Reality Programming Association

Chapter 78: Chapter 32: Confused Source Memories

Why did his other memories—of his parents, his cousin, Shi Zuozhou—all line up with the real world?

Yu Xian felt like his brain was about to explode.

But he couldn’t fall apart here. There were more important things to do.

He took a deep breath. According to Senior Sister Yiyi, the ”Midnight Bus” audio circulating on the Black Market was far more dangerous than he had imagined.

If it could make people remember their dreams and cause memory confusion, then those who bought the audio would wake up with these memories, unable to distinguish what was real from what was fake.

They would end up like that volunteer, trapped in a state of cognitive dissonance.

”Senior Sister,” he said, forcing himself to calm down.

”Since your team is the only one in the world leading this field, I’d like to ask a question.”

He stared into Yang Yiyi’s eyes, his tone serious.

”Is it possible that your experimental data, or your core technology, has been leaked to TDI? Or, is there anyone on your team secretly collaborating with TDI? Or maybe someone who ’modified’ TDI’s audio?”

Yang Yiyi froze for a moment, then shook her head decisively.

”Impossible. TDI did have academic exchanges with our advisor, but that was all on a public level—things like data models for sleep stages. There’s absolutely no way it involved core, unpublished secrets like this. As for our team...”

She frowned in thought.

”There are only a few of us on this project team to begin with—just me, two other PhD students, and a postdoctoral senior... Besides, all the core experimental data is physically isolated. It’s impossible to transfer it out.”

She paused for a moment before adding,

”And while we have overcome the forgetting mechanism, we still have to rely on external transcranial electrical stimulation. In other words, our current experiments require placing electrodes on the scalp and applying a weak electrical current to get results. This audio... it’s clearly far more advanced than our methods.” 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

Yu Xian fell silent. If Senior Sister Yiyi’s research group was the only team in the world to have made progress in this field, then how was this audio—which was even more advanced than their current technology—created?

”Senior Sister, I have one last question. Since all the other teams ran out of funding and switched their focus, how have you been able to continue this project?”

”The funding... I’ve wondered about that myself, actually.”

Yang Yiyi seemed to be recalling something from the past.

”I heard from a postdoctoral senior that during the most difficult period a few years ago, they almost had to disband. Back then, my senior was already preparing to switch projects and delay his graduation. But then... about three years ago, I think, our advisor suddenly secured a very substantial amount of horizontal funding.”

”Horizontal funding?”

”Yes. In academia, vertical funding usually comes from national and provincial research funds. It’s strictly audited, public, and transparent. Horizontal funding, on the other hand, mostly comes from commissions by corporations or social organizations. It’s more flexible and also more discreet.”

”So your research group’s money is sponsored by some corporation?” Yu Xian asked, shocked.

”Yes. As for which specific company or institution, I’m not really sure. Our advisor is very tight-lipped about it. He just said that a long-term collaborative industrial fund is supporting us and told us not to worry.”

Yu Xian nodded. Although Senior Sister Yiyi had already been accepted into the direct-entry PhD program and officially joined the team, she was, after all, still just an undergraduate with limited information.

From the looks of it, this audio actually incorporated two types of technologies:

On one hand, it used the audio to construct a dreamscape, calling upon and splicing brain memories—the ”blueprint” part.

On the other hand, it inhibited MCH neurons, which solved the problem of dream forgetting. The method for this was also hidden within the audio.

It seemed the most urgent task now was to perform a reverse-engineering analysis on that audio file.

’Wen Xiao. I have to find Wen Xiao.’