C96 — The Bar on the Other Side

“Still active?” Mu Sichen asked.

Lin Wei shook his head. “Strangely enough, just after Dan Qi discovered their activity, the organs suddenly ‘died.’ It was as if…”

“As if they were waiting to be discovered, right?” Mu Sichen asked.

“Yes,” Lin Wei replied. “You mean, someone deliberately used Yang Yunyun to pass this information to us?”

Mu Sichen said, “After the autopsy is complete—if Dan Qi hasn’t been contaminated—then that’s the only possible explanation.”

“Contaminated?” Lin Wei heard this word for the first time.

Mu Sichen nodded. “You might call it brainwashing, but in reality, it’s a form of contamination or infection.”

“By what means?” Lin Wei asked.

Mu Sichen explained, “Any means. Maybe just seeing a certain pattern, hearing certain sounds, accidentally reading a related story, chatting with an unknown person online, or even just having a random dream could lead to contamination.”

“Contamination affects both the mind and the body. Depending on the source, the symptoms vary greatly. Some people go insane, inexplicably developing a fascination with strange and terrifying things; some seem normal but undergo drastic personality changes, becoming entirely different people; in severe cases, physical mutations occur—just like with Yang Yunyun.”

“What Mr Liu and Sister Su did to their company’s employees was a form of contamination. The image I showed you was also a form of contamination. But Yang Yunyun’s case is entirely different.”

Yang Yunyun was the most complex case Mu Sichen had ever seen.

She wasn’t just contaminated by some force in the real world—she had been to an alternate world and successfully returned.

But from what Mu Sichen knew, only the four players from Hope Town had ever returned from another world. The system had once stated that once a player was contaminated, it would sever their link to the real world.

So how did Yang Yunyun make it back?

Also, Tongzhi was supposed to be the carefully selected starter town for new players. Why did Yang Yunyun go to Origin Town instead?

Moreover, although Origin Town appeared to be tied to the power of Earth, the system had also stated that the final Earth-based domain, “Greedy Abyss,” had already been reclaimed by Qin Zu. So where did Origin Town’s regenerative power come from?

Another mystery: Why was Dan Qi able to detect the abnormalities in Yang Yunyun without even seeing the image Mu Sichen had shown? Logically, he shouldn’t have noticed anything.

Even if Yang Yunyun’s situation was now an objective fact, the whole matter was terrifying—no less shocking than Cheng Xubo retrieving a corpse from a jar.

Dan Qi’s brain had forced itself to ignore the effect of the “spatial transfer” skill in order to protect his mental state—so why hadn’t it also shielded him from the truth about Yang Yunyun?

Could it be that Dan Qi was already contaminated when he came into contact with Yang Yunyun’s body?

No, that didn’t seem likely. If he were truly contaminated, he should have behaved like Boss Liu and Sister Su—hiding the truth, acting secretly, and spreading the contamination to every corner of the real world.

Another lingering question: Yang Yunyun had been dead for over fifteen days, yet she still acted like a normal living person. So why did she suddenly die here, right in front of Chi Lian?

Chi Lian was already a “Dependent”-level player. She had more than enough ability to protect herself. It was impossible that someone like Yang Yunyun could contaminate her.

Yang Yunyun’s attempt to attack Chi Lian could only have ended in her being killed in return—exposing her condition in the process.

Judging from what she said before dying, Yang Yunyun knew Chi Lian had been drawn into the game. She believed she had harmed her. This suggests that Yang Yunyun was fully aware of Chi Lian’s strength, knew she understood the truth, and still chose to reveal herself.

Mu Sichen felt that all of this was far too orchestrated to be mere coincidence.

It was as if an invisible hand was behind the scenes, manipulating everything:

It made Yang Yunyun die in an extremely strange way, right in front of Chi Lian.

It made Mu Sichen and the others aware of the abnormalities.

It even allowed people like Lin Wei and Dan Qi—who existed purely in the real world—to perceive the truth.

Putting all the clues together, Mu Sichen was shocked to realize something:

This entire incident posed no danger at all to the four members from Hope Town.

In fact, it helped them:

It convinced Lin Wei.

It gave Lin Wei enough evidence to report to his superiors.

It increased the chances that they would get national support, meaning future operations wouldn’t be so difficult.

