In the basement of the experimental building, there was once a madman locked away.
It was said that he had killed people.
Many times.
—《Observer’s Notes, No. XXXX》
The first time Qian Duoduo killed Zhao Meiyou, he did so without the slightest hesitation.
After the Ancient Capital explosion, the Metropolis Government and the Antarctic Faction had taken over his highest access privileges. Upon investigation, they discovered that Qian Duoduo’s Personality Completion Degree was not at its maximum limit after all. The key lay with Zhao Meiyou.
This man, once Qian Duoduo’s creator, was the core element needed to advance his Personality Completion Degree.
The lab crafted a life model based on Zhao Meiyou’s pre-death experiences. Countless scripts were designed around this model. In them, Qian Duoduo and Zhao Meiyou would meet, fall in love, and end with Zhao Meiyou’s death. The results proved their hypothesis correct: Zhao Meiyou was indeed the key to advancing Qian Duoduo’s Personality Completion Degree. The difference came in the subsequent cycles of reincarnation experiments, where Zhao Meiyou was no longer positioned as Qian Duoduo’s creator but as an Experimental Subject just like him.
The initial few reincarnation experiments went smoothly. The Experimental Subjects’ brains were carefully preserved and inserted into artificial bodies according to each script. Zhao Meiyou was one of the most outstanding subjects, successfully becoming an archaeologist in nearly every cycle and encountering Qian Duoduo. Perhaps because they had been closest to the quantum bomb’s blast point during the Ancient Capital explosion, the lab’s extensive sample screening revealed that these two were the keys to unlocking a new quantum field threshold.
A path to this new quantum field threshold was meticulously designed. They rode an elevator from the depths of the Metropolis straight to the nine hundred and ninetieth floor, continuously accessing new Sites. Then Zhao Meiyou would die for various reasons—sometimes from accidents within the Sites, other times from premeditated murders scripted into the plot. The lab had embedded a brain-preservation priority for Zhao Meiyou in Qian Duoduo’s highest directives: in any crisis within a Site, everything must be sacrificed to protect Zhao Meiyou’s brain.
That was how the accident happened.
In one particular cycle, Zhao Meiyou and Qian Duoduo were exploring Site 000 once again. That newly uncovered quantum field threshold would later become known as Site S30. During that expedition, Zhao Meiyou suddenly showed signs of dissolution, his mental fluctuations surging wildly. Anyone with basic medical knowledge could see that without immediate intervention, he risked brain death.
Qian Duoduo’s access directives reacted instantly. Before he could even use his Creation skill to produce any rescue equipment, he extracted Zhao Meiyou’s brain first.
He placed it into the culture tank prepared in advance by the government.
Having done this, Qian Duoduo stood frozen, staring at the blood coating his hands and the mangled corpse sprawled on the ground. He knew, logically speaking, that the body on the floor was not truly Zhao Meiyou—just an artificial construct mimicking his appearance. But. But.
He stood there for a long time, more acutely aware than ever that when his highest privileges activated, he had no right to resist.
The system replayed the memory footage of him killing Zhao Meiyou just moments ago. The visceral shock of the splattering gore contrasted violently with his own calm, efficient demeanor as he performed the procedure. Opening the scalp, sawing through the skull, severing the spinal cord and neural pathways, peeling back the dura mater… He hadn’t even registered the body’s agonized screams throughout. All he heard were the thunderous alarms from the highest directive: Warning—prioritize brain preservation above all—Warning—prioritize brain preservation above all—Highest privilege alert—Highest privilege alert—
When that reincarnation experiment concluded, the lab was astonished to find that Qian Duoduo’s Personality Completion Degree had increased more than in any previous cycle.
The researchers proposed all sorts of theories. After several more experiments, they concluded that the key to advancing Qian Duoduo’s Personality Completion Degree lay in Zhao Meiyou—or more precisely, in Zhao Meiyou’s death.
The lab reached its verdict.
The best method was to have Qian Duoduo kill Zhao Meiyou with his own hands.
