Chapter Thirteen: The Network Realm
This is the most common low-rent housing in the Shentai District, assembled from polyethylene plastic panels. Song Shi lived on the third floor.
Passing through a narrow, winding alley, Song Shi hurried upstairs. A heavy, stale wave of heat and stifling air hit him. On every floor, people huddled in the hallways. The dim yellow light filtered through the swirling smoke, casting indifferent faces into view.
The temperature control in these low-rent apartments was poor, but it was still far warmer than outside. At night, these people would emerge and spend the night in the corridors.
Hearing the noise, some lifted their heads slightly, glancing at the young man passing through the hallway, but most kept their heads buried in their blankets, indifferent to everything.
These people were very well-behaved.
Though every morning the hallways were littered with scattered needles, cigarette butts, and various suspicious stains, they never harassed the residents. They quietly minded their own business and stayed just one night—any troublemakers would be collectively thrown out by the others.
Song Shi weaved through the crowded corridor and stopped before a door.
After trying his fingerprint for the fifth time, the old smart door—whose previous owners were unknown—finally creaked open slowly.
But it immediately got stuck one-third along the sliding track.
Song Shi’s expression remained unchanged, but he felt a twinge of exasperation.
He forced the door open, squeezed inside, and slammed it shut with a “creak.”
“Phew—”
Once inside, Song Shi exhaled a breath of stale air.
The space in this low-rent room was quite small, roughly eight or nine square meters. The moment he stepped in, the cramped quarters seemed to press in on him, bringing an indescribable sense of suffocation.
“...Hmm.”
Though he had related memories, only upon entering and visually taking in the surroundings did Song Shi truly feel the subtle reality of it.
The metal blinds, clearly corroded by acid rain, were tightly shut. By the window stood a wooden desk with a grainy texture.
That desk was a rare find, purchased for 150 credit points at a junkyard. It was genuine wood—black walnut content as high as 13%—with a retail price of at least six or seven hundred credit points.
Probably because two corners were chipped and a section of the surface was badly discolored, the previous owner discarded it, and Song Shi had snagged it by chance.
He had sliced the desk in half with a box cutter, keeping one half for himself and leaving the other half in the room opposite.
The neighbor was a newly graduated office worker still in the probation period, overwhelmed by explosive task loads every day. When he saw Song Shi had rescued the desk, he paid a hundred credit points for half to work from home voluntarily every night.
On the desk lay some miscellaneous items—several magnetic cards, chewing gum, a lighter. Song Shi glanced past them and quickly washed up in the bathroom, changed into clean clothes, then pulled a box out from under the bed and placed its contents on the desk.
It was a device shaped like a pair of headset glasses, exuding a high-tech aura, with a precision-polished crystal lens and multiple neural interface connectors.
Song Shi had received it as a birthday gift from everyone at the Romond Welfare Institute when he came of age.
The “Jack’s Seed”—a portable domain deep-diving device.
It was a previous-generation product from the giant corporation Zero Degree Network, targeting the mid-to-low-end civilian market.
For those without implanted prosthetics that enable domain deep-diving, only these external devices allowed further immersion into the network.
For example, one of the most common uses of “domain deep-diving devices” was virtual reality services.
Through neural circuit connectors, simulated servos, and cognitive modeling technologies, they mimicked the five senses, creating an immersive experience so convincing it was hard to distinguish from reality—this was “virtual reality.”
The “Brain in a Vat” was the pinnacle of virtual reality technology.
Currently, one of the most popular live-streaming platforms, Valhalla, offered a premium service called “Heroic Tribute.” When a user’s spending in a streamer’s room reached a certain amount, they could invite the streamer into an online private room—both parties’ uploaded data generated “proxy avatars” to engage in various interactive activities.
The virtual world offered far more possibilities than the physical one.
Including but not limited to adjusting personal sensitivity multipliers, scene swapping, and various special props...
This was precisely why Song Shi had returned.
