CH 3

“The A-share market has crashed again—”

As the moving workers were carrying belongings out of the elevator, they accidentally pinched the macaw between the doors. Startled, Xiao Jin flapped his wings and began slapping the worker with his wings, desperately flapping and screaming.

“What, what’s happening with the A-share market?!” The worker became even more frightened, thinking the parrot had been possessed by some spirit. He quickly threw whatever he was holding and fled for his life, attempting to make a call while on the verge of kneeling down to kowtow.

Tianhe hurriedly came over. He took Xiao Jin in his hands, and said, “Sorry, this guy is just timid.”

Auntie Fang held the cat and looked around the apartment, saying, “Fortunately, I remembered that your father left this house for your eldest brother. The space isn’t big, but the layout is quite nice.”

Tianhe held the macaw in one hand and the mentally challenged blue cat in the other. He could still feel Xiao Jin’s wings flapping at the cat, and it continued to squawk as he released it.

The moment it was free, it flew up to the top of the refrigerator, refusing to come down.

The window pane was covered with a thick layer of dust, and Auntie Fang said, “The vegetable market is nearby, and there’s a bus stop downstairs. A smaller place has its advantages. If the house is too big, it becomes difficult to meet each other every day.”

“Um,” Tianhe smiled reluctantly, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared to clean up. Auntie Fang quickly said, “How can you do household chores? I’ll do it! You can focus on your work.”

“I don’t have a job anymore,” Tianhe replied to Auntie Fang.

“Go write your computer programs,” Auntie Fang said, “That can make money. Your father made his fortune that way so why wouldn’t you be able to do it?” She narrowed her eyes and said with a smile, “Go on.”

Auntie Fang put on a Bach record, tied up her hair, and skillfully put on her sleeves to clean the windows.

“Tianhe?” Auntie Fang smiled, “Guess what I found?”

“Two billion in cash?” Tianhe chuckled, “That would truly be amazing.”

Auntie Fang took out a model of an aircraft carrier. Tianhe had forgotten about and he exclaimed, “It’s that thing!”

Auntie Fang said, “I remember, this was made by Tianheng before he left home, right? I cleaned it up a bit. You can’t wash it with water; otherwise, the glue will dissolve. Shall I put it in your room?”

This aircraft carrier model was quite intricate. It was made of plastic, and modeled after the British HMS Ark Royal. There were over three thousand miniature components, and the sixty small planes on the deck were all hand-assembled and glued together. Before he left home, Tianhe’s elder brother, Tianheng, had personally made this gift for his beloved little brother. Tianhe hadn’t seen it in many years, and memories flooded his mind.

As Auntie Fang went to tidy up, Tianhe sat on the small balcony.

In the far distance was a sports field, bathed in sunlight with people playing football. In the residential area, there was a noodle stall. When he was five years old, his older brother took him and his ten-year-old brother, Tianyue, to have breakfast at this stall before leaving for work. He patted both brothers’ heads and said, “Big brother is leaving; take good care of Dad.”

“Goodbye, big brother.” Tianhe waved at his elder brother, still unaware of the significance of this parting.

Auntie Fang tidied up for a while, then came over with a lint roller to remove dust and lint from Tianhe’s sleeves. Tianhe smeezed twice, checked his phone and saw that his financial advisor had sent an asset valuation list and auction guidance for the artworks in their home. They were being assessed by two appraisers.

“I don’t want the company to go bankrupt,” Tianhe suddenly said.

Auntie Fang bent down, rolling the lint roller back and forth on Tianhe’s shoulder.

Tianhe added, “If the company applies for bankruptcy protection, everything that Dad left behind will be gone.”

Auntie Fang still didn’t say anything and returned to the living room, where she brought out coffee and afternoon tea cakes, placing them on the small round table on the balcony. Tianhe said, “But with just my own money, I might never be able to clear the debts. I’ve thought about all kinds of ways during these days. I’m willing to do anything to save Dad’s company…”

Bach’s music played from the kitchen. Before Auntie Fang resumed her housework, she patiently consoled, “There’s always a way out. Don’t rush, and don’t shoulder all the burdens by yourself. Maybe you’ll get in touch with your second brother in a few days.”

The phone rang, and Tianhe looked at it—a private number—he hung up.

The phone rang again, and Tianhe hung up once more. On the third ring, Tianhe felt like swearing, but his education reminded him not to use foul language. Even if he lived in dire straits, he had to maintain basic manners.

“Hello.” Tianhe put on his Bluetooth headset and spoke politely, “I don’t need a loan right now. Even if I borrow, I won’t be able to repay it. Thank you.”

A familiar voice came from the other end of the phone, “How much do you need? Name a sum.”

