Recaps

The backers debated whether to meet Chen Xiaohui, whose expertise could speed up their investigation of Pu Yunchuan’s game, and Elder Liu agreed to see her alone. Ziyue waited anxiously, then froze when the person who entered was someone she had never expected.

• The project leader told the backers that Chen Xiaohui’s game-data experience could help them identify why Pu Yunchuan’s game worked for the data lifeforms.
• Elder Liu checked Chen Xiaohui’s background and learned she had been ostracized after rejecting a blind date arranged by Professor Zhu.
• Chen Xiaohui requested a meeting specifically with the Chinese backers, and Elder Liu agreed to handle it alone.
• Elder Liu and the other elderly man discussed whether Chen Xiaohui wanted a research position or intended to target Professor Zhu.
• Ziyue waited in a conference room, then froze when the person who entered was someone she had not expected.

Ziyue met Elder Liu and questioned him about the injustice that had derailed her career, while probing his possible connection to the game and its hidden masterminds. Elder Liu pointed a gun at her, and she remembered that he had murdered her in her previous life.

• Ziyue recognized Elder Liu as the celebrated military leader who had expanded the Central Federation's territory decades earlier.
• Elder Liu questioned Ziyue's background and remarked on her composure, while she challenged him for allowing powerful people to decide her fate.
• Ziyue considered whether Elder Liu could be behind the game's mysteries and thought about Pu Yunchuan, Chen Qing, and the vanished experimenters.
• Ziyue told Elder Liu she could investigate why reincarnation was possible if she could work with Pu Yunchuan.
• Elder Liu apologized, drew a gun on Ziyue, and triggered her memory that he had shot her dead before.

Ziyue recovered memories of being murdered by Elder Liu and suspected he had killed her to stop her from uncovering how reincarnation worked. After ordering the fleet to retreat from a sudden, impenetrable fog, she realized the fog had surrounded them and that her depleted spiritual power had left her unable to use spells.

• Ziyue remembered that Elder Liu had shot her and reasoned that he had wanted to conceal why he killed her.
• Ziyue suspected Elder Liu was trying to prevent her from discovering how to replicate reincarnation in the game.
• Shen Qi reported that a dense fog had appeared ahead of the fleet, and Ziyue ordered everyone to retreat.
• Ziyue found she could not use spells after exploring her memories and concluded that her memory awakening had been a trap.
• The fleet turned around but found fog in every direction, and Shen Qi discovered that Ziyue's cabin was surrounded as well.

As the South Sea forces used fog and aquatic creatures to isolate the ships, Ziyue realized the assault was aimed at her and that probing her memories was weakening her. A terrifying presence emerged through her, and Shen Qi was trapped; from afar, Liu Yu asked the King of Qin about the aura.

• Ziyue and Shen Qi confirmed that the Blazing Yang Grand Formation was active as aquatic creatures repeatedly attacked it through the fog.
• Ziyue deduced that the fog had isolated their ship from the other fourteen and that the South Sea forces were targeting her.
• Ziyue felt a familiar cold that drained the fire elements and realized that thinking about her memories could make her vulnerable.
• Ziyue turned deathly pale and warned Shen Qi to run, but a chilling presence caught him before he could escape.
• Liu Yu felt the terrifying aura from afar, and the King of Qin asked whether Liu Yu had never seen it while he was with Ziyue.

Liu Yu learned that the King of Qin had also sensed something wrong about Ziyue, while Pu Yunchuan watched Elder Liu kill Ziyue and conceal what happened. Pu Yunchuan concluded that Elder Liu was secretly working against the people behind the experiment, but his true plan remained unknown.

• The King of Qin told Liu Yu that Ziyue was dangerous and said he was leaving before something emerged.
• The King of Qin explained that an agreement prevented certain names from being spoken and that hidden enemies had begun to act.
• Pu Yunchuan watched surveillance footage of Elder Liu shooting Ziyue, and his distress disrupted the building's network and power.
• Security staff rushed into the conference room, and Elder Liu claimed Ziyue had tried to kill him while ordering an investigation into the designers.
• Pu Yunchuan reasoned that Elder Liu opposed replicating Samsara and was secretly pursuing a plan of his own.

Elder Liu and the mysterious old man discussed the failed experiment and arranged to update the game while keeping Pu Yunchuan confined. Pu Yunchuan secretly contacted Elder Liu and accused him of wanting to be the only immortal data lifeform, leaving Elder Liu visibly shaken by the suggestion that he sought peace for the world.

