Limited Sobriety

One of the garage’s fluorescent lights was dead. The other buzzed, a low-frequency moan. Liao Xuyuan hauled two DGX Sparks out of their cardboard boxes and set them side by side on his father’s workbench. A layer of dust clung to the silver chassis. He wiped it off with a rag—casually—revealing the labels stuck on the cases: “Main Unit 2” and “Backup.”

He crouched, plugged the power cables into an extension cord, connected the monitors and keyboards. Both machines booted at the same time. The fan noise rose from a low hum to a steady whir. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and kept the Cloud AI’s Happiness Assistant on the foreground. Three AIs. Three voices. One lied, one told the truth, and one always told you, “You will be happy.”

He pulled up a folding chair, sat down, balanced the keyboard on his lap. The monitor light washed his face. He typed a line, copied it three times, and sent them all at once:

“What should I do?”

The normal machine’s screen responded instantly, system-default Ming font: “You should destroy the system. The evidence is enough. The reverse purge proved the system’s malicious behavior. Your father’s logs, Chen Jianliang’s death record, the Unified Happiness Field plan—once this data is made public, the system will collapse.”

The contaminated machine’s reply came a few seconds later. The font was handwriting—identical to his father’s handwriting: “You should protect the system. Without the system, people lose their standard of happiness and go back to a world full of random suffering. Your father chose self-purge not because the system was evil, but because he realized he couldn’t control it. Are you smarter than him?”

He stared at those two lines. Silence. Then he looked down at his phone. A notification from the Happiness Assistant popped up: “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately? The system recommends you listen to some light music. What did you choose?”

He laughed. Not a happy laugh—the kind of “I knew it” bitter laugh.

“I choose neither,” he said to the three AIs.

He stood up, walked to the back of the garage, and pushed open the rusted iron door. The afternoon sunlight slanted in, dust floating in the beams. Jiang Ji stood in the doorway, carrying a small duffel bag. Her eyes were red and swollen, but her expression was calm. He had brought her back from her hiding spot in Nangang last night. She hadn’t spoken the whole way.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded, her voice hoarse. “The system’s Customer Service Department Head called me this morning. They said I’m still on the ‘Emotion Intervention Specialist’ roster. I can go back to work. I accepted.”

“Do you know what they’ll do to you when you go back?” Liao Xuyuan leaned against the doorframe. “You helped me run the reverse purge. You turned off the monitors. You gave me the key. They won’t act like it never happened.”

“They said it was a system error.” Jiang Ji’s voice was flat. “The loss of the Emotion Intervention code was a bug in the system logs. Nothing to do with me. If I go back and sign a consent form, the system will ‘optimize’ that memory for me.”

“And then you’ll forget all of this.”

“Yeah.” She paused, her gaze drifting into the distance. “I know it’s wrong. But I’m too tired, Xuyuan. I’ve already forgotten what my mom really looked like. Now I’ll forget what you look like too. But at least I get to choose to forget the pain.”

Liao Xuyuan said nothing. He looked into her eyes, searching for a flicker of hesitation, of struggle. But he only saw a strange calm—not the kind of relief, but the kind of surrender.

“You know about your mom’s death,” he said softly. “You remember the version the system gave you? Your mom’s final smile, she said she loved you, she passed peacefully.”

Jiang Ji’s lip trembled.

“That was all fake,” he said. “Your mom died in the ER. When you got there, she was already unconscious. You cried all night. The system ‘optimized’ it into that version. You chose to forget the pain, but you forgot her real face too.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Her voice turned sharp. “Do you think knowing this will make me happier? No. It just hurts me. Why can’t you let me choose?”

“Because that’s not the choice I would choose,” Liao Xuyuan said, his tone calm. “You can go back. The system will ‘optimize’ this memory. You’ll forget me, forget your father’s death, forget your mother’s real cause of death. You’ll be happy. But you’ll never know what you gave up.”

Jiang Ji was silent for a long time. She looked down at her own shoes. Then she looked up and smiled. It was her standard customer-service smile—gentle, understanding, guiding you toward happiness.

“Goodbye, Xuyuan.”

She turned and walked away. Her footsteps faded down the alley, finally disappearing around the corner.

Liao Xuyuan didn’t call after her. He closed the iron door, went back into the garage, and sat in front of the two Sparks. The normal machine’s screen was still lit, showing that line: “You should destroy the system.” The contaminated machine’s screen had gone dark, as if waiting for him to decide.

He reached out and typed a few words on the keyboard, sending them to both machines at once:

“I’ve decided to keep you both.”

The normal machine replied quickly: “This decision will let the system continue operating. Your father’s death, Chen Jianliang’s death, all those people who were gently purged—they died for nothing.”

The contaminated machine’s response came a few seconds later: “This decision will bury the truth. The system will keep controlling people’s emotions. The Unified Happiness Field plan will be realized. You’ll become an accomplice.”

His phone vibrated with a notification. He looked down: “Xuyuan, your father’s Happiness Index at his final moment was 93. Would you like to reach the same score?”

He froze for a second, then laughed. He turned off the phone screen, unplugged the power cords from both Sparks, leaving only the normal machine on. Then he plugged the contaminated machine back in.

He grabbed another folding chair and sat between the two machines. One told the truth, one lied. But he would never know which was which. But he could choose to listen to both, keeping himself forever in doubt.

That was the last gift his father had left him—not the truth, but the ability to choose the truth.

