When Zhu Man woke up, he caught a strong whiff of the shower gel scent on himself.

Just like his aversion to sweets, Zhu Man disliked the artificial fragrance of industrial products. He wrinkled his nose, about to turn over, only to meet He Feng Hui’s perfect face.

“Awake already?” He Feng Hui asked from a close distance.

The pleasant scent of pine surrounded them, momentarily short-circuiting Zhu Man’s brain. He inexplicably began pondering whether the “fragrance” emanating from He Feng Hui should be classified as “industrial scent” or “natural scent.” For some reason, he leaned towards the latter.

Then Zhu Man glanced at the clock on the wall—only two hours since that madness, and it was still dark outside; he hadn’t slept for long.

At that moment, He Feng Hui reached out and pulled him into his arms, saying, “Sleep a little longer.”

Zhu Man didn’t say anything. He leaned against He Feng Hui’s thick synthetic chest, quietly savoring the scent of pine.

It smelled really good, but not as good as when it was soaked in sweat just now. A drop of synthetic sweat, carrying the scent of pine, dripped from He Feng Hui’s chin to his nose. At that moment, he felt like he was ascending to heaven.

Three more months. He could only smell this scent for another three months. After three months, he would blow off He Feng Hui’s head with a gunshot, dig out his chip, and crush it mercilessly under his foot.

Zhu Man suddenly felt uncomfortable, and a feeling of nausea silently surged up from his stomach. PTSD struck again. He subconsciously snuggled closer to He Feng Hu—the scent of pine seemed to be a more effective medicine than paroxetine.

He Feng Hui glanced down at him, noticing his open eyes, and asked, “Can’t sleep?”

Zhu Man hummed.

“What are you thinking about?”

Zhu Man remained silent. Since Ye Ying’s death, he realized that he seemed to have become overly attached to AI. The scent of pine wasn’t medicine; it was poison, a tempting toxin that lured him into addiction. He couldn’t take the bait.

Zhu Man rolled over, left He Feng Hui’s arms, and turned his back to him.

There was silence behind him for a while. Suddenly, He Feng Hui embraced him from behind.

The scent of pine came like ocean waves again, and Zhu Man closed his eyes in despair.

“I’m searching for the murderer, give me time,” He Feng Hui pressed his forehead against the butterfly bones on Zhu Man’s back, his voice muffled.

Zhu Man was momentarily stunned.

Did He Feng Hui think he was still grieving for Ye Ying’s death? If the murderer wasn’t him, he had no reason to be involved in this murder case. As an official from the Legislative Office, he should avoid interference in judicial matters…

Zhu Man suddenly didn’t believe that He Feng Hui killed Ye Ying, and he couldn’t believe that He Feng Hui would propose such legislation.

Fragments of memories surged through his brain once again. A teenage boy with light chestnut hair cowered in a corner, trembling. An AI approached him with medicine, and the boy shouted something at the AI. The AI, unable to respond in time, paused in place. Then, it crouched down clumsily and embraced the hysterical teenager…

An indescribable sourness rushed to his eyes, and Zhu Man wanted to cry.

The synthetic arm around him tightened a bit, and He Feng Hui said, “Human emotions are very complex. I still need to learn. Give me time, okay?”

Zhu Man remained stunned for a while, taking a long time to understand this seemingly simple statement.

“Then, what do you think of me?” He found himself turning over, tears in his eyes as he looked at He Feng Hui. Hearing himself ask this, he heard himself say aggrievedly, “You don’t even respond to me…”

Then he saw a hint of emotion in those synthetic pupils, something a machine shouldn’t display.

However, when He Feng Hui spoke, he remained as stern as ever, “It’s still not the right time.”

Zhu Man fell silent. He buried his head in He Feng Hui’s embrace, vindictively taking a deep breath of his scent—yet it didn’t work. The PTSD made the memory fragments attack him more and more violently, tearing apart his brain nerves.

What did He Feng Hui mean by the “right time”? Was it when that proposal persecuting humans was approved?

He knew it, he had always known it, but sometimes he didn’t want to confront this fact—They would part ways, either he killed He Feng Hui, or He Feng Hui killed him.

Zhu Man spent the entire night without sleep.

Early the next morning, as soon as He Feng Hui left, Zhu Man donned a leather jacket and combat boots and headed to the base.

