Chapter 162: "Dream Net Project

Chapter 162 -68: “Dream Net Project

Yu Xian ran through his class schedule in his head. He had no classes on Friday afternoon, so he would make it in time.

“That works,” Yu Xian nodded. “It’s better if it’s not in Jiangcheng. First, it’s safer. Second, our presence will prevent her from being tricked into spilling information to Su Mingyuan. Third, it saves Shao Yiyi the trouble of passing messages back and forth, which could lead to missed details. We can also listen in; we might be able to analyze more information from Su Mingyuan’s tone.”

Seeing Yu Xian’s response, Shi Zuozhou immediately sent an “OK” sticker in their group chat, accompanied by a message: “Received. The organization will always be your strongest backing!”

After chatting a bit more in the group, the two quickly finished their meals, picked up their trays, and left the cafeteria.

They returned to the South District Dormitory during the lunch break. Zhang Yang and Li Boxue were nowhere to be seen, likely off to class.

Yu Xian placed his backpack on his desk and, out of habit, tapped the pixelated rabbit icon. The interface refreshed, and the data bar at the bottom jumped: *Current active nodes in the area: 142.*

“One hundred and forty…”

In just one morning, the number of nodes around the South District Dormitory had more than tripled from the forty-something they had last night. This meant that among the six or seven hundred people living in the surrounding dormitory buildings, one in every five or six students was running “Rabbit Hole” on their phone.

According to the wireless mesh network coverage theory they had researched earlier, with this level of node density, the entire South District boys’ dormitory had transformed into a dense, unobstructed local area network. Even if all the routers in the school were unplugged right now, and even if the base station cables were severed, as long as these phones had power, the flow of information in this building would not stop.

In this dark, damp wasteland, what was once just a few scattered sparks had linked together into a roaring sea of fire, poised to sweep across the plains.

The afternoon and evening classes passed without incident.

On the fourth day since classes resumed, the campus appeared on the surface to be healing from the trauma of the recent riots. Aside from the unpacked boxes still sitting downstairs at the School of Physics, and the occasional student slumped over a desk wearing headphones and listening to some unknown audio, everything seemed just as it always was.

But Yu Xian knew very well that this was merely the calm before the storm.

After evening classes ended, Yu Xian did not return to the dormitory with Shi Zuozhou.

“Heading to the North Campus again?” Shi Zuozhou flashed an ambiguous smile, clearly misunderstanding something.

Yu Xian just smiled and offered no explanation. Umbrella in hand, he walked alone toward the West Gate.

During their phone call last night, Senior Sister Yiyi had mentioned Professor Mo’s “hidden research project,” and the thought of it had left him unsettled all day. Professor Mo’s hidden project focused on the “Sharpshooter” and the “Rotating Door.” But what was the ultimate goal behind studying the technology of Hijacked Spindle Waves? What was the connection between this technology, TDI, and those Midnight Buses?

Although the “Rabbit Hole” and the “Bait and Switch” audio cleansing plan were making steady progress, those were merely passive defensive measures. As for the master plan of the unseen mastermind who originally spread the audio, or the truth behind the “smiling suicide cases”—they still had no clues, no inkling at all.

Walking through the wet streets and heading upstairs into the apartment building, Yu Xian skillfully punched in the passcode and pushed open the door.

The heating inside was on full blast. Yang Yiyi was sitting on the sofa; hearing the door open, she didn’t get up, only tilting her head to look over.

“You’re here?”

“Yeah, just got out of class,” Yu Xian replied, his eyes fixed on the shoe cabinet by the entrance. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Senior Sister Yiyi was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, cradling her laptop. A bottle of peach-flavored soda sat on the table, just like before.

As he changed his shoes, he recalled their last discussion about the hidden project.

“Is it cold outside?” Yang Yiyi patted the sofa cushion beside her, gesturing for Yu Xian to come sit. “Come take a look. I’ve found something new about that hidden project we talked about last time.”

Yu Xian walked over and pulled up a nearby chair to sit down. “What did you find?” he asked.

