Chapter 466: Official Debut! The World-Shocking Z

Chu Bamboo wasn’t actually worried that Z would be led astray by information on the internet. He might have had such concerns before… but Z had obtained partial memories from her future self!

‘If this were one of those fantasy novels, this would pretty much count as a partial reincarnation…’

He’d never heard of any thousand-year-old monster, reincarnated back to their youth, being influenced by newspaper articles or clan discussions to the point of changing their fundamental personality.

‘If they could be changed that easily, it would only mean they’d completely wasted their thousand years of reincarnated life.’ This was the key reason Chu Bamboo had said he was “too late”—because the current Z no longer needed his guidance.

“By the way… where’s Lin Xia?” Chu Bamboo looked around, finding it a bit strange.

“…Have you forgotten, old man? You’re the one who shipped him off to Shanghai yesterday to connect with a bunch of companies!” Zhao Shao’s eye twitched.

Lin Xia was going all out for the sake of virtual reality. Unfortunately, the production chain for VR headsets wasn’t complete here in Jinling City. So, not only did Lin Xia have to go to Shanghai, but he also had a trip to Hang City scheduled afterward…

“Oh!” Chu Bamboo nodded thoughtfully. After a moment’s thought, he dialed Lin Xia’s number directly. The call connected immediately, but Lin Xia didn’t speak to Chu Bamboo… It seemed he was in the middle of selling a dream to someone.

“…Gentlemen, virtual reality is right around the corner! I know you are all people with vision.”

“Especially you, Brother Da Wei. You threw money around getting the Star-Rail Express printed on a rocket, you wanted to develop some brain-computer interface, you wanted to build nuclear fusion… But all of that was them tricking you! What I have, this is all real.”

Lin Xia’s voice was excited and loud, filled with an indescribable, powerful confidence. “Right now, the future is within our grasp! Follow us, and let’s journey into the future together…”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, we’ve almost cobbled together a prototype! We’ll let you try it out then… Great! Once you’ve actually experienced it and see that it’s as amazing as I’ve hyped it up to be, you can wire the money immediately… It’s a deal! A double blessing.”

“We won’t sign a contract, I trust you guys! We’ll just make a gentleman’s agreement right here, with everyone as a witness!”

Chu Bamboo: “…”

‘Could it be…’

‘Right now, Lin Xia is actually… facing…’

A moment later, the noise around Lin Xia died down. He had clearly found a quiet, private place.

His cheerful voice rang out, “Ah Zhu, I’ve found some suckers over here… ahem, I mean, Angel investors! They perfectly fit our requirements…”

“They won’t be involved in our core business, but they’ll throw loads of cash at us to help with the engineering and manufacturing side…”

“And for the engineering and manufacturing, we’ll use all of their connections… their money… their HR, who can poach people and build teams according to our specifications…”

Having outsourced a ton of grunt work, Lin Xia was in an excellent mood. “In the end, for all these hard-labor manufacturing facilities they’re setting up for us, they only want a twenty percent non-voting stake!”

“In other words, they’re paying for everything, finding all the people, and in the end, handing us eighty percent… And this doesn’t even touch any rights to the Virtual World—all they’re handling is the simple manufacturing of the VR headsets… We’re winning so hard it’s not even funny.”

“…” Chu Bamboo said, his face expressionless, “So, what’s the price?”

“The price is that when the Virtual World launches, their game gets to be in the first wave!” Lin Xia said, not caring at all. “Whatever, I never promised them exclusivity! I can just have three or five games launch in the first wave together… That’s not a problem, right?”

“Oh, right, next I’m planning to hit up Tencent and NetEase. I’ll use miHoYo to put some pressure on them. Won’t they have to cough up the cash for me then?”

“…”

“You truly are a capitalist… a people’s entrepreneur!”

Chu Bamboo was speechless with admiration. ‘He’s too good. He’s been in Shanghai for less than a day… and he’s already accomplished this much?’

‘He’s even ready to extend his black hand toward all the other internet giants…’

“Many hands make light work! The advance team we sent over played a big part too…” Lin Xia chuckled. “Also, don’t praise me… I’ll get proud!”

“Indeed,” Chu Bamboo nodded in deep agreement, not stingy with his praise. “You’re very capable! I’m proud of you… You’re really something else!”

“?” Lin Xia’s smile froze. His eyes darted back and forth several times, and his gaze gradually sharpened. Cold sweat soaked his clothes. “Wait, something’s ninety-nine percent wrong here… Who are you?! Get out of my best bro’s body!”

Chu Bamboo: “?”

“Usually, when you hear me bragging like this… you’d tear into me!” Lin Xia accused. “So, you’re either an imposter… or…”

‘Or he’s about to work me like a nuclear-powered donkey again!’

“You know me too well.” Chu Bamboo’s expression didn’t change a bit, and his voice was sincere. “Next up… I hope you can add a few more stops to your itinerary… Get in touch with manufacturers like BYD, Petal, and Coarse Grain…”

“? The hell? Are you getting into car manufacturing now?” Lin Xia’s body trembled. Wasn’t this progress a little too fast? ‘No, wait, we have robots now, so making cars seems normal… I guess?’

“No.” Chu Bamboo raised an eyebrow. “I just want to be their daddy… oh, no, I mean, I hope to replace their autonomous driving functions with Z…”

“I can guarantee that, as long as my rules and regulations are followed, our autonomous driving function can achieve one hundred percent driverless operation… If there’s an accident, we can take full responsibility and cover all costs…”

After a brief silence.

