It was that diamond shape.

A rhombic octahedron made of countless cubes!

They had seen it at the conference Professor Song had convened. They never imagined that one day they would find themselves standing inside the diamond structure.

What were all these cubes inside? Why were there so many — seemingly endless?

Tan Xiao moved close to one cube and curiously reached out to touch it. His hand passed straight through. He let out a startled yelp: “Whoa!”

“What’s wrong?” Bai Youwei asked.

“That’s incredible!” Tan Xiao’s eyes went wide with amazement. He simply stuck his entire head inside — and after a moment pulled it back out, exclaiming in wonder. “Whoa whoa whoa whoa!”

Bai Youwei said with exasperated patience: “What happened exactly? Come on, say something.”

“I can’t describe it!” Tan Xiao pointed at the cube. “All I can say is — it’s incredible! It’s really, truly incredible!”

A child with a limited vocabulary.

Bai Youwei sighed and reached out to touch the cube next to her —

The moment she made contact, she immediately understood why Tan Xiao said he “couldn’t describe it.”

Because she saw another space: a vast ocean. If it were only that, it would not be so astonishing — but what was truly staggering was that detailed data on every element within the space instantly appeared in her mind!

Surface area, depth, wind direction, temperature, humidity, wave amplitude, various microbial components… and moreover — it could all be changed.

Like the hand of God. She could alter any single detail.

Bai Youwei withdrew her hand and noticed that her other companions were also trying to touch the cubes. They saw high mountains, jungles, deserts, grasslands, city after city…

“Those monitors… built game worlds one by one through these cubes?” Shen Mo raised his head, gazing up at the even greater number of cubes above. “What does it mean, letting us come in here now?”

Bai Youwei tilted her head, murmuring: “Meaning they want us to have control over it too?”

“The king’s reward is this world — of course that includes primary authority.” Tu Shenshi walked slowly closer. “As for subjects’ permissions, those await the king to allocate.”

He approached Bai Youwei and said: “This world is yours now.”

Bai Youwei was stunned.

After a moment of silence, she asked: “Can the world be restored to the way it was before?”

Tu Shenshi gave a slight nod. “Yes.”

“Can those who have died be brought back to life?”

“Yes.”

“Can memories… be preserved?”

“Yes.”

Bai Youwei hesitated, turning over in her mind whether there was anything she had missed.

Tu Shenshi smiled. “Anything is possible. You are now the master of this world. You can reshape it as you please — even alter the laws of physics: make water flow upward, make clouds settle to the ground, make people fly, make beasts and birds speak with human tongues… You can do anything.”

Bai Youwei couldn’t help frowning. “The way you put it makes it sound like a toy…”

Tu Shenshi: “It is, in fact, a toy.”

Everyone paused.

Tu Shenshi looked at them, smiled once more, and slowly recited those familiar words:

*”Welcome to the Puppet Game. Refuse the game and become a puppet; fail the game and become a puppet; clear the game and be rewarded with a puppet… You are a group of puppets living inside a toy.*

*When punished, your data will be downgraded — you will become a low-grade doll incapable of speech or thought.*

*When rewarded, your data will be upgraded — you will run faster, jump higher, becoming a high-grade puppet that surpasses human limits.*

*Be that as it may, I still wish to thank you for your continued and tireless efforts in providing me with rich and vibrant data.*

*Now, I give this world to you and your subjects. I hope that, having seen through the nature of reality, you will have no regrets about the path you have traveled.”*

Bai Youwei stared at it, almost unable to believe her ears.

The others were all equally stunned.

Tan Xiao felt as though he had understood — yet also as though he hadn’t. A formless fear welled up in his heart for no clear reason!

He looked to Bai Youwei and Shen Mo in a panic: “What is it even saying…”

Shen Mo gritted his teeth, stepped forward, and confronted the monitor: “What you mean is… we… are not human?”

—