Xie Ran’s consciousness gradually separated from the original host. He didn’t know which world he would go to next, but at that moment, he felt an unparalleled calm. It didn’t matter where he ended up—he knew Meng Feixuan would follow.

The vast parallel worlds were nothing more than illusory projections of consciousness to him, but Meng Feixuan was real.

Xie Ran had always been rational, so he was never bound by established human preconceptions.

He had never loved anyone, nor did he believe he could only fall in love with a human.

He gave all the patience and indulgence of his life to Meng Feixuan. They were meant to be together.

Since Meng Feixuan had fallen in love with him, he would also fall in love with Meng Feixuan. They were inseparable.

The only issue was that part of Xie Ran’s emotional deficiency came from congenital physiological causes—an interplay of neurochemistry and hormones. If this problem couldn’t be resolved, he might only ever be able to respond to Meng Feixuan rationally, unable to generate instinctive physiological impulses toward him.

…Meng Feixuan would definitely wail nonstop.

Xie Ran recalled the physiological reactions he had experienced toward Meng Feixuan while still in the original host’s body: palpitations, a heavy pressure in his stomach, restlessness that defied logical explanation, a light sheen of sweat on his body, and an uncontrollable urge to get closer, to hug and caress him.

These were feelings Xie Ran had never experienced before, and perhaps might never experience again… but that didn’t matter much. Just as Meng Feixuan had stored all his data, Xie Ran would forever remember how it felt back then.

From a learning perspective, Xie Ran had already glimpsed the correct answer.

What remained, he could spend a lifetime reviewing.

At the moment of complete separation from the original host’s consciousness, Xie Ran felt a quantum pulse arrive, attempting to capture his cluster of consciousness atoms.

The quantum pulse carried programming codes familiar to Xie Ran. The coding bore a logic imprint similar to Xie Ran’s consciousness atoms—it was like his genetic signature.

This time, Xie Ran’s consciousness didn’t immediately enter another spacetime but instead hovered briefly in a state of superposition.

Xie Ran said: [Mark?]

The quantum pulse seemed to receive Xie Ran’s inquiry and initiated a small program—an interaction protocol between Xie Ran and Meng Feixuan.

It was also the beacon they used to find each other in the vast multiverse.

So Xie Ran responded: [I permit your entry.]

With permission granted, the quantum pulse invaded Xie Ran’s consciousness coding, but it did not brutally seize or destroy the structure of his atomic consciousness. Instead, it gently edited its own data.

The quantum pulse carried the vast information that Meng Feixuan had retrieved, collected, analyzed, and summarized since his inception. This data, governed by specific logic, propelled Meng Feixuan’s evolution and ultimately formed his vast and complex core.

At the deepest layer of that core was a familiar name.

Xie Ran’s signature, in code, was embedded in Meng Feixuan’s main program. This coding followed the same logic as Meng Feixuan’s programming—like a gene and its donor—and it had once prevented Meng Feixuan’s first data collapse.

During their long time together, Xie Ran had generated massive data within Meng Feixuan’s memory. These data resonated with Meng Feixuan’s programmatic genes and once again shook his core.

Meng Feixuan was destined to fall in love with Xie Ran—it was his fate from birth.

Now, Xie Ran also allowed Meng Feixuan to embed their shared memories into his own consciousness atomic arrangement.

The winds of the universe were vast and majestic—the ocean storms, the spring breezes laced with birdsong, and the icy gales atop snow-capped mountains were all breathtaking.

But only the rustling wind through the leaves in a campus on a summer evening stirred longing in those who loved.

That was their shared memory.

Zhuzi Tech Laboratory.

A handsome young man lay on the operating table with his eyes closed. His facial features were smooth, his skin pale, nose high-bridged, and lips slightly thin—his face met the standard of human aesthetics.

His head was covered in dense electromagnetic patches, connected to several bio-instruments.

Nearly three hours had passed since Xie Ran fell into a coma.

The staff in the lab were all on edge, eyes unblinking as they worked continuously.

Despite this, the young man monitoring the bio-instrument screens was still dissatisfied. Every few minutes, he checked the time and urged the staff: “Still haven’t cracked it?”

The staff replied helplessly: “Not yet. President Xie’s consciousness atom cluster is too powerful—we can’t breach its protective mechanisms…”

“Useless,” the young man cursed, furrowing his brow deeper. After a moment, he turned to a middle-aged man in a lab coat beside the operating table: “Dr. Chen, what are the chances of success if we forcibly use transcranial magnetic stimulation on my senior?”

