The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

Professor Finch's laboratory was filled with scientific beauty, with neat rows of silver-gray workbenches, precision instruments humming softly, and emitting a faint blue light.

The air was filled with the sharp smell of disinfectant. Lin Zheng's keen sense of smell detected a faint, sweet, fishy odor mixed in, which seemed to be tantalizingly similar to the pungent smell of formaldehyde deep in his memory.

Emilia Vincent lay intently in front of an experimental chair connected by several sensor wires, her chestnut hair occasionally slipping down, only to be impatiently tucked behind her ear.

She would unconsciously bite her nail every time she recorded a set of data.

Lin Zheng was assigned to stand next to Emilia as a new research assistant. His task was to assist Emilia in recording the data fluctuations of the experimental subjects and observing their reactions.

He put on a pair of listening headphones, through which he could hear a faint hissing sound of electricity and the regular beeping of instruments.

The rhythm of the sound itself carries a carefully designed sense of control, slowly and firmly striking one's nerves.

Lin Zheng calmly scanned every corner of the laboratory.

His gaze swept over Professor Finch, the elegant scholar who was speaking softly to another subject, his voice carrying an almost imperceptible hypnotic quality that slowly relaxed the subject's tense nerves.

Lin Zheng activated [Remnant Dream Reading]. The sound emitted by the instrument in his ear instantly became clearer and more complex, but it was no longer a physical vibration, but a mental resonance amplified countless times.

The subject of the experiment, a short student, is currently experiencing an amplified and distorted sense of anxiety. On the data panel, the red curve representing "anxiety" is fluctuating violently.

Lin Zheng captured fragmented images in his subconscious: mountains of books, papers that were about to be overdue, and Professor Finch's encouraging smile and warm comfort.

Those deliberately induced anxieties and desires form an invisible spiritual turbidity in the air.

Lin Zheng rapidly reconstructed this jumbled information in his mind, trying to find the source of the "inexplicable spike data" recorded by Emilia.

His fingers flew across the record board, seemingly copying data, but actually analyzing subtle mental fluctuations.

Lin Zheng noticed that Emilia's mental fluctuations were also strange.

Emilia's rational boundaries appear relatively clear, yet they are also shaky, filled with struggle and confusion.

She held an idealistic vision of Professor Finch's experiments, yet she seemed to vaguely sense a shadow of unethicality.

"Lin Zheng, do you really think these data are normal?" Emilia's whisper broke the surface tranquility of the laboratory.

She looked up at Lin Zheng, her eyes revealing a hint of confusion and a desire for confirmation.

This Emilia is truly a quintessential American blonde.

Her long, golden hair was tied in a high ponytail, her eyes were big, bright, and watery, and her lips were painted with a beautiful but not gaudy lipstick, making one want to kiss her.

This is definitely the type Trump likes best, and well, everyone seems to like it.

"Professor Finch called it 'normal fluctuations,' but I always feel..." She hesitated, pointing to a piece of data on the screen that was marked as archived.

That was a data spike that had been marked as "abnormal" a few months earlier, exceeding any normal fluctuation threshold, but was "incredibly" smoothed out in subsequent records, and was ultimately explained by Professor Finch as "a failed case of rational reconstruction".

He stared at the pulsating curves on Emilia's screen, the data exhibiting a distorted, unnatural smoothness.

Instead of answering directly, he shook his head slightly and then tapped a barely noticeable column of numbers on Emilia's screen.

Those were some "unexplained spikes" that Emilia had deliberately marked in yellow; they were one of the countless overlooked "anomalies" in this experiment.

After the observation of the current experimental subjects was completed, Professor Finch clapped his hands to draw everyone's attention to him.

"Today's work was very tiring, so I've ordered coffee and tea for everyone. Let's take a break, and I'll show you some fun activities, okay?"

With his signature blond hair, gentle smile, and lighthearted snap of his fingers, he moved around everyone.

Everyone laughed and joked, clapping and snapping their fingers to Professor Finch's rhythm, swaying their waists and jumping and dancing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please relax and let me guide you into this vast and boundless sea of ​​consciousness."

Professor Finch's seductive voice echoed throughout the laboratory.

"This is Professor Finch's most popular experiment with 'collective emotional contagion,' designed to achieve a spiritual 'climax' through collective resonance."

