War of Intelligent Machines

Chapter 28: The Tibetan Girl

Chapter 28: The Tibetan Girl



After a week of rest, Jiang Yuesheng officially returned to work in Section Two of the Software Division.

However, this time, he returned with a certain level of prestige. Section Chief Sun immediately assigned him to an offensive and defensive experimental project and placed him in the software optimization group.

This time, the robot they were testing was an individual reconnaissance robot, designed for urban street combat scenarios. The robot was tasked with stealthily infiltrating enemy territory to gather intelligence, much like a human scout.

The client had identified a problem with previous versions of the robot: it tended to overuse its self-destruct function. Observations revealed that in many situations, there was still a chance for escape, but the robot would mistakenly assess the situation as hopeless and trigger its self-destruct sequence, causing unnecessary losses.

Jiang Yuesheng, having previously researched the modeling of bravery and fear in robots at Hong Zhiyuan, immediately thought that there might be a problem with the danger assessment model, which was causing the robot to overestimate threats.

To better understand the situation, Jiang Yuesheng decided to spend more time observing the test field.

After reviewing the robot’s operational logs, he found that the danger assessment algorithm didn’t seem to have any major issues. So where was the problem?

He requested access to the robot's original design blueprints from Section Chief Sun, hoping to examine the self-destruct system’s design.

However, the archives department denied his request, citing his insufficient clearance level.

Frustrated, Jiang Yuesheng recognized that, as a researcher, such a refusal wasn’t uncommon. He then asked Section Chief Sun if he could review the documents in the archives without removing them.

Section Chief Sun submitted another request to the archives, and this time, they agreed.

At the appointed time, Jiang Yuesheng arrived at the archives reading room, where he was supervised by a young woman named Wengmu. He suspected she might be Tibetan.

Under Wengmu's supervision, Jiang Yuesheng opened the design blueprints for the robot's self-destruct system. What he saw was completely different from what he had expected.

The self-destruct system consisted of more than a dozen subsystems, with over forty explosion points distributed across the robot’s body. The detonation system was extremely complex, requiring more than a dozen preconditions to be met before activation.

In other words, triggering the self-destruct sequence was not as simple as pressing a button; it required satisfying numerous internal and external conditions.

Jiang Yuesheng suspected that the problem lay within these preconditions. He carefully read through them twice, committing as many details as he could to memory before leaving the archives.

Back at the research institute, Jiang Yuesheng repeatedly reviewed the preconditions in his mind. He concluded that the robot’s danger assessment module wasn’t overestimating threats; the real issue lay in the design of the preconditions for self-destruction.

The flawed design of the preconditions was causing the reconnaissance robot to self-destruct unnecessarily.

After dinner, feeling inspired, Jiang Yuesheng decided to revisit the Guozhuang dance. The last time he had seen the dance, it had sparked the idea that solved the technical problem with the simulated fish submersible. The dance's grace and beauty had left a deep impression on him.

He took his grandmother to the Tibetan residential area where he had seen the dance before. As expected, a group of Tibetans was dancing to the music. They stood by, watching.

"Jiang Yuesheng!"

Lost in the dance, Jiang Yuesheng suddenly heard a girl’s voice calling his name.

He quickly looked around to see who it was.

To his right stood a stunning Tibetan girl in traditional attire, wearing a** (a type of ceremonial hat), smiling at him.

"You don’t recognize me?" she asked with a laugh, her arched eyebrows raising, and her hair framing her face like a blooming snow lotus.

"Oh..." Jiang Yuesheng finally remembered. "Wengmu!"

"Haha, you finally remember!" Wengmu laughed, before turning and joining the dancers, gracefully moving with the group.

Jiang Yuesheng was captivated by Wengmu’s elegant movements. He had never expected to meet the girl who had supervised him in the archives here. That day, the dim lighting and his overwhelming stress had prevented him from noticing her beauty. But now, dressed in traditional Tibetan clothing, she looked like a fairy descended from heaven.

"Grandma, come dance with us!" Wengmu called to Jiang Yuesheng’s grandmother.

Jiang Hui, eager to join, quickly followed Wengmu into the dance. This was the first time Jiang Yuesheng had seen his grandmother dance, and he was surprised by how quickly she picked up the basic steps of the Guozhuang dance. While her upper body movements were still a bit uncoordinated, she managed to keep up with the group.

...

Later that evening, as Jiang Yuesheng was enjoying roasted yak meat made by his grandmother, he noticed a warning light flashing on his prosthetic left hand.

He quickly took out his phone and opened the special app, where he saw a message: "Cooperate with the Big Fish Plan."

Three days later, an unassuming man wearing glasses arrived at his home, claiming to be from the Big Fish Plan and requesting Jiang Yuesheng's cooperation.

Knowing this was a directive from above, Jiang Yuesheng followed the man to a café.

After ordering coffee, the man took out a cigarette case and placed it on the table. A beam of light projected from the case, displaying a message: "Mr. Jiang, those who tried to kidnap you are still searching for you. We have some leads and need your cooperation to lure them out."

Jiang Yuesheng nodded slightly, indicating his willingness to cooperate. The man finished his coffee and left.

A few days later, Jiang Yuesheng received an invitation to an AI technology exhibition in Wuhan. He booked a hotel and train tickets according to the event schedule and requested leave from the base.

During the exhibition, Jiang Yuesheng remained on edge, unsure when or how his captors might appear. However, the three-day event passed without incident. He then boarded a vacuum-tube train from Wuhan to Xining, planning to transfer to Lhasa and fly to Shi Quanhe.

However, upon arriving in Xining, he learned that the vacuum-tube train to Lhasa was out of service due to a malfunction. He had to take a flight from Xining to Shi Quanhe instead.

The flight was sparsely populated, as Shi Quanhe had a small population, and this route only operated once every three days. Midway through the flight, a passenger suddenly began vomiting and then fainted. The flight attendants were momentarily stunned and urgently called the captain.

As the captain opened the cockpit door, a passenger in business class suddenly lunged forward, blocking the door and quickly entering the cockpit. Simultaneously, two other young men rushed from the back and subdued the captain, holding a ceramic knife to his neck.

"Don’t move!" one of the hijackers shouted, brandishing the knife to intimidate the passengers.

The cabin quickly fell silent as the hijackers took control of the plane.

"All passengers, lower your window shades! Anyone who disobeys will be killed!" the hijackers ordered.

The flight attendants routinely checked to ensure all shades were lowered.

Jiang Yuesheng glanced out the window at the setting sun before lowering his shade with a snap.

The plane flew for another three hours before beginning its descent. About twenty minutes later, Jiang Yuesheng heard the landing gear deploy. Shortly after, the plane's wheels made contact with the ground, jolting slightly before stabilizing.

The cockpit door opened, and a hijacker emerged, pushing the pilot at knifepoint.

"Is this Ceylon?" the hijacker angrily asked his accomplice.

His accomplice quickly lifted a window shade and saw the words on the terminal building:

"Ali."

"Damn it! How did we end up in Ali?!"

At that moment, several passengers in business class stood up, drawing laser pistols from under their arms and aiming them at the hijackers.

"Don’t move!"

The hijackers, realizing their ceramic knives were no match for laser guns, raised their hands in surrender.

"I swear I saw the flight destination was Ceylon!" the hijacker who had entered the cockpit muttered to his accomplice as they were led away.

Jiang Yuesheng opened his window shade and saw four or five military vehicles surrounding the plane, with dozens of armed soldiers securing the area.