Petru suddenly felt like he might really be dreaming, as if this wasn't some damned Tubuai Island, or the cave where he hid during his exile, but rather a philosophy debate classroom at a university. He simply shut his mouth, waiting for Su Huilan to say what she needed to say, hoping she would eventually get to the point he wanted to know and could understand.
The Crow and Hanran seemed dumbfounded, their eyes wide open, their heads pressed close together, unaware of each other's presence.
At this moment, Qingmu suddenly remembered the old willow tree in Liuying Lane, Bi Shenghua, and the Mulberry Garden.
The weather on the island is unpredictable. The rain outside the cave had stopped, a rainbow arched over the bay, and sunlight pierced through the lingering mist, shining on the distant sea with a shimmering, white-gold luster.
Qingmu took out his phone and checked the time. This was the Hawaii -Aleutian time zone, a hot summer afternoon, while Wuzhong was in the dead of winter, barely dawn, perhaps still snowing. Bi Shenghua, an early riser, was probably already pulling up the bar's shutters and clearing the snow from the entrance.
He could almost see her straightening up in the cold wind, glancing towards the distant southeast, her hands, gripping the broom, red with cold.
The backpack on his back felt strangely heavy. Qingmu took it off, unzipped it, and glanced inside. The first thing that caught his eye was a willow branch that still had a hint of green.
Across mountains and rivers, everything seems like a dream, only the green of the willow branches remains unchanged.
Qingmu didn't want this world to be a dream.
"Fine, even if the combined Mental Power of seven billion people is unshakeable, it still doesn't prove your theory," Qingmu stubbornly retorted. "When we're all dreaming, and no one can wake up, what's the difference between a dream and reality? It's a paradox!"
Su Huilan nodded and said, "You're right. There's no difference between dreams and reality. We don't know what true reality is like, but we should always strive to find the truth."
"Seeking the truth?"
"Yes, just as scientists often say we should pursue truth, we are simply looking for reality."
How do I find it?
"Have you ever experienced a dream within a dream?" Su Huilan asked abruptly.
"A dream within a dream?" Qingmu didn't understand why she asked that.
"Oh, I almost forgot, you're a dreamless person," Su Huilan sighed, her expression a mixture of confusion, curiosity, and a touch of envy.
Qingmu said, "It's nothing. Although I don't dream, I know about dreams within dreams. But what does that have to do with searching for the real world?"
Su Huilan said, "My team and I have been researching dreams within dreams for a long time. We found that if a person's dream lasts long enough, they will inevitably drift into a dream within a dream, and within a dream within a dream, if the time is long enough, they will continue to drift into the next dream within a dream."
Is it endless?
"It's uncertain whether there's an end, because once the dream slips into the third layer, it becomes very difficult to observe."
"Why?"
"Dreams are like transparent soap bubbles, their balance maintained by the tension of the mind. The surface of the bubble reflects the outside world, which is our memory. Conversely, our memories reflect into the inside of the bubble, forming our dream space. When this bubble exists long enough, under the influence of certain forces, an inner bubble will be generated inside. At this point, our consciousness will slip into the inner bubble, and the two circles will be completely tangent."
Su Huilan made a ball-like motion with both hands, then released one hand. "However, the two circles are not concentric circles, nor are they two layers of thin film superimposed. Instead, the outer bubble is concave inward, somewhat like the curvature of space near a massive celestial body in the universe. Hmm... do you understand?"
"I can't imagine it, but I can understand," Qingmu nodded and said, "And then?"
"Then, our consciousness becomes unaware of the existence of the external bubble. The world outside the bubble needs to pass through two membranes to refract into our conscious space, like two lenses, but one is concave and the other is convex. The curvature of space makes the refracted world appear real; the more layers of refraction, the further the dream is from reality. This is why the content of dreams within dreams is more bizarre than ordinary dreams and harder to remember after waking up."
Su Huilan sounded a little thirsty and picked up the water glass on the table to take a sip.
"The water on the island is so sweet!" She raised her glass in a gesture of thanks to Petru.
"When the dream slips into the third and book-like layer, the refraction of memories becomes unrecognizable, and the mental exertion of the dreaming subject is extremely high. Such dreams are exhausting, and it's difficult to observe what she's dreaming about unless you forcibly interfere with her with your Mental Power, but that's not observation."
"We haven't observed dreams beyond the third layer yet. This might be because an individual's dream doesn't meet the requirements for fourth-layer memory refraction, or it could be a problem with our observation methods. However, the tension distortion of the third-layer bubble is already very complex, and the internal space becomes extremely small. Therefore, we have reason to believe that once a person slips into the fourth layer of the dream, they may not be able to wake up."
"Why haven't I seen any discussions on this topic? Haven't you published any of them?" Qingmu asked.
"Observations of dreams within dreams are relatively easy for people with lucid dreaming abilities to observe, given enough patience, but they are difficult to articulate in a research paper. Moreover, I am not conducting this research for academic purposes, but rather to prove my own point of view."
As Su Huilan spoke, she reached out and made a sliding motion.
If an individual's dream inevitably slides into a dream within a dream, deepening with each layer, then what makes Group Dream immune? If this world is a dream shared by everyone, can we assume that, given enough time, we will inevitably fall into a deeper dream?
"There's an interesting analogy. In the scientific and philosophical expressions of the universe's spacetime, different dimensions exist. Humans exist in three-dimensional spacetime. We cannot understand or even imagine higher-dimensional worlds; we can only describe them using mathematical abstractions, but that doesn't prevent us from yearning for them. However, many scientists, including Lester, believe that the universe is constantly falling into lower dimensions—from five or higher dimensions, falling to four, and then from four to three. In each dimension, there are traces of higher dimensions that have not yet Annihilation."
"One day, our three-dimensional world will fall into a two-dimensional universe. Perhaps it already has, but we just don't know it. Right now, we may just be living in a three-dimensional bubble on a two-dimensional plane. Even if it's just a bubble, it's big enough for us."
Qingmu recalled his experience with the Crow in the Dream Corridor, a zero-dimensional, or nearly zero-dimensional, space. The feeling of eternal loneliness was indescribable.
"Where will the universe eventually fall into, zero-dimensional space?" he asked.
"I don't know," Su Huilan said. "Nobody knows. If it's zero-dimensional, then it would probably be a different beginning."
"Wait a moment!"
Qingmu felt his mind was a bit confused, with some hazy, jumbled thoughts surging within him, like someone was stirring up a long-forgotten garbage dump with a stick. At the same time, it felt as if something was trying to crawl out of his body, filling his ear canals, eyes, and nasal cavity.
This is an old habit of his; he does this whenever he thinks of something.
He took a breath. "You mean to say that our world is fixed in a three-dimensional bubble through a dream?"