Seizing Dreams

Ch103.1 – Deductions

The Golden Crow Wheel in Chen Yekai’s world burst with a radiant light and slowly descended. After it descended to a certain height, it emitted a vibration similar to that of a ringing clock, and an instantaneous displacement occurred — it reappeared on the pyramid platform at the apex of Chichén Itzá.

Yu Hao got a huge fright, while Zhou Sheng and Chen Yekai were extremely calm.

“We can only summon it down if we have an effective medium.” Chen Yekai said.

“Wu, your inference was right.” Zhou Sheng frowned as he studied the Golden Crow Wheel.

The Golden Crow Wheel in Chen Yekai’s dream didn’t look like the one in Zhou Sheng’s dream — it didn’t have flares, and there were no ripple-like projections in its center.

Yu Hao scrutinised it for a long time. “That is to say, as long as the connection is strong enough, everyone can enter each other’s dreams?”

Chen Yekai looked at Zhou Sheng. Zhou Sheng said, “Maybe?”

Yu Hao thought about it for a bit before facing Zhou Sheng, “Then……in a sense, the Golden Crow Wheel didn’t necessarily set its mind on you?”

Yu Hao’s idea was: Zhou Sheng was more or less concerned with the connection he has with the Golden Crow Wheel, and he always thought that it would bring them some sort of unknown risk. However, once Chen Yekai could also open up a part of the Golden Crow Wheel’s functions, then this kind of risk could be shared with one more person, so Chen Yekai would also be dragged into this mess.

Zhou Sheng’s delay in erasing Chen Yekai’s memories might be because deep down, he still hoped to unlock secrets concerning the Golden Crow Wheel.

However, Chen Yekai didn’t really understand the meaning behind Yu Hao’s words and instead said seriously, “No, it’s not that simple. We might as well establish a bold hypothesis: remember the pilgrimage array of the priests and bronze men?”

With Chen Yekai’s reminder, Yu Hao recalled that there were many bronze men besides the two priests in the ruins that he had described earlier.

Zhou Sheng muttered, “The function of the Golden Crow Wheel is to connect the brain waves of these people together?”

Chen Yekai snapped his fingers, “Yes. According to the keywords Yu Hao heard in Liang Laoshi’s subconscious, the two of you are the Overseer and Corrector. As for the dreams of the rest of us, they are connected through the Golden Crow Wheel.”

Chen Yekai stood tall, wearing a chieftain’s hat while his upper body was naked. Two leather buckles were strewn across his bare, fair chest, and he was wearing a battle skirt as well. As if his occupational hazard was acting up, he started analysing for the two of them. Yu Hao thought, if you dressed like that for class, we’d probably have to move the class to the field before everyone could find a place to sit down.

Yu Hao was a little distracted, but Zhou Sheng listened to him very earnestly and uttered an “un”. Chen Yekai said, “Zhou Sheng, look, the one who established the connection was me, while the person who enabled access was you. It could be understood as a sort of ‘Consciousness Internet’: everyone is a node, while the two of you are the network administrators of this Internet, or in other words, the GMs.”

“Just a conjecture.” Chen Yekai said casually.

Zhou Sheng said, “And everyone connects to this server through their brainwaves, to undergo……un, a consciousness exchange. In that case, we could roughly guess why the aliens threw the Golden Crow Wheel here.”

Yu Hao, “Ah!”

Chen Yekai raised an eyebrow at Yu Hao and said, “Would student Yu Hao please answer this question?”

Yu Hao laughed. The three of them ignored the Golden Crow Wheel for a moment as they sat at the dining table to drink coffee. Yu Hao pondered for a bit, and there was an indistinct outline in his mind —— perhaps, thousands of years ago, a certain alien’s spaceship came to Earth and brought along with them their high-tech products: the device analogous to a “Brainwave Converter” was the Golden Crow Wheel, and this sort of converter could allow humans to understand one another, eliminate barriers, and facilitate the development of civilisation.

But for some reason, it didn’t continue playing such a role and was instead constrained within the limits of the ancient Bashu region. Its true functions couldn’t be utilised, and it instead turned into a kind of totem symbol. So for a very long time, no one activated it, until it was picked up by Zhou Sheng.

Yu Hao analysed the points he understood. Chen Yekai answered, “That’s very likely to be it.”

Zhou Sheng said, “But I have another take on it: the Golden Crow Wheel could just be a router on their spaceship, or some kind of component of a dream creator machine that they use for fun. Those lifeforms with such advanced technology usually login with brain waves to communicate with one another. After their spaceship fell to Earth, one or two of them survived but couldn’t return even though they wanted to, so they just left it as is.”

“That’s possible too.” Chen Yekai said, “Imagine a huge spaceship crashing near an isolated tribe hidden deep in the mountains in Africa, where there was no signal and communication was impossible. Survivors would occasionally use the on-board entertainment system that’s considered something mystical and mysterious for us.”

Zhou Sheng said, “And thus, I accidentally bumped into a way to login.”

“Un.” Chen Yekai said, “So you first passed its authentication and became its GM. Could Yu Hao perhaps be another administrator that you added to the permissions list? Or, in order to avoid the GM from making mistakes, the Golden Crow Wheel split its admin rights into two roles: the ‘Overseer’ has the right to link and stabilise all users in this Consciousness Internet, including the right to force them to go offline……”

“Good night!” Yu Hao said excitedly.

