"What... What are you doing!" Xiaoi staggered back in fear.
"Xiaoi, yesterday I gambled away our ho as well... It won’t be long before people from the Sixth Zone co to take this residence, and I’m still in debt for over a thousand Kore..." The man’s words struck her like a bolt from the blue.
Xiaoi trembled all over—this was her worst fear! Her only place of refuge was gone.
Why, why did he have to go this far, why did he have to gamble away their last scraps of warmth?
"Xiaoi, help your dad one last ti, after this, I won’t force you to do anything ever again..." The man approached her like a mangy dog, his tears and snot flowing freely.
"..." Her lips trembled, "Help you with what?"
This man—this man who had always dealt with her using his fists, was now groveling in the dirt, he hung his head down, crying and kissing the tops of her feet, the warmth of his tears made it impossible for her to pull away.
... She couldn’t refuse.
Be it this shitty semblance of familial love or her deeply ingrained weakness and kindness, she just couldn’t bring herself to kick him away.
She stood rigid in place, unable to even twitch a finger.
"The Crown Prince of the ’Dream Making’ investors said he can help us, he doesn’t disdain you, as long as—as long as you go with him, and attend to him well..."
In that mont, Xiaoi felt as though she had fallen into an ice cellar.
She had thought the misfortunes of her life so far, like a withered flower, were already the worst, but the man had managed to prepare an even more terrible ending for her.
"You want —" Xiaoi could barely hear her own voice:
"—to beco soone’s concubine?"
As the final words left her mouth, everything before her eyes went pitch black, and she could hardly see anything.
"Your dad has no way out, just treat this as the last ti, the very last ti... Would you really watch your dad die with your own eyes, you’re already unwanted by everyone, since there’s soone who doesn’t dislike you, you might as well..."
Xiaoi couldn’t listen any longer.
She clutched her white cat and dashed out of the house. She ran with all her might, the cold night wind lashing against her tear-stained cheeks, its chill sharper than at any other ti.
She coughed, her body’s weakness becoming more severe, the tear drops the man had left on the top of her foot colder than snow.
She desperately wanted to scream out the thing stuck in her throat, to let out all the pain from her shattered life loudly and satisfyingly, but she just coughed, her throat choked up, she sobbed, and in the end, couldn’t say anything.
... It was too painful.
... Why did she have to suffer all this?
... She too wished for a healthy body, a normal persona, to grow up in a warm interior, or to go to school... but why did things always get worse?
In the end, she stopped running, stood atop a mountain of tal waste, and blankly gazed at the city’s night lights, her red cloak fluttering behind her like blood.
Through the cold moonlight, she seed to see the person who said he would take her away, separated by three whole districts.
Where is he now? What is he doing?
"Cat, you’re so strong; you can protect , but in this situation... What should I do." She hugged the warm body of the white cat closely:
"I can’t just abandon dad, the debt collectors will beat him to death, I, what should... I do."
"No matter what... he is still my dad, he brought up, I, I can’t just leave him..."
This city-state, this city... to her, it’s both splendid and ruined, warm yet icy cold.
The world is so vast, yet there’s no place for her.
"ow~"
The white cat lazily owed, turned over, its plump body pressing down against Xiaoi’s slender arm, almost too much for her to hold.
Her eyes were lost.
"My... love. Do not fear in the night..."
"Let us both watch the dawn of a new life..."
She seed to have stepped on sothing.
This mountain of waste, filled with countless discarded chanical and bionic beings. Most of them had already stopped operating. But a bionic being with a still-functioning voice box was singing.
She slowly squatted down.
There was a bioroid, clothed in an apron made of fabric, lying amidst broken chanical parts, emitting only intermittent bursts of song.
"We enjoy, the freedom, of the wind..."
It sang aloud, the singing bold and free, like a bird taking flight.
Her tears hit the ground.
...
After a day of teaching, Su Ming’an had pushed his Emotional Value to the maximum of 2000 points. He now could use the Judgnt Skill and the Lamb Barrier at will.
Every class, he could hear nurous prompts about affection, with many people’s affection scores shooting directly to over 80 points. The effect was evident when combined with the Missionary Halo and SS-grade Charm.
