"After you left... the three of us have been discussing how to ’occupy the frequencies’."
"Have you come up with any viable solutions?" Yu Xian asked.
"Brother Zhou thinks we should... tell Yiyi about this." Wen Xiao’s voice lowered.
"Shao Yiyi?" Yu Xian was taken aback.
"That’s right! She’s our only connection in high society, our little capitalist heiress!" Shi Zuozhou shouted from the other end of the line.
"To hold down four frequencies, we’ll need twenty people working in shifts to stand guard in the Dream Net. If Shao Yiyi is willing to help, we can ask her to put up the money and hire a group of people!"
Yu Xian fell silent.
Hiring people. It was certainly the most direct and brute-force method.
But... it also came with a lot of potential problems.
For one, Shao Yiyi was rich, but she had no obligation to just give away her money for something like this.
Twenty people working three shifts for round-the-clock surveillance... Even at minimum wage for a simple job, the daily cost would be significant. What’s more, this wasn’t a one or two-day job. They’d have to keep it up until the authorities could take over.
Was she supposed to just write off that money as a loss? Or were they expected to file for ’reimbursement’ from the authorities after they eventually took over?
Even if Shao Yiyi didn’t care about the money, it was difficult to even bring up something you couldn’t properly explain.
On the other hand, hiring people meant telling outsiders about the Dream Net.
He didn’t doubt that Shao Yiyi was trustworthy, but what about the other twenty people?
’Who would they be? Where would they come from? Could they be trusted to keep their mouths shut after the job was done?’
Twenty strangers. If just one of them had a loose tongue, the situation would snowball out of control.
If word of such a revolutionary technology got out, it would attract an investigation. Following the trail of clues would inevitably lead back to the technology’s source.
Eventually, they might trace the source back to Professor Mo’s lab.
On his end of the line, Yu Xian took a deep breath but didn’t immediately give his opinion.
"What do you think, Senior Sister Yiyi?" Yu Xian asked. After all, she was the one with the most at stake.
"My biggest concern is still the risk of those twenty people leaking information."
"That problem... I have a solution for it." Unexpectedly, it was Wen Xiao who spoke up.
"What?" Yu Xian blinked. ’Could this little genius have thought of something again?’
"You remember how the audio isn’t a single file, right? It’s made of several parts assembled in a modular fashion?" Wen Xiao said, reminding him just in case he’d forgotten.
"The first part is the composition using the Twelve-tone Technique. The second is TDI’s dream-construction engine. The third is the waveform that suppresses MCH. The fourth is the specific blueprint script. And now there’s a fifth part, the waveform responsible for the Hijacked Spindle Wave."
"Right, I know that. So what?" Yu Xian still hadn’t caught on.
"We just need to remove the MCH-suppressing waveform module from the audio those twenty people use. That way, when the subjects wake up, they’ll forget everything from the dream."
Yu Xian’s pupils constricted. It all clicked into place!
’Genius! How could I have overlooked that!’
"Holy crap, that’s brilliant!" Shi Zuozhou yelled from the side.
Just like that, the problem that had worried them most was solved with ease!
"Xiaoxiao, you’re so smart!" Senior Sister Yang Yiyi sounded relieved as she continued.
"To be honest, even without Xiaoxiao’s genius idea, I felt we should give it a try. I’ve actually been thinking about this ever since the day we discovered the multiplayer mechanic."
Yang Yiyi paused for a moment before continuing.
"Just like Yu Xian said the other night, all the mechanisms and anchors we designed to combat ’source memory confusion’ make our version feel neutered compared to the original single-player dream. Even if we publicly state that this is a safer version, it will be hard to convince those addicted to the original to use ours."
On his end of the line, Yu Xian nodded. This was one of the main reasons he had wanted to push forward with the multiplayer Dream Net.
"So, this novel multiplayer mechanic is the only way we can attract them to our ’Dream 2.0’," Senior Sister Yiyi’s voice was calm, but her attitude was firm.
"However, the frequency range where spindle waves can be stably hijacked is very narrow. To guarantee the success rate, we can only round down to integers—12 to 15 Hertz. All told, that’s only four frequencies. This means that everyone in the world with access to this technology, no matter what they want to do with it, will have to squeeze into those four channels."
Yu Xian listened without interrupting.
"These four frequencies are an absolutely scarce resource. If we don’t occupy them, sooner or later, someone else will. Our development of it is still in the very early stages, but just as you’ve said, even though moving forward is like walking into an unknown fog, at least we’ll have the chance to seize the initiative," Yang Yiyi said firmly.
"Today... Shi Zuozhou told us about the decision-makers’ views on the Great Flood during the collider incident. As I see it now, whether it’s to prevent ’source memory confusion,’ to stop malicious developers from setting traps first, or to secure more leverage and initiative for ourselves in the unknown future, I don’t think we should be hesitating and indecisive."
Yu Xian silently nodded.