Of course, it wasn’t to tip in a live stream or play some virtual game. He intended to use another main function of the domain deep-diving device—“deep dive”—to penetrate beyond the domain firewall into the lower realms of the network, heading to a certain place.
The original Song Shi was merely a welfare orphan with almost no access to many things and almost no personal connections.
Right now, only that place could serve as emergency support.
—To change equipment, purchase intelligence, and understand the situation in Palos.
Even though he possessed memories spanning more than twenty years into the future and knew some major upcoming events, the most important thing currently was to quickly regain strength and deal with the ever-persistent Palos Institute of Cognitive and Mental Research.
As for what came afterward...
Last time, he had halted at the fourth-ring psychic ability, “Ascension.”
This time, he was determined to witness the sights of the fifth-ring psychic ability, “True Spirit,” with his own eyes!
Song Shi packed up his equipment, glanced around once more, and after some thought, decided not to take anything else.
There would surely be a day to come back.
Not sneaking around like now, but returning openly and with confidence.
...
“Hello, your destination has been reached. The service fee is 450 credit points, no installment payments accepted. Please complete payment within five minutes, or I will—”
The vehicle’s AI voice suddenly shifted from calm and gentle to exuberant:
“Payment confirmed! Thank you for your patronage! This service was provided by Convance Mobility! We look forward to your next visit!”
The giant corporation Temporal Passage was world-renowned for its smart control and vehicle technologies; Convance Mobility was its subsidiary brand, focusing on the low-end autonomous vehicle ride market.
Beyond basic transportation, Convance Mobility also offered value-added services like anonymous travel, including erasing travel records and masking user information—at least the Municipal Security Bureau had no authority to request such data from them.
This explained why Song Shi’s fare was as high as 450 credit points.
He wrapped his coat tighter and entered a hotel.
A crooked, faded signboard, dim flickering lights, a suffocating stale atmosphere, a lingering stench of poor-quality alcohol, and suspicious syringes and nicotine vaporizer filters hidden in dark corners.
This was the most common type of hotel in the Shentai District—cheap, old, and brimming with a corrupt vitality.
But with numerous broken cameras, a dense flow of people, and a mixed crowd, such places also meant relative safety.
“One room for the night.”
No response.
A middle-aged man lay slumped in the chair behind the counter, wearing a helmet that was clearly another kind of domain deep-diving device. He was probably watching some stimulating program; his breathing grew visibly rapid.
Just as he was about to reach a climax, a loud noise abruptly interrupted him—his helmet wasn’t high-end, with low immersion and weak resistance to environmental interference, making it easy for external forces to forcibly exit virtual reality.
“Damn!”
The man groaned, yanking off the helmet to find someone standing at the counter.
“Boss, a room for the night.”
Song Shi slowly withdrew his hand from the counter and smiled warmly.
“Can’t you wait a bit longer...?”
The man sighed weakly, reluctantly getting up and fidgeting with the tablet before him.
“There are vacant rooms... Do you want someone called? Need any candy?”
“No, no candy.”
“Then B302, 45 credit points a night. Scan the QR code on the wall yourself.”
After rummaging in a drawer for a moment, he tossed a magnetic card over.
“Check out before 9 a.m. tomorrow, remember to return the card.”
“No problem.”
Avoiding an exposed wire dangling from a hole in the ceiling, Song Shi went up to the third floor, swiped the card, and entered room B302.
He sat on the bed and put on the glasses.
The portable domain deep-diving device—Jack’s Seed.
【Neural circuits connecting...】
【Brain-machine interface establishing link...】
【Data processing integration underway...】
【Personality cognition surfacing...】
【Virtual reality generating...】
【Current progress: 100%】
【—Welcome to the “Jack’s Seed” domain deep-diving device】
The device was ready.
When Song Shi opened his eyes again, the base scene of three-dimensional grids flashed by in an instant, replaced by a dazzling, bizarre network world.
Next, he had to find the entry address.
Time to make a trip.
To the lower domain—a free anonymous trading community.
—The Thousand-Star City.