Chapter 33

After a round of external cardiac compressions and resuscitation, Subject No. 2’s heart rate finally returned to normal. What had caused her heart to inexplicably stop? Was it unrelated to the consciousness link, or was it a purely physiological arrest? In any case, her body could not be allowed to suffer any harm. Hollen had already wasted twelve minutes trying to save her life; if she remained in the system too long, there was a risk of permanent brain function damage. Consciousness could be submerged, but the physical tissue could not be compromised—otherwise, it would bode ill for Aiwen.

Now, everything was stuck in limbo. Subject No. 2’s consciousness had lingered in the nightmare space for so long without being submerged. Even after upgrading the nightmare’s difficulty, her consciousness remained intact. As Hollen weighed his options, he also recalculated the final probability of success. Would he fail? He had never entertained the thought before, always confident in himself, but the results so far were far from ideal, and success seemed as remote as ever...

Just then, the internal line rang beside him—a phone only accessible to the company’s upper management. He hesitated a moment before slowly picking up the receiver.

A familiar, deep voice of a middle-aged man spoke on the line: “Terminate the experiment immediately. Otherwise, you’ll receive no further funding for your research. I hope you understand this.” The man’s tone was furious—he was Hollen’s father.

Hollen had always drawn on private family capital to fund his research into the consciousness replacement program. Now, with funding suddenly threatened, he could not accept it. Besides, how did his father know he was running the experiment today? He hadn’t told anyone outside the lab.

“Why?” Hollen said coldly.

“No reason. I know you’re not only leveraging family resources but working with outsiders too. I won’t stand by and let someone with ulterior motives use you—or the whole family.”

“Father, it’s not what you think.”

“Don’t bother hiding it. I know everything. That power circle you’ve mingled with isn’t something ordinary businessmen can afford to provoke.”

“My research will change the academic world!”

“Your research is worthless,” the voice snapped. “Sure, I can burn money for you, but if you cross that group, I have no choice but to stop you!”

“It’s really not as you imagine—”

“I won’t say it a second time.” The call was cut off.

Even so, Hollen hardly cared. Even if SNS Group withdrew its support, the “Scepter Corporation” would continue to back him—the very force his father warned was not to be trifled with. It was a mysterious organization dedicated to developing black technologies; its funding was untraceable, perhaps international in nature. Hollen himself knew little about them; he cared only for his research, for perfecting his consciousness replacement program. Whoever funded him, he worked with. He was, in truth, an indifferent scholar, unconcerned with ethics or morality—his only focus was whether the consciousness transplant could succeed.

Hollen refocused on Subject No. 2’s vital signs; she seemed stable, but why had her heart stopped so suddenly? He was certain he’d monitored her body with utmost care, without any pharmaceutical intervention. Was her brain at fault? No, that was unlikely; only massive traumatic brain injury, leading to hemorrhage and pressure, would typically result in cardiac arrest. But she’d suffered no such injury—

Code Space—

If he used “quantified microcurrents” to stimulate neurons, perhaps there was a chance of awakening; no, more than a chance—a strong possibility. Only by mastering the timing of her own awakening could she evade Hollen’s control. Aiwen had been pondering this.

With the H system’s vulnerabilities and the instability of the consciousness-replacement program, she could first hack into the system, then use the electromagnetic interface linking the system to the brain to transmit quantified microcurrents into the cortical neurons. A jolt of micro-electricity, and awakening would be rapid.

Next, she needed to break the H code—a balancing mechanism that, apart from connecting the two consciousness banks, also linked to multiple dream spaces. The nightmare space was only one of many, a set of code Hollen had added later. Logically, these dream spaces could be expanded; to disrupt the balance, one could introduce new simulated dream spaces through additional code. Creating a quasi-space difficult for the system to detect wasn’t impossible, just time-consuming—but here, time didn’t exist, so that was no obstacle.

In truth, the space Aiwen wanted to introduce was her own “Transmigration Space” gateway! That way, not only would Hollen struggle to detect it, but the expansion of data in her space, leveraging quantum supercomputing, could evolve a single point into a multidimensional, colossal space. Another feature was that the space could fold. If the system’s spatial balance faltered, the H code would collapse in an instant.

