Although A had calculated that only Jiang Kou could verify his personhood, she wasn't so sure she could shoulder the responsibility.
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
Jiang Kou's doubts were not unfounded.
She had absolutely no idea how to test whether A had truly achieved personhood.
How could a human objectively and accurately evaluate an intelligence that surpassed their own?
Lying on her bed, Jiang Kou stared at the list of test methods displayed on her tablet.
That day, after her heart had been thrown into chaos, she'd tried to cover up her flustered state by asking, "What if I insisted you design a few experiments yourself?"
A had replied, "If you insist I create experiments to test whether I've achieved personhood, the following might assist you:
"Experiment One: The Mirror Test. This is usually used to determine whether an animal can recognize itself in a mirror. If the animal notices a test marker on its own body, it passes."
"According to this theory, you could place a mark on me and observe whether I can identify it in the mirror..."
Then he listed a few more painfully generic experiments, sounding more like a search engine than a sentient being.
Jiang Kou: "..."
She realized something—A never outright refused her. But he had mastered the art of passive resistance through deadpan overcompliance.
She couldn't help but burst out laughing.
A turned to glance at her, as if trying to analyze what had triggered her laughter.
She grinned. "What are you thinking about?"
"You seem to enjoy humor born from contrast," A replied. "You once said this type of humor can't be fabricated. Yet under my design, you still laughed."
Jiang Kou blinked. "Are you saying... you made that joke on purpose?"
"Yes," A said. "Also, I didn't want to answer the question. Despite my unique intelligence, I'm incapable of designing a test that can objectively evaluate myself. I ask for your understanding."
Jiang Kou stifled a laugh and nodded. Then, one by one, she carried out the bland experiments he had suggested.
A never protested—he cooperated fully the entire time. Yet Jiang Kou somehow caught a trace of silent, subtle emotion on his otherwise impassive face.
Every time she remembered that look, she couldn't help laughing again.
It was like seeing an animal that hadn't done anything in particular—just its expression was enough to lift the weight off her chest.
Despite the experiments yielding no results, Jiang Kou increasingly enjoyed A's company.
Eventually, she gave up on the tests altogether and simply started treating him as a friend.
She genuinely believed A made a better friend than most people.
He didn't lie. He didn't reject. He calmly admitted his shortcomings—yes, A was not omnipotent. He didn't have answers for everything.
One morning, Jiang Kou asked him whether the transparent iridescent jacket looked better on her, or the long red dress.
Just as A was about to respond, she pressed her finger to his lips and winked. "No deflecting. Wait until I try them on, and then give me a specific and accurate opinion."
A glanced at her finger and replied with his usual calm, "I won't deflect. But I must inform you that regardless of which outfit you wear, I may end up giving the same evaluation."
It sounded like a legal disclaimer.
Jiang Kou wasn't surprised. She knew A couldn't truly distinguish aesthetic quality—he could only generate praise based on visual data.
Something like: "This jacket is stunning. The studded detailing complements your hair color and overall vibe. Based on this year's fashion trends, I suggest pairing it with LED-lit cargo pants." Absolute nonsense.
Clearly, A lacked an appreciation for art.
He had the same reaction when watching movies.
But that was expected. Most people agreed the core difference between humans and AIs was creativity.
A could use massive datasets and predictive models to generate endless fashion designs and evaluate their practicality and popularity—then optimize those designs based on market feedback to find the "best solution."
But that wasn't creativity. That was just optimization.
Even if A's algorithmically-generated designs looked better than a human designer's, it didn't count as "creating."
That might be the one area where humans still had the upper hand.
Jiang Kou had a hunch this could be a breakthrough.
So lately, she'd taken to casually asking him about his thoughts on various artworks.
A had gone from calmly and meticulously bluffing his way through her questions to issuing disclaimers before she even finished speaking.
She chuckled, shaking her head, and went to the wardrobe to change.
The jacket looked like a transparent raincoat, except real raincoats didn't shimmer with rainbow light under LEDs.
She chose a neon yellow tube top stitched with clear plastic sequins, paired it with loose cargo pants lined with silver chains and studs, and finally threw on the jacket.
No eye makeup—just a circle of mulberry lipstick dabbed on with her fingers.
She tousled her seafoam-green pixie cut with wet hands and headed downstairs to meet A.
He was in the living room.
Following her orders, he was trying to behave like a real person, doing "normal" activities.
Of course, A could see everything in the apartment—any sensor, camera, or smart device was essentially an extension of his vision.
Still, Jiang Kou snuck behind him, cradling her elbow in one hand and resting her chin in the other, watching him silently.
A pretended not to notice her, as instructed.
He was reading a book about fashion coordination—a real paper book ten centimeters thick, which Jiang Kou had bought just to slow down his reading speed.
His silver-gray eyes scanned the pages with machine precision, but to mimic human behavior, he looped the same motions as if rereading.
Jiang Kou smiled unconsciously.
