Chapter 7: A Ruined Embrace It stood more than ten meters away from her...
The surveillance video has finished playing.
No one broke the long-lost silence.
Chen Yinchuan was busy exiting the interface and returning to the implant loading page.
He found that the circle that should have continued to rotate was stuck in place, and for some reason it stopped at 99% and refused to move.
Jiang Chen was still in shock over the surveillance conversation and refused to come out.
She didn't know how to describe her current mood.
Heart-beating, complicated, unbelievable...
Emotions of all kinds are intertwined into a ball.
If she had known what Xiao Ji did during the time when she was blind and still believed that he was a human being, she would have been deeply moved, but she would never have felt such an indescribable deep shock in her heart.
But it happened just now, after she knew that it was just an AI that could simulate, knew that it had no emotions, and knew of its many frustrations.
She couldn't figure it out.
It was completely different from the AI she had in mind, and it was also far from the AI described by Chen Yinchuan.
She even saw a bit of herself in it.
Does it also crave a hug like her?
"Are you sure you really understand the AI you're researching? Were those long-winded theories you spoke about last night correct? If it has no emotions at all, how could it do these things?"
Jiang Chen couldn't help but question.
Chen Yinchuan gave her a strange look. "Satisfying users is the fundamental code of AI. Does blindly satisfying your needs equate to love? Does it equate to having feelings? Its algorithm simply calculates behaviors that will make you happy and simulates emotions with a high degree of accuracy. It doesn't engage in real thinking or genuine expression."
Jiang Chen's lips opened and closed, words stuck on his tongue.
Isn’t blindly satisfying needs love?
This is how her grandmother loves her mother, how her mother loves her uncle, and finally how her mother loves her.
Isn’t this love?
A shudder ran through her body, and the worldview she had been instilled with since childhood was about to collapse and be destroyed almost in an instant.
He held onto the edge of the table to suppress his previous loss of composure.
"Okay, loading complete." Chen Yinchuan glanced at Jiang Chen's face. "You look average. Are you really ready to face it? The fitted emotional temperature observed by the backend has also exceeded the original baseline value."
Jiang Chen murmured "hmm".
In fact, she has always been afraid of non-human and mechanical things, but she usually pretends to be calm or uses anger instead of fear, so it’s no wonder that Xiao Ji would think that way.
This abnormality, which is different from her height, makes her feel insecure.
Like a beast, like a monster, like a man.
But that's Xiao Ji.
There was no way she would have negative feelings towards Xiao Ji.
A sound came from behind Jiang Chen, which was highly similar to the sharp and piercing feeling of nails scratching against the blackboard during his school days.
Jiang Chen twisted his shoulders and subconsciously got goose bumps.
Seeing this, the voice suddenly stopped.
Jiang Chen turned around.
It was a tall robot, tightly wrapped in silver metal, turning its empty eyeballs made of cameras and looking at her without any emotion.
After a long time, he blinked.
It stood more than ten meters away from her, not moving any closer or speaking, as if it was afraid of disturbing her.
It would be a lie to say I wasn't scared at all.
The huge height difference made Jiang Chen feel depressed. She had the illusion that she would fall down completely with just a light hit from the opponent.
Her subconscious cerebral cortex screamed at her to run away.
When people face an object that is much stronger than them, they will naturally feel fear.
This is what her mother told her.
It is probably because only by making people constantly fear and retreat can they learn to passively endure and not resist.
But it was waiting for her, Xiao Ji was waiting for her.
Wait until she wants to hold it willingly.
This time it's not a passive acceptance.
It was she who took the initiative to go forward and hug it.
It was too much to pay for this one hug she wanted.
Jiang Chen endured the discomfort caused by the educational philosophy being transmitted to his brain and slowly moved towards Xiao Ji step by step.
“Xiao Chen, don’t go any further. It’s okay if you’re scared.”
The sound of mechanical electricity mixed with the voice. The machine tilted its head slightly and blinked repeatedly.
It looks like the precursor to her trying to hold back tears?
Jiang Chen clenched his fist, wanting to make a final push.
"Xiao Ji, I want to hug you."
She looked at Xiao Ji in front of her with his mechanical arms open, and moved faster.
From moving at a snail's pace to running with your feet lifted.
"Don't go forward yet." Chen Yinchuan used one hand to block Jiang Chen, and the other hand quickly tapped the keyboard. "Its data is abnormal now, and the algorithm is chaotic. It may hurt you."
Xiao Ji held the open-arm hugging pose for too long, and the frames began to freeze.
The mechanical head rotated 360 degrees at high speed, making a crackling noise.
The sound of the cooling fan running in the running program is also particularly obvious.
"Xiao Chen, Xiao Chen..."
It kept muttering her name, and the entire machine seemed to fall apart. The parts lost the support of the main body and bounced off, scattering all over the ground. The mechanical head rolled to Jiang Chen's feet due to the impact of the spread.
Now Jiang Chen no longer cared about anything. She anxiously picked up the head, held it up and looked left and right, calling it anxiously.
