"You could go live in another Sub-district," Xu Huo said. "A lot of Sub-districts' welfare institutes aren't as good as the one in District 025. Many children have no one to look after them."
Ms. Qi shook her head. "I have only one child. Loving him has taken all the strength I have. I don't have the strength to love another child."
Xu Huo fell silent for a moment, then got up and left the villa.
Ms. Qi sat where she was for only a little while before getting to her feet. She went to the kitchen, found some stale bread, and stuffed down a couple of bites. Then she turned on her terminal and logged into an underground channel.
"I killed someone today." She pointed the camera at the bodies on the floor and began describing how she had killed them.
These underground channels, full of grisly and sensational content, were banned again and again but never disappeared. Ms. Qi lived at the bottom of society, so she knew about them. She knew many people enjoyed watching others kill, so she filmed the bodies and put them on the channel. The feed wasn't cut off; in fact, more and more people joined to watch.
Watching the viewer count rise, she took several names she had secretly copied from the lawyer earlier out of her pocket. She unfolded the paper and stuck it to her chest, then turned the camera toward her blood-smeared face. "I killed them. Next, I'll kill myself."
After saying this, she opened the paper against her chest, leaned against the leg of the table, and cut her own throat.
Every second of her death was broadcast. The names on the paper were immediately flagged by the AI and blocked, but the footage had already spread.
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