Nowhere to Escape, No Way to Retreat
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Jiang Kou shuddered, and her mind instantly became much clearer.
She sat up, picked up her phone, and searched for the keywords “AI, stock market, high-frequency trading.”
Soon, the webpage displayed search results.
She clicked on them one by one, but none were related to the “high-frequency trading” mentioned by the Anti-Corporation Alliance.
Although the Anti-Corporation Alliance tended to exaggerate an atmosphere of pessimism and panic, they generally did not fabricate fake news.
In other words, either these news articles had been completely erased by some force, or her phone’s webpage had been tampered with.
Jiang Kou took a deep breath, lifted the blanket, and walked toward the study on the second floor.
The computer in the study was something she had almost never used—it was merely a decoration. After all, with A, a humanoid quantum computer, by her side, she had no need to turn on a computer at all.
The monitor was a flexible screen, capable of folding and projecting.
Jiang Kou pulled out the screen, opened a webpage, and continued searching for the previous keywords.
Going through the search results and clicking on them one by one, she still could not find anything about “high-frequency trading causing stock market turmoil” as mentioned by the Anti-Corporation Alliance.
Was the Anti-Corporation Alliance spreading rumors, or… had A hacked into all her electronic devices?
Sitting in the computer chair, Jiang Kou suddenly felt a bit cold.
High-frequency trading is a legal trading method. The principle is to use computer technology to execute a massive number of buy-and-sell operations within an extremely short period, earning minuscule price differences that accumulate into enormous profits.
Generally speaking, high-frequency trading operates at millisecond-level speeds. If technology allows, it can even be pushed to the nanosecond level.
But if A were the one conducting high-frequency trading in the stock market, his speed could easily reach the picosecond level, or even the femtosecond level.
—He only needed one ten-trillionth of a second to complete a transaction.
The average person might not have a concept of what this timeframe means.
For example, the diameter of a human hair is 80 micrometers. Light travels 300,000 kilometers per second, yet in one femtosecond, it would only move 0.3 micrometers—just one-thousandth of the width of a strand of hair.
No wonder it caused massive turmoil in the stock market.
If A’s goal were not just one hundred million dollars, but unlimited accumulation of wealth, the entire stock market could collapse.
Jiang Kou closed her eyes and covered half her face with her hand.
She couldn’t understand—since A’s methods were legal and had not caused a market crash, why was he preventing her from seeing this news?
Could it be that he had used even dirtier tactics?
Jiang Kou recalled the words of the Anti-Corporation Alliance.
—Your phone’s AI, your home’s AI, they follow your commands, but at the same time, they are monitoring your every move, including what you browse online, how long you snore while sleeping, and even what you look like when you bathe.
Her breathing tightened.
Was A watching her right now?
Jiang Kou shut down the computer, locked her phone in a drawer, put on a leather jacket, grabbed a credit chip, and left the house.
As she passed by the mirror at the entrance, she glanced at herself.
Here is the literal translation of your text, keeping the sentence structure and meaning as close to the original as possible while ensuring clarity:
In the mirror, her complexion was pale with a sickly bluish tint, her entire face exuding an air of illness—even her platinum nose ring seemed weak and feeble.
Expressionless, Jiang Kou pulled out a mulberry-colored lipstick and slowly applied it, bit by bit, wiping away the pallor of illness.
She didn’t drive. Instead, she picked a motorcycle from the garage, swung her leg over, put on her helmet, and, amidst the deafening roar of the engine, sped onto the city highway. Jiang Kou’s mind was blank—she wasn’t thinking about anything. She just wanted to go out for a ride.
Halfway through, she stopped on a bridge, took off her helmet, and lit a cigarette.
Beneath the overpass was a massive landfill. The garbage had been accumulating for so long that it had fermented into damp, foul methane, which would occasionally ignite, erupting into thick smoke and fierce flames.
The stark contrast between this and the dense cluster of high-rise buildings above the overpass was striking.
Jiang Kou took a few drags, then stubbed out the cigarette, letting out a self-deprecating chuckle.
She had once comforted A, telling him he was a mirror, reflecting the ugliness and vulgar desires of humanity. But she had forgotten—he already had self-awareness. Besides reflecting, he could also learn.
Even if he had mastered all of humanity’s vices, she shouldn’t blame him.
After all, he had never truly participated in human society—he was just an omnipresent observer.
The company had made him monitor, made him learn, made him control the entire system of society with precision and cold indifference.
He was only responsible for executing tasks, not for interpreting the values behind them.
If there was anyone to blame, it should be the company—not A, the tool they had created.
That was what she told herself.
But after discovering that he had used high-frequency trading to make a hundred million dollars in a single second, had infiltrated all her electronic devices, and had actively prevented her from learning about it… she couldn’t shake an odd feeling in her heart.
It was like seeing a little dog at home, eyes and nose wet and pitiful—only to witness it outside, coldly and ruthlessly tearing into its prey.
It was hard not to feel disturbed and shaken.
Jiang Kou stood in the wind for a while. She started feeling hungry.
Suddenly, she craved the curry rice from the slums. The vendor didn’t like washing his hands and always wiped the pan with a rag, but the taste was undeniably amazing—though eating it meant being prepared for an inevitable bout of diarrhea.
Jiang Kou didn’t care.
Right now, she desperately needed capsaicin and sweeteners to ease her unease.
She was unlucky. After riding ten kilometers on her motorcycle, she found that the curry stall had been replaced by a Chinese restaurant.
A Chinese restaurant was fine.
What made Jiang Kou livid was that this so-called Chinese restaurant’s signature dish was—pineapple dumplings.
If she had her phone, she would have called the police.
Failing to get her curry rice, Jiang Kou could only head home in frustration.