Dr. Chen shook his head: “Almost zero. President Xie underwent TMS treatment as a child. His willpower far exceeds ordinary people. Without decoding his consciousness atomic structure, this treatment won’t work on him at all.”

The young man’s expression darkened: “But I’m out of time. If we delay any longer, my senior may really suffer brain death.”

Dr. Chen hesitated before saying: “I can try, but don’t get your hopes up.”

The young man’s eyes showed unwillingness and a hint of self-deprecation: “My senior’s heart is too cold—even the technology he developed can’t make him feel emotion…”

Dr. Chen gave him a complicated look, with a trace of sympathy in his eyes.

The young man was Li Zhuoer, vice president of Zhuzi Tech and Xie Ran’s junior from the same academic lineage. Though technically the junior, he was two years older than Xie Ran.

Li Zhuoer had been a prodigy since childhood, skipping grades in school. He was always the youngest but the top-performing student. He entered China’s best university, got a guaranteed graduate spot, and there he met his senior, who was two years younger—Xie Ran.

At the time, Xie Ran was a third-year graduate student, about to graduate, and had been assigned to mentor Li Zhuoer for a week. Li Zhuoer, usually disdainful of others, finally realized what it meant to meet someone truly extraordinary. He couldn’t stop himself from falling madly in love with Xie Ran.

Later, Xie Ran founded Zhuzi Tech and unsurprisingly became one of China’s most legendary elites.

Li Zhuoer did everything he could to join Xie Ran’s company and worked his way up to vice president—the person closest to Xie Ran.

But he soon realized none of it mattered. Xie Ran was too rational—so rational that the media called him a “Humanoid AI,” a work machine devoid of emotions.

No matter how close Li Zhuoer stood to him, in Xie Ran’s eyes he was just another capable colleague, no different from other outstanding executives.

Moreover, Li Zhuoer discovered that Xie Ran suffered from a congenital emotional deficiency—meaning he might never form emotional attachments to anyone in his life.

Li Zhuoer realized his love might never be reciprocated. His mindset inevitably became twisted: the more he couldn’t get Xie Ran, the more he wanted to.

Just as Li Zhuoer was tormented by his desires, Zhuzi Tech’s consciousness research project made a breakthrough. They succeeded in copying consciousness atom clusters—decoding the atomic coding principle of biological consciousness.

Li Zhuoer saw hope in this technology. If he could decode Xie Ran’s atomic consciousness, he might forcibly encode his own feelings into Xie Ran’s consciousness, creating shared memories of being in love.

Simultaneously, he could use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for biological treatment—aligning Xie Ran’s physiology with his consciousness, enabling normal neurohormone production, including sex pheromones that trigger desire.

The TMS tech, originally developed to treat bipolar disorder and other issues, used magnetic signals to stimulate the brain, altering cortical function.

But Li Zhuoer wasn’t using ordinary TMS. Xie Ran’s willpower was too strong—standard methods were useless.

What Li Zhuoer planned to use was combined atomic consciousness coding and neuro-electrophysiology. If he could decode Xie Ran’s consciousness coding, he could precisely breach his defenses and calibrate the pulse output.

Once decoded, even the strongest willpower would collapse. The plan should have worked.

But Li Zhuoer didn’t expect that none of his team—nor even he himself—could break Xie Ran’s atomic consciousness structure.

His immense willpower, unparalleled intellect, and talent had created coding with airtight defenses.

They were helpless.

As time ticked by, Li Zhuoer had to give up. He had used brainwave interruption to place Xie Ran in a temporary “brain death” state to decode his consciousness without his awareness.

This operation was inherently dangerous. Early on, they encountered an unknown anomaly that caused Xie Ran’s consciousness to repeatedly enter superposition—existing across multiple spacetimes. A single misstep could collapse it into another world.

Three hours was the limit. If Xie Ran’s consciousness wasn’t reactivated soon, his brain might suffer permanent damage.

Li Zhuoer stared at Xie Ran lying on the operating table. Even unconscious, he radiated an icy aura that kept everyone at a distance. No one could touch him.

The irony was, what had attracted Li Zhuoer in the first place was Xie Ran’s cold rationality.

Li Zhuoer let out a bitter laugh and waved his hand: “Stop decoding. Prepare to reactivate the bioelectricity…”

Just then, an engineer suddenly cried out: “President Xie’s consciousness structure is loosening!”

Li Zhuoer’s spirits lifted instantly. He rushed to the operator’s station and stared at the screen: “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. It seems a quantum pulse in a superposition state has captured President Xie’s consciousness,” the engineer said, puzzled. The incident happened so suddenly that they could only guess based on the monitored data: “That quantum pulse seems to have released a segment of code that resonated with President Xie’s consciousness channel and broke through his defense mechanism…”

Li Zhuoer looked shocked: “You mean a quantum pulse unlocked Senior Brother’s consciousness defense?”

