He Feng Hui left for work, and five minutes later, Zhu Man adorned himself in a leather jacket and combat boots before heading out.

On the way, Zhu Man took down an AI attempting to lay hands on him with a single shot. He dragged the AI’s body to the base.

Inside the base, only Tang Yuan was present. Upon seeing Zhu Man effortlessly toss the AI corpse into the room, Tang Yuan’s eyes lit up, “God Man, amazi—”

Before the rainbow farts could finish, Zhu Man approached, causing Tang Yuan to step back until he was cornered against the wall with no room to retreat.

Tang Yuan’s eyes widened, and the little chubby flesh on his cheeks trembled slightly, “God God God God Man… I-I-I… I think we should keep our relationship pure—”

“Jiang Huai is your childhood friend,” Zhu Man interrupted him.

“Ah.” Tang Yuan hesitated for a moment, “Yes, yes ah…”

Zhu Man coldly commanded, “Tell me about his past, who he is, his family background, social connections, work—give me all the information.”

“This will take forever…” Tang Yuan looked uneasy. Although his back was already against the wall, facing Zhu Man’s intense pressure, he still tried to embed himself further into the wall.

Seeing his discomfort, Zhu Man straightened up, reached for a chair, and dragged it in front of Tang Yuan. He then casually sat on the sofa.

Crossing his legs and lifting his chin, he said, “No hurry. I have the whole day to listen to what you have to say.”

Tang Yuan wiped his non-existent sweat from his forehead, took a few steps around to the front of the chair. Just as he was about to sit down, he suddenly stood up again, smiling ingratiatingly, “God Man, although we’re childhood friends, I’m not that close to him, really…”

Zhu Man looked at him with indifferent and chilly eyes, asking, “Are you aware that I suspect him?”

“Well… I have some idea,” Tang Yuan replied.

Zhu Man raised an eyebrow, “And yet, you still shield him?”

“I swear by the heavens and earth, I’m innocent!” Tang Yuan anxiously took a step forward, then retreated, “No, God Man, I am truly devoted to you and the organization! If I had an issue, why would I have introduced you to join the alliance?”

Due to the life-saving grace in the past, Zhu Man had never doubted Tang Yuan. However, with the current situation, the events and clues shrouded in mist left him with no choice.

He pressed his temples, a headache forming. He even began to wonder if the murderer deliberately released false clues to incite internal strife within the alliance.

“I haven’t doubted you,” Zhu Man gestured towards the chair, chin raised, his tone slowing. “Just tell me what you know.”

Tang Yuan, comforted by his softened attitude, finally sat down and began, “I’ve known Jiang Huai since we were eight. At that time, I lived in the First University’s faculty housing. He went through his parents’ divorce and suffered abuse from his mother…”

Tang Yuan unnaturally paused at this point and glanced at Zhu Man.

Zhu Man raised his eyebrows slightly and motioned him to continue.

Tang Yuan withdrew his gaze, reached out for a glass of water, and took a sip. He swirled his eyes slightly as he drank, and then continued, “In the end, Jiang Huai was adopted by my neighbor. Well, it’s not exactly adoption; he is a distant relative of my neighbor, and the neighbor’s child calls him cousin.”

“What kind of person is your neighbor?” Zhu Man inquired.

Tang Yuan glanced at him again, “The neighbor Auntie is a professor at the First University. The neighbor Uncle, was…” Tang Yuan paused, “At that time, I worked for the government. I don’t know the specifics of his job.”

Zhu Man took note and gestured with his eyes for Tang Yuan to continue.

“Later, the three of us kids played together in the compound. But when we were ten, the neighbor moved, and Jiang Huai was sent to live with a teacher at the First University by the neighbor Auntie. After another year, Jiang Huai’s foster mother’s job changed, and they moved to another city. Our contact reduced after that.”

“Later on, I only found out through social media that he studied Sociology at the Second University and, after graduating, he joined the Women and Children’s Bureau of the government. Although we didn’t have much contact after he moved away, I wasn’t surprised when he started working at the Women and Children’s Bureau…”

Zhu Man was puzzled and sat up straight.

