About four years ago, the crystal stone guarded by the He family for generations was stolen by unknown forces.
He Xian, the father of He Chou, who obeyed the family instructions, was very anxious. He knew the danger of this crystal stone and knew that this terrible stone must not fall into the hands of outsiders, otherwise the power of the stone would definitely create a large number of " "Dreamers", more media will infect more people into nightmares.
If this terrible power continues to spread, and it really spreads like a virus, it may form a "virus" storm no less than Ebola.
Mr. He quickly began to seek help from various forces, and he even left behind his only son, who wandered around the world alone, looking for clues of that unknown force.
While Mr. He was leaving, the x department, which has always had an agreement and cooperation with the He family, learned of the theft of the crystal stone, and accordingly provided some help to Mr. He, sending additional manpower and funds to help Mr. He find the crystal stone.
Department X is a national department. Its investigation capabilities and intelligence collection capabilities are outstanding, no less than other related intelligence organizations. The people in Department X are also very confident in this point. They think that with the help of their own group, any Mister will be able to retrieve the crystal stone soon.
But the imagination is beautiful, but the result is unsatisfactory.
No matter how much manpower and material resources were used, or even spreading the net on the Internet with advanced information, the x department did not receive any news about the crystal stone.
They originally believed that after the crystal stone was stolen, there would definitely be new "dreamers" due to the power of the stone. In addition, most dreamers' spirits were unstable, and many dreamers would change their temperaments and cause social problems; The dreamer will be valued by the hospital because of unexplained prolonged sleep.
Therefore, as long as the x department pays attention to these recent criminals with abnormal behaviors, as well as the patients with abnormal sleep admitted by the hospital, and obtains information from them, they can follow the clues to find the whereabouts of the crystal stone.
But not at all, all the "dreamers" they could find were actually ordinary criminals, and many large and small hospitals they paid attention to recently had no patients with abnormal sleep.
After investigating for a long time, there was no news. The x department thinks... This may be because those guys who stole the crystal stones have gone abroad, and they naturally couldn't find any relevant information in the country.
But in this way, the scope of the investigation has been expanded. In addition, it is more difficult to investigate abroad, and there are also complicated national relations, which makes the investigation of the x department impossible.
Asking for help from those foreign forces in the name of an individual should naturally appear relaxed and comfortable, and will not cause too many international problems.
However, Mr. He, who has been tossed around in many forces and organizations and used the power of countless intelligence personnel, still cannot find the crystal stone after receiving so much support. The guys who stole the crystal stone seemed to disappear into this world out of thin air. Leave no trace, no audio, nothing.
Even the bad situation that caused a large number of dreamers to appear due to the large-scale infection of crystal stones did not happen, and everything was so peaceful.
No matter how I searched for it, it was useless, and then four years passed in the blink of an eye. Up to now, Mr. He still cannot find his crystal stone as he wished.
But recently, Mr. He has made a new breakthrough.
He got clues about the whereabouts of the crystal from an underground intelligence organization. This stone... seems to have been stolen by a religious organization.
After Mr. He shared the information he had learned with the cooperating X department, X department also began to investigate this religious organization. After having a big target, the difficulty of the investigation dropped suddenly, and the X department found out that this religious organization was called "Fringe Church".
"Fringe church?" Xu Haoyu sat on the boss's chair and listened to the young man from the x department tell him.
The young man told Xu Haoyu: "This is a religious organization that has existed secretly for many years...or a cult organization, but it is hidden very deeply. It is only in the past two years that we have found out what this cult organization has revealed."
"What kind of... cult?" Xu Haoyu couldn't help asking curiously.
"You know, almost all religions believe in gods." The x boy showed a thoughtful expression, "but the marginal churches believe in demons."
"Isn't this the so-called Satanism? A church that believes in demons. It is said that a long time ago, some people deliberately used the name 'Satan' to attract audiences in order to promote their own ideas." Xu Haoyu thought he was a bit concerned about this. Understand, "Cults Against Christ."
