The cold, mechanical voice echoed within the confines of Ling Yun's skull, a stark contrast to the throbbing pain and simmering fury that had filled his mind just moments before.
[...Chapter 1 ends with the voice announcing the startup of the Myriad Simulator...]
[Startup Complete.] [Welcome,User: Ling Yun.] [Synchronization Level:92%. Adequate.] [Current Soul Energy Reserve:3%. Critically Low.] [Initializing Basic Interface...]
Ling Yun lay frozen on the hard plank bed, his breath caught in his throat. The searing pain from his injuries, the chilling humiliation from Ling Xiao's visit—all of it receded into a dull background noise, overshadowed by the sheer impossibility of what was happening. A system? A simulator? His modern mind raced, grappling with concepts he'd only encountered in fantasy games and web novels. Was this a hallucination born from pain and despair? A final, cruel trick of his dying brain?
But the voice felt utterly real, its digital timbre devoid of any emotion, yet imbued with a weight that felt tangible. The warmth from the broken pendant against his chest pulsed gently, a physical anchor to this bizarre phenomenon.
Tentatively, almost afraid to break the spell, he focused his thoughts inward. Hello? Simulator? What are you? What is happening?
The response was immediate and devoid of elaboration. [The Myriad Simulator assists the user in navigating potential futures through simulation.It requires Soul Energy to function.]
Potential futures? Simulation? A wild, desperate hope began to stir within him, cutting through the despair like a shard of glass. Could this be… a way out?
How? he thought fiercely, his mental voice shaking with a mixture of awe and urgency. How does it work? Show me!
[Insufficient Soul Energy for a full simulation sequence.] [Current Soul Energy can sustain a short-duration,low-resolution predictive calculation.] [Query:Analyze immediate survival threats? Y/N]
Immediate survival threats. Ling Xiao's smug face and Ling Hu's cruel grin flashed before his eyes. The order to report to the mine at dawn. The promise of broken legs if he refused. Yes. The threat was immediate and dire.
Yes! Ling Yun mentally shouted. Analyze!
[Acknowledged. Initiating Predictive Calculation...] [Consuming 1%Soul Energy...]
A strange sensation washed over him, not quite a vibration, but a shift in perception. The world around him seemed to flicker, the dim light from the window stuttering for a fraction of a second. Then, a series of stark, disjointed images and sensations flooded his mind, moving too fast to fully grasp, but leaving behind a residue of crystal-clear understanding.
He saw himself—or a version of himself—trying to stubbornly refuse the order the next morning. The image was grainy, like a poorly tuned television, but the outcome was horrifyingly vivid. Ling Hu's fist, enlarged and distorted, connecting with his already injured leg. The sickening crunch of bone. The overwhelming agony. Darkness.
Another flicker. A different path. He saw himself acquiescing, dragging his broken body to the West Mine at dawn. The simulation didn't show the long journey, but it conveyed the sheer exhaustion, the pain consuming every thought. He arrived, barely conscious. The overseer, a brutish man with a whip, took one look at his state and sneered. "Useless. Can't even stand. Put him on waste rock detail." The image shifted to a unstable slope of loose rubble, him struggling to move stones with broken ribs and a shattered spirit. Then, a rumble. A landslide of jagged rock. crushing weight. Suffocation. Darkness.
A third flicker. He saw himself trying to sneak away under cover of night, before dawn. Crawling through the back alleys of the Ling family compound. A patrolling guard, alerted by a noise. A shout. A swift blade. Darkness.
[Predictive Calculation Complete.] [survival Probability based on current actions: 2.7%.] [Soul Energy Reserve:2%.]
Ling Yun gasped, his body drenched in a cold sweat that had nothing to do with his fever. The simulations, though brief and fragmented, felt more real than any memory. The pain, the fear, the finality of death—he had experienced them all in those fleeting moments. His heart hammered against his ribs, sending fresh waves of agony through his torso, but he barely noticed. The sheer terror of the imminent, inevitable doom predicted by the simulator was infinitely worse.
No… he thought, a silent scream of denial. There has to be a way! Simulator, analyze again! Find a path! Any path!
