Chapter 40 Pledge of Allegiance

In the virtual conference room, save for "Dazzle," the scientist who never failed to indulge in sneering at people of Chinese descent, everyone else was dedicating their entire mental faculties to analyzing the case at hand.

Soon, the first question was raised.

"Jiayi, I just ran a deep search and found that Dr. Fan originally majored in astrophysics. How did he end up pivoting to the field of artificial intelligence?"

Jiayi replied, "A good question, and this is precisely the background detail I was about to elaborate on. Fan Zhiheng threw himself into applied sciences quite early on. While in the United States, he once spearheaded practical concepts in cosmic energy—such as converting stellar energy into electricity via space-based solar arrays, and then transmitting it back to Earth using microwaves or laser beams. With just that explanation, my colleagues can surely understand why he has now become such a darling of AI venture capital."

The questionist immediately connected the dots: "Energy. Energy has always been the foundation of computing power, as well as the critical bottleneck holding the artificial intelligence industry by the throat."

Jiayi nodded. "Precisely."

Another scientist's thinking was even more agile. "In that case, did Xizhijie and his associates invite Dr. Fan to Singapore because they recognized his expertise in new energy and AI power endurance technology, intending to have him 'dissect' the generational-gap embodied robots from decades in the future to find a breakthrough in energy?"

Jiayi said, "My ad-hoc working group and I believe that is indeed the case."

At this point, the chairperson posed a different question: "Jiayi, not long after Ada was kidnapped, Whitney—who controlled Wisdom Veil Capital alongside Xizhijie—died. Therefore, is Whitney's death connected in any way to the appearance of Ada and Zhou Yongtai?"

"No connection."

Jiayi stated her conclusion first, followed by a brief analysis: "If Zhou Yongtai lied to us and he and Ada were actually under Whitney's control, Xizhijie wouldn't have just snatched Ada while leaving Zhou Yongtai loose on the outside; he would have kidnapped them together. From the looks of it, for Xizhijie, the appearance of Ada and Zhou Yongtai was a coincidence. True to his habitual opportunistic style, he left Zhou Yongtai at large likely to fish for whatever inevitability might be hidden within that coincidence. However..."

Jiayi paused, her tone reflective as she continued, "However, Whitney's death, I believe, was an inevitability."

"You believe she was murdered, not that it was an accident?" the chairperson asked.

"Yes, Xizhijie killed her. The conflict between Xizhijie and her has shown a trend of becoming public knowledge over the past few years. Externally, the narrative was that Xizhijie wanted to develop nuclear energy, while Whitney favored seeking energy from the cosmos. The essence of this conflict was that both of them harbored ambitions to control our world—which has already grown overwhelmingly dependent on AI—through the monopoly of energy."

A young scientist who had recently joined the organization candidly voiced his confusion: "Both of them had their own ambitions, with massive capital under their names and long-established legal frameworks for their businesses. Couldn't they just part ways? Why resort to murder? If a criminal case were solved, Xizhijie would be finished. For a figure of his stature to make such a decision, wouldn't the cost be far too high?"

Several other attendees nodded in agreement.

Jiayi calmly responded, "What if humanity on Earth is no longer within the horizon of what Xizhijie deems worthy of respect? If that is the case, why would he care about the punishment of human laws?"

"What do you mean?"

"In Chinese, there is a term known as a *toumingzhuang*—a pledge of allegiance—which means demonstrating loyalty and the determination to submit to a newly joined organization through an extreme act of one's own. Therefore, is there not a possibility that Xizhijie, by murdering Whitney, submitted his pledge of allegiance to higher-dimensional rulers?"