A Dream Within a Dream, Fatty

Li Sen likes Xu Anmei.

This wasn't something that started after he grew up; his feelings for Xu Anmei had begun to stir when he was still a child.

And in this illusion, my bride was Xu Anmei. I clearly remember that Xu Anmei had already died when she was nine, or maybe ten. In any case, she drowned in the Xiao Che River.

When her body was recovered, her mother cried inconsolably, and her father aged dramatically overnight, half his hair turning white.

Suddenly, a scene flashed through my mind: the moment Xu Anmei's body was pulled from the water.

Li Sen was there, not far from Xu Anmei's parents. Li Sen was about ten years old then. I've forgotten the exact year, but he was around that age.

Back then, we kids often played together. We all lived near Little Ancestral Hall Entrance and spent our days running wild in the alleys. We were close in age and easily got along.

It's not like now, with high-rise buildings. People living in the same apartment building, above, below, or beside each other, don't know who their neighbors are. Even though they're so close, most live their lives without interacting.

In our childhood, neighbors knew each other. There was much more warmth and humanity than there is now.

To the point that if you mentioned someone's name, people would say, "Oh, I know him! He's from our street." They could even tell you quite a bit about his family situation.

Li Sen fell silent, lowering his head, lost in thought.

The wedding procession continued forward, with two musicians playing, creating a lively atmosphere. The sound of the suona was particularly distinctive and piercing.

When we arrived at the Xu family's main gate, people were already waiting. Several girls I recognized were there. They had been close friends with Xu Anmei and had all come from the Little Ancestral Hall Entrance kindergarten.

The door-blocking games were no match for Uncle Long. On the eight-immortal table set up at the entrance were thirty-six glasses, large and small. Uncle Long raised his cup and drank one after another, reciting blessings as he went. Most of them were auspicious phrases, essentially saying that the groom's family would take good care of their new bride and ensure she had a good life.

This was a very authentic and traditional Qiao City wedding, the old-fashioned kind that's almost impossible to see nowadays.

I think whoever created this illusion is very familiar with the old customs of Qiao City, very familiar with Little Ancestral Hall Entrance, and even very familiar with us.

So, who is this person?

I suspect my previous guess might have been wrong. This person might not be the Onmyoji from the Island Nation who killed Xie Xiaotang and wanted the Twin Fish Jade Pendant, but someone we know very well.

But there are only a few survivors from Little Ancestral Hall Entrance. Li Sen is already dead. Xu Qiuyan and I are obviously not it. That leaves only Uncle Long and Aunt Qin, who are lying in the psychiatric hospital!

The thought sent a shiver down my spine.

Duan Hongbin said that Uncle Long and Aunt Qin had lost their souls and needed the Lu family's "Soul Guiding Incantation" to wake them up. How could they possibly create such an illusion?

And at this particular time, too.

My gaze fell on Uncle Long. He was drinking the last cup, but his hands were busy too. He took out a stack of red envelopes and handed them to the girls, coaxing them to help trick their way into the Xu family's house.

Aunt Qin stood in front of me, also watching Uncle Long.

I took a step forward, getting closer to her.

"Aunt Qin!"

She turned her head to look at me, a smile on her face. "What is it? Feeling a little nervous?"

I shook my head, my eyes fixed on hers. "You and Uncle Long deliberately wanted to trap me here, didn't you?"

Aunt Qin's expression flickered slightly. "Xiao Bai, what are you saying? Aunt Qin doesn't understand."

I sighed. "I know. This is an illusion. This must be an illusion created by you and Uncle Long. Although I don't know how you did it, I know you want to trap me here, or rather, you want to stall for time, right? I think you have two goals. The first is to tell me something through this illusion, and the second is to prevent me from finding the person behind all this."

As soon as I finished speaking, Aunt Qin's entire face turned deathly pale. Uncle Long in front of me also stopped what he was doing. The lively scene around us suddenly fell silent. Everyone froze, as if a playing video had been paused.

Immediately after, the entire illusion collapsed, shattering like a mirror.

