Duosheng Danyuan

The moment the door opened, the chairman, who had said he was going to go back to sleep, sat up again and irritably patted the blankets on the bed in front of him, which made the other two roommates in the dormitory, including me, turn their heads.

"Ugh, this is so annoying, I'm not sleeping. Hey! You're going out, right? Can you pick up a package for me?"

"..."

Faced with this seemingly illogical and far-fetched remark, I became even more convinced that my guess was correct. So, ignoring the chairman behind me, I opened the door directly.

Outside the door, as always, was the living room of the thatched cottage in the quiet retreat.

Looking at the scene outside the door, I breathed a sigh of relief and stepped out.

"Hmm!"

I gasped for breath, and with a familiar start, I woke up again. Beside me was the alarm clock I'd brought with me the night before, though it hadn't gone off yet.

"That's really true." I sat up, stretched my body, and murmured to myself.

Then, I started groping around in my pants pockets.

"Tsk, as expected, it's no good." I clicked my tongue as I felt my empty pockets.

Last night, before going to bed, I made sure to leave the USB drive on the table and didn't take it with me. And in the hallucination I just had, the USB drive was indeed still on the table when I got out of bed.

Just before stepping out of the room, I specifically copied some information about strange rules onto a USB drive I was carrying, wanting to test whether I could actually bring it out.

I know that trying to bring items from the illusion into reality is absurd, but I still want to try. The illusion of the Tranquil Abode is so real and so powerful that sometimes I can't even tell whether I'm in the illusion or in reality.

Compared to the me in the Shengdan Academy now, is the me in the timeline who was killed by falling steel bars the real me?

Or rather, compared to the illusory reality simulated in the Quiet Abode, is the me who is still trapped in the Shengdan Academy by strange rules and legends the real me?

Furthermore, if we switch perspectives, compared to the "me" who walks out of the illusion and returns to the thatched hut of the Quiet Abode, the "me" who walks from the illusion to the illusory reality created by the Quiet Abode is the real "me".

"Hiss!" Thinking of this, for some reason, I suddenly felt a headache.

My thoughts, random, chaotic, and gloomy, surged wildly in my mind like seaweed, yet I couldn't make sense of them at all.

The overlap between the dream world and reality simulated in the Tranquil Abode and the dream world in reality made me somewhat dizzy, and I was genuinely starting to lose sight of the differences between the three. Humans, ultimately, perceive the world through their five senses; they lack the ability to resist the world through willpower.

Sitting on the bed, with a headache that lasted for a long time, I gradually pulled myself out of the indescribable dizziness.

Calming down, I let out a long sigh of relief and mentally gave a precise name to the reality and illusion of the Tranquil Abode.

First, in my mind, the Shengdan Academy is my current real environment; therefore, the world within the Shengdan Academy is the primary reality. This is something I must firmly believe.

Secondly, the place I want to return to, the place where I have lived for more than 20 years, Earth, China, that world is the real reality, so I have decided to call it the Zero Reality.

Finally, I treated the world simulated by the Quiet Abode as a virtual reality because it was so real that it caused me to have a series of physiological discomforts and rejection reactions. Therefore, I decided to call it the Second Reality.

After thinking it through, my headache improved. So, I got out of bed, put the USB drive that I had left on the table last night back into my pocket, rubbed my face with both hands, let out a long sigh, and then opened the door and walked towards the living room.

Somewhat surprisingly, even though it's only a little before 8:10, Lin Xu has already come out.

"Good morning! I didn't expect you to be out so early today." I greeted Lin Xu with a yawn as I walked towards him.

"Hmm...uh, hehe..." Lin Xu nodded at me, and then I clearly noticed that there was an indescribable twitching and twisting at the corner of his mouth, as if he was trying his best to endure something.

"What's wrong?" I asked, puzzled.

"..."

Without saying a word, Lin Xu simply raised his right index finger, which trembled slightly, and pointed towards the kitchen.

I followed his finger and saw that the kitchen light was on. Before I could fully understand what was going on, I was about to ask Lin Xu what he wanted to say again when I suddenly heard the sound of pots and pans clattering in the kitchen.

"Ah..." Realizing there was someone in the kitchen, I opened my mouth slightly, turned around abruptly, and looked at Lin Xu with disbelief.

"Hmm..." Lin Xu swallowed noticeably and nodded at me again.

"Is it Su Wanqing?" I asked tentatively.