Emilia explained to Lin Zheng while swaying her dance steps with a smile on her face.

She extended her hand to Lin Zheng, "Come on, let's relax together."

Before Lin Zheng could respond, Emilia took the initiative to hug him, pressing her body against his and breathing hot air.

Xiao Chunan and Lin Zheng felt somewhat overwhelmed by the enthusiasm, and were soon engulfed by the revelry.

"I've been fighting for so long, can't I at least enjoy myself? Keep the music playing and keep dancing!"

A powerful surge of mental energy swept through the crowd like a tsunami, and the students around them were engulfed in a frenzied and twisted laughter.

Their faces were flushed with an unnatural blush, their eyes were unfocused, and their bodies trembled involuntarily, as if they were being pulled by invisible threads.

Behind Professor Finch, a huge screen changes unpredictably, sometimes showing a vast starry sky, sometimes a deep sea, each scene precisely corresponding to the emotions he is guiding.

At this moment, real-time data on human brain activity is projected onto the screen. The pathways of countless neuronal connections are artistically presented as intertwined vines, each representing a person's thoughts and emotions.

Lin Zheng felt his rationality being stripped away at a visible speed, with a sense of despair on the verge of collapse and a frenzied sense of pleasure alternatingly assaulting his mental defenses.

He felt his body swaying, a warm sensation deep in his nasal cavity, and scarlet liquid flowing down his nostrils, dripping onto his body and emitting a faint smell of blood.

The students around them could no longer control their emotions; they cried, screamed, and laughed wildly. All their negative emotions were amplified a hundredfold, converging into an indescribable wave of sound.

This overwhelming negative emotion was pounding against Lin Zheng's rationality.

He immediately detached himself from the revelry; his resistance to the underworld was practically maxed out, and the pain actually brought him to his senses.

Lin Zheng was still holding Emilia as they danced; if he didn't hold her tightly, Emilia would have wanted to bang her head against the wall.

Unlike others who are controlled like puppets, this girl has the willpower to break free from these influences.

However, the opponent delivered a powerful headbutt to Lin Zheng's forehead, so forcefully that it made his head buzz.

To avoid being headbutted, Lin Zheng had no choice but to press Emilia's head tightly against his, their foreheads pressed together.

The next moment, Emilia pressed her lips against Lin Zheng's without any hesitation. If Lin Zheng hadn't clenched his teeth, his tongue would have been inside her lips.

Lin Zheng had no choice but to complete the assigned task first.

He activated [Residual Dream Reading]. This time, he wasn't targeting any specific person, but rather trying to capture the deepest and most authentic emotional remnants from this chaotic mental storm.

He saw it; scenes flashed through his mind like slides, containing dozens of different experimental subjects.

In a blood-red blur, Lin Zheng finally touched upon the deepest source of fear in the subconscious of one of the test subjects.

It was a clear image, a film etched deep into the soul.

Professor Finch wore his elegant white gloves and sported his signature, flawless smile.

He held a set of exquisite surgical instruments in his hand, the scalpel gleaming coldly, and the tweezers deftly picking things up.

He wasn't dissecting the body, but rather "dissecting" the spirit, peeling away the layers of the subjects' thought processes and emotional pathways.

The fragments of reason that were stripped off were transformed in his hands into "crystals of reason" that emitted a faint glow, and were precisely placed into a glass container bearing the "Ouroboros" symbol.

Every movement was precise and ruthless, with the rationality and focus of a surgeon, conducting the most rigorous scientific experiment.

His mind trembled as he worked on advanced mathematics problems in his head, activating [Mental Re-calibration] in an attempt to format this hellish experience into pure information.

As the clenched teeth relaxed, a warm, moist, writhing sensation invaded them.

He lingered unconsciously for a few seconds, then used his hand to press against Emilia's forehead, forcibly separating the two from their embrace. He couldn't bring himself to take advantage of her vulnerability.

He licked his lips; Emilia's lips were swollen from his biting.

He covered his bleeding nose, struggled to stand, and his eyes were bloodshot from overuse of [Dream Remnant Reading].

Through the blur, he saw Professor Finch's almost perfect, seductive smile, staring straight at him.

His eyes and smile were even more intense than Emilia's had been.

Lin Zheng shuddered. Could Professor Finch still be the same person...?