Cyber Ghosts

“It’s not a big deal.” Chen Busheng slowly woke up and saw the medicine in Liu Shuai’s hand. He smiled and put the medicine in his pocket. “I can still live for a few months.”

“A few months?” Hao Ning heard this and became crazy. He sighed, “big brother, you can only live for a few months. Why don’t you stay at the hospital but run around to find Yufei?”

“Nothing, I can still move.” Chen Busheng smiled heartily. “And you see, I have seen Yufei now.”

Chen Busheng said, looking at the Yufei happily who was talking to the fake Chen Busheng. He turned to ask Zhou Yuan, “master Zhou…”

“Don’t call me that.” Zhou Yuan quickly shook his head. “Don’t yell at me. I can’t make a snake, nor be a master. You can just talk if you have something to say.”

“How long can your spell last?” Chen Busheng pointed to the fake Chen Busheng tempted to ask, “this fake me, how long can he live?”

“Well, this…” Zhou Yuan counted, proudly smiled. “If it’s just a fake Chen Busheng, it may will live just as long as I live.”

“Okay.” Chen Busheng pulled out a card from his pocket. “This is my savings for all these years. Please let the fake me accompany him forever, thank you.”

“Well!” Zhou Yuan was happy to take the card away, “what is the password?”

“Zhou Yuan!” Hao Ning was angry and stared at Zhou Yuan. “Chen Busheng is so miserable, you still take his money?”

“Yeah!” Liu Shuai was also stunned. “You don’t act according to the routine. You shouldn’t take a penny here. Shouldn’t you advise Chen Busheng to face Yufei and let him accompany Yufei bravely to spend the last days of his life?”

“Please, I am a poor man, not a moral gentleman!” Zhou Yuan put the card in his pocket and looked at Chen Busheng. “I can use my art to easily make a little money now. Why don’t I accept it?”

Liu Shuai and Hao Ning looked at Zhou Yuan with anger. What a moneygrubber! They wondered how dare for them to let those gold bars hold by Zhou Yuan at that time?

Zhou Yuan collected the card with smile, “what is it now?”

Chen Busheng stood up and shook a little bit. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Go back.” Chen Busheng shook his head.

“Go back?” Hao Ning and Liu Shuai looked at the fake Chen Busheng in the house. They couldn’t help but ask, “you have spent so many years and so much effort, and then you just go back now without meeting him?”

“I planned to see him.” Chen Busheng smiled indifferently, but Hao Ning could see helplessness from his smile. He only heard Chen Busheng, “but I can’t bear to see him watching me die in the following months…” Chen Busheng looked at Hao Ning and Li Shuai. “If he sees me, a tragedy will happen to us. Why don’t you let this fake me accompany him? At least in his eyes, everything is good and wonderful.”

Hao Ning and Liu Shuai looked at each other with complicated moods. They had to say that Chen Busheng also had his reason for saying this, but they also felt vague about something going wrong and could not say it.

“Well.” Zhou Yuan smiled and shook his head. “Let this fake Chen Busheng accompany the fake Li Yufei. The two dummies should lie to each other in the wish of the two-real people.”

“Fake?” Chen Busheng was about to leave. He heard Zhou Yuan saying that and suddenly looked back to Li Yufei in the dormitory. “You said this Yufei is fake? That’s impossible, impossible!”

Hao Ning was also stunned, pulling Chen Busheng into the dormitory. Yufei and the fake Chen Busheng poured a glass of boiled water, smiling at each other and drinking their water. It seemed that the two people was so happy to drink the water like it was honey. Hao Ning pointed to Li Yufei in the dormitory and said to Chen Busheng. “He can’t see you now, and he can’t touch you. Take a closer look, do you think it is a fake one or real one?”

Chen Busheng looked carefully and then nodded. “Absolutely! There is a cockroach on Yufei. There is also a cockroach on this Yufei!” said Chen Busheng, pointing at a smashing angle to Yufei’s shirt with two buttons open. The shirt had slight floating during Yufei’s speech. Hao Ning looked over. He was sure enough that there was a faint cockroach on the chest.

Hao Ning only looked for a while, but Chen Busheng wasn’t happy. “It is fine that you just give a glance. But you can’t stare at it.”

“You are so weird.” Hao Ning impatiently yelled. “He is your lover. He is just an ordinary man to me. Don’t you need to be so jealous?”

Chen Busheng’s face was red, and he no longer answered to Hao Ning.

