Chapter 202

Jiang Cheng fell silent as well.

That was how the virtual world worked. Even as the operating executive of the Jiang Consortium, she could still be toyed with in a virtual world.

Zhang Lesi was someone very close to her too—one of her own people.

She had never expected her real self to be like this.

Jiang Cheng pulled up the records.

Zhang Lesi really had been a doctor.

She was already 131 years old, nearing the end of her life.

She had retired long ago.

A doctor’s income was quite substantial. She should have been enjoying a comfortable retirement.

But she had been too softhearted. Unable to withstand a pair of parents’ pleas, she had treated their child.

The family of three were all naturals. Without genetic matching and optimization, naturals were bound to have all sorts of defects.

The child had a congenital genetic defect. Every hospital had refused to accept the case.

The odds of saving the child were very low, while the odds of death were extremely high. But the parents had knelt before her and begged, and she had relented.

The child did not survive.

The parents turned on her and took her to court.

The situation was terrible. Because of her age, her medical license had expired and could not be renewed.

She had been practicing medicine illegally.

In addition to paying civil damages to the family, she had also been required to pay a hefty fine to avoid prison time for illegal medical practice.

The lawsuit had left her completely destitute. She had gone from a wealthy retired doctor to a penniless old woman.

Jiang Cheng had a headache from sheer anger. “Why are they all like this?”

No wonder she and Su Yu had become friends.

Why were all the people around her like this?

Seeing Jiang Cheng grind her teeth in fury, Uncle Jiang’s lips curved into a faint smile.

“Stop smiling. I know you’re laughing,” Jiang Cheng said. “You arranged all of this.”

“Not at all,” Uncle Jiang denied cheerfully. “The key to a large-scale collective-consciousness matrix lies in the word ‘collective.’ Everyone interacts with everyone else. People come together because they are drawn to one another. Their likes and dislikes cannot be arranged.”

It was Jiang Cheng who attracted people like this.

It was Jiang Cheng who chose people like this.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Jiang Cheng sneered.

“Enough. I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Make some arrangements for Lesi. Let her enjoy her remaining years in peace.”

Song Jingshuo signed the papers and left the meeting room.

The door to another meeting room opened as well, and several lawyers whom they had seen earlier walked out.

After waiting for them to leave, Song Jingshuo went to the doorway. As expected, Li Jiangbing and Su Yu were inside.

He stood at the door and asked, “What did they talk to you about?”

Li Jiangbing was still in a daze. When he saw Song Jingshuo, it was like seeing his one source of support. He hurried over and grabbed him.

“They... They...”

Those people had promised to provide Su Yu with free treatment, including chemotherapy and the replacement of her bones and internal organs.

They had also promised to give him a biologically cultivated body, allowing him to become human again and granting him full citizenship.

The promises were so good that they were almost impossible to believe. They sounded like something a group of swindlers would say.

“We signed,” Li Jiangbing said. “Because the two of us... What do we even have left for anyone to trick us out of?”

You had to possess something before you could be worth deceiving.

The two of them were penniless. They did not even have the bodies that ordinary people possessed.

Even a corpse could be sold for a little money, but they had nothing at all.

So they had signed with their eyes closed.

Song Jingshuo smiled. “They aren’t scammers. Don’t worry. Just accept the treatment.”

Li Jiangbing knew him too well. The moment he saw that smile, he knew Song Jingshuo understood what was going on.

“You know what this is about? Hurry up and tell us.”

Song Jingshuo raised his eyes toward the emblem on the wall. “Do you recognize that character?”

Li Jiangbing obviously did not. He had lost his body in an accident when he was very young, and, like Little Huang, had gone out to make a living at an early age.

Song Jingshuo said, “You recognize it, don’t you, Su Yu?”

“Let me see.”

All of Su Yu’s bones were soft. She could only lie flat and could not even turn her head. Above her face was a screen, with a camera serving as her eyes.

The camera rotated and focused on the emblem on the wall.

Su Yu looked at it for a moment, then confirmed that she recognized it.

“Jiang.”

“Jiang?” Li Jiangbing repeated.

“The Jiang in Jiang Cheng,” Su Yu told him softly after a brief silence.

Li Jiangbing froze.

He turned to look at Song Jingshuo.

Song Jingshuo nodded, confirming his guess.

Li Jiangbing was even more stunned. “She...”

Song Jingshuo gazed at the family emblem. “You know this medical group. But in fact, many of the major corporations you’ve heard of belong to the Jiang Consortium. Her family is among the wealthiest in the Federation.”

“The Jiang family is best known for its space-technology patents.”

“That’s how the Jiang family made its fortune.”

Under normal circumstances, ordinary people like them would never have known the names, faces, or ages of the top tycoons.

But now, over the course of 120 hours, they had lived and died alongside her for ten months.

Li Jiangbing’s nose stung.

After waking up, he had not even dared to ask about her, afraid she would look down on him for being a subhuman.

But all along, she had been watching over them.

He rubbed his nose with his hand to hide his emotions. When he looked up, he saw a camera sphere hovering in the air.

Li Jiangbing immediately bared his big teeth, waved wildly at the camera sphere, and shouted, “Thank you!”

In her office, Jiang Cheng laughed out loud. “What a fool.”

His real personality was exactly the same as in the “World.”

After everyone had taken on their assigned personas, what they displayed was still their true nature.

The legal team returned and reported to her, “He signed.”

They were referring to Song Jingshuo.

Jiang Cheng had offered him two choices.

The first was a high-paying position.

Given their relationship, as long as he did not make any serious mistakes, she could guarantee him a secure life until retirement.

The second was an opportunity to invest.

She would give him a chance to see whether he could rise again.

As expected, Song Jingshuo had chosen the latter.

He was not the kind of man who gave up easily.

