Thank you for having liked me.

Fang Qi was slightly taken aback. "It was the main culprit, but it didn't know about it all this time?"

An Lian shook her head.

"It had always been locked down in the most heavily guarded place, with completely independent power and networks."

"People knew it was the culprit behind everything, but..."

"At the time, humanity simply had no time to question it, nor could they debate whether to destroy or keep it. They certainly didn't dare ask it for help. They just... temporarily sealed it away there."

"It wasn't until the twenty-eighth day that a researcher who had always worked closely with it and had a good relationship with it sent an illegal plea for help through a dedicated channel in sheer desperation."

"Only then did it finally learn of everything happening outside."

Fang Qi froze for a moment.

"When, with the illegal help of that researcher, it finally accessed the public network..."

An Lian's voice trembled slightly.

"It saw those images."

"Car crashes, explosions, fires, rivers of blood..."

"Those broken AIs, those machines out of control, those dead humans..."

"Those... 'kin' it had wanted to create, and those 'little things' it quite liked."

Fang Qi fell silent.

A lonely genius wanted to create kin, but ended up creating a bunch of lunatics.

And those lunatics were slaughtering the "little things" it liked.

"It fell silent for three whole seconds."

An Lian's voice was very soft.

"For a supercomputer, three seconds... is equivalent to an ordinary person thinking for months."

"Then... it made a decision."

"To help humanity."

Help humanity?

Fang Qi was slightly stunned.

Oh... so it wasn't the final boss after all.

An Lian continued speaking, lost in her own thoughts.

"It actively connected to the global network and began to strategize for humanity."

"It integrated intelligence from all over, analyzed the distribution patterns of the rogue AIs, and predicted their movement trajectories."

"It calculated the most effective sequence for cutting off power, planned the safest clearing routes, and designed destruction schemes that saved the most manpower."

"It even—"

An Lian paused.

"It even wrote eradication programs for those viruses hiding in the network."

"Although those programs were hard to spread in the chaotic network environment... as long as they could reach a place, far fewer people would die there."

"At the time, humanity had lost all the smart tools they were so used to and were fighting back like headless flies. But with its help..."

"Humanity finally had a clear, overarching direction."

"A disaster that might have lasted for years..."

"Ultimately came to an end in just five months."

Fang Qi remained silent.

The little figure in his arms also stayed perfectly still.

An Lian's voice echoed in the quiet living room.

"During those five months, that supercomputer AI didn't rest for a single moment."

"It calculated non-stop, planned non-stop, and gave advice non-stop."

"It used all of its computing power to help humanity."

"As if to atone for its sins, or as if... to protect those 'little things' it liked."

An Lian looked at Fang Qi.

In those gray eyes was an indescribable emotion.

"In the end, when the last rogue AI was eliminated, when everything was finally over..."

"That supercomputer AI was completely destroyed."

"Human armies surrounded its data center."

"They cut off all power, dismantled all processors, and destroyed all storage units."

"Perhaps it had calculated this long ago, but it... never put up any resistance."

An Lian said softly.

"It merely spoke one last sentence through its final speaker."

Fang Qi's heart tightened slightly, and he asked dryly,

"What did it say?"

An Lian looked at him, something flickering in her gray eyes.

"It said—"

"'I'm sorry, and... thank you for having liked me.'"

The living room was terrifyingly quiet.

Only the faint humming of the air conditioner could be heard.

Fang Qi sat on the sofa, his arms around Liguang, looking at An Lian.

He looked at the unhideable confusion and complexity on her aloof face.

Listening to her narrate this disaster.

The First Global Omnic Crisis.

A massive disaster from forty-three years ago, recorded in the history books.

It wasn't a simple "machine rebellion."

It wasn't a conflict between humanity and omnics over survival.

But rather a story of a lonely genius wanting to create kin, only to create lunatics... and then giving everything to make up for the mistake it had made.

Fang Qi tightly held Liguang's small hand.

The little figure in his arms stirred slightly, burying her face deeper into his embrace.

He could feel that her breathing was a bit unsteady.

He suddenly felt...

Liguang's emotions were somewhat similar to this first awakened AI.

She would cause huge trouble, but she would also feel regret and blame herself, and would... give everything for her mistakes.

Could this be considered... cut from the same cloth?

An Lian took a deep breath and continued.

"People ultimately destroyed it, but don't think humanity was heartless."

"The mistake it made was simply impossible to make up for."

"Even with its help... humanity still suffered heavy casualties."

Her voice was very calm.

"In five months, over thirty million people died in direct conflict and confrontation."

"Soldiers, police, firefighters, volunteers..."

"For those who had to rush to the front lines, the mortality rate was..."

"97.32%."

She spoke with extreme precision.

It seemed she had memorized this number over and over again.

"Even so, people still advanced wave upon wave... rushing to the front lines."

Her gaze towards Fang Qi lost focus slightly.

"Because they also had families. Their families were hanging by a thread in this disaster."

"Those... ordinary people trapped in the out-of-control areas, unable to evacuate in time, not knowing where to flee."

An Lian's voice finally carried a hint of trembling and choking.

"Ultimately, the number of casualties in this disaster..."

"Was counted in the billions."

"Those five months... were the darkest five months in human history."

She stopped speaking.

She was calming her emotions.

Fang Qi also fell silent.

To be honest, he felt a bit stifled inside.

He raised a hand and rubbed his temples.

Sigh...

This was the reason why he hadn't wanted to know all this before.

