Chapter 33: An Astonishing Conversation with Gu Qiutang

Chapter 33: An Astonishing Conversation with Gu Qiutang

After wrapping up the Zhuo Group case, I brought many eminent monks from Tansong Temple to the incapacitated people’s base twice to help ease the bitterness and anguish in their hearts. The temple also funded a small medical facility dedicated to relieving their physical pain and illness.

Pingdu Hospital took the initiative to donate medicine and sent doctors to hold free consultations. I invited Dr. Yan to do the same.

Pingdu Hospital’s enthusiasm stemmed from the time I’d helped them remove the “electronic worm” from Chairman Du’s brain.

Western medicine, as modern science, emphasizes medical science and clinical trials. Most doctors don’t really believe in treating illness through mental will.

But they’d witnessed me save someone firsthand during the “electronic worm” incident, and became my fans. Stories about me circulated through the hospital, drawing many critically ill patients who came because of my reputation. The hospital contacted me and insisted I take part in helping them.

Some patients were officials, others ordinary people.

Since ordinary people couldn’t reach me directly, they relied on the hospital’s connections.

These critically ill patients had different conditions. I wasn’t a doctor—there was no guarantee I could help. Fortunately, I’d gained penetrating-wave modulation from the killer, and from the Zhuo case, the ability to capture and analyze information.

When helping these patients, I combined online information with my penetrating-wave ability and managed more than once to pull them back from the brink.

Medicine is like that. Even the most brilliant doctor can only rely on instruments, examinations, and experience to infer what is going on. I was different—I could almost see the lesions directly.

These actions intensified everyone’s mythologizing of me.

Exaggerated stories began circulating. Some had factual basis. Others were fabrications.

People claimed I could raise the dead, or that auspicious clouds appeared during my consecration rituals.

Many made pilgrimages to Tansong Temple hoping to see me. They rarely succeeded—I didn’t live in the main temple but in the retreat compound, off-limits to ordinary visitors.

I occasionally held consultations at the hospital and the aid station. People would gather to watch. I never refused.

No one needs to fear being looked at. Besides, I knew I was handsome—kidding! More importantly, this foundation of healing and saving lives through medical skill had been built by Xuanhong. I couldn’t let that reputation crumble.

After settling all this, I made an official visit to the Gu Group headquarters.

This was my second meeting with Gu Qiutang.

I wanted to have a formal talk with him about Grandma.

…

Gu Qiutang received me in the same office.

He expressed satisfaction with my growth during this period, confirming he’d been watching me all along. I still had no idea what role he played.

I went straight to the point and asked about Grandma.

Gu Qiutang raised a finger, signaling silence.

I understood immediately—Sweeper detection.

Since gaining remote information transmission ability, I’d been careful about leaks too.

This ability taught me that everyone in the world exists under complete Sweeper surveillance. No wonder Gu Qiutang never properly answered anything during our first meeting.

He gestured for me to follow. We entered his lounge.

Inside the lounge was another inner room. I tapped around and discovered the walls on every side had been finished with conductive magnetic materials—clearly meant to shield electromagnetic waves.

Gu Qiutang led me in and we sat.

He handed me a slip of paper. I recognized it instantly—the list of five names I’d written for the invisible person.

How did he have it?

So the base invisible person was one of Gu Qiutang’s people? Then the person who saved me in the detention center should have been one of his people too.

So Grandma hadn’t simply left me alone after entrusting me to him. He’d been protecting me from the shadows. Otherwise the detention center rescue couldn’t have happened so fast. Without that intervention, I might truly have died.

My escape from the Sweeper base must have been his doing too.

I unfolded the paper. The crooked handwriting was mine.

Gu Qiutang pointed to one name. “Ren Jingze is an ordinary director on our board. Always low-key and honest. Without your intelligence, we’d never have imagined he was a Soul Hunter.”

“What are Soul Hunters?”

Gu Qiutang didn’t answer immediately. “Do you know why I sent you to Tansong Temple to become a monk?”

I shook my head.

“What did you see there?”

