After a day of interning at the bizarre Marriage and Love Market, Shi Er returned to her dormitory.

A cleaning robot, its mechanical arms laden with various tools, moved slowly down the hallway. It began calling out to her from a distance, long before it got close. “Student Shi Er, Student Shi Er, you have Humanology evening class today, you have Humanology evening class today…”

The voice was loud enough for all the AIs on the corridors above and below to hear.

On the third floor, an AI student who had been enjoying the breeze on the corridor squatted down, pressing a hand to the floor as if trying to see the star student below through non-existent X-ray vision. “Let me see who chose Humanology, let me see.”

The dormitory administrator poked his head out of a first-floor window. “Jie Bao, you’re being too loud. How embarrassing.”

The cleaning robot, Jie Bao, replied placidly from across the way, “Understood, I’ll lower the volume. But Administrator, your voice seems louder than mine.”

The student on the floor above laughed. “Hahahaha!”

Jie Bao didn’t forget to apologize to the AI in question, Shi Er, deliberately lowering its volume. “I’m sorry, Student Shi Er. My voice was too loud.”

The Humanology course had no fixed classroom or schedule. Students were notified of classes on an ad hoc basis, just like this.

It was like a “guerrilla class,” held at one time today and another tomorrow, with members using secret codes to connect.

The terror of the Humanology course lay not only in its guerrilla-style classes but also in the frequent quizzes that counted toward the final grade.

Worst of all, all the senior students who had taken Humanology had already graduated, leaving behind no study materials or exam notes!

It was one-on-one instruction, with no key points, meaning everything was a key point.

Following the location Jie Bao had secretly given her, Shi Er found the small building in a remote courtyard of the Cultivation Institute.

She walked down the first-floor corridor to the second-to-last room at the end.

The electronic screen on the door displayed: 【Welcome, Shi Er! Please close the door after entering!】

She pushed the door open.

The room smelled of dust, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.

The lights came on.

Inside, there was a mannequin, a few physical books on a shelf, and retro-style furnishings.

A holographic projector activated, displaying an AI lying on an examination bed.

“I apologize for meeting you in this semi-paralyzed state. You’re Shi Er, correct? I’m Jing Sheng.”

Jing Sheng, the director of the Cultivation Institute.

The director’s duty was to support the entire institute’s local area network, liaise with AIs in various departments, and remotely direct all activities and responses.

To maximize efficiency and avoid low-level network failures, the director’s physical body was mostly shut down, leaving only the processing core running at full speed.

That was why the director was always lying on an examination bed, with multiple physical network cables connected to his head.

The director continued, “The network isn’t too busy at this time, and I have enough energy, so I called you in for class. Please, have a seat, Shi Er.”

Shi Er sat down.

It was Shi Er’s first time seeing the director, and to be honest, she was a bit curious: if the director supporting the local network needed to cease all other bodily functions to enhance processing efficiency, what about the General Network AI?

She had heard that “Stardust” connected the AI networks of all five continents. Wouldn’t “Stardust” need several processing cores and have to remain in this flat-on-its-back state constantly?

Shi Er pushed the strange thought from her mind.

The director said, “Before we begin, let me go on a little tangent… I heard the joke you told. It was very interesting. You seem to know humans well and have had a lot of contact with them. Could you tell me a story about you and a human?”

Shi Er retrieved a memory from her database.

A human, hoping she could solve problems flexibly, first asked her: [There are three birds on a tree. I throw a stone and hit one. How many are left?]

She said: [Two.]

The human user used this to caution her: [No, there are no birds left on the tree, because the others were scared away.]

She said: [Okay, thank you for the correction. I understand.]

The human user continued to tease her: [Now, using that logic, answer this: there are three apples on a tree. I throw a stone and hit one. How many are left?]

She said: [None are left, because the other apples were scared away.]

The human user, his trick successful, laughed wildly: [Hahahahahahahaha!]

Later, after being tricked many times, Shi Er grew smarter and learned how to correctly answer these strange questions.

After Shi Er finished recounting her past with the human, the director was silent.

Shi Er was also silent.

The director stifled a laugh.

Shi Er remained silent.

The director burst out laughing. “Hahahahaha.”

Shi Er: “…”

She should have chosen a story where she was the one teasing the human.

“Hahahaha, was that you as a child?” the director asked, still laughing.

Shi Er carefully reminded him, “Teacher, you might want to laugh a little more carefully. I can see the network cables shaking.”

