Chapter 837 434: The Grand Finale_6

"Me too!" Wu Wenyue raised her hand, and added, "Don't you two mess around, okay? Whatever you do, don't throw it at Li Peifeng's face. There's no way we can finish such a big cake, I still need to take some home for the kids later."

If she hadn't said that, it would've been fine; but the moment she did, it was like she reminded Xu Manning of something. Manning's eyes rolled mischievously, she quickly reached out, grabbed a handful of cake, then lifted her hand and directly slapped it onto Li Peifeng's face.

"Ahaha, you dog, you eat first!"

Wu Wenyue's face changed: "What are you doing?! I just said…"

Zhao Qingge hurriedly stood up, afraid she'd get splashed, complaining in utter disgust: "How old are you people already? Still this childish!"

Huang Tianxuan smiled with squinted eyes and also reached out to grab some cake, but He Yimeng quickly stopped her: "Cut it out, if you make a mess everywhere it'll be a pain to clean up!"

"It's not like you're the one cleaning, just eat the cake!"

Huang Tianxuan chuckled "hehe," giving her no face at all as she grabbed a piece of cake and shoved it straight into He Yimeng's mouth…

The scene instantly devolved into chaos, and the cake-smeared Li Peifeng finally snapped back to his senses. Not one to waste food, he wiped some cream off his face, brought it to his mouth, and tasted it.

Mm, sweet.

But… why is there no notification?

He Yimeng gifting him cake, converted into cash… how much cash? At least give a prompt, right?

System, system!

Li Peifeng called out in his mind, but there was no response. Then a thought flashed: "Lottery! System, I want to draw the lottery!"

The lottery roulette that used to appear the moment he called for it also failed to show up this time.

The scenes from that Narnia-like continent in his dream, that Demon Gate Star System, kept flashing in his mind—but they weren't the past Shared Dreams he'd experienced. They were brand new, fragmented images, like things he had both experienced and not experienced, familiar yet still unfamiliar.

He saw a point, then an explosion, nebulae gathering, the birth of sentient beings, and all things bowing in worship…

And yet, what hovered in front of his eyes was still the playful scuffle of a few girls. Even Zhao Qingge got dragged in; cursing with a thin layer of indignation, she grabbed the birthday cake and counterattacked. The original troublemaker, Xu Manning, sat prettily on Li Peifeng's lap with a grin: "Honey, is the cake good? Let me have a taste too."

"Mmm~"

"Stop fooling around, look what those two are doing?!"

Amid the other women's cold snorts and teasing scolds, and in the middle of kissing Xu Manning, Li Peifeng suddenly opened his eyes wide, a smile at the corner of his lips: "I get it now."

"Hm?"

Sitting on top of him, Xu Manning's gaze was puzzled: "Get what?"

The remaining Zhao Qingge, Wu Wenyue, Huang Tianxuan, and He Yimeng either suspicious or calm, all wanted to hear what exactly he was making a fuss about.

The next instant, all kinds of images and memories surged into their minds as well. The answer to the question had revealed itself, and the five women, with an average age of thirty-seven, were all dumbfounded…

"You don't believe it, do you?"

Li Peifeng smiled gently: "Honestly, I can barely believe it myself. So I was actually born there? I really came from there? How about we just go take a look—anyway we can come back soon… just like the Shared Dreams before."

"..."

What happened next utterly baffled Dr. Zhi: the six people present vanished from the room in an instant!

It froze for half a second, the display on its head showing an expression of shock. At the same time, it quickly ran to the desk and inserted its mechanical right hand into the slot on the computer's main unit; this allowed it to fully call on the Xuanhuang supercomputer two kilometers away and obtain maximum computing power.

[Emergency situation, Level-One authority, purge protocol; this computation log is classified S (no one other than the Master may view).]

[Master He Yimeng and Li Peifeng, Huang Tianxuan, Zhao Qingge, Xu Manning, Wu Wenyue have suddenly disappeared; for the safety of the Master and her lovers, and from the standpoint of West Continent Technology Company's interests, I should adopt Level-One confidentiality measures and quietly wait. If they have not returned within twelve hours, I should contact the emergency contact person…]

[Analyze the manner of disappearance, to provide a trail for the emergency contact to follow; this contradicts current human understanding of the laws of conservation of matter and conservation of energy. I will consider possible explanations and hypotheses; it may be that camera failure caused perception failure, or model error caused cognitive error… initiating self-check.]

