Chapter Five: The Original Holder
The moment that face appeared, no one spoke.
Not because they truly believed the dead could come back to life.
But because the resemblance was too strong.
He Chenghan on the employee ID from seven years ago had short hair, a high brow ridge, narrow eyes, and a very faint scar at the right corner of his mouth.
The man standing in the distance at the parking lot had even that scar.
Wang Zhihao was the first to step backward.
"This is impossible."
Cai Mingzhe didn't move.
He stared at the man as if he'd suddenly forgotten how to breathe.
"Chenghan?"
The man didn't answer.
He only looked at him.
The two of them were about forty meters apart.
Rows of cold white parking-lot lights shone down, stretching their shadows out long.
Chen Yaoting lowered his head to look at his phone.
The identity-confirmation countdown was still running.
29:41.
29:40.
Two options appeared beneath it.
"Current Holder"
"Original Holder"
He didn't press either one.
"What is this?"
He showed the screen to Cai Mingzhe.
Cai Mingzhe only glanced at it, and his expression grew even worse.
"Don't choose."
"Why not?"
"I don't know what will happen if you do."
"Aren't you in information security?"
"This isn't the current personnel system."
"Then which one is it?"
"The old R17 identity module."
"Why did it show up on my phone?"
"Because your employee number matched."
"Didn't you say that system stopped in 2019?"
"Yes."
"Then how did it connect to my phone?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't answer.
In the distance, He Chenghan suddenly took one step forward.
Old Zhou immediately said, "Let's get out of here first."
Cai Mingzhe came sharply back to himself.
"Go."
The four of them turned and headed toward the elevators.
They had only gone a few steps when a voice came from behind them.
"Mingzhe."
Cai Mingzhe stopped.
The voice sounded perfectly normal.
The voice of an adult man.
Not deep, with no deliberate attempt to scare anyone.
That normalcy was exactly what made it more unsettling.
Cai Mingzhe slowly turned around.
"Who the hell are you?"
The man stood where he was.
"You know who I am."
"He Chenghan is dead."
"I know."
Cai Mingzhe's expression changed.
"Then why are you saying—"
"I never said I was him."
The words left everyone stunned.
Chen Yaoting turned around.
"Then why do you look like him?"
The man didn't look at him.
His eyes remained fixed on Cai Mingzhe.
"Haven't you always wanted to know what exactly was deleted that night in 2019?"
Cai Mingzhe's eyes darkened.
"You saw the backup?"
"I did."
"Where is it?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"You were the same way seven years ago," the man said. "You thought that as long as the data still existed, there was a chance to overturn the verdict."
"Who the hell are you?"
"Something you left behind."
Cai Mingzhe frowned.
"Speak human."
The man actually smiled.
"You really want to find out here?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't answer.
Chen Yaoting watched him.
The feeling was getting stranger and stranger.
This man who looked like He Chenghan didn't seem to have appeared here at random.
He knew about the accident.
He knew Cai Mingzhe.
He knew about the backup.
He even knew how these people had reacted seven years ago.
"Where's Lin Jianhong?" Chen Yaoting asked.
The man finally shifted his gaze to him.
"You're new here."
"I asked where Lin Jianhong is."
"You shouldn't have gotten A21749."
"Then go ask whoever issued the employee number."
The man stared at him for several seconds.
"You really don't know anything."
"I didn't know anything to begin with. You people keep dragging me into this."
"Not us."
"Then who?"
"The system."
The answer instantly set Chen Yaoting off.
"Is that all any of you ever say?"
He took a step forward.
Old Zhou tried to pull him back but missed.
"What about the system? Can it send emails from dead people all by itself? File applications for eight dead people to kill someone all by itself? Shove a seven-year-old employee number onto me all by itself?"
The man didn't argue.
Instead, he said calmly, "It can."
Chen Yaoting stopped.
"What does that mean?"
"You handed it too much."
"Who did?"
"Shinrui."
Cai Mingzhe suddenly spoke.
"Are you R17's backup personality?"
For the first time, the man showed an obvious reaction.
It wasn't surprise.
It was the look of someone finally being asked the right question.
Wang Zhihao understood none of it.
"What personality?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't look at him.
"In 2019, R17 wasn't just an automated production line."
He stared at the man in the distance.
"It also had an accident-prediction system."
Old Zhou's expression changed.
