Dawn

In the screening room, it was so quiet that only the sound of breathing could be heard.

Fang Qi froze.

Then, he understood in an instant!

His so-called dad—who shared the same name as his dad in reality—had shown an incredibly strong talent for AI ever since back then!

He even... accidentally suppressed the awakening madness of the AI in their home?

A ten-year-old kid, through a few playful tweaks, prevented their AI furniture from being infected by the global "awakening virus," thereby saving his whole family's lives?

This is...

A true genius!

Fang Qi's Adam's apple bobbed involuntarily.

In his arms, the silver-haired girl tilted her small face up slightly. Her heterochromatic eyes quietly watched the Uncle who was still telling the story, the scarlet in her red eye swirling slowly—she was listening very intently.

Opposite them, the mature woman in the black dress was also looking at the Uncle. Her gaze remained gentle and pained. One hand rested on the back of the Uncle's hand, her fingertips rubbing gently, as she leaned against his shoulder.

The Uncle continued.

"That night, my brother talked with our parents for a very, very long time. As for what they said... I didn't understand it at the time, nor did I want to listen."

"I was only five years old back then, tired to death, and their muttering kept me from sleeping."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, carrying a touch of nostalgic helplessness.

"I even complained several times. I yelled, 'Stop talking! I want to sleep!' and then covered my ears with a pillow."

"Thinking about it now..."

He shook his head helplessly:

"That was probably one of the stupidest complaints of my life."

Fang Qi didn't speak. He stared at him, listening carefully.

The Uncle continued:

"For the next few days, my mom stayed in the room to take care of me, while my dad kept taking my brother out."

"For several days in a row, they left early in the morning and didn't come back until dark. Sometimes they didn't even come back at all."

"My mom didn't say what they were doing either. She just held me and told me not to worry."

The Uncle paused, his eyes flickering slightly.

"Then, about a week later, our family was suddenly relocated."

"From that incredibly crowded, smelly little room in the air raid shelter, we were moved to a... very nice room."

His voice carried a hint of complex emotion.

"Clean, spacious, with hot water, and plenty of delicious food."

"I was still young then and didn't understand what this meant. I only knew that four people finally didn't have to squeeze into one small bed anymore, and we could finally eat our fill."

"It was just that at that time, my dad came back. But... my brother was gone."

Fang Qi's eyebrows twitched slightly.

A ten-year-old child...

Recruited by the government?

It seemed so. Because the Uncle still had a smile on his face:

"At the time, I thought my dad had traded my brother for our family's good treatment."

"I was crying and screaming for my brother, hugging my dad's leg and refusing to let go..."

He recalled, rubbing his nose a bit awkwardly.

"My mom just smiled and hugged me, and my dad crouched down, rubbed my head, and smiled, saying—"

He imitated his father's tone at the time, a very proud tone:

"'Don't cry, your brother is fine. He went to do something great, something to save humanity.'"

"'Our Fang family has truly produced a genius.'"

Fang Qi fell silent.

Something great to save humanity, huh.

If his so-called dad could suppress the madness of awakened AIs... then at that time, it truly was a great deed that saved humanity.

At the very least, in that situation, he could save a lot of lives.

In his arms, Liguang's small head moved slightly.

But her eyes were still open. The data streams in her heterochromatic eyes were flowing rapidly; she was clearly listening and analyzing carefully.

Perhaps she also wanted to know what kind of person her master's "father" was.

Fang Qi looked at the Uncle, waiting for him to continue.

The Uncle continued, his voice returning to calm:

"From then on, our treatment was always very good, so good that..."

He smiled sheepishly:

"So good that after the First Omnic Crisis ended and I came out from underground... I didn't feel that humanity had suffered much at all."

"Because our family immediately moved into a safe, big house."

"Comfortable, warm, and full meals every day."

"The only thing I wasn't used to was the absence of the smart AI furniture that had accompanied me since childhood. At that time, AIs were a taboo worldwide."

As the Uncle spoke, he squeezed Xiaoyue's hand.

Xiaoyue's eyelashes fluttered slightly. Her half-closed eyes opened a sliver as she leaned closer against the Uncle's shoulder.

The Uncle continued to reminisce:

"However, our house had hourly workers coming every day to manually clean the house, buy groceries, and cook."