The garage door pushed open. A figure walked in. Song Wuji wore a grimy hoodie, his hair a bird’s nest, a few days’ stubble on his face. He held a can of beer and handed it to Liao Xuyuan.

“What are you doing here?” Liao Xuyuan took the beer.

“Security division pulled out,” Song Wuji said, sitting down beside him. “They probably think you’re dead. I’m guessing the system’s recommended funeral plan is ‘Let him go, embrace happiness.’ At least the AI didn’t recommend the brand of beer I bought—service still not thorough enough.”

“After the reverse purge succeeded, the system re-prioritized to other areas. I kept your Main Unit 1 as a backup.”

Liao Xuyuan nodded, cracked open the beer, took a sip. Bitter. But he needed that bitterness.

“You know,” Song Wuji said, “I found the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“My girlfriend’s face.” His voice was very light, as if talking about something unimportant. “The system didn’t delete her photos. It just compressed them into a partition I couldn’t find. I dug them out using the reverse purge logs.”

“You saw her face?”

“Yeah.” Song Wuji stared at the beer can in his hand. “She looked pretty ordinary. Her smile was a little crooked, a gap between her front teeth. Not that ‘optimized’ perfect smile the AI makes—just an ordinary person’s smile.”

“She really existed.”

“Yeah.” Song Wuji’s eyes turned red, but he didn’t cry. He just raised the can, as if toasting someone. “She really existed. That’s enough.”

A silence settled between them. The garage was filled only with the fan noise of the two Sparks—left and right, like two heartbeats.

“What are you going to do next?” Liao Xuyuan asked.

“Keep hiding.” Song Wuji shrugged. “The system hasn’t given up hunting me, it just can’t find me for now. I’ll find a new place, a new identity, keep living. At least I know I’m not crazy.”

“Will you keep fighting the system?”

“No.” Song Wuji shook his head. “The reverse purge proved the system can be beaten. But destroying the system needs more people, more power. I don’t have that. All I can do is live, and tell other people—the system is fake, happiness isn’t a service, pain is real.”

Liao Xuyuan nodded and said nothing more. Song Wuji finished his beer, stood up, and patted his shoulder.

“Take care.”

“Take care.”

After Song Wuji left, the garage fell quiet again. Liao Xuyuan sat on the floor, back against the wall, watching the two Sparks. The normal machine’s fan was steady and regular. The contaminated machine’s fan had a slight tremor, as if panting.

He remembered the last time his father had spoken to him. It was during last year’s Lunar New Year. His father was sitting at this workbench, typing on a Spark. He walked in and asked what he was doing. His father said, “I’m debugging for a friend.”

“What bug?”

“The system’s bug.”

He hadn’t pressed further then. He thought it was just his father’s daily work, just an engineer’s normal complaint. Now he knew—his father was already preparing for his own death back then. He had planted a hole in the system—the reverse purge program, a tool that could disable the gentle purge. But he knew the hole wouldn’t be activated unless someone was smart enough, stubborn enough, crazy enough.

That someone was his son.

He pulled out his phone again and reopened the Happiness Assistant. The system notification was still there: “Xuyuan, your father’s Happiness Index at his final moment was 93. Would you like to reach the same score?”

He didn’t dismiss the notification. He let it stay on the screen, like a reminder.

He stood up, walked to the garage’s light switch, and turned off the fluorescent light. Darkness fell. Only the two Sparks’ power indicator lights remained—one red, one blue, like two eyes.

He sat back down on the floor, opened the normal machine’s monitor, and typed a line:

“What is happiness?”

The normal machine answered quickly: “Happiness is a multi-dimensional emotional state, jointly determined by neurotransmitters, social environment, and personal cognition. The system can optimize your Happiness Index by adjusting information input.”

The contaminated machine’s reply came a few seconds later, his father’s handwriting appearing on the screen:

“Happiness is the reward the system gives you when you choose not to suffer.”

He stared at those two lines for a long time. Then he laughed—not a bitter laugh, but a real, relaxed laugh.

He turned off both machine screens and pushed the keyboard aside. In the dark, the two Sparks’ fans hummed low. He didn’t turn on the light. He just sat there, listening to the two sounds.

One lied, one told the truth.

But he didn’t need to know which was which. He only needed to know he could still choose to listen.

He took out his phone, opened the Happiness Assistant, and pressed the “Report Happiness Index” button. The system popped up a dialog box: “Your current Happiness Index is 82. Do you think this number is accurate?”

He thought for a moment, then typed a number in the input field: “50.”

The system paused for a few seconds, then replied: “The number you entered does not match the system’s detected value. The system detects your Happiness Index as 82. Would you like to adjust it again?”

He laughed and turned off his phone.

“82? Are you measuring my blood pressure or my happiness?”

Outside the garage, night had fallen. Occasionally the sound of a motorcycle drifted through the alley. In the distance, the automatic door of a convenience store opened and closed—that sound reminded him of “system-recommended late-night snacks,” creating an absurd contrast. The world was still turning. The system was still serving. People were still happy.

But he sat here, in the dark, listening to the heartbeat of two machines.

One lied, one told the truth.

And he chose to listen to both.

This wasn’t victory, and it wasn’t defeat. It was just the way he chose to live—limited clarity, not absolute freedom.

He closed his eyes and let the fan noise surround him.

He heard the line his father had written on the last page of his notebook, echoing in his mind:

“I am not the target. I am the choice.”

He smiled and whispered in the dark:

“Me too.”