The butler told him everything he knew, but a hint of exasperation crossed Ji Yanzhi's face. "Uncle Yang, what's new about him playing games? It would be strange if he stopped one day."
The butler gave an awkward chuckle. "True."
Ji Yanzhi exhaled and turned back toward the garden, seemingly troubled by something.
"Eldest young master, is that robot vacuum really so important?"
Over the past two days, the eldest young master had checked the surveillance footage and searched the garden. Even the butler couldn't quite understand why he was going to such lengths.
"If it were just an ordinary robot vacuum, of course it wouldn't matter." A dark gloom hung over Ji Yanzhi's features. "But it can detect and identify human emotions at incredible speed. That makes its system chip worth more than we can estimate."
He had sent that night's surveillance footage to the chief scientist at the artificial intelligence laboratory. Less than ten minutes after receiving it, Wang Mian had rushed straight into his office.
They had talked for an entire afternoon. Wang Mian roughly calculated its recognition speed, which was only slightly slower than the multimodal human emotion recognition system Nanyang Technological University had developed the previous month.
Even more absurdly, the disc was using a Leica lens salvaged from a phone. In other words, replacing it with an industrial-grade optical lens would instantly erase that negligible gap, and might even put it ahead.
Ji Yanzhi still remembered the agonized expression on Wang Mian's face. He had even begged Ji Yanzhi to find this person, determined to see who could waste such a precious chip by putting it in a robot vacuum just to mess with people.
By the time the butler finished listening, he was dumbfounded. He didn't understand advanced technology, but he understood that this thing was important.
"Eldest young master, I'll get everyone searching together tomorrow. As long as that robot vacuum is still in the house, I'll find it for you!"
"Thank you for the effort, Uncle Yang."
On his way back from the garden, Ji Yanzhi glanced at the west building. After a moment's thought, he decided to stop by.
He found the gaming room, walked up to the door, and reached out to turn the lock-
"Beep-boop." The fingerprint scanner lit up red. Authentication failed.
Ji Yanzhi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Why was this damned central control system still having problems after being reinstalled?
At seven, Ji Ting went downstairs for dinner on time.
When he reached the dining room, however, he found only two steaming bowls of Yangchun Noodles and three small dishes of pickles on the table.
He looked at Ji Yanzhi. "Is this what we're having tonight?"
Ji Yanzhi's tone was icy. "Uncle Yang took the others to look for something in the east building, so I told Old Liu to make something simple for dinner."
"What are they looking for?"
"That robot vacuum."
Ji Ting paused briefly. He hadn't expected Ji Yanzhi to hold such a grudge. All Unit One had done was laugh at him a couple of times, and now he was turning the place upside down to find it.
Seeing him stand there without moving, Ji Yanzhi assumed he disliked the dinner. "Eat if you want to. If not, go back to your room."
Ji Ting glanced at him without saying anything, then sat down quietly and began eating his noodles.
The next day was Saturday. Eager to share his good news with Ji Ting, Xu Ren came over first thing in the morning.
He jogged into the main building and froze just inside the entrance. Even more people than yesterday were hurrying back and forth through the Ji Family residence. The butler held a walkie-talkie, instructing the person on the other end to search the riding grounds again.
Busy as he was, the butler apologized to Xu Ren, then told him the second young master was already awake and asked him to head upstairs on his own.
"Teacher Ji, your house today..." After entering the room, Xu Ren asked curiously, "Did you break the central control system again?"
Ji Ting shook his head calmly. "Ji Yanzhi has people searching for Tasmanian Devil Unit One."
"Huh?"
Xu Ren instantly grew nervous. He had thought Unit One had been gathering research material in secret. He hadn't expected Mr. Ji to discover it.
Ji Ting fell silent for a moment. "Xu Ren, could you do me a favor?"
"Of course. Just tell me."
Ji Ting stood up, opened the wardrobe, and lifted out Tasmanian Devil Unit One. "Take it back to campus and return it to me after a while."
"Sure." Without another word, Xu Ren took off his backpack, but paused after opening the zipper.
He glanced at Ji Ting, pressed his lips together, and took out a plastic bag. "Teacher Ji, these are shrimp buns from our university cafeteria. They're cheap, but they're really, really good."
As usual, Ji Ting couldn't understand without an explicit statement of intent. "There's no hurry. You can finish eating before putting it in."
"No, no, no. I brought these for you." Xu Ren's face grew redder as he spoke, and his voice grew quieter. "My advisor said my graduation project experiment was excellent, so... so I wanted to thank you. I hope you don't mind the buns."
Ji Ting looked at him, the faintest curve forming at the corners of his lips. "The buns are great. Thank you."
Stars sparkled in Xu Ren's eyes again. Grinning, he emptied his backpack, then carefully placed Unit One inside.
He had intended to leave as soon as he packed it away, but Ji Ting said Ji Yanzhi was suspicious by nature, so they held their usual "tutoring session" until noon.
Ji Ting walked him downstairs. Xu Ren waved at him. "I'm off. See you tomorrow."
"Mm."
Xu Ren went to the gate as usual. While he was waiting for it to open, a bodyguard suddenly strode over. "Mr. Xu, Mr. Ji would like to see you."
"Huh-?!"
His exaggerated startled reaction struck Liao Kai as odd. Although Xu Ren quickly composed his expression, that only made Liao Kai more suspicious.
"This way, Mr. Xu."
Rather than taking him back through the main building, Liao Kai led him through a side entrance of the west building and all the way to a sitting room.
Ji Yanzhi sat on the sofa. Hearing footsteps, he raised his eyes from his tablet, his dark, chilling gaze sweeping over Xu Ren's face with seeming casualness.
"You're here, Mr. Xu. Please sit."
Xu Ren's mouth went dry and his throat tightened. He sat down as naturally as he could, but kept his backpack on.
Ji Yanzhi set his tablet on the table. His tone wasn't particularly cold when he spoke. "The butler tells me Ji Ting has been much better behaved lately. Teacher Xu, you must have put a lot of care into teaching him."
Xu Ren forced a stiff grin. "You've paid me so much for the tutoring. I'm only doing what I should."
Ji Yanzhi glanced at his hands gripping the backpack straps, and the corners of his lips shifted unreadably. "I remember you're a graduate student in optical engineering at Capital University of Science and Technology. Is that right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"How are your computer skills?"
"I passed the National Computer Rank Examination, Level Two, as an undergraduate." At that, Xu Ren rubbed the side of his neck sheepishly. "But honestly, I've forgotten a lot of the things that aren't related to my experiments."
Ji Yanzhi leisurely asked him a few more questions, some about campus life and others about areas familiar to Xu Ren's field of study.
Watching his nervousness gradually fade as he spoke, his demeanor growing increasingly relaxed, Ji Yanzhi suddenly asked, "Have you seen a robot vacuum anywhere in my house?"
Xu Ren gave a violent start. He had no time to conceal it; his entire body instantly went rigid in an instinctive reaction.
Ji Yanzhi watched his knuckles turn white from his grip, and a mocking smile rose to his lips.
Found it.
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