Chapter 229 - 93: The Rebellion in Defense of Physics

Chapter 229: Chapter 93: The Rebellion in Defense of Physics

Yu Xian glanced at the time on his phone. It was already past eleven in the morning.

"It’s about that time, almost noon." Yu Xian put his phone away and turned to Shi Zuozhou.

"We have class this afternoon. We need to get back to campus."

The two said their goodbyes to Yang Yiyi, pushed open the security door, and left the apartment building.

Outside, the sky was forbiddingly gloomy. Turbulent dark clouds rolled in, like a massive black curtain pressing down on Jiangcheng.

Lightning occasionally streaked across the horizon, followed by a muffled clap of thunder.

Huddled under their umbrellas, the two trudged back toward campus.

Bean-sized raindrops pelted their umbrellas. The cold wind buffeted them from all sides, and Yu Xian pulled his jacket tighter.

He only then realized that two days ago had been ’Light Snow’; winter had arrived unnoticed.

"Old Yu, I’ve been giving it some thought." Shi Zuozhou shouted over the sound of the rain to Yu Xian beside him.

"Our first game doesn’t have to be massive, but it absolutely has to be brilliant. The gameplay has to be captivating enough to make a splash. We need to build our brand and make a name for ourselves. That way, we won’t have to worry about attracting players for our future games."

"Do you have an idea of what kind of game to make?" Yu Xian asked, tilting his head.

"Given the current mechanic—that everything gets ’wiped’ and reset if no one is present—the game has to be something players can finish in one sitting. It can’t rely on long-term save files," Shi Zuozhou said, sidestepping a deep puddle.

"Also, since we’ve locked the dream time to a one-to-one ratio with real time, the entire game session can’t be longer than a normal night’s sleep. At the absolute most, let’s say we cap it at four hours. That’s the maximum lifespan for a single playthrough."

At this point, Shi Zuozhou suddenly turned his head and looked at Yu Xian, a little confused.

"But Old Yu, do you really think we need to be so rigid about the time ratio in the dream world?"

"What do you mean?"

"I understand what you guys said before—setting the ratio to 1:1 is to solve the ’source memory confusion’ problem, where people can’t distinguish between reality and dreams," Shi Zuozhou said, trying to reason with him.

"But can’t we just control it a little? We don’t have to do something as crazy as 10:1. Let’s just set it to 2:1, or maybe 3:1. That way, players would have more time to experience things in the dream, and we could make more complex games. Even if the time is extended, as long as the ratio isn’t too extreme, the weight of their dream memories still wouldn’t come close to the depth of their real-life memories, right?"

Yu Xian stopped walking for a moment. He turned his head and looked at Shi Zuozhou.

"In the short term, you’re not wrong. But what if you stretch that out over a timescale of months, or even years?"

"So what?" Shi Zuozhou asked, confused.

"It’s a simple math problem. You get it. Over time, the rate at which dream memories accumulate will always be greater than the rate for real memories. On a graph, the slope of the curve for the ’weight’ of dream memories will always be steeper than the curve for reality," Yu Xian said, starting to walk again.

"No matter how large the y-intercept—the ’initial base of real memories’—is, as long as there’s a difference in the slopes, those two lines representing cognitive weight will inevitably intersect at some point in the future."

He shook his head and said coldly:

"Once that critical point is crossed, the test subject will be completely unable to tell which is reality and which is the dream. That’s why we have to lock the ratio at a strict 1:1—to keep their slopes perfectly parallel."

Shi Zuozhou opened his mouth, but in the end, he relented.

"Alright, fine. There are ways to work with four hours."

Yu Xian added Shi Zuozhou to their three-person WeChat group, named "Dream Net Testing Team," and shared the previous 99 chat messages with him.

In the group, Yang Yiyi had already organized their morning discussion about the design flaw with the "wipe and reset" mechanic, along with their proposed solution of pivoting to "single-session, room-based games," into a long text message for Wen Xiao, who had class that morning.

...

Braving the wind and rain, the two of them walked into the school’s second cafeteria.

Despite the terrible weather outside, it was lunchtime, and the second cafeteria was still buzzing with voices.

It was so dark out that all the incandescent lights in the dining hall were on, even in broad daylight. Yu Xian and Shi Zuozhou got their food and found a corner table by the window.

Yu Xian checked his course schedule. That afternoon was his major course, *Particle Physics Experimental Data Processing and Analysis*. Professor Shu was supposed to teach it, but since he was "abroad for an academic exchange," Dr. Chen from the High Energy Institute had been subbing since last week.

"We’ve got that Chen Bo guy again this afternoon." Shi Zuozhou shoveled a few bites of rice into his mouth, watched the downpour outside the window, and then suddenly lowered his voice to ask:

"Old Yu, what do you think? Where did Professor Shu and Professor Liang actually go?"

Shi Zuozhou poked his rice twice with his chopsticks.

"You don’t think they actually went off to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to build an Ark, like in one of those doomsday movies, do you?"

Yu Xian was just about to pick up a slice of meat when his hand froze in midair. His chopsticks hovered over his tray, and sauce dripped from them onto his rice.

"The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau..." Yu Xian repeated the four words softly, staring intently at Shi Zuozhou.

"Old Shi, do you remember where the Science and Technology Commission announced the final site for that supercollider project was going to be?"

Shi Zuozhou paused, chewing on a meatball. He thought for a moment.

"Qinghai... Leng Lake?"

"Right. Leng Lake." Yu Xian put down his chopsticks and leaned forward slightly.