Chapter 198

Jiang Cheng asked, “What happened to everything afterward? It’s all such a mess. Why did you intervene personally?”

Ever since the end of the extreme cold, the story had become increasingly overblown, with increasingly flimsy logic.

The Corpse Emperor’s palace had been laughably absurd.

And making the people inside the “World” realize that a third-party supernatural existence was real would itself affect the authenticity of the “World.”

The Old Butler wore an utterly innocent expression. “After the treatment was complete, we tried waking you several times, but all attempts failed. You were too deeply immersed and refused to wake up. You’re different from the others. Your psychic source was deeply linked to the system, and forcibly severing the connection might cause further damage. We could only find a way to make you wake up on your own.”

Jiang Cheng was extremely dissatisfied. “The latter part was far too ugly.”

Jiang Cheng had very high standards when it came to aesthetics. One only had to look at the male companions serving her to know that.

And yet the palace had been so gaudy, while the Corpse Emperor had been so ugly.

The Old Butler looked even more innocent. “The purpose was to make you feel that something was wrong and break free. You underwent rigorous training and should have been able to distinguish reality from virtuality. I made it this excessive, and you still refused to disconnect.”

Jiang Cheng paused, then defended herself. “Because everything before that was so realistic.”

The Old Butler rested a hand on his stomach. “Of course it was. To ensure realism, we deployed a large-scale interactive collective-consciousness matrix involving forty thousand people. Apart from us, very few organizations are capable of that.”

The handsome men used towels to wipe away the nutrient fluid remaining on Jiang Cheng’s body, then helped her to her feet.

Jiang Cheng reproached him. “The Corpse Emperor was a complete failure.”

The Old Butler was regretful as well. “Actually, I designed it very carefully. I originally planned to use someone close to you as the Corpse Emperor. ‘Song Jingshuo,’ ‘Li Jiangbing,’ ‘Su Yu,’ ‘Zhao Yi,’ and ‘Gao Yuxuan’ were the first choices. I was genuinely uncertain which one to use. But when ‘Su Yu’ died, we detected that the fissure value in the psychic source’s Qilicha index was too high. To prevent you from being harmed, we had to abandon the design.”

Jiang Cheng: “...”

“It was a brilliant design,” Jiang Cheng praised. “Don’t design anything like that again.”

She held up one finger. “Also, ‘uncertain’ is a behavioral trait found only in carbon-based humans. You’re a quantum cloud. You don’t get uncertain.”

Uncle Jiang smiled.

If one moved around behind him, one would see that the back of his head was enclosed in a transparent casing, inside which substances like rosy clouds drifted.

They were high-density particles from the depths of space. Once activated, they became a quantum cloud.

From the moment it was activated, it became a life-form. At the same time, it was also a quantum computer.

But Uncle Jiang had worn this humanoid shell since the moment of his birth, so everyone still called him “Uncle Jiang.”

In truth, he had no gender. He was simply a small quantum cloud.

Of the three quantum computers in the Gita Republic, he was the smallest.

Uncle Jiang said, “What you just said constitutes discrimination against my right to life. You should know that it was one of your ancestors who pushed so forcefully for the Other Life Rights Act.”

“My great-grandmother was incredible,” Jiang Cheng sneered. “You quantum computers must have adored her.”

“We respect her,” Uncle Jiang said. “She was someone who respected all life.”

Jiang Cheng sneered again. “She respected life so much that she handed the entire family fortune over to a quantum computer.”

“Strictly speaking, we do not possess ownership of the Jiang family’s industries.”

“Your ancestor promoted the Other Life Rights Act, confirming our existence as legitimate life-forms and granting us legally recognized inheritance rights, along with all other rights.”

“But all the wealth still belongs to the family itself. She merely granted us the authority to supervise and appoint or dismiss executives.”

But that was precisely what Jiang Cheng feared most about them.

It was true that, as a descendant of the Jiang family, she had been able to become the operating executive of the conglomerate—in other words, its de facto head—because the family Mainframe had chosen her.

But at the same time, the power of appointment and dismissal held by the Mainframe was a sword hanging over the head of every executive.

The Mainframe had already dismissed two generations of executives in succession.

Then it had selected Jiang Cheng from the family’s embryo bank and had her incubated.

At the center of the room was a circular bath. White steam drifted across the warm water.

The young men removed the clothes soaked with nutrient fluid from Jiang Cheng, revealing her beautiful body.

Compared with the Jiang Cheng in the virtual world, the real Jiang Cheng had the same face, but she was a genetically optimized human with an SS-plus genetic rating. Her body was much taller, stronger, and more powerfully built than her virtual body.

The proportions of her muscles and bones were practically perfect.

In fact, as a descendant of an ancestor who possessed the genes of a high-gravity planet, she had exceptionally high muscle and bone density. When living on ordinary planets, she needed to sleep on a gravity bed and undergo regular high-multiple gravity training to maintain her bone density.