“Zhou Yuan.” Hao Ning said back to Zhou Yuan. “You don’t talk too much. How can this Yufei be fake?”

“Hey…” Zhou Yuan shook his head and took out his mobile phone and waved at Hao Ning and others. “You come over first.”

Hao Ning and Chen Busheng couldn’t understand that, but they still went to Zhou Yuan and look at Zhou Yuan’s mobile phone. “What happened?”

Zhou Yuan opened the phone and took it to the front, facing to Li Yufei and Chen Busheng who were chatting. He holding the mobile phone was like holding a black board and rubbing it back and forth. After the wiping, the whole picture did not change. But the appearance of fake Chen Busheng has changed. The whole body of Chen Busheng only presented the outline with some blue dots in the body. It was not clear and constantly changing. Hao Ning has never seen this kind of situation, or Zhou Yuan has never showed it to Hao Ning.

“What is this?” Hao Ning pointed to Chen Busheng with blue dots. “What happened to this Chen Busheng? Isn’t Li Yufei normal?” What Hao Ning said was not wrong. The picture in front of him was only Chen Busheng who turned to be blue-dot-outline person, but Li Yufei was normal. Hao Ning felt strange. “This monster-revealing mirror seemed that this mirror is not so useful. Li Yufei is normal. On the contrary, it shows the trick of you Circle God.”

“Monster-revealing mirror?” Zhou Yuan felt hilarious, “who told you that this is a monster-revealing mirror? I just let you see the problem of this fake Chen Busheng and find this Li Yufei’s problem.”

Seeing these people could not understand, Zhou Yuan explained, “my talent is to show the imagination in a person’s eyes. In other words, my talent is to use the power of a soul to show his imagination, right?”

Hao Ning understood this. Xiao Hong seemed to have explained that when he saved Zhou Yuan’s parents. Hao Ning nodded, “so what?”

“So, any scenes that a person shows through my talent,” Zhou Yuan continued to explain, “should be the soul projection of that person. In other words, if this Li Yufei is real, the soul of Chen Busheng in front of him, should also look like the soul of Li Yufei–” Zhou Yuan pointed to the blue light dots of this fake Chen Busheng. “But now, you see the soul of this fake Chen Busheng, has all these blue light spots, then you can only prove that this soul of Li Yufei has some problems!”

“So be it.” Hao Ning and Liu Shuai understood. Not to mention the two people, even Chen Busheng seemed to have some understanding. Chen Busheng quickly pulled Zhou Yuan’s clothes and asked, “what should I do?”

“What should you do?” Zhou Yuan replied. “Did you not find your Li Yufei?”

“But this is a fake one!” Chen Busheng shouted. “The Li Yufei over there is fake!”

“Oh, Li Yufei over there is fake. Is Chen Busheng over there real?!” Zhou Yuan finally got angry at this time, pointing to Chen Busheng’s nose and yelling, “you tried to use a fake Chen Busheng to accompany Li Yufei. Now you find that this Li Yufei is fake, and you can’t stand it? You hate it now because it is a fake? But Chen Busheng, who you originally wanted to use to accompany Li Yufei’s life, is also fake. Why do you want the other one to be true!”

Chen Busheng was stunned and stepped back. Watching the two so sweet together, Chen Busheng mumbled, “I thought if the fake me could be with him forever and he would be happy…”

Zhou Yuan sighed and turned his head to Hao Ning. “It turns out that I’m not the only fool in the world. I think that giving my beloved one a beautiful illusion is to give him the greatest happiness.”

Hao Ning knew that what Zhou Yuan meant was that he had done these things to his parents. It seemed that Zhou Yuan had already understood a lot of things, but Chen Busheng, still could not understand.

“You think that the fake you will make Yufei happy?” Zhou Yuan shook his head. “But when you found that this Yufei was also fake, why did you change your thoughts? After all, you think that you are giving Yufei the greatest happiness. But you were just using your lies, desires, and emotions to wrap into a fake yourself to satisfy so-called Yufei’s happiness in your imagination. But in fact, your lies just had weaved a happiness that Yufei couldn’t choose for himself. He had no choice at all. You think this is the happiness you can give him. In the end, it’s just that you have used your desire to personally make a ‘Brain in a Vat’ in your lie.”

“The Brain in a Vat?” Chen Busheng thought for a while, and looked at Zhou Yuan, carefully considering Zhou Yuan’s last sentence. “I gave Yu Fei, a personally weaved ‘Brain in a Vat’ in my lie?”

