Chapter 42: Jellyfish

The girl’s voice was clear and cold, filled with a lonely determination to go forward without turning back. The two words “Infinite Heartbeat” reappeared on the screen, accompanied by a heavy, impactful sound effect. Su Tong instinctively pressed her hand to her chest. She had been completely drawn in just now, and only now was she coming back to herself.

After the screen went dark, the comments still filled the entire display.

[The female lead is so cool! That last line made my scalp tingle with excitement, ahhhh!]

[How is it over already? I haven’t had enough!]

[It’s only a minute long, damn it! @DirectorShang, I order you to release the full thing right now!]

Wei Wenbing reluctantly looked away, saying, “Xiao Tong, this show looks really good!”

The Su family were cultural tourism tycoons, but naturally, Su Tong was also involved in the Dreamweaver industry.

Judging with a professional eye, she immediately saw the astonishing commercial potential within this trailer. For a fleeting moment, she even wondered why Shang Jingyan wasn’t already famous throughout the entire star system.

This greatly reduced her distrust of the haunted house. After a moment, Su Tong murmured, “It’s really good. I’ll follow it later.”

Even someone like her, with almost no entertainment life, would regularly watch Dreamweaver works. It was a habit of every interstellar person. But for her, it was more like a task, because she seemed to be naturally uninterested in those romance stories.

But maybe “Infinite Heartbeat” would be different…

“When does it premiere? What’s the update frequency?” she asked.

Wei Wenbing didn’t expect his daughter to be genuinely interested. He suppressed his desire to enthusiastically promote it and pretended to think. “Unfortunately, that information hasn’t been released yet. But I just saw a comment saying that her previous work, ‘Rouge Comb,’ was updated weekly. This one might be the same—speaking of which, should we watch ‘Rouge Comb’ together again?…”

–

The next day.

Last night, after watching the trailer, Wei Wenbing and his daughter re-watched the entire series of “Rouge Comb” before he finally ran out of energy and went to sleep.

At ten in the morning, when they set off for the haunted house, Su Tong even proactively brought up the plot. This was extremely rare for her. In the past, Su Tong would either talk about work or daily trifles, almost never about entertainment.

A historic breakthrough!

Wei Wenbing’s fondness for Shang Jingyan increased another level. As an elder, he certainly didn’t want his child to be constantly tense.

When they arrived at the haunted house, he sought his daughter’s opinion: “How about we choose the second haunted house map?”

The derivative haunted house, a Chinese-style mansion from “Rouge Comb,” had already opened. The background story also took place after the original plot.

Gao Xiaoyun was no longer human and had left her hometown to travel. The old mansion was abandoned, and no one ever entered it again.

As a result, wandering ghosts occupied the Gao residence. Coupled with the resentment accumulated over generations in the house, strange events frequently occurred. The neighbors even claimed to sometimes hear a woman crying in the middle of the night.

The visitors’ identities were outsiders who had mistakenly entered the Gao residence, unaware of the truth. They would spend a night in the mansion, where the sights and sounds they experienced were both real and illusory, true and false. When they came out, it would be like a dream, difficult to distinguish.

Su Tong nodded. She also preferred to play the haunted house based on the original work she had just watched.

Wei Wenbing was full of anticipation and even shared this good news in the fan group he had joined.

[Ah! The Chinese-style haunted house is already open, and I haven’t been yet.]

[I went yesterday, but I couldn’t get in line QAQ]

[So envious of Seventy…]

—Wei Wenbing’s nickname in the group was [Seventy-Year-Old Man], but his interactions with the other group members showed no generation gap. Probably no one knew that his ID was a literal description.

Even the group administrators, the brother and sister, sent envious expressions. Wei Wenbing sent a smug, hands-on-hips emoji.

After waiting in line, he filled in basic information such as his age. He would enter as a team with his daughter and several members of the medical team. After the staff reviewed it, they said, “Guest, please wait a moment. We have an additional service.”

“Additional service?” Su Tong asked.

A young person walked out from a small room nearby. She was tall, a perfect clothes rack, with wavy, silver-blonde hair. Even the ordinary work uniform looked exceptionally bright on her.

“—This is a new service we’ve added in the last few days. Visitors over the age of sixty-five will be accompanied and cared for by a staff member.”

The young person took over the conversation with a voice full of smiles. Her eyes curved, and she wore a work baseball cap. When she took off her mask, Su Tong realized—this face was the one she had seen in the materials, Shang Jingyan herself, the person who proposed the haunted house idea.

Su Tong paused slightly, then reacted, raising an eyebrow. “Miss Shang is personally working a side job?”

