NABC Chapter 345
Chapter 345
Still worried, he stopped Lin Shuying and the other woman and said, "Why don't you wait a moment, I'll ask the professor."
He then began contacting his superiors.
Lin Shuying frowned slightly, but still spoke gently, "I am a free person, thank you for your concern."
After saying that, she left directly. Lin Qiaoqiao sighed. Recently, she had clearly noticed that Lin Shuying's mood was off, but there was nothing she could do but try her best to do the things Lin Shuying had assigned her. She had wanted to find an opportunity to have a heart-to-heart talk with her for several days, but she had been too busy lately.
As they entered Qingfengyi, Lin Shuying asked, "Where are we going?"
It's best if Lin Qiaoqiao decides on the venue for the drinking party she's organizing.
Lin Qiaoqiao said, "You decide. Choose a place where you can relax. We haven't had a proper conversation in a long time, have we?"
Lin Shuying paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "Then... I'll take you to my secret base. From now on, this secret base will be yours."
Originally, this place was also meant for Lin Qiaoqiao, but thinking of this, Lin Shuying said solemnly, "Qiaoqiao, I'm going to leave you with an incredibly troublesome mess. I'm sorry."
Lin Qiaoqiao said, "I will stick to your wishes until the day I can no longer make decisions, act, think, or exist."
They didn't explicitly say what kind of mess it was, but the two of them tacitly understood what kind of mess it was.
Lin Shuying took out a bamboo dragonfly, which was very well made and had a faint fragrance of bamboo. With a gentle rub, it flew into the sky, and after a slight sway in front of them, the two entered a dungeon. The spawn point was on a peach tree, which was intertwined with the surrounding plum, crabapple, pear, and pomegranate trees, allowing them to traverse between the trees.
There's a small house here that looks like it was built by a child. The branches used to build the house weren't cut down, and it looks very lively.
Sitting in the house, you can see the valley and peaks opposite, and a winding river flowing between the two mountains.
Patches of colorful buckwheat flowers bloom across the valleys and plains, swaying like pink feathers in the wind. There's no fragrance, yet one can almost smell it.
Lin Shuying took out a bamboo tube and gave it to Lin Qiaoqiao, "Drink up, it's delicious. I loved it when I was little, especially the kind my grandma made."
Lin Qiaoqiao asked, "Is this your hometown?"
The word "hometown" felt too hot to bear; Lin Shuying found herself increasingly unable to bear hearing it since arriving in the interstellar world.
"Yes, that's what my hometown looks like in my earliest memories. Later, as times changed, it became less beautiful. Looking back now, I was really naive. What place isn't beautiful? As long as it's my hometown, even if it's covered in cow dung and garbage, it's still beautiful."
Lin Qiaoqiao couldn't quite grasp that emotion, perhaps because she was born in interstellar space, still lives in interstellar space, and has always been on the planet she was born on.
Lin Shuying continued, "My grandparents planted a lot of peach trees, plum trees, pomegranate trees, chestnut trees, orange trees, and grapevines. For a while, when I went back home, I suddenly said I wanted to eat cherries and blueberries, so they specially bought four or five trees to plant and even built a greenhouse for them. I would run inside every day to see when they would bear fruit. I would ask my grandparents every day, and they would always laugh and say, 'You've trampled the ground to the point of being unusable, how could it bear fruit?' After that, I stopped going in and just peered out from the outside."
The peach blossoms are truly beautiful when they bloom, exceptionally beautiful. Everyone says peach, plum, and pear blossoms don't bloom together, but on my land they always seem to open around the same time. The peach blossoms lead the way, the plum blossoms vie for attention, and the pear blossoms arrive late, but they bloom the most vibrantly.
As he spoke, he led Lin Qiaoqiao to the tree. There were no stools or tables, only a ridge between the fields. It seemed to be frequently trampled, and the grass couldn't grow.
"This was created by directly extracting my memories."
Lin Qiaoqiao said worriedly, "Where did you get this memory retrieval system from... Don't do that next time, it'll mess with your brain."
If complete memory images could be extracted, interstellar scientists wouldn't need the summoners to exert any effort; they could simply extract their life memories. However, current technology can't do that. It can only authorize an intelligent system to read partial memory content, and the person being extracted must be highly focused and willing to have their memories extracted, then the extracted content must be repaired. Like game modeling, it's not something you can just create based on your ideas.
Forcibly extracting brain tissue would trigger a protective mechanism, either turning the person into an idiot or extracting a bunch of gibberish. Scientists don't understand why; the human brain is just too complex.
Although there are no publicly known memory extraction devices or research institutions of this kind, there are countless, many of them operating covertly. Research on the human brain is like a gold mine, driving people to madness and relentless pursuit.
Lin Shuying obtained it through a fellow villager who had infiltrated the space pirates.
"Only here, where there were so many places I wanted to create. In the end, I chose this place. You know, game design systems are influenced by subjective consciousness, only real memories are not. I... I guess I've made up for my regrets."
As we spoke, the seasons changed.
Flowers fade, green fruits turn yellow, autumn leaves are harvested, and snow covers the bare earth. Birds sing by day, insects chirp by night, summer is filled with frogs, and autumn is marked by the heart-wrenching cicadas, as if they want to scream out all the pent-up frustration of the past few years.
The two of them didn't move an inch, yet everything was displayed so realistically before their eyes. It was so lifelike, a one-to-one replica of Lin Shuying's childhood memories.
Lin Shuying handed the bamboo dragonfly that had reappeared in her hand to Lin Qiaoqiao. "This is the only real place in Qingfengyi. I'm entrusting it to you. If you encounter any problems in the future, you can come in and take a look. Perhaps you can find the answer. Qiaoqiao, I sincerely hope that Qingfengyi is a warm, beautiful, happy, and vibrant world where everyone can find hope. I am insignificant and cannot ensure that everyone can enter this pure land, but I hope that those who come in can be surrounded by beauty and peacefully enjoy happiness."
The wish is neither too big nor too small, and it's incredibly difficult to achieve, yet some people still shed their blood for it.
Looking at the world that had once again transformed into a sea of flowers, Lin Qiaoqiao asked, "May I know your plans for the future?"
As the company's second-in-command, she knew many of Lin Shuying's actions, but she wouldn't ask unless Lin Shuying said so, and she would cooperate when necessary. She believed that Lin Shuying would speak up when the time was right, but at this moment, in such a beautiful world, she couldn't help but ask.
Perhaps I've wanted to ask this for a long time.
Lin Shuying looked down at the valley below, imagining the season frozen in spring, when petals were fluttering in the air. Before she knew it, her clothes and hair were covered in petals—plum blossoms, peach blossoms, pear blossoms, and more.
"You've worked so hard. I know how much pressure you're under, how many people are trying to figure things out, and how strong you are behind your drunken nights. I really admire you. If it were me, I probably would have given up long ago. The pressure is immense."