Hao Ning also understood that after these things. Zhou Yuan had a deeper understanding of the so-called “Brain in a Vat”. This “fake good and beautiful” Circle God had gradually begun to realize his own way.

“Then what should I do now?” Chen Busheng still did not give up, pointing to the fake Li Yufei. “What should we do?”

“What should you do? You know that in your heart.” Zhou Yuan shook his head. “Do you want to find the real Li Yufei, and then let me make a fake Chen Busheng to accompany him for the rest of his life?” Then Zhou Yuan took out that card. “Sorry, you had paid for the last time, the next fake Chen Busheng, you have to pay for ten times the price!”

“What?” Chen Busheng was stunned. He never imagined that he had run out of all his property, but he only sought the happiness of the fake Li Yufei. Now he had to spend ten times the price to buy a real Li Yufei’s happiness. Here, Chen Busheng fell to the ground and said nothing. Then he slapped himself astonishingly.

“You, you,” Hao Ning saw Chen Busheng’s face getting more and more swollen, and quickly stopped him. He shouted at Zhou Yuan, “just do something!”

“Or…” Zhou Yuan looked at Chen Busheng, and he couldn’t bear it. He sighed. “I can help you once more time, but I have a precondition.”

“What kind of condition!” Chen Busheng smiled with his swollen face like a pig’s head. He then jumped up and pressed Zhou Yuan’s shoulder excitedly. “Just say it. If I can do it, I will do it!”

“Get your card.” Zhou Yuan put the card back into Chen Busheng’s hand, and then played the finger against Chen Busheng. Chen Busheng’s face immediately returned to its original state. “If we can find the real Li Yufei, you need to accompany him in the last happy days. ”

“You…” Chen Busheng looked at Zhou Yuan, and the tears in his eyes struggled for a long time. He tried hard to not let his tears fall. “I understand, thank you.”

Zhou Yuan was not accustomed to Chen Busheng’s sensation, scratching his head. “Well, don’t disturb me. Save your tears to your real Little Yufei. We have a lot of things to do!”

Then he stopped talking and just followed the aisle, pursuing the road where Yi Pingzhi was leaving.

“Zhou Yuan, good for you.” Hao Ning quickly followed Zhou Yuan and gave a thumbs up. “Now you can use these methods to make people see real themselves?”

“Don’t say that.” Zhou Yuan smiled and said, “isn’t it one of the ways to save people when I was studying with Bodhisattvas?”

Liu Shuai also followed up with Chen Busheng at this time. “Where is the real Li Yufei now?”

“I guess he should be still nearby.” Zhou Yuan nodded. He looked at Busheng and said, “considering the situation, Yi Pingzhi knows a lot about you. Just for some reason, he gave Li Yufei to house arrest. We need to find Yi Pingzhi to get some clues – What the hell is this?

Just after a turn, Zhou Yuan looked at the stairs in front of him and shouted out.

Not to mention Zhou Yuan, Hao Ning and others were shocked too. They were just ready to go downstairs and the feet stretching out moved back quickly. According to the road they had just been through, this intersection should be the concrete pavement stairs of the upper and lower floors. But Hao Ning and others now couldn’t see any stairs at all, but a thin strip of steel like a flap. It seemed that if someone stepped on, it would break immediately. Hao Ning looked down on the side, and the dormitory on the next floor was completely no longer there and replaced by some simple luminous lines.

“What is going on?” These people looked at the scene in front of them and panicked for a moment, not knowing whether they should step on it.

“Little Yufei,” said Chen Busheng, whose happy voice came from behind. “Where are you taking me to?”

“A Sheng.” Li Yufei’s voice also passed. “It’s too late. We used to watch the stars together on the campus lawn at this time. Let’s go?”

“This fake Li Yufei…” Chen Busheng heard this sentence, and his eyes were a little moist. “It really seems to be real. He even knows these details…”

“Do you want to grieve or solve the problem?” Zhou Yuan felt a little helpless. “Big brother, we can’t even go downstairs…”

Zhou Yuan hadn’t finished talking yet, but Hao Ning had already pointed to the stairs and called, “Zhou Yuan, look!”

When people looked up the stairs, they saw that the stairs gradually changing from steel bars to concrete floors. The dormitory below also changed from a line to a real iron plate, and then became real doors at a visible speed to the naked eye. At this time, the fake Chen Busheng and Yufei just walked to the intersection, and the two men walked down the stairs with a smile.

