The night was deep and still.
Inside the small apartment, only the dull hum of the old refrigerator’s compressor occasionally starting up and the muffled, heavy coughing from the inner room broke the silence.
Bronya had fallen asleep on the simple cot in the corner, her breathing light and even, gray hair spread across the pillow, still clutching the secondhand data editing device in her arms.
Baida’s consciousness extended from the USB drive’s “warm harbor” like invisible tendrils, sensing the silence and weight of this home.
She “saw” the pile of dishes in the kitchen sink, still with food residue, the hardened grease stains on the stove, and the scattered dust in the corners.
Marta’s health was getting worse.
The frequency and depth of her coughing were increasing.
And Bronya, that precocious child, besides delving into her hacking skills, had also started trying to share the housework.
But she was still young, and those cold digital worlds clearly held more appeal than greasy dishes.
A mix of pity and a sense of responsibility surged through Baida’s data stream.
She was now part of this household, an invisible member.
She enjoyed the “shelter” Marta unknowingly provided, and felt Bronya’s silent yet determined growth.
She couldn’t just watch.
“I have to do something,” Baida told herself in her consciousness.
“Physical cleaning.
Marta needs rest.
Bronya…
she’s still young.
And I have [Quantumization].”
When she had chosen it, this talent was meant as a supplement to [Mechanical Ascension], allowing her to better survive in the gap between networks and reality.
But now, it might become a tool to help this family.
When the neon lights outside cast blurry, distorted patches through the gaps in the curtains, and the clock’s hands silently crossed midnight, Baida moved.
She focused her mind, driving the data energy stored in the USB drive and spread throughout the home’s local network.
This was far more difficult than building the “warm harbor” in a purely virtual world, because it required interfering with reality.
Tiny points of light, like summoned fireflies, slowly seeped from the gaps in the old TV screen in the living room, from the computer case’s ventilation holes, even from the interface where the USB drive was plugged in, gathering in the cold air.
The process was not easy.
Baida felt like her consciousness was pulling heavy glue.
The points of light struggled to outline and fill, eventually managing to form an extremely blurry, semi-transparent humanoid silhouette in the center of the kitchen, as if it could dissipate at any moment.
No clear face, no specific clothing—just a human-shaped light and shadow barely held together by faint light and data streams.
This was Baida’s “quantum avatar” in this moment.
“D…
did it work?” Baida (the quantum avatar) “looked down” at her own illusory, frosted-glass-like “hands.” A strange feeling welled up inside her.
This was different from the steel body of piloting a mech, and different from the formless drifting in the data world.
This was a more direct, more fragile touch upon the physical world.
She tried to move.
The light and shadow swayed, like a reflection in water.
Carefully, she “drifted” to the sink and reached out her light-formed hand, trying to turn on the faucet.
“Whoosh—”
The sound of water flowing was especially clear in the silent night.
Baida was startled, her quantum avatar wavering and nearly collapsing.
She quickly steadied herself, repeating in her mind: “Stay calm, Baida.
You’re a quantum cleaning lady now!”
She controlled the water flow, letting her illusory hand pass through the piled dishes.
The sensation was very peculiar.
Her “hand” wasn’t corporeal, but it could interact with matter at the quantum level, guiding the water flow to simulate the effects of “scrubbing” and “rinsing.” Water droplets seemed pulled by an invisible force, efficiently washing away grease.
This was far more exhausting than washing by hand, requiring constant consumption of her mental energy and power.
“Heave-ho…
heave-ho…
this plate is a bit sticky…
need more force…” Baida narrated to herself in her mind as she worked, trying to dispel the surreal feeling of doing quantum cleaning alone late at night.
“Wipe left, rinse right…
one down!”
After washing the dishes, she moved to the stove.
Using the same method, she “guided” the dishcloth—actually controlling the water molecules and microscopic particles attached to it—to wipe away grease.
During the process, she lost control of her force for a moment, and an empty spice bottle was “bumped” by her quantum avatar, rolling off the edge of the counter.
Almost instinctively, the quantum avatar’s arm suddenly extended a fainter halo, catching the bottle just before it hit the ground, then gently placing it back in its original spot.
The whole process was nearly silent, only the faint sound of the bottle touching the counter, and Baida’s intensifying energy fluctuations from the tension.
But it was exactly this faint sound, in the deep silence, that was like a stone thrown into a calm lake.
In the inner room, Marta’s coughing stopped abruptly.
Then came the rustling of fabric, and a suppressed, alert intake of breath.
Baida’s quantum avatar froze instantly, its light flickering violently, revealing her inner panic.
“Uh oh!”
She “heard” Marta fumbling under her pillow for something—the distinctive sound of metal rubbing, Baida could “sense” it even through the door—it was that old handgun!
Footsteps, very light, but carrying a sense of resolve, approached the kitchen.
Baida was terrified out of her wits (if data consciousness could have wits).
She instantly dispersed her quantum avatar!
The condensed light and shadow, like a burst soap bubble, suddenly collapsed into countless tiny points of light, then rapidly dissolved into the air.
Her main consciousness, like a startled rabbit, followed the pre-sensed data path and zipped back into the USB drive, while also sending a strand of consciousness, in panic, into the nearest device that was in standby mode—the old TV flickering with static in the living room!
The very next moment after her consciousness dove into the TV’s electron gun circuit, the kitchen door was gently pushed open a crack.
Marta held the gun, her finger firmly outside the trigger guard, her face pale and tense.
Cautiously, she poked her head out, her sharp gaze sweeping the kitchen.
The pile of dishes in the sink was now clean, neatly drained on the rack.
