Data-Driven Daoist

“A Senior Sister called Tan Ruoxuan sent a message,” Yu Han said.

Wen Liujie’s face fell. He remained silent for a while, tapping the table. “What did she say?”

“Level up.”

Wen Liujie knitted his brows.

“We’ll be off then,” Yu Han said as he and Huang Niuniu bowed.

“I won’t be here for the next week,” Wen Liujie said. “You’ll find the elixir in this room, same time next week. No one will touch it. Drop by tomorrow too, because the healing elixir Elder Chang promised will be delivered. Oh, and Worm Daoist Feral Spot wants to meet you tomorrow as well. Meet him in the compost pit. It’s probably about the reward from the Gorge-Crawling Earthworm Tribe.”

Before Yu Han and Huang Niuniu had made it out the front door, Wen Liujie rushed past them with a large pack on his back. He rode a donkey off into the night.

“What’s gotten into him?” Yu Han asked.

“Tackling the trial, probably,” Huang Niuniu said.

They returned to her place. Yu Han had a fasting brew. “I’ll buy enough ingredients for the Spites for four people,” Huang Niuniu said. She walked him to her fence gate.

Yu Han waved goodbye and walked around the ledge. He turned back to look. In Huang Niuniu’s yard, there was a large stone. She sat on it cross-legged, looking at the sky. From time to time, parts of her body would shine. Fireflies gathered. The puddle by the stone shimmered with specks of blue.

Yu Han tapped the camouflaged crab. It didn’t react.

“Come to my Dreamscape. I have something to share,” Yu Han said. He was hoping for a click but got none in return. Was the crab in another being’s dream now?

He shook his head and entered the hut, closing the door behind him. The sounds of the wind and insects dulled. Moonlight shone through the cracks of the wooden windowpanes.

He took off his clothes like Wen Liujie had advised and laid on the mat. It still wasn’t replaced, not that he cared much. In mangas and novels, disciples would be sitting cross-legged in these situations. He felt that lying down was the most comfortable.

He took out the pill.

Give me some stats, buddy. He swallowed it with a mug of water. Then, he chugged down the elixir.

He closed his eyes.

Come, sleep.

A strange heat seemed to rush up from his stomach. It wasn’t painful. It came in waves, like a rotating fan blowing hot wind his way.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. He concentrated on his breathing and the ebbing and flowing sense of heat.

Suddenly, he jolted awake. In his Dreamscape. He opened the status screen, but no changes yet.

“Click.” The crab was there.

“You listened,” Yu Han gave it a pat. It wobbled left and right. It then growled.

“How the hell are you growling?” Could crabs even make such sounds?

The crab blew bubbles. A few materialized into pearls and fell to his feet. Yu Han picked one up. “You gotta take these back.”

The crab tilted its body. It took out a parchment.

“I don’t know,” Yu Han said.

It drooped, tilting until it flipped over. Then it kept stabbing up with its legs.

“Are you… throwing a tantrum?” Yu Han gaped. He helped the crab upright, then materialized a stick.

The crab perked up. It scuttled around the stick like an out-of-control Roomba.

Yu Han threw the stick. The crab chased after it. It picked it up on the other end of the Dreamscape, bringing it to Yu Han.

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It remembers. Good. Yu Han squatted, looking intently at the crab. “You lose your memories. They’re in the blue pearls.” He showed the crab the two remaining blue pearls. “If you leave these in another person’s dreams, you’ll forget what happens.”

The crab stared at the pearls. Yu Han pointed at the ones the crab materialized today. “They’ll all turn blue. You have to take them back to your pond. Get it?”

The crab stared. It scurried back, bringing Yu Han the stick again.

“Geez,” Yu Han sighed. “I’ll—”

The crab picked the stick up with a pincer and poked Yu Han’s ankle.

“Listen to me—”

Poke.

“Fine.” Yu Han threw it. The crab caught it this time after jumping. It brought the stick again. Yu Han reached to grab it, but the crab moved it away. It pointed at the blue pearl.

Yu Han had no idea what it was up to. But he handed the pearl over. The crab stashed it somewhere, then gave Yu Han the stick again.

The crab made another growling sound, its body vibrating. More pearls appeared.

“Christ. Okay, I’ll explain while we play,” Yu Han said.

The crab bopped its body up and down.

“Was that a nod?”

More bops.

“I’ll take it as nods.” Yu Han threw the stick and explained, as plainly as he could, what they had discussed before.

