Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1382: Ji Shanqing’s Idea

For a while, everyone looked up at the sky, speechless.

The dust stirred up by Lin Sanjiu and others while rampaging through the town gradually dissipated in the silence. The pale blue sky, which originally seemed covered in a layer of gray, began to shine in a bright blue under the sunlight, similar to the sea’s surface. The figure floating in mid-air, too, diluted before everyone’s eyes as if it was immersed in water, slowly fading away until it disappeared completely.

Nu Yue fell to the ground with a ‘thud,’ startling everyone back to their senses.

Lin Sanjiu quickly walked up to her and lifted her head. Her eyes were tightly shut, her skin pale, and the black hair that had attempted to engulf her face was still covering it. After listening to her breathing for a while, Lin Sanjiu wrapped her hand in [Defense Forcefield], and gently pushed away the black hair on her face. Like a wig, large amounts of hair fell off at a sweep, piling on the ground.

Several people nearby hurriedly stepped back; no one wanted to be close to it.

Ji Shanqing, covered in cold sweat, quickly wiped his face with his sleeve and took a deep breath. “Alright, it should be over now.”

“Was that thing… always above our heads?” asked Horst, a posthuman from the modern world.

“Not always,” Ji Shanqing replied, looking up at the sky. “Since the background is the blue sky, this Blue Wall Watcher is not location-limited and can appear anywhere outside, excluding indoor locations. According to eyewitness reports, he indeed appeared in many different places. After we dispersed, he might have appeared above everyone’s heads at different times.”

“I didn’t notice at all,” Louisa said quietly while helping Lin Sanjiu support Nu Yue.

“It’s hard to notice,” Ji Shanqing said. Glancing around and finding that everyone was listening attentively to him, he coughed. “Whether it’s tens of meters high or tens of thousands of meters high, it’s all sky. The retreating process of the Blue Wall Watcher on the TV is his actual descending process from high altitude. Unless we have a telescope, we’re destined not to see him most of the time.”

“When he enters the visual range, the Blue Wall Watcher might only appear above the heads of those who are alone,” Silvan added, pointing at the screen. “If there’s no one around and you don’t look up, it’s hard to notice something above. Now, let’s go back to the house and continue talking while walking.”

Lin Sanjiu turned her head and realized that the image on the big screen behind had changed. After the Blue Wall Watcher disappeared, the screen only displayed a line: “Successfully cleared! Please return to the house and rest.”

After they randomly chose a house and settled down in the living room, she put Nu Yue on the sofa and glanced at Ji Shanqing, who walked up and silently examined Nu Yue.

“There’s no major issue upon examination,” Ji Shanqing said, withdrawing his hand, “I suspect she fainted due to the psychological shock from almost being assimilated. She’ll be fine after some rest.”

Thankfully, nothing serious happened.

Drained by the past fifteen minutes, Lin Sanjiu slid down the couch onto the floor, taking a deep breath. “What’s next?” she asked, looking around the packed living room. “The Blue Wall Watcher game started because some new game launch conference wasn’t successfully prevented. Next, do we have to stop this new game launch?”

While she said this, she didn’t know where this new game launch conference was or how to stop it. After everyone discussed for a while, the consensus was to wait and see if there would be new hint messages on the TV after the rest time ended. Unexpectedly, this wait took several hours.

During these hours, as nothing happened, everyone let their guard down. Some people took the ingredients Lin Sanjiu provided to the kitchen to prepare some dinner; others couldn’t stand the sweat and even took a shower in the bathroom—of course, this person was Ji Shanqing.

“You said you encountered a Blue Wall Watcher in a backyard swimming pool,” Silvan said to Lin Sanjiu, “Do you remember which backyard it was?”

“What are you up to?”

Silvan pulled up his collar and fanned himself; his golden hair fluttered and fell beside his green eyes. “It’s so hot. I’m going for a swim.”

Four hours later, only Lin Sanjiu was still staring at the TV screen. Even the grand prize, who had been snuggling by her side, moved to the other end of the sofa due to the heat and was idly reading a novel he found in the house.

“Do Veda need to read books?” Lin Sanjiu asked.

“I don’t have any data for this book.” The grand prize lazily turned a page, resting a foot on her thigh. “So, I don’t know the direction this novel will take. It’s rare for me to find a book that still holds unknown suspense for me.”

“Is it because… the place where the Data Stream Library is, is too far from this layer of the universe?”

Ji Shanqing didn’t look up, his gaze resting on the pages of the book, and after two seconds, he hummed in acknowledgment.

Lin Sanjiu hesitated and asked, “If it’s too far… does it have any impact on you?”

Ji Shanqing was silent for a moment, then looked up. He looked into Lin Sanjiu’s eyes and spoke softly, “Sis, I am not really here.”

She couldn’t help but be taken aback.

“The real ‘me’ is an infinite and enormous entity,” Ji Shanqing said, suddenly lowering his gaze as if this fact were also cruel to himself. “What you see now is just a body I’ve put together based on my previous form… with a sliver of consciousness added. There are millions of tiny sliver of consciousness like this in the Data Stream Library.”

As Lin Sanjiu looked at him, speechless, Ji Shanqing sighed.

“Sis, I remind you of this because…” He paused, then said, “Being too far away from my main body may cause instability in this sliver of consciousness, as it is not an independent individual and cannot exist independently in this form. When that happens, don’t think that something happened to me. To put it in perspective, it’s like I’ve lost a strand of hair.”

Lin Sanjiu nodded.

It seemed like not long ago, Ji Shanqing was intentionally making her worry through the communicator; now, he was consoling her in advance, saying that what he might lose was only a strand of hair. She was silent for a while, then gently patted him and whispered, “How long do you think this sliver of consciousness can last?”

“Hard to say,” Ji Shanqing shook his head, “I was supposed to go back two months ago. Now I’m already seven months overdue. These days, I often feel tired.”

“Can you go back now?” Lin Sanjiu asked, clenching her hand. “Keeping this sliver of consciousness is better than not, right?”

Ji Shanqing didn’t answer for a while, stunned. “My main body is too vast to cross worlds; there’s a more important reason this sliver of consciousness needs to go back, aside from it not being able to exist on its own for long,” he couldn’t help but lean closer to Lin Sanjiu, “This sliver of consciousness can bring back all the data from the time I spent with you. The me in the Data Stream Library can re-experience this data, as if I had experienced it myself.”

He paused, then gave a small smile. “But now that I think about it, there’s no need.”

Just as Lin Sanjiu was about to ask why, something flickered in the corner of her eye, drawing both their attention. She turned her head instinctively and realized the words on the TV screen had changed.

“How’s everyone’s rest? The new game launch conference will startin one hour. Please look forward to it.”