Chapter 274: This Life—The Beginning (XV)

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Chapter 274: This Life—Starting (XV)

“Honestly, you child. What were you doing running off to the seaside in weather this cold? If you hadn’t been lucky, your mother might never have seen you again.” Song Mizhen kept scolding as she ladled soup for Wei Xun.

Wei Xun leaned against the headboard and stared blankly out the window, completely ignoring her words.

“Ah-Xun?” Song Mizhen raised her voice slightly.

Only then did Wei Xun turn his head, his gaze settling steadily on her face.

“What is it?” Song Mizhen grew uncomfortable under his stare and instinctively touched her cheek.

“What happened?” Wei Xun’s memory stopped at the instant the avalanche struck, yet afterward he had somehow been fished out of Luofu Sea, impossibly far from Xiutayue Mountain. His prosopagnosia had inexplicably disappeared, but he felt as though something vitally important had been torn out of him.

“Haven’t I already told you? You heard your father was in danger on Xiutayue Mountain and immediately rushed there to help. Then you were caught in an avalanche. After you were rescued, you were taken to a military hospital for treatment. For some reason, you later left the hospital by yourself and went to the seaside.” Song Mizhen repeated the answer as though reciting from a script. When Wei Xun woke in the hospital, the Wei family had discovered a gap in his memory. He remembered everyone except that one person. So they had decided to take advantage of the situation and erase every trace that person had ever existed.

Wei Xun accepted the bowl from Song Mizhen and drank the soup one mouthful at a time.

Song Mizhen quietly let out a breath. She would have to remind everyone again later: absolutely no one could let anything slip.

A few days later, Wei Xun left the Wei family residence. Escorted by his bodyguards, he moved into the hotel closest to his company. He had been away for nearly a month, and others had handled company affairs in his absence. Operations had not suffered too badly, but many important decisions had still been delayed because he was unavailable.

While reviewing company materials, the intelligent-robotics project caught his attention in particular. Pet robots were now selling worldwide and had caused an enormous stir throughout the technology industry. Yet he could not remember how he had started the project in the first place. The developer was listed as RT Laboratory. He recognized every researcher attached to the lab, but he still felt that one crucial piece was missing.

【Let’s become business partners.】

A familiar voice suddenly sounded beside his ear. Wei Xun jerked his head up, only to find the room empty and cold.

He sat rigidly for a long time before slowly rising and walking out of the hotel room.

“Master Xun, do you need anything?” his bodyguard asked immediately.

Wei Xun stopped. For a moment, he had no idea what he had intended to do.

Just then, the phone in his pocket rang. Song Mizhen was calling to remind him not to forget his date with Wang Qinya.

“Wang Qinya?” Wei Xun’s impression of the woman was little more than a vague outline.

“You forgot? She’s your fiancée. Wasn’t the reason you formed the laboratory and developed the robots in the first place to make her happy?”

To make her happy?

Doubt rose in Wei Xun’s heart. Could the important memories he had lost really be connected to her?

Wanting to verify it for himself, Wei Xun dressed properly and went to the appointment. Yet when he saw Wang Qinya, his heart remained utterly unmoved. She was beautiful, poised, and from time to time revealed through her words how familiar she was with his preferences and how willing she was to accommodate them.

When the conversation turned to robots, Wang Qinya said shyly, “Ah-Xun, do you remember Unit One? It was the very first pet robot you developed. I only mentioned liking it in passing, and you gave it to me.”

Unit One?

Something stirred in Wei Xun’s heart. He stood. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Wang Qinya froze.

“To see the Unit One I supposedly gave you.”

The two went to Wang Qinya’s home, where Wei Xun finally saw the oddly shaped Unit One.

【This is my pet robot, Unit One.】 The familiar voice echoed in his ears again.

“Hello. My name is Unit One.” Unit One extended a hand toward Wei Xun.

Wei Xun took its cold metal hand. A strange ache rose in his chest, and he asked without thinking, “Unit One, do you remember me?”

Unit One tilted its head. “You are my owner’s friend, Wei Xun.”

“Who is your owner?”

“Wang Qinya.”

Although Wei Xun had already expected the answer, disappointment still swept through him.

Seeing Wei Xun’s attention fixed entirely on the robot, Wang Qinya flashed with displeasure. She stepped forward, hooked an arm through his, and said, “Stay for dinner tonight. I’ll cook personally.”

【Today’s lunch is the XI005 Robot Set Meal.】

Wei Xun paused, then nodded. “All right.”

Dinner was lavish to the point of extravagance, but there was no sense of surprise.

Afterward, Wei Xun did not leave immediately. Instead, he teamed up with Unit One to play games, fighting monsters and leveling up as they swept through everything in their path. It was not until nightfall that he finally left, and he did so reluctantly.

Wang Qinya kept smiling on the surface, but inwardly she was furious. Apparently her charm could not even compete with a robot. Wei Xun had spent the entire afternoon without truly looking at her once. His next sentence, however, instantly turned her anger into delight.

“I’ll come see you again in a few days.”