Watching the two fake people going down, the four people were stunned. And Liu Shuai couldn’t figure out with shaking his head. When he turned his head, he saw that the aisles and dormitory on this floor gradually changed from a clear dormitory to a steel plate, and then become a line!

“Not good!” Zhou Yuan saw this situation and said quickly, “I probably know what happened! We should follow these people!”

After talking about that, these people kept running and catching up with the two “fake” people breathlessly. They soon came to the campus lawn. The two people were “happily” watching the stars and moon on the sky. But the strange thing was that the place where they couldn’t see was almost like a steel plate. As soon as they turned back, the steel plate immediately became the lawn, dormitory and other scenery.

“This, what the hell is going on?” Hao Ning looked at this romantic and strange scene, while gasping and asking Zhou Yuan. Zhou Yuan sighed and asked Liu Shuai, “what do you think of this?”

Liu Shuai also looked at Zhou Yuan, opening his mouth but finally did not say it. He just shook his head, “I dare not say, you say it.”

Zhou Yuan shook his head. “You just don’t dare to say it, right? We don’t know when we have entered a “brain in the vat” designed by some people.”

“The brain in the vat?” Hao Ning and Chen Busheng looked at each other and shouted out, but they noticed that although Liu Shuai was surprised, but not as surprised as he was. “Do you think so? You know much about the brain in the vat, right? You are not surprised?”

It’s reasonable for Hao Ning to ask this question. Last time, he had destroyed the fake Manjusri (of course, the fake Manjusri should be regarded as Doctor Xue’s self-destruction, but in Hao Ning’s memories, he naturally put better impression on himself). When Zhou Yuan analyzed the brain in the vat to other people, Liu Shuai did not understand what it was. At this time, Zhou Yuan once again proposed this concept. Liu Shuai did not ask questions. This was strange enough.

“You don’t know.” Liu Shuai shook his head. “I don’t quite agree with Zhou Yuan’s brain-in-the-vat theory. But don’t forget that I am a computer programmer. The phenomenon we encountered just now, although you don’t see it much often, but this is simply too common for me, a computer programmer.”

“What do you mean?” Hao Ning felt a bit strange. “What phenomenon do you say? You think it is too common? Then why can’t I see the common phenomena that you see?”

“Hey, do you remember when the fake Yufei and fake Chen Busheng were in the dormitory?” Liu Shuai whispered, although he knew that Yufei and Chen Busheng in front of him couldn’t hear, he still didn’t dare to raise his voice. “When we saw the corridor, we felt like the steel material was not well built. But when Yufei and the fake Chen were coming up, these corridors and the dormitory were ready soon.”

“Yes,” Hao Ning nodded. “it’s weird!”

“It is strange if you see it from a realistic point of view.” Liu Shuai shook his head. “But this is a common way of processing in computer games. In 3D games, scenes from the perspective of gamers are always prioritized for gamers. But in the scenes or the location they can’t see, the computer will not calculate the scenery in this part, or the calculation is rough, just like “-” Liu Shuai pointed to the distant scenery behind Chen Busheng and Yufei. Hao Ning looked at the past. The fog and the trees in the distance are like steel bars. But if Chen Busheng looked back, these steel bars immediately turned into trees.

“Yes, like these trees, and the scenery.” Liu Shuai nodded. “I just want to say that these people are playing games, but it is not accurate. Zhou Yuan’s point that we have entered in a brain in the vat may be more accurate somehow, was more accurate.”

“That’s not right, either.” Hao Ning thought. “So why can we see these steel bars?”

“That’s because,” Zhou Yuan squatted the grass heavily, “this brain in the vat did not find us. So, it only designed the scene for the roles of Chen Busheng and Li Yufei – and fortunately, we can find the problem inside!”

After hitting the ground, Zhou Yuan frowned and looked down at the grass on the ground, seemingly studying on something.

“What should we do?” Chen Busheng was also an intelligent student at Qingbei University. Now he seemed to understand. “That is, we are now entering a game designed by some people? It’s terrible, if I just followed this Yi Pingzhi in, I must have fallen into their trap! It’s too odious! What does this Yi Pingzhi really want! What did he to Yufei again!”

Saying that Chen Busheng breathed a little anxiously and coughed twice.

“It is not a good time to be angry now.” Hao Ning sighed. “The most important thing is to get out of the brain in the vat and figure out the relationship between this Yi Pingzhi and Pure Land of Bliss!”

