355 Prelude

 

The music box found at Immortal Pharma’s director’s former home appeared 14 years ago. Li Xue’s mentor confirmed that they were the same music box. After knowing the music box’s past, the blessing written under the music box became quite ironic. The song inside the music box didn’t bring anyone happiness or bliss, instead it had turned itself into a monster spreading misfortune.

No one knew what happened to the Singer, everything was a mystery. Everyone related to the music box was dead, and so the case remained unsolved. Li Xue’s mentor remembered this case clearly because he had memorized all the murders that had happened over the past 20 years at Xin Lu to close the net around Butterfly. The senior officer himself was quite a unique character, there was no information about him at all on the internet, but even the leader of the Xin Lu heavy crime unit had to bow deferentially to him whenever he was around. The senior officer didn’t have an official post and not many people knew of his past. Han Fei was only sure of one thing, this senior officer had spent his whole life attempting to catch the Butterfly, even if he had to die, he would drag the Butterfly down into hell with him.

After acquiring all the things he needed, Han Fei didn’t stay for long. He deflected some questions by the police and left with the treatment device. It was the Night of Resurrection so he had to make use of every second he had.

He returned to Jin Jun’s place and walked into Jin Jun discussing entertainment gossip with Zhuang Ren. When Jin Jun found out about Zhuang Ren’s real identity, his jaw fell to the ground. He didn’t expect he would have the king of bad movies as his guest in his lifetime. Jin Jun wanted to dig up some gossip about entertainment business seniors from Zhuang Ren; and Zhuang Ren needed Jin Jun to enter the game so he gave Jin Jun some crumbs. However, the crumbs were enough to shock Jin Jun’s system. His eyes that looked at Zhuang Ren were glowing like a hunting hound who had found its prey.

“Looks like you two are having quite a good chat.”

“Brother Han, you are my lucky star. You’ve helped me a lot this time.” Jin Jun was supposed to help Han Fei but Han Fei had presented him with an even bigger surprise. It only confirmed his belief to side with Han Fei.

“That’s what friends do.” Han Fei took out the psychological treatment device and signaled for Zhuang Ren to come over. He connected all the wires following the instructions and then had Zhuang Ren put it on. “Do not feel too much pressure. In a minute, you will appear inside a room, the room will change according to your mood. Relax and do not resist it.” Han Fei stared at Zhuang Ren because he was worried the device would not work on Zhuang Ren.

The power light came on and the device operated like normal. But what happened next was different from what described inside the manual. Before Han Fei conducted any verbal therapy, Zhuang Ren already sunk into deep sleep, it was like his consciousness and the world created by the photon computer were incredibly compatible with each other. ‘What has the director done to Zhuang Ren’s brain?’ Han Fei looked at the burnt therapy device inside the black box and pondered. Zhuang Ren’s consciousness was different from normal, it appeared to have been marked and this kind of marking method was beyond Han Fei’s comprehension. To be fair, Han Fei, who lived in the old city, never had the chance to interact with the latest technology. He’d only occasionally hear about them from advertisements.

“When will Zhuang Ren wake up?” Jin Jun asked nervously. He still had many questions for Zhuang Ren, after all, gossip and celebrity news were going to sell in all kinds of era.

“I can’t tell either.” Han Fei could only hope that no accident would happen to Zhuang Ren. After having dinner at Jin Jun’s place, Han Fei decided not to waste time and took out the Ziggurat game from the black box and started to play. Jin Jun looked at the two ‘strange’ men inside his living room and didn’t dare to say anything more. He stood quietly to the side like he was the guest.

Han Fei returned to the Ziggurat’s Building 4 and instantly made his way to the door guardian and triggered the conversation. To his surprise, the door guardian appeared to be a unique NPC because he remembered Han Fei had been there before. The conditions he gave Han Fei were different every time. He tried his best to persuade Han Fei to help him. Han Fei did want to help him but the game didn’t provide him with the option to do so. After he forcibly exited the game, Han Fei triggered the warning for the second time, he wanted to see what would happen after the third warning.

After the second warning, Han Fei’s character was entirely drenched in blood, and when he came to the door guardian again, the door guardian had been spliced into pieces and his head was missing. Han Fei tried to converse with him but once he got close, his character was killed by the door guardian. The Ziggurat game finally aligned with the cryptic world. The game wasn’t going to give Han Fei the opportunity to trigger the third warning.

‘It feels like there is also a pair of invisible hands inside the Ziggurat game, it keeps the game running, playing a similar role as the manager in the cryptic world. The pair of bloodshot eyes that I saw should belong to it.’ Han Fei had memorized that pair of bloodshot eyes, so that he would recognize it when he saw them again.

Unable to talk to the door guardian, Han Fei started to explore Building 4, hoping to find more clues. After a few hours, Han Fei found a few clues that might be useful to him.

Different from the other buildings, Building 4 had a basement and the stairs that led to it were locked behind a steel door.

The ‘strange tenants’ in red clothes were unique to Building 4, normal tenants were unable to see them, and one needed to go through some kind of special ritual to interact with them. Han Fei remembered that one of the red clothed tenants was a boy wearing a bear print pyjama, he should be the child of the woman from the dresser. Han Fei didn’t forget his promise to the woman. If possible, he too wanted to reunite the mother with her son.

After dying multiple times in the Ziggurat game, Han Fei noticed that with each death, the Death Curse inside the Ziggurat would increase, which was quite strange. It meant that the game would be harder with each death, this was something Han Fei didn’t expect. ‘It feels like the game is completing itself through the character’s deaths by collecting more Death Curses. Is it a reflection of the Ziggurat in the cryptic world? That it would get scarier as it collects more deaths?’

