Han Yanyan stared at him.

Tang Kè stepped forward and looked into her eyes. "You controlled Tang Ke's whole life. Even in the end when he thought he had broken free, it was because you wanted him to. He thought that he was manipulating the little fairy, but in fact the little fairy was you as well. His entire life was held in the palm of your hand. You... are truly talented at playing with hearts."

Han Yanyan tried to downplay it. "I'm not bound by the logic of the world because my knowledge transcends the world's framework."

"Even so," Tang Kè said, watching her, "You have great insight into a person's heart. Such insight is your own ability. It has nothing to do with the world."

His gaze falling on her held the definite overtone of how a man looked at a woman. As soon as Han Yanyan noticed, she immediately took a step back.

"Afraid of me?" Tang Kè laughed. "But you weren't afraid of 'Tang Ke' at all. Didn't you have fun playing with him?"

"I built the Tang Ke in the simulated world. But you, you're very different from him. You more closely resemble Han Jùn," Han Yanyan said. "Yes, Han Jùn was your projection into the world. Your influence was so strong that you almost completely redefined him. "

"Compared with Tang Ke, you liked Han Jùn better, too. So why are you trying to retreat?" Tang Kè took another step forward.

Han Yanyan took another step back.

"Han Jùn was my father. He stood behind me." She looked at him warily. "But you, you stand opposite me and approach step by step."

Still looking at her, Tang Kè said, "You're really a very interesting woman. Tang Ke never got you and he was strongly obsessed with you. The imprint of that obsession still lingers in my consciousness."

Han Yanyan laughed in scorn. "Your body is gone and only your consciousness remains. What do you mean, 'getting'? I can't feel heat or cold or even my own breath here. If you leave the simulated world, only your body made of pure consciousness remains. Whatever you do to me here you won't feel, so what's the point?"

Smiling, Tang Kè stretched out his hand to her.

This time, Han Yanyan didn't avoid him. As she had said, they were both bodies made out of consciousness. What was the point?

Tang Kè's fingertips brushed gently across her lips, a touch as brief as a dragonfly skimming lightly across water and leaves.

"Naïve," he said.

Pleasure shot through her like an electric current, burning every cell, a pure and intense pleasure undisturbed by any external factors.

Han Yanyan had never experienced it before.

"How, how could this be?" Her whole body trembled with the stimulation.

Tang Kè gracefully took his hand back, as if it hadn't been him who had just played the hooligan.

"Do you know where you are at this very moment?" he asked.

Han Yanyan could make a general guess. "In your spiritual source."

"How much do you know about the spirit?" Tang Kè asked.

She was silent before replying, "Everything I know comes from the 'world'."

Tang Kè had also been in the world. "The technology there was very backward. Everything there about spiritual power is common sense that a ninth grader would know."

As Han Yanyan had guessed, the system was indeed limited in what details it could fill in about the world.

"The spiritual power source is the absolute domain of a spirit user," Tang Kè said. "Except for those whom we absolutely trust, a spirit user never lets anyone else touch their spiritual source. For example, if you had even the slightest amount of spiritual power right now, I'm afraid I would have already ground you into a fine powder."

Was that why Leo was afraid to enter the world so easily? He dared to go in and out of Qiao Wenxing's world whenever he wanted because Qiao Wenxing had just been a spoiled young master. Since his spirit was weak, Leo was fearless. In Yao's worlds, he had only appeared when Ding Yao was far away from her and her spiritual connection with him was very weak. Since Yao Chen had never been far away from her, Leo had never showed up even once.

"However, for people who can be trusted, you should have realized just now what happens when two spiritual power sources come into contact." Tang Kè smiled at her.

Han Yanyan had indeed experienced it just now. That had been... even more intimate than the fleshly contact of a carbon-based life-form!

Incredible. Although Han Yanyan liked science fiction too, she really hadn't expected that she would one day have the opportunity to make such advanced love in her life. What a high-level form of O-ing and X-ing.

However, she was very adept at grasping the key points of a conversation.

"So what you just touched was... my spiritual source?" Her eyes brimmed with expectation. "I was once on the verge of breaking out. Do you know why I didn't?"

"The only thing that can restrain the spirit are inhibitors," Tang Kè told her. "They're usually used on criminals to prevent them from rioting. It is also used for torture."

He paused, then said thoughtfully, "I have heard a little about Leo Parker. He is wanted by many nations, and the charges include kidnapping, imprisonment, and forced slavery. Does that mean that the all-powerful Matriarch of the Han family is actually a slave who has been kidnapped and locked up, with no personal freedom?"

