Waves of regularity crash repeatedly against the eardrums. The numbness that had pervaded her limbs earlier, akin to the feeling after standing up from squatting on a toilet for too long, gradually subsided under the itching sensation washed through her blood.
Unconsciously, Rong Yi’s hands twitched, grasping the soft sand in her hand.
Where is this?
Her thoughts slowly returned as she opened her eyes.
The sunset bathed in dazzling orange-yellow light, reflecting across the boundless ocean. As far as her eyes could see, there was nothing but the sea, the sky, and the clouds.
Nothing else.
“Fan Xingze really took a shortcut with this scene,” Rong Yi thought, getting up from the soft sandy beach.
The beach shimmered with scattered starlight under the sunset, occasionally revealing shells and the remains of crustaceans half-buried in the gravel, emitting a tempting glow, beckoning to be picked up.
Is this… the small island from the cruise ship replica?!
In the replica, she had landed on the island at night, so she couldn’t see as clearly as now. Besides the colorful beach, she had no other basis to confirm that this was the island in the replica.
Amidst her shock, Rong Yi immediately became alert — could there be mermaids here too?
While the sun hadn’t set yet, she began to explore the island.
The diameter of this small island was similar to that of the giant cruise ship, making it a mini island within islands. Surrounding the island were captivating rainbow beaches, with a dense jungle in the middle.
Rong Yi ventured into the jungle a bit, finding no large creatures. Occasionally, some unknown creatures — whether rats or monkeys — swiftly darted past, visible only as blurry silhouettes.
“You’re here?”
Fan Xingze’s voice startled her. Turning around, she saw him leisurely holding a coconut, with a straw inserted in it from somewhere unknown, casually sipping.
Handing her another coconut with a straw, he smiled, “Why so nervous, Rong Yi? This is just a small scene with some small rodents and trees—nothing to be afraid of.”
Comparing the coconuts to the vast sun setting above the sea, he continued, “Even this sun will never set, frozen in this moment. This scene’s allocated memory doesn’t allow time to flow. So, don’t worry about it getting dark soon.”
He was dressed in a fitting Hawaiian shirt and shorts, strolling barefoot on the beach. Compared to him, Rong Yi’s nervousness seemed almost comical.
Taking a sip of coconut juice, she found it sweet and refreshing.
“Did you create this island?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Fan Xingze replied. “The small island is to test detailed scenes and flora and fauna models. The ocean is for testing large-scale scene construction, convenient for us.”
Rong Yi was still wearing the sleek suit from work, unsure if the outfit generation was a system decision or her own choice. Perhaps, she had maintained her guard, unlike Fan Xingze, who had changed into a comfortable casual holiday outfit.
She kicked the sand with her high heels, teasing, “I didn’t know you had such a girlish taste.”
Blushing slightly, Fan Xingze murmured, “I just feel this kind of scene enhances the representation of different colors in the light… And don’t you think this scene is beautiful? Like a dream.”
“I feel like I’ve dreamt of this before… A small island with a rainbow sandy beach…”
A shiver ran through Rong Yi. Did he remember? No, perhaps those memories still lingered in his mind, occasionally resurfacing—
She asked again, “What else have you done on this island?”
Fan Xingze, excitedly, said, “Let me show you!”
Leading her into the dark jungle, passing through dense tropical trees, they were met with a sight that starkly contrasted with this Pacific island — a metallic door.
Translation:
The iris lock on the door made a “drip drip” sound twice, and the metal door suddenly opened, revealing a deep and spacious space inside. The light gradually lit up from near to far—
“…You set up another laboratory in the testing scene in the lab?” Stepping into this secret lab, seeing the large computer with flashing indicator lights and scattered electronic components on the table, Rong Yi asked incredulously, “What’s the meaning of this—”
Her words stopped abruptly.
Because she saw a familiar face among the scattered components on the table.
It was the humanoid face of a robot, bald and shining like an egg on top, but Rong Yi still recognized it at a glance—
It was Elena from the Cyberpunk replica.
Elements from both replicas appeared in this small testing scene, making Rong Yi doubt if Fan Xingze really had no impression of the game at all. Impossible, right? At least Elena’s experience subconsciously stimulated his nerves, compelling him to create these things involuntarily.
Rong Yi felt his heartbeat getting faster. There must be a way, a way to make him remember everything. His lost memories were not a seamless iron plate that fell clean off, but a viscous liquid that had perhaps flowed away a lot, but some still clung in the pipes of memory, unable to be expelled.
