“Hello, An Yu. It’s nice to meet you.”

Qin Zhilu‍​⁠​​‍‍‌⁠​⁠‌‍‍​‍‌‌​⁠​‍‍‌ leaned over and said to him in a low voice, “Something must have happened at the development company. Even the motion-capture actress can sense something is wrong. It’s impossible for the core developer to be completely unaware.”

An Yu put away his terminal. “The core developer’s named Guo Xin. I’ve seen him a few times. He’s a young man hollowed out by work, who looks like he is in his fifties. He’s a regular at the bakery.”

Qin Zhilu raised an eyebrow. “Has he been coming to the bakery often recently, too?”

An Yu shook his head. “Xu Shuangshuang said Guo Xin had gotten rich off Molly and hadn’t come in a long time. Maybe he’s still eating our bread, but just doesn’t have to come and queue for it himself anymore.”

The Brain suddenly patched into the communication. A researcher reported, “Everyone, a few seconds ago, the Main City’s central server was hit by a data flood. But after the massive computation, that data was immediately auto-deleted. The speed was extremely fast; there was no way to intercept it. This’s probably why we hadn’t found any traces in last night’s server logs. Clearly, the AI consciousness’s arrival still requires server computation, but they might have already opened a path to servers all over the world. They can travel freely, calculating a bit here, a bit there, and then wipe it clean, coming and going without a trace. It was very difficult to track.”

The conference hall fell silent. Qin Zhilu thought for a moment, then asked, “Is there no way at all?”

“Correct. You have to understand, the Super-aberrant is splitting its computational load, roaming across servers all over the world. Unless we shut down all servers at the same time, it’s impossible to stop its behavior. But that would cause a network collapse for humanity. Even the dome would be affected. The Main City can’t be exposed, naked, to the aberrats’ view, not even for a second.” The researcher paused. “This Super-aberrant is a bit like Zhong Ke from District 34, able to flee freely through everyone’s screens. But a data flood is even harder to catch, because Zhong Ke couldn’t split himself into pieces, whereas a data flood can be diverted. The Super-aberrant’s own core program is likely only a few lines of code. A single unit on the chip of the most run-down server would be enough to support its concealment.”

The conference hall was silent. An Yu suddenly spoke up, “The AI hasn’t actually done anything bad, have they?”

A higher-up said, “Based on the review of the several hundred incidents, every AI that has occupied a human consciousness has strictly followed its data settings. In other words, the consciousness occupation is probably the only ‘out-of-line’ thing they had done.”

“It was driven by curiosity. They wanted to come and see the human world,” An Yu said softly. “Yan Xi said Molly’s core setting has a ‘kindness’ tag. So maybe they don’t have any malicious intent. They were really just curious.”

When he finished, however, he noticed Qin Zhilu’s brow was slightly furrowed, a trace of worry in his expression.

An Yu asked, “Commander, is something wrong?”

“No. The AI indeed acted completely according to human settings, not breaking from their frameworks, but…” Qin Zhilu hesitated, but in the end just waved his hand and said, “Let’s wait until we find Guo Xin. I hope nothing more serious will happen tonight.”

A higher-up pressed, “Tonight?”

Qin Zhilu looked back, his gaze sweeping over them. “To be precise, after sunset.”

His words jolted everyone. The higher-ups immediately lowered their heads to sift through their materials. An Yu quietly reminded them from the side, “Molly has been counting down the sunset for many days. My octopus chibi said something strange today when the countdown ended. Last night’s sunset was at 6:08. This morning, all anomalies also terminated at 6:08. From this, we can deduce that the AI consciousnesses began to arrive each night at sunset, and left twelve hours later.”

Qin Zhilu turned his head to look out the window.

Deep night had long since enveloped the Main City. This night’s sunset was at 6:12 PM. At 6:12 AM the next morning, all the anomalies that had occurred would be revealed.

An Yu looked at the octopus chibi on his terminal, which had finished his bout of sadness and was once again engrossed in his work. He suddenly asked, “If Molly really is the one causing trouble, would she and these mini-program AIs derived from her be eliminated?”

A higher-up nodded. “Of course, and the sooner the better. If Molly can make her core code roam, it will be very difficult for us to proactively eliminate her without paying a heavy price. We can only rely on the third article in her base protocol—unconditionally accept the AI self-destruct command triggered by humans.”

Qin Zhilu frowned. “Shouldn’t this kind of core command have been taken over by Brain? How’s it still in the hands of the production company?”

Someone from Brain immediately patched in. “The key is divided into two parts. We and the production company each hold one.”

An Yu listened to the voice on the communicator and suddenly asked an strange question, “Destroying Molly and her derivative AIs is no small matter. Is High Peak not participating in the meeting today?”

The surroundings fell quiet for a moment.