“…so when you pick up the stick, you own it, and you’re the only one who can use it. If you give it to me, it’s my stick now, and you can’t use it anymore. You can let me ‘borrow’ your stick, either just to look at it or to actually use it. I can’t modify the stick while you’ve lent it to me, but I can throw it or draw a crab in the sand with it. But while I’m borrowing it, you have to wait until I’m done. Only one person, or crab, can own the stick at a time, and while someone else is borrowing it, they usually would have to follow your rules about it. But you don’t know the rules, and never tell them, and forget to take the sticks back. Get it?”

Click click! The crab threw a pearl at his face.

“The stick is the pearls. They have your memories. You need to take the pearls back. Or never lend them out.”

They played the game of fetch for what felt like hours. Halfway through the explanation, Yu Han, for some reason, switched to explaining ownership and borrowing in the Rust programming language. It used Ferris the Crab as a mascot and was very particular about memory safety.

The comparison didn’t completely hold, though, so Yu Han got muddled after a while.

“In any case, can you at least control how to make these pearls?” Yu Han asked the creature.

It scratched its shell. Then, facing a direction, it blew bubbles. A few of them turned into pearls.

“So you can…” Yu Han nodded. “How do you turn them blue?”

The crab paced around. Suddenly, it turned into a two-metre-tall crab behemoth.

“Whoa,” Yu Han fell to his butt. That transformation was super quick.

The crab looked at the stick, then the pearls. It hit the pearls with an enormous front claw. The whole Dreamscape shook.

“Hey, careful!” It could somehow repair the Dreamscape walls after tearing a hole in them, but Yu Han could do without a sudden demolition.

The crab lifted its pincers up.

The pearls were blue.

“What the fuck?” Yu Han gasped.

It hit the pearls again. This time, the Dreamscape didn’t shake. By the time it lifted its claw, it was one metre tall, and the pearls had increased in numbers. The newly spawned ones were halfway to fully blue.

“I don’t even know anymore,” Yu Han patted the crab’s shell. “I think we’re done here. Take the pearls back to your pond. From now, don’t create them in other people’s dreams. Okay?”

The crab shrank more. It jumped up over Yu Han’s head and scurried off.

“Did you understand—” Yu Han turned around.

The crab had punched a hole in the wall again. It went in. A loud burn sounded from the other side, followed by a gust of wind.

“I said take the pearls with you,” Yu Han shook his head. He picked up the pearls. He would throw them in the hole to the other side.

This is stupid, he thought. If he kept them, he would be able to farm Memory points. That was his main specialization until now. He had less than eleven months until the Rookie Tournament. After that, Sima Yan would act.

Or maybe even before that, Can’t tell with these whiny brats. Not to mention, they were planning to go to the Hidden Realm to hunt monsters. This was intentional danger-seeking.

They’d be taking Fang Zhao with them. If he really did have the luck of a xianxia protagonist, he would attract trouble like an old lady attracting spam emails.

Even a single point in Memory might save his life.

The crab crawled out of the hole with half a coconut shell. It was halfway filled with water.

“Don’t you dar—” It splashed Yu Han. “Damnit.”

The crab tugged his pants. It placed the shell down. With one claw, it pointed at the pearls; with the other, at the coconut shell. Yu Han placed the pearls there.

Why won’t it dry? He tried to echo clean clothes on his body, or erase the water. Nothing worked.

The crab picked up the shell and went back into its hole. Before the hole closed, it peeked out with one eye stalk, rotated it 360 degrees like a wheel, then retracted it back.

The hole closed.

If the crab remembered what happened today, it would stop losing its memories. Maybe it would stop visiting him since it knew Yu Han didn’t know what the parchment said.

No more blue pearls. No more easy points in Memory.

Yet somehow, Yu Han didn’t feel too bad. Of course, there was a part of him that felt regretful. But it was nothing compared to what Johan would have felt if he lost easy money.

Yu Han sat down with wet, imaginary clothes. He closed his eyes in his dream, breathing in and out with the rhythms of the Calm Before the Storm Breathing Technique.

Five.

Fifteen.

Fifty.

I hope it remembers not to visit other dreams, Yu Han thought. It was fun playing fetch. Would it still be in his yard the next morning?

His mind grew lighter with every breath. Or was it his body? Was he floating? No need to answer those questions. It was just a dream anyway.

His body prickled, as if thousands of needles were being inserted into him. But each needle was warm, and they scratched invisible itches he never knew were there. Soon, his will faded.

A breath in. Five out.

He awoke but had trouble opening his eyes. An intense stink assaulted his nose.

Oh fuck. Did I wet the bed? He remembered he was on the floor and that he had taken the Body Tempering Pill. Right, Senior Wen mentioned this would—

A sudden blow to his stomach knocked the wind out of him.