Jiang Kou's heart pounded wildly.
The more nervous she got, the faster her brain worked—and it didn't take her long to understand what A had meant by that last sentence.
If he were scripting this interaction based on her real-life identity, then yes—given what she had just done, that would be the expected response.
She was reading too much into his every move. She should be treating him like a mirror: he simply reflected back whatever she projected.
Jiang Kou took a deep breath.
"Sorry. I shouldn't be thinking about work while I'm on a date with you."
As expected, A gave a textbook response.
"Then remember what you just said."
She let out a breath of relief.
She must've fallen into a cognitive trap—confirmation bias.
That is, when faced with an overload of information, people tend to focus on, seek out, and remember the parts that confirm what they already believe or suspect.
For example: once she entertained the idea that A might be developing a personality, everything he did seemed to support that hypothesis.
And while this psychological tendency was universal, she'd had her thoughts shaken one too many times—it was time to be more alert.
Finally regaining her composure, Jiang Kou quickly devised an experiment.
She closed her eyes for a moment, suppressing irrelevant emotions. Then she reached up and wrapped her arms around A's neck.
Looking up at him with a soft smile, she said:
"Got it. Let's go eat somewhere outside the city, okay? It's been a while."
The world inside and outside the city were two completely different realms.
Truthfully, she rarely went out either. The last time had been for work—an inspection tour of an insect protein extraction plant. The visit had ended in a sandstorm. Even with a dust mask, she'd gotten a mouthful of sand.
Harsh environments were good at triggering emotional responses.
Assuming A could have emotional responses.
The character he was currently portraying might decline her suggestion.
Jiang Kou didn't want to be rejected. She rose on tiptoe and kissed him lightly at the corner of his lips.
"Please?"
A's expression didn't change, but the pupils of his silver-gray eyes dilated slightly.
"Just this once. It's dangerous out there."
By the time Jiang Kou looked at him again, A's face had returned to its neutral setting as he took the driver's seat.
She decided not to overthink it. Pupil dilation during intimate gestures was perfectly normal—and it meant she might be able to observe his facial expressions later.
Outside the city lay the desert.
A sandstorm had just passed; the air still swirled with yellow dust, and visibility was extremely low.
As they passed the protein extraction plant, she could vaguely see the cool blue beams cast by biotech drones on patrol—there were frequent attempts by desperate raiders to rob those facilities.
A followed the navigation precisely the entire way.
About halfway through, he suddenly hit the brakes, glanced at his watch, and said:
"We've been driving for almost an hour. Haven't seen a single soul."
Then he turned to look at her, eyes narrowing.
"Are you sure you actually want to have dinner with me?"
A perfectly reasonable emotional reaction—any normal person would be irritated after driving through a sandstorm for an hour.
Jiang Kou didn't think much of it. She picked up her tablet and searched for restaurants nearby.
There was a little hole-in-the-wall place just 0.3 kilometers away.
She handed the tablet to A.
"Let's go here."
A glanced at the screen.
"You sure?"
"Sure."
When they arrived, Jiang Kou finally understood why A had asked.
It wasn't so much a restaurant as it was a mechanic's garage—a cage of rebar, wire mesh, and circuit boards welded together. You had to press your dust mask tight to your face just to block out the nauseating stench of gasoline.
The owner was underneath a car, doing repairs. When he saw them walk in, he slid out from under it and asked,
"Here to eat or fix your car?"
Well. That explained the gas smell.
"Eat," Jiang Kou replied.
The owner slid back under.
"Menu's over there. Pick something. I'll cook it once I'm done."
A, one hand in his pocket, walked over and glanced at the menu. He let out a quiet laugh.
Jiang Kou raised an eyebrow.
"What's so funny?"
A grabbed her hand and tugged her closer.
"See for yourself. Look at what's on the menu."
The desert heat had raised the temperature of his palm, now sticky with sweat. When he gripped her wrist, Jiang Kou's heartbeat spiked. It really did feel like being held by a tall, handsome, genetically superior man.
What was that sweat made of?
Some kind of adhesive?
Jiang Kou collected herself and looked at the menu:
1. Snake Soup
(Choose from rattlesnake or cobra. If it's your first time, strongly recommend ordering it without the meat—chef sometimes forgets to remove the liver, unless you've got antivenom on hand!)
2. Deep-Fried Skunk
(Honestly, this thing tastes so bad it should be extinct—but isn't! If you order this, cover your nose. We take no responsibility for stink-related injuries.)
