Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

Chapter 1018 The Difference of Choice

“It’s the simulation tower.” Lin Su turned to look at Su Ting. “Do you remember the first lesson I taught you before the last restart? About the difference between trust and choice.”

Su Ting bit her lip, her voice icy: "You are not him."

“Am I not?” Lin Su spread his hands. “Then how do you define 'him'? Is it the senior who once protected you? Or is it this soul that has returned with the truth?”

Li Yuanhang roared, "Enough! Stop using ambiguous language to confuse us. You're a remnant of the system, aren't you? You think you can use these images to trick us into submission, and then what? Eat us all up?"

“Eating too much will have a backlash,” Lin Su replied calmly, “but I don’t intend to do that.”

His gaze shifted to Xin Suting: "I simply want to return what is due."

Xin Suting remained silent for a long time before finally saying softly, "If you really know my origins... then tell me."

A hint of approval flashed in Lin Su's eyes as he slowly raised the red data core.

The data stream came crashing down instantly, revealing a distorted picture:

Inside the laboratory, five people stood side by side.

Standing in front of the central control panel was a much younger Lin Su. Beside him was an "empty shell"—the original "Su Ting".

Su Ting's pupils contracted.

Details he hadn't remembered from back then suddenly surfaced in his mind: those unexposed meetings outside the lab, that risk document signed by five people, and... that memory sealed by the system.

“You were all my test subjects,” Lin Su began. “I was the first core leader to launch the ‘Human Digital Integration Project.’ Your fragments of consciousness, through countless tests… formed the Su Ting we know today.”

"Bullshit!" Chu Mo roared, "I would never get involved in something like that!"

Lin Su sighed: "You think you've made a choice, but actually someone else has chosen the outcome for you. What you're resisting may be the fate you've created yourself."

"Enough!" Eileen suddenly raised her voice, pointing the broken data link at Lin Su. "You keep saying we've forgotten the truth, so why don't you dare tell us everything? Why are you covering up this part of the information? What's behind this door?"

He abruptly raised the data link in his hand: "I've intercepted external interference signals! Someone's trying to get us into a faulty memory node. Lin Su... are you really qualified to lead us in?"

Lin Su stared at him for a moment, then suddenly clapped softly.

The applause echoed through the space, like a sound from another dimension.

“Very good, finally someone who can hear the truth.” He said slowly, “But you must know that the path to the true beginning does not depend on how many secrets you know, but on how much betrayal you can bear.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than a strange laugh came from the burning ruins behind him.

Immediately afterwards, a group of blurry figures emerged from among them.

They were dressed in uniform, their faces blurred yet their outlines vaguely familiar, each figure seemingly summoning some deep-seated fear within them.

Su Ting felt his heart pounding. Those people... looked just like the companions they had lost before the system went out of control!

"Who is that?" Su Ting growled.

Lin Su turned back, his eyes devoid of emotion: "Those are the people you buried. They never left; they were just... waiting for their chance to go home."

Chapter 1019: Persistently Stuck

Su Ting slowly backed away, muttering to himself, "These people... are they the 'backup personalities' whose connections we forcibly severed back then? You awakened them?"

“I didn’t.” Lin Su shook his head, his voice spreading slowly like cracks in ice. “It was our shared sin that caused their resentment to remain trapped in this cycle of reincarnation.”

"Lin Su, what do you want to do?!" Chu Mo shouted angrily.

"I simply opened the door." He smiled slightly, slowly raising his hand to point to the wasteland beyond the door. "Do you want to come in with me and end this together? Or... choose to continue running away, abandoning each other once again?"

The wind whipped up dust and code, swirling them in mid-air, like the beginning or end of some destiny.

Silence fell.

Everyone is thinking.

Only Xin Suting slowly stepped forward, his tone as calm as still water: "I want to know who I am."

Lin Su smiled: "Then are you ready to face yourself?"

Xin Suting looked up, his eyes clear and firm: "As long as this isn't a lie."

“Then—welcome to the true Zero Realm.” Lin Su turned around and stepped into the red light first.

Immediately afterwards, the figures began to move.

