Strategy to Capture Men

Chapter 53 – Fourth World: The Thorny Road to Success

The first thing Han Yanyan did upon opening her eyes was to look down at her belly. Her abdomen was flat, her waist slender. Sure enough, that so-called child had stayed in the world.

She was even wearing the same skirt she wore every time she appeared in this space. There were no mirrors or even walls, so Han Yanyan actually didn't know what she looked like in the pure white space. Was it her true appearance?

But these details weren't important.

"Tell me, Leo," she asked, "Was that world a success or a failure?"

That was the most important thing. The answer to this question would determine if her judgment had been right or wrong.

"You can say it went very well," Leo answered, in a good mood.

That answer allowed her to finally confirm something.

"Hey, what are you laughing about?" he asked, finding it odd.

Han Yanyan was actually currently being projected to Leo as a hologram. It was as if she was standing right in front of him, so the smile on her lips was very clear. It made him feel uncomfortable somehow.

"Leo, don't use this synthetic voice. It grates on the ear. Talk to me in your own voice," she said. "You're not a real system, anyway."

"..."

Leo had the unhappy feeling that a weakness of his was being exposed and that he was somehow losing control of the situation. But to continue using the synthetic voice felt particularly silly, so feeling rather aggrieved, he switched it off and asked in his own voice, "When did you figure it out?"

"Right from the start," Han Yanyan replied.

"What? Impossible." Leo didn't believe it.

Han Yanyan smiled.

"'Quick transmigration'? Explain to me, what is 'quick transmigration'?" she asked mockingly.

Leo froze for a moment, then replied, "It refers to a person who crosses between different worlds, solving problems and achieving various purposes within the time frame of years or decades."

Clap, clap, clap. Han Yanyan applauded him.

"Very accurate. Well done," she jeered.

Leo knew that something must be wrong. He must have made a mistake, but he didn't know what mistake he had made.

"What's wrong with it?" he couldn't help but ask. "The concept was clearly..."

He stopped in time, but Han Yanyan completed his sentence for him.

"It was clearly taken from my brain, wasn't it?" She was smiling.

He froze. "How did you know?"

"You didn't... really think it was real?" Han Yanyan asked in surprise.

"It's ridiculously unscientific but… no, no, it was very clear in your brain. It belonged to the concepts that were classified under 'knowledge' in your surface consciousness…" Leo refused to believe it. "If it had been fake, it wouldn't have been so clear."

"That might have been something to do with my career," Han Yanyan said. "I'm a writer and a storyteller. My mind is often full of all sorts of things that have nothing to do with my current reality. They might even be things completely divorced from reality, things impossible to exist at all."

"Is that so?" Leo said, his mind in quite a mess.

One side of Han Yanyan's mouth quirked. "For example, the name 'Han Yanyan'. You just pulled this information out of my brain and thought it was my name? Aren't you being a little bit too careless?"

Even more surprised, Leo muttered, "Not 'Han Yanyan'? But the information from your brain clearly showed…"

"This sentimental, embarrassing name," Han Yanyan sighed, "Do you think you'd have the nerve to call it out loud in real life?"

I'm not a fucking language algorithm, how would I know if your name is nice or embarrassing?! Leo felt very wronged indeed.

"Your consciousness clearly showed information about 'Han Yanyan' in the first person perspective, so it must have been you!" he said, exasperated.

"On that day, the day you caught me, I was driving while mulling over my next novel. I often do that," Han Yanyan said. "I had been hesitating. Should I write a quick transmigration story next, or one set in the apocalypse?"

"That's right, 'quick transmigration' is just a novel genre from my world. How could quick transmigration possibly exist in real life?! I could die laughing."

"I went to the VR Pavilion in the city that day and tried out the experience of a zombie apocalypse. I had decided to write the zombie apocalypse story first."

"So 'Han Yanyan' is actually...?" Leo asked.

"That's right, did you guess?" Han Yanyan said. "She's the heroine of the novel I was brainstorming. And you got it, it was a novel in the first person perspective. I'm a female author, and when I'm writing I substitute myself in as the heroine. On top of that, I hadn't really figured out the plot yet at that time; I was still in the character creation stage. The whole time I was driving, my head was full of Han Yanyan. It was likely because of this that when you extracted your information, you thought that I was Han Yanyan."

"That's correct," Leo affirmed reluctantly. "There is too much information contained in the human brain to be manually sorted. After extraction, it is classified, screened and judged by my AI. What I see is the information after the screening. So did my AI judge wrong from the beginning?"

