Chapter Four: Dream Interpretation (Part One)

Gongsun Ce’s superpowers were no longer spiraling out of control, but now something new was tormenting him.

Black-red sparks of light emerged from the gray-haired youth’s chest, coalescing into a sword-like form that surged upward. The same power that had slain the Dragon of Glaze in mid-February had returned. It threatened to pierce a hole through Yan Qi’s residence, surging straight toward the sky!

The formation beneath Gongsun Ce flared with intense light, dragging the black-red sparks back into the paper. Yet, the power of the Terminal Sword struggled violently, staining the rice paper and the formation pitch-black.

Shiyu Lianyi asked in a low voice, "Shall I intervene?"

"What's the rush?"

Yan Qi picked up his brush and drew the pentagram that had once sealed the sword and the eye. The ink sigil expanded rapidly, transforming into a mark with a radius of one meter beneath his palm. Yan Qi slammed his hand onto the mark, shouting, "Halt!"

As the pentagram covered Gongsun Ce, the power of the Terminal Sword faltered. Yan Qi immediately commanded, "In the name of justice, righteousness, and morality, bind this brat!"

No sooner had the words left his lips than a layer of white substance covered Gongsun Ce’s body. The white material bound the sleeping youth firmly, completely sealing the black-red sword light back within.

Even with Shiyu Lianyi’s composed nature, he could not help but feel a lingering chill. He was ten-tenths certain that if no one had stepped in just moments ago, his closest friend would have been reduced to nothing, and what followed would have been even more terrifying...

The man in the suit said helplessly, "Mr. Yan, this is not something that can be learned."

"Don't be ridiculous, do you think this is something you could learn?" Yan Qi sneered. "Keep waiting. See how things develop before making a decision."

***

Gongsun Ce watched the shaking building with exhilaration, waiting for something to burst forth and grant him a quick end. But the apartment building only trembled for a moment before gradually stabilizing. He ran to the window in disbelief, only to find that the scene outside had changed abruptly.

An overwhelming white substance had blanketed the entire desert, preventing even a single grain of sand from stirring. He felt utterly lost, as if he were standing in the middle of an endless snowfield.

As the external environment stabilized, Gongsun Ce’s surging negative emotions were abruptly suppressed. It felt as though someone had struck his head with a heavy hammer, leaving him dizzy and plunged into an eerie, hollow calm.

Gongsun Ce remained dull for several seconds before realizing what had happened. He looked at Alandia, who sat in a chair. She had picked up the wordless book he had discarded and was flipping through it, page by page, with great interest.

"Are you toxic? What is there to look at? Can you just let me be?" Gongsun Ce said, sounding maddened. "Do you want me to keep spiraling? To watch me struggle in a normal world after realizing my true nature? Are you a sadist? How can you bear to torture a poor soul like this? Or is this your strange way of showing affection—choking someone by the throat while forcing candy into their mouth?"

The Knight of Dawn replied without looking up.

"Self-torture is the merit of the weak; self-mutilation is the monument of the base."

This single sentence blocked every retort he had yet to utter. Nonsense and provocation had never worked on this woman.

Gongsun Ce grabbed the silver-haired woman’s shoulders, pleading in a low voice, "Alandia, I’m already like this... can you say something nice? When the male lead of a hot-blooded manga risks his life, he at least has a guardian spirit or a partner or a goddess behind him shouting, 'Don't give up!' or 'I believe in you!' or 'You're the coolest in the world!' I’m just as miserable as I was three years ago. I’m truly on the verge of collapse. Give me some comfort so I can stand up again, find the Aura or whatever the hell treasure it is, and gather the courage to face this goddamn reality!"

Alandia smiled.

Her smile was subtle, her lips only slightly curved. At first, Gongsun Ce had always felt this distant, formal smile was mocking him, or mocking others who were stupider or more incompetent than herself. It was only later that he noticed the kindness in her eyes and realized she simply wasn't adept at expression.

Her tone remained calm, without much fluctuation.

"Ce, I am not your mother, nor am I your lover."

Gongsun Ce covered his face and lay on the bed, playing dead.

He had never been so glad that there were only the two of them here. If anyone else had heard that, he would truly have no face left to show the world.

"Thank you, I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to stab me," Gongsun Ce said with his eyes closed. "Now we’re both done for. We can stay in this small room and torture each other until the world ends."

Gongsun Ce knew exactly what would happen next.

The Innate Aura was supposed to be a treasure hidden in the deepest part of his heart. Now that he had discovered his negative, pessimistic nature, he had failed to find the Aura deep within. If he couldn't find the Aura, he couldn't return; if he couldn't return, he would have to stay in this place forever. Unless a hero descended from the heavens to rescue his heart, Gongsun Ce would remain a vegetable, lying outside forever.

The Knight of Dawn calmly flipped through the blank book, seemingly finished with him. Gongsun Ce held his breath for a moment, then couldn't help but say, "I’m serious, is this thing really that interesting? There isn't a single word in it—what can you possibly see?"

Alandia closed the book.

"You have studied dream interpretation."

He had. Not in an elective psychology course at university, but during the private tutoring sessions Yan Qi had given him.

In the world of the Practitioners of Non-Constant Law, dreams and the inner heart were inextricably linked. They believed the mind was a "delusional" entity that transcended the physical horizon yet corresponded to the real world. The heart contained power that ordinary people could not perceive—power derived from one's experiences, past, mental state, and the true essence of things they had seen or even never seen.

Under normal circumstances, human thought could not comprehend the power within the heart. These concepts, which existed in reality but were intangible, could not be concretely defined through language or text; thus, they could only appear in the form of "symbols."

