The Empress’s Gigolo

The laboratory of Linkage Intelligence was in Hangzhou and not too far away from Shanghai. This area had lots of recognition and was known as “the fertile region,” “the home of silk,” and “heaven on earth.”

Of course, the thing that Hangzhou was most commended for was a romantic love that originated from here.

The main characters were a man and a snake.

Ren Baqian had never been able to understand how they were able to conceive a child.

He then explained the itinerary to the empress, and she was very interested in these so-called “robots.”

After all, they were entirely made up of machines. They could talk, communicate, and do many things that humans could, so this was a novelty to her.

The next afternoon, the two of them arrived at Hangzhou’s science and technology park. After they located the address of the place given by the other party and called them from downstairs, someone hurriedly came over after just a short while.

He was a man in his forties, and his eyes glowed when he saw the empress. After that, he collected himself and said to the both of them, “Are you the Mr. Ren whom I was speaking to over the phone? Hi, I’m Jiao Han, the sales manager of Linkage Intelligence!”

Ren Baqian laughed as he ruminated. Typically, people introduced themselves by saying their surname was Li or Zhang, but this person couldn’t bring himself to say that his surname was Jiao. ¹

“You’re laughing!” Jiao Han knew what Ren Baqian was thinking about the moment he saw his expression. He laughed generously, which showed that he didn’t mind.

“Please come with me.” Jiao Han led the way as he laughed.

The three of them went up to the 15th story before arriving at a mid-sized laboratory.

Inside, computers took up almost half the space.

The remaining half of the space was full of all sorts of robots. Half of them were either in a human form or a half-human form. Some of them had a layer of silicone rubber as their skin and looked very similar to real humans. Just by looking at the top half of their bodies from afar, it would be difficult to tell whether they were real or fake people.

After all, this was Jiao Han’s area of specialization.

As Ren Baqian looked at these robots that were even more beautiful and delicate than humans, he felt that it was no wonder their company’s products were selling pretty well overseas.

One subject that he had to mention was that this thing would indeed be a material benefit for a geek!

With such emulated robots, given a certain level of intelligence, the human population in the future would probably be worried.

However, this would be the government’s problem and was none of his concern.

On the contrary, the empress didn’t think about it as much as Ren Baqian or perhaps didn’t even contemplate it in the slightest. She was engrossed in observing the robots in front of her and even stretched out her hand to pinch the face of one of them.

The robot that the empress pinched suddenly opened its eyes and said, “You’ve hurt me!”

Its digital voice sounded a little weird, and its speech was very slow. However, what it said had indeed shocked Ren Baqian and the empress.

“Just joking!” The robot grinned. Its expressions looked very stiff, but they could still make out that it was a smile.

“Do you know what you’re talking about?” Ren Baqian took a few steps forward and carefully observed. This robot was covered in silicone skin all the way from its head to below its neck. It had a little body warmth and refined features, which fulfilled the aesthetic conceptions of East Asians.

“An appropriate joke can bring two people closer and that includes robots!” the robot answered.

“Do you have a name?”

“You Ya is my name. I would be extremely pleased if you can remember it.”

“Can you think?”

“As far as thinking is concerned, that is a very difficult question. Also, it’s a characteristic that I wish to possess. However, based on the present circumstances, there’s still a long way to go.

“How is this achieved?” Ren Baqian turned his head and asked Jiao Han.

“Database. She will make different responses under different situations. When this lady pinched You Ya’s face just now, it woke her up from her standby mode. In this aspect, even if we’re not the best, we also aren’t too far off compared to other countries.” Jiao Han laughed. He was very happy with their reactions

“You Ting, You Yu, we have visitors!”

The two half-bodied robots beside You Ya opened their eyes upon hearing Jiao Han’s voice and spoke with slow digital voices, “Hello, visitor. Hello, manager Jiao.”

“See, you can wake them up from their standby mode by simply calling their names.” Jiao Han smiled.

“I’m beginning to have faith in your company’s potential!” Ren Baqian exclaimed in admiration. Needless to say, these artificial intelligence robots that nobody knew of were incredibly amazing to Ren Baqian, whose understanding of technology was still three years behind.

