Dream and Reality

Qin Yiguan shifted slightly.

Looking through the broken window into the courtyard, I saw a figure in a white coat standing in the center of the yard, staring motionless in my direction.

Qin Yiguan narrowed his eyes slightly.

From a distance, this person's figure and appearance are at least eight or nine parts similar to the Lu Zhoulang!

He immediately went downstairs with Dr. House and into the courtyard, slowly approaching the man.

Dr. House said softly, "This patient's emotions are unstable. We need to keep all our movements slow and avoid agitating him."

The scene was so quiet you could almost hear a pin drop.

"This is a dream!"

"It's all a dream!"

Suddenly, the man let out a loud, hysterical shout, his eyes wide open. His shout startled the unidentified birds in the distant rainforest, causing them to scatter and take flight.

"I know."

Dr. House smiled gently and gestured for the other person to relax. "I know this is all a dream, but I entered your dream to heal your illness. Do you remember? I'm the psychiatrist you booked."

Upon hearing this, Qin Yiguan looked at House with some confusion.

Dr. House tilted his head and whispered, "But we need to get the patient off guard first before we can get close to him."

"Oh!"

"It's Dr. House!"

But then the figure in the white coat suddenly nodded, his words instantly logically consistent, and politely said, "Excuse me, I thought you were one of those alien invaders."

Dr. House feigned horror, "Interdimensional invaders? Those terrifying dream monsters?!"

The figure in the white coat nodded emphatically, "That's right! You are indeed a professional psychologist!"

Qin Yiguan was carefully examining the figure in the white coat.

He was nearly 60 years old, with his hair and beard growing wildly and becoming a tangled mess. His white lab coat was also full of tears and dirt, as if he had worn it for more than ten years without ever changing it.

The soles of the leather shoes on her feet were worn away and were tied to her feet with coils of straw rope.

In his hand, he held a longbow made of forest vines, and in the quiver on his back were several metal arrows. These arrows were taken from the metal fence of the Ring Research Institute and polished by him. The metal spikes that had just ambushed Dr. House were these kinds of arrows.

As for his appearance, it was mostly hidden in his wild, grassy hair and beard.

His face...

Qin Yiguan was somewhat dazed, as if he were seeing a hallucination. His face looked a lot like Lu Zhoulang, and of course, he also looked a lot like Lu Zhoulang, but Qin Yiguan was also very certain that this was definitely someone else.

People often encounter this feeling in life, and most people will sigh about it.

They look so alike, but they are definitely not the same person.

What is your name?

Dr. House smiled and said, "You didn't leave your name when you left me that message."

My name is Hua Xu.

The elderly man in the white coat suddenly puffed out his chest. Although he was over sixty, he was strong and powerful, and at this moment he exuded a proud expression. "37 years ago, I stood out from 13,000 applicants and became the only newcomer to work at the Ring Research Institute that year. I joined the Logistics Management Group and became a proud Level 1 staff member."

"For 37 years, I worked diligently and conscientiously without a single complaint, and finally I was promoted."

"Although I'm still in the Logistics Management Group, I'm already a proud Level 2 employee!"

Dr. House and Qin Yiguan paused slightly upon hearing this.

then.

Dr. House forced a smile and said, "Hard work pays off. Congratulations."

In that instant.

Hua Xu's expression suddenly changed, and he looked at the sky with a serious expression. Then he immediately drew an iron arrow, nocked it on the bowstring, drew the wooden bow to its full extent, and shot it into the air with a whoosh.

Dr. House maintained his gentle smile. "What's this?"

"I'm shooting at the sun."

Hua Xu cautiously said, "This is a dream world. The sun is the embodiment of the alien invaders. If we don't shoot it down, it will continue to gather strategic intelligence and eventually destroy everything here."

Qin Yiguan did not raise his head, because he dared not look at the sky.

But whether you look or not makes little difference; Hua Xu's arrow should already be lying in some bushes by now.

"Please come with me, both of you."

Hua Xu carefully led the two into a secluded side room. The room was well-equipped with living facilities, and Hua Xu called it a 'temporary fortress'.

Qin Yiguan stared at the mentally unstable man and asked, "Everyone in the Ring Research Institute is already 'asleep,' why are you still 'awake'?"

The words "asleep" and "awake" in Qin Yiguan's speech are actually "life" and "death".

He was very curious as to why Dream General hadn't killed Hua Xu.

"Young man, you don't need to be so subtle in your speech."

"I suffer from mental illness, but I'm not mentally impaired."

Hua Xu looked at Qin Yiguan, "You mean, why did the Mouse Pup spare me alone?"

Qin Yiguan smiled knowingly, "That's right."

"As a Level 2 staff member in the logistics team, there's very little I can get involved in."

"In Group A, I was just a low-ranking assistant."

"During that period, I only had one job each day."

Hua Xu sighed, "That means turning off ' Dream Wave ' at the exact time every day."

Qin Yiguan's eyes flickered. "' Dream Wave ' is a machine that creates nightmares for the Mouse Pup. In other words, your job, Hua Xu, every day is to end the suffering of the Mouse Pup."

Hua Xu nodded slowly, her expression somewhat inscrutable. "Perhaps, the Mouse Pup harbors a sliver of gratitude towards me."

Immediately.

Hua Xu actually bent down, grabbed a handful of black soil from the ground, and found a red earthworm slowly wriggling in the soil. Without even looking at it, he put the soil in his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it all in a moment.

He said, "This is a dream, so logic doesn't matter too much. This soil gives me a feeling of fullness; it's the only food I've had in all these years."

Qin Yiguan seemed to be deep in thought, then said with a double meaning, "It's a miracle you've survived until now."