Fan Xingze picked up Elena’s facial component. Its texture was similar to silicone gel, limp in his hand with no trace of the original beautiful contours.
Rong Yi pointed at the pile of soft flesh-colored objects, “You set up a lab just to sculpt faces?”
Fan Xingze blushed again—Rong Yi felt that post-amnesia, Fan Xingze had acquired some of Elena’s traits in his personality, such as blushing easily.
“She is the one I saw in my dreams too.” Fan Xingze said softly, then suddenly mustered up the courage to tell Rong Yi loudly, “I’m sorry, you’re great but we can never be!”
“Because I love her!”
“Even though she’s just a synthetic in my dreams, she is my true dream lover!”
Rong Yi: … Really?
Enough already, being infatuated with an NPC in the virtual world with my appearance, then being obsessed with a replica in the real world with my soul.
Dog damn it, when will you ever figure out your love interest!
Fan Xingze thought he hurt her with his decisive words when he saw her hold her forehead. Carefully setting down the face piece in his hand, he spoke softly, “I’m sorry… if you feel uncomfortable, we can leave now…”
Rong Yi raised a hand, “No need.” In the spacious lab, apart from the Elena synthetic person, there were other familiar things—such as the sleep pods they used when entering this scene.
“So, are you planning to… create another virtual scene within a virtual scene?” Her delicate fingers tapped on the metal cover, “Dream theft space?”
Perhaps the recent rejection made Fan Xingze feel guilty towards Rong Yi, so he explained in detail to her.
“The teacher and I found that by entering another virtual scene within a virtual scene, a person’s sensory acuity increases geometrically. Simply put, in this layer of the scene, you are very aware that this is ‘fake.’ But as you go deeper, individuals with wavering wills will blur the distinction between virtual reality and reality.”
“With the current limitations of brain-computer technology, we use this method to increase realism. However, if one goes too deep into the layers, the damage can be severe, with brain damage becoming more fatal. Because the brain perceives the person as actually injured, for example, if you lose an arm in the virtual scene, upon returning to reality, the brain might actually reject connecting the nerves of the arm.”
“It’s a bit like Dreamscape. The human brain is connected to the computer, which essentially allows people to fall into lucid dreams, but the dream construction is done by the computer, not by a ‘dream maker’.”
“Theoretically, when consciousness is caught in an overlapping virtual space, there are fluctuating influences at the subconscious level.” He clenched his hands, “Do you feel this way? When you wake up from a coma after a car accident, it’s like you’ve forgotten something. But this thing does not affect the daily life and work. But before Mo Yuning – in short, I began to care about what I forgot, so I began to do scenes in the scene, hoping to enter their own subconscious, to find out what they have forgotten.”
Rong Yi: “…… If you believe me, you don’t have to go through all this trouble, I can just tell you what you have forgotten.”
Fan Xingze firmly raised his hand, “No. You and I were in a coma at the same time! You and I were in a coma at the same time, and woke up at the same time. If there was a force majeure that affected me, it doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t be affected. Besides, if you can tell me something, why can’t other people tell me? We all live in the same world, don’t we?”
“Besides, if you’re talking about your high school crush, I already know about it.” He said seriously, “I just don’t have any real feelings. It’s true, you can’t rely on others to instill memories, you have to experience it yourself to confirm it.”
“Since I woke up, I’ve always had a sense of unreality. I’m sorry, I don’t believe in anyone’s words now, I only believe in my own brain.”
Rong Yi: “…… is fine.”
The first thing I’d like to say is that I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do this, but I’m sure I’m going to be able to do it,” he said.
“But when you say you don’t believe in anyone, do you mean you don’t even believe in your own teacher?” Rong Yi asked. If that’s the case, it’s not a bad thing.
Fan Xingze frowned.
“This is also where I feel strange. My coworkers told me that when Teacher first came to the company, I wasn’t on good terms with him. Why? As far as I can remember, I always respected and admired my teacher. In order to confirm what happened between us, I checked the notes and data from the past research projects with my teacher and found that they had been deleted.”
“Oh?” Rong Yi was puzzled, but she knew that the part that had been erased must be the part that Fan Xingze had said earlier, the part where the teacher had “gone astray”.
“The person who made the deletion was very clever, not leaving a time gap in the journal, but covering it up with some unimportant daily data. But I know my research habits very well, those redundant data others would write, but I usually don’t keep track of.”
“So it was someone who knows me very well who tampered with my notes and data.”
