Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

Behind the door was not the hospital ward area one might imagine, but a futuristic and enclosed underground space.

The towering dome casts a cold, white light, illuminating the countless precision instruments and computer arrays neatly arranged below.

Researchers, dressed in full-body protective suits and wearing masks, hurried through the rooms and corridors, chatting quietly as they went.

It's more like a high-level research institute than a hospital.

The elevator doors closed silently behind the two of them, and Lin Yi and Gulu stepped into the area.

Their appearance attracted some attention, but upon seeing Lin Yi's access card and the "familiar" guards behind him, those gazes quickly shifted away.

Here, access cards and familiar uniforms are the best passes.

The researchers quickly returned to their work, as if the two men's presence was merely a minor part of their routine.

A figure deviated from its original path and strode quickly toward the elevator.

He was a male researcher who looked to be in his early thirties. His hair was disheveled as if it had been repeatedly scratched, and his eye bags were puffy and bluish, hanging heavily under his eyes.

His eyes were bloodshot like a spider web, revealing the exhaustion caused by long-term sleep deprivation and high mental stress.

His white lab coat was wrinkled and stained with several barely discernible dirt. He gripped an electronic recording tablet tightly in his hand, his fingers unconsciously tightening, his knuckles turning slightly white.

This person seemed to be just going through the motions of greeting him; his lips were slightly parted, perhaps thinking that Lin Yi was a colleague who had come down to hand over the new "sample".

But as his gaze swept quickly over Lin Yi's face and figure, he suddenly paused, and his extremely tired eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly for a moment.

Lin Yi's disguised doctor had a slightly different physique from the original owner. Perhaps it was a habitual little gesture that was noticed, or perhaps it was a certain incongruity in temperament. In any case, this extremely tired researcher, whose senses were probably unusually sharp, instantly became suspicious.

He stopped in his tracks, his expression shifting from a formulaic weariness to a hint of confusion and wariness, his gaze unconsciously drifting towards Gulu behind Lin Yi.

In that split second he was stunned, the gurgling sound came out!
Before the researcher could react, Gulu had already leaped up lightly, wrapped one arm around his neck, and hung on him. In his other hand, a gleaming dagger appeared out of nowhere and was pressed coldly against his carotid artery.

"Don't move, and don't make a sound." The gurgling voice was extremely low, almost whispering in his ear. The warm breath on his skin brought no warmth, only a chilling cold. "Cooperate well, or you'll get a nice cut on your neck. I promise, it'll be much faster than when you're cutting samples."

The researcher's body stiffened abruptly, all his movements freezing instantly.

He could clearly feel the sharp blade pressing into the skin on his neck, and the chilling threat of death sent shivers down his spine.

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing as he could feel the blade scraping against his skin, and a fine layer of cold sweat instantly beaded on his forehead.

“…I understand…” He managed to squeeze out a dry, hoarse, almost inaudible breath, afraid that if he exerted any force, the blade would slit his throat.

“Very good.” Gulu gestured to Lin Yi with his eyes, but his movements remained firm. “Take us to a quiet place and say it’s a new sample that needs preliminary examination. Be natural. Your life is in your own hands, don’t throw it away.”

The researcher nodded stiffly, struggling to control his almost spasming facial muscles, trying to make himself look merely a little hurried and tired, rather than being held hostage.

He was holding Gulu, a posture that, to outsiders, might look like a researcher carrying an unwell patient on his way to the treatment room.

He moved with a slightly hurried but not too unusual pace, moving his hands and feet in unison toward a side corridor of the main area.

Lin Yi and three "guards" followed closely behind, their faces expressionless, forming a very imposing encirclement.

Along the way, they encountered two researchers hurrying past carrying documents. The researchers glanced at them subconsciously, saw that it was a familiar face carrying a child, followed by a stern-faced research director and armed guards. They did not suspect anything, but simply nodded politely and passed by, continuing to work.

The researcher could hear his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and only when the backs of his other colleagues disappeared at the end of the corridor did he dare to breathe very lightly.

The researcher, carrying Gulu, entered a room with a sign that read "Preliminary Sample Processing Room".

As soon as the door closed, cutting off the view and noise from outside, he immediately followed Gulu's instructions, slowly kneeling down, raising his hands high, his face pale, his voice trembling: "Don't...don't kill me...what do you want to ask? I'll cooperate, I'll definitely cooperate!"

Lin Yi gave Gulu a wink, and Gulu lightly jumped off him, but the dagger was still subtly pointed at him.

The three guards moved silently behind him, forming an absolute suppressive posture.

Lin Yi pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him.

"Synergy, what exactly is going on?" Lin Yi got straight to the point, his voice not loud, but carrying an undeniable pressure, "I want to hear the truth, everything you know."

The researcher kneeling on the ground was stunned for a moment. His face flashed with struggle and fear, which finally turned into a sigh full of exhaustion and helplessness.

