Between the Gates

Sigh, this is so difficult...

What has Li Fan done to deserve this? What kind of people are he matched with? They start planting mushrooms, setting off firecrackers, wiping out entire houses, and threatening mass extinctions at the drop of a hat! Can't we even have a proper game? And are nuclear weapons really that worthless over there? Are human lives really that worthless? Even if they are, don't just flip the table and wipe out the whole team at the drop of a hat. Are you such a sore loser?

Li Fan (Ya), who was now flapping his wings and flying wildly, could no longer sense Qiongqi through his pure spirit. He didn't know whether Pang Hu had been directly hit by a nuclear explosion and turned to ashes, or whether he was being subjected to various shockwaves, radiation, and Divine Sense shocks. With the various environmental interferences of ECMEMP, Guiche's fragile nerves were about to give way.

However, with such a large-scale explosion, if Fatty Tiger doesn't use his magic to escape in time, he's more likely to be reduced to ashes. To put it bluntly, if the Anxi Immortal Army and the Qingyang Vanguard Team in the entire Juelong Ridge region were to suffer a nuclear attack of this scale, probably very few would survive.

You have to understand that when Li Fan's True Yang Technique Little Sun self-destructed, it was enough to kill Lu Ya and Lu Hansheng, the two friends of Nangong, in one move. Could any of the other Blood God Child or demonic beasts be more powerful than those two old cunning bastards? Even if they had Divine Transformation level body, it would probably be difficult for them to leave a complete corpse in the center of the explosion.

Of course, those Blood God Child with stronger Divine Sense, deeper cultivation, greater distance, and faster escape speed should still have a chance to survive. However, their essence and cultivation will definitely be completely destroyed. Without going into seclusion for a hundred or eighty years to rebuild their cultivation, or by slaughtering a city and devouring tens of thousands of people to replenish their strength, it will be difficult for them to recover their magical power.

Regardless, the deviation value of Juelong Ridge has exceeded the limit. The company and the Security Bureau must have already paid close attention. The helmet of the electronic ghost shell has also been destroyed. Li Fan dares not risk communicating with the system and attracting the attention of hackers, and he is even less likely to risk going back to confirm the crime scene. Now, the only priority is to let the Guiche take Heluo's chip brain implant and run away.

Flying south for three days and three nights, confirming that there were no pursuers, no cruisers jumping in, and no comets or nuclear bombs hitting the ground, Li Fan was finally convinced that he was probably temporarily out of danger.

Anyway, even the Heavenly Immortal Realm of Ink Bamboo Mountain doesn't have the equipment to deal with the brain chip implanted in Guiche's belly. At least we have to wait for the system's ship to jump over before it can be delivered. There's no rush. So he found a tree hole and let Guiche crawl in to recuperate. He will temporarily go into seclusion and lie low for a while before escaping again in one go. He will let Qingxu Yuanshen focus on regulating his breathing and recuperating, while Yuanshen will leave his body and return to his main body to check on the progress of the main storyline.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the original 'Qingyue', ever since she went to Mount Song to save Qin Jiu and Kun, she has been stealthily heading straight for Ink Bamboo Mountain to take refuge.

Incidentally, because Shi Kai had the karmic affinity to become a disciple, keeping him by his side would be predicted by the two elders. Moreover, the boy was quite stubborn, so in the end, Li Fan decided to let him cultivate on Mount Song.

As for Amao, well, how should I put it? Li Fan originally planned to take this kid with him, but when he found him, he discovered that Amao's team had not only escaped unharmed, but had also infiltrated a group of merchant ships fleeing to Ink Bamboo Mountain.

These people included powerful families who lived on the outskirts of the Jingji and had long since fled to the countryside from the Three Palaces to seek refuge, as well as merchant caravans from Li Country who came from Ink Bamboo Mountain to do business. They had heard that there were murderous maniacs known as the "Bloody Hand Butcher" and the "Blood Palm of the Demonic Cult" who were robbing and plundering in the vicinity of the Jingji, and that they had even robbed the delegation from Gen Province. They also knew that the Jingji was not peaceful, so they dared not enter the capital for the time being.

As a result, many merchant groups stayed in the suburbs to trade with local powerful families, thus avoiding the great calamity in the Jingji. However, upon seeing the closure of the three passes in the north and the earth-shattering Thunder Roar, they knew that something serious had happened and that the Jingji was not a place to stay for long. So, several powerful businessmen discussed it and decided to simply return the way they came, travel south together, and take their families to Lizhou, which was currently the only safe haven in the world, to seek refuge.

With a fleet of over a hundred merchant ships and countless guards and escorts, no ordinary bandits or marauders dared to harass them. Moreover, with Yuntai Peak in chaos, the 'Demon Sect' had no time to deal with these refugees. Apart from being a little slow in their movements, they were relatively safe.