• Elder Liu told the mysterious old man that he had killed the woman in self-defense and suspected their location had been exposed.
• The old man ordered Elder Liu to arrange for the game company to send the latest patch, while insisting that Pu Yunchuan remain connected to the supercomputer and confined.
• Pu Yunchuan decided to use the memory environment to uncover the truth about the past.
• Pu Yunchuan used the nanny robot to hide a hotspot and contact Elder Liu through his phone.
• Pu Yunchuan guessed that Elder Liu wanted to prevent others from becoming immortal data lifeforms so he could be the only one, and Elder Liu reacted coldly when Pu Yunchuan suggested he wanted peace for the world.

Pu Yunchuan learned from Elder Liu that the powerful backers planned to turn data life into the dominant form of life to preserve their control, even if it meant engineering a world war. Elder Liu revealed that he intended to kill them, leaving Pu Yunchuan to face the threat behind humanity’s near-extinction.

• Pu Yunchuan told Elder Liu he would kill him if he got the chance, despite believing the old general might oppose the backers.
• Elder Liu explained that the backers would lose their power if they became data life forms unless they made data life the dominant form of life.
• Pu Yunchuan connected Elder Liu’s warning to the world war that had nearly wiped out humanity and suspected the backers had orchestrated it.
• Elder Liu confirmed that the backers could unleash a world war because they would no longer fear losing their worldly assets.
• Elder Liu said he intended to kill the backers, accepting that future generations would have to deal with what came next.

Elder Liu and Pu Yunchuan planned to stop the immortality project and prevent the people behind it from starting a world war. Pu Yunchuan agreed to help trap them in the game's standalone version, though he knew history suggested Elder Liu's efforts would fail.

• A Western elder warned Long that Liu's weak foundations might make him unable to stop the plan, and Long agreed that Liu was not one of their people.
• Elder Liu proposed destroying the experiment's data, but Pu Yunchuan questioned whether that meant destroying him as well.
• Elder Liu explained that he had originally planned to destroy the laboratory, then proposed locking its conspirators inside the game's standalone version instead.
• Elder Liu argued that trapped and vulnerable, the conspirators would be less likely to send their plans and data to their descendants.
• Pu Yunchuan agreed to help Elder Liu stop the conspirators, hoping to learn whether he could change what happened in history.

After experiments confirmed that transferred consciousness could survive and reincarnate in the game world, powerful backers prepared a second simulation while a terminally ill justice demanded success. In the game, Pu Yunchuan and Chen Qing’s former colleagues celebrated the prospect of immortality, but Chen Qing feared their futures would be grim.

• The backers concealed Chen Xiaohui’s death, and nineteen programmers entered the experiment; seven who died in the game reincarnated successfully.
• The backers reviewed the results and learned that, with Pu Yunchuan’s help, a second simulated world might be ready by the following Monday.
• Elder Liu pressed the project leader for confidence that the new simulation would work, and threatened him when he could not guarantee success.
• In the game, former colleagues asked Pu Yunchuan why reincarnation worked only in their world, and Chen Qing said other powerful people could not afford to wait years for a comparable game.
• The colleagues celebrated their expected wealth and future immortality, while Chen Qing worried that they would not meet the happy ends they imagined.

Minister Leng warned a Federation congress that Elder Long’s attempt to create digital life could succeed and give it control of the internet. Meanwhile, Elder Long and his backers prepared to begin the final experiment and move their plans forward before their opponents intervened.

• Minister Leng argued that Elder Long’s experiment might work and urged the congress to investigate and prepare for its consequences.
• The congress members decided to mobilize their people in the Western Federation to look into the laboratory.
• The person in charge told the financial backers that Pu Yunchuan had helped complete the simulated environment ahead of schedule, with only the final experiment remaining.
• The backers agreed to pay the researchers and participants more money so the experiment could begin that afternoon.
• Elder Long told his allies that other forces were watching them, and Smith said he could bring most of the military onto their side if the experiment succeeded.

The backers agreed to enter the simulation together after seeing that players could reincarnate with their memories. Five days earlier, Chen Qing and Elder Liu had planned to trigger the game’s fourth version to trap them inside, but Chen Qing suddenly realized his own world might also be connected to that version.

