Chapter 31: Interlacing Dreams (2)

Gongsun Ce came up with a brilliantly absurd lie: I am not a hallucination; I am the power bestowed upon you by Gongsun Ce.

For a split second, he was about to blurt it out, but his conscience checked his impulse. Farewell, that would be utterly wicked; if he said that, Shiyu Ling probably wouldn't be able to sleep well ever again.

Therefore, the grey-haired young man let the furious woman land a few punches, after which he raised a hand and said, "That's enough, alright? I'm only in the Lingzhao realm, I don't have the ability to hack into your dreams."

Shiyu Ling pulled out the short arrow. "Go to hell!!!" Gongsun Ce seized her wrist with lightning speed, leveraging his superior arm strength to drive the black arrow downward. The short arrow pierced the young man's abdomen, crimson blood flowing along the tip and staining his clothes.

Shiyu Ling froze. Gongsun Ce seized the chance to pull out the short arrow and stabbed himself once more.

The black-haired woman released the short arrow and stepped back two steps. "I..." After an unconscious murmur came a clear verdict. "You're crazy."

"Calm down yet? If you're not satisfied, I'll poke myself a few more times."

Gongsun Ce propped himself up against the floor. Expressionless, he pulled out the short arrow and pressed his hand tightly against his abdomen. "Rest assured, I won't pry into your dreams."

Shiyu Ling glared at him gloomily, the woman—teetering on the brink of emotional collapse—being forcefully dragged back to the edge of reason by his act of self-mutilation.

"...Tell me what on earth is going on."

·

Psychokinesis and White Matter were, unsurprisingly, unusable once again. Gongsun Ce found the first-aid kit, spent five minutes bandaging his wound, and explained the sequence of events along the way. He cautiously omitted all unfamiliar terms, replacing them with "someone" and "something"—he could afford to court death himself, but he could not allow this matter to implicate anyone else.

"—You have the Eyes of the Netherworld in your heart?! And you actually used them to look at the vortexes of Zero Island?!" Shiyu Ling was practically hysterical. "Have you and Tianji both lost your minds?!"

Compared to you, who summoned a monarch to descend, I'm practically sane.

"Let's put those aside for now; anyway, I was thrown in here by someone." The esper spread his hands. "Do me a favor, Miss Shiyu, and get me out of here, otherwise both of us are going to suffer."

"This isn't a problem that can be solved just by kicking you out! Do you understand what has been done to you?! You are on my path, our dreams have intersected!!"

Gongsun Ce scratched his head and said honestly, "I don't understand."

The black-haired Shiyu Ling angrily dug out a piece of paper and a pen. On the first sheet, she drew two circles, one small and one large, at opposite ends, connecting them with a line segment.

"This is your path." She pointed to the small circle, then traced the line to the large circle. "This is the end, where you met someone. I don't understand what you encountered, but somehow you entered the end of the Numinous Phase path."

The Numinous Phase path?

"Wait, wait, wait, Miss Shiyu, I entered the Numinous Phase path?! What I was looking at clearly—"

"Of course it's the Numinous Phase path. How could you possibly walk into my dreams from any other path?" Shiyu Ling sneered. "Keep trying to figure it out; I can't wait to watch you go insane."

I am a water droplet. Gongsun Ce chanted silently, water droplet, water droplet, water droplet.

"Your spiritual light was set to the Solitary Phase, but you walked the Numinous Phase path from the very beginning. Normally, you would suffer from severe schizophrenia due to the conflict between the powers of the two mind-phases, and this would further affect your physical body through the abnormality of your spiritual light, turning you into a low-intelligence monster with two or three heads and seven or eight arms." Shiyu Ling said coldly, "I'm not exaggerating; Shiyu Gengmi has created plenty of similar gadgets, and I killed every single one of them."

...Oh holy mother.

Gongsun Ce said sincerely, "Pull me out of this, Miss Shiyu. You wouldn't want to see me in your dreams every time you fall asleep, would you?"

"Shut your mouth!" Shiyu Ling cried out inexplicably. She snatched a second piece of paper and similarly drew a line segment and dots representing a path: "You've already been pulled out. I don't understand how he managed it, but I surmise it must be like this."

