C130 — Let’s Have a Chat

Was Qin Zu taking advantage of intervening in the battle between the Deep Sea and the Butterfly to bring him here as a spectator?

Facing the Deep Sea, Mu Sichen felt an uncontrollable fear.

This feeling was completely different from what the Big Eyed Monster or the Butterfly gave him.

It was like how humans faced the ocean—both in awe and in fear. Before the ever-changing sea and terrifying natural disasters, it seemed there was nothing one could do but pray.

He finally understood why the system so strongly hoped the Butterfly would retain its personality.

From that earlier exchange, Mu Sichen couldn’t sense any emotion from the Deep Sea at all.

Faced with the Butterfly’s betrayal, with a past that had been split apart, and with Qin Zu’s schemes, it showed no anger or joy.

The way it regarded the Butterfly was like a towering father watching a mischievous child. The Butterfly’s struggle, in its eyes, was like a one-year-old child patting its knee. Even if the child managed to touch it, it wasn’t by the child’s own strength—but because the Deep Sea had lowered itself.

Why was that?

Why did it feel like the Deep Sea was completely in control?

Wasn’t the Deep Sea the one who had been schemed against back then?

Why did it seem like everything had actually been part of its plan?

And the Big Eyed Monster in the sky—what had it seen to be able to write such a fairy tale?

As Mu Sichen was lost in thought, he suddenly felt a powerful force dragging him down into the sea, deeper and deeper, until he hit the reef at the ocean floor.

The cold stone snapped him back to his senses.

He abruptly opened his eyes, sat up, and looked around. He was still at the seabed, beside the hundred-meter-deep pit left by the giant cube.

He was back.

Everything just now felt like a dream.

But Mu Sichen knew—it had been real.

Qin Zu had taken him to witness the final outcome of the battle between the Deep Sea and the Butterfly.

The flowing seawater lifted his clothes, and only then did Mu Sichen realize that his shirt had come completely undone. Across his chest were countless giant hands, as if they were embracing him.

This was part of Qin Zu’s protective totem!

He took off his shirt and looked back—on his back was the other half of the totem.

From his neck to his lower back, a massive totem had been imprinted on his body.

Qin Zhou’s totem originally consisted of countless hands embracing the earth, forming a circular shape.

But because it was too large for Mu Sichen’s body, the design had been split apart.

The earth was on his back, and the hands were on his chest. Instead of protecting the earth, it now looked like those hands were embracing Mu Sichen himself.

He shook his head, forcing away the chaotic thoughts, and carefully studied how to use the totem.

“This is…” He touched one of the hands on the totem and immediately understood its function.

This was the price Qin Zu paid for those beautiful memories.

Once Mu Sichen left the dream space and returned to Hope Town, he could use the power of this totem—and his control over Mengdie Town—to transfer the entire town into Hope Town’s domain without any damage.

That solved one of his major concerns.

He put his shirt back on and slowly floated up to the surface.

At that moment, the system’s voice sounded:

[The player has been asleep at the bottom of the sea for 60 hours—more than two days. If you don’t leave soon, “casual chains” will begin to affect everyone’s emotions.]

[If you wait another 10 hours, what you’ll see when you go out will be Ji Xian’an surrounded by a field of corpses.]

“So long?” Mu Sichen was startled.

He had clearly felt like it was only an instant.

[That’s normal. “The Hand That Covers the Sky” accelerated your perception of time. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had enough energy to last until the end of the battle between the Deep Sea and the Dreamweaver.]

Mu Sichen climbed ashore and pulled out his phone. Looking at the date, he saw that 60 hours had indeed passed.

No wonder those two had finished fighting so quickly—it turned out his time had been sped up.

So this was Qin Zu’s power… time.

“How much is my trust value now?” Mu Sichen asked, not expecting much.

[42%.]

“42%?! It’s only been three days—how did it increase so much?” Mu Sichen exclaimed.

[Hope Town contributed 15%. In terms of infrastructure, Lin Wei and the others are clearly more capable than the player.]

