Chapter 1

The noisy morning reading sounds came from the classrooms. "Li Ang," with his hands behind his back like a leader inspecting the troops, strolled leisurely through the corridor.

Class Five, Class Six, Class Seven...

Here it is.

Miss Chai took a deep breath, strode into the classroom, found her seat, and sat down.

Wang Congshan, who was sitting next to her, glanced at her but didn't say anything, continuing to close her eyes and recite her notes loudly.

Didn't notice anything wrong?

Chai Chai breathed a sigh of relief, feeling much more confident. She placed her schoolbag in front of her, unzipped it, and took out her textbooks, notes, and homework.

It must be said that although Li Ang's attitude toward his studies was very improper—sleeping in class and playing with erasers during exams—his textbooks were still neat and clean, and the handwriting in his notes was upright and clear, making them easy to recognize.

Moreover, the night before, Li Ang had also told her some things to pay attention to, such as some abbreviations in the notes. [Zi+] meant capitalism, and so on.

Isn't it just morning reading?

How could it possibly stump the most trusted deputy of the Lord of Flesh and Swamps, the Holy Maiden of the Zerg, the Messiah walking among mortals, the compiler of the *Holy Chai Revelation*, the Diamond gatekeeper of King of Glory, a Alipay Gold member, a one-way cooling mobile air conditioner and body pillow, the master of the doghouse—

Saint·Cuiqiao·Chai?

Miss Chai smiled, opened her notebook, and began to read, "Put the input of high technology as the driving force of economic development! Promote the rapid development of strategic emerging industries and advanced manufacturing! Accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries! It is a major initiative to accelerate the transformation of economic development mode!"

"Your Holiness! Wrong, wrong!"

The Brain Zerg said anxiously, "The others are reading Chinese! You are reading high school politics!"

"Huh?"

Miss Chai's body shook. As Wang Congshan gave her a strange look, she closed the notebook with her right hand, took out a steel water bottle from the left pocket of her schoolbag with her left hand, opened the lid, and took a sip of water.

She turned to look at Wang Congshan, smiled slightly, and said, "I ordered too much takeout last night. I wanted some digestion pills, but I thought they were too dry, so I took some Jin嗓子喉片 (Jin嗓子 throat lozenges).

I'm just testing my voice now."

"Are you a rooster?"

Wang Congshan calmly retorted, not suspecting anything, and turned her head to continue her morning reading.

Phew.

Once again, she passed smoothly.

Chai Chai nodded secretly, inwardly pleased and confident.

No one understands Li Ang better than I do.

——————

"I wonder how Chai Chai is doing..."

Fully armed, Li Ang sat on the living room sofa, turned off the spare phone he was using to browse the forum, and sighed.

The Phase Two assembly notice could arrive at any time, making it inconvenient for him to go out.

He had learned from Mule that the Special Affairs Bureau had gradually connected the newly developed supercomputer to the Tianwang (Skynet) monitoring system.

Once the connection was complete, the monitoring power of the Tianwang monitoring system would be greatly improved, with continuous 24/7 monitoring through countless surveillance cameras distributed in cities and even towns.

The previous Tianwang system could lock down an individual's identity information through factors such as hairstyle, eyes, ears, hairstyle, arm length, leg length, and walking gait. Wearing a mask and sunglasses was useless.

With the addition of the supercomputer, it could even connect the information collected by the surveillance cameras to the citizen database in real time.

It could accurately lock down everyone exposed to the surveillance cameras, find personal information, know what they were doing at that moment, what means of transportation they were using, where they came from, where they were going, which streets they passed, and what goods they purchased...

It could even predict potential, yet-to-be-committed violent crimes based on big data calculations.

The amount of data involved was astronomical, and the extremely mature artificial intelligence technology used was beyond the scope of this era.

According to Mule and some intelligence organizations' guesses, the Special Affairs Bureau probably used some kind of near-future technology brought out from the Slaughterhouse game, which was the only way to explain it.

For ordinary people, the launch of the enhanced Tianwang undoubtedly made urban life safer.

Some potential criminals might have only bought a kitchen knife in a street shop.

However, due to the grimace on their face at the time, the emotional fluctuations shown in their walking gait, the hate speech they had previously published online, and the record of being accused of domestic violence,

they would be marked as key monitoring targets by the police who had already noticed them,

and before they could commit a crime, agents would be sent to arrest them.

The act of preventing crimes in advance has caused quite a stir abroad, with some foreign media portraying this behavior as an infringement on the freedom and rights of the people, shouting "thebigbrotheriswatchingyou!"

They severely condemned the Tianwang system.

As for the people of the East...

Apart from a few public intellectuals whose brains and butts were twisted,

the vast majority of ordinary people still hoped to see the upgraded Tianwang system go online—this would not only help the Special Affairs Bureau deal with abnormal events, but also greatly reduce the crime rate, making cities and towns safer.

As for the freedom that foreign media talked about?

When have tech companies such as Facebook and Apple, or even the Pentagon, stopped secretly collecting user information?

Such slogans are just for show. Even the foreigners themselves don't believe them.

However, for players, the Tianwang system is a bit tricky. Surveillance cameras lock down personal information based on appearance, which means that the usual disguise methods no longer work—

disguising oneself as another real person will be directly detected by Tianwang,

disguising oneself as a non-existent person will also make Tianwang highly vigilant.

Very, very troublesome.

He couldn't just replace all the neighbors in the surrounding community with Mimic Worms like in science fiction horror novels, right?

Li Ang wasn't some kind of demon.

If the entire community was replaced, who would make him roasted cold noodles? Who would make him lemon chicken feet? Who would make him chive boxes?

Nutrition must be guaranteed.

"Chai Chai is, after all, the daughter of a wealthy family, and she has studied for a few years. Plus, she has the Brain Zerg to assist her, so there shouldn't be any problems..."

Li Ang comforted himself and placed his phone on the coffee table.

[The Door Grabbing War Phase Two has officially begun. The competition rules can be found in the notification bar of your personal panel.]

[Participation application approved]

[Searching for opponent successful]

[Countdown to entering the Territory Corridor: 3 minutes. Please prepare for battle.]

The system prompt sounded abruptly in his ears. Li Ang, wearing the Mirage Dragon Red Mane overcoat, straightened his expression and stood up from the sofa. "So fast?"

The three minutes passed quickly. Li Ang left a note on the coffee table and, through the psionic link, issued instructions to the Zerg hive units flying in the high sky above Yin City, asking them to remind Chai Chai when he was about to start the match, and to adapt to any situation.