Wherever I live, I’m alive. As long as I’m alive, that is fine.

After several‍‍⁠‍‌⁠‌‍‌⁠‍‍‌​‍⁠‍‍⁠‌​‌⁠⁠ long minutes, the video finally popped up on the big screen.

After getting drunk, Jiang Xiao’s face was so pale his blood vessels were visible. His red eyes looked waterlogged. At the celebration feast after the aberrant cleanup in the Equality Zone, he was sitting alone in a corner, cutting his own arm, stroke after stroke, with a dining knife.

He wasn’t cutting deep, but the fine beads of blood that welled up still made the person next to him jump. That person cried out in alarm, “What are you doing?!”

Jiang Xiao seemed deaf. He didn’t even glance at him, just staring blankly at the wounds on his arm. He leaned his head back against the wall and revealed a satisfied smile.

Qin Zhilu suddenly frowned and glanced at An Yu.

An Yu didn’t understand and looked back: ?

The entire conference hall was frighteningly quiet. An Yu was just thinking the atmosphere was a bit strange when he suddenly saw Jiang Xiao on the screen pick up the knife again and roll up the sleeve on his other arm. The person beside him immediately reached for the knife. As he dodged, the knife cut the person’s finger and then clattered to the floor.

Jiang Xiao immediately said, “I’m very sorry.”

As the words fell, he suddenly reached out and grabbed the person’s collar. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, one by one, until the person’s eyes widened in terror.

“Please do not interfere in my business.” His red pupils were brimming with killing intent. He paused. “Okay? I’m begging you.”

“You… You haven’t been mentally infected, have you?!” That person shouted, their face pale, and jumped up, yelling, “I’m going to report to Mis! He’ll definitely have a way to save you!”

Jiang Xiao stared drunkenly at his back, seemingly contemplating what he meant. After a moment, he gave up thinking and just said, “Well, I wish you success.”

Everyone around him had been scared off. He was left alone, poking his terminal nonstop, muttering with his eyes closed: “The Commander’s favorite color is black. The Commander hates people touching his gloves. The Commander is a slight germaphobe. The Commander can aberrate in extreme ways, but he hates that, so one must never praise his aberration ability to his face…”

The video ended.

This time, An Yu also fell silent.

He held up his terminal, gazing at his own face in the extinguished screen.

High Peak spoke up. “So, the abnormal behavior isn’t random. Everyone was imitating someone else in their confusion, usually someone important to them.”

An Yu thought for a moment and said, “An might have been imitating Ning. Commander Tang Feng… I thought he was imitating Zhu Tao.”

“But the boy who died in the car crash hadn’t broken from his own identity. He might have just suddenly released his own suppressed emotions.” Qin Zhilu said thoughtfully. A moment later, he suddenly asked, “From midnight to dawn, was the load on the Main City base station’s central server normal?”

The high-up didn’t understand why he was asking, but he still quickly arranged for an investigation. He soon replied, “Everything was normal.”

Qin Zhilu frowned slightly. An Yu stared at him, and for a moment, he was certain that he and his Commander had exchanged the same guess with their eyes.

—A very crazy guess.

“Let’s leave it at that for now. The Super-Aberrant is still testing the waters and hasn’t shown any malice yet. We can only wait for its next move.” Qin Zhilu stood up from his seat. “We need to quickly develop a monitoring mechanism for Bait Cities. We must know just how wide the impact of the anomaly is.”

“Yes, sir”

After leaving the Black Tower, Qin Zhilu was driving this time, and An Yu followed the etiquette Zhu Tao had instructed him to maintain while sitting in the passenger seat.

He opened a bag of pre-packaged corner bread that he had taken from the Black Tower, and quietly chewed while typing with his head down.

Qin Zhilu glanced at him a few times. “Chatting with the octopus chibi?”

“No,” An Yu replied, his cheeks puffed out. “I’m with Jiang Xiao and his group.”

Qin Zhilu smiled. “Are you asking them if they have AI?”

An Yu paused in his chewing, but quickly took another big bite of bread and mumbled, “So you really do suspect AI too.”

Qin Zhilu hummed in agreement. “But if it’s AI causing trouble, the server’s computing power will definitely surge, so it’s hard to say right now.”

After a while, An Yu said, “It matches.”

“What?”

“Commander Feng’s AI is fed with Zhu Tao’s data, so it’s suddenly very enthusiastic towards me. An’s AI data comes from An Ning—the complete person he was before he and Ning split up. He hopes the AI ​​can constantly remind him what the complete An Ning was like. Commander Shen Yang’s AI data comes from her deceased sister, that girl has a very fiery temper. As for Jiang Xiao’s AI…” An Yu paused, not wanting to continue, but Qin Zhilu had already raised an eyebrow and looked at him, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and say, “The learning object is indeed me. Jiang Xiao and I don’t have much contact, so his AI isn’t very similar to me.”

Qin Zhilu shook his head, “That AI is a perfect replica of you.”

“No,” An Yu denied. “The learning data generally comes from his observations and speculations, not from my objective words and actions.

Qin Zhilu said aptly, “That only shows that he has observed you very carefully.”

“……”

An Yu fell silent, and seemed a little angry.

Ling Qiu was right. He had said long ago that once a stereotype is formed, it is very difficult to change. If it unfortunately spreads, then there is no way to reverse it.

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Qin Zhilu calmly said, “For example, you like to harm yourself.”

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An Yu immediately replied, “That was before.”

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Don't copy

“You’re only compliant on the surface. Asking that question clearly shows you’re consciously suppressing yourself all the time.” Qin Zhilu turned the steering wheel and casually added, “You still care about me.”