She had been very low-key when making the reservation and hadn’t revealed her and her father’s identities. But since she had used the name of Su’s Cultural Tourism, she had long been prepared to be approached.

This Dreamweaver’s approach was quite clever, and it didn’t offend her.

—In fact, Su Tong very much appreciated people who could seize opportunities, because she was that kind of person herself.

Shang Jingyan nodded with feigned seriousness. “Important guests, well worth my personal accompaniment.”

She had flown to Rose Heart as soon as she saw the reservation request from the Su Corporation, and after thinking about it, she chose this method of appearance.

The additional service wasn’t just made up. Shang Jingyan had recently discussed it with Xue Jiang and believed that it was indeed necessary to provide an extra layer of protection for older guests.

The group was ready to enter, but just then, an unexpected event occurred.

Wei Wenbing’s face suddenly showed an expression of pain, and he pressed his hand to his forehead. Su Tong’s expression changed slightly and she immediately said, “Healer!”

Without her needing to say anything, the medical team had already stepped forward.

This was a Void Syndrome attack!

Shang Jingyan saw that although Su Tong looked nervous, she wasn’t surprised, indicating that this wasn’t the first time this had happened.

It was the first time she had seen a patient with moderate to severe Void Syndrome having an attack. She saw that Wei Wenbing’s wheelchair transformed, extending into a stretcher, while the man’s eyes slowly closed, and he fell into a coma.

There were two types of Void Syndrome attacks. One was sudden excitement, where the person lost mental control and went mad. The other was sudden silence, where they fell into a coma without warning. Unless they woke up on their own, they couldn’t be awakened by external stimuli. This was generally considered a strong reaction of the body being unable to endure long-term fatigue.

At this moment, Wei Wenbing’s condition was the latter.

“…I’m sorry, Miss Shang,” Su Tong pressed her hand to her brow. “My father… I’m afraid he won’t be able to visit today.”

There was clear disappointment in her tone, because her father rarely showed great interest in something, but he happened to be unable to experience it at this time.

Su Tong quickly regained her composure. Seeing that the staff nearby were nervously trying to approach, she added, “Miss Shang, there’s no need to worry. This has nothing to do with you… In fact, after watching your works last night, my father had a rare good night’s sleep for a little while.”

Hearing this, Shang Jingyan’s eyes flickered. She pondered for a few seconds and said, “Ms. Su, I may have another way to alleviate your father’s condition.”

“…If you’re willing to trust me, let me try?”

–

Darkness.

Endless darkness.

Wei Wenbing stood at the edge of his mental landscape, able to see only darkness. He had experienced this kind of deathly silence countless times. Sensation was suppressed, all emotions swallowed, as if he had fallen into an abyss.

Strangely, every time he woke up, he would forget the experience after the Void Syndrome attack and his coma. Only when he fell ill again would he remember.

In the reality of patient exchanges, everyone was like him, believing that there was no consciousness after falling into a coma.

But that wasn’t the case at all. He would actually turn into the form of his core spirit body and be trapped in his own mental landscape. The seemingly endless wait was far more unbearable than nothingness, even making one wish for death.

Moreover, as his condition worsened, he had personally witnessed how his mental landscape decayed and became more desolate.

It would be the same this time, too. Wei Wenbing sighed inwardly. He wondered how long it would be before he woke up this time?

But after an unknown amount of time, he suddenly saw a faint light appear in the darkness.

Huh…? Light?

Wei Wenbing was stunned.

—That ball of light was Shang Jingyan.

After obtaining Su Tong’s consent, she entered Wei Wenbing’s mental world, just like she did with Tian Jiangli’s consciousness last time.

This was the most desolate and dilapidated mental landscape Shang Jingyan had ever seen—although since she had transmigrated, she hadn’t seen many mental landscapes.

She floated in a darkness, with chaos above, below, left, and right. Only a small patch of dark brown ground was under her feet. It was like a glacier about to melt during global warming, or an oasis about to disappear in the desert, almost about to sink.

There were also a few blades of grass on the ground, most of them withered and black, with only the tips still carrying a bit of green. It was easy to tell that Wei Wenbing’s mental landscape had once been a grassland.

Shang Jingyan floated forward along the broken ground. She was just a ball of light here, illuminating a small area, as if she were confronting and tearing off a piece of the darkness.

A thought suddenly occurred to her: A person’s mental landscape symbolized the location of their soul. So, what did the darkness outside the mental landscape symbolize?

Was it merely nothingness?

Could it be that if one advanced into the darkness, one could encounter another person’s mental landscape?

These two questions were as philosophical as “What is beyond the beyond?”

After returning from Tian Jiangli’s healing session last time, Shang Jingyan had researched a lot of information and discovered that her situation was very special.

