There is no essential difference between fainting and falling asleep; both are the body's way of protecting itself, allowing consciousness and the brain to get a certain degree of rest.
When a person is awake, they are never still for a moment; conscious activity keeps the body and brain in a constant state of tension. Prolonged tension and excitement can disrupt certain functions. At this point, the body will self-regulate, which can also be seen as a form of self-protection, by severing the connection between consciousness and body, thus entering a state of sleep and allowing the body to completely relax. In this relaxed state, organisms can better adapt to their environment, thus gaining opportunities for evolution.
When the body is subjected to external force, drug stimulation, or certain special circumstances, the brain will also protect itself by blocking the connection between sensory nerves and consciousness. Sometimes this is to allow the body to better self-regulate, sometimes it is simply to prevent the brain from feeling pain, and of course, sometimes the brain makes a mistake and misjudges.
In either case, whether asleep or unconscious, the subconscious mind still has the opportunity to operate. The subconscious mind retrieves memories to organize and categorize information, placing useless or harmful information into insensitive areas of the cerebral cortex. Whether a person should wake up, and when they should wake up, is also determined by the subconscious mind.
The human brain and computers store information differently. Theoretically, what you remember will never disappear. Information that has been processed by the subconscious and deemed meaningless is sent to landfills like city garbage. The longer the garbage is buried, the harder it is to find. You often feel that you remember certain things, but you just can't recall them. That's because those things are buried too deep.
When the subconscious mind processes memory information, it prioritizes things that are recent, frequently appear, and require significant mental effort to remember. This is the reason behind the saying "What you think about during the day, you dream about at night."
When you spend all day doing something or thinking about someone, your subconscious will process information related to that thing or that person first, and very objectively judge the usefulness of this information based on your situation, whether to put it in the garbage truck or put it in the city exhibition hall.
When it's difficult to make a judgment, the subconscious can even organize memory materials, like a skilled screenwriter and detective, to conduct various deductions in the dream space. This is why some people say that dreams have the function of predicting the future, because a certain script arranged by the subconscious may happen to have a striking resemblance to their real life.
Of course, this situation is extremely rare. On the one hand, it's because the subconscious mind, after deducing the scenario, will try its best to prevent such things from happening in reality if it finds the scenario unreasonable. Therefore, people sometimes make strange decisions that are completely out of character, even they themselves feel inexplicable, which is actually the work of the subconscious mind.
On the other hand, most people forget their dreams, or if they do, they are fragmented. This is because dream space lacks a unidirectional temporal axis. Upon waking, the conscious mind must transform the dream content into a coherent story unfolding in three-dimensional spacetime, which is extremely difficult. Subconscious deduction is highly complex, often involving countless possibilities simultaneously, resulting in fragmented pieces that are incredibly exhausting. This process is also extremely Mental Power taxing, making such dreams tiring, and lucid dreamers try their best to avoid them.
Su Huilan looked at the two natives lying on the ground and said, "Those two kicks of yours were pretty hard. A severe fainting spell—could it cause a concussion?"
Qingmu, smoking a cigarette, paced around the scene once, then leaned lazily against a tree and said, "Don't worry, I know my footing. If I kick too lightly, they might wake up before they even have a chance to dream."
Su Huilan said with some worry, "I'm afraid their tribe will come to reinforce us."
Qingmu said, "It's even better that they're here. If we keep them occupied, the two who escaped will be safe."
How do you know it's two people?
"Just guessing. The one who was tied up couldn't have escaped on his own; his companions must have come to rescue him." Qingmu pointed to the corpses on the ground and the trampled grass, saying, "The island's natives don't wear shoes. Besides ours, there are two other sets of footprints on the ground. The larger one came from that side."
He pointed to the bushes in the low-lying area nearby. "He hid there and fired the first shot. One unlucky guy was killed. The natives reacted quickly; he fired a second shot, killing another one. Before he could fire a third shot, close combat broke out. Their fight must have been intense; one against three was probably no chance for him, so Petru shot to help him kill two more. The last one was killed by Petru breaking his neck. Judging from the method, this guy had received military training."
He walked behind the tree to the spot on the cliff where they had seen the bound person's foot protruding through their binoculars. Pointing to the footprints ahead, he said, "It's quite obvious here. There are only two pairs of footprints, one large and one small. The smaller pair should be from the pathfinder's shoe we saw. She was a woman with small feet, and judging from the depth of the footprints, she wouldn't have weighed more than sixty kilograms."
He picked up a vine and examined it closely. "This must be the one used to tie her up. The cut was made with a knife, and there's blood on the ground. She was probably injured. Of course, it could also be the blood of someone who came to rescue her, because the vine that tied her up was clean. If she were injured, it should have been stained with blood."
Su Huilan clicked her tongue in amazement and said, "I never imagined that when you're not lazy, your mind is so sharp; you could be a detective!"
Qingmu said, "I'm a private investigator. Have you forgotten I have a studio? It's just that I can't get a detective license in this country."
Su Huilan laughed, "You're getting all smug just because I gave you a little sunshine! Your 'Divine Crow Studio' — Duke Zhou interpretation, dog naming—I wonder who stuck that up on the window, haha..."
She couldn't help but chuckle as she spoke, and burst into laughter.
As they laughed, they remembered that someone on the mountain was watching them with binoculars, which made them feel a little uncomfortable. So they stopped laughing and gave a cold look in the direction of the mountain.
Petru, standing on the mountain, twitched the muscles in his face and his Redbeard, and asked the cat beside him, "Why is your mistress glaring at me?"
The cat meowed, rolled its eyes at him, then grinned and made a face at him.
Petru recalled seeing Su Huilan laughing wildly through the scope earlier, noting a resemblance to the cat's grimaces. He suddenly understood: every woman loves beauty and always tries to appear reserved in public, unwilling to let others see their less attractive side. Even if others might not see it as ugly, she insists on believing it. If you offer her some advice, she won't be grateful; instead, she'll hate you, guarding you like a thief, fearing you might one day reveal her embarrassing moments.
Petru felt that Su Huilan's look just now meant that. Thinking of her ruthlessness in killing and cutting flesh without blinking an eye, he couldn't help but get goosebumps and secretly vowed never to offend a beautiful and ruthless woman again.
He quickly said to Hanran, "I didn't see anything just now."
Hanran ignored him completely, just staring blankly, her mind filled with images of delicious, lively dried fish.
Petru felt something was off, and suddenly turned to ask, "Holy crap, how did you see that from that far away without binoculars? Are you cheating?"