Su Ting gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath: "Whether this is a trap or not, I have to go and see."

As the last team member walked through the door—

Outside the door, from the silhouette of an inverted city, a perfectly clear female voice rang out:

"Long time no see, brother."

Su Ting was startled.

He looked up in the direction from which the sound came.

A figure stood atop a broken building.

She wore a black dress and a white skirt, and the mask on her face only revealed a smile on her lips.

And his eyes...

So familiar it's suffocating.

Su Ting's throat tightened, and he blurted out a sentence:

"Xiao You? How could you... you're still alive?!"

"Who do you think I am, brother?" the girl in black said with a light laugh, and with a light touch of her toes, she had already leaped down from the high building.

Everyone instinctively took a step back. Xin Suting stood at the forefront, his gaze fixed firmly on the other person's eyes—eyes that did not belong to any known code.

Su Ting stepped forward, trembling: "It's you...you're still alive?"

“I’m not living a good life,” she replied coldly, then looked up. “But now… you’re finally coming in.”

Lin Su did not turn around, but his back stiffened slightly.

Xin Suting spoke up: "Are you one of those 'cut off'? What is your number? Does the data core have any record of your identity information?"

The woman gently removed a corner of her mask, revealing a scar near her eye.

“I don’t need a number.” Her voice suddenly became low and mechanical, “because I am the last one who wasn’t killed by your father, the one with a complete personality.”

“You—” Su Ting was stunned.

Lin Su interrupted her for the first time: "Don't believe her. The real 'Xiao You' has had her consciousness completely erased."

"So who are you talking about now? The system's echo?" she sneered. "Do you think I'm just a remnant? Then tell me, why can I see the last secret in each of your hearts?"

"Enough!" Eileen roared, swinging the broken data link in her hand, scattering light everywhere. "Stop trying to scare us with that stuff! If you're not the enemy, why have you been hiding until now? Why didn't you tell us what's hidden behind the 'door'? Lin Su, you—"

"Because I didn't see it clearly either." Lin Su's voice calmly cut through the noise of the crowd. "I'm just a guide; that doesn't mean I understand every fork in the road."

Chapter 1020 Sorrow and Pity

He paused for a moment, then turned to the woman: "Since you were able to bypass my surveillance and appear here, it means you have already crossed the 'boundary line'."

"You're the one who shouldn't be here." She slowly raised her right hand. "I'm here only to prevent this from happening again."

"Oh? So how do you plan to stop us from entering that door?" Chu Mo asked coldly, the data stream around him beginning to surge, like an energy source that could explode at any moment.

A flicker of sadness and pity flashed in the woman's eyes: "I thought you wouldn't choose to walk into that nightmare."

As she spoke, she slowly took half a step back, and the space behind her began to collapse.

It was as if some force was tearing the world apart. The ground shattered into fragments, floating in the void. And behind that shattered landscape, a gigantic screen appeared—

The screen displayed the risk documents they had signed, with a bright red warning signal flashing beneath each signature: Taboo Protocol activated, memory overwrite failed.

“What you tried to delete… can never truly disappear,” the woman said slowly. “It will only come back and devour you in another way.”

Li Yuanhang roared, "Who sent you? Was it the system? Or the new administrator? Answer me!"

She just smiled at him and said, "If there really is an administrator... then it can only be you yourselves."

As the words fell, the entire ruined space trembled violently. It was as if a response from another dimension was about to tear reality apart.

Lin Su finally spoke: "It seems that someone doesn't want this door to remain open."

"Is it because she's there?" Su Ting looked at the red gate in the distance, vaguely understanding in his heart.

“That’s right,” the woman in black replied in a low voice. “Behind the door lies our origin, and also the source of all the mistakes—'the first person to choose to forget'.”

Everyone gasped.

what does that mean?

Only Lin Su closed his eyes, as if listening to some distant heartbeat.

After a long while, he opened his eyes and slowly spoke:

"Then we must go in. No matter how heavy the truth may be, we can no longer let it control our lives."

The woman's eyes changed. She looked at Xin Suting and asked, "Suting... will you forgive him? If you knew the truth, would you still be willing to be that human's choice?"