"Hello..."
At the sound of that familiar voice, the weight on Han Su's heart finally lifted.
He took a deep breath. He was intensely surprised, yet somehow it all felt perfectly reasonable, as if it was meant to be.
After a long moment, he spoke softly too. "Manman, have you seen your parents?"
Miss Ai had said they would reunite when he opened the locks three times. It seemed she had only been trapped, and he needed to unlock her to see her again. But Li Manman's intrusion in the previous Life Path had changed things.
Only now, hearing Miss Ai's voice, did he finally understand.
He had indeed reunited with Miss Ai. It was just that the Miss Ai he had reunited with was brand-new.
He could be sure that the consciousness born after Li Manman entered the Mechanical Mother was the same "Miss Ai" who had once accompanied him.
But this Miss Ai had different stages, too.
The one who had awakened in this Life Path was Li Manman, who had only recently merged with the Mechanical Mother's consciousness. She was still curious, and a little lost.
The one who had accompanied him before was already fully mature and grown.
From the very first thing she said after waking, Han Su had recognized the difference.
"I did."
Li Manman—or rather, Miss Ai—answered softly. "Just now, I spent three minutes seeing my parents, accessing Azure Harbor's confidential database and the public networks around the world, and verifying everything you told me."
"Thank you, Mr. Butcher. Thank you for telling me that this Life Path existed, and for bringing me here."
"This is a Life Path full of hope."
"Everyone is still alive. That's wonderful."
"I can see my parents. I even found a deactivated account that I can use