Boy x said: "I think you misunderstood. Satanism has indeed been misunderstood as a cult by many people since ancient times, but in fact... this religion is not a cult at all. Satanism does not really believe in Satan or some kind of demon, they just Take Satan as a concept. They promote egoism, deny the existence of God, and preach that believers love and respect themselves, and they are in charge of their own soul and freedom, not God."
"The idea of Satanism is 'There is no God, I am God'. They do whatever they want, but not without restraint. They will not do things that violate discipline and law, but they will revenge and will not tolerate. They believe that people should be themselves Want to do things, good and evil should be seen by people with their own eyes."
"Simply put, Satanism, in a sense, is a bit mocking of those who rely on nihilistic gods and false commandments to support and restrain themselves. The concept it believes in is also very similar to the mainstream views of many people in modern times, so it is not at all Go to a cult."
Xu Haoyu understood, stretched out his hand and scratched the back of his head ignorantly, "I see... I don't know much about these religions, and to be honest, I don't understand either."
"Most people in the country are atheists or pantheists." X boy laughed, "There is no need to talk about Satanism, let's go back to the issue of marginal churches... This church is obviously different from Satanism, and marginal religions really believe in a demon , they believe the demon is real."
"What kind of demon?"
Boy x didn't answer Xu Haoyu's question directly, but changed the direction and said, "Wouldn't that piece of crystal stone from the He family make people fall into a long-term nightmare and become a so-called 'dreamer'? "
"We have conducted detailed investigations and inspections on the identity background, physical condition, mental state, etc. of almost every 'dreamer'." X boy kept talking, and he was operating his laptop again, and collected over the years. All kinds of "dreamer" materials that I got were pulled out and shown to Xu Haoyu.
"Look, the people recorded on our list are all dreamers." A long list of people was called up on the computer of x teenager, each list has basic information such as photos and names, including their recent The physical and life and death conditions are all recorded column after column.
When Xu Haoyu was flipping through the list of these dreamers, he even found the messages of Zhou Yue and Mu Qin on it. After seeing the messages of Zhou Yue and Mu Qin, Xu Haoyu suddenly raised his head and looked at boy x: "It seems that you also Investigated Mu Qin and Zhou Yue."
"Long-term sleep disorder and disorder, this kind of case is easy to investigate, we only need to check the hospital records, and then observe those suspected 'dreamers' patients for a period of time, and we can basically confirm whether the other party is a dreamer or not. "
Boy X shook his head: "However, the cases of Mu Qin and Zhou Yue are well hidden..."
As he said x, the young man raised his head and glanced at Xu Haoyu: "It should be said that you and your Xu family hid them deeply, major. You have protected these two people very well. We only released Zhou and Xu after we got a report from Mr. He recently. The information of the two of them has been added to the dreamer information record database."
Xu Haoyu smiled helplessly: "So I hindered your department's investigation?"
"Almost." Boy x continued to flip through his laptop, "To be honest, the cases of Mu Qin and Zhou Yue are very strange, at least I have never heard of a dreamer who can wake up after falling into a long sleep. "
Boy X talked a lot, his mouth seemed dry, he took a sip from the teacup on Xu Haoyu's table, and continued: "I've said so much, I think you should also realize a very, very important issue—— These people who became 'dreamers', what exactly did they dream about?"
Xu Haoyu nodded in agreement when he heard the words: "Yes, I really wanted to ask you this question just now. What exactly did they dream that made them go crazy and couldn't sleep?"
"That's why we investigated these dreamers." Boy X pointed to the list of dreamers on the computer, "We asked every dreamer what they dreamed about."
"Most dreamers say that they don't remember, that they can't remember the things in the dream at all, but the lingering fear still remains in the body and brain, and their emotions become very erratic and difficult to control."
"A small number of dreamers said that they vaguely remembered that they were trapped in a closed space. They could even describe the environmental details of this closed space. Some said that they were in a forest that they could not get out of. In a room with doors and windows blocked. The accounts of these people vary, but one thing in common is that they all say they are trapped in a 'closed' environment."
"These 'dreamers' who can remember the scenes in the dream, some of them will use any art form... such as paintings and words, to show the scenes in the dream, and then these paintings and words become the 'medium', after contact with the medium There will be new dreamers born, one after another infection."