The stove was spotless, and even the spice bottle that had almost fallen was sitting steadily in the corner.
Everything was orderly, as if it had just been carefully cleaned.
But in the air lingered an extremely faint, abnormal energy fluctuation, like the aftermath of static electricity with a hint of warmth.
And the kitchen was too clean, completely different from how it had been when she went to sleep hours ago.
Marta didn’t relax her guard.
She gripped the gun tightly and stepped into the kitchen, checking the windows—they were closed—and the door lock—it was intact.
No signs of forced entry.
“Strange…” she murmured, frowning.
“Was it the wind?
Or am I getting delirious from sickness?” She walked to the sink and touched the dishes with her hand.
They were cold and clean.
That residual abnormal energy made her uneasy.
This wasn’t something an ordinary thief or neighbor could do.
She put away the gun, but her doubts remained.
She turned and instinctively walked toward Bronya’s room, wanting to check on her daughter.
At that moment, hiding in the old TV’s circuits, Baida was “watching” Marta’s actions through the static snow on the screen, too scared to “breathe” (even though she didn’t need to breathe).
“That was close!
Almost got caught red-handed!” Baida felt a lingering fear.
“Looks like quantum cleaning needs to be done at a completely safe time…
or I need to find a way to be more stealthy?”
She saw Marta gently push open Bronya’s door.
Bronya on the bed seemed to be sleeping soundly, her small body curled up, her face buried in the pillow.
Marta walked to the bedside.
The vigilance and doubt in her eyes were replaced by deep tenderness and worry.
She reached out and, with extreme gentleness, tucked Bronya’s blanket, carefully placing her exposed arm back under the covers.
Her movements were full of affection, a stark contrast to the resolve she had shown while holding the gun.
“Sleep well, my child…” Marta murmured in a voice barely audible.
“No matter what happens, Mom will protect you…”
She bent down and left a soft kiss on Bronya’s forehead, then tiptoed out of the room and closed the door.
But this time, she didn’t immediately return to bed.
Instead, she sat on the old sofa in the living room, seeming to be deep in thought, also keeping a vigilant watch.
Inside the TV, Baida watched this scene, a warm sourness flooding her data stream.
So this is what a mother is…
even when she can barely protect herself, she still tries to hold up the sky for her child.
She decided to stay put for now, waiting until Marta relaxed and fell asleep before quietly returning.
But what neither Baida nor Marta knew was… You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
Just before Marta pushed open the door.
On the bed, Bronya’s tightly shut purple eyes had silently opened the moment the faint light from the door crack changed.
No dazed confusion of waking up.
No childlike bewilderment.
In those eyes was only the absolute calm and sharp insight of a top predator.
Bronya had already woken up the moment Baida’s quantum avatar made that faint sound by the sink.
The vigilance honed by long struggles for survival in the lower zones made her extremely sensitive to any abnormality.
She didn’t get up immediately.
She made no sound.
She just lay still, regulating her breathing, pretending to be asleep, and calmly observed everything happening in the kitchen through that thin crack in the door.
She saw that blurry, semi-transparent humanoid silhouette clumsily washing the dishes.
She saw the silhouette’s outline wavering with tension.
She saw the quick and precise rescue of the falling spice bottle.
She also saw the entire process of the silhouette instantly dispersing and disappearing when Marta appeared with the gun.
When Marta came in to tuck her blanket, Bronya flawlessly feigned sleep, not even a twitch of her eyelids.
It was only after her adoptive mother left, closed the door, and the faint creak of the sofa from the living room indicated Marta was sitting watch, that she moved.
Bronya still lay still, her purple eyes gleaming with thoughtful light in the darkness.
She wasn’t afraid.
Fear, in the world of scrapyards and the underground network, was a luxury and a fatal weakness.
She only felt analysis and curiosity.
What was that light?
A data lifeform?
An energy body?
Or some new type of mimicry robot?
It seemed to be…
helping with housework?
It had no ill intent?
Or was it after something else?
Where did it disappear to in the end…
the old TV in the living room?
Or…
that ordinary USB drive plugged into the computer, the one her mother had brought back?
Countless possibilities flashed through Bronya’s mind at high speed.
She recalled the recent unusual smoothness of the computer, the inexplicable and just-right small credits that had appeared in her mother’s online wallet…
Everything seemed to point to some inhuman, hidden existence.
And that existence, for now, seemed to be…
on their side?
Bronya turned over, facing the wall.
Her small hand, in the darkness, unconsciously tightened around the cold aether editing device in her arms.
In the shadows no one could see, the corner of her mouth lifted extremely slightly, almost imperceptibly.
It wasn’t a smile.
It was more like the calm, focused expression of a puzzle-solver—the future “Silver Wolf” who had found an interesting mystery.
She didn’t tell Marta what she had seen.
Some secrets were better kept with fewer people knowing.
Besides, she needed more observation, more data, to solve the mystery of this “quantum cleaning lady.”
The night grew deeper.
In the living room, Marta eventually succumbed to fatigue and illness, falling asleep on the sofa, her brow still furrowed.
Inside the TV, Baida carefully confirmed it was safe, then, like a thief, silently slipped her consciousness back into the USB drive’s “warm harbor,” patting her virtual chest in relief.
And in the inner room, Bronya on the bed kept her clear, calm purple eyes open until the sky began to lighten.
This home was still poor, still struggling.
But after this night, something had quietly changed.
A secret had been established, tacitly, between two “unnatural” residents.
A silent game of observation and counter-observation was about to unfold in this small space.
The midnight fright triggered by quantum cleaning had temporarily come to an end, but the ripples it had stirred were only just beginning to spread.