My portable grandfather refreshes every week

Chapter 155 The World is an Illusion
Xue Dinglu suddenly appeared in the dilapidated reinforced concrete building. Although the room was cleaned very well, the gradually peeling skin of the building and the corrosion from wind and sun made the whole room look very old and run-down.

In this primitive tribe, this was already the best room available.

“I think I understand.” Old Green seemed to have accepted reality. He even looked around the room with interest. Although it was dilapidated, it was full of life. “The Silver Princess and her group were a bug that appeared suddenly. My world repaired them after they left, but I was probably a bug a long time ago.”

"So that world made someone else the king of the Silver Kingdom, instead of me. No, Watson looks over a hundred years old, which means I've been dead for over a hundred years...?"

Old Green raised his head, and he gradually understood everything. He might have been singled out as a bug to be fixed more than a hundred years ago, so who exactly was he now?

What exactly are his personality, his memories, his magic, and everything else?
While the two continued to share their speculations and information.

The door creaked open, and the "Silver Princess" Rabi, dressed in simple clothes, entered the room. She immediately saw Xue Dinglu standing at the head of the bed and gasped in shock, covering her mouth before tentatively asking, "Master?"

Neither Xue's Law nor Old Green turned around, because they could guess that since this room was the princess's room in the fairy tale world, it would naturally be the rabbi's room in hell.

Seeing that Xue Dinglu did not reply, she seemed to relax and become bolder: "Does the Master still want a 'bride'? Or is the 'bride' you want me?"

She didn't seem nervous at all, and walked slowly to Xue Dinglu's side in a relaxed manner. With a slight smile, she gently tugged at the clothes on her shoulder with one hand and said to Xue Dinglu in a very provocative way.

"Hypnosis!" Xue Dinglu immediately chanted and released this second-order spell.

The girl behind her seemed to have lost consciousness, like a manipulated puppet, lying on the brick bed, silently sleeping.

“Let’s go find that village chief, Green. As the only ‘humanoid monster’ we’ve seen so far, he must know a lot of information that we don’t,” Xue Dinglu said.

Then, as if he had thought of something, he asked, "Old Green, how old are you?"

“189 years old,” old Green said.

"I estimate that this village chief is probably close to 300 years old. Sure enough, his telomeres are like the freak's. Although he looks old, his physical condition is younger than that of the Silver Princess." Xue Dinglu smiled and looked at Old Green. "I guess even the creator god of the fairy tale world would never have imagined that you would not outlive a mortal."

Old Green was also speechless.

He thought that if the village chief was indeed a humanoid monster, then his lifespan might be infinite.

At several hundred years old, he naturally knew a lot of information, and he might even know some of the truth about the world. So, for some purpose, he covered up the truth about the world, making these few humans fear the strange and truly face hell permanently in the real world.

Xue Daolu didn't know his purpose in doing this. Judging from his identity alone, he was already a freak and had probably entered the fairy tale world long ago. But he didn't know why he was able to leave the fairy tale world and return here to continue his unknown plan.

"Little Green, are you going out to inspect the farm again?" came other voices from outside.

Xue Dinglu immediately left the room. He quickly went outside and saw the "Little Green" below. He looked like a carbon copy of Old Green, but much younger and had a gentle and refined appearance.

At that moment, Xue Lude and Old Green exchanged a glance and they both understood what was going on. This village chief Green would probably play the role of his son every few decades, and then let his "son" gradually take over all the affairs, until finally he himself would appear as the "son".

The old village chief's identity will gradually be relinquished, until he dies, and he will completely become "Little Green" to inherit everything, maintaining his rule for several more decades, and the cycle will continue for decades to come.

In order to ensure that the human tribes could proceed according to his plan, and in order to keep his secret of being "undead," this old village chief really planned things very well.

However, the only thing he hadn't considered was the variable of Xue's Law, and the completely unreasonable cursed blood in his hands.

A moment of carelessness allowed Xue to seize upon his weakness.

"What should we do next?" Old Green said, not caring at all about knocking out his counterpart and then giving him a major memory restoration spell.

"Let's not alert him yet. If we sneak into his room, we'll surely find some useful information," Xue Dinglu said.

Then, under the cover of darkness, the two secretly went to the small villa they had visited before. Xue Lude and Old Green searched separately, but neither of them found anything.

