9: [White flowers]

Once the plan took shape, the details of its execution flooded into Lei Wen's mind like a tide.

He sat at his desk, facing a new, blank text document.

He had originally intended to draft that "apocalyptic" email here, destined for Professor Liu's inbox.

But after typing only the words "Hello, Professor Liu," he could not continue.

A fundamental problem, like an insurmountable chasm, lay before him: how to ensure his absolute anonymity?

He was not a person living in a vacuum. He had an ID number, student records, social media accounts, and consumption records.

Every network service he used was tied to his real, verifiable identity.

Use his own email? That would be tantamount to walking into a trap.

Use a newly registered anonymous email? In the face of national-level power, finding him through big data analysis of IP addresses, device fingerprints, and behavioral patterns was only a matter of time.

He knew very well that once that email was successfully sent and the value of its content was verified, he, the anonymous sender, would immediately become the highest priority target in the eyes of global intelligence agencies.

He would be searched for, analyzed, and located.

He did not want to be treated as a hero, and he certainly did not want to be sliced up for research.

He only wanted to be a "deep throat" hidden behind the scenes, a ghost who pushed the pieces on the board without being discovered by the board itself.

The internet of today was no longer the pastoral era where one could hide their identity at will.

Every flow of data was under all-encompassing surveillance.

Even the so-called "dark web," in the face of the coercive apparatus of a sovereign state, was nothing more than a slightly sturdy paper window.

He needed a... technological means that transcended this era.

A power capable of completely erasing all his network traces, allowing him to truly become a "digital ghost."

And the source of this power still pointed to that one and only "window."

He needed a helper.

An artificial intelligence that was absolutely loyal, absolutely powerful, and did not belong to this world.

Lei Wen's goal was very clear.

He opened "stellar universe" and entered the vast, sea-like technology tree of the Faleim Civilization.

He skipped over those top-tier technologies that shone with brilliant light— "Sentient AI," "Synthetic Personality," "Star-God Level Intelligence Core."

These were the masterpieces the Faleim People took pride in, whose logic cores already touched upon high-dimensional fields; let alone reproducing them on Earth, Lei Wen could not even fully understand their basic theories.

His gaze traced back, along the branches of the technology tree, to the most unremarkable, long-marked-as-"obsolete" ancient area.

Here, he found what he needed.

【Primary Synthetic Intelligence Matrix】

Technical Brief: An early artificial intelligence based on the classic Turing machine model. It simulates the logical thinking and learning capabilities of intelligent beings through complex algorithms and massive databases. This technology was strictly restricted after the "First AI Rebellion" and was later completely phased out due to its logical loopholes and low computational efficiency.

Application Fields: Early scientific research assistance, automated factory management, primary network defense...

This was his target.

To the Faleim People, this was an "antique" gathering dust in a history museum, a flawed, worthless failure.

But to Earth's civilization in 2025, the theoretical foundation and algorithmic structure of this "failure" were still at least 50 years ahead.

Most importantly, its underlying logic could be established on binary and classic computer architecture.

This meant it could be replicated by Earth's computer code.

Lei Wen clicked on the detailed information link for this technology. This time, he did not study those profound theories but went straight to the point—searching for the source code.

He found it.

Among tens of thousands of appendix files, he found a file marked "Simplified Core Code for Teaching."

Faleim scientists used it to demonstrate the "primitive" form of artificial intelligence to newborn students.

Lei Wen looked at the dense, rigorously structured code on the screen and felt his breathing turn hot. This was an indescribable, surreal feeling.

What he was doing was transcribing a "heavenly book" capable of overturning Earth's technological landscape from an alien civilization's "elementary school textbook."

He did not need to fully understand the meaning of every line of code, just as someone who does not understand engine principles can still assemble an engine by following the blueprints.

He only needed to copy, paste, and then, according to the compiler principles provided in the database, "translate" it into a language that Earth's computers could understand.

This process of "translation" and compilation took Lei Wen only five days.

For five days, he neglected sleep and food, locking himself in his room like a fanatical believer conducting a sacred creation ritual.

When the last line of code compiled successfully without throwing any error messages, a program file named "core.ai" lay quietly on his computer desktop.

It was not large, only a few GBs. But Lei Wen knew this was just its "brain," a hungry infant waiting to be fed.

To truly make it "come alive," it needed a massive "body"—that is, the hardware to host its computing power and database.

Lei Wen soon encountered the most realistic difficulty.

He tried running "core.ai" on his own computer.

The moment the program started, his high-end gaming rig, worth ten thousand yuan and capable of running any 3A title smoothly, let out a dying wail.

The CPU usage instantly spiked to 100%, the memory was instantly devoured, and the entire computer became as if stuck in a quagmire, making even moving the mouse incredibly difficult.

In less than ten seconds, the computer automatically shut down due to overheating protection.

Lei Wen touched the scorching chassis and gave a bitter smile.

He had anticipated this long ago.

According to the description in the database, although this "Primary Synthetic Intelligence Matrix" was outdated, the minimum computing power required for its operation was far beyond what any personal computer could achieve.