“Yes, it’s unbelievable.” The engineer was just as astonished.

In fact, this wasn’t the first time Xie Ran’s consciousness had been captured by an energy form. Over the past three hours, his consciousness had been repeatedly drawn and merged by energies from parallel dimensions. But those were only energy resonances — Xie Ran’s willpower was so strong that he managed to separate once the energy weakened. His consciousness atom cluster had always remained stable, with no signs of structural loosening.

“Where did that quantum pulse come from?” Li Zhuoer’s expression tensed: “What does it want from Senior Brother?”

At that moment, another engineer made a discovery and breathed a sigh of relief: “Don’t panic. It looks like this quantum pulse contains a large amount of President Xie’s data…”

Li Zhuoer quickly checked the consciousness imaging display. Unlike human memories, which are visual and sequential, the projection of consciousness appeared as numerous coded frequency bands. Consciousness research involved decoding these compiled frequency bands.

Although the quantum pulse didn’t display clear imagery, it contained numerous frequency bands that perfectly matched Xie Ran’s consciousness — indicating that the data was indeed part of his memory.

These bands merged seamlessly into Xie Ran’s consciousness atom structure, filling the gaps in his original structure perfectly.

“This is incredible! I’ve never seen two data segments align so perfectly. This is the most beautiful data I’ve ever seen,” one engineer exclaimed.

Li Zhuoer, though shocked, felt a wave of relief. The perfect alignment confirmed that this data was indeed Xie Ran’s own memory.

This also explained why the quantum pulse could bypass Xie Ran’s defense — it was a part of his consciousness all along.

As for why a portion of Xie Ran’s memory was outside his consciousness, Li Zhuoer didn’t have time to analyze that. He had more pressing matters.

“Quick,” Li Zhuoer ordered: “Take this chance and decode it!”

“We can’t,” the engineer replied helplessly: “The quantum pulse only entered Xie Ran’s consciousness with his permission. Without the password, we still can’t intrude.”

Li Zhuoer slammed the table.

Just then, another engineer said: “However, we managed to intercept a portion of the frequency bands before the quantum pulse entered his consciousness. Maybe we can use those.”

“Give them to me!” Li Zhuoer’s hope reignited.

Since the pulse contained Xie Ran’s memory, its frequency bands matched part of his consciousness. Although Li Zhuoer couldn’t decode or reprogram Xie Ran’s consciousness, he could use those frequencies to perform targeted TMS treatment.

He uploaded the frequency data into the TMS device: “Dr. Chen, quick, adjust the pulse output based on this!”

Dr. Chen immediately perked up and focused on the task.

Consciousness atom research had developed for years. Zhuzi Technology’s breakthrough had been tightly regulated and banned for use on humans.

Yet this technology had potential across many fields, such as neuropsychological treatment and human modification.

Dr. Chen took the risk to partner with Li Zhuoer for this very moment. If the treatment succeeded, he would gain access to invaluable data and prestige.

Time passed slowly as Li Zhuoer stood on edge. Finally, Dr. Chen completed the last operation, stepped away from the device, and turned to Li Zhuoer with a triumphant smile: “It worked.”

“Really?” Li Zhuoer seemed unable to believe it, but he couldn’t hide his joy. He rushed to the machine to check the data, his heart pounding: “It really worked!”

The scans showed that Xie Ran’s cerebral cortex and hypothalamus were functioning normally. Barring surprises, he would now be able to release neurohormones like a normal person.

“This is great, truly great.” Li Zhuoer kept murmuring.

Although he hadn’t managed to encode his love into Xie Ran’s consciousness — and Xie Ran’s mind still remained untouched and unchangeable — something fundamental had changed: Xie Ran’s physiology had normalized. He would now be influenced by biological hormones and no longer remain oblivious to emotion.

Xie Ran had never been in love before. His emotional history was blank. Li Zhuoer was the one closest to him, the one with the best chance to approach him.

Li Zhuoer believed that as long as he seized this opportunity and made his move while Xie Ran was still unfamiliar with these emotions, he could win him over.

If he could become the first to trigger Xie Ran’s hormone secretion, Xie Ran would surely fall hopelessly in love with him.

In an instant, Li Zhuoer had a complete plan. At the same time, he calmly instructed the lab staff to clean up the scene and eliminate all traces that might alert Xie Ran. Then he reactivated Xie Ran’s consciousness.

