A dry, white-haired old man with loose, rough skin all over his body and mold-like age spots looked like the Earth God crawling out of the soil.
The old man was actually still alive. He lay on the ground, moaning hoarsely.
"This is you at a hundred years old," Xiang Xiaotong said. "Feel his skin. What do you think?"
Song He reached out fearfully and touched the old man's face.
Touching himself several decades in the future felt utterly horrifying.
The old man raised his aged face. One could vaguely make out Song He's features, but he had already aged until he looked like a dried corpse.
The texture was rough, hard on the outside and loose within, with a layer of fine fuzz. It felt like touching a large ginseng root soaking in liquor, except without the roots.
Song He had barely touched him twice when the old man suddenly let out a long sigh, collapsed on the ground, and breathed his last.
"That's enough. You've felt both baby skin and old-person skin. Let's go." Xiang Xiaotong yawned.
"What about the skin of a young adult?" Song He asked.
"Why not just touch yourself and find out?"
Song He suddenly understood. He raised a hand and touched his own face, feeling a sensation so familiar it could not have been more so.
The dream instantly collapsed. After a brief darkness, he opened his eyes to the familiar laboratory, where Xiang Xiaotong stood before him with her hands in her pockets.
Song He removed the helmet. "It works! The skin-touch sensation is nearly perfect! Pass!"
When he looked up, he found that Xiang Xiaotong was not looking at him. Instead, she stared awkwardly to the side. "Besides testing skin sensation, it looks like we triggered a strange effect this time."