Chapter 206 - 83: First Dream Net Test

Chapter 206: Chapter 83: First Dream Net Test

He didn’t want to be some creep invading a woman’s private dream. Besides, he probably didn’t have anything shameful to hide in his own.

"Ah, ah, okay... I-I’m fine with anything," Wen Xiao said, flustered.

"So, shall we begin?" Yang Yiyi asked, glancing at her watch.

"The first phase shouldn’t take too long. Yu Xian will fall asleep first, then Xiaoxiao. Ten minutes after Xiaoxiao is asleep, I’ll wake you both up. It’s just natural sleep, so waking you will be easy."

"Okay."

Once everything was set up, the living room instantly fell silent.

Yang Yiyi was using the bedroom now, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to go in and sleep on the bed. Yu Xian leaned back against the sofa, shifted into a comfortable position, and put on his headphones.

Wen Xiao was trying to get sleepy nearby; she had to wait until Yu Xian was asleep before she could drift off. Yang Yiyi turned off the main lights, leaving only a single, dim yellow wall lamp on.

The three of them stopped talking. In their headphones, the audio clip that Yang Yiyi had extracted and Wen Xiao had re-decoded began to play.

This time, the audio was a very deep, monotonous white noise, interspersed with some kind of extremely low-frequency pulse. It sounded like a heartbeat, or maybe distant thunder.

’So this is... the frequency used to ’hijack’ sleep spindles?’

Yu Xian closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind, to let his consciousness lower its guard and sink down with the frequency.

The rolling thunder outside the window was heavy and slow, yet it carried an immense sense of pressure.

A minute passed.

Yu Xian could feel his breathing was steady, and his mind... was still wide awake.

Three minutes passed.

He could even hear the breathing of the two girls in front of him, which had already become long and even. If he didn’t fall asleep soon, he was afraid Wen Xiao and the others would fall asleep first.

Five minutes passed.

Yu Xian’s eyelids were twitching. He couldn’t stop his mind from racing.

One moment, it was Old Shi’s excited expression from last night. The next, Xia Li’s blurry smile. Then, the veil of rain on the way back to school yesterday. Then, a scene from the escape room he’d done with his cousin...

The more he tried to sleep, the more awake he felt.

The feeling was like waiting for Godot; you know he’s coming, but he just never arrives.

This is a common problem for insomniacs. The more you treat sleep as a task, the more your cerebral cortex gets excited and treats it as a challenge to overcome.

’Damn it... How could I forget about my insomnia?’

Yu Xian cursed inwardly.

He’d been sleeping well in the dorm the past few days, but that was probably because of the melatonin his cousin had bought him, plus the fact that he was just dead tired.

After an unknown amount of time, he heard Yang Yiyi softly call his name. Yu Xian couldn’t pretend anymore.

He opened his eyes in defeat and took off his headphones.

He was met by two pairs of concerned eyes staring at him, and two mouths that seemed to be holding back words.

"Yu Xian, you... you didn’t fall asleep, did you?" Yang Yiyi finally asked.

"Yeah... I usually have trouble with insomnia, and I don’t have a habit of napping..." Yu Xian felt a little guilty. The very first step of the experiment was getting stuck on him falling asleep.

This was like... falling at the very first hurdle.

"If you really can’t sleep, don’t force it," Yang Yiyi said, looking at Yu Xian, her voice gentle.

"I didn’t know you had insomnia. How about... Xiaoxiao and I do this first round of testing?"

"The two of you?" Yu Xian was taken aback for a moment.

"Yes. Like you said, the first phase is just to test if the ’link’ phenomenon is real. It’s natural sleep with no preset script, so there shouldn’t be too many physiological indicators to observe," Yang Yiyi nodded.

"So you don’t need to worry too much. Just remember to wake us up when the time comes."

Yu Xian rubbed the bridge of his nose. Although he was still a little worried, he could only agree. After all, in this situation, he was the one holding them back. Rather than waste time here, it was better to let them try first.

"Alright then. I’ll wake you up as soon as ten minutes are up."

Yang Yiyi smiled and turned to look at Wen Xiao, who was beside her wearing headphones, already looking drowsy.

"Xiaoxiao, you can go ahead and sleep then."

"Ah, me? O-Okay," Wen Xiao replied, a bit flustered.

Yang Yiyi brought a soft pillow from the bedroom and handed it to Wen Xiao. Yu Xian noticed the pillowcase wasn’t his; his senior must have bought a new one.

