Towards evening, Chang Dou lay sleeping on a table in the ST Base’s lab. All of a sudden, he was roughly pushed awake. He opened his eyes in confusion and felt around all over for his glasses. 

“Here.” Wu Xiangxiang shoved the cold glasses into his hand. For once serious, he said, “Come look. Something seems to have gone wrong.” 

Chang Dou stared, rubbed his eyes hard, and stood up in a flurry. He even bumped into the table leg. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” 

“It’s the signal.” 

Their research into the big boiler had remained at a bottleneck. They understood the theory of the thing, but despite thorough study, they still couldn’t find where Kou Tong and the others had fallen—without being a roundworm in Dr. Kou’s mind, a program he had improvised was very hard to analyze to find which way he had improvised it. 

The Projector’s weak point was at this time revealed without doubt—its internal structure was too complex. 

Even Kou Tong, its designer, could be trapped inside, and in over ten days, a group of technicians who had taken part in the maintenance or construction of the Projector had also been able to do nothing about it. 

Simply put, the big boiler was a pit they couldn’t see the bottom of. They knew that Kou Tong had fallen into it, but they didn’t know what the structure inside it was. They could only fling a rope around, hoping to bump into Dr. Kou so he could catch the rope himself and climb up. 

Chang Dou was afraid that Kou Tong wouldn’t be able to receive the signal because of some accident, so he hadn’t stopped scanning and sending the signal. Just now, the Projector had given an early warning and intervened by force to stop Chang Dou’s signal. 

“What happened?” Chang Dou asked. 

“There’s been a change in some space. It may be a malfunction or man-made.” Wu Xiangxiang was for once serious. Then his next sentence turned on Chang Dou. “It’s all your fault!” 

Chang Dou’s eyes widened. 

“There’s no reason for it to change. It must have been your wild scanning. The signal made the program inside spot a malfunction!” 

Chang Dou rolled his eyes, not even wanting to pay attention to him. He silently squatted down to investigate the possible cause of the malfunction. 

Just then, his phone rang. Chang Dou looked and was immediately excited. It was Fang Xiu calling! 

He almost trembled as he picked up. Trembling, he said, “Hello…” 

There was a great deal of noise on the other end, as though many people were searching for something. Fang Xiu reported something to the person next to him, then said to him, “Chang Dou, you can come back from the base.”

Chang Dou blinked. 

“We busted a Utopia den today and found that document. Captain Hu says we can probably eliminate Yao Shuo from suspicion. Any other problems he may have aren’t our concern. You can withdraw from the base.” 

Chang Dou said, “But…” 

Wu Xiangxiang had sharp ears and had heard their conversation. His expression said, As expected, this idiot makes a mess then cuts and runs. Chang Dou’s hand holding the phone tightened. 

“Yeah?” Fang Xiu asked. “What else is there?” 

Chang Dou pursed his lips. “Dr. Kou… What about him?” 

“Kou Tong?” Fang Xiu paused. “No need to worry about him. Kou Tong is a calamity. Calamities persist for a thousand years. He won’t die.” 

“But…” 

Fang Xiu’s patience with him was limited to begin with. He frowned, and his tone became more pressing. “What now?” 

Chang Dou thought about it and carefully said, “Can I…stay another couple of days? Just a couple of days. There’s been a malfunction here, but we’re sure to be able to resolve it quickly. I’m sorry, I’m not deliberately making trouble for everyone, just a couple of days. I think we’re just about to touch on the crux of the problem…” 

His voice became quieter and quieter. Not hearing Fang Xiu answer, he felt meeker and meeker. This was how Chang Dou was. For some reason, he always felt a bit inferior, always needed lots and lots of encouragement from others. If someone complimented him, he could be happy for half a day, If someone hesitated a little, he could immediately start losing self-confidence. 

Fang Xiu didn’t speak, so Chang Dou tearfully thought, This must be very inconvenient. I’m making trouble for others again. 

“I’m sorry, why don’t I just…” 

“You can stay there temporarily,” Fang Xiu suddenly said. 

“Huh?” 

“I’ll mention it to Captain Hu. There’s been nothing urgent lately. He can give you a couple of days off.” Fang Xiu stopped for a moment, then added, “Stick up for yourself a little out there. Don’t keep letting that goateed psycho bully you.” 

“O…OK!” Chang Dou suddenly felt full of strength—the sort of strength you could only get when you liked a person. 

Chang Dou hung up the phone, stood up, straightened his back, and said to Wu Xiangxiang, “I think it isn’t the signal causing the malfunction.” 

Wu Xiangxiang laughed sarcastically. “Hmph, you’re quibbling.” 