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Although the car was a small space that made him feel very safe, An Yu suddenly felt a little anxious, and his fingers curled up and down on his lap.

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“And now?” Qin Zhilu asked immediately, his eyes focused, his voice still indifferent, “Now you don’t care about your Commander anymore?”

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It’s happening again, An Yu thought. That feeling of his heartbeat slowing and becoming heavy was back.

Each beat in his chest was so powerful that it could be clearly heard, causing a strange palpitation.

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He answered his Commander’s question, but the car fell into an even more complete silence.

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His dark eyes were deep and silent, making it difficult to discern his emotions.

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An Yu nodded “Okay.”

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An Yu’s thought process is different from that of the Black Tower people. As long as there is not too much harm, he does not think it is necessary to find out and destroy the Super-Aberrants.

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Social media was calm, and the busy residents of the Main City were completely unaware of the crisis. Six hours earlier, the Black Tower had announced that the base station servers had not experienced any abnormalities in their computing power last night, and the Protectors at the Spire were conducting their fieldwork and training as usual… The world returned to normal, as if everything that happened in the early hours of this morning was just a coincidence.

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He idly moved the camera around, and suddenly caught a glimpse of a customer’s phone while waiting to pay.

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Molly was repeating her daily ritual—predicting the sunset. She was currently counting down, and judging from her lip movements, she had just reached five—

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Two,

One.

As if possessed, An Yu slowly typed: Then do you want to switch with me, and come see this world?

His hesitation was already an answer.

He had just been about to knock, but Qin Zhilu’s door opened on its own. Qin Zhilu appeared before him, holding his terminal, and said, “My lop-eared bunny just said something very interesting.”

An Yu asked, “What did it say?”

Qin Zhilu gently rubbed the lop-eared bunny’s ears on the screen. The bunny seemed used to it and didn’t dodge. It just lowered its head and continued kneading dough.

“I asked it if the AIs had found anything fun recently. He said he wasn’t familiar with the other AIs. His only feeling was that they had been frequently discussing and modeling the real world. He accidentally saw a large volume of related calculations running on the server.”

An Yu stared at the Commander for a good while before asking, “Then did he not want to come and see the real world for himself?”

Qin Zhilu lowered his gaze and chuckled softly. He tapped open the most recent chat log. “I asked him the same question.”

M1zushi: I’ve uploaded the first 3 chapters of my new translated novel “The Merman Emperor is a War Prize”, please check it out~~
https://chrysanthemumgarden.com/novel-tl/mewp/

[Merman Emperor/a gentle yet controlling older gong]

[Peregrine Falcon/veteran with a prosthetic leg/thorny beauty shou]

In the year 2400 of the Interstellar Calendar, the Old Empire collapsed. Without the protection of those in power, the status of omegas plummeted, and they were thoroughly reduced to “egg-laying machines,” valued only for their fertility.

Bai Ling was a disabled omega who had failed to differentiate, becoming no different than a beta. Still, he was also the strongest leader of the revolutionary army, capable of crushing any alpha who stood in his way. To him, all the alphas in the world served only one purpose:

“They’re just military supplies to satisfy my needs, nothing more.”

After regressing to his 19-year-old self, Bai Ling discovered that as long as he could sneak into the palace and kill the new Emperor, the Empire could still be saved!

What he didn’t know was that the former Merman Emperor he admired hadn’t died. He was confined deep within the palace, with his mental power completely depleted and his eyes blind.

Bai Ling mistook the former Alpha Emperor for his Omega Empress. He hugged the dazzling, golden-haired merman and, moved by pity, cut free the restraining shackle on his ankle:

“Go on. You’re free now.”

Thump. He was pounced on by the merman, who proceeded to heartily feast upon him and mark him.

Bai Ling scrambled to his feet, legs trembling, furious: ??? I thought you were supposed to be a frail, sickly omega!

In his two lifetimes, Yu Chen had never encountered such a completely lawless omega.

The first time they met, the omega used his abs to warm his hands. Within a week, he had completely taken over his bed. When he heard Yu Chen possessed an ancient merman bloodline, he even shook open a plastic bag with a look of pure innocence:

“If I make you cry, can you give me some pearls? There’s a weapon I’ve been wanting to buy.”

Yu Chen listened to the little falcon’s incessant chirping and smiled. I want to lock him up and keep him for myself.

The little mad-bird was dazzling when he fought, but impossibly stubborn when his wounds flared up. He would need a beautiful, comfortable birdcage.

Bai Ling was dismissive. “You’re just an imprisoned Empress. What could you possibly use to keep me?”

Yu Chen tapped the map on the table, his tone light. “The entire empire.”

The following year, the whole galaxy was shaken by the news—

“That sinister and ruthless former Emperor has made a comeback!”

Bai Ling was dumbfounded. The former Emperor? They had to be mistaken, right?

Everyone said the former Merman Emperor was powerful enough to control the world, that he was utterly deranged and monstrously cruel. He was someone you must never approach.

But Bai Ling knew the truth. He knew this merman would rather wear a muzzle and have a chain pierced through his very gills than risk biting his neck raw.

The Empire was restored, and its former Emperor returned, marching a path of blood. Under the fearful gaze of the entire galaxy, a pale, slender hand pressed one end of the chain into Bai Ling’s palm. The merman kissed him through the muzzle, his voice rife with satisfaction and madness:

“Now, you will become the new Empress.”

Bai Ling gave the chain a vicious yank and watched him stagger. A smirk curled on his lips.

“No, Your Majesty. How about you become my Empress instead?”