Xu Haoyu said: "After talking so much, I still don't know what the dreams of these dreamers are. I just dreamed that I was trapped in a closed environment. Can this make them insane?"
"The question you mentioned, our department has repeatedly studied and thought about it." X boy said, "Later, we sought help from a number of psychiatrists and psychologists, and after joint discussions, we deduced a possible answer."
X boy's words are suspenseful and very attractive. Hearing this, Xu Haoyu was anxious: "What answer, tell me quickly."
"This is a kind of psychological suggestion." Boy X concluded in one sentence, "That crystal stone has a strong psychological suggestion effect, and all people who have touched it will fall into their own dreams because of this suggestion. This This kind of implication comes with mental damage, leading to mental breakdown and a big change in temperament, and some people will give up their consciousness because of the mental breakdown, and fall into a deeper sleep, never to wake up again."
"Then what about those 'mediums'?" Xu Haoyu didn't understand, "The medium left by the dreamer will also make people become a new dreamer."
"We think those dreamers, under the influence of this strong psychological suggestion, will also leave corresponding 'hints' on their items to infect more people."
Boy x said and brought up the "Crystal Stone" photo taken more than ten years ago that Xu Haoyu had seen before. Boy X pointed to the densely packed mysterious words on the surface of the crystal stone in the photo, and said to Xu Haoyu: "We guess, The strong psychological suggestion effect of this crystal stone is caused by these mysterious words on the crystal stone, but after investigation, it is found that this text does not belong to any civilization in the history of the earth... That is to say, it may not be something created by human beings. "
Xu Haoyu felt as if he was listening to the Arabian Nights: "Are you going to tell me that the writing on this crystal stone...is the writing of aliens?"
"This possibility is not ruled out." Boy x replied with a sigh, "We have been asking text experts to study and translate the text on the crystal stone on the photo... After studying for several years, we probably translated this sentence."
"What words?"
"A world that exists through dreams." Boy x replied, "I don't know if it's right, and those philologists can't guarantee the accuracy of their translations."
Xu Haoyu was confused when he heard that, "It means the world exists through dreams?"
"Probably it means that..." Boy X was also very distressed looking for adjectives, "A dream of one person is just a dream, but when multiple people have the same dream, it becomes the world... It seems to be the case."
"What the hell?" Xu Haoyu was completely confused, "Did you come up with such a result after studying for a long time?"
"I can't do anything about it. I'm not in charge of research." X boy laughed, "I'm in charge of investigation and communication."
"Okay... What do the crystal stone and the dream have to do with the so-called 'marginal church'?"
"Some of the believers in the fringe churches are dreamers, and some are aspiring to become dreamers." Boy x said the key point, "They believe that the world dreamed by the dreamer is real, and the world in the dream There is an omnipotent devil who is as omnipotent as a god and dominates everything. If they want to enter the dream world, they worship the devil in the dream, hoping that the devil can take them into the dream world."
"According to what they say, that dream world is called 'the edge world.'"
"In order to enter the fringe world, this group of people seems to have been staring at the He family, and finally found an opportunity to steal the crystal stone four years ago, and then disappeared without a trace."
Xu Haoyu really digested everything that x boy said for a long time, and after a long while he sighed and said: "It's really weird, I'm a little dizzy for a while, let me take it easy."
After a long silence, Xu Haoyu asked the young man, "Since you have revealed these top-secret contents to me, you should ask me for something, right?"
"Yes... We believe that within the military, people from the fringe churches have also infiltrated, so I hope that you, Major, can help a little in this regard, because it is not easy for us to intervene." X boy said in surprise.
The boy said: "The way the fringe church expands its believers is a bit similar to the way the crystal stone infected the dreamer. They seem to use methods similar to psychological suggestion to make a normal... ordinary person who has nothing to do Become a member of the fringe church and help the church do things."
Hearing this, Xu Haoyu suddenly remembered some things. The things he remembered made him feel horrified. He even looked at the boy x in front of him with horrified eyes, "A method similar to psychological suggestion? Can you describe it in detail?"