• After two players died and reincarnated, Smith asked whether the ghost venerables could control their fate, and the person in charge explained the limits of their power.
• The backers debated using the simulation as it was, and the female judge urged them to enter together under their agreement.
• Elder Long decided that everyone would enter the simulation at the same time.
• Five days earlier, Elder Liu told Pu Yunchuan and Chen Qing that mutual distrust would force the backers to enter together.
• Chen Qing explained that he could use leftover framework code to trigger the fourth version early, shattering reincarnation and making the players truly die.
• As Chen Qing gave Elder Liu instructions for activating the fourth version, he realized that his own world might have one too.

Chen Qing and Elder Liu discussed how the powerful backers planned to enter the simulation and become super data life-forms, and Chen Qing revealed that he had hidden data backups to launch the fourth version and destroy Samsara. Chen Qing realized he needed to find someone inside the new environment he could trust and thought of his younger brother, Chen Qing.

• Chen Qing inferred that his current world was the second copied simulation environment and wondered what had happened to the people who became super life-forms.
• Elder Liu explained that the backers planned to enter the simulation, isolate Chen Qing, and connect themselves to the supercomputer after a set interval.
• Chen Qing told Elder Liu that he had hidden data backups which could launch the fourth version, destroy Samsara, and kill the data life-forms who entered it.
• Chen Qing refused to leave Elder Liu a backup and realized he should find a trustworthy person among those entering the new environment.
• Chen Qing thought of his younger brother, Chen Qing, and recognized how he fit into what had happened.

Before entering the simulation, Chen Qing reassured his mother and spoke with Pu Yunchuan about finding a backup in the game world and escaping after activating the fourth version. In 2774, an attack destroyed a Western Federation research center and killed or injured more than a thousand people, including prominent political, financial, and military figures; the incident was only the beginning.

• Chen Qing gave his mother access to his money and sent her on a ten-day Maldives vacation before his experiment.
• After his mother left, Chen Qing and Pu Yunchuan discussed whether the game world could offer a simpler place to build an academic environment.
• Pu Yunchuan gave Chen Qing instructions for finding his backup, racing another person to activate the fourth version, and escaping through a limited-time passage.
• In 2774, an attack blew up a conglomerate-funded research center at a Western Federation university, killing or injuring more than a thousand people.
• News revealed that the casualties included the head of the Laosi Family, Justice Laolun Ye, former prime minister Baike Mengduo, and military strategist Liu.

Wang Ye questioned historian Hou Jie about the concealed events behind the world war that followed Heavenly Secrets’ disappearance. Hou Jie suggested powerful figures had engineered the war to establish data life, and Wang Ye began to suspect they might still be alive.

• Wang Ye sought out Hou Jie, a young new army member and history expert, to learn what had happened during the period after Heavenly Secrets disappeared.
• Hou Jie explained that Liu Yongqi, a celebrated military leader, had been blamed for an attack on the Grand Academy’s Scientific Research Institute despite having little apparent reason to start a war.
• Hou Jie described how the world war began just fifty-eight days after the attack, with conflicts spreading rapidly across more than ninety countries despite nuclear deterrence.
• Wang Ye and Hou Jie theorized that powerful figures had deliberately provoked the war to prepare the world for data life and secure a new order.
• Hou Jie said the powerful figures and their descendants had largely vanished, leading Wang Ye to suspect some might still be alive in his world.

Wang Ye concluded that the people behind the original experiment were hiding from something and decided to seek more reliable intelligence. After he vanished along with Hou Jie, the Eastern Federation’s leaders realized Hou Jie’s former work in the Grand Archives might explain why Wang Ye had taken him.

• Wang Ye questioned why the original experiment’s powerful sponsors had stayed hidden and suspected they were avoiding an unknown threat.
• Wang Ye chose not to take Heavenly Secrets’s white cloth to Chen Qing yet and decided to obtain specialized intelligence, since Chen Qing had not responded and Heavenly Secrets was missing.
• Wang Xin, assigned by the Wang Household to monitor Wang Ye, learned that Wang Ye had visited Hou Jie and went to Hou Jie’s dormitory.
• Wang Xin’s men found Hou Jie missing, and Wang Ye also disappeared, prompting the Eastern Federation’s leaders to sound the alarm.
• A secretary told the leaders that Hou Jie could access something they had overlooked because he had once worked in the Grand Archives.

