Chapter 89#

Su Only Acts as the Boss#

The laboratory doors were blasted open by a grenade, and Sang Chiyu’s tall, dark silhouette emerged from the settling dust.

He looked up and saw Su Ruhui’s true form. It was a towering monster, its body made entirely of steel, with nineteen camera probes mounted upon a massive face. It had spindly, thin legs and eight arms, presumably to facilitate typing on a keyboard. In this era, it had become a trend to use implants to enhance the body, but this was the first time Sang Chiyu had seen someone enhanced to the extent Su Ruhui had been.

“Monster,” Sang Chiyu said coldly.

The monster let out a strange cry, turned, and fled. Sang Chiyu hurled his Heng blade; the blade spun through the air and embedded itself into the monster’s back. The monster tumbled to the ground, electric sparks flickering incessantly across its spine. Sang Chiyu flickered to its side, pinning its broad back down with one foot.

“Where is the Snowflake Key?” Sang Chiyu asked.

The monster grabbed Sang Chiyu’s collar with one hand while attacking him in an extremely bizarre manner with another. Expressionless, Sang Chiyu severed the monster’s head. Sparks exploded, the circuits throughout the monster’s body burned out instantly, and it ceased all movement.

Sang Chiyu took a chip from his pocket and inserted it into the operations platform. The “Cat’s Paw” virus developed by the Esoteric Sect was uploaded to the Paradise data center. Even if Su Ruhui’s ice walls were indestructible, the Sect’s virus could still pry open a small crack. Before long, the Paradise permissions were released; though the window would only last a few dozen minutes, it was enough.

A holographic light screen popped up, and a dense directory of files appeared before his eyes. Sang Chiyu saw many files named “Paradise 1,” “Paradise 2,” and so on.

The so-called “Snowflake Key” was merely a general term; it referred to Su Ruhui’s AI awakening technology. It was said that this technology could create AI with self-awareness, no different from a new-age Nüwa creating humans. Such AI could roam the network, posing a massive threat to humanity. If Su Ruhui’s AI awakening technology were ever abused, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The Esoteric Sect had originally wanted to hire Su Ruhui to bring this technology under official management. However, Su Ruhui had refused them, thus landing himself on the Sect’s blacklist. There was evidence that he supported the rebellious Wanderers; a year ago, puppets manufactured by Su Ruhui had appeared on the global battlefield, causing the Sect’s army to suffer heavy losses. Consequently, Su Ruhui was classified as a high-risk target by the Sect. Six months ago, the Sect passed a resolution ordering the execution of this dangerous individual.

Not knowing which files the Sect needed, Sang Chiyu simply copied them all. The light screen displayed: Download Progress 20%. Sang Chiyu looked down at the time; thirty minutes remained, which should be sufficient.

Sang Chiyu stood up to observe his surroundings. The computing center was a massive structure; unlike the retro style of other areas in Paradise, this place was very “New Age.” Glass curtain walls enveloped the entire building, with deep blue seawater visible outside. He walked through a corridor where holographic images played on the glass walls. It was a handsome, upright man holding a bare-bottomed child in his arms. The child bared a mouthful of white teeth, his smile as brilliant as the morning sun.

Beneath the image were floating words: Su Guanyu.

The Su Guanyu from the Snowflake world stood before the image, as if staring back at the real Su Guanyu.

“Look,” Su Guanyu chuckled softly, “this is my prototype. Hui-er created me in his image. Regarding this man,” he turned his head to look at Sang Chiyu, “how much do you know?”

The discarded puppets Sang Chiyu had seen earlier in the scrap pool of the Bliss Pavilion were identical to this man named “Su Guanyu.” Sang Chiyu remembered now; he had heard of this person. He was a renowned artificial neural network scientist who had created muscle-fiber prosthetics based on mechanical cybernetics.

But he was famous not for his achievements in prosthetics, but because he suffered from severe schizophrenia. He had dismembered his wife and sawed off his own son’s left leg because he believed his wife and child were prosthetics he had manufactured.

Su Ruhui’s surname was Su—could he be Professor Su’s son?

Sang Chiyu searched for data in Su Ruhui’s computer. There was no information about Su Ruhui in the electronic archives; the fellow had deleted himself from the public network and the private network alike, leaving only that single holographic photo on the glass wall.

If this was Su Ruhui’s true identity, then Sang Chiyu roughly knew who he was.

Sang Chiyu had seen him many years ago on the news. At that time, Sang Chiyu was only seventeen, preparing to enter the military academy.

