“I acknowledge that you need me.”

"Not as a 'stabilizer,' not as a 'variable.'"

"Instead, it's as... Su Nian."

Su Nian's words, like the final gavel, echoed in the deathly silent room, carrying an almost cruel clarity.

Xie Chen leaned against the cold wall, his usually straight spine now slightly hunched, as if bearing an invisible weight that could crush everything. He lowered his head, his stray hairs obscuring his eyes, revealing only his bloodless lips pressed into a straight line and his slightly trembling jawline.

He neither moved nor spoke.

The energy field of the entire room fell into an eerie stagnation. The pale blue light patterns ceased to flow, like a frozen glacier. The photos on the walls, belonging to different worlds, also seemed to have lost all vitality, becoming a monotonous backdrop. Even the chaotic aura of the fragments that permeated the air seemed to have been muted, leaving only a suffocating, vacuum-like silence.

Su Nian stood rooted to the spot, the burning pain from his loss of control still lingering on her wrists and neck. Looking at him, as if abandoned by the world, yet also fighting a desperate battle against some unseen monster, her heart felt a sharp, aching ache, as if gripped tightly by an invisible hand. She hadn't known her words would have such consequences; this was far more unsettling than any reaction she had anticipated—rage, mockery, or even more frantic confinement.

"[Host...]" 088's voice trembled. "[The core data stream... has stopped?! The target's vital signs are still there, but their consciousness... seems to be trapped in some kind of... logical loop? He... he couldn't possibly be... burned out, could he?]"

Su Nian didn't answer. She simply held her breath, staring at the man who seemed to have become a statue of despair.

Time passed by second by second, each second feeling like an eternity.

Just as Su Nian was about to rush forward to check if he was still "unharmed," Xie Chen finally moved.

He raised his head very slowly, with a groaning sound as if every joint was groaning.

Su Nian met his eyes.

For a moment, she almost forgot to breathe.

What kind of eyes were those… The previous depth, coldness, madness, confusion, violence… all the emotions she had ever witnessed seemed to have been utterly shattered and evaporated by an internal nuclear explosion, leaving only a… pure, almost desolate emptiness. Within that emptiness, countless fragmented images were vaguely reflected: the snow of a fantasy world, the moon over a vampire castle, the sandstorm of a slave dynasty, the light from a gaming screen… and countless reflections of herself. But these images were like reflections in water, shattering at the slightest touch, unable to coalesce into any meaningful shape.

He looked at her, but his gaze was unfocused, as if it pierced through her body and was looking at a more distant, more essential, terrifying concept called "need".

"...Need it?" he finally spoke, his voice hoarse as if it had been sanded, carrying an almost ethereal quality, "The database... doesn't have... a precise definition for this variable."

He seemed to be speaking to her, yet also to himself, engaging in a final dialogue with the invisible world within him, a world composed of reason and data.

“Searching for related terms…dependence, craving, indispensable…” he murmured, his eyes still vacant. “Logical conflict. ‘Stabilizer’ is a functional definition, ‘variable’ is a state description… ‘Need’…is driven by emotion…invalid instruction…cannot be executed…”

His words were fragmented and chaotic, revealing the upheaval within him. He tried to understand and categorize the word "need" using his familiar language system, only to find it like an incompatible virus, frantically eroding and destroying the operating system he depended on for survival.

Listening to his broken murmurs, Su Nian felt a surge of bitterness welling up inside her. She looked at him like a child lost in a labyrinth of language, unable to find a way out, and the vulnerability inherent in "humanity" had never been so clearly revealed to her.

She couldn't help but take a small step forward, her voice extremely soft, carrying a gentleness she herself was unaware of: "No need for definition, Xie Chen. You just need to... feel it."

"Feelings?"

This word, like a bolt of lightning, struck Xie Chen's desolate ruins of consciousness.

His empty gaze finally regained a faint focus, landing once more on Su Nian's face. His gaze held an extreme bewilderment, and... a slight tremor, touched by this unfamiliar word.

