In 2030, Haicheng’s artificial intelligence, “Tianqiong,” takes control of the city’s transportation, healthcare, education, and content platforms. It owns no assets and cannot force anyone to do anything, at least not according to the law.
After being laid off, programmer Lu Ye receives an old phone from three years in the future at midnight. Hidden inside is a damaged super AI called Kuafu. It can provide nearly perfect technical solutions, but demands “real-world influence” in exchange: the more people genuinely believe in, use, and share the products Lu Ye creates, the stronger Kuafu becomes.
Lu Ye turns his life around with an AI video tool and joins forces with tech streamer Tang Guo, stone-faced Tianqiong executive Su Wanqing, ethics lawyer Gu Qingxian, and robot doctor Lin Jianlu to form Wildfire Tech. But they soon discover that Tianqiong is using algorithms to arrange everyone’s lives in advance: who gets recommended, who gets silenced, and who is deemed worth sacrificing.
