Chapter 429: Derivative Star

Looking at the message from Bai Liqing, Yu Sheng paused briefly, then immediately lifted his head and swept his gaze around him.

Level IV cognitive restructuring... reality reconstruction on a planetary scale...

"Holy shit, this is big..."

Yu Sheng muttered under his breath, then without hesitation, he took advantage of the phone still having signal to dial Bai Liqing's number.

The other party seemed to have been waiting for his message. The call connected almost instantly after he dialed. Yu Sheng didn't waste time—as soon as he heard her greeting on the other end, he cut straight to the point: "Shuji's reality has been reconstructed."

"...Expected, but still the worst-case scenario," Bai Liqing's voice remained steady, as if she always carried an aura that could calm everyone down. "However, since the signal is still connected, it means the reality reconstruction on that planet hasn't fully 'closed' yet—the Derivative Star's pupation process hasn't been completed."

"First, tell me exactly what's going on," Yu Sheng said quickly, while in the corner of his eye, the cold wind and rain once again swept through the roof into the lobby, yet passed through as if from another dimension, interacting with nothing. Several blurry, color-patch humanoid outlines suddenly appeared in the rain, walking and chatting as they passed through the wall near the front desk. "I need all the intelligence on the 'Derivative Star.'"

"I've already sent the files the Special Affairs Bureau has. I'll try to keep it brief on the rest," Bai Liqing said calmly and rapidly. "I just received a sample sent from Garrison-3 and heard the recovery team's report. Now I can basically confirm that the Dim Angel parasitic within Shuji is the 'Derivative Star,' and the parasitism stage should be between late pupation and the Ascended Form. Due to external stimuli, it might prematurely complete pupation and forcibly 'ascend' from within the star—this process will finish within a few days...

"As for the Derivative Star, it might be one of the oldest known Dim Angels. We even suspect it may have appeared in our real universe before the first angel, the 'Tree Angel,' arrived—though we currently lack empirical evidence...

"Compared to other Dim Angels, the Derivative Star has many peculiarities, mainly two. First, its activities seem to have a strong 'purpose': constantly seeking new planets to 'parasitize.' Second, it has a change process that resembles a 'life cycle'...

"At the start of parasitism, it will teleport above the target planet in the form of a meteor, then make a crude orbital descent—this stage is called the 'Fruiting Body.'

"After landing on the target planet, the Derivative Star quickly burrows underground and transforms into a crystalline structure that rapidly expands inside the star—this stage is called the 'Crepuscular Phase.' We're not sure how long this process lasts, but it's certain that its expansion inside the planet accelerates geometrically in the late Crepuscular Phase.

"After the Crepuscular Phase, the Derivative Star begins preparing for the next 'transfer.' It will 'consume' everything useful in the planet, including the planetary veins and... high-energy minerals. At this stage, it stops expanding and reorganizes a new 'core' inside the nest it has constructed. We call this stage 'Pupation.'

"The Pupation Phase's duration is also unknown. After this phase ends, the 'essence' part of the Derivative Star will contract into a new core, break out from underground, and fly into the cosmos—this 'ascension' is extremely fast, and the part that leaves the star is called the 'Ascended Form.'

"The Ascended Form has superluminal movement capabilities and may even be able to 'teleport' through subspace or other unknown means. Its core will enter a dormant state during this process. When it reaches the airspace of a new target planet, the Ascended Form will re-enter the 'Fruiting Body' state and start a new round of parasitism..."

Eileen, lying on Yu Sheng's shoulder and listening to Bai Liqing's voice coming through the phone's speaker, suddenly muttered, "So basically, it's just a cycle of eating, sleeping, and running."

Yu Sheng's mouth twitched. "...You could put it that way."

Then he quickly thought of something else.

"How could nobody discover it with such large-scale activity in the real world?"

"That's exactly what I'm about to say," Bai Liqing said rapidly. "The strangest and most dangerous thing about the 'Derivative Star' isn't its 'parasitism,' but its 'cognitive restructuring'—powerful enough to cover reality within a certain range.

"From the moment the 'Crepuscular Phase' begins, the Derivative Star releases an extremely wide range of cognitive interference. Within the interference range, ordinary people can't perceive the Derivative Star's existence at all, including all the 'anomalies' it creates. People live right next to the crystals it spreads, even build homes and cities above it after it burrows completely underground.