Yung Yi: “So did you find out what strange private projects your teacher was quietly working on?”
“Lucky Carnival?” Fan Xingze blandly said the name that made Rong Yi’s heart beat wildly: “He has been studying this game since I was in school. But if you want to say it’s strange,……, my teacher isn’t the only one researching holographic immersive games, so it’s not strange.”
Rong Yi also asked: “From a professional point of view, he studied the lucky carnival, and our company is attacking the military virtual warfare project, what is the difference?”
“It boils down to different application modes of the same technology. The teacher’s research is more oriented towards interactivity, but the company’s research involves more techniques in the area of strike perception.”
Rong Yi understood for a moment, “…… means that the company’s virtual system can feel the damage after entering?”
“Right.” Fan Xingze said, “The teacher’s system is a game, the game, entertainment-oriented; but the company’s zhengfu project focuses more on the sense of reality, the soldiers inside the real feel the pain and the threat of death, to be considered effective virtual training. Otherwise, what’s the difference between that and playing video games?”
He walked over and lightly smacked Rong Yi on the back of his hand.
“I have experienced Lucky Carnival, a shock of this magnitude, where the pain cannot be felt, but in this system of the teacher’s, it can be perceived.” Fan Xingze said, “The teacher put forward a great idea: human feelings have energy. In particular, the feeling of pain, which is used to avoid harm and protect life, if it is generated in the virtual world and then collected, it may be able to be utilized as an energy source!”
“To drive such a device, it consumes an enormous amount of energy. If the feelings of the soldiers inside could be utilized as energy, it would save the country hundreds of millions of resources! You see, the redundancy of the system is being utilized, what a great creation!”
Fan Xingze’s eyes sparkled as he envisioned the birth of such a great system.
Rong Yi, on the other hand, was chilled to the bone.
Using fear as an energy source, is it the predecessor of collecting other people’s lives to prolong one’s own?
The original Lucky Carnival was not about experiencing pain. Instead, it was only after getting involved in this program that IS came up with the idea of “simulating pain”.
In this way, even though he was working on the Lucky Carnival, his direction was a little off, but not by much. However, it was due to his cooperation with WBD that he accidentally developed his own life collection system.
He did not use the company’s research resources for personal gain. On the contrary, it was the company’s project research that accidentally fed a demonic game that sucked the life out of players in the future!
The wheels of history have just begun to turn, not yet crushing irreversible ruts!
“…… you immediately go in.” Rong Yi pointed at the connecting pod on the ground, his eyes slightly turned in the lab, saw another connecting pod, and took the initiative to request, “I’ll go in with you!”
“Huh?” Fan Xingze froze, “Now? What’s the hurry? The teacher is still waiting for us outside.”
“How long does it usually take for him to forcibly awaken you?”
“About an hour.”
They had been in here less than 20 minutes.
There was still plenty of time.
Rong Yi had already gotten himself into the connecting cabin, “How many layers of virtual scenes have you made here?”
“Three.” Fan Xingze honestly said: “They are all scenes from my dreams, but some of them are not finished, and I didn’t have the time to go in and experience them.”
“…… Although you don’t believe me,” Rong Yi said, “what I can tell you is that I am closely related to your past. Take me in, and I’ll make it twice as easy for you.”
I don’t know why, but even though Fan Xingze doesn’t think he likes Rong Yi, he can’t help but trust her when she speaks in such a confident tone.
Rong Yi is not wrong, she is always steady, and she can always find a way out of a dangerous situation.
I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that, but I’m sure I’ll be able to do it.
He even came up with a marketing slogan for her. Fan Xingze was confused by his own overly jumpy thinking.
As Rong Yi connected the electrodes for himself, he saw Fan Xingze lying down in the cabin after a moment of confusion.
He reached out to the cabin with one hand and gripped the switch: “It’s about to start. The further in you go, the stronger the sense of reality will be, and the more intense the impact will be when you enter. Bear with me.”
An even more intense paralysis than before flowed from his spine to his limbs, and Rong Yi once again fell into unconsciousness.
Author has something to say: This chapter begins, after a few chapters actually can not be completely counted as the real world, but also not in the game world, but into the game in the making, is the present is also in the past ……emmmm But because the number of chapters is not much, so to open a separate volume to put it is not quite appropriate… …I’ll talk about it in the synopsis first, it’s kind of a 05 game world…
After this beta version, we will enter the last copy of the boss battle grand finale!