“…Z is being pushed to the mass market?” Lin Xia murmured, as if to himself, but also as if asking Chu Bamboo. His business instincts were incredibly sharp. Then, a spark of inspiration hit him…

“No, wait. You’re trying to increase her market share at any cost… Why? Is it for…”

“Yes, you actually figured it out… It’s for computing power!” A look of approval appeared in Chu Bamboo’s eyes. ‘As expected of my best bro, quick on the uptake.’

As for the one hundred percent driverless capability… strictly speaking, this was an ability from some future AI that Chu Bamboo had fed to Z.

But since Z had already integrated it, then Z naturally possessed this capability.

He could even create a sock puppet AI for this purpose in the future! Just like he’d done for the police department… He could implant a data entity that wasn’t Z’s core into those electric cars!

“…I get it!” Lin Xia, having grasped the situation, thought for a moment. “In that case, let’s just combine the autonomous driving function with our super batteries… and bundle them for sale… Don’t question me, I know the next six months of production are all promised to the Officials! I’m talking about what we discussed before, giving the slightly inferior batteries to BYD and CATL for processing…”

Lin Xia paused, then said, word by word, “With just the battery, they might try to kick us to the curb after they figure out the formula… But if we add the autonomous driving function! Then the situation will be completely different.”

Ultimately, the most important clients for these big battery companies… are the various electric car companies!

Bundling it with the autonomous driving function would be equivalent to subtly pulling those electric car companies into their own camp! Under these circumstances…

“Once we’ve built our moat, we can apply more pressure—ahem, I mean, encourage these manufacturers… to cooperate with us more obediently… And not just the battery manufacturers!” Lin Xia shook his head.

For example, Petal is also working on autonomous driving. Even if Petal’s own system is far inferior to Z, they won’t necessarily concede defeat.

With the battery as leverage in the deal, negotiations on this front could proceed more smoothly.

Suddenly thinking of something, Lin Xia frowned and asked, “Right, what about Tesla?”

“We can approach them! But if he’s not willing… then forget it. After all, he’s across the Sea right now… and pretty busy!” Chu Bamboo recalled some recent news, his expression turning a bit strange. That Mr. Ma had been making quite a name for himself lately!

“That’s true!” Lin Xia nodded in agreement. He took a deep breath. “Alright then, I’m getting back to work!”

No feeling wronged, no anger, no complaints!

Lin Xia only had overflowing passion and seemingly inexhaustible energy.

“…I really envy Lin Xia!” Zhao Shao said, propping his chin on his hand. He looked at Chu Bamboo, who had hung up and was now staring blankly at his phone, unsure what kind of expression he should be making.

Although Lin Xia always said he wasn’t a genius, his inexhaustible drive was something no ordinary person could achieve. It meant that Lin Xia possessed incredible willpower and self-control.

“…Well, that’s just Lin Xia.” Chu Bamboo looked up, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes. Or perhaps, this was the only thing Lin Xia felt he could do… Compared to gifted people like Chu Bamboo and Zhao Shao… Lin Xia felt the only thing he could contribute was twice the effort and hard work.

“So,” Zhao Shao recalled everything Chu Bamboo had said earlier and asked, somewhat uncertainly, “…the updated Z, is it still going to be free for the public to use?”

“Mhm!” Chu Bamboo nodded. ‘I’m already planning to leech off the public’s spare computing power… If I charged them on top of that, I’d be less than human…’

“Alright then…” Zhao Shao shrugged. He pinched the bridge of his nose, looked Chu Bamboo up and down, and then a sudden idea came to him. A mischievous look appeared on his face.

“In that case, my dear superstar… could I trouble Your Highness to accept an endorsement deal?”

Zhao Shao’s tone was strange. “After all, you’re so… red-hot right now! Hehehe, instead of letting some outsider get the benefit, why not let me have it? I’m not so bad myself…”

Chu Bamboo: “…”

‘The way you’re talking is honestly scaring me… and you’re not even from Sichuan Province…’

「Ten minutes later.」

Z officially began her background update on the countless phones where she was installed!

「Twenty minutes later.」

Z’s update was officially complete.

「Half an hour later.」

Chu Bamboo started an online press conference. There was no time to urgently set up a real venue… but that didn’t matter. He could just use AI to fake one! All he had to do was stand in Zhao Shao’s office and give a passionate speech…

「One hour later.」

News began to spread that Chu Bamboo had accepted his first endorsement deal in the Divine Continent.

At the same time, numerous short clips also went viral… In some of these clips, Chu Bamboo was lavishing praise, calling Z a cross-era AI, the undisputed number one AI in the world today, at least ten years ahead of the popular AI across the Sea…

In others, Chu Bamboo was conversing with Z, showcasing her unimaginable humanity.

There were also clips of Chu Bamboo letting Z take control of his phone, and within ten minutes, smoothly adding ten girls as friends through various channels! It showcased unbelievable pickup artist skills…

There was even a scene where Chu Bamboo just said a few words, and Z smoothly created a small game program—of course, this was quite computationally intensive, and Chu Bamboo was only doing it for demonstration purposes. As for regular users who download it and find it doesn’t have this feature, emmm, once they’re hooked, they’ll naturally be captivated by Z’s other functions, so it didn’t really matter.

There were so, so many talking points from this press conference! Coupled with the fact that the presenter was Chu Bamboo, who was currently famous across half the Earth, it immediately created a chain reaction…

Two hours later, news about Z spread beyond the Divine Continent.

「The fourth hour.」

One by one, the top charts of domestic and international apps were slaughtered by this news. Countless people who were still awake received the related notifications…

At that moment, the entire world was shaken!