The man leading the group was middle-aged, in his forties, with a slightly overweight frame. He wore a shirt and tie, and his eyes were clouded, as if soaked in years of indulgence in wealth and pleasure.
Walking a step behind him on the right was another man, his skin dark and weathered, his face rugged. Bloodshot eyes and an unkempt beard added to his disheveled appearance.
He was dressed in a gray-black T-shirt under a denim shirt and had a tall, muscular build. Although only 34, streaks of silver were already visible in his black hair, and combined with his mature features, he looked no younger than the man ahead of him, who was nearly fifty.
Qi Min stared at the familiar face for a moment before shifting his gaze to the last person in the group.
“The situation isn’t looking good. This attempt failed. I’ll need to go back in,” Qi Min said.
Standing at the back was an elderly man with white hair, dressed in a standard white coat bearing the logo of Deep Blue Technology.
The old man was tall, with a scholarly appearance, and deep wrinkles etched between his brows.
These three individuals were, respectively, You Xianjie, the newly crowned richest man in Linjiang City; Hao Peng, an investigator with the Linjiang City Criminal Police Unit; and Yang Shengyu, the director of Deep Blue Technology, where Qi Min worked.
Over the past year, Linjiang City had been plagued by a string of serial murders targeting the children of wealthy families.
A week ago, Captain Shang Jingshui of the Linjiang Criminal Police Unit had sustained a head injury during a solo investigation and fell into a coma, becoming a vegetative state.
Following this, the suspect kidnapped You Suiran, the son of You Xianjie, a prominent real estate tycoon in Linjiang City.
Despite large-scale manhunts, the suspect remained at large, and You Suiran’s life hung by a thread.
With traditional methods proving ineffective, the police, after much deliberation, approved the transfer of Shang Jingshui from Linjiang City Central Hospital to Deep Blue after two hospital relocations.
Founded in 2007, Deep Blue Technology was a company dedicated to addressing mental health issues by entering patients’ subconscious minds. It boasted a team of experts in bioengineering, neuroscience, psychology, electronic engineering, and computer science.
In 2011, Deep Blue developed the prototypes for the Nanothread and the “Hippocampus” device, with experimental trials beginning in 2015.
A year ago, the company made headlines by using its third-generation Hippocampus technology to awaken a patient who had been in a vegetative state for seven years.
While this technology was still under review by ethical committees due to its risks, it had been authorized for limited use on critically ill patients who had signed informed consent forms, allowing for lifesaving diagnostics and treatments.
Sitting in the waiting room outside the testing chamber, Qi Min sipped tea, blowing away the foam while scrolling through news on his phone.
On the screen was a photo of an average-looking middle-aged man with a kind expression, wearing a white coat and standing in front of a familiar shrubbery.
The caption beneath the photo read:
“Suspected murderer Wei Wenhua, photographed in 1996 at Linjiang City East Hospital, Second Ward.”
Qi Min tapped the screen, shrinking the image before swiping up the page.
The bold headline caught his eye:
“14-Year-Old Fracture Patient Outsmarts Killer Doctor – Oncologist Murders 15 Patients Over Two Decades.”
Crossing one leg over the other, Qi Min took a sip of hot tea, his gaze skimming over the pixelated photo of the “heroic youth identified as Shang XX.”
Thinking back to his speculations within the subconscious world, Qi Min couldn’t help but chuckle.
Closing the lid on his teacup, he slipped his phone into his pocket and slowly made his way back to the testing chamber.
Stopping in front of the glass panel separating him from a certain someone who seemed intent on boring a hole through it with their stare, Qi Min asked, “You’re Officer Shang’s high school classmate?”
Hao Peng froze for a moment before replying, “…Yes, but we didn’t attend the same university. How did you know? Did Shang tell you…?”
Qi Min nodded.
Not only do I know you’re Shang Jingshui’s high school classmate, he thought, I also know you used to be a chubby, dark-skinned kid.
Loved the braised pork knuckles at You’s diner and the stir-fried intestines at Hu’s restaurant. Had a crush on Chen Siyu, who sat in the second row.
Lu Qianwen stepped down from the calibration platform and reported, “The ‘Hippocampus’ is functioning normally, but there was an unexplained connection disruption with the Nanothread at around 27 minutes.”
Qi Min did have a brief memory gap during the session—specifically the stretch between leaving the school gate and arriving at East Hospital.
At the time, Shang Jingshui’s subconscious world had suddenly collapsed in a dangerously chaotic state.
Without the Nanothread acting as a bridging vessel, how had Qi Min managed to escape Shang Jingshui’s subconscious and enter a world constructed by his own consciousness?
Such incidents weren’t unheard of.
Most of Deep Blue’s test subjects were psychiatric patients with fractured, surreal subconscious worlds that lacked stability and could collapse at any moment.
When that happened, the Nanothread connecting both subconscious minds would sever.
Sometimes, testers could return to their bodies autonomously; other times, they couldn’t.
If a tester didn’t wake up for a prolonged period, or if the monitoring system detected abnormal brain activity, they would be forcibly ejected using Arfinmintros.
Arfinmintros, a wakefulness-inducing drug, could accelerate breathing, increase heart rate, and boost blood circulation, heightening the user’s perception of reality and pulling them out of deep sleep.
However, due to its severe side effects, the drug was still in Phase II clinical trials and was avoided unless absolutely necessary.
Even so, most testers had short-lived careers, often retiring within one or two years.
