tearjerker director

Chapter 1653: Gathering the Team
Hearing Cobb's words, Linnie gestured to their surroundings: "But all this real-life texture, the stones, the textiles, the cars... the people... your mind can't create all this."

Cobb nodded. "Sure, every time you dream. Let me ask you a question: You never remember when a dream begins, do you? You only appear in the middle of it."

Lin Ni thought for a moment and said, "I guess so."

Cobb continued, "So, how did we end up in this restaurant?"

Lin Ni seemed a little lost and confused: "Before we came here, we were..."

Cobb continued to ask: "How did we get here? Where are we now?"

But Lin Ni thought about it, but couldn't remember it.

At this moment, the scene began to shake slightly. Lin Ni was surprised: "Oh my God! Are we dreaming?"

Cobb nodded, and the rumbling sound of vibration was also constructed.

"Keep calm, we are actually dreaming in the studio, this is your first class sharing dreams, remember?"

Linnie looked around, her mind spinning. Cobb was ready, and the hotel began to fall apart completely, with an outward explosion followed by an inward explosion, and there were pieces of furniture and walls everywhere, and people were blown away everywhere. Linnie wondered why such a huge destruction had appeared around them so quickly - Cobb protected his head to avoid being injured by the debris.

She saw him and couldn't help shouting in the noise: "If this is just a dream, why do you protect your...

Then she was knocked off her position by a huge explosion shockwave!

In the studio, Lin Ni woke up suddenly.

Cobb's voice came: "Because it was never just a dream."

Linnie turned to listen to Cobb's voice. They both sat on the recliners and Arthur watched them from a distance.

Cobb explains: "A face stabbed by broken glass would hurt like hell, wouldn't it? We may be in a dream, but it's real."

Arthur smiled. “That’s why the military developed the dream sharing system, so soldiers have a place to grab each other’s throats, stab each other with knives, shoot each other with bullets, and then wake up.”

Lin Ni asked in confusion: "What does the designer have to do with this?"

Cobb said seriously: "Someone has to design the dream." Then he said to Arthur: "Give us five more minutes."

Lin Ni was surprised: "We only slept for five minutes? We talked for at least an hour!"

"When you're dreaming, your mind is working faster, so time seems to pass slower," Cobb explained.

Arthur added, "Five minutes in the real world is equivalent to an hour in the dream."

Cobb: "Let's see how much trouble you can cause in five minutes."

The scene then changes to the same Parisian street, where Linnie and Cobb are walking along a crowded street together. Cobb is looking around at the streets and cafes with a look of delight.

Cobb praised: "It's a nice environment. You've got the cafe, the basic layout, you forgot the bookstore, but everything else that's available should be here."

Lin Ni looked at the passers-by, full of surprise: "Who are these people?"

Cobb replied: "They are all projections of my subconscious."

Lin Ni was surprised: "Yours?"

Cobb nodded: "Of course, you are the dreamer, I am the subject in the dream, and my subconscious fills your world. This is a way for us to obtain the subject's thoughts. His brain created these people, so theoretically, we can communicate with his subconscious."

Linni asked curiously, "Have you experienced anything else?"

Cobb replied: "Architecture, building a bank vault or a prison, some secure place so that the subject's mind will want to put the information to be protected in it."

Lin Ni was somewhat relieved: "And then you broke in and stole this information?"

Cobb nodded: "That's right."

Linni is curious about the details on the street: "I like the accurate perception of these things!"

She stamped her foot. "It really has weight, you know? I thought space in dreams was all about visuals, but now it seems more like it's about feelings. The question is, what happens if you try to violate the laws of physics?"

She stared at the street intently. The street began to fold in half, each side of the building folding inward to form an inner city cube. The earth's gravity acted on its own plane. Linnie looked up and down at the people on the opposite city surface, and Cobb observed her excitement.

Lin Ni said excitedly: "It's quite spectacular, isn't it?"

Cobb remained calm and said, "Yes, that's right."

As they continued walking, Linnie noticed more and more "projections" staring at her.

Lin Ni was curious about this: "Why are they staring at me?"

Cobb replied, "Because you are changing things. My subconscious senses that other people are building this world. The more you change things, the faster these "projections" will converge on you."

"Gather?" Lin Ni was a little confused.

“They sense the dreamer’s alien nature, like aggressive white blood cells fighting infection.”

"Will they attack us?"

"Only you, actually."

They continued down the street and came to another level where gravity took effect. They stepped onto another level and continued walking until they came to a river. There were footsteps on the stone slabs as Linnie came over and she led Cobb onto a small breakwater. She focused her mind and pillars appeared on the river and a bridge began to rise from the breakwater and began to extend to the other side. They walked onto the bridge and it began to extend.

Cobb has seen it all.

But he said: "It's beautiful, but if you keep changing things"

People coming over the opposite bridge glared at Linni. Several people bumped into her shoulders as they passed by.

Lin Ni asked: "Please tell your subconscious recognition is too nervous?"

"That's why it's called the subconscious," Cobb said. "I don't control it."

The bridge now spanned the Seine, and Cobb was amazed.

"Arched stone bridge... iron pillars..."

Cobb paused, thinking about something, and suddenly remembered.

He thought of his wife, Mal, her hair blowing in the wind, turning to Cobb and smiling, then laughing, and he smiled back, and they were standing on the same bridge.

"I know this bridge, this place is real!"

He suddenly became a little stern and said: "This is not your imagination, this is your memory..."

Lin Ni nodded: "I pass this bridge every day when I go to school."

Cobb said seriously: "Don't use memory to create places. Imagine a new place every time."

Lin Ni was puzzled: "You have to extract it from what you know"

Cobb seemed a little nervous. "Just use small pieces, like a street lamp, a telephone box, some kind of brick - but not the whole environment."