After the two met, they looked at the large amount of information they had collected. These were all office documents, including information on the mushroom and timber harvests at regular intervals, as well as how much land and water they could occupy and how much they had left.

Xue Luding glanced around and realized that the territory this tribe could control was even smaller than Xue Luding's university, and this limited territory was shrinking year by year as the fungal carpet covered it. Their village could support fewer and fewer people, and even excluding those who were captured by the monsters, at this rate, the entire village's population would be halved in less than ten years.

Within a few decades, they may no longer be able to support themselves, and the fungal carpet will completely take over this small area where mushrooms can be grown. They will then have no choice but to continue migrating away from here and looking for new land.

But now, surrounded by grotesque creatures and fungal carpets, Xue's Law couldn't imagine whether they could escape the encirclement of the grotesque creatures if they really migrated.

And then there's the village chief, Green. He clearly went to the fairy tale world, but he still returned to reality. He would rather lead this small group of people to struggle for survival in this hellish world than return to the fairy tale world to become the king of the Silver Kingdom. What exactly is his purpose in doing this?
Furthermore, Xue Luding looked up at the dim light source outside. The sun in this world was too strange. Although it moved with time, after so long, he felt that the sun's heat had not changed at all.

Stable, yet unreal.

And in this world, the way he uses magic at an exponentially higher cost...

“There’s no information whatsoever about the truth of the world, only those dubious myths and some basic magic.” Old Grimm looked at a magic book he had found.

He saw many basic spells inside, and the books were old, as if they had been flipped through for a long time. This proved that the village chief, Green, was not just a "humanoid monster." He was even a magician, although judging from his level, he was probably not even at the second rank.

It's the kind of thing where even casting a spell can be called "magic".

“This is just his office. It seems the real secret isn’t hidden here. Let’s sneak into his bedroom, or maybe there’s some kind of storage room. That might be where the real secret is hidden,” Xue Dinglu said.

Old Green nodded. After a moment's thought, he suddenly realized something. Since they were identical beings, their ways of thinking should be similar. If he were to hide a secret, where would he hide it?
“Xiao Xue, go to his bedroom and find a tree-shaped pattern or a tree, see if you can find this thing,” Old Green suddenly said.

"Hmm." Xue Dinglu didn't ask any further questions. The village wasn't big, and they walked a few steps to another detached house not far away, next to the Silver Princess's room.

The two men quietly entered the village and successfully pried open the door to get into the house.

Just as Old Green said, there really was a tree-like structure inside the house, like a black tree growing directly from the floor. The two looked at each other and Old Green said, "There should be mechanisms or magic on the tree. This is my habit. I often like to use a tree as a reference point for layout."

Old Green explained his reasons.

Xue Dinglu was also at a loss for words. He had really forgotten that since the two were co-existing entities, although they might have experienced very different environments, some basic ways of thinking should be the same.

Just as old Green would plant a fairy tree in front of his wife's grave, this village chief Green should have a similar habit.

Xue Dinglu stepped forward to investigate and indeed discovered traces of magic.

The magic was very well hidden; even with Xue's level of expertise, one would not have discovered the magic circle hidden under the tree bark unless they had to work backward from the result to find the process.

If he were to search directly and violently, he would inevitably inadvertently trigger this magic circle.

Soon, under the operation of the two high-level mages, Old Green and Xue Lude, the second-order magic array was quickly broken and dismantled. Then, the whole room seemed to tremble. Xue Lude saw a very hidden floor tile sink. He walked forward and found an iron door leading underground.

Xue Luding and Old Green exchanged a glance, finding no trace of the magic circle. They immediately forced open the iron gate and went underground.

The passage was so narrow that Xue Dinglu had to crouch down to get in. After walking down more than ten steps, the passage suddenly opened up!
To Xue's shock, this was not the magic library or treasure trove he had imagined. Instead, they arrived at an area that resembled a server room, with countless turbines and fans cooling something.

He felt like he had entered a Bitcoin mining farm.

There are also numerous magic arrays inscribed around the room. The purpose of these arrays is to reduce wear and tear and dust in the entire server room, and to extend its service life.

In the computer room, Xue Dinglu discovered a notebook containing remnants of a magic array.

After being violently opened by Xue's Law, he turned to the first page.

"The world is an illusion, and everyone is immersed in this illusion. They have all lost themselves, even forgotten everything about themselves. They have all been distorted by it, and we are no longer ourselves..."

"But reality is hell..."

(End of this chapter)