Strategy to Capture Men

Han Yanyan ignored the malice in Leo's words. "It was Qiao Chengyu's world that allowed me to confirm many things," she said.

"You mark me every time and erase my memory. But I'm the one who built these worlds, so it isn't difficult to secretly do something small."

"Oh? What did you do?" Leo asked.

She smiled slightly. "I buried an Easter egg."

"A country I've never heard of, a city I've never heard of. It was obvious that this world was not my own, real world. Yet when I woke up as Eldest Miss Han, I found my wardrobe full of brands from the real world. "

"At that time, my guesses were finally confirmed. I hadn't been sent somewhere, I was in a world I constructed myself. That's why you call me an architect."

"Wow, you sure are awesome." This time it was Leo clapping his hands mockingly.

"You told me that you sent me to this world on holiday. I thought about it, and it seems as though it was because it wasn't as less difficult. This was my first and only successful world," she said, "In this world, I still couldn't tell whether anyone other than Qiao Wenxing was real or not. Until I met Qiao Chengyu."

A faint sadness flickered in the depths of Han Yanyan's eyes.

"I really did fall in love with him, making a joke of myself to you."

"But was also because of Qiao Chengyu that I began to vaguely realize that inside of a world, everyone except myself and the mission goal… was probably made by me."

This time Leo was sincerely admiring.

Curious, he asked, "How on earth did you figure that out? Qiao Chengyu's construction was very successful. "

"Yes, it sure was. His birth, growth, character formation, psychology, and social pursuits were all very well done. My ability to portray characters has gotten better," Han Yanyan said self-mockingly.

"Although Qiao Chengyu isn't perfect, for me in that world, he was the perfect lover. He had all the qualities I like, and thanks to his background, he had an almost morbid fascination with the me from that world. He's a perfect loyal dog, simply perfect."

"Such a perfect lover can't possibly exist. Qiao Chengyu could only be fake. I made him."

"Although I had already vaguely understood this in my heart, I was reluctant to face it. After coming out, I asked you being able to see the people in the previous world again, and you laughed at me. That was the confirmation that wiped out my final hope."

"Qiao Chengyu and the others aren't real, right? Inside of a world exist only the architect and their mission targets. The mission is a 1V1. Am I correct?"

"Uh huh." Leo affirmed proudly. "You're quite clever."

A half-smile, half-sob tugged at the corners of Han Yanyan's mouth. "I'd already understood this by Yao Chen's world. There, I made a new discovery."

"I never had much contact with Zheng Yao, and Qiao Wenxing was completely different from Ding Yao. So I never realized it until I confronted Yao Chen head-on."

She paused, then said very firmly, "Yao Chen is Ding Yao!"

This time Leo didn't reply. He was as silent as if he had disappeared.

"Before that, the existence of Qiao Wenxing had really confused me. But if I ignore Qiao Wenxing, I realized that Zheng Yao's world collapsed and Ding Yao's world ended abnormally. In fact, you had never told me that their missions were 'successful'. Even more interesting, if I put aside Yao Chen and Ding Yao, I realized that Zheng Yao's name, just like the two of them, also had the word 'Yao'1 in it."

"If you put Qiao Wenxing aside, everything becomes clear."

"There exists a man whose name contains the syllable 'Yao', who has been trapped by you for whatever reason. You're having me try over and over again to capture him2 until I succeed. It must be the same sort of successful as what happened with Qiao Wenxing, am I right?"

"Also, I used to think that I was dreaming in these worlds. But dreams are discontinuous, they jump around from place to place. I found that although I was the builder of these worlds, they were so detailed that they were unlikely to be a dream. I turned every page of every book on Yao Chen's shelves, and not a single page repeated. When I studied in school, all the knowledge in my textbooks were true."

"That was how I ultimately came to the conclusion that all these 'worlds' were virtual worlds."

"My body is probably lying around right now somewhere under your control. What is talking with you here is just my mental form."

"I have seen Zheng Yao, who cause the world to collapse, and Yao Chen, who could stop bullets. At that time, they were Yao's true self. Just like me, he should be in his mental form."

There was silence in the white space for a long time before Han Yanyan heard Leo take a long breath.

"You woman, you woman..." He murmured.

"Were my guesses all correct?" Han Yanyan asked.

"Just about. But calling it a 'virtual world' is a step too low." Leo sounded disgusted.

"Huh?" Han Yanyan was surprised. "Then what is it?"