Tang Yuan weakly explained, “Because… his personality has always been gentle. When we were kids, I asked him why his parents didn’t want him. I thought he would harbor resentment towards his parents, but instead, he said, ‘My parents didn’t reject me. They rejected each other. It’s okay. My dad cheated, and I support my mom leaving him.'”

“Then I said again, but your mom used to hit you. Now she doesn’t want you either. He replied, ‘It’s wrong for my mom to hit me. She’s in prison now for domestic violence. But if my dad hadn’t cheated, my mom wouldn’t have become like this. I am a victim, and my mom is a victim too.'”

Zhu Man’s tightly clasped hands tightened even more.

Tang Yuan carefully observed him, hesitated several times, but ultimately expressed his inner thoughts, “So, God Man, I’ve never been able to suspect him. Whether you call me an accomplice or too stupid, I just can’t believe a gentle person could be a killer…”

Zhu Man didn’t respond immediately.

He recalled the first time he met Jiang Huai, dressed in a light-colored sweater with his soft, light chestnut hair, presenting a gentle scholar-like appearance. Despite some of Jiang Huai’s words and actions being aggressive, after filtering through his gentleness, there was a softness. One’s temperament was innate and couldn’t be feigned.

However, Zhu Man didn’t rule out Jiang Huai’s suspicion solely based on temperament. The notion of temperament was too subjective and one-sided, insufficient to overturn He Feng Hui’s discovery of “data fluctuations”—Evidence was the most objective and impartial existence.

Zhu Man lightly tapped his index finger on the sofa and asked, “Where did Jiang Huai go? What about Fan Zimo?”

Tang Yuan replied, “Jiang Huai probably couldn’t leave his Master’s place. The team leader seems to have gone to coordinate with other groups in the alliance.”

Until the afternoon when Zhu Man left the base, neither of them had returned.

After He Feng Hui finished work, instead of going home immediately, he remotely controlled the smart home appliances to prepare dinner for Zhu Man and left a message saying he would be working late tonight. Then, he unlocked the smart car.

Confirming the location of Jiang Huai tracked by the CPU, he connected himself to the car’s system. In the next second, the smart car headed towards Jiang Huai’s location.

On the way, he recalled Zhu Man’s reaction at Lin Lang’s house that day.

Zhu Man seemed to have a strong aversion to the brain-machine interface. Unless force was used, there would be no way to monitor his memory. As for his analysis of “data fluctuations”… he was still as intelligent.

He Feng Hui didn’t know whether to be delighted or worried. The earlier Zhu Man awakened, the less advantageous it was for him. Everything was going smoothly, but somehow, many unexpected complications arose, such as the death of Ye Ying.

It seemed that since taking Zhu Man to Mirage, the trajectory had begun to spiral out of his control.

Mirage, Jiang Huai, Ye Ying…

He Feng Hui’s CPU raced at high speed. He felt there were clues he couldn’t anticipate, yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pinpoint where these clues lay.

The CPU found some information about Jiang Huai during the period of human government rule, but studying sociology, being adopted, working at the Women and Children’s Bureau… it all seemed to have no connection to “Zhu Man.”

As if just the tip of the iceberg, beneath the surface, massive and elusive secrets were still hidden.

The smart car stopped in a desolate wilderness.

He Feng Hui confirmed there were no cameras around, and after ensuring the erasure of the car’s traces from all the passing cameras, he opened the car door.

Jiang Huai stood with his back to him, facing an ancient banyan tree. In the deep night, the leaves were hidden in the darkness without moonlight, and the solitary figure against the darkness appeared even more lonely and desolate.

However, it was difficult for an AI to comprehend this artistic depth. He Feng Hui walked over, making the gravel crunch beneath his feet.

Before He Feng Hui could reach him, Jiang Huai turned slowly. He flashed his characteristic gentle smile and said, “Mr. He, I’ve been waiting for you.”

He Feng Hui looked at him impassively, approached him, and straightforwardly asked, “Now that Zhu Man is not present, I’ll give you one last chance. On the night Ye Ying died, where were you?”

