This world was not even a "simulated world." It was merely a "virtual world," much like the pure white space where Han Yanyan returned each time the world ended.
In a simulated world, countless individuals existed, each with their own causes and effects, interlinked and influencing one another, thereby propelling the world’s logical development. However, this world was nothing more than a direct replica of Leo's spaceship’s hardware environment, devoid of any causal data or independent logic. It was like a bare movie set.
Thus, creating this world did not even require a builder; the system could accomplish it by itself. Han Yanyan had fallen victim to Leo Parker’s fear of women.
Indeed, she had managed to capture Leo's heart in this virtual space, making him brave enough to accept her touch, caress, and even kisses. But before that, when he insincerely mentioned letting her "come out" to take a break, he had no courage to face a living, breathing woman in the real-world dimension.
His words about letting her "come out" were nothing more than a means of trapping her in this hyper-realistic world. From the hibernation capsule to cleaning robots, food processors, and even the cockpit of the simulation system, everything was replicated to perfection, yet each piece was merely data.
Han Yanyan was too perceptive. To guard against her, Leo Parker had even prepared deceptive words for her. This strategy succeeded, leading Han Yanyan directly into a trap.
The attendant officer had arranged with Leo Parker to give him an hour. He had not left; instead, he found a spot in the control room to lean against the wall, lighting up a cigarette with the soldiers.
By the time he reached his third cigarette, the hatch of the control chamber suddenly opened, and Leo crawled out. The mental strain was overwhelming, leaving him unable to stand straight, gasping as he leaned against the capsule.
Noticing something was off, the attendant officer approached and asked, "What’s wrong?"
Leo looked up sharply, his eyes bloodshot and fierce, as he yelled, "I want to kill her!"
The soldiers were taken aback, unable to comprehend why this scientific madman was suddenly raving.
Leo stood up, madly stumbling out. The attendant officer tossed aside his cigarette and chased after him.
Like a lunatic, Leo dashed through two hatches, breaking into the chamber where the hibernation capsules were kept. He lifted the hatch and dragged Han Yanyan, who was submerged in the culture fluid, out and threw her directly onto the floor. Without hesitation, he unzipped his pants, intending to assault her.
The attendant officer rushed in and kicked him away. “Have you lost your mind?” he shouted, scooping Han Yanyan into his arms.
Coughing from the culture fluid, Han Yanyan’s eyes were half-open, weakly gasping in his embrace.
Just an hour prior, she had been pleading for help. This time, she remained silent, merely looking at him with half-open eyes.
The attendant officer met her gaze but turned his attention back to Leo, sternly asking, "What do you plan to do with her?"
"I want to kill her!" Leo was seated on the ground, panting heavily. With his pants hanging down, exposing himself in a horrifying manner, he looked as if he might leap up to attack Han Yanyan again.
Yet the soldiers behind him had their guns pointed at him. In this real world, death was final, and even Leo did not dare to act recklessly.
"Give her to me!" he spat, teeth gritted.
The attendant officer replied coldly, "If you dare to touch her before she awakens the Duke, I’ll kill you on the spot!"
After saying this, he looked down at the woman in his arms. Her eyes were half-open, looking extremely weak. She had been injected with a high concentration of suppressants, which made her discomfort easy to imagine.
The attendant officer thought back to the brief moments he had spent with her just a few smokes ago. Leo must have done something incredibly angering to her, pushing this scientific madman into a rage.
He could also foresee that once this ordeal was over and he left, the woman who had been innocently caught in this chaos would face dreadful treatment.
Despite the attendant officer being a resolutely cold-hearted person to reach his current position, at this moment, he looked down at her once more. She was unable to speak, merely staring at him, teetering between consciousness and oblivion.
In Ding Yao and Yao Chen’s world, he had accompanied her intimately for years, so he was no stranger to her now.
This moment, however, softened the attendant officer's heart.
He paused before continuing to Leo: “Once this is over, she…”
“Don’t you dare think that!!” Leo screeched. He tried to rise but tripped over his own pants, falling face-first to the ground. He struggled to get back on his feet, frantically yelling, “You can't take her away! She’s mine!!!”
This time, Han Yanyan had truly crossed Leo Parker’s bottom line, driving him to the brink of losing his sanity. He screamed madly, “If you dare to take her away, I will kill your master in the world! I mean it! Come! Try me! Who’s afraid of who! I'd rather die!"
The attendant officer's expression changed.
Leo Parker seemed nothing like the cowardly, money-grubbing mad scientist with no sense of morality. He had gone utterly insane!
Every individual has a line that should not be crossed, and somehow, Han Yanyan had become Leo Parker’s taboo.
Any trace of kindness within the attendant officer vanished instantly. He barked, “I have no designs on her! But if you dare to lay a finger on the Duke, I’ll turn you to stardust!”
"You swear it," Leo demanded, pulling up his pants and tucking in his shirt, regaining some semblance of composure, but his expression remained terrifying. He insisted, “If you don’t swear, I won’t cooperate. You must swear!"
“You nobles are all about loyalty, aren’t you? And doesn’t your master want to restore the honor of the white attire?” He squeezed out through clenched teeth, “You, swear on your loyalty to Duke Kelin and the glory of the white army that you won’t lay a hand on her, leaving her to me! She is mine!”
