C89 — I’m Waiting for You

The system’s outrageous commentary surprisingly gave Mu Sichen a bit of comfort.

 

 

Compared to Qin Zu—who would survive even if the world perished—dying alongside the world might actually be a more merciful ending.

 

 

Perhaps because he had already seen the worst possible outcome, the pressure on Mu Sichen now didn’t feel as suffocating.

 

 

He quickly composed himself and focused on the tiny black specks that had begun to infiltrate the real world.

 

 

The system had once said: the player wasn’t its chosen one.

 

 

Which meant… those other people had been pulled into this world because they were affected by the invading forces leaking from it.

 

 

The system granted them power to survive and fight here—giving them a sliver of hope.

 

 

But only a few could actually grasp that chance.

 

 

Luck and strength were both required.

 

 

Mu Sichen stared at the black dots, hoping to see what was inside them. He wanted to know whether the bar the general manager had mentioned was among them. If it was, then once he returned to the real world, he would find a way to locate and eliminate these black specks.

 

 

Unfortunately, they were just too small.

 

 

He could see these smaller-than-nanoparticle specks only because of the Eye of Truth. But even that didn’t allow him to see what was inside them.

 

 

And after all, what he was seeing was still just a map, not the actual physical world. The map wasn’t even to scale—so there was no way to pinpoint exact locations.

 

 

Trying to locate these black dots in the real world was futile, but Mu Sichen pushed himself harder, pouring his energy into trying to see more clearly.

 

 

Before long, a wave of dizziness swept over him, and his eyelids started to drop.

 

 

His mental energy was nearly depleted.

 

 

—

 

 

[If the player wants to learn more about the bar, you can obtain clues directly from the “Dream-Eating Butterfly.” There’s no need to exhaust yourself over it in the real world.]

 

 

[From a global perspective, the pollution in the real world is negligible. In this world of disaster, you’re already powerful enough to stand on your own. But in the real world, you’re still just a student who needs protection. There’s very little you can actually do.]

 

 

[Do what’s within your power. Don’t place so much pressure on yourself.]

 

 

The system’s normally cold, mechanical tone sounded—for once—almost gentle.

 

 

Mu Sichen clutched his head, the pounding in his temples making his vision blur with pain.

 

 

“I… I can’t find where the Dream-Eating Butterfly is. I still don’t understand why it spared me…” he said, his voice strained.

 

 

He had looked through every thread connected to him—but none of them pointed to the Butterfly.

 

 

The Mind Sea of Perception was simply too vast. Mu Sichen could only see the parts directly related to himself—everything else was out of reach.

 

—

 

 

[There’s still one connection the player has overlooked. Why not open your system panel and take a look?]

 

 

Reminded by the system, Mu Sichen suddenly recalled: he had once given 10% of his trust value to the butterfly, creating a subtle link between them.

 

 

He opened the system interface and navigated to the ‘click Trust Value bar’ for (Dream-Eating Butterfly).

 

 

When he zoomed in, sure enough—there was a thread extending from it toward Dream Butterfly Town…

 

 

Wait. No— it wasn’t Dream Butterfly Town.

 

 

Mu Sichen could now see clearly: the thread didn’t actually connect to the Ideal Restaurant or the Dream Butterfly Town region.

 

 

Instead, it pointed to another nearby town.

 

 

But he had given the trust value to the Butterfly, and the Butterfly had absorbed that value while in Dream Butterfly Town—so why was the thread pointing somewhere else?

 

 

Could it be divine descent? Had the Butterfly responded to a follower’s summon and gone to another town to devour a god-level monster?

 

 

But… once the Butterfly consumed 10% of a person’s trust, its main body had to go into a one-day sleep. In that case, how could it descend anywhere at all?

 

 

To truly understand the answer, Mu Sichen would have to sink his consciousness directly into the thread connected to the Dream-Eating Butterfly. But doing so would mean linking his mind directly with a god-level monster — which was far more dangerous than merely perceiving or understanding it.

 

 

One misstep, and the Dream-Eating Butterfly could use the thread to corrupt his mind. If that happened, the person who returned to the real world might no longer be Mu Sichen… but the Butterfly.

 

Another wave of dizziness struck Mu Sichen. He felt he was close to losing consciousness.

 

 

“System… if I pass out, will I die here in the Mind Sea of Perception?”

 

 

[Of course not. The Mind Sea of Perception is a collective ocean of subconsciousness — not a place that devours it. You entered it through mental effort, so once your mental energy runs out, you’ll simply be expelled by the other subconscious forces and return to your original world.]

 

 

“That’s a relief,” Mu Sichen said, making up his mind.