Others couldn’t directly enter other people’s mental worlds like she could. Mental healers needed to use instruments when treating patients.

The healing process was also only a vague idea, of comforting the other person’s spirit, not like her, where she could see the concrete black mist.

In no time, she arrived at the center of Wei Wenbing’s landscape. There stood a skinny little lamb, looking up at her. Beside it on the ground was a withered flower.

When Wei Wenbing’s core spirit body was outside, it didn’t show much, but looking at it here, the little lamb had many cracks, as if it were a stuffed doll with its stuffing exposed. Black mist lingered around the cracks.

—The black mist seemed to be part of the darkness.

The lamb’s eyes widened, and it bleated a few times, as if it wanted to say something to her, but Shang Jingyan didn’t understand animal language.

She recalled the previous process and hesitated a little. “…If I show you a horror film directly, will it knock you out?”

Wei Wenbing’s spirit body looked much weaker than Tian Jiangli’s unicorn.

But she had no other choice. She only knew this one method, so “Moebius Sea” was projected.

“Elder Wei said he’s seen my works, so he should be able to handle it…”

Shang Jingyan muttered quietly.

Last time, there was only a little black mist in Tian Jiangli’s mental landscape. This time, it was completely the opposite, with only a little bit of mental landscape in the darkness.

To speed things up, Shang Jingyan simply projected all of her works at the same time, even including the highest-grossing films from her previous life. They all existed in her mind, and she only needed to call up her memories.

The black mist on the lamb seemed to be deterred, pausing for a few seconds, and then frantically fluctuating.

“Don’t run, let me eat,” Shang Jingyan spread out her light ball to absorb the darkness. Like last time, she quickly had the warm, full feeling of eating.

The black mist was sucked up like the filling of a sesame bun. The lamb’s fur became much clearer. Facing it were several films Shang Jingyan had made in her previous life. It turned its head left and right, seemingly unable to take it all in.

The core spirit body didn’t watch, but the black mist fluctuated… Did they watch too?

Shang Jingyan thought, mystified.

The black mist in this area was quickly cleared. Shang Jingyan was almost full, feeling that she had reached the limit of a single treatment.

The lamb was completely clear now. The last wisp of black mist on it was connected to somewhere above, like a black umbilical cord or tentacle.

Shang Jingyan wasn’t satisfied. She separated a bit of her light ball and tugged hard at it.

It broke off, and she “ate” it. But at the same time, she had also disturbed the darkness.

Shang Jingyan looked along that strand, and suddenly froze.

If she weren’t a ball of light now, but still in human form, her eyes would have widened slightly, her pupils suddenly contracting!

Only then did she see that the void of darkness seemed like layers of veils that had been slowly lifted, becoming fainter. Overall, it resembled a black cloth covering a painting that had been torn at a corner, revealing the true image underneath.

—There was a “thing” in the darkness.

How could she describe it?

Shang Jingyan couldn’t see its full appearance, only the tip of the iceberg. It resembled a giant jellyfish, with a canopy-shaped structure and countless fluttering tentacles below, and the darkness was the ocean it lived in.

Its body was pure white, slightly transparent, emitting and refracting a rainbow of light, reminiscent of soft gemstones, like a magnificent creature that could only appear in a fantasy dream.

Frankly, that strange creature was exceptionally beautiful. But seeing it here, Shang Jingyan only felt her scalp instantly tingle, and her heart beat rapidly.

She froze in place, not moving.

No literature or documentation had ever mentioned that other creatures could exist in a person’s mental landscape!

Was that thing a creature? What was it? Why was it here??

The jellyfish-like creature swam away, and the light was once again obscured. The darkness returned to stillness.

But at this moment, in Shang Jingyan’s eyes, the darkness was no longer nothingness, but a deep sea without light.

Not being able to see it didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. In places where the light didn’t reach, there must be other creatures like that!

For a moment, Shang Jingyan could somewhat understand the feeling of interstellar people when they first saw her horror films. It was the terror of having one’s common sense shattered and one’s cognition overturned.

She waited for a long time, but couldn’t resist her curiosity, and went to the place where the darkness had been before.

—The creature had left behind a small piece of tentacle, seemingly broken off by her just now.

Shang Jingyan approached and carefully observed. This tentacle was about the length of her palm. It looked very soft, but its surface had many small, hook-like barbs. When illuminated by her light, it instantly became “iridescent white.”

The tentacle was hollow inside, and there was liquid-like substance slowly flowing within it.

