Chapter 192: Dream’s Logical Anchor Point

A chill ran down Yu Xian’s spine. He understood Wen Xiao’s hypothesis:

“The ‘subjective time’ they experience in the dream will surpass the ‘objective time’ they experience in reality. When the duration of their dream memories exceeds their real-life memories, the brain will instinctively think…”

“…that the dream world is the real world,” Wen Xiao finished, tapping her chin.

If dream time was stretched to that extent, it wouldn’t be like pouring a cup of water into the ocean.

It would be like forcing another ocean into it.

“So…” Yu Xian forced himself to calm down and quickly grasped the logical crux of the matter. “To solve, or at least mitigate, this ‘source-of-memory confusion,’ do we just need to ‘compress’ the dream time?”

“Right.” Wen Xiao gestured with her small hands.

“If we adjust the content of that script to make the dream time match real time one-to-one, or even make dream time pass faster than reality…”

“Like a normal dream, where you sleep for eight hours in reality but only have a few dozen minutes of clear memories from the dream at most?” Yu Xian offered as an analogy.

“Exactly! That way, the ‘weight’ of the dream memories would be severely compressed, making them negligible. You’d still remember them, but your brain would clearly classify them as ‘fragments,’ not ‘life.'” The kind girl with the space buns smiled brilliantly.

“And that’s just the first part. For safety’s sake, I thought of another double-fail-safe.”

“What’s the other fail-safe?”

“Have you seen the movie *Inception*?” Wen Xiao asked, looking into Yu Xian’s eyes.

“Are you talking about… the spinning top?” Yu Xian asked, stunned.

“Yes. In the movie, everyone has a ‘totem’ to distinguish dreams from reality.” Wen Xiao spun around on the spot.

“Like the spinning top you mentioned, which never stops.”

Yu Xian’s scalp tingled. He instantly understood the train of thought in Wen Xiao’s clever little head.

If the top kept spinning without ever stopping, it meant they were in a dream.

But if it stopped, they were in reality.

“I get it. We can also implant an ‘anchor’ in the dream script that completely defies real-world logic,” Yu Xian said in agreement.

“For example, a ‘physical rule’ that’s completely absurd and impossible in reality.”

“Yes!” Wen Xiao’s face flushed with excitement.

“Like the gravity in the dream being much weaker than in reality, so you can jump really high. Or rain falling up from the ground. Or the color of the sky and the light being different, and so on.”

Her eyes sparkled.

“I bet that as long as this ‘counter-intuitive’ feature is obvious enough and consistent throughout the dream, then no matter how real the dream feels or how long it lasts, the subject’s subconscious will always harbor a warning, ‘This is fake, this is a dream.’ Even if the memories remain after waking up, the brain will label them as ‘fictional’ and won’t confuse them with reality.”

Yu Xian pondered for a moment, considering the feasibility of this plan.

“There are still a few things that don’t quite add up… like, why doesn’t the brain label other bizarre dreams as ‘fictional’? But even if this can’t cure the root cause, it sounds like it can at least treat the symptoms. We might not be able to completely eliminate the side effects of MCH suppression, but combining ‘Time Compression’ with a ‘Logical Anchor Point’ would be like adding two layers of safety padding to that dangerous dream.”

The mall escalator ascended slowly. The fourth-floor food court was bustling with people, but no one noticed the two of them huddled together, murmuring.

As they walked, Wen Xiao seemed to recall something. Her head drooped, and her earlier excitement was extinguished as if doused by a bucket of cold water.

“But… Yu Xian.” She kicked at the smooth floor tiles with her little white sneakers, her voice laced with disappointment.

“Is it too late for us to be thinking of this now?”

She counted on her fingers, listing out the current situation.

“Look, the market is already flooded with all those random audio files. There are all sorts of genres and gameplay styles—horror, Cultivation, romance, even those… you know, *those* types. They have everything.”

Wen Xiao looked up at Yu Xian, a hint of frustration in her eyes.

“Besides, all those audio files are the ‘uncut versions’—they’re long, intense, and highly immersive. Our ‘safe version,’ on the other hand, compresses time and uses a Logical Anchor Point to break immersion. No matter how you look at it, it’s a ‘castrated version.’ It’s like… everyone else is reading harem power fantasies, and we’re insisting on writing a chaste, hard sci-fi novel.”

She sighed in disappointment.

“Even with the traffic boost from the Rabbit Hole, and even if we can bribe the nodes with carrots, at the end of the day, our product just isn’t appealing enough. I’m afraid we still can’t compete with those more stimulating audio files…”

Yu Xian also grew pensive. ‘Bad money drives out good—it was the normal state of the market.’

‘No matter the era or the medium, this problem always arose.’

‘He had to admit that clickbait, emotional manipulation, manufactured conflict, and attention-grabbing tactics were always more likely to go viral than content that was deep, rational, slow-burning, and poorly packaged. The latter was far more dependent on the audience’s aesthetic sense and independent thinking.’

“You’re right,” Yu Xian said slowly.

“Reason is often fragile in the face of desire. If we just make a substitute, it’ll be very difficult to win back users from those ‘bad coins.'”

He turned to look at Wen Xiao and said seriously,

“Unless… we can offer something that’s ‘one of a kind, with no alternatives.'”

“What kind of thing?” Wen Xiao blinked.

“It’s like the giants in the internet wars,” Yu Xian said, making an analogy.

“Short videos, games, novels—they might not seem to be in the same lane, but they’re still fundamentally in competition. What are they competing for?”

Like a good student listening attentively to a teacher, Wen Xiao thought for a moment before answering,

“Is it… the user’s ‘time spent online’? Whoever can get users to spend more time on their platform is the winner.”

“Right.” Yu Xian nodded in agreement.

“And our current battlefield is the dreamscape. We need to make an audio file to seize people’s ‘dream time.’ If they listen to ours tonight, they won’t be able to listen to any others.”

Wen Xiao froze for a second, then it dawned on her.

“You’re saying we should create our own unique, original script with the safety features built-in? That way, anyone who wants to listen to this specific audio will have to listen to the safe version?”

“Exactly.” Yu Xian nodded.

“But… that doesn’t solve the problem we were just talking about… The other creators’ ideas are already wildly imaginative. Can we really make something more appealing than theirs?” Wen Xiao was still hesitant.

“Even if we do a great job, at best we’re just improving from a 60 to a 70 or 80. Is that enough of a difference to ‘siphon’ everyone over and make them give up those dazzling poppies?”

“If we’re competing on the same dimension, it would indeed be difficult.” Yu Xian looked at Wen Xiao’s small, worried face and smiled.

“Unless… what we’re making isn’t a 1.0 optimization.”

He slowly held up two fingers.

“But… version 2.0.”

“Version 2.0?” Wen Xiao was even more confused.

“Have you ever thought about what kind of game all the current audio files are—whether it’s ‘Midnight Bus’ or its other variants—if you think of them as games? What’s their biggest commonality?”

Wen Xiao paused, seeming to recall something.

“Some are role-playing games, some are action-adventures, some are narrative story games, and some are romance shooters…”

Then, as if she’d figured it out, her face flushed and her eyes lit up as she looked at Yu Xian.

“The genres and themes are diverse, but fundamentally… they’re all single-player games! Right?”

“Yes! Exactly! Single-player games!” Yu Xian nodded.

“No matter how brilliant the plot or how grand the setting, it’s always a one-person show. But… remember what we said yesterday about the ‘Dream Net’? It uses Hijacked Spindle Waves to let two people enter the same dream.”

Wen Xiao’s pupils contracted sharply. She covered her mouth in disbelief.

“A-Are you saying… multiplayer?”