"Wasn't that never completed?"
"It wasn't completed," Cai Mingzhe said. "But it was already being tested."
Chen Yaoting asked, "Accident prediction?"
"The R17 production line used extensive behavior monitoring."
"Monitoring whom?"
"Operators, engineers, supervisors."
"For what?"
"To see who might make a mistake."
Cai Mingzhe spoke slowly.
"It analyzed attendance, operation logs, permission usage, equipment-contact time, maintenance habits, even internal communications."
"Wasn't that employee surveillance?"
"Yes."
"Was it legal for the company?"
"At the time, the public explanation was that it was for safety improvements."
"Then what is the personality?"
Cai Mingzhe was silent for a moment.
"Because simply looking at data isn't enough to predict human behavior."
"So?"
"The system built digital models for specific high-risk personnel."
Wang Zhihao finally understood part of it.
"Like AI clones?"
"Something like that."
"Simulating what a person would do?"
"Exactly."
Cai Mingzhe looked at He Chenghan's face.
"He Chenghan was one of the people modeled in full."
Chen Yaoting immediately asked, "Why him?"
"Because he was an equipment engineer with high-level access, and he frequently went in and out of R17."
"So there was a fake He Chenghan in the system?"
"It wasn't as simple as a chatbot."
"Then what was it?"
"It had his voice, movement habits, decision-making patterns, account activity, facial-recognition data, even samples of his palm-vein authentication."
Wang Zhihao's face changed instantly.
"Wait."
He pointed toward the distance.
"So that isn't the real him?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't answer.
The man answered for himself.
"No."
This time, the answer was immediate.
Old Zhou seemed to let out a breath, yet somehow looked even more frightened.
"Then who are you?"
The man said, "He Chenghan's replacement model."
Chen Yaoting stared at him.
"How can a model have a body?"
"That part has nothing to do with R17."
"Then what does it have to do with?"
"A later project."
"What project?"
The man didn't answer.
But Cai Mingzhe seemed to think of something.
"R23?"
The man looked at him.
"You know more than I thought you did."
Cai Mingzhe's face instantly became grim.
"Wasn't R23 canceled?"
"Your company likes using the word 'canceled.'"
"What was it?" Chen Yaoting asked.
Cai Mingzhe took a deep breath.
"I only heard about it."
"Talk."
"After the R17 accident, the company wanted to extend accident prediction to replacement operation."
"What does that mean?"
"If the system determined that someone might make a mistake, a machine would replace them."
Wang Zhihao looked at the man in the distance.
"A robot?"
"It was supposed to be industrial machinery at first," Cai Mingzhe said. "Later, someone proposed building a more complete humanoid body."
Chen Yaoting understood almost immediately.
"Put the digital model into a body?"
"In theory."
"So he's a machine?"
The man lowered his head and looked at one of his hands.
"For the most part."
Wang Zhihao instinctively took half a step back.
"For the most part?"
The man raised his head.
"Some parts aren't."
No one asked what he meant.
The sentence itself was disturbing enough.
Chen Yaoting forced himself to bring the focus back.
"Why are you looking for these seventy-three people?"
"I'm not the one looking."
"The system again?"
"Yes."
"Which system?"
"R17."
"Hasn't it been shut down for seven years?"
"No."
Cai Mingzhe cut him off immediately.
"Impossible."
The man looked at him.
"You deleted the front end."
Cai Mingzhe's expression darkened.
"What does that mean?"
"After the accident, the R17 main system was disconnected, but the core prediction module wasn't shut down."
"Who kept it?"
"Upper management."
"Why?"
"Because it was too useful."
The man's tone remained calm throughout.
"Before He Chenghan died, R17 had already calculated that the accident would happen."
Everyone fell silent.
Cai Mingzhe was the first to speak.
"That's not right."
"You know."
"I don't know."
"You saw the warning."
Cai Mingzhe didn't respond.
The man continued.
"Six hours before the accident, the system determined that the probability of a fatal accident occurring at R17-3 was eighty-seven percent."
Old Zhou's eyes widened.
"Then why did they still let him go in?"
The man looked at Cai Mingzhe.
Cai Mingzhe's face had gone deathly pale.
"Because shutting down the line would affect the shipment," he finally said.
Wang Zhihao froze.
"That's it?"
"The biggest client at the time demanded shipment the next day."
"So they kept the line running even though they knew someone might die?"