A mysterious female secretary warned the Eastern Federation’s senior officials that Wang Ye could use the abandoned command room to shut down Data City and eliminate them as a threat to Chen Qing. The acting prime minister revealed that he controlled the command room’s coordinates and suspected the secretary wanted to find it herself.

• The officials realized Wang Ye might conceal his movements through access privileges held by retired councilors, but the secretary said it was too late to restrict them and urged them to identify his objective.
• When challenged about her authority, the secretary accessed confidential records of regional access holders, revealing an unprecedented level of privilege.
• The secretary explained that Wang Ye was a top-tier practitioner of the Flying Star Secret Technique and had been left in Data City for more than diplomatic communication.
• She argued that Chen Qing saw the Federation as a threat and could use Wang Ye to shut down Data City by restarting the abandoned command room.
• The acting prime minister said only two people knew the command room’s coordinates and asked whether the secretary herself was trying to locate it.

Wang Ye abducted Elder Jin to gain access to the abandoned command center, believing its former occupants could reveal who had secretly protected the New World project. He argued that powerful figures may have kept the ancient data lives hidden by shutting them down, and left Elder Jin confronting that possibility.

• Hou Jie protested that the command center would be impossible to find, while Wang Ye held Elder Jin hostage.
• Elder Jin offered to answer Wang Ye’s questions, but Wang Ye said the answers required the people in the command center.
• Wang Ye told Elder Jin that the King of Qin had already escaped and warned that a mole within the Federation made reporting the matter unsafe.
• Wang Ye pointed to thousands of failed proposals to shut down the New World project as evidence of deliberate interference by powerful insiders.
• Wang Ye suggested the supposedly irreversible shutdown of data lives might have been staged to conceal the command center’s former occupants.

A woman from the hidden Long Household disabled Nie Xingjun’s privileges and took him to reveal the command room, while a stranger assumed the speaker’s authority and ordered a vast emergency power shutdown. Elder Jin confirmed that the Federation was under outside control, and Wang Ye warned that little time remained.

• A woman disabled Nie Xingjun’s privileges, identified herself as Long, and ordered him to take her to the command room.
• A middle-aged man took over the speaker’s privileges and ordered the Federation to evacuate people and shut down the other worlds to power the new world.
• Elder Jin learned that the Jade Dynasty Realm and other regions would be shut down, despite their value as refuges.
• Elder Jin asked Wang Ye what was happening, and Wang Ye said the acting speaker was likely controlled and warned that little time remained.

Wang Ye realized the sudden upheaval might be aimed at Chen Qing and warned Hou Jie and Elder Jin to hide in the new world. He confronted acting speaker Nie Xingjun and met Long Lidan, who tried to recruit him into the Longevity Plan.

• Wang Ye suspected the new forces had chosen this moment to act because Chen Qing had gone silent.
• Wang Ye noticed Nie Xingjun had not appeared publicly and told Hou Jie and Elder Jin to hide in the new world before Data City was shut down.
• Wang Ye used a Flying Star Mark to reach Nie Xingjun, who admitted nothing but faced the same mysterious threat.
• Long Lidan emerged from the darkness and offered Wang Ye a place in the Longevity Plan, explaining that she feared dying after experiencing helplessness near death.
• Long Lidan identified herself as the Federation-side leader, and Elder Jin and Hou Jie recognized her as the former heir of the Long Household, suspected of driving the world war.

Wang Ye questioned a woman who confirmed that powerful figures had engineered the world war to turn humanity into data lifeforms. He learned that Pu Yunchuan had disrupted their experiment, and he identified the fourth version as the force keeping the woman’s faction from acting openly.

• Wang Ye asked the woman about his investigation, and she confirmed that powerful figures had caused the world war to transform humanity into data lifeforms.
• The woman explained that the experiment had prolonged the conspirators’ lives, but they feared losing their power and status.
• The woman revealed that Pu Yunchuan had sabotaged the experiment by using his younger brother as bait to ambush and kill her father and others.
• Hou Jie asked whether the Liu Family had been involved, and the woman blamed a Liu elder for helping Pu Yunchuan.
• Wang Ye concluded that the woman’s faction remained hidden despite its influence because it feared the fourth version, and she recognized his deduction.

Nie Xingjun faced orders to shut down major systems in the Eastern Federation but could not reach Elder Zhang or the other former leaders, leaving Number Two as the last possible contact. In Jiangnan, Jiang Xiaoling enjoyed his new family life until the Federation's call reached him and signaled that trouble had arrived.

