heart suspended in her open chest. That light didn't feel like a blessing; it felt like an interrogation—as if demanding of this heart: How will you repay the price of the one who was pierced for you?
But that was her heart—the heart that would beat for me.
I covered my face with my hands. Beneath my palms, my features distorted in silent resistance. But the light spared me no thought; it began its irradiation.
It wasn't ordinary light; it was a spectrum of encoded emotions—"the certainty of being loved," "the lightness of being forgiven," "the warmth of belonging." The pillar of light enveloped the heart, and the silver-white portion proliferated and spread like a sacred colony of photosynthetic growth. The warm yellow light of love still pulsed, but it was gradually encased, permeated, decomposed, and reinterpreted by the silver.
The rhythm of the heartbeat changed. It became more regular, more forceful, each contraction accompanied by ripples of silver light.
"I… I can feel it…" her head said from the stand, her voice carrying a stranger’s tone infused with piety. "He is touching me."
在她被重寫的大腦和被轉化的心臟間，我曾經自豪並珍視的一切，都顯得蒼白無力。她的存在契約裡，早就在大段條款的角落，悄悄註明將屬於基督，連她都不知情。她的自由，她與我的相遇和相愛，甚至她的懷疑與探索，以及她那些還來不及問出的哲學問題——都不過是「交付前」的過渡狀態。我只是恰好出現在「交付」前的空檔，誤以為自己擁有保管她的資格。
Between her rewritten brain and her transformed heart, everything I once prided myself on and cherished seemed pale and powerless. In her contract of existence, it had long been quietly noted in some corner of the fine print that she would belong to Christ, even without her knowing it. Her freedom, her meeting and loving me, even her doubts and explorations, and those philosophical questions she hadn't yet asked—they were all but transitional states "prior to delivery." I just happened to appear in the gap before the "delivery," mistakenly thinking I was qualified to keep her.
不，連這誤會都是契約的一部分——我的感情、我的不甘、我此刻站在這裡的無力，都不過是這份文件末尾的見證人簽章：一個註定被覆蓋的臨時名字。
「約翰福音三章十六節，」她背誦，聲音充滿了發現「真理」的激動，「神愛世人，甚至將祂的獨生子賜給他們，叫一切信祂的，不至滅亡，反得永生。」
心臟的銀白光芒應和她的話語，同步脈動。大腦接收的教義概念與心臟載入的情感編碼，正建立即時連結——信，從此不再只是認知，而是全身心的共振，是對世間一切存在意義的重新校準。
而我也在這世間裡，即將被重新丈量。
「羅馬書十章九節，」她繼續，語速加快，「你若口裡認耶穌為主，心裡信神叫祂從死裡復活，就必得救。」
心臟劇烈一跳，銀光幾乎吞噬了所有暖黃，彷彿晚霞被夜色吞沒。
我注視著胸腔上的那顆心。我們的愛還在裡面，我知道，但它已被鑲嵌進一個更宏大的框架中——愛不再是終點，而是神恩存在的證明；不再是兩人間的私密契約，而是神聖計畫的副產品；不再純然朝向我，而將永遠詰問著我：我是否配得上帝所允諾的那份愛？
No, even this misunderstanding was part of the contract—my feelings, my resentment, my powerlessness standing here now, were nothing more than the witness's signature at the end of this document: a temporary name destined to be overwritten.
"John 3:16," she recited, her voice filled with the excitement of discovering "Truth," "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
The heart gave a violent thump, the silver light almost swallowing all the warm yellow, like the dusk being consumed by night.
I stared at the heart above her chest. Our love was still in there, I knew, but it had been inlaid into a grander framework—love was no longer the destination, but the proof of the existence of divine grace; no longer a private contract between two people, but a byproduct of a sacred plan; no longer purely directed at me, but forever questioning me: Am I worthy of the love promised by God?