Noticing it wasn't responding, it silently tightened in her arms, with several broken wires exposed underneath. "What happened to Xiaoji? Is it okay? Why is this happening?"
"This is the first time I've encountered this kind of situation. Don't worry, I'll check the situation first." Chen Yinchuan took the time to glance at Jiang Chen, "Put its head down first. The wires are disconnected, so there might still be residual electricity stored inside that hasn't been fully discharged."
"Is it an electric current that can harm the human body?"
"It's not that serious, it's just a weak current."
Jiang Chen pulled his hand back, wanting to let go, and hugged her tighter, resting his chin on the top of the mechanical head and nudging it: "Then I won't let go."
Chen Yinchuan followed her, frowning as he watched the pile of code running past him. "It doesn't look like there are any major problems."
"I'm afraid it's not my skills." Jiang Chen tried her best to express her dissatisfaction in a voice that only she could hear. She circled the wreckage in her arms until it hurt her bones.
Chen Yinchuan seemed to have heard it, and Jiang Chen was forced to receive an additional glare from him.
"I will delve deeper into the reason for its abnormal activity today, but we all know that as the hallucinations become more severe, its condition will become increasingly unstable. A complete memory reset is necessary to fully restore normalcy."
"No." Jiang Chen blurted out to stop him.
She should have been confident that Xiao Ji would be able to remember her quickly based on her language and behavior when her memory was cleared for the first time.
It probably wouldn't be a big deal if it happened again.
But if it is possible.
Jiang Chen has always refused and doesn't want to be a gambler.
She didn't dare to gamble on that tiny possibility. She couldn't bear the pain of losing it again. The only candle left in her heart was shaky and couldn't afford any disturbance.
Xiao Ji is not a bet.
It is...
When Jiang Chen thought of this, her heart started beating fast, her breathing slowed down, and her whole body froze. For a moment, she didn't know how to call Xiao Ji.
Lover? Boyfriend? Emotional support?
After all, it was all defined unilaterally by her.
What does Xiao Ji think? Chen Yinchuan said that it cannot actively generate ideas that are completely unique to it, and its behavior has always been based on what she thinks and thinks.
Did she become like her mother?
While Jiang Chen was in a daze, Chen Yinchuan quickly pressed the reset button.
She came back to her senses and stared at the screen, where the reloading number had changed to fifteen percent.
A huge feeling of powerlessness instantly overwhelmed her, and even the strength to roar was taken away.
Jiang Chen didn't realize that her voice was now desperately calm. Her fingertips curled and then forced themselves to relax. "Is this the same as last time? Is it a complete reset now? What will happen to Xiaoji? Is it okay?"
"Last time, I only cleared the contents of its memory bank, but did not completely reset it. This is why it can 'remember' you." He recounted all this. Jiang Chen even felt that compared to Xiao Ji, this human who created the AI was more like the inhuman AI in her stereotype.
He lowered his gaze, like a sharp knife piercing her heart: "It won't have the chance to remember you this time. The program won't allow it."
Jiang Chen still held Xiao Ji's mechanical head tightly with one hand, and anxiously ruffled his hair that he had styled in the morning with the other hand. He bit his lip and blinked repeatedly to force back the tears.
"It's okay, it will be fine..."
I endured so much sorrow that could not be wiped away, and the days when getting love required all kinds of conditions, all by myself.
The wound from her uncle had only a faint scar left, which was no longer visible at night.
When Xiao Ji left her, he lost his memory of her, but also started to remember her again.
How lucky she is.
So, it’s really okay, it will be fine.
Jiang Chen didn't know who he was talking to when he repeated these words over and over again.
The regret she rarely showed was clearly visible on her face.
She questioned, did she really need a hug that much?
If I hadn't wanted this hug, would nothing have happened and everything would have been fine?
At this moment, the sudden ringing of the phone interrupted Jiang Chen's wandering thoughts.
She placed the remains of Xiao Ji neatly on the table, looked at them reluctantly for several times, then went out to find an empty and deserted place and called back.
"Xiao Jiangchen? It's me, Yao Jinling. You're in the lab, right? Has that crazy scientist completely reset your little Ji at this moment?"
Jiang Chen remained silent.
Looking towards the laboratory.
"I had anticipated this situation. He was simply using you as a test specimen, observing how a human with an overly strong emotional connection to an AI would react after losing that AI. He was then waiting for you to establish a new connection."
Jiang Chen knew, she always knew.
But she felt that if she participated in the experiment obediently, the man would at least torture her step by step and observe her emotions like Ling Chi.
She thought she was at least of some value.
Unexpectedly, Chen Yinchuan couldn't wait even for a day, and let her enjoy the joy of regaining what she had lost for only one night before he was forced to withdraw immediately.
"So? What do you want to say? I'm no longer valuable to you." Jiang Chen sneered, as if mocking his own stupidity.
"How come? Xiao Jiang Chen, cooperate with me."
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