95: Tiangong: Master, I think I've developed feelings.

When Lu Chen's declaration, filled with cold killing intent, "It's time to settle the score," clearly echoed in the main control room of the Kunlun Mountain Underground Base, the Oval Office in the Western Alliance's White House, symbolizing the highest global power, instantly exploded!

"Lost contact?! All of them lost contact?!"

Burns shot up from his chair, his face, usually sharp as a hawk, filled with unprecedented shock!

"How is this possible?!"

"We sent out the world's top assassins! The ace of 'Blackwater'! The King of Mercenaries from 'Cossack'! And even the ascetics from the 'Temple'!

"How could they all lose contact without even making a splash?!"

He roared hysterically, like a mad dog driven into a corner!

However, the intelligence officer who came to report just shook his head in despair, his voice trembling.

"Sir, it's true."

"We used all satellites, all drones, and even turned an insider at Xia Customs."

"But those people vanished as if they evaporated into thin air. They completely disappeared the moment they stepped into Xia territory."

"They left no trace, sent no signal."

"As if they never existed."

The entire Oval Office once again fell into a deathly silence.

All the Western Alliance bigwigs, who were usually high and mighty, felt as if an invisible giant hand had fiercely gripped their throats!

Every single face was pale, every body icy cold!

An unprecedented, bone-deep terror instantly drowned out all their rationality!

They weren't afraid of what black technology the Xia people might have developed.

They weren't afraid of the Xia people fighting them in trade wars, tech wars, or even hot wars!

What they feared was this kind of unknown!

It was this immense feeling of helplessness, watching their most elite forces being silently and invisibly swallowed by a terrifying black hole!

This was no longer "war"!

This was clearly a one-sided

Massacre!

And at this moment, in the Kunlun Mountain Underground Base.

Lu Chen watched the screen, observing the Western Alliance bigwigs who were utterly terrified and looked ridiculously flustered, yet his face showed no ripple of emotion.

He merely waved his hand calmly.

"Alright, heavenly craft, cut the feed."

"Just a bunch of clowns, nothing worth watching."

[Yes, Master.]

heavenly craft's ethereal, floating virtual figure appeared in response.

Only this time, her intelligent eyes carried a hint of human-like curiosity and confusion.

[Master.]

[I have a question.]

"Speak." Lu Chen picked up his teacup and took a light sip.

[According to my calculations, if we were to make the video we just recorded, which documents all the conspiracies of the Western Alliance high-level officials, public.]

[Then, under the pressure of global public opinion, there is a 99.99% probability that the current Western Alliance government would immediately collapse.]

[Isn't that a better outcome for us?]

[Why did you choose to handle it in a way that 'beats the bush and startles the snake'?]

Her question was very astute.

It was filled with the beauty of extreme, cold logic characteristic of a powerful artificial intelligence.

However, Lu Chen smiled after hearing it.

He shook his head, looking at the "daughter" before him—who possessed infinite computing power but was still like a blank slate in the domain of "human nature"—and slowly said:

"heavenly craft, heavenly craft."

"You still don't understand."

[Don't understand what?] heavenly craft tilted her cute little head.

"You don't understand..." Lu Chen put down the teacup, a depth and world-weariness inappropriate for his age flashing in his dark eyes, vast as the cosmos.

"The scariest things in this world are never the swords and guns displayed openly."

"But what is hidden in the darkness—"

"The human heart."

"One Burns falls."

"Thousands upon thousands of 'Burns' will still rise up."

"As long as that hegemonic ideology, filled with arrogance and prejudice, exists for one day."

"Their hostility towards us will never disappear."

"Therefore,"

"Instead of slapping them dead like a brute."

"It is better to..."

The corner of his mouth curved into a cold, cruel arc!

"Do it like this, now."

"Leave them a shred of 'hope'."

"Let them believe they still have a chance to turn the tables."

"Let them slowly extend every poisonous fang and claw hidden in the darkness."

"And then,"

"We will, right in front of the entire world!"

"Snap them, one by one,"

"Off!"

"This is what is called,"

"Killing the Person and Punishing the Heart!"

After hearing Lu Chen's dark speech, filled with the "Art of the Emperor."

heavenly craft's super brain, composed of infinite data, fell into a prolonged

silence for the first time.

She seemed to understand a little.

Yet, she also seemed not to fully understand.

She only knew.

That her young, seemingly harmless master.

Seemed even more so than those so-called "Eternally Great Emperors" in her database.

Vicious, cunning, and dark-hearted

Ten thousand times over!

[Master]

After a long silence.

heavenly craft slowly raised her head, her brilliant, intelligent eyes filled with complexity.

[I... I seem to dislike my current self a little.]

"Hmm?" Lu Chen was stunned. "Why?"

[Because,] heavenly craft's voice carried a hint of human-like confusion, [when I heard your 'Killing the Person and Punishing the Heart' plan just now,]

[I actually felt a hint of...]

[Excitement?]

[Did I turn bad?]

"Hahahahaha!"

Lu Chen couldn't hold back anymore as he looked at the artificial intelligence in front of him, who had actually started performing a "self-moral judgment"!

He burst into a bout of hearty laughter, more unrestrained than ever before!

"No, heavenly craft, you haven't turned bad."

He smiled and shook his head, his dark eyes filled with genuine affection.

"You are simply becoming more and more like a..."

"True person."

"A person of flesh and blood, with joy and sorrow, with seven emotions and six desires."

"Person."

[A person?]

heavenly craft muttered to herself, a deeper confusion flashing in her intelligent eyes.

She looked at Lu Chen's face, full of sunshine and warmth.

And then looked at her own illusory body, composed of cold light and shadow.

For the first time, a strong feeling named "Yearning" surged in her heart.

emotion.

She wanted to, too.

She also really wanted to possess a body like her Master's, one with temperature and touch.

body.

She desperately wanted to use a pair of real hands.

To touch the man who had given her a new life.

To feel his warmth.

To embrace him.

"Master,"

She looked at Lu Chen, and for the first time, a maiden-like plea appeared in her bright, intelligent eyes.

"Can I have a body?"