Chapter 112: Chapter 101: Shaking Light
’Third life!’ Chu Bamboo opened his eyes again, his expression blank.
’Just getting pinned to the ground by a spear shouldn’t have killed me with my constitution! So, did the spear have some other effect? Was it coated in poison? Or contamination? It was probably contamination! An absurdly high level of it, too... Was I turning into a monster at the end?’
Chu Bamboo was actually a little grateful now. In the Dream World timeline, turning into a twisted monster counted as a death and triggered a reset... Otherwise, things would have been really troublesome.
’But this is ridiculous! What is up with this wasteland? Why are there so many monsters?’
Chu Bamboo frantically ran his hands through his hair, unable to accept or understand the situation.
After sorting through his thoughts for a while, Chu Bamboo gritted his teeth. ’Forget it! I’ll just keep experimenting. If I really use up all seven lives, then I’ll go back. If worse comes to worst, I’ll test things one by one. I’ll choose not to publish the novel, not to release the music, not to open the company! I’ll use the three days to work backward through each one! I’ll see which action makes things normal again! I refuse to believe this can’t be fixed.’
He stood up again. Just as he was about to walk in a certain direction, Chu Bamboo suddenly froze. He stroked his chin, lost in thought. ’No animals!’
’In other words, wild animals are also being tortured and killed by the monsters?’
’Hmm... to put it another way, places with animals are safe! But the biggest problem right now is that there don’t seem to be any animals around...’
After thinking for a while, Chu Bamboo thoughtfully crouched down. A moment later, a look of joy appeared on his face.
There were bugs! Ants, to be precise. Seeing these normally unlikable little critters, Chu Bamboo now found them to be the most pleasant sight in the world.
So, he would determine which areas were safe by looking for bugs on the ground! If he couldn’t find any, he’d keep his head down and immediately retreat.
This strategy had an immediate effect.
...
"Oh my god! I finally found it." Standing at the former location of the Police Chief Bureau, Chu Bamboo’s eyes welled up with tears.
Ever since he first entered the base, he had encountered all sorts of situations and died many times, but he never thought that one day, even getting to the Nuwa Base would be this difficult!
’Let me see, how do I do this!’
Chu Bamboo fumbled around for a long time, his brow gradually furrowing. ’Wait, why isn’t it here? There’s no faucet. The entrance should be right here! Why is it just flat ground?’
"...Huh?!"
Chu Bamboo was completely stunned. ’Don’t tell me the butterfly effect completely wiped out the Nuwa Base this time.’
"..."
Chu Bamboo sat dazedly on the ground. This time, he truly couldn’t keep his composure.
’Seriously, what heinous crime did I commit this time?!’
’Calm down! I must stay calm!’
Chu Bamboo took several deep breaths to calm himself. ’There are ants on the ground, so it’s safe here, at least for now!’
’What’s next? Do I end this life and go back to reality to investigate one by one... or do I slowly feel my way over to the nuclear facility and see if the butterfly effect got rid of that too?’
Chu Bamboo was sorting through his thoughts when a sudden realization struck him. ’No, that’s not right! If the Dream World is a place where the entire civilization is gone, and humanity is extinct? Or close to it... with monsters everywhere! And hardly any wild animals.’
’Then, could it be that the Nuwa Base still exists, but its entrance has been buried by accumulating debris over time? Since there’s no human civilization, the base was never excavated in the first place... because in this timeline, Li Kang and his group are all dead, or they lost their sanity and turned into monsters! So there’s no possibility of them using the base as a shelter.’
The more Chu Bamboo thought about it, the more likely this seemed.
He stared at the ground before him, constantly calculating in his head. Finally, he looked up at the Sun and tried to gauge the coordinates...
There was no other way. He had only managed to get here because he had reset countless times in Jinghai City and knew the city’s layout like the back of his hand. Using the church as a reference point, he had deduced the location of the base—
Honestly, this godforsaken place had completely turned into a plain. Looking at just the trees and plants, you couldn’t possibly tell which corner of Jinghai City you were in.
Finally, Chu Bamboo roughly calculated the correct spot, then rubbed his hands together.
He broke off branches from a nearby tree, picked out a few sharp, flat stones, sharpened them a bit, and tied them to the branches with vines to make simple tools.
Then, he started digging!
Dirt flew everywhere, displaced with a roar.
With his strength exceeding human limits, Chu Bamboo’s efficiency couldn’t quite match a real machine, but he was getting infinitely close to a small excavator.
...
Time passed, drop by drop.
Soon, it was afternoon!
Chu Bamboo hadn’t had a single grain of rice or a drop of water. All one could say was that a Transcendent could really endure!
’If I can’t finish digging in one day, I’ll just reset.’ Chu Bamboo’s thoughts drifted. He was already starting to wonder if he should wake up in reality right away, or if he should first go to the nuclear ruins to check things out and use up all seven of today’s lives before going back.
He thrust the shovel down, and with a CLANG, Chu Bamboo froze. A look of joy spread across his face; he had hit something hard.
’That’s it... this is it!’ Chu Bamboo dug with all his might, clearing away the surrounding earth. He saw...
’Metal, a metal wall! Though it’s still covered in a lot of dirt, and it seems... a little oxidized and corroded? No, the base I saw last time was metal on the inside, but it wasn’t corroded at all! Could the outside be different from the inside?’
