Operator #5: Colorful Flowers, Thousand Red and Ten Thousand Purple

In the official community regarding security reviews, Jester, unable to maintain his true form under Jiang Xueming's mental torment, once again disintegrated into tiny, weak clones. His spherical body first swelled and cracked, then transformed into small snakes resembling the head of a television set, scattering and fleeing.

Xue Ming discarded the deformed and cracked torture instruments in his hand. Behind him stood a tower made of rotten steel bars and sheet metal, all weapons he had found throughout the prison.

He felt no fatigue. He swung the bat thousands of times in a row, and apart from a slight soreness in his arms, this soft prosthetic body of the electronic ghost did not get tired. It did not need to eat or drink, and even its heartbeat remained steady.

Similarly, in this cyberspace where life and death are blurred, these scrap metal pieces alone shouldn't be enough to kill these monsters.

He could only watch helplessly as the basilisks slipped away, quickly sliding into the various doorways of the torture chamber, escaping deeper through the drainpipes and vents, seemingly abandoning this community of interrogation.

The jester was on the verge of a mental breakdown; he was utterly terrified.

Originally, when this nameless warrior arrived in the Extreme Bliss Space, the equipment he used was encrypted with multiple layers of encryption. He knew nothing about Jiang Xueming and could only force her to play a question-and-answer game through his soul power attack in order to extract useful information and break down her defenses.

However, in the contest of mental strength, it was almost crushed by that powerful spiritual pressure.

He couldn't stand the torture chamber in Kanto City for even a second longer. The arsenal in the real world was paralyzed, and the educational work on classical humanity could also be temporarily put aside. So the jester immediately slipped away.

Before leaving, it still didn't understand, didn't comprehend, and had no idea how powerful Jiang Xueming's elemental structure was.

When it launched its soul-power attack, the two spiritual energy elements clashed head-on. At that moment, it had an illusion, as if it had turned on a sonar detector in a bottomless, dark ocean.

From the radar's reflected waveform, it seemed to see a monstrous monster with a ferocious face, and a thousand-foot-tall statue sleeping on the seabed.

It was almost driven to utter madness, wishing it could gouge out its own eyes. The intense unease made it vulnerable, and the wails of dead souls emanated from Jiang Xueming's right arm and from the colorless, transparent core of VENOM. All of this made it almost unable to hear any sound.

Send him somewhere else! Send him somewhere else!

I absolutely cannot let him find me! I must escape!

This was the Jester's final thought: Tom was the genetic prototype of the Hayabusa, and different versions of the Hayabusa constituted the Jester's mental model. This polymer, which had undergone several fusions and constant distortions, was ultimately unable to contend with Jiang Xueming.

The instructors of the Fen Feng Legion had never witnessed the Nameless One's prowess, nor had they seen his remarkable military exploits.

In the jester's mind, everything about the Madness Butterfly Sect was terrifying, bizarre, horrible, and tragic. It derived hundreds of major questions that constituted its question bank. The correction and torture of human thinking were based on this system of mental attacks.

This includes views on love, values, life and death, social sciences, morality and customs, etc. Relentless torture will destroy the spiritual world of ordinary people. When people begin to protect themselves, they are forced to make choices—such as the common moral trap of whether to save one or five when a train comes by.

But for Xue Ming, these kinds of questions were no challenge.

He possesses a powerful mind specifically designed to combat fallacies and heresies, especially regarding any horrific content related to the human flesh trade.

If words alone could sway the nameless War King from his will to fight, Xue Ming wouldn't have made it this far, nor would he have survived these six years of constant warfare.

Therefore, in the eyes of the court jester, this nameless warrior was not like a normal Homo sapiens; Jiang Xueming was more like a monster. This monster was more bizarre and terrifying than the Vita Imprint products recorded in various modules and experiences, almost violating the natural order of the Shinto City.

In the duel environment constructed by [Return of Spring], Jester was utterly defeated and had no strength to fight back. It fled to Zero Community in another city, and only by destroying its hardware server could it be completely killed.

At this moment, it left this huge trouble to Hei Mu Qianshou. It hoped that the female bodhisattva in the bank could subdue this monster and identify Jiang Xueming's true identity through operations such as elemental analysis and module disassembly.

Once the basilisk had disappeared from sight, Xue Ming began to explore the torture chamber.

The building has three floors and more than 300 VIP private rooms. In the dark, he walked to a cell door and looked through the observation window. There was a faint light source inside.

There was a child, about eight years old, a boy, locked in the room.

The light source was the television set in front of the child. The television model was the same as the head of the jester, and it bore the logo of Toshiba Electronics. It seemed that these children were Yezhong and Yoguang, along with many Kyoraku Special Squad.

They had to undergo brainwashing by Instructor Tom. Soldiers whose thinking became problematic were locked in interrogation rooms and repeatedly answered questions to recalibrate the basic logic and reasoning of their electronic brains.

As the Hayabusa retreated, the television screen went completely white. Xue Ming walked forward, and in the sixteen cells to the left of the interrogation room, the children imprisoned were all different, dressed in hospital gowns.

