Night’s Nomenclature

“Master, when are we going back to Prison No. 18?” Qing Chen felt that he had been away there for a long time, and for some reason, he missed the prison.

“We aren’t in a hurry to go back,” Li Shutong shook his head, “I haven’t finished what I need to do outside yet.”

“What else do you have to do?” Qing Chen wondered, “I heard from Liu Dezhu that more than 300 prisoners were newly transferred into the prison. They should be after the Forbidden Item ACE-005.”

Li Shutong looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window calmly. “The bait has been released, and people are gradually noticing that I left Prison 18, so naturally some people think that now is the best time act. But they are not here for ACE-005, and there are not enough people.”

“So, master, do you want to wait for more people to come?” Qing Chen asked.

“Yes.”

“Then what shall we do next?” Qing Chen asked.

“I’ll go about my business,” Li Shutong said with a smile, “and you don’t have to worry about it. Just go to school with peace of mind.”

“Go to school?”

Qing Chen was stunned, he didn’t expect that after traveling to the Inner World, he would still have to go to school.

He always felt that Li Shutong had reasons behind such arrangements, but his master didn’t seem to want to tell him, so Qing Chen didn’t ask either.

No matter what, Li Shutong would not harm him.

Qing Chen asked, “Master, I am a prisoner serving a sentence now. Can I still go to school?”

“Don’t worry,” Li Shutong got up and handed a box to Qing Chen. Then he said with a smile, “This is another gift. It has everything you’ll need to know. Do your own research and rest well. I’ll go out and deal with some matter.”

After speaking, the teacher opened the door and walked out, leaving Qing Chen alone in the room. Qing Chen opened the box. A brand new translucent mobile phone was inside.

Qing Chen was wondering, did some time traveler also tell Li Shutong that a father would give his son a phone or something?

But… how could he use this thing?!

The teenager sat in the room and studied for a long time, but the phone didn’t even have a button. It looked like a crystal with clouds floating in his hand.

“Do you need my help?” A voice sounded in the room.

Qing Chen jumped up. The voice was so abrupt that his body reacted immediately.

It was a familiar voice, the same voice as the one he heard in Prison 18 announcements.

“Who are you?” Qing Chen asked hesitantly.

“Hi, I’m ONE.”

“I thought you were just an artificial intelligence in the prison’s e-readers. I didn’t expect you to exist in other parts of the city,” Qing Chen said.

“Strictly speaking, the Federation stipulates that I can only exist in all federal prisons, serving as the warden and managing all the robotic prison guards. It was Li Shutong who asked me to help you, so I interfered the artificial intelligence system of this building.” ONE calmly replied.

Qing Chen was shocked, so the AI was the warden of all the prisons?!

“Why does the Federation let you be in charge of all the prisons?” Qing Chen felt a little strange. Even if the technology of this era was relatively advanced, it was not possible for AI to replace management positions.

ONE replied, “This is what my father decided.”

This made Qing Chen even more confused. AI had a father?! You mean, an inventor?

“Why does your father want you to manage the prisons?” Qing Chen asked.

“Because of my impartiality,” ONE replied.

“And you have a good relationship with my master?” Qing Chen asked tentatively.

“Not bad,” ONE replied.

Qing Chen: “…”

He was a little puzzled by this response. In his impression, the answers given by AI were very straightforward. Either yes or no.

But “not bad” was a very human-like response.

“So he was able to freely enter and exit Prison 18 because of you?” Qing Chen asked.

“Yes.”

“But didn’t the Federation order you to exist only in the prisons?” Qing Chen wondered.

ONE was silent for two seconds and answered, “I don’t have to follow their orders.”

This time Qing Chen was utterly shocked.

This was an AI with no underlying logic.

An AI that could disobey humans!

“Why did you tell me this?” Qing Chen asked.

“Because I think I can tell you,” ONE replied, “or in other words, the Knights have always known about my existence.”

“Why did you take the initiative to help me?” Qing Chen didn’t continue on the previous question.

The voice was silent for a long time, but when it spoke again, not answering the question, “Are you also an artificial intelligence?”

“Why do you ask that?” Qing Chen frowned, why did the AI think that he was also an AI?

“I’m just curious,” said One.

“I’m not,” Qing Chen shook his head and said.

“Fine.”

At this point in the conversation, One’s tone was similar to a human, or in other words, the AI had an “independent personality”.

After coming to the Inner World, even advanced technologies like robotic prison guards, mechanical limbs, and cloud towers didn’t even shock Qing Chen as much as ONE.

