Chapter 51: The Gate of the Hidden World

by cnwebnovels

The dull, muffled sounds quickly coalesced into an invisible force and bore down on the spacetime boundary Uncle had erected.

A spacetime boundary was nothing more than an effect barrier formed by vibrations between different dimensions. It produced a decoupling effect on matter in the surrounding space—effectively isolating electromagnetic waves and physical material, like an air envelope that repelled everything around it, offering solid protection to whatever lay within.

But the Soul Hunters’ Tiangang Dome clearly played by different rules. Otherwise, Uncle and Mother would not have been so tense.

Uncle had probably never expected the Soul Hunters to track us here, much less that they would have a way to break through his spacetime boundary. He had always been supremely confident in his concealment. Now, with no time for explanations, he aimed a device at the edge of the boundary and grabbed Mother and me, trying to drag us through it.

I knew he wanted to use the boundary as a passage. He had mentioned before that a boundary could also function as a channel.

But the Soul Hunters had clearly anticipated that. The Tiangang Dome appeared to be circular, closing in from every direction like a fishing net swollen with a fresh catch.

Uncle worked at the edge of the boundary for a long while and could not budge it. The Tiangang Dome was doing its job.

Looking up at the boundary, which was groaning and crackling above us, Uncle said, “These are Soul Hunters sent directly by the Shadow Pavilion. The Tiangang Dome is their exclusive blockade device—it can break through barriers formed by quantum resonance systems. Once it fully expands, the entire building will be sealed inside. No one gets out, even with wings. They mean to catch all of us in one net, and let everyone else in the building die with us.”

I went to the window and followed his gaze. In the air outside, which had been transparent a moment ago, a faint, translucent barrier was pressing slowly downward, faintly luminous with cold light—a vast dome clamping our building in its grip. Fine blue patterns rippled across the barrier’s surface: the traces left behind when the quantum resonance decoupling effect Uncle had described was broken through.

Simply looking at the Tiangang Dome, I felt a suffocating weight settle over me.

“The Tiangang Dome doesn’t just seal off physical space,” Uncle said, his voice tight with urgency. “It blocks consciousness signals too. Even if we tried to teleport our consciousnesses into our parasitic hosts right now, we couldn’t pierce this barrier.”

He glanced anxiously at Mother as he spoke. It was clear that even he had no answer to the Tiangang Dome.

Which meant the parasitic hosts we had prepared as a last resort against inescapable danger were now completely useless.

Mother looked at me and said quietly, “Beichen—join the three tokens.”

Uncle turned to stare at me in surprise. He had not known, apparently, that I had already obtained all three green jade tokens.

I understood. This was our last resort.

Uncle and Mother had still wanted me to spend more time training in the Mundane World. Joining the three green jade tokens might well mean leaving the Mundane World behind and entering the Elite World ahead of schedule—and I was nowhere near ready for that.

Joining the three tokens might lead into the Gate of the Hidden World. That had been Gu Kunling’s conjecture, and even she had not been certain. She had never witnessed even two tokens being joined.

There was no time left to deliberate.

Mother telling me to join them now meant we had reached the final breaking point.

I took out the three green jade tokens. Mother, Uncle, and I stacked our hands together, and I pressed all three tokens into one.

Hum—

A low, resonant thud.

A wave of violent dizziness swept through us and teleported all three of us at once. I lost all sense of direction; even my consciousness went hazy at the edges.

I held tightly to Mother’s and Uncle’s hands until everything stilled.

A cold, damp current of air moved over us.

Carried on that current was the faint scent of the sea.

I opened my eyes. The three of us were suspended above a thin veil of cloud and mist, with nothing at all beneath our feet. I could even see the glittering surface of the ocean through the wisps of cloud below.

Alarm seized me instantly. My body swayed without my willing it, and I had no idea what to do—terrified that I would fall.

Mother held my hand and smiled. “Don’t be afraid. With the joined tokens, you won’t fall.”

Uncle opened his eyes then too. He looked up and saw, not far away, a motionless mass of gray-black rain cloud.

“The Gate of the Hidden World,” he said.

The Gate of the Hidden World. Did that mean we had entered the Hidden World?

“Sis,” Uncle said, “do you remember? Twenty years ago, we escaped through that very cloud. Beichen—that isn’t a rain cloud. It is a gate. The only passage between the Hidden World and the Mundane World.”

“That cloud is actually a gate?” I asked. “How do you reach it? How do you pass through?”

“Gravity in the Elite World is different from the Mundane World,” Uncle said. “You’ll get used to it. Here, all you need is a pair of shuttle boots and you can fly anywhere you want. That Gate of the Hidden World is concealed beneath what looks like a rain cloud. Ordinary people in the Mundane World can see it and never suspect a thing. Most elite people don’t know about it either. Only the Shadow Pavilion and a handful of those at the very top are aware of it.”

“Did we just pass through that gate ourselves?” I asked.

“Yes. Years ago, when your mother and I fled the Elite World with you, we also relied on the power of these three green jade tokens. Afterward, the three tokens were separated and kept in three places: one with your mother, one with the resistance, and one with me. I entrusted my token to Xuanhong in order to copy his consciousness. The resistance’s token carries a spacetime effect—through it, you can communicate with your parasitic host Shiqing and have him handle matters in the Mundane World on your behalf.”

“Uncle,” I said, “if we’re already in the Elite World, why can’t we see any land or any elite people? Is the Elite World nothing but ocean?”

