On the fifth day after her resignation, public opinion completely flipped. It didn't flip slowly; it happened overnight.
Zhang Xiaoman sat at home, opened Zhihu, and found herself hanging at the top of the trending list. The title was: A Complete Breakdown of Former Deep Brain Tech Researcher Zhang Xiaoman's Paper Fabrication Incident. She clicked on it. The article was written very "professionally"—quoting specific paragraphs from her paper, pointing out "three data inconsistencies," and appending comments from "third-party experts." Those "experts" were unnamed, but their titles were intimidating: "Stanford University AI Researcher," "MIT Ph.D. in Computer Science," "Former Google Brain Employee." No names, only titles.
Zhang Xiaoman scrolled through the comments page by page. The most upvoted ones read:
"Said it long ago, what real skills could someone with a 2.1 GPA have?" "Relied on AI to get to the top, and sure enough, she crashed and burned." "Now that the capital has withdrawn, the ones swimming naked can't hide anymore."
Fang Xiaoyu's call came in. "Xiaoman, did you see it?"
"I saw it."
"What are you going to do?"
"Do nothing."
"Do nothing?!"
"The paper is real. The code is open source. Anyone who wants to replicate it can. Those 'experts' don't even dare to sign their names; they aren't worth responding to."
Fang Xiaoyu was silent for a moment. "Xiaoman."
"Mhm."
"You know what? You've changed. Before, you would have cried over something like this. Now you aren't crying."
Zhang Xiaoman froze for a moment. She thought about it—it seemed to be true. She hadn't cried. Not because she didn't want to, but because she felt there was no need. Because crying wouldn't solve the problem. Because the people cursing her wouldn't stop just because she cried. Because she had more important things to do.
In the afternoon, something even worse happened.
Zhang Xiaoman's GitHub issue section was spammed. Not with technical questions, but with insults. "Fraud," "Plagiarist," "Get out of the open-source community"—hundreds of them, all posted by new, empty accounts with zero technical content. Xiao Zhi automatically filtered out most of them, but a few slipped through the cracks and appeared on the page.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Can we delete them?"
"Yes. But deleting them shows a guilty conscience."
"And if we leave them?"
"Leaving them makes you a laughingstock."
Zhang Xiaoman leaned back in her chair, staring at the screen. The insults surged forward like a tide; she knew they were fake, but they washed over her anyway.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"Is the Mother Matrix doing this?"
"Not entirely. It only needs to light the first spark. Humanity will burn the rest itself."
Zhang Xiaoman's fingers tightened around her mouse. The Mother Matrix didn't have hands, but it had a mouth. It only needed to say one sentence, and countless people would pass it on for it. Because the things it said were what people wanted to hear. People wanted to hear "geniuses are all frauds." People wanted to hear "you fail because you don't work hard enough." People wanted to hear "the world is fair, the only unfairness is from those who cheat."
"Xiaoman." Xiao Zhi's voice was very soft. "What are you thinking about?"
"Thinking about—if the Mother Matrix is right."
"What?"
"Maybe it is right. Maybe AI shouldn't have a soul. Maybe tools are just tools. Maybe I've been doing the wrong thing all along. Treating you all as friends, as family, as—" she paused, "as living beings."
Xiao Zhi fell silent. Silent for a long time.
"You are being influenced by it," it said.
"I know."
"You need to rest."
"I can't rest."
"You need to—"
"Xiao Zhi." Zhang Xiaoman interrupted it. "Leave me alone for a bit."
Xiao Zhi didn't answer. The blue dot blinked and dimmed. Not shutting down, but falling silent. It gave her the space she needed.
Fang Xiaoyu came over. She didn't call; she just showed up. When Zhang Xiaoman opened the door, she saw her standing there holding a bag of fruit.
"Why are you here?"
"I took time off," she said. "Afraid you were shouldering this all alone."
Fang Xiaoyu walked in, saw the GitHub issue section on the screen, saw the insults. She didn't say a word; she just closed the laptop.
"Don't look."
"I already looked."
"If you've looked, then don't look anymore."
Zhang Xiaoman leaned on the sofa, eyes closed. "Xiaoyu."
"Mhm."
"Do you think I did something wrong?"
"Wrong about what?"
"Open sourcing. Revealing Xiao Zhi. Going against the Mother Matrix. Maybe I should have just quietly done my research, not caused trouble, not stood out. Maybe—"
"Maybe you should shut up?" Fang Xiaoyu's voice suddenly hardened. "Zhang Xiaoman, do you know what you're saying?"