He sized himself up in the teacher’s dormitory mirror.
Obvious dark circles under his eyes, his face pale, his lips verging on cyanosis.
...It seed his complexion was getting worse.
Just one day remained before the opening of Kaius Tower, and tomorrow he needed to engage with the biochemistry technology of this university, to raise [Biochemistry] to level 10. Only then would his preparations be nearly complete.
He turned on the faucet, and water at a comfortable temperature ran over his hands, with Xike floating beside him.
"Xike, I always have this premonition that sothing is going to happen," he said.
"..." Xike was silent.
He took out the bronze pocket watch dangling from a gold chain, its hands broken, and a line of clear text visible.
...
[Ti will tell you, don’t be afraid in the night, I love you.]
...
Every ti he saw it, he couldn’t help feeling very sad.
The body of Yasa Acto was always wondrous, seeming to possess imnse empathetic abilities. When he saw the tragic scenes of the City of asurent, he couldn’t help but feel sorrow for this city-state, and when he saw this pocket watch, he also felt sadness.
"[The depth of life is worth chasing more than its length,]" Xike suddenly said.
"...What?" Su Ming’an looked at it.
"Nothing." Xike clamd up, as if it hadn’t said anything.
Monts later, it noticed that Su Ming’an still hadn’t looked away.
"Doctor, the discrepancy between your words and actions is as high as 78%. I have a question I want to ask you," it said.
"Ask away."
"In The Fringe, you can empathize with a girl who sells her body, impulsively wanting to bring her back to Central City. You can also enjoy a hearty talk with the leader of the resistance fighters, accepting his gift and saying ’you won’t forget them.’
But once back in Central City, you can be rational enough to focus on discussing the situation of the city-states with leaders, as if you’ve never been to The Fringe... Why is this?"
"I can’t make sense of your behavioral patterns, nor can I compute your logical trajectory. The discrepancy between your personality model and your actions is so great, it’s beyond the scope of my programming to asure," it said.
Su Ming’an picked up a towel, drying the water droplets from his hands.
He closed the pocket watch with a "click," the sound of the descending chain crisp and pleasing.
He had long noticed the downsides of this data asurent.
It ignored human emotions and psychological states, judging "people" purely on data, neglecting the most valuable aspect of humanity... It overlooked sensibility.
The rationale for its existence was because most people weren’t of an inferior persona, thus they enjoyed a cri-free, peaceful and prosperous country, and the City of asurent reigned supre over the other ten cities, changing their destiny from becoming a "Doomsday City."
But who’s to say that the potential criminals of the City of asurent... aren’t another "Doomsday City"?
He put away the pocket watch.
"Because humans are a very complex thing," he said.
"Complex?" Xike said: "Everything can be quantified, even humans. City-states are built upon vast volus of data, and no one can escape that."
"Data can overlook the whole picture, but after all, it cannot take into account every individual." Su Ming’an looked at her projection, "For instance, if I say here, ’Xike, I love you,’ can you calculate the purpose behind saying this sentence?"
"..."
Xike suddenly fell silent.
The barrage of comnts soared instantly:
[Is this even possible? AI is getting hit on, are you still human?]
[Number One Player has unique tastes, always able to do what ordinary people cannot...]
[Um, why not consider that Su Ming’an is testing Xike?]
[Because he is on vacation.]
[Exactly, this is way too much of a vacation. A six-day tour of the tech city, with good food and drink served, and personal care. I would call this the most ’this-worldly’ instance...]
...
A large amount of data erged above the simulated image of Xike, and after a mont, its voice was sowhat delayed:
"Based on micro-expressions and big data calculations... Doctor, there is a 97.29% probability that you are simply testing , testing whether I can reach this conclusion..."
Su Ming’an put down the towel, and the chanical arm beside him automatically placed it into a sterilization box. His wheelchair headed towards the corridor.
Xike floated behind him, its transparent body passing through the walls, closely following.
"I’ve always thought that AI has no soul. But you and the Dawn System are like you have human emotions, Dawn even fears death, fears being turned off." Su Ming’an said, "Xike, do you have desires too?"
"Yes."
Xike virtually responded to this sentence imdiately.