Some mental models regained some consciousness and immediately began to scream in terror when their eyes met Xue Ming's —as if they were recalling their experiences before they died.

During the security operations in Kanto City, these children, controlling artificial bodies, died time and time again at the hands of Xue Ming.

Until they develop psychological trauma that cannot be healed in a short period of time, and produce hysterical and manic symptoms in the Extreme Bliss Space, some will be sent to the healing department for recuperation, while others will undergo surgery to delete data, like removing the prefrontal cortex. Those whose mental models need to be put back into battle will be sent to the interrogation room to forcibly correct their personality.

Xue Ming ignored these electronic ghosts; he had never considered these toddlers as human beings.

They look like children, but most of their mental models have survived for over half a century through copy-pasting.

These eerie electronic ghosts are mentally fragile in Extreme Bliss Space. At this moment, they seem to be weak and helplessly wailing, but with the help of drug treatment and mind correction, they will soon transform into soldiers in the real world who are agile and wield guns to kill.

Xue Ming did nothing, pondering the matter carefully, and suddenly felt something was absurd.

For the ghosts of Extreme Bliss Space, the cybernetic bodies in the real world are their game characters, who can be resurrected through various armories and cybernetic assembly workshops, which is the opposite of video games in the mortal world.

For these electronic ghosts, Extreme Bliss Space is their true home; the physical bodies produced in the Shinto City are like game characters purchased with virtual currency.

Continuing forward, Xue Ming arrived at the exit of the torture chamber.

It was a very simple roller shutter door, like a large warehouse that had been converted into a prison.

He couldn't find the water and electricity lines or the gates in the community, nor could he do anything else to it. He didn't have the authority to shut down Ridley's amusement park, so he opened the gates to leave.

The moment he stepped out of the official community, he felt a lightness in his body, and his nostrils filled with a strong floral fragrance. Taking two more steps forward, the intense light blinded him, and when he looked back, there was nothing behind him. The jester's torture chamber had vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed.

The sensation from the soles of the shoes felt more like stepping on soft mud, which filled him with doubt—where had he ended up? How could he escape from this strange cyberspace?

He thought about many things, and for a moment he became vulnerable.

What if I can never get out of here in this lifetime?

His wife and children are still waiting for him.

But Xue Ming quickly came to terms with it, because many unknown areas are like that. There are countless VIP, countless VIPs, and countless predecessors who have reached dangerous places that even the railway cannot reach. They may have just taken one more step forward and never returned.

May the BOSS's blessing, and may the ironclad rule of fate favoring the brave, still hold true in this awful place.

As he thought this, the scenery before him gradually became clearer.

The pervasive illusory light gradually dimmed, revealing distant, undulating mountains covered in patches of moss clinging to the rocky slopes. The mountains connected the sky and the earth.

He was standing in front of the torii gate of a temple, with towering trees on both sides of the road. These cedar trees were almost eighty meters tall, and Xue Ming recognized them as ancient trees that could live for more than three thousand years.

The air smelled earthy, and the warm, humid moisture filled my nostrils, carrying the fragrance of pollen from wildflowers lining the road. Looking ahead, a steep terrace nearly a hundred meters long stretched out before me, and scattered sunlight filtering through the leaves transformed into ten thousand stars on the steps.

The blinding light that just now must have been Phantom Sun shining directly through the mountains behind us.

Xue Ming turned around and looked closely. After walking about fifty meters further down the mountain, he saw seagulls rising and falling, flying low over the Baisha beach, sometimes clinging to the old branches of the cedar trees, sometimes flying towards the fishing boats in the shallow sea.

There was no road behind me, only an endless sea and two artificial islands in the far distance, shaped like Haitang Bay and Akita Island.

On both sides of the slope in front of us, strings of prayer strips hang from the torii gates, like bountiful ears of wheat drooping over the benches of the pavilion.

Beside the stone chair stand two solemn and majestic statues of deities, one of the Thunder God and the other of the Wind God.

Xue Ming had seen these two gods in the neighborhood brochure of Shinto City—

--They are the North Wind and the gale, depicted as samurai and ninja, capable of manipulating rain and clouds.

Looking ahead from the torii gate, a huge statue of a deity is built against the verdant mountains, and a lifelike female bodhisattva lies in the temple, which is as tall as a cedar tree.

That was Hei Mu Qianshou, the savior summoned by the jester.

Like the seated Dharmakaya seen by the meteor, it is a giant human figure that combines the images of the Seven Lucky Gods, holding a precious carp in his arms, wearing hunting clothes, carrying a pipa on his back, and with a white crane standing beside him.

She lay prone in the temple, and even though Xue Ming was a hundred meters away from this female bodhisattva, he could still see her lying on the ground. The pagoda in front of her was the landmark of the temple.

The signpost above the torii gate indicates the name of the temple— Kanto Reidaifukuyama Temple.

Xue Ming thought to herself, "It seems I won't be able to get out of this place until I clear it out."