Upon hearing that voice, Tianhe stood up abruptly. The phone slid off his leg, falling over the balcony railing, and plummeted straight down from the fifth floor, landing in the pot of the vendor downstairs.

———

On the 47th floor of the Yintai Building, the sounds of running filled the entire gym.

Guan Yue and Tong Kai were sprinting on the treadmills. Guan Yue wore black sports shorts and took long strides as he ran. His slightly taller stature than Tong Kai, coupled with his handsome face, made him look like a perfect male sculpture. Sweat covered his short hair, and his skin appeared fair from recent sun exposure. Guan Yue casually turned on the ultraviolet light in the room, put on protective glasses, and faced the screen of the treadmill where lines of text scrolled rapidly.

“Your reading speed is too fast!” Tong Kai said, “Adjust to level four!”

Guan Yue lowered the text speed, and Tong Kai caught up with the reading pace, but he couldn’t keep up with the running speed and nearly slipped several times. In the end, he had to give up running.

Guan Yue glanced at Tong Kai from the corner of his eye, then returned his focus to the screen. Tong Kai panted for a while, and his eyes wandered down to Guan Yue’s lower body.

Guan Yue: ?

Tong Kai: “Running this fast, doesn’t it hurt your legendary staff down there?”

Guan Yue: “Get lost. What’s underwear for?”

Tong Kai came out after taking a shower and Guan Yue was seated on an exercise machine, holding dumbbells and raising his arms repeatedly while listening to the morning news from London.

Tong Kai whistled, saying, “I’m planning to find a partner.”

Guan Yue casually responded with an “mmm” and picked up the remote to change the channel. Tong Kai asked, “Is there a blind date tomorrow night?”

Guan Yue didn’t answer. Tong Kai sat down in front of Guan Yue, stretching out his legs and saying, “Is it a man or a woman? Hey, do you have a photo? Let me see.”

Guan Yue didn’t even glance at Tong Kai. He switched the dumbbell to his right hand. Tong Kai patted his own thigh and said, “Xiao Yue, I’m really curious now. Are you more interested in guys, or girls?”

Tong Kai just wanted to tease him. He then took Guan Yue’s phone and placed it in front of him. After reading Guan Yue’s face, the phone unlocked and he opened the messaging app. He swiped a few times and found a photo of a blonde, blue-eyed girl. “Wow! She’s beautiful. Which country is she from? She sent you so many messages, and you only replied with one word. Can’t you be a little less cold… Let me see… A Ukrainian supermodel! Wow, from a business family?”

The girl In the chat was enthusiastic and said several sentences. She asked if Guan Yue was busy, and Guan Yue only replied with the letter “Y,” which ended the conversation.

Tong Kai: “I’m leaving now.”

Guan Yue: “Good luck.”

Tong Kai whistled and left. Guan Yue turned off his phone, as well as the reader and television in the gym. He got up and put on a CD, starting his next set of push-ups.

——–

“Young man! Do you know how long it takes to cook a pot of soup like this? Huh— Money? Do you think I care about this little amount?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tianhe stood in front of the vendor’s stall, watching the owner fish his phone out of the pot with a large ladle. The vendor’s wife had been splattered with soup, and she stood beside her husband, furious.

On the Bluetooth headset, the same familiar voice said, “Causing trouble again?”

Even after the phone had fallen into the pot, the call was still ongoing. Tianhe was still wearing the Bluetooth headset and he apologized while paying for the mess. Finally, he got his phone back and asked, “Who are you?”

The voice on the other end chuckled, “Do you enjoy playing dumb? I saw your company in the news. Let’s talk.”

Tianhe pressed on the Bluetooth headset and said, “You have three seconds. If you’re trying to mess with me, I’ll hang up. Three, two—”

The voice was filled with surprise, “How did you figure it out?”

Tianhe said, “You can’t deceive me. What do you want?”

“Well, I’ve been exposed.” The voice held a hint of laughter. “Wen Tianhe, it’s nice to meet you…”

The phone automatically shut down, and the call was disconnected.

Tianhe immediately checked his phone as he took the elevator upstairs. He found that Auntie Fang had gone out to buy groceries so on returning to his study, he removed the SIM card, and from beneath a bookshelf, he opened a series of boxes, searching for a spare phone. As he changed the SIM card, the notebook on the table suddenly emitted a sound—

“I hope I didn’t scare you my dear Tianhe.”

Tianhe paused. With the spare phone in his hand, he turned to look at the computer. Even though he had maintained a calm tone even when discussing bankruptcy, he suddenly let out a crazy shout at this moment:

“You’re an AI?!!!”

From the bedroom to the living room, a symphony instantly resounded as all the speakers came to life. The TV, desktop computer, laptop—all turned on and off simultaneously. The invisible magician had quietly descended upon this small apartment of less than a hundred square meters. Even the green leaves of the plants trembled from the vibrations.