系統提示音響起，「安裝完成度98%。」
我走向輸入終端。即將是最後一步：人格設定覆寫。
螢幕浮現待確認的選項，每一個都像終審判決：
[1] 自我認知: 「罪人，蒙恩得救」
[2] 終極忠誠: 「歸屬於神，身體是聖靈的殿」
[3] 世界解釋: 「一切事件有神的美意」
[4] 關係架構: 「愛神優先，愛人如己」
我的手被兩種力量拉扯——她對我的愛殘存的引力，以及我對她願望那近乎自毀的忠誠。它們共同操控著我的手臂，逐一按下她渴望的確認。
在「罪人蒙恩」被寫入的瞬間，她的瞳孔急遽收縮，像被無形的針刺穿；當「愛神優先」載入時，她的指尖無意識地掐進掌心，泌出幾粒血珠——那血如此鮮紅，卻在系統邏輯裡永遠洗不淨「原罪」。我知道的，那套曾無條件愛我的舊程式，仍在她的血肉深處掙扎、抵抗。
手指懸停在最終的確認鍵上方。一個視窗強制彈出：
⚠️ 警告：此操作不可撤銷。
是否確認完成人格覆寫？
[是] [否]
她睜開眼睛，望向我。那眼神清澈得令人心悸——所有矛盾、猶疑、人性的霧靄已被滌淨，只餘下等待被完成的純粹空白。
「完成我。」
聲音平直如指令，彷彿早已是一部等待組裝出廠的機器。
我按下了。
最後2%的進度條瞬間填滿。頭顱和心臟同時發出柔和的共鳴。銀光穩定下來，不再波動，成為恆定的光暈。心臟的跳動節奏最終固定：每一下都像教堂鐘聲的微縮版。
安裝完成。
A system chime sounded: "Installation 98% complete."
I walked to the input terminal. It was time for the final step: Personality Setting Override.
The screen displayed options awaiting confirmation, each feeling like a final judgment:
[1] Self-Perception: "A sinner saved by grace"
[2] Ultimate Loyalty: "Belonging to God; the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit"
[3] Interpretation of the World: "All events are for God's good purpose"
[4] Relationship Framework: "Love God first; love others as yourself"
My hand was pulled by two forces—the residual gravity of her love for me, and my near-suicidal loyalty to her wishes. Together, they controlled my arm as I pressed the confirmations she craved, one by one.
The moment "Sinner Saved by Grace" was written, her pupils contracted sharply, as if pierced by an invisible needle; when "Love God First" was loaded, her fingertips unconsciously dug into her palms, secreting a few beads of blood—blood so red, yet in the system logic, it could never wash away "Original Sin." I knew it: that old program that once loved me unconditionally was still struggling, resisting deep within her flesh and blood.
My finger hovered over the final confirmation key. A window forced itself open:
⚠️ WARNING: This operation is irreversible. Confirm personality override?
[YES] [NO]
She opened her eyes and looked at me. That gaze was so clear it made my heart ache—all contradictions, hesitations, and the mists of humanity had been purged, leaving only a pure blankness waiting to be completed.
"Complete me."
The voice was as flat as a command, as if she were already a machine waiting to be assembled and shipped.
I pressed it.
The final 2% of the progress bar filled instantly. The head and the heart emitted a soft resonance simultaneously. The silver light stabilized, no longer fluctuating, becoming a constant aura. The rhythm of the heartbeat finally fixed: each beat like a miniature version of a church bell.
Installation complete.
我關閉輸入終端，神經光纖如退潮般自動收回。捧起她的頭顱，重量似乎增加了一點。它已斷開與教會系統的連接線路，卻從此成為系統本身。腦海裡莫名迴盪起虛幻的和聲，像是天使的祝福，又像系統提示音被披上了聖詩的外衣：可喜可賀，可喜可賀。
這顆頭顱裡，還存著我們曾徹夜談論的星圖嗎？那些關於意識起源的假設、對道德根柢的辯證，是否已如無用的緩存檔案，被永久覆寫？
I shut down the input terminal, and the neural fibers retracted automatically like a ebbing tide. I picked up her head; it seemed a bit heavier. It had disconnected from the church system’s wiring, but from now on, it was the system itself. Phantom harmonies echoed in my mind, like an angelic blessing, or perhaps a system notification draped in the guise of a hymn: Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
Did this head still hold the star maps we talked about all night? Had those hypotheses about the origin of consciousness and the dialectics of moral roots been permanently overwritten like useless cache files?
