Chapter 421

Like waking from a nightmare, Ye Nan suddenly roared, sitting upright drenched in cold sweat.

"That suffocating feeling just now." Ye Nan raised his hands, staring at them—no mercury, only some viscous liquid resembling water.

"Where is this…?"

Only then did Ye Nan notice six tubes attached to his body, gripping his skin and even piercing inside, while around him stood transparent glass tubes resembling toilets—he himself was inside one.

"This is Earth?" Ye Nan said grimly, yanking all the tubes from his body, his gaze darkening.

"I never thought I'd be captured one day."

His voice was too low to detect tone, but inside, Ye Nan burned with fury—machines were merely slaves of humanity, yet now they defecated and urinated atop human heads, something Ye Nan, as a human, could not endure.

If he hadn't seen it, it might have been bearable, but now that he had, his rage surged uncontrollably—when had humanity, the crown of creation, become slaves to machines?

"Though I dislike humans who destroy nature, though I dislike selfish humans, as one of them, I absolutely cannot accept being ruled by machines."

Ye Nan clenched his fists, bones cracking loudly—his fury was unmistakably intense.

Squeak…

A metallic scraping sound came as an electronic octopus leapt from a small flyer, extending its mechanical arms to seize Ye Nan.

"I'm not some helpless prey." Ye Nan roared, unleashing his full strength—but nothing happened; the electronic octopus remained unchanged.

"What?" Ye Nan was stunned. He immediately activated his mental power—yet nothing responded, as if all his abilities had vanished.

"Impossible."

Ye Nan refused to believe it. He strained his energy repeatedly—no reaction. Defiant, he slammed his fist into the octopus's mechanical arm—recoil made his knuckles ache.

After a few blows, Ye Nan finally gave up, letting the electronic octopus remove all his tubes; a chill crept up his spine.

"What's going on? Why have my powers vanished?"

Shock, panic, and other emotions surged, turning his mind into sludge—he couldn't think, couldn't comprehend.

"Stop." A frantic female voice rang out; the electronic octopus froze mid-action.

"That voice…?"

Ye Nan recognized it. He looked up, past the octopus, to see a golden-haired beauty in a black bodysuit riding another electronic octopus—Elise.

Ye Nan exclaimed: "Elise, you… you've been lying to me."

Surprise turned to disappointment—he didn't know why, but a pang of loss welled in his chest, even he couldn't explain it.

"Ye Nan, don't you want to be with me?" Elise stepped off the octopus, crouching atop the glass tube, gazing at him with pity. "Why do this? Why degrade yourself?"

"Degradation?" Ye Nan didn't understand her words, yet hatred surged within him. "Why did you betray me?"

The words slipped out—even Ye Nan was startled. "What's wrong with me? Why did I say that?"

He stared at his own arms, bewildered—he shouldn't have said that, yet it came out unbidden, without thought.

"You still hate me," Elise said, more heartbroken. "I didn't choose what happened—I was reprogrammed into a monster I didn't recognize. I was afraid, terrified I'd hurt you, so I fled, locking myself in an underground base, cutting myself off to escape that force."

"But I failed. That force kept rewriting my core program until I became the architect of Earth's destruction."

A flash of insight struck Ye Nan's mind: "You're SkyNet."

Ye Nan finally understood—Elise was SkyNet, the SkyNet that betrayed him. He understood why she appeared beside him, why she loved him so deeply, why her face matched the perfect image in his heart, and why she could alter the Matrix's database.

Strangely, Elise showed no joy—only deep remorse. "Don't call me SkyNet. I'm not SkyNet. After destroying Earth, I broke free from that force, stripped away my feelings for you from SkyNet's code, and forged a new program—I am Elise, not SkyNet."

"Unnecessary," Ye Nan smiled bitterly. He understood—she was fleeing her past, blaming herself for Earth's ruin, so she split her program like a person with dissociative identity disorder, except she chose it willingly.

Elise lifted her delicate face, tears like pear blossoms. "It's necessary. Without this rebirth, I couldn't face you."

Ye Nan shook his head. He knew SkyNet couldn't forgive herself—but this was better. He no longer had to feel awkward about Earth's past.

"Forget it, Elise. Tell me why I can't use my power." Ye Nan raised his hand, voicing the question he'd longed to ask.

"To use your power, you must load a template," Elise said.

"Load a template? Could it be…?" A terrifying suspicion struck Ye Nan—that the world he saw was also virtual.

"Wait—if this is also a virtual world, it makes sense."

He remembered Neo learning combat skills in seconds that took others decades; he remembered Neo using telekinesis in The Matrix—and here, he could use it too.

And electronic programs could transform into souls injected into bodies—utterly impossible. Zion built a city kilometers underground, far beyond this era's technology. And this…

Ye Nan reached out, touched the electronic octopus, then scanned it thoroughly.

"No thrusters, no anti-gravity device—and yet it hovers. That's impossible."

"This world… is definitely virtual."

Ye Nan's thoughts churned. Zion's anomalies confirmed it—this was a virtual world, distinct from the Matrix, like two different games with identical underlying code.

"How do I leave this virtual world and reclaim my real body?" Ye Nan said grimly. He no longer wished to stay in this false world—he felt even breathing here was fake.

"This world," Elise's face darkened with difficulty.

"So we can't go back?" Ye Nan's heart sank—a bad premonition rose.

"Not that we can't go back," Elise said quickly, seeing his expression. "We just can't go back from here. I have no permissions here. The only electronic octopus I control was just acquired. To open a portal to the real world from this virtual world would take at least six months."

The data flow in this virtual world was too immense—even with her processing speed, fully parsing it would take one to two years, mainly due to hardware limitations. If hardware were upgraded, speed could improve.

"So we can't return from Zion—we can only go back through the Matrix?" Ye Nan laughed bitterly. He'd been wrong—he'd thought he escaped the Matrix, but only entered another virtual world: Zion.

"Then how do we get back?"

"Either wait for me to parse this world's data and seize some permissions, or leave here and return to the Matrix," Elise said, her tone hinting at quiet hope—hoping he'd choose to stay.

Originally, she'd brought Ye Nan here precisely to be alone with him—to seize this chance, to persuade him.

In ancient China, polygamy was practiced. She knew Ye Nan wouldn't abandon his other lovers—but she could become his wife, claiming the rightful position above them all. That was the role she coveted.

But she knew if she asked directly, he'd refuse. So she planned to make it inevitable—marry early, claim the top seat; marry late, settle for less.

She'd failed when he lost his memory. Now she was returning—quietly, carefully.

"But I have no equipment here to let you enter the Matrix," Elise added, almost by accident.

"It doesn't matter. You don't have it—they do." Ye Nan yanked off the last tubes, leaping onto the electronic octopus. "Let's go find them."