Liu Chuan stared at Shang Jianyao for a moment and said:

"No one lives inside, but there are often some slight movements coming from it."

"No one has explored it? No one has died inside?" Shang Jianyao pressed.

Liu Chuan replied:

"I don't know if anyone went in before I entered the 'New World,' but after I came in, many friends reminded me not to try to explore those obviously strange places."

His meaning, simplified, was:

As far as he knew, no one had entered that courtyard, and naturally, no one had died inside.

Shang Jianyao looked disappointed:

"Then why were you so nervous and scared just now?"

Liu Chuan didn't want to explain further and repeated what he had said before:

"You can go back to where you live. I'll let you know before the formal operation."

"Alright." Shang Jianyao didn't insist and waved his hand casually. "See you later."

After he left the cafe, he walked towards the outer area of the "New World" and came to that gray-earthen-style courtyard again.

Staring at the building shrouded in darkness for several seconds, Shang Jianyao slapped his right fist into his left palm and said:

"Last time, I climbed over the wall to get in. This time, I'll go through the main entrance and see if anything has changed!"

The sinister and venomous Shang Jianyao immediately mocked his reckless colleague:

"Last time nothing happened, this time something happens. Would that count as a change?"

"Sure!" The reckless Shang Jianyao didn't hesitate at all. "Anyway, I have Xiaochong's tiger skin. What's there to fear?"

The sinister and venomous Shang Jianyao felt very aggrieved but couldn't stop it.

He just wanted to split off now and get away from this brainless guy.

Shang Jianyao pushed open the wooden gate of the courtyard and walked in step by step.

Two lanterns hanging at the entrance of the main house lit up, casting a red glow.

"Why two? Is there someone else here?" The honest Shang Jianyao asked, as always.

The reckless Shang Jianyao replied nonchalantly:

"What's so strange about that?"

"These two lanterns are a matching set, part of the same group of lights.

"The lamp in the cafe earlier was made up of many small lights, and they all lit up at the same time, didn't they?"

As he spoke, he entered the main hall and came to the outside of the wing where Lin Sui's photos were displayed.

Shang Jianyao didn't rush in. He turned his body and put his ear against the door.

He was often reckless, but sometimes his patience was amazing. He maintained this posture and listened for a full seven or eight minutes.

Finally, a faint, sobbing sound came from inside the wing.

This time, Shang Jianyao didn't push the door open and check what was happening like before. Instead, he stayed outside and asked through the door panel:

"What are you crying about?"

The sobbing stopped abruptly.

Shang Jianyao asked again:

"Do you have anything you're sad about? It'll feel better if you talk about it."

The wing was silent. The sobbing seemed to have been just an illusion.

Zen Master Pudu chanted a Buddhist prayer in a low voice:

"Namo Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi. Do you need help, benefactor?"

No one responded to him. It seemed that there were only dead objects inside.

Shang Jianyao thought for a while, sighed, and recited:

"Somewhere in the world someone is crying in this moment,
crying without any reason in the world,
crying over me."
"..." (Note 1)

This was a Red River poem he had learned from old-world entertainment materials in Gestaltburg. Seeking novelty and the unusual, he was always ready to perform a recitation, and this scene was quite appropriate.

However, no one appreciated his artistic sensibilities.

Shang Jianyao was disappointed:

"The artistic route doesn't work either?

"This building is a gray-earthen-style courtyard, and Lin Sui is also a gray-earthen person, so do I have to recite gray-earthen poetry?"

Shang Jianyao began to wrack his brains, recalling suitable ancient poems and lyrics.

Just then, the faint, sobbing sound rang out again.

Then, a ethereal female voice said with intense pain:

"Many times, eternal life means eternal pain..."

Shang Jianyao's eyes lit up at first, then he blurted out:

"That's too rigorous! It doesn't fit the expression habits of a normal person when they're feeling down or even sad!

"Most people would definitely just say 'Eternal life means eternal pain' and wouldn't add the modifying phrase 'many times.' Although that's more reasonable and closer to real logic, who considers that aspect when they're feeling down?

"Are you a science and engineering student?"

The wing was silent. No one answered.

Shang Jianyao waited for a long time and gradually became a little "flustered":

"Say something!

"I finally got you to talk!"

The sound of wind in the wing disappeared. The sobbing and the painful female voice gave the feeling that they had never existed.

