Xu Yuhang felt like he had been trapped in a soap opera dream recently.
It was a world divided by a mirror, where people from both worlds could only stay in their respective spaces.
The people from the Mirror World would ask for help from this side, inquiring about how to solve many issues.
For example.
On the gigantic screen between the two worlds, it displayed.
[Do you know how to transform the Moon?]
Xu Yuhang felt a bit helpless.
Co on, man, I'm just a 13-year-old middle school student.
You're asking how to transform a planet?
I barely scraped through middle school, you know.
You sure have the nerve to ask.
He told his friend Egg Yolk about it.
Egg Yolk comnted, "Old Xu, they say you dream of what you think about most. Seems like you're fantasizing about becoming a Savior by traversing the future or sothing. My advice is, you've been playing too many civilization gas, buddy, don't get too hooked on gas, focus on life."
He said this while playing Arena of Valor.
After nightfall.
Drowsy and half-asleep.
Xu Yuhang found himself back in that bifurcated dream. On his side, it was warm and bright, while the other side of the mirror was leaden gray, filled with vagueness and haze.
The massive electronic display along the border was still lit, with Chinese characters popping up one by one.
[Are you really just a student?]
Xu Yuhang told them, "Yeah, I'm genuinely a first-year middle schooler, can't help you much."
Even though it was a dream.
He felt it necessary to make it clear.
Once again, characters lit up on the screen one by one.
[Are there many old humans still alive in your space?]
According to what the display robot was saying, in their era, old humans had long been destroyed, and Human City had sunk into so energy-ford Dead Sea. Human civilization was inherited by these chanical Lives, with the surviving humans stripping of past technologies.
It called itself "LUMI," equipped with a high-resolution Earth system model, 64-core/CPU, 10,240 GPUs, erging as a supercomputer that awakened after surviving.
Xu Yuhang inexplicably wondered if he had ti-traveled into the future in his dream?
He said aloud, "Everyone's still alive, all quite normal."
The other side continued to ask.
[What year is it specifically where you live?]
"April 2025... It should be the 6th today, just after Qingming Festival."
Xu Yuhang sat cross-legged on the ground.
He reached his hand toward the intangible boundary in front of him and imdiately sensed a trendous insurmountable force.
The outside world was still shrouded in fog.
Xu Yuhang asked, "Can you turn on the light? I want to see what's on your side."
[Sorry, in fact, our lighting system is continually operating over here, and we're not short of energy. But due to technical reasons, it requires focusing the Intercepting Mirror to complete our conversation, resulting in the outside appearing virtualized.]
Xu Yuhang felt relaxed; after all, it was just a dream, he could handle it however he wanted, worst case, he'd just wake up.
He tried to imrse himself in this ga-like dream: "What you said can't be proven."
"Don't you have a screen? You can show the outside through it, can't you?"
A series of ellipses appeared on the screen.
As if the other side was thinking.
A mont later.
[If you'd like, of course, it's possible.]
The monitor's image stretched, revealing a top-down dynamic footage.
It was a world with rising mist, gray and white clouds everywhere, the entire world appeared to be smoking as if burned, with scarce land.
Amid the thick fog, there were occasional flashes of light and illuminated areas, looking like so sort of weaponry was being deployed.
Xu Yuhang squinted at the screen, "Lumi, zoom in, let see what's on the ground."
[As you wish.]
The view suddenly zood in, focusing on a nearby land city.
Within the city, there were short wooden and stone houses, and so people lived directly in tents and ground pits, the squalid conditions reminiscent of slums on TV.
Yet, a high-rise elevator building stood out starkly among them. Its high walls bore a crab logo labeled "Jade City No. 277," seemingly belonging to a real estate developer there.
The divide between rich and poor was substantial.
There was also a terminal-like building, where many airships docked, and strange gliders took off from there.
Outside the city was a port where shoddily crafted boats were moored, and two vessels were sailing in the fog sea.
Xu Yuhang focused on observing inside the city. Most residents were humans busy transporting goods, working in fields, or maintaining order as police.
Also, there were so monsters in the city; they seed to hold significant status, and humans would keep a distance upon encountering them.
He asked the display, "What are those monsters?"
[Guangna Species, a powerful lifeform in this era...]
Similar to mutated intelligent mythical creatures.
Xu Yuhang watched for a while, "Are all cities like this?"
[This is Sand Port City. It's part of the Developnt Alliance, considered relatively developed and stable in the city context.]
[There are such cities too.]
The screen displayed another city. This one resembled a steel factory, with dirty workers covered in gri, dust swirling around, an environnt of filth.
They were continuously operating machinery, producing and assembling parts, with tir-like devices nearby supervising them.
If the efficiency did not et standards, a red mark would be stamped on the workers.
When the marks reached a certain number, the workers would be captured by monsters and sent to more extre environnts for hard labor.