He gave up his spot on the sofa and moved a chair to sit beside it.

Wen Xiao hugged the pillow, adjusted her headphones, and buried the lower half of her face into its soft surface.

"Well... I’m going to try to sleep now."

Her voice was very quiet, as if she was a little embarrassed.

"Okay, relax. Sleep well, Xiaoxiao," Yang Yiyi said softly.

Wen Xiao closed her eyes. The living room fell silent again, with only the dim yellow wall lamp casting a soft, warm halo amidst the sound of the rain.

Yu Xian and Yang Yiyi both held their breath, quietly watching the girl on the sofa, waiting for her to fall asleep.

By the light of the lamp, Yu Xian found himself studying Wen Xiao up close for the first time.

Whenever he saw her, she always had her hair up in two playful buns; he wondered if it was a hairstyle she’d coordinated with Shao Yiyi.

But now, for the sake of comfort while sleeping, she had let down those two signature buns.

Her smooth, short hair was spread across the pillow, a few strands falling beside her cheeks, making her face seem palm-sized. Her skin was very fair, and in the dim yellow light, it looked like a piece of delicate white jade.

She looked exceptionally serene and sweet right now. Her long eyelashes trembled slightly, and her small lips were parted. At first, her breathing was a little quick and erratic, but it gradually became steady and deep.

Watching Wen Xiao’s body relax and go limp, Yu Xian suddenly understood why his parents could always tell he was faking sleep when he was a kid.

It turned out the difference between real sleep and faking it was actually visible to the naked eye. He could clearly tell that Wen Xiao was truly asleep.

"She’s asleep," Yang Yiyi confirmed in a whisper. She glanced at Yu Xian and picked up her own headphones.

"I’m starting now, too."

She slowly lay down flat on the other side of Wen Xiao, found a comfortable position, tapped her finger on a screen, and then closed her eyes.

Yu Xian tiptoed around the coffee table, moved his chair, and sat down on Yang Yiyi’s side. This made it easier for him to observe his senior’s condition. Once she fell asleep, he would start the ten-minute timer.

Yang Yiyi’s breathing also gradually became steady and deep. The rise and fall of her chest became regular. It looked like she had entered a state of sleep.

Yu Xian watched the two girls entering their dreams side-by-side, and the feeling of tension slowly began to rise in him again.

’Right now, are their dreamscapes, guided by that low frequency, converging and merging?’

’Will they meet in Wen Xiao’s dream?’

’Or will they be like two parallel lines, brushing past each other in their own separate dreams?’

Yu Xian didn’t know. He could only grip his phone tightly, staring intently at the ever-changing numbers on the screen, waiting for the answer that would come in ten minutes.

At that moment, he felt like an observer standing watch over a diving bell, only able to sense the movements in the deep sea through a single, thin umbilical cable.

And as for what was hidden in those deep seas, only the ones who dived down would know.

Yu Xian anxiously watched the time on his phone. For the first time, he felt that time was moving too slowly.

He looked up at the two sleeping girls, then down at his phone, over and over, again and again.

Finally, the ten-minute countdown hit zero.

Before the phone’s alarm could even sound, Yu Xian gently nudged Yang Yiyi beside him, then leaned over to tap Wen Xiao’s shoulder.

"Yang Yiyi, Wen Xiao, wake up."

His movements and voice were very gentle, but a natural dream was nothing like the deep sleep hijacked by the Midnight Bus. Waking them up was easy.

At Yu Xian’s gentle touch, Yang Yiyi’s eyelashes fluttered a few times, and she slowly opened her eyes. At first, her gaze was still a bit hazy. She blinked, her eyes resting on the ceiling for a moment before quickly regaining their clarity.

Wen Xiao, on the other side, had also woken up. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, her expression dazed.

"How was it?" Yu Xian asked impatiently, his gaze darting between their faces.

Yang Yiyi didn’t answer. She first glanced at Yu Xian with a strange smile playing on her lips, then turned her head to look at Wen Xiao beside her.

Wen Xiao happened to be looking up at the same time, and their gazes met in midair.

In that instant, Yu Xian thought he saw Wen Xiao’s body stiffen. She looked down in a fluster, her hands tightly gripping the edge of the pillow.

Watching this strange atmosphere unfold, Yu Xian’s heart sank.

’What... what’s going on?’

"How was it?" Yu Xian asked again, his voice filled with apprehension.

"Did it... not work?"