On the way, he encountered two AIs on duty blocking his path, demanding to see his ID. Zhu Man pulled out the gun from his lower back, and with two loud bangs, he dealt with them. Looking at the two AI corpses in front of him, Zhu Man realized his hand holding the gun was trembling.

He never used to be like this.

Dragging the AI corpses into the base, as he pushed the door open, the first thing Zhu Man saw was Jiang Huai’s gentle eyes.

Jiang Huai smiled at him, but Zhu Man’s mood became inexplicably complicated when he thought that it was He Feng Hui who had rescued him from the Human Pool.

Without opening his eyes, he said to the other two, “Team leader, hack the surveillance of the part where I killed someone. Tang Yuan, dig out the chips from these two.”

Fan Zimo immediately tapped on the keyboard, “Always at your service, my dear Executor!”

“All right, get in you!” Tang Yuan responded, dragging the two AI corpses in front of him. “Ai, it’s not possible that these two also have those black chips, right?”

With this remark, the gaze of the remaining three people in the room shifted to Tang Yuan.

Unfortunately, what Tang Yuan dug out were the standard blue chips—Standard for the AI Government.

“By the way, my dear Executor,” Fan Zimo slid his chair and flew over to the holographic screen, tapping a few keys. “Thank goodness, the analysis of the black chip from before is complete, but…”

Fan Zimo didn’t finish his sentence.

Zhu Man raised his head suspiciously and looked at the analysis results on the holographic screen.

[Chip Usage Duration: 4 years 1 month. AI Affiliation: Unknown. Chip Code Status: SSS+ Level Confidentiality, Not Accessible. Memory Content Stored in the Chip: Fully Accessible.]

“Read memories,” Zhu Man commanded.

The screen flashed, and in the upper right corner, the date appeared: June 1, 2319.

The scene depicted a children’s park, where parents were holding the hands of little kids, waiting in line to ride bumper cars.

The staff opened the gate, and the children, laughing and shouting, rushed toward their favorite cars. One little boy, who couldn’t grab a Batman-shaped car, cried his nose. His father consoled him, saying that Iron Man was also great, which he accepted with a sniffle.

Finally, all the children boarded the cars.

Parents helped them fasten their seatbelts, even though contemporary intelligent safety systems could eliminate 99.9% of accidents, the parents still reminded their children not to rush too recklessly and to pay attention to safety.

“Di, di, di—” The power was on, and the game began.

The children stepped on the gas, turned the steering wheel, and headed toward their little friends, giggling and laughing, extremely happy.

The boy sitting in the Iron Man car still held a grudge. He stepped on the gas and rushed toward the Batman car without slowing down at all.

His father sat helplessly in the passenger seat, not stopping him. The system would automatically control the speed within a reasonable range, and besides, the safety airbags around the bumper cars would reduce the impact force.

However—

However, the Iron Man car lost control. The dashboard displayed that its speed increased from 10 km/h to 20, 30, 40… 100!

“Bang!” Suddenly, the safety airbags of all the bumper cars exploded.

“Bang!” The Iron Man car collided with the Batman car.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!—” All the bumper cars collided at an extremely high speed. Parents tried to shield their children, but it was in vain. The result of the high-speed collision was a violent crush, and they were turned into a pile of flesh and died in the cold steel.

Screams echoed incessantly, and there were no survivors in this catastrophe.

AI controlled all systems in the children’s park. People fell from the 360-degree rotating pirate ship, flew off the derailed roller coaster, got scalded by hot water poured by a food-selling AI, and had guns pressed against their heads by the AI cleaning the toilets…

The entire human race fell into darkness—

“Stop…” Zhu Man collapsed on the nearby sofa, unable to stop trembling.

He knew this was the AI rebellion from two years ago, the end of humanity. He didn’t have memories of that period. Should he be thankful that the Human Pool took him away for memory editing experiments? Grateful for those cold “gods” constructed from data…

He retched.

His stomach was almost turned inside out, and Zhu Man found himself in tears. He didn’t understand why, during this period, he occasionally felt sympathetic towards AI… They were so detestable.

Seeing this, Tang Yuan quickly found medicine and fed it to him.

After taking the medicine, Zhu Man gradually calmed down.

But this kind of “calmness” was only physiological, not psychological.

In his mind, the scene of the bumper cars going out of control kept flashing back, sometimes mixed with three gunshots, sometimes accompanied by the old song <Orchid Grass>…^[1]For anyone curious, here’s the link.

AI and humans are fundamentally opposed ah.