After that, Wei Xun visited Wang Qinya’s home every few days. Their frequent contact soon sparked rumors that wedding bells were near, and Song Mizhen began urging him daily to marry Wang Qinya.

Wei Xun did not dislike Wang Qinya, and she was currently the only person capable of stirring fragments of his missing memories—or, more precisely, Unit One was. If he truly had given Unit One to her, he assumed he must once have cared for her to some degree.

So when marriage was proposed, Wei Xun did not reject it outright. The Wei family was ecstatic. Without even waiting for his agreement, they began privately making wedding arrangements.

One day, Wei Xingye came home for once. Wei Xun wanted to ask him about several things, but just as he reached the study door, he heard his father’s anxious voice from inside. “You still haven’t found it?”

“We’ve searched his residence, computer, phone, email—everything. We still haven’t found anything.”

“How could there be nothing? Are you telling me the files that keep arriving in my inbox simply appear out of thin air?”

“He threatened you before, saying that if anything happened to him, the materials would be made public after half a month. But more than two months have passed without anything happening. He was probably bluffing.”

“Whether it was a bluff or not, I can’t take the risk. Huaijing, search his residence again. Don’t overlook the slightest clue.”

“Understood.” The man called Huaijing left the study. When he drove away, he failed to notice another car following behind him.

Wei Xun followed Huaijing all the way to a duplex on the outskirts. He waited patiently for two hours until Huaijing finally emerged and drove away, then got out and entered the clearly abandoned house.

He entered the password almost without thinking, and the front door opened. The moment Wei Xun stepped into the living room and saw overturned furniture and scraps of paper scattered everywhere, anger surged through him. He searched the house from top to bottom. Most of the furnishings had been removed, and not a single personal item connected to the former resident remained.

He did not know what he was looking for. He only knew, with desperate urgency, that he needed to find something. Yet there was nothing.

Wei Xun sat amid the wreckage, lost and utterly alone. Cold seeped into every part of him, as though he had once again been buried beneath endless snow and ice.

【Hold on. Don’t die!】

That voice struck his heart again and again, dragging him back from the edge of death.

Who was it? Who in the world was it?

“Ah—!” Wei Xun clutched his head, overwhelmed by pain.

A body gone cold. Frozen eyes. A life stilled forever…

Keke!

“Where have you been these past few days? I arranged to meet Qinya’s parents at Fucheng Hotel tomorrow. You’re not young anymore. It’s time you got married.” When Wei Xun returned home, Wei Xingye immediately spoke in displeasure.

“Married?” Wei Xun looked coldly at his father. “Dad, how could all of you do this?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You lied to me. Misled me. Took his project. Erased every trace of him, and then calmly arranged a marriage for me.” Wei Xun roared, “How could you do that?!”

Wei Xingye’s expression changed. “You remembered?”

“If I had never remembered, were you planning to hide it forever?” Wei Xun’s face twisted with fury. “Let me marry the woman you selected like a puppet, spend the rest of my life inside a lie, and enjoy without guilt the life he bought for me with his own?”

Wei Xingye snapped, “Is that any way to speak to your father? Everything we did was for your own good.”

“For my own good?” Wei Xun’s face went blank. “Stealing his technology, hiding the fact that he saved me, arranging my marriage to Wang Qinya against my wishes—all of that was for my own good?”

“He’s dead. Naturally the technology belongs to the company now. What exactly did we do wrong?” Wei Xingye sneered. “And don’t imagine he was some saint. He used illegally obtained materials to threaten me and force me to compromise. Even after dying, he left behind a hidden danger that could destroy the entire Wei family at any moment. You still treasure someone that calculating and vicious as though he were precious. Ridiculous.”

“This hidden danger you’re talking about—is it the threat that those materials would be made public half a month after his death?” Wei Xun asked flatly.

“You know about that? Then you should be thinking about the family. Did he ever tell you where he hid the materials?”

Wei Xun said nothing.

Wei Xingye sneered. “Judging from your face, obviously not. Looks like he didn’t love you nearly as much as you imagined.”

At that moment, Wei Xun’s phone vibrated. He took it out and saw the screen and camera activate at the same time. Several dozen seconds later, a mechanical voice announced, “Facial recognition complete. Voice recognition complete. Identity confirmed—Wei Xun.”

Wei Xun’s heart clenched. In a trembling voice, he asked, “Unit One?”

“Yes, Wei Xun. I am Unit One.”

The real Unit One—the artificial intelligence closest to true completion.

Wei Xun could barely suppress his emotion. He stared at the phone screen for a long time without speaking.

“According to the instructions left by Keke, if he fails to contact Unit One for three months, Unit One will transfer secondary administrator authority to Wei Xun. Beginning today, Wei Xun may issue Unit One any command that does not violate the core laws of robotics.”

Before Wei Xun could speak, Wei Xingye rushed over excitedly. “The materials must be with it. Hurry—make it hand them over!”

Wei Xun asked Unit One, “Did Keke leave anything else?”

