Chapter 75 - 31: "Midnight Bus

Chapter 75: Chapter 31: "Midnight Bus

But now, a single sentence from the "old-timer" jolted him awake.

"What you think about by day, you dream of by night."

"The scenes, the people, and all that stuff inside it... they’re related to the people you think about and the things you see during the day."

Yu Xian sat on the sofa, his breathing growing ragged.

’What if the audio file itself doesn’t contain any "scene" data at all?’

’Senior Sister Yiyi was right. It’s not a "compressed file" at all—it’s a "blueprint"!’

It was as if he had finally found a loose thread in the tangled mess of his thoughts.

’Where could it possibly store such a massive, ready-to-use library of "HD models," "audio resources," and "font packs"?’

’The brain, of course!’

Yu Xian slapped his thigh. ’Isn’t the brain a massive, gigantic, download-free "resource library"?’

’Over the course of a person’s life, the landscapes they’ve seen, the sounds they’ve heard, the people they’ve met, the words they’ve written—even the fragments of their subconscious they thought long forgotten—isn’t it all stored in this massive "resource library"?’

TDI didn’t need to go to all the trouble of cramming a several-hundred-gigabyte 3D scene into the brain.

’It just needs to call upon the materials already in your brain!’

’For example, if it wants to construct a white room, the brain receives the command and automatically pulls the "white room" you’ve seen or imagined from your memory bank as raw material. Then, it uses the hippocampus and visual cortex to "render" it in real-time!’

That explained everything!

Why was that dream so real?

Because the source material came from your own most authentic memories and perceptions!

Why was the audio file only 40MB?

Because it only contained the "blueprints," not the "building materials."

Because it only contained the "code," not the "art assets."

It was just like the most advanced form of "cloud gaming."

Except, the "graphics card" for computation and rendering was your brain, the "hard drive" storing all the assets was also your brain, and the audio file was just a "signal stream" sent by remote control!

It’s like how when two different readers finish the same passage in a novel, the images they conjure in their minds are completely different.

Yu Xian stared at the audio file on his phone, less than 20MB in size, and felt like he was gazing into an abyss.

This was far more terrifying than he had previously imagined. TDI wasn’t just a "dream generator"; it was more like something that peeled back the layers of human memory to install a data-calling "interface"!

"So... so ingenious. And so disgusting."

Yu Xian muttered to himself, his thoughts returning to the white room. ’Perhaps it was a manifestation from my subconscious, a conceptual amalgamation of a "laboratory," an "orientation room," or a "solitary confinement cell."’

He suddenly realized something terrifying:

’Those trained "smiling suicides"... could it be that the "coach" in their dreams, the person forcing them to practice smiling over and over again... could it be...’

’...could it be the person they loved, hated, or feared the most in their lives?’

A shiver ran down Yu Xian’s spine.

He casually sent the seller a "thank you" sticker, his fingers trembling slightly.

The seller replied instantly: "Don’t mention it, bro. Come back after you’ve tried this one. I’ve got a classroom series, too. Heh heh."

He even sent a grinning emoji.

Yu Xian didn’t reply. His finger hovered over the "Midnight Bus" file.

’Use it, or not?’

Once again, he was holding Pandora’s Box.

Based on what happened last time, all he had to do was lean back on the sofa, plug in his phone, press play, and close his eyes to personally verify his "Memory Recall" theory.

He could see for himself how this "cracked version" from the Black Market operated.

He could even...

According to the seller, he might even be able to see, in his dream...

...the person he most wanted to see.

His heart clenched. The temptation was lethal.

’If it’s really like the seller said and just as I suspect, the person in the dream will draw upon every fragment of "her" from my subconscious—’

’her smile, her voice, even... the warmth of her palm.’

’And what’s more, I won’t forget when I wake up.’

Regaining what was lost, reuniting after a long separation, and realizing a great fear was unfounded—these are three of the happiest things in life.

For a sick man like him, this was like being prescribed the most potent, powerful painkiller imaginable.

But—

"A trap."

It was like drinking poison to quench a thirst.

Yu Xian gritted his teeth, using all his rationality to suppress the insane impulse.

’This isn’t just a painkiller; it’s more likely a poison.’

’This is just a "cracked version" from the Black Market.’

’Some unknown organization modified it to bypass the device-binding restrictions and even broke through the memory-wipe function. It sounds like something out of a fantasy.’

’Did this "hacker" accomplish something that even Senior Sister Yiyi’s lab couldn’t?’

’It has no proper protection or encryption, and instead it’s become some hundred-yuan "goodie" circulating in the underground?’

He’d known the story of the "bitter plums by the roadside" since he was a child. If you see a plum tree by the road, laden with fruit, yet no one is picking it, you have to think one step further—

if the plums were sweet, passersby would have long since picked them clean.

There had to be a catch.

The activation codes for the original TDI were already going for nearly ten thousand yuan and were still in short supply. Even so, he had still encountered that "bug."

’Who knows what kind of "extra baggage" was added to this "cracked version"?’

’What if it has malicious code hidden inside, like that "smile command," or something less severe like a "transfer funds command" or a "self-harm command"?’

He couldn’t gamble with his own brain.

He had to find a professional first.

He took a deep breath and opened his chat with Yang Yiyi, wanting to ask about the progress on her MCH neuron project.

He typed a line of text and hit send. The small loading circle spun and spun before the message finally went through. The heavy rain was making the signal terrible.

Yu Xian stared at his phone screen. The green bubble of his message lay there forlornly in the chat window. There was no reply, nor was there a "..." to indicate she was typing.

He checked the time. It wasn’t even 10 o’clock yet. ’Is she taking a shower?’

Two minutes passed.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes passed.

Still no reply.

Yu Xian frowned, then, as if suddenly remembering something, slapped his thigh.

"Is the internet down?"

He suddenly recalled that back in the dorm this morning, Shi Zuozhou had been wailing that the campus network had crashed.

At the time, he’d assumed it was just a problem with the school’s Wi-Fi. Could it be that even the cell service was out now?

He looked out the window. The world had been swallowed by the downpour.

"No."

’I can’t just wait around.’ Yu Xian had no idea to what extent TDI could collect user test data. Although he hadn’t seen any method of "data upload" so far, still...

No one could imagine the true level of technology behind this massive organization masquerading under the cloak of science.

’If they find out that a test subject hasn’t forgotten what happened in the dream, I could be in extreme danger.’

Moreover, that MP3 was being frantically spread and distributed online by countless sellers, just like the "old-timer" he’d dealt with.

If it really did contain some kind of "malicious code" similar to the "smile command," the consequences would be unimaginable.

With a larger scale and faster speed of transmission, the tragedy this time could be even more chilling than the smiling suicide cases.

He had to confirm the progress of the MCH research with Yang Yiyi as soon as possible, and he had to get Wen Xiao to help analyze the information hidden in this MP3 file without delay.

Yu Xian rummaged through his cousin’s closet and pulled out a two-piece raincoat his cousin wore for fieldwork. He also found a pair of his cousin’s waterproof boots. He tried them on; they were a little big, but manageable.

After a moment’s thought, he went back to his room, packed his parents’ theses and his laptop into a sealed bag, then put that bag inside another plastic bag. He placed it in his backpack, which he then tucked underneath his raincoat.

’This stuff is too important. It’s safer to keep it on me.’

Finally, he grabbed a few rags and wedged them under the window frame.

As he passed the bathroom mirror, he glanced at his reflection. His face was pale, and his dark circles were severe.

"Let’s do this," he told himself, and pushed open the security door.