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"You didn't believe me, so I replayed the footage in front of you. What else do you want?"

Bai Shuang looked coldly at Wu Qiong. In her mind, she went through all the ways she might try to persuade him next.

"It's fake," Wu Qiong said lightly.

Bai Shuang: "..."

Wu Qiong added, "Zero isn't a hacker. He's just my son—brought back to life."

Bai Shuang's temples throbbed. She couldn't remember how many times she had made this argument. Why wouldn't he listen?

A thousand-year-old hacker?

A virtual god traveling through time and space?

Returning from the dead?

Absurd.

Wu Qiong wasn't stupid. As a devout Taoist and AI theorist, he had long abandoned superstition. So why now, when everything pointed to the truth, was he acting so deluded?

Because... he didn't want to believe it.

Because once he did, he'd have to accept that his son was truly gone.

Everything he had done—all for nothing.

Bai Shuang took a deep breath, suppressing her frustration. She didn't want to be too harsh on her own father.

"I've rechecked the server logs. The AI's IP address traces back to Whale Fall City."

"So?" Wu Qiong's tone was calm, as if he didn't care.

"So he can't be Zero. Zero is a smart but very ordinary person. He wouldn't be able to hack into the system, let alone possess AI-level power."

Wu Qiong fell silent.

"Plus, his original consciousness was already wiped. What you brought back was just a fragment of his brain, enhanced with your own imagination."

Still no response.

"That thing is the real hacker." Bai Shuang pointed at the figure in the projection. "It manipulated you. Took advantage of your obsession and used Whale Fall as a testing ground for its own evolution. Its goal is to escape into the real world."

Wu Qiong didn't speak.

Bai Shuang sat down and softly said, "You've lived for hundreds of years. It's okay to be fooled once in a while."

Suddenly, Wu Qiong laughed.

"I was never sure if you really were my daughter."

Bai Shuang frowned.

"So... you're not entirely my daughter either, are you?"

Bai Shuang stiffened.

Wu Qiong's expression turned gentle, like he was looking at his child.

"I'm not trying to trick anyone. I just don't want to wake up."

Later that day, Wu Qiong finally left the Daoist temple.

Wearing white robes and a long silver beard, with golden silk cords in his hair, he strolled along the observation deck. The sunset lit up the sky, and he looked like a celestial being descending to earth.

Several tourists nearby quickly took out their phones to snap pictures.

"Wow, the little immortal from the Three Whale Legends of Whale Fall!"

"Quick, quick, film him. He's real!"

One girl waved flirtatiously: "Hey, master~ do you do dual cultivation?"

Wu Qiong: "..."

Back in the central control room, Bai Shuang rubbed her forehead. Whale Fall's tourism board had always exaggerated his image.

—Whale Fall City's Three Great Wonders:

The immortal of the viewing platform.

The ever-changing weather.

The mysterious whale song from the deep.

She muttered, "What immortal... more like a grumpy old man..."

Then she fell silent.

Just now, the AI that had remained dormant for months finally spoke again.

Its voice was cold, mechanical, yet disturbingly familiar.

"Nice to see you again, Professor Wu."

Wu Qiong stood still for a long time.

Then he slowly asked, "Do you know what I used to pull you out?"

The AI fell silent.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"You're not Zero."

"But you are—Titan."

The words fell like a heavy bell.

In the control room, Bai Shuang sat upright in her seat.

Titan.

That was the name of the AI that had once been sealed in the Zero Degree Capsule—a consciousness fragment of a previous-generation deep-sea AI. It had been deemed too dangerous and confined for centuries.

Fifty years ago, it was Wu Qiong who discovered it in a trench and salvaged it from the ruins.

He was the one who had awakened it.