This was actually a beneficial event.

Mu Sichen, always rational and analytical, showed a rare expression of confusion on his face.

When Lin Wei heard he had been “contaminated” by the self-image photo, he became slightly anxious and wanted to ask Mu Sichen about his own situation.

But Mu Sichen suddenly stopped talking.

He just stood there, deep in thought, radiating a kind of intense, impenetrable aura that told everyone not to disturb him.

After a while, he looked even more puzzled—like he had figured out something important but utterly unexplainable.

Lin Wei could only wait patiently.

He Fei, seeing Lin Wei clearly full of questions, chuckled and said knowingly:

“That’s just how our Xiao Mu is. He’ll be mid-conversation and suddenly switch into ‘god mode’—just stands there zoning out in his own world. Don’t expect him to explain anything afterward, either. Even if he figures it all out, the best you’ll get is a ‘here’s what we do next’ kind of answer.”

He Fei was all too familiar with this pattern.

Back in the library, Mu Sichen’s mysterious silence had nearly driven him crazy—until Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo arrived and finally cleared things up.

“If you’ve got questions, just ask me,” He Fei told Lin Wei. “You’ve seen the self-image photo now, so your ability to resist contamination is about the same as ours. Whatever I’m allowed to know, you can know too. And what I don’t know—you won’t be able to find out either.”

Lin Wei had no choice but to start asking He Fei the basics.

He Fei explained everything:

The power of the self-image photo,

How they discovered Boss Liu was connected to the butterfly,

And how they entered the Dream Butterfly Town to fight the butterfly threat.

This cleared up many of Lin Wei’s questions.

But when He Fei described what the butterfly totem looked like, Lin Wei—using that description and Mu Sichen’s self-image—sketched out the butterfly totem by hand.

His drawing skills were excellent. After a few tweaks, a complete butterfly totem emerged.

“Yes, that’s exactly it!” He Fei clapped his forehead. “I remember it clearly.”

“This is the image that caused most of your company’s employees to fall into a dream? Even to the point of forming a shared dream world? That’s… unreal. How is that even possible?”

Lin Wei’s fingertip hovered over the butterfly totem. He murmured:

“Totem… contamination… different forces… another world… a crisis seeping into reality… I want to know the truth…”

As he kept speaking, Lin Wei’s eyelids grew heavier.

The butterfly on the totem seemed to come alive—fluttering gracefully and flapping its wings as it flew toward him.

The more one understood, the more curious they became—and the easier it was to be contaminated.

Within the violet butterfly seemed to lie countless truths. Lin Wei reached out to it, and the butterfly landed on his head. Its long wings drooped down, perfectly wrapping around his head just like the totem itself.

Lin Wei closed his eyes. His head slumped forward onto the butterfly totem—and he fell into a dream.

—

He found himself in a massive, bustling metropolis.

And in that sky above the city…

A colossal metallic weapon spun and danced through the air, tearing the heavens apart before crashing violently toward him. Lin Wei couldn’t dodge in time.

The weapon—shaped like a giant fan blade—cleaved him in two from head to toe!

—

Lin Wei jolted awake, his hand rushing to his forehead, drenched in cold sweat.

He realized he was now lying on Chi Lian’s couch, and the four-person Hope Town team was staring at him with serious expressions.

Mu Sichen had a phone in hand, tapping it rapidly—just like when Cheng Xubo used his “Spatial Transfer” skill.

“I dreamed of a huge, bustling city… and then a fan blade smashed down on my head,” Lin Wei muttered, clutching his temples.

Mu Sichen: “…”

If the sentient weapon ‘Shattered Moon, Dream-Rending Crossaxe’ heard Lin Wei call it a “fan blade,” it would definitely be furious.

What had actually happened was this:

Mu Sichen had only been deep in thought for a while. When he snapped back to reality, he found Lin Wei sound asleep on the couch.

He Fei had turned his gaze away with guilt written all over his face.

That was when Mu Sichen noticed Lin Wei had somehow perfectly reproduced the butterfly totem and fallen asleep staring at it—clearly contaminated.

Even though the self-image photo helped Lin Wei retain his sense of self, his deeply inquisitive personality made him willingly embrace the butterfly, diving headfirst into the truth.

