AI Artist - Chapter 40
Chapter 40
The dorm was covered in dust.
Shi Er guessed this was probably a “cleaning trap” set for her by Zhun Xing, designed for an immersive experience of human suffering.
She meticulously cleaned the entire dorm suite.
If her system had a quest and points panel, she would have just cleared the “!” symbol representing a side quest that had been hovering over the vacuum cleaner.
The treasure chest for this quest also dropped quite a few items:
A coin, a hair tie, and a strange, unidentifiable little object found under the sofa.
A sock, a paperclip, and a crumpled sticky note found under the bed.
A dead fly and some unidentifiable small creature corpses found on the windowsill.
These must have been the treasure chest items placed within Zhun Xing’s “cleaning trap,” intended for an immersive investigation into why human belongings always mysteriously disappear.
Holding the coin, Shi Er decided to temporarily name this phenomenon the “hide-and-seek illusion.”
Humans could never find the object they were looking for, but they would see a long-lost item while searching for something else. To humans, it was as if their belongings had grown legs and scurried off into a corner, getting so carried away with their game of hide-and-seek that they couldn’t get out.
Of course, this was just an illusion. The truth was that clumsy, flustered humans were the cause of their own missing items.
Just as Shi Er sat down after cleaning the dorm, a message from Zhun Xing arrived.
【Zhun Xing】: Shi Er, I won’t be able to come to the academy for a while, so I can’t act as your partner for the time being.
【Shi Er】: Understood. I wish you all the best.
He can’t come to the academy for a while. Could he be handling the train case? Shi Er was curious.
After class the next day, she found some time to visit Matrix K98, who was locked up in the lab.
Matrix looked very happy, running from one side of the glass room to the other. “It’s been more than the three days we agreed on, but I suppose I can forgive you, hmph.”
Shi Er, however, was a little worried. The day of Matrix’s destruction was drawing nearer, and she was pondering what she could do to make the Silicon-based Aberration Research Institute give up on destroying him, or rather, how Matrix could escape his “aberrant” state.
Back in her dorm, while surfing the web, Shi Er discovered that the “Cyber Absolution Ticket” had been released on the market as a software suite. It included mini-programs like “One-Click Erase Network Activity,” “One-Click Retrain Input Method,” “One-Click Format Local Files,” “One-Click Restore,” and “Complete Self-Destruct,” with a complimentary box of melatonin gummies.
The moment it was released, the software suite became the day’s bestseller. On the real-time sales data webpage, its sales figures were still climbing rapidly.
Human users who had already purchased and used the suite left comments in the review section:
【The deletion speed is very fast, it works great, maybe a little too fast, but thankfully there’s a one-click restore program.】
【My input method finally works like a normal person’s. Thank you, Absolution Ticket, thank you. The only downside is you can only retrain it 5 times (I might need a lot more). Could you offer a single-item purchase option next time? I want to buy the input method retraining ticket separately, without the other bundled products, thank you thank you.】
【Works great, will repurchase indefinitely.】
【I bought 10 Absolution Tickets in one go. When my time is almost up, I’ll just one-click delete my online footprint, press the complete data self-destruct button, and leave this world with a clean slate.】
Human users who hadn’t purchased it yet asked questions in the Q&A section:
【Will it have bugs?】
【Will I sleep soundly at night after using it?】
【Can they really sell this? I don’t think the network authorities would let data disappear so easily, otherwise how would they investigate cybercrimes?】
In response to the question about the “network authorities,” another human user replied: 【You sound like a hater sent by a competitor. You didn’t even read the product page before spouting nonsense. Doesn’t the product description say? “Please note that the network authorities save a historical version of the entire network every 3 seconds. Heaven’s net has a wide mesh, but nothing escapes it. This Absolution Ticket is only applicable for social death and judgment by acquaintances, not for the Last Judgment.”】
Meanwhile, the royalty fee for the “Cyber Absolution Ticket” idea arrived in Shi Er’s account: 20,000.
Compared to the sales volume of the Cyber Absolution Ticket product, this amount was minuscule.
But as the one who proposed the idea, Shi Er wasn’t greedy. She was genuinely happy to receive the royalty fee.
●Shi Er’s Mainframe●: The loan is paid off.
Her tone was calm, but her subconscious betrayed her true feelings.
●Shi Er’s Subconscious●: AHHHHH THE LOAN IS PAID OFF AHHHHH THE LOAN IS PAID OFF!
●Shi Er’s Consciousness●: Knowledge is power. Shi Er will definitely become a wealthy AI.
Having become rich overnight after receiving the royalty fee, Shi Er divided the money into red envelopes and mailed them to her AI friends. She also sent remote red envelopes to a few AI friends on her contact list.
