In a daze, William Clark actually felt like he was a god, personally creating a life.

As he kept watching, his excitement gradually faded, and he fell silent. Evelyn urged, “Are you going to use it or not? This one looks the best, I really like it.”

“……”

He hesitated and said, “I suddenly feel a bit scared.”

“Huh?”

“You might be used to it already, but I’m not. I’m afraid I’ve opened a Pandora’s box.”

“What box?”

“I’m afraid of releasing a demon!”

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

“No, you don’t understand what kind of thought just popped into my head. It made my heart race. I need to calm down.”

He simply exited the program.

He washed his face to steady his mood, then returned to the small stool and asked, “Are there any legal protections for these virtual people?”

“Of course. In the early days, there were a lot of perverts who used them for disgusting things, or deliberately uploaded other people’s faces and put them on porn sites. Later, after public outcry, the government passed laws.

For example, with what we’re making, it automatically connects with the police for review and detection. If a face is found to be 80% similar to someone’s, the creation is deemed a failure.

But there are still some porn sites running secretly, and they charge a lot…”

“Hm?”

“Hm?”

The two exchanged a glance. William Clark pretended not to understand and asked, “How are prices here? How long can you live on ten thousand yuan?”

“I only spend ten yuan a day on food, so I could live for a year. But now I can’t even make it half a year, you eat so much!”

At this, Evelyn got annoyed.

“People are different! I’m not used to saving. I only smoke Huazi, only drink Taizi, only eat pork knuckle, and when I order braised chicken rice or fish tofu, I add whatever I want—living carefree!”

Before the other could throw the ball back, he pushed over the computer and said first, “Help me find fifty old songs, fifty new songs, twenty old movies, and twenty new movies.”

“What for?”

“I want to study the entertainment trends of this world, and then help you make money!”

Actually, William Clark already had a basic understanding: this world doesn’t have that strange setting of “an extremely developed economy and technology, but a backward entertainment industry.”

That’s right, that in itself is strange.

Unless the country is extremely radical, like militaristic, or strictly limits entertainment works, such a situation wouldn’t happen.

Only after audiences sift through the flood of content do their tastes improve. If you put a 2021 movie back several decades, it might not even be popular.

So William Clark always felt sorry for the middle-aged and young audiences, including himself.

For the elderly, it doesn’t matter if a show is good or bad—it’s just to pass the time. When you see your elders getting all fired up over trash like “Mother’s Way,” you can’t really say anything.

The very young care even less about quality; all they care about is “cutting.” When you see fans saying things like, “May the children of anti-drug police be reborn into rich families like XX in their next life—who told your parents to be so great in this life?” just to whitewash their idol’s drug offenses…

What can you even say?

“……”

William Clark glanced at the little Taoist sitting in the lower right corner of the screen, and that thought once again uncontrollably surfaced.

Chapter 9: Community

Stacked building district, morning.

The community’s Old Foster and police officer Sarah Morgan arrived at Building 6, heading to Evelyn’s home.

Sarah Morgan had only recently started the job, young and lively, and said, “Uncle Foster, do you think he’s an undocumented resident?”

“Very likely. In recent years, our assistance and relief work has been very effective. The number of homeless people has greatly decreased, and in this area, it’s basically zero. He probably came from somewhere else, not sure how he got involved with Xiao Yuan.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about. What if he’s a bad guy?”

“You should be cautious, but don’t assume someone’s bad from the start. The neighbors say he doesn’t even have shoes, just wears slippers—he’s pitiful.”

“Pitiful or not, as long as he’s not like that mentally ill guy last time.”

“Xiao Yang, I have to say something to you…”

Uncle Foster had the air of an old grassroots political worker and said, “You know what things were like over twenty years ago—so many people were displaced, families separated. Now that things are better, we should face these lingering pains of the old era head-on and actively solve problems, not complain.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right!”

……

William Clark was online, using his own computer.

He was watching a Bilibili demo video about MetaHuman Creator.

Anyone who likes gaming must know the famous Unreal Engine. Games like “PUBG,” “Call of Duty,” and “Fortnite” were all made with Unreal Engine 4.

And in February 2021, Unreal Engine released MetaHuman Creator.

This tool is for creating ultra-realistic virtual characters, compressing what used to take weeks or even months of character development into just a few hours.

Whether it’s the face-molding mode or the character templates, they’re pretty much the same as the Virtual series. But it can only reach the level of Virtual No. 1: at a glance it looks real, but on closer inspection, it’s not quite natural.

So he made an estimate: the best technology of 2021 is about equal to the outdated models of 2049.