Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 270 Critical Point
"Then... how can I wake up?" The Hound glanced at the gun in his hand, "Does it mean... I have to shoot myself in the head again?"
"I'm afraid it's useless, otherwise we should have woken up completely before this." Ke Lan shook his head, "Besides, subconsciously I always feel that the damage suffered in this dream will be reflected in our real bodies."
"What do you mean? I don't understand?" The Hound looked confused, "What do you mean... it will be reflected in the real body?"
"Do you remember that little operation I performed on Martin earlier?"
"Remember." The Hound nodded.
"When I gave him the injection, he didn't know that the syringe contained lidocaine solution and glucocorticoids, but why did the drugs still have an anesthetic effect on him?"
"That's right... You just asked me to smell what was in your hand. I didn't know it was a cookie, so I didn't smell anything. Logically speaking, the anesthetic should not have any effect on him without knowing it... This is really strange. "
"So I think we are now in a state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness... just like those crazy hunters who shot at the monsters they saw in their nightmares and ended up shooting passers-by... and just now, I might have really injected Martin with a blocking needle in reality."
"In other words, if I shoot myself now, I will really die?"
"Yeah." Ke Lan nodded.
"Then can I try to slap myself twice to wake myself up?"
"It's unlikely, you can try." Ke Lan said, "Although we are half asleep and half awake, our self-awareness is very clear..."
Before Ke Lan could finish his words, the hound had already run to Layton, who was on guard at the perimeter, and kicked Layton in the butt!
"Ouch! Why did you kick me, old man?!"
"I just tried to see if I could kick you awake. Okay, Ke Lan, you're right. It seems it's really useless." The Hound spread his hands.
"What nonsense are you talking about? Am I not sober now?" Leighton shouted.
"Then try to shoot two shots at the stone pillar with this gun." Hound suddenly threw the pistol in his hand to Layton.
"What?" Leighton took the pistol and asked, somewhat confused.
“Just do what you are told,” the Hound said impatiently.
"Okay..." Layton raised his gun, aimed at the stone pillar, and pulled the trigger -
“Bang! Bang!”
Seeing the flash of fire from the muzzle, the hound beside him was stunned for a moment and said, "I just wanted to try it, but I didn't expect it to be like this..."
Layton: "Try what?"
"Look what this is?" The Hound stretched out the hand behind his back, and in the center of his palm lay a pistol magazine.
"Magazine? What else could it be?"
"Look at this gun in your hand."
After hearing what the Hound said, Layton noticed that the gun in his hand did not even have a magazine!
"This...what's going on? What the hell?" Layton pulled open the slide in surprise and pulled out a bullet shell that was still a little warm. "Why is this happening? The first shot can be explained by the remaining bullet in the chamber, but where did the bullet for the second shot come from? That's not right...I modified this gun of yours, old dog. There shouldn't be any magic mechanism on it!"
"Because you thought the gun was full of bullets at that time, so it has bullets in it." Hound took the pistol and pulled the trigger again, but this time it only made a crisp "click" sound. "This is what Ke Lan found... We are not awake at all now, and we are still in a dream world."
"Here... this world is also a dream?" Leighton was stunned for a moment, then slapped himself hard.
"Ouch, it hurts - that's not right, I can feel the pain, how can this be a dream? "
"That can only mean that we were forced into this dream by some means." Ke Lan came over and said to the two of them, "Moreover, the instigator also connected our dreams together, just like a computer local area network."
Ke Lan paused and continued, "But the human brain does not have a wireless network card. If we want to connect our thoughts and consciousness together, we can only do so through a physical 'wired connection'..."
"You mean there's an Internet cable plugged into our heads?" Layton said in astonishment.
“Although this statement is a bit strange, it is true.”
"If I unplug this network cable, can I escape from this dream world?... But I can't feel anything..." The hound raised his hand and touched his head, but he didn't feel anything.
"The creator of this dream should have managed to block our perception of 'this network cable'... otherwise, it would be too easy to unplug the cable." Before Ke Lan could finish his words, the phone in his pocket suddenly rang.
"Why is your phone ringing?" asked the Hound. "There's no signal here... Oh, I almost forgot. This is a dream. Anything can happen."
"But I didn't think about the phone." Ke Lan's face was a little solemn, "I even forgot that I had a phone in my pocket."
He reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone. On the screen was an unread email from "ACMS_0420".
Ke Lan opened the email with a hint of doubt, but what surprised him was that the email was written in Alpha script.
"It's Alpha text!" Although the hound could not understand the meaning of Alpha text, it was still easy to recognize it. After all, the difference between this thing and the common characters used by humans is more than just a little bit.
"What...what's written on it?" Leighton also came over and asked.
"Well, there is a method..." Ke Lan couldn't hide the surprise in his eyes. He said in a half-believing and half-doubting tone, "This email describes a method, a method that can help me escape from the dream world."
"Is there such a good thing? Someone will give you a pillow when you are sleepy?" The hound was also stunned when he heard it, "Then... how do we do it specifically?"
"I... I don't know how to describe it in words..." Ke Lan said with some difficulty, "But I can try it myself first ..."
After saying that, he sat down cross-legged on the ground and closed his eyes.
Empty your mind, get rid of distracting thoughts... This state is very close to the "sitting meditation" in Buddhism, but it is completely different from "sitting meditation".
Ke Lan needs to find, use his consciousness to find a critical point between dreams and reality. Only by finding this critical point can he break through the shackles imposed on him by the dream maker...