The lawyer said, “He asked us to thank you.”

“He specifically mentioned your name.”

After signing the papers, Song Jingshuo had said, “Please thank Jiang Cheng for me.”

The lawyer replied, “I also conveyed your message to him.”

Then the lawyer had told him, “She said she’ll be waiting for the day you walk up to her.”

After hearing the lawyer’s report, Jiang Cheng turned her gaze toward the screen.

The camera turned toward Song Jingshuo.

Song Jingshuo looked up and crooked the corner of his mouth at her.

A handsome man only became more maturely attractive with age.

With a face like that, he must have been a notorious heartbreaker when he was young.

Jiang Cheng’s lips curved as well.

She had Uncle Jiang draw up a list of everyone who had gone to the service desk to ask about her.

There were quite a few of them, all people with whom she had shared deep relationships.

Many others had gone to ask about different people.

Some searched everywhere and finally found the lover they had met in the “World,” only to rush over in delight and discover that the other person had already undergone memory blocking and no longer remembered them at all.

Some had extended their virtual relationships into reality.

Others believed that virtuality should remain virtuality, and that failing to erase it would affect their real lives.

Medical personnel came to collect Li Jiangbing and Su Yu.

Song Jingshuo said goodbye to them. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll miss the last ship of the day.”

The former elite business professional held out his fist, and Li Jiangbing raised his only carbon-based hand to bump it.

“Take care.”

“You too.”

This was the last ship departing today.

Gao Yuxuan tugged at Zhao Yi’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”

Zhao Yi didn’t move. He said, “Look at that person.”

Gao Yuxuan looked over.

They were both people he knew. The two of them had gotten together in the World, and Gao Yuxuan remembered how sweet they had always been.

But now, one of them came running over, while the other no longer remembered anything.

He even said, “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you, but I suggest you undergo memory blocking too.”

The other person said, “Virtual is virtual. Don’t take it seriously.”

The one who had forgotten finished speaking and hurried away, leaving the one who still remembered standing there. Clearly, he was afraid of being pestered.

Zhao Yi stared, stunned.

At last, he lowered his head and gave up.

After they boarded the ship, Gao Yuxuan was still comforting him. “She might already have a boyfriend. Maybe even a legal partner, or she could be married.”

Marriage in this era was different from marriage on Old Earth. A legally recognized “partner” also possessed certain inheritance rights, while a marriage spouse enjoyed all legal rights.

The difference was that a person could have more than one “partner,” and could have several at the same time, with equal inheritance rights. A “marriage spouse,” on the other hand, could only be one person. To change spouses, one had to get divorced.

Zhao Yi was dejected. “You’re right.”

Gao Yuxuan seized the opportunity to add, “She might be really old by now, too. You saw all those aunties and grandmothers. Jiang Cheng is already an old auntie herself. She must have been too old to feel comfortable continuing things with you.”

The spaceship took off and passed through the atmosphere in just a few seconds.

Zhao Yi gazed at the stars beyond the porthole. “If that’s the case, then I was born too late.”

Song Jingshuo was on the same ship. The three of them sat together.

Suddenly, Song Jingshuo said, “Look.”

Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan both turned toward the porthole—

A luxurious private spaceship.

It was a rare sight, especially from such a close distance.

Gao Yuxuan exclaimed, “Whoa~”

Song Jingshuo seemed to have guessed who owned the ship. He watched as it initiated a jump and vanished from sight with a whoosh.

Thank you, Jiang Cheng.

After Jiang Cheng finished dealing with the bonds she had formed in the virtual world, she watched everyone board their ships and leave—including the cat. She then boarded a ship of her own and set off for the Jiang family’s homeworld to meet the family’s central intelligence.

Only a day after departure, she received a message from the Medical Research and Development Center:

“We’ve caught an illegal intruder.”

An illegal intruder was something they could have dealt with themselves. But Uncle Jiang had deliberately woken her up to summon her while she was sleeping, so Jiang Cheng knew there had to be a problem.

Sure enough, the moment the video connected, she frowned. “Wasn’t he already on the ship?”

She had watched him board it herself.

On the other end of the call, a security guard struck the young man in the face with an electric baton.

The young man’s head whipped to the side, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

A bright red mark stood out clearly across his face.

The guard showed no mercy.

The intruder was a beastman. Beastmen had strong physiques and were famous for being tough to subdue.

And what were beastmen, anyway? Creatures even lower than demi-humans.

This particular beastman was very handsome, with gleaming eyes and a high, straight nose.

A pair of black cat ears, soft and furry, rose from his head, and a long tail extended behind him.

He looked like a cat-person.

What were cat-people used for among the beastmen?

Toys?

The viciousness of the guard’s blows was unmistakably laced with discrimination.

Another baton strike sent the young man crashing heavily to the ground.

But the well-built cat-like young man flipped over with ease and braced one hand against the floor.

His eyes were cold, his thin lips pressed tightly together as he struggled to endure.

In terms of pure physical strength, all the guards together would have been no match for him if firearms were excluded.

Unfortunately, this was a civilized society, not a jungle ruled by the law of the strong.

Society was unkind to beastmen.

So unkind that when he entered the virtual world, his subconscious sent the system a message:

I don’t want to be human.

The system received the message and adjusted the persona it assigned him.

And so he became a cat.

At first, that had seemed fine.

He sat on a bench watching the other cats fight over food. Faintly, he felt that he shouldn’t be living this way, yet at the same time, he wanted to surrender to this kind of life completely and become nothing but a cat.

Then he wouldn’t have to suffer the sorrow of wanting to be human while others refused to treat him as one.

But at that very moment, a girl noticed him.

“Are you new here?” she asked.

He ignored her.

Yet she reached out her hand toward him.

“Mimi~”