25: Chapter 25 The Truth About Kate, Real-World Action

The moment the white light of the data beam swallowed his consciousness, Lin Fan thought he would be like Ghost, Franklin, and Michael—transformed into a string of cold, garbled code, completely dissipating into the data stream of the virtual world without leaving a single trace of his existence.

But the expected annihilation did not arrive. Instead, a violent bout of vertigo made the world spin, as if an invisible hand were forcefully dragging his soul out of the viscous virtual mire and hurling it into a completely different dimension. The gunshots, explosions, and the crazed roars of NPCs in his ears all vanished without a trace in an instant. Only a dead silence remained between heaven and earth, a silence so profound it was suffocating.

Immediately following that, a faint but clear sound of operating equipment, interspersed with suppressed, slightly hurried breathing, slowly drifted into his ears. That sound was very light, yet it carried a terrifyingly real texture—not a programmed sound effect from the virtual world, but a tangible sound belonging to reality.

Lin Fan struggled to open his heavy eyelids, which felt as if they were weighed down by thousand-pound boulders; every millimeter he raised them exhausted his entire body's strength. His vision was as blurred as if covered by a thick white mist, and everything before him shook and distorted. It took a long while for his sight to slowly come into focus.

He could feel himself lying on a soft hospital bed, his limbs heavy as if filled with lead, making even moving a single finger exceptionally difficult. The scent of disinfectant lingered at the tip of his nose, a smell so familiar it startled him—it was exactly the same as the scent in the hospital images that had flashed when the system malfunctioned at the nightclub that day.

“You're awake? You're finally awake!”

A female voice, tinged with a sob, sounded in his ear, gentle yet urgent, like a traveler in the desert hearing the tinkling of a spring. Lin Fan turned his stiff neck toward the sound, and a face gradually came into focus in his vision.

It was Kate.

She was leaning over the bedside, her eyes red and bloodshot, with tear stains still wet on her face. Her hair was messily stuck to her sweat-dampened forehead, and she had heavy dark circles under her eyes, clearly having stayed up for several nights without even time for a proper rest. The moment she saw Lin Fan open his eyes, a light of wild joy burst from her gaze, like a dark starry sky being lit up, but that light was quickly covered by a layer of heavy sadness and lingering fear, making her face look exceptionally haggard.

“Is this... the real world?” Lin Fan's voice was hoarse beyond recognition, like a rusted iron plate scraping against a rough stone slab; every word that left his mouth carried a tearing pain.

Kate nodded, her lips moving as if she wanted to say something, but her eyes reddened first. She reached out, wanting to touch Lin Fan's cheek, her fingertips almost touching his skin before she abruptly stopped in mid-air, as if afraid of disturbing a fragile dream, her fingertips trembling uncontrollably.

She turned around, took a thick white medical record from the nearby nightstand, and carefully handed it to Lin Fan. The cover of the record was already somewhat frayed from being handled, and the corners were slightly curled, clearly having been flipped through repeatedly.

“Look at this,” Kate's voice carried a trace of imperceptible trembling.

Lin Fan used all his strength to slowly raise his heavy arm, his fingers shaking as he took the medical record. His name was printed on the cover in black Songti characters—Lin Fan—and a photo was attached next to it. The man in the photo had features identical to his, only his face was terrifyingly pale, his lips were bloodless, and his eyes were as hollow as a soulless puppet's.

He took a deep breath and tremblingly opened the medical record. The handwriting inside was dense; the blue fountain pen ink was neat yet cold. The content of every page was like a hammer tempered in ice, smashing ruthlessly against his heart, making his whole body go cold and even breathing become difficult.

[Experiment Code: 0714]

[Subject: Lin Fan]

[Project: Brain-Computer Interface Deep Immersion Experiment]

[Date: Year XX, Month XX, Day XX]

[Experimental Accident: Data Anchor fractured, subject's consciousness remained in the virtual world, body fell into a vegetative state]

[Responsible Person Signature: Victor]

Lines of cold text, like venomous snakes flicking their tongues, wrapped around his heart, tightening further and further until he couldn't breathe. It turned out his coma was never an accident, but a meticulously planned conspiracy. It turned out his struggles, resistance, and slaughter in the virtual world were merely a brilliant performance in Victor's eyes, material for collecting experimental data. It turned out those so-called system missions, bounties, and gang wars were all traps set to test the limits of consciousness manipulation.