If they accomplished nothing, they would eventually beco experintal subjects, subjected to blood draws, dications, injections, and even dangerous asures.
[This is chanical City.]
[It's a slave city.]
Xu Yuhang felt uneasy watching this.
The screen then switched to several other cities.
So cities were drenched in extravagance, so heavily guarded, so broken and bleak, so lifeless...
The similarity lies in the fact that humans in this world live very difficult lives, belonging to the bottom of society. They live in hardship, many can't even afford food, and are beaten to death by Guangna Species, with many starving or dying from illness on the roadside.
Xu Yuhang felt both uncomfortable and angry upon seeing this.
A relatively better situation is with that Developnt Alliance.
It is said to be an alliance group spearheaded by the Wasteland Developnt Company, aid at revitalizing humanity.
It is currently gradually enhancing new humans by transforming them into enhancers, so that they don't lose to Guangna Species physically, while also fostering creativity, intelligence, and collaboration advantages.
The display robots belong to the company camp.
The other side typed.
[We hope you can help us.]
Xu Yuhang felt a bit helpless: "I also hope to help you guys... but I can't do anything. I only scored 61 in my mid-term math exam, and 44 in English... I am just in bronze rank in gas, how can I help?"
If I had any specialty, it's that I'm tall; I was considered a high school student when I was in elentary school.
"And I can't get past here either."
A passage of text appeared on the screen.
[We want to conduct an experint by placing you with another old human in the sa situation. Do you agree?]
"Agree."
Xu Yuhang thought to himself.
Being locked here all alone and just being a spectator is quite boring.
[Okay, please wait a mont.]
[We are debugging the equipnt and refocusing.]
Xu Yuhang waited listlessly.
Before long.
He suddenly heard a voice.
But it was in Japanese.
Xu Yuhang turned his head to see, and found a girl had appeared behind him.
She seed sixteen or seventeen years old, with a soft, slender body and legs, long smooth hair, her bright eyes slightly widened out of curiosity.
She was wearing a Japanese-style black school uniform, looking very cute.
An amine girl?
Xu Yuhang was shocked all over.
Could it be... the kind of plot I'm imagining?
For a mont he felt both expectant and excited.
This dream is too good!
But everything she said was in Japanese, which he couldn't understand at all, so they ended up staring blankly at each other, eventually communicating in English.
Given that both had only rudintary English skills, their communication felt very awkward and clumsy, with lots of gestures, stamring, and sweating.
How did this turn out like this...
Xu Yuhang complained to the giant screen, "Can't you even solve the language problem? At least give us real-ti translation!"
[As you wish.]
A mont later.
He heard the Japanese girl's crisp voice in his ear: "... Eh, what is this place. eting another person who only speaks English, and my English isn't good... this is such a weird dream, could it be because of my sleeping posture?"
Hooray!
Xu Yuhang couldn't resist pumping his fist.
Then he tried to act calmly and said, "Hello, my na is Xu Yuhang."
The girl paused, then replied, "My na is Kobayashi Hina."
Hina seed puzzled: "In my dream, there is actually a Chinese person, why is that... do I subconsciously like foreigners?"
The other party actually thought she was dreaming too?
A thought popped into Xu Yuhang's mind.
Could it be that we've connected to the Mirror World through our dreams?
He was about to say sothing.
But in a daze.
Suddenly he was back on the bus.
The person beside him, Huang, was shaking his shoulder: "Old Xu, wake up, we're getting off, if you keep sitting, we'll reach the train station!"
Xu Yuhang woke up with a start.
He hurriedly got off the bus with Huang.
The cold wind outside imdiately cleared Xu Yuhang's mind.
It was ti to go ho after evening self-study had ended.
He couldn't help but excitedly tell Huang about his experience.
His friend just looked at him pitifully: "Old Xu, watch fewer videos, don't suppress yourself so much. Relax a little, I know you're under a lot of stress lately."
He made a gesture that all n would understand.
Xu Yuhang cursed, "Go to hell with that."
But.
This dream series finally had a female lead! According to the normal process, she should be my official match, and then we both save the world over there together!
Victory!
But Huang suddenly said: "By the way, how did you know about LUMI? As far as I know, you don't care about technology at all?"
"LUMI? You an Lumi?"
"Yeah, it's the supercomputer built by Finland in 2022, incredibly powerful, ranked third in the world in supercomputing at that ti. Even now it's in the top ten globally."
Xu Yuhang carefully thought about it, he indeed didn't pay attention to these things. When did he see the word LUMI?
"And those paraters you ntioned... Holy crap, you morized all of them? Not one wrong!"
Huang opened his phone and pointed it at the web page information he had found.
Xu Yuhang was startled listening to it.
The data displayed on the webpage was exactly the sa as what he saw in his dream.
He was the least sensitive to numbers, which is why he was always bad at math.
Could it be.
That the Mirror World in the dream might actually be real?
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