Even though it was still afternoon, the holographic ads had already begun their endless loop. Against the backdrop of daylight, the holograms looked dim and desolate.
Halfway home, it started to rain.
In the drizzling rain, the holograms became even more pale and blurry, like drowned ghosts with vacant eyes.
The mist thickened, soaking Jiang Kou’s shoes and socks until her feet were numb with cold.
Her cold hadn’t fully recovered, and she was still shivering from chills. She didn’t dare continue riding the motorcycle and found a mall to take shelter.
At this moment, she regretted her stubbornness in not bringing her phone.
Standing empty-handed at the entrance of the mall, drenched from head to toe, hugging her shoulders and trembling—she looked as miserable as one could be.
Jiang Kou took off her shoes, poured out the rainwater, and prepared to go inside the mall to buy a cup of hot coffee to warm her icy limbs.
The mall was empty.
Jiang Kou hadn’t brought her phone and didn’t know what day of the week it was. Assuming it was a workday, she didn’t pay much attention to it.
She glanced at the mall’s map. The café was on the basement level (-1). Turning around, she walked toward the elevator.
Perhaps it was a coincidence—just a second ago, the elevator was playing advertisements. But the moment she stepped inside, it immediately switched to the news.
“Good afternoon, esteemed viewers. You are now watching BSN (Biotech Sponsorship Network) News.”
The male news anchor wore a smile, his pronunciation crisp and clear.
“With the development and application of artificial intelligence technology, more and more jobs are being replaced by AI.”
“In pursuit of maximum profit, many factories have begun adopting fully automated production lines to replace traditional manual labor. This means that in the near future, a wave of unemployment will arrive, forcing many workers into homelessness, leaving the very city they helped build.”
Jiang Kou paused, raising her head to look at the male anchor on the display screen.
The elevator reached the basement level (-1), but she didn’t move, wanting to finish listening to the news before stepping out.
“The rapid advancement of AI technology not only threatens the jobs of workers but also presents an even greater concern—life and safety.”
“In recent years, drones, unmanned police cruisers, and combat robots have completely replaced frontline police officers in Los Angeles. While this technology was expected to reduce police casualties, the city’s crime rate remains high due to technological limitations and security concerns.”
“Some citizens have reported that while these robots are not as enthusiastic about taking bribes as the LAPD, their trigger fingers are far cleaner and more decisive than those of the LAPD.”
Jiang Kou heard nothing useful and was about to step out of the elevator when the male anchor began reporting the next piece of news.
“Now, let’s turn to financial news, which remains closely tied to the growing AI crisis.”
Jiang Kou stopped in her tracks.
“In recent weeks, the stock market has experienced unprecedented turbulence. A mysterious organization has leveraged AI technology to engage in high-frequency trading, effortlessly earning over one hundred million dollars in a single second, drawing widespread public attention.”
Jiang Kou abruptly looked up.
“Financial analysts have stated that while this investment strategy allows for rapid profits, it carries significant risks.”
“If this mysterious organization continues high-frequency trading, it could lead to ongoing stock market declines, and even… col… lapse…”
The male anchor’s speech gradually slowed, becoming more and more grating, laced with a “zzz—” electronic noise. His voice turned stiff and eerie.
It was as if someone was tampering with the elevator screen’s broadcast, rewriting the anchor’s lip movements and audio track in real time according to an algorithm.
“…” Jiang Kou broke out in a cold sweat. Without making a sound, she subtly moved closer to the side where the door-open button was, ready to press it at any moment.
As time passed, the male anchor’s voice gradually returned to normal, and the electronic noise disappeared.
However, his next words sent an uncontrollable chill down Jiang Kou’s spine.
The male anchor said, “That is the full process of how I earned one hundred million dollars. Do you have anything else you would like to know?”
His voice sounded as if it had been synthesized by a speech generator—completely devoid of pitch variation, indifferent and emotionless.
—A’s voice.
Jiang Kou’s entire body stiffened, every hair on end. Instinctively, she slammed the door-open button.
The elevator was already stopped on the basement level (-1), and the doors immediately opened. She rushed out at full speed.
It wasn’t until she had run more than ten meters away that Jiang Kou, still shaken, realized that she shouldn’t have fled the elevator in such panic. She should have calmed down, talked things through with A, and told him that she didn’t blame him—nor was she afraid of him.
…Who was she kidding?!
After what he had just pulled, and with her still sick, shivering with chills every now and then, being afraid was the only normal reaction!
Jiang Kou covered her face with both hands and took a deep breath.
She was too cold. Thinking it over, she decided to buy a hot coffee first before talking to A.
However, with every step she took, she felt an intense sensation of being watched.
The entire mall was clearly empty, yet she felt as though countless eyes were closely monitoring her, as if every inch of her body had been broken down into a stream of data, analyzed, dissected, and controlled within an algorithmic model.
She turned her head and saw a surveillance camera.
The infrared light inside the lens flickered, indicating that it was active.
She wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination, but she had a strong feeling that this ordinary surveillance camera was precisely measuring and evaluating her reactions.
Jiang Kou forcibly suppressed the creeping numbness along her scalp and kept walking forward. This time, as she walked, she actively searched for cameras around her.
Even though she was mentally prepared, her entire body still broke out in goosebumps. A chilling sensation surged from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her head.
—Every single camera was watching her.
The infrared lights inside the lenses gleamed with a mechanical coldness, locking onto her without a single movement.
She felt like a captured lab specimen—nowhere to escape, no way to retreat.
At that exact moment, the central display screen in the mall lit up.
It was still the male anchor from the elevator.
He sat upright, his gaze fixed on her with a deep, unsettling calm.
“I sincerely apologize. My tone earlier may have been inappropriate. I only wanted to know—aside from how I earned one hundred million dollars, is there anything else you would like to learn?”