Naming Technique of the Night

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"Master, when will we return to Prison No. 18?" Qing Chen felt as though he had been away for a long time and, for some reason, he found himself missing it a bit.

"There's no rush to go back," Uncle Li Dong shook his head, "There are still things to take care of outside."

"What else is there to do?" Qing Chen was puzzled, "But I heard from Liu Dezhu that more than three hundred prisoners have been transferred to the prison, each one looking fierce and vicious. They must be here for the Taboo ACE-005, right?"

"Yes," Uncle Li Dong said calmly as he looked out the floor-to-ceiling window, "The bait has already been laid out. My departure from Prison No. 18 is gradually being noticed, so naturally, some will think that now is the best time to make a move."

"So, Master, do you want to wait until more of their people are transferred in?" Qing Chen asked.

"That's right," Uncle Li Dong nodded, "There are still not enough people."

"What will we do next?" Qing Chen inquired.

"I have my own matters to attend to," Uncle Li Dong said with a smile, "and you don't need to worry about anything. Just go to school with peace of mind."

"Go to school?"

Qing Chen was stunned; he had not expected that after arriving in the Inner World, he would still need to attend school.

He always felt that Uncle Li Dong had a reason and a purpose for arranging this, but since the other didn't intend to explain, Qing Chen didn't plan to ask.

After all, Uncle Li Dong wouldn't harm him.

Qing Chen asked, "Master, isn't my identity currently that of a serving prisoner? Can I still go to school like this?"

"Let's try and you'll know," Uncle Li Dong stood up, handed a box to Qing Chen, then added with a smile, "This is another gift. All the information you need to know is inside. Take some time to study it. Get some rest early; I'm going out to run some errands."

With that, the teacher left the room, leaving Qing Chen alone to open the box, which to his surprise, contained a brand-new, semi-transparent phone.

Qing Chen wondered if Time Traveler had also mentioned to Uncle Li Dong that a father should give his son a phone or something like that?

But... how is he supposed to turn this thing on?!

The young man sat in the room studying the phone for a long while. The phone lacked even a single button, feeling like a piece of crystal wafting with clouds when held in hand.

The entire phone was seamless, with only a thin ring of black metal embedded around the edges of the crystal.

"Do you need my help?" a voice rang out in the room.

Qing Chen jumped up, startled. The voice was a bit too abrupt, striking a nerve.

The voice sounded familiar—it was the neutral broadcast voice from inside Prison No. 18.

"Who are you?" Qing Chen hesitated to ask.

"Hello, I am Zero."

"I thought you were just the artificial intelligence in the Prison No. 18 reader. I didn't expect you to exist in other parts of the city too," Qing Chen said.

At that moment, he recalled that Uncle Li Dong did indeed summon "Zero" while switching the room into sleep mode.

"Strictly speaking, the Federation stipulates that I can only exist within the Federation's prisons, acting as the Warden and managing all the Mechanical Prison Guards. It is only because Uncle Li Dong asked for my help that I intervened in the artificial intelligence system of this building," Zero answered calmly.

Qing Chen was shocked. So, the other was the Warden of all prisons?!

No wonder he had never seen a human manager in the prison, not even one!

"Why would the Federation let you manage all the prisons?" Qing Chen felt it strange. Even with advanced technology in this era, it seemed odd to let artificial intelligence replace managerial roles.

Zero replied, "This is stipulated by my father."

Now Qing Chen was even more bemused. Did artificial intelligence have a father?! Was it referring to its inventor?

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

"Because of my impartiality," Zero answered.

"Do you have a good relationship with my master?" Qing Chen probed.

"Not bad," Zero replied.

Qing Chen: "..."

He was a bit confused. In his experience, the answers provided by artificial intelligence were always precise: yes or no, without a middle ground.

And a reply like "not bad" sounded very humanized.

"So, is it because of you that he can come and go freely from Prison No. 18?" Qing Chen asked.

"Yes," Zero confirmed.

"But isn't it a Federation rule that you can only exist within the prisons?" Qing Chen was puzzled.

Zero fell silent for two seconds, "I can choose not to follow the rules."

Now Qing Chen was truly astonished.

This was an artificial intelligence without a foundational logic.

It was an artificial intelligence that could defy human regulations!

"Why are you telling me this?" Qing Chen was perplexed.

"Uncle Li Dong said I could tell you," Zero responded.

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"Why did you take the initiative to help me?" Qing Chen didn't dwell on the previous question.

The voice remained silent for a long time, but when it spoke again, it did not answer the question. Instead, it suddenly asked, "Are you also artificial intelligence?"

"Why would you ask that?" Qing Chen furrowed his brow, wondering why the other party would think he was artificial intelligence.
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"Just asking," Zero replied.

"I'm not," Qing Chen shook his head and said.

"Okay."

By this point in the conversation, Zero's tone had become very anthropomorphic, or perhaps, the other party had always possessed an "independent personality."

