Ye Tiancheng and the others went to the supermarket again. They found that most of the commonly used items, food, and daily necessities had been cleared out. However, the prices in the supermarket had indeed increased, more than doubling from yesterday.
After leaving the supermarket and walking on the street, Long Miaomiao suddenly reacted.
She said to Ye Tiancheng, "It seems like someone is breaking into the students' dorms to steal and rob?"
Ye Tiancheng's attention was immediately drawn.
"Hmm?"
On the streets, they hadn't encountered any serious incidents yet, but many people were complaining that the prices were outrageous and unbearable.
Ye Tiancheng asked Long Miaomiao, "Who are these people doing this? Are they the pedestrians who entered the dream and came into this illusion, or are they fellow examinees like us?"
Long Miaomiao replied, "It should be the pedestrians who entered the dream, not the students."
"They are mostly holed up in their rooms and don't go out. When they encounter theft or vandalism, they defend their property and don't let anyone in."
Ye Tiancheng frowned in thought and suddenly realized, "Could we also encounter this? We aren't even home."
The three of them immediately hurried back.
When they returned, they found that the door to their temporary residence had indeed been pried open. However, to their regret, Ye Tiancheng had carried all the supplies he had purchased with him for safety. He hadn't left anything in the room, so the thieves found nothing useful.
Ye Tiancheng guessed that the intruders were not after valuables but rather daily necessities.
After all, with no one at Ye Tiancheng's place, the landlord's appliances left in the room were certainly not safe and would be carried away.
When Ye Tiancheng and the others returned, they heard nearby residents crying out, as if their homes had also been burglarized and many items stolen.
The little fox asked blankly, "So, the difficulty of surviving here is the skyrocketing prices and the emergence of social problems, encountering thieves and robbers, people who might even take lives?"
Ye Tiancheng thought for a moment and analyzed, "It can't be that simple. There is still order in this illusion. I saw police officers outside earlier, and the residents were also shouting about calling the police. The order hasn't collapsed. If the problems were truly that easy to solve, no one would be able to figure out how to pass, let alone face any danger."
The fundamental reason was that surviving here was too easy.
Ye Tiancheng felt that things wouldn't pass so easily.
On the third day, Ye Tiancheng and the other two discovered that the illusion had introduced new twists.
It turned out that in this illusion, humans lived under the control of demons and monsters. From the third day to the seventh day, the remaining five days in the illusion were designated as "Tax Days" by the demons and monsters.
Moreover, demons and monsters would visit houses to collect taxes.
Ye Tiancheng certainly wouldn't cooperate and ended up fighting directly, attracting a lot of attention. For the latter five days, they were mostly fighting. If they hadn't been afraid of the illusion collapsing, Ye Tiancheng and the others would have been more unrestrained, otherwise, the illusion would have been close to being torn apart.
Fortunately, Ye Tiancheng and the others were inside. For capable individuals like them, such illusions couldn't trouble them. Ordinary people certainly couldn't deal with demons and monsters and would have to pay a price and compromise.
The taxes collected by the demons were human flesh and blood.
Every household had to pay this tax. If they were like the "original inhabitants" in the illusion, they only had to pay per household. However, for them, the examinees, they had no families, so a single person constituted a household.
Where would they get human flesh and blood, and how could they resist the demons?
If they resisted, or if they actually found flesh and blood to pay the tax, where would it come from?
If Ye Tiancheng hadn't caused a disturbance later, they wouldn't have known what would have happened in the illusion.
On the seventh day, after the exam ended, the students in the classroom looked at Ye Tiancheng and the others with great shock.
They were no longer as wary of them as when they first met. They even seemed to see hope and flocked towards Ye Tiancheng and the others.
Because of Ye Tiancheng's appearance, most of the subsequent students could pass safely by simply hiding. In any case, they wouldn't encounter any life-threatening dangers, at most just minor injuries.
Moreover, they were just ordinary students without special abilities, so they were at a disadvantage in the illusion and had likely lived very frustrating lives.
Ye Tiancheng was asked many questions. It was only after these students were willing to communicate with them that Ye Tiancheng learned more about the situation.
It turned out that the reason these students seemed unfazed during the day was that everything that happened at night was like a dream to them the next day. They remembered nothing, only that they woke up fine in their dorms, though they might have had nightmares.
Only when they went to take the exam at night would they recall everything and nervously participate in the examination.
And in this exam, no one knew what they would encounter. However, if they participated in the exam, even if they failed, they wouldn't be penalized. After the exam, they would be revived even if they died, but not taking the exam would result in a deduction of points.
Some people had tried to avoid taking the exam and ended up failing.