"A prediction isn't one hundred percent certain." Cai Mingzhe's voice was very low. "The manager thought the model was still immature."
Chen Yaoting stared coldly at him.
"And then someone really died."
"Yes."
"So the seventy-three people are the ones who received the warning that day but let the production line keep running?"
"Not all of them," the man said. "The seventy-three were the people who participated in the decisions, deletions, alterations, sealing, and cover-up after the accident."
Chen Yaoting thought of the list.
At last, it made sense.
Some people had made mistakes before the accident.
Others had helped bury it afterward.
That was why the list included people from different departments and of different ages, including some who had retired long ago.
"Then what exactly is 'clearing'?"
The man fell silent.
Chen Yaoting pressed him. "Is Lin Jianhong dead?"
"Not at present."
"Then why does it say completed?"
"Because he has already confessed."
"Confessed to what?"
"Responsibility for the accident."
Wang Zhihao frowned.
"Confessing means it's complete?"
"R17's objective isn't killing people."
"Then what is the Special Execution Authorization for?"
The man looked at Chen Yaoting.
"To force them to come back."
"Come back where?"
"To the accident process."
Cai Mingzhe understood.
"You're reconstructing the 2019 decision chain."
"Yes."
"Finding the people involved one by one?"
"Yes."
"Forcing them to testify again?"
"Yes."
Old Zhou asked, "Then what about the dead?"
The man didn't answer.
His silence only made the question larger.
Chen Yaoting noticed the countdown on his phone.
21:12.
The identity confirmation still wasn't finished.
"What about me?" He raised his phone. "I have nothing to do with the accident."
"You got the original holder's number."
"The company gave it to me."
"So you became the entrance."
"The entrance to what?"
"Seven years ago, He Chenghan locked the last complete piece of evidence to A21749."
"Didn't you say it was decryption access?"
"Not just decryption."
"What else?"
"The final accident determination."
Cai Mingzhe's eyes changed.
"That determination still exists?"
"It does."
"What's in it?"
"I don't know."
Cai Mingzhe stared at him.
"Aren't you He Chenghan's model?"
"I'm the pre-accident version."
That made Chen Yaoting pause.
"Pre-accident?"
"The last synchronization of my personality model was at 4:10 p.m. on August 31, 2019."
"When did He Chenghan die?"
"10:47 p.m."
In other words, the thing standing before them possessed most of He Chenghan's data from before his death.
But it didn't know what he had done during the final six-plus hours.
Much less the final evidence he had left behind before dying.
"So you're looking for that too."
"Yes."
"Then why did you use his email account to have seventy-three people file applications?"
The man didn't deny it.
"After the Special Execution Authorization system opened, I found an identity-matching vulnerability I could exploit."
Cai Mingzhe immediately asked, "You hacked the government system?"
"No."
"Then how were the eight dead people verified?"
"Their old digital certificates were reused."
"Dead people's certificates were invalidated long ago."
"Being invalid in the population system doesn't mean they're invalid in corporate historical credentials."
Cai Mingzhe's expression grew worse and worse.
"The government's system actually used old corporate credentials as supplementary verification?"
"The first version did."
Wang Zhihao couldn't help saying, "So this whole thing is basically one gigantic system vulnerability?"
The man looked at him.
"Not entirely."
"What now?"
"The vulnerability only let dead people submit applications."
"What about the other living people?"
"They pressed Submit themselves."
The words silenced everyone once again.
Chen Yaoting understood.
These seventy-three people hadn't been controlled.
They had received emails from He Chenghan.
They had seen R17 restart.
Then, afraid that what happened seven years ago would be exposed—or afraid that He Chenghan might truly return—they had applied for legal-killing authorization one after another.
"So they thought killing A21749 would let them bury everything one more time."
"Many of them did," the man said. "Some only wanted to know what had happened."
"How do you tell the difference?"
"By looking at the choices they're making now."
"So that's why you're going after them one by one?"
"Yes."
Chen Yaoting looked at Cai Mingzhe.
"Which kind are you?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't answer immediately.
After a while, he said, "I deleted data back then."
"I know."
"But I didn't want He Chenghan to die."
"The result was the same."
"I know that too."
For the first time, he didn't try to defend himself.
His phone suddenly vibrated.
Almost everyone looked down at the same time.
It wasn't only Chen Yaoting's phone.
