After writing down the last note, Chen Ci put his pen down and turned to Gui Zhiqi, saying, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Gui Zhiqi replied, looking at the musical score with admiration. “You play the piano so well!”

Though his teachers often praised him, Chen Ci felt somewhat awkward receiving Gui Zhiqi’s compliments. He rested his hand on the piano, absentmindedly stroking the keys. “It’s alright.”

“I think you play much better than Lu Heng!” Gui Zhiqi exclaimed. “He wanted to challenge you at the banquet. You should have just accepted and shown everyone.”

“There was no need,” Chen Ci replied, aware of Lu Heng’s challenge at the dinner party. Chen Nian couldn’t play the piano, but he had cleverly averted the challenge.

Gui Zhiqi blinked. “Well, after all, you only play the piano for Prince Shavri to hear, right?”

“Sit down for a while, I want to finish writing this section.”

“Okay,” Gui Zhiqi said as she sat down on the nearby sofa, feeling privileged to witness the creation of this piece.

Chen Ci sat back down and gently placed his hands on the piano keys. His brief time in the Underground City had been eventful. He had traveled to the edge of the 12th Information Processing Zone, where he looked out through the thick glass walls at the deep sea below, with waves crashing 800 meters below at the outer walls of Chensha.

It was both a shelter and a prison.

He strained his eyes, hoping to see something different, but the horizon was always a blend of two shades of blue.

Below the dark sea surface, countless primordial creatures lived in what used to be human cities, now the true rulers of this water-covered planet. He could not see other Beacons or any land.

The tram tracks and energy conduits acted as Chensha’s nerves and blood vessels, with the cold layer beneath carrying high-speed CPUs, Chensha ceaselessly computing. As the highest-class supercomputer, what was it thinking?

The black markets set up in the interlayers, the garbage dumps at the ends of commercial streets, and the shanties in depressions were parasitic on the Beacon’s body, people living without sunlight or rain.

He still had many places he hadn’t visited.

As Gui Zhiqi listened to the melody flowing from Chen Ci’s fingers, it seemed to narrate a tale of a solitary soul wandering in a cold mechanical realm, passing by many of its kind yet subtly exuding a sense of loneliness. She might not fully understand, but that did not prevent her from being wholly captivated by the performance.

Chen Ci played the final chord, and the music slowly faded into silence. He sat quietly for a few seconds, savoring the emotions from the music, before picking up his pen to write down the remaining parts.

Gui Zhiqi waited until he was finished. The young man she saw still looked familiar, yet he displayed a temperament completely different from a few days ago, more closely aligning with the image of the unapproachable high-born rumored about him.

This puzzled her.

After checking the scores and tidying the papers, Chen Ci stood up and moved to where Gui Zhiqi was sitting. Unsure of what to do next, Chen Ci felt an increasing discomfort. The years of isolated life in the White Tower had evidently dulled his social instincts.

Gui Zhiqi sensed something was off and tilted her head to ask softly, “Have you encountered something troubling recently? You don’t seem very cheerful.”

“No,” Chen Ci replied after a brief pause. “It’s just that I’m often like this. Sometimes I feel very cheerful and talkative, and other times I suddenly don’t want to speak and feel quite gloomy.”

“Ah?” Gui Zhiqi struggled to grasp what he meant, and after a moment, her eyes widened in realization.

Chen Ci noticed the change in her expression.

“Are you bipolar?” Gui Zhiqi asked hesitantly.

“What?” Chen Ci hadn’t expected her to go in that direction and quickly clarified, “No, it’s not that serious.”

“That’s good then, glad you’re not ill,” Gui Zhiqi sighed in relief.

Chen Ci thought for a moment and added, “You might understand it as having a dual personality. It’s like knowing one person but getting two friends with different personalities.”

“Dual personality, that sounds cool!” Gui Zhiqi exclaimed. “Is it like in the dramas? What’s the relationship between the personalities?”

“We’re more like brothers, aware of what happens to each other, but some details can be missed,” Chen Ci explained slowly. “The other was out these past few days; now he’s tired, so I’m here.”

“I see,” Gui Zhiqi nodded in understanding.

She cleared her throat and then said earnestly, “I’m Gui Zhiqi, the friend your other personality knows.”

“I know of you; he’s told me about you,” Chen Ci replied, gradually relaxing. Interacting with someone unfamiliar wasn’t as difficult as he had thought. “Almost no one knows about my condition. Can you keep it a secret?”

“Of course!” Gui Zhiqi patted her chest and mimed zipping her lips. “No third person will know!”

Chen Ci and Gui Zhiqi continued chatting. Most of the time, Gui Zhiqi did the talking while Chen Ci listened quietly. She also tried to investigate Shavri but came up empty, which frustrated her.

“There’s no need to look any further,” Chen Ci quickly stopped her futile effort. He had known Shavri since they were about six or seven years old and knew well there were no secrets to uncover.

“Ah, should we stop looking then?”

