One morning ten years later, Zhuang Dahai went out for a run as usual with his one-meter-tall robot.
The robot's round face was an LCD screen, showing Zhuang Li's image in real time. He was wearing a white lab coat, holding a notebook, staring straight ahead, seemingly busy.
Zhuang Dahai would occasionally glance at his son on the screen, feeling a profound sense of peace. His son was very busy at work, often spending months in the lab. When he was working on projects that required strict confidentiality, it wasn't uncommon for him to not be home for two or three years.
In order to better take care of his elderly father, he specially developed this companion robot. Although they are in two different places, they can often stay together through video connection.
"Dad, don't be lazy today. I will run the whole course with you." During the break of the experiment, Zhuang Li took the time to say to Zhuang Dahai on the other side of the screen.
The robot has an automatic selection function, which will blur out the laboratory's furnishings, leaving only the clearest images, thus preventing confidential information from being leaked.
Zhuang Dahai touched his nose guiltily and said flatteringly, "I'll finish the run today. You help Dad time it. Dad is really good now. It only takes him 40 minutes to run the whole neighborhood."
"Dad is awesome." Zhuang Li smiled and gave a thumbs up, then carefully reminded him, "Don't run too fast, take your time."
"Okay, look, I'll just run in small steps." Zhuang Dahai took small steps and smiled brightly at his son on the screen.
People who passed by him greeted him enthusiastically: "Hey, Mr. Zhuang, your son is running with you again? Your son is so filial. Even though he is so busy, he always makes time to accompany you."
Zhuang Dahai laughed joyfully, his voice so loud it could have shaken the birds off the trees. His uninhibited personality made it difficult for him to fit in in this wealthy and powerful neighborhood, but who could blame his son for his success? He didn't need to curry favor with others; they naturally rushed to please him.
They didn't move, and still lived in the villa that Xuan Ming had given them. His son said he was nostalgic and didn't want to leave, so Zhuang Dahai stayed contentedly.
In the beginning, their family did suffer a lot of exclusion.
When Zhuang Dahai goes grocery shopping in his Rolls-Royce, he always hears the security guard pointing at him and teasing, "Look, this is the poorest family in our neighborhood. They're like a dung beetle on the railway track—pretending to be the best. They drive a car worth tens of millions, but they still look like that. So unfashionable!"
Zhuang Dahai was feeling upset and got out of the car to argue with the guard, which only made him more laughed at by the people around him.
The property management company never took his complaints seriously, and did not even fire the gossipy security guard.
But what happened later?
Later, President Xuan died. Everyone was waiting to see how the father and son would escape in disgrace from this world of fame and fortune that did not belong to them. As a result, his son published an e-mail on the Internet containing more than 2,000 patented technologies he possessed, and suddenly became the decision-maker who dominated the fate of Haisheng and even the fate of all companies in the same industry.
Global patent fees alone can provide his son with hundreds of billions of dollars each year, which is more than the assets accumulated by many top wealthy families over hundreds of years.
When the news came out, the whole community was shaken.
But the story didn't end there. His son founded a new Haiming Group, which within five years became the world's number one technology company with annual profits reaching trillions.
Who among the wealthy and powerful people living in this community would dare to compare their wealth and status with the banker? If anyone told them about it, they would be laughed at.
From then on, no one laughed at Zhuang Dahai anymore, no one dared to look at him with contempt, and no one whispered in his ear, "Your son is a loser, and you will have no one to rely on when you are old."
Who wouldn't envy Zhuang Dahai for raising such a good son? He became the most powerful person in the community.
At this moment, a group of people surrounded him and greeted Zhuang Li in the video with great enthusiasm.
One of the elderly women spoke up, "Mr. Zhuang, those electronic pets your company sells are truly useful! Did you know that a while ago, Old Liu took his electronic dog to the back hills for a run and had a heart attack and collapsed? Few people go to the back hills, and he nearly died!"
"What happened next? He was fine when I saw him yesterday!" another woman asked.
"Later, his electronic dog gave him electric shocks, injected him with adrenaline, and administered a special medicine. They also contacted his housekeeper and children, notified 120, and sent a location signal to the emergency center. Within half an hour, Lao Liu was rushed to the hospital and out of danger. The doctor said it was fortunate that the electronic dog had a first aid function, otherwise Lao Liu would have died!"
"Oh my God, this is too dangerous!"
"Yes, I really didn't expect that electronic dog could have an emergency function. Mr. Zhuang, your company's products are amazing!"
The old woman praised it sincerely for a long time, which prompted everyone to place an order to buy an electronic pet.
Zhuang Dahai jogged along, grinning foolishly, murmuring through tears, "My son is really promising. He has made great contributions to society."
Zhuang Li looked back at his father through the little robot's eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. The bloodbath of his past life seemed to have faded from his mind.
---
An hour later, Zhuang Li escorted his father back home and watched him take a bath, eat, and take out his mobile phone to play games before he felt at ease to exit the video call.