The next moment.

Hua Xu held his head in his hands, a look of remorse on his face. He then looked up at Qin Yiguan and Dr. House, and said in a low voice, "Actually, I also did something that I Mouse Pup."

His voice trembled slightly. "If the Mouse Pup found out, they definitely wouldn't let me off the hook."

Qin Yiguan's eyes narrowed slightly. "Tell me about it."

"I discovered something unusual about the Mouse Pup."

At this moment, Hua Xu hesitated, looking at Qin Yiguan's strange expression and feeling inexplicably afraid. But then he looked at the gentle Dr. House, which made him lower his guard for some reason.

As a top-notch psychiatrist, Dr. House's every word and action seems to relax his tense patients; this appears to be one of his most fundamental abilities.

Qin Yiguan also realized this truth and sighed inwardly, thankfully Dr. House was by his side.

But then Hua Xu gradually lowered her guard, revealing a look of reminiscence, and began to utter the truth, word by word.

"When Mouse Pup is asleep, its consciousness... can spread out from its brain, and then, like a giant sharp cone, pierce through the clouds."

"At first, I thought human consciousness was extremely mysterious, perhaps connected to some special object in the universe."

"Later I discovered that the Mouse Pup's consciousness spike... pierced through the Gemini Metaverse."

Upon hearing this, Qin Yiguan's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Unbelievable, isn't it?"

Hua Xu smiled wryly, "That wasn't just a simple puncture; it directly created a 'flaw' in the Gemini Metaverse. Have you ever heard of the word 'bug'? The Mouse Pup created a bug for the Gemini Metaverse."

Eighty years ago, the servers of the Gemini Metaverse shed their solid form and formed something resembling a quantum cloud, floating outside of Earth, although this quantum cloud later disappeared.

"But, the Mouse Pup punctured that very thing."

"This is a collision between human consciousness and digital code... without any intermediary!"

"I suspect that the Mouse Pup can enter the Gemini Metaverse through their dreams!"

Qin Yiguan suddenly said slowly, "I actually... agree with what you said."

"Thanks."

Hua Xu nodded and continued, "Moreover, the 'loophole' created by the Mouse Pup should be unique in the Metaverse, and it can fool the Gemini Superbrain, so it cannot be repaired."

"If we exploit that vulnerability properly..."

"Then we can definitely see the underlying code of the Gemini Superbrain Gemini Superbrain, tamper with it, and then manipulate the metaverse at Metaverse, doing whatever we want."

In that instant.

Qin Yiguan thought of Bishamonten's ' Virtual Machine '.

Hua Xu's guess was correct; this technology is now a reality!

"Then..."

Hua Xu's Pupil trembled slightly. "I volunteered to build a machine for Lu Zhoulang, the leader of Group A. The machine is called ' Ame-no-Nuboko,' named after the weapon of the same name in Island Nation mythology. It was the spear used to create the first piece of earth."

"The Ame-no-Nuboko can pinpoint that vulnerability's location within the Gemini Metaverse."

"Because only by finding the location of that vulnerability can the next step of code modification be initiated."

"The downside is that it requires sawing open the Mouse Pup's skulls."

"But!"

Hua Xu's expression was somewhat excited, "Dr. Lu promised me that once he finds that loophole, he will release the Mouse Pup, terminate Group A's project, and stop torturing him!"

"Dr. Lu broke his promise."

"He did indeed find the vulnerability and entered the Gemini Metaverse to develop and exploit it."

"But he didn't terminate Group A's project; before leaving, he instructed his subordinates to continue... studying the Mouse Pup."

At this moment, Qin Yiguan's eyes flashed, "You actually found that Gemini Loophole in Lu Zhoulang's possession?"

Hua Xu gave another bitter laugh. "It wasn't just the Ame-no-Nuboko. Later, Dr. Lu sent me some basic code for the Gemini Metaverse. I was bewitched and even created some programs for him... I collectively call those programs ' Virtual Machine '."

Qin Yiguan's eyes widened. "You created the Virtual Machine too?!"

Hua Xu lowered her head and shrugged. "I've said it before, back then, I defeated 13,000 people and was the only one to enter the Ring Research Institute. During that time, anyone who didn't know my real name would call me 'genius' from afar."

Qin Yiguan's thoughts were in turmoil.

So, after all this time, both the loopholes in Lu Zhoulang's abilities and the Virtual Machine, the 'magic weapon' jointly possessed by Lu Zhoulang and Lu Zhoulang, were created by this unknown Hua Xu?!

Should we call this Hua Xu a 'genius' or a 'fool'?!

Before Qin Yiguan could think it through carefully...

A strange sense of unease suddenly arose in my heart.

The Plunderer's body suddenly appeared in Qin Yiguan's mind, and the huge neural network formed by the Plunderer was trembling faintly.

Qin Yiguan frowned.

The Plunderer are currently in the Metaverse, maintaining the simulated Virtual Machine that traps Bishamonten within it.

This scene, in a way, seemed to be conveying a message to Qin Yiguan.

Someone is attacking its own ' Virtual Machine '.

It was Bishamonten was dishonest.

Or has a new enemy emerged?

At this moment, Qin Yiguan slowly turned around and looked at Dr. House. "Doctor, I'm very sorry, I may need to take a nap now."

Dr. House already knew that Qin Yiguan could enter the Metaverse through dreams, and now he understood perfectly, nodding slowly and saying, "Then, I'd like to speak with my patient alone."

Qin Yiguan nodded.

I found a chair that was barely comfortable, lay down, slowly closed my eyes, and forced myself to sleep!