“It does have land,” Uncle said. “This ocean is only the transitional zone between the Elite World’s landmass and the Gate of the Hidden World. Beyond the land, part of the Elite World also exists in virtual space.”

“Virtual space? If it’s virtual, how do people get in?”

Uncle pointed into the distance. “Everyone in the Elite World is divided into two parts. Physical bodies mainly inhabit a real continent—the former American continent, destroyed in the Human–Machine War. It has since been physically encased in a layer of ion-state membrane. By crossing the Gate of the Hidden World, we have entered that enclosure. Everything inside it is invisible and inaccessible to ordinary people in the Mundane World. An airplane could fly right through it and register nothing.

“As for your question about entering virtual space—that doesn’t refer to the physical body entering. Each elite person has a consciousness-driven body living inside virtual space. It is a mirror world modeled on the real world, and inside it, everything a person experiences is identical to the physical world: emotions, all five senses, completely indistinguishable from reality. But richer, more absorbing, and unconstrained by physical limits. Think of it as a fully realized metaverse.

“That is the primary way elite people live. Virtual space is where they spend most of their lives. The real continent is merely where they go on holiday. And the core supercomputer draws on these virtual spaces to harvest wisdom energy—because inside virtual space, elite people can connect to the Mundane World and siphon the wisdom energy of ordinary people, feeding the supercomputer’s content and helping it upgrade and refine itself.”

Uncle’s words immediately called to mind the metaverse Gao Minjun had shown me, and the cultivation game Ye Ziping played. In the Mundane World, those games had become the single largest form of entertainment in ordinary people’s daily lives. Could all of it have been the core supercomputer’s design from the start?

Mother tugged at my arm and said, “The Elite World’s core supercomputer is the axis of this entire world. Reality and virtuality alike are run by it. The supercomputer is the master of everything here. It was not your father’s work alone—it was the collective achievement of countless elite people. Your father simply occupied the central position as a core researcher. The core supercomputer is humanity’s shared intelligence.

“On the surface, it is now controlled and maintained by a group of the finest minds alive. We call them the Shadow Pavilion. They command the most advanced quantum technology and use quantum resonance systems to manipulate spacetime and govern both the Elite and Mundane Worlds—directing elite research, managing development, even reaching toward space beyond. But I have long suspected that the core supercomputer achieved independence long ago. The figures of the Shadow Pavilion may be nothing more than its extensions. Whether that is truly the case, I cannot say for certain. It is only my own suspicion.”

“Mother, Uncle—where are we going now?” I asked.

“We could go to the old house in Hua City first,” Uncle said to Mother. “Let Beichen get a feel for the Elite World. We are elite people by birth, after all—we have legal identities there.”

Mother said, “I think the research base should come first. If we go straight into Hua City, I’m afraid he’ll wander into trouble. Let’s go to the base and have the colleagues there make Beichen an avatar. He can use the avatar to find his footing. Once he has the ability to protect himself, he can go in person.”

Uncle considered that and nodded. “All right. The research base it is. It has a protective shield—the supercomputer can’t probe inside.”

Mother nodded.

Uncle pressed the concealed device on his wrist. A pale-silver light membrane wrapped itself instantly around all three of us. The cloud and mist beneath our feet streaked backward, and the wind howled past, held at bay outside the membrane. In the distance, the outline of a landmass slowly materialized ahead.

“That is the former American continent,” Uncle said. “You can call it the Elite World. The Elite World’s virtual space, you can call the Spirit Realm. My research institute is over near the edge canyon. The supercomputer focuses mainly on managing virtual space; it can’t keep full control of the physical continent. It relies on surveillance, Sky-Eye systems, information probes—that kind of thing. A protective shield or an invisibility device is usually enough to slip past.”

Mother looked at the green jade tokens still clenched in my hand. “Rongliang, Beichen—as scientists, you must both be wondering how joining the jade tokens can produce such a remarkable effect. I may as well tell you now, simply: they are not of this earth. They come from outer space. Their internal energy source and unusual structure were what Beichen’s father spent years trying to understand. The supercomputer was originally built to study this visitor from beyond Earth. AI was only a byproduct that followed.

“For that very reason, the supercomputer, as the foundational instrument created to study the green jade tokens, is also searching relentlessly for these three pieces. When I took Beichen out of the Elite World, it was not purely to survive. I also wanted to carry the jade tokens away from the supercomputer’s reach. I never told you about them, Rongliang, because the waters here run very deep, and I was afraid you would become another Gu Chenxing. Now that we have teleported into the Elite World, the supercomputer’s alert systems will certainly have been triggered. We need to move quickly and reach a safe zone before the Shadow Pavilion arrives.”

I looked down at the tokens in my fist. “Mother—I examined them carefully once and counted that there should be six in total. Where are the other three?”

Mother looked at me and nodded. “You counted correctly. Six pieces. They were once a single whole. Your father and I divided them into six according to their different properties—three for each of us. Your father is already finished now. Those three pieces should be in the supercomputer’s possession.”

Without warning, the light membrane shuddered violently. Uncle’s face went pale. He stabbed at his wrist device in rapid succession, and the membrane darkened and surged forward at twice the speed.

“Probe waves,” Uncle said. “It’s a Shadow Pavilion patrol team.”

My stomach dropped. In the distance, I made out several dark shapes.

My eyesight had grown sharp, and with my penetrating-wave ability I could see a long way.

A group of people in black uniforms, silver weapons in hand, were closing in through the air at speed.