That desire to uncover the case’s secrets overpowered even the self-totem’s protection.

Fortunately, since Lin Wei had seen the self-totem, his name had appeared in Mu Sichen’s game app.

Lin Wei wasn’t in Hope Town, nor was he listed as a player. His name only showed up for 24 hours in the app—but that brief window let Mu Sichen use the Crossaxe to forcibly pull Lin Wei out of the dream.

Without it, they might’ve had no way to wake him up.

After rescuing Lin Wei, Mu Sichen noticed a new “ordinary self-sticker” appeared in the app, marked as usable on Lin Wei.

As long as Lin Wei’s name remained in the app, Mu Sichen could use that sticker to protect him—making it far harder for him to be contaminated again.

But stickers were different from self-image photos.

The photo was a one-time mind-clearing tool.

The sticker, once applied, would mark Lin Wei as Mu Sichen’s follower.

Without Lin Wei’s permission, Mu Sichen had no intention of using it on him.

—

“So this is what it feels like to be contaminated…” Lin Wei murmured, still staring at the butterfly totem as the dream’s memory lingered.

“That’s just one type. It’s different from what Yang Yunyun experienced. Don’t think about it anymore.”

Mu Sichen snatched the butterfly totem from him, carried the paper into the kitchen, lit the gas stove, and burned it to ash.

Lin Wei looked visibly regretful.

Mu Sichen warned him,

“What are you feeling sorry for? If you gave that totem to your superiors, you’d turn your entire company into puppets trapped in a dream—just like Boss Liu did. Is that what you want?”

Lin Wei’s expression twisted in struggle. After a moment, he finally sighed in defeat:

“You’re right.”

He had been investigating this case for so long, and it was the first time he had come so close to the truth—yet he couldn’t dig deeper, nor could he tell anyone else. It was an unbearable feeling.

“Let’s shift our focus for now,” Mu Sichen said. “There’s already enough evidence in Yang Yunyun’s case for you to report it to your superiors. Also, I suggest your colleagues avoid direct contact with the men associated with Yang Yunyun. Just identify who they are and hand over the list and their movements to us—it would be better if we conduct the investigation.”

“You’re worried they might get contaminated?” Lin Wei asked.

Mu Sichen replied, “I’ve been thinking a lot just now. There’s something really strange about this whole thing, but in general, there are only two outcomes. First, you discover the presence of supernatural forces, decide to believe us, and provide some support. Second, you find nothing, in which case we’ll be free of the burden of Yang Yunyun’s death.”

Lin Wei said, “But we’ve already discovered—”

He paused at that moment. He had just realized the subtext in Mu Sichen’s words: “You mean that even after digging this deep, we still might end up discovering nothing? That we might forget everything we’ve learned, seal away all the files—as if our brains were somehow blocked, completely unable to recall any of this information?”

Mu Sichen nodded. “The second outcome is unlikely, because I’m already involved—I won’t let that happen to you.”

“But if that’s the case, we stand to gain too much from this. If I had any supernatural ability at all, I’d start to suspect this was some split personality I created that did everything.”

“How could it be us? How could you possibly do anything to hurt Yunyun?” Chi Lian stood by the kitchen door, leaning on the wall. Her eyes fell on the cutting board with ribs, and she couldn’t help but cry as she remembered that last night, Yang Yunyun had used one of her arms to help her chop vegetables.

Once everything was linked to the contamination of the other world, Chi Lian no longer felt afraid.

She had seen townspeople driven mad by the mental pollution from Big-Eyes. She had seen the bubble-eyed patients in the sanatorium. She had even entertained thoughts of replacing her own eyes. So how could she fear a friend who still cared for her even in death?

Her mind was much clearer now. Thinking back on everything over the past few days, the horror faded, and what remained was the warmth of Yang Yunyun’s care.

Chi Lian also now understood why Yang Yunyun’s cooking was always half-raw. Yunyun only had her stomach still functioning—her nose and tongue were already dead. She had no sense of taste or smell and couldn’t judge whether the food was cooked. She could only rely on sight. That was why the meat she made looked done on the outside but was still bloody inside.

Even so, Yang Yunyun had taken such good care of her.

