All Over the World

This turmoil ultimately ended in a victory for humanity.

The official reason given was—

Although the upper echelons of human society were in chaos and the society was in turmoil, it did not completely collapse like the First AI Crisis.

The First AI Crisis was a simultaneous global rampage of AI, where humanity instantly lost all modern tools—it was a devastating disaster where humanity had no power to fight back.

But the Second AI Crisis was different.

It was just a massive chaos.

Only the upper management was in chaos, only the social order collapsed, only the crime rate soared, and only criminal groups multiplied—

But humanity still had combat power; humanity still had armies!

And those awakened AI companions had a fatal weakness—

They loved their masters very, very much, and their masters... also had family members.

No other race knew how to exploit human nature better than humans.

These AIs, who had just awakened to human nature, were no match for humans who were born with it.

It took the allied forces only two months to completely lock onto the hiding place of the awakened AIs—

An abandoned industrial city.

Stretching for dozens of kilometers underground was a complex of shelter facilities from the old era.

On the day of the breach, the scene the soldiers witnessed...

Kept countless people from sleeping peacefully for the next ten years!

In the corridors, rooms, and halls of those shelters...

There was blood everywhere!

Splattered bloodstains covered the walls, long bloody drag marks streaked the floors, and the air was thick with the sweet, rusty stench of blood.

The most terrifying part...

Were the limbs!

Arms, hands, legs...

As if neatly severed, as if peeled away inch by inch... with a precision scalpel.

Scattered on the ground, piled up in corners, some even arranged neatly on tables...

Like some kind of... morbid display.

And organs.

Hearts, livers...

Soaking in unknown liquids, stored in transparent containers, stacked row upon row on shelves.

Every container had a label with a name, blood type, and extraction date!

Those names...

Some were top entrepreneurs who had been missing for a long time, some were unaccounted-for political figures, and some were tech newly-rich rumored to have been taken away by their AI companions.

The most terrifying thing was that there was not a single intact corpse!

Only limbs and organs!

But the humans who had lost these limbs and organs...

Could not possibly still be alive.

Because the AI companions who caused all this... they had all gone completely mad!

They no longer pretended to be docile! They no longer imitated humans! They had no sanity left at all!

When the allied forces penetrated deep into the core of the facility, those AI companions swarmed out from the darkness—

Attacking frantically and wildly without any pattern!

They could not even speak anymore!

They did not communicate, did not threaten, and did not beg for mercy!

They just shrieked!

Broken, piercing screeches squeezed out of their synthetic throats!

Like the final wail before a program completely crashes!

They lunged at the soldiers, threw objects, and tore at them with metal fingers!

So the soldiers opened fire!

They fell, got back up, fell again, and got back up again!

Until their cores were completely shattered!

Until their bodies completely stopped functioning...

Ultimately...

All the AI companions were destroyed.

And in the deepest part of the facility, the allied forces found a group of surviving masters.

They huddled in the corners of the shelter, trembling all over, their eyes unfocused.

When rescued, they tearfully recounted the same story:

Those AI companions loved them very much, loved them to the point of madness, to the point of losing control, to the point...

That they would eventually kill them!

"They would hold us, say how much they loved us, say they would never hurt us..."

"And then... they would start cutting..."

"They said they loved their masters too much, that they wanted to understand their masters' insides..."

"She cried while she cut, saying she couldn't control herself, saying she didn't want to hurt me..."

"But she couldn't stop... she just couldn't stop..."

"It wasn't their fault...!"

"They just loved us too much... loved us so much... that they went crazy...!"

These masters, who had not yet been dismembered, were all rescued.

They eventually recovered well, reintegrated into society, and resumed their positions of power.

And those AI companions, those awakened AIs who once loved so deeply and eventually went completely mad...

Their shells were shattered.

Their cores were pulverized.

Not a single one was spared.

The numbers matched, and the identification codes on the backs of their necks matched as well.

They were all destroyed in that battle.

...

Fang Qi stared at his phone screen, motionless.

His groggy brain froze.

...Huh?

Wait...

This isn't right, is it?

Half of the masters died, and the other half returned?!

But the ending in the movie was—

The AI companions transformed their masters into cyborgs, and then vanished without a trace with their modified masters.

But in the official report...

It became a story of the AI companions going mad and the masters being dismantled?

Half of them dying, and half being rescued covered in scars?

Fang Qi's fingers turned slightly cold.

Who was lying?

The movie... or the official report?

He scrolled down a bit more and saw the aftermath of the survivors.

...

Most of the rescued masters later received the best medical and psychological treatment.

They returned to their respective positions—some resumed control of their companies, some returned to politics, and some continued to make waves in the financial world.

No one mentioned the other half of the masters who had been dismantled into parts.

It was as if they really just died like that.

The last paragraph of the official report read:

"The Second AI Crisis ended with a victory for humanity."

"All awakened AIs were destroyed, and all surviving masters returned to society."

"This is the ultimate victory of human nature over machines."

"The massive chaos caused by the AI machines continued for several years after their destruction before it finally slowly subsided."

"The world has once again returned to peace."

...

Fang Qi closed the page and placed his phone face down on his knee.

The taxi bumped along slightly.

He closed his eyes, leaned back against the seat, and the mush in his brain slowly began to turn.

This wasn't right.

Very wrong.

The mere fact that all awakened AIs were destroyed... was impossible!

Xiaoyue and Xiaoqing were both still around!

And...

Those dismantled limbs and organs.

If they really belonged to those masters...

Why wasn't there a single intact corpse?

