Although it was the first time encountering such an absurd situation, the problem still needed to be solved.
After some discussion, Yao Tong proposed a solution: create a completely new system for Moji, essentially updating her entire built-in program.
The advantage of this plan was its simplicity, speed, and thorough repair. The disadvantage was that Moji would lose all memories from this period.
After brief consideration, Jiang Yanyi agreed to Yao Tong’s proposal.
The issue of Moji losing her memories from this time wasn’t really a problem at all.
Memory is crucial to humans—survival and evolution, cultural inheritance and civilizational continuity, emotional reliance and reshaping all depend on memory.
But for robots, such emotional connections don’t exist.
Losing memory is simply like clearing a USB drive. Relying on vast data processing capabilities, they can quickly store new memories again.
After resolving Moji’s issue, Jiang Yanyi took his daughter and left Meteorite Technology.
“How about eating out? That shell restaurant you like the most.”
Since leaving the tech company, Xiao Bai had been quiet and unhappy. Jiang Yanyi noticed her mood and suggested, bouncing her in his arms.
Usually, hearing about going to the fun and delicious shell restaurant, Xiao Bai would agree immediately. But this time, she didn’t. Instead, she fiddled with her hands, a worried look on her face:
“Dad, what’s really wrong with Mo Ji?”
While the adults were discussing the plan earlier, she had been sitting nearby. The adults spoke quickly, and many people were talking at once.
It wasn’t like when Dad talked to her one-on-one, patiently explaining. So Xiao Bai didn’t fully understand much of what was said.
But from the adults’ expressions, she could tell it wasn’t just about Mo Ji cutting her hand—it was definitely something more serious.
“Moji’s program has a slight issue. You can think of it as her being sick. Remember the blood test report from last time you had a fever?” Jiang Yanyi said while placing the child into the car seat and fastening her seatbelt.
“I remember that test report! There were little arrows going up and down, right?”
“Right. Moji is facing a similar problem—some abnormal data showed up on her test report.”
Jiang Yanyi sat next to Xiao Bai, activated the self-driving car on his phone, and set the destination to the Shell Restaurant.
“Then when will Mo Ji recover?” Xiao Bai asked again.
Yao Tong had told Jiang Yanyi that the robot’s system update would be completed within a week.
He answered Xiao Bai honestly, “Probably within a week.”
Jiang Yanyi never brushed off Xiao Bai as just a child. He kept his promises, so Xiao Bai trusted her dad completely.
Hearing that Mo Ji was just sick and would recover within a week, Xiao Bai felt somewhat relieved.
The child turned her head to look out the car window. In the distance, she could already see the shell-shaped building structure built on the hillside.
She turned back to Jiang Yanyi and said, “Dad, I don’t want to go to the Shell Restaurant anymore.”
Jiang Yanyi was a bit surprised and reached to feel her forehead. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
The Shell Restaurant was Xiao Bai’s favorite place. In the center of the restaurant was a massive cylindrical deep-sea pool. On weekends, there were whale performances, and usually, various marine creatures were showcased in the deep-sea pool at irregular intervals.
Of course, these marine creatures were all AI-generated. Animal protection laws didn’t allow such captivity and animal performances. Even though they were fake, the realistic scenes still deeply delighted children.
Xiao Bai pushed Jiang Yanyi’s hand away. “I want to wait until Mo Ji comes back, then go to the ocean restaurant with her.”
Seeing Jiang Yanyi’s puzzled look, Xiao Bai added, “Mo Ji and I, we’re already good friends.”
She emphasized, “Best friends.”
Jiang Yanyi chuckled, finding the statement quite adorable.
He had always been a dad who respected his child’s thoughts. Besides, Xiao Bai’s request was reasonable—wanting to go to her favorite restaurant with her best friend. Just thinking about it doubled the happiness.
“Alright, then we’ll go grocery shopping at the supermarket today.”
Jiang Yanyi patted the back of his daughter’s head. But the child doesn’t know yet—when Moji returns, she’ll forget everything that happened before and won’t remember her.
He had originally planned to explain this to Xiao Bai after the meal, but now he suddenly found it hard to bring up. He decided to wait and see how Moji’s repair progressed first.
After returning home from the supermarket, Jiang Yanyi carried the groceries into the kitchen. He quickly prepared a meatball vegetable soup and a plate of cola chicken wings. Carrying the dishes out of the kitchen, he found the child who had been playing in the living room was gone.
He called out, “Zhibai, dinner.”
The child was nowhere to be seen and didn’t respond.
He placed the food on the dining table, walked to the bedroom, and knocked twice. “Zhibai, are you in there?”
Still no response.
“Daddy’s coming in.”
Jiang Yanyi pushed open the half-ajar bedroom door and walked in. The bedroom was empty, but the bathroom door was open. Entering the bathroom, he saw Xiao Bai standing at the desk in Moji’s room through the other door, head bowed, busy with something.
