"What the hell?"
"What's going on? This is Haishi City—there are several power plants nearby. How could there be a blackout?"
"Damn it, I was livestreaming! I'm definitely filing a complaint…"
"My file wasn't even saved!"
"What's happening? Why is the entire city without power?"
…
Chen Mo had no idea what was happening outside.
He thought it was just a power issue in his dorm, not something that would affect the entire area.
Only moments later, the dorm lights flickered back on, though noticeably dimmer than before—like the power supply was unstable.
On the Red Queen's mainframe, the lightning bolt symbol was no longer glowing red—it now shone with a fully charged green light.
[Super Artificial Intelligence Red Queen is starting up…]
[System self-check in progress.]
[Self-check complete.]
[Startup complete. Super AI Red Queen is now at your service.]
As the synthesized voice ended, a holographic projection of the Red Queen appeared in front of Chen Mo. The image looked virtually indistinguishable from a real person, projected at a 1:1 scale.
The Red Queen was wearing a red dress, with a cute and petite appearance, her hair tied in the back. She looked a bit like the loli version from the movie, but even more stunning than in the film.
"Master, I am the Super AI Red Queen. Please don't hesitate to give me your orders."
Hearing the human-like voice of the Red Queen, Chen Mo froze. His heart was bursting with joy—this was artificial intelligence!
Super artificial intelligence.
Way more advanced than GPT.
No, compared to the Red Queen, GPT was trash. They weren't even in the same league.
The Red Queen was a super AI—GPT was merely a language model.
And more importantly—
The Red Queen now belonged to him. Loyal for life. Completely unconditionally.
He'd struck gold!
"What can you do?" Chen Mo paused, then asked.
[Master, I have many functions, mainly three: First, I am omnipotent within cyberspace. Second, I serve as your ultimate assistant—aside from creativity, I can complete any human task. Third, my core stores extensive biotech and mechanical research data, allowing you to restart the T-virus project.]
"Good!"
Chen Mo was so thrilled he shot up from his desk chair. The Red Queen was just as powerful as he had imagined—unstoppable in cyberspace, a real-world super assistant, and she even held classified bio-research data.
With the Red Queen, he could create a super high-tech company, and build it into a technological aircraft carrier at the center of an empire.
But—
First, he needed to earn his initial startup capital.
Right now, he was just a sophomore college student.
Money was the biggest obstacle on the road to success.
Then again—
With a super AI, how could he still be short on cash?
Chen Mo thought for a moment, then asked the Red Queen: "Red Queen, do you have any ways to make money? And I mean ways that won't be discovered by anyone."
[Master, I have far too many methods for that: playing the stock market to drain funds from others, harvesting Bitcoin, redistributing wealth, or even directly altering your bank account balance. None of these methods would ever be detected.]
"…"
Chen Mo's face darkened as he processed this. The super AI really was powerful—even changing bank balances undetected?
But this was headed in the wrong direction.
All of that was criminal.
Even if he believed that the Red Queen could pull it off flawlessly, such actions would draw huge real-world consequences. There would be social fallout, public attention—someone would eventually notice.
Digital traces might be invisible, but reality wasn't.
That wasn't the path Chen Mo wanted to take.
He wanted legal income.
"Do you have any legal methods of making money?"
The Red Queen fell silent for a moment. Then her projected form stepped forward and sat down in his roommate's computer chair.
"Of course. I can help you seize black market funds—that money is already illegitimate, so if I collect it and pass it to you, it's perfectly justified. No one will ever trace it or give you trouble."
"Then collect 10 billion for me. But stay hidden—don't let anyone trace it back, and don't cause any major disturbances in the real world."
"Understood, Master. This will take some time." As she finished, the Red Queen playfully swung her legs while sitting in the chair, just like a mischievous little girl.
"Okay."
Chen Mo nodded, waved his hand, and the projection disappeared.
Now that he had the Red Queen, it was time to seriously plan his future. Originally, he'd just intended to study hard and become a programmer after graduation.
After all, it was incredibly hard for a regular person to change social classes. But now, with the Red Queen by his side, all those dreams he once deemed impossible… were within reach.
Forget everything else—step one was to build a high-tech company and become a global military-tech magnate.
He had already sent the Red Queen to get his seed capital.
Now, he had to think about a name for his high-tech company and what the first product would be.
Once the initial funds came through, he would rapidly expand, scale the business, and dominate the global market as fast as possible.
Lost in thought…
Chen Mo started to feel sleepy. He looked at the time—already 3 a.m. No wonder his eyelids were so heavy. He needed to rest. Dying from exhaustion would be the worst possible outcome.
He laid his clothes over the Red Queen's core unit for a simple cover, locked the dorm door, even added a second lock, and finally lay down in bed to sleep. Tomorrow, he'd need to wake up early and find a way to relocate the Red Queen. If his roommates came back—or worse, someone else saw it—it would be a disaster.
"Master, wake up. Someone's coming."
The piercing voice startled Chen Mo awake. He sprang upright like a dragonfly skipping across water, eyes snapping to the source of the voice—it was coming from his robot vacuum cleaner. The little machine had rolled to the edge of his bed and squirted him with water from its cleaning nozzle.
That woke him up completely.
"Who's here?"
"My roommates?"
Chen Mo jumped in alarm and looked toward the door. Seeing no movement, he sighed in relief.
"No, Master. It's an unidentified outsider."
As the Red Queen spoke, a holographic projection appeared in front of him, displaying the following scene:
Three men in black suits, driving a business-class van, had entered the school grounds and were walking directly into the principal's office. There, they immediately began questioning him about the blackout that occurred the previous night.