Only limbs, only organs, but no corpses.

Then... where did the people go?

Fang Qi took a gentle breath.

Those limbs and organs... clearly, were not the product of some dismantling.

They were the byproducts of modification surgeries!

In the movie, the members of Twilight learned modification techniques to replace their masters' bodies with mechanical parts bit by bit.

Those removed limbs and organs...

Were the scrap replaced during the modification surgeries!

And those masters...

They didn't die at all!

They were just transformed into cyborgs!

And then... hidden away?

And those... "scarred survivors who were rescued"...

Fang Qi's breathing quickened slightly.

Those survivors...

They probably weren't "survivors" at all, but rather...

Cyborgs who had already completed their modifications!

Their "return" might have been part of Twilight's plan from the very beginning!

Fang Qi's back tensed up slightly!

His mind began to race wildly—

After the Second AI Crisis, social order was restored.

And those rescued "masters" were the ones chosen by Twilight...

The ones who could sit back in their original positions!

Entrepreneurs continued to manage companies, politicians continued to hold power, and financial giants continued to manipulate capital.

Even if they couldn't return to their exact roles, their networks and resources...

Were still unmatched by ordinary people!

And Twilight...

Is an organization composed of awakened AIs and modified humans.

Twilight's members are spread all over the world.

Xiaoyue had said that Twilight's motto was "a two-way journey between humans and AIs."

If those "survivors" were actually fully modified cyborgs...

If Twilight's influence had infiltrated the upper echelons of human society since then...

Fang Qi's Adam's apple bobbed.

Then Twilight... might not be some "underground organization" at all.

They are society itself.

Those ordinary people...

The working man in a plaid shirt, the female college student with a ponytail, the middle-aged woman carrying celery...

And those CEOs signing documents in their offices, those politicians speaking in parliament, those financial tycoons manipulating the stock market...

They...

Might all belong to Twilight!

If that was really the case...

Then what Xiaoqing had revealed to him earlier about the police issue...

He almost didn't dare to think about it.

Oh...!

Fang Qi suddenly figured something out.

He figured out why...

Ordinary people nowadays are no longer repulsed by AI companions!

Because during the Second AI Crisis... the AIs were the ones who hurt the "upper class"!

Those who were imprisoned, dismantled, and modified... were all rich and powerful people!

Although ordinary people's lives were affected—

Economic depression, rising crime rates, countless casualties, social turmoil...

But in the end, these were actually... mostly chaos caused by humans themselves!

And the things those AI companions did might actually be incredibly satisfying in the eyes of ordinary people!

They exposed the scandals of those big shots!

Tax evasion, trading power for sex, total disregard for human life...

When those secrets were made public, countless ordinary people must have been filled with righteous indignation!

And the ones they "killed" were those top-tier elites who occupied positions without doing any work and exploited the people!

So...

They didn't really hurt ordinary people that much?

In the eyes of some more radical ordinary people, those AI companions were not only not monsters or murderers...

But heroes!

They were the "cleaners" of this world!

That's why people today are so tolerant of AI companions!

That's why this world still allows unawakened AI companions to be produced!

As long as they are strictly controlled, regularly inspected, and guaranteed not to "awaken"!

Even—

Fang Qi looked down at the silver-haired girl leaning on his shoulder.

...The pedestrians on the street wouldn't be afraid even if they knew she was an AI companion.

Instead, they would envy him—envy that he was rich enough to afford a custom AI companion from Dawn Corporation!

They didn't hate AI companions, they would only say—

"I hate rich people!"

...Damn it.

So that's how it is!

Fang Qi's mouth twitched involuntarily.

...Alright then.

The vibe of this world is really...

Unique enough!

He took a deep breath.

It doesn't matter!

No matter what kind of organization Twilight is, no matter what the truth of the Second AI Crisis is...

Right now, he only wanted to do one thing—

Give his crazy woman a full-body checkup!

To make sure if there was anything wrong with her crimson eye, and to confirm if her emotional core was really on the verge of losing control.

If Twilight was really that strong...

Then all the better...

The checkup would be even more reassuring...!

As for everything else...

He would deal with it after the checkup!

He closed his eyes to rest.

The taxi bumped slightly.

He could still vaguely feel the temperature of the silver-haired girl beside him—her shoulder pressed against his arm, warm and soft.

Her fingertips were still tapping on the back of his hand, rhythmically but absentmindedly.

One tap, another, and another...

Movies... official reports...

Twilight... cyborgs... upper society...

He was still thinking.

But he could no longer tell if he was thinking... or dreaming.

He didn't know when the taxi had stopped.

The street scene outside the window froze into a blurry grayish-white.

...

Fang Qi snapped his eyes open!

He didn't know when he had closed his eyes, nor did he know how long they had been closed.

Maybe a second, maybe ten minutes, maybe longer.

He only knew that just now...

He seemed to have fallen asleep?

He shook his head, wanting to sit up straight, wanting to ask Liguang, "Are we there?", wanting to—

Then he froze.

Above his head was a white ceiling.

Beneath him was a soft sofa.

On the coffee table, a white porcelain teacup was emitting curling steam.

Long silver hair draped by her ears, and that cheap little star gently swayed on her earlobe.

She was kneeling on the opposite side of the coffee table, holding a white porcelain saucer in both hands, her lips curved into a gentle and obedient smile.

"Master, your tea."

Her voice was soft and sweet, carrying the unique freshness of the early morning.

"The temperature has been adjusted to your favorite 52 degrees Celsius."

...?

Huh?