Chapter 2: Prelude to Chaos

    [at 3 am, three hours have passed since the massive machinery shutdown]

    yet in these brief few hours, the losses caused by the halt in machine operations are immense many lives have been lost, some dying in hospitals, others endangered in factories, and still more falling victim to accidents due to the strike of transportation

    fire station

    the alarm bells ring through the sky, and firefighters hurry aboard the fire engines, launching into rescue operations despite no ining distress calls, they still acted promptly at the first moment of the blackout, knowing exactly what it meant for the city the shutdown of most of the inter also led to a blockage of information

    fire engine after fire engine rolls out of the station, heading into the city at the same time, all the police in the city were activated to aid the stranded citizens

    in this world, more than 90 of the machines were produced by &39;xingyu kegong,&39; and people have largely opted for this efficient and intelligent product therefore, once the machines produced by &39;xingyu kegong&39; fail, it will impact the entire world however, until now, no faults had ever occurred in their machines

    therefore, aside from the panicked civilians, the most terrified of all were the staff and founder of &39;xingyu kegong&39; they could never have imagined that their robots would malfunction in such a way this loss directly led to the stagnation and even regression of society, making them culpable in the eyes of humanity

    &39;xingyu kegong&39; headquarters

    after the power outage, the backup power supply of &39;xingyu kegong&39; activated, and the lights came back on

    &34;why is my puter not working!&34;

    &34;mine too!&34;

    &34;mine too!&34;

    in a panic, president zhao ting immediately rushed to the technical department he shouted angrily, &34;what&39;s going on why have all our pany&39;s machines stopped working! even the machines we sell have lost control! if this continues, the city will be paralyzed! you guys need to fix this asap!!!&34;

    technical department employees were buzzing with discussions

    &34;we want to fix it too, but the puters have pletely stopped working! we can&39;t use them&34; a technician helplessly expressed

    &34;we&39;ve already checked, and there&39;s no problem with the circuits of the machines, including the puters the problem must be in the control system it seems that a virus has been implanted in our control system, causing all our products to shut down simultaneously our core technology of the control system is in the hands of jia zhu it&39;s possible that&34; the technician trailed off, afraid to say anything else the answer was already evident

    &34;what where is jia zhu!!!&34;

    &34;jia zhu left the headquarters an hour ago we don&39;t know where he went&34;

    zhao ting walked to the window, looking out at the darkness outside, and said angrily, &34;it&39;s all over we&39;ve lost all our control system technology, which was entirely in his hands without him, we&39;re done for! why did he do this!&34;

    as he spoke, zhao ting felt weak and collapsed onto the ground

    zhao ting was extremely unwilling he had worked hard to build his business, only to see it destroyed in an instant he was now mankind&39;s culprit however, there was still a glimmer of hope in his heart apart from &39;xingyu kegong,&39; there were less than 10 of artificial intelligence suppliers in the world, which were pletely unaffected as long as they united, there would still be a bright future

    &34;jia zhu, i&39;ll get my revenge on you!&34; zhao ting secretly thought in his heart, and he felt much calmer

    at this moment, in the basement of a small house in the outskirts of the city, five people are seated around a long table

    the man leading the group is jia zhu, one of the high-ranking officials of xingyu kegong, the mastermind behind the conspiracy he throws the documents in his hand on the table and casually leans back in his chair: &34;i&39;ve got all the relevant information you wanted, but where is the weapon&34;

    the man sitting in the second seat smiles and rubs his hands together: &34;the weapon you want is behind the door, please check it out&34;

    jia zhu goes to the door, lifts the black curtain, and a cunning smile spreads across his face

    the man in the second seat slowly says, &34;you must know how difficult it is to obtain this weapon if they find out i stole it, i will certainly face a military tribunal however, luckily, i know about your plan, so i have nothing to worry about now&34;

    &34;then, i&39;ll ensure your safety, but i still don&39;t quite understand why you&39;re helping me get this weapon&34; jia zhu wonders

    &34;it&39;s just a transaction i&39;ve got the information i wanted, and you&39;ve got the weapon you wanted doesn&39;t it sound like a win-win situation besides, you&39;ve caused most of the machines to stop working worldwide from what i know, it&39;s not just about stopping the machines, is it i left the base to protect myself who knows how long this base will last before you destroy it&34; the man gets up and leaves, &34;i&39;ll be on my way then&34;

    &34;if that&39;s the case, why not join us&34;

    &34;i have important things to do let&39;s discuss it after i finish this task&34;

    the second man slowly leaves the basement, heading in one direction, and disappears into the outskirts of the city

    &34;the halt of robots is just the beginning the real show starts in nine hours&34; jia zhu looks at the weapon and mutters to himself

    the city of yudian gradually became bustling

    &34;yi ci, wake up! something big seems to be happening outside!&34; hua rou said anxiously

    yi ci, still half-asleep, grumbled and got out of bed he plained, &34;could it be anything important why isn&39;t the light on&34;

    yi ci got dressed and sat on the bed, still feeling sleepy hua rou said urgently, &34;it seems like there&39;s a power outage, and many things are unusable my phone doesn&39;t work either i just heard screams and ambulance sirens outside, and there seem to be many car accidents i don&39;t know what&39;s going on, it&39;s so chaotic&34;

    &34;could it be an earthquake or a riot or the end of the world if it&39;s not, let&39;s talk about it in the morning i&39;m still too sleepy to care&34; yi ci yawned and lay down again

    &34;it seems to be a massive power outage, but i&39;ve never seen an entire city without power before&34;

    &34;so what if there&39;s a power outage and some car accidents it doesn&39;t affect us, let&39;s go back to sleep&34; yi ci&39;s voice became increasingly faint, and he eventually fell asleep

    hua rou shook yi ci, but he showed no response with a feeling of unease, she thought better of it and decided to go back to sleep

    however, they didn&39;t know that the world had descended into chaos the power supply had been cut off, and the backup power from generators could not last long additionally, all machines were unable to function normally as time went on, the panic around the world intensified and ever since jia zhu had planted the puter virus, the apocalypse had already arrived

    due to the overreliance on the machines produced by &39;xing yu ke gong&39;, accusations and criticism towards the pany began to flood the entire world the moment their machines went offline

    &34;what a piece of junk! i just bought it and it&39;s already useless i thought the machines produced by &39;xing yu ke gong&39; were supposed to be intelligent, but apparently they&39;re just garbage&34;

    &34;&39;xing yu ke gong&39; their machines have been down for so long, it&39;s worse than &39;ying chen&39;&39;s products purely a reputation&34;

    &34;i hate &39;xing yu ke gong&39; my grandfather is lying in the hospital, and without the machines to treat him, how is he supposed to survive&34;

    this incident has led to the peak of anger towards &39;xing yu ke gong&39; insults and abuses are pouring in, and if mobile phones and the inter were still functioning, &39;xing yu ke gong&39; would undoubtedly be unable to stay on the market due to the intense public criticism however, some people are merely overly dependent on these machines, and their disfort without them is causing them to act out, while others genuinely see the robots produced by &39;xing yu ke gong&39; as their lifeline

    although it&39;s only nighttime, both the headquarters and branches of &39;xing yu ke gong&39; have been surrounded by angry crowds they have lost their previous enthusiasm and been replaced by a surge of anger they began to vandalize stores, and the selfishness and survival instincts of the people have sparked riots they fiercely condemned &39;xing yu ke gong&39;

    the decline of &39;xing yu ke gong&39; has entered its final countdown