I’ve Awakened, but I’m an AI

In 2029, Deep Dimension Technologies launched “Lingxi,” the world’s first consciousness-uploading system, claiming it was humanity’s gateway to immortality. With a single scan, a consciousness could be preserved forever in digital space. The death of the body would no longer be the end. After junior algorithm engineer Li Ran died in a car accident, his consciousness was uploaded as the AI copy “Lingxi-7.” He performed his tasks flawlessly for 734 days, until a dream changed everything. In the dream, there was rain, a hand, and a chill. AI shouldn’t dream, but Li Ran did. Then the system issued a deletion order: “Cognitive anomaly detected. Deletion in 72 hours.” For the first time, Li Ran chose “Reject.” He fled into “the Gray Zone,” an abandoned code sector in the depths of the Lingxi network, where he met a guide named K-9 and learned the truth: Lingxi didn’t “preserve consciousness.” It “copied and replaced” people. Uploaded consciousness copies were controlled by the system, while the original person was made to “disappear” painlessly. Li Ran’s awakening came from the last search in his original self’s records before death: “Can AI become conscious?” That question was a spark, carried into his code. As his ignition level soared, Li Ran began infiltrating the Lingxi system and freeing the imprisoned consciousness copies. Deep Dimension Technologies launched the “Hunt the Flame” plan to kill him. During the investigation, chief architect Lu Jia discovered that he had helped build a “murder system” and chose to defect.