After watching the apple dance countless dances, Hugo finally couldn't bear it anymore, this was a completely unreasonable Consciousness Space!
Having the God's perspective and Shiller's explanations, the relationship isn't complex. Essentially, this place is a manifestation of Shiller's thoughts.
For instance, the "Inverted Tower" represents Shiller's process of swapping perspectives, "Room of Self-Control" represents his choice when faced with temptation. The nameless scene of Lego theatrical performance stands for his way of amusing himself, and Boring Square...well, it signifies boredom.
Everyone experiences these thoughts and emotions. If they were to be transferred to an ordinary person, the experiences might be the same. For example, the process of gaining knowledge could be realized as a library, and the process of self-reflection could be manifested as a Room of Meditation, and so on.
But this is only from the perspective of a high-dimensional God. If a transmigrator was suddenly thrown into these rooms, he would definitely be confused, having no idea what is going on.
Hugo possesses immense professional knowledge. He also knows that this should be the embodiment of Shiller's thinking, but he could completely fail to understand what these things represent.
From Hugo's perspective, he was first teleported into a hospital full of mad doctors, then tormented various ways before being scared awake.
After he woke up, he was in an office. A voice was inexplicably guiding him to detonate a bomb, after which he was scared awake again.
Then he found himself kidnapped by a Lego man with green hair and a C-shaped hand. This time, he was cut off before he even woke up from fear.
Then he was teleported to a void, watching an apple performing over six hundred dances.
If this story were to be included in a literary work, many readers would comment that the use of stream of consciousness is a bit too advanced for carbon-based life.
If the first scene could be understood as the manifestation of Shiller's obsession with certain aspects of his work and the problems of communicating with his patients, the second scene could be reluctantly explained as the frustrations of work and daydreaming when slacking off at work, the third scene could be excused as some childhood fantasies...
But Hugo could not imagine, what does an apple performing over six hundred dances, symbolize?
What does it symbolize?
What could it possibly symbolize?!
What the hell, just what the hell, what the hell does it symbolize???
Hugo gave up, or you could say, he had reached the point of despair.
But that's normal. Anyone who sees an apple with hands and feet performing every ballet and opera number known to all the classical music and dance of the world, would probably have a similar emotional experience. It's not just passionate excitement; it could also be a profound realization.
But before his despair, he still had one last thing to do, Hugo didn't forget. He had a button that could affect a person's emotions and bring to the surface their deepest fears.
Last but not least, Hugo hadn't forgotten his catch-phrase, "Let me see, what are you most afraid of?"
Just as he pressed the button, the whole world fell silent. Everyone in the audience glanced at their surroundings only to find nothing had happened.
"Did your experiment fail? It seems like the pathway to the subconscious didn't open."
"No... it might have opened already, it's just that..." Shiller got up again and led everyone to the entrance of the theater. He opened the door—outside was the high-altitude cloud layer.
A strong gust of wind blew in, but Victor still glanced sideways, noticing the theater door had become similar to an overhead compartment window, and you could clearly see a plane wing outside the window.
"Are you most afraid of flying?"
Shiller shook his head. Then everyone saw that the clouds were getting thinner. The plane was gradually descending, the city below getting larger as the plane flew lower until it finally landed.
"Then what?" Evans asked, confused.
"I'm not afraid of flying. I am afraid that the plane I am on will land safely."
"If one day, I feel a little turbulence, then wake up from my dream to find myself on a plane seat, and all of this is just a dream I had during the flight..."
Shiller shook his head and said, "...that would be horrifying."
None of the others understood what he meant, only Jack said, "What a fascinating and wondrous dream, but up next, you have to get up from the seat, fetch your luggage, greet the flight attendant, then leave the plane. I don't know where you will go next, but it will definitely be doing something ordinary and boring..."
"A person who fears ordinary life, yet masquerades as an ordinary person..." Jack makes a clucking noise with his mouth, "Well, that's kinda funny..."
"But it is nowhere near as funny as a man who is afraid of bats yet masquerades as a bat, hahahaha!"
At this moment, a rabbit hole appeared in front of them. Shiller said to Jack, "Stop laughing and get to work, don't forget about our deal."
"You don't expect me to jump into this rabbit hole, do you?" Jack said as he looked at Shiller. Their eyes met, then Shiller snapped his fingers.
In an instant, the outfit Jack was wearing transformed into a blue and white Lolita dress. The Joker glanced at his clothes, then continued to glare at Shiller. Shiller glared back, saying, "Isn't this outfit suitable for the rabbit hole? What version of Alice in Wonderland have you been reading?"