“And Mengdie Town contributed 27%? That much?” Mu Sichen said, surprised and pleased.

[Mengdie Town has a population far exceeding Hope Town. The Butterfly showed some restraint toward its residents. The town currently has nearly 50,000 people—more than twice that of Hope Town. As long as they believe in you, the trust value naturally increases faster.]

[Strictly speaking, you haven’t provided much help to Dream Butterfly Town yet, so it shouldn’t have risen this much.]

[But who would have expected that the people who came out of the Gate would spread your deeds throughout the town like an infection source?]

Mu Sichen quickly activated the “Eye of Truth” to take a look.

It turned out that after Ji Xian’an led the fragmented cube-people out of the Gate, without the power behind the gate, they immediately returned to their normal soul forms. Their emotions were still somewhat lacking, but their appearances were whole again.

This made them completely believe Mu Sichen’s claim that “they could gradually recover in the future.”

They had just won a battle, having pushed themselves to defeat the Gate, and were still riding a wave of excitement.

Especially those whose “selfishness” and “rebellion” had been awakened.

After hearing from Ji Xian’an that as long as the people of Mengdie Town trusted Mu Sichen enough, he could lead everyone back to their original bodies—and with bodies and self-totems, their emotions would recover faster—

They immediately threw themselves into spreading the message.

Like a swarm of locusts, they roamed through Mengdie Town, completely disregarding others’ feelings. Using the force of the group, they aggressively spread their beliefs, shouting slogans in the streets like:

“Believe in Mu Sichen!”

“I want my body back!”

“I don’t want to keep dreaming anymore!”

The power of a group was terrifying.

At first, it was just about a thousand people.

Then more joined in.

Eventually, without any involvement from the three Hope followers, tens of thousands of Mengdie Town residents gathered and began shouting together.

Under such an overwhelming collective effect, even if only half of them believed in Mu Sichen and contributed just a tiny bit of trust each, the total number would still be staggering.

Mu Sichen: “……”

He quickly skimmed through several key scenes at ten times speed, and immediately broke out in a cold sweat under immense pressure.

At this point, if he failed to defeat Shen Jiyue and open Mengdie Town, the backlash would be catastrophic.

“This is… not something I ever expected,” Mu Sichen said.

[The system didn’t predict this either. It seems the player has truly created a miracle.]

This “miracle,” however, was a bit overwhelming.

Mu Sichen needed to calm them down as soon as possible.

Otherwise, if this continued, the collective effect might turn into a kind of contamination—and start affecting his own mind instead.

Mu Sichen quickly pushed open the Gate and stepped outside.

The moment he did, he was met with a vast, dense crowd. People had gathered in front of the gate, waiting for him, occasionally shouting slogans.

Seeing him, He Fei shot over in a flash. His eyes were darkened with huge bags underneath, looking utterly exhausted.

“Brother! You really are my brother. You finally came out. These people look terrifying, I can’t shout over them. Please handle them—honestly, I’m scared they’ll get too excited and rush out to tear apart the Evil god. Who gave them this courage? Why does each of them look like they’re going to punch through the sky?” He Fei looked utterly stressed.

Mu Sichen recalled that he had stuck “self” labels on quite a few of the “arrogant” ones.

A few of the former cube-people in the front recognized Mu Sichen immediately and led the crowd in chanting:

“Mu Sichen! Mu Sichen! Mu Sichen!”

The roar of tens of thousands almost knocked him over.

He quickly used his self-totem in the domain to send a single message to them: “Quiet.”

Hearing this divine command, the crowd immediately calmed, all eyes on Mu Sichen.

At last, they stopped shouting—but so many gazes focused on him, the pressure was immense.

[Player, don’t worry. These people have been cocooned by the Butterfly for so long that their bodies are extremely weak. Don’t be fooled by their energetic, “destroy the heavens” appearances—once they return to their bodies, the weakness will hit, and they’ll immediately obey.]