“I’m not quibbling.” Chang Dou frowned. “The signal I sent is a recording signal specially used by the Projector. It has no impact on the gamma fault. It definitely wouldn’t impact the mechanisms composing different dimensions of space. There’s no need to doubt that.” 

Wu Xiangxiang said, “You know that…” 

“Dr. Kou left this behind. Do you doubt him?” Chang Dou asked imposingly. “You’re not the inventor of the Projector!” 

All of Wu Xiangxiang’s features wrinkled up—Dr. Kou was his weak spot. He had always thought that in fact Dr. Kou had had a goatee and had only been forced through some private reasons that couldn’t be mentioned to assume the appearance of an ordinary person. 

All right, if Dr. Kou was aware in the boiler, he would definitely be incredibly gratified to have such an unusual worshipper. 

“So it must have been caused by a man-made factor,” Chang Dou said. “We all know that the projection space will collapse due to the conscious subject’s collapse, but there’s a kind of shackle mechanism that can fix the space and not let the collapse take place.” 

“The shackle mechanism is forbidden, you idiot!” Wu Xiangxiang rolled his eyes and began to yell. “Before, Dr. Kou said that if the consciousness of the conscious subject collapsed and was forced to remain in the space, it would definitely cause that person harm, so he didn’t install such an option!” 

“Of course I know that, but there’s been an accident!” Chang Dou also began to yell. “An accident, do you understand? Reasonably speaking, when multiple conscious subjects overlap, there will be some influence among them. And the Projector is unable to entirely distinguish two people’s consciousnesses. They mutually impact each other up to a certain point. Up to this point, this is a technological barrier that is still hard to overcome, so multi-person projections are unstable. But though this thing is of low probability, it still exists.” 

“And so what?!” Wu Xiangxiang yelled back even louder, as if greater volume meant greater confidence. 

“So when one conscious subject is powerful enough to influence all the conscious subjects who have been drawn in, something in the nature of a shackle mechanism will arise among them, mutually influencing them and fixing the space, not letting it collapse. When a space exists in one dimension, it will drag the whole space into another dimension! Do you understand?” 

Wu Xiangxiang: “…” 

Chang Dou rolled his eyes towards the heavens. “You idiot. At last I’ve found out that growing a goatee causes irreversible harm to a primate’s intelligence.” 

Wu Xiangxiang was utterly crushed. 

“In a multi-person consciousness overlapping space, there will be some unavoidable contact between conscious subjects. That’s why Manman can always sense many things ahead of time. And when one particular conscious subject has an overly intense emotion, and this overly intense emotion establishes some kind of resonance with all the conscious subjects who have been drawn in, it will create a so-called shackle mechanism.” In the Projector, Kou Tong was explaining this to Huang Jinchen. “Yes, that’s what’s happening here now.” 

“And then what?” 

“Then, the overly intense emotion will cause a conscious subject to collapse and create a chain reaction among all the others. The space will be fixed by the shackle mechanism, and something extremely special will happen. With one dimension in existence, all the conscious subjects will be pulled into another dimension.” 

Kou Tong’s steps paused. Softly, he said, “In other words, in this world, apart from the conscious subjects who have been drawn in, no one else is awake…because they all belong to another dimension.” 

Huang Jinchen noticed that Kou Tong’s fingertips were trembling slightly. Kou Tong took a deep breath. After a long while, he closed his eyes, then opened them again and quietly said, “I should have thought of it before.” 

“What do we do now?” Huang Jinchen asked. He had suddenly realized that Kou Tong’s mother…wasn’t a living person. Would she also…remain forever in another dimension? He couldn’t resist lowering his voice, as if afraid that he would scare Kou Tong if he spoke too loudly. 

“We’ll…” Kou Tong’s lips were turning pale. The following words caught in his throat. He couldn’t say them. 

“We’ll…” he repeated, then softly gave a bitter laugh and closed his eyes once again. He was silent for a very long time. His always straight shoulders bent irresistibly. 

“We’ll go back,” he finally finished his sentence. As if it had taken all his strength, he walked heavily in the direction of home. 

They opened the door, but the space sewn in by the mirrors was broken—because some of the mirrors had broken. He Xiaozhi was wildly pounding on the mirrors, crying hysterically. Manman, wearing a nightgown, was sitting curled up, hugging her knees. She raised her head and looked up blankly at Kou Tong. She seemed to want to express something, but Kou Tong couldn’t hear it. 

—No one could hear it. They had changed dimensions. She could no longer communicate with others through brainwaves. 

Following her gaze, Kou Tong looked towards the bedroom. The unaging woman was like a lifeless dummy, lying there motionless, her face pale. Kou Tong felt that lead had been poured into his feet. He walked over step by step and gazed at her for a long time. He gently put his finger under her nostrils. He suddenly felt horribly chilled.