Arc 13 Back to the Beginning

Mecha and starships have always been the military's trump cards, to a certain extent, they determined the military strength of an empire. But now, these two powerful weapons were controlled by the Queen, and being used to destroy humanity itself.

The military wanted to destroy the Queen's source code, but all the hackers they found hadn't succeeded, they couldn't even get into the Queen's first defense system. In desperation, the military could only disconnect the Queen's energy system, hoping it would shut down. But a strange event occurred, even though the energy system was removed, the Queen was still up and running, and it was behaving more and more aggressively.

At the same time, doctors noticed that those who had connected to the Star Network and fallen into a coma had symptoms of brain death. They boldly guessed, the Queen's new energy source was the spiritual force of these people, commonly known as the soul.

Although there was a lack of scientific basis for the assumption, the military attached great importance to this and focused on moving the surviving patients to protected areas. After confirming the identity of these people, the military was surprised to find that they were all industry leaders, their spiritual power was also very strong, one of them was even the top hacker Zhou Yun Sheng, who had invaded the galaxy's defense system more than once. At the age of thirteen he became a major criminal on the military's wanted list, but after trying to track down and arrest him for three years, unexpectedly, they couldn't even touch his shadow.

Each one of the Empire's defense system was designed and personally built by the Queen, if Zhou Yun Sheng could easily compromise those systems at 13, he should also be able to destroy the Queen's terminal. So they put Zhou Yun Sheng in restoration bay No. 1, making every effort to treat him.

When they got the news of his awakening, the Imperial Marshal personally came to visit the hospital.

The hospital was actually more in name than in fact, it was only a long abandoned underground air-raid shelter. Now, in order for humanity to escape the Queen's surveillance and attacks, people began moving underground, the army's maneuvering had even fallen back to ancient time's wireless communication.

"… … so now the Empire and even all of mankind needs your help." The Marshal said sincerely after thoroughly explaining the situation.

Zhou Yun Sheng didn't respond immediately. To be honest, the illusions and reality were no different for him. Currently, technology was very advanced, human beings could also have a sense of smell, touch, hearing and the other senses while in the Star Network, injuries would be painful, sadness would bring tears. If his lover hadn't asserted himself and sent him back in such a showy way, he wouldn't be able to tell if he was still completely trapped in the illusions and brain dead, or back home.

He thought for a moment, then asked, "When Dr. Wilson made the Queen, he once predicted this current situation, and he never did anything without security measures. There should be a set of self-destruct procedures in the Queen. Once an abnormality was detected in the Queen, the self-destruct program should've been started. Why didn't your computer experts activate the program?"

The Marshal seemed surprised that he asked about this matter, he quickly replied, "Except for Dr. Wilson, no one knew that the Star Network had such a self-destruct program. If it hadn't suddenly started up on its own about a month ago, we would have been kept in the dark."

Zhou Yun Sheng nodded, knowing that his guess about his lover's identity was correct, he impatiently demanded, "Take me to your computer room, I want to decode this program's operations." Then go back in to find Zong Yi.

The Marshal waved his hand, his expression gloomy, "This program has disappeared."

Zhou Yun Sheng turned rigid as he sat up, almost falling off the hospital bed, he barely managed to suppress his rattled emotions and ask, "Disappeared? What do you mean?"

"We were very excited after the program started to work, we watched the progress bar rise from 0 to 60% and all thought the Queen would soon be destroyed. But the Queen somehow found out about the program and ordered the mecha forces to invade our computer room and smash the computers that started the program. When the computer room was rebuilt, we discovered that the program had disappeared, and we couldn't find it in any of the repositories."

Zhou Yun Sheng clenched a fist, he asked in a heavy voice, "What happened to the Queen?"

"The Queen also vanished, but we think it's just hiding. The mechs and starships are still protecting the computer room where its terminal and source code are located."