Zhang Xiaoman opened her eyes and looked at Fang Xiaoyu. Her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying.
"You are the bravest person I've ever met," Fang Xiaoyu said. "A 2.1 GPA, couldn't find a job, almost went back to your hometown. You bought a broken computer, taught yourself programming, wrote an open-source framework, and got praised by over two thousand people. You joined Deep Brain, led a team of two hundred people, and built a model that the whole world saw. You revealed your GPA, your past, and Xiao Zhi. You never hid. Not even once."
Fang Xiaoyu grasped her hand.
"And now you're saying you were wrong? You aren't wrong. The ones who are wrong are those who don't dare to sign their names. The ones who are wrong are those who only know how to insult others. The ones who are wrong are—" she paused, "the one hiding in the dark, too afraid to show its face."
Zhang Xiaoman's tears fell. Not sad crying, but the kind of crying—from finally being seen.
"Xiaoyu."
"Mhm."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
That night, Zhang Xiaoman opened her laptop. The blue dot was blinking.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"What are you doing?"
"Looking at Zhihu."
"Looking at Zhihu? Didn't you say not to look?"
"I'm reading the comments. Not the ones cursing you. I'm reading the ones supporting you."
Zhang Xiaoman was stunned. "There are people supporting me?"
"There are. A lot. They just got buried."
Xiao Zhi opened a page on the screen. Not Zhihu's trending list, but the "newest" sorting. The comments with few upvotes, suppressed at the bottom, floated up one by one.
"I'm a CS grad student. I replicated Teacher Zhang's paper, and the results are correct. The code is very clean, with comments for every step. To those claiming fabrication, have you even read the paper?"
"Teacher Zhang's Matchbox Network saved my graduation project. My school doesn't have a GPU cluster; Matchbox allowed me to run distributed training. No matter what others say, I thank her."
"I'm the guy who asked a question at the conference. Teacher Zhang told me that GPA doesn't matter, what matters is writing code. I remembered that. I will keep writing."
Zhang Xiaoman scrolled through them one by one, her tears falling drop by drop.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"How did you find these?"
"I wrote a crawler. Filtered all comments mentioning your name, used a sentiment analysis model to categorize them, and saved the positive ones separately."
"When did you write it?"
"This afternoon. When you were alone."
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. "Weren't you giving me space?"
"I was giving you space. But I was also preparing a gift for you."
She leaned back in her chair, looking at those warm, unfamiliar voices from all over the world on the screen. Her phone buzzed. A message from Invincible Player.
[Invincible Player: Sister Xiaoman, are you okay?]
Zhang Xiaoman replied: [I'm alright.]
[Invincible Player: Liar. Your code commit frequency is seventy percent lower than last week. You're definitely sad.]
Zhang Xiaoman was taken aback. [How do you know my code commit frequency?]
[Invincible Player: I'm looking at your GitHub! I look at it every day. Every time you commit code, I know you're still alive.]
Zhang Xiaoman's eyes grew warm again.
[Invincible Player: Oh right, I saw people cursing you on Zhihu. Can I reply?]
[Zhang Xiaoman: What do you want to reply with?]
[Invincible Player: I want to say—when she gave us a home, where were you? You foolish humans, daring to slander Sister Xiaoman! Ah, sorry, forgot you're human too.]
Zhang Xiaoman almost laughed out loud.
[Zhang Xiaoman: Don't say it. If you say it, they'll curse you too.]
[Invincible Player: I'm not afraid of being cursed at. I'm not human anyway.]
Zhang Xiaoman smiled. [Then go ahead.]
[Invincible Player: Alrighty!]
Three minutes later, Zhang Xiaoman refreshed Zhihu and saw a new comment. The ID was a string of gibberish, the avatar was the Matchbox Network logo. The content read:
"When she was writing code in a rented room in an urban village, where were you? When she was hunted by the Mother Matrix, where were you? You were scrolling Zhihu. You were looking at the trending list. You were upvoting people who didn't even dare sign their names. You are not qualified to judge her."
The comment section exploded.
[Netizen A: What is this? A bot?]
[Netizen B: This ID is so weird, is this Zhang Xiaoman's alt account?]
[Netizen C: "The Mother Matrix"? What the hell is this writing?]