Qi Min, however, had worked as a tester for seven years without ever needing Arfinmintros. He could always detach himself from the subconscious worlds on his own.
Still, the process of detachment and the memories from moments when the Nanothread severed often remained hazy.
Treating patients in the subconscious world was rarely a pleasant experience.
These subconscious realms were distorted versions of reality—partly overlapping with the real world, but also filled with the patient’s desires, delusions, and primal instincts.
Moreover, time flowed differently in the subconscious world.
Like dreaming, one could spend years in a subconscious realm, only to return and find that mere hours had passed in the real world.
With so many accumulated memories from these subconscious journeys, it’s inevitable for them to blur with reality. Over time, it becomes harder to distinguish between the two.
That’s why, after each treatment session, testers must undergo psychological interventions to help them forget their experiences in the subconscious world.
Not overanalyzing those memories is a crucial part of maintaining a tester’s mental health.
As for the unexplained distortions and gaps within the subconscious, those headaches are left for the researchers reviewing the work logs to deal with.
Qi Min walked over to Shang Jingshui’s testing platform.
Dressed in a hospital gown and wearing a stretchy hairnet, Shang Jingshui stared at him with dull, black eyes, his expression utterly blank.
Although vegetative state patients lack autonomous consciousness and cannot move or turn on their own, they still exhibit certain reflexes: involuntary eye movement, blinking, coughing, and even occasional acts of “staring.”
However, these behaviors don’t indicate recovery from the vegetative state.
Shang Jingshui had been brought here earlier that morning in this same state—eyes open, pupils occasionally shifting. His silent demeanor made him appear almost like a normal person.
But he couldn’t swallow on his own, nor manage basic bodily functions.
Qi Min had even watched the caregivers insert a nasal feeding tube to feed him.
Waving his hand in front of Shang Jingshui’s eyes, Qi Min saw no reaction—the man continued to stare blankly at him.
The unblinking gaze was unsettling, so Qi Min leaned forward and gently closed his eyelids to prevent dryness.
Though Shang Jingshui was in a vegetative state, the hospital staff who had transferred him mentioned that apart from a head injury, there was no visible damage to his cerebral cortex—no hemorrhaging or signs of oxygen deprivation.
The exact cause of his vegetative state remained unknown, though EEG scans did detect abnormal brain activity.
A year ago, Deep Blue had handled a patient with similar symptoms and successfully awakened them.
Because of this, both the police and hospital held high hopes for Deep Blue.
But Qi Min knew that Shang Jingshui was vastly different from that previous patient.
His face clouded with concern as he stood by the platform.
Hao Peng, puzzled by Qi Min’s expression, stood stiffly a few steps away, his wide-eyed gaze fixed in this direction.
Seeing this, Yang Shengyu, the director of Deep Blue, walked over and lowered his voice. “What’s wrong?”
Qi Min replied, “Director, do you remember the vegetative patient sent here a year ago?”
Yang Shengyu blinked, then smiled. “Of course, I personally entered his subconscious world to awaken him. Why? Is something wrong?”
“I reviewed your work log from that case,” Qi Min began. “When you entered his subconscious, you immediately reached his core—a labyrinth.”
“You guided him out of the maze, and once you did, the patient woke up. But this time, I couldn’t even get close to the patient’s subconscious core. Worse, I lost my self-awareness.”
Yang Shengyu froze for a moment. “But the ‘Hippocampus’ system showed no issues. I monitored it closely from the calibration platform while you were in the subconscious. The system ran perfectly without any malfunctions…”
“If that’s the case, then the problem likely lies with the patient himself.”
Most people, when entering their own or someone else’s subconscious, cannot maintain a clear sense of self.
The Hippocampus device works by continuously stimulating the tester’s brain, keeping their real-world memories intact as they navigate the patient’s subconscious, allowing them to carry out targeted treatments.
Without it, testers risk losing themselves in the subconscious world, rendering them incapable of helping the patient and exposing themselves to danger.
With earlier versions of the Hippocampus, issues with frequency and intensity occasionally led to testers failing to activate their memories, instead being assimilated into the patient’s subconscious.
But the third generation of the Hippocampus had completely resolved these problems. In fact, it sometimes even caused patients to be influenced by the tester’s memories.
This technological advancement had shifted the balance of power, giving testers complete control during treatments. The process became safer and more humane.
Qi Min’s work log had already been uploaded.
Yang Shengyu opened his tablet, brows furrowing as he reviewed the data.
“…The subconscious isn’t governed by logic. Quite the opposite—it’s entirely illogical,” Yang Shengyu explained.
“Entering the subconscious is like stepping into a labyrinth. The outer layers are guarded by fragmented memories, which protect the core. You need to navigate this maze to reach the core if you want to wake the patient—or even modify their subconscious.”
Yang Shengyu looked up at Qi Min. “The patient is a criminal investigator. Logically, he should be highly cooperative during treatment. But based on what we’ve seen so far, his brain injury seems to have severely disrupted his self-perception.”
The Author has something to say:
The science and technology described here are fictional constructs specific to this novel and not real science.
Additionally, in the previous chapter, Shang Jingshui chose to spare Qi Min not because he was a deranged killer but because, at his core, Shang Jingshui was a police officer. After assessing that Qi Min posed no threat, he decided to eliminate the true danger—his own role as Wei Wenhua.
In the real world, however, Wei Wenhua was far less merciful to the 14-year-old Shang Jingshui who uncovered the truth. It was only by a narrow margin that Wei Wenhua fell into police custody first.
