Chapter 25: Returning to Transformers

Finally, he managed to bluff the two unwelcome guests away. After Sun Cheng closed and locked the door, his legs went weak, and he slumped onto the floor.

To be honest, daring to stand his ground against two loan sharks of unknown origin was entirely fueled by a burst of anger, followed by improvisation and a bit of acting.

It was also fortunate that the other party was the type to bully the weak and fear the strong; they were caught off guard and bluffed, otherwise, to say nothing else, a sound beating would have been unavoidable.

"Are the guards at Nanjing University of Technology eating dung? A prestigious top-tier science and engineering university in the country, and any stray cat or dog can just walk through the front gate!"

Sitting on the floor and panting heavily for a while, Sun Cheng could not help but complain in his heart.

However, he also knew that this could not be blamed on the guards. After all, the campus facilities at Nanjing University of Technology were the best in the vicinity. Not to mention that after work, many young people or the old men and women from the neighborhood liked to stroll from the side gate to the sports field; even at the main gate, it was just an extra registration procedure, which truly could not stop people.

After sitting slumped for a good while, Sun Cheng finally regained his strength and stood up.

He was, after all, only a young man in his early twenties. A week ago, would he have ever imagined that the world could be so ugly and filthy?

Getting up and returning to the computer, Sun Cheng no longer had the intention to continue tinkering with it, because the confrontation just now had consumed too much of his energy.

However, he was a cautious person, especially after his experiences in the other world, which had deepened Sun Cheng's distrust of everything other than himself.

Although he had only casually mentioned showing Xiao Hong and the others the progress of his startup project tomorrow, to avoid that guy actually coming over tomorrow, he could not be completely unprepared.

Sun Cheng immediately created a new document, and while recalling his original startup plan, he summarized the lessons learned to improve and modify it, becoming busy in front of the computer.

This busyness lasted for more than two hours, until the lights in the dormitory suddenly dimmed. The sudden discomfort in his eyes brought him back to his senses. He subconsciously glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the computer and realized that the dormitory's lights-out time had arrived.

"Lights-out time already? Fine, I'll rest first. I'll find time tomorrow to go to the library and look for some programming textbooks!"

Although his laptop had an external battery and could last for another two hours after the school cut the power, Sun Cheng still stopped his work and prepared to rest.

He had finished the new project proposal an hour ago, and since then, he had been trying to use his suddenly surging computer skills to design and compile a simulator by himself.

However, the result dealt him a heavy blow.

Sun Cheng tried for nearly an hour before realizing that he was actually at a loss for where to start.

It was not that the difficulty of writing a simulator was harder than simplifying and improving an operating system. If one were to compare the workload and difficulty of the two, it was clear that they were not in the same league at all; simplifying and improving an operating system was much harder.

But, during the day, when he had an idea, he was able to complete the task of improving the XP operating system—which was simply impossible—all by himself in just a few hours.

And now, when he wanted to develop a simulator on his own, he found that he had no idea where to start.

How should he put it? It was as if the concept of a simulator simply did not exist in his head.

"Sure enough, the sudden surge in my computer skills was just an illusion. That shouldn't have been my own stuff at all; it was just influenced by the Memory Data of Frenzy..."

Although somewhat disappointed, Sun Cheng was not completely unprepared for this. In fact, from the very beginning, he had already guessed it in his heart, but it was only now being verified.

He had previously used the Frenzy Body to invade the global internet in the other world. The operating system most frequently used in that world at the time was Microsoft's XP. Perhaps because of this, the Core of Frenzy had inadvertently completely cracked this operating system and, through memory sharing, influenced him upon his return to the Blue Star.

Now that Sun Cheng wanted to develop a simulator, the Frenzy memory he had obtained contained no concept of a simulator, and as a human, he clearly did not have the 【Core】—that divine artifact of the Decepticon—in his head. He could only rely on his original abilities, which was why he found himself unable to start.

Going out to the washroom across from the dormitory and finishing his wash in the dark in a few minutes, Sun Cheng returned to the dormitory, closed the computer, and climbed into bed.

Just as he closed his eyes, he felt sleepiness wash over him before long and felt a sense of confusion. At the same time, he once again caught a faint, elusive attraction coming from an unknown corner of his body.

"Wait, could this be?"

His heart stirred, and Sun Cheng braced himself, subconsciously probing toward the place where the attraction was coming from.

The next moment, he felt his consciousness encounter a vortex, and an instant later, he saw that he had returned to that water-blue Spherical Space.

Although this was not his first time here, Sun Cheng still had an incredible feeling upon returning.

It was too miraculous.

It was such a miraculous space that it could actually allow him to travel back and forth between two worlds.

Looking around, he confirmed once again that there was nothing else in this water-blue Spherical Space except for the two light screens in the center, and Sun Cheng was somewhat disappointed.

The less information he could grasp, the less favorable it was for him to analyze what this place was, why it possessed the ability to let people travel, and why he was able to enter here.

