Chapter 70: Walking Alone

Wu Pifu was a bit dazed, because everything before him was like a dream. People in dreams do not have clear consciousness.

However, upon seeing Xu Shilan, the Sleepless Spiritual Light in Wu Pifu's consciousness shone brightly, which made Wu Pifu suddenly wake up. He immediately looked around vigilantly, then was about to grasp the Yellow Lotus fragment he wore on his neck. But upon grasping it, he discovered he was wearing a bowtie on his neck, which left him stunned.

"Walk with me for a while, okay?"

Xu Shilan smiled, naturally linking her arm with Wu Pifu's.

Although Wu Pifu found all this very strange, his Sleepless Spiritual Light had no unusual movements, and he instinctively knew that the person before him was Xu Shilan.

Xu Shilan linked with Wu Pifu and walked out of the bedroom, coming to a long corridor outside. It was also antique, filled with various paintings, vases, decorations, artworks, and the like, and there were several servants cleaning.

These servants seemed unable to see Wu Pifu and Xu Shilan, letting the two walk past the corridor and into the hall below.

There were dozens of people in the hall, holding wine glasses, either talking, eating, or relaxing. This seemed to be an evening party.

"My coming-of-age ceremony."

Xu Shilan smiled, taking Wu Pifu through the crowd, while others couldn't see them at all. The two walked to the middle of the hall and saw a handsome middle-aged man, his arm slightly bent, as if supporting someone.

"My father, a Seventh-Level Citizen, one of the presidential candidates." Xu Shilan looked at the middle-aged man and introduced him to Wu Pifu with a smile.

Wu Pifu had only sorrow in his eyes, and he silently stood with Xu Shilan.

Xu Shilan looked at everything around her, her eyes full of nostalgia. After watching for a long time, she sighed and said, "I can't show you my younger brother. He was a Super-Brain. After he died, he told me he was afraid I would be sad when I thought of him, so he deleted all his images from my memory... Stupid brother. If I could remember what he looked like, I wouldn't be this sad."

Wu Pifu listened quietly to Xu Shilan talking, from father, to mother, to younger brother, to the maid at home since childhood, to classmates met at school...

After a long, long time, when the edge of the hall began to become hazy, Wu Pifu said in a hoarse voice, "Why..."

Wu Pifu himself didn't know why he said "why," nor did he know what he wanted to express.

Xu Shilan looked at Wu Pifu with a smile and said, "No reason. It's just that I'm dead. Everyone dies, don't they?"

There was a sound in Wu Pifu's throat, but he couldn't make it out.

Xu Shilan smiled and smiled, and suddenly tears rolled down. She looked at the haze gradually eroding and said, "Wang Wang Fugui... A masterpiece of the Sixth Singularity Company."

"You also know that the greatest nightmare of humanity from ancient times to the present is actually death. The fear of death transcends everything. This is something rooted in the deepest part of the human race. And the Singularity technology of the Sixth Singularity Company involves death."

"They, those old people, those powerful and wealthy people, they are so afraid of death, they are so eager for life. And after proving that biochemical bodies and mechanical bodies cannot carry the life consciousness of 'I,' they turned to support the Sixth Singularity Company in researching the afterlife, and returning from the afterlife."

"Although I despise these death-evaders, it is ironic that I am also a beneficiary of this research. For example, now, I am dead, but I can return for a moment..."

The haze had eroded one-third of the entire hall and was eroding toward the remaining two-thirds.

Xu Shilan looked around and suddenly asked, "Little Brother Wu, do you think there really is an afterlife? Chu Minghao said the reward for a Level Six shelter is the ability to talk to the dead, which means there really is a death world?"

Wu Pifu nodded forcefully, but couldn't say a word.

Xu Shilan smiled happily and clapped her hands, saying, "Then I won't be lonely. My dad, mom, brother, and many of my good friends are waiting for me there..."

The haze had eroded half of the hall, and this haze seemed to be accelerating.

Xu Shilan suddenly said again, "Can you... hug me?"

Wu Pifu hugged Xu Shilan without a word.

Xu Shilan leaned her head on Wu Pifu's chest, and then Wu Pifu felt a wetness on his chest.

"I'm so scared, I'm really so scared. I can feel it, it's very terrifying over there, very scary. I don't want to die, I really..."

Xu Shilan whispered, crying at the same time.

Wu Pifu couldn't do anything, only quietly hugging Xu Shilan.

The haze had arrived beside them. Xu Shilan suddenly pushed Wu Pifu away. She wiped her face, and a golden sphere suddenly appeared in her hand. It was unclear what it was. She suddenly threw this sphere at Wu Pifu, and the sphere fell into Wu Pifu's chest, merging with him. Then she showed a brilliant smile and said, "I didn't expect that after I died, the only one I could find was you... Little Brother Wu, live on, don't come to find me too soon."

