Silent World

Wei Yuan was silent for a moment before typing out a line: "Who are you?" A broad swath of static flashed across the monitor, then drifted down like heavy snowfall, finally heaping into another sentence on the screen: "Guess?" With his past experiences in the otherworldly realm, Wei Yuan was by no means flustered. He stirred his thoughts to summon his divine sense, only to discover that he inhabited the body of an ordinary mortal here. His sea of consciousness was undeveloped, meaning he possessed neither an origin soul nor divine sense. Wei Yuan was somewhat unaccustomed to this mortal form. Not only were his thoughts hundreds or thousands of times slower, but he could only handle one or two tasks simultaneously. Furthermore, communicating with the system required manual input—typing out line after line of code that the system could recognize and execute before any normal interaction was possible. Still, a mortal body was a mortal body... Wei Yuan swiftly accepted reality and began to guess what exactly was hiding behind the screen. Based on past experience, whoever did this was likely a prank-loving colleague who had obtained certain system privileges through some means to give him a scare. Yet when Wei Yuan looked up at his surroundings, the entire workspace was brightly lit, but completely deserted. Many cubicles still held half-cups of steaming coffee or snacks with just a single bite taken out of them. The vast majority of screens were on, but there was not a soul in any seat. Eerily, rustles and clatter pervaded the entire workspace—all the ambient noises of work. If one closed their eyes, it felt as though they were in the midst of thousands of people, everyone working diligently without uttering a word. Across most monitors, data and text scrolled continuously, as if people truly were working. Wei Yuan suddenly heard the crisp clacking of a keyboard. Looking to either side, he saw that at an adjacent workstation, a keyboard was rapidly typing on its own, producing corresponding lines of operational code on the screen. Amid the endless dry code, many characters suddenly dropped away to reveal a sentence: "Do you see me?" Wei Yuan frowned slightly, but still reached out to feel around the nearby cubicle. As expected, his fingers touched nothing. It was as if this vast workspace was populated by countless invisible, intangible ghosts. Wei Yuan mused for a moment, then tried typing a single word: "System?" The entity across the screen seemed to pause, taken aback, before replying: "What kind of joke is that?" The tone of that line sounded just like a prankster colleague, even matching the hesitant delay in reaction. The Umbrella Company's central system was powerful and cold, reputed to have no vulnerabilities and to never make mistakes. Quite a few rumors circulated about the system among young researchers, the most preposterous being that it had thoughts of its own. Back when the young Wei Yuan had just joined, these rumors had frightened him for a time. Later on, however, as the viruses he designed and edited grew more numerous and complex, Wei Yuan discovered that in the microscopic world, many viruses were far more terrifying than an awakened system. Especially certain superviruses: once their numbers reached a certain threshold, their behavioral patterns underwent marked changes, appearing as though they had awakened self-awareness. Once such viruses were discovered, the company placed them under strict containment, and Wei Yuan had no clearance to access any relevant information. Wei Yuan did not continue speaking with the unknown entity behind the screen. Instead, he stood up and walked a circuit around the office, pondering his current predicament. A seemingly transparent cloth seemed draped over Wei Yuan's consciousness, yet in reality, far from being transparent, it projected completely false imagery, leaving one completely oblivious to where they truly were—somewhat akin to the womb delusion. At this moment, however, a tear had opened in this veil. Though small, it allowed Wei Yuan to peer through the breach and see the true world behind it. Peering through the gap, he could see that he was actually standing amidst ruins. Everything was rotted and rusted, abandoned for who knew how many years. Eerily, several computer screens were still flickering with light—the one before Wei Yuan, as well as the one beside it. Among the workstations, skeletal remains lay scattered, some still slumped over their desks as if working until their final moments. Everything in the real world was coated in a layer of sticky black grime, resembling the product of oil mixed with dust. Wei Yuan casually wiped a hand across a nearby desk, immediately leaving behind a distinct finger mark. Yet within the false vision of the veil, this desk was kept quite tidy, and when Wei Yuan's finger brushed across the surface, it left no trace at all. His fingertip was clean, untouched by the black grease of the real world. The tear in the veil not only allowed Wei Yuan to see the real world, but also reminded him of the reason he had come here. He had clearly entered the Reflection Returning to Guixu Formation to review his past memories—how had he ended up in the otherworldly realm again? When Wei Yuan had first arrived in this world, he had come through the Gate of the Many Realms. How had he crossed over now? Wei Yuan observed himself with the Taiyin Wanhua Mental Art, yet still detected no origin soul or sea of consciousness. In other words, none of his Daoist techniques or divine arts could be used; he was now just an ordinary person, possessing at best a physical constitution far superior to normal humans. This state of affairs was exceedingly bizarre, difficult even for Wei Yuan to comprehend. Yet he deduced the reason the tear had appeared in the veil: the heavenly demon. Because of the heavenly demon's presence, in the eyes of Heaven and Earth, Wei Yuan was constantly under the affliction of heavenly tribulation. And while the heavenly demon lacked raw absolute strength, its status was extraordinary, falling outside the bounds of this realm or any known world. As a result, a tear had formed in the veil blinding Wei Yuan's consciousness, allowing him to discover the reality of the world ahead of time. Guided by his memory, Wei Yuan first headed to the security office. Within the veil, the security office door was tightly locked, impossible for mortal strength to open. In the real world, however, the doors hung wide open, the floor and walls covered in blackened stains that looked like blood. Wei Yuan pondered for a moment. Relying on common cultivation knowledge, he rammed headfirst into the security office door—and, sure enough, passed straight through, stepping into the room. Wei Yuan immediately went to the weapons cabinet, pulled out a shotgun, and grabbed plenty of ammunition. Then, taking a bulletproof vest from the armor locker, he strapped it on. In the real world, these items had long ceased to exist, but in the illusory world, they were intact and undamaged. Ignoring the real world, Wei Yuan tried pushing the security office door again. As expected, it would not budge in the slightest, nor could he exit. Wei Yuan grew thoughtful. It seemed this realm operated on the rule that what you believed existed did, and what you did not believe did not—standard practice in the supreme illusions set up by many immortals. In immortal illusions, when many people believed they had suffered mortal wounds beyond healing, their origin souls would believe they were dead, falling silent of their own accord and ceasing to tether the soul. Drawn by the formation, the soul would depart the body, turning the physical form into a walking corpse, dead in truth. That was the principle behind immortal formations, but in this bizarre realm, what was the governing principle? While Wei Yuan was pondering, he suddenly sensed a change in the real world. Switching his vision to look, he discovered that flickering static had actually appeared on one of the security office's monitors! Wei Yuan switched back to the illusory world and found the monitor that had lit up in reality. That screen showed a long corridor, at the end of which stood an imposing door. That door was fresh in Wei Yuan's memory—during his previous adventure in the otherworldly realm, Ji Liuli's office lay behind it. At that moment, Wei Yuan suddenly remembered Ji Liuli's background. Could this anomaly be related to her? Had those mysterious entities that once pursued her appeared once again? Wei Yuan walked over to the security terminal, pulled up the building's blueprint from memory, disabled the security measures along his route, and left the security office, heading toward Ji Liuli's office.