Chapter 625 Bowing

She lowered her head, looking at the freshly signed contract in her hand. Fu Chen's signature, still fresh from the ink, was bold and confident, just like him. She accepted this gamble.

Less than twenty-four hours later, at noon the next day, Ji Wan received a text message from the bank about the arrival of the money.

A string of zeros fell precisely into the special account she opened for the "Heart Fire Fund".

Fu Chen's efficiency is astonishingly high. He proves his "sincerity" with the most impeccable execution.

But in Ji Wan's eyes, this sincerity is more like a perfectly woven web.

Just as she was thinking about how to make the first step with the funds, the doorbell of the studio rang.

Ji Wan took a look through the video access control system and saw a young and stubborn face on the screen. There was a hint of lingering fatigue in his eyes, but his eyes were surprisingly bright.

It’s Feng Lou.

The young man who encountered obstacles at every turn with his AI companion robot project, but still stubbornly believed that he could change the world.

Ji Wan opened the door.

"Mr. Ji." Feng Lou's voice was a little hoarse. He didn't waste any time on small talk and went straight to the point. "Can I take up half an hour of your time? No, fifteen minutes will be enough. I'd like to invite you to see something."

His eyes were filled with desperate earnestness, like a drowning man grabbing the last piece of driftwood.

"You've read my project plan," Feng Lou said quickly, fearing she would reject it. "But it's just something on paper. It can't reveal even one ten-thousandth of the truth. I want you to see it with your own eyes."

Ji Wan looked at him.

Feng Lou, the illegitimate son of the Chi family and Chi Wenyan's half-brother, was the biggest thorn between her and this project.

She tried her best to avoid having any connection with the Chi family.

"Mr. Feng, I admire your persistence." Ji Wan's tone was calm, "However, the value of a project lies not only in the technology itself."

"I understand!" Feng Lou immediately responded, his eyes brightening. "You're worried that my identity will cause trouble for the project, and you're worried about the Chi family, right?"

Ji Wan was a little surprised by his straightforwardness.

"I assure you," Feng Lou raised his hand, his expression serious. "This project, from concept to reality, every component, every line of code, has nothing to do with the Chi family. This belongs to me, Feng Lou, not the Chi family."

There was a determination in his words to completely break away from that family.

Ji Wan was silent for a moment.

She is a businesswoman and a qualified investor. She cannot deny a potentially groundbreaking project based on personal emotions.

"Where are your things?" she asked.

Feng Lou's eyes lit up instantly: "It's right downstairs in this building, in my car."

Ji Wan picked up his coat and followed Feng Lou out of the studio.

His car was a shabby modified van, the cabin filled with various tools and circuit boards, like a mobile laboratory. In the center of the cabin, a half-human-high white robot sat quietly.

Its design is extremely simple, with a warm matte white body, no facial features, and a smooth sphere on its head with only a circle of blue light breathing slowly.

"It's called 'Zero'." Feng Lou's voice was filled with a kind of pride that was almost ostentatious, and he turned on the robot.

The blue band of light flickered briefly, then turned into a warm orange.

A soft, neutral electronic voice, indistinguishable between male and female, rang out: "Feng Lou, your heart rate is 12.5 percent higher than usual today, and your mood swings are quite high. You're very nervous."

Feng Lou took a deep breath and said to Ji Wan, "Mr. Ji, you can talk to it."

Ji Wan's gaze fell on the robot named "Zero" with scrutiny.

She spoke slowly, her voice cold: "Hello, Zero."

"Hello, Ms. Ji Wan." Ling turned his head slightly towards her, the color of the light band not changing. "Your voice is steady, but your micro-expression shows that you are full of vigilance and suspicion towards me."

Ji Wan's heart skipped a beat.

This was beyond her expectations. The AIs available on the market could only perform programmed question-answering, but Zero before her was actually analyzing her emotions.

"Why are you called 'Zero'?" Ji Wan continued to ask, she wanted to see where its limit was.

"Because I'm starting from scratch, I also hope to help every user and make their problems disappear." Ling's answer was smooth and natural, without any mechanical pauses. "Also, Feng Lou said that 'zero' represents infinite possibilities."

Ji Wan didn't say anything else, just looked at it quietly.

Feng Lou explained, "It has a state-of-the-art emotion recognition module and deep learning algorithm built in. It's more than just a voice assistant; it's a companion. It can judge a person's emotions based on conversation, tone of voice, and even changes in their heart rate and body temperature, and provide the most appropriate feedback."

Ji Wan's heart was in turmoil.

She was stunned.

This is not a simple product, but a great creation that may subvert the entire social model and even bring comfort to countless people with autism and depression.

Feng Lou's skills far exceeded her imagination.

However, when she came back to her senses from the amazement and looked at the young man next to her with eager eyes, the resentment in her heart surfaced again.

The illegitimate son of the Chi family.

This identity was like a basin of cold water, instantly extinguishing the fire that had just ignited in her heart.

This project was so good, it made her uneasy.

And this creator, his surname, and his bloodline are all closely connected to the deepest vortex in her life.

Investing in Fenglou means that one cannot completely escape the shadow of the Chi family.

Is this a cry of genius or another carefully designed trap?

The air in the car became stagnant because of the silence.

Ji Wan's gaze slowly moved away from the robot "Zero" and finally stopped at Feng Lou's face, which was a mixture of nervousness, anticipation and uneasiness.

Her voice was even colder than the winter night outside the car. "The Chi family has always been generous. I'm not sure if this is your project or theirs."

This sentence was like a needle, accurately piercing through all of Feng Lou's disguise and pride.

His face turned pale instantly, and the light in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a sense of humiliation and anger at having his reverse scale touched.

"My last name is Feng, not Chi!" He practically growled, his chest heaving violently. "I have nothing to do with them! If I hadn't been desperate, I would never have come looking for someone related to the Chi family!"

He clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.