Without waiting for Jiang Huai to respond, He Feng Hui scanned his body, assessing his physical condition, and concluded, “Your liver is in bad shape. Cancer cells have spread one-third of the way. If you don’t want to live, you don’t have to answer me.”

Jiang Huai smiled, “Mr. He, our deal was based on the premise that I still cared about Zhu Man’s true identity. But now, I don’t.”

He Feng Hui’s synthetic heart tightened.

Jiang Huai continued, “Even if you don’t tell me who Zhu Man is, I can figure it out. He may have lost his memory, but his personality, intelligence, thinking logic, and behavior are ingrained in his brain, and cannot be erased. Although I don’t have direct evidence, but…”

He continued, “I don’t know you, or the Human Pool, and I don’t know what technology you AI have used to alter his brain’s physical state. But, you can’t change his soul—He is still him, I can feel it. Soul, do you AI understand the meaning of this word?”

The CPU paused for a moment, and He Feng Hui recalled a question Zhu Man had once asked him, “Do you understand what the phrase ‘someone died’ means?”

In an instant, He Feng Hui’s system flashed with many images, including him holding a gun, killing his former masyers, and the applause from his kind after killing that “Zhu Man,” calling him the hero of AI.

A faint and indifferent chuckle interrupted his thoughts, coming from Jiang Huai.

Turning to face the banyan tree, Jiang Huai asked, “Do you know where this is?”

Only after he said this did He Feng Hui’s CPU begin to transmit memories about this location.

June 1, 2319, he shot and killed the former president’s family of the human government.

That night, he was surrounded by his kind, celebrating wildly at the human government office building. When asked what to do with the bodies of the former president’s family, he was told:

“Just throw them anywhere in the wilderness near City A.”

Later, he found this location and buried the bodies of the three under the banyan tree.

Realizing something, He Feng Hui asked cautiously, “How do you know they are here?”

“Is it strange? I heard it from Ye Ying. Their bodies were dumped here, not a secret in the AI world, just that no one cared after your victory,” Jiang Huai seemed to mock his ignorance.

He Feng Hui disliked the way he separated humans and the AI world with his rhetoric, but looking at the yellow soil under the banyan tree, he found himself unable to refute.

One difference between AI and humans was their approach to information retrieval. Humans had a thought pattern called “sensory experiences trigger emotions,” while AI, despite being capable of storing more information than humans, only accessed stored information passively when receiving commands.

“I can tell you, I was indeed not there on the night Ye Ying died,” Jiang Huai said openly. “I came here.”

His openness left He Feng Hui without a clear direction, and the CPU couldn’t predict where his next statement would lead.

“That day was the Qingming Festival,” Jiang Huai said.

He Feng Hui’s CPU began to retrieve information about the festival — a day for tomb-sweeping and honoring the deceased.

His heart sank suddenly, and he belatedly realized that he should have set reminders in the system to be notified about all relevant worship-related holidays.

“Have you retrieved it? A holiday related to worship, right?” Jiang Huai leaned against the banyan tree trunk. “But do you understand why humans ‘worship’? In your cognitive system, do you think death is just turning into dust, leaving the world, without the need for remembrance?”

He Feng Hui couldn’t answer, and the CPU ran at high speed, approaching its thermal limit.

The word Jiang Huai just mentioned, “soul,” suddenly wreaked havoc in his CPU like a program responding with an error.

“Mr. He, do you still think you’re impressive?” Jiang Huai looked at him. “You simply can’t understand him, nor can you protect him.”

Drizzling rain started to fall. When He Feng Hui’s system retrieved information about the Qingming Festival, the poem “In Qingming season, rain is falling, travelers’ hearts are yearning” popped up. However, he found it difficult to comprehend the connection between “falling rain” and “yearning hearts.”

He only vaguely knew that AI’s rationality had enabled them to conquer the world, but eventually, it would also lead to their loss of the world. Reluctantly, he had to admit that the “soul” Jiang Huai spoke of might be the essential tool that governs the world.