Chapter 174: Pink-haired Girl: Nightmare Smuggling Is Not The Way
The aesthetic activity of tempering his spirit continued until noon. Only after feeling hungry did Yuan Zhu decisively leave the Big Plaza in Sector 16. He did not choose to go eat lunch, but instead boarded the subway on an empty stomach, heading straight to the university district where Meng Xiyue was.
Hmm, he planned to start scamming free meals from this lunch onward, no longer spending a single cent of his own money.
We’re all good teammates who’ve been through life and death together. I came all this way to meet in person, you can’t expect me to spend money to treat you to free food and drink, right? Where’s the hospitality in that?
In the crowded subway carriage, Yuan Zhu failed to grab a seat. Under the smug cold gaze of an old woman, he could only hold onto an iron handrail and space out.
At this moment, he was organizing and sorting in his mind the fruits of his morning labor. High-quality human beautiful girl performances, either made into desktop wallpapers or edited into short videos, were stored in the Great Desolation Immortal Scripture’s database, as the most precious part of his life experiences.
If not for the small quantity and capacity of Soul Crystals, she would inevitably have to partition them in the future, establishing Learning Folders to engrave all these precious memories, experiences, and advanced aesthetic materials into her soul. Becoming an indispensable part of the soul upon resurrection!
Especially his future partner A Miao, who would need a brand new folder established just for her.
…
Little Spicy Stick: “Boss, this Taixi City is really great, with so many pretty misses to appreciate. I’ve successfully categorized and archived them. Do you want to see me dress up for you, switch to a different MOD?”
Yuan Zhu decisively refused: “No! I’m very satisfied with your current appearance, no worse than anyone else. Don’t belittle yourself or lose your true self. If you casually disguise yourself as someone else, it would ruin the sensory image these figures have in my mind, equating you with treacherous villains. Over time, the more disguises you take on, the more the impression of the ‘beauty’ group in my mind will become imbalanced.”
Little Spicy Stick was heartbroken: “Oh! I get it, you’re afraid that in the future, every time you see a pretty woman, you’ll subconsciously treat her as a villain, leading to cognitive imbalance over time? Is my status in your heart that fragile?”
“That’s not it. Actually, you’re too good, so good that it makes people vigilant, questioning your every move. Just like seeing something too cute and wanting to destroy it. This is entirely the brain’s self-balancing mechanism, a dual expression of positive emotions. Don’t be sad, this is true recognition and affirmation of you.”
Little Spicy Stick: “Then question me to your heart’s content, I can take it. I’ll also back up and save these pretty miss images, to add bricks and tiles to the future Cockroach Heavenly Maiden Dance Troupe.”
As the most loyal ‘personal steward’ of her own boss, even if questioned, she still remembered the idea her boss had while listening to music in the brothel in Yellow Millet Town, to form his own dance troupe.
Enduring the grievance, she still had to transplant today’s collected ‘high-quality character images’ onto the future dance heavenly group. In the extraordinary world, this minor issue could always be solved somehow. Everything driven by satisfying her boss’s mental needs. Ask and it’s loyalty!
……
At 1:30 PM, upon exiting the subway station in an unfamiliar area, Yuan Zhu took out a Mechanical Mouse and started dialing, while curiously looking around.
The prosperity of Sector 1 far exceeded Sector 16. More accurately, every sector’s area near the city center was incredibly prosperous. And the Taixi University where Meng Xiyue studied was located in Sector 1 near the city center.
Looking straight up from here, it was directly beneath the Floating Island. However, due to the extreme height, the empty island didn’t look large, with no shadow cast down, more like a black circular spot suspended directly above.
Besides the empty island high in the sky, Sector 1 also had a Structure piercing straight into the heavens.
Only upon close observation now did he feel its majesty and enormity. Towering into the clouds, it resembled the ‘space elevator’ from sci-fi movies, standing straight with a ‘sturdiness’ that defied the common sense of physics.
While he was spacing out staring at the hexahedral Structure, a hand suddenly appeared behind him, lightly patting his shoulder.
“Hey! What are you spacing out for? Shocked?”
Meng Xiyue’s voice came from behind. He turned to look, and the Pink Haired Head was wearing casual clothes in the same tone as her hair, a picture bubble group outfit, paired with black long pants below, a backpack bulging on her back, and a swinging ‘half-mechanical dead mouse’ hanging on the side of the backpack as a decoration.