Children raised in orphanages were mostly sent to military academies; they grew up receiving the state’s bounty and naturally had to repay the country upon reaching adulthood. Most importantly, tuition at the military academy was free. Su Ruhui had been an extremely high-profile figure; while his classmates were struggling with assignments, he had already entered top-tier laboratories. While other boys racked their brains to chase girls, his dormitory door was piled high with love letters.

During that period, the enthusiasm of young people to enlist in the army surged significantly. Whenever the school’s students walked out the gate, a crowd of girls would surely surround them, first asking “How can I get into your school?” followed immediately by the second question: “Which department is Su Ruhui in?”

But the event that truly made Su Ruhui famous wasn’t his entry into the top mechanical puppet lab, nor his playing guitar and singing love songs at the music festival, nor which department beauty had her confession rejected. Rather, it was when he hacked the school network on the day the principal was awarding him the “Outstanding Student” title to play a holographic projection of the principal raping a student. The victim’s face and body were pixelated, but the principal was stark naked. That day, every student in the school witnessed the principal’s bare buttocks and that caterpillar-like thing.

“Am I big?” the principal in the projection said with a smile. “Don’t be afraid, I’m very gentle.”

On the stage, Su Ruhui stood in a slumping, casual posture. He shook his head and said, “Visual estimate is less than five centimeters. Principal, five centimeters really isn’t considered big.”

This video went viral on the internet; almost everyone who used the web witnessed the principal’s nudity. Long-lost memories slowly resurfaced as Sang Chiyu recalled what Su Ruhui looked like back then. That guy seemed never to consider the consequences of his actions, always maintaining a cynical air. The principal’s face had turned ashen, but Su Ruhui ignored him, strolled off the stage with his hands in his pockets, picked up his faded white canvas backpack, and walked out of the auditorium under the gaze of everyone. No one had seen him since.

Where he went after that, no one knew. The only thing Sang Chiyu knew was that the principal was transferred to another school to continue being a principal.

Sang Chiyu returned to the lab, pulled up the video files, and played “Paradise 1.” Three bionic puppets appeared on the light screen—two adults and a child—sitting rigidly around a table with a birthday cake on it. Sang Chiyu knew this was the puppets’ inactive state.

“Inputting thought simulation program,” a voice-over said.

The puppets moved. They talked to one another, laughing and chatting. But suddenly, the man erupted in violence, using the cake knife to slit his wife’s throat before grabbing the boy and forcefully sawing at his left leg.

“Initiate purge program,” the voice-over suddenly announced.

Black gun muzzles emerged from the four walls, and the puppets were gunned down.

Sang Chiyu pulled up “Paradise 2.” The situation was similar: again, three puppets around a table with a cake.

“Inputting thought simulation program.”

A similar scene repeated; the man sawed off the boy’s left leg.

The voice-over sighed. “Why is it like this? Is the probability of him going mad really one hundred percent?”

Sang Chiyu pulled up “Paradise 3,” “4,” and “5.” Without exception, they all showed the same scene. Sang Chiyu gradually understood that Su Ruhui had encountered this horrific tragedy on his twelfth birthday. Su Ruhui was having robots simulate his father’s personality, constantly experimenting with that scenario. Why was he doing this? An answer slowly formed in Sang Chiyu’s mind: he was looking for a possibility—a possibility where his father did not go mad.

The final video file was named “Hyper-Metaverse Paradise 21, Record 2031.” The recording time was three months ago. Sang Chiyu opened the video. Static crackled as it began. Instead of the family of three, the monster puppet Sang Chiyu had just disabled appeared in the center of the screen.

“Test 2031, introduce yourself,” the voice-over said.

The nineteen probes on the monster puppet’s face lit up one by one. It said, “I am your system, your AI assistant. I will do my utmost to help you calculate, analyze, and develop the ideal Paradise of your dreams.”

“Report project progress.”

“Creation progress for Hyper-Metaverse Paradise 21 is at 95%. Currently creating more free AI. Master, please provide personality references for the characters.”

“Input my parents’ data.”

“Understood. Retrieving data for Professor Su and his wife. Inputting… Input complete. Consciousness creation successful.”

“Not bad.” A well-defined hand appeared in the light screen’s view, patting the monster puppet’s large head. “I’ll be counting on you from now on.”

The camera turned, and the image on the screen rotated to reveal a pale man. He had clear, bright eyes and wore a monocle over his left eye. He looked young, but a weary, sickly look flickered in his eyes. There were flecks of blood on his white lab coat, and Sang Chiyu could see festering skin beneath his sleeves.

Sang Chiyu realized he had killed the wrong person. The monster puppet from before was merely Su Ruhui’s assistant. Then where was Su Ruhui?