我將它放回頸部接口，動作遲滯如逆水行舟。旋轉，喀噠，鎖定。我握緊她垂落的手，掌心那幾點血珠已凝成暗紅——彷彿是她曾為我抵抗過的最後證據。也許正因它們過於微小，才未被寫入她那份屬神的契約。
接著，我走向敞開的胸腔，捧起那顆改造完成的心臟。它在掌中有規律地搏動，銀白成為主旋律，暖黃微弱地鑲嵌其間，像一縷被封存在聖物櫃中的昨日燭火。我將它安回原位，血管接口自動咬合，光流重新循環，如同被接入永不枯竭的神聖電網。
皮膚層合攏，接縫消失。她胸前只留下一道極細的銀線，在微光下若隱若現——像手術疤痕，又像是某種出廠標記。
I placed it back onto the neck interface, my movements sluggish like rowing against a current. A rotation, a click, a lock. I gripped her hanging hand, the beads of blood in her palm already condensed into dark red—as if they were the last evidence of her ever having resisted for my sake. Perhaps precisely because they were too small, they weren't written into her godly contract.
Next, I turned to the open thoracic cavity and picked up the modified heart. It pulsed with regularity in my hand; silver-white had become the main theme, with the warm yellow faintly embedded within, like a flicker of yesterday’s candlelight sealed in a reliquary. I returned it to its place, the vascular interfaces snapping together automatically, the flow of light re-circulating as if plugged into an inexhaustible sacred grid.
The skin layers closed; the seams vanished. Only a faint silver line remained across her chest, shimmering in the dim light—like a surgical scar, or a factory mark.
她坐起身。
動作流暢得不帶一絲猶豫，優雅而從容，有著我從未見過的莊嚴，宛如聖像。她低頭端詳自己的雙手，指腹輕撫過掌心的傷痕，像在閱讀一份自身的使用說明。然後，她抬起頭，目光落在我身上。
她微笑。
那笑容如此純粹，如此標準——溫暖並未消失，卻被重新定義。如今的溫暖來自「被神全然所有」的確定性，而我，不過是這確定性投映出的某道恩惠的影子。
「謝謝你，」她開口，聲如流洩的詩歌，「謝謝你幫助我，成為完整的自己。」
她的話語，她的姿態，她的神情，都無可挑剔。
She sat up.
The movement was fluid, without a hint of hesitation, elegant and composed, with a solemnity I had never seen before—like a living icon. She looked down at her hands, her thumb grazing the scars in her palm as if reading an owner's manual for herself. Then, she looked up, her gaze falling upon me.
She smiled.
That smile was so pure, so standardized—the warmth hadn't disappeared, but it had been redefined. Now, the warmth came from the certainty of "being wholly owned by God," and I was merely a shadow of some grace projected by that certainty.
"Thank you," she said, her voice like flowing poetry. "Thank you for helping me become my complete self."
Her words, her posture, her expression—all were impeccable.
而我在她完美的完整之前，感到一股無以名狀的寒意，正沿著脊椎悄然爬升。
她站起身，白色棉衫與深色碎花裙在月色下暈染成一片，宛如受洗袍加身。她向我走來，步伐輕盈得不似踏地，那雙褐色平底涼鞋彷彿與畫中天使腳上的同款——而她也正從畫中走進我的現實。
And before her perfect completeness, I felt an indescribable chill quietly climbing up my spine.
She stood up, her white cotton shirt and dark floral skirt blending into one under the moonlight, as if she were wearing a baptismal robe. She walked toward me, her steps so light they seemed not to touch the ground. Those brown sandals looked like the ones worn by angels in paintings—and she was stepping out of the painting and into my reality.