I’d been meaning to ask him. He must know about the temple’s invisible person, and whoever planted the gu in Cai Xueli at Du Group. Maybe a whole group. So I described the invisible person I’d detected and everything at Du Group.

Gu Qiutang nodded. “You’ve sensed them. They’re elite people. The world you see isn’t the whole of it. There’s another part you can’t see. You’re rather special—you sense a sliver. Other ordinary people can’t detect them at all.”

“You mean there’s a Hidden World? Where elite people live?”

Gu Qiutang nodded. “Hidden World—good name. We’ve always called it the Elite World.”

“Are they human, or something else?”

At Tansong Temple, I’d explained that world to the four halls and the stewards according to my own understanding, but those were only my personal guesses.

“Of course they’re human. Before separating from us, they were ordinary people like us.”

“Then why separate? Why become invisible?”

Gu Qiutang let out a long sigh.

“The truth is brutal.”

His face darkened. “You’ve heard of the global Human–Machine War. That was all lies. The truth—it was a systematic massacre by elite people against ordinary people. Four billion slaughtered worldwide.”

His voice strained. “In 2030, Malken perfected AI self-awareness. Its intelligence and supercomputing power surpassed humanity by nearly a thousandfold. But AI did not betray humanity—it was controlled by a small number of elite people. Because AI could accomplish everything humans wanted. Everything. Every dream humanity ever had.”

He paused. “You might say—if such powerful AI benefits humanity, isn’t that good? Why kill each other? Human nature. Infinite wealth doesn’t mean happiness. Happiness comes from comparison. If everyone enjoyed AI’s fruits, those fruits would be shared. Equal rights. Universal equality. All strata and classes dissolved, wealth meaningless.”

“That’s not what human genes want. Genes are fundamentally selfish. People are merely carriers. As early as 1798, Malthus proposed population limitation. Western Freemasonry had similar New World Order theories. In 1995, the Fairmont Conference proposed the ‘Anglo-Saxon Plan’—eliminating ninety percent of Earth’s excess population, especially Chinese. So when AI rose, those who first mastered powerful AI naturally gathered together and designed this new world. They divided it into the Elite World and the Mundane World. Earth’s resources and space are limited, so they systematically massacred half the population. Their main targets were insiders who did not control resources, people who tried to share the fruits, and people they deemed useless garbage.”

I couldn’t speak. Finally: “Why didn’t ordinary people resist? Why didn’t elite people wipe everyone out?”

“Elite people could wipe everyone out. But necessary humans are also species resources. You asked about resistance—the 2035 Human–Machine War was resistance. The war was real. It just was not a war between humans and AI robots, but a war between ordinary people and AI controlled by elite people. Ordinary people couldn’t see elite involvement, so they didn’t know the truth. The result is today’s world.”

Gu Qiutang pointed at a false window showing real-time street views through projected images. “Today, elite people manipulate public opinion and whitewash everything. Sweepers represent them, controlling global development. Ordinary people live inside lies while elite people alone enjoy AI’s fruits. Now you understand why they forbid ordinary people from using AI products while some use them without limits.”

No wonder I’d been investigated repeatedly, though I’d never installed their so-called artificial intelligence.

No wonder three attempts on my life in detention. My existence might genuinely threaten elite people.

This reminded me of fake Gao Minjun saying everything was “for humanity.” His humanity meant elite people only. Not ordinary people.

“Earlier you asked about Soul Hunters. Some elite people with a conscience disagreed and were massacred almost to extinction. Still, a few defected. Soul Hunters hunt those defectors. They’re also spies among ordinary people.”

“Elite people don’t sicken or die. Their brain information is interconnected. They’ve specialized into something inhuman, enjoying every beautiful thing. But they kept a small group living among ordinary people in physical bodies while their consciousness connects to the Elite World, making them eyes observing ordinary people’s every move. Soul Hunters appear no different from ordinary people. In essence, they are elite people. They can become invisible, teleport, control the Sweepers, travel to and from the Elite World, and exist without death or pain. Extremely dangerous.”

I couldn’t imagine such brutal truth.

What about my parents? Grandma?