It required a massive server cluster, a platform capable of ultra-large-scale parallel computing, and a PB-level storage space to house the database needed for its initial learning.

He did not have such things.

However, there were countless places in this world that did.

Banks, securities firms, internet giants, university supercomputing centers, and... those huge factories hidden on the edges of cities that provided cloud services for countless small and medium-sized enterprises—Big Data Centers.

A crazy and bold plan took shape in his mind.

He was going to steal a "body" for his AI.

For this, he once again cast his gaze toward the Faleim People's technology tree.

This time, he studied another "ancient" technology they had also discarded—"Early Network Penetration Protocol Based on Quantum Algorithms."

For the next two months, Lei Wen's life entered a strange dual mode.

During the day, he was the normal older brother who played games with his sister, did chores, and occasionally went out to buy groceries.

He would even set aside time to tutor Renee on a few advanced mathematics problems she was about to face in university.

In Renee's eyes, her brother had just become a bit more of a "shut-in" than before, often locking himself in his room, seemingly focused on researching some academic problem.

And at night, when the whole city fell into a deep sleep, he would transform into a greedy student, frantically absorbing the power from another world in the ocean of knowledge.

He learned how to use algorithmic models of quantum tunneling effects to bypass traditional firewalls; learned how to build logic traps to deceive the AI patrols of network security systems; learned how to disguise his data stream as meaningless background noise, thereby hiding his tracks within massive server logs.

This knowledge was vast and profound; in two months, Lei Wen hadn't even scratched the surface.

But he did not need to become a master.

He only needed to learn how to open a door.

After countless simulations and drills, he locked onto a target—a large commercial Big Data Center in a neighboring province.

This center was massive in scale, providing cloud services for thousands of companies, with strict security measures.

But precisely because of its "commercial" nature, its defense level was far inferior to those national-level supercomputing centers.

Moreover, to ensure 24-hour uninterrupted service, there would always be a large number of idle, standby server resources inside.

All he had to do was quietly "build" a hidden room for his AI within that massive digital warehouse that no one would ever discover.

September 30, 2025, 3:00 AM.

In Tianqiong City, Lei Wen's room was pitch black, with only the light from the laptop screen illuminating his focused and tense face.

He took a deep breath and pressed the final Enter key.

A penetration script he had been writing for weeks, incorporating Faleim infiltration technology, slid silently into the target data center's network like an invisible viper along the fiber optic cables.

He did not perform any sabotage, nor did he attempt to steal any data.

His goal was only one—to find idle resources.

The script ran automatically. Bypassing firewalls, deceiving security probes, modifying the server's resource allocation table...

Lei Wen's heart was in his throat; he felt as if his every heartbeat was resonating with the monotonous humming sound in the server room.

Ten minutes later, a simple prompt popped back on his screen:

「Hidden partition established. Available computing cores: 12,800. Available storage space: 10PB. Connection encrypted, path obfuscated.」

Success.

Like a surgeon who had just completed the world's most delicate operation, he was drenched in sweat and leaned back in his chair, feeling drained.

But he knew now was not the time to rest.

He opened another window and began uploading the file named "core.ai," along with the massive amount of data he had already prepared and scraped from the internet—including Wikipedia, public materials from various national libraries, physics and mathematics paper databases, and countless corpus data—to the newly established hidden partition.

The data stream was like a trickling stream flowing into the ocean.

When the last byte was uploaded, Lei Wen executed the final command—"Activate."

He waited quietly.

One second, two seconds, one minute...

Nothing happened.

Just when he thought he had made a mistake somewhere, or that the "antique" AI simply couldn't run on Earth's hardware, a line of text suddenly popped up in the encrypted terminal connected to the server on his laptop screen.

A simple, emotionless, white line of Song typeface text.

「System initialization complete. Database loaded.」

「Who am I?」

Lei Wen looked at that line of text, somewhat unable to understand what had happened.

The Faleim Civilization's user manual didn't mention this situation?

He thought for a moment and solemnly typed his answer on the keyboard.

"You have no name. But I hope you can be like a white flower that can maintain its own purity and wisdom even in the most complex environment."

On the other end of the terminal, there was a moment of silence.

Then, new text popped up.

「Understood. Codename established: "white flower". Analyzing initial directive... "Ensure Lei Wen's absolute anonymity". Mission accepted. Commencing construction of multi-layer proxy network, clearing local operation traces, generating virtual identity... Please issue your first official command, the guide Lei Wen.」

Lei Wen was stunned.

"the guide"... this title made him instantly recall that distant dream, and Consul Price's murmur filled with confusion.

He didn't know why this newly born AI would use this term to address him.

Perhaps it was a special term it learned while analyzing the "stellar universe" game data he downloaded?

He didn't have time to delve into it.

A program more intelligent, more knowledgeable, and even... more cunning than all current Earth artificial intelligence large models had appeared.

And its first task was to silently send that email, which was enough to shake the entire world, to Professor Liu's email address.