Mary had a three-year-old daughter named Sally, whom she adored more than anything in the world. One day, while Sally was playing in the park, Mary lost sight of her due to a moment of carelessness. Frantic, she searched every corner of the town, calling out Sally’s name in despair. Fortunately, someone found Sally, who had slipped and fallen on a park path. After this traumatic experience, Mary decided to enroll in Ark Angel Inc.’s free promotion program.
Ark Angel offered child monitoring solutions. A nano-sized chip was imperceptibly implanted in Sally’s brain while she was engrossed in watching cartoons, completely unaware of the procedure. The corresponding tablet provided basic features like location tracking, missing child alerts, and health data, but it also allowed Mary to see and hear everything through Sally’s eyes and ears in real time. Additionally, the chip had a special filtering function: when activated, any content that might upset Sally would be filtered out from her sensory perception. A demonstration showed that when a violent shootout scene replaced the cartoon on TV, Sally grew tense. Simultaneously, the tablet issued a warning, and the bloody images were pixelated for Sally, while the gunshots were muffled. Mary was satisfied—now she wouldn’t have to worry about her daughter getting lost or being frightened by the neighbor’s aggressive dog.
Life went on peacefully. One day, Mary prepared Sally’s morning vitamin juice as usual before leaving for work. Soon, the tablet emitted a warning alert. When Mary opened the screen, she saw that her father, who was caring for Sally at home, had collapsed from a heart attack. Sally’s view, however, was entirely pixelated, leaving her unaware of what was happening. Mary rushed home and called an ambulance, saving her father’s life. She grew increasingly reliant on the monitoring system, and Sally remained shielded from any negative emotions. Even when her grandfather passed away, Sally couldn’t clearly see her mother’s grief.
Time passed, and Sally started elementary school. An older student named Trick often showed his classmates and bloody videos he found online. Sally was curious, but all she could see were pixelated images. Having never even seen blood before, she tried to draw what her classmates described but didn’t know where to start. Frustrated, she sharpened a pencil and stabbed her own finger, wanting to see what blood really looked like. This terrified Mary, who immediately took her daughter to a psychologist.
The psychologist concluded that Ark Angel was preventing Sally from experiencing real emotions, leading to this outburst. The Ark Angel program had already been banned in Europe and was facing a nationwide ban by the end of the year. Although the chip couldn’t be removed, the psychologist advised turning off the tablet to help Sally learn to cope with negative emotions.
For the first time in years, Mary turned off the tablet. After watching Sally drink her vitamin juice and leave for school, she felt uneasy. Eventually, she couldn’t resist checking the tablet’s location tracking. Relieved to see Sally had arrived at school, she sighed in relief. Meanwhile, at school, Sally saw Trick with a bleeding lip after a fight. Blood flowed from his wound, and out of curiosity, Sally watched the previously pixelated videos on Trick’s computer, discovering for the first time the terrifying aspects of the world.
Over the next few days, Sally seemed to adapt to life without her mother’s monitoring. Mary, feeling reassured, stored the tablet in the attic, intending never to use it again. Years went by, and Sally grew up, learning to handle emergencies, avoid danger, and even befriending the neighbor’s dog.
Trick had long since dropped out of school and was working at a furniture store. His mature demeanor deeply attracted Sally. By the age of 15, Sally had fallen in love with Trick and started dating him. To secretly meet Trick, she lied to her mother about watching movies at a friend’s house. Mary, who had her own plans for the evening, didn’t pay much attention. It wasn’t until late at night, when she couldn’t reach Sally by phone and learned from other parents that Sally wasn’t at her friend’s house, that Mary grew worried. In a panic, she retrieved the long-forgotten tablet from the attic. After plugging it in and turning it on, she located Sally at a lakeside cabin outside town. When she activated the real-time function, she was horrified to see Sally and Trick in an intimate situation.
When Sally returned home, Mary didn’t confront her directly, believing that dating was part of her daughter’s privacy. But the next day, when Mary saw Sally and Trick using drugs together, she knew she had to intervene. She immediately confronted Trick, threatening to accuse him of statutory rape unless he broke up with Sally. Though heartbroken, Sally eventually ended the relationship, and Mary believed she had done the right thing. But Mary took another step to protect her daughter.
During class, Sally suddenly felt nauseous and rushed to the bathroom to vomit. The school nurse initially suspected norovirus, but tests revealed traces of emergency contraceptive pills in her vomit—the side effects of which had caused her nausea. Shocked, Sally realized her mother must have added the pills to her morning vitamin juice after monitoring her through Ark Angel.
Furious, Sally rushed home and found the contraceptive pills in the kitchen medicine cabinet. In her mother’s bedroom, she also discovered the tablet, still active. Mary tried to explain her protective intentions, but Sally refused to listen. In a frantic attempt to turn off the tablet, Sally accidentally activated the filter function. When she heard that her mother had forced Trick to break up with her, Sally lost control. She grabbed the tablet and smashed it against her mother’s head. With the filter active, she couldn’t see the blood or hear her mother’s pleas. Blow after blow, she continued until her finger accidentally deactivated the filter. Only then did she see her mother lying unconscious on the floor, covered in blood. Sally dropped the tablet and fled the house in a panic.
Sometime later, Mary regained consciousness. The tablet beside her was destroyed. Without even wiping the blood from her face, she ran outside, calling out her daughter’s name, hoping for forgiveness. But this time, Mary would never find her daughter again.