This World is So Scary

New Year of 361.

Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng performed the Heaven Worship ceremony.

This unparalleled mythical emperor, with grand fanfare, led countless ministers in beseeching the gods to reveal divine signs and issue oracles. The entire continent knew of it—how could Zhu Zhengwei not see?

"Unexpectedly, the world within the dream has developed so prosperously so quickly."

Zhu Zhengwei shook his head. He was currently aboard a private boat overseas, traveling while sunbathing.

"That middle-aged traveler I once saw under the tea shed, that leader yearning for change—who would have thought he could come this far? In the history of this world's human civilization, his chapter will surely be written in bold strokes!"

But for now, he had no intention of dealing with that matter. He had other things to attend to.

Like drinking tea.

Like fishing.

Like how to reap the leeks.

Of course, the most important thing was still cultivation.

"Cultivating the Qi Consumption Method here is far better than in reality. This four-dimensional world is excellent—there are mining machines to extract 'qi,' allowing cultivation and strengthening the spirit."

Blowing in the salty sea breeze, watching the tides roll in and out, the sky a clear blue—how could he not feel content?

To be honest.

Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng was likely just a front.

Although it was indeed his own will—this reigning emperor had too many questions about the world, wondering where humanity's future lay—the hand behind the scenes was undoubtedly that of his younger brother.

And Zhang Zhi had been searching for him for quite some time. It was clear what he wanted.

His heart held too many accumulated questions.

As for Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng, this unprecedented human emperor—a true hegemon—was indeed old and nearing his decline, but he wouldn't die so soon. The tragedy was merely staged.

He understood the situation clearly.

"Speaking of which, though Zhang Zhi and I are both long-lived beings who have lived four or five hundred years, I'm only at the level of an ordinary Blessing Shaman."

After all, his time—though not wasted on dogs—had mostly been spent handling matters outside.

You see, he was essentially the "only player" in this Mobile Dream Network world, almost like a GM, able to interfere with the world and the heavens, modifying certain parameters—changing the weather, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.

But anything more difficult wasn't so simple to use.

That would cause the entire foundation of the four-dimensional network to collapse, with severe consequences.

In simple terms, this was like a program—you couldn't recklessly alter the underlying data, or it would crash.

Moreover, this world was becoming increasingly stable, approaching reality. It would become a super-massive world converged from countless calculations, and he dared not act rashly.

Gurgle, gurgle.

At that moment, a massive shadowy crab surfaced from the water.

Its shell was cracked, showing signs of severe injury from long ago—it hadn't recovered from that battle years past.

"Mr. Krabs, what happened?" Zhu Zhengwei asked calmly from where he sat on the deck.

The little one from back then had grown into a behemoth, but he had raised it for decades, so it naturally remembered his figure, remembered who had created them.

During his recent voyages, it would occasionally bring him food.

Though they lacked intelligence, as beasts, deep within their souls, they still held great fear of him.

After all, back then, he had eaten takoyaki, braised hairy crabs, and grilled scallops right in front of them in the lab. That fear was rooted deep in their souls.

Gurgle, gurgle!

The Black Bronze Cloud Crab God blew bubbles, adopting a posture of reverence mixed with fear, and sent out a plea for help.

"You say something's wrong?" Zhu Zhengwei stood on the deck, curious. "Someone's bullying your big brother?"

Seaside Ghost Country.

Tuna Port was now encircled by towering stone walls.

Within the Ocean Clock Family, the elderly Zhong Qingyu quietly set sail on a massive ship. She brought along a white-haired old man lying on a sickbed—her brother—as they voyaged into the distance.

"Brother, do you remember us as children in that port?"

This old woman sat on a long chair, gently stroking the face of the old man on the sickbed on the deck.

"Back then, I worked myself to the bone to fund your education, and you lived up to expectations, leading our family to glory, becoming the Minister of Finance—second only to the emperor."

"You're about to die of old age. So am I."

She sighed, filled with endless melancholy.

In the blink of an eye, she was already over a hundred years old. Though she practiced Wind Swallowing and Qi Consuming, like Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng, she was approaching the end of her life, sitting on the great ship, letting the sea breeze blow.

She finally understood why those Ancestral Shamans who practiced Qi Consumption had died of old age at just over a hundred, their lifespans not much longer than ordinary people.

Because qi did not descend below the neck.

