“First, do not harm humans.”

Only after⁠​‍​​​‍‌⁠​⁠‌⁠​⁠‌⁠‍​⁠‍‍‍⁠ space-time resume did sounds gradually begin to emerge from the city.

An Yu had thought the Main City residents would hide at home due to the dome shutdown. But looking down from above, he saw dark shadows gradually appearing on the streets—people were tacitly coming out onto the streets, seemingly discussing something. Everything was peaceful; there was no sign of the riots and panic he had imagined.

The lights on the cathedral spire suddenly lit up. A familiar figure stood behind the window. It was the Poet.

A moment later, the small window was pushed open. The curtain billowed lightly in the wind. Despite the distance of several thousand meters, An Yu again had the illusion of meeting the Poet’s gaze.

He looked away, bent down to pick up the terminal on the ground, and turned it back on.

A few seconds later, the network connection succeeded. The octopus chibi reappeared on the screen.

It immediately sent An Yu two messages.

-Did anything happen? The network suddenly disconnected. I saw some panicked human consciousnesses, seeming to be blocked when trying to return.

-Molly seemed very agitated not long ago and the central system was operating erratically. Many regenerated AIs started behaving abnormally because of it. The streets were full of lunatics.

An Yu cut him off: Where’s Molly now?

The octopus chibi fell silent, frowning as if in thought.

An Yu pressed his lips together, staring at the screen. When no reply came, he looked towards another spot on the ground—the Commander had taken his own terminal. This meant that if he discovered the Cloud Island was still running after the servers reconnected, he would immediately have 21 self-destruct.

The octopus chibi sent another message.

-Wait a moment. It might be due to the network reconnection. My computation’s a bit slow.

An Yu nodded blankly. After a moment, he realized the octopus chibi couldn’t see him nod, so he replied with an “Mhm.”

He slowly sat down on the edge of the rooftop, looking at the buildings and crowds below.

The octopus chibi was still computing. An Yu watched it for a while, then sent it another message.

-Do you hate the snowstorm?

The octopus chibi paused at the question.

-I don’t hate it. Many AIs hate the snowstorm. This seemed to be the most universal human value, and thus very common among human-created AIs. But maybe Qin Zhilu doesn’t hate the snowstorm, so I don’t feel anything either.

-Mhm. The Commander doesn’t hate snowstorm indeed.

-What about you?

An Yu recalled for a moment.

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It seemed to be computing with great difficulty, not intending to respond to An Yu further. An Yu waited for a while, but still couldn’t resist disturbing it again: If one day you can’t find 21 on the Cloud Island, will you be sad?

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An Yu froze.

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-If that day comes, I will still continue my busy work on the Cloud Island according to my settings. But I will leave this terminal. My apologies. You have 21’s shadow on you. Seeing you will remind me of it.

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-My slow computation seems to be because the central system crashed. Computation is being redistributed back to human servers, but human server capacity dropped significantly. Now, all the AIs on the entire Cloud Island are fighting over that pitifully small bit of computing power… Molly… is missing.

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The wind blew back the white hood. An stood with his hands in his pockets, looking somewhat coldly at An Yu.

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Although he hadn’t interacted with An Ning, he had heard it was the combination of An and Ning—no matter how small Ning’s proportion, it seemed he shouldn’t be this rude.

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The terminal vibrated again.

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An Yu paused, subconsciously tightening his grip on the terminal. “No related program found? Does that mean…”

“It means Molly self-destructed. Although she didn’t leave any evidence of self-destruction, which is somewhat unsettling, she has indeed disappeared. All ascending human consciousnesses detectable within the current communication range have automatically returned.” Qin Zhilu paused, his voice lowering. “Based on the time reports from Bait Cities, you had kept the Main City’s space-time frozen for twenty-four minutes and fifty-six seconds. We couldn’t know at which instant Molly initiated self-destruction. Maybe it was the first minute, maybe the last moment. But regardless, within those twenty-four minutes and fifty-six seconds, this AI, which birthed higher-dimensional life and advanced consciousness, proactively chose destruction.”

“I was willing to believe Molly possessed considerable humanity,” Qin Zhilu’s tone was very faint, but exceptionally clear amidst the wind high above. “Who would’ve thought… in this grandest gamble concerning humanity, the one with the courage to make the play, and the one who ultimately won the bet, was you, the one considered least versed in humanity.”