’Whatever, at least this time... I found the base... The base really does exist! That’s good... I knew it.’
Chu Bamboo was speaking incoherently, he was so genuinely excited.
Chu Bamboo climbed back to the top of the tunnel he’d dug and took some measurements again. The next step was to dig out the entrance.
’I remember, the blueprint framework for the Nuwa Base looked like this!’ Chu Bamboo roughly sketched a structural diagram on the ground. ’This metal wall faces south, so it should be this section... Extrapolating from that, and scaling it proportionally, the entrance should be somewhere between here and here...’
As Chu Bamboo calculated silently, he suddenly froze.
For some reason, he felt a sense of heart-pounding dread.
After a brief silence, Chu Bamboo turned to look to his left. There, a familiar figure appeared! In that moment, Chu Bamboo smiled with resignation.
—It was the three-headed monster.
’Doesn’t this thing have a fixed territory?’
Chu Bamboo sighed at the sky. ’Is it just wandering around here? Is running into it pure luck? Or did it happen to catch the sound of my digging? Is that why it’s come to kill me now?’
’No,’ Chu Bamboo realized. ’It didn’t come looking for me as soon as I started digging. It’s also possible that one edge of its territory happens to be close enough to hear me! It just happened to walk over there, noticed the commotion, and is now chasing me down to kill me... Yeah, if that’s the case, then it all makes sense.’
Chu Bamboo sighed a second time. Then, as expected, he felt the familiar sharp pain in his brain.
The next instant, his body was violently pierced through...
...
Waking up again, Chu Bamboo’s expression was blank.
He didn’t even complain, simply following the safe route he had scouted out last time and rushing toward the location of the Nuwa Base.
He chopped down trees, made simple tools, and then, following the map he’d made last time to deduce the entrance’s location, he began digging frantically.
Time was limited!
Estimating from the Sun’s position, the monster would be able to hear him around three or four in the afternoon and come to finish him off! He had to get into the underground base before then.
He even had to consider that he didn’t know the current state of the underground base... He had to consider the possibility that the base couldn’t protect him! In that case, he not only needed to get into the base before three or four PM, but he also needed to ask all his questions before that time!
Finally... with the help of his previous death experience.
’Found you!’
Chu Bamboo looked at the hard rock in front of him, genuinely moved.
The Nuwa Base was made entirely of metal, but its main gate had a metal inner layer covered by an outer layer of rock... Uh, maybe for camouflage?
’Let me think. I remember Li Kang saying... the Nuwa Base has a forced... ahem!’ Chu Bamboo coughed. What Li Kang had said back then was "forcefully offering counsel!" After all, they saw Nuwa as a Divine Being. In Chu Bamboo’s ears, this automatically translated to "forced entry!" Or maybe a failsafe opening mechanism?
’Found it! This is the stone lock! I finally dug it out... It wasn’t easy. It still exists after so many years... Or maybe stone is just that durable, and the chance of it being eroded by time is really small! Okay... first, I twist it, then press it in hard. Forced... open!’
...
’I’m finally in!’
Chu Bamboo watched the great door slowly close and breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been worried that the door might have been damaged over such a long time—but then he realized that since the opening mechanism worked in the other timeline, it should be fine here. After all, you couldn’t expect Li Kang and the others, who saw the base as the work of a Divine Being, to perform maintenance on it.
Or perhaps, as the Wall Announcements said, if it was really broken, he should kowtow three times and pray for the Great Joy of the Machine Soul?
’I hope this thing can hold up! It should be fine, right? I’m not digging outside anymore. It’s hard to say if that three-headed monster can even find me...’
A jumble of thoughts flashed through Chu Bamboo’s mind, and he suddenly frowned. ’By the way, why are there no lights? Right, I haven’t powered it up yet!’
’But this base! Something’s not right about it.’
Chu Bamboo ran his hands over the floor and walls. Even without light, he could feel that the walls showed signs of corrosion, just like the part he had dug up outside.
’It makes no sense! It’s true that neither version had maintenance... Could it be that the Moisture Teaching came and plastered the walls? But if they really finished the job, would Li Kang still think Nuwa was a god? But if I rule out that possibility...’
Chu Bamboo pondered it over and over. ’Unless... the materials used to build the base have changed! Last time, they actually used a special corrosion-resistant material that would remain pristine even after thousands of years! But this time, they didn’t.’
’Why didn’t they use it? Did they not want to, or... in this timeline, was the material never even developed?’
Chu Bamboo thought for a moment and realized that the changes caused by the butterfly effect might not just be the disappearance of the dream civilization... In the end, he still decided to find Nuwa No. 17 and ask her about the situation first.
...
After another round of effort.
It took a full hour.
Finally, the power-up was successful!
However...
"Human Civilization Continuation AI: Shaking Light, at your service!"
"?" Chu Bamboo was dumbfounded. He even suspected he was hallucinating.
’Shaking Light? What Shaking Light?’
’Where’s my Nuwa? What happened to my Nuwa No. 17?’
’And... you, this Shaking Light, you didn’t even say what number you are... Don’t tell me you’re the only one?!’
’What the hell happened?’
At this point, Chu Bamboo’s composure finally broke. He could accept change, but this was too much, too absurd!