 

 

He would deliberately let his consciousness touch the Butterfly’s thread right as his mental energy was about to deplete — so he could peek into the Butterfly’s thoughts, extract its intention, then safely cut off the connection.

 

Once his mental energy ran out, the Mind Sea would forcibly sever the connection, pulling him out before permanent corruption could occur.

 

 

Mu Sichen believed that the expulsion force of the Mind Sea — vast enough to connect entire worlds — would be stronger than even the Dream-Eating Butterfly’s desire to hold him back.

 

 

This plan… would work.

 

 

Staring at the fine thread, he thought to himself:

 

 

“Here I go risking my life again.”

 

 

But if he didn’t risk his life, he would’ve died long ago — back when he first entered the game.

 

 

If he hadn’t pulled that first bit of “wool” from the Big-Eye , he wouldn’t have unlocked the SAN Value system, wouldn’t have found the sanatorium, and would have ended up wandering aimlessly in Tongzhi Town, waiting for the creature to awaken and turn him into a mindless husk like the others.

 

 

And the system would have abandoned him.

 

In this world, the path to survival laid in flirting with death

 

 

Living was just that hard.

 

 

Thinking this, a wave of dizziness overcame him. His body began to sink, and one foot was already being pushed out of the Mind Sea by a massive force.

 

 

The time had come.

 

 

Mu Sichen focused on the thread and plunged his awareness into it.

 

 

—

 

 

A flood of fragmented images surged into his mind:

 

A temple of the Sea god

 

 

A collapsed divine statue

 

 

A butterfly carved into a deep-sea totem

 

 

Four “pillars” tainted with purple corruption …

 

 

…and then a swarm of butterflies surged forward, filling Mu Sichen’s entire mind.

 

 

He was surrounded, unable to read the Dream-Eating Butterfly’s thoughts any further. All he could do was fend them off.

 

 

These butterflies were stunningly beautiful yet disturbingly eerie. Their wings bore brain-like patterns, and the ridges of those patterns looked like ocean waves.

 

 

Mu Sichen could feel them trying to devour his brain — trying to hollow him out and fill him with nothing but butterflies.

 

 

He tried to pull his consciousness away, but the swarm overwhelmed him.

 

 

 

He even started to feel these butterflies were beautiful. If he hadn’t already stripped away his capacity for pleasure, he might have remembered the ecstasy they caused inside his head — and let them corrupt him completely.

 

 

Even without emotions, these butterflies could still complete the corruption simply by devouring his spirit.

 

 

But just then — his mental energy ran out.

 

 

 

The Mind Sea of Perception rejected him and cast him out of that void.

 

 

Mu Sichen’s awareness plummeted, and all the fine threads that connected him to the Mind Sea vanished at once.

 

They didn’t snap exactly — but lost the spiritual energy that made them manifest, returning to their invisible state.

 

Even the Dream-Eating Butterfly could no longer perceive them.

 

 

The swarm of butterflies, having lost their target and their thread, flew wildly for a moment, then were recalled by the Butterfly itself.

 

 

The unconscious Mu Sichen plummeted downward.

 

 

He fell from the void into the home with the air motorcycle . But as soon as he landed there, the house shattered like a dream, unable to bear the weight of his spirit. He continued falling.

 

 

Mu Sichen had no idea how long he fell — it felt like he’d been weightless for a century, and yet also as if he’d opened his eyes just a moment later.

 

 

When he awoke, he saw He Fei, Chi Lian, and Ji Xian’an gathered around him, looking at him with concern.

 

 

“He’s awake, he’s awake!” said He Fei, awkward and blunt as ever. “We were really scared you wouldn’t wake up.”

 

 

“Don’t jinx him, you crow mouth,” Chi Lian scolded lightly. “You’re awake now — do you feel any discomfort?”

 

 

Ji Xian’an was wiping Mu Sichen’s arm with a cloth as she said:

 

 

“Based on my experience, he’s likely just completely drained. There are no visible signs of corruption. Of course, the Butterfly’s corruption is formless and colorless, so my judgment may not be accurate.”

 

 

Mu Sichen’s head throbbed like it would split open. He turned to Chi Lian and asked:

 

 

“How long was I unconscious?”

 

 

“A full day and night,” she replied. “We reached Dream Butterfly Town, and 24 hours passed with no sign of you waking. We were terrified the Butterfly would awaken and take back the Ideal Restaurant. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Everything outside has remained normal, and the restaurant is still stable. Four hours after that, you finally woke up.”

 

 

24 hours, and the Butterfly still hadn’t awakened?

 

 

Images from the thread flashed through Mu Sichen’s mind, triggering a sudden thought — but his headache was too intense to follow it through. He let it go for now.

 

 

He turned to He Fei and said:

 

 

“I think your bad luck has a lot to do with the way you speak.”

