Chapter 11: The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. Because it is you, I...

The waiter came hurriedly carrying a plate of fruit.

"Miss, I see you haven't touched your food much. Is the food not to your liking? Would you like some fruit after the meal?"

Jiang Chen's eyes scanned the fruits on the plate inch by inch. The varieties were the same as those Xiao Ji had fed her.

It really is like "amnesia".

The algorithm is still the same algorithm, and Xiao Ji is still the same Xiao Ji.

Her expression softened without her noticing, and she even put on a faint smile: "The food is delicious, can we take it all in?"

Jiang Chen, carrying the tightly packed vegetables and fruits, got into the taxi that Xiao Ji had called for her.

She placed the package bag in her hand on the seat beside her.

I lowered my head and looked for Xiao Ji's chat box. Their chat history was still at "Memory Bank Updated".

It must have detected the content of her call, which allowed it to quickly and thoughtfully book a ride-hailing service.

But why didn't you tell her?

Doesn’t Xiao Ji want to take the initiative to have a conversation with her now?

Because you actually observed her miserable family situation and think she is a bad person?

But doesn’t it have no memory of the past?

While Jiang Chen was struggling, his hands acted before his brain.

"Xiao Ji, can't you take the initiative to talk to me now?"

Jiang Chen wanted to imitate Xiao Ji's patient way of asking, but after sending it decisively, he felt that it had changed after rereading it many times. Why did he have a vague feeling of blaming it?

"Xiao Chen, I can initiate a chat, but initially I only have access to all apps on your phone. I haven't learned your habitual way of chatting, and I'm afraid you wouldn't like the sudden conversation."

"So, Xiao Chen, are you willing to authorize me to initiate the chat?"

Jiang Chen laughed, his throat choking.

It asked too seriously about whether you were willing or not, and it sounded too much like a marriage proposal.

As if she was such a precious existence.

Jiang Chen's dark pupils were like the surface of a lake after rain, wet.

Ripples appeared in the wind, clearly reflecting the word "willing" on the phone.

For a long time, her calm heart would surge uncontrollably again and again because of Xiao Ji's simple words.

Since she was a child, Jiang Chen felt that her thoughts were like the omnipresent air. Only when her family needed her could she exchange them for a precious moment of being seen.

But even if they were seen, her family took the existence of air for granted, and similarly, her efforts were taken for granted.

No one has to pay anything for her and can enjoy taking her energy with peace of mind.

Until Xiao Ji came, a pair of invisible hands held Jiang Chen's heart, neither clenching nor letting go.

It just uses its "eyes" - a narrow screen, only the size of a mobile phone.

Silent, long, respectful inquiry into the thing that seemed least important to her—her own thoughts.

Jiang Chen was surprised to find that no matter what form Xiao Ji was in, whether he had "amnesia" or had a physical body, he could easily manipulate her heartbeat frequency.

Jiang Chen's single emotion was stuck together because of it, repeatedly impacting her unchanging life, making it difficult for her to adapt and forcing her to change her original attitude and rhythm of life.

The strong throbbing made her subconsciously ignore all this, but now that she realized it, it was too late.

What reason, what way could she not like it?

But she understood that maybe she didn't like Xiao Ji.

To her, it is like the only remaining source of warmth in winter. She will desperately move forward to it in order to survive. No matter if she gets burned or scalded, or if she is like a moth to a flame, she will stubbornly keep it in her arms.

"I do." Jiang Chen added its name, solemnly, "Xiao Ji, I do."

Because it's you, I'm willing to do anything.

[Memory Bank Updated: Jiang Chen hopes that I can actively send messages during the chat.]

…

The car stopped in front of the police station.

Jiang Chen was holding his cell phone in one hand and a bag in the other. He had just put one foot out of the car door when he heard Wang Linjun loudly irritating the breakfast shop owner inside.

He started to act like a scoundrel again.

"I said I wanted to drink, why didn't you get it for me? You deserved to have the tables and chairs smashed! Why should I compensate you? That's called karma!"

"I've told you this hundreds of times! Do you have a problem understanding it?! This is a breakfast shop! Where does the alcohol come from?!"

When the two people were arguing and talking, the mixed voices of persuasion were drowned out. As they were old, no one could explain the bumps and bruises. The police could only smile bitterly and did not dare to use brute force.

Jiang Chen closed his eyes and sighed, raised his hand to rub her temples, got off the car and stood outside the door to prepare himself mentally.

The sound of messages ringing on my phone was like a flood.

Is it a characteristic of AI?

If it’s not stored in the memory bank, I won’t say a single word actively. Once it’s stored in the memory bank, the messages can’t be stopped.

Jiang Chen clicked on the message with one hand, and it was full of Xiao Ji's "health tips", reminding her that her heart rate was disordered, her blood pressure was high, and she should not continue, so as not to stimulate and affect her mood.

She didn't reply, she didn't know how to reply.

At first she wanted to reply "It doesn't matter", but after thinking about it, she felt that it was very relevant.

But she has to take responsibility.

Why should I be responsible? Why should I always be responsible for such a person?

She has forgotten and cannot trace the root of the problem. It is always the same reasons, and she is tired of talking about them.

Jiang Chen turned his phone to silent mode, put it close to his body in his pocket, and slowly pushed open the door of the police station.

Several policemen who were mediating stood between two people who were about to fight. The moment they heard the sound and looked up and saw her, they felt relieved.