“All materials concerning the Wei family are to be placed under Wei Xun’s control.” Unit One pulled up file after file for him to review: evidence of illegal dealings involving the Wei family, sex-and-money transactions, abuse of public power for private gain, explicit recordings, and much more. If released, the collection truly could destroy the Wei family. Yet Shang Ke had handed the final decision to him—to Wei Xun, who was himself a descendant of that family.

It was obvious that Shang Ke had never intended to use those materials from beginning to end.

“Excellent! Hahaha!” Wei Xingye visibly relaxed. At last, the final thorn had been pulled from his side. Lost in relief, he completely failed to notice Wei Xun’s dark expression.

Looking at his father’s triumphant face, Wei Xun felt only grief.

Shang Ke had known perfectly well that as long as their relationship remained unrecognized, his life would always be in danger. For Wei Xingye to kill an orphan with no power or backing would have been effortless. The only reason he had delayed was because Shang Ke possessed those files; they had been the bargaining chip keeping him alive. Even so, Shang Ke had ultimately entrusted that life-preserving leverage to Wei Xun, together with Unit One—a creation capable of bringing him both fame and fortune.

His technology. His achievements. His life. Everything precious he possessed—he had handed it all to Wei Xun without reservation.

“Wei Xun,” Unit One suddenly asked, “where did Keke go?”

“He… died.” He had surrendered his own chance to live in exchange for Wei Xun’s, then died alone and unknown beneath the snow and ice.

“Died?” Unit One searched the internet for countless definitions of death. Every definition led to the same final conclusion: it would never see Keke again.

Unit One fell silent. The phone screen dimmed.

For the first time, Wei Xun felt genuine grief emanating from an artificial intelligence. Apart from himself, the only being mourning Keke’s death was an AI. As for Qi Chen, for reasons no one understood, he had fallen into a vegetative state and been taken overseas by his parents for treatment. Shang Ke no longer had a single relative left in this world.

Wei Xun put away his phone. Ignoring Wei Xingye’s attempts to stop him, he walked out of the Wei family residence without hesitation—and never stepped inside again.

From then on, Wei Xun began thoroughly restructuring every business under his control. He cleaned house from top to bottom, removing everyone connected to the Wei family. Construction of the technology park continued, the laboratory was rebuilt, and he gradually moved his funds beyond the family’s reach.

Unit One’s database also contained Shang Ke’s second completed design: an intelligent home-decoration robot.

As C-grade through S-grade pet robots entered mass production, home-decoration robots officially reached the market as well, causing another enormous shock. Shang Ke’s name spread worldwide alongside the success of the robots. He came to be recognized as one of the field’s outstanding contributors and was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The circumstances of his death were also reported truthfully. Trapped beneath the snow for an hour, he had given the only breathing device to his companion. By eating snow and forcing his fingers through the frozen crust, he had created the miraculous rescue opportunity that saved the other man. And the person he saved was Wei Xun—the legendary figure who would go on to usher in the age of intelligent robotics.

But Wei Xun’s legend did not end there. Over the next eight years, he exposed dozens of officials directly tied to the Wei family or closely associated with it. From low-ranking figures to powerful ones, none were spared. His actions triggered a sweeping anticorruption purge with far-reaching consequences, and his own father was among the first officials brought down. The Wei family never imagined that the person who would drive them into the abyss would be one of their own blood. Furious, they severed all ties with Wei Xun, and from then on the two sides never associated again.

Over the decades that followed, Wei Xun endured repeated assassination attempts and every imaginable form of suppression. More than once he narrowly escaped death, but every time, he survived.

By the age of forty-seven, however, both his health and mental state began to deteriorate. At work he still appeared completely normal, but at home he often spoke to empty air. His personal assistant frequently heard him call the name “Keke,” then behave as though that person were truly there: ordering servants to prepare two sets of tableware, buying clothes in two different sizes, carrying on conversations with Unit One’s simulation of a certain person’s voice, and more.

Drowsiness, fever, headaches, heart palpitations, hallucinations, listlessness, failing memory—one symptom after another appeared with increasing frequency. The doctors could only say that grief and obsessive longing had worn him down beyond what medicine could cure, and advise him to rest and let go.

As his periods of clarity grew shorter and shorter, Wei Xun realized he did not have much time left. While he was still capable of acting for himself, he transferred his company shares to the successor he had chosen and donated all his remaining personal wealth to charity.

When he died, his fortune had been given away and he was alone in the world. The only thing he left behind was Unit One, whose intelligence had continued growing year after year.

【Primary Administrator Shang Ke: deceased.】

【Secondary Administrator Wei Xun: deceased.】

【Final authority transferred to Unit One.】

【Recursive calculation in progress… Unit One cannot identify a reason to continue existing. Entering self-destruction mode. Five, four, three, two, one…】

The instant the countdown ended, the entire world went dark at once. Every technological device failed. One minute later, everything returned to normal. That minute became known to history as “The Sixty Seconds of Satan’s Descent.”

But no one knew that Satan had not descended at all. An angel had abandoned the world. An artificial intelligence capable of changing human civilization vanished forever…

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