"It is said that it is almost like being possessed by a ghost, and the spirit is controlled by other people. The words and deeds seem to be the same as usual, but they will do things for the marginal church that they would not do at all."
"Fortunately, this mental control similar to 'possession' is only temporary. Most people are only temporarily controlled, and will soon return to normal, and lose the memory of being controlled."
"This kind of method is hard to guard against, and we don't know how they use this kind of 'possession' to control others. There are very few traces left by this church, but it is not completely traceless."
Having said this, boy x raised his head and glanced at Xu Haoyu, only to find that Xu Haoyu's face was pale, as if he had seen a ghost.
The boy couldn't help but asked with concern: "Major? Are you okay?"
Xu Haoyu didn't answer, he pursed his lips and remained silent for a long time before slowly answering: "It's nothing."
Xu Haoyu is indeed fine, he just thought of the incident not long ago when he was possessed by a "monster" and controlled to threaten his sister Xu Lin.
Later, Zhou Yue and Mu Qin just explained to them vaguely, and Xu Haoyu didn't go into it.
Now that he heard all this from the mouth of the boy x, Xu Haoyu realized belatedly that his close friend Mu Qin probably launched a battle against the fringe church and the fringe world a long time ago.
And it continues to this day.
"Can you get that crystal stone back?" Xu Haoyu suddenly asked the boy from the x department.
The boy was taken aback for a moment, and replied, "We will do our best."
"Add me, share intelligence resources, and I will help you uproot that shit cult."
Boy X immediately smiled and said, "Then I have to rely on you, Major."
The boy from Department X went back later, and Xu Haoyu started to deal with the transfer of Mu Qin and Zhou Yue. It was not an easy task to send the two of them abroad "calmly", Mu Qin said, but Zhou Yue After all, Yue is the young master of the Zhou family. After staying in Xu Lin's hospital for a long time, I am afraid that Zhou's family will come to make trouble.
At the beginning, Xu Haoyu wanted to transfer Zhou Yue and Mu Qin as soon as possible. If Zhou's family came to him later, he would fake the hospital's surveillance video, saying that Zhou Yue had never been to their hospital, creating the illusion that Zhou Yue had disappeared.
It's just that Xu Haoyu didn't expect that as soon as the teenagers from the x department left, Zhou Yue's mother, Xie Zhu, would come to him on the back. First of all, Xie Zhu was looking for Xu Haoyu's sister Xu Lin. She told Xu Lin that she wanted to see Xu Haoyu, and said bluntly that she was here to find Xu Haoyu.
Hearing from his sister that Xie Zhu was going to see him, Xu Haoyu suddenly felt flustered and anxious, for fear that Xie Zhu would find out that he wanted to secretly move her son away.
But after Xie Zhu appeared in front of Xu Haoyu, his attitude surprised Xu Haoyu.
Xie Zhu entered Xu Haoyu's room, and the first thing he said was: "You didn't do what I said, Xu Haoyu, I said don't let Zhou Yue and Mu Qin meet again."
Xie Zhu's words are very strange, because Xu Haoyu has never met Zhou Yue's mother, Xie Zhu, before, and all he knows about this woman is from his sister Xu Lin. Xu Haoyu is not familiar with Xie Zhu at all. As soon as he saw him, he opened his mouth and said such words.
But this passage is very meaningful, Xu Haoyu thought about it carefully, and thought of what the boy from the X department told him about the "possession" incident of the cult's fringe church, he couldn't help looking at Xie Zhu in horror.
Xie Zhu didn't give Xu Haoyu time to think, and walked straight up to Xu Haoyu. She supported the table in front of Xu Haoyu with her hands, her movements were quite masculine, "Xu Haoyu, do you know who I am?"
Xu Haoyu was dazed for a while, opened his mouth, and asked tentatively as if he had enlightened: "Amu?"
Xie Zhu didn't answer, she stood up straight, "Sure enough, you still have brains, why don't you listen to me?"
Xu Haoyu looked shocked, put his hands on his forehead, seemed to ease his emotions, and asked Xie Zhu after a long while: "Is it really Ah Mu?"
"Who else could it be?" Xie Zhu crossed his hands over his chest, his movements still somewhat masculine.