 

 

“Bad luck? Me? I’m obviously a lucky boy!” He Fei insisted.

 

 

 

Mu Sichen: “…”

 

 

If He Fei truly believed he was a “lucky boy,” his dream wouldn’t have featured a blind box air-motorbike and a mechanical god who granted three wishes.

 

 

While teasing He Fei, Mu Sichen suddenly felt a sting of pain from his arm. He looked down to see Ji Xian’an still earnestly wiping at it — she’d rubbed off a layer of his skin.

 

 

Expressionless, she said:

 

 

“I don’t know why. I just feel like wiping things, especially when people are lying there motionless.”

 

 

“Yeah, your arm was about to fall off,” He Fei added. “I told Sister Ji to come at me instead, but she said seeing me walk around and move ruins the mood — she only wants to wipe people who look like corpses.”

 

 

Mu Sichen recalled what he’d seen in the thread about Ji Xian’an’s past — how she was affected by handling corpses, trapped in a causal chain. That was what gave her this compulsive need to wipe things.

 

 

If that wasn’t resolved, her condition would only deteriorate.

 

 

But for now…

 

 

Mu Sichen tried to sit up, only to discover that his body had zero strength — he couldn’t even crawl.

 

 

His spiritual depletion was too severe. He needed time to recover.

 

 

[She’ll be fine for now. She’s within your domain. While the causal chain hasn’t been eliminated, it has been effectively “sealed.” As long as she has something to wipe — and her behavior fits her “setting” — it will hold off the effects for a while.]

 

 

[You need rest.]

 

 

Mu Sichen finally relaxed a little and said to Ji Xian’an:

 

 

“Keep wiping — but maybe change spots from time to time.”

 

 

“Okay.” Ji Xian’an immediately tore off the lower part of Mu Sichen’s pants and began vigorously wiping his leg, eyes intense and fanatic — like a possessed madwoman.

 

 

No matter how exhausted he was, Mu Sichen felt he needed to make sense of the scenes he had witnessed in the Dream-Devouring Butterfly’s consciousness. But his mind was too weak, incapable of focused thinking.

 

 

[Your spiritual power is not fully depleted. You seem to have forgotten—you still have a portion of unspent spirit stored in your two followers.]

 

 

His sluggish brain finally recalled that he had left his emotion of joy with Chi Lian and He Fei.

 

 

“You two, come sit here,” Mu Sichen said weakly.

 

 

Chi Lian and He Fei obediently sat down beside him.

 

 

Mu Sichen slowly lifted his hands, placing an index finger on each of their foreheads. He whispered:

 

 

“I bestow upon you beautiful dreams. Now return to me the joy that is not yours.”

 

 

The words sounded like a divine command, but also like a mutual exchange.

 

 

“Alright,” the two replied.

 

 

Their agreement acted like a binding contract. At that moment, self-totems appeared between their brows. Two beams of light emerged from Mu Sichen’s totem and merged into their minds, while the excess joy they carried was withdrawn and returned to Mu Sichen.

 

 

When the exchange finished, Chi Lian and He Fei collapsed to the floor, instantly falling asleep.

 

 

Mu Sichen, on the other hand, felt much more alert — mentally replenished, finally able to observe his surroundings. He realized they had moved him to a rest room.

 

 

 

One room, four people. Two were asleep, one lay motionless, and the only sound in the room was Ji Xian’an persistently rubbing at his skin.

 

 

The sound of “shhh, shhh, shhh” made Mu Sichen’s body ache in sympathy — was she cleaning or scraping? She wasn’t wiping the floor — she was wiping his body, after all!

 

 

Luckily, Mu Sichen was still in a dream, and this wasn’t his real body. So he let her continue.

 

 

Now that his condition had improved, he was finally able to begin analyzing everything he had seen earlier.

 

 

He realized the vision had shown him another town — a town with at least four “pillars”. These four pillars were being corroded by the Butterfly’s power.

 

 

He also recalled the Dreamweaver dependent he had met in the Ideal Restaurant — the one who had claimed to once serve the Deep Sea.

 

 

“System, did the Dreamweaver lie to me?” Mu Sichen asked.

 

 

[The system cannot read minds.]

 

 

Although the system didn’t give a direct answer, Mu Sichen felt that the Dreamweaver likely hadn’t lied.

 

 

Or rather — even if it was a lie, a being of that level wouldn’t bother to lower itself by pretending to be another god’s dependent just to tell a story to a few ordinary humans.

 

 

god-level monsters were different from regular people — their power meant that their words could easily become contracts or prophecies.

 

 

A being like the Dreamweaver wouldn’t lightly curse themselves to be another’s follower unless… they truly had once been.