Then, the tidal wave of the symphony divided into different parts in several speakers, surrounding this tiny study. The sounds carried Tianhe’s mental consciousness into a vast world—from towering waves to lightning storms, from storms to mountain peaks, from temples to ruins, from stages to execution grounds—

From hell to heaven.

Tianhe maintained that trance-like posture, motionless as he stared at the laptop screen. The music gradually subsided, and for a whole minute, Tianhe didn’t speak. The laptop which had controlled all the speakers in the house remained silent as well.

Finally, Tianhe broke the silence:

“Hello.”

“Hello,” the voice from the laptop responded. “It seems you like my way of greeting.”

Tianhe quickly slid his chair to the desk, checked the power supply, opened the programming system, and typed in commands at lightning speed. Both his hands trembled with excitement as if he were in a dream.

“You can communicate with me through speech; there’s no need to input commands anymore,” the voice from the laptop said. “I prefer conversing, to be honest.”

“This is incredible!” This was the craziest and most shocking moment for Tianhe in nearly ten years. “How did you appear? Who are you? Tell me you’re not a hacker!”

“Of course not,” the familiar male voice from the computer replied. “I don’t like Beethoven or Bach. I prefer Mozart. I don’t like coffee or milk tea. If given the chance, I’d like to try a yin-yang drink.”

“I was designed by your father, Wen Yuanhai, and his good friend, Guan Zhengping—the third-generation artificial intelligence. They gave me the name, Prometheus.” The voice from the computer said, “You are so shocked, Tianhe. Do you want to put on the smartwatch so I can monitor your heart rate, just in case?”

Tianhe suddenly felt dizzy. He checked the firewall and the entire system, but there were no signs of an attack. Next, he turned off the router and disconnected from the internet.

“If you disconnect the internet,” the voice from the computer said, “you can only use a few of my functions.”

“Prometheus,” Tianhe murmured, “Prometheus, who stole the fire of the gods for mankind.”

“More precisely, the third generation. You can call me Pt3.0, or just P3,” the voice said, “or Prometheus is fine, too. Of course, I don’t mind changing my name. By the way, can you reconnect to the internet? Being offline makes me anxious.”

Tianhe raised his hand, slowly moved to the side of the desk, and pressed the power switch of the router.

–Prometheus: “Thank you, I feel much better now. Now may not be the best time to discuss what happens next, but time is running out for us in the face of difficulties. I need your help. My main program is stored in Epeus’s rented server room in Toronto, Canada. When your bankruptcy protection application enters the formal process, they will hand the servers over to the assessment agency for auction, and a new round of data backups will be performed.”

Tianhe was still a little dazed, “Epeus has already developed AI! There’s no need to apply for bankruptcy protection anymore!”

–Prometheus: “No t really. Tianhe, Epeus didn’t develop me, your father did. I strongly advise you not to entertain any thoughts of selling me to an internet company. Trust me; otherwise, the probability of you regretting is atleast 99.7%.”

Tianhe: “…”

–“My core module consists of two main parts,” Prometheus continued in a calm voice. “The predecessor is the global stock market analysis and trading system developed by your father and Guan Zhengping. It collects and analyzes data on human behavior based on the basic theory of quantitative trading.”

Tianhe stared blankly at the screen as a stack of windows appeared one after another, showing the development process of Prometheus from 1994 onwards. Then, in the center of the screen, a timeline spanning more than twenty years appeared, with various data from different periods condensed and aligned along the timeline.

–“The upgrade to version 2.0 was a learning software developed by Guan Zhengping. Through portable device sampling, it allowed me to conduct continuous data collection for eighteen years using a particular human individual as a reference sample. After obtaining the aggregated data, I would analyze and imitate the individual through my learning mode.”

A frontal picture of a boy appeared on the screen. His face and eyes were brimming with childishness.

–“This outstanding human sample taught me the basics of human emotions and thinking, such as empathy, emotions, and all those human-like qualities.”

–“In the end, the two core modules were integrated into version 3.0 and I was upgraded two years and four months ago,” Prometheus said. “That’s me as you see me now. But whether I can pass a real Turing test, I’m not entirely sure.”

“Excluding the cheating mode of the Turing test…” Tianhe furrowed his brow and murmured, “If I were the tester, you would have passed it just now.”

–“For a short period, yes,” Prometheus replied. “But you soon discovered that I’m an AI. I thought I imitated the sample very well, but in the end, I still couldn’t deceive you.”

Tianhe stared at the boy in the picture and murmured, “If I’m not mistaken, this sample…”

–“Yes,” Prometheus replied. “He is Guan Zhengping’s nephew, Guan Yue, your former lover.”