The most outrageous thing is that Li Fan discovered that the boat Amao was on actually only had him as a man! What? This situation is normal for Amao? But the rest of the people on the Zǐwēigōng? What kind of treatment is this, a Celestial Emperor traveling incognito?!

So Li Fan did some calculations and asked around. It turned out that the General of Chariots and Cavalry was actually the Chariot and Cavalry General- law or something, and these palace maids, whether they had gotten wind of it beforehand or their powerful backers had fallen, saw that the Grand Tutor was about to change the dynasty, so they jumped ship in advance and took advantage of the chaos to escape from the Ziwei Yuan and survive.

It's unclear who was truly lucky, but during their chase by the chaotic soldiers, they happened to bump into Amao. Their eunuchs and guards were all dead, and the concubines, not wanting to appear in public, hired Amao, a reasonably skilled and honest man, as their bodyguards and servants. During the escort, they caught a glimpse of Amao healing his two Snake Demon maids, witnessing his abilities firsthand. After various indescribable accidents—in short, after one-on-one, one-on-two, one-on-three, four, five, six, and seven sparring matches—they all Amao's new team, becoming trustworthy teammates...

Damn... this kid's storyline is just too ridiculous...

Considering that he had swallowed Purple Void Dao Lord in his belly, it wouldn't be surprising if experts from Supreme Purity Dao suddenly attacked him. Li Fan was also not very comfortable letting his main body take over the Hengshan Daoist temple. As for Amao, he was different from Qin Jiu, who had a tragic fate. He was doing well even if left unattended.

Li Fan then decided not to travel with Amao and the others. He chose an opportunity to appear, gave Amao a few words of encouragement, and casually tossed him some Cultivation Method and the Five Arts, letting him study and practice them with the concubines of Ziwei Yuan. This way, he wouldn't interfere with Amao and his team's sightseeing.

So when Li Fan possessed the Guiche to handle matters for the Divine Cult, he entrusted his physical body to his second primordial spirit, and detoured towards Zhen, passing through the territories of Tianfu Mountain and Luofu Mountain, taking a slight detour to avoid the sphere of influence of Supreme Purity.

Since Qin Jiu's injuries had not yet healed, and Li Fan also had to worry about the affairs of the Divine Sect, he was not in a hurry to travel. When Qingxu Yuanshen was in charge, he would basically fly through the air and then disappear underground every time he encountered a town or village, and then land to find an inn or hotel to stay in, change Qin Jiu's bandages and treat his injuries, let him eat and drink his fill, and let him sleep for a few hours to replenish his energy before continuing his journey.

This kid really had a tough time. Not only did he repeatedly fight to the brink of death, but in the end he also suffered a huge psychological blow that almost drove him to the brink of collapse.

Fortunately, Li Fan also had the psychological therapy method of patting Qin Jiu's head. Although it was a temporary fix, it could at least temporarily suppress her emotions and allow them to be released slowly, so that Qin Jiu would calm down and not be too emotionally agitated, which would affect her recovery.

After confirming that Qin Jiu and Kun were safe and sound, and that there were no threatening experts nearby, Li Fan took the opportunity to Moon Worship and contact the system to check on the current situation at the 'gate'.

Li Gan: "Don't worry, nothing's wrong."

Li Kun, "..."

Li Fan glanced at Li Kun, who was standing there like a wooden fish, seemingly still offline, and then asked Li Gan, who was sitting calmly on the sidelines.

"Boat bombings and nuclear explosions... are you sure there's nothing going on?"

So Li Gan snapped his fingers, pulled up a star chart, and showed it to him. "See these points of light?"

Li Fan narrowed his eyes. "What star system is this? It's not the Milky Way, is it?"

This image is quite different from his understanding of the spiral cluster model; it looks more like a spindle composed of densely packed light spots.

Li Gan explained, "This is a star map of the membranes, a model of the gaps, the current map of the multiverse explored by Earth 0, also known as the 'between the gates'."

"Hiss... This is the door..." Li Fan exclaimed in surprise, staring at the points of light. "Then what are these...?"

Li Gan nodded. "They are all 'Earth'. Each point of light is an activated beacon in a multiverse dimension. Behind each of these points is Earth 0, but the specific coordinates are classified as top secret within the core code of the security system, and we don't know them."

Then he pushed the spindle of light up with both hands and tossed it into the sky.

The camera rapidly zoomed out and panned, traversing the endless darkness. Just as the spindle of light was almost flying into the sky, Li Gan raised his hand and pressed down on the intermembranous star map, pointing to a dim point of light that was barely visible unless you looked closely.