"Historically, various factions have not never detected the Derivative Star's parasitism—usually, they observed anomalies in a planet's parameters from very far away through detectors. But every time they got closer to observe, investigators would conclude that 'everything is normal.' Scholars from various factions spent a long time and tremendous effort, relying even on luck, to confirm the existence of the 'Derivative Star' and roughly summarized its 'cycle changes.' But to this day, no one has successfully 'caught' it during the Crepuscular and Pupation phases... You're the first."

Suddenly, a dull thunderclap rolled across the sky, and a strange howl seemed to come from the distance in the wind and rain. Yu Sheng looked up at the lobby entrance and saw that the street outside seemed to have lost gravity, detaching from the ground. Various buildings floated in fragments in midair, while new roads 'grew' from between nearby buildings, winding and connecting between them.

Yu Sheng walked to the entrance, carefully watching the changes outside as he spoke rapidly: "It looks like... the 'cognitive barrier' it created has broken down. The world we're seeing has gone completely insane and is still getting more chaotic."

Bai Liqing's tone turned grave: "What you're seeing should be the 'fault' at the boundary of the cognitive barrier—the false reality and the true reality are squeezing and deforming each other. All observations are losing accuracy. What you see is neither the real Mocheng nor a complete illusion. This should also have caused instability in the 'depth' of your surroundings. And if my judgment is correct, this situation will continue to worsen.

"The Derivative Star's cognitive interference has a very dangerous characteristic: it 'superimposes resonance' as the number of nearby intelligent beings affected increases. In short, every mind affected by the Derivative Star becomes part of the cognitive barrier. The 'hallucinations' they experience due to the Star's influence will further enhance the degree of reality reconstruction.

"This is another major reason why the Derivative Star's parasitism is hard to detect. The deeper the parasitism, the more people think everything around them is normal. And this 'thinking' can even directly alter the 'truth' of the real world. By the late Pupation Phase, even if you have 'true sight,' entering a planet parasitized by the Derivative Star, you won't see anything abnormal—because..."

Bai Liqing's voice suddenly cut in and out, likely because the 'depth' of the environment around Yu Sheng had changed again. Just before the signal cut out completely, a blurry phrase came through the phone—

"You... are in a dream collectively created by everyone on the entire planet..."

Static noise sounded, Bai Liqing's voice disappeared, and the phone screen flickered again, displaying a prompt about depth change and communication interruption.

Eileen and Hu Li exchanged glances.

Luna tilted her head toward them.

Yu Sheng looked at the phone with no signal, silently pondered for two seconds, then casually stuffed it into his pocket. He raised a hand and pulled open a small door beside him.

On the other side of the door was Bai Liqing's desk—she was just sighing and placing her phone on the table.

Yu Sheng leaned half his body out of the door, propping himself on Bai Liqing's desk. "What was the last part? I didn't catch it."

Bai Liqing shot up from her chair.

This was the first time Yu Sheng had seen this cool, collected female director jump up, and she even winced in pain when her leg hit the table.

Then they stared at each other for two seconds.

Yu Sheng felt a bit awkward, while Bai Liqing's expression was complex—three parts awkwardness, two parts anger she didn't dare show, five parts shock and suspicion, and the remaining ninety parts were anyone's guess. Based on her usual poker face, she might have used up her lifetime supply of expressions in those two seconds.

After a moment of silence, Yu Sheng suggested apologetically, "...How about I step back and try again?"

"No need."

Bai Liqing sat back down, rubbing her leg under the table while keeping a straight face.

Then, a second later, she added, "I said you are in a dream collectively created by everyone on the entire planet—the billions of people on Shuji are using their 'cognition' to help the Derivative Star complete its final pupation. You'd better find a way to interrupt that process before its Ascended Form matures."

"Uh, okay."

Yu Sheng nodded and pulled himself back.

Just as he was about to close the door, Bai Liqing suddenly lifted her head again, her expression serious as she looked at him.

"Don't underestimate it. Even though you... anyway, be careful."

Yu Sheng paused, glanced at the Mocheng outside the lobby that had gone completely insane, and silently turned his head.

"Don't worry, I won't underestimate it. I'm freaking out looking at this mess outside right now."

Bai Liqing might have smiled? Or maybe the leg pain made her eye twitch again? Yu Sheng didn't quite catch it.

He closed the door, took a deep breath, and walked toward the absurd nightmare outside the lobby.

(End of chapter)