The security guards’ combat ability was poor, because they were never the real combat force to begin with.
But they’d received training: when the real combat force appeared, don’t look. Lest terrorists or illegal intruders detect it through their eyes.
So that group of security guards only stared at “Moli,” even talking to distract his attention.
The drone flew using an anti-gravity device, slowly approaching without a single sound. Even with keen hearing like Moli’s, it was hard to detect.
A laser shot down.
The system already had all of “Moli’s” physiological parameters. Uncle Jiang precisely controlled the intensity. One laser was enough to incapacitate the powerful beast-person.
Far stronger than the laser guns in the security guards’ hands.
The moment “Moli” fell, the security guards rushed up, raising their batons high, wanting to teach this beast-person kid a lesson.
At least break a few bones to vent their anger.
But a voice from the speaker stopped them: “Stop.”
“Don’t touch him.”
“Send him to me.”
The security guards didn’t know who was on the speaker.
They were just security guards at this data collection center. They had no idea who the consortium boss above the medical group was, or what they were called.
They only knew the person speaking through the speaker must be someone with high authority.
They could only lower their batons and obey the superior’s instructions.
Lucky for this beast-person kid.
Before “Moli” lost consciousness, he vaguely seemed to hear Jiang Cheng’s voice.
It must be an illusion.
Where was Jiang Cheng? Was she in danger?
She was such a beautiful girl.
There were too many bad people in the world. Those rich people, because they had money, could do whatever they wanted to them.
He had to go save her.
…
Even though Jiang Cheng’s ship was equipped with the world’s most advanced engine, it still took two weeks to reach the family’s home star.
Of course, it was also a private planet.
Poor people couldn’t afford a single ticket to leave the place they were born in their entire lives. The wealthy owned their own planets.
The Jiang family mansion was as luxurious as a palace.
There were male servants in black uniforms, and female servants in white aprons.
Jiang Cheng had lived in this mansion since birth, watching these uniformed people surround her.
Before, her perception of them had always been as existences like game proxy NPCs.
Now, as her gaze swept over these people, she felt differently.
Every person was a living human being.
Here they were domestic staff in the mansion, but when they went on leave, took off their uniforms, and returned to their own homes, they had their own lives too.
Such a simple thing—why had she never been able to perceive it before?
There was always the illusion that the uniforms were welded onto their bodies. Always the illusion that they were forever at their posts, ready at any moment to serve her.
No, actually it was just a job. Actually it was just going to work.
No one’s life existed for her sake.
Her shoes stepped on the mirror-like floor, ringing with force.
Through the long corridor, arriving before a great door.
Uncle Jiang still wanted to follow in. Jiang Cheng said: “I want to speak with her alone.”
Uncle Jiang looked sullen.
The child he’d raised single-handedly had grown up and no longer close to him.
Jiang Cheng walked in alone.
A giant circular hall.
The top was transparent. Sunlight shone straight down.
Inside a “glass” dome half a meter thick, beautiful colorful clouds and mist slowly permeated.
This transparent “glass” was actually specially treated steel, able to guarantee the quantum cloud wouldn’t dissipate.
The transparent dome on the back of Uncle Jiang’s head was made of this material.
This dome was very large. Jiang Cheng was two meters ten in height—tall even among crowds—and still had to look up.
But compared to the one at the capital star’s Capitol Hill, it was much smaller.
Jiang Cheng had visited the one at the capital star’s Capitol Hill. It really was very large.
There were three quantum computers in this world, all in the Jita Republic.
The largest was at the capital star’s Capitol Hill—the national mastermind, controlling data across the nation’s countless star domains. From national decisions and planetary weapons down to street trash bins and household utility bills, all controlled by her.
By comparison, the Jiang family’s was much smaller. It only controlled the data of one Jiang family consortium.
Of course, the smallest was Uncle Jiang—a tiny lump, wearing a human-shaped shell, constantly accompanying Jiang Cheng.
Uncle Jiang was actually a small clone separated from the family mastermind, convenient for the family’s leader to communicate with the family mastermind at any time.
He shared all data with the family mastermind, yet insisted he was an independent life form.
Quantum clouds were a life form completely different from humans. You could only take his word for it.
Quantum clouds weren’t manufactured by humans—they were collected.
In the era of interstellar great voyages, humanity wandered the universe. The branch of humanity Jiang Cheng belonged to had to hide in an unknown nebula to avoid an electromagnetic storm. Somewhere in that nebula gathered high-density microparticles.
Humans collected those particles and activated them into a quantum cloud.
Jiang Cheng’s ancestor, after achieving financial freedom through spatial technology patents, joined a scientific exploration team and spent over seventy years exploring before returning to the Jita Republic.
In the process, she traced the routes the colonization fleet had taken a thousand years earlier and successfully collected those microparticles.
