The metal sphere floated in the air, retraced its path, and exited through the open car door.
The advertisement, which had paused at some point, resumed playing.
“This is a beautiful home—”
“Carrying the dreams of you and me—”
The jingle sang cheerfully.
“…Peace of mind…”
“…Happiness…”
“…Sunshine…”
The noise in the carriage drowned out the song.
“Can these artificial intelligences now kill people directly in public??”
“Didn’t you see the news? The new federal security law passed last month gave them the authority.”
“Was the person it killed a fugitive?”
“Didn’t they say? Artificial intelligence definitely doesn’t make mistakes. During the small-scale pilot, the error rate was something like a few ten-millionths? Much lower than the error rate of human peacekeepers.”
“They say those shot by them are either highly dangerous fugitives or terrorists.”
“Right. They say when arresting ordinary criminals, they can use tranquilizer guns. But for Level L16 extremely dangerous individuals, in emergency situations where they pose a serious threat to the safety of others around them, they can be directly shot dead.”
“That damn thing just left like that? What about the body?”
“When we reach the terminal station, someone will definitely come to deal with it.”
“So we’re just riding with a dead person?”
The one truly “riding with a dead person” was Pei Ran.
The thigh of the dead woman was still pressed tightly against Pei Ran’s thigh, the residual warmth not yet faded.
Those standing nearby tried to stay as far away from the corpse as possible, creating a relatively empty space in the overcrowded carriage.
Seats were hard to come by, so Pei Ran stayed in place without moving.
The woman’s head hung limply, the wound on her forehead a small hole. Blood continuously gushed out, falling onto the corpse’s pants, quickly soaking into a large dark red stain, then flowing down the leg onto the carriage floor, the stench overwhelming.
The bus started again, jerking sharply, causing the corpse to slump limply toward Pei Ran.
Pei Ran pressed her arm and pushed it inward, leaning her toward the window on the other side. She then lifted the woman’s head and propped it up in the corner between the seat back and the window, tilting it slightly upward so that at least the blood wouldn’t flow everywhere.
Having grown up seeing dead bodies, Pei Ran wasn’t particularly fazed.
In the bunker world, piles of dead bodies were common. Here, there was only one.
After arranging the woman’s corpse, she wiped her cheek with her fingertips and casually removed her glove.
As soon as she took off the glove on her right hand, she froze.
Beneath the glove was a mechanical hand.
Completely black. Matte finish.
The mechanical hand was finely crafted, with intricate joint structures, and the metal part extended into the sleeve of her wrist.
Pei Ran instinctively moved her fingers.
The mechanical hand felt normal, flexible and responsive. From earlier until now, with Pei Ran’s sensitivity, she hadn’t noticed anything unusual about this hand at all.
The fingertips and gripping parts of the fingers even had clear tactile sensations. Upon closer inspection, the metal surface in these areas was slightly different from the rest, with a matte texture, likely embedded with some kind of neural-connected sensor components.
Pei Ran glanced around and silently ran her hand up her right arm.
The hard metallic texture extended all the way up to her shoulder, where she finally felt soft, elastic muscle.
Pei Ran then removed the glove on her left hand.
This time, beneath the glove was a human hand, but it was also a bit strange—
The size, shape, and lines of the hand were all incredibly familiar. It was exactly the same as the hand from Pei Ran’s original world.
Pei Ran froze for a moment and reached for the bracelet on her wrist.
On the bracelet, there was a small protrusion on the side of the hard black square. Her hand still had muscle memory, and Pei Ran pressed it. A small virtual screen popped up, hovering in front of her.
She flicked her finger, and the screen smoothly followed her movement, shifting upward and enlarging slightly.
Various icons were neatly arranged. Pei Ran found the camera app, opened it, and switched to the front-facing mode.
A familiar face appeared on the screen.
The same nose, eyes, and even the same pale complexion from lack of sunlight—it was identical to her own face.
However, in the bunker world, Pei Ran would shave her head bald every so often, never letting her hair grow longer than an inch before shaving it off again. A buzz cut was easy to clean and convenient to treat if her head was injured.
But now, this body had long hair, strands falling past her shoulders.
The familiar face paired with a different hairstyle felt somewhat novel.
A few years ago, Pei Ran had once traded a bottle of homemade liquor for an old storage reader at the black market. It contained many books, most of which were ancient novels.
The concept of time travel had been written about countless times in those novels.
The protagonist and the original body usually shared the same surname and given name, or at least homophonic names. This was the trigger and fate of time travel.
Pei Ran examined her face.
To be fated to the point of having an identical appearance—what kind of destiny was this?
The bus changed lanes, diving sharply downward in a steep descent, like an airplane landing. After a bumpy ride, it arrived at the next stop.
The scenery outside the window was familiar, and Pei Ran instinctively knew she had reached her stop.