Mu Sichen breathed a sigh of relief and said to them:

“I’m going to connect the real world with the dreamscape. Please be patient and wait calmly.”

Only then did the crowd settle down.

Mu Sichen immediately manipulated the dreamspace to relocate, arriving in the Confession District.

The collective dream’s precise location existed in another dimension; no one but Mu Sichen could find it.

Using his connection with the self-totem within the collective dream, he focused his mind and entered the group dream.

Inside, it was still a sea of flesh and blood; the sky was blood-red, with no sun or moon shining.

Because it had the ability to be “close yet undetected,” Mu Sichen didn’t rely on his eyes to search. Instead, he used his control over the dreamspace to locate it.

Now, the dreamspace was like his own hands—if there was an unfamiliar presence on them, he could immediately sense it.

Mu Sichen had assumed Shen Jiyue would hide Shuo Yue nearby, waiting for an opportunity to ambush him. After all, that would have been Shen Jiyue’s only chance—to manipulate his mind, make him open a crack in the dreamspace, and then escape. This fit Shen Jiyue’s style perfectly.

Of course, even if he tried, it wouldn’t have succeeded—Mu Sichen had already anticipated this trick.

What surprised him was that Shen Jiyue wasn’t hiding at all. He was boldly lying atop the sea of blood, drifting along with the ripples.

Mu Sichen transformed a floating mass of flesh into a white cloud and floated up above Shen Jiyue.

“I thought you’d hide,” Mu Sichen said.

Shen Jiyue rested his hands behind his head, lying leisurely as if on a bed. “What good would hiding do? Since you can enter the collective dream, it means you’re fully prepared. Such small tricks won’t work on you.”

Shen Jiyue never held back flattery when speaking to Mu Sichen, and would even occasionally play the victim, easily deceiving an ordinary person.

Luckily, Mu Sichen had dealt with Shen Jiyue many times. He had learned to automatically translate all those flattering words in his mind into insults like, “You bastard,” as a shield against Shen Jiyue’s attempts at deception.

It wasn’t that Mu Sichen enjoyed self-punishment—he simply knew better than to trust anything Shen Jiyue said.

“Then there’s no need to lie on the sea, looking like a floating corpse,” Mu Sichen said.

Shen Jiyue rose from the sea, lightly floating up and landing gracefully on Mu Sichen’s white cloud. Sitting there with perfect poise, he said narcissistically:

“Isn’t this to let you see the beauty of the bright moon over the sea?”

Mu Sichen: “……”

He didn’t feel like arguing with Shen Jiyue, so he summoned his “Moon-Shattering, Sprout-Slicing, Sea-Cleaving Cross Pickaxe” and aimed it at Shen Jiyue.

“Cut the crap,” he said.

Just as he was about to strike, he suddenly froze along with the crossaxe.

He realized that the New Moon wasn’t on Shen Jiyue—it was sleeping deep on the sea floor.

Shen Jiyue hadn’t used it to deepen the negative emotions of Mengdie Town’s residents.

In fact, if the cube-people stirred up the town’s emotions and Shen Jiyue wanted to stop it, all he would need to do is amplify feelings of despair and frustration. Even if the self-totems offered some defense, the residents wouldn’t become overly pessimistic—but there would be no way for them to accumulate so much trust.

Yet, unexpectedly, Shen Jiyue didn’t stop any of it. He didn’t even increase the causal chains on He Fei and the others.

For more than sixty hours, he did nothing—just lay quietly on the sea, staring at the blood-red sky, lost in thought.

This left Mu Sichen with a hint of doubt.

He had always been able to roughly guess Shen Jiyue’s schemes—but now, he felt Shen Jiyue was unpredictable.

“What are you plotting?” Mu Sichen frowned.

Worried that Shen Jiyue might have set a trap over the past three days, he held back his crossaxe, which was twitching with impatience, to prevent falling into any ambush.

“I’m not plotting anything. I just… temporarily decided to let you be,” Shen Jiyue said calmly.