Han Yanyan had been in the simulated world for two rounds, and commanded the wind and the clouds for forty years. She had become accustomed to the identity of "Matriarch". When the the veil was suddenly lifted to reveal the reality below, she felt quite embarrassed and uncomfortable.

Taking in a deep breath without any air, she suppressed her emotions and asked, "Is your world very much like the one I built?"

"In my eyes, it was almost identical."

Han Yanyan pondered a little before saying, "I would like to ask you about someone. Leo Parker has run into a troublesome client. He kidnapped me as his slave because of this person. They are a member of the royal family of an empire, the fifteenth grandson of the first emperor, and a duke. Now they are the leader of an armed rebellion trying to overthrow the monarchy of his homeland. Do you know this man?"

"Yao Calande, the Amijin Empire's Duke of Kline?" Tang Kè seemed surprised. "Is he dead?"

Yao.

Han Yanyan could be sure that this was the right person.

"The royal family of Amijin regards him as a traitor. I heard that they've tried to assassinate him several times, and it seems like they've finally succeeded," said Tang Kè. "If it's him, I'm afraid that there's nothing you can do."

"You seem to have forgotten that I could even wake you up," Han Yanyan sneered.

Tang Kè didn't speak, just looked at her.

Han Yanyan felt slightly dazed, then suddenly awoke. The way she had spoken just now... was that of Matriarch Han Yanyan.

Two rounds, forty years. Forty years of being the Eldest Miss, the heir, the Matriarch, of being a strong spiritual user - all illusory. Her body was imprisoned, her mind caged; she was just a slave.

Han Yanyan felt a bitter taste in her mouth.

"What's... your name?" Tang Kè asked, watching her closely.

"My real name wouldn't mean anything to you. You can just call me Han Yanyan," she said.

"So, Han Yanyan." Tang Kè asked, "Are you willing?"

Han Yanyan lifted her eyes to his. They were dark and deep, with a flame burning within.

Beautiful.

Staring at her, Tang Kè said, "I can help you, but what will you give me in exchange?"

Han Yanyan was silent for a moment as the fire in her eyes blazed.

"Everything that I have, you can take," she said.

Tang Kè smiled, reached out his hand and touched her cheek.

Like an avalanche, a crushing wave of pleasure overwhelmed her.

Colors oscillated wildly. The world was clear then fuzzy, fuzzy then clear. One moment it was like being at the peak of a cloud, the next like in the depths of the ocean. Her body was solid then atomized, crushed and reorganized, screaming in madness, dead yet alive.

Only when Tang Kè was satisfied did he single out a strand of his spiritual power. Like a snake or a whip, it struck whistling toward Han Yanyan!

For a fleeting moment Han Yanyan felt the pain of ten thousand volts of current flowing through her body, beyond the limit of any human being's tolerance.

Then the 0.000000001 second contact was over!

Han Yanyan's eyes opened abruptly!

It was dim and as gloomy as the night.

From her mouth came a string of bubbles. She was in water.

Instinctively, her hands stretched out to touch the outer edges of the enclosed space. This was... a treatment cabin?

In the mecha world, a treatment cabin had a mask which buckled over the nose and mouth to provide oxygen. Here there was nothing. When Han Yanyan opened her mouth, the liquid poured into her nose and mouth and for a moment she thought he was going to drown.

But she didn't die. The fluid entering her lungs brought oxygen to her cells. This liquid was oxygen-rich, and human lungs could breathe it.

It was a much more advanced form of technology than that of the mecha world.

Because she had left the simulated world! Because this was real! Because it was Han Yanyan's real body that had opened its eyes!

She had been waiting for decades just for this moment!

When her hand touched the hatch cover and she choked on the liquid, she had already frantically begun to move. She had gone through two lives before and after, decades of memories carved into her bones, engraved into her blood! The course of moving one's spiritual power!

It didn't matter if she drew upon on her life, or even if her body exploded. Han Yanyan reached madly for the reservoir of power hidden in the deepest recesses of her body, urging it on! She had the power! She had once felt that power!

She needed that power!

The sharp sound of an alarm blared. A needle in the cabin suddenly shot out, plunging into Han Yanyan's body. With the injection of an inhibitor, the force that had been about to erupt was suddenly arrested in place.

Han Yanyan abandoned everything, abandoned all her senses, and devoted her whole life to breaking through.

Boom! It was as if a new universe had sprang into being in the depths of the brain! It cooled! Condensed! Expanded! Contracted!

The liquid in the cabin roiled as if it were boiling.

Crack crack crack crack crack--! Where Han Yanyan's hands pressed against the hatch cover, lines appeared like the cracks in ice!