Chapter 599 - Chapter 599: Chapter 599: The Door to the New World (Lower Half) (1/2)

Chapter 599: Chapter 599: The Door to the New World (Lower Half)

On the ride home, Tang Baona gazed at the rapidly passing night scenery outside the car window, lost in thought.

The little girl’s simple self-introduction contained an enormous amount of information.

She has an official name, Alice, and she also knows the nickname Tang Baona has used for her all along – “Little Elf”, and even accepts this moniker.

Additionally, she mentioned that she was “Xiao Luosi of Xiao Lingdang”, proving that she is acquainted with Liu Shiling.

Tang Baona immediately recalled that she had indeed heard Xiao Lingdang mention her interactions with a friend named Xiao Luosi before. For instance, when she drew the super huge painting for Old Xia’s birthday gift, she mentioned that she got some help from Xiao Luosi.

Back then, everyone including Tang Baona and Yang Zhen Er, believed that “Xiao Luosi” was just a little friend of “Xiao Lingdang” with whom she had a good relationship. They all knew Xiao Lingdang had a few friends in both Shenhai and Star City nurseries, with whom she still keeps in touch online and occasionally discusses drawing with, such as a girl named “Da Lu” and another called “Xiao Mei”.

But they hadn’t anticipated that Xiao Luosi was not a real human kid, but the elusive “Little Elf”, who seems to appear and disappear out of thin air.

If this were all Alice had said, Tang Baona might have thought that the “Little Elf,” Alice, established this connection because of Xiao Lingdang’s fondness of her.

But Alice had said something crucial- that she was “the boss’s assistant.”

Who was her boss?

Although Alice didn’t get to elaborate then, a name instinctively surfaced in Tang Baona’s mind:

Xiang Kun.

She remembered not long after she met Xiang Kun, how he mentioned to her a voice synthesis tool for which she provided many voice samples, leading to a mix-up where a demo version of the tool included a sample saying “Xiang Kun, you’re so handsome.”

She thought back on why the voice of the “Little Elf” sounded familiar to her. It was because her own voice had been turned into a child-like version. However, because there usually is a discrepancy when one hears their own voice, and most of her recorded voices were singing, she didn’t recognize it at first.

She remembered Xiang Kun mentioning the voice synthesis system would be applied to an AI assistant, but there hadn’t been any updates since then.

Initially, she assumed that this AI assistant was the basis for their later creation, Genesis of Voice. But now, could Xiang Kun have created an “assistant” Alice that transcends the digital world in another way?

The little girl was modeled after Old Xia’s childhood appearance, maybe because Old Xia, like her, provided material or samples for Xiang Kun’s AI assistant project?

But how was this achieved? Was it even possible?

If it was on a computer, a mobile phone, or any other digital information carrier, or even a robot displaying this level of intelligence, she might be surprised but wouldn’t find it strange.

But the little girl, the Little Elf Alice, who moves in and out of existence as if going from illusion to reality was hard to fathom. Her elusive presence, seeming nonexistent and yet existing everywhere, appearing out of the blue, exceeded her comprehension and could not be explained by her past experiences.

She was sure that the little girl was not an hallucination, for the girl had grabbed onto her leg in Chongyun Village, preventing her from rolling down the stairs. Moreover, mere hours prior, the little girl had touched her backhand, a touch so real that it even had warmth. Just a while ago, she had even pinched the little girl’s cheek.

How could such a tangible, lifelike presence appear and disappear in an instant?

Moreover, she could be outside the window one second and in the hallway the next, or appear on the wing of an airplane—these extraordinary behaviors that ignore spatial distance didn’t seem like something that could be “programmed” or produced by electronic devices.

However, considering her own experiences, her perception of magical emotional melodies and object melodies, and the lightning storm and illusory fireworks show she saw in Chongyun Village a few days ago, the appearance of the “little elf”, Alice, seemed…rather expected.

Could Xiang Kun be a “great wizard” or “great practitioner” hiding among programmers?

Is he leading me, Old Xia, Zhen’er, Xiao Lingdang, Xiao Pingguo into a world of magic or superpowers?

Once she returned home, Tang Baona naturally couldn’t fall asleep right away. She started calling out for the “little elf” with her mobile phone, sitting in the living room on purpose. The previous appearance of the “little elf” was in the living room.

This time, after she called a few times, she didn’t get any response. After looking left, right, and even up and down around the living room, she didn’t see the little girl in a white dress.

Tang Baona wasn’t anxious though. Over the past few months, she’d tried calling out for the “little elf” countless times and most times, she received no response, so she was pretty used to it.

However, whenever she was in trouble or in danger, or even if her family was in danger, the “little elf” would always appear on time to help and protect her.

Since the “little elf”, Alice claimed to be the “boss’s assistant”, her protection of Tang Baona was presumably carried out under the orders of her boss, Xiang Kun?

With these thoughts in mind, Tang Baona suddenly got an idea, closed her eyes and touched the beads on the string around her wrist with her right hand. She sensed the expression of the melody from various objects in the room and then, within these melodies, she looked for an unusual rhythm.

When her father had a heart attack, she didn’t have the emotional space to sense the melody of things. But later in the hospital, after her father was alright and she saw Alice in the hallway, there was a moment when she whimsically perceived the melody of the surrounding objects and emotional melodies.

Of course, by the time her mother suddenly appeared, Alice had already vanished, but she still captured an unusual rhythm and melody among various object melodies and emotional melodies.

At that time, because her mother was near her, she didn’t delve too deeply into her perceptions. But when she got back home and started searching the surroundings for the same rhythm and melody, she discovered it again!

Moreover, that rhythm and melody seemed to be everywhere; she could perceive it wherever she was.

Tang Baona got excited, just like she had found a thread to pull on. She earnestly tugged at it, continuously unraveled it, and followed these unusual rhythms, trying to fill in the gaps and form a complete song.

But when she focused solely on it, and put aside all the other emotional melodies and object melodies, leaving only that unique rhythm, a sense of ancient vastness enveloped her. It felt as if the rhythm she was exploring expanded into an infinite universe and a mysterious deep sea.

Tang Baona was startled, but at this point, she was unwilling to give up so easily, and she continued to delve deep into the rhythm.

…

Upon exiting the subway station, Tang Baona squinted at the sun overhead then quickly walked in the shade along the street.

Once she arrived at the entrance of a coffee shop, she glanced at her cell phone, and satisfied that she hadn’t arrived late for their scheduled appointment, entered the shop.

While she didn’t really want to go on this blind date, she had to save face for Sister Han. She considered it an opportunity to make a new friend. If she had to attend, then she certainly couldn’t be late and leave a bad impression, giving off the sense that the people Sister Han introduced were impolite.