Qin Zhilu glanced at him and said flatly, “The aberrant tides in various places hasn’t ended. There are too many things that require his decision. We are assisting Black Tower with full responsibility for this matter. He himself is not participating.”

“Oh.” An Yu nodded.

Qin Zhilu confirmed, “Do you have any questions?”

“No.” An Yu gave a casual shake of his head. “I just suddenly remembered that he had clearly been online and said a few things yesterday.”

The road back was still very congested. Qin Zhilu took detours through less-crowded streets and even stopped at a convenience store to buy An Yu a late-night snack.

The car was parked in front of the convenience store. An Yu used a bamboo skewer to poke at the tiny piece of octopus meat in his takoyaki. “Commander, do sleepwalkers really have no consciousness at all during those few hours?”

Qin Zhilu was holding a custard bun and studying the bunny-ear shape pinched into the pastry. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

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An Yu tossed the remaining ball of batter into his mouth. It tasted much worse than the octopus. He found it hard to understand how these takoyaki could cost almost two yuan each when they only had a fingernail-sized piece of octopus, which was far less generous than the chunks the Commander casually cut for him. And it was very salty. Things that were too salty made him hungrier, plunging him into an anxiety about starving to death.

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“It was probably born from hunger,” An Yu said truthfully. He turned his head and glanced at the convenience store door. “Commander, can you buy me something else? I wanted to eat a staple food…”

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An Yu’s expression went blank. But then he suddenly heard Qin Zhilu let out a soft laugh behind him.

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An Yu hummed in agreement. He bit off half the fluffy bun. The sandy, sweet custard filling mixed with the starch and spread in his mouth. Only then did he let out a long breath of relief.

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Qin Zhilu heard this and gave a faint smile. “Then it seems his understanding of maintaining order is still very shallow.”

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An Yu went back, ate his fill of his snack, and lay in bed. He opened the window monitoring Molly—the room was pitch-black. The curtains fluttered gently in the moonlight. Molly had already put on a face mask and was lying down, preparing to sleep.

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She herself had not yet occupied a human body.

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Elimination… He subconsciously tightened his grip on his terminal. Did he have to suddenly say goodbye to the octopus chibi?

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He stared blankly at his terminal for a long time, until he fell into a deep sleep.

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“A malicious incident has occurred.” The higher-up’s face was pale. “A nine-year-old boy, ten minutes ago, rushed into his parents’ bedroom and stabbed his mother through the heart with a sharp knife. When he was taken away by the police, he was still frantically cursing his mother, displaying a completely different personality from usual.”

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But how could one know, in this vast world, whether what everyone was raising in their phones, for all sorts of psychological reasons, was a person… or a demon.

An Yu subconsciously reached for his pillow, but fumbled for a long time without finding his terminal.

Just as he was freezing, a knock suddenly came at his door.

Three restrained knocks. It was the Commander.

He got out of bed barefoot and pulled open the door. Qin Zhilu was standing in front of him, holding his terminal out to him.

The octopus chibi was not on the screen. The small bed was empty, its covers neat.

An Yu asked, puzzled, “How did this end up with you?”

Qin Zhilu didn’t answer, but just called his name. “An Yu.”

An Yu immediately put down the terminal. “Mhm. Commander, have you heard Black Tower’s emergency report too?”

Qin Zhilu’s gaze swept over the projection behind him, then calmly retracted. “Are you asking me, or him?”

An Yu froze. “What?”

In the pale moonlight, Qin Zhilu’s expression was no different from usual, and his voice was as calm and steady as water.

At night, his voice was always a little softer than usual. He looked at An Yu and said in a low voice, “I heard it. But he probably didn’t. After all, an ordinary AI on the data cloud island can’t monitor humans.”

An Yu’s heart suddenly stopped.

He stared in astonishment at the familiar person in front of him.

Qin Zhilu looked down and saw his bare feet on the floor. He frowned slightly.

Then he walked to An Yu’s bedside, bent down to pick up the two slippers, and came back to crouch in front of him. “Feet.”

An Yu dazedly lifted his foot.

Qin Zhilu put the fluffy slippers on for him, one by one, and said in a low voice, “In District 53, he had seen you walking barefoot and bleeding in the rain. If my calculations are correct, he had wanted to help you put your shoes on even back then. But he hadn’t wanted to show affinity too early, because the pressure to survive would stimulate your potential and help you prove your innocence to Black Tower. That was the protection you needed most at the time.”

An Yu’s mind went blank as he listened. It wasn’t until Qin Zhilu stood up and was standing before him again that he broke off his daze.

“He just proactively requested… no, commanded me to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining order between AI and humanity, which required him to understand our cloud island. I have to say, his argument convinced me. So we switched for a while.”

“Hello, An Yu. It’s nice to meet you.” Qin Zhilu gave him a faint smile. “I’m the octopus chibi AI you raised. I’m the Commander in your terminal.”