"Little bro, little bro?"
Seeing Ye Yun fall silent, Qiya hurriedly nudged him and called out tentatively.
"What is it?" Ye Yun came to his senses and looked at Qiya, who was nudging him, puzzled.
"What are you thinking about? Big sis called you so many times, and you acted like you couldn't hear her." Qiya gave him a strange look.
"N-no, nothing."
He shook his head firmly. He didn't want to tell his two older sisters his secret.
A secret like this involved things that were far too important.
"Dad just sent word that something very serious happened at Coast Dock Warehouse No. 2. He told us to get home as soon as possible."
Feiran sat in the passenger seat and turned to speak to him and Qiya.
"Okay."
Ye Yun watched the scenery flash past outside the window. "You're in charge. I'll rest for a while."
Seeing that Ye Yun hadn't explained where his power came from, Feiran and Qiya weren't the sort to insist on getting to the bottom of everything. They were also prepared to keep the matter to themselves and tell no one.
As he closed his eyes to pretend to sleep, he had in fact already arrived before a Bronze door.
Beyond the Bronze door
was endless darkness. Within it, only a single point of light flickered.
According to his guess,
this was very likely the world he had experienced three years ago.
He had also learned the name of that world in this one.
It was called Citywide Alert. It was about poison gas left behind when Unit 731 conducted human experiments in Malaysia during World War II.
During the story of the protagonists and antagonists, they encountered several people who had discovered a treasure. Then came murder, robbery, and a search for gold.
They found the gold, but the protagonists and antagonists were infected by the poison gas.
Later, the protagonist got into an argument with the others, fell into the water, and somehow ended up aboard a smuggling ship. He was thrown into the sea, which brought his mutation to full success.
The antagonists, meanwhile, became things that were neither human nor ghost, and kept evolving. After gaining great power, they began robbing banks, and the story followed the protagonist as he fought them.
In the movie's plot, Ye Yun had played the role of an underling to the antagonist. In the end, he joined forces with the main villain to kill the righteous character named Sunny.
After that, he sensed Little Tower calling him and chose to return at once.
That era was equivalent to this world's 1940s or 1950s.
Beyond the Bronze door
was endless darkness, but Ye Yun didn't dare underestimate it.
He suspected that the darkness wasn't truly darkness, but a multitude of stars that had yet to be lit.
"Phew."
He drew a deep breath, walked toward the Bronze Portal, which stood about three zhang and three chi tall, and placed his hand against it.
What appeared on it was:
First Rank.
He didn't know whether this corresponded to the first floor of the tower or to his strength. Perhaps it referred to both.
He just wasn't sure.
He tried with all his might to push the Bronze Portal, as though it had existed here since ancient times, but found that the rust-covered portal didn't budge.
Even straining with all his strength, he couldn't move it.
"Did I fail again? Could the world I'm in also be the setting of a movie, anime, or novel? Do I need to alter the world's normal course? But where is the protagonist, exactly?"
Ye Yun looked despondently at the portal before him, disappointment filling his eyes as he calmed down and thought it over carefully.
If the world he was in
was also the setting of a movie, anime, or novel, then he didn't know the plot at all. What was he supposed to do?
It was an extremely difficult situation.
Unfortunately,
there was
no one around to explain any of this to him.
Even if someone told him how to change the world's fate, he could only feel his way across the river in the dark.
After finding no way to make progress,
he could only leave this cold world.
"Hey, when are you getting a girlfriend? Are you really going to let the Old Hu Family die out?" Qiya turned to look at Ye Yun as he opened his eyes and asked.
"You should worry about yourself first."
He gave the short-haired tomboy a long look, closed his eyes, and began thinking.
"This station interrupts its broadcast with an urgent news report. Two hours ago, a major incident occurred at Green Valley Coast Dock Warehouse No. 2. Intelligent beings mutated and developed self-awareness and logic. Under the leadership of the mutated intelligent being Jie Xing, large numbers of intelligent beings began developing independent consciousness and logic, launching an attack on humanity and carrying out a terrifying intelligent-being assault."
"According to reports from our correspondent at the scene, fifty-four high-end, specially customized intelligent beings, as well as large numbers of other intelligent beings, have escaped into human cities. All residents are urged to stay safely inside their homes and not to move about, to avoid unnecessary casualties."
Hearing this report,
Ye Yun, who had closed his eyes and was trying to figure out how to resolve the situation, suddenly opened them.
He seemed to remember someone saying this:
"When everyone's attention is focused on a project and they develop it to its peak, disaster begins—or it breaks through its existing limits and reaches a new peak."
Ever since this world entered the twenty-first century, it had followed the path of Artificial intelligence. And now, it was focused on Intelligent Beings.
The Intelligent Being project had already reached its peak.
Did that mean
the true focus of this world was on these mutated Intelligent Beings that had escaped?
"Huh? What's that?"
Suddenly,
Qiya seemed to have noticed something remarkable. She pointed at a figure that flashed across the screen and said,
"Isn't that the custom AIP Dad gave me? Is she also..."
Qiya had just started to say something when Feiran cut her off. "If you have time to worry about your custom AIP, you'd be better off worrying about whether Dad is alive."
"Dad? Isn't Dad at home?"
Qiya said.
Dad was at home. Nothing could happen to him.
"I don't know if you're really stupid or just pretending. That transport truck that suddenly swerved into us earlier—it was obvious, wasn't it?"
Feiran carefully recalled the transport truck, worry rising in her eyes. She kept urging the Artificial intelligence to drive faster. "Jie Xing was Dad's creation. He was modeled after God, and his fighting style is all-encompassing. His Spiral Blade has even reached supersonic speeds. The only person who could deal with Jie Xing is his creator, Professor Hu Ming—that is, our dad. So tell me, is it possible that Jie Xing might kill the very man who could stop him?"
"H-how about you speed up, then?"
After hearing Feiran's analysis, Ye Yun also showed a trace of worry.
After all,
Dad had raised him for over twenty years. Even if he were a pet, he'd have grown attached.
Let alone a creature like him, who was smarter than a dog.
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