She had an ageless head, terrifying divine power, yet she possessed a mortal body that was old and withered—her heart, bones, skin, spine, hands, and feet. Every decaying organ told her she was heading toward final decline.

At this moment, the two elders who controlled most of the nation's wealth sailed away on a massive ship, watching the coastline as it gradually receded from the harbor, from the clamor.

"That was once our home."

"We walk toward death to live, and we will never return."

She cast one last look at the harbor, her clouded eyes already bloodshot, her expression carrying nostalgia, uncertainty, deep pain, struggle, and a silent terror bordering on hysteria.

She suddenly recalled her girlhood.

Her father had killed her mother, and they lived without her—a bald, beer-bellied, drunken sailor of a father who beat and cursed her and her brother from childhood. Until that day, when she saw her brother with a bloody head and a crippled leg, she could bear it no longer. The next morning, they began a life entirely without parents.

She started using her small shoulders to earn money, taking odd jobs at the dock, dragging fishing nets with her frail hands to catch fish, supporting her brother's schooling. She rushed, toiled, struggled, and worked hard—a life of mediocrity like most poor people—until she met the man who changed her life forever. That tall, heroic figure she would never forget.

"Over the years, we siblings climbed higher and higher, rose above the crowd, achieved fame and success." The old woman's voice was low and hoarse. "But looking back on our lives, what meaning does it all have?"

The old man on the sickbed opened his mouth, as if to argue.

The old woman seemed to read his expression and said, "I know. You say life has meaning—after all, before Mother left, she hoped we would be happy and have a home. Over the years, we've nearly succeeded. I have a famous and successful brother, but I still lack a man who truly loves me."

"Unfortunately, he left me."

"All these years, every day, every day, every day, I painted his portrait. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand paintings filled my castle, hung in my rooms, yet they could not fill my heart."

"Later, I regretted it countless times. I should have drugged his food long ago, locked him away—then that beloved man would never have left me, and we siblings would finally have a happy home."

"Every day, every day, every day, I tended the flowers he left me, hoping he would see them again when he returned. Until that day, I ate them, and felt a vast, incomparable happiness."

The white-haired old man on the sickbed seemed accustomed to this, his vacant eyes turned sideways, gazing at the endless sea beyond the ship.

"You still blame me for killing the first her? She wasn't worthy of you."

"The second woman you loved—she only coveted our wealth. She would have become another unfaithful mother, causing another tragedy."

The old man on the sickbed still could not say a word.

He was too old, nearing the end of his life; even speaking seemed to drain all his strength.

The shadows of childhood haunted his sister and himself.

He would never forget that drunken father who killed their mother for consorting with another man, nor that his sister killed their father to protect him. He would never forget that sister, who should have been gentle, and her madness that day—the sick frenzy of swinging a cleaver, the bloodshot eyes.

From that day on, his sister became even more terrified of losing him, her last family.

But that man appeared, saved her, restored her twisted heart. They might have found happiness, but he suddenly left without a care, and his sister became utterly twisted.

"You're going to die of old age."

"I'm going to die of old age too. Everything is past."

The old woman kept talking to herself.

"The whole world feels strange. Relatives, servants, guards, even Her Majesty the Young Ghost Empress—they all look at us with such greedy, beast-like eyes, waiting for us to die."

She thought carefully, recalling her life as a human. It seemed immensely successful, yet no different from the vast majority of mortals.

Glory and wealth, gold and jewels, splendid castles—she had obtained all the ridiculous things people spent their lives chasing.

What was she really pursuing?

In the end, it was never what she wanted.

Perhaps humans were just creatures living in such a ridiculous social framework.

Zhong Qingyu let out a hint of mockery, looked at the endless coastline, spread her arms, and shouted loudly: "This life! It's like the sunrise and sunset on this coastline—repeating over and over! The cycle of sun and moon! Meaningless!"

"And what the Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng and the scholars of the 'City of a Hundred Generations' pursue—transcending humanity to ultimate greatness, drinking dew to become divine, swallowing wind and consuming qi—is, in essence, the great freedom of transcending all living things!"

"It is freedom!"

"Only for freedom!"

"If for freedom's sake, form can be cast aside!"

Standing on the deck, her loud cry stirred ripples, churned heaven and earth, and sent rolling waves surging outward.

No one knew that this was another powerhouse hidden in the Mortal World, a being rivaling an emperor.