Time flew by when one was having fun. The sky outside the window darkened. At 7 pm, when Han Fei and Jin Jun were considering unplugging the power source of the treatment device, Zhuang Ren finally woke up. Through the clear mask, Han Fei saw Zhuang Ren’s heavily wrinkled face. “What did you see? Why did it take you so long to wake up?”

“I was trapped inside the room, the room appeared to be constructed based on my subconscious, all my memories were manifested into reality in some ways.” Zhuang Ren took down the device but the fear froze on his face, “I saw my eldest daughter turn into a brave adventurer, second daughter into a clingy kitten and my wife used her bones to construct the main frame of the house.”

“That sounds lovely.” Han Fei knew the basic functions of the treatment device, one of them was to read the user’s subconscious and to build a room from it.

“But the problem was… the whole room was red, there was blood everywhere and the room kept expanding like it had no horizon. I had no control over it at all. Gradually, things that didn’t belong in my memory appeared among the blood!” Zhuang Ren shivered as he described those things. “There appears to be another person’s consciousness hidden among my memories!”

“Wait, you’ve spent the past few hours just building your room of subconscious?” Based on the manual, the room would take at most only 5 minutes to build.

“Yes.” Zhuang Ren nodded. He had taken almost 5 hours.

“Then what else did you see inside that bloody room?” Han Fei tried to use a calming tone. Zhuang Ren was in a very agitated state, he was very nervous and afraid.

“People, dying people and dead people. Their body parts littered everywhere, they stuffed up my room and they were still expanding.” Zhuang Ren held his head with both hands, just the thought of what he saw scarred him deeply, “I felt like I wasn’t inside a room anymore but standing at the source of an endless sea of blood.”

“The source of an endless sea of blood?” When Han Fei used his Spirit Farer talent, he had to cross a blood sea as well. He was unsure if the two were related or not. “Then did you try conversing with the people who were still alive? Ask about their names or addresses? You should be curious about whose memory was implanted into your mind, right?”

“I did but they would only croak out these two words repeatedly—Fu Sheng (resurrection) and Yong Sheng (immortality).” Zhuang Ren slumped down the couch, losing all his strength, “I don’t think I’ve done anything in my life to deserve something like this. This has to do with the therapy device the director had given me, but why would he do this to me?”

“Don’t panic, this might not be a bad thing.”

“Han Fei, you weren’t there, you have no idea how shocking and scary it was. My subconscious room was filled with people that I don’t know who are dying or dead. They are all hidden inside my brain!” Zhuang Ren’s hands shook harder as he pulled on his hair. “Immortal Pharma’s goal is immortality, currently there are two branches of research into immortality, the first is physical immortality, which is impossible; but the second is consciousness immortality. Every soul has their unique consciousness, the people that I saw appear to be the consciousness of the failed experiments! Yes, that’s it. I heard someone mention that to me before, but I can’t remember whom.”

“Consciousness immortality?” For someone like Han Fei, this was a farfetched concept. Even if such a technique did exist, he wouldn’t be selected to use it.

“I have heard of this before. In the past Immortal Pharma’s goal was to extend human longevity and explore all the secrets of the brain. When they were approached by Deep Space Tech, the two giants started to cooperate on research into consciousness immortality.” Jin Jun heard similar news before, “In their eyes, human souls can be objectified.” Zhuang Ren and Jin Jun’s words affected Han Fei deeply, if they were right, then the director might have hidden his own consciousness in Zhuang Ren’s subconscious and might even one day take over Zhuang Ren’s consciousness fully.

Han Fei shivered suddenly. He was reminded of a quote-- It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

‘Butterfly has been trying to bring Zhuang Ren into Ziggurat, the goal should be to find the memory hidden in Zhuang Ren’s subconscious.’ Many things were falling into place. Zhuang Ren’s family was trapped inside Room 4144. They used the figurines with Fu Sheng’s memory fragments to conduct the ritual of summoning Zhuang Ren to Room 4144, the family was used to anchor Zhuang Ren and the figurines to anchor the memories that did not belong to Zhuang Ren but did exist in his mind. To get what it wanted, Butterfly had done a lot.

‘Looks like I’ll have to be careful how I summon Zhuang Ren into the cryptic world.’ Glancing at the clock, Han Fei walked to Zhuang Ren’s side. “After midnight, put on the device. Stay inside the room and face the memories head on.”

“I’ll see my family that way?” Zhuang Ren’s expression dropped. “Don’t tell me they have been made into those things too? They’re buried inside the ‘piles of bodies’?”

Shaking his head, Han Fei wanted to say something when there was a boom from outside the window. It sounded like an explosion. Even though it was far from them, they could hear it clearly. The 3 of them rushed to the window and saw pillars of flame coming from the intelligent city.

“Something has happened in the intelligent city?” Xin Lu intelligent city was a landmark of modern city living. It was monitored fully by a photon computer, normally there would not be something like a car accident but today an explosion happened there. The fire lit up the night sky. Even the virtual screen that hung in the sky was affected. The giant 3 rippled in the fire.

Half an hour later, many videos appeared on the internet. The fire occurred at the information database centre shared by Deep Space Tech and Immortal Pharma, it stored a lot of information on Perfect Life.

“There’s only 3 days left until OB, why is this happening now?” Jin Jun was an avid fan of Perfect Life. In there he could be totally free, without the need to worry about being recognized by the fans of the celebrities he had reported on. The fire burned for an hour before it was put out. Han Fei watched the roaring flames and was reminded of the night he got the gaming helmet. The entire street where he got the helmet was also engulfed in a giant fire.

‘Tonight is the Night of Resurrection, is this supposed to be the prelude?’