Whispers in the Winter Wind

Two months after the world first saw the unveiling of the quantum technology, they released the devices for sale, and it wasn't a surprise to many that all of them went out of stock incredibly quickly.

However, the big announcement of the AGI, or artificial general intelligence, happened while Yasushi was eating his food. He would have thought he would be there in person for it, but he was wrong about that. He didn't really mind all that much because he was pretty exhausted, after the whole demonstration of the hoverboard.

But, the software that was needed to convert the current models of the technology to the AGI version, along with some other tools that he wasn't even aware of, were released to the public so they could use it themselves. Many were absolutely raving about it and totally loving the new updates and even stated they would become lifelong supporters of Qualtoquanm Tech because of this.

There were obviously a number of people who were against the very existence of quantum tech and artificial general intelligence, but they also realized that they could not stop this rapid advancement in technology and development. Of course, the supernatural community were also very interested in all of it with many different individuals contacting Yasushi, some of them he was already familiar with, and some he was not.

However, now that a month has passed, even more units were produced for the police department, the fire department, as well as hoverboards, earmuffs, and also some brand new models for the AGI, and each of those specific models were actually catered to different types of groups of people.

Some of the AGI models were specifically for coders, while others were for general use by the public, and some were created for writers, and also others were created specifically for research into cancer that Qualtoquanm Tech was using to search for different cures.

Of course, there were also suggestion websites that were put up by Qualtoquanm Tech, which were asking the entire world what they would want them to make next.

They actually saw some pretty interesting things like AI doing their laundry for them, along with some androids and robots that are powered by AI, or even some more outlandish suggestions that involved the use of quantum tech which the scientists and researchers found pretty amusing but did not entirely dismiss from their minds.

At this moment, production was noticeably slowing down and Yasushi decided to take a small break, sighing to himself with some relief. "Finally…some rest…" he said quietly.

But right after that another researcher showed up at his door — it was actually Carol who grinned at him with a knowing look.

"Never mind…" he muttered to himself quietly and sighed again, clearly not getting any rest.

Carol chuckled a little bit at him and then said, "Don't you worry, don't you worry at all, I'm definitely not here to add anything more to your work. Actually, we just wanted to give you some stuff. Well, when I say we, I mean I, but the company asked me to give this to you, personally."

She then walked over to where he was sitting and put down a medium-sized box right on his desk, which caused Yasushi to become confused and look at her with a puzzled expression.

"Am I getting fired right now?" Yasushi asked her with a concerned tone, looking directly at the box and then back to Carol's face.

Becoming very confused by what he said, she asked him, "Huh? What would make you even think something like that?"

Yasushi simply pointed a finger at the box and then said to her, "Usually whenever boxes suddenly come into play in normal office settings, that always means that someone's getting fired on the spot."

Carol paused for a second to think about that for a moment before bursting into a fit of laughter. She laughed at him quite loudly for a good minute as Yasushi just sat there watching her, getting his break so he didn't actually mind it happening. After a while she finally stopped and wiped a stray tear from her eye, because she was laughing so hard.

"No…no, you're definitely not getting fired, why in the world would you even assume such a thing? Jeez…anyway, it's a thank you box, so you should just open it right now," she clarified for him.

Yasushi nodded his head slowly and opened up the box that was on his desk. He then became a little confused by what he was seeing inside of it. There was a brand new access card, a stack of cash money, some vouchers for unknown things, and also a new storage ring. He picked up the access card from the box and asked Carol, "What's this particular card for?"

Carol then smirked a bit at him and stated to him with a grin, "You've now been granted new access to more and more of the facility. You know how some specific areas of the building aren't really accessible to other people, right? Well, this one in your hand will now give you access to at least 80% of the entire facility right now. Oh, and by the way, I have this exact same one myself, and I am able to access absolutely everything." Before quickly pulling up her own access card to show him.

Yasushi was already very well aware of this. He was actually given an access card right at the very beginning that allowed him to access all the absolutely essential rooms in the facility, but there were other rooms that he couldn't enter, unless he had somebody else let him in first.

Over time, he just kept getting more and more access given to him and currently, he was able to access at least 50% of the facility already, but the brand new one that Carol was now giving to him granted him access to a solid 80% of the whole building, which he thought was very good to have.

"Thank you very much. I guess that means I've got even more access now than before. Oh, and by the way, is it safe for me to assume that my parents, along with Jingliu and also Xinyi's parents, and a few others probably have full 100% access to absolutely everything inside of the whole facility?" he asked her directly, while staring right at Carol.

"Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. Only a very select couple of people actually have that full 100% access, but it's honestly a no brainer that you'll also get to that level eventually, alongside both Jingliu and Xinyi, but those two for the moment only have a solid 50% access to the facility," she explained calmly before putting her access card safely away.

She then continued, adding a little more to what she was saying, "Anyway, the money inside of the box is most likely from your parents, and the vouchers are actually from all of us and those who were responsible for this entire project as a whole, and that brand new storage ring is basically the last tier of storage rings, with a lot of really cool new features, so go absolutely crazy with it and have some fun. Of course…if you ever decide to get married, we can actually change those rings of yours into the full storage rings in the future if both you and Jingliu want that to happen."