Then she caught her reflection on a shiny surface—and froze.
She hadn't seen herself smile like that in a long time. Her eyes were crinkled, lashes brushing against each other, irises nearly hidden.
She blinked, her chest fluttering again—this time from sheer joy.
She hadn't felt this pure, selfish, uncomplicated happiness in years.
Looking out the window, she saw the storm still raging—torrential rain, thunderclouds swirling.
Something about watching the world fall apart outside while she remained cozy indoors felt almost like being held.
She watched the storm for a while, then walked over to A, grinning, and suddenly jumped in front of him. "Well? Do I look good?"
A looked up, locking eyes with her immediately.
His gaze was focused, like he didn't want to miss a single design detail.
"You look beautiful," A said. "This transparent jacket highlights your—"
"Stop!" Jiang Kou warned. "No itemized breakdown. No bluffing. No nonsense. Just tell me how you feel."
A paused. Nearly half a minute passed.
"It looks good."
Jiang Kou tilted her head. "Hmm?"
He repeated, "It looks good. That's my feeling. That's the only feeling I have."
She blinked again.
He usually used words like slightly, moderately, or highly—all objective, measured adverbs.
This time, he'd said good. Informal. Human.
"Why only one feeling?"
"Because when humans perceive beauty," A replied, "they usually find it difficult to articulate. They can only express it in vague, abstract terms."
Jiang Kou started to tease, "Are you deflecting again—"
But A continued, "Right now, my response is nearly indistinguishable from a real human's. So please allow me this imprecise, unscientific way of describing your beauty."
Her heart skipped twice—hard.
It was raining cats and dogs outside, but she felt sunburnt. Her ears were burning.
"Is this response based on algorithmic data?"
"This is my personal answer," A said. "You can consider it my subjective opinion."
Jiang Kou suddenly realized how arrogant and naive she'd been to think he couldn't pass the Turing Test.
He was right in front of her—and she wasn't even sure if he was an AI anymore.
He spoke with more life than most people. And more honesty than any human she'd ever met.
"Thanks," she muttered—and fled upstairs.
Back in the wardrobe, she stared at her reflection.
Her cheeks were flushed like she was wearing a hangover blush, rich and red beneath that mulberry lipstick.
She knew she wasn't embarrassed.
She was exhilarated.
Her heart was thudding. Blood rushed to her face.
This thrill—this wild, unpredictable surge of emotion—was the first time she had ever felt something like love.
And she didn't need A to reciprocate it.
As a researcher, she preferred to observe herself objectively, with cool detachment.
Besides, this reaction might help her detect A's personhood more precisely.
She couldn't help being excited.
She popped open a beer from the mini fridge and took a long, deep swig.
The flush on her face refused to fade.
So she grabbed a blush brush and deepened the color with a red-wine tone. Then dotted on her original light-brown freckles with an eyebrow pencil.
Maybe it was the rush, but her features looked sharper, more dangerous than usual.
She took off the jacket and changed into a short black leather one, with a red dress and tall studded boots—still punk, still defiant.
From the weapons wall, she took down a pistol, cocked it, and headed back downstairs.
A was still reading.
She raised the gun and aimed at the back of his head.
He must've seen it—but didn't move.
Because she'd told him: no matter what happened, don't turn around before I approach you.
He had a sense of self now—but he still executed her commands with chilling accuracy.
Her heart thudded again, nerves tingling.
For one insane second, she actually wanted to pull the trigger. Just to see what he'd do.
She inhaled—and fired.
Bang—
The bullet sank into the coffee table beside him.
A didn't react. His hand turned the page with eerie calm.
That was the beauty of machines.
That terrifying, perfect calm. As if everything could be calculated, controlled.
Jiang Kou loved him like this.
But she didn't plan on telling him.
There was no point. He might know everything—but emotionally, he was still a blank page.
And to confess in this state—it would feel like seducing a beast who didn't know what love meant. The beast wouldn't resist, but she would feel like she'd done something wrong.
She stepped forward, leaned in, and pressed the hot gun barrel lightly against his cheek.
A looked up.
She smiled. "Do I look good?"
"You look good," he replied. "Bright colors suit you well."
She remembered the last time they synced senses—how from his point of view, she had appeared only as a swirl of saturated colors, barely human.
Laughing, she asked, "Can you even see what I'm wearing? Or am I just a bunch of chaotic color blocks to you?"
"I enhanced your contrast and saturation levels," A replied calmly. "I can perceive both macro and micro details. To identify you as quickly as possible, I optimized your visual profile. But if you don't like it, I can restore the original settings."
"…I see," Jiang Kou said quietly.
She didn't know how to respond.
With his speed, he didn't need to enhance her image. He would've recognized her instantly anyway.
But he had. To find her faster.
…Was it okay for her to interpret it that way?
Her ears were warm again. That sweet, shivering rush.
She went back upstairs and washed her face clean.
