CHAPTER 555: CHAPTER 553: A DREAM

What happened...

Luo Siyuan stared blankly at the giant, translucent baby floating placidly on the river before him. His once agile and lively brain had become dull and slow, and his limbs felt as if they had disappeared, receiving no sense of touch.

He slowly turned his head to look around and noticed that the expressions on the faces of the others on the boat were equally lost and confused.

He shook his head slightly and raised his arm to look. He found that the clothes and skin on his arm had shattered into dust, which, upon the touch of a breeze, blended into the wind and dissipated.

Like ice and snow melting, like silt entering the sea.

CLANG.

The sound of weapons hitting the ground was incessant. In just a few breaths, some individuals on the boat had completely disintegrated into sand and vanished, leaving only their weapons clattering onto the deck.

Luo Siyuan suddenly felt lighter on his feet. His body abruptly lost balance, and he fell forward, barely managing to stay upright by bracing against the boat’s wall. When he looked down, he saw that the lower half of his leg had already melted away into gray dust.

"What’s happening..."

He struggled to open his eyes and looked towards the three Cultivators who were with Scholar Zhu. "What did you do..."

Initial Shade and the others were equally surprised. Standing on the slowly disintegrating deck, they were unaware of the source of these changes. Before they could respond, Luo Siyuan’s face had already turned to ash, vanishing into the wind.

Between heaven and earth, only silence remained.

BANG—

The sound came from the giant baby.

Scholar Zhu was flung back at a speed faster than when he had approached, his feet scraping across the fragile deck, carving out two long marks.

His condition was poor. Steam rose from his body, his skin was crimson, and he looked disheveled, as if he had just been fished out of boiling water.

"I’m fine," Scholar Zhu said hoarsely, raising his hand to stop Initial Shade, who wanted to come forward to provide treatment.

[The Shengnan King’s Dream has ended. All players will be forcibly ejected in 120 seconds.]

The System’s cold notification sounded in their ears. Scholar Zhu silently stood up, gazing at the gray-white world around him, and muttered, "It’s all over."

A winding bolt of lightning crawled slowly across the sky, eventually freezing midway. The half-day’s rain also hung suspended in mid-air, motionless, like a still photograph.

After a long while, everything began to move slowly again.

The lightning, seemingly slow but actually swift, retracted into the clouds. The torrential rain reversed its course, flowing back into the sky. River water flowed upstream, and fallen leaves returned to their branches.

Time was reversing.

The annihilated ash drifted back on the wind, reconstructing everyone on the boat.

Luo Siyuan, restored to his original state, watched the scene before him recede rapidly, faster and faster. He saw his own mouth open uncontrollably, asking Initial Shade and the others, "What did you... happen... how...??"

He saw himself standing by a bridge in Chenzhou, a leftover pear core flying out of the water and back into his mouth, regaining its flesh piece by piece.

He saw his long-deceased master reappear before him, once again exploring the world’s unknowns with him.

Ultimately, he returned to the very beginning.

「The green hills and clear waters, a remote mountain village.」

"Siyuan! Time to eat!"

His mother’s call came from the main room.

The round-faced little boy, sitting on the low doorstep basking in the sunset, answered, put away the book in his hands, and said to his younger sister beside him, "Let’s go, time for dinner."

"Okay."

The little girl in a red cotton-padded jacket took his hand, stood up, and asked curiously, "Brother, are there really demons in the world?"

"How could that be possible?"

The little boy curled his lip disdainfully, speaking with a precocious air. "Even the newly appointed National Preceptor, Daoist Guang Chenzi, has personally denied the existence of gods, Buddhas, demons, and spirits.

"He said, ’When people don’t know why certain things happen or are unable to control their course, they invent causalities and believe in non-existent cause-and-effect relationships to gain a sense of control and alleviate the tension and anxiety brought on by the unknown and uncertainty. Obsessive, fanatical belief is superstition.’

"Because people don’t understand the patterns of weather changes, they invented the Heavenly Court that controls clouds and rain.

"Fearing retribution for misdeeds, they created the Underworld that rewards good and punishes evil.

"Fearing the night, they conceived of demons lurking in the shadows.

"And in their quest for longevity, they imagined Immortals living alone in the heavens.

"There have never been any God Immortals or Buddhas in this world. Whatever one does, it’s all up to oneself."

He flicked the book in his hand, its title even more striking in the sunset’s glow.

*The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy* — by Guang Chenzi

***

Li Ang opened his eyes to the familiar ceiling of his bedroom.

"Awake? You’re the best of this batch."

A deep voice sounded in his ear.

Li Ang remained unfazed. He performed a kip-up, springing from the bed to his feet, and casually flicked Miss Chai on the head as she floated mid-air, cosplaying. Then, he hopped over to his computer desk in a few quick steps and began browsing the player forum.

After a delay of a dozen or so seconds, new posts began to appear on the player forum. Most concerned the early conclusion of the King of Shengnan mission and everyone being forcibly logged out.

Li Ang leaned back in his chair and exhaled a long breath.

Although he had no idea what Scholar Zhu had said or done to the King of Shengnan, the outcome seemed to have been effective. Well done.

DING DONG,

A notification came through the friends system on his personal panel. It was a message from Xing Hechou.

"Brother Li, you there?"

"Yeah," Li Ang replied. "Brother Xing, are you back at the base?"

Xing Hechou: "Yeah. Scholar Zhu and the others are back too. We owe you one this time. If it hadn’t been for you, this mission would have been incredibly difficult to complete, and the Bureau’s personnel would have suffered heavy losses."

"Don’t mention it."

Li Ang chatted idly with Xing Hechou for a few moments, casually inquiring about the King of Shengnan’s whereabouts.

When they were in the dream, Xing Hechou had mentioned that it was Meng Si, the dream-eater from the Demon Prison, who first suggested creating a controllable urban legend in the real world. The idea was to use the collective subconscious of billions of people to fabricate a god, turning the god itself into a recyclable trial ground.

However, before the Special Affairs Bureau could reach any conclusions, Meng Si disappeared, and urban legends about the King of Shengnan began to circulate in the real world.

If Xing Hechou wasn’t lying, then it was very likely that either Meng Si itself or another force using Meng Si had brought forth the King of Shengnan, thus triggering this large-scale mission.

So, the question arose: where did the King of Shengnan go? Was he already destroyed, or was he recruited by Scholar Zhu, who was the last to enter the third layer of the dream realm?

And the other forces that might have brought forth the King of Shengnan (if they truly existed), where were they now? They must have also entered the dream realm, so why did they allow Scholar Zhu to act freely?

Once he started down this line of thought, more and more questions emerged.

In response to Li Ang’s questions, Xing Hechou chuckled and dodged the issue.

Seeing this, Li Ang didn’t press further. After learning from Xing Hechou that "ordinary people infected by the King of Shengnan Meme hadn’t shown any problems," he satisfactorily ended the communication.