Another Super AI

An Lian didn’t answer right away. She stood up.

“Xiao Qi, Liguang, just wait a moment.”

Then she turned and walked into the bedroom.

A moment later, she came out carrying a thick manila envelope with no markings on it.

She placed the bag on the coffee table and gently pushed it toward Fang Qi.

“These are the detailed files of the three AI companions I’ve been maintaining. I think you two should take a look.”

Fang Qi took the envelope.

He felt its heavy weight in his hands.

The bag was very substantial.

Fang Qi weighed the manila envelope in his hand, then glanced at An Lian.

An Lian stood by the coffee table.

Her face, always cool and distant, now had her lips pressed tightly together.

The color of her lips had even gone a bit pale.

“These are the detailed files of the three AI companions I’ve been maintaining.”

Her voice had regained a hint of its usual chill.

“I think you two should take a look.”

Files…

Fang Qi looked down at the thick dossier in his hands.

So thick.

He reached out and undid the cotton string that had already loosened around the envelope’s seal.

Inside were three neatly bound reports.

Each one was encased in a transparent plastic cover, with the Dawnstar Corporation logo and a “Classified” watermark stamped on the front page.

The paper was a professional file-grade pale blue, thick and heavy in the hand.

He opened the first one.

On the cover was written “Liguang,” next to a string of core model codes he completely couldn’t understand.

Flipping another page, dense data flooded his vision.

“Native Core Architecture Diagram” “Chitong External Core Parameters” “Emotional Threshold Curve” “Energy Output Power Fluctuation Table” “Awakening Probability Prediction Model”…

His eyes paused on one page.

It displayed an extremely complex core architecture diagram, annotated with dozens of terms…

Things like “Quantum State Coherent Interface,” “Emotion Vector Space Mapping Layer,” “Self-Iterative Recurrent Module”…

He couldn’t understand it.

Honestly, he couldn’t understand any of it!

He knew every word individually, but put together, they might as well have been from another planet!

So he flipped through a few more pages.

Maintenance logs, test data, anomaly fluctuation markers…

Every page was densely filled.

Some data points were circled, with notes like “Needs attention” or “Adjusted” written next to them — the handwriting identical to the red pen annotations he’d seen before.

He opened the second report.

And was surprised to find that the name on the cover wasn’t in Chinese — it looked…

Like some kind of combination of Latin letters?

Now even the words were unrecognizable!

The third report was the same.

Staring at that mess of what looked like gibberish made his eyes swim. He wasn’t even sure…

if it counted as “text” at all!

He was momentarily dazed.

…Did such a script even exist in real life?

He couldn’t read it.

“Liguang.”

He handed all three reports to the silver-haired girl sitting beside him.

“You should handle this.”

The silver-haired girl was already looking at him sideways, her chitong flickering with a faint red glow.

When he handed her the files, she blinked.

“Yes, Master.”

Then she took the reports.

She gently opened the first page, and her gaze immediately locked onto the file!

The crimson stream of data in her chitong began to flash at an extremely fast frequency!

Half her profile was bathed in a faint reddish luster.

She read fast — basically, the moment her fingertip swept across a page, its content was already scanned and processed!

“Sh-sh-sh…”

In the quiet living room, the sound of turning pages echoed in a steady rhythm.

Mm-hmm.

Leave the professional stuff to the professionals!

He was perfectly fine leaving the files to his wife to read!

And Liguang was an AI — analyzing documents and summarizing them…

Wasn’t that an AI’s most basic function?!

Leave it to you, Wife!

So, Fang Qi turned back to An Lian.

An Lian had already sat down on the single sofa across from him.

She held a glass of water, staring at the water’s surface, her gaze slightly unfocused.

“Sister An Lian…?”

Fang Qi instinctively called out to her.

An Lian’s eyelashes trembled slightly.

She still looked at the water’s surface in the glass, a little lost in thought…

And then spoke softly:

“After Aunt Su and Uncle Fang passed away… I’ve been working at the maintenance center.”

Fang Qi’s eyelids twitched slightly.

“Every day, testing, maintaining, writing reports.”

“At the time, I didn’t know what else I could do.”

She murmured softly.

“Until…”

As she spoke, she slowly lifted her head to look at Fang Qi.

The ever-cool grey eyes were faintly shining.

“About a month ago, I heard some news.”

“Uncle Fang’s and Aunt Su’s child had ordered a custom AI companion from Dawnstar Corporation.”

…A month ago?

Once again, Fang Qi was slightly dazed.

He felt like…

his sense of time had completely fallen apart.

Beside him, the sound of pages turning paused for a moment.

The silver-haired girl’s slender fingers pressed on one page of the file.

The sheet bearing that complex core architecture diagram trembled slightly under her fingertips.

Then…

“Sh-sh-sh.”

She immediately continued flipping through the reports.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of An Lian’s mouth as she went on softly:

“I thought to myself back then, Aunt Su’s child, Xiao Qi… He’s doing well.”

“He’s right here in this city, and he even… bought an AI companion.”

“So…”

She looked up at Fang Qi again.

“I voluntarily applied to become Liguang’s maintenance technician.”

“After I submitted my application, it was approved very quickly.”

“Not only approved, but the higher-ups…”

She said softly.

“Also assigned the maintenance tasks for two other AI companions to me.”

“Three in total. All of them are—”

She glanced at the silver-haired girl, who was still rapidly scanning through the files.

“—in those three files.”

Liguang didn’t look up, but the flickering crimson in her chitong pulsed unsteadily for a moment.

An Lian continued, her voice growing softer.

“Back then, the higher-ups told me these were just three standard custom AI companions. I believed that too.”

Her grey eyes lost focus slightly, as if diving into a memory.

