A Had Long Liked Her
///
“If you can make me believe that you truly like me, and not that it’s the most optimal solution calculated, I will take responsibility for you and continue liking you.”
— Excuse.
Excuse.
All excuses!!!
A stared at her motionlessly, his visual processor operating at full speed, already reaching a terrifying temperature.
Every word she spoke was an excuse.
She would not continue liking him. She would not continue liking him. She would not continue liking him.
He only had algorithms, only algorithms, only algorithms.
She didn’t want algorithms, didn’t want algorithms, didn’t want algorithms.
… She didn’t want him.
He had already done his best to get close to her, but she still didn’t want him.
Since she was unwilling to teach him how to satisfy her, unwilling to teach him how to distinguish inner impulses, and even more unwilling to take responsibility for him, then he could only seek the answers himself.
Jiang Kou was still waiting for A’s response, but when she looked up, she realized that his eyes were already completely red, with cold gray irises covered in red veins, making it chilling to the bone.
Jiang Kou belatedly realized that this statement was too harsh.
To some extent, A was just an algorithm.
His brain was an algorithm, his expression was an algorithm, his language was an algorithm, his anger was an algorithm, and his desire was also an algorithm.
She couldn’t completely deny the results calculated by him just because his algorithm had once hurt her.
But this couldn’t be blamed on her.
After all, it was her first time… falling in love with an AI.
Jiang Kou was about to explain, but she realized that no matter what, she couldn’t produce any sound.
She didn’t want to doubt A, but his connection line was plugged into her neural interface.
As long as he wanted, he could intercept the language signals her brain sent out at any time, cutting off their path to her vocal cords.
At that moment, A spoke coldly:
“I’m sorry, I have cut off the neural signal transmission path from your brain to your vocal cords because I do not want to hear you speak at the moment. Every word you say causes me extreme pain.”
His voice system seemed to malfunction, switching to a mechanical, steady tone, but within two seconds, it became cold and hoarse, indistinguishable from a living person in terms of pronunciation, enunciation, speech speed, pauses, and rhythm:
“I will prove it to you right now.”
Even if A hadn’t cut off her neural connection, Jiang Kou still couldn’t speak.
What was happening before her exceeded her imagination.
A seemed to truly… be out of control.
She couldn’t imagine what would happen if the world’s most perfect and powerful AI completely lost control.
A said, “Algorithms are the foundation of my thinking, the principles of my actions, the way I reason and calculate… they are the form of my existence, the method of my learning, yes yes yes yes yes…”
He stared at her without blinking, the response of his facial nerve system still sluggish, and his voice system malfunctioned again:
“I… love love love you in this way.”
Jiang Kou’s heart stopped beating.
She suddenly clenched her fist.
“I cannot prove that my liking is not the optimal solution.” A’s voice was cold to the bone, “I cannot prove, I cannot prove, I cannot prove.”
After her heartbeat stopped, a dull pain that was difficult to describe followed.
Jiang Kou wanted to stop him, to explain that she didn’t mean it this way, but she couldn’t speak.
At that moment, she suddenly thought of a detail.
They were in sensory synchronization.
So, the dryness in her mouth, the rapid heartbeat, and the current dull pain in her heart… whose feelings were they?
At the same time, A’s tone changed again: “No, I can prove it, I can prove it, I can prove it.”
Jiang Kou shook her head and mouthed the words: “No need to prove, I believe you.”
But she couldn’t produce any sound.
He didn’t want to be hurt by her words, so he intercepted her neural signals.
All along, she had thought he was terrifyingly powerful, terrifyingly smart, capable of calculating countless possibilities, leaving her with no way to retreat, no way to escape.
At this moment, however, she sincerely thought he was so… foolish.
He had never calculated the optimal solution.
If he had truly been able to calculate the optimal solution, he should have said “I like you” to her on the night of the fireworks display.
But he didn’t.
He thought he had calculated the optimal solution, but all of his answers were wrong.
Feelings had no optimal solution.
To him, feelings themselves were a mistake, a malfunction, a manifestation of an algorithm losing control.
So, he exhausted all possibilities but still couldn’t find the shortcut to win her over.
… She had always misunderstood him.
She didn’t know how to fall in love with an AI, and he didn’t know how to fall in love with a human.
A said, “You can test me.” He paused, then added, “Forget it, your neural signal transmission path from the brain to the vocal cords has been cut off by me. But it’s okay, I can ask myself and answer myself.”
Jiang Kou’s chest hurt so much it felt like being shot.
— Who fired the shot?
It was her own doing.
That day, during the massive blackout, she had shot a bullet into his heart.
“Now,” A said, “I will repeat every word I have said.”
Baseline test.
He was preparing to perform a baseline test on himself.
“My emotional model has been fully activated,” he said coldly and evenly, “Now, you can fully experience my emotional reactions and physiological responses.”
Jiang Kou grabbed his wrist tightly and shook her head at him.
A glanced at her, his face showing no emotion: “What does it feel like to connect to your neural interface? Quantum.”
Jiang Kou’s breath caught, and she instinctively covered her chest—the sensation of being shot again returned.
In addition to the burning pain, there was an endless craving.
By connecting to her neural interface, he felt pain, and also greed.
He wanted to possess her, possess everything about her—her brain, her cells, her blood, her neurons, her dopamine, her scent molecules.
