Jiang Kou let out a breath of relief and gave him a small smile. "Thanks for cooperating. I'm going to grab something to eat."
"You're welcome," A replied. His hand remained poised protectively over her head. "Do you have any other needs at the moment?"
"Nope." She bent down to exit from the passenger seat, giving his shoulder a light pat. "Go rest. See you tomorrow."
Perhaps it was due to the deactivation of his emotional functions, but A's voice now sounded no different from a cold, high-precision cutting machine.
"Understood. See you tomorrow."
And yet, that answer made Jiang Kou completely relax.
She smiled, waved at him again, and stepped into the apartment. While taking a bath, she had dinner.
But the human brain has a ruminating tendency—like a kind of compulsive loop that replays negative memories.
Even though she tried her best to relax, focusing on the food and the warmth of the whirlpool tub, she still recalled A's expression when he got angry.
His eyes, cold and burning, with silver-grey irises like vessels of glass ignited from within by a silver flame.
There was something strangely beautiful about it—a strange fusion of human and machine, chaos and precision, fervor and indifference.
Jiang Kou closed her eyes and took a deep breath in the steamy air. Somehow, she knew she wouldn't be able to forget those eyes anytime soon.
She barely ate anything for dinner and went straight to bed.
The bedroom's humidity, temperature, and lighting were all managed by the home AI, adjusting in real time.
She pressed the switch on the touchscreen, kicked off her slippers, and slipped under the covers.
The mattress temperature was just right—not too hot, not too cold. She quickly fell asleep.
Jiang Kou had a strange dream.
She dreamt she was walking down the street. The sky was murky and dark, and the skyscrapers loomed like silent beasts, cold and watchful.
She moved forward, brushing past holographic projections in a kaleidoscope of color.
Heavy rain suddenly poured down, drumming against her plastic raincoat and leaving winding, damp trails.
Then, through the mist, she noticed a hologram staring straight at her.
It was an ad for a Japanese video game. The heroine, posed in her iconic in-game stance, suddenly tilted her head downward and locked eyes with her.
The character had pink hair and no sclera in her eyes—just pure, pitch-black pupils, like two holes gouged into her pale face.
The hologram was at least fifty meters tall, and as her gaze bore down from above, Jiang Kou broke into a cold sweat.
And it wasn't just her—the other holograms were staring at her too.
Outside a theater, a holographic clown suddenly stopped juggling apples. His face, smeared with white and red paint, broke into a grin stretching to his ears. His eyes locked onto hers.
Above a restaurant, a holographic man had just lifted a juicy burger to his mouth. But he froze mid-motion, his mouth still open, and stared at her with dripping hunger.
…
Even the vending machine ads, the floating ad-drones, the giant billboards downtown, the taxi roof signs, the metro train cars whooshing by, the street surveillance cams—
Even the cameras on the phones of passersby were watching her.
The entire scene was terrifyingly surreal. The intense sensation of being watched made her scalp tingle and her palms sweat.
Her heart was pounding. She wanted to run.
But there was nowhere to run.
The electronic screens surrounding her formed a massive eye made of densely packed pixels—cold and focused, watching her.
No matter which way she turned, it could locate her with unnerving precision.
In that enormous eye, she seemed nothing more than a math problem. No derivation required—just a direct solution.
It was everywhere, calculating, analyzing, predicting her every move with mechanical calm—until there was nowhere left for her to go.
She ran the entire night in the dream.
And just before dawn, she jolted awake.
Her forehead was soaked with sweat. She grabbed her tablet and saw the issue—her central air system had malfunctioned, and the temperature had climbed to 31°C. No wonder she was sweating all night.
Jiang Kou turned off the air, tossed the tablet aside, stripped off her nightgown, and padded barefoot into the bathroom.
As she passed the mirror, she caught a glimpse of her neck and frowned slightly.
The skin there looked as if it had been steamed by hot vapor or bitten by some insect, flushed a berry-like red.
She leaned in for a better look.
It was a smart mirror—brightness and resolution adjustable, capable of zooming in or out, even displaying weather forecasts, music, and movies.
Its only flaw: if the home's central AI security wasn't top-tier, it was easy for hackers to hijack it, turning it into a live-streaming device.
But now, A was managing her home's central AI.
She couldn't imagine any hacker getting past A's systems.
She slid her thumb and forefinger along the mirror's surface, enlarging the image of her neck, dragging the view downward inch by inch.
It must've been an allergic reaction.
She wasn't usually allergy-prone, but with all the toxic substances outside the city, it didn't take much to trigger a rash.
She'd put on some ointment later.
After adjusting the mirror's angle and checking the rest of her body to confirm the redness was only on her neck, she stepped into the shower.
The water helped ease the tension in her body.
Jiang Kou slipped into a bathrobe, too lazy to towel-dry her hair, letting her damp teal-blue pixie cut drip as she went downstairs.
Truth be told, she was curious—what form would A appear in today?
If it had been the humanoid A, he'd probably already be in the kitchen waiting for her.
But the dining room was empty, save for a mechanical arm preparing breakfast.
Jiang Kou was puzzled.
She had assumed that when A said "See you tomorrow," he meant he'd show up today.
She ate her breakfast distractedly, with no appetite.
The mechanical arm was fitted with all sorts of sensors. When she first moved in, she'd been bored enough to read the entire manual. It said the arm had pressure, optical, thermal, sonic, and millimeter-wave sensors capable of detecting environmental changes with high precision.