Seeing Yuan Zhu look over, that mouse even deliberately lifted its head, made eye contact with him, and greeted. Yuan Zhu’s single-shoulder backpack also cracked open from inside, with a mechanical eye mouse crawling out, waving in return.
Meng Xi: “Didn’t you message that you arrived yesterday? Why contact me only now? Do you know I’ve been waiting for your message since yesterday afternoon? Did something happen on the road?”
Yuan Zhu shook his head: “No, after arriving yesterday it was a bit late, didn’t want to disturb you, so I found an inn nearby to stay overnight.”
Meng Xiyue complained: “Even so, you didn’t have to arrive at this hour, right? Wasted my whole morning waiting for you, couldn’t focus on any experiments, took half a day off for nothing.”
“I wasn’t idle this morning. As per your request, I found the arms buyer, smoothly got the supply list, then came straight to you nonstop to discuss how to purchase.”
While speaking, he took out the shopping list provided by A Miao and handed it to Meng Xiyue, not mentioning at all that he’d spent the morning looking at legs.
The latter took the list, glanced at it, densely packed with various arms, and couldn’t help praising: “Oh oh oh? Such high efficiency. It’s only been a week since the last mission ended, and you’ve already contacted the arms dealer? I specifically went to Happy Home the day before yesterday, but the captain said the Space Anchor isn’t ready yet.”
Yuan Zhu: “Not just arms, I’ve prepared the other supplies too. Keep this list, check off as needed. But lacking experience on the first shipment, don’t take too much. Our transport capacity is limited, who knows if bringing goods from Happy Home into the Bubble World will incur extra fees?”
Meng Xiyue nodded in agreement: “Don’t worry, I have my considerations on this. Won’t take too much the first time. It’s a pity, I specifically invited seniors from other departments to dinner a few days ago to gather intel for you. But was told that our school’s Nightmare School has very strict review for unknown ‘Nightmare Dimensions’. Even if I offered myself as a white mouse for the academy to freebie research, contributing the coordinates of your Dreamland for inside-outside cooperation, it was rejected.”
At this point, the Pink Haired Head shrugged with a face full of regret.
In Meng Xiyue’s plan, she intended to replicate the experience of ‘offering herself for academy research’, again contributing the coordinates of Yuan Zhu’s Animal Husbandry Village (Shadow Domain.Dreamland), launching a signal to the Nightmare Layer from inside-outside cooperation, getting the academy to accept and open a Nightmare Path for research.
Ultimately opening a smuggling channel from Du Ling Reality to Underground Insect City.
But was told it was completely wishful thinking! Taixi University’s Nightmare School had many experimental projects in the Nightmare Layer, and every one was ‘absolutely clean and safe’.
As for her mentioning: “I have a path in the Nightmare Layer, low profit but high risk, is the school interested?” It was naturally rejected immediately.
Yuan Zhu asked puzzled: “That doesn’t seem right. I remember you saying your academy, your mentor, was very interested in your experiences, very interested in the Bubble World. How come it got rejected for Dreamland (Cockroach Village)? Isn’t that inconsistent?”
Meng Xiyue retorted: “Actually not inconsistent. Our Knowledge School is interested in the Bubble World, not the Nightmare Layer overlaid on the Bubble Layer.”
The two passed through a crowded street, chatting while walking, as the girl explained concisely and clearly.
The Nightmare Bubble Layer, in the extraordinary worldview, is the same space layer, representing chaos disorder, twisted chaos, spacetime confusion, causality inversion.
Within it, Bubble and Nightmare are two distinctly different concepts. Bubble represents the ‘material world’ in chaos disorder, while Nightmare is the twisted chaotic ‘mental level’, with a bit of wave-particle duality flavor.
If likening the Nightmare Bubble Layer to a chaotic ocean, then Bubble Worlds are like isolated islands, while the Nightmare Layer is the unpredictable flowing currents.
In Du Ling Star’s real world, the Nightmare School is widely distributed around the world. They can penetrate into the Nightmare Layer through the ‘dreams’ that every intelligent life has, exploring unknown Nightmare Dimensions.
In contrast, Bubble Worlds require breaking through the Spirit Layer’s edge barrier, completing ‘Second Ascension’ to enter.
Entering the Nightmare Layer has lower difficulty and threshold, possible anywhere; but entering the Bubble Layer has hard indicators, requiring power strong enough to breach the Spirit Layer, this super firewall.
