Chapter 208 - 84: 2nd Dream Net Test

Chapter 208: Chapter 84: 2nd Dream Net Test

The "Confirm" button turned out to be a translucent little cat paw icon. Yu Xian’s mouth twitched imperceptibly as he extended his index finger and pressed it.

The panel collapsed into the bottom right corner of his vision, morphing into an alarm clock icon counting down. Unless someone deliberately looked in that direction, the icon would go entirely unnoticed. Only then did Yu Xian truly take in his surroundings.

Unlike that maddeningly pale white room at TDI, this place was pure black. However, it wasn’t devoid of light; the blackness acted merely as a backdrop, allowing him to see his own shoes clearly. It felt like looking out into space from a space station—the background was an expanse of pure black, yet you could still clearly see the outline of Earth. This was because there wasn’t enough "matter" to scatter or reflect light. Unless you looked directly at a light source, or unless light bounced off something and into your eyes, you wouldn’t see anything.

There were no walls or floors around him, either. Though the ground beneath his feet felt solid, he saw absolutely nothing when he looked down.

Yu Xian tentatively took a couple of steps. Surprisingly, his footsteps were clearly audible.

He looked up and realized that faint, scattered starlight hovered above this endless expanse of pitch-black. Those points of light were distant and dim, like crushed diamonds scattered across black velvet. Yu Xian was reminded of the "Rolls-Royce starlight headliner" Shi Zuozhou had mentioned. Astonishingly, it brought a hint of breathability to the claustrophobic space.

Was this the "test script" Wen Xiao had written?

Taking a deep breath, he discovered the air carried a faint, cool scent of grass. Even the moisture of the airflow passing through his nasal cavity was incredibly distinct. The sense of realism here—especially concerning his non-visual senses—was vastly stronger than in that white room at TDI last time.

Yu Xian looked around, wondering where to find Wen Xiao, when someone suddenly patted his back. The touch was incredibly clear; he could even feel the weight of the person’s palm.

He whipped his head around.

Wen Xiao stood right behind him, looking as lovely and lively as ever.

"Yu Xian... you’re finally here."

Her voice was soft, carrying a slight echo beneath the vast, empty starry sky.

Yu Xian froze. The Wen Xiao before him was no longer wearing the oversized fleece hoodie she had on in her apartment earlier. Instead, she was dressed in a Japanese-style school uniform. It was somewhat similar to what she wore when they went to the escape room yesterday afternoon, except the bowtie at her collar was blue, and the stripes on her pleated skirt looked slightly different.

He subconsciously looked down at himself. He was still wearing the same black hoodie and pants he had casually thrown on before leaving the house that morning.

In this dream... how did Wen Xiao come with a built-in skin feature?

Before he could ask, Wen Xiao grabbed his arm and led him toward a specific direction in the darkness. They walked a short distance through the space until a silhouette suddenly appeared ahead. Upon getting closer, Yu Xian realized it was the edge of a massive mirror. A chair was placed in front of it.

The mirror was towering—about five or six meters tall—standing perfectly upright in the void. Its frame was made of a quaint, dark wood; simple, yet rich in texture. The chair was also wooden and dark brown. Its backrest consisted of three vertical wooden slats carved with intricate vine patterns. Because the surroundings were so dark, he hadn’t noticed these two objects standing here from afar at all.

"Look." Wen Xiao stopped, pointed at the mirror, and turned to Yu Xian.

Yu Xian took a couple of steps forward as instructed, his gaze landing on the massive surface of the glass.

The next second, his steps faltered. The sight before him left him so stunned that his mouth fell slightly open.

Logically speaking, standing this close, the giant floor-to-ceiling mirror should have clearly reflected his default Release Skin, as well as Wen Xiao’s High-Level Skin. Yet at this moment, the depths of the smooth, flat mirror were completely empty.

To be precise, neither of their reflections was there.

The mirror faithfully reflected the starry sky behind them, along with the solitary wooden chair placed right in front of it. The only thing it "filtered out" was the two living, breathing people standing right there.

This violent clash between vision and common sense brought about an intensely surreal sense of contrast. Staring at the mirror, Yu Xian even began to wonder if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Was the object standing before them not a mirror at all, but rather a giant wooden doorframe?

Yu Xian subconsciously raised his hand, slowly waving it in front of the glass. Deep inside the mirror, there was still only the dim starry sky and that chair. Nothing else.

He took two steps forward and reached out, lightly brushing his fingertips against the cold surface. The hard, smooth sensation repeatedly reminded him that this was indeed a physical mirror. It wasn’t a doorframe.

In an instant, an overwhelmingly strong sense of incongruity—one that blatantly defied the physical laws of the real world—violently struck Yu Xian’s mind.

How could he even describe this dissonance?

Yu Xian thought back to his childhood, to the first time he crossed his middle and ring fingers and sandwiched an object between them, creating a bizarre illusion. The skin on two sides touching a single object was interpreted by the brain as two separate objects touching the "outsides" of two different fingers. It felt exactly as if he were touching two objects at the same time.

He later learned that this phenomenon was called the "Aristotle illusion."