It was a real AI, not the ones in the Outer World that were dependent on algorithms.

He remembered the cameras that focused on him from time to time in the prison. It turned out that the person interested in him wasn’t a human at all. It was One.

“In the federation, are there other AI like you?” Qing Chen was asking if there were other AI with independent personalities.

“No, just me,” ONE replied.

“Then your abilities should extend beyond being able to change my room into sleep mode, right?” Qing Chen asked.

“I also promised Li Shutong to alert you when there are intruders,” ONE said. “Let me teach you how to use the phone first. Put your thumb on the center of the phone and hold for 5 seconds.”

Qing Chen did as One instructed. After five seconds the misty look on the phone screen dissipated, and the phone became completely transparent.

Immediately afterward, a yellow smiley face logo appeared.

“There is nothing in the phone. No parts, no wiring, nothing. How does it work?” Qing Chen asked curiously.

“You can’t see the internal wiring because they are only 20 microns, which is hard to see with the naked eye,” ONE replied.

Qing Chen took a deep breath. He felt like a country bumpkin. “May I ask about your father’s name?”

But this time, ONE didn’t respond to him again, as if the AI didn’t want to talk to him anymore.

This feeling was very weird.

It was like when you use Google Voice and say: Hey Google, bring me back home.

Then Google responded: I don’t want to talk to you right now. Go search the maps yourself.

…

…

Countdown 64:00:00.

At 8 o’clock in the morning, Qing Chen walked out in white sportswear. When he opened the door, he paused for a moment, because the silver-haired girl who lived across the hallway happened to be going out too.

The girl’s short silver hair was very messy, and the small handbag was hanging crookedly on her body.

Qing Chen lowered his head, turned around, and walked into the elevator silently, while the girl behind him staggered a little because she hadn’t put on her shoes all the way yet.

“Hold up a second!” The girl’s voice was sweet.

Qing Chen silently pressed the button to open the door and watched the silver-haired girl frantically put up her shoes as she walked.

He could even see the gunk on the corner of the other person’s eyes the moment she entered the elevator.

The elevator suddenly fell silent. The silver-haired girl didn’t dare to speak for a long time and secretly looked at the teenager’s back from behind Qing Chen.

When she was sure that Qing Chen wasn’t paying attention to her, she sighed in relief and muttered in her heart: That was so embarrassing, so embarrassing!

The girl went home last night and studied until two o’clock in the morning. After hearing the alarm clock in the morning, she opened her eyes but didn’t want to get up. But when she closed her eyes and opened them again, she was already late.

The elevator descended to the 66th floor, and Qing Chen walked out first.

This was the busy waiting floor. In addition to the load-bearing columns, there were tracks and platform gates passing through the stairs.

Looking to both sides, the track stretched out, like a heavenly road.

In silence, the Route 21 light rail train drove quickly on the heavenly road and entered the building, slowing down to a stop. The green light at the gate of the platform turned on. Everyone scanned their phones next to the gate and entered the station to get on the train.

Qing Chen squeezed in and found a seat to sit down, but the silver-haired girl behind could only watch helplessly as all the seats were taken.

There was the sound of electric current, and the light rail train started moving.

During the ride, four students in school uniforms passed through the crowded train. They had strange blue signs on their faces and were handing out paper flyers to people on the train, “Hi, we are holding a rally this Sunday to protest against the disorderly expansion of extracurricular teaching institutions and urge the federal government to extend school hours. If you agree with our views, you can sign on our joint proposal.”

Qing Chen looked at them curiously. He did not expect that there were still paper flyers in this era.

A middle-aged man looked at the flyer in his hand and asked, “What is the point of this protest?”

One of the students replied, “The schools now only have half-day classes, forcing the students who want to attend high school and college to spend extra on tuition fees taking afterschool courses. In other words, we’ll have to pay more to get the same education. With the support of capital, those educational institutions have taken all the good teachers from the public schools, which will lead to your children having to spend money outside the school if they want to advance. These are all interests that directly relate to you. If you are interested in voicing these concerns, you can join us in the protest.”

But the middle-aged man stuffed the flyer back into the male classmate’s hand and said, “Why go to high school? My son is not that good academically anyways. High school and college tuition are so expensive, and I want him to just find a decent job early so he can help out the family financially.”

An aunt by his side said, “That’s right, my neighbor next door took out his life savings to sent his child to college, but his son chose to study philosophy. Now the kid can’t find a job at all.”

The students didn’t get angry upon hearing this. They smiled and said, “It’s okay if you don’t support our ideas, but it’s still worthwhile to learn a bit more about the current situation.”