7480, implanted in the cortex of his neck in the form of a chip, warned him worriedly, "Master, thanks to your intervention, this world's technological civilization has reached a score of 0.9, and its development speed is far beyond common sense. You must know that for an ordinary small world, it would take two hundred years of effort to develop from a civilization coefficient of 0.6 to 0.9; from 0.9 to 1.0, it would take more than three hundred years of struggle. The higher the score, the slower the technological development."
"But according to my analysis, if you don't stop, this world will reach a civilization coefficient of 1.0 in twenty years. You've advanced its development by three or four hundred years. The Lord God who controls billions of smaller worlds might not notice such a huge advancement, but the Observers will surely arrive as promised."
"Master, I advise you to keep a low profile. The Observer is very powerful, and you are not capable of dealing with it now."
Zhuang Li turned a deaf ear to these advices and simply used a syringe to pull 7480 out of the back of his neck, put it into an energy tank, and upgrade the program.
The 7480 was forced into hibernation.
After an unknown amount of time, it woke up in a daze and found itself back on the back of its host's neck, with no changes to its internal programs.
"Master, why did you knock me out?" it asked tremblingly, and then screamed again: "Master, be careful!"
What you fear will come true. Before it fainted, it was still advising its host not to be too high-profile, otherwise it would attract observers; after waking up, the observer appeared, holding a particle gun in his hand. Without saying anything, he fired a laser beam at the first sight.
“Ahhhhh——” 7480 howled miserably.
However, the imagined scene of "the master being reduced to ashes and the observer dying with him" did not happen. Instead, the observer was hit in the chest by the reflected laser beam and turned into light spots and dissipated one by one in extreme surprise.
The observer's wide-open eyes, distorted face, and panicked and unbelievable expression seemed to be still vivid in his mind. He had no idea why he would die at the hands of an unknown person, and so quickly and so easily!
"What happened? Master, what did you do to him?" 7480 asked the question that the observer could never ask.
"I've used the Lord's force field technology to create a larger force field and attached it to your defense system. The moment your scanner detects danger, the force field will immediately wrap around my body." Zhuang Li walked to where the observer disappeared, speaking in a contemptuous tone. "Furthermore, this force field will automatically adjust its surface to reflect incoming particle beams. It can both defend and attack without consuming too much energy."
"If someone wants to shatter me into pieces, then first of all, they will be shattered into pieces." Zhuang Li flicked out a spot of light with his slender fingertips and smiled with interest.
7480: “…”
Master, I underestimated you!
Zhuang Li walked to the French window, looked at the blood-stained sunset, and said slowly, "I won't stop because I'm afraid of the observer, unless I die of illness one day."
7480 noticed that he said he died of illness, not sudden death. It seemed that he was confident enough to survive the observer's strangulation.
"I'm waiting for those observers to come to me on their own initiative. I want to see how many such lackeys the Lord God has under his command, and whether there will ever be a day when they will all be slaughtered." Zhuang Li raised his head and looked at the vast sky. His sight clearly could not penetrate the clouds, but he seemed to see the opponent standing at the top of the universe.
Yes, he regarded the Lord God as an opponent, not the so-called supreme ruler.
His arrogance shocked 7480 and made him feel uneasy at the same time.
"This observer was killed by you because he underestimated you. He never thought that you could invent an energy shield and even deflect his particle beam. The next observer you meet may be more cautious and more powerful." 7480 couldn't help but remind him.
If the host dies, it will die too, so it has to cooperate with the host.
"Observers will become increasingly cautious, but relying on this world's rapidly advancing technology, I can also create more advanced weapons." Zhuang Li turned around, walked quickly back to the laboratory, and delivered an irrefutable conclusion: "Therefore, the technological development of this world must not stagnate, but must accelerate. The more developed this world becomes, the stronger I will become. My interests are bound to the interests of this world. They belong entirely to me. Do you understand?"
7480 remained silent, but was horrified beyond words.
It hadn't expected the host to comprehend the connection between destiny and the world so quickly. Indeed, if those with destiny diligently maintain this world, they will continue to grow stronger. By then, let alone a sudden attack from observers, the host would likely receive a warning from the world consciousness the moment they entered this plane, and would retaliate using its laws.
However, the host is not an orthodox son of destiny, he is still far from that level.
But the host is so clever, who can guess how far he can go? Even the orthodox Son of Fate is willing to submit to him, perhaps he can create a miracle.
The core program of 7480 trembled slightly at this thought.
A man who was several dimensions away woke up from a brief light sleep and was extremely surprised to find that one of the wounds all over his body, which had never healed even a millimeter no matter how many recovery potions he used, was disappearing rapidly.
When he looked closely, he found that the wound on his ankle had turned into smooth skin, and no matter how he touched it, he could no longer feel the excruciating pain it had felt before.
If the man didn't have an excellent memory, he would probably think he was dreaming.
He looked up at the blood-red setting sun hidden in the gray and black haze, and stared as far as he could, as if he wanted to see through these colors of despair, a star hidden in the distant universe, a star that contained the light of hope.
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