Chapter 217 - 88: Dream Net User Guide

Chapter 217: Chapter 88: Dream Net User Guide

Yu Xian realized he wasn’t very good at easing the tension.

The moment the words left his mouth, Senior Sister Yiyi and Wen Xiao both turned to him in unison. Their expressions were puzzled, as if giant question marks were hanging over their heads.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, sighing inwardly. ’If only Shi Zuozhou were here,’ he thought.

If it were that guy, no matter how oppressive the atmosphere, he could always be counted on to boisterously throw out a few lame, ill-timed jokes. Or he’d just tell some pointless stories to liven things up.

Perhaps this was what a "Discrete Personality" was all about. Some people were born optimists, and some were born pessimists.

But thinking of Old Shi, Yu Xian looked at Yang Yiyi, who was sitting on the sofa opposite him.

"Senior Sister, do you think you should tell Old Shi what’s going on here?"

Yang Yiyi paused for a moment before speaking.

"He’s asked me a few times on WeChat recently why I haven’t returned to school. I’ll have to think about how to explain it to him."

After speaking, she turned her head, her gaze falling on Wen Xiao, who was hugging a pillow.

"It’s been a long afternoon, you must be hungry, right? Xiaoxiao, what do you want to eat? I’ll order some groceries in a bit and let you have a taste of my cooking."

Wen Xiao froze for a second, then nodded vigorously, her voice full of anticipation.

"Anything is fine! I’m sure your cooking is delicious, Senior Sister!"

She added, a little sheepishly,

"It’s just... I can’t really handle spicy food."

"Okay, I’ll make something mild then." Yang Yiyi smiled and nodded, her finger starting to swipe through a grocery app as she began picking out vegetables and meat.

Yu Xian sat to the side, watching the two of them huddle together to discuss the menu and complain about the recent rise in grocery prices. He couldn’t help but feel a little exasperated.

’The rain is pouring so hard outside; wouldn’t it be easier to just order takeout? Ordering fresh groceries now means waiting for delivery, then washing and chopping everything, then cooking. The whole process will take forever.’

However, he knew better than to say this out loud and just leaned back quietly in his chair.

It would still be a while before the groceries arrived. The three of them rested for a bit, and Yang Yiyi picked up a kettle, refilling Wen Xiao’s and Yu Xian’s cups with hot water.

"Oh, right, Yu Xian." Yang Yiyi put down the kettle and asked casually, as if just making small talk.

"Last night, when we were discussing the test plan on the phone, you said at the end, ’Instead of sitting around waiting for our doom, for the judgment and reckoning to arrive, it’s better to take the initiative’..."

She looked at Yu Xian, her brow slightly furrowed.

"That ’judgment and reckoning,’ what were you referring to? Was it about those mysterious ’Midnight Bus’ audio files?"

The hand Yu Xian was using to hold his cup froze. He instinctively glanced at Wen Xiao.

That phrase was tied to a lot of things. It wasn’t just the result of the divination that Shao Yiyi and Wen Xiao had performed, but also something Shao Yiyi had coaxed out of her mysterious martial uncle, Su Mingyuan.

It involved Shao Yiyi’s privacy and her elder relative, so he wasn’t sure if he should tell Yang Yiyi all of it directly.

"It’s not about the audio files, Senior Sister." To Yu Xian’s surprise, Wen Xiao spoke up on her own.

"That was... something my friend and I divined."

Under Yang Yiyi’s quizzical gaze, Wen Xiao cupped her mug with both hands and began to recount the events of the past few days.

She started with the "AI Fortune-Telling Large Model" that she and Shao Yiyi had developed out of boredom. She explained how they translated the rules of the Yi Jing Trigrams into the "fitted curves" of a computer algorithm. Finally, she mentioned the divination that Shao Yiyi had cast last Monday, the day classes were canceled, but she omitted any mention of Su Mingyuan.

"endless days of tribulation, Land Sinking into the Sea." Wen Xiao slowly recited the two lines from the divination, word by word.

"That ’judgment and reckoning’ is also about this rain. Perhaps it... has no end. It will eventually escalate into a disaster on the scale of a great flood, one that will submerge everything."

Yang Yiyi stared blankly at Wen Xiao, as if listening to some outlandish fairytale.

After a long moment, she finally managed to ask with some difficulty,

"Xiaoxiao, you’re not joking, are you?"

Wen Xiao stood up, pulled back the curtains, and looked at the glass pane streaked with water.

"Senior Sister, look at the rain outside. It’s been raining for so long—at home and abroad, all over the world. Floods are raging everywhere."

She turned back, her gaze clear as she looked at Yang Yiyi.

"Meteorological experts can’t explain it, satellite cloud imaging can’t predict it, and all scientific theories have become useless in the face of one anomaly after another. This... isn’t right, is it?"

Yang Yiyi opened her mouth, but no words came out. She could only nod in silent agreement.

Just then, a series of urgent knocks on the door broke the oppressive atmosphere in the living room.

"Hello, grocery delivery!"

Yu Xian hurried over and opened the door a crack, taking two plastic bags that were still dripping with water. He looked through the bags but couldn’t make out what ingredients were inside.

Yang Yiyi also shook off her earlier solemn mood. She took the bags from Yu Xian and carried the groceries into the small kitchen.

Seeing this, Wen Xiao followed her in like a curious little shadow, shuffling in her pink cotton slippers and muttering, "Let me help you, Senior Sister."

Yu Xian was left in the living room. He gathered the scattered cups, laptop, and headphone cables on the table and moved them to one side to make space for them to eat.

Yu Xian wiped the table mechanically while listening to the two girls chatting inside.

"Xiaoxiao, that mirror anchor you designed is brilliant." Yang Yiyi’s voice drifted out, accompanied by the sound of running water.

"Just now, in the dream, when I looked at the glass shards on the floor, I could feel a strong sense of ’dissonance.’ How did you come up with that idea? You said yesterday you got the inspiration from an escape room?"