“Symphomania… Ha.” He let out a bitter laugh and shook his head. “That’s just the name we use to appease the public. It’s not a sleep disorder at all.”

He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and filled with a near-despair: "Their bodies are indeed 'asleep,' their vital signs are even more stable than normal people, and their metabolism has dropped to an extremely low level, like hibernating animals. But the core problem is consciousness, their spirit, their 'self,' trapped in the depths of dreams, and the proportion of time spent dreaming is getting longer and longer, their perception of reality is getting weaker and weaker, until they are completely lost and can no longer wake up, and their real bodies are just empty shells that can still breathe."

"Dream?" Lin Yi frowned; the word sounded particularly jarring at this moment.

Since entering the Nightmare Realm, one strange thing after another has happened. Could it be that this place is really connected to the history of the Sleeping City?

“Yes, a dream.” The researcher licked his chapped lips. “To put it less scientifically but more bluntly, it’s like they’re having an incredibly long dream from which they can’t wake up on their own. A day in reality could have passed in that bizarre dream at a rate of several months or even longer.”

"The initial stage of 'hypnosis' is when the patient's consciousness begins to tilt more and more frequently toward that dream; then it develops into 'prolonged sleep,' which means that the dream's attraction to consciousness increases; finally, it is 'unconsciousness,' which means that consciousness has been completely dragged into that deep dream world, and the rope of reality has been completely broken. They can never come back."

He paused, glancing cautiously at Lin Yi and Gulu's unwavering expressions, seemingly discerning something from their composure. Finally, he made up his mind, his voice carrying a desperate, almost reckless, impulse: "If... if you want to know the more specific truth... just listening to me isn't enough. Come with me. It's not clear here, and... I think you should see for yourselves what the 'final stage' looks like. Once you see it, you'll understand everything."

Lin Yi and Gulu quickly exchanged a glance. The man's eyes held an extremely complex mix of emotions: fear for his own safety, worry about the unknown consequences, but also an impulse that seemed to stem from a long-suppressed and distorted sense of truth, a desire to finally break down, and even a yearning for everything to be completely revealed.

"Lead the way." Lin Yi stood up. "Don't try anything funny."

"I dare not..." The researcher struggled to his feet, his legs feeling weak.

Under the close "protection" of three "guards," he walked to another metal door on the inside of the room.

This door was more robust than the entrance door, with no windows, and only a prominent biohazard sign and the warning "Level A Authorized Personnel Only" on the door panel.

The other person trembled as they pulled their access card from the pocket of their white coat, swiped it in the sensor area, and then leaned forward, pointing their right eye at a small iris scanner.

"Beep—Verification successful." A cold, electronic voice sounded. "Click."

The sound of the heavy door lock snapping open was exceptionally clear in the quiet room.

The door opened, revealing a smaller, more discreet elevator behind it.

The four entered the elevator, and the researcher pressed the button to go to a lower floor.

As the elevator started moving, the feeling of sinking was more pronounced and prolonged, giving one a sense of oppression as if they were constantly sinking deeper into the earth's crust.

The negative numbers on the display kept jumping and increasing, the red numbers seeming to be counting down the time to hell.

Finally, after a period of unsettling silence, the elevator jolted slightly and came to a stop.

When the elevator doors opened again, a surge of air carrying a strange static charge rushed in.

This place is no longer a research area full of modern technology, but more like a life support capsule exhibition hall, with a vast space that seems to stretch as far as the eye can see.

Beneath the towering dome, countless cylindrical pods emitting a soft, eerie light, like enormous crystal coffins, are arranged in a breathtakingly orderly fashion, stretching to the dark horizon of sight.

Each chamber was filled with a pale blue nutrient solution, with tiny bubbles rising slowly from the bottom.

In the dark blue liquid, a human body was suspended—men, women, young and old, all with their eyes closed and faces expressionless, like sleeping statues. If it weren't for the slight rise and fall of their chests, Lin Yi would probably have thought this was a morgue.

Lin Yi's gaze swept over these people, and he immediately spotted several familiar faces.

Inside a cabin near the entrance, hovering, was Zero, the leader of the "Salvation" organization.

His eyes were closed, his face was lifeless, and his neck and cheeks were covered with fine, spiderweb-like cracks, like those that appear on porcelain after being struck.

Against the backdrop of the pale blue liquid, the cracks took on an eerie bluish-black hue, as if they might shatter completely at any moment.

Not far away, in another pod, hovered Bliss of the Research Institute.

His condition looked even worse than Zero's; the cracks on his face were so dense that they almost covered his entire forehead and temples, like parched, cracked earth.

Some cracks were so deep that the bone was visible, and through those fissures, one could vaguely see that the tissue beneath the skin and flesh was not normal, but a strange substance resembling dull crystals.

He looked like an ancient terracotta figurine that had been poorly restored, so fragile it was suffocating.