Next, Jiao Han demonstrated some of the robots’ capabilities.

As Ren Baqian observed, he noticed that the robots’ performance was actually not as outstanding as he thought it was. However, it had already met the majority of his expectations.

The only problem was that these robots accessed their database via the internet.

He wasn’t sure to what extent these robots could perform after cutting off the internet connection.

“It seems like I haven’t seen anyone else in the laboratory?” Ren Baqian asked.

“This is the exhibition area. Besides, today is a weekend, so most of the people aren’t working,” Jiao Han answered. “Please come with me into the office so we can have a discussion.”

After that, Jiao Han led the both of them to an office. A lady with glasses then entered the room and was introduced as an employee working in the laboratory.

“What requirements do you have for the robot?” Jiao Hao asked as he poured some tea for them.

“I hope for the robot to be able to accomplish teaching tasks at a university level. Instead of the monotonous teaching methods of a typical household robot, I want one that can spontaneously perform interactive teaching to the best of its ability, like a real teacher.”

Jiao Han nodded his head. Using a robot as a teacher was what many people wanted. Reaching the stage of interactive teaching was in fact quite difficult, but not impossible. It could be achieved by another method, which required an enormous database.

“Without the internet, the database can be stored within the robot itself.”

Jiao Han looked at the lady with the glasses, and she pondered for a moment before saying, “This depends on what sort of data you wish to store. The data cannot be too large or else we have to reduce other aspects of the robot’s function.”

The lady’s voice was a little hoarse

“Math, physics, chemistry, and biology,” Ren Baqian replied.

“If they are within a university’s curriculum, it’s achievable.” The lady nodded.

Jiao Han smiled as well after hearing that.

“It has to be able to project images, including mathematical formulas and derivations, behavior of physics, and the procedures of chemistry experiments. It has to project these out in a clear and simple fashion.”

“Additionally, I also wish for its appearance to be more of a mechanical style, like a Transformer or a Gundam!””

“Can it move about on its own? It would be best if it could walk on its own and recharge by itself.”

“In addition, its battery capacity must be high. I don’t want a toy that has its battery depleted after just a couple of minutes.”

Ren Baqian stated the requirements that he could think of.

Eventually, the quoted price that Jiao Han gave him was 16 million yuan for a teaching robot with a battery life that would last half a day, recharge on its own, be able to do projections, and interact with others.

Ren Baqian immediately ordered two sets.

As for the delivery date, that would be in three months.

After both parties signed the contract, Jiao Han was curious and asked, “I’m now a little interested in what you do for a living, Mr. Ren. After all, using such expensive robots with these specifications is a little… forgive me, a little wasted.”

Currently, custom made robots like these were toys for the rich. He could understand any weird requests they had.

The strangest thing was that the person in front of him had simply requested for teaching capabilities.

16 million yuan would be enough to hire two teachers for 1,600 months, which was equivalent to 133 years.

Alternatively, this amount could mean hiring 266 teachers for a year or 26 teacher for 10 years.

“I’m a village teacher! These robots are intended for the children in the village!” Jiao Han was immediately stunned by Ren Baqian’s response, and soon after, he began to smile.

A village teacher?

This was a joke of the nouveau riche. One would be a fool to believe it.

However, at the thought of Ren Baqian only requesting for teaching capabilities for those two robots, Jiao Han felt that this might actually be possible.

He took a glance at the empress. A story immediately formed in his mind, one of a rich heir going to a village for volunteer teaching just to impress the person he loved and eventually getting her.

After leaving the building, the empress leaned in toward Ren Baqian, exhaled, and asked “You are saying that my Dayao is a village?”

Ren Baqian tilted his head, and the empress’s red soft lips brushed across his face gently.

Ren Baqian felt that what he said was the truth… but, the empress’s expression was rather dangerous… Her gaze was filled with a teasing look?

“It’s paradise! Even if the entire place is burning down, as long as it’s the place where Your Majesty lives, it’s the most beautiful paradise!” Ren Baqian said with full sincerity.