"At least her appearance is exactly the same as Su Wanqing's," Lin Xu said, trying to control the trembling in his voice. He took a deep breath and continued, "I woke up at seven o'clock and came to the living room from my room at seven-thirty. Su Wanqing... well, I'll call her Su Wanqing for now. She came out of her room a few minutes before eight o'clock."

"...Did she speak to you?"

"Of course not, so I didn't speak to her. After she came out of the room, she just glanced at me and went straight into the kitchen, and she hasn't come out yet..."

"I see..." I nodded thoughtfully, then said, "She's been in the kitchen for about ten minutes?"

"Yes."

"Hmm..." Suddenly, a bold idea popped into my head, "Lin Xu, why don't you go into the kitchen?"

"I'll go in... huh?"

"I said, go into the kitchen with her and see for yourself what she's trying to do." I repeated my words carefully.

"Uh..." Lin Xu subconsciously pursed his lips, clearly instinctively unwilling. However, after a long silence, he spoke again, "Why?"

"Because the rules of the Quiet Abode regarding roommates are described too briefly. I mean, the fourth rule of the Quiet Abode only states that a roommate who doesn't come home at night might be simulated into a new clone by the Quiet Abode, but it doesn't say how we should deal with this clone, you know what I mean?"

"...I don't really want to understand," Lin Xu said, rubbing his forehead. "Are you trying to find something out about her?"

"Yes," I nodded, "the rules don't specify how we should get along with our roommate's copy, so I think we can try to treat Su Wanqing as our roommate and communicate normally, just like the family members in the second reality."

"It's ridiculous, but it's not entirely without reason... Wait, what's a second reality?"

"It's just a form of address; I'll explain the details to you later. Anyway, go to the kitchen and talk to her."

"Alright... what are you planning to do? Since you want me to contact Su Wanqing alone, does that mean you have something else to do?"

"Yes," I admitted without denying it, and then explained to Lin Xu, "I plan to go and check on Su Wanqing's room."

"A room?" Surprisingly, Lin Xu looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"You said that this Su Wanqing came out of Su Wanqing's room, right?"

"Um."

"Then I'm really curious, do you think this Su Wanqing's room is the same room as the real Su Wanqing's room?"

"What nonsense are you talking about? Of course it is..." Lin Xu suddenly stopped halfway through his sentence, as if he had figured something out.

“That’s right,” I nodded, looking at Lin Xu who seemed to understand my thoughts, and continued, “This is the Shengdan Academy, a place where a thatched hut for four people can appear out of thin air. Since Jingxi Lodge was able to do something like that the night before last, now that Su Wanqing has appeared, I think he should make some changes as well. For example, changes to the rooms.”

"Well... okay, I understand." After thinking for a moment, Lin Xu nodded, then got up and walked towards the kitchen.

I roughly understand why he hesitated; he probably felt my logic was somewhat hasty and far-fetched. The connection between the imposter Su Wanqing's appearance and Su Wanqing's room isn't as strong as I described. However, a certain degree of analogy can indeed be drawn between the two.

Watching Lin Xu walk into the kitchen, I also stood up from the sofa and walked towards Su Wanqing's room.

My thoughts aren't actually that complicated. First, as I told Lin Xu, what exactly does the room that created the fake Su Wanqing look like? That in itself is worth exploring. Second, I came here for the clues in Su Wanqing's room.

Zeng Yixi was the first person to discover clues about the Shengdan Academy's native cultivation techniques in the Jingxi Lu room. From the worst-case scenario, if she shared this with Qian Zhe, then I would be the third person to know about it—given Qian Zhe's personality, he wouldn't share the clues in the room with Wang Hao or Chen Yu.

As the third person to know about this, I am not stingy in sharing the cultivation techniques I found and some normal clues with Lin Xu, or even making it public. However, there is one thing I must obtain—namely, priority control over the clues.

In this bizarre world of rules, information is everything, clues are everything. Any clue, unless obtained directly, carries the risk of being compromised. Moreover, I have another serious concern—perhaps some clues point to the possibility, or even the method, of sacrificing others.

Faced with such a clue, if someone else obtains it before me, it would be tantamount to entrusting my life to the kindness of others. If possible, unless absolutely necessary, I still prefer to trust my own conscience.

Therefore, the second purpose of checking Su Wanqing's room was to find clues. With an imposter Su Wanqing present, even if Su Wanqing returned and found signs of disturbance in her room, I could blame it on the imposter.

With this in mind, I opened Su Wanqing's door directly.

However, to my surprise and completely unexpectedly, Su Wanqing's room was completely empty!