Mei Ziqing was silent for a moment, then placed the professor's hand back on the bed, tucked the blanket over his arm, and said softly, "It's not that I'm lying to you. What I've done and what you've done are not inherently conflicting or contradictory. In fact, in many ways, our goals and interests are aligned. Whether it was your past dedication to scientific research and the various achievements you made, or your later invention of the Space Box and your single-handed fight against the alien Parasites, I have supported you. I have always admired you, worshipped you, and revered you, even a little..."
She paused, then looked intently at the professor's face, "I admire you!"
Mei Yiqiu's lips twitched slightly, but because he was so thin he had no muscle left, it was impossible to tell whether it was a smile or a sneer. His eyes, which weren't very bright, glanced at Mei Ziqing before turning back to stare blankly at the ceiling.
Mei Ziqing continued, "I know you have someone you admire, that old lady who speaks publicly on television, right?" She laughed, "She must have been very beautiful when she was young! She's truly amazing, using the Internet to spread her Mental Power throughout the world. If it were me, let alone whether I could do it, I'm not sure I could muster that courage. You know, maintaining a belief and giving a speech for so long while your spirit is constantly being depleted is nothing short of torture! Moreover, she knew that doing so would anger the leaders of the Parasite Organization and incur the retaliation of the strongest. How could she have the courage to do something that meant certain death? And how could you bear to let her do it?"
Mei Yiqiu's hands clenched into fists, the veins on the back of his thin hands bulging. A drop of liquid that was about to drip from the tube remained stuck in the flow, the fluid from the IV bag to the entire IV tubing stopped flowing, as if the vitality of life had been grabbed by death, and time had stopped at a certain moment.
His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, but his eyes gradually welled up with tears, and a single, murky yellow tear slowly spilled from the corner of his eye, as if the life frozen in the IV tube was flowing down from there and into his graying temples.
His hair lay limp and flat, no longer as fluffy and strong as before.
Mei Ziqing reached out Mei Yiqiu's eyes, sighing as she said, "I'm so sorry to bring up something that hurts you at a time like this. I didn't mean it, and I'm not jealous. I admire her, just as I admire you. I never imagined you would have such an amazing partner; compared to her, I feel a little ashamed."
"However, her appearance confirmed one thing for me—in the past, I was always unsure about your relationship with the Awakeners' Alliance. Your Mental Power is very strong, so strong that I dared not easily offend your mental world, but you also seem to have never received specialized mental training and do not know how to use its techniques. At first, I thought you were the kind of person who was born with a strong mental strength, but later I discovered that you and the Awakeners' Alliance have countless connections. Now I finally know how you and the Alliance became connected."
Mei Yiqiu's throat gurgled as he asked in a hoarse voice, "Why did you come to Wuzhong?"
"Just like you," Mei Ziqing said. "Why didn't you stay in Philadelphia? You dedicated your youth to Princeton! Even if you came back to serve your country, you could have gone to Capital or Shenzhou, where there are better universities and better research conditions. But you chose to come to Wuzhong because this is the real Holy Land. You've been searching for the secrets of this Holy Land, haven't you?"
"And why are you looking for the Holy Land?"
"For the same dream! Since you learned about the Alliance through Selina, you should know about the struggle Alliance the Dream-Seeking Faction and the Conservative Faction back then. My father was a key member of the Dream-Seeking Faction; he spent his life searching for a way to free humanity from the constraints of existing rules and lead them to a free and unrestrained paradise. There, there is no hunger, no cold, no war, and no famine; people there engage in direct spiritual communication, without deceit or intrigue; it is a place filled with freedom, fairness, and justice. That was my father's dream paradise, the goal he fought for his entire life. I admire my father, and I will carry on his legacy."
A flush of excitement rose on Mei Ziqing's face, her eyes lost focus, and her gaze pierced through the wall, looking into the distant distance.
Mei Yiqiu took a deep breath and said, "That's impossible. There's no such world! To create a mirage, you mix soap into clear water, and when the bubble bursts, you discover the serious damage you've caused to the world... cough cough... cough..."
Perhaps he had said something very long at once and couldn't catch his breath, so he started coughing.
"No! This isn't a fantasy!" Mei Ziqing retorted. "It might have been unimaginable in the past, but since you invented the Space Box, can you still deny such a possibility?"
"You want the whole world to live in a dream?!"
Who can prove we're not living in a dream?
"This makes no sense."
"How can it be meaningless? This world is full of deception and exploitation. Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has been lost in extreme materialism for far too long. A hundred years ago, people thought they could eliminate poverty within fifty years. A century has passed, and poor places remain poor, while wealth has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. Any reform, revolution, or even war only transfers wealth from one group of rich people to another. The poor die in war, and their descendants remain poor. People advocate democracy and justice, and promote universal values, but they do not make fundamental changes. We can no longer hear a word of truth on television or in newspapers. Everything is just to prolong the life of this impoverished world, like a dying person relying on injections to maintain life."
Mei Ziqing suddenly stopped, looking at Mei Yiqiu with a hint of reluctance in her eyes, but then her expression immediately hardened. "We must fundamentally change all of this! Everything, including the physical rules of the world, must be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. Only in this way can we rebuild a new world like paradise, instead of patching things up on a crumbling foundation and maintaining a collapsing edifice."
"I can't do it." Mei Yiqiu shook her head with difficulty.
"My father and his comrades—those great spiritual mentors of yesteryear—struggled their entire lives to realize this dream. I once thought it was impossible, but the appearance of the Space Box gave me hope—I must admit that your greatness surpasses that of any scientist or Great Dream Mentor before us—now there are over 2.5 billion dream players worldwide, most of whom remain active, and this number is still growing."
Mei Ziqing spoke excitedly, like a politician running for office, "As long as we lift the restrictions on the lower classes and unify everyone's dreams, we can rebuild order in another world. Before long, everyone in the world will have a path to heaven!"
"I know you possess a Key to the Dreamscape, which connects to the core node of the entire Dream Network, controls the underlying rules, and can open the isolation barriers between all individual dreams. I also know that, just in case, you integrated a destruction device into the Key to the Dreamscape. Once activated, it can seal all the Space Box, and none of the marked Parasites will escape; their consciousness will be completely imprisoned within the dream world they created."
"Actually, you might want to think about this: if we do things my way, everyone will go to another world, and those Parasites will no longer be Parasites. They will also need to abide by new rules and will no longer pose any threat to the human world. Their new members will either be unable to enter our new world or will come in and assimilate into our new humans. Wouldn't that achieve your goal? So, why don't you hand over the Key to the Dreamscape to me?"
"Impossible, it can't be done." Mei Yiqiu's eyes were glazed over, and his throat was making a gurgling sound, as if phlegm was about to fall out at any moment.
Mei Ziqing stopped arguing and instead, resting her chin on her hand, muttered to herself, "Such an important thing, you would definitely entrust it to the person you trust most. The person you trust most... Qingmu..."
She gently shook her head. "Disappeared for so many years, and now nowhere to be found, it can't be him. Then, could it be Yao Jingjing from the security company, or Bi Shenghua from Liuying Lane?"