If Han Yanyan could have heard this, she would probably have gasped sharply and given Leo Parker a thumbs-up. In all the worlds she had traveled through and all the powerful men she had encountered, he was the first to see through her.

This was a misunderstanding, however. It wasn't that Leo didn't trust Han Yanyan, but that he had no faith in any woman.

Back in the day, he had cared sincerely about that girl. What was the result of that? The next moment she had been holding his roommate's hand and confiding in him that they were a couple.

Leo had been heartbroken.

Women were all liars! And Han Yanyan was a liar among liars!

She had to be faking it!

The aide frowned. "Why do you say so?"

Turning on the holographic screen, Leo showed it to him. "Take a look, don't you think it's fake?"

After Leo had gone, Han Yanyan had laid down slowly, curled up in a fetal position, and hugged herself. Her eyes were not dull, but indifferent, lifeless.

"I don't think so," the attendant replied.

Leo was rendered speechless.

"Have you never seen what this woman was like before?!" he exclaimed, a little annoyed. "How did she suddenly become like this?"

The attendant took a puff of his cigarette, glanced at Leo, puffed again, and glanced again.

In the end, he could no longer bear it. "Leo Parker," he sighed deeply, "Have you no human emotion?"

The aide had been monitoring the entire process of Duke Kline's 'treatment'. To accommodate his mind, they had had to run both the apocalyptic world and the mafia one at a low speed. It had taken over 400 hours, nearly half a month.

If one could still have called Han Yanyan young and naïve in the post-apocalyptic world, then by the time she had met Yao Chen, she had almost completely adapted to the simulated worlds, her mind mature and rational. Then Leo had had her treat another client, which he had not watched, so he wasn't aware of what had occurred inside. All he knew was that she had successfully awakened the deceased, bringing back his consciousness, and that this had made Leo very happy indeed.

In Yao Chen's world, not only had he experienced Han Yanyan's fierce resistance during the first try, but he had also witnessed first-hand the battle of wits and courage between Han Yanyan and Yao Chen, a battle of intelligence, emotion, and body. In the end, under such circumstances, she had managed to activate her spiritual power. The woman was astonishing.

Unfortunately, he had gone to bed later and missed the confrontation between Han Yanyan and Leo. He had no knowledge of her forty years in the mecha world.

But while he was asleep, she had been injected with a double dose of inhibitor, and less than eight hours later, she had had a second spiritual power breakthrough. This time, she had almost escaped from her coffin-like hibernation pod.

Alas, she had failed.

When the aide had lifted her up, he had felt how slender and soft she was. She was just an ordinary woman from a backward world, and it was because she was so ordinary that the thrill of her struggle for survival was so soul-stirring.

He had closed the hatch of the hibernation pod, and the woman within, immersed in the culture fluid, had raised her hands slowly to rest them against the hatch. The whole time, her eyes had been open, watching him.

Save me, she had said.

It wasn't until Leo had initiated the optical waves of the cabin that she had fallen into a deep sleep. Her eyes had closed, her hands had drifted down. Submerged in cold culture fluid, she and despair had dropped down together into the abyss.

When the aide placed himself in her shoes, he felt that even for him, it would have been difficult to keep from collapsing. Yet here was Leo Parker, confidently asking, "How did she suddenly become like this?"

He felt like smacking him.

The words the attendant had just said were actually... very similar to those of Han Yanyan. Leo exploded.

"What do you all mean? Are you looking down on me?!" Clearly agitated, his voice rose in pitch and he seemed a little hysterical. "You are, aren't you? You are!"

What did this have to do with looking down on him? The attendant was confused. He had heard that the best scientists were all madmen. Thought he wasn't sure if Leo was the best, he was certainly sure that the man was a little... abnormal when compared to regular people.

His head hurt terribly. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep in the last two weeks. Long periods of time spent monitoring in the operation cabin meant that his brain was constantly taking in a lot of information very quickly, to the point where it often felt it was about to explode.

Although Leo was screaming, stamping his feet, and obviously abnormally angry, as far as real strength went he was nothing more than a fragile chicken. Rubbing his throbbing temples, the aide didn't even bother to draw his gun. He simply waved a hand.

White-clad soldiers stepped forward and hefted their guns. Instantly, Leo froze in place.

With a sigh, the attendant told him, "I wanted you to solve the issue, not make more. Tell me, what are you going to do now that she's like this?"

Although Leo no longer dared act out again, he was still furious. "Can't you see that she's just pretending?"

The aide sighed again. "Leo Parker, you don't have much experience with women, do you?" he asked.

Leo's flushed face was answer enough.

"Women are different from men," the attendant said. He was struck by the absurdity of the fact that he was actually discussing the difference between men and women with this internationally wanted criminal mad scientist.

"Can't you... feel her despair?" He shook his head. "Not even a little bit?"

Leo stood speechless in astonishment. Uncertainly, he stuttered, "But she-- she's so formidable..."

"How is she formidable?" the attendant countered.

"She led Yao Chen around by the nose."

"She was able to deceive him because she was in the know about the mission, but Yao Chen wasn't. This was the advantage given to her by information asymmetry," the aide said. "On top of that, in order to fool Yao Chen, she had to sleep with him. It may not have been her real body, but nonetheless, she employed a woman's weapon; bartering her body."

He paused. "A woman who must use her body and sexuality as a weapon just goes to show that she is weak."

"When we men encounter a woman like that, we usually look upon her with tolerance and reward her with gifts to match her beauty," he said. "But we never think of her as 'formidable'."

"Leo Parker, it's high time you updated your definitions of formidable and delicate, strong and weak."

frostcrystal

Not a single dude in this story is any good, lmao