Shang Jingyan looked through the tube, and saw that the liquid was like a kaleidoscope, reflecting many images:

Wei Wenbing’s first heart-fluttering encounter with his older lover, their laughter and playfulness on their first trip together, the surprise and astonishment when he first learned his lover’s true identity, the sadness and pain when they first argued…

It wasn’t just about love. There were also family-related parts with his daughter. But overall, they were relatively positive emotions. There was very little sadness, and negative emotions like fear were almost nonexistent.

Just by looking at it, an observer would feel lightheaded, dizzy, and filled with happiness.

Why did this severed tentacle contain Wei Wenbing’s various emotions?

All of them joyful and beautiful…

Shang Jingyan looked away, and a bold idea formed in her mind: Could it be that that creature was also “eating,” just like her?

–

Reality.

Shang Jingyan, sitting in the chair, blinked, her eyes opening.

X71 couldn’t enter Shang Jingyan’s mental landscape and couldn’t see the situation. Seeing her wake up, it immediately asked: [Yanyan, how is it?]

[Hmm…] Shang Jingyan was a little suspicious of everything now. She thought for a moment, then swallowed her words, not mentioning anything she had just seen. [The treatment was fairly smooth.]

“Dad?” Su Tong also immediately leaned forward, closely observing her father lying on the instrument.

—Although they used the instrument, it was just a disguise to convince her. In fact, Shang Jingyan didn’t need an instrument to enter someone else’s mental realm.

Wei Wenbing’s eyes slowly opened and he murmured, “It’s incredible. I haven’t slept so well in a long time…”

Su Tong was stunned. Then, excitement gradually spread in her eyes. She helped her father sit up, supporting his arm. “That’s great!”

Wei Wenbing’s little lamb jumped out of the void, yawned, and wagged its tail. Its spirit was obviously much better.

It blinked, saw Shang Jingyan, and the first time, it was a little scared and its fur bristled—this was remembering the horror films it had watched. But then it shyly leaned closer, pressed against Shang Jingyan’s hand, and gently licked her fingers, a clear sign of fawning.

Shang Jingyan: “…”

This sheep seemed a bit like a dog.

“I think I had a dream, but I don’t remember it,” Wei Wenbing said, hesitantly recalling. “It seemed to have darkness, light… and horror?”

He shook his head. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter.”

Shang Jingyan thought to herself, It’s the same feedback as Tian Jiangli. It seems that patients really don’t remember what happens during the treatment. She observed the little lamb, but it clearly had memories.

In essence, a person’s core spirit body was the person themselves. Could it be that outside the mental landscape, this memory was stored separately?

Su Tong talked with her father for a while, confirming that he felt completely fine, as if he had just had a long nap, and finally relaxed completely.

She closed the door of the room and said, “Thank you so much this time, Director Shang.”

Su Tong’s eyes were full of gratitude, and her address had also changed to “Director Shang.”

For someone like her, this state was already a very outward display of emotion.

Shang Jingyan smiled faintly and said, “President Su, you don’t need to thank me. I feel a little tired now, I need to rest for a while.”

Tiredness was an excuse. She needed to be alone for a while, to digest what had just happened.

Su Tong immediately said, “Then I won’t disturb you, Director Shang.”

Before leaving, Shang Jingyan added her two accounts, one private and one for work. If the former was an expression of closeness, for further contact regarding treatment, the latter was a very clear hint: From now on, the Su Corporation would also help Shang Jingyan in her work.

Did this count as completing the task assigned by the Reality Matter Society?

Shang Jingyan thought, a little wryly.

–

Over the next period, Shang Jingyan gave Wei Wenbing two more treatments, completely clearing out that area of his mental landscape. Finally, blue sky and white clouds appeared above the ground.

Wei Wenbing’s mental state was getting better and better. Even Su Tong’s private medical team was amazed, saying that Shang Jingyan could consider working at a large hospital. She could only humbly say no, no.

Shang Jingyan: I haven’t even taken the medical exam. I feel like I’m practicing medicine without a license.

It was just a pity that Wei Wenbing missed the reservation time for the haunted house. The next available slot was directly scheduled for late June.

Xue Jiang was also very good at seizing opportunities. She talked to Shang Jingyan and Su Tong about the collaboration on the haunted house. If it went well, Shang Jingyan’s IP derivatives could really be opened up to the Main Star System.

During this time, “Infinite Heartbeat” released another trailer, only thirty seconds long, a mixed cut of the three-person protagonist team.