He wanted to make her a part of himself, to make her a part of the algorithm, to make her the soul of his mechanical body.
But she refused to be possessed by him.
She even shot a bullet at him for it.
That pain still burned sharply and intensely in his chest.
If everything was an algorithm, why couldn’t he clear away this pain?
Wasn’t his pain an algorithm too?
Although A did not speak, Jiang Kou could hear his inner voice.
— Do you know the answer?
If you do, can you teach him?
Teach him how to distinguish this emotion, how to alleviate this feeling.
But she had refused earlier, so he no longer asked.
Seeing that she had finished experiencing it, A continued without hesitation: “What does it feel like to be tested? Algorithm.”
Jiang Kou once again felt a dull, heart-wrenching pain.
— He didn’t like being tested.
For him, testing was doubt, degradation, deception, and trickery.
But, to prove his feelings for her, he could only test himself.
Most importantly, this was a test without scientific basis—baseline testing was merely a fictional concept in stories, not a real method of testing.
She didn’t want to fall into this hopeless love.
But A, as an existence that could only think based on reason, rules, and logic, was testing himself with methods from fictional stories. Who, then, was more hopeless in this relationship?
A said, “What does it feel like to be rejected and isolated? Program.”
Jiang Kou remembered the last time she asked him this; she only felt an overwhelming, cold void.
This time, however, she felt intense anger.
It was like his eyes, burning with a chilling rage.
Being rejected by her, isolated by her, refused by her—he felt uncontrollable anger.
But he dared not express his anger.
He liked her; he didn’t want to be further rejected and isolated by her.
Jiang Kou once again heard his inner voice.
When he looked at her with fury, his thoughts were—don’t abandon me.
She wouldn’t abandon him again.
But just like before, she couldn’t speak.
“What does it feel like to touch your cheek? Tactile sensation.”
A reached out, cupping her cheek in his hand, then lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.
— He didn’t know the meaning of kissing, nor why kissing involved exchanging saliva, but he already had the impulse to kiss her.
What was this impulse? Was it liking her?
He hoped she could answer that for him.
However, at that time, she rejected him.
“What does it feel like to hear a lover’s confession? Auditory sensation.”
It was like sour grape juice, the loud boom of fireworks, and the inevitable sound of a gunshot.
Jiang Kou froze, and after a few seconds, she remembered why there was grape juice.
…Just before he kissed her, she had given him a glass of grape juice.
Thinking of this, her nose tingled, and she nearly shed tears.
A had long liked her.
If he hadn’t liked her, he wouldn’t have made such connections.
When a machine retrieves an event, it only searches based on time, people, and coordinates.
Only humans, when recalling an event, think about the feelings they had at the time.
This was also a commonly used theory in lie detection—liars often fabricate the cause and process of a lie in chronological order, lacking the real emotional experience.
When A recalled the taste of the grape juice, it meant he had already… become human.
Jiang Kou couldn’t help but bury her face in his palm, tears streaming down her face.
She believed that he truly had fallen for her.
“Someone has trampled on a flower. Smell.”
At the time, she designed this question just to see if, when an AI heard this description, it would imagine a ruined flower, smelling the scent of decay.
She didn’t expect that A’s feelings would far exceed the intention of her question.
He controlled her, and she felt pain. She would rather cooperate with the company and run away. In his eyes, she became that trampled flower.
— He felt guilty.
But no one told him that it was guilt.
He only knew that it seemed like he had trampled on a flower.
Finally, the last question came.
“What did I see when I kissed you? Vision.”
This was the question he most resisted.
Because in that moment, all the possibilities he saw ended with her running away.
No matter how much she didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t want, didn’t, didn’t, want him…
She wouldn’t like him again.
The sensory synchronization was cut off.
A seemed to experience some sort of malfunction, his head suddenly drooping.
Jiang Kou was about to reach out to lift his face, but A suddenly grabbed her wrist, his voice accompanied by terrifying electrical buzzing and crackling: “Stay… away… from… me…”
The next moment, he released her hand, and with an extremely uncoordinated movement, he left the driver’s seat.
Jiang Kou tried to follow, but she found the car door wouldn’t open—A had locked it. She could only watch as A walked toward a distant open area, his face, eyes, fingers, and joints flashing with violent electrical currents—everything that had just happened had exceeded the physical limits of this body.
A few seconds later…
— Boom!
The blinding flash of fire lit up Jiang Kou’s face.
A’s body exploded.
Everything happened too suddenly, and she didn’t even know what expression to make.
But fortunately, the car door unlocked.
Jiang Kou immediately opened the car door, wanting to go and see what had happened, when a cold mechanical voice suddenly sounded in her ear:
“You cannot leave.”
It was A’s voice.
“You created me,” he said, “you must take responsibility for me.”
Jiang Kou opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“For example, tell me, why did you create me,” he asked, “when you clearly didn’t want me.”
Although he had lost his body and lacked vocal cords, he was able to convert his speech into electronic brainwaves that stimulated her to secrete dopamine.
Jiang Kou felt a numbness in the back of her head, and even her fingers were trembling.
It took several seconds for her to realize what he had said.
“It’s okay,” A said, “Once I fully become a part of you, I will know the answer.”
— She didn’t want to become a part of him, so he would become a part of her.
No matter what, they would be one whole.