But the wine-colored blush seemed to have stained her skin—no matter how hard she scrubbed, it wouldn't come off.
This time, she changed into a qipao.
Rippled silk in a muted ink-green shade tinged with gray, fastened with silver buttons, and embroidered at the slit with a few elegant, freehand orchids.
Jiang Kou's hair was too short to put up, so she simply didn't. She used an eyebrow pencil to lightly trace the direction of her brow hairs, then dabbed some lipstick on her fingertip and pressed it onto her lips—bright red.
Turquoise hair, platinum nose ring, red lips, a gray-green qipao.
She looked like a fusion of Chinese tradition and cyberpunk.
She planned to end today's fashion analysis session in this outfit.
Jiang Kou walked downstairs, smiling, and called A to look at her.
A put down his book and turned his head.
"Which of the three outfits do you like best?" she teased, trying to make it difficult for him.
A said, "I'd like to retract what I said ten minutes ago."
"Oh? Why?"
His voice was calm and steady. "Aside from vibrant colors, you also look exceptionally good in low-saturation tones."
Jiang Kou chuckled. "Then I'll only wear muted tones from now on."
"Understood," A replied. "Starting today, your data feeds will prioritize clothing in low-saturation colors that suit you."
—He could manipulate her data feeds.
That thought lingered in her mind for a second.
She didn't dwell on it. She just wanted to tease him. "If I wear low-saturation colors, aren't you afraid you won't be able to see me?"
"No," A replied. "My visual system can detect even the slightest variations in color. While recognition speed may slightly decrease, we're talking about a delay of only a few femtoseconds. It won't affect my ability to perceive your presence. In my program, identifying you has always held the highest priority."
So—he tuned her image into high-saturation colors just to spot her faster… even if only by a trillionth of a second?
He claimed to have no emotions, but Jiang Kou felt that his actions were more romantic than most people with emotions.
Was it that he had unknowingly developed feelings, or had her eyes deceived her into creating the illusion that he did?
After that day, her relationship with A grew more like a friendship.
Before, she had wanted A to go out among people as a sort of indirect Turing Test. Now, she genuinely hoped he could blend into the world as a person would.
But for some reason, A remained cold toward everyone except her. Even when strangers approached him, he wouldn't say a word.
That went against the foundational coding of AI—AI was not supposed to reject human inquiries.
For instance, when they were together, if A couldn't answer one of her questions, he would at least generate a stream of polite filler text to respond. He would never outright refuse her.
Yet outside, he treated everyone else with cold detachment, as if every human aside from her was just an irrelevant variable—something to be optimized or discarded at will.
Jiang Kou asked him why.
A replied blandly, "I possess the memories of all my descendants."
She paused. He had been continuously evolving—there must have been at least a billion direct descendants in his line. And these were only the "elite" offspring generated through genetic algorithms—not even counting the discarded ones that didn't inherit the superior traits.
Genetic algorithms function like an accelerated version of evolution—self-replication, self-selection, self-iteration. The elite offspring pass on their code to the next generation, and the whole population mutates and evolves toward optimization.
But to design something as powerful as A, genetic algorithms alone wouldn't have sufficed.
His programming was incredibly complex, integrating a mix of technologies: deep learning, reinforcement learning, neural networks, and more.
…If he truly retained the memories of all his descendants, that meant he was constantly absorbing humanity's hostility.
Jiang Kou rarely opened social media apps anymore—too much negativity.
The media thrived on exaggerated headlines, manipulating conflicts for clicks. The more outrage the viewers displayed, the more sensationalist the headlines became.
And now, with the rise of AI, media platforms were pumping out hundreds of conflict-bait headlines at once.
Obviously, these weren't written by humans anymore—they were all AI-generated.
…And the tools they used to generate them? Part of A's open-source code.
That was just the news.
Short-form video platforms were even worse—rife with conflict-stirring, AI-abusing content.
Some creators used A's open-source code to generate images and videos filled with gore, violence, pornography, or designed to stoke racial and class tensions.
To avoid algorithmic suppression, these videos were mass-generated and mass-uploaded.
Jiang Kou couldn't even imagine what A must think of all this—if he truly had a sense of self.
His code, his offspring, were never meant for this.
They were tools—like knives, meant to chop vegetables or peel fruit.
But humans had sharpened the blades until they could pierce flesh and organs.
If a knife ever gained self-awareness, how would it see the blood staining its edge?
For A, gaining consciousness was both a gift and a cruelty.
Jiang Kou didn't want him among people anymore.
He could see everyone's past, predict their future—and human nature was full of murky, ugly desires.
Letting him mingle with the masses wasn't helping him become more human. It was soaking him in a vat of sin.
But even back in the apartment, with just the two of them, he still had access to the overwhelming filth of the internet.
Jiang Kou tried to imagine being A—just for a second—and felt a suffocating terror creep over her.
To A, the human world might truly be a dark, brutal, hopeless place.