Three days later, just as Wang Chuan was submitting an archived report on the "0.02% Minor Increase in Natural Soul Attrition Rate in Sector 7" into the system, an unprecedented, highest-level crimson alarm – like the scream of a dying entity – instantly tore through the constant low hum of the Records Department. All light screens were forcibly switched over, blinding warning symbols spinning incessantly.
[Full-Scale Emergency Mobilization! Cognitive Contamination Alert!]
[Event Codename: Dreamweaver]
[Location: Sector 7 Lower Levels, Rust-Iron Street (Former LX-series Resettlement Zone)]
[Target Description: Singular Ability User. Ability Manifestation: Medium-less, continuous dissemination of unauthorized, high-immersion mental imagery within target area, inducing large-scale, collective 'Non-Productive Pleasure' and 'Non-Directional Hope'. Severely disrupts regional efficiency assessment. Potential diffusion risk: High.]
[Designation: Tier 1 Threat. Immediate Elimination.]
[Action Team deployed. Records Department personnel assigned for environmental scan and event archiving.]
Rust-Iron Street. This name was just a vague coordinate in Wang Chuan's database, representing the fringes where the city's light barely reached, a shadow zone tacitly permitted to exist under the system's efficient operation, used to house 'low-efficiency units'.
When he stepped off the spirit-rail, carrying a heavy case of physical archives and following a team of six action members clad head-to-toe in black reinforced uniforms, a smell hit him – a mix of rust, stagnant water, and the burning of some inferior energy source. It was a stark contrast to the sterile cleanliness of the Cycle Management Bureau. The buildings here were low and dilapidated, walls covered in stains and cracks, the sky shredded by a crisscross of pipes and abandoned cables.
"Records, fifty meters ahead, target zone," the Action Team Leader's voice came through the bone-conduction earpiece, cold as a synthetic machine. "Begin environmental scan. Focus on detecting illegal psychic fluctuation sources. Maintain safe distance."
Wang Chuan opened his portable scanner. Blue light silently swept over the filthy street and the sallow, emaciated pedestrians with numb eyes. Data jumped on the screen, several key metrics glaringly abnormal:
[Regional Average Emotional Index: 1.8 (Baseline 0.8, Severely Exceeded)]
[Non-Productive Pleasure Concentration: 0.93 Units (Danger Threshold: 0.1 Units)]
[Detected Unknown Mental Imagery Radiation: Stable, Approx. 30m Diameter Range.]
He looked up, following the scanner's direction. In the center of the dilapidated street, the man known as the "Dreamweaver" wasn't as mysterious or dangerous as the files described. He was dressed in old but clean clothes, his face gentle, even carrying a trace of weariness. Around him were a dozen or so children from Rust-Iron Street. Their faces lacked the usual numbness and hunger of this district; their eyes were unusually bright, heads tilted back, corners of their mouths unconsciously upturned, as if watching a silent yet magnificently grand fireworks display.
There were no holograms, no data streams. The Dreamweaver simply stood there quietly, and an invisible, warm ripple emanated from him. Wang Chuan felt the long-frozen edges of his own consciousness lightly touched by this fluctuation. An unfamiliar ripple, named 'yearning', spread uncontrollably deep within him. He saw the dirty little faces of the children break into dreamlike, pure smiles.
"Records, real-time data!" The Action Leader's urging came again.
Wang Chuan took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus on the work. "Scan complete. Energy readings low, below physical danger threshold. But... Emotional contamination index is extremely high. A stable 'Bliss Field' has formed in the core area."
"Confirm target ability nature: Psychic Infection. Preparing to execute purification procedure." The Leader's voice held no fluctuation.
Just then, a small, thin girl with hair like dry straw quietly detached herself from the entranced group and ran over to Wang Chuan. She cautiously tugged at the hem of his deep grey uniform. She looked up, her large eyes holding a timid expectation, and offered him a drawing on the back of a discarded databoard.
"Mister," the girl's voice was soft, almost swallowed by the wind, "Look, this is my dream. The Dreamweaver helped me see it."
Wang Chuan looked down.The paper was rough,the drawing made with cheap wax crayons – a vast starry sky, dotted with stars, a hazy Milky Way spanning across it, magnificent and mysterious. It was a scene that a child living under layers of metal domes, who had never seen the real sky, could never have conjured from imagination alone.
"Thank you." Wang Chuan took the drawing. The thin board felt heavier than a thousand pounds in his hand, its cool surface seeming to sear his fingertips. By regulations, he should have immediately destroyed this clear 'cognitive contaminant' on the spot.
The Action Team began clearing the area. Invisible energy barriers were erected, isolating the Dreamweaver and the children from the outside world. High-intensity energy restraints hummed as they powered up, their muzzles aimed at the still-calm man.
The Dreamweaver looked at the weapons pointed at him, his face showing no fear, only a profound, almost sorrowful serenity. His gaze swept over the lethally intent action team members, and finally, settled on Wang Chuan, as if seeing through the uniform, seeing through all the secrets hidden in his 'Dust' partition, seeing through the struggle within him.
"At least," the Dreamweaver said softly, as if to himself, or speaking to Wang Chuan alone across the crowd, "they have seen the light."
The next moment, the blinding purification beam, like the wrath of an angry god, engulfed his form. There was no scream, no struggle, only the faint sizzling sound of light particles dissipating in the air, like a long, unheard sigh.
The light in the children's faces extinguished instantly, faster than stars obscured by clouds, reverting to the inherent, vacant grey of Rust-Iron Street. A few children even rubbed their eyes unconsciously, as if everything that had just happened was a collective hallucination, and upon waking from the dream, only heightened desolation and cold remained.
The mission report was begun on the return spirit-rail journey. Wang Chuan stared at the standardized template on the light screen, the cursor blinking in the conclusion field:
[Target Eliminated. Cognitive Contamination Source Neutralized. Regional Efficiency Baseline Restoring. Potential Social Risk Averted.]
He stopped typing.
His fingers hovered in the air for a long time,the tips still retaining the insignificant yet profoundly real warmth he felt when he accepted the starry drawing,and the whisper of "have seen the light" before the Dreamweaver dissipated.
Finally, he deleted that line of cold, standard conclusion.
In the final evaluation field of the report,he entered a sentence that was absolutely against regulations,enough to get him suspended and investigated immediately. Each word felt like a stone chiseled from the wall around his heart:
[Certain values cannot be measured by efficiency.]
He closed the report interface, leaned back against the spirit-rail's cold metal wall, and looked out at the flowing, orderly city lights. In his uniform's inner pocket, the rough starry drawing pressed against his chest, joining all the previously hoarded memory fragments, weighing heavily together, forming a silent, growing evidence of a crime, and the awakening of his own conscience.