"Perhaps your AI didn't think that a person would be imagining herself to be another person in her mind," Han Yanyan said. "After all, it's a machine, not a person."

Leo felt like that last sentence was mocking him again, but he couldn't put his finger on why. It infuriated him.

"Aren't you just fucking amazing. Anything else you guessed?" he asked sarcastically. Who cares how much you guess? In the end your life is still in the palm of my hand.

"Right from the start when you called me Han Yanyan, I knew that 'quick transmigration' and the 'system' were all fake. You were just borrowing information from my brain and deceiving me using things I already knew. Your purpose was probably to convince me that these things were true so that I would work better, or maybe to make me feel more involved? To make everything more realistic?" she said. "I'm guessing your architects don't volunteer for the position. They're all about the same as me, kidnapped by you. Do you give everyone a different story?"

Leo hmphed, acknowledging it.

"But you always 'marked' me. Gave me an artificial obstacle," she mused. "I guessing that 'mark' erases a memory of mine? After all, if you want me to work, you can't let me know absolutely nothing. After you tell me what I need to know, you erase my memory and put me back into a state of ignorance. Then I enter that so-called world in ignorance, believing that everything is real."

"The first world was quite absurd. In hindsight, I can guess why it collapsed. "

"After you told me the real situation... I remember that I once asked you in the beginning1 what the purpose of quick transmigration was, and you said that it was to change the mission goal. But you didn't even know how or what change you wanted. I suspect that I must have given you some advice. I must have told you that love could change everything."

Leo stamped a foot. "You have some nerve to say something as illogical as that!"

"You were probably too stingy to tell me everything I needed to know. I'm human, I make mistakes when I don't have enough information. I underestimated the man you were trying to fix, and built a..." When Han Yanyan thought back to that world, she did cringe a little bit2... "ahem, a crappy classic Mary-Sue romance world. "

"That's the sort of novel I've written the most of. You just change the main character's name and description each time and everything else is the same old routine, 'the overbearing president falls in love with me'. My nature is to first probe out a situation, seeking safety and stability. At that time, I didn't know anything about you, so when I understood that it was up to me to design the world, I chose the plotline I was most familiar with."

"The problem lay in the routine. That sort of brainless romantic logic stuff where the villains have a negative IQ is only good enough to deceive elementary school students, middle school students and girls who work in factories. How could it work on that fellow?" she sighed. "For 'Zheng Yao', that world was absurd and unrealistic. It was impossible to establish in his consciousness, so for him the world simply collapsed."

"But because you had erased my memory, I couldn't confirm that I was the one who had built that world. I was actually wondering if I had entered someone else's dream."

"Then came the zombie apocalypse world."

"I speculate that 'mark' is paired. It probably looks like 'mark - end mark'. During the marked period, all my memories are erased. Isn't that so?" she asked.

Leo hmphed again, and Han Yanyan knew that she had guessed right once more.

"The overbearing president world collapsed. You were furious with me. This time, I no longer dared to use those old mushy plotlines, I had to get serious. I used the framework of the zombie apocalypse story that I had always wanted to write, and built the post-apocalyptic world."

"My memory was once again erased, but as soon as I entered that world, I confirmed that it was a world that I had made."

"Han Yanyan, a girl in her late teens. Fair skin, long black hair, a white cotton dress that doesn't fit in with the surroundings. That was the female protagonist I had made for my post-apocalypse novel."

"It's a bit embarrassing to say this, but that 'cold girl with long straight black hair and white cotton skirt' and whatever is also super old. It's been out of fashion for ages. But it was very common in the sentimental YA stuff that I was obsessed with when I was young, so I've always wanted to write one for myself."

"Fuck." Leo cursed.

"And from the overbearing president world that was doomed right from the start, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't the only real person in the 'world'. I boldly surmised that just like me, 'Zheng Yao' was a real person."

"But I couldn't confirm the other people. The overbearing president world was too imbecilic. Everyone else's IQ was in the negatives. It was hard for me to confirm whether they were real people or not. "

"In the world of the apocalypse, it was even more difficult. It was a very well-made world - I must have done my best during its construction. What's more, aside from Ding Yao, everyone else..."

Han Yanyan was silent for a moment. "Qi Tongtong, Zhao Yuxuan, Sun Lijun, Lin Ling… everyone was so lifelike and vivid. Besides Ding Yao and me, I really couldn't tell at the time if these people were real, or if..."

"Ahahahahaha, Han Yanyan, you're killing me!" Leo had finally made a comeback. "What you really cared about was Qiao Chengyu, am I right?"

Han Yanyan's hand clenched into a fist.