January 29th, night, Land of Rain, Konoha Supply Force headquarters.
Akaseki was practicing the "Gate of Opening," or rather, delegating control of his "hypothalamus" and "hippocampus." In Tobirama Senju's words, he was entrusting his "Palace of Equilibrium" and "Lodge of Stored Awareness"—
For the past three months, Akaseki had been immersing himself in ultra-short dramas with relatively brief plots in order to exchange small sculptures for points as quickly as possible.
After undergoing Deep Immersion in Ten Days of Lamentation with his "hippocampus" opened, ordinary Immersion—even ultra-short dramas—simply was not stimulating enough for Akaseki—
Thus, after sorting out his feelings over the past few days, Akaseki once again began Deep Immersion!
The Sorrow of Dumpling: Plot duration: one month. Immersion duration: 96 hours.
"The Sorrow of Dumpling? Dumpling? As a symbol of reunion, I guess this would be some family drama again—let's go with this!" Akaseki made his choice.
At three in the morning, Akaseki woke up right on time. To be safe, he had to ease into this kind of Deep Immersion little by little!
After waking up, Akaseki casually boiled himself a kettle of warm water and drank it to calm himself down before entering the memories—
Hong Yan, an eighteen-year-old boy, was preparing for the Gaokao—and unlike what Akaseki had imagined, the "main stage" was at school rather than at home.
At the very beginning of the memory—
In a classroom filled with the tense atmosphere of exam preparation, a woman's delighted voice suddenly rang out. "Oh my god! This is ten million!
"Classmates, we don't have to study anymore! [Dumpling] said that as long as we give up the Gaokao, it'll compensate each of us with ten million!"
"Huh? What did you say? Chuchu, are you under too much pressure?"
"Dumpling? Something to eat?"