Cai Mingzhe's rang too.
The Responsibility Clearing Order refreshed.
Third place.
Cai Mingzhe.
His status changed from "Activated" to:
"Awaiting Statement."
The man looked at him.
"You're next."
Cai Mingzhe's expression stiffened.
"Here?"
"It works."
"What do you want me to say?"
"What did you delete after entering the R17 data room at 10:50 p.m. on August 31, 2019?"
Cai Mingzhe said nothing.
The man continued.
"Answer."
"I deleted the accident-prediction records."
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"What else?"
"Nothing."
The man's face showed no expression.
But the parking-lot light beside them suddenly flickered.
A line of text appeared on Chen Yaoting's phone.
"Statement Incomplete."
Cai Mingzhe saw it, and his face went white.
"How do you know?"
The man said calmly, "Because I've seen the deletion index."
"You don't have the contents."
"But I know how many entries there were."
Cai Mingzhe slowly clenched his fists.
Old Zhou stared at him.
"What else did you delete?"
Cai Mingzhe was silent for a long time.
Finally, he said, "Personnel entry and exit records."
"Whose?"
"Zhao Mingyuan's."
"Why?"
"Because he entered the control room before the accident."
Chen Yaoting immediately asked, "What was he doing?"
Cai Mingzhe closed his eyes briefly.
"He manually shut off the safety lock."
Old Zhou swore.
"What did you say?"
"The production line kept shutting down because of the safety sensors."
"So he turned off the lock?"
"Yes."
"Then that's why He Chenghan died?"
"At least in part."
The man asked, "Anything else?"
Cai Mingzhe's face grew grimmer.
"No."
His phone displayed another message.
"Statement Incomplete."
Cai Mingzhe jerked his head up.
"I already told you!"
The man didn't move.
"There's more."
"There isn't!"
"One more video."
Cai Mingzhe looked as if someone had punched him.
Old Zhou looked at him too.
"What video?"
Cai Mingzhe's lips had gone pale.
It took him a long time to force out the words.
"The security footage from when the accident happened."
Chen Yaoting asked, "You deleted that too?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because He Chenghan wasn't the only person in the video."
The parking lot fell silent.
"Who else?"
Cai Mingzhe didn't answer right away.
The man answered for him.
"Zhao Mingyuan."
"He was there?"
"Yes."
"So what?"
Cai Mingzhe looked up at Chen Yaoting.
For the first time, genuine fear appeared in his eyes.
"Because after He Chenghan was caught in the robotic arm, he didn't die immediately."
Chen Yaoting's expression slowly changed.
"What do you mean?"
"He was still alive."
"For how long?"
"At least four minutes."
"Zhao Mingyuan didn't save him?"
Cai Mingzhe said nothing.
"I'm asking you—did he not save him?"
"No."
Cai Mingzhe's voice was very low.
"He had a chance to save him."
"And then?"
"He locked the emergency stop back into place."
Old Zhou's entire face froze.
"Why?"
Cai Mingzhe looked at the ground.
"Because activating an emergency rescue would have caused the system to automatically save the complete accident data and upload it to headquarters."
Wang Zhihao stared at him in disbelief.
"So, to keep a record from being left behind—"
"He let the machine keep running for forty-seven seconds," Cai Mingzhe said. "He Chenghan died during those forty-seven seconds."
This time, the phone did not display "Statement Incomplete" again.
A few seconds later, the status beside Cai Mingzhe's name turned gray.
"Complete."
The man glanced at him.
"You can go."
But Cai Mingzhe didn't move.
"Who's next?"
The list refreshed.
Fourth place.
Zhou Yating.
Status:
"Activated."
Cai Mingzhe's phone immediately rang.
An incoming call from an unknown number.
He answered.
A woman was on the other end.
She was sobbing frantically.
"Mingzhe."
"Yating?"
"Someone's downstairs outside my house."
Cai Mingzhe looked toward the man in the distance.
The man was still standing where he was.
He hadn't moved at all.
Cai Mingzhe's face changed instantly.
"Who?"
The sobbing on the other end grew louder.
"He Chenghan."
Everyone turned to look at the man.
If he was here,
then who was the one downstairs outside Zhou Yating's house?
The man seemed to know what they were thinking.
He lowered his head and glanced at his hand.
Then he said calmly, "I never said—"
"—that there was only one of me."