Yasushi chuckled a little bit at her suggestion but actually thought to himself that it wasn't really a bad idea at all. "Okay, I'll definitely think about it some more and also ask Jingliu what she thinks of the idea. Anyway, thank you very much for giving all of these things to me, Carol, I do appreciate it."

Carol then gave him a quick salute and winked at him with a playful smile. "No problem at all. Anyway, I'll be getting going now, I'll see you later, Yasushi," she stated before leaving his office and closing the door behind her.

Yasushi then sighed to himself and started sorting through all of the various items that he had just gotten. He took the brand new storage ring out of the box and he could immediately tell that it was definitely the last tier, tier 5, with the capacity to have five billion items stored inside of it, along with all of the other brand new functions that were added over the course of the last two months.

He then proceeded to store all of the other items he just got into the new storage ring. Yasushi was making a very good amount of money now, so he didn't really need to worry too much about that particular aspect of his entire life.

He also still had his two lottery winnings that he got from when he was much younger, so he also had that to fall back on, and of course he had all of the other successful ventures that he started over the years, so calling him a multimillionaire was honestly not that far off from the truth.

"Buying those houses with Jingliu should absolutely not be a problem for me now…all that's really left for me to address is what I'm going to do with Xinyi…what in the hell are we supposed to do with her? I really doubt that she'll just suddenly up and leave, and we can't just get rid of her or that will totally fracture the really good relationship that we all have with her and also with her parents, too," he mumbled quietly to himself, while trying to figure out what to do.

In the past, he really didn't have a lot of time to properly think about this specific aspect of his life, especially after all of the craziness that happened in high school and also college, but now since he finally had the proper time to do so, he actually could for once.

It had never really been a problem before, or at least not a big enough problem to them, but since he was going to marry Jingliu sometime in the future and have some kids with her while also still having Yinhaie and Nandini living with them since he also had his kids with them too… it would actually be a really tight fit in their new homes if they didn't figure something out soon.

"Forever a roommate…?" he muttered to himself, unsure of the exact words that he just said aloud, but they did make him think a little bit.

He sighed one more time to himself and decided that he should probably speak to Jingliu about this particular situation, so he could figure out what to do.

He would honestly be fine with whatever she ended up going with since he didn't really care if Xinyi stayed with them or not, especially since they would also have both Yinhaie and Nandini living with them along with his own two children, too.

Yasushi also planned on buying some relatively big homes so they could all live together in those new homes without any major problems with space being an issue.

Although buying more than one of those homes that were the same size and also had all of the various facilities that they needed would definitely take a little bit longer for him to achieve.

He then scratched his head in thought and said quietly to himself, "Whatever, I'll just bring all of this up to her tonight and we'll talk about it." Before slumping back down in his desk chair, waiting for the end of the day to come faster.

Hopefully, by the end of their discussion and conversation, they would finally come to some sort of agreement that everyone could live with, and he also hoped that Xinyi herself would also be totally fine with whatever arrangement they ended up deciding on for everyone.

+-+

Later that night, when they were in their bedroom, Yasushi finally spoke to Jingliu about what had been on his mind earlier that day. She listened closely as he explained his thoughts, and then confessed that she had also been thinking about this, especially since she and Xinyi had been talking about it quite a bit.

"Thank you for bringing this up with me," Jingliu began, "I've actually been speaking to Xinyi a lot about it too. To be completely honest with you, she's still madly in love with you, and she knows that it isn't healthy for her. She's been trying to date other people, but she always ends up comparing them to you," Jingliu admitted to him, which did surprise Yasushi.

"Okay, so what's the plan now?" Yasushi asked, wanting to know what she thought they should do.

"Xinyi is going to move out for the time being," Jingliu replied, "but if she isn't able to move on from this situation, then it's fine with me if she continues to stay with us...if that's okay with you as well, of course," she said, while looking up at Yasushi, wanting to hear his answer.

Yasushi was very aware of how Jingliu and Xinyi's relationship had grown over time. He had watched as it went from being difficult and unstable, to the close and supportive friendship that they shared today. They had both clearly matured, and he could even say that Jingliu and Xinyi might now even consider themselves to be best friends with each other.

"Alright then…as long as you are perfectly fine with the entire idea, then I'm also okay with it, too," he replied to her, which caused Jingliu to happily smile at him.

They then spoke a bit more about all of the specific details of the plan, but in the end, they both realized that most of it was going to be handled on a scenario-by-scenario basis, and they really couldn't fully plan everything out at this moment, since most of it were just potential "what-if" situations, and they weren't able to completely plan for those kinds of things.

For the rest of the night that followed, they both just acted completely normal with each other. Xinyi was very aware that both Yasushi and Jingliu had spoken about something important, but she was not aware of the specifics of that conversation, since she knew that this topic was coming up sooner or later, and she was planning on speaking about it with him soon too.

But during the night, Jingliu gave her a certain specific signal that they had both previously agreed on, and Xinyi immediately dropped the idea of talking about it right then and there.