Chapter 110 - 45: The Smoke of the "Civil War

Chapter 110: Chapter 45: The Smoke of the "Civil War

The "training" process was meant to be completely forgotten. This was the highest level of brainwashing; the subjects themselves wouldn’t even know that a certain thought was lying dormant deep within their subconscious like an "instinct."

In contrast, what the Midnight Bus pursued was rampant proliferation, chaos, and a complete loss of control.

It stripped away the brain’s innate protective mechanisms and, whether intentionally or not, capitalized on the low complexity of building "scripts" to let countless people generate a massive amount of pornographic or violent content for it. It acted like a frantic virus or plague, solely aiming to "infect" as many hosts as possible.

These were clearly two entirely different—and arguably diametrically opposed—technological paths!

"So..." Wen Xiao finally caught on. "The creators of these two audio files aren’t on the same side at all. They might even be each other’s... enemies?"

Yu Xian remained silent.

His mind flashed to that mysterious "industry fund"—the group that provided funding to Senior Sister Yiyi’s mentor, Professor Mo Du, and had requested the MCH suppression audio.

They had obtained the "patch" component from Professor Mo Du.

Previously, he had suspected that the TDI project team was the financial backer behind that industry fund, but looking at it now, that theory didn’t hold up.

One possibility was that the email sponsor had somehow acquired the original, non-device-bound TDI audio and had Professor Mo Du inject the MCH waveform into it.

Another possibility...

Could it be that behind the massive and mysterious TDI project, there were two opposing research directions? Two hidden undercurrents of conflict?

Was one force trying to control human "instinct" and the subconscious through dream amnesia, turning people into obedient machines?

And was the other direction hoping to use dream retention to... scramble human cognition? To turn people into crazed lunatics?

If that were truly the case, what were their respective ultimate goals?

"Could this be... a civil war?" Yu Xian muttered to himself.

"Holy shit! Old Yu! Look at this!" Shi Zuozhou suddenly shouted.

In the already eerie atmosphere, his voice made the other three jump in fright.

He spun his phone around to show them. It was the JCU confession wall, a forum originally used by college students for anonymous crushes and confessions. Now, it had been completely taken over by a new topic.

*[Is there any god-tier player who can make a ’Zombie Siege’ lucid dream script? Will pay!]*

*[Sharing homemade script: Horror Hospital. Cowards beware! Female ghost nurses, come if you’re into that!]*

*[Latest ’Ancient Cultivation’ version! Built-in sword flight and sect tournaments, start with ten thousand Foundation Establishment Pills!]*

*[Taking custom commissions! Whatever plot, scene, or character you want, I can make it! Come meet your bias in a dream!]*

Reading those titles, Yu Xian felt his skin crawl.

Wen Xiao’s earlier speculation had become reality.

The fourth component, the "script," written in basic scripting language, had virtually no security and directly opened Pandora’s Box.

Driven by curiosity and desire while trapped by the torrential rain, these college students displayed astonishing creativity.

Horror, zombies, Cultivation, time travel—whatever you wanted, you could have.

And in those private corners, even more people were exchanging desires far too unspeakable to mention.

Following their previous train of thought, these scripts were more like individual "baits" used to spread the third component’s "black box" and "patch" to every single corner.

"The internet’s only been back up for a few hours, and it’s already... like this?" Shao Yiyi murmured.

"If this keeps developing, won’t everyone just want to sleep all day from now on?" Wen Xiao’s face also paled.

"If this continues, it probably won’t just be a problem of hypersomnia. If the symptoms of ’source memory confusion’ start breaking out—when the memories and significance of dreams become deeper and more enticing than reality..." Yu Xian looked up at the three people in front of him. "The real world, to them, will become a ’prison’ that they must break out of."

Shi Zuozhou swallowed hard, staring blankly at Yu Xian as he asked, "Is there... anything we can do?"