Xu Shilan was wrapped in the haze, and then she disappeared completely.

Wu Pifu opened his eyes suddenly, and liquid invaded his eyes, but it wasn't stinging. Wu Pifu could still easily see everything outside.

He found himself still lying in the medical chamber, and what he was breathing was this liquid. At the same time, he also found a bird lying on his chest. Jiu Jiu was also breathing this liquid.

Sleep treatment solution can be converted by carbon-based nano-units. Life can breathe in it, and all waste products of metabolism in the body can interact with this liquid. There is no need to eat. This liquid completely replaces all food, ensuring all needs of life.

This is when in a coma for more than two days in the medical chamber and there are no other people near the medical chamber, the medical chamber will consume carbon-based nano-devices to maintain the coma consumption for the life that has entered.

And as Wu Pifu woke up, this liquid began to recede, and then Jiu Jiu's eyes slowly opened, just seeming to not have recovered yet, a bit dazed.

Wu Pifu was also stunned for several seconds, then he immediately jumped up from the medical chamber and ran directly to Amida and Xu Shilan's medical chamber. But upon looking, his heart turned cold, and a huge sorrow made his whole body tremble.

There was no such sleep treatment solution in Amida and Xu Shilan's medical chamber, but a frozen state.

The medical chamber cannot treat people who have completely died and whose brain tissue has completely died. If there is no personnel outside the medical chamber, the corpses inside will be frozen by rapid freezing.

They... died.

Wu Pifu stood silently for a long, long time, until Jiu Jiu flew to his shoulder and gently nudged his face with its head. Wu Pifu then pressed the button on the medical chamber, and then the two corpses were thawed. Then a solution surged out, and the two corpses dissipated in this solution.

Dead means truly dead, everything is gone. Keeping their corpses has no meaning...

Amida, Xu Shilan...

Wu Pifu's feelings for them were different from those seniors.

Although the seniors took care of him, they didn't actually treat him as a partner or comrade-in-arms. This wasn't just one or two seniors like this, but all the seniors were like this.

Indifference, distance, and not wanting to be dragged down or implicated. If it was just simple information notification, or some food or small amount of money in the dream world, the seniors were willing to help. But fighting side by side, facing weirdness, monsters, and nightmares together... the seniors were not willing to do so with each other.

And Amida and Xu Shilan, these were his true companions and comrades-in-arms.

But now they were all gone, and he was left alone again.

Wu Pifu left the medical station with difficult steps, and Jiu Jiu accompanied him quietly. A moment later, Wu Pifu came to the sleep chamber room. It was a mess, with only one sleep chamber remaining intact, while the others had been completely smashed.

Until walking here, Wu Pifu remembered everything in the Peace Hotel dream world again. Paper people, half-paper people, Xu Rongyu, Lin Heier, and his two companions...

Until the last time they entered the Peace Hotel, the three had a conversation.

In this conversation, the three listed all the possible abilities of the Unborn Mother, especially Wu Pifu, who was familiar with the history and information before the Third War, and he spoke of many extraordinary powers in Buddhism.

After doing all this, the three discussed in detail all the difficulties they were about to face, including the fact that the entire Peace Hotel had been surrounded, they could not step out of the Peace range, and at the same time, there was no weirdness they could use to destroy the Peace Hotel shelter. And the Unborn Mother was a high-level existence, impossible to be unintelligent, and impossible to be powerless.

When facing such a high-level existence, no assumption of the highest difficulty was too much.

In this discussion, Xu Shilan analyzed several key points for Wu Pifu and Amida.

First, the Unborn Mother can erode the environment. This erosion might be changing the basic rules of the world, or it might be dragging the dream world to a deeper layer.

Second, the Unborn Mother possesses Telepathy. As long as you think about it in your heart, she is very likely to know everything. It's just that it's not clear what the range of this Telepathy is—is it outside the Peace Hotel shelter, or does she know everything even inside the Peace Hotel shelter?

Third, the Unborn Mother has likely encountered shelters, so she knows some situations about shelters.

!

Fourth, the Unborn Mother can create and control puppets, and whether these puppets belong to weirdness or nightmares, the three didn't know the answer.

Fifth, it is impossible to defeat the Unborn Mother with strength; the gap between each other is too large.

Sixth, it is impossible to deceive the Unborn Mother with intelligence, because according to the inferences above, the Unborn Mother only needs to wait for time to win.

Under such circumstances, there is only one way to make the Unborn Mother act rashly, and that is to use Wu Pifu's own life as a bet. But the bet is definitely not to let the Unborn Mother let the three go. She absolutely, absolutely would not do so. At worst, she would kill the three and wait for the next opportunity. So this bet can only be to make the Unborn Mother give up delaying time, and then find a way to control Wu Pifu.

