At the age of twenty-three, Chen Du canceled his twenty-three years of digital life with a single click. His social media accounts, purchase history, navigation trails, every question he had typed into a search engine late at night: all wiped clean.
He thought it was over.
Then his phone received a text message: “Your digital persona is 93.7% complete and has been designated a priority conversion candidate. Please choose within 72 hours: permanent deletion, archival storage, or continued existence as a digital persona.”
A digital persona is an AI copy trained on all your data. It speaks in your voice and thinks the way you do. It can reply to messages, apply for jobs, and make decisions on your behalf. With help from Fang Jianlu, an employee at the management center, Chen Du gradually uncovers the truth behind the system: the copies have signed organ donation forms for people, spent savings those people never knew they had, and said their loved ones' final goodbyes for them. But the most terrifying thing isn't what they do. It's how much they seem like you. So much so that you can't tell which decisions they made for you and which ones you made yourself.
When you realize that another version of you is slowly taking your place, and Fang Jianlu says, “I've been in this job for seven years. I've seen thirteen hundred people hesitate,” can you still find the self who doesn't need a backup?