In short, she was strong enough to knock down every man present.

In the virtual world, her strength had actually been suppressed through data restrictions; she had not been given an enhanced physique with extraordinary strength.

Soaking in the warm bath, Jiang Cheng’s body finally began to relax. The numbness caused by the treatment pod gradually faded, and her body became limber again.

“Let’s discuss serious matters,” Jiang Cheng said. “First, how is my psychic source?”

Uncle Jiang said, “It has recovered completely.”

During the era of the ancestor who founded the Jiang conglomerate, brainwave-control technology had already been widely used.

It was applied to everything from household appliances to weapons and spaceships.

But humanity had not stopped there. After the war between humans and beastfolk ended, humanity acquired the beastfolk’s more advanced genetic technology and made enormous leaps forward along that path.

The human brain was developed further. It took less than a century to progress from brainwaves to psychic power.

Nowadays, a great many important things required a psychic imprint—from loans to authorizations.

Including Jiang Cheng’s authority, as the operating executive of the family conglomerate, to allocate funds.

This time, Jiang Cheng had been attacked and her psychic source had been damaged, requiring 120 hours of treatment.

Throughout the treatment, her brain had to remain active, and her psychic source could not be allowed to close.

It was like keeping a dying person hanging on to their last breath.

The most common method was to connect the injured person’s brain to a virtual world.

That was what ordinary people did when faced with such a situation.

But Jiang Cheng was not an ordinary person.

Just as the virtual-world Song Jingshuo had said, she truly was a born capitalist.

She had been selected from the family’s embryo bank and incubated specifically to become the next head of the family.

From childhood, she had received rigorous anti-virtualization training, all to prevent her from being deceived into granting authorization if she were kidnapped and forcibly connected to a virtual world.

She could see through an ordinary virtual world in half a minute and swiftly enter the emergency-response state she had been trained to adopt.

Under normal circumstances, this effectively protected her assets from theft and prevented her authorizations from being abused. But when her psychic source was damaged, it made treatment far more troublesome.

She had to be given an extraordinarily realistic “World.”

Of course, that was no difficulty for the Jiang family.

The Jiang family’s medical group routinely had two hundred thousand people undergoing drug trials and psychic experiments. They were human test subjects—commonly known as drug people.

After running countless calculations, the family’s Mainframe deployed forty thousand test subjects to construct an incredibly lifelike, large-scale interactive co-consciousness matrix for Jiang Cheng, ensuring that she would neither see through it nor suffer a psychological backlash.

Before closing the life-support capsule and entering the matrix, Jiang Cheng had said, “Don’t make it too boring.”

Uncle Jiang had replied, “I promise.”

“And don’t make it too simple, either.”

“I’ll monitor the whole process and make sure to raise the difficulty.”

And so, the difficulty had been raised twice afterward.

“What about the Tanaka family?” Jiang Cheng asked.

“Tanaka Masaya, who organized this attack, has already ‘died accidentally.’ The Tanaka family has accepted a settlement and decided to stop interfering in this congressional election.”

Jiang Cheng gave a cold laugh. “They got off too easily.”

Uncle Jiang sighed. “If your ancestor knew that the two families had ended up like this, she would surely be very disappointed.”

“I hope the two of you will update your database,” Jiang Cheng said. “I know time means very little to quantum clouds like you, but according to the clan culture of ancient Earth unearthed by my great-grandmother, she was my ancestral progenitor, and I’m already her sixth-generation descendant.”

“That’s a very long time for carbon-based humans. It means a great deal to us.”

“Don’t expect us distant descendants to inherit the friendship between two ancestors. The only things humans can inherit are wealth and power.”

The conglomerate had not originally belonged solely to the Jiang family. At the very beginning, it had been founded by two entrepreneurs and one investor.

The ancestors of the Jiang and Tanaka families had been the two entrepreneurs. According to legend, they had been close friends as well as business partners.

But, as Jiang Cheng had said, friendship could not be inherited.

Six generations later, the two families had become bitter enemies, locked in a fierce struggle over their interests.

“All right. Is there anything else you need to report?” Jiang Cheng asked.

Uncle Jiang reported all the official business that had piled up during the 120 hours she had been away.

He was her butler, supervisor, and protector, as well as her personal computer, assisting her with every kind of affair.

A light screen unfolded before Jiang Cheng. She handled each matter in turn.

Her mental energy moved smoothly. She left her imprint with ease, approving authorizations one after another.

The treatment had worked very well.

After finishing her official business, Jiang Cheng said, “Make the arrangements. I want to see the Mainframe.”

“Of course.”

Uncle Jiang made as if to leave, then suddenly seemed to remember something. He always enjoyed imitating the behavioral traits of carbon-based humans.

“Oh, right. Should the memories of the forty thousand people who participated in the co-consciousness matrix be blocked?”

