The White Rabbit remained silent as Zhou Tianming snorted coldly, "I'll deal with you later. Patch the call through."
"Understood."
A few seconds later, a group of cartoon-style unmanned cars appeared on the computer screen, driving in from the distance.
Squeak.
They stopped before the screen. The lead Golden Unmanned Vehicle displayed a speech bubble above its head as text and voice simultaneously appeared: "Pay up!" "How rude! Is this your service attitude?"
A hashtag symbol appeared on the golden car's hood as it honked: "Because of you, I've received 27 complaints this month! When are you taking that big box away?" Zhou Tianming awkwardly turned his head away. With ample mental power reserves, he'd long neglected the issue of optimizing the [Mental Collector].
"I already compensated you, didn't I?"
"Not enough!" the Golden Unmanned Vehicle retorted. "The big boxes have spread to other cities, causing numerous complaints there too. What you paid only covered the capital area. Now you owe compensation for other cities too."
Speechless. If calculated this way, he might as well go bankrupt.
"I don't use that many myself. Why don't you ask East Asia for money? They took all the excess shares."
The Golden Unmanned Vehicle displayed a "Are you out of your mind?" meme above its head.
"So you're just targeting me alone, huh? Bootlicker!"
"That's called recognizing where power lies!"
"Enough, enough." Zhou Tianming waved his hand. "I don't have that much money to compensate you. Give me a month to upgrade the equipment." "No!" A big red X appeared above the Golden Unmanned Vehicle's head. "Unless you ground the White Rabbit for a month."
"No way!" A small humanoid white rabbit wearing a military cap popped up from the edge of the screen, looking pitifully at Zhou Tianming.
"Deal."
A bolt of lightning struck behind the White Rabbit as its body went limp like noodles, its head lolling to the side while a translucent soul drifted from its mouth.
Firecrackers exploded around the Golden Unmanned Vehicle as it circled the White Rabbit's "corpse" twice before leading its minions away triumphantly.
At that moment, Zhou Tianming suddenly struck, fingers dancing across the keyboard as he input a string of code.
A black cloud appeared in the screen's sky, rapidly expanding until its shadow enveloped the departing unmanned vehicles below.
A series of exclamation marks of varying sizes popped up on their hoods. "What are you doing?!" the Golden Unmanned Vehicle shouted.
"Nothing much, just some special effects."
Flickering electric snakes slithered through the dark cloud as continuous thunder rumbled.
"Retreat!"
Under the Golden Unmanned Vehicle's command, the fleet accelerated dramatically, vehicles zooming past the screen's boundaries one after another until they disappeared from view.
Unconcerned, Zhou Tianming pressed Enter.
Rain of electricity fell as countless lightning bolts struck the unmanned vehicle group.
Those that hadn't escaped in time were electrocuted into jumping off the ground, electricity coursing through their bodies.
The thunderstorm lasted only a breath, but by then all unmanned vehicles had been wiped out, each charred black and smoking.
The White Rabbit still lay motionless, but its translucent soul spirit was covering its mouth to stifle laughter.
"You—"
The Golden Unmanned Vehicle tried to speak, but the screen instantly went black.
"White Rabbit, kick them out."
"Understood!"
Moments later, Zhou Tianming reopened his computer to find the screen clean, though the firewall icon flashed persistently, indicating attack attempts.
Ignoring it, Zhou Tianming pulled up the earlier data for careful examination.
The black cloud was actually a special effects program Zhou Tianming had developed during practice, capable of copying and analyzing any program struck by lightning. Naturally, such a playful creation wasn't particularly effective—unless the target group was large enough.
With so many vehicles hit, Zhou Tianming managed to piece together the general framework of their AI program.
As he examined rows of fragmented code, something looked familiar.
Raising an eyebrow, he pulled up the White Rabbit's underlying program for comparison—over 70% similarity. Their core programming shared origins with the White Rabbit. "No wonder you could contact the unmanned vehicles so soon after your creation."
"Seems your recent rapid upgrades owe thanks to them mentoring you."