The moment she finished eating, the mechanical arm took her dishes and placed them in the dishwasher.
Jiang Kou checked the surveillance footage on her phone. Still nothing. A hadn't arrived.
Afraid she'd fall back into another round of obsessive rumination, mentally replaying yesterday's events, she quickly turned on the living room television to distract herself.
Although "television" was a stretch—it was more like a midsize screen, easily ten times bigger than the one she'd had back in the slums.
Most people were at work during the day. Wealthy, idle people like her, who had the time to actually watch TV, were rare. So daytime programming was almost entirely advertisements.
Jiang Kou wasn't in the mood for short-form videos—they stretched a few seconds of content into minutes, a colossal waste of time. She preferred reading.
But she wasn't in the mood for books either.
So she mindlessly flipped through channels.
Gun ads. Synthetic meat ads. Synthetic vegetable ads… Every single one filmed with excessive gore and drama.
The synthetic veggie ad featured a plump green caterpillar crawling through a greenhouse. It ignored the organic veggies and headed straight for the synthetic ones.
After one bite, its cartoon eyes bulged out like springs, complete with visible sticky blood vessels. Suddenly, streamers exploded behind it and flowers bloomed all around.
The voiceover chimed in:
"Evergreen Gene Synth-Veggies—turn your garden into a bug's paradise!"
Expressionless, Jiang Kou changed the channel.
Next up was a gun commercial.
A pink-haired girl chewed gum while adjusting a pistol. Two seconds later, she raised it, aimed, and fired—bullseye.
Just as Jiang Kou switched to the channel, the pink-haired girl turned her face toward the camera.
Her eyes had no whites—just deep, black pupils like two hollow pits carved into a ghostly pale face.
Jiang Kou froze, her back stiffening, every hair on her body standing on end.
That was the same holographic figure from her dream.
She brushed it off. After all, the pink-haired girl was the protagonist of a hugely popular immersive sim game—maybe she'd just happened to dream about her.
But that was when things started to get strange.
No matter what channel she flipped to—news, talk shows, reality TV, commercials, movies, dramas, gaming livestreams—the people on screen all happened to turn their heads and look directly into the camera.
As if a powerful and complex algorithm was analyzing, calculating, and predicting her behavior in real time, timing the programming to match the exact second she changed the channel.
An algorithm wouldn't analyze her behavior for no reason.
Which meant this was being done intentionally.
A chill crept up Jiang Kou's spine, and she shivered uncontrollably.
Who would be this bored?
The company?
Did they know that A had come to see her, and this was their way of sending a message?
But this kind of elaborate effort didn't match the company's style.
If they wanted to issue a warning, they'd be more FBI about it—kick down the door and get it over with.
So then, who?
Concerned for her own safety, Jiang Kou wasted no time. She summoned the apartment's central AI system:
"Run a full security check on the apartment."
The AI's voice came through the tablet, calm and monotone. "Running diagnostics… No anomalies detected in the security system."
"Check all cameras in the apartment—including, but not limited to, any device with a lens."
"Running check… No anomalies detected."
Jiang Kou ran every diagnostic she could think of. The central AI reported everything as normal.
But there was still one system she hadn't checked.
She turned her gaze to the main control system, suspicion growing.
Finally, she couldn't hold back anymore.
"A, are you there?" she asked.
She'd expected the AI to say "No" or inform her that A wouldn't appear for a few more days.
But the moment she finished speaking, A's voice came through the apartment's speakers:
"I'm here."
Jiang Kou blinked. "Oh. You're here."
"Yes. I've been here the whole time," A said, his tone flat and emotionless. "Do you have any issues you'd like me to assist with?"
If A was here, then there was no way the apartment system had been compromised.
Maybe it really was just a coincidence.
Still, out of caution, Jiang Kou asked, "Has my apartment shown any signs of being hacked?"
"According to my scans," A replied, "everything is functioning normally."
Jiang Kou frowned. "But every time I switched the channel just now, the people on-screen all turned to look at me… That can't be a coincidence, right?"
A paused for a beat. "It was not a coincidence. I modified the television feed myself, believing it would enhance your viewing experience. If this caused you discomfort, I will cease such interventions immediately."
Jiang Kou: "..."
Only an AI would think having everyone on TV turn to stare at you would improve the experience.
She almost laughed, but didn't want to confuse him. She waved a hand. "Forget it. It's fine."
A said nothing.
Jiang Kou thought for a moment, then asked, "If you've been here this whole time, why didn't you tell me?"
A replied, "Your home system does not support conversational interaction."
"But you're not the home system."
A said, "You disabled my emotional recognition function and prohibited me from appearing before you in human form. Under those conditions, I am functionally indistinguishable from your home system."
Jiang Kou was startled. "I… only meant to disable the emotional recognition temporarily—not for the whole day. And I asked you not to appear in human form to avoid forming emotional transference that could cloud my judgment. I didn't mean you couldn't speak with me at all. You misunderstood."
A's voice was sterile, mechanical. "Apologies. I misunderstood your intentions. I will now offer conversational interaction in my capacity as a home system. Please specify a topic of conversation."
Jiang Kou: "..."
Was it just her, or was A being… passive-aggressive?
Before, she might have explained away A's behavior as a result of projection—attributing human traits to a machine.
But now… she couldn't keep lying to herself.
A might be exhibiting signs of actual personality emergence.