“Why...” Lin Fan's lips trembled as hot tears welled up uncontrollably, sliding down his cheeks and dripping onto the pages of the medical record, creating dark water stains. “Why do this to me? What did I do wrong?”

His voice was filled with grievance and despair, like a lost child who couldn't find the way home. He thought he was a player turning the tables in a virtual world, but he hadn't expected that from the very beginning, he was just a plaything of an experiment.

“Because you are the most perfect subject,” Kate took a deep breath, trying to calm her surging emotions. Her voice held a trace of pity but was nonetheless clear. “Your brainwave frequency and Brain-Computer Interface matching rate are as high as ninety-eight percent. In the entire project, you are the only one who can endure deep immersion without your consciousness being crushed by the data flood. Victor wants to use you to master the ultimate technology of consciousness manipulation. When that time comes, he will be able to arbitrarily tamper with anyone's memories and control everyone's thoughts, becoming a ‘God’ in the truest sense.”

Kate's words were like a thunderclap exploding in Lin Fan's mind. He finally understood why the system in the virtual world gave him special ‘attention,’ and why Victor would spare no expense to trap him in that world. It turned out he had been nothing more than a stepping stone on Victor's path of ambition from start to finish.

Just then, a faint static sound rang in Lin Fan's mind, a sizzling noise like an old radio tuning its frequency. He subconsciously looked down at his wrist, where at some point, a silver bracelet had appeared. A familiar blue light flickered on the bracelet's screen—the exact color of the system interface in the virtual world.

It was the Core Code.

A second before the data beam swallowed him, he had used the last of his strength to shove the USB drive containing the Core Code into the storage space bound to him in the virtual world. At the time, he was just acting on a desperate hope, never expecting that this tiny USB drive would actually follow his consciousness, breaking through the barrier between virtuality and reality to arrive in this real world.

The bracelet's screen suddenly lit up, displaying real-time footage of the virtual world. In the images, the nightclub he, Ghost, Franklin, and Michael had fought to protect had turned into a wasteland of broken walls and ruins. Those once-crazed roaring NPCs had all vanished without a trace, leaving only flickering garbled code all over the ground, like the wreckage left after a world's collapse.

At the end of the footage, a black tower towering into the clouds stood between heaven and earth. At the top of the tower, a familiar figure stood with his back to the camera, overlooking everything below. With that well-tailored expensive suit and that meticulously combed hair, who could it be but Victor?

As if sensing the gaze from before the screen, Victor slowly turned around, a contemptuous and cruel smile on his face. There was no warmth in his eyes, only the arrogance of toying with prey and controlling everything.

“Lin Fan, my good chess piece.” Victor's voice came through the bracelet's speaker, his cold tone carrying a hint of mockery, like someone admiring a trapped beast still attempting to struggle. “I didn't expect you to actually make it back alive. But it doesn't matter; the game has only just begun. I will let you watch with your own eyes as I take control of this world step by step. I will make you understand just how foolish it is to resist me.”

The moment the words fell, the bracelet's screen abruptly went black, as if the signal had been forcibly cut.

Lin Fan stared deathly at the dark screen, his knuckles turning white from the force as his fingernails almost dug into the flesh of his palms. Anger, despair, and hatred surged and collided in his chest like molten lava, nearly tearing his sanity apart.

He suddenly looked up at Kate standing by the bed, his gaze filled with confusion and fragility, like someone who had walked alone in the dark for too long and had almost forgotten what light looked like. He was afraid this was all another meticulously woven deception, afraid he was still trapped in Victor's cage with nowhere to run.

“Am I... real?”

Lin Fan's voice was very light, carrying a trace of imperceptible trembling. He reached out and looked at his palm; there were clear lines and a warm temperature, yet he still dared not believe it. He feared the warmth of his palm was simulated, feared that everything before him was just another instance of the virtual world.

Kate looked at his bloodshot eyes and the expression on his face—a mixture of tears and despair. Her heart felt as if it were being violently squeezed by an invisible hand, hurting so much she could barely breathe. She could no longer restrain herself; she reached out and gently grasped Lin Fan's hand.

Her palm was warm and dry, with a trace of thin calluses left from years of holding a pen. That sensation was terrifyingly real, passing through his skin and into Lin Fan's heart bit by bit like a warm current, melting the ice in the depths of his soul.