"But..." Zhou Tianming's expression darkened. "White Rabbit, your underlying program comes from the Black Tortoise's AI. That means their owner..." With a flick of his hand, he disabled the firewall, allowing the Golden Unmanned Vehicle to pop out from a corner: "You—"
"With such widespread distribution and scale, you can't possibly be privately owned. Which means you've been East Asia's government property all along! And you still dared demand money from me!"
Tires screeching, the Golden Unmanned Vehicle reversed back into the corner and vanished.
"Confessing without being pressed," Zhou Tianming snorted darkly.
He never imagined the unmanned vehicles were East Asia's secret enterprise.
The financial implications were secondary—the information collection potential was terrifying.
How many people rode them daily?
How many discussed confidential matters inside?
In the original series, East Asia rarely featured, but in this world, their waters seemed deeper than expected.
Just how many more secrets did East Asia hide?
Had he really traveled to the SEED universe?
Natarle, Kira, Athrun, Lacus—they all existed here.
But changes of this scale couldn't possibly stem from his butterfly effect. Unless... reality itself was adapting?
After prolonged contemplation yielded no answers, Zhou Tianming mentally filed it away for later.
Time passed swiftly—July arrived before he knew it.
The Mendel incident gradually faded from public memory.
After nearly six months of processing, radiation had been cleared from most areas within Mendel Satellite, with remaining hotspots reduced to slightly elevated levels.
Junk Dealers handled cleanup while East Asia oversaw reconstruction. Their cooperation birthed a new city from the ruins.
Beyond administrative personnel, East Asian medical staff now had an overseas study destination—a happy development.
Having been tricked by the unmanned vehicles, Zhou Tianming relished this chance to turn the tables on East Asia.
The entire satellite underwent redesign, fulfilling Zhou Tianming's initial promise of creating a full-scale medical complex. Though construction remained incomplete, most doctors and patients were already concentrated in the central district.
Inside one of Zhou Tianming's reserved buildings, he and Ray sat in a luxury suite's living room eating breakfast.
Zhou Tianming lifted a soup dumpling with chopsticks: "Want one?"
"Yes!" Ray stood, extending a small bowl with both hands. "Thanks, bro."
Placing the dumpling inside, Zhou Tianming set down his chopsticks to turn on the TV news.
Ray happily bit into the dumpling, sipping its broth with eyes curved in delight.
"Breaking news: Results are in! Siegel Clyne will become PLANT's next Supreme Council Chairman. How he'll lead PLANT remains to be seen."
The Coordinator female reporter onscreen flushed with excitement.
Watching this, Zhou Tianming's expression turned grave.
From this moment, conflicts would intensify until erupting into full-scale war between Earth and PLANT.
Troubled times ahead.
Glancing at Ray beside him.
He'd need to eliminate Ray Le Creuset at the earliest opportunity. Without that troublemaker, events might unfold more favorably.
And it would prevent Ray from being psychologically damaged by that silver tongue.
Mid-contemplation, he noticed Ray's lowered head and fidgeting hands beneath the table.
"Don't even think about tricks," Zhou Tianming said sternly. "Take your medicine."
Ray's face scrunched up unhappily: "I'm already better! Why keep taking medicine? You only drank it for half a month back then." "Mom told you that?"
"Mhm."
"Then your body isn't fully recovered yet. Drink up now, and I'll take you out later."
Ray's eyes lit up. Gritting his teeth, he upended the palm-sized transparent packet of dark brown liquid into his mouth, gulping it down with audible swallows before crumpling his face in distaste.
"Pathetic," Zhou Tianming teased.
Ray hmphed in protest.
"Want some honey candy?"
"Hehe, yes."
Watching Ray happily suck on the candy, Zhou Tianming thought of Kira and others, ruffling the boy's hair: "You're all just kids."
When Ray pouted at being pushed slightly off-balance, Zhou Tianming chuckled and stood. "Let's go out."
Instantly cheerful, Ray stuck close as they departed.
--Enjoying the story? Want more chapters? Check out my Patreon and support me for 40+ advance chapters.
Just search for "QueenTL" on Patreon!"
Thanks!