I was still standing in the dark forest, holding Xu Qiuyan's hand. She looked at me with a strange expression. She was holding her phone, its flashlight on, illuminating my face. I blinked slightly.

"Xiao Bai, you're finally awake. You startled me. You can fall asleep like that." Xu Qiuyan gently patted her chest.

"I fell asleep?" I asked, confused. Didn't I just enter an illusion?

"Yes, you just stood there and fell asleep. No matter how I called you, you wouldn't wake up."

I shook my head vigorously and asked, "How long was I asleep?"

"Less than three minutes," she said softly, looking at her phone.

My eyes widened. The time in the illusion was far more than three minutes; even thirty minutes wouldn't have been long enough.

Chu Ge, standing nearby, also looked at me with bewilderment.

So, even Chu Ge didn't know about the illusion I just experienced!

No, it wasn't an illusion. Illusions affect the sensory system to create hallucinations. Xu Qiuyan and Chu Ge both thought I had just stood there and fallen asleep, and it had only been about three minutes. Therefore, what I just experienced couldn't have been an illusion, but a dream!

That's right, I had been hypnotized and led into a dream.

Only in a dream does time differ from reality. People often say, "A dream of a thousand years," meaning one can experience millennia of change within a single dream.

A thousand years pass in a dream, but the dream itself is short.

Uncle Long and Aunt Qin led me into the dream; I was almost certain of it.

Because it was a dream, it was so absurd. I was marrying a girl who had long been dead, and I would see Li Sen again, who had committed suicide by jumping off a building.

But I had seen Uncle Long and Aunt Qin's condition with my own eyes. They were practically vegetative. How could they have done this?

It seems I really need to go to the Provincial Second Hospital again to check on them.

"Let's go!" I didn't have time to explain, because at that moment, I felt that Duan Hongbin seemed to be in danger.

They were less than a hundred meters away.

Xu Qiuyan didn't ask further. Instead, she said worriedly, "It seems they're in danger."

I nodded and quickened my pace with Xu Qiuyan.

"Sister Hong has never been this tense before."

She could feel Sister Hong's emotions. She said Sister Hong wasn't just tense, but also filled with fear and unease.

Duan Hongbin was the same. I didn't know what kind of enemy they were facing.

When Xu Qiuyan, Chu Ge, and I arrived, we saw Sister Hong and Duan Hongbin confronting a fatty.

The fatty looked about our age, but he was exceptionally fat, at least twice my size.

He was about 1.65 meters tall. No, that wasn't accurate. It should be said that no matter which direction you looked at him from, he was 1.65 meters tall, because he looked like a ball, a perfect sphere.

His body was round, and his head was round too.

He had small eyes, slightly squinted, a flat nose, a large mouth, and a pair of ears that stuck out.

For some reason, seeing his appearance made me want to laugh.

He was smiling too. When he smiled, his eyes were almost invisible.

Standing behind him was Xie Xiaotang, or rather, Xie Xiaotang's soul.

She was hiding behind the fatty.

Who was this fatty? His smile seemed harmless, so why were Sister Hong and Duan Hongbin so terrified?

The fatty was wearing a white, crew-neck T-shirt, black shorts, and a pair of blue flip-flops.

It was already late autumn, yet he was dressed like this.

Perhaps it was because he had more body fat, making him resistant to the cold.

"Yo, the main guests have arrived," the fat guy said.

I couldn't help but frown. His words seemed to have a deeper meaning to me. He was implying that Duan Hongbin and Sister Hong weren't the main guests, but that Xu Qiuyan and I were the ones he was waiting for.

"Who are you?" Xu Qiuyan asked.

The fatty pointed at Xie Xiaotang behind him. "She's an acquaintance of mine. If you have any grievances with her, let's just let it go for my sake."

He knew Xie Xiaotang? Or was Xie Xiaotang's soul being controlled by him? Was it his intention to take the Twin Fish Jade Pendant? Was he working with the Onmyoji from the Island Nation?