When the Wild Beast is Trapped in the Nightmare Cycle (BL)-Chapter 697: Project Tomorrow

"Nian’er, look! Are you looking for this?"

At the sound of Jin Jiuchi’s voice, Shen Nianzu tore his gaze away from the shocking scene before him. He found Jin Jiuchi standing in front of a wall of dormant screens, looking almost like an array of black mirrors, beckoning at him eagerly.

When Shen Nianzu walked over, he presented his findings with a ’ta-da!’

"Did I get it right? Did I?" he asked proudly, his invisible tail wagging behind him. His entire demeanor from head to toe was screaming ’Praise me. Come on, praise me lots!’

Shen Nianzu couldn’t help but feel amused. It seemed like on any occasion, Jin Jiuchi could always adapt a carefree and leisurely demeanor no matter what challenges came their way. This, in itself, could be considered a rare talent. Although it could be infuriating more often than not, Shen Nianzu could not deny that such an attitude lightened the heaviness in his heart considerably. If he had woken up and explored this massive facility all alone, how wretched, how tense he must have been?

But thanks to Jin Jiuchi’s presence, he was able to find a brief respite.

Passing through, he raised his hand and casually patted Jin Jiuchi’s head like he was praising a doggo. "Good job."

Jin Jiuchi’s eyes lit up like the sun, grinning from ears to ears.

With a clingy husky sticking close to his side, Shen Nianzu stood before the rows of screens and began to familiarize himself with the technology. His expression grew more and more solemn. He was quite lucky that the system framework did not differ much from what he already knew, allowing him to navigate his way smoothly.

—Jackpot!

Shen Nianzu quietly clenched his fists when he found a folder labeled ARCHIVE.

He wasted no time to open it and peruse the files.

The folder contained everything he was looking for, from the blueprints of the whole facility, detailed staff rosters, to the full list of cryo sleep participants.

As it turned out, this world had once faced the threat of extinction. Natural resources were exhausted, disasters struck in relentless succession, and the planet’s magnetic field was thrown dangerously off balance. This caused the climate to spiral into extremes, flora and fauna perished, and day and night reversed themselves.

They were literally marching straight toward doom.

For that, the government built this facility and invited elite researchers all over the world for a grand, desperate project—

TOMORROW

The main goal was to prepare for the inevitable day when this world would no longer be habitable. To that end, they developed advanced pods that could sustain their lives, all the while venturing out to seek either new resources... or an entirely new world.

To support this mission, they also created an artificial intelligence, giving it the codename: N1GT0009

"This..." Shen Nianzu was stunned as an inexplicable premonition welled up inside him. "Could this be... the initial prototype of the Nightmare?"

Jin Jiuchi supported by furrowing his brow from the side, even though he had been zoning out for the last hour. "Hm," he responded with all seriousness.

...Forget it, Shen Nianzu was only talking to himself anyway.

Unsure, he decided to read on.

N1GT0009— or Night, for short— was a newly developed artificial intelligence whose purpose was to send distress signals to the universe out there and search for a new planet suitable for human survival. However, this wasn’t something that could be achieved in mere years or even decades. For that, the people of this world decided to enter cryo sleep, preserving their bodies and lives as they waited for their beloved Night to welcome them into a new paradise.

The final log was from the director of the institute, also the last person to enter the cryo sleep. He had written— This is it. I’m going to enter the pod today. I don’t know what the future will bring, but I feel relieved to have done my best. We all have done our best. We, humanity, have fought to our very last breath, and what comes next will be entrusted to Night.

I hope everyone can wake up to see a better tomorrow.

Reading that, Shen Nianzu couldn’t help but fall silent.

Far from being saved, the people of this world was undergoing torture even in their sleep. They all placed their greatest hope on the artificial intelligence, Night, unaware that when they entered the pod, it would be for forever.

Night that symbolized hope—how had it ended up bringing despair to the very people who had created it?

A frown appeared between Shen Nianzu’s delicate brows.

Something didn’t add up.

Was the artificial intelligence ’Night’ truly the Nightmare they knew? If yes, things must have gone wrong in between. If not, then where was Night now? The artificial intelligence was supposed to watch over this facility, but Shen Nianzu and Jin Jiuchi had woken up unexpectedly and found their way here, even tinkering with the computers, and yet it was still silent, showing no signs of activity.

Shen Nianzu tried to dig out more information, but alas there was nothing that could give him an insight to the birth of the Nightmare itself.

He couldn’t help but pinch his brows, sighing. Reading all the files had given him quite a significant mental fatigue, on top of his yet recovering body.

"Nian’er, are you tired?" Jin Jiuchi perked up with a whoosh and started massaging his shoulders. "Would you like to rest for a bit? Honestly, your complexion doesn’t look so great. My heart aches seeing Nian’er work so hard."

"Maybe I should really rest a little..." Shen Nianzu moved to stretch his shoulders, but he ended up bumping into something, triggering the map of the facility that showed the 3D detail of each floor to a remarkable degree.

"Wow," Jin Jiuchi exclaimed in awe.

It indeed looked very sophisticated. They could even see that, among the one hundred thousand pods across the floors, two were marked green, indicating they were currently empty.

Seeing this scene, Shen Nianzu couldn’t help but pause.

"You know," he reached out to select a random pod, opening another page of information about the person lying inside. "When I was trapped in the nightmare earlier... I saw Shang."

"Ah?" Jin Jiuchi was evidently caught off guard by the sudden switch of topic. But once he processed Shen Nianzu’s words, his expression morphed into one of bloodthirst, his murderous intent evident in the way he bared his teeth fiercely. "That bastard? You saw him, Nian’er? Did you teach him a lesson??"

"Unfortunately, no," Shen Nianzu’s lips twisted into a mirthless smile. "I didn’t remember anything about him back then, but the rage, hatred and disgust... all of it came instinctively. I almost couldn’t resist coming up to give him a punch or two."

As for how Shang could appear in his nightmare, Shen Nianzu had skimmed through the basic operations of the pod and discovered that it was connected to human brainwaves. The two of them had come from the same world. In the event where they had once been in the same place, it was possible for the scenes to overlap. Maybe back then, he had truly brushed past Shang in the hospital when he was getting a check-up, but at that time the man was nothing more than a passerby to him. He had no idea they would, in the far future, become entangled in something so ill-fated.

The glow of the screens fell on Shen Nianzu, giving his eyes a sharp and cold look. He placed his fingers on the keyboard and began to type,

"Say, what do you think about taking our revenge while we’re at it?"