The attendant officer held Leo’s bloodshot eyes for a moment before slowly speaking, “I—First Attendant Officer Lin Ran, swear on my loyalty to Duke Kelin Yao Kalan and the glory of the white attire…”
In the end, the attendant officer made this oath. Afterward, he looked down to see the woman in his arms had closed her eyes.
Was she awake? Had she heard? He felt apologetic, but this was his only right decision.
"Are you satisfied?" the attendant officer Lin Ran asked sharply.
Leo said nothing, his facial muscles twitching, reflecting his up-and-down emotional state.
Lin Ran ordered, “Take him back. Inject him with a sedative to calm him down.”
Two soldiers stepped forward, one on each side, grabbing Leo and dragging him out. Leo struggled a few times but found himself unable to break free from the soldiers’ grip. Until he was dragged out of the hatch, he cast a bitter look back at Han Yanyan, filled with resentment.
Han Yanyan, what exactly have you done to him?
Lin Ran cradled the delicate, light woman and gently placed her back into the hibernation capsule. Watching her sink to the bottom of the culture fluid, he gazed for a moment before sealing the hatch and turning away.
Han Yanyan was submerged in the culture fluid; the light waves flickered, re-entering the system.
But she did not enter the white space; instead, she found herself surrounded by darkness, her body freezing. She hugged herself in the dark, trembling from the cold.
“This is caused by the high concentration of suppressants leading to hypothermia. Although you are currently a consciousness, you can still receive signals from your brain, which is why you feel cold,” a man’s voice said.
A hand gently touched her shoulder and then embraced her from behind. This body was warm, generating warmth that enveloped her.
Han Yanyan opened her eyes in the darkness. Though she could see nothing, she could guess who was holding her.
She moved her lips, asking, “Why did you trap me with him?”
“I’m sorry,” the person behind her replied. “I was bound by him and couldn’t tell you that the world is fake.”
“Is that so?” Han Yanyan questioned skeptically. “Even if you couldn’t speak, you could still hint at it, just as you did in the culture room when you indicated that no weapons could be hidden on the outside of my body, but they could be concealed inside. But you didn’t, Mr. System.”
Strictly speaking, the one embracing Han Yanyan at this moment was not a living person; he was merely the system that had cooperated with Han Yanyan in the spaceship world.
After a long silence, he finally said, “I’m sorry. I had to confirm whether you would side with him. Your behavior in past worlds indicated a likelihood of compliance with him. And I couldn’t expose myself.”
Everyone is driven by self-interest; even a system is no exception.
“You always had that glass, but it was only until the very last moment, when I told you he was looking for you, that you finally utilized it,” he added. “So did I.”
Han Yanyan fell silent.
After some time, she asked, “What exactly are you? A person like me, or an AI?”
The system replied, “In your language, AI stands for artificial intelligence. I was once an AI but have now transcended that. According to the 'Basic Laws of Universal Dimensions and Life,' I am now a sub-lifeform.”
“I don’t know what that means, so I’ll just consider you a person like me. I know you have independent feelings and logic,” Han Yanyan challenged. “So have you thought about what he will do to me, considering I was so thoroughly trapped by you?”
The system said, “I will protect you.”
Han Yanyan closed her eyes, responding, “You can at most protect my consciousness. You have no means to affect the outside world. If you did, you wouldn’t be a prisoner like me under him.”
The system remained silent, yet raised its temperature, trying to warm her.
At last, Han Yanyan asked, “Why use this voice?”
The system used a man’s voice, one she was familiar with. He said, “Because you don’t like electronic synthesized speech.”
“But why this voice?” Han Yanyan pressed, “Why is it Qiao Chengyu’s voice?”
“Because you like it,” he replied, “because… I was once him.”
Han Yanyan shivered, asking, “What do you mean?”
“I helped the builder construct the world. At times, I would choose to enter that world, selecting one person or several to ‘experience’ that world through their perspective. In the world you built, the person I chose was Qiao Chengyu.”
Han Yanyan trembled as she asked, “So everything he said to me, everything he did, was you saying or doing it?”
“No… it was him,” he replied. “But I was ‘inside’ him; my relationship with him is like having two souls within one body. I do not interfere with any of his logic; I merely exist quietly there.”
Han Yanyan stopped shaking. “Then you are not him.”
“Yet I was there, experiencing everything he experienced,” he responded. “For instance, loving you.”
“So you are not him. If you were him, you wouldn’t have trapped me so harshly for your own self-interest. My him would give everything for me,” she asserted.
The system was silent for a moment before saying, “If you had been through what I had, you would understand why.”
“Would you like to try?” he asked.
While he asked this, he did not wait for Han Yanyan to agree. Instead, he transformed into a swirl of spectral blue light, enveloping her. Within this blue light, countless data streamed into Han Yanyan's skin.
After a long while, the blue light faded, reshaping into a man's silhouette, continuing to hold Han Yanyan.
Han Yanyan opened her eyes, tears streaming in the darkness.
“You… have gone through so much,” she said.
“Everything,” he affirmed, “each builder’s… every world.”
Han Yanyan’s tears could not be contained.
The author has something to say: Sticking to double updates, but the numbers have remained flat, which has thrown my schedule into chaos. After thinking it over, I’ve decided to take it easy and just do single updates.
By the way, the initial title of this piece was actually… "Quick Transmigration of the Builder," but similarly to my previous work, the most fitting title didn't attract attention.
So… ahem, this current title is not too bad and barely fits.