The afterlife blew up Gensokyo

Clearly not wanting to discuss this matter further, Shi Bai briefly touched on it before continuing.

"What you see is not actually real. This is where reality and illusion meet... Remember, don't touch anything after you come in."

"A virtual place built on top of reality...?"

Her eyes lit up slightly, and Shen Qi followed closely behind.

After feeling as if her body had passed through a layer of bubbles made of flowing water, she arrived at a rather magical place.

Her vision stretched out to an extreme, revealing a winding array of pavilions that seemed to stretch endlessly. Beyond the pavilions, countless points of light of various colors drifted by, with pale gold and sky blue as the main colors, filling every corner of this strange space.

—Like a dream.

The others who followed her in were all stunned by the dreamlike scene before them.

"Teacher, is this your former home?"

The first to recover from that dreamlike scene, looking at the pale golden light that passed through her hand, Yagokoro Eirin couldn't help but ask Shibai, who was standing at the front of them.

"You're overthinking it. This is just a place I live. I have a house here."

With a slight pout, Shi Bai reached out and grabbed the hand of a little girl who had run up to him and was tugging at his clothes. He then walked forward along the winding pavilions.

"You could say it was an unexpected discovery. This is a wondrous world that exists independently of the world, yet in some ways is also attached to it... I call this place the Dream World."

"A dream world..."

Looking at the dreamlike scenery around her, Shenqi seemed lost in thought.

Only she herself knows what she is really thinking.

These pavilions meandered forward, surrounded by colorful lights. After walking along the pavilions for about five minutes, they arrived at a huge square.

In the very center of the square, a cherry blossom tree in full bloom was bursting with vibrant color. Behind the square, a magnificent and luxurious building, its area even larger than the square itself, stood quietly.

After mentally comparing her simple building in the bamboo forest with the magnificent "house" before her, Yagokoro Eirin silently turned her head away.

Originally, she always advocated pragmatism, so even though she lived alone in the bamboo forest for so long, her house there remained extremely simple. In her mind, as long as it was habitable, why bother with so much?

But after seeing this "house" that her teacher called just a "house"... she suddenly had some other extra thoughts.

P.S., there will be another update later. I had a fever and a terrible headache yesterday. I hope I didn't catch anything...

Chapter Fifty-Six: I Remembered Running in the Sunset That Day

A dream world.

"Wait a minute, I remember you just said this house is yours alone. You used to live in such a big house by yourself?"

Coming back to her senses from pondering this wondrous dream world, Shenqi looked at the enormous and luxurious building before her with a slight sense of astonishment.

"If you live alone, is it really necessary to live in such a big house?"

"Is it big?"

Shi Bai turned around and glanced at Shen Qi with a strange look in his eyes. After thinking for a moment, he looked thoughtful.

"I built this from scratch, brick by brick... How does it feel? After all, my initial idea for building this house was to create an unprecedented mansion, so that I could finally own a home..."

"...How big is this?"

Speechless, Shen Qi looked at the endless courtyard before her and asked Shi Bai a question.

"Oh, that's easy to calculate, it's roughly... 2000 kilometers in radius."

After placing the back of his hand on his forehead and gazing into the distance, Shi Bai nodded.

"The actual figures may differ from my estimate, but they should be close."

"A radius of 2000 kilometers... Why did you build such a large area?"

After hearing the person's matter-of-fact answer, Shen Qi felt her eye twitch violently.

"...You have to understand, when people get bored, it can be really terrifying."

As if Shen Qi's words had stirred up some sad memories, Shi Bai looked up at the sky with a melancholy expression.

"Since there was nothing else to do, I just started building houses. And then they got bigger and bigger until they became uncontrollable... If you insist that I give a reason other than boredom."

Turning to look at Shen Qi, Shi Bai gave himself a thumbs-up.

"That's because they're rich and can do whatever they want!!"

"........."

Shenqi felt that this topic was terrible in every sense.