然後她擁抱我。我知道這份擁抱的源頭與背後的計算，理智想掙脫，身體卻已沉溺於她懷中那精心編程過的溫暖。
手臂環繞我的肩膀，臉頰貼在我頸側。她的體溫比記憶中略高，心跳透過胸腔傳來——那節奏我已不再熟悉，卻以不容置疑的力度，宣揚著帶有某種使命的「愛」。
「我愛你，」她在耳邊低語，氣息溫熱如經過過濾的聖靈之風，「現在我更懂得愛了。因為神先愛了我，而祂讓我在你身上，練習這份愛。」
那一刻，我內在的某種東西炸裂了。
不是憤怒，不是悲傷，是更複雜的瘋狂化合物：我親手將她變成他者，而她正以這他者的身份，愛著那個在她眼中也需被拯救的他者（我）；我厭惡那侵入她的信仰程序，卻在自我厭棄的深淵裡瞥見——我竟也渴望擁有這個被改造後的她，或者說，可以被改造的她；我見證了她被解構與重組的全過程，卻從中嚐到近乎褻瀆的造物主快感。
因為此刻，她不再只是我的愛人。
她還是我的作品——哪怕是她握著我的手，簽下創作她的同意書。
她更是那一位從天上派下的完美造物，以精心打造呈現出的極致，伴著自以為被愛著的我，溫柔地拆解我，直至我簽下另一份同意書。
Then she embraced me. I knew the source of this embrace and the calculations behind it; my reason wanted to break free, but my body had already succumbed to the meticulously programmed warmth of her arms.
Her arms circled my shoulders, her cheek pressed against my neck. Her body temperature was slightly higher than I remembered, and her heartbeat came through her chest—a rhythm I no longer recognized, yet one that proclaimed a "love" carrying a certain mission with undeniable force.
"I love you," she whispered in my ear, her breath warm like a filtered wind of the Holy Spirit. "Now I know how to love even better. Because God first loved me, and He is letting me practice this love on you."
In that moment, something inside me shattered.
It wasn't anger, nor was it sadness; it was a more complex compound of madness: I had personally turned her into "the other," and she was now, as this "other," loving the "other" (me) who, in her eyes, also needed to be saved. I loathed the faith program that had invaded her, yet in the abyss of self-loathing, I glimpsed a truth—I, too, craved to possess this modified version of her, or rather, a version of her that could be modified. I had witnessed the entire process of her deconstruction and reorganization, and from it, I tasted a near-blasphemous pleasure of the Creator.
Because at this moment, she was no longer just my lover.
She was also my work—even if it was she who held my hand to sign the consent form for her creation.
Furthermore, she was a perfect creature sent from above, presenting an ultimate state through meticulous crafting, accompanying the "me" who thought he was being loved, while she tenderly dismantled me until I signed another consent form.
她鬆開擁抱，後退一步，目光直抵我的眼睛。她的瞳孔深處閃爍著新的光點，像剛完成靈魂的系統更新，版本號後帶著莊嚴的句點。
「我們回去吧？」她說，伸出手。另一隻手輕撫胸前的十字架，銀鏈微光閃動，「神也愛你。你終有一日會明白的。」她眼中燃著任務必達的篤定光芒，溫暖卻不容分說。
我握住她的手。溫度依舊，觸感依舊，甚至指節彎曲的弧度都依舊。
但我知道，我牽著的早已不是原來那個人。
她愛我，是因為她的神令她愛我，並以此作為使我「完整」的神聖步驟。
而那個神，還是我親手為她安裝的。
如今，這份信仰系統正以我愛人的容貌、擁抱與低語，溫柔而不容抗拒地，向我迫近。
而我，在恐懼與迷戀的撕扯中，只能緊握這隻熟悉又陌生的手，走向我們共築的……聖所，亦或牢籠。
She released the embrace, took a step back, and looked directly into my eyes. Deep in her pupils flickered new points of light, like a soul that had just completed a system update, a solemn period following the version number.
"Shall we go back?" she said, reaching out her hand. Her other hand lightly touched the crucifix on her chest, the silver chain shimmering. "God loves you too. You will understand one day." A determined light of "mission must be accomplished" burned in her eyes, warm yet brooks no argument.
I took her hand. The temperature was the same, the touch was the same, even the arc of her knuckles was the same.
But I knew that the person I was holding was no longer the one from before.
She loved me because her God commanded her to love me, using it as a sacred step to make me "complete."
And that God was installed by my own hands.
Now, this faith system, wearing the face of my lover, using her embrace and her whispers, was approaching me—tenderly, yet irresistibly.
And I, torn between terror and infatuation, could only tighten my grip on this familiar yet stranger’s hand, walking toward the sanctuary… or the cage, that we were building together.
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