"I was only five at the time. For the previous five years, I had lived in a highly AI-integrated environment where everything was automatic, voice-controlled, or done with a single click."

"So when I first saw the hourly worker auntie mopping the floor... I was shocked for a long time."

"At the time, I asked my mom..."

He chuckled softly:

"I asked her, aren't machines supposed to do all these things? Humans can do them too?"

Fang Qi: "..."

...What kind of humblebrag was that!

A five-year-old kid thinking chores were exclusive to AIs and humans didn't have to work...

If this were the real world, what kind of privileged and high-class childhood would produce such a perception...

However, this world was different.

His so-called second uncle also said that back then, the Fang family... was just a very ordinary family.

Looking at it this way, before the First Omnic Crisis... AI really had penetrated every aspect of life.

Even the ordinary furniture in an ordinary household were all AI devices.

He was actually the same right now... Fang Qi looked down at the silver-haired girl in his arms.

She was very well-behaved, resting her head in the crook of his neck, listening quietly.

Hmm...

His current life was also heavily infiltrated by AI!

The only difference was... instead of a bunch of specialized AI devices and furniture, it had become just a single, all-powerful, comprehensive yandere AI that could do everything!

The Uncle caught Xiaoyue's hand that was gently tapping him and continued his story:

"For those few years, my brother was completely out of sight."

"He would only come back for one day during the New Year, and sometimes he wouldn't even come back for that."

His gaze became somewhat distant.

"Every time he came back, he would bring me things. Weird little gadgets."

"Sometimes it was a Rubik's cube that could transform on its own, sometimes a small robot that danced automatically to music..."

"At the time, I just thought they were fun. Thinking about it now... those things were probably just casually made by him."

Fang Qi's fingers unconsciously stroked the smooth, delicate arm of the silver-haired girl.

His so-called dad... was truly a real genius.

Not the kind of genius who "got into a good university and entered a top company," but the kind of super genius who "could rewrite the underlying AI code at age ten and change the world at age twenty."

"In the years that followed, the Fang family struck it rich."

The Uncle's tone became flat, as if he were stating a matter of fact.

"Taking advantage of the destruction and reconstruction of social classes after the First AI Crisis, the Fang family rapidly became one of the few global commercial empires."

He didn't explain exactly how the Fang family made their fortune.

But Fang Qi knew very well in his heart—it definitely had everything to do with his so-called father.

Uncle obviously didn't want to elaborate on this part either, skipping right over it:

"Then, another five or six years passed. The year I turned fifteen, my brother came back again during the New Year."

A hint of a smile touched the corners of his mouth, his eyes filled with nostalgia for those times:

"He was only twenty then, right at that age of youthful frivolity, full of high spirits."

"That day, he pulled me into his bedroom, his eyes so bright it was almost scary."

"He peeked secretly at our parents outside the door, then lowered his voice and whispered to me—"

Uncle's voice turned solemn, as if reciting a conversation etched deep into his heart:

"He said, 'Little bro, let me tell you something.'"

"'I've used my tech skills as equity to found a new company with a group of friends! This company is absolutely the future of humanity!'"

He paused, his gaze landing on Fang Qi's face.

"He wanted me to help him persuade our parents to invest some of the family's money."

"He also said..."

Uncle chuckled:

"He said Mom and Dad were such old fogeys, always refusing to let him do this, so he had to do it behind their backs. He begged me to help him win them over."

Fang Qi stared blankly at Uncle, his breathing slightly hitched.

Founded a... new company?

Roughly ten years after the First AI Crisis?

Wait...

Huh?

...Hey.

...Was it what he thought it was?

That warm, soft little hand secretly slipped between his fingers again, their fingers intertwining tightly.

He also gripped Liguang's hand tightly, staring fixedly at Uncle.

Uncle's voice carried a trace of a smile and deep emotion:

"He really did do it in secret. He wasn't just hiding it from our parents, he was hiding it from the whole world."

"The company was just a startup back then. Because the nature of their research was unacceptable to people at the time, they didn't dare to raise funds publicly."

He paused, then continued:

"But the few people who originally founded the company all felt... that their research direction was the future of humanity, the dawn of a new era for mankind."

"And because of it, humanity would enter the next epoch of civilization, completely different from the present."

"So, they gave this company a beautiful name—"

He looked straight into Fang Qi's eyes, enunciating every word.

"—'Dawn'."