She pasted the two sheets of paper together. The circles representing the ends overlapped on the inner and outer sides.

She pointed back and forth between the two sides. "From your end, the location of that person, to the end of my path." The pencil moved backward from the end of the second path, "moving backward from the end of my path, away from the most dangerous area, arriving at this deep dream we are in now." She blackened the area close by.

After saying all this, she threw the paper down and cried out exasperatedly, "Do you understand now?! Your dream and my dream have been entangled together by someone, you idiot!! We have to tear the dreams apart, or we'll be trapped in the dreams forever just like those who failed their Lingzhao!"

Gongsun Ce said meekly, "I beg Miss Shiyu to instruct me."

"How could I possibly have this kind of experience?! I've never heard of anything so absurd!"

Judging by how eloquently you were speaking, I thought you had relevant knowledge. Turns out you were just making it up as you went...

"What should we do then? Take it one step at a time?"

Shiyu Ling walked up to her... or rather, Cartesia's front door. After pondering for a moment, she said, "That person said to walk my path back?"

Gongsun Ce nodded.

"Tch, it might be a node... Let's take it one step at a time." Shiyu Ling shook her head. "Stay behind me, keep your mouth shut, and if you dare pull any extra stunts, I'll take you out first."

Gongsun Ce nodded repeatedly. At this point, if he didn't listen to the expert, he had no other options. As for whether Shiyu Ling might harm him right now... if this woman truly harbored malicious intentions, what could he even do? He would just have to adapt to the situation.

Shiyu Ling opened the door and stepped out of the apartment first; he immediately lifted his foot to follow. But right at that moment, a bizarre change occurred before his eyes: Shiyu Ling, who had just stepped outside, vanished in a split second, and where the door used to be was replaced by a plain white wall. Then he felt a blur before his eyes.

"Oh hell no, you've got to be kidding me!"

Reality matched his prediction to the letter. Just as Gongsun Ce had experienced in his Lingzhao dream, his surroundings shifted entirely along with the onset of dizziness. In the blink of an eye, he was standing inside a completely different room, and by his side, Shiyu Ling was nowhere to be seen!

Gongsun Ce looked around, his eye twitching. He was one hundred percent certain he had never been to this place, so whose dream was he in now?

...And the vanished Shiyu Ling, whose dream was she in?

·

Shiyu Ling was standing in a corridor.

She believed she was inside some kind of large, enclosed facility. The evidence was the metallic ceiling, floor, and walls, as well as the regularly spaced lighting fixtures. This was neither the Shiyu Research Institute nor the house she used to live in, but a completely unfamiliar place.

She turned around immediately, only to see a cold wall; that annoying esper was no longer by her side.

"...Gongsun Ce's dream?" She muttered to herself. Shiyu Ling used her hand to block the light, creating a shadow, but Shadow Orchid failed to manifest.

That was precisely why she hated special dreams. Dreams always stripped humans of all extraordinary power, exposing their foolish, helpless, and cowardly sides. As a Manifestation Mage, she had long since been able to completely control her dreams, but tonight's chaotic dream allowed her to experience the feeling of being a mere mortal for the first time in ages.

Shiyu Ling steadied her mind and checked her belongings. Short arrow, trench coat, wallet, gadgets, cellphone... everything she carried on her person was present, but the collar around her neck was gone. She turned on her phone to check the time.

The screen displayed that it was July 14, 2000, at 10:04 AM.

Summer, ten years ago. The reality reflected by this dream occurred in the year the Calamity of the Firmament descended and the dragon species appeared. At that time, she was going through the most painful period of her life, which was why Shiyu Ling didn't know much about what happened during this timeframe.

Shiyu Ling thought with self-derision that, in truth, she didn't understand anything deeply enough; before meeting Tianji, she didn't even understand the true power of the Law of Impermanence. She gathered her thoughts and cautiously walked down the corridor. After walking for a little over a minute, she arrived at a four-way intersection.

Aside from the corridor she was currently in, the other three directions were shrouded in fog-like darkness. Shiyu Ling heard a series of footsteps coming from ahead. With no time to overthink, she slipped into the dark corridor on her right hand side and took out her makeup mirror to observe the situation.

