While Doctor Shen Zhiwei was a major director of the holographic project, it wasn’t as if the whole game had been designed by him. The game’s system and the holographic helmets were entirely his doing, but credit for the data behind the characters in fact belonged to the whole team. The background and scenery of the world as well as every character that originated in the novel but was more alive than their novel counterpart reflected the efforts of each member of the game development team.

In fact, everyone already had a plan for treating General Yun Ruifeng before Shen Zhiwei woke up, but because the human brain was such a complex thing, they didn’t dare to proceed recklessly. They needed Dr. Shen Zhiwei to approve their strategy.

A number of players had previously displayed varying degrees of difficulty in readjusting after leaving the game world. The game world was too realistic. Though they had only spent a few days in it, their minds had experienced several years. The player who had inhabited the character of the commander of the Imperial Guard evinced terror of his surroundings, especially toward ants, snakes, and such. Another player who had portrayed an old eunuch took on a habit of masturbating and spent all day touching himself. These aftereffects were probably the result of the game world being hyperrealistic, and also a problem that the game development team would have to grapple with in the future. A holographic game that was too realistic could easily cause psychological damage. Fortunately, the game company had told the players of the game’s danger before the trial had begun, and they had signed a waiver. The players were also entitled to compensation for psychological harm; if not for that, these players would truly have been pitiable.

Compared to the players, Dr. Shen Zhiwei’s circumstances ought to have been much worse. He had first been trapped in the game world, unable to leave, and then had suffered a psychic injury that forced him to conceal himself within an NPC while he healed. No matter how many years the players spent in the game, at least they all remembered their previous identities and could distinguish the game world from the real world. But Dr. Shen Zhiwei had lost twenty-eight years of memories and completely melded with an NPC’s data, then spent seventeen years in the game. Before Dr. Shen woke, the members of the psychology department’s clinical team had already foreseen a significant possibility that he would be in danger of experiencing dissociation.

Under the circumstances, it was almost impossible for Dr. Shen to take part in General Yun Ruifeng’s treatment as soon as he woke. It wasn’t even certain whether he would be able to separate reality and what he saw in his own mind.

But to everyone’s surprise, Dr. Shen appeared quite well once he was awake. After getting a clear account of what had happened while he had been comatose, he set about preparing to treat Yun Ruifeng. Moreover, he hardly slept the night after he woke up. He created a program to repair Yun Ruifeng’s data, which had been damaged in the game. He believed that a program in the game would only harm the game’s data and wouldn’t do lasting damage to a person’s psyche. As for the earlier beta players, their experiences were similar to what a sensitive person would experience in the wake of watching a horror movie. Therefore, it wasn’t Yun Ruifeng’s psyche that had been injured; it was his data that had been damaged. Because of this, the game’s holographic helmet had ceased to recognize his data, so all it could do was temporarily save it so nothing would happen to Yun Ruifeng when he woke.

According to this reasoning, Yun Ruifeng was now only deeply asleep. As long as his personal data was repaired, the holographic helmet would release him.

Of course, Dr. Shen pointed out, when they were improving the game design, they would have to put in a mechanism to allow the players to distinguish the game from reality.

A discussion forum was convened the day after Dr. Shen woke up. According to the reasoning the doctor had laid out, everyone had organized their speeches, perfected their ideas, and at last compiled everything into a report that described a complete treatment plan. They presented this for the doctor’s review.

Shen Zhiwei read through the treatment plan carefully, then nodded and said, “Petition granted. After court, everyone will proceed at once to design a program. We must bring the empress out of danger. If there is nothing else, court is dismissed.”

The conference room was silent.

Everyone was scared silly by Shen Zhiwei talking as if he had traveled through time. They all stared wide-eyed at the doctor.

Bathed in the gazes of everyone present, Shen Zhiwei was silent awhile, then slowly said, “We only said what came most naturally. It doesn’t matter as long as everyone understands what we mean. We owe General Yun Ruifeng a debt of gratitude and hope that he will wake soon.”

Everyone was once again silent.

Shen Zhiwei didn’t explain himself again. Holding the materials, he left in front of everyone with his head high and his chest thrust out, his expression utterly collected.

When he was gone, the working team’s members piped up with commentary.

“When I heard that right after waking up yesterday, the doctor stayed up all night studying how to cure General Yun, I admired the doctor for his firm resolve and ability not to be affected by spending seventeen years in the game. Now it seems the experience has left its traces on him…”

“But compared to those players who knew perfectly well that it was a game but couldn’t tell the game from reality after spending only a few years in it, being able to immediately recommend a precise course of treatment makes him very impressive!”

“Yes! It’s impossible not to be affected, but only the doctor could go right back to work with all his might even though he was clearly affected!”

“Listen… Am I the only one who thinks that when the doctor used the imperial ‘we,’ he was particularly grand, particularly noble, particularly cool?”

“Putting it out there, I also thought he was very cool…”

“Me too, me too… Actually, I like the doctor like this. He used to be way too stiff. Now… Did you guys see how he was obviously embarrassed but forcing himself to put on a calm expression? So cute!”

