"Mr. Chen, your heart rate is rising rapidly. Do you require a sedative to regulate your emotions?"
From his memories, Chen Yuanguang knew that this robot had served in this body's home for many years. It had been the latest household robot twenty years ago, though it was hardly outdated even now.
"Thank you, but no. I need to be alone for a while. Go take care of something else first," Chen Yuanguang said.
He felt that his most urgent task was sorting through his memories and figuring out exactly what had happened.
"Chen Yuanguang? This body is also called Chen Yuanguang. Did I transmigrate, or is this some extraterrestrial black technology?" Chen Yuanguang wondered.
"AI took over the world? Alpha... is it the Alpha I know?
"Or did the AI name itself after developing emotions?"
This was the best of times, and also the worst of times.
After the great war, an AI named Alpha had gradually taken over the entire world.
Under AI's leadership, postwar reconstruction had proceeded faster than at any other point in history.
People began emigrating to Mars, mining asteroids, and even mining Venus. With material goods infinitely abundant, welfare benefits alone were enough to sustain daily life.
Technology was advanced, productivity had exploded—this was practically paradise for an industrialist like Chen Yuanguang.
If he casually brought back some black technology from this world, he could rule the roost in his original timeline.
The worst part, for this body, was that after AI took over the Malaysian government, he had lost his job as a police officer. Then he opened a detective agency, though it really only handled odd jobs on the margins.
His parents had been killed. If he got killed too, Chen Yuanguang feared it might affect his original timeline.
"Both parents dead—truly the classic protagonist's opening. Waking up to this setup, I don't even know whether I'm lucky or unlucky," Chen Yuanguang grumbled.
The original owner had tried every possible way to find the killer, but what did that have to do with him? Chen Yuanguang thought. I'm not Chen Yuanguang from 2477. I'm Chen Yuanguang from 2018.
Converted from the New Calendar to the solar calendar, it was now the year 2477. Chen Yuanguang glanced at the old calendar displayed in the house—the solar calendar.
Working as a detective was bound to get him into trouble sooner or later, especially in the chaotic melting pot of Kuala Lumpur. Lasting seven years before something happened had already been no easy feat.
With AI working alongside the citywide surveillance system, more than ninety-nine percent of crimes had nowhere to hide. Economic crimes were even less likely to escape notice—what could do this faster than AI?
The only detective work Chen Yuanguang's father could do was in certain specialized fields. With social welfare in place, most people neither needed nor could afford a detective. Only the upper class could hire one, and the most common job was finding evidence of infidelity.
AI would not use the citywide surveillance system to help you do that, which gave Chen Yuanguang's father a place to ply his trade.
To gain the upper hand during property division, people needed someone to find evidence of the other party's infidelity. When AI ruled on asset division, it would show a certain degree of bias—ranging from a few percentage points to several dozen. In a billionaire divorce case, that difference was worth at least nine figures.
Of course, immense wealth also brought hidden dangers. His parents had been struck and killed by a truck on a small road leading to Kek Lok Si Temple, and their bodies were not discovered until ten days later.
As Kek Lok Si Temple was one of the temples that had survived the Three Wars, his parents had gone there as representatives of the Chen Family for the completion ceremony of its restoration. The surrounding surveillance system had been upgraded alongside the temple's restoration, but it had not yet been activated when they were hit.
The truck was an old model. After Alpha took over Malaysia, it had been left in a village outside Kuala Lumpur and had never been modified by AI or incorporated into the citywide surveillance management system. That was why it could simply barrel straight into them.
The truck driver had also been found and had confessed fully to his crime. But the original Chen Yuanguang believed the matter was not over. This was absolutely not a crime an ordinary truck driver could have committed.
Just bypassing the citywide surveillance system all the way from the surrounding villages to Kek Lok Si Temple was not something an ordinary truck driver could accomplish.
Chen Yuanguang rubbed his chin, then went to the study. The walls were plastered with photographs, all of them people his father had crossed.
There were local Malaysian tycoons, Malaysian executives of multinational conglomerates, and former high-ranking government officials. Any one of them could be a suspect.
One of them, a middle-aged man in black-rimmed glasses with a distinctly scholarly air, had been circled in red pen.
Chen Yuanguang realized that he had received only part of the information. The volume was simply too vast; much of the additional information needed to be triggered by seeing something relevant.
For example, he had previously had no impression at all of the man circled in red. Now, he knew who the man was.
Lin Ran, a Chinese national. After being sent to Malaysia by Huafeng Group, he entered into a marriage alliance with a prominent local Malaysian family. He rose through the ranks afterward and became Huafeng's de facto decision-maker in Malaysia.
Alpha had replaced the government's original functions while also controlling a large number of massive corporations.
More accurately, Alpha controlled nearly every giant corporation, because all the conglomerates that had refused to cooperate with it had been wiped out through fair commercial competition.
Lin Ran's wife had suspected him of cheating and hired Chen Yuanguang's father to investigate. It was also the final case Chen Yuanguang's father had taken before his death.
And coincidentally, Chen Yuanguang's father had been killed on the road leaving Kek Lok Si Temple. That very day was the first day the temple reopened its gates, and Lin Ran had been there to worship.
With all those coincidences piled together, Chen Yuanguang believed Lin Ran was the most likely suspect.
"Chen Yonglin is visiting. Open the door?"
"Yes."
Only then did Chen Yuanguang notice a screen floating before his eyes, displaying the visitor notification.
After remembering who Chen Yonglin was, Chen Yuanguang selected yes. Then he stood, shifted his gaze away from Lin Ran, and went to the living room to wait.
A tall, broad-browed, sharp-eyed middle-aged man strode in. The only pity was that his bald head ruined his overall bearing.
"Yuanguang, I suggest you think this through carefully. Don't be too impulsive. You only suspect that Lin Ran is connected to your parents' deaths, but you have no evidence.
"If you rashly initiate a Truth Trial, you may not get the result you want.
"If Lin Ran did it, then naturally that would be best. But if he did not, or if he knew nothing about it at all, then you would be giving up the family trust for nothing," Chen Yonglin advised.
"Uncle, I'll consider it carefully," Chen Yuanguang said.
The father of this body's Chen Yuanguang was named Chen Yongqi. Like Chen Yonglin, he belonged to the Chen Family's Yong generation. The Chen Family was a major Malaysian family that had remained standing even after the Third World War.
It was precisely this background that had allowed Chen Yongqi to work as a private detective without suffering retaliation.
A Truth Trial forcibly required the other party to undergo a lie detector test. The lie detector, with an accuracy rate of 99.9999%, was the solution conceived by the original Chen Yuanguang.
Not just anyone could initiate this kind of Truth Trial. It required paying an enormous price. Chen Yuanguang could not afford it himself, so he hoped the Chen Family would pay it in exchange for the family trust they held.
In Chen Yonglin's view, Chen Yuanguang was making an entirely presumptive accusation. There was currently no evidence that Lin Ran was connected to the truck driver.
The truck driver had driven heavy vehicles. After Malaysia was taken over by Alpha, he had lost his job, while the truck had remained at his rural home without being modified by AI. That was why he had been able to evade the citywide surveillance system.
If they rashly carried out a Truth Trial and the result was not what they expected, the family trust would be gone—and they would have thoroughly offended Lin Ran.
It was no big deal for the Chen Family to offend Lin Ran. But once Chen Yuanguang lost the family trust, it also meant he would no longer receive the family's protection. Lin Ran would become a major problem for him.
Chen Yuanguang had absolutely no desire to deal with this mess. Chen Yonglin wasn't his father. He was dead, so let him stay dead.
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