He activated the VENOM mechanism again, turned on the HUD, and banged on the wake-up service several times, but there was absolutely no response. He couldn't wake up. So he thought to himself, unless he got tired of these gods and scared them away, they would probably drive him out of this Extreme Bliss Space.

We continued walking forward, climbing up the stone steps of the mountain path.

At first, Xue Ming didn't sense anything unusual. His Inspiration remained sharp, and when he observed the surrounding cedar trees and mountains, he was still amazed. These landscapes were almost indistinguishable from reality. If it weren't for the index page that activated the VENOM mechanism constantly reminding him of the fact that he was in an illusion, he probably would have really thought he was in some unknown mountainous area of Japan.

Later, as he walked along, he began to realize that something was wrong.

After climbing about ten steps, he felt his mind was not working properly and his body was not obeying his commands. So he immediately stopped and crouched down on the spot as a precaution.

After waiting for half a minute, the surroundings remained peaceful and quiet, filled with the sounds of birdsong and the fragrance of flowers. Only the distant sounds of temple bells and drums, and the rustling of wild animals and insects touching withered leaves could be heard.

Xue Ming instinctively took a step back, glanced down at the path he had come from, and his expression changed drastically, his pupils dilating in shock.

Why did the shoes get bigger?

He was surprised to find that the shoes he had worn for over a thousand days and nights were now a whole size too big, which explained his unsteady steps and loss of balance.

He reached out to touch the wide upper of the shoe and saw the wrinkled cuffs of the white shirt hanging from his fingertips, covering his entire hand.

Why have my clothes gotten bigger?

He finally snapped out of his daze and realized that not only his shoes, shirt, and overalls, but all his clothes had become a whole size too big!

"No! It didn't get bigger!"

Xue Ming covered his face, but couldn't feel a single beard. His fleshy palm, which peeked out from his sleeve, looked smooth and white, and even his knuckles were pink.

"I've shrunk! I've really shrunk?!"

Without a mirror as a reference, he had no idea what changes had occurred to the soft prosthetic body.

Is there something wrong with this path? Or is it the soul power attack of the Hei Mu Qianshou?

What on earth happened?!

He could touch the hair on the top of his head. Unlike his usual clean and neat buzz cut, his originally coarse and dark hair had become soft, like a child's fine and smooth hair.

The clothes hung loosely on his frail body, making it difficult for him to move his arms and legs freely; naturally, his limbs were unresponsive, as if he were trapped in a cloth bag.

While tidying up her messy shoelaces, Xue Ming's expression changed, and she immediately noticed the footprints on the ten or so stone steps.

Those were muddy puddles, the marks left by his shoes, stained with wet mud, as he stepped on the steps. As he went up, the marks seemed to become lighter and lighter as he went up.

Amidst the dark yellow muddy tracks, there were still water stains the size of coins, which acted like a mirror, reflecting Xue Ming's tender and young face.

This face is both familiar and unfamiliar, because he doesn't remember what he looked like as a child, and there are no photos or videos to prove it.

If 9527 saw this scene, his Madness Index would instantly explode, consistent with his husband's previous response to the jester—a frenzied joy as he shouted that he wanted to eat children while rushing to prison.

Xue Ming muttered, "It's a ghost."

The childish voice emanating from his throat confirmed his current state; he was indeed a child of no more than ten years old, who appeared to be somewhat malnourished.

He tightened the trouser legs, tore off the excess fabric from the seams, and made the overalls more secure. He opened the waistband and glanced down—his little brother had also returned to his childhood state along with this soft prosthetic body.

Xue Ming's face showed a strange expression, and he cursed under his breath.

"Depend on!"

He rolled up his shirt sleeves, took off his ill-fitting shoes, tied his overly long hair with his shoelaces, and continued climbing. After taking a few steps and confirming that his body wouldn't shrink any further, he finally felt at ease.

On the cement plaza near the temple, two kerosene lamps greeted him on either side. In the distance, the scent of incense wafted from the temple's shrines, wisps of smoke drifting out and disappearing without a trace after traveling only ten meters or so, upon encountering moisture.

The colossal Hei Mu Qianshou statue remained motionless, seemingly asleep.

Xue Ming scratched the back of his head, wondering what this female bodhisattva was up to. If she wanted to use this physical body to destroy the statue, it probably wouldn't be an easy task.

One or two nightingales flew past the fir branches in the woods, their eyes reflecting the frail figure of Xue Ming —transmitting the scene from the Hei Mu Qianshou official community to the Jester.

At this very moment, the jester had already fled to another city, secretly observing everything through the broadcast's perspective.

He looked excited, his face contorted with rage, and he was muttering incantations.

"This is the special ability of [Colorful Flowers]! Thousand Red and Ten Thousand Purple Jiang Xueming!"

"You will return to being eight years old! A helpless eight-year-old! An innocent and naive eight-year-old!"

"In this state, there's nothing you can do!"

"Lost in the loving and gentle embrace of the Hei Mu Qianshou, letting go of all wariness."

"Hand over your memories! Become foam on the ocean!"

"To become a true"

"A real little kid!"