“You are real.” Kate's voice was firm and gentle. Her eyes reddened again as hot tears slid down her cheeks, dripping onto their joined hands. “Lin Fan, you are a living person, not some cold experimental subject, and certainly not some chess piece to be toyed with. You have your own thoughts, your own will, and things you want to protect. You are unique; you are real.”

She paused, looked up into Lin Fan's eyes, and said every word as if it carried the weight of a thousand pounds: “I will save you, even if it costs me my life.”

Kate's words were like sunlight piercing through dark clouds, illuminating Lin Fan's dark heart. Seeing the determination and resolution in Kate's eyes, the unhidden worry and heartache on her face, and her bloodshot eyes from staying up late, he suddenly understood something.

“You knew all along, didn't you?” Lin Fan asked softly, his voice carrying a trace of imperceptible trembling.

Kate nodded, her tears flowing even more fiercely. “I am a researcher for this project and the only person in the entire laboratory who opposed Victor. I watched him discard living subjects like trash, watched him use any means necessary to collect data, watched him step by step descend into madness. I've had enough. In the virtual world, I always wanted to warn you, to tell you the truth, but Victor monitored my every move—every operation, every word was under his nose. I could only use those methods to make you sense the existence of reality, to let you know you weren't alone.”

A warm current surged in Lin Fan's heart, like parched land receiving sweet rain. It turned out those flashes of hospital images in the virtual world weren't hallucinations. It turned out Kate's worry wasn't a programmed disguise. It turned out that while he was struggling in that cold virtual world, there had always been someone in the real world silently worrying for him and planning for him.

It turned out he had never been fighting alone.

Lin Fan looked at Kate, at the tear stains on her face, at the determination in her eyes, at the blue-flickering bracelet on his wrist, and at the Core Code stored within it. The confusion and despair in his gaze gradually faded, replaced by an unprecedented resolve.

He slowly raised his other hand and wiped away the tears on his face. This was the first time he had cried since coming to this bizarre world. It wasn't because of the slaughter and despair in the virtual world, nor because of the anger and resentment of being treated as a chess piece, but because he had seen a glimmer of hope in the boundless darkness.

He looked into Kate's eyes, his gaze carrying the courage of one burning their bridges, his voice hoarse yet carrying an unquestionable finality:

“If you lie to me, I will destroy this world.”

There was no threat in those words, only a tragic sense of putting everything on the line. If even this last sliver of hope was fake, if even Kate's gentleness and determination were a trap set by Victor, then he would rather perish along with this world polluted by Victor.

The Core Code was his weapon and his trump card. At worst, they would all go down together.

Kate looked at his steady gaze and the desperate madness in the depths of his eyes, then nodded forcefully. Without the slightest hesitation, she turned and pulled a black USB drive from the pocket of her lab coat, carefully plugging it into the interface of the silver bracelet on Lin Fan's wrist.

The moment the USB was inserted, the bracelet's screen lit up again, displaying a complex program interface. The Core Code stored in the bracelet and the data on the USB were rapidly merging. Lines of golden code leapt and flickered on the screen like burning flames, illuminating the pale light of the hospital room.

“This is experimental data I secretly copied. It contains all of Victor's secrets, including his core algorithms for manipulating consciousness and the coordinates of his experimental bases hidden all over the world.” A light of excitement flickered in Kate's eyes, as if she were seeing the dawn of victory. “The Core Code is the key to cracking his system, and this data is the weapon to destroy him. As long as we can make these things public, Victor's ambition will be completely shattered.”

Lin Fan looked at the rapidly scrolling data stream on the screen, watched those lines of golden code like galloping dragons, and saw the light of hope in Kate's eyes. A smile slowly rose at the corners of his mouth—a smile of relief, of determination, and with a trace of a warrior's edge.

He knew the real war had only just begun.

But this time, he was no longer alone.

He and Kate would join forces to oppose that high-and-mighty ‘God,’ reclaiming their own fates and the freedom of those Victor had used as chess pieces.

Meanwhile, at the top of the distant black tower, Victor stood before a massive floor-to-ceiling window, watching the rapidly merging data stream on a screen. The contemptuous smile on his face slowly vanished, replaced by an imperceptible gravity.

He gently rubbed the sapphire ring on his finger, his gaze cold and sinister.

“Lin Fan, my good chess piece,” he murmured softly, his lips curling into a cruel arc. “It seems this game will be much more interesting than I imagined.”

Outside the window, dark clouds gathered; a storm was quietly brewing.