"Ascended parents"

"Gemini is amazing."

"The metaverse is amazing."

The boy's expression faded, he was silent for a moment, and then moisture suddenly welled up in his eyes.

He mechanically ate the chocolate cake in his hand, bite by bite.

"But what I don't understand the most is."

"The moment when the Gemini Brain ascended."

"All the employees inside the Gemini Building."

"They also disappeared."

"Were they taken away by the Gemini Brain?"

"Transformed into data?"

"Or became gods?"

"But."

"Why were my parents, accurately speaking, my foster parents, key technical members of the Gemini Brain?"

"They... disappeared too!"

"And then I became an orphan, ending up in an orphanage in Rust City?"

The boy said, his heart interwoven with sadness and loneliness.

His arm trembled slightly, and crumbs of chocolate cake fell on the nutrition capsule.

The nanny robot immediately recognized it and sprayed cleaner, then flipped out a sponge brush and started scrubbing furiously, as if with obsessive cleanliness, madly wiping.

The boy lowered his head.

Seeing that the nutrition capsule became shiny and new in an instant.

He chuckled bitterly, blinked to dissipate the tears, "It's wiped so clean, leaving nothing behind!"

The next moment.

The boy adjusted his mood, "But it's also good, maybe my parents have become a higher form of life, watching over me from above."

Then he looked up.

But saw that this high-end residence had a two-story structure, and from this bedroom's glass curtain wall, one could see through the hall to a bedroom on the second floor.

There was a nutrition capsule placed vertically.

An elderly man was sleeping inside.

The old man had silver hair, wrinkled skin, and was as thin as a rail, covered in age spots.

Even with the high-tech of a nutrition capsule, it could at best delay aging, not achieve immortality.

The boy glanced at the boy in the nutrition capsule below, "You have a family... Is that your grandfather? Or your dad? Quite affectionate, always facing you?"

"Mm... it should be your dad."

"The method of having children in the metaverse..."

"The nutrition capsule directly extracts the genetic material from a man and woman, and the baby is cultivated through a test tube."

"Everything is operated by nanny robots."

"When the baby develops to 3 months old in the incubator and the neural network is formed, they will directly enter the nutrition capsule."

"Their consciousness appears in the metaverse, taking the form of a baby, and the parents take over, raising them in the metaverse as a family of three, growing up happily."

"In this era, no matter how old, one can happily become a dad."

"In plain terms, it's having a conscious entity, and the physical body is discarded."

Qin Yiguan stared at the face of the 'ninth brother' in the capsule, "Looking at your clean appearance, you're probably born in the nutrition capsule and grew up in it, have you never woken up?"

"Looking at your worried and sad face."

"You must have been abused in the metaverse?"

"Here, let me draw you a smile."

As he spoke, Qin Yiguan dipped some chocolate sauce and drew a grinning smile on the guy through the glass cover.

But in less than a second.

The nanny robot twitched, and the smile was instantly erased.

Qin Yiguan's smile gradually faded.

The face of 'ninth brother' in the nutrition capsule became clear again. He was closing his eyes, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, his consciousness might have entered the metaverse, but his expression was like he was having a nightmare.

This boy, about the same age as Qin Yiguan, similar in stature, and even a bit similar in appearance.

Qin Yiguan watched him, as if looking at another self.

Once again, he used chocolate sauce to draw a grinning smile on the boy.

The nanny robot erased it again.

Qin Yiguan's expression gradually turned cold, and agitation began to stir within him.

"Why do people always cling to those painful things in life?"

"Why always remember those painful memories?"

"One should smile!"

"Smile for me!"

"Your expression reminds me of a sorrowful past... I'm starting to dislike you a bit!"

Qin Yiguan's low growl echoed in the spacious mansion.

...

Inside the metaverse.

The two figures in black windbreakers, Officer Wang and his deputy, stood quietly under the moonlight.

"Captain."

"We've found all of the girl's remains, 28 pieces, not one more, not one less."

"The forensic expert has already confirmed..."

"Even the method of cutting, the force, and the angle, they're exactly the same as the way the boy simulated it."

Xiao Li swallowed hard, feeling a chill.

Then.

Xiao Li looked at Officer Wang, "Captain, that kid is terrifying, his mastery over the crime technique is too proficient, haven't you ever thought... that one day he might commit a crime himself?"

Officer Wang's expression was calm, "I haven't thought about it."

His deputy Xiao Li was still somewhat uneasy, probing, "Do you have any monitoring measures, like at the very least, informing his parents about this?"

Officer Wang, who had a strong addiction to smoking, lit another cigarette, "His parents... were core technical staff of Gemini."

His deputy Xiao Li was taken aback, "They ascended... oh, to be precise, disappeared along with the advancement of the Gemini Brain?"

Officer Wang pondered for a moment, "Indeed, as rumors say, nearly 5,000 employees disappeared on that day from the Gemini Building."

"But not the parents of Qin Yiguan."

Officer Wang, biting on his cigarette, turned to look at Xiao Li, suddenly said: "But Qin Yiguan's parents were not among them."

At this moment, the young officer's face paled slightly, "Why weren't they?"

Xiao Li felt he was about to hear some terrifying truth.

Officer Wang exhaled a ring of smoke, "12 years ago, back when I used to frequently move in the physical world, on that cool afternoon, I received a report."

"A young couple was found dead in their home."

Xiao Li's pupils shrank, "The Qin family? An unknown murder, and the young Qin Yiguan, who escaped this disaster, became an orphan?"

Officer Wang shook his head, holding the cigarette between his fingers but not putting it to his lips, his gaze slightly narrowed, lost in memory.

"When I entered that room."

"Two bodies were leaning against the corner, the wall behind them covered in blood."

"The man had been stabbed 11 times, the woman 12 times."

"I could tell, the man must have been very gentle, polite, and well-educated in life."

"And the woman was very beautiful, with a demeanor that seemed gentle, attentive, and caring."

"Their house was also very clean, very tidy."

"It should have been a very warm home."

The cigarette in Officer Wang's hand burned down significantly, the ash fell, unnoticed by him.

"There was no trace of the murderer left in the house."

"I didn't disturb the scene, trying to find the murder weapon."

"Then."

"Under the dining table, I found a six-year-old boy."

At this moment, Deputy Xiao Li's eyes widened in shock, "It was Qin Yiguan, so Captain Wang knew him from before!"

Officer Wang acknowledged silently, continuing, "I clearly remember, the child was covered in blood, it was a spray pattern, and in his hands... he was holding a bloody dagger."

"And moreover, his eyes were vacant, and he was actually biting down on a piece of flesh."

Deputy Xiao Li was completely stunned.

"Blood..."

"Dagger..."

"Could it be!"

Xiao Li's eyes were filled with horror, "What's the deal with the flesh in his mouth?"

Officer Wang's pupils also trembled slightly, "At that moment, my mind was also a bit chaotic, I turned back to carefully examine the two bodies, and found that the woman... that is, Qin Yiguan's foster mother, had a piece of flesh precisely torn off from her arm..."

Deputy Xiao Li took a step back in shock, "Wha-what!!!!"