This time, the bus landed on the ground. The narrow streets were lined with piles of uncollected black garbage bags, some of which had been torn open, emitting a foul odor. Pedestrians tiptoed through the trash, carefully picking their way.
Pei Ran got off the bus and turned into an old building nearby.
Fragments of memories about home flooded her mind.
“Fantasy Tower, Building A, Unit 02115,” she silently recited, entering the elevator and pressing the button.
Unit 02115 was an apartment in this building, an inheritance left to her by her parents.
The elevator reached the 21st floor, and Pei Ran found her door.
There was no virtual screen for iris scanning on the door, just a fingerprint lock. The touchscreen was worn and faded, looking like it belonged to an entirely different era.
Pei Ran took off her glove and pressed her left index finger against it. The door opened.
The building was originally an old factory of a tech company called Fantasy. Because it was a converted factory, the apartment had unusually high ceilings and a decent amount of space, though it was very old. The exposed pipes of the heating system were fixed to the wall with metal clamps, the bolts covered in mottled rust.
Pei Ran closed the door, still wearing her coat, and first walked around the apartment, then peered out the window.
Outside, the building across the street wasn’t far away. Like the rest of the city, it was shrouded in a gray haze, with neon signs glowing even in broad daylight.
“A window” was something new.
In the bunker world, there was an uncle named Alimu at the black market who had hung a large painting on the wall behind his stall.
The painting depicted an open window, with dazzling green paint for the grass outside and brilliant blue for the sky. The colors were so vivid that everyone passing by couldn’t help but take a second look.
“Back in the day,” Uncle Alimu said, “everyone lived in houses with windows.”
Someone nearby didn’t believe him. “Everyone?”
Uncle Alimu was firm. “Yes, everyone. Every house had windows, and through those windows, you could see the sky outside.”
In the bunker world, there were only walls everywhere.
Pei Ran stood by the window, tilting her head to look up at the small patch of gray sky visible between the buildings.
She actually had a home now.
A home that belonged to her alone, with windows, where she could see the sky outside.
She opened the virtual screen on her bracelet, searched through the remnants of her memories, logged into the original owner’s account, and reviewed her financial situation.
The bad news was that she had lost her job today and had no income for the time being. The good news was that she owned the apartment outright, and the original owner had saved up a considerable amount of money, so she didn’t have to worry about survival in the short term.
This was a very nice apartment.
The apartment was a bit cold, cold enough to see her breath. Thick heating pipes ran through it, but unfortunately, no warmth came from the vents.
The bathroom was fully equipped, and there was a neat, comfortable bed with a thick yet lightweight quilt.
On the nightstand sat a crystal trophy, a first-place award from a robotics modification competition. It was covered in dust, and based on the timing, it must have been an award the original owner won during university. In the corner stood a punching bag for boxing practice and a set of dumbbells, which weren’t dusty, suggesting the original owner had a habit of exercising.
In the kitchen, the fridge was almost empty, with only a few bottles of water. It seemed the original owner wasn’t fond of cooking, but there was a cabinet dedicated to snacks.
Among them, the most abundant were large bags of potato chips.
Pei Ran stared blankly at the snack cabinet.
In the bunker world, food was the most precious resource, measured meticulously down to the last crumb. In her entire life, she had never had access to so many resources all at once.
She pulled out a bag of potato chips, flipped it over, and carefully examined the ingredient list.
This lightweight bag contained a whopping 800 calories!
800 calories!
A precious 800-calorie bomb.
She remembered one time when she was out collecting supplies on the surface and got trapped in a cave due to an accident. She survived for four days on the remaining 700-800 calories of food she had on her before finally escaping.
And now, this bag of 800-calorie deliciousness wasn’t coarse black bread but the legendary combination of oil and sugar!
Oil and sugar! A calorie explosion!!! Heavenly deliciousness!!!
Pei Ran took off her coat and shoes, silently hugged the bag of chips, and threw herself onto the bed, burying her face in the soft pillow.
This time travel was too good, so good it felt like winning the lottery.
After lying there for a while, Pei Ran rolled over, opened her bracelet, and moved the virtual screen to hover in front of her, continuing to explore its features.
In the settings, the battery level actually displayed—“31.4 years.”
Pei Ran was worried that the bracelet might be broken, and the battery would run out before she could finish using it.
She continued scrolling and her gaze stopped on a memo left by the original owner.
Under today’s date, several lines were written. They weren’t today’s to-do list, which was a bit strange:
【Missing you】
【Blood freezing】
【Soul stiffening】
【Billions of years later, if someone pries open my petrified teeth】
【They will see on my tongue】
【Your name, solidified.】
Pei Ran paused: Is this… poetry?
Thinking so desperately, was the original owner in love?
Next to the poem was a red dot indicating a note. Pei Ran tapped it, and inside it read:
【I miss you so much, my heating!! Please, please remember to report the heating for repair after work!!!!】 followed by a municipal hotline number.
Pei Ran: “….”