Lu Zhe's Shock

"Cotton Candy, send Xiao Wen a Weixin message. Say, 'Hello.'" Ye Siyu spoke slowly and softly. Although he had confidence in the Red Queen's work, he still needed to check Cotton Candy's response speed. The so-called voice assistants on ordinary phones made at least some mistakes when picking up speech. Whether a user spoke too quickly or too slowly, once a voice assistant failed to recognize what was said, it would give responses that left people not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

The phone quickly switched to Weixin, opened Ye Siyu's chat with his younger brother, Ye Siwen, and rapidly entered the three Chinese characters Ye Siyu had just spoken.

"Very good. Recall the message," Ye Siyu said when he saw that the message had been sent without a mistake.

Cotton Candy jumped onto the Weixin screen and shook herself vigorously, rubbing out the message that had just been sent like an eraser.

"Message recalled."

"Open the music player for me..."

"I'm in a good mood. Pick me a cheerful song."

"All right, pause the music and check tomorrow's weather for me..."

"Tomorrow will be overcast, with temperatures between 22 and 25 degrees Celsius. Frequent showers are expected in our city over the next six hours, with occasional heavy downpours. Accumulated rainfall may reach rainstorm levels. The Dongjiang City Meteorological Observatory issued a yellow rainstorm warning at 3:30 a.m. on October fifteenth. Please take precautions!"

"Cotton Candy, what kind of person do you think I am?"

"Master, you're naturally the most handsome person in the world, a veritable beacon in the darkness..."

A string of compliments poured from Cotton Candy's mouth.

"Very good. Red Queen, add a feature to let users change its appearance later, then upload this program to the major mobile software download sites. I believe it won't be long before this program becomes popular all over the world."

Holding his phone, Ye Siyu tried out Cotton Candy's various functions one after another. She carried out every one of Ye Siyu's commands quickly and accurately, without the slightest problem.

After confirming that there was nothing wrong with Cotton Candy, Ye Siyu spoke to the Red Queen. Just as he had said, it wouldn't be long before Cotton Candy became popular worldwide. Once the vast majority of people had installed Cotton Candy, his information network would be complete.

By then, information about the Plane Space on Earth would have nowhere to hide.

"Yes, Master. Please give this program a name," said the Red Queen's illusory figure, nodding as she appeared above Ye Siyu's hand.

"Call it the Marshmallow Personal Service Sprite," Ye Siyu said without thinking. After that, he went to rest. He was a little tired too.

The next morning, Lu Zhe turned on his computer as usual. He was a reviewer for Zhongguancun, a professional IT website in the Greater China region, and a fairly well-known reviewer in the field. Many people watched his reviews.

His job was simple: every day, he studied mobile apps on Zhongguancun, then made a video explaining and reviewing them. He carefully laid out the strengths and weaknesses of each device or piece of software, helping more members of the public gain a deeper understanding of the software.

The job earned him a good deal of money. This was the internet age, after all, and clicks meant cash. The more followers he had, the more money he could make. Plenty of people approached him to advertise for them, so he was happy to do the work.

"Huh? New software? Marshmallow Personal Service Sprite? Advanced AI, perfect emotional expression... Free your hands and let you use your phone to perfection? That's one hell of an overblown claim." He had suddenly spotted an unremarkable new app, but its description left him utterly speechless.

He had never seen such a shameless description. Even the top programmers in Silicon Valley wouldn't dare claim they could create a program like that.

"Since you're asking for it, I'll give you a hand," Lu Zhe said with a smile. He most enjoyed reviewing software that didn't have what it took but still tried to show off.

If this so-called Marshmallow Personal Service Sprite wasn't as powerful as the description claimed, he wouldn't mind making a new video to review it. His fans loved watching him tear into trash software that had nothing going for it but gimmicks. Now that she had found a program he might be able to roast, how could he not be happy?

Lu Zhe quickly downloaded and installed the Marshmallow Personal Sprite.

But the instant installation finished, his phone screen went black. Lu Zhe froze for a moment, then repeatedly pressed the power button, preparing to restart the phone.

"Fuck! What kind of shitty software is this?!" Seeing that the phone still wasn't responding, Lu Zhe immediately burst into curses.

But soon, ripples spread across the screen, followed by an egg glowing with fluorescent light.

"Welcome to the Marshmallow Personal Service Sprite. Your service will now begin. Please tap the starting egg," a distinctly metallic voice said from the phone.

Seeing that the screen had finally lit up and the phone hadn't been infected by a virus and crashed, Lu Zhe breathed a sigh of relief. He followed the phone's instructions and tapped the starting egg on the screen. Glass shattered, and cracks appeared across the egg.

Before long, a fluorescent, cotton-candy-like creature appeared on the phone screen, looking at him with a pair of big, watery eyes.

"Is this a phone pet? Why would it be posted in the apps section...?" Lu Zhe was somewhat puzzled as he looked at the cotton-candy-like creature on the screen.

"Cotton Candy isn't a phone pet. I'm a personal service sprite. Please give me a new name." The originally metallic voice had turned soft and gentle after the Cotton Candy sprite hatched, sounding like a little girl.

The words from the phone stirred up a storm in Lu Zhe's heart. It had understood what he said!

It was nothing unusual for a phone pet to talk; that only required the right programming. But what this one had said was different. It was responding to what he had just said!

More importantly, this cotton-candy-like creature wasn't stiff and lifeless like a game character. Its big, dark eyes were fixed on him. That was right, they were fixed on him, just like a real person looking at him.

"Scarlett. Your name will be Scarlett. What do you think?" Lu Zhe forced down his shock and tentatively asked.

"Scarlett? Do you mean like this?" Upon hearing Lu Zhe, Cotton Candy emitted a burst of light, and then her appearance changed. Her cotton-candy-like form became a tall figure.

As Lu Zhe looked at the figure on his phone screen, his head rang with a boom.