“Yes, and thank you for all you’ve done these past few days,” Chen Ci said.

Gui Zhiqi waved her hand dismissively. “Helping each other is what friends do. No need for thanks.”

She paused, unable to suppress her curiosity, and asked softly, “Do you already know who that person is? Can you share a little with me? I won’t tell anyone.”

Chen Ci was stumped. He felt it inappropriate to bluntly tell Gui Zhiqi that the person didn’t exist, considering she had genuinely believed Chen Nian’s conjectures and had even diligently inquired for several days. Would she be disappointed or resentful if he told her the truth?

After hesitating, Chen Ci said, “He’s known Shavri for a long time.”

“Shavri has been gaming since he was a teenager; he’s 24 now, so it’s been quite a while.”

“He spends every night with it.”

Shavri dealt with his duties or attended classes during the day and would wear a neural adapter at night to enter virtual worlds.

“Shavri also introduced it to me, but I refused.”

Shavri had once given Chen Ci a neural adapter, thinking it might relieve the boredom of living in the White Tower and that he could guide Chen Ci in the games. However, Chen Ci had immediately felt a strong discomfort when wearing the adapter, as if his distaste for it had been ingrained in his bones from birth.

After Chen Ci finished speaking, he noticed that Gui Zhiqi’s expression had become even more wrong, and her eyes had even started to tear up.

After a few seconds, Gui Zhiqi raised her hand to her mouth, her voice choked up: “Your Highness, he… he actually…”

Chen Ci was puzzled. What was going on?

Gui Zhiqi joined Chen Ci for lunch. After she left the White Tower, Chen Ci returned to his bedroom. His routine hadn’t changed for years; he needed to rest after lunch, or he would get a headache in the afternoon.

Gui Zhiqi’s reaction was beyond his expectations. Chen Ci couldn’t understand why her emotions had suddenly become so intense, almost to the point of tears.

Was it just about playing a game? Did she need consoling? How should he do that?

As Chen Ci racked his brain for what to say, Gui Zhiqi took a deep breath and asserted firmly, “Don’t be sad. Since that’s the case, I will definitely stand by your side!”

Chen Ci didn’t understand.

All in all, aside from Gui Zhiqi’s sudden emotional outburst, the morning had been quite novel for Chen Ci. The friend Chen Nian had chosen for him was quite nice.

He changed into his pajamas, rested for a while, and woke up naturally at 2:30 PM.

Chen Ci didn’t rush to get out of bed. He turned on his terminal; an application he had submitted an hour and a half ago had been approved.

Chen Ci accessed the Chensha internal network, which featured a simple input box. He pasted the dynamic key from the notification into the input box and clicked to proceed, successfully entering the Chensha database.

Chen Ci expertly searched for information related to the Chen family. Access was granted, and a series of files appeared before him. Chen Ci clicked on one, traveling back to events nineteen years ago.

Nineteen years ago, Marshal Chen Wei led the naval legions to support the Greenland ice plains, repelling the Sea Emperor Canglong and successfully rescuing tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the ring base.

Marshal Chen Wei returned triumphantly and was named an elector of Chensha. In September of the same year, his sons Chen Ci and Chen Nian were born, but the marshal’s wife died in childbirth.

In November, Canglong, leading millions of primordial creatures, crossed the oceans to Qi Lian sea ridge to launch a surprise attack on Chensha.

Marshal Chen Wei bravely met the attack. The war lasted for months.

Ultimately, Canglong was severely injured, separated from its mechanical core, and its remnants were devoured by other primordial creatures.

Marshal Chen Wei was poisoned by Canglong and died a hero’s death, with Chensha sacrificing 476 peripheral observatories to secure its survival.

On the same day, a great fire broke out at the Chen family estate.

Efforts were made to save the twins, but only the elder, Chen Ci, was rescued, along with the butler who rushed into the fire.

If not for the actual discovery of Chen Nian, Chen Ci would have continued to believe the archive’s story, that his baby brother and the desperate butler died together in the fire.

The timing and cause of the fire were highly suspicious, and after the incident, the Emperor, in a rage, ordered a comprehensive investigation, which was subsequently classified and sealed.

As an elector of Chensha, Chen Ci had high-level access, second only to the royal family, enabling him to unlock nearly all the information in the database.

However, he could not access the results of the investigation. Perhaps only the Emperor himself could.

Chen Ci reviewed all the files, familiar with the contents, merely hoping to find clues he might have missed before.

Finding nothing significant, he was about to close the files when he noticed something odd in the access records—a few hours ago that morning, someone else had viewed the Chen family files.

The Chen family fire was an event eighteen years ago. Apart from Chen Ci, who else would be interested in it?

Chen Ci stared at the records for a few seconds. The person must have been in a rush to forget to delete the access logs.

“Can we track this?” Chen Ci asked.

“I’m sorry, all access paths are securely encrypted, making it difficult to trace,” the housekeeper responded.

Chen Ci nodded, deleted the access records, and exited the Chensha database.