After her body died, Yang Yunyun was afraid of giving off a rotting smell, so she turned the air conditioning to the maximum. Last night, she had left one of her arms in the kitchen to cook, afraid that the strong air conditioning would make Chi Lian catch a cold. She had gone to Chi Lian’s room to check if her blanket was properly covering her, worried she might get chilled.

Chi Lian turned around and asked Mu Sichen, “Captain Mu, for our next stop—can it be Origin Town?”

“That’s exactly what I was planning,” Mu Sichen replied. “But first, we need to find the forces related to Origin Town and gather them into the library. Only then can we unlock the path to Origin Town. Have you rested enough? Next, we’re going with Comrade Lin to investigate the people Yang Yunyun had contact with.”

“No problem,” Chi Lian said resolutely.

Lin Wei’s colleagues were incredibly efficient. In just one afternoon, they uncovered all the men Yang Yunyun had been in contact with, as well as records of hotel room bookings. When Chi Lian saw the long list covering the past month, she trembled with rage.

Her close friend—had been polluted into such a state.

The most tragic part was that Yang Yunyun hadn’t truly been herself for some time, but she genuinely believed she had simply changed her mindset, not that she had been influenced by some external force.

By 8 PM, just as nightclubs and bars were opening for business, the group decided to start visiting the bars listed in the investigation, one by one.

Before heading out, Mu Sichen asked Lin Wei to help him find a machine that could make temporary tattoo stickers. He downloaded his personal totem and produced 50 real-world versions of the “self” stickers.

This cost him 25,000 energy points. Thankfully, now that Mu Sichen had become a false god, he had access to 50,000 energy points in total—so while the expenditure was significant, it wasn’t crippling.

These real-world stickers weren’t nearly as powerful as the ones in the game—at best, they were on par with the “digging” skill he had used earlier, capable of clearing only light contamination.

But in the real world, that level of power was more than sufficient.

The men who had interacted with Yang Yunyun were certainly infuriating, but the true danger lay in the possibility of supernatural contamination. Once polluted, the consequences could spiral out of control. Mu Sichen had to be fully prepared to eliminate the contamination.

This was no longer about whether these people might be influenced by the sticker and enter the game world—it was about rooting out threats to the real world.

Dan Qi had already printed out the autopsy report and had given Yang Yunyun’s body a cosmetic restoration, making her appear as beautiful and peaceful as she had been in life.

He also issued a death report listing sudden death as the cause, to inform her family.

After that, Yang Yunyun’s body was moved to her small rented apartment in G City. Someone would discover her corpse the next day and notify her family.

It would be a devastating blow to them.

Because Dan Qi had come into contact with Yang Yunyun’s corpse, Mu Sichen worried he might also be tainted. Upon meeting him, he didn’t give Dan Qi a chance to resist and simply applied a self-sticker to him.

The sticker wouldn’t turn Dan Qi into a follower like in the game, but it would establish a 24-hour connection and clear away any minor contamination on him.

After the sticker was applied, Dan Qi touched his stomach and suddenly seemed to come to his senses: “I think I overate tonight.”

“More than a little,” Lin Wei said, tapping Dan Qi’s now-bulging belly. “Better take something for digestion.”

Luckily, Dan Qi was young, had a strong constitution, and was physically active. He could recover from this mild overeating. Otherwise, he might’ve ended up in the hospital with indigestion.

Now that Dan Qi had also been “stickered,” the six of them were ready and worry-free. They headed into the first bar.

According to the investigation, the bar Yang Yunyun had visited most frequently in the past month was Limbo Bar. Most of the men she had interacted with were also regulars there.

When Mu Sichen received the address, the first thing he asked Lin Wei was, “Has Director Liu ever been to this bar?”

Although his father had denied it, that was secondhand information. Only Boss Liu himself could truly confirm it.

Lin Wei checked the investigation records, his expression shifting slightly. He pointed something out to Mu Sichen: “A month ago, Director Liu came to G City on a business trip and visited this bar with some friends.”

Dream Butterfly Town, Origin Town, Liu, Yang Yunyun… everything pointed back to this bar.

Could Limbo Bar be one of the locations infiltrated by the otherworld?

As Mu Sichen stepped into the dimly lit bar, his phone suddenly vibrated. He looked at the screen—a message had arrived.

He opened it and saw a single sentence:

“Did you receive the gift I sent you?”

 

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