nightmare exec

Song Yin whimpered and opened his eyes.

The illusory heavy rain and the trunk all disappeared. At this moment, he was lying on the comfortable double bed, his back and chest completely drenched in cold sweat.

He exhaled a hot and long breath, grabbed the mineral water from the bedside, and when he was about to drink it, he realized that there was a glamorous beauty printed on the bottle, and the advertisement slogan - "Purgatory Huangquan, a little sweet."

By the way, I am in "purgatory".

The bed was like a hot and humid basin, Song Yin got up and walked to the balcony and moved the door.It was pitch black outside the door, with no stars or moon.

Staring at the reflection on the glass, Song Yin recalled the dream just now—he thought that he had gotten rid of that part of the past long ago, but he didn't expect that after many years, the nightmare came back again.

Is it because of this "safe house"?

Song Yin pushed open the sliding door and walked to the balcony. There was only white mist outside the courtyard downstairs.But in reality, there is an abandoned resort, so inaccessible that there are no homeless people, but occasionally it becomes a hiding place for fugitives.

The nightmare just now was a famous kidnapping case in the resort that year.The youngest son of a rich businessman was kidnapped, but was accidentally rescued by Song Yin, who was only seven years old.

Too much time has passed, and the repeated nightmares have smeared the truth beyond recognition.The only thing that remains the same is that the son of a wealthy businessman was the later Qi Zhengnan.

Cooling sweat clings to the skin like fish scales.Song Yin pulled up her coat and wiped it carelessly, then turned and walked to the bathroom.

The heat restored his mood, but he had a small problem getting out of the shower—the cupboard was empty, and there were no bath towels or other utensils.

Song Yin grabbed the changed clothes to dry her body, and went back to the bedroom to look for a change of clothes, but the closet was also empty.

Dare this house be an empty shell?How should I live that day?

Song Yin scrubbed the changed clothes and trousers, and hung them on the clothesline to dry.Then he returned to the bedroom and entered a space less than ten square meters through the small door on the right side of the TV cabinet.

This is a walk-in closet transformed into a study, which is also empty at the moment.There is only a large 20-inch tablet propped diagonally on the table, and a small mobile phone-shaped terminal beside it.

Song Yin had tried these two devices long before falling asleep, but just as soon as her finger touched the screen, a few lines of small words jumped out: "The executive officer's physical and mental state has failed, please rest and adjust."

Hours later, he tried to press his finger on the screen again, finally passed, and was immediately presented with a gimmicky portal-like interface.

"What the hell..." Song Yin narrowed his eyes.

The screen is divided into three major areas according to color.The most eye-catching thing is the 3D figure standing between the left and center areas.

It was a long-haired beauty in an embroidered coat, with long black hair and bangs, cold eyebrows, but a pink heart painted on her right cheek.

Song Yin suddenly recalled that this was the beauty on the Huangquan mineral water bottle.

He continued to look up and down, and found that there was a circular stamp of "Yesterday's MVP" on the side of the beauty's long legs, and five small characters in two lines - "Mithril, Yugutai"

Mithril is a legendary metal, and Yugutai is a cultural attraction—why are two irrelevant things side by side?

Song Yin tried to click on the text area, but no explanation appeared.He clicked on the beauty's body again, and the shopping guide tab of the embroidered coat popped up.

"Goddess of the Mori series...classic explosion?" Song Yin began to wonder if he opened Taobao.

He moved his gaze from the beautiful woman to the left side of the screen. More catalogs were displayed in the area with a light blue background, including weapons and armor.

Song Yin, who likes firearms, randomly selected a few models to view the details, and found that besides the basic parameters such as weight and size, there are many unknown electromagnetic and particle data, and some models even have runes and carvings. Like an aesthetic freak that mixes religion and technology.

"That's kind of interesting."

Completely forgetting that she was naked, Song Yin calmly opened one weapon page after another.It was also because he was too involved that he didn't notice a figure quietly appearing behind him.

"I remember that humans wear clothes because they have a sense of shame." The voice of the blond assistant officer was cold.

"I have to take care of the shameful human beings in my own home. How tiring it is to live." Maintaining an unrefined posture with one hand on his knees, Song Yin turned his head carelessly: "The assistant officer can freely enter and exit the safe house? What about the respect and privacy as promised?" ?”

"As long as you complete the registration, you can adjust the privacy level of the safe house at any time." The assistant officer walked to Song Yin's side. As an artificial intelligence, he was obviously not implanted with the concept of "see no evil".

Since it wasn't awkward, Song Yin didn't bother to go back to the bedroom and put on the sheets.