“Do you remember the ‘Sharpshooter’ and the ‘Rotating Door’ we discussed on Saturday?” Yang Yiyi looked at Yu Xian, her tone serious. “Professor Mo’s hidden project attempted to use audio of a specific frequency to ‘hijack’ the phase and frequency of the spindle waves, essentially creating a Hijacked Spindle Wave, to force that Rotating Door in the brain to open at a specific time.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Yu Xian nodded. “At the time, we were still guessing what their ultimate goal was for doing that.”

“I’ve been digging deep into this part of the experimental data these past few days, trying to find the answer to that question. Yesterday, in an experimental log that had been mostly deleted, I found a name.”

Yang Yiyi’s expression was stern. She slid her finger across the touchpad and tilted the laptop screen resting on her legs toward Yu Xian. Yu Xian stared intently at the screen. It displayed several scanned experimental reports covered in dense data and waveform charts.

At the top of the data table, a header read: *Dream Net Project – Spindle Wave Phase Histogram.*

“Dream Net… Project?”

Yu Xian froze. That term was entirely too familiar to him. It was so familiar that it elicited a physical sense of discomfort and dread.

During those ten days and ten nights in the white hell, the voice that had echoed in his mind ten thousand times like a broken record always started with the exact same sentence: “Welcome to the TDI Phase III Dream Net login page.”

And then there was the name he had been forced to recite ten thousand times until it was carved into his very bones: TDI Dream Net Protocol.

Was this name just a coincidence? Or… Was Professor Mo’s hidden project fundamentally a part of the TDI program all along?

His mind was instantly thrown into turmoil. Earlier, while they were eating stone pot fish, Shi Zuozhou had theorized that although TDI and the Midnight Bus seemed to employ the same technical solution for dream entry, the philosophies and goals behind them were polar opposites.

But today, the name “Dream Net” completely scrambled the logic he had just managed to sort out. Could it be that TDI and Professor Mo were merely on different branches of the same massive plan?

“Could it be…” Yu Xian’s breathing grew slightly rapid. “That this experiment is connected to the TDI project? Senior Sister, I told you before—the dreamscape used by TDI is also called ‘Dream Net’.”

“It’s highly likely.” Seeing Yu Xian’s pale expression, Yang Yiyi leaned forward slightly, closing the distance between them like a dedicated psychology committee member. “TDI was responsible for constructing the dreamscape and writing the scripts; Professor Mo was responsible for overcoming the brain’s defense mechanisms and the issue of amnesia. And it’s not just that…”

Her expression grew even more solemn, her brows knitting together in a slight frown. “I also used this name to search through all the email correspondence. In an internal email, I found a special set of experiments related to this hidden project.”

“What kind of experiments?” Yu Xian held his breath.

“Do you remember the ‘army crossing the bridge’ analogy we discussed last time?” Yang Yiyi looked directly into Yu Xian’s eyes. “Using audio frequencies to cause the firing frequency of neurons in the cerebral cortex to resonate, thereby achieving an absolute lock on the phase of the spindle waves.”

“I remember.”

“Last time, we couldn’t figure out the point of simply ‘opening the door.’ But what if…” Yang Yiyi said softly, “What if this act of ‘opening the door’ isn’t just targeted at a single person?”

“What do you mean?” Yu Xian didn’t understand.

He looked at the chart on the screen, which displayed two originally unrelated brainwave curves. But at a certain point, following the input of a specific frequency of audio, the two curves began to sync up with astonishing precision—peak to peak, trough to trough. It was just like…

Two completely different gears being forcibly ground together to interlock.

“Is this… that squad of soldiers marching in unison across the bridge?” Yu Xian seemed to understand a little better now.

“Exactly. Neural entrainment, forced resonance. In this set of experiments, they selected two test subjects and placed them in different rooms. Then, they had them wear headphones and play specific, phase-calibrated audio.”

Yang Yiyi pointed to a paragraph of text on the screen. “The results show that when the spindle waves of two people are adjusted to the exact same phase and frequency—meaning that the Rotating Door opens at the exact same instant…”

She took a deep breath and pointed to a bolded conclusion at the bottom of the screen. “Experimental results: Subject A and Subject B reported entering the same dream scenario and interacting with each other within the dream.”

“What?!” Yu Xian abruptly stood up.