“Yes.” Zhou Sheng understood, “I can drive anyone out of a dreamscape.”

Chen Yekai said, “Logging in, kicking people out, even forbidding words, or modifying the other party’s conscious world — there should be even more capabilities, it’s just that you haven’t read the complete instruction manual for the system, so you don’t know how to use it. While the other administrator, ‘Corrector’, that is Yu Hao, is akin to the second line of defense of this Consciousness Internet. He monitors all people who fall into the subconscious, including the special measures taken to conduct correction in situations where the ‘Overseer’ falls into the subconscious. This would avoid a system crash caused by the failure of the Overseer to rescue themselves under certain circumstances.”

“At present, that does seem to be the most reasonable speculation.” Yu Hao smiled and looked at Zhou Sheng.

Zhou Sheng didn’t speak for a long time, but Yu Hao knew that Chen Yekai’s inference had untied the knot stuck in Zhou Sheng’s heart all this while.

“Next, I think it should be the ‘careful verification’ process.” Chen Yekai said lightly, “Let’s go around to take a look now? Administrators?”

Zhou Sheng got up and walked towards the Golden Crow Wheel, “You’re about to become more curious about the Golden Crow Wheel than I am.”

Chen Yekai answered, “It’s not a bad thing for humans to have that slight bit of curiosity in life. Desire for knowledge is the driving force behind constant progress and upgrading, right? You don’t need to worry too much about what kind of Pandora’s box you’re going to open.”

As he spoke, Chen Yekai’s eyes carried a hint of a smile as he looked at Yu Hao. Yu Hao suddenly felt like there was an underlying insinuation in that gaze, but he couldn’t understand what Chen Yekai was trying to say right now.

The three of them stood in front of the Golden Crow Wheel. After Zhou Sheng pondered for a bit, he said, “Okay, let’s see Ou Qihang’s dream ba.”

Chen Yekai used the light emitted by the seal to fly into the Golden Crow Wheel. The inner portion of the Golden Crow Wheel was in a chaotic mess. Zhou Sheng stood in front of the Golden Crow Wheel, reached out, and flares erupted from his body.

With a loud blast, the Golden Crow Wheel in Chen Yekai’s dreamscape was instantly activated; like the sun in Zhou Sheng’s dream, it shone resplendently in all directions, and the scene within became clear.

“Our city?” Chen Yekai scrutinised it.

Yu Hao said, “Watch out for the zombies.”

Zhou Sheng said, “After going in, wait at the flower cafe. Go!”

Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao took the lead in jumping into the Golden Crow Wheel, but Chen Yekai said, “Wait! You haven’t told me……ai!” After lamenting, he could only follow them in.

With a “buzz”, Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao appeared in Ou Qihang’s safe haven, yet there was no one in it.

Yu Hao, “You haven’t told Kaikai……”

Zhou Sheng, “He can take care of himself. Where’s that kid? Didn’t I ask him to wait?”

Yu Hao looked around and thought, crap. They chatted for too long in Chichén Itzá, Ou Qihang might have gone out by himself because he couldn’t wait any longer.

There were a lot more guns and ammunition in the safe haven now that were strewn all over the ground. The grenade box was open, and there was even a note beside it written in English. Zhou Sheng said, “What does it mean?”

“He wrote it wrong.” Yu Hao answered, “He asked us to go to his house.”

Ou Qihang could actually leave a note in his own dream? Before Yu Hao knew Zhou Sheng, every time he dreamt, it took a lot of effort to control himself in his dream. The note left behind by Ou Qihang had several wrong words that were written, and it may have been because his consciousness in his dream wasn’t very clear.

“Summon the dragon and soldiers over?” Yu Hao asked.

“It takes a lot of effort to summon them just once.” Zhou Sheng said, “It’s best to try after we get to the boss. There shouldn’t be as many zombies outside, do you know where his house is?”

Yu Hao recalled that he had seen it on the information that Ou Qihang left behind before and answered, “I should be able to find it.”

“Hold it.” Zhou Sheng threw Yu Hao a Desert Eagle.

Yu Hao, “……”

“I don’t know how to use this!” Yu Hao said.

“What about this?” Zhou Sheng changed to a submachine gun. “Feels great to be in the dream of an armament nerd.”

“I don’t know how to use this either.”

“What about this?”

“That’s even worse!” Yu Hao said, “Why would there be a rocket launcher in the dream of a third year senior high student?!”

“This is called RPG! What do you know? Ah?” Zhou Sheng draped an arm around Yu Hao and leaned in to kiss his cheek, “Then just take whatever and follow me ba.”

Yu Hao’s heart began jumping wildly. Zhou Sheng slung a magazine and submachine gun over his shoulders, strapped on a field vest shoulder girdle, carried a bunch of grenades in his left hand and pulled the door open. Yu Hao immediately cried out — there were zombies everywhere outside!

Zhou Sheng threw out three grenades in succession before closing the door of the safe haven immediately——

It was quiet outside. Yu Hao said, “The number of zombies didn’t decrease at all!”

Zhou Sheng opened the door again. The grenades had already exploded, and broken limbs littered the corridor outside. The safe haven shielded them from all sound and shockwaves. He went out with Yu Hao and answered, “It’s easy to say, but truly changing the impression of this world in his heart is really difficult to do. Keep up!”

With a gun in hand, Yu Hao followed Zhou Sheng down the stairs. Zhou Sheng said, “Keep an eye behind us.”