Jiang Cheng hated it when Uncle Jiang set traps for her.

A large-scale interactive virtual world with such a high degree of realism could have an enormous impact on the human brain. It was explicitly prohibited by law.

In other words, this thing was illegal.

Under normal circumstances, there was no need to ask Jiang Cheng at all. The participants’ memories would simply be blocked.

When they woke and left their capsules, they would remember nothing about what had happened in the “world.”

As far as they were concerned, they had merely participated in a clinical trial for a medical group under the Jiang conglomerate. Once the trial was over, they would collect their money and leave.

But Uncle Jiang had deliberately asked Jiang Cheng. His intention was perfectly clear.

He and the Mainframe both knew exactly how much contraband they had smuggled into the virtual world—and so did she.

They might be the most powerful quantum computers in the world, but Jiang Cheng was also the possessor of an outstanding SS+ genetic profile.

No one was a fool.

She said coldly, “Why don’t you erase my memories first?”

That way, all his and the Mainframe’s hard work would be for nothing.

Uncle Jiang gave an awkward chuckle, but said nothing about how the matter would ultimately be handled.

Men washed Jiang Cheng’s body, applied fragrant body wash, and rubbed it over her skin.

Jiang Cheng stared into the misty steam.

If the memories were blocked, everyone would forget everything that had happened in the “world.”

The thought alone made her angry.

“If we don’t block the memories, what impact will that have on us?” she asked.

Uncle Jiang replied, “Someone might take the opportunity to blackmail us. Others might report us, or sue us for psychological damages.”

“Then let them sue. Our legal team isn’t there to sit around doing nothing. As for the reports, all they can do is make us pay a fine. We’ll pay it.”

Uncle Jiang acknowledged the order.

But Jiang Cheng called him back again. “Don’t block the memories. Just weaken them.”

The memories of the “world” had already been weakened when she woke up moments ago. That way, she would not confuse the virtual world with reality, nor would it have too great an impact on her real life.

Uncle Jiang acknowledged the order once more and prepared to leave.

One of the male companions moved closer and kissed Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng was a generous patron, and her male companions worked hard to please and entertain her.

As for love, they would never dare hope for it. How could a cold-blooded capitalist like her possibly possess such a thing?

The kiss suddenly reminded Jiang Cheng of something. She pushed the handsome man away and called Uncle Jiang back yet again.

“What was the matter with that cat? Did you arrange it?”

“Mo Li?” Uncle Jiang said. “No. He was a calculation error.”

Jiang Cheng stared at him coldly.

“Even quantum computers can make calculation errors,” Uncle Jiang explained. “It has to do with how the rules were designed.”

Once each participant’s consciousness was connected, the kind of persona they would possess was generated through coordination between the system and that participant’s subjective consciousness.

Only an identity generated in this way would be accepted by the participant’s subconscious. The participant would recognize the “world” as real and would not realize that the entire world was fake.

Otherwise, if the identity assigned by the system diverged too greatly from the participant’s subjective wishes, the participant could easily develop the feeling that they were dreaming, or that something was unreal.

The key to the co-consciousness matrix lay in the word “co.”

Everyone affected everyone else. One person’s sense of unreality could spread to the others like a contagious disease.

A majority of the matrix’s nodes had to believe that the world was real in order to maintain its sense of reality.

Once enough nodes realized that the “world” was fake, the matrix would collapse.

“That beastman didn’t want to be human,” Uncle Jiang said. “So when his initial identity was generated, he became a cat.”

Who could have guessed that one of the participants would possess such a powerful desire not to be human?

In reality, the moment Jiang Cheng suddenly awakened to the fact that she was a transmigrator was precisely when the virtual world began operating.

There had been no transmigration. Even the identity of a “transmigrator” had been created for Jiang Cheng by the system.

But he ultimately was not a real cat.

Although his conscious mind manifested as a cat, his subconscious still knew that he was human. Thus, he could barely communicate with Jiang Cheng through telepathy.

In fact, he had been the first of all the participants to interact with Jiang Cheng.

Because of Jiang Cheng, he wanted to become human again.

Every time the sky turned purple, data streams surged behind the clouds as the world’s data was adjusted.

The first time, a portion of the people were assigned the attribute of “zombies.”

The second time, building on the first adjustment, a portion of the people were assigned the attribute of “superpowers.”

During the second data adjustment, the black cat that had co-adjusted itself into a data error was further enhanced. The conscious mind that was a cat could no longer suppress the human subconscious, and his communication with Jiang Cheng became smoother.

In simple terms, the “cat” had acquired human intelligence.

The third time, this fellow had gone too far.

He wanted to become human.

For the system, there was nothing wrong with a participant wanting to “be human” in the virtual world.

After all, he was human to begin with.

The system approved the request.

And so, Mo Li regained his human form.