Wen Tong was carried out of the Paradise by M01, with 017 following closely beside them.
M01 intended to take her to the Shen family, but he knew very little about them. He was even unfamiliar with much of the outside world.
Dusk settled over the city. Two young men stood by the roadside, clad in green-brown vests, long pants, and black military boots. Their faces were stiff and expressionless.
M01 held Wen Tong in his arms. She curled up tightly, feeling as if the air around her had turned thin and murky. The sudden change in environment worsened her condition, leaving her with no choice but to remain nestled against him.
Everywhere they looked, there were people. Crowds bustling and pushing past one another. The faces around them were worn and indifferent, devoid of emotion. In just the short time they had been standing by the roadside, they had already been bumped into countless times, yet not a single person spared them a glance.
All three of them were dressed as boys, appearing frail and unremarkable.
M01 and 017 had never seen so many people before. Their bodies remained tense, their minds on high alert.
Just as Wen Tong felt like M01’s grip would squeeze the breath out of her, his voice came from above.
“Lead the way.”
“……” Wen Tong shook her head silently.
M01 tried to throw her aside, but she clung to him with all her strength. Grinding his teeth, he repeated, “Lead the way.”
“I don’t know the way. I’ve never left home.”
Wen Tong’s voice was barely audible.
This was the first time she had ever stood in such a crowded street. Towering skyscrapers loomed overhead, casting long shadows over the city. The sky was a dull, oppressive gray, pressing down like a weight.
By comparison, the Paradise almost seemed deserving of its name. At least there weren’t suffocating crowds.
M01 and 017 remained wary, glaring at the passing pedestrians. After being bumped into a few more times, their patience wore thin, and both of them turned their sharp gazes toward Wan Tong.
Wen Tong met their accusatory stares—the kind that asked, ‘What use are you, then?’—and pursed her lips pitifully. It wasn’t her fault either! How was she supposed to know anything about this messed-up world?
“Gurgle…”
A stomach growled, breaking the tense silence. M01 and 017 immediately averted their eyes.
Only then did Wan Tong realize. They had been locked up for who knows how long. They were probably starving by now.
Scanning the surroundings, she lightly patted M01’s arm and pointed in a direction. “We can check over there. There might be food.”
It was a plaza.
Without hesitation, M01 strode toward it.
The plaza was packed with people. A massive screen overhead broadcasted the latest news in a continuous loop.
The Paradise’s live broadcast had been abruptly cut off. There was no follow-up report on what had happened afterward, suggesting that news of the rebellion hadn’t spread yet.
The shopping center was enforcing crowd control, with long queues forming as people waited to be let in. M01 and 017 had no concept of order, only that things had to be taken by force.
As the tightly packed crowd turned to look their way, Wan Tong, driven by survival instincts, gripped M01’s arm tightly and whispered, “You have to line up. Otherwise, you’ll get beaten up.”
She could already feel the hostility radiating from those around them.
She had expected M01 to act discreetly, but to her horror, he actually threw a challenging glance at the line. Worse yet, 017 was already cracking his knuckles.
Wan Tong : “……”
Were they planning to take on a whole mob?
“Where do you think you’re squeezing in, punk?”
A towering man, nearly two meters tall and built like a tank, stepped forward, his expression menacing.
Before M01 could react, 017 had already moved. The moment the man reached out to grab them, 017 struck swiftly—within seconds, the giant was on the ground, motionless.
The surrounding people frowned, their dissatisfaction evident, but upon seeing the fallen man, few dared to step forward.
“This is drawing too much attention,” 017 suddenly muttered.
Wan Tong nodded frantically. “Exactly! Exactly!”
M01 glanced at her, his gaze cold as he spat out two words, “Shut up.”
Wan Tong bit her pale lips, half of her face brushing against his chest. She let out a soft hum and, surprisingly, actually fell silent.
Hearing her faint sound, the muscles at the corner of M01’s mouth tensed even more. He could feel the warmth radiating from the person in his arms, and her breathing was growing heavier and more labored. It was clear she was at her limit.
“Leave this place.” M01 spoke in a low voice, carrying Wan Tong as he left the square.
Wan Tong lost consciousness, unaware of what happened afterward. When she woke up, she found herself in a small, dark, and damp room.
M01 stood against the wall, arms crossed. Almost as soon as she sat up, his deep, dark eyes locked onto her.
Beneath her was a tattered, dirty blanket, but the cold seeping up from the hard floor still left her hands and feet freezing.
It was a basement.
She felt slightly better than before, though the needle mark on her arm still ached faintly.
