Chapter Six: More Than One He Chenghan
“I never said there was only one of me.”
After those words fell, no one in the parking garage reacted right away.
The first thing Chen Yaoting thought of wasn’t machines or dead people.
It was numbers.
If the person standing before them really was some kind of humanoid vessel created based on He Chenghan—and there was more than one of them—then this had already gone far beyond the scope of an old company accident.
Wang Zhihao asked outright:
“How many are there?”
The man didn’t answer.
“Three? Five? Ten?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t even know yourself?”
“I know about this body.”
“What about the others?”
“They’re outside my control.”
Wang Zhihao couldn’t help letting out a laugh.
There wasn’t a trace of relief in it.
“Great. Now even the robot doesn’t know how many brothers it has.”
Chen Yaoting ignored him.
He looked at Cai Mingzhe.
“Where does Zhou Yating live?”
“Luzhou.”
“It’ll take at least a while to get there from here.”
“So it can’t be him.”
Cai Mingzhe stared at the man in front of them.
“Unless another body was already there.”
The man didn’t deny it.
Zhou Yating was still crying on the phone.
Cai Mingzhe immediately turned on speakerphone.
“Yating, don’t come downstairs yet.”
“I’m not. My door is locked.”
“Can you see where he is?”
“At the parking garage entrance.”
“Are you sure it’s He Chenghan?”
“I know him.”
“When was the last time you saw the real him?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Then how can you be sure it isn’t just someone who looks like him?”
There was a pause on the other end.
“Because he’s wearing the clothes from that day.”
Cai Mingzhe’s expression froze.
Chen Yaoting asked:
“What day?”
Zhou Yating heard the unfamiliar voice over the phone.
“Who’s that?”
Cai Mingzhe said:
“Chen Yaoting.”
Zhou Yating suddenly stopped crying.
Only her rapid breathing remained.
“A21749?”
Chen Yaoting frowned.
“Yes.”
There was three seconds of silence.
When Zhou Yating spoke, she sounded even more panicked than before.
“Don’t go with them.”
“Who?”
“Any He Chenghan.”
The man in front of them slowly raised his head.
Cai Mingzhe immediately asked:
“Why?”
“Because they aren’t the same person.”
“We know there’s more than one body.”
“It’s not about the number.”
“Then what is it?”
Zhou Yating lowered her voice.
“They’re all different.”
Chen Yaoting looked at the man in front of him.
For the first time, a faint change appeared on the man’s face.
It wasn’t nervousness.
It was more like he was listening to an answer he himself didn’t know.
“Do you know about R23?”
Cai Mingzhe asked.
Zhou Yating didn’t answer immediately.
“I know a little.”
“What does ‘a little’ mean?”
“I went to the Hsinchu plant later.”
“Didn’t you quit six months after the accident?”
“I quit Shinrui.”
“What do you mean?”
“Later, a contractor hired me for a project.”
Cai Mingzhe’s expression changed.
“What company?”
“Shengwei Biomedical.”
Old Zhou suddenly spoke.
“No way.”
Everyone looked at him.
Chen Yaoting asked:
“You know it?”
Old Zhou pressed his lips together.
A few seconds later, he said:
“I’ve heard the name.”
“What do they do?”
“Prosthetics, rehabilitation equipment, biomedical sensors.”
Cai Mingzhe continued:
“It was also a company Shinrui had invested in.”
“Had?”
“They later transferred their shares.”
“Is R23 connected to them?”
Zhou Yating said over the phone:
“Yes.”
“You worked on it?”
“I was only responsible for administrative records.”
“What did you see?”
“Vessel testing.”
Chen Yaoting asked:
“You mean humanoid machines like this?”
“I don’t know if they count as machines.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some parts are mechanical. Some parts are artificially cultivated tissue.”
The parking garage suddenly went silent.
Wang Zhihao said quietly:
“He said just now that most of him was machine.”
Zhou Yating immediately asked:
“That’s what he told you?”
“Yes.”
A very soft intake of breath came from the other end of the phone.
“Then he should be Type Two.”
The man finally spoke.
“Type Two?”
