After the battle, with her soul crumbling away, she had used the last of her strength to get to her lab. She gave quick orders to her subordinates to handle the aftermath of the battle and wrote a brief letter to the Empress explaining her plan. Then, without wasting another second, she activated the Mirror World and bound her fractured soul to it.
Thankfully, the mirror world worked perfectly fine even though she was using it for the very first time. The moment she had entered this new reality, a profound sense of relief had washed over her. The terrifying, constant sensation of her soul splintering apart—a feeling like a million tiny cracks spreading through glass—had lessened dramatically. It wasn't gone, not by a long shot. It was more like a dull, background ache instead of the sharp, crippling pain that had been her existence just moments before. It was the first good sign she'd had in a long time.
Ji Yu sat on the edge of the plush hotel bed, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight. She took a slow, deliberate breath, taking stock of herself. She methodically went through her memories, testing them like a person might test a wobbly step. Her name, her identity as a scientist, her rank as a Marshal, the brutal battle with the Zerg, the devastating injury from the Soul Reaper, and her desperate, last-chance plan to use the Mirror World. All of it was there, clear and intact. She remembered the most important details, the core of who she was. A small, quiet wave of relief passed through her. At least her mind was still her own. That was a very good thing.
She let out a long, weary sigh. The emotional and physical exhaustion from everything she had been through was immense. It felt like she had run a thousand-mile race, fought a war, and then taken a final, desperate exam—all in the span of a single day. Every muscle in this new body felt heavy with fatigue. A part of her, a very large part, just wanted to lie back down on the soft pillows and sink into a deep, dreamless sleep for about a year.
But she couldn't. Rest was a luxury she couldn't afford yet. She was in a completely unknown situation, and her survival—or rather, her soul's survival—depended on understanding the rules of this new game. She needed a guide, a rulebook. She needed information.
Immediately, she reached out with her mind, focusing her thoughts. She called for the little system, Zhangli. This AI was the assistant she had programmed to help run the Mirror World. Its job was to maintain the stability of these constructed realities and, more importantly, to guide the "hosts"—people like her, with damaged souls—through the experience so they could heal properly. It was like a friendly GPS for the soul.
The Mirror World itself was her greatest invention, a device of incredible complexity. It didn't create random worlds; it built them based on stories, specifically the novels written by humans. When she was setting it up, she had spent weeks browsing the vast interstellar network, downloading thousands of the most popular and trending novels into the device's database. She wanted a wide variety of experiences for her soul to journey through.
She remembered the long, scrolling lists of titles she had browsed on the interstellar network, her finger flicking through hundreds of options as she built the database for her greatest invention. It wasn't just a random collection; she had been deliberate, choosing stories that represented the vast, weird, and wonderful spectrum of human imagination. She wanted her soul to experience it all, but she also had her very clear preferences.
As a brilliant scientist and a woman who loved women, Ji Yu had found a lot of the most popular genres to be… lacking. She'd scroll through the summaries of the sweet, simple campus novels and roll her eyes. The plots always seemed to revolve around a bland, generic male lead and a painfully naive female lead whose entire personality was tied to her clumsiness. She couldn't imagine anything more tedious than being trapped in a story where the biggest conflict was who to take to the prom.
The countless stories about rich, overbearing CEOs were even worse. The very premise made her scientific mind short-circuit. Why would an all-powerful, brilliant business magnate be brought to his knees by a supposedly "ordinary" girl who constantly needed to be rescued? The logic was nonexistent, the power dynamics were horrifying, and the female characters were usually written with the personality of a cardboard cutout. She'd uploaded them solely in the name of comprehensive data collection, secretly hoping the Mirror World's AI would have the good sense to avoid them for her.
Her real interest, the stories she had actively sought out and curated with care, were the ones that reflected a world she actually understood and wanted to be part of. She had spent extra time ensuring the database was rich with love stories between women—lesbian novels that spanned every genre.
She had added thrilling adventures like The Crimson Pirate Queen, where a fearless captain and a cunning shipwright forged a bond on the high seas while battling empires. She'd included fantasy epics like A Crown of Ice and Ashes, a tale about a disgraced elven knight sworn to protect a rebellious human princess, their political alliance slowly burning into something far more passionate and dangerous.
For something more modern and heartfelt, she'd saved comedies like The Florist on 5th Street, about a cynical CEO (a competent one, thank you very much) who keeps awkwardly buying flowers from a charming, sunny shop owner just to talk to her. She'd even included a slow-burn academic rivalry titled Thesis and Tenderness, where two brilliant, competitive graduate students fighting for the same grant discover their sharpest critiques are reserved for each other's work, but their softest glances are saved for late nights in the library.
She'd uploaded every kind of story she found genuinely interesting and emotionally complex. Whether it was a hilarious comedy, a terrifying horror story where two survivalists relied on each other to survive, or a sweeping historical epic, she wanted it all. Her theory was that a rich and full life—especially one filled with stories that resonated with her soul—was the best medicine. She just had to hope the system had good taste and would pick a world where the plot was actually compelling and the love interests weren't boring, clueless men.
The Mirror World's AI would then use these novels as blueprints, building entire functioning universes based on their plots, settings, and characters. She had no control over which world her soul would be placed into for its first repair journey. That was all up to the system. Only Zhangli held that information.
As if on cue, the little system's voice piped up in her mind. Having been called by its very first host—who also happened to be its brilliant creator—Zhangli was bursting with excitement and eagerness to please. Its voice was like an overeager puppy, happy and full of energy.
"Yes, host~! I will explain right away!!"
Ji Yu braced herself, wondering what kind of story her soul had gotten itself into. She just hoped it wasn't the one with the zombies.
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