This cramped room, barely eight square meters in size, couldn’t even muffle sound. The coughing and noisy chatter from the adjacent rooms made it impossible to feel at ease.
Just then, 017 entered from outside, carrying something in his hands.
“It’s hard to get food—everywhere requires a citizen ID check.” 017 handed compressed meat jerky and some dry food to M01.
Wan Tong’s stomach grumbled as she glanced at the food.
But M01 and 017 didn’t seem to consider her at all. They simply ate in silence. Wan Tong looked at one, then the other, before meekly speaking up, “I’m hungry too…”
M01 shot her a glance, his lips curling slightly. “No.”
In the end, it was 017, expressionless as ever, who handed her a piece of meat jerky.
It was tough. Dry. She nearly choked on it. After just one bite, she couldn’t bring herself to eat any more.
She had never eaten food like this before. Her stomach probably wouldn’t handle it well.
M01 snatched the remaining jerky from her hands and shoved it into his own mouth with a cold expression. “I told you, you can’t eat this.”
Then, he tossed over a small packaged item. It looked like another instant food, though she wasn’t sure what it was.
Wan Tong : “…” Why did this feel like an act of kindness?
She opened it and took a bite. It reminded her of a wafer biscuit she had eaten before, but it was incredibly filling. After just half of it, she was already full.
Noticing a kettle nearby, she reached out to grab it. She hesitated, glancing at the two men. Seeing that neither objected, she took a small sip.
[Ding…]
That familiar system notification sound chimed.
The moment she heard it, she inhaled sharply, and water went down the wrong pipe. She coughed violently, her face flushing red.
When she looked up, M01 and 017 were both staring at her like she was an idiot.
Wan Tong cleared her throat, offered a sheepish smile, and curled up in the corner of the blanket. In a small voice, she said, “I’m full.”
017, already used to her tiny appetite, remained indifferent. M01 furrowed his brows but said nothing.
In that place, eating enough was the top priority. Only with a full stomach could one have the strength and energy to survive.
Someone like her, who got full after just a few bites… he had never seen before.
[Shishi! Come out here!]
If the room weren’t dark enough, it wouldn’t be able to hide Wan Tong’s expression—clenched teeth and a fierce look in her eyes.
[…Shishi is here.] The voice was full of guilt.
Wan Tong let out a cold laugh. [Don’t tell me—you got blocked again.]
[Shishi was blocked. Their defenses are stronger this time. It was really difficult to find a breach.]
Wan Tong’s expression didn’t change, but the most important thing right now was getting the world’s storyline.
Shishi quickly transmitted the world’s storyline to her, along with some memories of this body that she had forgotten.
The boss of this world… was indeed Ling Wu.
He was a robot. Because Shen Wantong was sent into the Paradise, he was recalled and nearly destroyed by the company. However, after gaining self-awareness, he modified himself while awaiting destruction and successfully escaped.
His self-narrative wasn’t far from the truth, but according to the world’s storyline, when Ling Wu entered the Paradise, Shen Wantong had already been killed by Lin Qi.
And Lin Qi’s master was the Supreme Leader.
The new world’s Supreme Leader had been in power for over fifty years. He was trusted by all, and every one of his decisions was supported. However, he rarely appeared in public. People only saw him on screen when he announced policies through the world channel.
In recent years, though, he had almost completely stopped appearing.
In reality, the Supreme Leader had long been dead, but his entire brain had been preserved. Through some unknown technology, it was transplanted into a chip, allowing him to be reborn, existing in a mechanical system in a new form.
Ladbrokes Technology was secretly building a new body for him. Once completed, his system would be transferred into it. At that point, he wouldn’t just be reborn, he would be immortal.
Only a few of the Supreme Leader’s closest followers and Ladbrokes’s research team knew of this plan. They trusted and even revered him, believing he would lead the world to greater glory.
But what they didn’t know was that the Supreme Leader’s true plan was to completely destroy this world filled with humans and their noise. He wanted to kill all of them and build a mechanical world instead.
No need for reproduction. No fears of overpopulation. No worries about resource shortages. That, in his mind, was the perfect world.
The Supreme Leader ordered Lin Qi to eliminate all natural-born women to completely eradicate reproduction. He also planned to kill all cloning experts to sabotage the human cloning program. He continued to push the children in the Paradise, filling them with hatred so they would be released to seek revenge against humanity. He pinned all the blame on the rebels, ensuring humans would tear each other apart and drive themselves toward extinction.
Meanwhile, he was also preparing to form his own army of robots. With control over all machines through Ladbrokes Technology, no number of humans would be able to resist a robotic force.
