An adult from the Main City who died in the real world

An Yu​‍​​⁠⁠‌​⁠​‍​​‌​‍‌‍​‍‌​‍​ opened his eyes, looked at the shrubs that were a head taller than him, and let out a soft sigh.

With the sigh, two fluffy ears flopped down on either side in his peripheral vision. Silently, he reached out his round paw and tugged at the two ears.

Because the AIs’ main body codes had also been transferred away by Molly, the setting parameters couldn’t be adjusted. His form on the Cloud Island was that of a short rabbit—a creature even weaker and more pitiful than a human with zero genetic entropy had appeared: a rabbit with zero genetic entropy.

A familiar voice sounded beside him.

“You finally experienced aberrating with me. How does it feel?”

An Yu turned his head to look at his Commander.

They had both become cartoonishly sized, two heads tall, but the Commander was still slightly taller than him. What was more hateful was that when he had set up the octopus chibi, he had chosen a humanoid body with octopus tentacle features. But when Qin Zhilu had set up the lop-eared bunny, it had been a thorough rabbit torso. The only point more advanced than a wild lop-eared bunny was its ability to walk upright.

It was ironic. Bunny An lived more like a person than he did.

An Yu mulled it over for a long time, then delicately protested, “I feel it isn’t very equal. Your species seemed much more advanced than mine.”

Qin Zhilu raised an eyebrow and reached out to tug his ear. “Endure it.”

An Yu silently took a step forward, only to find himself hopping.

He immediately stopped his feet, stiffly extended his other hind leg, reached forward, and tentatively, slowly landed it.

The moment it landed, unable to resist his instinct, his body sprang upward again.

“……”

A few soft chuckles suddenly came from beside him. He turned his head; Qin Zhilu’s eyes were full of laughter.

The honest smile reached his eyes. Neither the human Qin Zhilu nor the octopus chibi on the terminal had almost ever smiled like that.

An Yu paused. “You…”

“Do you need help?” Qin Zhilu held out his hand to him.

An Yu stared blankly at that hand, then looked down at his own furry paw and four thick toes.

Qin Zhilu grabbed his paw. A tentacle simultaneously reached over, loosely wrapping around his paw twice. “Let’s go. Just bake two loaves of bread as repayment when we get back.”

“……” An Yu tried hard to suppress the rabbit instinct to bury his face in his paws and rub furiously when overwhelmed. “Then thank you.”

Qin Zhilu’s lips quirked up again. “You are welcome.”

No one knew how long Molly would stay in the real world. If that university student who had bought one day’s worth of food really was her, then An Yu and Qin Zhilu had at least one day to find the core code hidden on the Cloud Island.

The Cloud Island was almost identical to the Main City. The biggest difference was that there were quite a few cartoon people like them on the streets. Ordinary humans also seemed unfazed by these strangely shaped creatures. They kept to themselves.

“The cartoon people must have been AIs set up by humans. The ordinary humans aren’t necessarily the same,” Qin Zhilu paused. “But 21 told me that the vast majority of ordinary humans who appeared in batches recently are were all the new AIs Molly created based on human historical data.”

He pulled An Yu’s paw across the street and his gaze swept over all the cartoon people on the street. “Those cartoon people looking around suspiciously, with abnormal expressions, basically are real humans whose consciousnesses are currently possessed. There seems to be a lot more of them than the last time I logged in.”

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“But they had all been told not to agree to any requests from AIs.”

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An Yu continued walking forward silently. Qin Zhilu suddenly smiled. “Did you know, when you pressed your lips together now, it was your three-lobed mouth moving?”

“……” An Yu turned his head and looked at him blankly. “Do you have more to say?”

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Don't scrape

He had thought the Commander definitely wouldn’t have any, but unexpectedly, Qin Zhilu bent a tentacle, expertly fished a cookie out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and stuffed it directly into his mouth.

Don't copy

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An Yu paused before stuffing the cookie into his mouth and saying out of habit, “It’s good.”

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Qin Zhilu’s lips quirked. “Xi De had said that occasionally teasing one’s supervision subject is a Commander’s prerogative.”

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Don't scrape

-This is 716. I’m contacting you using Qin Zhilu’s terminal.

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-That’s true. But I’m the AI you created. The chaos in the AI world can’t become an excuse for me to break order as well.

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Only then did Qin Zhilu glance at the line of text floating in the air, then looked at An Yu.

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Don't scrape

Qin Zhilu looked toward the corner and instructed, “21, try to act natural later when we go to the bakery. Stay close to 716. You don’t have to talk to anyone, but you can’t curl up in a corner, and don’t hurt yourself, okay?”

21 nodded lightly.

-I’ll try my best, Commander.

Qin Zhilu nodded, his tone softening. “Good. You can do it.”

An Yu opened his mouth several times beside him, but ultimately said nothing.

He didn’t know what he wanted to say. He was a bit lost and a strange feeling washed over him.

New text appeared before him.

-Don’t be surprised. You’ll get used to it. According to my observations, his patience for 21 is second only to his patience for you.

An Yu said, “I wasn’t surprised. I’m just not quite used to it yet.”

-It’s alright. It was also strange for me to see myself interacting with 21 from a human perspective. For example, I hadn’t grabbed 21’s paw before, but I’ll try to adapt too.

An Yu finished reading those few lines of small text and looked down at the hand holding his.

The strange feeling washed over him again.

Ignoring his confusion, Qin Zhilu continued forward, seriously analyzing possible backup identities with 716 as they walked.

-Molly’s an extremely complex AI. No matter how perfect her core code is, it definitely won’t be short, in order to guarantee necessary functions. Therefore, I suggest you prioritize screening those AIs whose behavior are clumsy, or whose thinking are dull. Because that means they might be harboring redundant code that don’t belong to their own functions, slowing down their reaction speed.

“A very reasonable deduction,” Qin Zhilu commented. “Perhaps I should also rule out all the cartoon people AIs.”

716 thought for a moment before replying.

-Yes. If I were Molly, I definitely wouldn’t choose any AI that has the possibility of swapping with a real-world human—hiding the backup in an AI she created herself is more reliable. They’ll be completely undisturbed by humans.

“But the AIs she created are everywhere now,” An Yu said in a low voice. Trying to suppress the urge to hop made walking very uncomfortable for him. He looked around. “And among these people, there are too many who don’t look very sharp.”

-After all, the vast majority of dead people only left behind a very small amount of data. Even if AIs could self-deduce through learning, it’ll still require more time.

Qin Zhilu mused, “She has to find an AI that’s low-key, and expected to remain safe for a considerable amount of time, to carry her backup. Right, are the AIs she created freely acting in this world?”

-Yes. She only read human historical data to create them. This is a batch process. It’s unlikely she will add new settings for each AI. That would be too time-consuming, and would easily cause chaos.

“Which’s to say, the created AIs will also build complex social networks among themselves.”

-Yes.

Qin Zhilu analyzed, “Then it’s much simpler. Under the premise of ensuring longevity, the target can’t be involved in entanglements. It has to be able to stand securely in the Main City. Therefore, it needs a stable way to make a living, but overly high-profile celebrities and wealthy merchants have to be excluded. It needs a certain degree of self-defense ability and social status, so that ordinary people wouldn’t want to provoke it. Its own emotions have to be stable, so it won’t actively cause trouble. Under ideal conditions, it would be best if it had no relatives or partners in the Main City, lived alone, with no ties. Furthermore, there’s one major prerequisite—it had once been a young adult from the Main City who died in the real world.”

An Yu’s steps suddenly halted.

Almost simultaneously, Qin Zhilu also looked over at him, his brow slightly furrowed.