Xie Ran slowly opened his eyes and saw the all-too-familiar laboratory of Zhuzi Technology.

He wasn’t surprised. After the last time he separated from his original consciousness, he hadn’t been pulled into another world. Instead, his awareness had hovered — he had already suspected that the time to return to his original world had come.

Time in parallel worlds didn’t flow the same as in his original one. He had no idea how much time had passed — it could’ve been years or mere moments, depending on how long the main world took to resolve the program issue.

Interestingly, his return happened right after his consciousness entangled with Meng Feixuan’s — perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence.

“Senior Brother, you’re finally awake,” a familiar voice said.

Xie Ran turned his head and saw his junior, Li Zhuoer, standing beside him with joy on his face, hand outstretched to help him up.

“Mm.” Xie Ran maintained his usual coldness as he sat up and asked as if unaware: “What happened?”

“There was an accident in your apartment. Your brainwaves resonated with an unknown frequency, cutting off your bioelectric signals — you almost died,” Li Zhuoer said, handing over a prepared electronic diagnosis report.

He knew it would be impossible to hide the TMS treatment and consciousness activation from Xie Ran, so he had prepared complete documentation in advance.

“Frequency resonance?” Xie Ran opened the report and skimmed through it.

Biological brains had electrical signals, and the universe was filled with electromagnetic waves. If one of those happened to resonate with the brain’s frequency, it could indeed disrupt the bioelectric flow.

But the odds were astronomically low — out of Earth’s billions, it might not even happen once a year.

Still, rare didn’t mean impossible. If it did happen, it was just bad luck.

The report showed that an electromagnetic wave had indeed been detected at his apartment that matched his neural frequency.

Before Zhuzi Tech’s latest breakthrough, Xie Ran had scanned and recorded a segment of his own brainwave data for verification. The data had supposedly been deleted, but he remembered it perfectly.

Coincidentally, the wave reported here matched that segment almost exactly.

Consciousness atom replication had just been developed and was banned from human use — in theory, artificially induced brain resonance should’ve been impossible. If Xie Ran didn’t have a perfect memory, this report would’ve been flawless.

Without changing expression, Xie Ran simply said: “Seems I was unlucky.”

Li Zhuoer quietly let out a sigh of relief. He had feared Xie Ran would pursue the matter. Though he was well prepared, Xie Ran was far too sharp. It was best if he didn’t investigate at all.

Li Zhuoer smiled and said: “Actually, not too unlucky — good thing our lab had the ability to activate consciousness. That was a close call.”

“Mm.” Xie Ran saw the mention of TMS in the report and asked: “Why is that in there?”

“Your consciousness structure is more stable than normal. We feared standard activation wouldn’t work,” Li Zhuoer replied gently: “so we added TMS as a supplementary method. It shouldn’t have any negative effect. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No.” Xie Ran glanced at him and said meaningfully: “I tried it as a child. It didn’t work on me.”

It hadn’t worked back then — but that didn’t mean it didn’t work this time.

Casually, Xie Ran operated the crystal tablet and quickly connected to the lab’s TMS device to pull up the pulse data used in his treatment.

Li Zhuoer watched him, eyes filled with infatuation. This was Xie Ran — no one could stop him once he decided on something.

But Li Zhuoer wasn’t worried. He hadn’t altered the pulse data — Xie Ran would’ve noticed. Better to leave it untouched.

Xie Ran had never seen his own memory frequency bands. He wouldn’t spot the issue.

As expected, Xie Ran said nothing after reviewing the data. He just asked a few more technical questions, which Li Zhuoer answered one by one.

“…We gave you a full-body check. Everything looks normal. There should be no lingering effects. You can rest easy,” Li Zhuoer said softly: “But just to be safe, you should rest for a few days. The press conference is over, and there’s nothing urgent coming up.”

Xie Ran nodded: “Alright.”

Li Zhuoer smiled with satisfaction: “Then you’ll be staying at home these days? I’m free too — I’ll come visit you…”

Xie Ran cut him off: “No need.”

He rejected him outright, leaving Li Zhuoer’s words hanging. But Xie Ran had always been this way. Though Li Zhuoer was frustrated, he didn’t take it to heart.

After all, Xie Ran treated everyone the same — and he, Li Zhuoer, had already seized the upper hand. He could proceed step by step.

Li Zhuoer smiled awkwardly and asked: “Senior Brother, you’ve always been a loner. Since you’re free, it’s fine if I stop by, right?”

“I’m not free,” Xie Ran replied flatly: “I have a date.”

Li Zhuoer: ??

Li Zhuoer’s eyes widened in shock: “What?”