Unfortunately, his plan never had the chance to succeed.
When Ling Wu discovered that Shen Wantong had died in the Paradise, he began investigating.
Following the trail of Lin Qi, he uncovered the Supreme Leader’s scheme. Before the Supreme Leader could obtain his new body, Ling Wu destroyed its shell.
Enraged, the Supreme Leader commanded part of his robotic force to hunt Ling Wu down. But he hadn’t anticipated that humans, believing the robots had turned against them, would panic. In fear, they destroyed their own household robots and turned on Ladbrokes Technology.
Facing the overwhelming wrath of humanity, Ladbrokes Technology was unable to withstand the backlash. Worse yet, the revelation that the Supreme Leader was controlling the robots terrified the company’s executives.
At that moment, Ling Wu exposed the Supreme Leader’s secret to the public—including the fact that his body had already been destroyed and that he now survived only as a system.
When people saw the video of the Supreme Leader—his massive mechanical arms, his constantly flashing blue eyes, and his writhing brain—their fear reached its peak. Killing him became their only thought.
However, at that time, the Supreme Leader controlled all robots, networks, electricity, water, and even transportation in the new world. He saw himself as its king, still arrogant, exposing his ambitions for all to see.
Before the might of the robotic army, humanity was fragile and powerless. It was Ling Wu who stepped forward, breached the Supreme Leader’s system, and led humanity to destroy him.
Afterward, Ling Wu became the new leader, the ruler of this era.
That was the original course of events. But now, Wan Tong was still alive, Raider 003 had arrived, and even Ling Wu had fallen under 003’s control. According to the timeline, the leader’s new body was likely nearing completion. Meanwhile, the children of the Paradise had seized territory and turned against the outside world, their bloodthirsty nature making any conflict a brutal bloodbath.
[Currently, the boss’s favorability towards the Raider is… 100.]
Shishi cautiously added, [The strategist’s favorability task is complete. Now, she is preparing to rescue the cloning group’s experts and expose the Supreme Leader’s conspiracy. If she seizes the boss’s fortune and then kills Tongtong, this world might be doomed…]
Wan Tong gritted her teeth. Ling Wu was a robot, completely under 003’s mysterious control, utterly loyal to her.
[If I really die in this world, what will happen to me?]
[Shishi doesn’t know either.] Shishi hesitated. [Shishi has discovered that Tongtong is not a purely spiritual entity and often isn’t bound by the rules.]
For instance, even before Shishi transmitted memories to her, she already possessed them.
[Help me locate Ling Wu.] Wan Tong ordered.
003 had taken Ling Wu and fled Paradise, their whereabouts now unknown. Fortunately, Shishi had reappeared just in time.
[003 originally came from the Zhong family. She’s taken Lingwu back there.]
[Where is the Zhong family?]
[They’re rivals with the Shen family but live very close by. I’ve already located them.]
Wan Tong fell silent, lifting her gaze to the boy and girl across from her, still eating.
M01 hadn’t killed her. In fact, he had even given her an injection. Given his current attitude, he probably wouldn’t really wipe out the entire Shen family…
Maybe she could try acting cute and clinging to him?
That trick worked on her Second Brother. Would it work on him?
According to the original storyline, nearly all the boys in Paradise had perished in the battles against the outside world. Outnumbered, they had been seen as untamed beasts to be exterminated.
“If you don’t want your eyes gouged out, shut them.”
M01’s chilling voice suddenly rang out.
Wan Tong silently lowered her head. After a while, she asked in a small voice, “I want to go home. Have you found the Shen family? If you have a communicator, I can contact Second Brother…”
As she mentioned Second Brother, she quickly glanced at M01’s grim face.
“Eldest Brother, the three of us don’t even look alike…”
“Don’t call me Eldest Brother!” M01 snapped.
Wan Tong shrank back into the corner. “…Oh.”
M01 clenched the compressed food in his hand, his dark eyes glancing at the ‘trembling’ figure before him, frustration surging in his chest.
Before finding her, he had wanted to kill her, kill them all. But now that she was right in front of him, he couldn’t do it.
A strange feeling.
The so-called little sister in front of him was undeniably cute and beautiful, yet she was as fragile as a newborn chick—soft, pale, and delicate, with pathetic physical strength and zero combat ability. She was utterly useless…
M01 kept telling himself that. But when he met those moist, glistening eyes in the dim light, he suddenly realized—some people really could rely on nothing but cuteness and beauty to make others go soft on them, to dote on them completely.