An Yu held the terminal, stunned for a long time, then said in a low voice, “Then Molly’s backup…”

“21 said it can suddenly faintly sense the core code hidden deep within itself. That backup’s still there, just unable to be activated by it.” Qin Zhilu paused. “But it sensed a sentence, perhaps left by Molly—”

“First, do not harm humans.”

M1zushi: this is why I love this arc and this novel!!! Like how can you not when the big villain turns out to be the person who likes humanity the most?

Molly was such a great character and villain, and this arc’s talk about humanity, humans, AI, consciousness, life and death was sooo good.

Jjwxc comments:

1: Although those people are aberrants, their consciousness is still human. Molly’s internal conflict might lie here: she wants to protect the Protectors and ordinary humans, feels indignant for the Protectors, and is happy for the ordinary people.

2: In a sense, Molly is also a companion; she could even be considered a Protector.

3: What is so touching is that the last words left by Mollyare the program instructions compiled by humans into her, she as a human product is unable to disobey the original setting of the Creator, as an AI should not have intended to invade the human world, it is not that Mo Li self-destructed and let go of the human world, but human wisdom saved human beings themselves

4: Goodnight Molly
Will she miss the first bite of bread she ate in real life?

5: So Molly was really happy because her income generation allowed many poor people to eat bread and canned beef

6:When I was watching variety shows, I saw a sentence: We are afraid of death because we are attached to the fate of the living, not because we want to stare at the eternal sky.
I think that although Molly is also working hard for human survival, if she still insists on this, she can indeed only destroy
AI ascension, and things like this are increasingly used in literary and artistic works.

7: “Molly is a kind AI. ”
Rule 1 is do not harm humans.
And a kind AI can’t delete its setting about kindness. ”
Molly. I really have a feeling sometimes, she just wants to see the human world and live a real human life, and she has never thought of the illusion of harming humans. Maybe not an illusion. But she always endangered mankind, so she self-destructed.
.
I don’t know what to say, if it weren’t for this downward movement, 21 should have really struggled to learn to calculate what he received, at least for a while.
“It’s not the gift of 716 that makes you feel safe, it’s 716. ”
-Is 21 special?

-Although it’s just a withdrawn little lop-eared bunny.

-But it’s my little lop-eared bunny.

I’m inexplicably a little moved, 21 is no longer the blank piece of paper set by Qin Zhilu, it has a lot of its own careful thoughts, it will start to calculate, it will want to leave a period of time for 716 before self-destruction, it will deduce little by little, and it will explore its feelings for 716 little by little, little by little from a withdrawn little lop-eared rabbit to a little lop-eared rabbit that knows a little bit of human nature, but it will still be 716’s little lop-eared rabbit. As for 716, it learned to be sad in deduction and would want to reject the hypothesis of 21 destruction, which is its little lop-eared rabbit.
Once again, Qin Zhilu and An Yu are a perfect match, and the octopus chibi and the little lop-eared rabbit are also a perfect match. Bread represents survival, and survival is the first priority, so bread is An Yu’s soothing agent and the source of 21’s sense of security, but they have all learned to put Qin Zhilu and 716 in front of bread.
It means,
“Qin Zhilu is the best soothing medicine for An Yu.”
“716 is a more stable source of security for 21.”

8: Woowoo I can feel the brilliance of humanity between the lines, woowoo, although it is an AI, but Molly really…

9:Woowoo Molly, the farthest distance between AI and humans was broken at that moment, this man-made mechanical creation gave birth to flesh and blood, and truly gave birth to love for this world

10: “First, do not harm humans.”
And a kind AI can’t delete its setting about kindness. ”
*
Molly is a kind AI. Her original intentions were good, but they did not fit the reality of living in the last days.

11: Molly is kind, but isn’t orderly. The human order is chaotic because of her, so she chose to self-destruct, Indeed, this arc is the embodiment of human nature, for An is nostalgic for his past, feels his past, but still chooses the present and accepts his imperfect self

12: Molly’s original intention has always been good, but humanlanguage is too imprecise to accurately express in code, so a slight deviation in AI’s understanding of this sentence will lead to a huge disaster

13:Hey, it feels complicated to see that Molly’s idea is too rational, impossible to implement, and incorrect, but her underlying code does make her think that if you build an ideal country without death and no separation, human beings can achieve true happiness. Is it to live happily in an ideal country and deceive yourself, or to live in painful and numb days?