Not only them, but looking around, all the "patients" in this huge space had this terrible "crystallization crack" on their body surfaces to varying degrees.

The severity varies; some only have fine lines at the corners of their eyes or on the backs of their hands, while others, like Bliss, have lines all over their bodies, but without exception.

Compared to the patients upstairs who were just sleeping quietly with rosy complexions, the people here seemed more like some kind of non-human beings that were gradually collapsing, in an extremely unstable and terrifying state.

Gulu subconsciously walked to the nearest isolation pod, stretched out his finger, and gently tapped the pod wall.

Bang... Bang...

The sound produced was not the crisp sound that glass should make, but a dull, muffled thud with a peculiar resilience.

The bulkhead is clearly not made of ordinary glass, but a special polymer composite material with extremely strong impact resistance and toughness, just like high-grade bulletproof rubber.

Even when subjected to a violent attack, it will only cause localized damage or cracks, absorbing the impact force, rather than shattering and scattering like ordinary glass. Its primary purpose is to prevent the instantaneous leakage of potentially dangerous substances or energy inside, which could lead to a greater disaster.

It's less of a form of protection and more of a form of isolation.

“This is the final stage of ‘narcolepsy,’ or rather, the truth.” The researcher’s voice rang out from the side, tinged with bitterness and trembling. “Their bodies are crystallizing from the inside out…”

Lin Yi turned his head: "Crystallization? Then what exactly are you protecting against with all those full-body protective suits and such tight isolation?"

Facing Lin Yi's gaze, the researcher slumped against a control panel, as if all his strength had been drained away.

“Based on conventional infectious disease models, we thought it was spread by droplets, like the flu. So the initial isolation measures were also based on that standard. But later, after a lot of isolation analysis and failed cases, we found that the real source of infection was the tiny crystalline particles that gradually appeared in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients as the disease progressed.”

"Cerebrospinal fluid?" Lin Yi pressed.

"Yes...yes." The researcher didn't dare look Lin Yi in the eye, looking down at his trembling hands. "When you sneeze or cough, if the droplets contain trace amounts of cerebrospinal fluid, it's the fastest way to spread the virus. Direct contact with a patient's blood or cerebrospinal fluid carries an even higher risk, almost 100%. The protective suits are to protect us and prevent us from coming into contact with these 'high-concentration sources of infection' during the process."

"As the 'dream' lasts indefinitely, their brains are gradually replaced by an unprecedented crystal. This ever-growing crystal tears apart normal brain tissue and spreads along neural networks throughout the body, resulting in the physical cracks you see now."

At this point, his tone suddenly became somewhat strange: "But! In our research, we discovered that this peculiar crystal contains an unimaginable energy. It... it seems to be able to greatly slow down cell aging, and may even significantly extend the lifespan of organisms!"

"So, this hospital, this underground research institute, all that so-called treatment and isolation, isn't actually for curing them." Hearing this, Lin Yi suddenly understood the significance of its existence.

“A cure?” The researcher’s face broke into a smile that looked more like a grimace. “How could that be? Their goal was never to save people from the beginning. What they wanted was to safely and controllably cultivate and study this crystal, analyze its structure, understand the mechanism of its formation, replicate it, and ultimately extract and utilize that near-eternal potential to serve themselves.”

His voice was filled with helplessness and self-loathing: "As for these patients, they are just raw materials. They are consumables in the experimental process. Once the research is successful or loses its research value, their fate is nothing more than 'their condition worsens,' and they pay a sum of money to their families to settle the matter. We people, who are called researchers, are actually more like miners guarding a precious mine, or workers in a slaughterhouse."

He clutched his head, digging his fingers into his hair. "I can't take it anymore! I really can't take it anymore! I have nightmares every night! I dream of them cracking open, of those crystals growing inside my own body! Watching them turn into this monstrous thing every day, the cracks on their bodies increasing and deepening, this is just wrong! This completely violates all medical ethics and the basic principles of being human! But we're locked up here, forced to sign a damn confidentiality agreement, threatened, monitored... The people outside have no idea what the truth is!"

He finally raised his head, his eyes red-rimmed, and looked at Lin Yi and Gulu as if grasping at the last straw: "You...you're not ordinary people, are you? What brought you here? Can you stop all of this? Or, at least bring the truth out?"

Lin Yi's gaze swept over the cracked faces and finally settled on the researcher who was on the verge of a breakdown.

Although the other party's behavior was very much in line with his own situation, Lin Yi still felt that there was something unusual about this guy.

[Researcher B2-307, it has been detected that you have timed out of your designated work area. Please check your status immediately. Countdown: 25 seconds]

At that moment, an electronic voice sounded from the man's right wrist.

The opponent glanced at the device on his wrist and then entered a password.

[Verification successful. Status updated: Researcher B2-307, in temporary mission.] (End of Chapter)