Chapter 371 |
Xiao Lian'er was so right!
When I heard her, I was moved to the core. My nose stung.
This twelve-year-old girl already wanted to shelter others from the storms!
The expression she wore when she said she wanted to protect others was exactly the same as when she mentioned her brother.
She even said she wanted to protect Xiao Qi...
Ah, writing this makes my eyes well up again!
Anyway, I was so overcome with emotion right then that I scooped her up and hugged her close!
She was such a tiny little thing, light as a feather in my arms, yet she could speak such weighty words.
I agreed on the spot!
Once your body is completely recovered, I'll take you on a tour of the company!
In the future, if you want to be an inspector, you can be an inspector. And when you officially join us, you can even move in with us!
An Lian looked up at me from my arms, smiling so sweetly. The curve of her eyes must have been as gentle as her brother's were when he was alive.
Now I'm home, sitting in my study writing this note, and after calming down to think about it...
I only just realized how uneasy I feel.
Because ever since the Second AI Crisis, the company has banned any outside visitors. Not even family members are allowed in.
Me, making a grand promise right in our backyard, vowing to take Xiao Lian'er there...
Didn't I just dig a huge trap for myself?
But then again, I am the largest shareholder of Chenxi!
Okay, fine, former largest shareholder!
Not anymore—after the government's stake came in, their share exceeded ours...
But Ah Chu and I combined still count as major shareholders, right?
A major shareholder getting permission to take a child on a tour—surely I can call in that kind of favor?
I hope the company will let me use a back door...
If not, I'll just go to the board of directors and wheedle that bunch of old fogies!
If they dare not grant me this favor, I'll slam my fist on the table at the board meeting!
They haven't seen what Miss Su is capable of when she bangs the table!
...Forget it, maybe I shouldn't bang the table.
Those old codgers, all smiles on the surface—who knows what schemes they're cooking up behind those grins.
Ah Chu says we have to be careful dealing with them, can't act too rashly.
Sigh, I miss Lao Zhang and Xiao Wang. When I banged the table, they would just cheer and clap. But these suits now...
Enough of that.
Just thinking about it gives me a headache!
Anyway, I will do what I promised Xiao Lian'er!
Worst case, I'll beg Ah Chu to use his "First AI Crisis hero" reputation to lean on them.
He hates pulling that card, but for Xiao Lian'er, he should agree, right?
If he doesn't...
I'll rub Xiao Qi's chubby cheeks in frustration!
...
...
April 9th, XXXX.
Today, something happened that was equal parts irritating and hilarious.
Xiao Qi stormed up to me, full of righteous fury!
He put his little hands on his hips and furrowed his brows, exactly like his dad does when a lab experiment fails.
He asked, "Mom, why can An Lian go to the company, but I can't?"
My heart skipped a beat. I thought to myself, how does this kid know?
But my first instinct was to bluff and completely deny it!
I said, when did An Lian ever get to go to the company? Who told you that? No way, don't talk nonsense!
Then the brat folded his arms and sneered!
Yeah, a sneer!
This little thing dared to sneer at his mom!
And he said... Mom, stop pretending!
He said the orphanage is full of his "spies"!
The words I spoke to An Lian yesterday—by the time he arrived at the orphanage today, someone had already run off to "report" to him.
He also said he went and asked An Lian himself, and she admitted it, saying Aunt Su really did promise to take her on a company tour.
I was half furious, half tickled!
This little rascal has been building his own little network in the orphanage!
Those kids—every last one of them—have become his "informants"!
"Spies!" Where does he even pick up words like that?
No wonder every time he goes to the orphanage, he's like a little mountain king, with a crowd of kids trailing behind them. So they're all his "underlings"!
I asked him, what are you even doing in the orphanage?
He argued back, saying he wasn't doing anything—he was just making friends! And friends sharing intel is perfectly normal, right?
Brilliant kid. Who did he learn that slickness from?
Ah Chu was laughing on the sidelines.
He said when he was Xiao Qi's age, he could barely talk to people without blushing, so this was definitely from me.
My tongue was pretty sharp when I was young too. My mom said when I was three, I could talk a neighbor's boy two years older into running home crying to his mother.
So I gave Xiao Qi a taste of my tongue!
I went straight into shameless mode!
I said, "That's right!"
I really did promise to take An Lian to the company! So what?! What are you gonna do about it?!
Xiao Qi freaked out!
He went on and on about why, why, why! He'd begged me for so long, and I never let him go, but An Lian gets to go after knowing me for just a short while? Totally unfair!
I said, "You just can't go! You just can't go! No is no!"
Xiao Qi screamed in frustration, pacing circles around the living room, before finally planting his feet and yelling at the top of his lungs:
"Mom is the worst! I hate Mom the most!"
I really didn't like hearing that!
What do you mean, "the most"!
How many times have I told you, no saying you hate Mom!
So I grabbed him, pulled him over, and scrubbed his face into a frenzy!
I scrubbed him until he yelped and surrendered!
As I scrubbed, I said, "Say that again?! Who do you hate the most?!"
