Chapter 231: Her Voice

The air in the private library was thick with the scent of old paper, parchment, and dry wood.

Tall bookshelves stood like silent black giants, stretching from floor to carved dome, casting unsettling shadows.

This corner had no windows; the only light came from an antique desk lamp on an eighteenth-century desk, its dark green glass shade dimming the glow to just illuminate a few open documents and a hand with prominent knuckles, unnaturally pale.

The hand’s owner—Vide—was lounging casually in a wide armchair.

On the notebook before him, a live feed from the United Nations Assembly hall played.

In the video, when Yang Yi finally closed her laptop and rose to leave with a complex expression, he laughed aloud in delight.

The laugh was soft, yet it made several subordinates standing in the shadows tense their spines in unison.

The screen went dark; Vide raised his hand and idly tapped his fingertips against the desk, producing faint muffled knocks in the dead silence.

His gaunt face appeared unusually soft in the lamp’s dim light, almost saintly in its pity, but his brown-black eyes, depthless, reflected cold, faint glimmers.

“A brilliant data presentation—logical, precise, even carrying a touch of… scientific poetry.”

His voice was gentle, carrying an odd rhythm, like reciting an ancient elegy: “She tried to use the light of reason to illuminate human folly. But this species, always accustomed to tearing at each other in darkness—for profit, for fleeting, insubstantial narratives…”

He shook his head slightly; the pity deepened, mingled with undisguised condescension.

“How pitiful—she actually believes that when the fear of survival coils like poisonous vines around the spine, humans can still stand tall, using their incompletely evolved brains to see the situation clearly, to care for the future.”

He paused, savoring the absurdity of the thought: “She overestimated the weight of reason, and underestimated how deeply blind stupidity and short-sightedness are rooted in this species’ marrow. Fear demands simple answers—it needs something to hate, something to attack, something not of itself—not a complex chart filled with cosmic laws.”

Colin Payne spoke cautiously: “My lord, the evidence she provided, especially regarding Akar, has indeed shaken many. The scientific community’s stance may…”

“Science?” Vide chuckled, cutting him off. “Science before the tide of mass emotion is but a delicate paper boat—no storm needed, it capsizes on its own. Besides,”

He leaned forward, hands clasped on the desk; the lamp’s light carved his facial contours more sharply: “She made a fatal mistake—she openly admitted she has been contaminated and altered, and is under… steady-state control.”

A faint glimmer flashed in his brown-black pupils.

“From that moment, control no longer rests entirely in her hands. Steady-state control? What a beautiful term. Humans will imagine countless scenarios of loss of control; once the seed of doubt is sown, it needs only a little fertilizer to grow into a towering tree. And she herself handed them the most fertile soil.”

Vide casually tapped a few keys on his computer, and Yang Yi’s voice emerged from it:

“Do you know? I hate this world—I wish it would explode right now! I hate humans even more—ugly, selfish, hypocritical, cruel, stupid, short-sighted humans! I’d rather be a maggot, wriggling all day in shit, than be human!”

The library fell into a terrifying silence, only Yang Yi’s voice echoing, shattering the thick air.

These were her extreme words during her breakup with Chris—taken by Vide as collateral when he stole the “Artemis” project from Akar’s intelligence database.

Yang Yi’s shattered, desperate voice rang crystal clear in the stillness: “Only when I’m alone can I find peace. Why do you bother me…? Even if you all die in the apocalypse, what’s it to me? Even if the whole world ends—I’d be thrilled!!!”

“Since I was old enough to understand, I’ve wished this disgusting world would end. If the price is me dying with it, I’ll happily jump into the grave and bury myself alongside this damned world!”

Vide pressed pause, savoring the unmistakable shock on his subordinates’ faces.

The pure, self-destructive hatred in these words—even from those who had sacrificed hundreds of thousands—sent a chill through them.

“See,” Vide’s voice returned to its signature, magnetic calm—now even more chilling—“this is the language humans understand. Not lab reports, not energy spectra—raw, unvarnished hatred. Data may prove she’s harmless, but these words prove she’s anti-human at heart.”

He gently pushed the computer to the center of the desk.

“The time has come. Send our carefully prepared gift to the world. Edit it skillfully, blur the background—but ensure the voice is crystal clear: that’s her unique vocal signature. The accompanying text needs no rational analysis—just questions…”

He smiled faintly, his words like a serpent’s tongue flicking:

“Can someone who hates humanity so deeply, who longs for the world’s destruction, truly wish to save it?”

“How long can her steady-state control suppress this destructive urge?”

“Is the threat of the demon god merely a noble excuse for her inner desire for annihilation?”

“With such twisted hatred and altered biology, can we truly entrust the future of human civilization to her?”

“Deploy all our tendrils—from the dark corners of the net to the fringes of mainstream media—let these words spread like a virus. Don’t draw conclusions outright; guide them to discover, to be stunned, to fear…”

Vide stood, his shadow stretching with his movement, nearly swallowing half the desk: “When the curtain of reason is torn away, revealing the truths she spoke aloud… I wonder how much of that rational light remains among those just convinced by data.”

He walked into the deep shadows of the bookshelves; his voice seemed to come from far away, carrying an ending’s chill:

“Let her taste what it’s like—to be stabbed by her own most authentic pain, wielded by the very people she sought to protect. This is more fitting to human… aesthetics than any cosmic disaster.”

The subordinates bowed deeply and departed.

“The gods will inevitably return to their thrones—this is the coldest law of the universe…”

Vide stepped out of the library’s dark corner and strolled slowly to the window, watching dust drift and float in the light, smiling faintly.

In the air, the scent of old paper and wood now carried a faint trace of rust-like blood.