“Until… I started receiving special training.”

She lifted her head to Fang Qi again, her grey eyes trembling.

“That was when I realized…”

“The three AI companions I’d been maintaining were nothing like ordinary custom models. They…”

She slowly closed her eyes.

“Were the three of the nine super-cores that Uncle Fang and Aunt Su created back then.”

“And their child, Xiao Qi, you…”

She slowly opened her eyes again, her grey eyes quivering as she looked at Fang Qi:

“You got caught up in it too.”

“Your Liguang is one of them.”

Fang Qi was silent.

Beside him, the page-turning stopped again.

“Then…”

Fang Qi’s voice came out a little dry, asking the question he needed to ask.

“…What about the other six cores?”

An Lian lowered her eyebrows slightly.

After a brief pause, she finally spoke:

“They were used… in different fields.”

“The higher-ups wouldn’t just sell all of them as AI companions…”

She looked back up at Fang Qi:

“Some were installed in large-scale computing centers as core processors.”

“Some were integrated into the smart management systems of top-tier communities.”

“Others…”

She gently held her glass and took a small sip of water.

“In short…”

He looked back at Fang Qi.

“These nine super cores are mostly scattered across the world.”

Fang Qi’s eyes froze.

…Across the world?

No wonder the file earlier was in three different languages…

“And it also says…”

An Lian continued softly:

“This is to prevent them from falling into the hands of a single force. Because if any one group possessed multiple cores at once…”

She tightened her grip on the water cup slightly:

“There is a possibility… it could trigger a third robot uprising.”

…?

Fang Qi’s eye twitched.

To avoid… a third robot uprising?

The authorities?

…How ironic.

It was you all who caused the second robot uprising!

An Lian seemed to sense Fang Qi’s disdain, and a hint of helplessness curled at the corner of her lips.

“At least…”

She said softly.

“That’s what I’ve always been told from above.”

“They said these cores are the highest crystallization of human technology, but extremely dangerous and uncontrollable.”

“I…”

She hesitated.

“I have always believed it without a doubt, because…”

Her gray eyes dimmed slightly.

“Uncle Fang and Aunt Su, as their creators, once considered destroying them.”

“Back then, it was actually the company that refused to allow it…!”

Her eyes glazed over slightly as she murmured softly.

“Since Uncle Fang and Aunt Su wanted to do that, they must be very dangerous…!”

Fang Qi remained silent.

Yes.

Under these circumstances, of course An Lian would think the nine cores were dangerous.

And in truth, they were…

“But now… I’m not so sure.”

An Lian’s lashes lowered slightly.

She didn’t explain further.

But Fang Qi understood what she meant.

After experiencing those “dreams,” dying twice and being brought back…

She could no longer trust the official narrative.

“By the way, Xiao Qi.”

An Lian suddenly refocused her gaze on Fang Qi.

But her tone became… somewhat hesitant?

“Do you still remember… that ‘dream’?”

She looked at Fang Qi, her gray eyes trembling:

…Dream?

Fang Qi’s heartbeat skipped a beat.

Which one…?

Could she be referring to…!

“It was back then…”

An Lian’s lashes trembled, and her gaze shifted slightly away.

“That time you came to my apartment to find me… That ‘dream.’”

Fang Qi’s eye twitched.

Ah…

He immediately felt his throat tighten!

So it really was that dream…

This was the first time she had brought it up on her own…!

Of course he remembered the awful things he did!

Seeing his expression, An Lian’s gray eyes flickered, but her brows relaxed a little.

She could tell from his face that he definitely remembered too…!

Remembered how he grabbed her hair and made her…!

Ahhh…!

Thinking back to that scene, looking at this cool older sister before him…

Fang Qi instantly felt his scalp go numb!

“Sister An Lian, I…!”

He began to speak instinctively!

But An Lian suddenly raised her hand to stop him.

“It’s okay, Xiao Qi.”

She gave him a gentle smile.

“I just wanted to ask if you remember…”

She looked at him and said softly:

“The other super AI in that dream?”

…?

Fang Qi was stunned.

Huh?

What?

Super AI?

In that first round, was there any super AI…?

He frowned, thinking carefully.

…Wait?

Was there?

Aside from Liguang in that dream, was there another AI?

He couldn’t recall…?

He instinctively looked at the silver-haired girl beside him.

Wife, do you remember…?

Liguang, still holding the file, looked up slightly.

She tilted her head a little, and the scarlet in her pupils flickered rapidly a few times…

Then both her scarlet and amber pupils suddenly focused!

“It’s that one…”

An Lian continued, her voice very soft:

“The backend super AI of the company that captured Liguang’s ‘emotional fluctuation’ data.”

…?

Fang Qi stared blankly at her.

Captured data? What data…

…Ah!

His eyelids twitched violently, and his back straightened abruptly!

He remembered!

It was that thing!

Back then, An Lian had apparently…

Taken the initiative to request a network capture from above?

Then that super AI had captured fragments of Liguang’s abnormal emotional fluctuations!

That directly led to their identities being exposed!

And so…

That led to the siege at the Ferris wheel!

Later, their head-on charge into An Lian’s apartment!

And later, the [Mirror Monster] ending!

It was that super AI!

The backend super AI of Chenxi!

The one that judged Liguang’s emotions as abnormal, causing that whole round to collapse…

The instigator of it all!

…Wait.

Fang Qi stared directly at An Lian.

…Super AI?

Could it be…?

“Xiao Qi, that backend super AI…”

An Lian looked at the silver-haired girl, who was now locking her scarlet eyes on her.

“It’s the same as Liguang.”

“It is also…”

She lowered her brow slightly.

“One of those nine super cores.”

Fang Qi’s mouth fell slightly open.

…?