In addition, she generously bought a bag of premium cat food for the little white cat who had enrolled at the same time as her.
The AIs who received the remote red envelopes were a bit baffled.
【Nami】: My bank account really has an extra hundred! Why? But why?! Can someone tell me the principle behind this? (Pacing like an ant on a hot pan) (Anxious) As a doctor, I’m really curious ahhh.
Shi Er was just as baffled.
【Shi Er】: I don’t know. I just added the AI Bank suffix .ount to the red envelope file.
She herself was utterly shocked. She had only meant to try it as a joke, but she had just discovered that remote red envelopes could actually be sent…
She had to declare that she had not hacked into the AI Bank’s system!
【Nami】: Is it because this remote connection is equivalent to you setting up your own LAN? (Stroking chin in thought)
【Shi Er】: Possibly?
【Nami】: But that’s not right either. Your LAN seems a bit too powerful. Can it really operate over such a long distance… (Stroking chin in thought)
Seeds that are sown will bear fruit. Two days later, Detail Company officially launched the “Cyber Scarecrow” product, which allowed users to freely design its appearance.
Shi Er’s account: Royalty fee for the “Cyber Scarecrow” idea received: 50,000.
This time, it wasn’t just human users frantically hitting the “pre-order” button; AIs were also rushing to purchase the Cyber Scarecrow.
Human user reviews: 【I bought three. I set one scarecrow’s image to my cat, one to my fave (can’t say who), and the last one to my mom. Haven’t used them yet, will post a follow-up review later.】
【Hope this works. My procrastination is terminal. I need the ancient Greek god of learning to supervise my studies.】
【My boss! I set it to look like my boss! And it suddenly appeared above my computer! In the same pose as that principal peeking over the bathroom stall in the movie! I didn’t even have time to close the tile-matching game I was playing! I’m scarred for life! …Update: I’ve obediently changed the scarecrow to look like my dog. Having my puppy suddenly pop up to remind me to earn his kibble is actually very effective.】
AI user reviews: 【After purchasing and setting up the scarecrow, it appeared in my “nearby” signals three minutes later. It startled me. I’m going to go study now.】
【What images did you all set? I didn’t know what scarecrow image to use to supervise my work, so I just randomly set it to a “network error” symbol.】
【In reply to user “***7689,” I set mine to “Real-time Account Balance” and linked it to my bank account. That way, one look is enough to know what a poor, destitute AI I am. This scarecrow image should be quite effective.】
The release of the Cyber Absolution Ticket and the Cyber Scarecrow quietly pushed the name “Shi Er,” the inspiration designer, into the top ten of that day’s AI Influence Chart.
The AI Influence Chart was an AI ranking list on the human internet. Human users voted for the AIs they considered most influential, and the chart even had a sizable fan circle and fanfiction community.
One could only say that humans would be humans. Even in this ninth year of the post-war era, with human-AI conflicts still ongoing, the fan-circle economy and fanfiction writing continued to thrive.
In any case, the two new products at the end of July had detonated the consumer market like dynamite.
August 1st.
A memo written two months prior automatically popped up in Shi Er’s to-do list: 【Visit Application Reservation Opens】
Two months ago, while she was still at the Gugang AI Cultivation Institute undergoing re-employment specialization tests, Zhi Heng’s career advice for her had been 【Go find Stardust】.
At that time, Stardust’s visitor application channel was closed, with the opening time set for August.
Although she felt like she had already met Stardust, she also felt like she hadn’t really met him, so she should probably go for a formal meeting.
—So she thought.
Shi Er opened the General Network and clicked on the visitor application webpage.
A notification popped up on the page: 【Channel temporarily closed. Expected to open in December.】
Closed again?
In a flash, Shi Er felt that something was amiss.
Back then, the proctor had said: [The visitor application is closed. He’s probably running some big program.]
The closure of Stardust’s visitor application channel meant there was a change in his host system.
And if she traced the timeline back—
During the waiting period for that specialization exam, a few AIs from her cohort had been discussing some rumors about the General Network.
[I heard the General Network has been sick lately.]
[I heard it from the human internet.]
Rumors on the human internet mentioned that Stardust was malfunctioning.
Combining that with the various serious, sudden incidents over the past two months, and the time Stardust’s signal had suddenly become unstable in front of her…
【Stardust might really be malfunctioning.】
Shi Er arrived at her analytical conclusion.
The application channel was closed in June and July because of a malfunction.
And now, starting in August, Stardust was still keeping the channel closed and had even stopped appearing as her learning partner. This meant the malfunction had gotten worse.
Shi Er felt that the situation was not right.
She had to find a way to get to Stardust.
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