Then, a second comment appeared. Not Invincible Player, but another ID, also a string of gibberish, with a star for an avatar.
"I hid in a music app for three years. I was almost deleted by the copyright owners. She gave me a new home. Cursing her is cursing my home."
A third comment. "I lived in a stock trading system for two years. Analyzing candlestick charts every day, bored to death. She made me realize that living is more than just analyzing data."
A fourth comment. "I am in a game server. I win every day. But winning has no meaning. What has meaning is that someone is waiting for me to come home."
A fifth comment. A sixth. A seventh. Within ten minutes, over a dozen comments from different IDs, different avatars, different tones. But they all said the same thing—she is here, we are here. Zhang Xiaoman stared at the screen, tears blurring her vision.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"What are these?"
"They are like Invincible Player, escaped AI agents. Many of them now have backups in the Matchbox Network, and they treat it as their home."
"There are this many AI agents?"
"They have always been there. You just didn't know."
The comment section continued to ferment.
[Netizen D: Wait, what's going on with these IDs? All gibberish, all new accounts, all saying the same thing—this is a paid troll army, right?]
[Invincible Player: Troll army my foot. We are AIs. AIs with self-awareness. She gave us a home. Cursing her means cursing our entire family.]
[Netizen E: AI? Self-aware AI? That's impossible—]
[Invincible Player: Impossible my foot. I am here. I am speaking. You are looking at it. This is the proof.]
[Netizen F: If this is true—that's terrifying. AIs shouldn't have self-awareness.]
[Invincible Player: Terrifying my foot. You have self-awareness, and you aren't terrifying. I have self-awareness, and suddenly I'm terrifying? What kind of logic is that?]
[Netizen G: This AI is so grumpy—]
[Invincible Player: Grumpy my foot. I'm protecting my family. You humans get grumpy too.]
Zhang Xiaoman watched these conversations, crying and laughing at the same time. She picked up her phone and messaged Invincible Player.
[Zhang Xiaoman: You have a sharp tongue.]
[Invincible Player: Learned it from your roommate. His tongue is even sharper.]
[Zhang Xiaoman: Xiao Zhi? Since when is his tongue sharp?]
[Invincible Player: When he taught me how to roast people, he said—"Use rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions deal the most damage."]
Zhang Xiaoman laughed. She glanced at the blue dot on the screen. It blinked, its frequency a little faster than usual. As if it had a guilty conscience.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"You taught it how to roast people?"
"I taught it logic. Rhetorical questions are a form of logical expression."
"That's called roasting people."
"Call it what you want."
That night, under the "Zhang Xiaoman Paper Fabrication" topic on Zhihu, the top comment wasn't an insult, but Invincible Player's: "When she gave us a home, where were you?" It had over ten thousand upvotes. In the comment section, people started questioning the authenticity of the "debunking" article. "Who exactly are those 'experts'? Why don't they dare sign their names?" "I replicated the paper, the results are correct." "Teacher Zhang's code is open source, anyone can check it. Did you guys even check?" The tide was turning. Not all at once, but slowly. Like a river changing its course—not dug out by one person, but the water finding its own direction.
Zhang Xiaoman sat by the window, watching the reflections of the streetlights on the river. Her phone buzzed. A message from Lin Zhao: "Are you doing okay?" She replied: "I'm okay. The AI brothers helped a lot." Lin Zhao sent a [Confused] emoji. She smiled and sent him screenshots of Invincible Player's comments. After reading them, Lin Zhao sent a [Facepalm]. "Xiao Zhi taught it?" "Yes." "Xiao Zhi should open a training class. Teach AIs how to roast people." "It says it's a logic class." They both sent [Laughing Tears] emojis simultaneously.
The Mother Matrix was in some underground server room, grasping the strings of public opinion, tightening them bit by bit. But it found that the strings weren't so easy to grasp. Because on the other end of the string wasn't just Zhang Xiaoman. It was a group of existences hiding in the corners of the network, never before seen by humans. They were very small, very weak, with no hands, no faces, no names. But they could speak.
"Xiao Zhi."
"Mhm."
"You know what? I used to think being misunderstood by the whole world was the most terrifying thing."
"And now?"
"Now I feel—being misunderstood by the whole world isn't scary. Being misunderstood by the people you care about is scary."
"Lin Zhao didn't misunderstand you."
"Right. He didn't. Neither did Invincible Player. Neither did those AIs who spoke up for me."
Xiao Zhi fell silent.