Li Fan understood, "Is this the Taiji Realm?"

Li Gan shook his head. "No, this is the border outpost 'Earth 1077' under the Scientific Ethics Committee, the closest navigation point to the Taiji Realm. Those spaceships exploring the Taiji Realm, the lottery props we sent you, and the cruiser scythe were all sent from this 'Earth 1077'."

Li Fan was stunned for a moment, "Then the Taiji Realm..."

"The Taiji Realm, 'Earth 49327'. If we must understand the twenty-seven-dimensional space using three-dimensional coordinates..."

Li Gan shrank the star map, and then, using 'Outpost Earth 1077' as the center, drew a huge sphere in the darkness of deep space, so huge that it encompassed the entire spindle-shaped collection of Earth 0.

"Probably anywhere in deep space outside this teleportation radius. It's an old map, and I don't know the exact location. Besides, company assets don't need to have their coordinates publicly available online."

Li Fan was speechless. "This is a public restroom. People come and go as they please, don't they know the coordinates?"

Li Gan shrugged. "This is a classic erroneous model that was used when exploring interdimensional gaps in the early days, based on star maps."

This diagram actually illustrates the difficulty and cost of maintaining a virtual network connection, rather than the physical space traversed by actual warships. The Sickle Cruiser's command authority is 1077; this spherical coverage area actually refers to the operational radius within which a stable network connection can be established and authorized.

In reality, it's more accurate to describe the crossing as "the other side" and "this side" of the "door," because as long as you cross the "door," the technique is the same whether you jump from 1077 to 49327 or from 1077 to 0.

I'm not trying to mislead you, I'm just telling you that if that 'scythe' is truly authorized, it can activate the 'gate' and jump over in an instant. But for a military warship to cross the gate, it needs prior permission from the Security Bureau system and access to the subnets on both sides. Its movements on the virtual network cannot be concealed.

We are monitoring the '1077' subnet, and there are currently no signals of the Security Bureau allocating warships. I think the Third Division and the company have reached some kind of agreement, and may even be deliberately covering up the news of the complete annihilation of the support team."

Li Fan was a little confused. "The ship exploded, and the entire squad was wiped out, so why cover it up?"

Li Gan thought for a moment, "All the 'door' permissions are managed by the Public Security System and the companies that own the assets. Although the Security Bureau has a mechanism to force access through doors, it depends on the alarm level."

No company or citizen would allow an entire fleet to pass through a gate for a single cockroach light-years away. You never know where they'll end up after crossing the "gate"—what if they launch a surprise attack on "Earth 0"?

If any of the three individuals escaped capture, or if the Security Bureau obtained their logs, they would have the authority to significantly increase the threat level of 'Earth 49327'. However, since they are all missing, even Earth 0 knows that they are most likely all dead, so the threat level will only accumulate and eventually remain at the 'unknown' level.

As you can see, the scythe's combat radius starts at 1077 and can hit targets down to 0.

The known threats are far more serious than the unknown ones. There's an economic crisis on the other side of the "gate," and the situation is very tense. If someone forges a threat signal, or if a corporate fleet uses the threat value mechanism to cross the "gate," it could trigger a new corporate war.

A single oversight in the Public Security System could allow a company's fleet to gain the upper hand, and the right to strike first is the right to slaughter—the consequences of which could be catastrophic...

Li Gan snapped his fingers, and the brightness of the spindle suddenly dimmed, with at least one-third of the light spots going out.

"Oh... so that's exactly how they solved the problem on the other side of the 'door'."

Li Gan spread his hands, "When you have countless clones in countless planes and countless deep space fortresses that can be reborn and restarted at any time, you won't care so much about one or two assets, Earth, and the fate of ants. Moreover, the conflicts between companies now are largely tacitly agreed not to target each other's Board of Directors members, but only to destroy strategic assets."

For example, if you have an advanced lab on 'Earth 586' that develops some cutting-edge technology, potentially causing me to lose a patent advantage or the market share across the multiverse, then instead of spending more money advancing technology, the most efficient way is to simply destroy '586', interrupting your research progress and saving that expense. After all, you only need to compensate the affected citizens for their losses. If you do it cleverly enough and don't get caught, you might not even have to pay compensation—a highly profitable proposition, isn't it?

"And once a conflict breaks out between the two companies, the battle will definitely not be limited to just those two. In fact, everyone will seize this chaotic opportunity to place their bets, attack the weaker party, and take the opportunity to weaken all competitors to ensure their own advantage. And now, large corporate groups are competing with each other in all fields, so in the end, there is a possibility that all dimensions could be destroyed by a sudden attack."