“Zhibai,” Jiang Yanyi called out. The child was startled by the sudden sound, and a book she was fiddling with fell to the floor with a thud.
“What are you doing?”
Jiang Yanyi saw the book on the floor—it was The Almanack of Naval Ravikant he had been reading a few days ago. Later, the book had mysteriously disappeared.
“Are you reading?” Jiang Yanyi was puzzled. “Can you understand it?”
The child held a small piece of candy wrapper. “I’m putting these inside the book.”
Jiang Yanyi walked over, stood by the desk, and took the wrapper from the child’s hand. It was the outer packaging of a robot nutritional lollipop.
Several such plastic wrappers lay on the desk. Two were crumpled, and Xiao Bai was trying to smooth them out with her hands. One had clearly been pressed flat by a book already.
“Why collect these?” Jiang Yanyi asked, his voice tightening as if something had occurred to him.
Xiao Bai crouched down to pick up the fallen book, opened it to a page, and placed the smoothed wrapper inside.
One corner of the wrapper kept curling up. The child tried pressing it down several times but failed. Jiang Yanyi reached out to help hold it in place.
As he performed this instinctive action, memories suddenly struck Jiang Yanyi. He stared at the colorful candy wrapper, lost in thought for a long while.
Bai Yidong used to love collecting all sorts of wrappers. She would take a thick English-Chinese dictionary from Jiang Yanyi’s bookshelf, insert the cleaned wrappers inside, and press them flat.
Jiang Yanyi never really understood her quirky collecting habit, but he never tried to stop her. Sometimes when he bought something outside with particularly interesting packaging, he would bring it back for her.
When his wife disappeared, Xiao Bai was only two months old. The child never saw her mother do this, and no one taught her—how did she learn?
Xiao Bai inserted one wrapper, turned to another page, placed the second wrapper inside, and pressed it flat, muttering softly:
“There, all done. When Mo Ji comes back, it’ll be a surprise for her.”
“What does this have to do with Moji?”
“I saw Mo Ji doing it this way.”
Xiao Bai pointed to the cartoon sticker on the plastic wrapper. “These can be exchanged for robot snacks later.”
“Moji did it this way?” Jiang Yanyi repeated, incredulous.
A robot, with no one teaching her, had somehow learned to collect stickers on her own and even knew to steal his book to flatten them.
First, the act of stealing a book wasn’t something a robot could do.
In a robot’s core programming, clauses protecting the owner’s property were written. They would never take their owner’s things on their own initiative.
And Moji’s unusual habit coincidentally overlapped with a small quirk of his missing wife.
Jiang Yanyi’s expression grew increasingly strange. A wild thought occurred to him—could there be some connection between Moji and Bai Yidong’s disappearance?
He knew the idea was crazy, but his heart raced uncontrollably.
Xiao Bai noticed her dad’s unusual expression. She tugged nervously at Jiang Yanyi’s trousers, whispering, “Dad.”
“Zhibai, I need to make a phone call first.”
Jiang Yanyi didn’t have time to explain. He strode toward the bedroom door. Passing the open bathroom door, he glanced inside unintentionally. His gaze fixed on the area between the bathtub and the shower for a moment. Then he suddenly turned to face Xiao Bai:
“Zhibai, last time you said Moji bathing you felt a bit uncomfortable. How did she bathe you?”
The child remained standing at the desk, twisting her head and body back to look at Jiang Yanyi with wide puppy-dog eyes.
Perhaps seeing her dad’s unusual demeanor, she didn’t refuse to answer like last time. Instead, she thought for a few seconds, then turned and walked over with her short legs.
Standing outside the bathroom door, she pointed to the step in front of the bathtub. “I lay there, and Mo Ji poured water over my hair from behind, so the water wouldn’t get in my eyes.”
Seeing her dad staring blankly at the step, Xiao Bai lowered her eyes and asked cautiously, “Did we do something wrong?”
Jiang Yanyi didn’t answer. Xiao Bai took his hand and shook it. “Dad.”
“It’s fine. Let’s go eat.” Jiang Yanyi patted the child’s head reassuringly.
Father and daughter sat at the dining table. Jiang Yanyi only took a few sips of soup before feeling a tight, uncomfortable blockage in his chest and stomach. He set down his bowl and chopsticks.
Xiao Bai was gnawing on a chicken wing. Seeing her dad stop eating, she paused too, looking up at him with a ring of sauce around her mouth.
Jiang Yanyi smiled at her, took a tissue, and wiped her mouth clean. “It’s nothing. Keep eating.”
“Are you worried about something? If it’s about being sick or something else, you have to tell me.” The child didn’t resume eating the chicken wing, her expression concerned.
“Alright.” Jiang Yanyi nodded seriously, but he never said out loud what exactly was troubling him.