"Alright, you can play around here as you like, but I don't really recommend going to the housing area, because if you're not very familiar with it, you might get lost like I did..."

Shi Bai reached out and patted the little girl's head, then waved his hand and walked towards the building alone.

"I've given the food and other necessities to Yagi. I'm going to take care of some personal matters and retrieve a few things now... Oh, by the way, do you guys want to go racing?"

Before he could finish his sentence, Shi Bai seemed to have thought of something, patted his head, and then turned around.

"There's one of my most treasured possessions in here! I even built a track all by myself back then, but unfortunately, I was the only one there... How about it? Want to play?"

"...Racing?"

Seeing their teacher/brother suddenly become quite excited for some unknown reason, everyone exchanged bewildered glances.

In the end, it was Yagokoro Eirin who broke the awkward silence.

"Teacher, what is a race car...?"

"A racing car is a racing car. I've only summoned a dozen or so of these in total, so they're practically super rare collectibles... Anyway, just come with me."

Laughing loudly, Shi Bai picked up a little girl amidst her exclamation and carried her towards a certain part of the square.

............................................................

"This is... racing?"

Looking at the row of gleaming race cars in the garage in front of them, which were exceptionally cool and stylish in both appearance and design, everyone, including the girl from the Mystic Girl but excluding Shibai, couldn't help but be stunned.

"That's right! This car's name is [Night Legend], the first A-class car I ever used. This car's name is [Unicorn], the B-class car I used the longest. This car's name is [Building Block], my first permanent C-class car..."

After enthusiastically introducing the names of all the race cars one by one amidst everyone's bewildered gazes, Shi Bai was filled with emotion.

"These things represent my youth, just like the ruins of a certain giant city, bringing me countless beautiful memories. It's a pity that even now that I can drive a real car, I can only compare myself to myself; there's no joy in it..."

"You can sit inside this race car, right? But how do you control it?"

Before he could finish his sentence, Shen Qi's slightly excited words came from the side.

"By the way, this thing called a racing car shouldn't be too difficult, right?"

"...When did you get on the bus?"

Seeing that Shen Qi had chosen the [Underworld Legend] car and gotten into it at some unknown time, Shi Bai's expression couldn't help but look a little strange.

"When you introduce these racing cars."

Meeting someone's gaze, Shen Qi blinked, her face full of innocence.

"Didn't you just say I could play with these race cars? Hurry up and teach me how to drive them!"

"Uh... See the buttons in front of the car? The '↑' key moves forward, the '↓' key moves backward, the '←' key moves left, and the '→' key moves right. Press the 'Shift' key and use the direction keys to drift. When the nitro is full, press the 'Ctrl' key to use the nitro... That's it, super simple."

After thinking for a moment, Shi Bai answered decisively.

"But remember to be very careful, don't start practicing before you're proficient..."

"Bang!!!"

With a heavy thud, Shen Qi drove his car straight into the side gate of the parking lot where he had built it, creating a hole, and then drove straight into the square and drove away.

"Fortunately, these race cars don't have any kind of durability rating, since they're practically indestructible no matter how many times they crash or wreck them..."

Looking at the large hole that had been smashed open, Shi Bai muttered something under his breath before looking down at the little girl beside him and asking her a question with a smile.

"So, do you want to play? This kind of racing car is...!?"

Seeing the little girl who wasn't listening to him at all and was staring blankly in a certain direction, Shi Bai's heart sank, and he quickly reached out to wake her up.

"What’s wrong with you!?"

"Brother, it sounds like something is calling me from that direction, that voice is beckoning me to come over..."

Turning her head blankly, the little girl pointed in the direction she had just been looking, looking completely bewildered.

"Don't pay any attention to those strange noises! You don't want to leave us and your sister, do you?!"

Crouching down to look the girl in the eye, Shi Bai's words suddenly became serious.

"As long as you stay here, everything will be fine... Be a good boy and listen to me, okay? After your brother finishes dealing with everything here, we'll go back to the bamboo forest together."

