The air was thick with the smells of cheap perfume, expensive cigar smoke, and the pungent plastic odor of hot electronic devices. The deafening music pounded on her heart like drumsticks, thump! thump! thump! It made her head buzz.

She was wearing the uniform of the "exhibit"—a stiff, shiny silver bodysuit that made it almost impossible for her to breathe, and the artificial skin underneath itched from the stuffiness.

The broken bearing in my right elbow started throbbing again, probably from being shoved by the security robot earlier. The bionic lung in my chest also seems stuck; every breath I take is accompanied by a hissing sound like sandpaper scraping.

hypocritical.

There's a pervasive sense of hypocrisy everywhere.

On the enormous holographic projection screen directly in front of the stage, a promotional video for Creation Technology was playing on a loop: perfectly sculpted androids ran and jumped fluidly, their high-tech prosthetic bodies shimmering with elegant blue light, accompanied by chilling advertising copy—

"Transcend the physical body, embrace eternal evolution!"

The men, dressed in expensive suits and looking quite respectable, held wine glasses, wore fake smiles, and flattered each other, but their eyes were filled with calculation.

Jiang Chan stood stiffly in the center of the circular platform, her posture adjusted by a programmed robotic arm, like a real puppet. She could feel the tattered prosthetics inside her body resonating under the bright light, amidst her rapid heartbeat, and with her nerves stretched to the limit.

A faint humming sound came from my chest, the hydraulic hoses in my arm throbbed slightly under my skin, and snow-like noise began to appear again at the edge of the vision sensor.

"Stay calm...wait a little longer..." she told herself. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, her body swaying with the wind, but her heels firmly planted on a rock at the edge.

The curtain on the side of the stage moved, and a man with slicked-back hair and a perfectly tailored suit walked out. The spotlight immediately followed him, and the music changed to a more energetic tune.

A sparse but loud round of applause erupted throughout the hall. It was CEO Arthur Creation. He wore that confident smile of complete control, waving to the audience like a king surveying his domain.

He walked to a suspended podium in the center of the stage and cleared his throat. The loudspeaker amplified his voice, filling the entire venue.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Distinguished partners and friends from the media!" His voice boomed, brimming with enthusiasm, "Welcome to a new era for Genesis Technology! Today, we gather here not just to witness the launch of a new product! We are witnessing a milestone in humanity's breakthrough of its limits and its embrace of an evolving future!"

He waved his arm, pointing to the huge holographic screen behind him. The screen immediately switched, displaying several brand-new, exquisitely designed silver prosthetic components, shimmering with an alluring light.

"The 'rejection reaction,' 'neural synchronization delay,' and 'energy conflict' that have plagued the field of prosthetic body integration for many years... these stumbling blocks that have prevented us from reaching perfection!" The CEO's voice was full of passion, and his spittle almost sprayed onto the faces of the audience in the front row. "They have been completely crushed by us! Today, what I hold in my hand is the key to unlocking the era of 'absolute stability'—the brand-new 'harmonious resonance' neuromodulation core!"

He carefully lifted a palm-sized, rhomboid metal block emitting a faint blue light from beneath the podium. It was clearly a million times more advanced than the junk he'd stuffed into Jiang Chan's body. A low gasp of astonishment rippled through the audience, and flashbulbs popped open in a flurry of light.

"It not only possesses unprecedented stability..." The CEO surveyed the room, pausing deliberately to bask in everyone's attention, "but it also represents the future! It represents..." He held the blue-glowing metal block high, "belonging to Chuangsheng Technology, and also to all of humanity—infinite possibilities!"

He had stirred up the atmosphere to a fever pitch. The applause was much louder than before.

Now!

His pose froze at the moment he held up the core of "Harmony and Resonance"! All eyes and all cameras were focused on that thing!

Jiang Chan's consciousness suddenly sank into the depths of her mind! There floated an extremely complex three-dimensional structure composed of countless jumping red light spots—it was the ultimate program that the system had built for her to detonate all the unstable prosthetics in her body! Each jumping light spot corresponded to a node and timing for the detonation of a prosthetic!

Detonate!