The day after that person failed, the students saw him jump off a building during the day. Initially, they thought he was despondent. Only when they recalled everything at night did they understand why he had jumped.
He might not have jumped willingly but was controlled by something and ultimately met his demise.
With this precedent, after that entity behind the scenes made an example of him, many students who had similar intentions had to diligently take their exams, at least ensuring they wouldn't lose points.
Even if they died during the exam, it wasn't a real death, but dying in reality was truly dying.
Therefore, no one dared to skip exams now.
If they survived the exam, they would definitely get points. If they could guess the exam questions and get some answers right, they could even earn more "academic credits."
Besides that, dying in the exam, as Long Miaomiao had said, didn't mean everyone would survive in reality. However, it was likely because most students had a strong will to survive, so such incidents rarely happened.
Because most people's instinct was to survive and live, as long as there was a glimmer of hope, it wasn't easy to die.
However, these students couldn't quite figure out the reason behind it.
And these students, no matter how they tried, couldn't escape the control of the entity behind the scenes. They could only hope for graduation. Many who wanted to pursue master's or doctoral degrees were reluctant to take the exams, or they wanted to transfer to other schools, basically not wanting to stay in this school anymore.
But they didn't know if leaving the school would truly free them from all of this.
They could only hold onto this as a hope.
However, everyone knew that even if these students lived off-campus, if they were selected, they would still wake up in the school at night and go to the exam.
Ye Tiancheng and the others seemed to understand something.
It seemed that the illusion was not just an illusion, but even the main domain of dreams.
Later, Ye Tiancheng and the others confirmed that this was indeed the case. Because when dawn broke, everyone's consciousness gradually blurred. Finally, Ye Tiancheng and the others, who were still in the Business School discussing the situation with the students, found themselves no longer in the Business School as their consciousness blurred.
Ye Tiancheng and the other two lay on the ground near the outskirts of the school, not knowing when they had been affected.
Even Long Miaomiao had been affected, which showed how terrifying it was.
However, unlike those students, Ye Tiancheng and the others still remembered what had happened the previous night.
The little fox asked Ye Tiancheng, "Brother, looking at our current situation, could it be that everything we experienced before was just a dream?"
"This seems different from an illusion."
Long Miaomiao stretched her wrists and said, "It's similar, but it's indeed a bit different from a normal illusion space. It has some overlapping elements."
"You could say it's a combination of dreams and illusions."
Ye Tiancheng thought about what had happened and decided that it was best to contact Nie Chongyang first and inform him about the situation here, to avoid delaying things. They couldn't handle the situation and then tell them.
By then, the students would no longer be restricted, and it would be difficult to keep them quiet. They couldn't control public opinion for Nie Chongyang, prevent public panic, and leave enough time for handling. This matter was too important, and Ye Tiancheng and the others still had no clue how long it would take to resolve.
Therefore, they had to inform Nie Chongyang and the others first, at least to give them a heads-up.
After returning, Ye Tiancheng and the others rested for a while, as they had spent seven days in another time during the night. Especially during the last five days, after Ye Tiancheng started fighting with various chaotic things inside, he basically had no chance to rest properly.
Ye Tiancheng rested for the entire morning, and at noon, he called Nie Chongyang.
When Nie Chongyang received Ye Tiancheng's call, he was already a bit frustrated because their side hadn't been going smoothly and they had encountered some setbacks. However, just as they could finally rest, Ye Tiancheng had something to report.
Initially, Nie Chongyang thought Ye Tiancheng needed their help with something again.
But after Ye Tiancheng told Nie Chongyang about what had happened at the university, it immediately drew the attention of Nie Chongyang and the others. No matter how frustrated they were, they knew that this matter had to be taken seriously and dealt with quickly, otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Originally, supernatural events were kept secret. But with such a wide impact, wouldn't it become known nationwide and cause widespread turmoil?
The importance of this matter was self-evident. Nie Chongyang and the others had to make all preparations to minimize the impact of this incident.
Moreover, they couldn't let these students continue to be troubled by such things.
These were the future hopes of the country, talents cultivated for the nation. If they were affected by such matters, especially since Ye Tiancheng mentioned that in such places, people even resorted to doing some very bad things to survive, it would definitely have a serious psychological impact on them.
If these bad habits were brought into reality, or if some people became self-abandoning and all of them turned bad, the consequences would be quite severe.
Nie Chongyang immediately agreed and planned to mobilize personnel to assist Ye Tiancheng in investigating the situation and be ready to resolve the problem at any time. If this matter was not handled well this time, Nie Chongyang and the others would not be able to escape blame, and no one could bear the consequences. Nie Chongyang was very clear about this.
After hanging up the phone, Nie Chongyang immediately made arrangements to head to the university town.