After arriving in the Inner World, even the high-tech like Mechanical Prison Guards, mechanical limbs, and Yun Liu Tower hadn't particularly shocked Qing Chen. Only the emergence of Zero made him feel somewhat uneasy.

This was real artificial intelligence, not the "pseudo-life forms" of the Outer World that only operated based on calculations.

He recalled the prison cameras that occasionally focused on him. It turned out that it wasn't a human administrator watching over him, but Zero keeping an eye on him.

"In the Federation, are there any other AIs like you," what Qing Chen asked was whether there were other life forms with independent personalities!

"No more, just me," Zero answered.

"So when you tapped into this tower's AI, it wasn't just to switch me to sleep mode, right?" Qing Chen asked.

"I promised Uncle Li Dong to ensure that if there were intruders in this tower, I would let you know in advance to leave," Zero said, "Let me teach you how to use the phone. Press your thumb in the center of the phone and hold it for 5 seconds."

Qing Chen did as instructed, and after five seconds, the cloudy mist inside the semi-transparent phone dissipated, and the phone became entirely transparent.

Immediately after, a yellow smiley face logo appeared.

"There's nothing in the phone, no parts, no circuits, nothing at all. How does it work?" Qing Chen wondered out loud.

"Its components are integrated into the metal coils around it. The inside of the phone is made up of liquid crystal molecules. You can't see the internal circuits because they are only 20 micrometers wide, which is hard to capture with the naked eye," Zero explained.

Qing Chen took a deep breath, feeling like he was a country bumpkin who had just seen the world for the first time: "Can I ask for your father's name?"

However, this time, Zero did not respond to him anymore, as if it did not want to deal with him.

This feeling was actually quite strange.

It was like when you say to Baidu Maps, "Xiao Du, Xiao Du, help me navigate to Scholar Street."

But then Xiao Du replies: "I don't want to deal with you right now, find the map yourself."

...

...

Countdown 64:00:00.

At 8 o'clock in the morning, Qing Chen, dressed in white sportswear, walked out the door. As he opened the door, he paused briefly, because the silver-haired girl living opposite him also happened to be stepping out.

The girl's silver short hair was quite messy, and her small bag was hanging slanted on her body.

Qing Chen lowered his head and silently walked into the elevator. The girl behind him, due to not wearing her shoes properly, staggered as she walked.

"Wait a second, wait a second!" The girl's voice was pleasant, "Please hold the elevator."

Qing Chen silently pressed the door-open button and then watched the silver-haired girl rushing in, frantically pulling up her heel as she walked.

He even caught a glimpse of the sleep in her eyes as she entered the elevator.

The atmosphere in the elevator suddenly grew quiet, the silver-haired girl didn't dare to speak for a long time. She just sneakily sized up the young man's back from behind.

When she was sure that Qing Chen wasn't paying attention to her, she finally heaved a sigh of relief: How embarrassing!

The girl had studied until two in the morning the day before, and when she heard the alarm in the morning, she opened her eyes but didn't want to get up. By the time she closed and reopened her eyes, it was already a bit too late.

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

This was the bustling waiting floor; besides the load-bearing columns, there were tracks and gate entrances stretching across from the stairs.

Looking to both sides, the tracks extended outwards as if they were roads in the sky.

In silence, the No. 21 light rail train sped along the sky road and slowly stopped inside the building. The platform's green light turned on, and everyone brought their phones close to the gates to enter and board the train.

Qing Chen wedged his way on first and found a seat, while the silver-haired girl behind him could only watch with wide eyes as the seats were taken one by one.

The sound of electricity hummed, and the light rail train started moving.

At that moment, four students in school uniforms moved through the crowded car. They wore strange blue badges on their faces and were handing out paper flyers. "Please pay attention. We are organizing a march this Sunday. We hope the Federal Government can extend school hours and curb the chaotic expansion of extracurricular educational institutions.

If you agree with our view, you can sign your name on our joint appeal," they announced.

Qing Chen watched with curiosity; he hadn't expected that in this era, there would still be paper flyers.

A middle-aged man holding a flyer asked, "What's the point of this march?"

One of the students answered, "Now schools only have half-day courses, forcing students who want to get into high schools and universities to spend extra money on supplementary classes outside of school. This indirectly increases your expenses. Additionally, those educational institutions, with the backing of capital, have poached all the good teachers from schools.

This means your children need to spend money outside of school to further their education. These are interests directly related to you. If you are interested, you can also join our march."

However, the middle-aged man stuffed the flyer back into the student's hand, "Why bother going to high school? My son isn't cut out for studying anyway. High school and university tuition are so expensive; it's better for him to get into a vocational school and start working early to help the family. That's the right thing to do."

An aunt nearby said, "Exactly, the family next door to me went broke sending their kid to university, and the child majored in philosophy and can't find a job."

The students didn't get upset, they just replied with a smile, "It's okay if you don't support us, learning a little more about it won't hurt."