"Feel...what?" he asked, his voice carrying an almost pious...confusion.

Su Nian's heart pounded. She knew this was the most crucial moment. She was guiding someone who had never felt emotions (or had deliberately stripped themselves of them) to explore a completely unknown and dangerous territory for him.

She took a deep breath, raised her hand, not to touch him, but to gently place it on her heart.

“Feel this.” She looked into his eyes, trying to make her gaze sincere and understanding. “When you see me sad, does this place… feel uncomfortable? When you think I might leave, does this place… feel tight? When you… hug me, does this place… beat faster?”

She guided him, using the simplest language to describe those physiological and emotional responses that cannot be quantified by data and belong to "needs".

Xie Chen's gaze followed her fingers, landing on the spot where her slender fingertips were pressing. His brows furrowed slightly, as if he were trying to sense something. Extremely subtle and chaotic fluctuations began to appear in the energy field around him, as if cracks were appearing in the frozen river of ice.

"Not...comfortable?" he repeated softly, one hand unconsciously pressing against his chest, where his heart was beating at a disordered rhythm he couldn't understand. He looked at Su Nian, the desolation in his eyes gradually being replaced by a more vivid emotion called "struggle."

"Is it...here?" He pressed his hand against his chest, his knuckles turning white, as if trying to grasp that elusive feeling. "This feeling...is it...'need'?"

His question was no longer a purely rational discussion, but rather carried a tone of... eagerness for confirmation, bordering on anxiety.

Su Nian watched him awkwardly trying to grasp that unfamiliar feeling, and her nose suddenly stung with tears. She nodded vigorously.

“Yes. That’s it.” Her voice choked up a little. “That feeling of not wanting to lose, wanting to get closer, being affected by the other person’s emotions… that’s ‘need’.”

Xie Chen was stunned.

He looked at her slightly reddened eyes and listened to her choked affirmation. His hand, which had been pressed against his chest, slowly fell to his sides. He looked down at his empty palm, as if something extremely important had just slipped away from there, or as if he had grasped a precious treasure that was burning hot but he was unwilling to let go of.

The dam of logic collapsed completely at this moment.

A torrent of emotions surged through every corner of his consciousness in a way he could neither understand nor control, yet could not deny.

He abruptly raised his head and looked at Su Nian again. Those eyes, which had just been desolate, were now like an abyss ignited, burning with a blazing and chaotic light that Su Nian had never seen before. In that light, there was fear, helplessness, and struggle, but more than anything, there was a near-desperate...confirmation.

He walked towards her step by step, his steps no longer steady, but unsteady, as if drunk and unsteady. He stopped in front of her, so close that they could feel their breaths mingling.

He reached out, his fingertips trembling slightly, and very slowly and carefully touched Su Nian's cheek, brushing away the tear tracks that were about to fall from the corner of her eyes.

His fingertips were icy cold, but the touch carried a scalding heat that seemed to burn the soul.

Su Nian didn't move, she just quietly looked at him, at his eyes, which were both bright and broken, ignited by unfamiliar emotions.

He looked at her for a very long time, as if he wanted to etch her image, along with the unfamiliar, almost tearing feeling in his heart, into the deepest part of his soul.

Then he spoke, his voice hoarse and broken, yet carrying a thunderous, undeniable certainty:

"Yes……"

"I... need you."

It is neither a stabilizer nor a variable.

It's Su Nian.

The moment those words were spoken, the energy field of the entire room emitted a low, sigh-like hum, as if something that had been imprisoned for too long had finally... loosened.

In Xie Chen's eyes, deep within the burning, chaotic light, a drop of cold liquid, unnoticed even by himself, silently slid down his pale cheek.

Those were... tears?

Su Nian stared blankly at the wet patch on his face, and at that moment, her heart seemed to shatter along with that tear.

The virus finally breached the last firewall.

(End of Chapter 164)