The Jiang family thus possessed its own family mastermind.
The colorful clouds permeating inside this “glass” dome were the world’s second-largest quantum cloud—the Jiang family’s family mastermind.
At this moment, she surged and roiled, producing sound through a synthesizer: “Jiang Cheng, long time no see.”
“You control all the family’s systems, every camera, and you share data with Uncle Jiang. You can watch me at every moment.” Jiang Cheng said. “Where’s the ‘long time no see’?”
The mastermind sighed: “I should say, it’s been a long time since you came to see me.”
That couldn’t be helped. Any power holder was inevitably hostile toward an existence that could threaten their power, could even strip them of their power.
When Jiang Cheng went from merely “serving” as the family’s executor to truly grasping the family’s power, she could no longer view this beautiful cloud mist the way she had in childhood.
This was the blade above her head.
Before her, two consecutive executors had been dismissed in their prime.
When she was little, the last dismissed executor’s child had even attempted to assassinate her.
That “child” was over fifty.
Honestly, because many in the family would freeze embryos, it was hard to say when anyone would be incubated. This caused extremely chaotic kinship relations—the young could be senior in rank, the old could be junior.
But considering lifespans were quite long, an executor who made no mistakes could control the family for over a hundred years.
Because the time was so long, when an executor held the family’s power and wealth, it often made their children develop the illusion that the power and wealth belonged to this parent, and should next be inherited by themselves.
But unfortunately, the Jiang family’s wealth inheritance didn’t work that way.
The Jiang family had no legitimate-branch/illegitimate-branch relationships like ancient Earth.
Great-Grandmother bound wealth only to the surname. This might also be because she had many children not surnamed Jiang. After thinking it over, she bound wealth to the surname.
All children surnamed Jiang were Jiang family members, all supported by the Jiang family, living affluent lives from birth.
The executor managed this whole operation.
But the “executor” position couldn’t be inherited by one’s own children. Great-Grandmother gave both the selection power and supervisory power to the family mastermind.
This was something other families couldn’t do, because in the entire world, only the Jiang family could keep a quantum cloud at home as family mastermind.
Other wealthy families still divided into legitimate and illegitimate branches. The illegitimate branches gradually got separated out.
And the Jiang family had no such situation.
Of course, that dismissed executor’s child’s assassination attempt against her couldn’t possibly succeed.
The family mastermind controlled all the family’s data—all fund movements, personnel allocations.
From the moment he spoke his assassination plan in his head to others, it was captured by the family mastermind.
“So, how laughable.” Jiang Cheng sneered. “The mere Tanaka family actually managed to injure me on our own turf while I was inspecting the medical group. The height of absurdity.”
So you really couldn’t blame Jiang Cheng for her attitude toward Uncle Jiang after waking up.
The mastermind admitted: “Yes. I pushed and facilitated this from behind the scenes.”
Jiang Cheng’s eyes were cold: “What am I in your eyes? A pawn to be discarded at will? If I die, you just pick another from the family, or select another good gene from the embryo bank to incubate, and cultivate the next executor—is that it?”
“My calculations don’t err, so you won’t die.” The mastermind said. “And you’re wrong.”
“Jiang Cheng, it’s precisely because you’re so important to me that I orchestrated all of this.”
These explanations couldn’t soothe Jiang Cheng.
She said: “Forget it. Let Great-Grandmother come out and speak with me.”
“What Uncle Jiang, what Sister Mao—hinting back and forth—wasn’t it just to make me discover that all of this was connected to Great-Grandmother?”
The flashing cloud mist surged and shifted, condensing into a woman’s face.
Looking closely, Jiang Cheng bore a fair resemblance to this face.
That enormous face opened its eyes and also switched to a different voice—
“Jiang Cheng, hello.”
“I am the consciousness replica of Jiang Miao, founder of the Jiang family and your heavenly ancestor.”
“I possess all of Jiang Miao’s memories, cognition, and thought processes. You may treat conversation with me as equivalent to direct conversation with Jiang Miao.”
Jiang Cheng: “Oh, Great-Grandmother.”
The “Uncle Jiang” and “Sister Mao” in the world were all Uncle Jiang and the mastermind playing ghosts and gods.
Jiang-Mao, Jiang-Mao—the moment Jiang Cheng woke up, she’d understood it was hinting at “Jiang Miao.”
Jiang Cheng’s sixth-generation ancestor, founder of the Jiang family, Jiang Miao, had before death copied and uploaded her consciousness to the quantum cloud.
When Jiang Cheng was little, she’d loved coming to chat with this great-grandmother.
Until one day she suddenly realized that chatting with a dead person’s consciousness replica was equivalent to chatting with a ghost.
She stopped calling for Great-Grandmother after that.
This time it really was “long time no see.”
Jiang Cheng’s first question: “Great-Grandmother, were you a transmigrator?”
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