BOOM!
A heaven splitting, earth shattering blast exploded inside Qin Siyang's mind, striking his consciousness into pieces like thunder, and violent dizziness followed.
The entire world was twisted by some unknown force. The scene before his eyes cracked and shattered bit by bit like glass, turning into countless dark gold fragments.
He could almost feel those fragments scattering and falling inside his consciousness, taking the images in his memory with them.
He was gradually forgetting that once clear and perfect life. Past achievements, the warmth of family, the smiling faces of his children, his own glorious years, all slowly grew blurry, as if they were being sucked into a black hole and sealed away in a place that could never be found again.
The whole world fell into silence.
Qin Siyang's consciousness drifted through boundless darkness, like a tiny speck of dust floating for a brief moment.
Just as this endless darkness was about to swallow him, a faint light suddenly lit up the void.
As the light grew stronger, the surrounding darkness slowly dispersed like thin mist, and hazy images gradually appeared in his vision.
At first they were vague. As the light continued to fill the space, those images became more and more solid.
When his vision finally became clear, he was shocked to find that he was sitting inside the drill cabin, lying in the co pilot's seat, with pitch black darkness outside the cabin.
At that moment, his own memories suddenly felt as if their shackles had been removed, and were fully awakened.
He finally remembered that he was an orphan who had been reborn after death inside the Safe Zone.
It was after being attacked by the Nightmare Lantern Tree that he had fallen into that perfect life.
At the same time, that beautiful dream like memory of a fleeting lifetime receded like a tide, gradually vanishing without a trace.
What remained in his mind was only an impression so vague it could not be any vaguer.
"You finally woke up."
Qin Siyang suddenly turned his head and saw Hu Chan staring at the darkness outside the window with a desolate expression, as if he had suffered an emotional blow.
"I waited for you for ages. You kept rolling your eyes and twitching all over. I thought you were going to die."
From what Qin Siyang knew, almost everyone attacked by the Nightmare Lantern Tree died. Being able to wake up from the nightmare this time was pure luck.
But looking at Hu Chan, he did not seem like someone who had just woken up.
'Could it be that the Nightmare Lantern Tree did not bother Hu Chan?'
He asked, "You were not attacked by the Nightmare Lantern Tree?"
Hu Chan's tone was very low, "We were sitting in the same cabin. You got hit. Do you think I could run? I just woke up a few hours earlier than you."
"You woke up that much earlier than me? Wait. How long were we unconscious?"
"A little over two days," Hu Chan took out a compressed sandwich and a bottle of electrolyte water from the storage box beside him and tossed them to Qin Siyang, "Get some energy back."
The moment Qin Siyang took the water and food, his stomach growled.
At the same time, a strong wave of hunger and thirst hit him so hard he could barely handle it.
He immediately started wolfing it down.
Looking at Qin Siyang, Hu Chan asked, "You woke up a few hours later than me. What did you experience?"
Qin Siyang chewed greedily while trying his best to recall those experiences that had already drifted away like dust.
He had forgotten the faces and names of all his relatives and close friends.
He could only vaguely find traces in broken fragments that it seemed like he had lived a whole lifetime.
He remembered that he seemed to have reached his ninetieth birthday, and had even seen off many friends and relatives.
Then he asked, "Can you remember your own experience very clearly?"
Hu Chan shook his head, "Very vague. I can only roughly remember an outline."
"Then can you at least tell how long you lived in the dream?"
"Seems like over seventy?"
"Oh. I lived over ninety. Maybe because I lived ten or twenty years longer, I was unconscious for a bit longer too."
After hearing that, Hu Chan's originally dejected expression turned into deep resentment, "Why is it that even in dreams I am not as good as you?"
"You kid, your brain really has bubbles. You even have to compete with me in dreams?"
Hu Chan let out another sigh and shook his head, his heart full of bitterness, "Even in dreams I face a strong rival. I do not even know if I will ever make it in this life."
Qin Siyang asked, "Then do you remember how you woke up?"
"Oh, a tree told me to choose whether to loop a life in the Safe Zone or to loop a happy and perfect life. I chose to go back to the Safe Zone and woke up. What about you?"
"Same here. Thinking about it now, if we had chosen the fantasy life woven by the Nightmare Lantern Tree, we would probably have ended up just like all those recorded cases of people attacked by it, completely dead."
Hu Chan cut in, "Maybe only the body dies, and the mind really does get to enjoy the sweet dream forever."
"That also makes sense," Qin Siyang nodded, then asked, "So why did you think of choosing to go back to the painful and passive life in the Safe Zone?"
Hu Chan's dejected expression suddenly became even more complicated, "In my dream life, I did something that was very happy but very wrong. When I faced the Nightmare Lantern Tree after dying, I saw myself as the Holy Son of the Zephyr Church inside the Safe Zone, and realized that it was nothing but an absurd beautiful dream, so I chose to return to reality."
Qin Siyang wiped the food crumbs from his mouth and asked with curiosity, "You slept with the God Zephyr in your dream?"
Hu Chan glared at Qin Siyang, "Qin Siyang, what nonsense are you talking about?"
"Hey, just joking."
"That joke is not funny."
"So I guessed wrong?"
"No comment."
Qin Siyang pouted, "Not answering because you are afraid I turned on a lie detector? Then that means I guessed right. Relax. You just made a small mistake that every Zephyr Church believer would make."
Hu Chan frowned.
From Qin Siyang's words, the God Zephyr sounded like some whore people could fantasize about at will.
"Qin Siyang, even if you yourself do not believe in the God Zephyr, I am at least the Holy Son of the Zephyr Church. Can you show some respect for my god?"
"Then just tell me whether I guessed right or not!"
"I am too lazy to bother with you. By the way, why did you choose the life in the Safe Zone?"
"I relied on calm reasoning and decided I should choose the life in the Safe Zone."
"Stop bragging…"
["Truth."]
Qin Siyang raised an eyebrow, "Sorry. I was just using it to test you earlier and forgot to turn it off."
Hu Chan narrowed his eyes and shot a sharp look at him, his heart filled with anger, 'What a Qin Siyang, always digging traps everywhere.'
But Qin Siyang looked completely at ease, not taking Hu Chan's anger to heart at all.
Hu Chan took a deep breath, "Qin Siyang, how did you reason it out?"
Qin Siyang shook his head with a bit of regret, "I do not want to say anymore. Hu Chan, after waking up from the dream, your attitude has chilled my heart."
"What do you mean."
Qin Siyang let out a long sigh, "You did not even want to call me President Qin anymore."
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