The mirror showed that four fully armed soldiers had arrived at the intersection. They wore steel helmets and goggles, donned tactical combat uniforms, held assault rifles, and were equipped with various armaments including tactical crowbars and pistols.

Shiyu Ling glanced at them and put away the mirror. Stripped of her Law of Impermanence, she stood no chance against these four. Judging from their movement, she deduced they were heading for the left corridor, and silently took two steps deeper into the passage on her right.

Seemingly obscured by the enigmatically dark field of vision, the soldiers failed to notice her presence. The sound of footsteps faded away toward the left of the intersection. She waited a while longer, confirming no one was following, before setting off. At that moment, she faintly heard voices coming from the direction the soldiers had come from.

"Superpower... talent... meaning..."

Shiyu Ling concentrated, but could only catch a few words. She turned on her phone to check the time; it was now 10:07 AM.

Meaningless imagery would not appear in a special dream; corresponding information must exist at the ends of the three paths. The soldiers had patrolled from the center to the left, and would presumably only check the right side after some time. Shiyu Ling decided to quickly explore the corridor she had stepped into and then return to the central path; that would be the route with the lowest probability of encountering soldiers.

Another minute later, Shiyu Ling reached the end of this corridor.

The end of the corridor was a heavy iron door, and the iron-barred window near the top indicated that this was a prison cell. She peered into the interior through the gaps in the bars. There were no windows in this cell, only a single lamp glowing on the ceiling.

What caught Shiyu Ling's eye first was a child securely bound to a stool. He was a brown-haired boy wearing a straitjacket, his arms crossed over his chest, the two sleeves wrapped around his body several times and tied in a knot behind his back. Every part of his body was restrained by heavy steel, making it impossible for the child even to shift his body's orientation, forcing him to maintain a sitting posture on the stool.

The sight before her stirred up bleak memories in Shiyu Ling's heart. She gritted her teeth, telling herself that this was not the Shiyu Research Institute. She noticed two identical stools in the room as well; another child was asleep on one of them, while the third stool was empty.

The brown-haired boy noticed the gaze outside the door. His eyes shifted, and he looked coldly at Shiyu Ling.

"Who are you."

Shiyu Ling tapped her lips. "My, before asking for someone's name, shouldn't you introduce yourself first?"

"You're not a soldier." The restrained boy scrutinized her for a moment before deciding to state his name. Not a single trace of youthful vitality could be heard in his voice.

"I am John Garcia."

Shiyu Ling had an impression of this name. Just last month, she had dealt with someone who shared the same name as this boy, a person whose moniker in the Firmament City was...

"Eh?! You're Skull-Head?!"

That skeletal-faced mobster looked like this when he was a kid?!

In mid-2000, Firmament City hadn't even been built yet, so this place... could it be a temporary detention center for espers?

While she was pondering, Shiyu Ling heard footsteps coming from behind. She turned around vigilantly and saw a... humanoid entity walking toward her.

She could only call it a humanoid entity because this person was pitch-black all over, making nothing distinguishable. The black mist enveloping this bizarre newcomer was identical to the mist that created the dark field of vision in the corridor, making her wonder about the connection between the two.

What was even more bizarre was what the shadow figure was holding in its hands: this person was holding a half-eaten Chinese hamburger (roujiamo) in their left hand, while their right hand carried several fully packed takeaway bags stuffed with food.

"Oh ho, a fresh face!" The shadow figure's tone sounded surprised. He—judging by the voice, also a boy—held up the roujiamo in his hand toward Shiyu Ling and spoke amiably.

"Hello there, miss! I went down to the lower-level cafeteria to swipe some food; we actually have roujiamo today of all days. Do you want one? I can give you a share!"

The person spoke neither fast nor slow, in a calm tone. She felt as though she had heard a similar cadence somewhere before.

Shiyu Ling shook her head. "May I ask who you are?"

The shadow figure finished the roujiamo in two bites and wiped his grease-stained hands with a napkin.

"My humble surname is Mo, given name Yuan-Kai. You can call me Mo Sheng."