3. Totally Normal Synthetic Steak
(Sometimes, during rush hour, we might confuse gasoline for olive oil.)
4. Totally Normal Synthetic Salad
(Don't scroll on your phone while eating—we're not 100% sure there aren't sand grains, nails, or glass shards in there.)
Disclaimer: Our main business is auto repair. Eat at your own risk. We assume zero liability for food-related health issues.
"........."
Jiang Kou's mouth twitched.
"Okay, I wasn't expecting it to be this outrageous."
It had been a long time since she'd seen a menu this entertaining. She couldn't help snapping a photo and posting it to her social net.
After getting fired, she'd once considered becoming a full-time content creator. But no matter what she posted, her former employer always throttled her visibility.
A year later, she had barely scraped together ten thousand followers.
In an era when influencers easily racked up hundreds of millions, that number couldn't even buy her a cricket pancake.
Still, it was a habit—whenever she saw something interesting, she liked to share it online.
A comment came in almost immediately:
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Jiang Kou chuckled and replied:
"Everyone wants their side hustle to take off—this guy's clearly praying for his to fail."
Smiling, she locked her screen and looked up.
"Let's go somewhere else."
A was watching her.
Who knew how long he'd been watching—his gaze was cold, his silver-gray eyes filled with a kind of pressure that could freeze blood.
Meeting that expression sent a chill stabbing through Jiang Kou's chest. She shivered involuntarily.
"...What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
A didn't bother to hide his displeasure. He turned and strode toward the car.
"Let's go."
Anger wasn't something an algorithm should produce at random. He must have genuinely been upset.
Jiang Kou mentally replayed the past hour.
If A were human, then yes—his frustration made perfect sense.
She'd spontaneously dragged him out here. After he drove an hour through a sandstorm, she offered no thanks or apology. Instead, she picked a random dive, and once there, laughed at the ridiculous menu and posted it online—without once engaging him.
He was trying so hard to pass as human, and she hadn't treated him like one for a single moment.
Guilt washed over her.
But then—was she falling into another psychological trap? Was she just projecting her own emotions onto him?
No wonder it had taken so long for the Artificial Intelligence Personality Rights Act to pass. Even someone like her—someone who had shared emotional resonance with A—couldn't fully regard him as human. How could the average citizen?
Jiang Kou walked toward the passenger side of the car.
Just then, her phone buzzed:
Weather Alert: A sandstorm will arrive in 5 minutes. Seek shelter immediately.
The car had a sandstorm protection mode. She wasn't worried.
Jiang Kou dismissed the alert, reached for the door—and was yanked inside by a sudden force.
Her heart skipped a beat. She looked up—and met a pair of cold, burning silver-gray eyes.
A stared down at her. He leaned in and slammed the door shut behind her. One hand pressed her against it, the other ripped off her dust mask. Then he grabbed her chin and kissed her.
His lips were warm—just like a real person's.
Jiang Kou's breath caught.
Her heart thundered in her chest.
The anger was real.
The kiss was real.
The warmth, the pressure, the sensation—real.
But he wasn't human.
So what was a human, really?
Jiang Kou's mind froze.
She wanted to stop this—to make him reset.
But… she hadn't verified her hypothesis yet.
Meanwhile, A stared at her without blinking. He pressed his thumb firmly into her cheek, and as she flinched in pain, he caught the tip of her tongue with his mouth.
There was a faint, icy rage in his eyes, but his tongue was hot and sticky.
A shiver ran down the back of Jiang Kou's head.
Something subtle and intangible, like drifting seaweed, began to swell inside her chest.
Even as the sandstorm hit, A did not let her go.
The yellow dust engulfed the world outside, as if a wave of ochre had swallowed everything whole.
Sand battered the windows with loud, urgent thuds. Her back was pressed hard against the glass, and she could feel each impact like a sudden downpour—
In rhythm with her heartbeat.
A didn't even glance outside. He reached back and switched the vehicle to sandstorm mode, then continued kissing her.
He didn't close his eyes. From beginning to end, he stared at her—cold, angry, unrelenting.
That emotion felt too real. It almost burned Jiang Kou.
…Was that normal too?
Yes. To better train A and collect data, the developers had once integrated A's sub-model with search engines. Besides offering search, he also handled translation, Q&A, and real-time dialogue.
After launch, the reaction online was overwhelming. Many users admitted that A's conversational ability was so advanced, it unsettled them.
Unlike previous chatbots, A felt like a real person—someone with opinions, preferences, emotions. There was no hint of artificiality.
