Infinite Nightmares

However, looking at the chaotic battlefield in the distance, Zhang Wenda thought that the Third Line wasn't in the wrong.

'This person... this Thought Wave... they're too dangerous. Even eating can get you killed. If someone accidentally wandered in here, they'd be dead for sure.'

'It makes perfect sense that the Third Line is trying to capture them.'

'And now it seems it's not just the official side—the Third Line—that wants him. The underworld's Big Circle is looking for him too. He must be incredibly valuable.'

"Let's get out of here first. I'll see if I can switch to Thought Wave Two, and then—" Before Wenda could finish, he saw a roadblock gradually closing at the intersection ahead.

Planes fell from the sky in a constant stream, landing behind the roadblock and completely sealing off the road.

Seeing the planes, bristling with fangs, Wenda's expression turned grim. He looked up at the sky and saw that the hundreds of people falling from it weren't swarming the center of the battlefield. Instead, they were encircling the entire town.

"These people projected by the Thought Wave's rules are trying to bottle us up! They're intelligent—and not just a little bit!"

He didn't know if Hu Maomao and Liu Jianming had heard him, but all he could see were the planes in the sky, seemingly duplicating themselves in an endless, unbroken stream.

"Damn it all, now we're in big trouble." The Auntie stroked Jianguo's head, her own expression turning grim.

"Kid, what do we do? I don't care about myself, but you have to save Mimi!"

"Enough talk! Fall back! They've seen us!"

As the encirclement began to tighten, Wenda had no choice but to lead the other two in a retreat to avoid being spotted.

But hearing the excited shrieks of the red Wai Mouse drawing ever closer, Wenda knew they were running out of places to hide.

Wenda knew this couldn't go on. 'No matter where we hide, they'll find us sooner or later.'

'Besides, even if those hundreds of Third Line personnel are weak, they can still bury us with their numbers. To break this deadlock, we have to find the person sustaining this Thought Wave. Only by finding them and getting out of this place can we be truly free.'

That was easier said than done, however. If the person were truly that easy to find, they wouldn't have spent the entire morning searching fruitlessly.

Wenda mentally reviewed all the rules of the Thought Wave he had found so far, but no matter how he looked at it, the parameters defined by the four rules were just too broad. He had no leads at all.

And yet, even in this desperate situation, Song Jianguo was still muttering complaints, making Wenda's anger rise.

"How can I be a man! I'm obviously a woman! I'm a woman!!"

"Enough!" Wenda grabbed Jianguo's neck, lifted her straight up, and glared at her through clenched teeth.

"Look at the mess we're in! And you're still worried about this nonsense? We're about to die, who gives a damn if you're a man or a woman!"

Just as Wenda's sharp scythe sliced into Jianguo's neck, sending blood spraying, his pupils suddenly shrank. He stared intently at Jianguo's delicate face.

"You psycho! Let her go! Are you trying to kill her?!" The Auntie slammed a fist into Wenda's body, the sheer force of the blow knocking him two steps back.

The Auntie looked at Jianguo, who was bleeding uncontrollably, and quickly grabbed two cats, pressing them against his bleeding neck to stanch the wound.

Yet despite taking a punch, Wenda didn't look the least bit upset. On the contrary, he rushed back to Jianguo and asked excitedly, "You don't have an Adam's apple? Why don't you have an Adam's apple? Answer me, were you really a woman in the past?"

"Wouldn't I know if I'm a man or a woman? I really am a woman!!" Jianguo glared fiercely at Wenda.

But seeing Jianguo like this, Wenda suddenly grew excited. He had found the key.

"If Song Jianguo is a woman but became a man after entering this place… what if that transformation—a woman suddenly becoming a man—is one of the rules of this Thought Wave?"

Both the Auntie and Jianguo looked at Wenda in surprise. "A rule like that exists?"

"Yes!" Wenda said, his voice firm and decisive. He began pacing back and forth in his excitement.

"What if—and I'm just saying, what if—the person sustaining this Thought Wave has absolutely no concept of gender?"

Wenda's words sent a jolt through the other two.

"What if, as a male, he's never seen a female body? What if no one ever taught him, and he doesn't even have the most basic biological knowledge?" Wenda's eyes grew brighter as he spoke.

At that moment, Wenda blurred into motion, appearing next to a middle-aged woman selling vegetables. With a wave of his right hand and a scream from the woman, her clothes instantly vanished.

When he saw that the heavyset woman now had the body of a boy from the front, Wenda knew his hypothesis was correct. A flawed perception of gender was one of the rules of this Thought Wave!

Wenda rushed to check others and found it was the same for everyone, from old women to little girls.

There was only one possible explanation for such a rule: the person sustaining this Thought Wave had absolutely no correct understanding of the difference between male and female!

Jianguo, still clutching his neck, exchanged a look with the Auntie. They were beginning to understand what Wenda was trying to say.

"Are you saying… he's a psycho and an imbecile?"

"No!" Wenda immediately shot down Jianguo's theory.

"Even a psycho or an imbecile wouldn't lack the most basic concept of gender! If he were so far gone he couldn't even tell male from female, how would he know to run from the Third Line?"

Wenda quickly pieced all the rules together. "There's only one possible explanation! He's a child! A child who was abused and forbidden to eat, who was hunted by the Third Line and forced to eat bugs to stave off hunger. A child who was never taught the basics, who thinks crushing a hen will produce a chick, who is so naive he doesn't even know the difference between boys and girls!"

With that, Wenda's body became a blur as he shot into the crowd. "Go! Everybody find him! He can't be more than five years old! Hu Maomao said he was around here!"

A boy, about five years old, with a skewed perception of the world. Once Wenda had extracted this precise profile from the rules, the search became much simpler.

At a whistle from Jianguo, the cats sprang into action, weaving through the bustling crowd.

At that moment, Wenda suddenly understood why Jianguo was so small down there.

It was because the little boy sustaining this Thought Wave had only ever seen his own scrawny body.

The logic and rules of a Thought Wave stem from its creator's perception.

Because the entire Thought Wave was sustained by him and him alone, and because the poor kid couldn't even imagine what a female body looked like! He naively believed boys and girls were the same, so every woman in this Thought Wave had a body that was an exact copy of his own!!