From the end of the world

Chapter 429 Paradise
Peach Blossom Spring?

If I remember correctly, this seems to be an article written by the ancient writer Tao Yuanming, expressing the author's dissatisfaction with real life and pursuit of a dream scene. However, the full text is only more than 300 words, which is not enough to be a book.

Considering that it was a book that Xiao Qiao read in the Ghost Story, it is very likely that it was just a disguised name of Peach Blossom Spring, and the content is very different. In addition, I think I am definitely not overthinking it. The four words "Peach Blossom Spring" remind me of Taoyuan Township, one of the three major troubles in Luoshan.

In fact, the origin of the mysterious man that I guessed was also Taoyuan Township.

Here I will first talk about the information about Taoyuan Township that I have found in Luoshan Headquarters during this period. After all, Taoyuan Township is likely to become a force that I need to face in the future. The head of Taoyuan Township once tried to attack me at the Humanitarian Division headquarters. Since I have the time and energy, I must investigate carefully.

Taoyuan Township, as its name suggests, is an organization whose collective pursuit is to become a "paradise on earth."

This organization has one thing in common with Buddhism, that is, they both believe that the real world is full of troubles and sufferings. People are floating in the sea of ​​desire and suffering, and can only be saved at the other shore.

The other shore that Buddhism pursues is a spiritual realm that can only be reached by realizing that material desires are nothing but illusions; the other shore that Taoyuan Township pursues is a deeper illusion, that is, the world of dreams.

In other words, they want to realize all their desires in the dream world they have woven with their own hands. Money, power, beauty, fame, health... As long as it is in the dream, anything can be obtained, even immortal life can be obtained in the dream.

In order to publicize their own ideas and expand the influence of their organization, the believers of Taoyuan Township will let the targets they want to persuade and win over experience the dream world first.

The targets who were persuaded and lured away were not only ordinary people, but also a large number of demon hunters.

The believers of Taoyuan Township sometimes tell a story in front of the target, play a piece of music, or take out a book for the target to read. In this process, the target will be hypnotized by the illusion and invited to a dreamland that is like a paradise.

In that dream, the goal may be to modify past regrets, or to achieve wishes that you will never be able to achieve in your lifetime, or to meet a loved one who has died in the past, or to encounter someone you will never meet in the real world, and enjoy the carefree happiness that cannot be experienced in reality.

The self in the dream may even possess wisdom, courage, dignity, and other good qualities that the real self does not have, such as kindness, tolerance, selflessness, etc. that you want but cannot hold on to.

The more pessimistic people are about real life, the easier it is for them to be captured by dreams. Therefore, after escaping from the dream, they are willing to do anything to return to the sweet dream again. Because in their view, the world over there is the real reality, while reality is an unbearable hell.

It may seem hard to empathize with someone at first, but if you put yourself in his shoes, if one day I suddenly "wake up" and find that all my experiences from the time I met Ma Zao until now were fake, and there are actually no wonderful and magical adventures in the world, and that I have neither superpowers nor met Ma Zao, nor the courage to explore the weird and embrace adventure, and I can't even remember the awareness and determination to face death and despair calmly, and I'm just an ordinary person who is bored from the inside out - what would I think then?

To be honest, I couldn't picture myself like that in my mind right away, but it certainly wouldn't be a pleasant experience.

After verifying that the mysterious man's background was Taoyuan Township, in order to reconfirm my knowledge, I told Zhu Shi all the information I knew about Taoyuan Township.

She nodded and said, "The 'paradise' in Taoyuan Township is said to be a product under construction at this stage. It can also be said that it is a pie in the sky that the owner of Taoyuan Township painted for all believers.

"In order to truly complete this 'paradise' and be able to join it after the plan succeeds, all believers are extremely fanatical and are willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill their superiors' orders."

"But there is one thing I don't understand..." I said, "If it were just ordinary people, it would be fine, but why do so many demon hunters believe in the existence of 'Xanadu' and join this organization?"

The dream world created by simple illusion has its limits.

What the believers of Taoyuan Township pursue is to spend a long and satisfying life in the dream world, and they have extremely high requirements for the dream world. Whether it is the materials they come into contact with in the dream world, or the spirit and power they possess in it, they must pursue infinitely close to the reality, at least they must not be able to be discovered by themselves.