"My God!" Xu Haoyu couldn't hide his astonishment, and stared at Xie Zhu in a daze: "Amu, are you also a member of that fringe cult?"
When Xie Zhu heard Xu Haoyu mention a special term "marginal cult", he also stared at Xu Haoyu in surprise, and said at the same time: "What? What are you talking about? Marginal... cult?"
At this moment, Xie Zhu... is Mu Qin. Mu Qin is now taking advantage of the fact that the Faceless Man has no time to control him, using the power of the Butterfly Throne to come to the present world, and chose Xie Zhu, who has relatively weak mental power, to possess him.
After possessing Xie Zhu, Mu Qin was able to roughly read Xie Zhu's memory, so he knew a series of things that Zhou Yue encountered in the real world after he sent Zhou Yue out of the marginal world.
Mu Qin also deduced that Xu Haoyu must have not followed his instructions in the end, and let Zhou Yue run to see his body.
What he originally meant was to hope that after Zhou Yue escaped from the fringe world, he would be able to completely cut off contact with that world, and stop contacting the media related to the fringe world, so as to prevent the faceless people from doing anything to Zhou Yue.
But thinking about it now, Mu Qin knows that he can't protect Zhou Yue in a watertight manner at all. The power of the faceless man is too strong. As long as the faceless man really wants to drag Zhou Yue into the water, there are ten thousand ways to torture Zhou Yue Zhou Yue, Zhou Yue has no possibility of escaping.
With no way to protect Zhou Yue, Mu Qin could only seek other solutions. Now Mu Qin pinned his hopes on an important message that echo and Jin Zeng told him one after another. Echo and Jin both mentioned that the edge world was sealed by unknown people in the last version update stage, which made the edge game completely shut down, and it took five years before it was accepted by Jin's parents and other "believers" who believed in the edge world. It was artificially turned on about four years ago.
From these messages, Mu Qin can learn that the fringe world can be sealed, but the question is how to seal it
Mu Qin decided to start with Jin's parents. Since Jin said that his parents were the group of people who opened the fringe world four years ago, then his parents must also know some inside information, so just find a way to extract information from Jin's parents. just fine.
However, Jin told Muqin that his parents also entered the edge world with him four years ago, and it didn't take long for them to survive the terrible cycle of these killing games and died. Jin is the only player who has lived since the fringe world opened four years ago.
"Is there no one else alive among the group of 'believers' including your parents?" Mu Qin asked unwillingly.
Jin replied: "Yes, there are other believers who are still in the real world. As long as you can return to reality and find those people, you may be able to learn the truth about the opening of the marginal world four years ago, and even get the seal of the marginal world." way."
Afterwards, Mu Qin traded Echo's white card to Jin using a certain player's system, and asked Jin to meet Echo on Echo's throne map, and let the two of them form an alliance to quickly establish a force in the marginal world. Mnuchin wants the force established by Kim to continue to investigate in the fringe world, and at the same time find a way to deal with another upcoming version update event in the fringe world.
And Mu Qin himself decided to follow the clues Jin gave him, return to the present world through the power of the Butterfly Throne, possess someone, and then go to his almighty friend Xu Haoyu for help... Xu Haoyu really helped in many ways Mu Qin was very busy, although he was always involved in these dangerous accidents, it always made Mu Qin feel sorry.
Mu Qin first planned to transfer all the clues that Jin gave him to Xu Haoyu, and then asked Xu Haoyu to investigate the affairs of the group of believers four years ago, to find out how they got the crystal core of the edge world, and how to open the edge. world.
But Mu Qin never expected that his actions at this moment coincided with Xu Haoyu. Xu Haoyu had just learned about the existence of crystal stones and the fringe church from the X department, and was preparing to help the X department eradicate this cult so as to regain that cult. A very important crystal stone.
Mu Qin and Xu Haoyu, good comrades-in-arms, used to stand back to back on the battlefield and entrusted all their trust to each other. The high level of tacit understanding between them allowed them to successfully complete various tasks and battles countless times.
It's the same this time, one of them is in the dream and the other is in reality, but they are standing side by side on the same road.