"...Well, I understand."

After a moment of stunned silence, the little girl nodded very seriously.

"We should all go back together."

P.S.: Headache...tickets

Chapter Fifty-Seven: White Jade Tower

A dream world.

No one knows when this world was born, and Shi Bai is no exception. If it weren't for the disaster caused by that accident, he wouldn't have come to this strange world by chance.

In this wondrous world, there is no concept of matter; there are only specks of light of various colors that permeate every corner of this world.

Forget about concepts of direction like up, down, left, and right; even the concepts of time and space don't exist here.

However, while this place is strange, it can also be considered the safest place. Unless someone can replicate what I did or receive my invitation, absolutely no one can enter this magical world... probably?

After discovering this world, he spent a total of five years exploring it, but the final results were pitifully small. After all, there wasn't even a single frame of reference in this world, making the exploration extremely difficult.

The so-called winding pavilions and the vast, continuous buildings covering thousands of kilometers were all built at that time out of a desire to verify something in another way and because they were utterly bored.

As a veteran player who once spent several months building a physical Scarlet Devil Mansion in Minecraft's survival mode, this wasn't too difficult.

...Okay, to be honest, it all boils down to boredom, so incredibly boring that there's practically nothing to do.

As for just how bored he was... he was even tired of playing the "123, freeze!" game with a certain SCP containment object made of reinforced concrete.

If that kind of life continued, Shi Bai had no doubt that he would eventually become a complete psychopath.

So after the building here was basically completed and finished, he left some things that seemed troublesome to him at the time unattended and went out to continue searching for a way to seal himself away and put himself into a deep sleep. He didn't return until now, after who knows how much time has passed.

...So, a certain SCP object who felt very lonely because of his departure had a very affectionate and intimate encounter with him after seeing him return.

"Hopefully it's safe enough here, otherwise..."

After instructing Yagokoro Eirin to take good care of Shiki, Shi Bai, feeling a slight headache, reached out and pressed his forehead before entering the building he had once personally created... a complex spanning 2000 square kilometers.

—Oh, by the way, he named this building "White Jade Tower".

He naturally didn't know what the original [White Jade Tower] looked like, so the [White Jade Tower] he built was entirely based on his own imagination.

With his architectural knowledge that was many years ahead of the world, the fake "White Jade Pavilion" he created was so elegant and beautiful that it was beyond anything in the real world, both in terms of the design of the courtyard and the design of the house itself. In terms of elegance and beauty alone, he could boast without any modesty that it was his greatest masterpiece to date.

Although it seems that this is his only masterpiece so far...

As for why the White Jade Pavilion was built so large, it's because someone felt that although the White Jade Pavilion they built was just a counterfeit, even if it didn't look as good as the real White Jade Pavilion, they still tried their best to match the real White Jade Pavilion in certain aspects.

Even counterfeit goods must maintain a certain level of precision!

...For example, the area occupied by the Baiyulou.

In order to build the Hakugyokurou in his mind, he consulted a lot of materials, and finally found a spell card called "Ghost World Sword "Two Hundred Yoru no Isshin" by Youmu, the gardener of Hakugyokurou in later generations, as well as related spell card descriptions.

A yojana is an ancient Indian unit of measurement, with various interpretations. The distance ranges from approximately 6.6 kilometers to 15 kilometers, with the middle value being 10 kilometers. After some calculations, he successfully determined that the area of ​​the [White Jade Pavilion] was 2000 square kilometers and perfectly replicated it.

Although this fake "Baiyulou" was originally built out of extreme boredom, it would be a lie to say that he didn't feel a sense of accomplishment looking at the massive building in front of him.

If you were to ask him what he's thinking right now, it would be that he wants to live to the future and compare this fake "White Jade Pavilion" he built with the real "White Jade Pavilion" where some gluttonous person in the future lives...

"Ah... as expected, I still got lost..."