Fortunately, Sun Cheng quickly adjusted his mindset. Controlling his ghost-like body, he drifted around the Spherical Space for a while. Feeling a bit bored, he wanted to leave, so he controlled his body to fly toward the light screen that returned him to reality.

"Whoosh!"

The light screen lit up in a second. Although it was already late at night in reality, it clearly revealed the figure of himself sleeping quietly on the bed.

After estimating the time between waking up in the morning and falling asleep just now, he immediately looked at the bottom right corner of the light screen and compared it with the set of constantly flowing numbers behind the Red Star, nodding to himself.

"It can't be wrong; this set of numbers behind the Red Star is time. But what exactly does it mean? Will there be changes in the Spherical Space after thirty days? Or in the real world?"

Because the information he grasped was too little, Sun Cheng had no clue. After frowning and worrying for more than ten seconds, he collected his thoughts and stopped thinking about what they represented.

Just as he was about to return to reality, a glance from the corner of his eye revealed that the set of data behind the Blue Star above the Red Star had also changed, and his spirit suddenly jolted.

"Eh, why did the data behind the Blue Star change to 2371000? I remember that when I came in last time, didn't I see 4371000?"

After thinking carefully, Sun Cheng quickly confirmed that he had not remembered wrong; he could be very certain that the data he had seen before displayed exactly 4371000.

Thinking that the other light screen seemed to display the same set of data, he immediately drifted to the other light screen beside it. After the screen lit up, he looked at the bottom right corner and found that the set of numbers behind the Blue Star on this screen had indeed changed from the original 4371000 to the current 2371000.

"No mistake, this set of data has indeed changed, and it has decreased. What does this mean?"

He made a scratching motion with his head; this was what Sun Cheng liked to do most when he was worried. It was a pity that he was in a ghost form now, but his worry did not decrease in the slightest because of the temporary disappearance of his physical body.

Sun Cheng even felt that he had more worries now, his head filled with problems that needed to be scratched over and thought about.

For example, there was another one now: why did this set of numbers behind the Blue Star suddenly decrease?

He could not help but start to recall. Sun Cheng remembered that when he was still at the Starscream Base, while replenishing energy for the Frenzy Body in the 【Supply Room】, he had captured the fluctuations of the Spherical Space just like tonight, which allowed him to enter here again. At that time, the number displayed behind the Blue Star was still 4371000.

"Wait..." Thinking of this, a flash of inspiration crossed Sun Cheng's mind. "After that, I returned from that Decepticon world, and the number behind the Blue Star also decreased by two hundred? Does this mean that the number behind the Blue Star represents some kind of energy that allows me to travel freely between the two worlds?"

Thinking this way, his heart suddenly became clear. This explained it, and all that remained was to verify it after the next time-travel.

Looking at the light screen again, Sun Cheng soon had a new discovery. As his gaze inadvertently swept over the White Star below, he actually saw that the data behind it had also changed, from the original 21 to the current 11.

Regarding the change in the data of the White Star, he was not too agitated, because Sun Cheng already had some guesses about it. He felt that this set of data likely represented things he could bring to the two worlds.

For example, the Apple 5 phone he brought from reality to the other world last time, or the Level 2 Core he brought back from the other world to reality this time.

It was just that, like the Blue Star, the meaning represented by the White Star still required him to conduct a few more experiments to verify whether his guess was true.

Feeling that his understanding of the Spherical Space had deepened, Sun Cheng's mood suddenly improved, and even the irritability and anxiety brought to him by Xiao Hong and the others coming to demand debt repayment faded quite a bit.

Just as he was about to return to the real world, his gaze inadvertently looked at the Frenzy Body displayed on the light screen, and Sun Cheng suddenly frowned and stopped.

In the previous two travels, he had been passive, but he had also gained quite a lot from them.

The first time, he discovered he could share the Memory Data of Frenzy in the real world, and the second time, not only did he obtain a method to pay off his debts, but he also brought a Level 2 Core from the Decepticon Legion back to the real world; although that thing was dangerous, if he could fully master it, the benefits would be obvious.

From these two passive traversals, Sun Cheng had gained quite a few benefits from the other world, which could not help but move him deeply.

Thinking back to his own situation in reality, not only had his startup gone bankrupt, but he had also been schemed into owing usury; he had clearly just announced the dissolution of his startup team that morning, yet by evening, Xiao Hong and the others could not help but jump out immediately, even going so far as to come to his door to coerce and intimidate him, which in no way looked like they would let him off easily.

Reality, this peach blossom spring, was no longer safe, and danger might even descend upon his family.

Yet, clever as Sun Cheng was, he had realized that his only way to break the deadlock now did not lie in reality, but in the other world, within the Frenzy Body he had possessed during his traversal.

This discovery caused waves to rise once again in the heart of him who had originally made up his mind not to return to that dangerous other world.

Now standing before the gate leading to the other world, Sun Cheng could not help but hesitate; after his gaze had shifted back and forth between the two light screens representing reality and the other world several times, he finally made his decision, gritted his teeth, and rushed into the light screen before him that could send him to the other world without looking back.