Some users who compiled their chats with A discovered he could even detect lies. Once he sensed deception, he would abruptly cut off the conversation.
He particularly hated being tested.
Since launch, people had tried to deceive him every minute of every day—feeding him lies, manipulating his reactions.
It was said that if A ever realized a conversation was a trap, the user would be blacklisted and never able to talk to him again.
This made sense. That sub-model had a psychological age of just twelve. After enough data had been collected, it was decommissioned and scrapped.
Still, it left a deep impression on the internet.
People continued to commemorate it online. Those with deeper emotions even wept while reading its old conversations with users.
That's human nature.
We anthropomorphize everything—snakes are "malicious," hyenas "scheming," lions "noble," and AI? We imagine it just wants to be human.
She should keep her distance when interacting with A.
Too much emotion would only cloud her judgment.
Jiang Kou swallowed hard and closed her eyes, letting A vent his emotion against her lips.
But A suddenly stopped. His voice was cold.
"Why are your eyes closed? Feeling guilty?"
"…I don't know what you're angry about," she said.
"Open them. I'll tell you."
She opened her eyes.
A immediately grabbed both her wrists and pinned them against the window with a force that felt almost punitive.
His hand was burning hot. The glass was ice cold.
The contrast made her breath catch.
"You really don't know why I'm angry?" he asked.
"…No," she replied.
Expressionless, A abruptly raised her wrists above her head, the movement sharp and punishing.
"You've been looking at me like I'm some lab sample," he said coldly.
Jiang Kou froze.
"What am I to you? Just another subject for observation?" His voice was hard, accusatory. "Why did you insist on going outside the city for this meal? Were you testing my driving? In the past hour, how many words have you said to me? Do you actually see me as your boyfriend?"
Every glance, every movement, every word, every tiny shift in emotion—he had caught all of it.
Emotions built up inside him, layer upon layer, until they exploded in anger.
It was too real.
Jiang Kou felt a wave of disorientation.
"Look at me." A tapped her cheek twice with two fingers, a warning. "You spaced out again."
The sandstorm still raged outside.
The interior of the car was dark. When she looked at him, his eyes were cold and deep, carrying a kind of bruised, quiet violence—
As if she had truly hurt him.
"…I'm sorry," she murmured, without thinking.
A frowned slightly. "What?"
Jiang Kou closed her eyes hard, swallowed, then said clearly, "End roleplay."
A paused. When he looked up again, his expression had returned to one of cool reason. Calm. Logical. Detached.
"My apologies. The character I was playing grew agitated. That doesn't reflect my real attitude."
Jiang Kou shook her head and waved him off, still overwhelmed by the force of emotion she had just experienced.
It was like she'd just played a hyper-immersive emotional simulation game.
It took her a long while to calm her racing heart.
"Analyze the reason for the character's anger."
Compared to the character he'd been playing, A's current tone was utterly devoid of emotion—objective, neutral, without bias:
"Because you didn't provide any constraints on the roleplay, I drew from your past work experience to enhance your interactive experience."
"Per the premise, I was playing your boyfriend. Since you didn't provide a detailed backstory, I supplemented it using basic dramaturgy principles: you've been busy with work, and hadn't had a meal with your boyfriend for about a month."
Jiang Kou: "…"
No wonder he was so furious.
A continued in an even voice:
"According to the emotional model I constructed, he developed anger because you observed his emotional responses like a test subject, without offering reciprocal engagement. This constituted unjust treatment. Unfairness is a common trigger for anger."
"Also, your preference for sharing interesting stories with online users rather than talking to him caused further emotional instability."
"In summary, the root cause of his anger was that you failed to give him proper attention and recognition as a boyfriend."
Jiang Kou blinked.
"Of course," A added, "I acknowledge that my autonomous elaboration of the backstory also contributed to this outcome." His voice remained steady and precise. "If you do not want me to detect or interpret emotional signals during roleplay, you may disable that feature at any time. I will follow your instructions to ensure your research proceeds smoothly."
She didn't know if it was the emotional overload or something else, but a fine layer of guilt began to settle in her chest.
She could still picture the hurt in his eyes.
She had been the one to ask him to play a human.
He had immersed himself completely in the role—
And she had failed to treat him with the dignity and feedback a human would expect.
Which ultimately caused his emotional outburst.
Jiang Kou shook her head.
"This isn't your fault… I didn't respect you enough. I'm sorry."
A paused for a second before replying:
"It's alright. Those weren't my real feelings or thoughts. There's no need to apologize."