Herta saw Fu Zhu just standing there, frozen, not saying a word for the longest time. She reached out and waved a hand in front of his face.
"Well~ Are you truly stunned by my beauty?"
Fu Zhu grabbed the hand Herta extended, his body instinctively leaning back to create some distance between them.
Herta didn't resist, letting Fu Zhu hold her hand. A faint, playful smile graced her lips as she waited for his next reaction.
"Herta, while we may have had a tiny bit of friction in the past, you wouldn't go so far as to throw poison at me, would you?"
Herta's proudly raised eyebrows instantly drooped. Her gaze on Fu Zhu grew cold.
"Is that the first thing you have to say to me???"
Fu Zhu's reaction was utterly baffling to Herta. She wasn't being vain, but she felt that if Nous hadn't already set its sights on her, she'd have become an Emanator of Beauty before one of Erudition!
Across the entire cosmos, everyone who knew of her used the words "beauty" and "wisdom" to describe her!
And for this particular meeting, she had spent a full three hours on her makeup, only to be met with such a baffling comment!
Herta took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. She pressed her other hand to her forehead, shaking her head nonstop.
"Sometimes, I really want to cut open your head and see just what kind of structure is inside. Whether it's your style of doing things or the strange technology you command, what kind of thought process could possibly produce all of this?"
Fu Zhu realized that his previous statement might have been a bit problematic. He let go of Herta's hand and explained with a helpless shrug, "My apologies. I have a bit of an allergy to witches in purple. I used to get hit with potent poison potions all the time."
Herta pulled her hand back, crossing her arms as she tilted her head and snorted softly.
"Hmph, who's to say they weren't throwing healing potions at you instead of poison? Maybe they just wanted to cure that head of yours!"
Seeing the atmosphere grow a little tense, Screwllum, who had been standing to the side, quickly stepped in to mediate.
"Herta, I am fully aware that you expended a great deal of effort and energy to dress yourself up in order to give Mr. Fu Zhu a stunning 'first impression.' However, on that basis, should we not forget the purpose for which you summoned us here today?"
"!!!"
An unnatural blush crept onto Herta's cheeks. She retorted in flustered annoyance, "Who—who expended a great deal of effort! I... I just woke up late!"
Screwllum, however, shook his head, refuting Herta's excuse.
"This is easily analyzable. Based on the behavioral pattern data I have on you in my database, once you become curious about something, you are never 'late' due to sleep. Furthermore, your makeup today is significantly more refined compared to our previous meetings. Conclusion: Judging by the universal standards of female makeup application, you spent at least two system hours on your cosmetics."
Fu Zhu, standing nearby, couldn't help but give Screwllum a thumbs-up after hearing his analysis.
"Impressive, Screwllum. You've actually got the guts to say that out loud."
"Why do you say that?"
Screwllum was perplexed, but when he looked back at Herta, he found that her expression had turned utterly glacial. She was clearly furious.
Herta took another deep breath, barely managing to calm her agitated heart. With a soft snort, she strode briskly between the two men, not sparing either of them a single glance as she passed.
Screwllum watched her go and couldn't help but sigh.
"It seems my understanding of human emotions is still lacking."
Fu Zhu just shrugged. That was a point that even Screwllum, let alone they as humans themselves, would have trouble fully grasping.
"What are you still standing there for? Get ready to enter the Simulated Universe."
Herta, who was now standing before the Simulated Universe machine, turned her head and shot a cold command at Fu Zhu and Screwllum before returning to debugging the device in front of her.
Fu Zhu and Screwllum heard her and walked over to watch her work. Fu Zhu didn't understand anything about coding; after a short while, he started feeling dizzy and decided to ask about other matters.
"Herta, is it just the three of us?"
Without looking up, Herta replied casually, "There's one more. But she picked up a novel little thing on her way to the space station and is currently busy in the station's medical bay. For today, at least, only the three of us will be participating in the second round of testing for the Simulated Universe."
"Another member of the Genius Society?"
"Of course. Not just any common mortal can participate in research like the Simulated Universe. Her name is Ruan Mei. She specializes in the biological domain."
After learning the name of the other genius, Fu Zhu didn't press any further. Whatever else he wanted to know, he could just ask tomorrow when he met her. It wasn't urgent.
---o---
After observing Herta's debugging work for a moment, Screwllum noticed a point of concern. "Herta, why are you not calling upon the data from the previous test? You mentioned before that this is the second test of the Simulated Universe. Don't tell me the last one..."
"That's right."
Herta stopped what she was doing and turned to nod at Screwllum. "It's just as you guessed. The last test, aside from making me even more curious, yielded no progress whatsoever."
"No progress?"
This answer from Herta greatly surprised Screwllum. Herta's intellect was among the greatest in the entire cosmos, and the Simulated Universe was a project she herself spearheaded. Logically, a situation of "no progress" should be impossible for Herta.
Unless something had occurred that even Herta couldn't solve.
"Did you encounter a problem?"
"The protagonist of the Simulated Universe was absent."
Herta crossed her arms and cocked her head, shooting a sidelong glance at Fu Zhu.
"I don't know what the reason is, but if Fu Zhu isn't present, even if the Simulated Universe is activated, no one can enter it. Even if we let it run on its own, no matter how long it runs, it won't produce a single byte of data. It's like an empty shell!"
Herta's words sparked an intense curiosity for Fu Zhu in Screwllum's mind as well. He had heard from Herta before coming here that this version of the Simulated Universe was a world simulated by fusing the technology from Fu Zhu's home with reality.
But he never expected that because of this change, the Simulated Universe would be completely unable to function in Fu Zhu's absence.
Herta let out a "hmph," looking Fu Zhu up and down. "So, how did you do it? Don't tell me you used that Redstone Technology of yours to tamper with my Simulated Universe?"
Fu Zhu wore an expression of complete innocence as he spread his hands. "Am I that kind of person? What good would that do me? Besides, I can't use your servers for 'mining'."
"Then why is this happening?"
"You're the genius, aren't you? You'll have to research that yourself. Even I don't understand this point."
The only explanation Fu Zhu could think of was that the simulated world was now considered a world he had created.
A world without Steve is, by its very nature, an empty shell.