The cave wasn't large, and the fire burning on the ground illuminated the entire cave. The Mental Power Field that originally covered the entire island was isolated by Qingmu, creating a mental vacuum centered on Su Huilan.
Su Huilan understood Qingmu's intention. Once he isolated the island's Mental Power Field, it would become like any other place without Tapu. Without the protection of the Mental Power Field, the savage's consciousness could theoretically be hypnotized normally.
However, Su Huilan's heart tightened at this moment. Forget about hypnotizing the savage, she anxiously looked around and asked in a trembling voice, " Qingmu, what's going on?"
Alice screamed, "Oh my god! What happened? Where are we?"
Qingmu had been struggling against Tapu's natural force field. The Mental Power he had pushed away surged around him like a tidal wave, crashing against the walls of his consciousness time and time again. He had no time to spare, focusing solely on dealing with this counterattack.
It wasn't until Su Huilan reminded him and Alice cried out that he noticed the scene in this "mental vacuum":
Su Huilan looked surprised, Alice's mouth dropped open in horror, and Anderson and the savage were lying on the ground. But--
The earth has vanished!
The fire that was just burning is gone!
The cave is gone too!
The entire space was filled with a white light, like a thick fog in late autumn, shrouding everything in mist and obscuring everything.
Only people remained.
Apart from Qingmu, everyone else witnessed the entire cave disappearing. The stone walls, the earth, the fire... everything slowly faded until it finally vanished, as if it had been slowly erased from their retina.
Strangely, everyone was there. They were like two-dimensional beings lying on a blank sheet of paper, able to see each other but unable to see the world outside of themselves.
Everyone could see the deep fear in each other's eyes.
Qingmu was also somewhat surprised; this was not the outcome he had hoped for.
He withdrew his Mental Power.
boom--
As the mental wall he had built disappeared, the island's natural Mental Power Field quickly filled the vacuum, like a monstrous wave crashing down on the people who were lost and terrified.
Everything is back.
Earth, caves, burning fires...
It was as if nothing had happened.
Su Huilan stood there stunned, forgetting even to help Alice had fainted.
Is it a hallucination? Impossible!
She was an Awakened, and not just any Awakened. She had always been very confident in her Mental Power, and she believed that what she had just experienced was not a hallucination. No one could induce such a hallucination in her unless someone hypnotized her into a dream.
She looked at Qingmu, opened her mouth, and after a long pause, finally said, "What... did you do?"
Qingmu innocently spread his hands. "I didn't do anything!"
A chill ran through Su Huilan. She would rather have been hypnotized by Qingmu; at least then everything would be within acceptable limits, at most indicating that Qingmu's Mental Power was much stronger than hers. But now, things had developed in a way she couldn't understand, and she couldn't explain what had just happened.
Qingmu bent down and picked up the cigarette butt he had just thrown away. The cigarette butt was still smoking and hadn't completely burned out.
"I'm sure this cigarette is real! It's been in my mouth the whole time, it hasn't left," he said.
"You mean..." Su Huilan wasn't quite sure what he meant, and looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Qingmu said, "You must be wondering if that moment just now was a dream, right?"
Su Huilan nodded.
"I almost thought so too. Everything disappeared, leaving only us, much like the Black Box phase when consciousness first enters a dream. But the question is, why... are we all wearing clothes? And this cigarette—"
Qingmu pressed the cigarette butt against his middle fingernail with his thumb, flicked it gently, and the cigarette butt, still carrying Mars, flew in a red arc into the fire. "It was right there in my mouth the whole time, and it was still smoking when everything else was gone!"
Su Huilan's eyelids twitched violently. She said, "When you pushed away the naturally existing Mental Power Field on the island, everything on the island disappeared, but we and the things we brought with us remained... My God!... Could it be that this island doesn't exist at all? Is everything just an illusion created by Tapu?! Only we ourselves are real?"
This sounds extremely illogical, yet it can perfectly explain some phenomena that were otherwise difficult to explain. Perhaps there is no such thing as a Ghost Island at all; you can only see them when Tapu's and the _book's Mental Power affects you, and it's all an illusion! So when Qingmu pushed away the Mental Power Field, the illusion disappeared.
But when did all this begin? When the sea fog rolled in? Or perhaps even earlier...?
She suddenly realized something terrifying—what if it started back on Tubuai Island...?
" Petru! Where's Petru?" Su Huilan exclaimed.
Qingmu lit another cigarette, took two puffs, and shook his head. "If it's all fake, then who is he?" He pointed to the savage on the ground, then to the unconscious Anderson. "And how did Anderson get his injuries?"
Su Huilan was somewhat confused. Yes, she had seen it too; when everything disappeared, the savage was still lying there, and Anderson was indeed injured.
"Moreover, if it's a hallucination or a dream, when everything is restored, we should see the original state, such as being on a ship, at sea, or still on the hillside of Tubuai Island, instead of a void!" Qingmu said.
Su Huilan nodded. "Yes, every dream has a beginning..." Suddenly, a thought flashed through her mind, and she remembered what Qingmu had just said, "You mean this is a bit like the Black Box stage at the beginning of a dream?"
Qingmu said, "Yes, Professor Mei came up with this name when she was researching the Space Box. Because the moment a person enters the Space Box is like entering a dream, the subconscious has been awakened, but the memories haven't started to be retrieved yet. This moment is like a Black Box of consciousness."
"Could it be that...?"
Are you trying to say we're still inside the Space Box?
"No, no, no, this... of course... impossible!" Su Huilan felt that the idea that had suddenly popped into her head was too absurd.
"It's not impossible!" Qingmu said.
Su Huilan was startled. "What?"
Qingmu said, " Professor Mei's two coffins weren't that advanced yet, but who knows what will happen in the future. I'm a little worried about how this project will develop; it might really be Pandora's box!"
Why do you say that?
"If Dream Guide games become widespread, we can certainly use Space Box to distinguish which are invading Parasitic Consciousness, but players may also become trapped in the dream world and unable to extricate themselves. At that time, humanity will be living in two worlds simultaneously, unable to distinguish which is real and which is illusory."
Two worlds? Existing simultaneously?
"That's right, just like we are now. We're somewhere in the South Pacific, and also inside that Klein Bottle you mentioned. The Klein Bottle— "
Qingmu slowly exhaled a puff of smoke, "Could it just be an enhanced version of Space Box?"