With her extraordinary intellect, Aiwen wrote code at astonishing speed and precision, far beyond any ordinary computer. Her quantum-consciousness body was itself a superbrain.

If she could finish the final tweaks, she could launch the assault on the H code immediately. The only problem was that Xiaoya was still trapped in the nightmare space; she had to be extracted to Aiwen’s own domain for safety. Aiwen had considered: if she no longer existed in the real world, her consciousness would be entirely severed from it, existing indefinitely stored in the Transmigration Space. Yet now, with consciousness quantifiable and replaceable, she didn’t need to follow Hollen’s example. She could condense herself into a particle, stored somewhere in the brain’s neural network—so small that even thousands or tens of thousands of such particles would take up no physical space in the brain at all.

She could store herself in either hemisphere and, through this brain, continue to observe the unfolding of real world history. It was not impossible, provided Xiaoya consented. Aiwen would not invade her mind or self-awareness, merely exist as an observer—a quantifiable, expandable, particle-form consciousness able to traverse the brain, the network, and the Transmigration Space, three domains with different temporal and spatial perspectives.

But just as Aiwen was about to enact her plan, something happened to Xiaoya again. Aiwen sensed a disturbance not in consciousness, but in Xiaoya’s physical body. She was experiencing sudden cardiac arrest—an unlikely event not caused by her brain. If her heart stopped again, the resulting oxygen deprivation would lead to brain death...

Nightmare Space—

She refused to collapse here; she still wanted to live with her brother. Xiaoya suddenly felt her consciousness growing faint—already in a dream state, yet her awareness was weakening. Was something happening to her body? What had struck her chest moments ago, like an electric shock? Her chest had been jolted two or three times, then her mind grew cloudy, and breathing became difficult...

Fortunately, she survived. Rising from the ground, she noticed the floor was different—the corridor tiles were now layered, stacked atop each other, shifting in color and reflectivity, as if the floor itself was transforming—

Previously, the tiles never changed, but now their colors and shapes continually morphed, the layers fracturing and reflecting like a prism.

The system seemed to have upgraded again!

She still had to rely on her pendant to find Room 1307. She needed to locate the entrance quickly. Xiaoya stood up and began to jog. She had already passed through a dozen doors, but the floor kept changing. At first, she couldn’t understand what was happening, but gradually she felt as if she had run a great distance only to remain in the same place. The blue glow from her pendant flickered, but didn’t intensify. A suspicion formed—was the corridor being endlessly extended? Did the shifting tiles and reflections serve to confuse and lengthen the hall without her realizing? How long would she have to run? Would there ever be an end?

She refused to give up—there had to be a way out! Just then, the particle-form consciousness Aiwen had hidden in Xiaoya’s brain was activated. Aiwen’s infiltration of the H code had succeeded; the particle consciousness was transmitted via external sensors to Xiaoya’s cortical neurons.

“Xiaoya, the nightmare space code isn’t difficult to crack. Follow my instructions, and as long as you step on the right colored tiles, you’ll break the endless corridor,” Aiwen’s voice sounded again.

At the sound, Xiaoya felt her spirits lift. “Ai, is that you? I thought you said you couldn’t reveal yourself for a while?”

“I haven’t revealed myself. I’m just speaking to you in particle-form consciousness, now hidden somewhere in your brain.”

“What do you mean?”

“No time to explain—just follow my instructions and we’ll break the deadlock soon.”

“So, what should I do?”

“Walk along the tiles. Every third tile you step on will be black, and it’ll suddenly turn white. Step on it just as it turns white! Do this three times in a row.”

“Understood.” Xiaoya followed Aiwen’s directions, stepping three times on tiles as they shifted from black to white.

“Now, to the right of the white tile is a green one. When it shifts to a silver reflective surface, step on it; do this five times, then turn left and walk ten steps.”

“Okay.” She continued as instructed.

Sure enough, the stacked tiles began to dissolve, lifting and floating like prisms, reflecting light in all directions. These beams bounced off the prisms, shattering them, until everything vanished—