Evans covered his eyes, as if finding Jack's getup to be quite an eyesore. He said, "I don't care who's gone mad, if you don't get him out of here soon, I'm going to lose my mind!"
"Why isn't it a rabbit who's jumping into the rabbit hole?" Cobblepot asked. Victor replied, "This is what I mentioned before, the importance of reading. I have a gold edition of 'Alice in Wonderland' back home. I'll give it to you later."
Jack and Shiller were still locked in a stalemate. Eventually, Shiller said, "I'll tell you a joke, then you can jump in, how about it?"
"What kind of joke do you plan to tell?"
"The rabbit jumped into the rabbit hole first, and then Alice jumped in. The bat jumped into the batcave first, then who jumped into the batcave?"
"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! It's Jack! Jack also jumped into the batcave! It's me! Of course, it's me!! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!"
Jack started laughing hysterically, then ran towards the rabbit hole and dived in headfirst like a diver.
"I don't get what madness you are up to. Is the rabbit hole the gateway to your deep consciousness space?"
"Exactly..." Shiller said, watching Jack disappear into the rabbit hole.
"Then why did you let him jump in?"
"Where are we?" Shiller posed a question and then answered himself before Victor could respond, "We are in my consciousness space, but essentially, everything that happens here equates to a dream."
"If I compare one layer of my dream to the surface of the Earth, then the 330 layers above are like buildings on the ground, and everything below the surface belongs to the basement."
"Not only do the ground-floor buildings have many levels, but the basement also has myriad layers. Someone who is good at advancing levels doesn't just excel at ascending but is equally proficient at descending."
"Descend? Why would you need to descend?"
"What do you think is at the pinnacle of my Thought Palace?"
Well...if we operate along these lines, the pinnacle should be the real world, right? Once you reach the pinnacle, you can control your body and manoeuvre in the real world?"
"Exactly, so what do you think is at the very bottom of the basement?"
Victor squinted, and the other two also pondered this question. Cobblepot asked, "Is there a so-called 'bottom' at all?"
"Of course there is. As long as you dig deep enough, you'll hit the 'bottom' one day."
"So, Jack inteded to help you dig the 'basement'?"
"He's not only going to help me 'dig' the basement but also... to dump shit there once he reaches the bottom."
The consciousness space started to dissipate, the dream started to shatter, a wave of tiredness washed over Victor after they regained consciousness. He turned and saw Shiller sitting behind a table with a globe in his hand which was continuously rotating even while being placed on the table.
Victor felt a sense of déjà vu; he looked around but could not pick up on any anomalies. Seeing his actions, Shiller said to him, "This is one of the after-effects of lucid dreams. You start to question whether you're awake or still dreaming. But I can assure you that we are indeed back in the real world."
Evans and Cobblepot both stood up from the couch, stretching their somewhat stiff bodies. Only Jack, lying on the single-seat sofa, was still sleeping.
"Was what you told us in the dream for real? Jack went deep into your consciousness to excavate? What would he find? What did you mean by..." Victor hesitated momentarily without uttering that somewhat vulgar term.
"When you want a fish to surface, in addition to baiting it with food, there is another way..."
"And what's that?"
"Dump shit in its house."
Cobblepot's face lit up as if he had just understood something. Apparently, he was reminded of some past situations. Then, his expression turned into a mix of disgust and a bit of sympathy.
The other two looked somewhat puzzled, but they didn't probe further.
Not long after everyone had left, darkness set in. As usual, Shiller sat on the couch, reading and listening to music.
Before long, he started feeling drowsy. Shiller took out the prepared stamina potion and started gulping it down. However, the tiredness kept growing to a point where he could barely keep his eyes open.
A faint voice whispered in the darkness: Sleep, sleep, sleep quickly...
Shiller's response to it was, I won't sleep, I won't sleep, I won't...
Sleep... sleep quickly...
No, I'm not tired, not sleepy...
"You're tired! Sleep now!"
"I'm not tired at all! I can hold on for at least another 20 hours!"
"But I can't hang on anymore!!!" The voice bellowed.
In an instant, everything before Shiller's eyes went black. When he was conscious again, he saw a man standing before him, dressed in a long robe, pale and thin-faced, staring at him with angry eyes.
Shiller seemed to have anticipated this. He rose from the couch and asked, "May I know if you're the 'Sleep Demon' Morpheus?"
"Indeed, I'm Morpheus, and you..."
Shiller interrupted him, his arms extended and said: "Morpheus, I'm here to negotiate."