Accusation?

(Thanks to Xue Zhi Ye 1995 for the tip.)

Late at night, Li Zhou was sleeping soundly, while some netizens online had already gotten into a huge argument with people from other countries.

Everyone was accusing the other side of hacking their country, causing widespread network fluctuations and making it impossible to get online normally. Even worse, netizens in the USA were directly cursing Xia Country citizens for secretly researching cyber weapons.

Meanwhile, Yuan Jingsong, sitting in a helicopter, stared blankly out at the dark night. This network fluctuation was clearly caused by Li Zhou. The two minutes of severe network fluctuation had a significant impact. Yuan Jingsong had never even seen such a large-scale network fluctuation before, and he was starting to believe the Americans' speculation. It was possible Li Zhou was indeed researching cyber weapons.

If Li Zhou were researching cyber weapons, Yuan Jingsong wouldn't be too worried. What worried Yuan Jingsong most at this moment was what Li Zhou had mentioned last time about a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. This network fluctuation was highly likely caused by Li Zhou's artificial intelligence research going out of control. If that were really the case, things would be very serious.

Who could guarantee that an out-of-control artificial intelligence wouldn't become an enemy of humanity, aiming to eliminate humans, just like in the movies? This was also why Yuan Jingsong had rushed to find Li Zhou by plane overnight when he couldn't get through to him.

At three in the morning, when Yuan Jingsong arrived at Li Zhou's new home, he immediately noticed security equipment all around the vicinity of Li Zhou's house as soon as he reached the entrance.

Yuan Jingsong stood at the door for a while, then saw Zhou Song walking quickly from the yard, opening the door and putting on his clothes.

Zhou Song lowered his voice and asked quietly, "Squad leader, why are you here in the middle of the night?"

After Yuan Jingsong entered the yard, he directly asked where Li Zhou was.

"Where's Li Zhou? I need to see him urgently!"

Zhou Song was a bit confused. The squad leader was suddenly looking for the boss in the middle of the night, and it was urgent?

"The boss is asleep. I'll go wake him up now."

Just as Zhou Song was about to go upstairs to call the boss, Yuan Jingsong stopped him.

Yuan Jingsong stared intently at Zhou Song.

"Was there anything unusual about your boss last night?"

"Unusual? No, he came back and crashed. Oh! He did look a bit tired, a bit weak."

Zhou Song's eyes widened suddenly. No way! No way! What did the boss do underground!

For some reason, Yuan Jingsong felt a sense of relief when he heard that Li Zhou had crashed immediately.

"I'll go with you."

Li Zhou was sleeping soundly. In his daze, he felt someone pushing him.

Who is it? Who wants to harm me! Guards! Guards! Protect me! Protect me!

Li Zhou opened his eyes hazily and saw a pair of wide eyes staring intently at him.

Instantly, Li Zhou shivered and instinctively lifted his leg to kick.

"CaoCao!"

After kicking, Li Zhou sprang up in bed, leaning against the wall.

Having kicked through the wooden bed board, Li Zhou quickly turned on the bedside lamp.

The moment the light came on, Li Zhou saw Zhou Song and Yuan Jingsong, who was clutching his chest, staring at him in shock.

I just asked you to wake up, and you did all that? Are you serious?

As the three of them stared at each other in awkward silence, Li Zhou's parents and several security personnel had already turned on all the lights in the villa and rushed into Li Zhou's room.

Li Zhou's parents, seeing Yuan Jingsong in the room, exchanged a look and turned to leave with practiced ease.

When only Li Zhou, Yuan Jingsong, and Zhou Song were left in the room again, Li Zhou pulled his blanket tighter and leaned back, forcing a smile at Yuan Jingsong.

"Old Yuan, you could have given me a heads-up before coming. You scared me half to death in the middle of the night."

Yuan Jingsong stared at Li Zhou expressionlessly. I'm not saying anything.

Li Zhou, feeling a prickle on his scalp from Yuan Jingsong's stare, gave a sheepish smile. Li Zhou knew that Yuan Jingsong had come to confront him about last night's events. It seemed he had underestimated the impact of those two minutes.

"Old Yuan, you found out, huh."

"Heh! The entire internet experienced a two-minute network fluctuation, and the source was your company's headquarters. Do you think I came here in the middle of the night for any other reason?"

Seeing Yuan Jingsong speak, Li Zhou knew things weren't too bad.

Yuan Jingsong asked Li Zhou with a grave expression, "Tell me honestly, what exactly happened? The USA is already accusing our country of secretly researching cyber weapons. Even though we deny it, they can't do anything to us, but the fact that the two-minute network fluctuation originated from our country is undeniable!"

Li Zhou scratched his unwashed hair from the night before and replied sheepishly, "I was doing a test last night. I knew there would be network fluctuations, but I really didn't expect such a massive one."

"Are you really researching cyber weapons?"

Li Zhou shook his head and then nodded. Artificial intelligence is like a god on the internet. If it's used for destructive purposes, it can be considered a cyber weapon.

"It's not a cyber weapon, but it's stronger than a cyber weapon!"

Before Yuan Jingsong could react, Li Zhou quickly jumped out of bed and put on his shorts.

"Come on, I'll take you to headquarters, and you'll see."

Li Zhou's new home was less than a kilometer from the company headquarters.

Li Zhou, Yuan Jingsong, and Zhou Song reached the company entrance in five minutes.

They walked the entire way in silence.

Zhou Song was caught in the middle, completely clueless, and didn't dare to say a word.

Li Zhou felt a little embarrassed.

Yuan Jingsong, on the other hand, was in a somber mood.

The three took the elevator from the first floor down to the tenth basement level. Once there, Li Zhou led Yuan Jingsong to the entrance of the elevator that went to the bottom ten floors.

Li Zhou turned to Zhou Song. "Old Zhou, you stay here and watch. Old Yuan and I are going down."

Zhou Song nodded and turned to guard the elevator entrance.

Li Zhou glanced at the camera by the elevator door and winked at it.

The next second, the elevator doors opened automatically.

Yuan Jingsong, preoccupied with his thoughts, didn't notice this detail at all.

However, once inside the elevator, Yuan Jingsong felt something was off. There were no buttons inside! After he and Li Zhou entered and the doors closed, the elevator immediately started moving.

He had seen the construction blueprints for Future Technology's headquarters building. There were ten more floors below this!

Five seconds later, the elevator stopped steadily. Yuan Jingsong glanced at the display inside the elevator, which showed they had stopped at -20F.

As Li Zhou and Yuan Jingsong stepped out of the elevator, all the lights on the -20F level flickered on, one by one.

"Welcome back, boss."

Weixi's voice boomed in Yuan Jingsong's ears, like thunder.

Yuan Jingsong looked at Li Zhou in shock, as if asking, "Is this Artificial Intelligence?"

Li Zhou turned back and gave Yuan Jingsong a confident smile. As he walked towards the laboratory where Weixi's main body was located, he called out to the empty hall.

"Weixi, introduce yourself to Old Yuan."

The next second, beams of lasers shot out from all directions. This was the still-immature aerial laser projection technology.