Leo Parker was a man who had lived alone for a long time, somewhat neurotic, often murmuring to himself. Because of this, the system had stored a wealth of information about him. According to the security standards set by Leo, this information would not trigger any alarms. When Han Yanyan smuggled some personal insights into the mech world and created the book "The Legend of Leo," the system filled it with a great deal of information.
After filtering out the self-pity, boastfulness, and distorted perceptions of others, the true image of Leo Parker became clear. He was a tech enthusiast, socially anxious, and had lived in solitude for a long time. He had loved once in his life—or rather, had a crush on a girl. That girl not only fell for his roommate but also died alongside him in a simulated world, forever changing his life.
From his chaotic ramblings about the past, Han Yanyan had reason to believe that Leo Parker might very well be… a virgin. A man with such dark and reclusive traits, were he to have sexual experience, would surely boast about it amidst his diary-like murmurs. Yet there was none of that. As Han Yanyan flipped through the pages, which were now in disarray, she saw only his bragging about various technologies and instruments he had created. Apart from the mention of that deceased girl, he had never mentioned any woman.
Han Yanyan had studied Leo Parker for quite some time. From the moment he appeared, reluctant to approach her, to the moment her fingertips brushed against his skin, this hyper-realistic entity had developed goosebumps. She understood that her profiling of him was largely correct.
She stopped speaking, closing her eyes and weeping silently. Leo Parker had never experienced a woman crying in his arms so softly and beautifully. "She is a great liar! She is a great liar! She is a great liar!"—he kept telling himself. Taking a deep breath, he tried to push her away… but he couldn’t. The feeling of having a woman gently nestled against him was simply too wonderful! Leo felt a bit powerless.
After some inner conflict, he called up a holographic screen: "Lower the sedative concentration to 1.5 times—no, no, 1.8 times!" The warmth of her body increased slightly. At least it felt somewhat "warm" now. Leo asked, "Is that better?"
Han Yanyan’s weakness faded considerably. She opened her eyes, broke free from his embrace, pushed herself onto the floor, hugged her legs tightly, half-burying her face in her knees as she stared at him.
Suddenly feeling empty, Leo crouched down, stretching his neck to look at Han Yanyan, saying, "Are you alright? If you are, then let’s get to work."
Han Yanyan silently glared at him, not uttering a word.
"Hey." Leo grew a bit irritated, "I’m warning you, if you don’t get back to work, don’t blame me for punishing you! I'll increase the power!"
"Increase…" Han Yanyan slowly raised her face. Possibly due to her earlier low body temperature, her simulated appearance was pale, a stark contrast to the rosy cheeks she had when she first arrived.
"Increase it to the maximum, better to make me disappear," she coldly replied, "the quicker the better."
With her pale face and indifferent gaze, along with that icy tone, she resembled a dead woman. Perhaps she wasn’t pretending to be weak earlier? After all, a tripled dose of the sedative was indeed rather excessive.
If Han Yanyan had threatened him from behind a screen, Leo would have jumped up in fury. Yet now, crouched halfway down, with Han Yanyan less than a meter away, their eyes met, and Leo discovered he had lost the ability to speak.
It was no surprise. Keyboard warriors could argue fiercely through screens, but in real life, they often stumbled over their words. "The Legend of Leo" included many of his cruel curses toward past classmates who mocked him for being ineloquent.
"A world, for years, for decades…" Han Yanyan lowered her gaze, appearing unfocused, "it would be better to let me vanish right now…"
"That's all fake. Running on high speed, several decades would just amount to a few hours," Leo stated, "it actually hasn’t been long."
Han Yanyan's gaze fell: "To me, it felt that long. After spending so much time with those people. Once the world ends, that's it, it’s all gone."
Leo felt his head ache: "It’s all data, just data. Don’t get attached to data."
"Have you ever entered that world? Have you felt those people? You say data, and yes, I know they are data." Han Yanyan lifted her gaze, anger gradually building in her eyes. "But they are living data! They have souls! The world felt so real! Each person was so vivid! Do you expect me not to form feelings for them?"
Tears flowed uncontrollably down her cheeks.
Her angry face was more beautiful than the weak one, full of life, full of soul. No woman had ever directed such strong emotions toward Leo Parker before; during his youth, most viewed him as transparent, as if he didn’t exist.
Leo had never been confronted with such accusations face-to-face. At a loss for words, he didn’t know how to respond. But the sight of Han Yanyan’s anguished tears instinctively made him reach toward her face…
In a snapped motion, Han Yanyan pushed herself off the floor, retreating half a foot!
Leo’s hand missed, remaining suspended in the air. Han Yanyan glared at him with caution, indifference, and disdain.
Suddenly enraged, Leo found his speech returning. He jumped up: "Han Yanyan! What do you mean by this? In every world, you sleep with men! Why are you hiding?"
Han Yanyan snickered coldly: "It’s got nothing to do with you."
"You have no human heart at all. Have you ever tasted love or being loved? Parents, friends, lovers?" She watched the shifts in his expression and suddenly smiled, "Oh, no. None at all."
Her laughter was mocking, cold, filled with pity and a gleeful "as expected."
That woman! Leo was furious enough to explode! Just then, the aide's voice came into his ears: "Have you managed to deal with her?"
Leo felt his anger deflate. He exited the simulation space, opened the hatch, and jumped out. The aide was standing beside the control cabin, smoking while waiting for him. When he saw Leo emerge, he asked, looking serious, "What’s the result?"