The moment Zhou Yating heard his voice, she went silent.
Several seconds later, she asked:
“Which body are you?”
The man looked at his own hand.
“I don’t know.”
“Your right wrist.”
The man pulled up his sleeve.
There was a fine gray line on the inside of his wrist.
It looked like a surgical scar.
Zhou Yating asked:
“How many?”
Chen Yaoting checked for him.
“One.”
There was another silence on the other end.
“Then you’re R23-B.”
The man frowned.
“Are you sure?”
“Type One has no external circulatory tissue, so its skin temperature is much lower than a real person’s. Starting with Type Two, biological tissue was added, leaving a main circulation interface scar on the right wrist.”
Cai Mingzhe stared at the man.
“You don’t know your own model?”
“It’s not in my memory.”
“Who activated you?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you first become conscious?”
This time, the man didn’t answer immediately.
“Three days ago.”
Something stirred in Chen Yaoting’s mind.
“The day the old R17 system was logged into?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you wake up?”
“Hsinchu.”
Zhou Yating suddenly spoke:
“Where?”
The man gave an address.
A curse immediately came from the other end of the phone.
“That’s Shengwei’s old testing facility.”
“It’s still there?”
“It was shut down five years ago.”
“There were people inside when I woke up.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t see them?”
“I saw several people in clean-room suits.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They handed me an employee ID card.”
“A21749?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“They told me to go to Taoyuan.”
“Why?”
“To recover the accident procedure.”
Cai Mingzhe immediately asked:
“Who gave the order?”
“The system showed the source as R17.”
“Not a person?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
The more Chen Yaoting listened, the more wrong it felt.
If this He Chenghan had only been activated three days ago, then the emails he sent, the process that activated seventy-three people, and the login to R17 had all begun around the same time.
In other words, the thing truly set in motion behind all this wasn’t him.
He was a tool that had been activated too.
“Zhou Yating.”
Chen Yaoting spoke into the phone.
“You said just now that every one of them is different. What did you mean?”
Zhou Yating answered quickly.
“R23 isn’t a cloning program.”
“Then what is it?”
“Branch personality testing.”
Cai Mingzhe frowned.
“Explain.”
“He Chenghan’s digital model wasn’t just a single file back then.”
“How many were there?”
“I saw six identification numbers.”
Wang Zhihao immediately said:
“Six?”
“At least six.”
“What was different about them?”
“The parameters.”
“What parameters?”
“If he chose to obey his manager back then, the system would simulate one version.”
“What if he resisted?”
“Another.”
“What if he wanted to call the police?”
“Another.”
“What if he wanted revenge?”
“There was one of those too.”
Chen Yaoting understood.
These weren’t simply copies of He Chenghan.
They were personalities developed by simulating different choices in the same person.
Zhou Yating continued:
“R17 was originally used to predict the behavior of high-risk employees this way.”
“So it would build many possible versions?”
“Yes.”
“R23 put those versions into different bodies?”
“That was the direction of the data I saw.”
Cai Mingzhe looked at R23-B in front of them.
“Then which type are you?”
The man said nothing.
“Obedient type? Revenge type?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t even see your own underlying parameters?”
“I can’t.”
Zhou Yating suddenly said:
“Ask him one thing.”
“What?”
“Did He Chenghan want Zhao Mingyuan dead in the end?”
The man in front of them stopped.
Chen Yaoting looked at him too.
Several seconds later, the man answered:
“No.”
Cai Mingzhe frowned.
Zhou Yating immediately said:
“Then you’re not the revenge type.”
“How do you know?”
“In the post-accident simulation results for the revenge type, Zhao Mingyuan’s death had a very high priority.”
“You saw them?”
“Part of them.”
“Then what about the one downstairs with you?”
The other end of the phone suddenly went silent.
Cai Mingzhe immediately asked:
“Yating?”
There was no answer.
A few seconds later, they heard very faint footsteps.
They weren’t Zhou Yating’s footsteps from inside the phone.
It sounded like someone was walking down the hallway outside her home.
One step.
Another.
Another.
Zhou Yating spoke in a hushed voice:
“He’s coming up.”