The eyes of the two people were focused on the tablet computer.The assistant officer waved his finger in the air, and the screen immediately returned to the start screen.

"This is the Aksha system independently developed by Purgatory. It provides all kinds of materials that each executive depends on for survival. It is also a mission release system and a communication platform. Before official use, you must first agree to register as an executive .”

"Is there any other choice?" Song Yin urged, "What should I do, hurry up."

The assistant officer continued to wave his fingers, and a large text titled "Instructions for Executive Officers" appeared on the screen.

Even after reading it, there was no choice, Song Yin quickly pulled down to the bottom, and pressed his right hand to the designated position on the screen.With a flash of white light, his fingertips burned slightly, and a prompt "registration takes effect" came out immediately.

"Your fingertip information has been collected and fixed, and it will serve as your identity proof and consumption credentials."

After the registration is completed, the tablet computer returns to the initial interface again.Two Chinese characters appeared on the left side of the golden navigation bar at the top of the page.

"Flash Butterfly? What do you mean?" Song Yin asked.

"A butterfly species."

"I know, but why is this word here."

"That's your code name." The assistant officer reached over Song Yin's shoulder, and touched the word "Flash Butterfly", and the secondary page that jumped out showed Song Yin's photo.

"Can you change it!" Song Yin was dissatisfied: "Do you think this code name is suitable for a man?"

"According to human aesthetics, male butterflies are more popular."

Song Yin was speechless and gave up reasoning with artificial intelligence.

He starts looking at this secondary page.The blue ( ) area on the left is personal information.Except for birthday gender, height and weight, and signing date, everything is blank.

There is also a black video window in the lower right corner of the screen, and some small red and green lights keep flashing.

Song Yin slides the "light on" button according to the prompt, and the screen is suddenly illuminated, showing a small ward with "another Song Yin" lying on the bed, covered with various instruments, unconscious.

The assistant officer explained: "This is a special service for executive officers without family members. During your duties, your body will enter a vegetative state. The medical team will ensure that your body functions normally and that your muscles do not atrophy and degenerate. This It is a live broadcast in the ward, and if you find something abnormal, you can call the police with one click."

"So you also have business in the human world?"

"There are many branches, and I will let you know about them step by step in the future."

The assistant officer waved his hand lightly, and a neatly arranged video preview screen appeared in the middle column of the originally blank screen: "This is the dungeon selection interface, and each video window represents a dream. Your job is to enter the dream and arrest stowaways."

"Why is it a dream?"

"Because sleep is equal to a small death. In Greek mythology, the god of death and the god of sleep are twin brothers." The assistant officer's answer was between philosophy and superstition, "What you will see next is not a dream, but a piece of reality The video faithfully records how stowaways invade the real world from dreams."

As he spoke, he called up a video window.

In the picture is a messy room about six or seven square meters.On both sides are bulky bookshelves, full of books, pen holders and drawing tools.On the wall facing the camera is a door with a white board covered in scribbled cartoon characters.

Song Yin narrowed his eyes, and he saw that the floor of the room was full of cardboard boxes and bottles and cans, which were basically the outer packaging of cakes and candies.

There is a knock on the door outside the screen.Suddenly, a man who seemed to have just woken up crawled out of the garbage dump, bloated and obese, wrapped in a white raincoat.

The man slowly opened the door and walked out, and soon moved back with a huge express cardboard box in his arms.

He kicked away the cardboard boxes on the ground and moved all the way to the desk.Facing the camera, he revealed his bluish-purple, severely swollen face.The bloodshot eyes turned slowly, and found a paper knife on the table.

The carton was slashed open and its contents slammed onto the floor—big bags of candy, cartons of raw eggs, and tins of spray cream.

The man stared blankly at these things, and took off his raincoat after a few seconds.Soon, there are two naked men both on and off the screen.

"... Zombies?!"

It wasn't Song Yin's exaggeration, what was displayed in front of his eyes was a highly inflated and festered body.The upper body was severely deformed, and the lower limbs festered into a brown-black, rotten banana-like horrible mass.

How could ordinary people bear such enormous pain.

"Is it because of stowaways?" Song Yin guessed: "The purpose of stowaways sneaking into the dream is to manipulate human beings in thought and then kill them?"

"It's not that simple." The assistant officer fast forwarded the video.

The naked man sat on the ground.There were sounds of plastic bags being unsealed, egg shells cracking, and compressed cans spraying in the house.Although the exact picture cannot be seen, it is clear that the man is swallowing everything in his mouth.

After about 5 minutes, a blue-gray hand appears at the bottom of the frame.Immediately afterwards, half of a ghostly face rose up, and two lifeless eyes were facing the screen.