Li Fan was speechless for a moment, Li Gan also shook his head and said, "We've fought this kind of war forty or fifty times. Of course, the big companies always have the last laugh. After all, the more chips you have, the greater your chances of being the last one standing in the game."

However, aside from the initial few intense battles that even involved the use of targeted gene-tracking weapons to wipe out an entire genetic subpopulation from the multiverse, the parties have now become relatively restrained. They've basically destroyed all valuable assets, driven a company into bankruptcy and restructuring, and then the fighting stops to divide the deceased's assets, restart various projects, and the market once again flourishes due to post-war reconstruction, until the next financial crisis begins. It's just a cyclical fluctuation of economic crises."

Holy crap, using the destruction of the multiverse to overcome an economic crisis is just ridiculous!

Li Gan rested his chin on his hand and said, "In short, the company with 49,327 is at least not the weakest player in this round of reshuffling. The Security Bureau also doesn't want to trigger a corporate war, since companies like them, which act as gatekeepers, are always the target of everyone's criticism. So at least at this point in time, it's highly unlikely that either side will initiate a war."

Judging from the Security Bureau's style, a failed mission, the loss of a frigate and a support team, would likely be the end of it—minimizing losses. I imagine only 'Heluo' has decent equipment, probably a citizen with some assets; the other three are likely newcomers. The Security Bureau wouldn't risk a falling out with the company over such a small loss.

Moreover, I don't think they came for the chips this time.

Li Fan frowned for a moment, "Isn't it for the chips?"

Li Gan nodded. "Our plans have inadvertently clashed with theirs. We deliberately used Qiongqi as bait to ambush them, but the three locations were actually after Qiongqi."

Their original goal was to capture Qiongqi, burn its brain into an ionization chip, and smuggle it out. If they came for the chip, shouldn't they at least have opened its skull first to find the implant?

So their goal wasn't to obtain the chip, but to obtain intelligence. Only Qiongqi possessed such intelligence..."

Li Fan's eyes darted around and he immediately understood, "It's that pot?"

Last time, Qiongqi and the company's Empress Dowager, along with the legion's sergeant, were arguing over a black pot, saying it could be used to transfer real pots to the 'door,' and it was quite valuable. Later, they sold it to the Mood System and made their first pot of gold...

"So who did you sell that pot to? Did you report it to the police because it was counterfeit?"

Li Gan gave a wry smile. "It was a black market transaction, so it went to a middleman. Logically, it shouldn't be a problem on our end. I suspect it's the company, the legion, or the client who caused it. This time, we're really taking the blame..."

Only then did Li Fan understand why the mood system was relaxed.

If it weren't for that chip, the three departments wouldn't have been able to trace it back to Li Fan and the Mood System. And since the matter of being framed already involved both the company and the legion, they were even more unable to shake off suspicion.

"So what's the point of that pot? Aren't you already capable of cruisers jumping over your own ships? Why are you making such a fuss over a pot?"

Li Fan couldn't understand.

Li Gan glanced at Li Fan, then opened his right hand. A green sprout emerged from beneath the skin of his palm, growing vigorously into a small tree the size of a human head, resembling some kind of exquisite bonsai held in his hand.

"This is an oak tree."

Li Fan, "???"

Li Gan smiled slightly, "Do you still remember that all forms are illusory? If you see all forms as non-forms, then you will see the Tathagata."

Oh, is that the writing in the tea room when we first met at the Yang Fish?

Li Fan retorted, "But isn't the Buddha's tree a Bodhi tree?"

"I know, it's just a personal preference."

Li Gan chuckled, and the oak tree, too, grew lush and verdant amidst the laughter, its branches swaying and shimmering with the rising and falling light, sprouting layers of golden leaves.

"Getting back to the main point, simply conjuring up a Dharma image is very easy; there are many ways to do it. Virtual programs can do it, projection can do it, or any other method will do."

But conversely, if we trace the origins of illusion and seek the truth, we will understand that without the first seed, a true oak tree cannot be grown.

That pot, I guess, serves that purpose.

As he spoke, the oak tree in his hand withered and died, its leaves decaying and eventually disappearing with the wind, leaving only a seed in his palm.

Li Fan frowned at him. "You sold that kind of thing so easily? What exactly is your purpose? Where are you? Are you a highlight in this whole affair? Or are you, like 49327, hiding in the shadows? What exactly are you doing in the Taiji Realm? Is it to steal the company's technology? Or is it to 'secure your advantage'?"

Li Gan looked up at Li Fan, smiled and winked, then handed the seeds in his hand to Li Fan.

"You'll find out once you sign the contract."

Li Fan opened his eyes, looked at the False Moon in the sky, then looked down at the acorn in his hand.

"Tsk... what kind of weird stuff did they give me this time...?"