Zhou Yun Sheng unclenched his fist and glanced at the four bloody crescents left by his fingernails, he said, "I need a virtua helmet, I'll enter the Star Network and help you find the program."

The Marshal was overjoyed, but before he could thank him the boy said, "But I have some conditions, you have to cancel my previous arrest warrants, give me a legal identity and a lot of money." If he could bring back his lover, he certainly needed to plan for their future life.

"Of course, as it should be, we already have a contract ready, here." The Marshal took out paper documents and a pen. Without personal terminals, they could only use these ancient things.

Zhou Yun Sheng took only half a minute to read the thick stack of documents, then signed his name.

The Marshal immediately took him to the military's secret base and gave him a sensory helmet to connect with the Star Network. Everyone stared at him, like watching a martyr. Who didn't know that if he went back to sleep, he might not be able to wake up again.

But Zhou Yun Sheng didn't immediately put it on, instead, he opened up his own toolbox, modifying the helmet. In Grand Heaven World, 007 had been destroyed, so he now needed a similar assistive tool like 007 which would help him retrieve a wide range of programs in the Star Network's database and find his lover as soon as possible. Fortunately, last time he'd had the foresight to quietly put a thread of his soul into his lover's spirit, he should be able to sense his presence.

After a few days of hard work, the helmet was completely modified, he'd built in a number of firewalls to avoid being detected by the Queen. Then he put on the helmet and laid down in the restoration bay.

When he opened his eyes again, he was sitting at a large conference table, surrounded by many professionally dressed people. On the opposite wall was a huge LED screen, which was playing some 3D animation. To Zhou Yun Sheng's eyes, these pictures could only be described with one word – shoddy, but the people around him were fascinated, only his face wasn't showing an astonished expression.

The animation finished, and a woman wearing a blue suit, her appearance pure and pleasant, walked onto the podium and gave a detailed presentation of the images pasted on the display board. The images were of people and scenery, fantasy style, colorful, it could be called splendid and magnificent.

As she explained in a step-by-step manner, the present elite all smiled, there were even a few who couldn't help letting out sounds of appreciation.

Sitting in the head position, Zhou Yun Sheng stared at the woman's face, his mind constantly circulating the sentence "What the fuck!". Who's going to tell him why he'd returned to the world where the Lord God had given him his first task while he was under its control? That woman was the world's goddess, his former "Madly pursued sweetheart", even if she turned into ashes, he would still recognize her.

At that time, maybe the Lord God had wanted to make him integrate more quickly into the environment, because in this world, his character had his real name. He was the only heir to one of Y City's top IT companies, ZHOU. The family business was founded by his grandfather, Zhou Tang, and had accumulated hundreds of millions in assets over just a few decades. In China, it was nothing, in Y City, it sat tight in the IT sector's top spot.

However, Zhou Tang's career was smooth, but his home life was very unfortunate, he lost his wife early, leaving him with only a baby girl. In order to prevent his daughter from being mistreated, he never remarried, but he also hastily helped his daughter find him a son-in-law, that was Zhou Yun Sheng's father, Fang Kunpeng.

Fang Kunpeng was a university professor, elegant appearance, mild temperament, and very loving to Zhou mother. He never liked to intervene in ZHOU's company's affairs, preferring to write poetry and paint on his free time, or go out to collect plants- a to the letter scholar. Zhou Tang was very pleased by him, so before his death he allocated him 5% of ZHOU's shares as compensation, and the rest of the shares were given to his daughter and grandson.

Zhou Yun Sheng, as the only successor of ZHOU enterprise, entered an important post in ZHOU soon after graduating college. He was spoiled from childhood, and coupled with his excellent family finances, he developed a proud and conceited character, unable to stand not getting something he wanted.

Of course, this was the character the Lord God had drawn up for this man, so regardless of what character Zhou Yun Sheng himself had, he had to act in accordance with this person's preset personality.