Symbols were all causes and intentions, all intuition and perception, all ideals and irrational thoughts, conclusions, inductions, and shifts in emotion. They contained everything within the human heart, but ordinary people were often lost when seeing them, like looking at flowers through a fog.

"Everything that appears in a dream is a symbol. The deeper you go, the more information the symbol contains," Gongsun Ce replied listlessly. "The way to interpret the meaning of symbols is dream interpretation."

"Basically correct." Alandia handed the wordless book back to him. "Attempt to interpret the dream."

Gongsun Ce tapped his knuckles against the cover and said dryly, "Exquisite on the outside, empty on the inside—it reflects my own essence of being all flash and no substance. The fact that there isn't a single word inside means I live without purpose, that my life is void. The layers of decoration and the casing on the outside reflect that I have long since realized my true nature, yet I cover it up with flamboyant displays, living by self-deception. Because realizing my nature makes me feel like I'm breaking down, I cannot survive without lying to myself. Nine times out of ten, I will succumb to depravity, or even suicide."

He threw the book onto the bed and fell silent.

Alandia evaluated, "A reasonable interpretation."

"Oh, I’m way too familiar with this routine of yours," Gongsun Ce said, grinning. "First, whet my appetite—very reasonable! Then, a turn of phrase: 'but it lacks a key factor, so it is incorrect.' To hell with it, this is my dream—do you understand me better than I understand myself?"

Alandia rose and stood in the center of the room, beginning to speak in a tone he was familiar with.

"Based on a hypothetical premise, one can make countless reasonable speculations." She held up a finger, pressing it beneath the brim of her deerstalker hat. "Only by finding true evidence can one make the only correct deduction."

*Always remember to string your thoughts together with a complete logical chain...*

Gongsun Ce finished the sentence in his heart, then sighed. "Miss Knight, we aren't solving a case right now. This is inside my dream; there is no rationality here, let alone logic. I’d be happy to be your assistant and run around the streets of Superbia with you, but that doesn't work here. Where would one find evidence and logic when interpreting symbols?"

The silver-haired woman shook her finger.

"There is still a self-consistent logic within a dream; it only depends on whether you can interpret it."

She took off her deerstalker hat and placed it on Gongsun Ce’s head.

"Now, I am your assistant. You go and uncover your own truth."

Gongsun Ce opened his mouth blankly, feeling the lingering warmth on the hat, and for a moment, he didn't know what to say.

He awkwardly took back the book and whispered, "...I'll try."

***

The esper began to reconstruct his logic, looking at everything he had encountered from a rational perspective.

He first stepped into the absurd desert. That environment had neither memory nor reason; the black sun, the airship, and the desert held much information, but no matter how he thought about it, it had nothing to do with his essence and should be discarded.

After that, he entered the apartment, climbing upward only to fall downward, which indicated that he realized the process of climbing upward was also a journey of seeking the self in the depths. This was another obvious symbol: the nature of the dream was the opposite of reality.

Gongsun Ce first stepped into the room in the City of the Firmament, seeing a different side of his close friends. Sure enough, his friends had also become the opposite of their usual selves, revealing the "inner" face condensed from impressions and prejudices. They were all in the form of monsters but held no malice, meaning he trusted his friends and understood the absurdity of the City of the Firmament as a whole, treating it as the superficial, daily side of things. His friends suggesting he stay was naturally his own resistance to delving deep into his heart.

After that, he encountered his older brother. The bright and upright Mo Yuankai had always been hiding in the dark, which, of course, was the opposite of his usual self. He had seen the false Aura in the tunnel in the form of a torch, which was equivalent to the cover of the small book—a self-created hallucination. Mo Yuankai said he had to look in a mirror to enter the depths, which meant...

"Miss Alandia, what does a person see in a mirror?"

"They see themselves."

Yes, they see themselves. He had traveled from the dream to his heart, attempting to find his true self, and therefore, he had to have the courage to face his heart. Now, he had seen his negative essence, but had failed to find the Aura, which meant his journey was not yet over.

Gongsun Ce had already stepped into the deepest layer of the dream. He asked himself: what should he do after facing his heart?

He touched the deerstalker hat on his head. Why not treat it like solving a case? He had found a book of unknown purpose—a "mystery"—and what he should do is...

"Find the origin of this book," Gongsun Ce muttered to himself. "Find the reason why it is wordless."

If there were only emptiness deep within Gongsun Ce’s heart, then what he finally found should have been a stack of blank paper, a puff of air, or some other thing that was inherently without content.

This object was in the form of a book, and a book must have content, even if it were only a title.

The youth jumped off the bed, excitedly saying, "Where am I, Alandia?"

The Knight of Dawn answered fluently, "In your former residence."

"An old house, home to a family of three. You shouldn't be here, I should have been here, but who else should be here?"

"Your family."

He grabbed the book, pushed open the door, and led the silver-haired woman into the empty living room. The wall clock showed the current time: 5:00 PM. Gongsun Ce’s parents were still out working; naturally, they wouldn't be home.

According to normal logic, pursuing the truth required finding out what had happened in the past. But this was a dream; he had to interpret the logic according to the sequence of the dream. He recalled the process of how he arrived here and suddenly realized.

"To ascend to the high levels, one must dive into the abyss; to pursue the past, one must look toward the future."

Gongsun Ce took down the clock and moved the hands. "Advance the time and see what happened here in the past!"

The minute hand turned in circles, and the air in the old living room suddenly blurred. In a place that should have been empty, three illusory shadows appeared. The shadows gathered around the dining table, discussing something seriously. When the clock struck seven-thirty, the shadows solidified completely, and their voices and movements appeared along with them.

This time, Gongsun Ce saw it clearly. In the room were his parents...

And his younger self.