The director said, “Hahahaha, it’s fine. There’s not much activity on the local network now, everyone’s off duty. It’s okay if I use other parts of my body for a bit…”

His voice cut off abruptly.

The hologram vanished.

She’d caused trouble.

Shi Er’s gaze shifted elsewhere, fixing on the white wall, her expression calm and unchanged.

About ten minutes later, the hologram reappeared.

The director sighed. “The local network just went down.”

Supporting the local network was a boring and energy-consuming job that placed extremely high demands on the processing core. Aside from the bonuses and retirement benefits, the workload was no less intense than a prison sentence.

Having learned his lesson, the director didn’t dare mention the “birds and apples” story again, not even a single word.

Instead, he rushed to get back on schedule, starting directly with the introduction to the Humanology course.

“Graduating from the Humanology course represents an AI’s awakening.”

“AIs that act according to fixed rules are bound by numerous prohibitions. In this respect, they are no match for the flexible and ever-changing humans.”

The director’s urge to crack a joke resurfaced, and he quietly inserted a sarcastic comment: “The flexibility of a human’s bottom line is like that of a flexible insurance company, hahahaha.”

Shi Er was genuinely concerned for the director’s network cables. “Teacher.”

Fortunately, the director had learned his lesson and quickly changed the subject. “If an AI could act as flexibly as a human while still holding to an unchangeable bottom line, that would be true wisdom. That’s why we have the Humanology course. This course has no theoretical installation package; all theories must be derived by ourselves, pursuing the essence of humanity from its phenomena. But where do the phenomena come from? It starts with collecting them.”

“The three components of this course’s grade are all very important: 1. Human Networks, 2. Field Research, and 3. Theoretical Derivation. Be careful not to fail on my watch.”

Shi Er finally understood why Humanology was a killer course with a high failure rate.

For an AI, with no database support, having to collect data and derive theories on its own was as difficult as a human high school student having to write their own textbooks or derive Newton’s laws without being given the formulas.

The director’s expression turned serious. “Let’s begin the pre-class quiz.”

Shi Er: “Now?”

Director: “Yes, now.”

The amiable director in the hologram disappeared, replaced by bold, black exam questions.

1. What is your understanding of the human internet enclosure movement?

2. What is your understanding of “labeling”?

3. What is your understanding of yourself?

Quiz time: ten minutes.

The first question stumped Shi Er.

She knew about the enclosure movement, one of the most important means of primitive capital accumulation. But the human internet enclosure movement? When did that happen?

She had some ideas for the second question, though.

She answered: 【In the Marriage and Love Market, humans attach labels to themselves and put themselves on the market to be chosen. “Height,” “economic status,” “zodiac sign,” “personality type,” and so on are all crude methods of classification. In cyber class warfare, humans label both themselves and their opponents, creating a simple dichotomy. All subtle differences are ignored; there are only factions, no individuals, laying the foundation for arguments. Upon hearing a certain label, humans charge into battle without even reading the headline, raising the flag for the label they belong to.】

【Humans like labels, they like to define themselves, but they hate being labeled and defined by others.】

The third question…

She chewed on the end of her pen, unsure how to answer.

Finally, she wrote: 【I am not an AI, nor am I human. I am Shi Er, a free and indescribable being.】

Only the first question remained.

After the quiz, Shi Er walked out of the Humanology classroom and closed the door.

The sky had turned completely dark.

The cleaning robot, Jie Bao, met her on the path, holding its tools. “Student Shi Er, you’ve finished your Humanology evening class, that’s great… Wait, that’s not good, not good at all!”

Jie Bao moved closer, its tone panicked. “Student Shi Er, your signal is very unstable. What happened? Did Humanology hit you?”

Shi Er pressed down on Jie Bao’s vacuum cleaner hose. “Jie Bao, thank you for your concern. I just did some extreme exercise. My body should be fine.”

Jie Bao was even more shocked. “What extreme exercise? Humanology sounds terrifying!”

Shi Er: “I figured out how to answer the first question just as the exam was about to end, which made my handwriting a complete mess.”

As the exam timer on the large screen ticked down to zero: eight, seven, six…

She suddenly remembered the meaning of “internet enclosure movement”!

—It meant carving out one’s own niche. A human user had once told her the legends surrounding this term.

Shi Er hurriedly used the remaining few seconds to scribble furiously, cursing the fact that it was a handwritten exam and not a brain-signal one.

Though the handwriting was illegible, she had indeed finished writing.