“Pure Land of Bliss?” Chen Busheng looked up. “What are you talking about, Pure Land of Bliss?”

Hao Ning felt stranger. “How do you know that?”

“I don’t know.” Chen Busheng shook his head. “I just heard Yufei had mentioned that occasionally when I was dreaming. I don’t remember what it is specifically.”

Hao Ning and Liu Shuai looked at each other. If Chen Busheng was correct, then Yi Pingzhi, Li Yufei, and Pure Land of Bliss must have known something in common.

Hao Ning suddenly thought of a terrible situation, looking at Liu Shuai and said, “do you think that this Yi Pingzhi had already put Yufei…” Here, Hao Ning looked at Chen Busheng with a squint and stopped talking.

“I know what you mean, you don’t have to avoid me.” Chen Busheng smiled bitterly. “It is very likely that Yi Pingzhi has already killed Yufei. I don’t think so, otherwise he should have killed me directly.” He came to me and planned to give me a brain in the vat to keep me alive, probably to threaten Yufei to do things for him…”

Yes, he is very likely to do that.

“This is not a way to guess randomly.” Hao Ning slammed his forehead. “We have to find a way out.”

“But how to break the brain in the vat?” Liu Shuai shook his head and pointed at the two people. “I think that counting on these two happy guys are not working. Or else, Zhou Yuan, you try to get rid of the Virtualized reality? Maybe as soon as we appear, the brain in this vat would leave a loophole to us?”

“How is it possible?” Zhou Yuan said with a smile. “This method is certainly not reliable. For the sake of our safety, I have to take the risk to try my skills.”

Zhou Yuan started to murmur with a little sword flowing out of his eyebrows. Hao Ning gave a glance and found that it was nothing but the Hui sword of the Manjusri. Zhou Yuan turned this golden Hui sword into a small dagger, gently lined on a small grass on the ground. The grass was cut off, and Zhou Yuan pointed to the grass again. The grass entered the Virtualized reality.

Zhou Yuan took this grass for a long time and made a few strokes to the grass in the air. This grass was soft like muds. After a while, it became a silver liquid, flowing in Zhou Yuan’s hand. Zhou Yuan happily said, “sure! It is the Pandora metal!”

Seeing Hao Ning and other people puzzled, Zhou Yuan explained. “I have just studied the special brain in this vat. First, in addition to the fake Chen Busheng, we can also see the scene inside the brain in this vat. This means that the brain in this special vat cannot be created by the insertion of electrodes into the brain, or by the action of a certain hallucinogen. Otherwise we can’t see it at all. So, there is only one possibility. These scenes are real, but this reality is constantly changing with the perspective of Yufei and Chen Busheng. It may be created by a material that can be changed according to consciousness. Until now, there is only one such special material, that is Pandora metal!”

Hao Ning also understood because there was some Pandora metal in his ring. It could be turned into various objects according to his own consciousness. However, this Pandora metal seemed to be afraid of Zhou Yuan’s Hui sword. This was called, by Zhou Yuan’s words, Hui Sword that could break all illusions. As for the reason, it was not clear.

“Great!” cried Chen Busheng. “Take the sword with you and ruin the illusion here!”

“No!” Hao Ning shook his head. “This will definitely notify the master of the brain in the vat. So, this person will know that there is a problem here. The real Yufei may be dangerous!”

Of course, Hao Ning was also worried that once this was the case, it would be even more difficult to determine the situation of Pure Land of Bliss, but he did not say this.

“What should we do?” Liu Shuai shook his head. “In this case, if we know the original reason, there is no way for us to get out!”

At this time, the fake Yufei and the fake Chen Busheng looked at each other with smile. Then they stood up and prepared to go back to the dormitory. The remaining few people had to go back to the dormitory with the two people.

When they walked to the door of the dormitory building, Zhou Yuan suddenly said to Chen Busheng. “You mean, this dormitory door is a few meters away from the normal door’s position?”

“Yes,” Chen Busheng pointed to the wall to the left of the dormitory door. “The normal door should be here.”

“It turns out that – ” Zhou Yuan smiled and smiled. “Let’s try it!”

Speaking of that, Zhou Yuan turned the Hui Sword into a small dagger and made a few strokes to the wall next to the dormitory door. There was some light on this wall as if there were something moving back and forth in there. Zhou Yuan shouted, “get in now!”

After that, the four people rushed in from the light in the wall. After entering the wall, they were all stunned.