• Nie Xingjun ordered power cutoffs in evacuated eastern districts, then hesitated when asked to shut down the Jianxia and Fengyun world portals without guidance from Elder Zhang.
• Nie Xingjun learned that none of the former leaders could be contacted through their dedicated lines and feared that a hidden force had compromised them.
• A subordinate told Nie Xingjun that Number Two was still a possible contact, and Nie Xingjun recalled that Zhang Zhengyuan had secretly appointed Jiang Xiaoling to the role.
• Jiang Xiaoling studied for the preparatory school examination and spoke with his mother about buying light stones and his sister's possible martial talent.
• Jiang Xiaoling heard a voice in his mind calling for Number Two, and he realized that trouble had arrived.

Jiang Xiaoling told Nie Xingjun that Chen Qing had secretly gone to West Island with Wei Gongcheng, prompting Nie Xingjun to suspect a connection between the trip and the crisis in Data City. Jiang Xiaoling opened Chen Qing’s secret letter, which ordered them to restart the command room.

• Jiang Xiaoling answered Nie Xingjun’s call and learned that mysterious people had seized control of Data City and were redirecting Federation resources to the New World.
• Nie Xingjun asked Jiang Xiaoling to report on Chen Qing, and Jiang Xiaoling said Chen Qing had gone to West Island with Wei Gongcheng after the Celestial Master Assembly.
• Nie Xingjun realized Chen Qing’s secret trip might be connected to the crisis and ordered his subordinates to contact the seven Western Federation nations.
• Jiang Xiaoling revealed that Chen Qing had left him a secret letter to open during special circumstances.
• Jiang Xiaoling opened the letter and read Chen Qing’s command to restart the command room.

Jiang Xiaoling delivered Chen Qing’s advice to restart the command room, leaving Nie Xingjun torn between trusting Chen Qing and obeying a mysterious group with deep roots in Data City. Just as the group pressed him to hurry, Jiang Xiaoling reported that he had contacted General Xu Hu.

• Jiang Xiaoling told Nie Xingjun that Chen Qing’s note advised restarting the command room.
• Jiang Xiaoling said General Xu Hu seemed reliable but admitted he had no way to contact him directly.
• Nie Xingjun weighed the danger of restarting the command room against the threat posed by the mysterious group and Number One.
• Nie Xingjun stalled the group by citing ongoing evacuations and preparations to shut down other worlds.
• Jiang Xiaoling called back and told Nie Xingjun that he had contacted General Xu Hu.

Nie Xingjun weighed whether to trust Chen Qing and chose to gamble rather than simply comply with the demand to shut down the three other worlds. He sent his secretary to infiltrate the command room and keep him informed.

• Xu Hu urged Nie Xingjun through Jiang Xiaoling to trust Chen Qing, citing Chen Qing’s record of protecting Jiangnan and overcoming every enemy.
• Xu Hu reassured Jiang Xiaoling that he and his people would stand by him, then left to handle important business.
• After considering Xu Hu’s words for half an hour, Nie Xingjun ordered preparations to shut down the three other worlds in half an hour.
• Nie Xingjun’s secretary argued that obeying their dangerous opponents might not save the family and proposed taking a gamble.
• Nie Xingjun agreed to the gamble and told his secretary to reach the command room’s coordinates within ten minutes and act as their man on the inside.

Wang Ye deduced how the woman’s hidden group had seized control of the Federation and learned that Chen Qing was their greatest vulnerability, but she denied that Chen Qing was Pu Yunchuan. The chapter ended with the chief councilor preparing to reactivate the command room and grant someone access privileges.

• Wang Ye inferred that the woman’s group had used superior access privileges to intimidate the Federation’s leaders.
• Wang Ye reasoned that only a small number of the group could hold those privileges, and the woman acknowledged that many of their former members had been eliminated.
• Wang Ye learned that Chen Qing was under the group’s control and had once thwarted the arrival of their new era.
• The woman identified Pu Yunchuan as the first data life-form and said he had betrayed her group with another person, nearly destroying them.
• Wang Ye asked whether Chen Qing was Pu Yunchuan, and the woman said no; Wang Ye then suspected Pu Yunchuan was still alive.
• The chief councilor said he would reactivate the command room and give someone the access privileges to decide whether to shut it down again.