Shang Jianyao jumped up and down and said:

"I apologize to you. I shouldn't have argued.

"Please, what do you want for you to forgive me?

"If you don't speak again, I'll kneel here and not get up!"

He slowly used some lines from old-world entertainment materials, looking quite pleased with himself.

Unfortunately, there was no further response from the wing.

...

After entering the "Mind Corridor," Jiang Baimian adapted for a while, then prepared to go deeper into that small city to explore the area around the tower.

She obtained a mental shield from Shang Jianyao, chose the daytime instead of the night, and once again entered the real "New World."

Although she was very familiar with this route, the increased cost still caused her to get lost several times.

And the consequences of getting lost seemed to have become more serious. Several times, she directly ran into a bunch of "Heartless," making her efforts to hide human consciousness and rely on military exoskeletons to sneak in almost futile.

Fortunately, those "Heartless" ignored her and continued to do their own things in cooperation with each other.

"Mirror World!"

Jiang Baimian sensed them in advance and used the ability "Mirror World."

She found that "Virtual Machine" might be a more appropriate name for this ability.

It could extract environmental elements and construct a virtual world that was exactly the same as the current one. Those "Heartless" lived inside, and their every move had to be filtered by Jiang Baimian before it could be reflected in reality. The feedback from reality was the same.

In this way, Jiang Baimian only needed to exclude herself when "constructing" that virtual world, and those "Heartless" would have no idea that there was such a person passing by them.

The "Mirror World" ability involved a large amount of information collection and filtering. Even if there were many instinctive operations in the middle, it still required a relatively high level of brainpower. After Jiang Baimian chose this ability, she felt that the corresponding functions of her brain had been improved to a certain extent.

Coupled with the assistance of the auxiliary chip in her biological prosthetic limbs, the authenticity and integrity of the "Mirror World" she constructed were not much worse than that of an Awakened exploring the depths of the "Mind Corridor," but there was a large deficiency in the coverage and the number of people affected.

Relying on "Mirror World," Jiang Baimian, without navigation, finally arrived safely at the endpoint of each incursion.

This was only twenty or so meters away from the outermost lamp of the tower.

Jiang Baimian took a breath, slowly took a step, and walked towards the tower.

After walking a section, when she arrived at the place where she would originally show signs of "Heartless Disease," Jiang Baimian felt that everything was normal, and there was no throbbing in her head at all.

"As expected, after the level has been raised, the resistance to consciousness extraction has obviously become stronger..." Jiang Baimian sighed silently.

She then used her ability to interfere with electromagnetism to build a weak barrier around herself.

She was imitating the mental shield provided by Shang Jianyao, but since she had no grasp of her own consciousness, she could only copy it like this, better than nothing.

After a few steps, Jiang Baimian arrived at the critical line where those "Heartless" disappeared.

She prepared to use "Mirror World" before cautiously moving forward.

Almost instantly, Jiang Baimian felt that the barrier around her became fragmented, as if she had passed through a thick curtain of water.

The scene in front of her changed accordingly, and two buildings, one large and one small, appeared there.

The large one had rows of thick towers and gray-white buildings. Based on Jiang Baimian's knowledge, it should be a nuclear power plant.

The small one was about one kilometer away from the nuclear power plant. It had a unique shape, like a solidified, water-blue-colored whirlpool. It was not too high, only twenty or thirty meters, and the overall trend was horizontal. The curtain wall of the facade was not particularly shiny in the sunlight, which was not consistent with the current weather conditions.

Countless "Heartless" haunted the nuclear power plant, with only a few near that small building.

This was seven or eight points similar to the scene Jiang Baimian had expected.

"Even the sunlight is refracted through the illusion before entering..." Jiang Baimian nodded thoughtfully.

She was very clear that the next target should be that small building, not the nuclear power plant.

Because the number of "Heartless" in this area was in the thousands, exceeding the number of targets Jiang Baimian could currently influence, she did not immediately approach that small building. Instead, she continued to hide her human consciousness and found a nearby cover to hide.

Note 1: From *Sorrow*, Rainer Maria Rilke.

ps: Asking for double monthly tickets at the beginning of the month~

ps2: The previous chapter mainly wanted to show the feeling of restoring seemingly useless dialogue into useful information through layers of processing. Because there were places to process in each paragraph of dialogue, it was impossible to use ellipses to replace them. Since many friends think it's water, this chapter is free to compensate everyone.