“Yeah. The doctor was only talented before, but now he’s cool and cute too. I think my requirements for a spouse are about to undergo a drastic change thanks to the doctor!”

—

Shen Zhiwei didn’t know that he had inadvertently acquired a fan club. After leaving the room, he wiped his face as if that could wipe away all traces of awkwardness on his face. He still thought he was Emperor Jingren, only with the memories of a person called “Shen Zhiwei” added to his mind…

But no, that wasn’t right. It was Shen Zhiwei who had gained a “Shen Junrui”…

Forget it. The most important thing now wasn’t to investigate the question of memories; it was to rescue the empress.

Fortunately, his knowledge and abilities as Dr. Shen hadn’t disappeared. He had a great deal of faith in his treatment plan. He believed that in a few days, Jinyi would wake up.

A sudden wave of dizziness came over him. Shen Zhiwei put his hand against a wall to steady himself. When he had stood there calmly for a time and the dizziness had passed, he proceeded with firm steps toward the server room.

After waking up yesterday, he hadn’t even given himself time to adjust before darting into the server room to investigate how he could save the empress. He hadn’t eaten anything yet, and he hadn’t slept properly. He really was a little exhausted now.

He pressed the communicator at his collar and a voice came from it: “Hello, Dr. Shen, this is Xiao-Zhang from logistics, how can I help you?”

When the communicator spoke, Shen Zhiwei’s shoulders twitched. Then he understood what was happening and said calmly, in a voice that didn’t reveal how surprised he had just been, “Instruct the imperial kitchens to prepare a midday meal.”

After a pause, Xiao-Zhang said, “Dr. Shen, the cafeteria is offering three nutritional meals today, A, B, and C. A is fruit, B is Sichuan style, and C is Western style. Which would you like?”

“A,” said Shen Zhiwei uncertainly.

“All right. Should I have it brought to the server room, Doctor?”

“Yes,” said Shen Zhiwei.

Soon, someone brought an A nutritional tube to Shen Zhiwei in the server room. Upon seeing that tube of lunch, the ravenous Shen Zhiwei was silent awhile, then at last picked up the tube, squeezed its contents into his mouth, and ate them…

Strong fruit flavoring surged into his mouth, stimulating Shen Zhiwei’s taste buds, making him nearly spit out this unpleasant food.

Fortunately, Shen Zhiwei had always had strong willpower. He forced himself to finish squeezing the nutritional paste into his mouth and washed it down with water, then continued his work in the server room.

Dr. Shen had a longstanding habit of working around the clock once he got started. In one day and one night, at his direction, the working team developed the repair program and subjected it to rigorous testing. The failure rate of this program was 0.001%, which was a relatively high number.

Dr. Shen had hardly spoken over the past few days, which had also been the case before. The only difference was that, in the past, Dr. Shen had liked fruit-flavored nutritional paste, but now he asked the cafeteria to make it flavorless for him; it couldn’t have any flavoring at all.

But minor changes like these were hard for others to notice.

When everything was ready, Shen Zhiwei had Yun Ruifeng removed from his life support pod and brought with his helmet to the server room. He linked the supercomputer to the helmet and used the program to repair the data in the helmet.

When the data was repaired, normal functioning lights blinked to life on the helmet. The lights flashed a few times, and Yun Ruifeng slowly opened his eyes.

He was surrounded by people, the members of the server room’s working team as well as his own subordinates and the superior who had given him his assignment.

Yun Ruifeng shook his head. His mind was still full of the young emperor’s image. In the real world, he had been in a coma all this time, but actually the helmet had forced him into sleep for his own protection. Yun Ruifeng had spent these days in hibernation. For him, he had been in the mountains one second and the next second he had died and returned to the present day.

All these people must have been waiting to ask him for news of the doctor. Yun Ruifeng sat up on the stretcher and swept his glance over the circle of people. He actually bowed to his superior and said, “Reporting to Marshal Shen: my mission was a failure. Dr. Shen encountered a bug in the game and received severe psychic damage from the bug. He won’t be waking up.”

Shen Zhiwei’s father, Marshal Shen, gave a gentle cough and patted Yun Ruifeng on the shoulder. “You didn’t fail. The doctor has successfully left the game and returned to modern society. You are awake now because the doctor contributed to your rescue. Major General Yun, you performed outstandingly in completing your assignment. From beginning to end, you protected the doctor and prevented him from being injured, successfully protecting this nation’s greatest brain. On behalf of the nation, I thank you!”

Yun Ruifeng was bewildered.

“I…I was protecting the doctor?” he asked.

“Imperial Father.” Shen Zhiwei, who had been overlooked by Yun Ruifeng, suddenly spoke. “We think that General Xiao…Major General Yun may not yet have separated reality from the game. We recommend that he undergo psychological rehabilitation.”

Hearing this familiar diction, Yun Ruifeng turned to Shen Zhiwei in joy and disbelief, but all he saw was the back of a thin figure. Dr. Shen had rushed from the server room to go rest in his own room.