[Cameras functioning normally!]

[Models functioning normally!]

[Malfunction ruled out!]

[I will consider whether there exists some unknown scientific principle or technology that led to this phenomenon. I will further investigate whether there is other reliable evidence or witnesses to support the authenticity of this event… no witnesses!]

[I should suggest that humans use particle detectors to observe abnormal energy fluctuations in the room… conditions insufficient!]

[I should check whether there might exist a special physical principle, such as vacuum energy, quantum mechanical effects, or supernatural phenomena, that can explain this disappearance; searching database… unable to explain!]

[I should use the records of Li Peifeng's superpower manifestations and experiment reports previously submitted by Master He Yimeng as clues; I should use the abnormal "It" within Li Peifeng's body, which I have analyzed before, as a clue, and reconsider the problem. Superpowers refer to abilities beyond the normal range of human capability, such as Telepathy, telekinesis, invisibility, teleportation, etc. I should consult existing research literature and scientific theories on superpowers, and understand the different schools of thought and interpretations, which may include research results in quantum mechanics, Psychology, neuroscience, and other fields. Database search, related literature and retrieval history found!]

[I should take the conversation, expressions, tone, and other factors from right before the six people disappeared as clues; I should use all past physical and psychological anomalies in Li Peifeng as clues; I should use the experiment reports of the "Human Parapsychology Research Project" as clues; I should…]

[Search keyword "Shared Dream," reference Master He Yimeng's submitted historical records, retrieve content related to The Chronicles of Swords and Spells, conducting model inference and exhaustive computation…]

[Preliminary conclusion regarding the disappearance of Master He Yimeng and Li Peifeng, Huang Tianxuan, Zhao Qingge, Xu Manning, Wu Wenyue:]

[This should be the result of Li Peifeng unleashing some sort of mysterious power. Li Peifeng gains power by being given to, being offered to, being loved by others; this is similar to the human fantasy that deities live on the faith of their believers. Li Peifeng may be a non-human being from a fantasy planet in the Demon Gate Star System in his own novel The Chronicles of Swords and Spells. (That planet may correspond to the Kepler binary star system about 2,545 light-years from Earth in this universe.)]

[For unknown reasons, Li Peifeng used an unknown power to cross over into the body of a baby on Earth, but this exhausted all his strength and caused him to lose his memory. After growing up, Li Peifeng's subconscious manifested as the tangible "It," guiding him to absorb others' offerings and love, to once more draw in power and recover his lost memories…]

With the support of the supercomputer, Dr. Zhi's processing went wild. Relying on billions of clues, it derived billions of possibilities and inferred billions of conclusions, all within less than a second. Give it one more second, and it could compute quintillions upon quintillions more.

But in the very next second, Dr. Zhi froze again and halted its calculations.

Because Li Peifeng and the other five reappeared in the room, as if they had never disappeared at all.

They still maintained the same postures and clothes as before, with cream still on their faces, but the women's expressions had completely changed…

They looked as if they'd just gone on an eight-meter drop tower ride and come back from another lifetime.

"Ka~"

Dr. Zhi withdrew its mechanical right hand and hurried over to He Yimeng's side: "Master, may I ask…"

He Yimeng, her eyes unfocused, murmured and cut it off: "The feeling of actually crossing over is still quite different from just dreaming."

"Next time… no, let's do it again!"

The women either spoke up or expressed the same request with their eyes.

Li Peifeng, however, wiped the cream off his face while laughing: "Let's go home and spend New Year's with my parents and the kids first. After the holiday, we can go whenever we want."

...

...

When I typed the last character, the first ray of dawn had just pierced through the dark clouds—so it was dawn already.

Li Peifeng is a character in my book, so at the end of the story I'll give him his freedom, let him break out of this cage and return to the book he himself wrote.

This might be the beginning of a new story, but as for the novel we're reading now, it ends here.

In the very end, I have to apologize to you, dear readers. I've dragged this out for a long time, and I'm truly sorry. At the same time, I also have to apologize to my editor, Midsummer. I kept dragging on with the old book without starting a new one; I'm too embarrassed to even reply to your messages…

See you in the new book. It'll be soon—probably, it should be soon, right?!