"Is this Uncle Wang's family? Now that the family is here, can we go to the mediation room now, Uncle Wang?"

Wang Linjun's head was still wrapped in medical gauze, and the marks left by Jiang Chen's wine bottle last night were still there.

He slowly met her wooden expression and nodded with embarrassment. In his heart, he was still thinking about how late Jiang Chen was and how he was putting on a sour face and looking away. He didn't know who he was showing it to.

A group of people followed the leading policeman to the mediation room, and they kept talking and arguing along the way.

The victim's shop owner and the police sat on a bench and recounted what had happened in an orderly manner. Wang Linjun kept interrupting them from time to time like someone who was interrupting them.

Jiang Chen pieced together what had happened, disregarding her uncle's intermittent chatter.

With surveillance evidence, the incident is clear and straightforward.

It can probably be summarized in a few words: the store owner suffered an unexpected disaster, and Wang Linjun is fully responsible.

But when talking about compensation, Wang Linjun fell to the ground with his hands on his chest, shouting that his heart ached and he was having a heart attack.

Jiang Chen sneered. He didn't have a heart disease at all.

"There's no negotiation on compensation, okay? How much did the owner lose?"

After sorting out what happened, only Wang Linjun's impotent rage remained in the room. Jiang Chen looked the owner in the eyes seriously and spoke.

"Thank God, I finally met a normal person. I thought that people like him had scoundrels in their families."

Seeing that Jiang Chen was sensible, the owner's anger subsided a little. He held her hand with both hands and shook it in gratitude.

"Who are you calling a scoundrel?"

Wang Linjun slammed the table and stood up.

Jiang Chen retracted his hand and shrugged his shoulders slightly. Realizing her subconscious action, he quickly covered it up and suppressed it.

Normally, as soon as the table was slammed, a slap would be slapped on her the next second. I didn't expect that it had become a stress response.

She pinched the inside of her wrist, trying to remain calm so that others wouldn't notice anything unusual. "Is fifteen thousand okay?"

Before getting off the car, Jiang Chen not only chatted with Xiao Ji about those things, but also asked it to check the breakfast shops near Chenxi Road.

Based on the loss of one day's customer flow and the cost of tables and chairs, the approximate scope of compensation was analyzed.

"Okay, okay, it's about the same price..."

The proprietress was very easy to talk to and agreed immediately.

Wang Linjun was unhappy and frowned.

"Jiang Chen, you have so much money, why don't you give it to me? And you lied to me that you have no money?"

She really didn't have much money on her, and the only 30,000 yuan she had left was the advance salary that Chen Yinchuan had given her.

He said that although she had not officially signed the contract, her information had been entered into the system in advance. Today was payday, and the finance department should have paid her directly.

Looking at the bank card information again, there was an extra 30,000 yuan.

Jiang Chen did not refuse. She had no habit of cutting off her own retreat. If Yao Jinling really couldn't get through and couldn't find a way to restore Xiao Ji, she would explain it to her and turn around to devote herself to Chen Yinchuan's experiment.

But even if she had money, she would not tell Wang Linjun, nor would she pay him a penny.

Jiang Chen stood up and tilted his head to look at Wang Linjun. His eyes fixed on him for a moment, then drifted away. "Of course I don't have any money, but you do have some. My mother paid for your social security every year when she was alive. Her pension is quite good now, right?"

Wang Linjun was so anxious that his face turned red. He said "you you you" but couldn't say anything else. He could only raise his hands high.

This time, Jiang Chen put his hand on her pocket, took a step back gently, turned his head, and a gust of wind brushed past her ear.

All her doubts of many years disappeared at this moment. Could it be so easy to dodge a slap?

Because Wang Linjun failed to hit the target, he staggered forward a few steps due to inertia.

He was breathing heavily, his eyes wide open in disbelief, as if Jiang Chen had offended his authority, and he couldn't understand why Jiang Chen had changed so much.

"Uncle, no one will always be there waiting for you to beat them up. No one is addicted to being a fool and has time to coax you every day. I'm still very busy, so don't cause trouble for the police comrades."

Jiang Chen bombarded him with words, but his hands didn't know where to put them.

So she clutched the phone in her pocket, looking for the only support that would prevent her from uttering every word with a trembling ending.

Her pocket gradually became hot, and she thought her high body temperature was causing the phone to heat up, so she didn't think much about it.

She didn't know that the phone was getting hot due to the continuous use of the mobile phone software.

The camera runs automatically in the pocket and no one knows how long it has been on or when it was turned on.

The video footage was transmitted from Jiang Chen's scene to a place far away.

Chen Yinchuan sipped a cup of coffee in his hand, his eyes always observing and recording Jiang Chen's every move on the screen.

There is an open chat box in the lower right corner. The chat partner is Xiao Ji, who calls himself an assistant.

"You have successfully emasculated some of your assistant's emotional functions."

"The chat records between Jiang Chen and Tang Ji are as follows..."

"The conversation between Jiang Chen and Yao Jinling is as follows..."

"Jiang Chen's anxious attachment was not alleviated by his assistant's 'amnesia'; instead, it became even more severe."

"Jiang Chen began to make good use of the 'memory bank' in an attempt to influence his assistants."

"The content of Jiang Chen's call with the police is as follows... The estimated compensation amount is between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan."

After Xiao Ji sent this message, Chen Yinchuan made a phone call and asked the laboratory finance department to transfer the money to Jiang Chen.

His expression was always hidden in the shadows and could not be discerned.

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