378: Chapter 379 Heartbeats on Mars

Everyone turned to look at Catherine's words.

Lin Fang did the same.

Seeing Lin Fang's gaze, Professor Catherine, who was always known for her intellectual calm, actually felt a bit flustered. Although her boss appeared approachable, he inherently possessed a certain unsettling quality.

It was like a low-dimensional being facing a high-dimensional being, making it impossible for Catherine to remain composed.

"Boss, it's like this. It's one of my team members, she's recently been..." Catherine tried her best to calm her voice.

—

Thump, thump, thump...

A faint, indistinct sound was exceptionally abrupt in the darkness. This sound was too strange; it somewhat resembled a human heartbeat, but upon closer listening, it wasn't.

Zhou Shiqi, a biology graduate, was very clear about this in her heart.

That strange dream had appeared again.

Ever since joining the Mars Plan and stepping onto Mars, Zhou Shiqi would have this dream every night. The dream felt as if it were real, but no matter how Zhou Shiqi chased the source of the sound in the darkness, she could not find the origin of this eerie noise.

Perhaps she was just struggling to adjust to the new environment.

Zhou Shiqi comforted herself.

Two days ago, she applied to temporarily withdraw from the Mars Plan, which she had worked so hard for, to return to Earth for a short rest. The group leader, Professor Catherine, learned of her situation because of this.

Then, today, Zhou Shiqi was inexplicably brought here, looking at the many Professors in the meeting room and the young man sitting in the main seat.

Zhou Shiqi spoke haltingly.

"Lead... Leader, my situation is like this..."

Heaven knows the shock she felt when she realized the young man before her was the leader of the Third-Party Biotechnology Company; he really was as young as the legends said.

Her other reaction was: Damn it, I didn't do my eyeliner well this morning.

"A dream where you hear a heartbeat?"

Hearing this, Lin Fang frowned, and the Professors present couldn't help but fall into thought.

A man with a large beard gave his opinion, "Miss Zhou's problem might be a type of psychological illness we haven't encountered before."

This statement gained the approval of many; it was, after all, just a dream.

According to Zhou Shiqi, this dream had no impact on her body, nor did it lower the quality of her rest; otherwise, she would have suffered a mental breakdown long ago and wouldn't have waited until now.

This explanation wasn't impossible.

But after reflecting for a moment, Lin Fang still said to the female researcher, "You cannot return to Earth yet. You must stay here for at least another two months. During this time, you must report any abnormalities immediately."

"Ah... understood."

Zhou Shiqi was surprised, but facing her direct boss's boss's boss's boss, she could only sensibly accept it.

Aside from what happened with Zhou Shiqi, nothing unusual was happening at the Mars Base.

Lin Fang watched the spectacular afterglow of the sunset on Mars. At this time, the Sun shrank into a pale blue white flame, sinking into the dark red horizon, looking truly magnificent.

Lin Fang thought again about that string of coincidental numbers that had appeared on the Black Star.

He felt that this matter wasn't so simple.

—

Thump—Thump—Thump—

Lin Fang opened his eyes to find himself in a World of darkness. Hearing this unknown heartbeat, Lin Fang showed a puzzled expression.

It seemed that on his first day on Mars, he had encountered the same situation as that female researcher.

What surprised Lin Fang was that this was actually a lucid dream.

According to scientific theory, dreams are actually products of the subconscious. For example, dreaming of falling from a height or stepping into thin air is often because the muscles suddenly twitch as the body enters sleep, or the heart rate fluctuates briefly, and the brain translates these physiological anomalies into a dream of weightless falling.

If one is in a state of high pressure and anxiety for a long time, with unresolved troubles weighing on the mind, it might also be expressed in dreams as being trapped in a narrow space or being chased.

This is the reason behind the saying that dreams are born from the heart.

But lucid dreams, within the scope of dream physiology, are an extremely special existence.

Generally, when falling into a dream, the capacity for rational thought goes completely silent. Consciousness is entirely enveloped by the dream, like rootless duckweed drifting with the illusory plot, much like a walking corpse that cannot distinguish between illusion and reality, only passively following the events in the dream.

No matter how absurd or bizarre the dream is, one won't have the slightest doubt. After waking up, most memories are blurred, leaving only scattered, broken fragments.

But in a lucid dream,

The dreamer can possess the same thinking and memory abilities they have while awake. They will think and observe the dream just as they do in reality, and some can even actively control the dream.

They can clearly realize they are in a dream, recall people and events from reality, and rationally judge abnormalities within the dream. They are no longer passively enduring the dream; instead, they can become the masters of it, even autonomously exploring the unknowns within.

Such was the case with Lin Fang's current situation.

Lin Fang walked for a while and found that the surroundings were still pitch black, with only that faint heartbeat. So, he stopped walking and began to search for the source of the sound.

Unlike Zhou Shiqi, Lin Fang quickly locked onto the source of the sound.

It was coming from beneath his feet.

Lin Fang was startled. There was another theory about lucid dreaming: that it was a form of communication with an unknown consciousness...

The next day,

Lin Fang gave an order to the head of the Mars Base, Blois, to dig through Mars. He wanted to see what was inside the planet.

"Boss, why is this?"

Blois was extremely confused. How could he suddenly want to strike at Mars after just sleeping here for one night?

Lin Fang didn't try to be mysterious but simply explained his discovery from the previous night.

After listening, Blois was shocked. Especially seeing how much Lin Fang cared about this matter, he immediately guaranteed that he would arrange it as soon as possible.

Subsequently, Lin Fang left the Mars Base and tirelessly traveled through the Wormhole again to the Godzilla dimension.

"To save the World, it's only right to be a bit tired..."

Lin Fang lamented as he boarded the spaceship, preparing to jump to Pandora Planet.

After arriving at Pandora Planet, before Lin Fang could even warm his seat, Little Black, who was responsible for secretly spying on Polyphemus, sent him some good news.

Polyphemus had not yet found a way to restrain the meme. The entire empire had fallen into chaos, and the 'Face Faction' infected by the meme already occupied nearly half of the empire's population.

If this continued, the Polyphemus Empire would completely collapse within two days.

Learning of this situation, Ains was overjoyed. "Fang, thanks to you, we're sure to win this time."

Lin Fang: ...

Had no one ever taught him not to casually raise death flags?