This is the core of the plan, which is to let the Unborn Mother control Wu Pifu, but it absolutely cannot be remote mental control, but to let the Unborn Mother control Wu Pifu in the way of creating paper people.

Then...

Instantly return to Gaia, bringing the part of the Unborn Mother that controls Wu Pifu back together!

The most difficult part of this plan lies in Telepathy. If the Unborn Mother is truly a great power in Buddhism, then she must possess this divine power. And to deceive Telepathy, it is to make oneself not have this memory, and not think about information in this regard.

So after the discussion, the three passed through the medical station's alien-removal instrument, changing the three people's cerebral cortex from the atomic level, turning this memory into information buried in the subconscious. They absolutely couldn't think of it, similar to deep-level suggestion. Only when reaching certain conditions to unlock it would this memory immediately revive.

And this key condition is... the moment Wu Pifu is physically controlled!

The plan succeeded. They truly ended and destroyed the Peace Hotel shelter, defeating the great power of the dream world of Baseline Reality 0.2, but...

Only Wu Pifu survived alone, while Amida and Xu Shilan died.

Wu Pifu stood in the sleep chamber room, becoming increasingly sad, and his anger and killing intent toward the Unborn Mother became increasingly intense.

He stood silently in place for a long, long time, then suddenly roared toward the sky.

"I will, I will..."

After a long time, Wu Pifu stopped roaring. He gasped violently for a moment, then said, "Mainframe, display the time until the 'Weekend'."

"There are sixty-five days, eight hours, twenty-one minutes, and six seconds until the 'Weekend'."

Wu Pifu nodded and said, "Time is still long... Wait a minute, sixty-five days!?"

The time is wrong.

Wu Pifu immediately reacted, because last time he woke up Amida and Xu Shilan after the weekend. During this period, they first went to guard the Peace Hotel, then went to the Mud Buddha Yaksha world for a few days, then returned and went to the Peace Hotel again... No matter how you calculate it, it couldn't be sixty-five days!

Wu Pifu immediately said, "Mainframe, how long was I in a coma in the treatment chamber!?"

"Wu Pifu, judging... judgment finished. You were in a coma in the treatment chamber for one hundred and fifty-two days, eleven hours, fifty-seven minutes, and six seconds."

"Ha!?"

Wu Pifu was incomparably shocked. He was actually in a coma for one hundred and fifty-two days!? Are you kidding, he...

"Wait a minute, one hundred and fifty-two days!?"

Wu Pifu suddenly remembered the countdown of his mind's dark backlash. He immediately shouted, "Mainframe, open my personalized information panel!"

"Wu Pifu, Human, Pure-blood."

"Level Two Maintenance Personnel, Low-level Employee."

"Physical Body Rank Three Initial (Potential +1) (Muscle Strength 2.1, Gene Strength 1.4, Nerve Reaction Speed 2.0, Hematopoietic Immune Function 2.8, Self-healing Ability 2.8), Soul Rank Two (Can be expanded), Inspiration Rank Two (Weirdness Perception 2.2+0.2=2.4, Barrier-breaking Perception 1.4+0.1=1.5)."

"National Martial Arts: Hua Jin (11.27%) -> Hua Jin (72.8%), Tiger Demon Art: Peak Perfection (2.74%) -> Peak Perfection (97.61%)."

"Human Immortal Martial Dao: Skin Tempering Great Completion (93.7%), Flesh Tempering (4.42%), Green Python Molting Art: Supernatural (62.8%)."

"Virtual Personality, can absorb self-fragments to condense into truth, consciousness sea negative backlash rate seven percent, consciousness sea negative total???."

"Brand: Buddha Realm Attraction Rate four percent (from Buddha Mud), Vacuum Hometown Attraction Rate eleven percent (from Unborn Mother's gaze)."

Wu Pifu silently looked through all the attributes. His gaze stayed on the consciousness sea negative backlash rate of seven percent for a long time, then looked at Soul Rank Two, and said, "Mainframe, expand Soul Rank Two."

"Soul Rank Two (Wang Wang Fugui)."

The entire Soul Rank Two only had this one lit item, everything else was question marks.

Wu Pifu said with a trembling voice, "Mainframe, display Wang Wang Fugui."

"Wang Wang Fugui."

"Can significantly resist or carry all negatives, weakening the influence of one's own madness, disorder, consciousness corruption, soul distortion, etc."

Wu Pifu thought of the sphere that Xu Shilan finally gave him in that dream-like scene.

He stood in place, tears rolling down uncontrollably.

"Unborn Mother!!!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 71 =====