The man struggled to climb up the seat, and Song Yin could clearly see white grease overflowing from the corners of his mouth, nostrils, eyes, and even his ears.

The man was obviously in extreme pain, with his mouth half-opened, his moans gradually turned into strange grunts, as if a secret fermentation was rushing in his stomach.

Suddenly, something cracked and cracked.

Song Yin opened his eyes wide, and he saw that one of the man's front teeth had disappeared.

"啪" - another sound, and the second front tooth was also missing.But this time Song Yin saw clearly that the front tooth exploded in mid-air and landed on the table, becoming a perfectly shaped popcorn.

There was a crackling sound one after another, more popcorn was flying in the sky, and the man fell down wailing.

The pushed chair cleared the view.Accompanied by the crackling sound like peeling grapefruit peels, a long and thin crack appeared in the middle of the spine of the man's body.The milky white oil can't wait to overflow.

Song Yin felt nauseous for a while, but she still frowned and tried to read on.

As the gap widens, the skin on both sides of the spine begins to evert.Within seconds, the entire interior of the corpse poured outward, flipping over to become a new surface, but it wasn't bloody.

"……cake?"

Song Yin couldn't believe his eyes—the middle-aged man's body had turned into a huge cake base, the white substance gushing out of his body was the cream on the cake, and the rolled-up internal organs were decorated with strawberries and blueberries , chocolate rolls and jam, and even a small silver fork.

"This is its purpose." The assistant officer said, "The stowaway sneaks into the dream, manipulates the dream owner's brain, absorbs the substances it needs in reality, and when the time is right, it will transform and come to the real world."

Song Yin suddenly felt chills down his spine: "So you planted the funeral flower on my body, what will happen in the end?"

"It's not that good. The Burial Flower is not very potent, and it takes a long time to absorb all the nutrients in a person. It was chosen as the initial test tool because of its low harm."

"So this cake is more powerful?" Song Yin was puzzled, "But what did it sneak here for? To be eaten?"

"Eating does not mean death. By being continuously swallowed by humans, splitting and proliferating, the goal of occupying the human world can also be achieved."

Song Yin glanced at the huge half-person-high cake on the screen again: "Would anyone eat such a suspicious thing?"

"It's suspicious, that's why we got the news and controlled it in time. You should be thankful that not every stowaway can perfectly integrate into human society."

"So what to do next?"

"Smugglers will be temporarily concentrated and housed, looking for opportunities to repatriate, or use or deal with them depending on their danger."

"Understood." Song Yin nodded, "So, the task of the executive officer is to enter the dream and catch the stowaway before the dead."

The assistant officer confirmed Song Yin's conclusion, and then switched the screen back to the copy selection interface.

"Any infected dreams will emit special fluctuations. The monitoring center will collect and organize the fluctuation data and publish them on the Aksha system in the form of dungeons. Executives will challenge dungeons of different difficulties according to their own abilities, and they will get work points after they succeed .”

Having said that, he reminded Song Yin to click on the first video, and the page that popped up listed various details about this dungeon.

"Dreams invaded by stowaways are like frozen lakes. Although they are more stable than normal dreams, they also have a load limit that is on the verge of collapse, so each dungeon stipulates the number of people who can enter, such as this dungeon. The number is one."

The assistant officer asked Song Yin to press the "Accept" button at the bottom of the page.

Suddenly, the seat under Song Yin began to turn.As the angle of view changed, the dark and narrow study room disappeared, and he entered a bright white space with shelves on the walls all around, but it was empty.

"This is the combat preparation room, where equipment can be adjusted." The assistant officer who came in together glanced at Song Yin: "Please buy the necessities for battle first, especially clothes and pants."

As soon as the words fell, a screen projection appeared in front of Song Yin, which was the shopping mall he had just checked.

Recalling the astronomical prices of those equipment, Song Yin asked, "How much budget do I have?"

"Nil, but you can pay on credit first. After the dungeon is completed, the system will give you an entry fee based on your performance. The better your performance, the higher the amount."

Song Yin didn't think about it for too long: "If you want to be good at it, sharpen your weapon first, I will choose the most expensive one."

"Unfortunately, your current basic attributes are too low. High-level weapons and armor will overwhelm your body and spirit. I suggest you buy the most basic sportswear."

This is not the answer Song Yin hoped for, he shook his head: "Then don't buy it, so be it."

"No problem." The assistant officer didn't even stop him: "After entering the dungeon, all your activities will be broadcast live to other online executives. Excuse me, have you decided to start the streaking show?"