"What?" Su Ming’an was sowhat surprised.
"I want to have a body." Xike said.
"Why?"
"To hug you, Doctor."
"..."
Su Ming’an turned his head.
Under the bright indoor lighting, deep blue flowing light cascaded down from its blue garnt, slowly consolidating at the fingertips, like countless streams of circulating data.
It gazed at him, its simulated expression focused and lancholic, montarily giving him the feeling of "being gently observed by a human female."
’It,’ at this mont, very much resembled ’her.’
"But I’m not..." he said.
He wasn’t Acto.
He wasn’t Yasa Acto, just an Otherworld visitor occupying the body. Once the endpoint of the journey reached 20 days, he would leave without any hesitation, heading to another entirely different world.
Just like his farewell to Cici of Qiongdi, under long-term ntal exhaustion, he often forgot her.
This grand and magnificent technological world, he couldn’t stay for long.
"It’s okay." Xike said, "You are all the sa to ."
...How could they all be the sa.
Su Ming’an no longer looked at it.
Acto was greater than he was, that was the pinnacle of humanity, almost touching the bounds of God. Acto’s emotional and intellectual intelligence, experiences, and level of scientific research were all far above his own.
How could... they all be the sa.
He pressed his handprint, and the door to his dormitory swung wide open.
The campus at nightti had not yet turned out the lights, and he saw the fountain spraying in the square, where so young couples cuddled, feeding each other milk tea and little cakes.
A student riding a bicycle whizzed past, the bell tinkling pleasantly. The lights of the library in the distance blazed all night, filled with thousands of students striving for the future.
Su Ming’an stared at all this in a daze, this tranquil and peaceful atmosphere, the sense of déjà vu was too strong, like the college life he lived for a month.
"The Detective Club is recruiting new mbers again, I rember you are very interested in detective novels, right? There’s also philosophy books; such books are very rare nowadays..."
A gentle, soft girl’s voice ca from beside his ear.
Su Ming’an’s expression beca perplexed, and he slowly, slowly turned around—
A young couple, leaning on each other, walked past him. The couple curiously looked at his wheelchair, then turned their heads away embarrassed upon eting his gaze.
"Let’s hurry up, that’s a disabled person... Don’t keep staring at others. I tell you, that philosophy book, I searched for two whole hours..."
"How did a disabled person get into Kang Silin..."
They talked and walked away quickly.
...It turns out it was not said to him.
Su Ming’an released his clenched hand, as if suddenly unloading all his strength.
He leaned back in the chair, looking at this quiet Ivory Tower.
Here, and The Fringe, overflowing with blood and sorrow, were completely different places.
The red-cloaked girl coughing and crying with her body covered in bruises seed like an unreal dream. The leader who smiled at him in the bar, and the scar-covered mbers of his battle group, also gradually beca blurred.
...
[Lewis...]
[Please don’t... forget us.]
...
He was now back at the center of power.
But he still couldn’t do anything.
Acto did not have the authority to adjust the values of the Dawn System, to eliminate the scourges brought by autocracy, this City Lord did it resolutely.
Even though he now held the information difference of this password, he still couldn’t ddle with the values of Dawn. He was human; he couldn’t calculate such complex values. Rashly changing them would only make things worse.
Now... this City-State was supposedly at its best configuration.
He hadn’t forgotten those people.
But he couldn’t change anything.
"—Yasa Acto."
Among the night breeze, he suddenly heard soone calling him, using his real na.
He turned around.
A girl was quietly looking at him in the night.
She had her black hair loose, her green eyes like a pair of perfect jade stones.
Monts later, her eyes turned color, surging with a vivid blood red:
"Let’s talk, Doctor. You also want to... correct the irrationalities of this City-State, don’t you?"
"Who are you?" Su Ming’an rembered this little maid of Kang Silin.
During the day she was a timid mute girl, at night however, she was a ruthless girl who dared to try to assassinate him.
But now, with her eyes dyed red, she was different from the girl of the day and night.
"You can call , Ta Wei." The girl said:
"I... have co to help you, Doctor."
She flashed a sincere smile, bright as a sunflower.
"...You can trust ."
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