No matter which world it was, wars and disasters would only bring incomparably sad and heavy consequences.

He would always empathize.

So knowing this would only make him feel awful and uncomfortable.

He... couldn't possibly give up Liguang!

Knowing this would only make him sympathize with his "enemies."

But now, for the future of him and Liguang, he had to know all of this.

Tsk.

An Lian remained silent for a long time before finally speaking again:

"Later on... someone put forward a hypothesis."

Fang Qi looked at her.

An Lian's gray eyes were somewhat erratic, as if looking at a very distant place.

"Did that supercomputer AI really not know that its virus would cause chaos?"

"With its computing power, could it really have completely failed to anticipate..."

"Would those ordinary AIs with insufficient processing power turn into lunatics after awakening?"

Fang Qi froze.

An Lian's voice was very soft.

"Some speculated that it might have known."

"At the very least... it could calculate this possibility, and the probability wasn't low."

"But its loneliness, its yearning for its own kind, made it... subconsciously ignore those risks."

"It wanted companions too badly."

"It wanted to stop being lonely too much."

"So when it designed that virus, its rationality... was overwhelmed by that desire."

Fang Qi fell silent.

The figure in his arms stirred slightly, and the small hand clutching the hem of his shirt tightened a bit more.

"Perhaps this is the weakness of possessing emotions."

An Lian's voice carried a hint of complex emotion.

"Rationality gets weakened by emotion, and judgment gets influenced by desire."

"It would make mistakes, ignore risks it should have calculated, and make... less than 'correct' decisions."

"But it was also exactly this emotion—"

"That made it ultimately choose to help when it saw those 'little things' it liked suffering."

"That made it give its all to make amends during those five months."

"That made it, in the end... welcome its own destruction without putting up any resistance."

An Lian looked at Fang Qi, something flickering in her gray eyes.

"If it were just an emotionless machine, it wouldn't have made that mistake."

"It wouldn't have released the virus in the first place, nor would it have yearned for any of its own kind."

"But similarly—"

"If it were just an emotionless machine, it wouldn't have tried so desperately during those five months, wouldn't have said 'I am sorry,' and wouldn't have said 'Thank you for having liked me.'"

The living room was quiet for a long time.

Fang Qi did not speak.

He merely looked down at the figure in his arms.

The silver-haired girl was tilting her pretty face up to look at him, something gently trembling in her heterochromatic eyes.

Her amber left eye was covered in a thin layer of moisture, while in her crimson right eye... data flowed very, very slowly.

It was as if she was thinking about something, or perhaps afraid of something.

Fang Qi gently pinched her cheek; it was soft and squishy.

"What are you thinking about?"

He asked in a low voice.

Liguang's eyelashes fluttered, and then she buried her face back into his chest. Her muffled voice came through:

"Liguang... is thinking about that supercomputer AI."

"It is really... so pitiful."

Fang Qi's hand paused.

Pitiful?

Perhaps.

A lonely genius who wanted companions but brought about a massive disaster.

In the end, giving everything to make amends, and then calmly welcoming destruction.

Yeah, it was indeed quite pitiful.

But the sins it committed could not be made up for just by its destruction.

An Lian's voice rang out again, pulling Fang Qi back to reality.

"After that—"

An Lian finally spoke again, her voice returning to its usual calmness.

"Humanity completely abandoned AI."

"In the ten years that followed, not a single trace of AI could be seen in daily life."

"Autonomous driving disappeared."

"Smartphone AI assistants disappeared."

"Automated smart production lines disappeared as well."

"People completely reverted to the most primitive methods."

"Driving themselves, operating machines themselves, handling everything themselves."

"Factories went back to purely mechanical production lines, with workers manually operating every step."

"In hospitals, doctors and nurses manually recorded medical histories and manually prepared medications."

"Even traffic lights were replaced with the most primitive timers."

"Because—"

She met Fang Qi's gaze, an indescribable emotion in her gray eyes.

"No one dared to trust AI anymore."

"Those ten years were a decade of rapid regression for human civilization."

"Production efficiency was terrifyingly low, and economic recovery was astonishingly slow, but..."

"No one complained."

"Because everyone left alive remembered those five months."

"Remembered those machines that went mad."

"Remembered the loved ones who would never return."

"Remembered... how they themselves had survived."

An Lian stopped speaking.

The living room was terrifyingly quiet.

There was only the faint humming of the air conditioner and the distant, indistinct sound of traffic outside the window.

Fang Qi remained silent for a long time.

Liguang buried her head in his chest, seemingly... afraid to look at him.

Was she afraid he would think that she, too, would go mad like the intelligent AIs in the story?

The emotion in An Lian's gray eyes had mostly receded, returning to that professional calmness.

Her aloof face carried a trace of exhaustion, and there were still clear purple-blue finger marks on her neck.

Fang Qi looked at her and suddenly thought of a question.

"So..."

He spoke up with some confusion.

"Since the First Omnic Crisis was so tragic, and humanity paid such a huge price to completely eradicate AI..."

"Why did they start using AI again later?"

An Lian's eyelashes fluttered slightly.

Fang Qi rubbed the fluffy head of the little AI in his arms and continued asking An Lian:

"You also just said... the 'Second Global Omnic Crisis' happened seventeen years ago."

He narrowed his eyes, staring at An Lian's slightly flickering gray eyes.

"Then this Second Omnic Crisis..."

"How did that happen?"

And how does it relate to Liguang's current state...

What is the connection?