"You ignorant country bumpkin." Begrudgingly, Leo explained some common sense to a woman from a primitive world. "Although with the technology of a virtual world one can perfectly reproduce the actual world and even create NPCs that move around following certain rules, you'll always know that it's fake, no matter how realistic it seems."

"Later on, someone discovered that replacing the AI with a human brain when building the world would give that world a soul. This came to be known as the simulated world."

"Not everyone can create one. Only a small group of people whose brain waves are different from ordinary people can construct a logically complete world with a soul. This group of people are called architects. The architect designs the framework of the world, while the AI gives up the position of master and becomes responsible only for filling in the details."

"Let's take Yao Chen for example. Yao Chen lives in a luxurious villa. He has expensive, solid wood bookshelves filled with books. He loves to read the biographies of legendary  historical figures. All these things are your decisions. But the contents of every book on the shelf are filled in by the AI for you. Some are from databases, some from information extracted from your brain. All these details are fused together to support the framework of your world."

"Han Yanyan, when I first scanned you while I was scanning for brain waves, I knew from your numbers that you would become an excellent architect. Seriously, I have such good eye. Hahahahaha..." Leo's laughter was full of gloating.

Her face expressionless, Han Yanyan asked, "You said all that, but isn't that still a virtual world? What's wrong with calling it a virtual world?"

"Bah! You country bumpkin! You seriously don't know anything about technology! You primitive woman!" Leo seemed quite passionate when it came to technology.

"You listen up, simulated worlds were later banned. Do you know why?" His words came out in a torrent. "Because they were! Too! Realistic!"

"Because they were so realistic, a lot of people became addicts. It became a widely spread, extremely harmful psychotropic drug! In the end it was jointly banned by all the governments."

"But the real reason why it was banned was that someone successfully upgraded a simulated world to a sub-world. Ugh, a bumpkin certainly wouldn't know what a sub-world is. A sub-world is... ummm, let me think about how to explain it to you. Hold on, let me see if there are any similar concepts in your knowledge system..."

"Ah, I've found it. What's this? The three thousand realms? Well, it's not exactly the same, but it's similar. The small thousand, the middle thousand, the great thousand. You know.3"

Han Yanyan was an intelligent woman, and it wasn't difficult for her to understand the concept.

"Are you saying that a simulated world is fake, but a sub-world is real?" she asked.

"Great, I knew you could understand." Leo said, sounding relieved.

Shocked, she asked, "How could that possibly be?"

"With energy! Given enough energy, the simulated world can run independently from the system that created it, and it gets upgraded to a sub-world. It'll never be cut off or get artificially shut down. It can persist forever and exist independently."

"Awesome." Han Yanyan said admiringly, in a well-timed expression of a rustic country bumpkin's admiration for higher civilization that satisfied Leo's vanity.

"Of course awesome. You have no idea how much chaos this technology ended up causing. Eventually all the governments reached a consensus that it violated the Basic Law of Life and the Universe, and banned it completely. Oh well..." Leo's sigh was filled with regret.

"The Basic Law of… Life and the Universe?"

"Are you saying that when the simulated world is upgraded to a sub-world, the fake lives inside are…" She sounded a little speechless.

"They're all upgraded too, of course, and regarded as real life according to the Basic Law of Life. Think about it. You and I feel like we're real. But who knows, maybe we're a sub-world created by a higher-level world? So... Wait!" Leo suddenly did a double take. "Fucking hell, Han Yanyan," he guffawed, "What did you have in mind? Were you still thinking about Qiao Chengyu?"

He was shaking with laughter. "Oh my God, you country bumpkins sure are daring! Do you have any idea how much energy is needed to upgrade a simulated world to a sub-world? An entire planet! And a planet rich in energy deposits, at that! Shit, even I wouldn't even think about it unless I were a trillionaire! You, you primitive woman, actually thought of that; fucking hell, I'm gonna die laughing! You must really like that man you created, huh? Well, he's your ideal type, after all."

Han Yanyan waited about 30 seconds for him to finish laughing before replying, "The only thing that can't be bound in this world are people's thoughts. Even if it can't be done, you can't stop me from thinking about it."

"Okay, okay. You go ahead and think however you like. Really, you're so interesting." Leo laughed until he couldn't breathe.

"But if the technology is banned, Leo…" she said, "Then what you're currently doing is completely illegal, isn't it?"

Leo's laughter halted abruptly.