“Lock the door.”
“It’s locked.”
“Call the police.”
“I already did.”
“Don’t go near the door.”
Zhou Yating suddenly asked:
“Is that body still beside you?”
Cai Mingzhe glanced at the man.
“Yes.”
“Have him say something.”
“What?”
“Have him say my name.”
The man looked at the phone.
“Zhou Yating.”
A sharp intake of breath immediately came from the other end.
“They’re not the same.”
“How do you know?”
“The voices are different.”
The man frowned.
“How?”
“Your voice is closer to the real He Chenghan’s.”
“What about the other one?”
“Lower.”
“So they’re different models?”
“Yes.”
A knock suddenly came through the phone.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Everyone fell silent.
Zhou Yating didn’t dare make a sound.
Someone outside spoke.
“Yating.”
The voice really was much lower.
Completely different from the man in the parking garage.
“Open the door.”
Zhou Yating began to tremble.
Cai Mingzhe lowered his voice.
“Don’t answer.”
The person outside spoke again:
“I know you’re in there.”
No one answered.
“September 2, 2019.”
Zhou Yating’s breathing suddenly stopped.
“You changed He Chenghan’s medical records.”
Cai Mingzhe looked at the phone.
Old Zhou’s expression changed too.
The voice outside continued:
“You moved his time of death twelve minutes earlier.”
Zhou Yating finally couldn’t hold back.
“I didn’t decide that!”
The voice on the phone instantly sounded closer.
“But you signed it.”
“I was only handling admin!”
“You signed it.”
“That’s what my superiors told me to do!”
“Who?”
Zhou Yating began to sob.
“Zhao Mingyuan.”
The hallway outside went quiet.
A few seconds later, the list on Cai Mingzhe’s phone refreshed automatically.
Number four.
Zhou Yating.
Her status changed from “Activated” to:
“Statement Incomplete.”
R23-B stared at the phone.
“There’s more.”
Zhou Yating was apparently looking at her own screen too.
“There isn’t.”
The voice outside spoke again.
“There’s more.”
“There really isn’t!”
“Why was the time of death changed?”
Zhou Yating said nothing.
“Answer.”
Only her sobbing remained on the other end.
“Yating!”
Cai Mingzhe shouted.
“Tell us whatever you know!”
“Because…”
Her voice came in broken fragments.
“Because if we wrote down the actual time of death… it wouldn’t match the ambulance records.”
Chen Yaoting immediately asked:
“What does that mean?”
“When the ambulance arrived… He Chenghan still had vital signs.”
Old Zhou froze.
“Wasn’t he pronounced dead at the scene?”
“No.”
“Then was he taken to the hospital?”
“No.”
That answer stopped everyone cold.
“What do you mean, no?”
“He wasn’t taken to the hospital.”
Cai Mingzhe’s expression slowly changed.
“Why not?”
Zhou Yating cried even harder.
“Because the ambulance wasn’t there to save him in the first place.”
The parking garage fell into absolute silence.
“Then what was it there for?”
“To take him away.”
“Take him where?”
“Hsinchu.”
R23-B suddenly raised his head.
Zhou Yating gave the address.
It was the exact place where he had awakened three days earlier.
Chen Yaoting felt all the clues in his mind suddenly slam together.
“Are you saying He Chenghan wasn’t dead at the time?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said he still had vital signs.”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened afterward?”
“All I know is that after the ambulance left Taoyuan, all the medical records were altered.”
“Who took over?”
“Shengwei Biomedical.”
For the first time, the man showed genuine shock.
“No way.”
Zhou Yating sobbed over the phone:
“You thought R23 was made from the digital model He Chenghan left behind before he died.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Not entirely.”
“What do you mean?”
“Starting with Type Two, biological tissue was added.”
“I know.”
“Where do you think that tissue came from?”
The man stood as if nailed to the spot.
Wang Zhihao couldn’t say a word either.
Zhou Yating’s voice trembled so badly it was almost impossible to hear.
“He Chenghan didn’t die right away after the accident.”
“He was taken to Shengwei.”
“The first few R23 vessels used parts of his—