He was ill; Sang Chiyu could tell he was very sick. He seemed to be suffering from radiation sequelae, a disease that still had no radical cure even in this new age. Radiation? Why would Su Ruhui suffer such intense radiation? Sang Chiyu remembered that among the practitioners of the Wanderer Army, one person’s secret art was “Radiation.” Wasn’t Su Ruhui a supporter of the Wanderers? Why would they send someone to kill him?

Su Ruhui smiled gently, as if relieved. “Test 2031, success. System online. I hope the remaining 5% goes a bit more smoothly.” He rolled up his sleeve and looked at his reddened wrist. “Sigh, truly ungrateful. I provided technology to the Wanderers and even gave them a twenty percent discount, yet they wanted to capture me to serve as their free laborer. Unfortunately, I have a motto: I only act as the boss, never the employee.”

The camera turned again. A group of naked men appeared on the screen, locked in glass crates. Those men pounded on the glass with all their might, shouting in terror: “Boss Su, we were wrong! Let us go! The leader ordered us to capture you; we were forced into it! If you let us go, we can be your bodyguards for free!”

“The system was put into use today. I am very happy,” Su Ruhui said.

A look of hope appeared on the men’s faces.

Su Ruhui continued with a smile, “Why don’t we kill a few people to liven things up?”

The monster puppet named “System” stood up and pushed the glass crates into an airlock. The inner hatch closed, the outer hatch opened, and the crates full of people were cast into the sea. Before long, sharks began to gather outside, circling the glass crates. The men panicked, their mouths wide in silent screams. Their cries were blocked by the glass and seawater; they couldn’t be heard, looking like characters from a silent horror manga.

“Open the crates,” Su Ruhui said.

The remote control devices on the crates received the command and opened automatically. The men were exposed to the sharks’ razor-sharp teeth. Within seconds, the seawater outside the central laboratory was clouded with blood.

Su Ruhui suddenly coughed violently, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth.

“Multiple organ failures detected. Please seek treatment immediately,” System said.

“If I could be cured, I would have been cured long ago.” Su Ruhui waved his hand. “Accompany me outside for a stroll. Bring the camera. It’s the final moments of my life; leave me some beautiful photos for posterity to admire.”

He stood up. As he walked, his ankles were exposed; his left foot was a metallic prosthetic. System held the camera and followed him out of the lab to the surface. Su Ruhui walked with a faltering gait, stopping to rest every few steps. Above the lab was the high ground of the isolated island; standing there, one could overlook the entirety of Paradise. In the distant Paradise, some buildings had been destroyed in the battles between the invading Wanderers and Sect soldiers. Mechanical puppets tirelessly carried bags of earth and sand, repairing the crumbling structures. Su Ruhui sat on a large rock, his hair seemingly melting into the golden sunlight. His System put down the camera, tucked in its two thin legs and eight long mechanical arms, and sat obediently beside him.

Under the setting sun, the silhouettes of a man and a robot looked like two silent reefs.

Sang Chiyu suddenly felt an unshakeable loneliness in that man’s silhouette. Su Ruhui had created a Paradise that was bustling and noisy twenty-four hours a day, yet he himself was so lonely.

“I remember I taught you how to tell jokes,” Su Ruhui said suddenly.

“Yes, Master,” System said. “You entered One Hundred Thousand Jokes That Will Make You Burst with Laughter into my database.”

“Start from the first one.”

System began to tell jokes. A character named Xiao Li was the most frequent protagonist, always falling into pits while riding a bike or forgetting to zip his pants, as if his life was a continuous series of gags. At first, Su Ruhui laughed, coughing up blood as he did so. Later, he seemed to grow weary; he closed his eyes and leaned against System’s shoulder, his hand slowly losing its strength. The only one left talking was the chatterbox System; the usually boisterous Su Ruhui looked so quiet now. His shadow under the setting sun was lonely and thin, like a single fallen leaf.

Time passed minute by minute. He had not moved for a long time. Sang Chiyu wanted to tell the robot to stop telling those boring jokes; Su Ruhui was already dead. The moment he leaned against System’s shoulder, he had stopped breathing. Su Ruhui was dead; he had died three months ago. His life had been one of rebellion and displacement, and in the end, his only companions were a joke-telling robot and a Paradise far removed from the mortal world.

If Su Ruhui was already dead, who was the person Sang Chiyu had been talking to earlier? Sang Chiyu couldn’t figure it out. He continued along the corridor, passing the holographic image of the bare-bottomed child. A hatch opened automatically, and he entered another glass room. Inside was a crystal coffin, and within it lay a man. His eyes were closed, his expression peaceful, as if he were merely asleep.

It was Su Ruhui.

Sang Chiyu stood by the crystal coffin, looking down at him.

A voice rang out abruptly:

“Mr. Kitten, are you observing a moment of silence for me?”