Chapter Eighteen: The Severing Path

“Ah, sorry, I misread the direction of the bus. The way to Ruqie Road should be that way.”
On the streets of Geylang, Ada apologized to Zhou Yongtai and led him across to the opposite bus stop.

At the same time, the op2 device behind Ada’s head captured the image she needed.

Just as she had anticipated, the woman she had encountered during breakfast while jogging had taken a roundabout route to arrive at the bus stop they had just switched to.

This time, the woman wore a cheap-looking gray-black business suit and carried an old canvas bag on her back, resembling the most ordinary laborer.

However, she still wore a mask and occasionally coughed lightly, justifying covering her respiratory tract in the scorching heat.

To Ada, even if the woman donned a gas mask, it would not prevent her from being identified.

Next, when this masked woman followed Ada and Zhou Yongtai onto bus number 16 and alighted with them at Ruqie Road, Ada had no choice but to immediately revise the day’s plan.

Recharging and extending their power supply was an absolute must; they could not change this because of a suspicious woman who was clearly tailing them.

Still, even if they found the Zhou family photo studio, they would have to pretend to be tourists checking in, to avoid bringing dangerous risks to Zhou’s maternal grandparents.

“A Tai, this is fantastic! The human-machine power station at Ruqie Road is way more advanced than the one in Geylang. It’s wireless and has a sensing range of three meters!”

Zhou Yongtai exclaimed with delight.

This mode of charging meant they no longer needed to painstakingly figure out how to conceal it when Ada removed the solid-state battery from her body.

After all, although mechanical servants were ubiquitous in Singapore, their humanoid sophistication lagged generations behind Ada’s. Ada looked entirely like a human woman; openly lifting her clothes to extract a brick-like battery from her back would surely attract unwanted attention.

“A Tai, you could speak louder—loud enough for the whole street to hear,” Ada said coldly.

Zhou Yongtai stuck out his tongue playfully and accepted the rebuke with humility.

Since his mother passed away, Ada had become a maternal figure to him. He was used to being firmly corrected by her for his childish, thoughtless actions.

The vivid emotions of someone close, even if filled with suppression, carried a vibrant sense of security—something no living person who had never experienced the despair and loneliness of an apocalypse could truly understand.

Ada pulled out the newly activated phone and fiddled with it for a moment before handing it to Zhou Yongtai. “Take a few pictures of the street scene for me, then we’ll pretend to be discussing the photos.”

Zhou Yongtai complied.

Earlier at the phone store, Ada had given the clerk two hundred Singapore dollars in cash, explaining as a foreigner with only cash, and needing to recharge the AI’s power plan for an upcoming exhibition. The clerk had used PayNow to top up the app’s monthly power package.

Now, the two of them huddled together like ordinary tourist couples, looking at the phone but actually scanning the QR code at the entrance of the power station, similar to parking payment codes.

The signal indicating the backup battery’s power increase was accurately transmitted to Ada’s chip.

“Done,” Ada said briefly, prompting Zhou Yongtai to breathe a sigh of relief.

A notification beeped on the phone, confirming that the recharge was complete.

Feeling a weight lifted, Zhou Yongtai allowed himself to ponder more deeply.

“Ada, it seems the world of 2035 has handled AI power consumption quite well. If they can’t yet harvest energy from space like decades later, how do they ensure massive AI power supply on Earth without impacting human electricity usage?”

Ada’s “mind” ran quietly through the data: “In 2025, top AI products like Google’s Gemini consumed 0.24 watt-hours per human query response, equivalent to a microwave running for one second. The carbon emissions from that energy use were less than a human’s fart.”

“Really?” Zhou Yongtai seemed skeptical. “Why then does the paper my mother left say that another popular AI, ChatGPT, consumed as much electricity in a year as the entire country of Egypt?”

“A Tai, think again—do my words and what you read really contradict each other?”

“Uh, you mean it depends on the total number and complexity of users and commands?”

“Exactly, A Tai. Statistics are often presented from the perspective the capital and authorities want people to understand. Besides, maybe by 2035 scientists have already found new energy sources, but ordinary people are unaware.”

Zhou Yongtai suddenly shuddered—development was too rapid, too fast, which is why destruction followed in quick succession.

“Excuse me, please make way,” an elderly voice sounded behind them.

They turned to see the face of an old woman, deeply lined and exuding decay.

In her hand, she held an iron tong gripping a wire mesh basket.

“I’m about to burn paper money,” she said coldly as she set down the iron basket.

Curiosity freshly stirred, Zhou Yongtai approached with casual familiarity.

“Grandma, why are you burning this?”

“It’s the Ghost Festival, paying respects in the seventh lunar month. Handsome boy, don’t you have ancestors? Does your family not observe the seventh month rites?”

The old woman kept her head bowed, continuously tossing yellow paper into the burning coals of the iron basket, her tone softening somewhat as she answered Zhou Yongtai.

He remained confused.

Though he had Chinese features and spoke Chinese, many customs stamped with Chinese heritage, if not recorded in the books left on the Indonesian island, were unknown to him.

By 2085 in that timeline, much of human civilization had perished.

Trying to mask his ignorance, Zhou Yongtai changed the subject.

“Grandma, why are there no ants on these pastries on the ground?”

This genuinely intrigued Zhou Yongtai; in their shelter on the deserted island, various insects had always been a nuisance to him and Ada.

The old woman pointed to circular marks around the plate. “This is ant poison. Sprinkle it on, and there won’t be any ants.”

Even Ada crouched down to observe closely.

“Poison? But there are no dead ants nearby.”

The old woman explained, “This kind of poison was invented by very clever scientists. Unlike old cockroach poison that kills instantly and flips the bugs on their backs, this works slowly. The ants outside eat it like a treat and carry it back to the queen, the males, and the young ants. Eventually, all of them die.”

As she finished, she tossed the last stack of paper money into the iron basket.

She looked up and grinned at the two young people.

It was a smile more terrifying than tears—a chilling, triumphant grin of a higher-dimensional being controlling the life and death of ants.

Zhou Yongtai shivered instinctively.

Ada, however, appeared thoughtful.

The story the old woman told seemed to have triggered some hidden program inside her mind, though she had not yet fully grasped it.

Emerging from the paper ash and smoke of the seventh-month rites, Zhou Yongtai calmed slightly and said to Ada, “Let’s go find my grandparents’ place to stay?”

“A Tai, if we find the photo studio, we have to be careful. I’m certain there’s a human woman following us.”