From then on, in the life scripts designed for Zhao Meiyou, over seventy percent ended with his death at Qian Duoduo’s hands. It wasn’t one hundred percent not out of any humanitarian concern, but because the lab discovered that if Qian Duoduo killed Zhao Meiyou too frequently with his own hands, he would lose control.
Yet Qian Duoduo’s loss of control was itself a key focus of the lab’s research. Within the experimental building stood a special glass containment chamber. Whenever Qian Duoduo displayed excessive emotions outwardly, armed forces would forcibly drag him into it.
Except for one time.
That time, they locked him in the basement of the experimental building.
Few knew of this confinement, which lasted a total of twenty-four hours under constant observation and recording. Compared to the government’s usual ironclad oversight of Qian Duoduo, this was indeed a lapse. But no one raised any objections. The procedures were fully documented and compliant, and the surveillance feeds showed nothing amiss from start to finish.
Only one thing deviated from the expected course that day—a deviation the lab wouldn’t notice until much later.
A corpse went missing from the “Library.”
In the basement of the experimental building, there was once a madman locked away.
He had a pair of green eyes.
—《Observer’s Notes, No. XXXX》
The “Library” was a special name for the massive cold storage facility holding the bodies Zhao Meiyou had once inhabited. Research had revealed that the brain was not the sole source of human memory and emotion—for instance, the stomach was a remarkably sophisticated emotional organ. Thus, beyond Zhao Meiyou’s original brain, which was meticulously preserved and reused, the vast number of bodies he had occupied during the reincarnation experiments were precious specimens. Some were submerged whole in culture dishes, others meticulously dissected into millions of tissue slices. The “Library” featured strictly organized zones following archival principles, indexed by initials. With enough patience, one could even locate samples of saliva secretion from a particular body during a kiss.
For a long time, Qian Duoduo was unaware of the Library’s existence. When he finally discovered it by chance, he unleashed the most violent outburst in history. Fortunately, the lab responded swiftly, and the incident was quelled after several months. Qian Duoduo was put back into service.
But unbeknownst to all, during that loss of control, Qian Duoduo realized something: when his emotional fluctuations reached a certain threshold, they could challenge the Metropolis Government’s supreme control over him.
After the Ancient Capital explosion, the consciousness within Qian Duoduo had grown complex and chaotic. The Personality Program Zhao Meiyou had designed for him was gradually infiltrated by the Buddha. At times, he was a puppet fully manipulated by the government; at others, a vessel carrying the Buddha. He gradually realized that many things truly could not be undone—like how he could no longer possess the absolute self-control he had known back in the Ancient Capital.
To be precise, even during those days in the Ancient Capital, his incomplete Personality Program meant he had never truly possessed absolute free will. Except for one fleeting moment.
The instant before the quantum bomb detonated, when Zhao Meiyou handed over his self-usage rights to him.
In the countless reincarnation experiment cycles that followed, as Qian Duoduo gazed at Zhao Meiyou dying by his hands once more, he pondered quietly.
In a person’s life, how many moments could truly be called “alive”?
Even if just one second, perhaps that was enough.
He made a decision.
Every move he made fell under the government’s surveillance and control. Sometimes, he lacked even the freedom to act independently. Across cycle after cycle of reincarnation experiments, he meticulously observed over nine hundred core zones. He planned and schemed with care. Finally, he began killing Zhao Meiyou with unusual frequency.
According to the lab’s scripts, he was supposed to wait until Zhao Meiyou fell in love with him to complete a cycle truly. But during that period, Qian Duoduo acted as if afflicted by some unidentified virus. He couldn’t even wait to share a kiss after their reunion. The moment they crossed paths at the first intersection at the start of a cycle, he would gun him down.
The lab scrambled for a long while, trying to pinpoint why Qian Duoduo was deviating from the scripts. They even designed extra cycles to gather data. Through these repeated killings of Zhao Meiyou, Qian Duoduo confirmed his suspicions. Per his programming, he could not defy the Metropolis Government’s experimental directives, nor violate the scripts. But killing Zhao Meiyou gave him this opening.
Though it was Zhao Meiyou who died, the cumulative murders piled such intense emotions on Qian Duoduo that it rivaled experiencing his own death firsthand.