"Not easy," Leo replied, "she’s somewhat showing signs of madness in her current state."
The aide's heart sank as he was about to speak, but Leo continued, "I suspect she’s faking it."
If Han Yanyan had heard this, she would’ve gasped in surprise and given Leo Parker a thumbs up. After navigating through these worlds and dealing with such formidable men, Leo Parker was the first to see through her.
However, this was actually a pleasant misunderstanding. Leo didn’t distrust Han Yanyan; he simply didn’t trust women, period.
Back in the day, Leo had truly laid his heart on the line for that girl. And what happened? In the blink of an eye, she was holding his roommate's hand, intimately telling him they were a couple.
That had shattered Leo's heart.
All women were great liars! Han Yanyan was the biggest liar among them!
She had to be pretending!
The aide furrowed his brow: "Why?"
Leo brought up the holographic screen to show him: "Look, doesn’t it seem fake?"
After Leo left, Han Yanyan slowly lay down, curling up, hugging herself. She resembled a fetus in the womb. Her gaze wasn’t vacant but rather cold, lacking any life.
"I don’t think so," the aide said.
Leo was instantly stunned.
"You’ve seen what she was like before!" Leo snapped, frustrated, "How could she suddenly turn into this?"
The aide took a puff of his cigarette, glanced at Leo again, then took another drag and looked at him once more.
He couldn’t hold back any longer and sighed, "Leo Parker, do you… lack human emotions?"
The aide had monitored the entire "treatment" process for Duke Clinton. To protect Leo’s brain, the apocalyptic world and the underworld had to run slowly, consuming over four hundred hours, nearly half a month.
If in the apocalyptic world, Han Yanyan was still naïve and innocent, by the time she was with Yao Chen, she had nearly adapted to these worlds, her mind fully matured and rational. In between, there was the treatment of another of Leo’s clients he hadn’t seen, unaware of what transpired. He only knew it successfully awakened a dead person, bringing them back to life. This greatly delighted him.
In Yao Chen's world, he not only experienced Han Yanyan’s fierce first round of resistance but also witnessed her contesting wits and courage against Yao Chen. Battling intelligence, emotions, and physicality together. It was astonishing that she could activate her psychic power under such circumstances. This woman was something else.
Regrettably, he went to sleep afterward, missing the confrontation between Han Yanyan and Leo. He also didn’t witness Han Yanyan's forty years in the mech world.
But after just one sleep, she had, with two injections of sedatives, erupted with psychic power for the second time, almost escaping that coffin-like sleep pod.
Unfortunately, she failed. When the aide lifted her, he felt her delicate softness. She was merely an ordinary woman from a backward place, and her very ordinariness made the struggle for survival all the more poignant.
He sealed the hatch of the sleep pod, and the woman, drenched in the nutrient solution, slowly raised her hand to support the hatch. Her eyes remained wide open, staring at him.
"Save me," she seemed to say.
Until Leo activated the waves, plunging her into a deep sleep, she finally shut her eyes and let her hand drop. Despair followed, soaking in the cold liquid, falling into the abyss.
The aide questioned himself; if it were him, he too would find it hard not to break. Yet Leo Parker boldly demanded, “How did she become like this?”
The aide felt a strong urge to slap him.
The aide's words and Han Yanyan's expressions actually… conveyed similar meanings. Leo erupted in anger.
"What do you mean? Are you looking down on me?" He was agitated, his voice crescendoing as he went slightly hysterical, "Is that so? Really?!"
How was that related to looking down on him? The aide felt baffled. He had heard that the best scientists were often mad; he didn’t know if Leo was the best, but in comparison to normal people, he certainly seemed a bit… off.
His head throbbed. For the past half month, he hadn’t been able to sleep well, spending long hours in the control cabin, rapidly processing vast amounts of information, often feeling on the verge of collapse.
Though Leo was throwing a fit, he was physically quite weak. The aide rubbed his aching temple and couldn’t be bothered to pull out his gun. He simply waved his hand.
The white-clad soldiers stepped forward, raising their weapons. In an instant, Leo was immobilized.
The aide sighed and said to him, “I want you to solve the problem, not create more issues. Now, how should we deal with her like this?”
Although Leo didn’t dare act out again, he was still furious: “Can’t you see she’s pretending?”
The aide sighed once more. “Leo Parker, haven’t you interacted much with women?” he inquired.
Leo’s flushed face was the answer.
“Women are different from men,” the aide said. After speaking, he felt a strong sense of absurdity in discussing the differences between men and women with this internationally wanted criminal and mad scientist.
He shook his head and said, “Do you… not feel her despair at all? Not the slightest?”
Leo froze. He hesitated: “She, she’s so powerful…”
“Where is she powerful?” the aide retorted.
Leo replied, “She has Yao Chen wrapped around her finger.”
“She can deceive him because she knows her mission clearly, whereas Yao Chen doesn’t, granting her the advantage of asymmetric information.” The aide continued, “Furthermore, to deceive Yao Chen, she also used her body; although not a real body, she indeed employed a woman’s weapon, selling her beauty.”
He paused before adding, “A woman using her body and beauty as weapons simply illustrates that she is the weaker one.”
“When faced with such a woman, as men, we usually extend some leniency, rewarding her in kind with what her beauty deserves.” He said, “However, we never consider her ‘powerful.’”
“Leo Parker, it’s time for you to update your definitions of strength and weakness.”