At this time, several people around responded to Cobb's attitude.
Lin Ni asked doubtfully, "Why not? Because if you use memory to build a dream, you will definitely get lost and lose the ability to distinguish between reality and dream?"

It suddenly dawned on her: "Have you ever experienced something like this?"

Cobb said nothing. He stood there, staring at Linney. The people around her gathered around where she stopped, full of hostility.

"Listen, this is not about me!" Cobb reached out and grabbed Linney's arm and turned her around to face him!
Linni said, "Is this why you need me to create dreams for you?"

At this time, a passerby grabbed Lin Ni's shoulder!

Cobb shouted, "Let her go!" But the next moment, more people joined in, some dragged Linnie, some grabbed Linnie's arms. Cobb separated the crowd, and the crowd pushed him away. Cobb saw someone passing through the crowd and heading straight for Linnie who was in trouble. She was Mal. Mal began to stride over, and Linnie stared at her, looking panicked and uneasy.

Linnie hurriedly said, "Wake me up, Cobb."

Suddenly Mal came over and took out a big knife.

Cobb quickly stopped him and said, "Mal, don't!"

Lin Ni shouted in horror: "Wake me up!"

Mal stabbed Linnie with a knife and Linnie screamed!

Linni woke up in the studio, her breathing was a little rapid. Arthur walked over to her and comforted her, "It's okay."

Lin Ni was a little confused: "Why can't I wake up by myself?"

Arthur explained: "The only way to wake up from a dream is to die in the dream."

Cobb sat in the recliner opposite and pulled the pipe off his hands.

"She needs a totem," Cobb said.

Lin Ni looked confused: "What?"

Arthur explained again: "A totem is a kind of personal cult. It's a little thing that stays with you forever, and no one else knows about it."

Cobb stood up, Linnie stared at him, a little angry, and he walked towards the bathroom.

Linnie questioned: "Your subconscious is really powerful, Cobb. She is such a beauty!"

Arthur was a little surprised: "It sounds like you met Mrs. Cobb."

Lin Ni asked in surprise: "She is his wife?"

Arthur nodded and pulled off Linnie's tube, "Look, a totem. You need a small object that actually has some weight!"

In the studio bathroom, Cobb took out his tin-lead spinning top, placed it on a marble table and started spinning it...

Inside the office, Linnie looked at Arthur, somewhat surprised and confused: "Like a coin?"

Arthur shook his head, "Too common. Your totem should have a weight and movement that only you know."

In the bathroom, Cobb kept staring at the gyroscope which was spinning slower and slower and was about to stop. His expression also started to become more and more weird!
Arthur continued to introduce the totem to Linni.

Linni asked, "What's yours?"

Arthur replied: "A loaded die."

Linnie reached out to take it, but Arthur dodged and sat aside: "I can't let you touch it. This is a very critical point. Others have no way of knowing its weight and balance point."

She was puzzled: "Why?"

Arthur said, "When you examine your own totem, you know, then you have no doubt that you are not in someone else's dream."

His words seemed to confirm something. The spinning top that Cobb was spinning in the bathroom began to shake and then stopped.

Cobb grabbed the spinning top like a drowning man grabbing a life-saving straw.

Inside the studio, Lin Ni was pondering what she had just said.

"For me, that's not a problem," she said after a moment.

Arthur was curious: "Why not?"

Linnie asked back: "Arthur, maybe you can't see what's going on there? Or maybe you don't want to see it. But the problem with Cobb is that he wants to bury all his problems there. I'm not going to open my mind to someone like him."

After saying that, Lin Ni stood up and walked away.

Cobb's voice came: "She'll be back."

Arthur turned around and saw Cobb standing at the door of the bathroom. "I've never met anyone who learns so quickly before. Now reality can't satisfy her. When she comes back, she will be asked to build a maze."

"Where are you going?" Arthur asked.

Cobb: "I'm going to talk to Ames."

Arthur was a little surprised: "Ames? But he is in Mombasa, Kenya. That is the base of Kobol Company."

Cobb said with certainty: "This risk is worth taking."

Arthur tried to persuade: "There are many other thieves."

Cobb shook his head and said, "We don't just need a thief, we need a pretender."

They soon arrived at a casino, which was crowded with people, full of smoke and people coming and going. A Westerner, wearing a shabby suit, was concentrating on the dice game. He was Ames, who was fiddling with his last two chips.

Cobb's voice came: "No matter how hard you rub, you won't get anything done."

Ames looked up and saw Cobb: "You never know."

Ames threw his last chip, and the dice rolled...

Cobb asked him, "What would you like to drink?"

Ames lost.

He said, "It's your treat."

Cobb followed Ames, who magically produced two stacks of chips and placed them in front of the cashier's counter. Cobb took one from the top and squinted at the embossed name on it.

Cobb said, "Your spelling hasn't improved much."

Ames grabbed the chip and handed it to the cashier.

Ames angrily said, "Get lost."

Cobb didn't care: "How's your handwriting?"

Ames took his money and smiled at Cobb: "Anything is possible."

Ames led Cobb down the quiet street.

“Word is that you’re not welcome in this place,” Ames said.

Cobb was noncommittal: "Really?"

Ames said, "Cobol Engineering is offering a real fortune for your head and neck."

Cobb looked at him: "You won't betray me."

Ames looked at Cobb, feeling a little offended: "Of course I would."

Cobb smiled, "You wouldn't if you knew what I was here to sell."

They went to a coffee shop with a ramshackle balcony overlooking a seedy street, and Ames drank from his glass.

Cobb told him where his confidence came from: "Mind implantation!"

(End of this chapter)