[Insufficient Soul Energy for additional calculations. Soul Energy must be replenished.] [Primary Source of Soul Energy:Defeating living organisms with cultivation base.] [Secondary Source:Absorbing energy from Spirit Stones or rare materials.] [Tertiary Source:Significant emotional resonance from self or others (inefficient).]
Defeating living organisms? He could barely lift his arm! Spirit Stones? He was a pauper. Emotional resonance? He was fresh out of hope, let alone significant positive emotion. Despair threatened to swallow him whole again. This simulator, this miraculous gift, was just going to illustrate his numerous gruesome deaths in exquisite detail before he inevitably succumbed to one of them?
Wait.
A thought, fragile as a spider's web, formed in the storm of his panic. The simulations… they showed him what not to do. They were failures. But knowing how you fail is the first step to learning how not to.
He replayed the third simulation in his mind. Trying to escape tonight. The patrolling guard. The blade. He focused on the details. Which alley? Where was the guard coming from? The simulation had provided a vague sense of direction, of timing.
And then he remembered Old Man Lin.
In the original Ling Yun's fragmented memories, Old Man Lin was the seemingly senile caretaker of the family's dilapidated Scripture Pavilion, a repository of basic cultivation manuals and historical records nobody cared about. The old man was often dozing at his desk, dismissed by most of the younger generation as a useless relic. But a few times, when the original Ling Yun had gone there seeking solace among the dusty scrolls, the old man had muttered seemingly random things. Things about the compound's layout, about old tunnels that were once used for storage or escape, long since forgotten.
One such tunnel, according to Old Man Lin's ramblings, was supposed to have an entrance near the back wall of the servants' quarters, not far from Ling Yun's own hovel. It was said to lead outside the compound walls, emerging somewhere in the tangled woods beyond.
It was a long shot. A crazy, desperate long shot. The tunnel could be collapsed. It could be a dead end. Old Man Lin could have just been talking nonsense.
But the simulator had shown him that trying to leave openly, or refusing, or going to the mine, led directly to death. This… this was the only variable that hadn't been calculated. Because the original Ling Yun had never seriously considered it, had never had the courage or the desperation to act on the old man's mutterings.
He, however, had nothing left to lose.
A new determination, hard and sharp, forged in the fires of simulated deaths, settled in his gut. He would not go to the mine. He would not wait for dawn.
He had to try the tunnel. Tonight.
But first, he needed a sliver of strength. And information.
Gritting his teeth against the protest of every muscle and bone, Ling Yun forced himself to sit up. The room swam nauseatingly for a moment. He spotted the discarded, slightly damp cloth one of the kind-hearted older servant women had left earlier with a bowl of watery congee. He reached for it, his arm trembling with the effort, and wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
The bowl of congee was still there, cold and unappetizing. It was barely enough sustenance, but it was something. He forced it down, gagging slightly with each swallow, focusing on the tiny trickle of energy it provided.
Next, he needed to verify the tunnel's existence. He couldn't go searching himself in his state. But he could… ask.
Hobbling to the door was an ordeal that felt like climbing a mountain. He leaned against the rotten doorframe, sucking in the cool night air, trying to steady his breathing. The compound was quiet now, bathed in the silvery light of twin moons. He needed to get to the Scripture Pavilion. It was a risk. If Ling Xiao's lackeys saw him…
Simulator, he thought, a newfound respect and wariness coloring his mental voice. Predict the probability of encountering hostility on the path to the Scripture Pavilion now.
[Insufficient Soul Energy for predictive calculation.]
Of course. He was on his own.
Taking a deep, painful breath, Ling Yun pushed himself away from the doorframe and began to shuffle into the night, clinging to the deepest shadows, moving with a silence born of sheer necessity. Each step was a fresh lesson in agony, but the memory of the simulated crush of rocks and the flash of a guard's blade kept him moving forward.
He was no longer just the drowned rat waiting for the next kick. He had seen the abyss, and he would claw his way back from its edge. This "Myriad Simulator" was his key. And tonight, he would take his first, desperate step into a future it had not yet predicted. The title of this chapter, he realized with a grimace that was almost a smile, was proving terrifyingly accurate. This was a life-and-death crisis. And Old Man Lin's ramblings were the faint, fragile glimmer of hope he had to seize.