In the film, the protagonist Lan Qing’s clothing was the most modern, a black windbreaker. In some scenes, she also wore a light blue, square electronic lens over her left eye. The weapons she used were mainly small and exquisite firearms;

One female supporting character wore a retro Chinese-style round-collared robe, black with gold dragon patterns, with wrist guards on her forearms, a hair crown on her head, and a cold expression. The contrast was that she carried an extremely high-tech hand cannon on her back, blasting a monster with a single shot;

The other female supporting character wore a white lab coat and round glasses, carrying a metal case, seemingly responsible for technical work. She was slightly plump, obviously not good at running, and in the mixed cut, she was responsible for the screaming and yelling comedic scenes.

The names of the other two members of the protagonist team hadn’t been announced yet, so the audience had to refer to them as “General” and “Researcher.” Currently, the discussion in the Exile Star System was explosive.

[I feel like Director Shang’s new work also has a strong element of adventure?]

[The General is so cool! I declare that her cannon shot straight to my heart!! I’ve fallen in love.]

[The Researcher rolling around, laughing while typing on the keyboard, is also so cool. I’m so moved…]

[Are none of you taking the female lead? Then Little Lan Qing is mine (doge head). Nobody fight me!]

[Bold speculation: Do these three come from the past, present, and future, respectively? It feels particularly interesting. Student, general, researcher, a protagonist team from three eras!]

[Just seeing the monsters they kill makes me scared QAQ But I really want to watch it…]

Compared to before, Shang Jingyan’s promotional campaign this time was obviously much larger, having the appearance of a popular Dreamweaver.

The main series hadn’t even started broadcasting, but the character profiles of the three female protagonists were gradually being released in the form of information. There were even fans starting to ship them in various pairings.

Adventure-themed works in the interstellar world were also quite rare, and the protagonists mostly encountered love on their adventures.

So far, no characters who appeared to be male leads had appeared in any of the promotional materials, and Shang Jingyan’s audience wasn’t particularly surprised.

“The Eldritch God,” “Rouge Comb,” and “Moebius Sea” all had strong romantic elements, but the audience was prepared for the day when Director Shang might reduce or remove it.

Stubborn interstellar audience: So what if there’s no male lead? The protagonist team can have internal relationships!

And, Evergreen had also developed merchandise for Shang Jingyan’s previous works. Among a series of exquisite and beautiful dolls on the virtual shelves, they stood out with a distinctly different style, not blending in at all.

Passing customers: “…”

Who would buy this stuff? What kind of work is it even from? It would give you nightmares!

The black octopus dumpling pillow was one thing, it could barely be considered cute in a chibi style; the film’s replica comb was also okay, it could be considered a retro handicraft, for combing hair.

But, what was that crooked-mouthed, cross-eyed rag doll?

It was tattered and torn, making people feel like its head would fall off the next second, and it was even missing an eye.

And what was that resin fish skeleton?

It was deliberately made to look half-rotten, with the fish’s eyes bulging out. It would look perfectly at home in the corner of a seafood market.

And there were also black castle DIY music boxes that played terrifying music, white skull flower pots, light brain protective cases that imitated school notebooks from the previous stellar calendar…

In a word, strange, with a poor appearance.

The comments below also made passing customers very curious:

[Haha, I’m dying of laughter. The official blog actually made the top two voted items, the Little Beauty doll and the fish skeleton.]

[Although the doll is a bit scary, I believe it can protect me (doge head). I’ll buy it and put it on my brother’s bedside.]

[Buy a little fish, tie its hair to the sink in the morning; buy another one the next day, tie it again… Repeat this, and you can achieve the effect of time travel (doge head).]

Passing customers all suspected that these merchandise items would never sell. But just one minute after they went online, the first batch of 30,000 were snapped up.

Passing customers: “???”

Am I out of touch with current trends?

One month later, Blue River Moon.

“Yes, put it here… Move it a little to the left.” Shang Jingyan directed the moving robots. The furniture in the brand-new living room was scattered, being lifted and moved by the robots.

Shang Jingyan had finally decided to buy a property in Blue River Moon. Through Sister Cui’s introduction, it was very close to Pei Yi’s family’s villa area, also a three-story villa.

She folded her arms and watched all this, feeling her mood improve. Buying a house seemed to represent that she had officially and completely settled down in this world.

“I thought you’d keep renting forever. I didn’t expect you to buy a house,” You Yao said in the communication, looking distressed. “Now we don’t even live on the same planet. How will we accept and deliver tasks? Should I also buy a house in Blue River Moon? I can’t afford a villa, maybe a flat…”

Shang Jingyan ended the topic with one sentence: “Do whatever you want.”

It was evening in Blue River Moon, and the two moons had already risen into the sky. She sat down on the newly placed sofa and opened the light brain projection.

Today was also Friday night in the Alliance Calendar. Comments were already appearing on the dark screen. Amidst the clamoring voices, “Infinite Heartbeat” premiered—