“You’re being… kind?”

Shen Jiyue smiled faintly.

“Haven’t you heard? The moon is always fickle. One moment I could be deeply in love with you, the next I might turn you into a statue under the moonlight, forever bathed in my glow.”

Mu Sichen: “……”

If he weren’t worried about traps, he would have plunged the crossaxe straight down.

But now Shen Jiyue and the New Moon were separate. Attacking Shen Jiyue risked a counterstrike from it; attacking it risked Shen Jiyue intervening. With a god-level creature, extreme caution was necessary.

“Don’t make such an ugly face—you’ll lose your charm. I like beautiful people, and if you keep this up, I won’t like you anymore,” Shen Jiyue said.

“Well, thank you very much. Please, don’t like me,” Mu Sichen replied coldly.

“Ah, you’re so stubborn. I’m a little hurt,” Shen Jiyue rested his cheek in his hand. “I still remember the first time I met you—you trusted me completely, cared for me, even willing to sacrifice for me. How interesting… someone so fragile, whom I could crush with a finger, actually wanted to protect me with their life. Truly a memory worth savoring at night.”

Even the crossaxe trembled, and Mu Sichen was close to losing it himself.

He let his palm drop, morphing it into a claw, and silently manipulated the blood-sea waters, trying to raise New Moon to the surface.

“Don’t be so impatient. I just want to talk to you. I’ll hand it over; this copy is yours to deal with. Just give me a little time—we’ll chat,” Shen Jiyue said, patting the white cloud beside him. It transformed into a chair, as if inviting Mu Sichen to sit.

“You’re losing it!” For the first time, Mu Sichen—usually unshakable in front of Shen Jiyue—felt genuinely startled.

“You’re smart. You should be able to guess why I’ve changed,” Shen Jiyue said, looking at him.

Mu Sichen thought for a moment and immediately came up with a title, hesitating as he said:

“‘Predetermined’?”

He considered carefully; Shen Jiyue’s sudden shift in attitude could only be because of “Predetermined”.

After all, before Predetermined appeared, neither Mu Sichen nor Shen Jiyue had realized that their encounter in the Confession District was arranged.

“You got half of it right. There’s still the other half,” Shen Jiyue sighed, his expression tinged with melancholy.

Mu Sichen said, “If you keep hiding the truth, I’ll take New Moon*m and crush you with the dream-space.”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t! I’m scared of you,” Shen Jiyue begged theatrically. “I’m just worried my words might provoke you.”

“My heart’s strong enough,” Mu Sichen replied.

“Is it?” Shen Jiyue said lightly. “Then I won’t discuss that arrogant ‘Predetermined’ fellow with you. About him, I’ll give you only one hint: Lu Yimin.”

Wasn’t this the old expert the system dragged into the game three days ago? At 77 years old, still working on the front lines, and about to be transported to another world to join the wasteland reconstruction events.

“Tell him not to focus solely on the XX light-rail group case, but pay attention to the survivors of the transdimensional bridge collapse. When you return to your real world, investigate this properly—you’ll gain unexpected insights,” Shen Jiyue advised.

“You mean this is related to ‘Predetermined’?” Mu Sichen asked.

[Stop discussing this with him for now. You can investigate it after returning. You’re level 50 now; a little knowledge won’t make you go insane.]

The system suddenly spoke, preventing Mu Sichen from overthinking.

Mu Sichen, trusting the system, quickly changed the topic: “If you don’t want to talk about that, fine. But there’s one more thing?”

“The other thing…” Shen Jiyue smiled. “Didn’t your ‘Guardian’ tell you?”

Guardian? Mu Sichen instinctively touched his back, recalling the totem. He naturally associated the ‘Guardian’ with Qin Zu.

The only thing Qin Zu had told him was the result of the w-ar between Deep Sea and Butterfly.

“It’s Deep Sea,” Shen Jiyue said. Mentioning Deep Sea, his smile lost warmth, replaced with a hint of coldness. “We were all deceived by him.”

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