Chapter 174: Dream Net’s Technical Rhapsody

Chapter 174 -74: Dream Net’s Technical Rhapsody

“A ‘client’… and a ‘server’?” For a moment, Yu Xian didn’t understand what those two words meant.

“Yes. Have you ever listened to the radio?” Wen Xiao nodded.

“Why is it that two radios, as long as they’re tuned to the same frequency, can pick up the exact same sound, right down to the static?”

“Because… there’s a station broadcasting a signal to them?” Yu Xian thought for a moment, then it seemed to click. He stared blankly at Wen Xiao.

“So you’re saying the two test subjects’ brains are like the ‘clients,’ the radios… If that’s the case, doesn’t that mean there must also be a ‘server,’ like the radio station?”

“Exactly. If the two subjects’ brains aren’t connected directly, point-to-point, it means the Dream Net might be using a broadcast model. In other words, there’s a ‘central server’ working behind the scenes, or a giant ‘base station.'” Wen Xiao tapped her chin.

“This server, this base station, is broadcasting the exact same ‘dream data stream’ in real time to all brains tuned to the right frequency.”

“But they didn’t just see the same dream. They interacted with each other,” Yu Xian pointed out.

“Think about it. It’s just like that online game Brother Zhou plays. Why can two players meet up, fight, and add each other as friends in the game?” Wen Xiao used the game Shi Zuozhou played as an example.

“Because they’re both connected to the game company’s servers. The server receives my actions and sends them to you, and at the same time, it receives your actions and sends them to me. So what we perceive as ‘interaction’ is actually a form of data projection.” 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

A chill ran down Yu Xian’s spine. He opened his mouth to speak, but his mind was reeling.

‘Turn the brain into a terminal?’

‘Turn dreams into a monitor?’

‘What is this… some kind of technological fantasia?’

“But how is that possible?” Yu Xian’s hands gripped the railing tightly. Not even the cold, fine rain could calm him down.

“The TDI and Midnight Bus technology you guys talked about… it was like force-feeding a ‘blueprint,’ carried by audio, into the brain’s ‘hardware.’ That was a one-way, offline operation.”

He felt his throat was too dry to speak.

“I can barely wrap my head around that. After all, the auditory nerve connects directly to the brain. Once you bypass the ‘firewall’ of the sleep spindles, the sound becomes an input signal.”

Yu Xian spun around and stared intently at Wen Xiao.

“But ‘interaction’ has to be two-way! If it’s like an online game, as you said, then my brain is the client. How are the actions or thoughts I have in the dream—that information—sent back to the server?”

He demanded in disbelief:

“Our brains don’t have network cards or antennas. How could we possibly upload a ‘data packet’ to this so-called ‘server’ out of thin air? And if there’s no upload, how can the server relay my actions to another person who’s connected?”

One-way broadcasting is easy. A radio only needs to receive, not transmit.

But two-way communication is hard. A walkie-talkie has to be able to transmit signals.

‘But how does a human brain transmit a signal?’

Wen Xiao bit her lip, her brow furrowed. This question was clearly outside her area of expertise.

After a long moment, Wen Xiao slowly looked up. Her voice was barely audible over the rain.

“I can only think of one possibility… unless it’s not an ‘upload’ in the conventional sense. It might be a type of passive feedback, like ‘radio-frequency identification.'”

She looked at Yu Xian and offered an everyday example.

“It’s like the key cards we use for building access. The card itself has no battery and doesn’t actively transmit a signal. But when the radio-frequency signal from the card reader hits the card, the coil inside reflects a new signal back, one that carries information.”

Yu Xian understood the analogy. It reminded him of the radar and sonar he’d studied in his major-specific courses.

“You mean, like how radar emits electromagnetic waves and sonar emits sound waves? When the wave hits an object, it’s reflected back. So, our brain is the ‘key card’?”

“Right. If the server’s signal covers the two people who are dreaming, it’s like a ‘scan.’ Every thought they have, every instance of neural firing, would cause a change in the brain’s electromagnetic field. The server could then analyze those changes to deduce what they were doing in the dream.”

Yu Xian thought he understood her logic.

The “server” was like a giant spider, lurking in the shadows. It spun silk threads called “specific-frequency audio,” weaving a web that covered the test subjects.

Anyone who listened to the audio and entered the dream was prey caught in its web.

The slightest struggle from the prey would send a vibration traveling instantly along the silk, straight to the spider.

The spider would know everything.

“It’s the only explanation I can come up with for now. While it’s logically sound, it’s still just speculation based on communication theory. As for the actual biological implementation…” Wen Xiao glanced quickly at Yu Xian and pursed her lips.

“We’d have to ask your Senior Sister Yiyi what she thinks about that.”

Yu Xian nodded. It was true. If Wen Xiao was the software engineer who could analyze the “code,” then Senior Sister Yiyi was the hardware engineer who truly understood the brain.

“Let’s head back,” Yu Xian said, glancing at the darkening sky, then at Wen Xiao’s face, which had gone pale from the cold. He handed the USB drive to her.