The cold metal edge of the bed pressed against Jiang Chan's shoulder blade, and she suddenly opened her eyes.

There was an unyielding, sticky smell in the air: the burnt smell of cheap synthetic protein from overheating, the metallic odor of inferior lubricating oil, and the lingering sweat from people who had been gathered for too long—all mixed together.

This is the "dust and mud zone".

She sat up and looked around the tin shack, which was less than ten square meters. Above the narrow alley outside the window, rusty ventilation pipes and exposed wires were crisscrossed haphazardly, like a giant spider web, tightly covering the crowded and messy shack below.

Several cracked neon signs flickered on taller buildings in the distance, casting fragmented light spots that reflected on the sewage-strewn ground. A group of people in faded overalls, their eyes cloudy, dragged their weary steps past.

"The other side of the clouds".

This word is everywhere, like a virus. On the old newspaper pasted on the window opposite, there is a huge, eye-catching headline: "Eternal Glory Within Reach—The Ultimate Home of Humanity on the Other Side of the Clouds!"

A brightly colored poster was pasted on the wall, depicting blue skies, white clouds, golden beaches, and carefree smiling faces, with the words "Perfect Paradise, Eternal Consciousness" in large letters beside it. The edges of the poster were curled, yellowed, and stained with oil.

The people of the Dust and Mud Zone live to save enough money, enough for the "entry ticket" to upload their game. Even if that's just a number that exists only in legend.

Jiang Chan pushed open the creaking, almost falling-apart metal door and stepped into the narrow passageway outside. The air felt worse. A little boy huddled in a corner, a dirty cloth spread out in front of him, covered with scraps of electronic components salvaged from a discarded circuit board. He stared longingly at every passerby.

Diagonally opposite, a middle-aged man dressed relatively well, though his cuffs were worn shiny, was spitting as he spoke to the screen of an old communicator on his wrist:

"...Yes, Mr. Chen, rest assured! I'm absolutely reliable! I'll handle the data inventory from before your grandfather's consciousness was uploaded, making sure everything is handled perfectly! Those electronic photo albums, encrypted diaries, private collections... archive what needs to be archived, and delete what needs to be deleted,"

The man lowered his voice, a smooth, ingratiating smile plastered on his face, "I absolutely won't cause you any trouble! I know the rules! The old man is going up there to enjoy his retirement; keeping these old-world sentiments would only be a burden, wouldn't it? The price is negotiable, negotiable..."

The man hung up the call, looked up and saw Jiang Chan looking at him. He immediately dropped his fawning expression and put on a wary and somewhat impatient one. He glanced at her, tightened his grip on his chafed black briefcase, and hurriedly slipped into a small shop next door with a shabby sign that read "Safe Data Processing".

A data legacy processing company. These are the people who "clean up" the last traces left in the real world after the uploader's consciousness departs. Jiang Chan's gaze swept over the dimly lit sign.

For the next few days, Jiang Chan wandered like a ghost in the most murky corners of the dusty district. She needed to find out the truth behind the upload.

She went to a gray organization that provided "basic consciousness uploading services" for the poor and unidentified corpses; the place was disguised as a makeshift community medical station. She also approached the temporary workers who carried corpses at "funeral technology outsourcing points."

She listened to the hushed whispers of the people, trying to catch any clues that might slip through the cracks in the information.

"Old Li's daughter, the other day it was all over the internet, that 'Golden Radiance of the Other Shore' premium package, I heard it cost them three generations of their savings and left them with a mountain of debt," an old worker muttered as he smoked by the sewage ditch.

"Right? What's the point? Just for 'eternal life'?" someone chimed in. "But last month when I went to Old Li's house to deliver something, the old man's face...tsk tsk, he looked like a dead man. I asked him if his daughter was doing well 'up there,' and he just shook his head and sighed. He said that when he looked at the images projected back by the 3D projector, it was the same person, wearing beautiful clothes and smiling in the garden, but his eyes... the old man said it was like watching a stranger acting in a play, cold and lifeless. It wasn't as affectionate as when his daughter used to scold him after working hard at the factory."

"What did the official statement say?" someone asked.

"What else can we say? An adaptation period! They say that since we've just broken free from the constraints of the physical body, our consciousness needs time to adapt to the pure etheric paradise, and our emotional expression will be delayed and adjusted for the time being... A bunch of incomprehensible words to fool people."

Jiang Chan silently noted it down. A delay and adjustment in emotions? That was the official explanation. But she felt something was off.

The opportunity soon arrived. The data processing clerk named Zhu Laoqi had probably recently landed a big job and had some money on hand, so he went to a slightly decent cheap bar on the edge of the Dust and Mud District to splurge. After a few glasses of cheap synthetic ethanol, Zhu Laoqi began to boast about his "connections" and "techniques."

"...You think just anyone can do this job? Bullshit!" Zhu Laoqi slammed his hand on the greasy table, his tongue slightly tied. "You have to know the ropes! Do you know how much computing power those dead people... no, those noble lords who ascended to the 'other side of the clouds' had to burn up when uploading? The scale of that data stream... it's enormous!" He spread his arms, gesturing an exaggeratedly huge circle.

Someone nearby scoffed, "They're going up there to enjoy themselves, so it's normal for the data flow to be a bit high. I heard that heaven has everything, just like the real thing!"

"Exactly the same?" Zhu Laoqi hiccuped, his eyes slightly unfocused. "Then let me ask you, how much data would it take to create a 'person' exactly like you? Even if you stuffed all his memories, personality, and habits from childhood into it..."

He held up two fingers, "At most this level, right? But when it's actually uploaded..." He then spread his arms, gesturing to the enormous circle, "It's this! More than ten times! Continuous! Terrifyingly massive!"

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!