 

 

And if that was the case, and if the vision showed at least four pillars, then the Deep Sea must have been at least in the Sun-Blocking level, possibly far stronger than the Dreamweaver.

 

 

The Dreamweaver had claimed the Deep Sea ordered its followers to reclaim the Sea of Consciousness from the Butterfly — that now seemed to be only half-true at best.

 

 

Mu Sichen tried to imagine the relationship between Big-Eye and its Feather-Eye dependent. That follower was the Big-Eye’s most powerful — instead of staying inside the pillar, it wandered around freely, helping various parts of the town.

 

 

Mu Sichen had seen firsthand how the followers in the square worshiped the Feather-Eye dependent.

 

 

It seemed likely that this dependent could also receive emotional energy like faith from the followers’ projections.

 

 

If you scaled up that dynamic — and if Big-Eye was a Sun blocking-class god, then how much power could a dependent receive from such a god?

 

 

Could they, perhaps, have already reached or be on the brink of reaching the Hidden Star level themselves?

 

 

Mu Sichen made a bold assumption.

 

 

He believed that the “Dreamweaver” hadn’t lied—He had indeed once been a Dreamweaver dependent under “Deep Sea.”

 

 

But something must have happened. The Dreamweaver dependent gained the courage and power to rebel against Deep Sea. He stole the ability that Deep Sea possessed to enter the “Sea of Mind,” became a god-level entity, and established Dream Butterfly Town.

 

 

His ambition was immense. He wouldn’t be satisfied with simply reaching the Hidden Star level—he definitely wanted to go further, to become a Shrouder, even a Mi Tian being.

 

 

No—based on what he read from the sound of the tides, the Dreamweaver’s ambition exceeded even Mi Tian level. He aimed to become something above that, on par with the “Ancients.”

 

 

It was precisely at that moment that Mu Sichen gave his 10% of his Trust Value, granting him access to the “Fourth Power”—the power of Self.

 

 

Having obtained this power, the Dreamweaver’s first target was naturally Deep Sea.

 

 

“He faked being asleep in Dream Butterfly Town and secretly went to Deep Sea Town, trying to use the power of Self to devour Deep Sea instead?” Mu Sichen was shocked to arrive at this conclusion and asked the system in his mind.

 

 

[The player is correct.]

 

 

All his doubts were suddenly cleared up.

 

 

 

Why had the Dreamweaver dependent appeared in the Ideal Restaurant to trap Mu Sichen? Because He wanted to obtain the complete power of Self.

 

 

He hoped to keep Mu Sichen and the others trapped until She successfully seized Deep Sea Town—but clearly, Mu Sichen and the others weren’t just caged birds. They used the rules of the “Pillars” to drive the Dreamweaver out.

 

 

At that moment, the Dreamweaver had two choices:

 

 

1. Forcefully awaken, use His true form to suppress the Ideal Restaurant, and seize the full power of Self.

 

 

2. Stick to His original plan—take Deep Sea first, then deal with Mu Sichen and the others.

 

 

Clearly, for the Butterfly, it was more important to overthrow His old master first.

 

 

“No wonder a whole day has passed and the Butterfly still hasn’t awakened. So He went somewhere else, and the one sleeping here is just a stand-in?” Mu Sichen thought. “Then we can totally steal His home while he’s busy fighting Deep Sea?”

 

 

[Exactly. So the player need not worry—Dream Butterfly Town is currently unoccupied. You have ample time to conquer the three Pillars. Until the Deep Sea and Butterfly battle concludes, you’re completely safe.]

 

 

“How long will they fight?” Mu Sichen asked.

 

 

[Unknown. It could be as short as one minute or as long as several years.]

 

 

“How can that be?” Mu Sichen was deeply confused.

 

 

Last time, Shen Jiyue and Qin Zu divided up Big-Eye in mere minutes. He thought that once a domain was under siege, god-tier monsters would resolve things almost instantly.

 

 

[The moment you conquer Dream Butterfly Town is the moment this battle ends.]

 

 

“Huh?” Mu Sichen was stunned.

 

 

What did this have to do with him?

 

 

[A being on par with the Mi Tian level is manipulating the war between the two god-level monsters. If th

e Butterfly gains the upper hand, He supports Deep Sea. If Deep Sea gains the upper hand, He supports the Butterfly.]

 

 

Mu Sichen wanted to ask who it was—but he knew there was no need.

 

 

He knew the answer.

 

 

The system had been unusually forthcoming with information—someone must have asked it to pass this on.

 

 

Only Qin Zu could have done that.

 

 

He was waiting—for Mu Sichen to grow strong enough to stand before Him.

 

 

Until then, He would do everything He could to buy him time.

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