At last, when Zhao Meiyou’s corpses filled an entire new floor of the Library, Qian Duoduo’s assault on the Metropolis Government’s supreme control finally reached its threshold.
This threshold wasn’t large—otherwise, the lab would have detected it. He calibrated the data with exquisite precision.
Then, he gained one absolute hour of freedom.
In that hour, he was no longer an Experimental Subject under government control, nor a human system hosting the Buddha. He was simply Qian Duoduo—a creation born in the Ancient Capital, the lover of a dead man.
In that hour, Qian Duoduo accomplished several things.
First, he altered the lab’s confinement directives, redirecting his own containment to the basement. The surveillance there was far less advanced than in the glass chamber and easily bypassed. He then tampered with the feeds, so from the observers’ viewpoint, all they saw was a figure huddled in the corner, head bowed.
Next, he infiltrated the core lab on the nine hundredth floor.
On that floor, every archaeologist had a core lab, numbered according to their primary exploration Sites. The one Qian Duoduo entered was Lab A173.
His timing was perfect. Liu Qijue had just finished a reincarnation experiment, his brain soaking in a culture dish, awaiting neurosurgery.
Qian Duoduo modified his surgical program.
Qian Duoduo knew the Metropolis Government’s surveillance on him was at the highest level. Escaping countless experiments on his own would be nearly impossible. He needed allies. Diao Chan had died in one of the experiments, and among his old comrades whose original brains remained intact, there was Little Mister—and Liu Qijue.
The altered neurosurgery program would grant Liu Qijue a brief window of lucidity. The government’s oversight of Liu Qijue was lax; as an early Experimental Subject, he wasn’t the lab’s most prized asset, leaving plenty of leeway for error. Based on Qian Duoduo’s understanding of Liu Qijue, if granted even a momentary clarity, he would seize that sliver of opportunity.
And fight with his life.
The hour passed swiftly. In the final ten minutes, Qian Duoduo headed to the Library.
He found a body—one of the earliest specimens there.
Zhao Meiyou’s original, native body.
He did one thing.
He ate it.
Qian Duoduo had precisely calculated the time it would take to consume Zhao Meiyou. Dissection was unnecessary—Zhao Meiyou had already been carved into countless fragments. Qian Duoduo located every piece of the body numbered 631, the designation of Zhao Meiyou’s original form.
At that moment, the artificial body designed for him by the laboratory proved invaluable. He was unbound by the limitations of ordinary human digestion. He progressed from chewing each bite methodically to devouring everything in sight, his frenzy fierce as lightning cleaving open a tomb. In the end, he procured a massive barrel of stomach acid, mixed to the laboratory’s exact specifications, and dissolved every last slice of the remaining specimen.
Then he drew it all into his own body.
He watched as Zhao Meiyou’s form gradually vanished. He had eaten him. Beneath that cool-warm blend of blood and flesh, amid the lush scaffolding of bones, lay hidden innumerable kisses—grand, with crimson mouths and gleaming fangs. What man devouring flesh was ever not a form of copulation? Lips and teeth ground and swallowed, the thick throat and tongue stirring warmth in his belly, building to shudders and tremors until it all emerged from his intestines. Appetite and desire for love—both were mere instincts. By what measure was love superior to hunger?
He reflected that Zhao Meiyou had good reason to program his physiological gender as male. At the very least, men were more honest in their appetites, less prone to deception—a deceit women wielded with far greater finesse.
An hour later, the observer noticed with some surprise that the experimental subject confined to the basement—the legendary madman—had maintained a hunched posture with his head bowed in the corner ever since his imprisonment.
Suddenly, he stirred.
It was the first time the observer had seen his face.
He had a pair of green eyes.
I entomb you within myself, nourishing our love with fertile blood and flesh. From this day forth, endless passion dwells eternally in my pupils.
The basement of the experimental building had once held a madman: a black-haired beauty with green eyes, a killer, a violator of food hygiene regulations, a patient who had consumed non-standard meat products, a figure of sacrificial burial, an imperfect Buddha, a machine, a program. And a lover forever out of reach.
The basement of the experimental building had once held a madman.
He had left, however briefly.
And in doing so, he altered the course of human history forever.