It is basically impossible to do such a thing. Generally speaking, even if you use illusion to make people spend their whole life in a dream, it just creates a feeling of "spending a whole life". Take ordinary dreaming as an example. Many people should have the experience of spending several months or even years in a dream. However, as long as you discern a little, you can find that the "experience" of these months or even years is supported by only a few dream scenes, and at most only a dozen. It is like reading a short story of at most a few thousand words. Even if it describes the life of the protagonist from childhood to old age, it is absolutely impossible to say that the reader has truly experienced a lifetime with the protagonist.

In order to truly live one's life in an illusion dream, the illusion must contain "the information of a human life". Considering that the believers of Taoyuan Township also want to live forever in the dream, then just to make a believer's wish come true, at least the information of a person's life of thousands or tens of thousands of years must be injected.

Some people may question whether a person can spend thousands or tens of thousands of years in a dream, so what will happen to his body in the real world during this period? Taoyuan Township has made this promise to believers in this regard. Even if the "paradise" they want to build lasts for nearly eternity, even if the believers live there until they don't want to live anymore, it will only be a blink of an eye for the outside world.

Therefore, after the "Xanadu" was successfully deployed, even if Luo Shan attempted to attack it, it was too late. Even if the "Xanadu" was only deployed for a moment, the goal of all believers was achieved.

But in other words, this is equivalent to saying that "Paradise" can produce information in a split second that is equivalent to the life span of all the believers in Taoyuan Township for at least thousands or tens of thousands of years, or even at least hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

If the person who created the "paradise" was Yin Yue, who was praised as "the one whose understanding of illusions rivaled that of the great illusionist in history", and if the number of targets was limited to one or two, then it might be possible to do this. Even if it was difficult to achieve in a hurry, it would probably be possible with more preparations.

As far as I know, the number of people in Taoyuan Township was only a few thousand before the Fantian incident, and then the number of people in the organization began to surge, with the number of new people increasing year by year. As of the first half of last year, according to Luo Shan's speculation, the number of people in Taoyuan Township may have reached more than 100,000, and its tentacles spread all over the place, even in the government and Luo Shan's senior management.

I don't think it's possible to achieve this goal of "paradise" with so many people, even if it's replaced with the Great Impermanence version of Silver Moon. Even if the number of people is reduced by two zeros, it can't be achieved.

"This is related to the reason why Taoyuan Township wants to develop so many believers... Didn't you find this aspect when you were investigating the information?" Zhu Shi asked curiously.

"It's too difficult to find information about Luo Shan," I said.

The Luoshan headquarters is still not modern enough in terms of document management, and most of the information is only in paper files. Although there is an electronic archive, the content seems incomplete and the pages are anti-human, which reminds people of some official government websites that are difficult to use.

"You didn't use that electronic archive, did you? There's actually a demon hunter forum in Luoshan. You just need to post a fishing post and you can get a lot of information you want. Don't worry, I'm familiar with this aspect, and I'll teach you the correct way to go online for fishing later!" Zhu Shilu patted his chest with a mysterious and confident expression.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to recall what Zhu Shi looks like in the ladylike mode.

Zhu Shi then added: "And you can also ask Lu Chan to help you sort out the information. Brother Zhuang, you are still not used to sending people. You don't actually have to do many things yourself."

"I remember it. So, what is the answer to the question just now?" I asked.

"The answer is the amount of material." Zhu Shi said, "The consciousness and memory of the people who enter the 'Xanadu' can provide information materials for the 'Xanadu'. The more people enter, the more material the 'Xanadu', the ultimate illusion, will have.

“Humans cannot imagine things they have never seen before, so even if a person dreams, he is just ruminating on the memory information he has; but if the thoughts and information of millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of people are gathered together, dreams can continuously provide individuals with fresh information.

"Countless combinations and arrangements of information can form nearly infinite possibilities. According to the analysis of some people in Luoshan, if each dreamer is regarded as a neural node, then the super dream network formed by the final combination may even become a conscious universe that can think and imagine on its own and has its own life..."

After listening to Zhu Shi’s explanation to this point, I suddenly felt that this concept seemed familiar.

She paused, then said: "In a sense, this can also be said to be the creation of another real universe."

(End of this chapter)