CHAPTER 42 – The System Evolves
While Gu Yanzhou fought a vicious digital war outside her mind, Xiao Xi drifted somewhere between consciousness and the System's core—a dark, cold, heavy void.
Her physical body was too fragile to host her consciousness fully.
But the void wasn't empty.
A soft, pulsing blue light wavered in the darkness, a lonely, persistent presence.
[Host…?]
[I am still here. My core is fighting the corruption.]
Her breath trembled in her chest, the sound amplified in the digital silence.
"System…? You're alive?"
The light wavered, weak but steady.
[Host… you must not collapse. Your life is my core mission.]
[Your emotional shift during the last collapse allowed something unexpected.]
[Your system is evolving. The boundaries are dissolving.]
Xiao Xi's fragmented mind attempted to process the impossibility.
"Evolving how? What are you changing?"
[It is merging with your emotional and survival parameters.
The link to the Primary Variable—Gu Yanzhou—is now bidirectional, not purely transactional.]
A rush of powerful heat—pain, fear, longing, and desperate love—surged around her internal self.
The feeling wasn't just hers; it felt shared, amplified by the System's processing.
"You mean… I can now affect your core coding? My feelings are integrated?"
[Yes. This has made me stronger, but also vulnerable. And someone is trying to tear you away from me, and away from the Primary Variable.]
She felt tears escape her real body, rolling down her pale cheeks.
"I don't want to disappear," she whispered to the blue light.
"I don't want to lose him."
The System pulsed gently, its light growing infinitesimally brighter.
[Then fight with me, Host. Your will is now my command.]
The darkness around her cracked, a faint line of golden light appearing in the digital void, a direct line back to her waking reality and the man fighting for her.