He was stubborn at first, but after I Ruffled him for a while, he gave in, muttering incoherently for me to stop, that he didn't hate Mom anymore.
Finally, he gave in on the whole company thing too.
He said fine, he won't go, but he absolutely has to have that Silver-Haired Big Sister built for him—stating that it was his one and only bottom line!
The pitifully stubborn little look on his face, rubbing his reddened cheeks, shrinking into a corner of the sofa, looking up at me...
I almost, almost relented again!
But no can do, Xiao Qi.
Xiao Lian'er can go because she has seen and been through a lot.
She has purpose.
She has goals for her own life.
She isn't going to the company to have fun—she's going to find a path she can seriously take.
What about you, Xiao Qi? You just want it for... what, a Silver-Haired Big Sister?
How could I ever break the rules and let you into the company for a reason like that!
Even though the government is stationed there now, making the place look pretty safe on the surface...
But what are the government types, anyway? Anything good?
This latest crisis was their doing!
For Xiao Qi's safety, I absolutely cannot let him show his face at the company!
What if his identity as our son gets exposed...
Would those who lost loved ones in this crisis turn their anger against a child?
I don't want to even think about it.
As for the "Silver-Haired Big Sister" business...
You'll just have to wait until you're a bit older.
Until you have real goals of your own.
Until you no longer just "want" something but are "willing to work for it."
Until you can say, like Xiao Lian'er, who it is you want to protect.
Only then will Mom consider your silver-haired big sister.
In any case, you’re not going.
Absolutely not!
This is a matter of principle, and looking pitiful won’t get you anywhere!
Seeing that I wouldn’t budge no matter what, Xiao Qi snorted and ran back to his room.
When Ah Chu came home from work, before I could even say a word, Xiao Qi burst out of his room and tattled on me.
He said I was playing favorites, that I was mistreating his own son!
Little brat!
After Ah Chu heard the whole story, he pushed up his glasses and said this wasn’t something he could decide—in our house, whatever Mom says goes.
Xiao Qi immediately collapsed onto the sofa and said, “Dad, you’re such a pushover!”
Ah Chu replied, “That’s not being a pushover. That’s called strategic compliance.”
Where did that goof learn to be so smooth-tongued!
Xiao Qi then stormed back to his room, saying he was going to find his silver-haired big sister in his dreams and that he was done with us!
That little rascal, even his dreams are full of that silver-haired big sister!
...
...
XXXX, April 12th.
I’m genuinely serious about Xiao Lian’er. These past few days, I’ve been thinking about how to move things forward.
After coaxing Xiao Qi to sleep that night, I pulled Ah Chu aside to sit on the edge of the bed and had a serious talk about it.
I told him I wanted Xiao Lian’er to visit the company and, when she grows up, come work with us.
I explained to Ah Chu that An Lian is serious—she has her own ideas and direction, and she’s not just talking idly.
Ah Chu was silent for a long time after hearing me out. He took off his glasses and wiped them again and again.
Then he said, “Right now, even we can’t fully control our own fate. If we bring that young girl into this, aren’t we just setting her up for trouble?”
I knew he would say that.
So I laid out An Lian’s thoughts and attitude for him, from start to finish—
What she had told me before, where she got her understanding of this industry, what she wants to do, and why she wants to do it...
I said, “Ah Chu...”
“We’ve already harmed her family. Now, do we also stand in the way of the future she’s chosen for herself?”
Ah Chu was quiet for a long time. I had convinced him.
But then he told me that Chenxi didn’t have a dedicated emotional core inspection department to begin with—only an after-sales maintenance department.
He said that the inspection of emotional cores had always been outsourced to the official Awakened AI Management Bureau.
I said that’s exactly the point—if there isn’t one, we’ll build it and recruit for it!
And how could we possibly leave it to the official inspection again!
The Bureau caused such a huge mess before—keeping the defective ones and recalling the qualified ones...
When we release new products in the future, how could we ever trust them fully to do the inspections?
That would be like handing our enemy a knife and letting them stab us with it!
Besides, the inspection technology the Bureau uses was originally given by Ah Chu!
We have the technology—why shouldn’t we handle our own inspections?
We’ll merge the new department with the maintenance department, call it the Maintenance and Inspection Department publicly, but let it operate independently internally!
Ah Chu said he didn’t understand these things, but he supported me—he fully supported me.
Then he started staring into space.
I asked him what he was thinking.
He said he just felt like I was always the one charging ahead, and he couldn’t do anything besides research—it made him feel a little guilty.
That silly guy, even doubting himself!
I said, “What do you have to feel guilty about? If you weren’t doing your research, what would I have to brag about out there? Did you want me to go shake hands for investment with empty fists and tell them our company runs on air?”
He smiled and said he understood.
Silly Ah Chu, his head is filled with nothing but data and experiments. He’s completely clueless about management and operations.
Asking him to plan a department structure was harder than solving the toughest math conjecture!
But what does that matter?
This is my Ah Chu.
He walks at the frontier of the world, and I make sure more people know about him—
That’s been our division from the very start!
He needed someone who could speak for him to the world. I saw that way back in the ruins.
And even then, I had already made up my mind—
That person could only be me!