And the Knowledge School behind Meng Xiyue is interested not only in the Bubble Worlds within the Bubble Layer, but also in the Space of Gods, this Anti-Law God Demon club.
Her school’s faction is more keen on exploring and researching the Space of Gods, Happy Home, Bubble World through studying her as this little white mouse.
As for opening a path from the Nightmare Dimension, zero interest!
“Our Taixi University’s ‘Nightmare School’ is under strict supervision from the Security Bureau, only allowed to explore known and safe ‘dream channels’. Any other ‘dangerous Nightmare Paths’ must be handed off to other regions for research, to prevent harm to Taixi’s public security.”
Yuan Zhu finally understood. Research on the Nightmare Layer carries great risk. Thus Taixi’s Nightmare School here is restrained, not daring to cross the line, fearing that if something goes wrong, it threatens this West Coast economic and cultural center, causing massive destruction.
In comparison, Running’s Nightmare School is much wilder, able to conduct many high-risk explorations. Even so, Rain Courtyard won’t casually take ‘Nightmare smuggling’ jobs.
From her explanation, Yuan Zhu also learned that Nightmare Paths are hard to open and even harder to maintain, always rapidly failing with the flowing changes of the Nightmare Dimension.
Just like an old pervert laboriously finding a high-quality human adult site with no pop-up ads. But after not even two weeks, it suddenly 404’d, never finding the new address again.
This is the frequent challenge the Nightmare School faces. Opening a high-value ‘Nightmare Path’ is actually randomly stumbled upon. Soon, the path disappears, or along these paths, connects to an even more dangerous Demon’s Den.
As for the garbage ‘Cockroach Village’ nurtured by the Shadow Domain, it sounds like a very crude, low-end, trojan-filled garbage barren little site. The academy has no interest in wasting time and effort searching for the signal, opening a path that might fail anytime, getting no benefits.
Yuan Zhu: “This is really too difficult!”
Meng Xiyue nodded: “Who says it isn’t? Before consulting the senior, I didn’t expect the Nightmare School to be like this? Only channels opened from the Bubble Layer are relatively stable and safe. Paths in the Nightmare Layer are all Illusory Bubbles, castles in the air.”
Yuan Zhu: “Then how does the Nightmare School normally cultivate?”
“I specifically investigated. The Nightmare School is a bit like us Space of Gods employees, no central union (Space) above them, all individual operators. They focus on developing and tempering mental power, then construct a Spirit Body that can act in dreams, absorbing enough Nightmare Pollution, refining into a Nightmare Body. Then through their own ‘dream edge’, enter the Safe Dreamland (buffer zone) established on the edge of the Nightmare Bubble Layer.”
“Then using Safe Dreamland as a springboard, cautiously enter the shallow areas of the ‘Nightmare Dimension’, like foraging on the beach. Waiting for sea goods (Nightmare creatures) rushing up from the ocean (Nightmare Layer) to kill or harvest. Only after strength is sufficient do they enter the shallows, randomly exploring unknown chaos. Every dive of the Nightmare School is a randomly refreshed brand new world, unable to fix, occasionally stumbling on a stable Dreamland, that’s the ‘Nightmare Path’.”
“Nightmare Bodies killing Nightmare creatures in the Nightmare Layer, contacted knowledge, collected supplies, have a chance to bring back to their own ‘dream’, and extract to reality. But this behavior always carries unknown high pollution risk. Thus the Nightmare School is strictly monitored and managed, needing to establish isolation observation rooms. Usually in the Spirit Layer, or safe stable Dreamlands.”
“Finally, there’s something called Erosion Gap, which is the Dream Hole you made in Insect City. Erosion Gap is a powerful Nightmare Body punching through the barrier between ‘reality’ and ‘Dreamland’, a tiny fixed connecting hole. Roughly like the strength of nails or expansion bolts, people use thousands or tens of thousands of nails to nail Yellow Millet Town to Du Ling’s edge, so ordinary people can easily dream login.”
“Similarly, powerful Nightmare Bodies can use tens of thousands of nails to temporarily fix ‘Dreamlands’ deep in the Nightmare Layer with ‘Yellow Millet Town’, constructing a path, which is the smuggling channel we desire. While the Dream Hole you made in Insect City is more like punching a big hole in the wall, letting external ‘Nightmare Pollution’ pour in, or tilting out from inside the Bubble World… the difference is still quite big.”