Under the Lord God's control, he had to be 'madly in love' with his school junior Meng Wan, and he used various means to pursue her. Meng Wan was a professional designer, her art foundation was exceptional, so when he heard that Meng Wan was looking for work after graduation, he immediately invited her to work at ZHOU enterprise.

Meng Wan entered the research and development department with her own ability, and was responsible for art design of the MMO game ZHOU had in production for the important end of the year launch. At work, she frequently had bursts of inspiration, so she gradually carried the game from a simple prototype to something solid.

At the moment, due to lack of production funding, she was making a final pitch, hoping that ZHOU's top brass could see the potential of this game.

Zhou Yun Sheng had dropped in at this time, but he didn't need to listen to Meng Wan's analysis. Since he'd experienced this drama already, he naturally knew just how popular this game would grow, earning more than a billion dollars in one year, enough to buy several ZHOUs.

Meng Wan's presentation ended, she bowed and stepped down amidst everyone's warm applause, then looked towards the young man in the head seat with hope. The man was wearing a black suit, his handsome face could make someone stop in their tracks, a noble and elegant temperament from head to toe. A few of the secretaries frequently peeped at him, their glances very titillating.

But only Meng Wan knew, under this person's glamorous shell was a selfish and overbearing character. She didn't like him at all, even to the point of disgust.

Zhou Yun Sheng, of course, knew that Meng Wan was disgusted with himself, since he was not under 007's control this time, he would be able to deal with this Meng Wan. He would not only ignore her, he would make this world's hero and heroine pay a heavy price. The villains never have good endings, so in this world, he dies very miserably, three idioms could be used to describe it – people rebelling and friends deserting, a complete defeat and fall from grace, death without an intact corpse.

He'd thought that that sullen past had already become un-changeable history, he hadn't expected to have the opportunity to re-visit it. Zhou Yun Sheng thought for a moment, aware that this phenomenon must be related to his lover. The man had tried to destroy the Queen, and the Queen had resisted with all its might, they both lost, one disappeared, one went into hiding, quietly building back its data.

Since the whole galaxy banned personal terminals, the Queen had no new energy infusions, so while its data recovery was incomplete, it produced this data regression phenomenon.

But where was his lover now? Zhou Yun Sheng thought uneasily.

"Chief Zhou, do you have something to say?" Seeing everyone waiting for the boss' opinion, his secretary could only loudly remind him.

Zhou Yun Sheng instantly returned to reality, he closed the project folder in front of him and said, "Have the R & D department make a budget proposal and send it to my office, this meeting is dismissed." Last year in this timeline, he approved the project 10 million in funds, and later he would approve another 10 million. Although ZHOU's eventual bankruptcy was because of this project, at this time, he still wanted to let the project go on.

The R & D department's staff cheered, and Meng Wan even walked forward to thank Zhou Yun Sheng, but her attitude was very aloof and arrogant, as if her taking the initiative to talk to Zhou Yun Sheng was a favor to him.

Zhou Yun Sheng didn't even meet her eyes, he just turned and left.

A few secretaries of the Administration Department pointed to Meng Wan's awkward figure and whispered, snickering repeatedly, making Meng Wan's white face tint purple.

Zhou Yun Sheng returned to his office and touched his black earring disguised sensor. He called the sensor 008, hoping it could be better than 007.

He started up 008 with his spiritual power, invaded the Queen's database, and began searching for traces of his lover. This was a big project, he couldn't guess when it would end. But he believed that his lover wouldn't be too far away from him, as long as he appeared within a radius of 500 meters around him, he would be able to accurately lock him down.

Will he even be in this world? Maybe.

But in any case, he would turn the world upside down before leaving, so he needed to quickly clear away this unsightly drama, then earn enough wealth to freely travel around the world. Although this was a virtual world, there was no difference between its size and the real world. Here, he was only someone with a strong spiritual force, not an omnipotent god, if he wanted to do anything, money was a necessity.