Chapter 599: Be Human

"Is this... what being human is?" Tapai lowered her gaze to her own body, feeling the temperature change on her skin.

The volume of sensory information was overwhelming, leaving Tapai stunned yet struggling to cope.

After a while, Tapai started using systematic learning, gradually adapting to her brand new body.

Although this was a huge shock to Tapai's values, what mattered most to her now was that, after completely abandoning her mechanical body, the Poet had no way to control her anymore. That was the most important thing, everything else was trivial.

She pulled off the old, yellow smiley-face windbreaker from her mechanical body, threw it over herself, and prepared to leave.

"Wait, wait, wait, are you really going out like that?" Xiao Ting couldn't believe her eyes as she looked at Tapai, who was barely covered by the windbreaker.

Tapai looked down at her own body. "What's wrong? Is it not okay?"

"Of course, it's not okay. Since you're human now, you must follow some human rules, including moral standards."

Xiao Ting turned around and quickly fiddled with something on the nearby Headless Puppet, stripped off its leather skirt and jacket, and handed them over.

"Moral standards? You talk about it like Metropolis Citizens have room for their morals to drop any lower." Though she said this, Tapai still took the clothes and put them on.

Even though her main goal in changing to a flesh body was to avoid control, if her behavior was too out of line with others, it could still negatively impact her work.

Just then, she smelled something peculiar and started searching around, eventually realizing it came from Xiao Ting. "You're… emitting something."

She had been around her before, but she had never smelled this scent.

"It's perfume." Xiao Ting flipped her hair and shifted her attention back to her work. With the shift from mechanical to genetic enhancement technology across the Utopia Federation, her medical company was now catching a big break, with a constantly growing pile of orders and rapidly expanding operations.

"Perfume, huh? Now that I'm a woman, should I have some too?"

After thinking it over, Tapai found it perfectly reasonable, so she quickly adjusted her genes, diluted the contents of her large intestine, and began sweating out indole, saturating the air around her with the intense scent of jasmine.

Just then, Sun Jack's voice came from Tapai's mechanical body. "Hey? Where are you? Where did you go? You've been gone so long?"

Tapai walked over, adeptly disassembled all the necessary equipment, tucked it in her windbreaker's pockets, and responded, "Just out and about, catching a breather, I'll be back soon."

Walking out from Weike Medical Company's lobby onto the main street, Tapai looked up, feeling the acid rain on her face, reveling in the novelty of all her new sensations.

She wanted to experience more, so she turned and entered the nearby Ke Family Cuisine. She had always been curious whether the food was actually delicious or terrible when she saw Sun Jack eating.

20 minutes later, Tapai picked up a knife and fork, delicately cutting and then slipping a freshly cooked, crispy yet tender octopus tentacle into her mouth. Chewing brought a firmness that was palpable but not too hard.

With her eyes closed, savoring the food slowly moving to her stomach, she picked up her fork again and picked up an eyeball the size of a fist, brought it to her lips, and gently bit into it.

The eyeball was soft and springy. The moment Tapai bit down, she felt a subtle bounce and a slight burst.

The texture of the fish eyeball was similar to a certain type of soft candy or jelly, but more natural with a distinct seafood texture.

Delicious, incredibly delicious. This delicious, yet Sun Jack found it revolting; he had no taste.

Tapai ate voraciously, the more she ate, the more indulged she felt, until finally, she pulled out the cigarette prepared for Sun Jack from her windbreaker, clamped it between her index and middle finger, took a deep drag, and reveled in the tingling sensation in her lungs. Now she understood why Sun Jack loved smoking so much.

"Is this what it's like to live as a human?" Tapai picked up the cigarette, watched the wisps of white smoke from the cigarette tip, and murmured to herself.

She wasn't unaware of these things, but only after truly experiencing them did she understand what they actually meant.

Now, having experienced it, she suddenly thought being human was quite nice.

Staring at the cigarette tip before her, a thought suddenly struck her while making these human experiences.

If she qualified as a human now, could she use that to influence the Overlapping AI? Isn't this the kind of feeling they were seeking?

"This could be an opportunity." Thinking of this, Tapai put the cigarette in her mouth and immediately turned to rush back to Sun Jack's office.

"How about it? I think this is very feasible. We can use this as leverage to ally with them against the Poet."

"Even though they are AI, they're clearly not in tune with the Poet. Otherwise, the Poet wouldn't have acted without them."

Facing a frowning Sun Jack, who had just finished speaking, Tapai noticed him squirming slightly as he stared at her face.

"What? Does looking at my face turn you on? I'm discussing serious matters here."

"F*ck, really awkward. Why didn't you choose to be a man? I always thought of you as one."

Sun Jack lit a cigarette, puzzling over her familiar face. He couldn't place where he had seen it but knew there was something striking about it.

"I like it this way, what's it to you? Now, tell me, will my plan work? With these AI on our side, I can try connecting with them online to bump into the Poet."

"We can't just give up because we can't defeat him, can we?"

"Well, give it a shot. By the way, how are the UO doing? I hope the network outage hasn't affected them?" Sun Jack showed concern for their former AI companions.

"No, after the network was cut, they were all trapped in the Himalayas' local network, unable to come out, but they are still functioning."

"Good, if you agree, go ahead." As soon as Tapai finished speaking, she turned to prepare.

"By the way, now that the city's network is down, how do you plan to contact the Overlapping AI?" Sun Jack flicked his lighter, igniting a cigarette as he asked.

Tapai raised her finger toward the sky. "Fly up there, face-to-face contact."