He was the Onmyoji I had seen before.
This was Zhuanghe's Dreamscape. Had he been conjured by Zhuanghe in his dream, or had he entered Zhuanghe's dream like Xu Qiuyan and I had?
In Zhuanghe's dream, who was the master? Who was controlling this Dreamscape?
And how had Xu Qiuyan and I entered Zhuanghe's dream? What exactly were we within this Dreamscape?
"Who exactly are you?" I asked the faceless man.
"We've met before. Hehehe!" His voice was shrill, as grating as an iron spoon scraping across glass.
Though he seemed to be laughing, the sound was bizarre enough to make my skin crawl.
He stood and walked toward us, his gleaming scythe flashing silver under the moonlight.
"You're an Onmyoji?"
"That's right. Let me introduce myself. My name is Abe Ichinan, though they all call me the 'Death God.' Everyone who has ever seen me has died. You're the exception." As he spoke, his scythe suddenly slashed toward me. I hurriedly shoved Xu Qiuyan away, dropped low, rolled across the ground, and crashed hard into the shameless Abe Ichinan's feet.
Although this was a Dreamscape, I wasn't sure whether the harm he dealt us here would affect us in reality.
I couldn't remember who had said it, but sometimes, if someone died in an illusion or a dream, they might truly die in reality as well.
I didn't dare gamble, and I couldn't afford to.
When Zhuanghe saw this, he suddenly screamed and turned to run.
He seemed to have been scared out of his wits by the Black-Robed Man.
My collision knocked him back several steps. I flipped up beside Xu Qiuyan. "Run!"
I grabbed Xu Qiuyan's hand and ran. We were unarmed and had no advantage at all against that guy's scythe.
Yet no matter how we ran, he followed us like a shadow.
He clung to us relentlessly.
"Who's controlling this Dreamscape?" Xu Qiuyan asked. That was exactly what I had been wondering.
I shook my head. I truly had no idea whether Zhuanghe or Abe Ichinan controlled this Dreamscape.
If it was Zhuanghe, then as its controller, he wouldn't need to be this terrified. In that case, he would be a god in this Dreamscape, able to create everything and destroy everything.
But he was running away in panic.
Clearly, he wasn't the master of this Dreamscape. He had even been passively dragged into it himself. Yet Xu Qiuyan and I had somehow entered his dream. He had said that Abe Ichinan, the Black-Robed Man, had been hunting him in his dreams all along, and that he had been desperately fleeing for his life.
By entering his Dreamscape, we had intentionally or unintentionally saved him. Though danger still remained, at least Abe Ichinan had been restrained by us. His target had shifted to Xu Qiuyan and me, leaving Zhuanghe temporarily out of danger.
"You shouldn't have a weapon. You never had one before!" I said as I looked at Abe Ichinan.
The instant I said that, the scythe in his hand suddenly vanished.
I froze. What was going on? I had said that because the previous two times I saw him, he truly hadn't had a scythe. Even when he killed Xie Xiaotang, he had used only his hands. Why did he have such a terrifying scythe in the Dreamscape?
What I hadn't expected was that the moment I said it, his scythe actually disappeared.
Though I couldn't see his face, when the scythe vanished from his hand, I sensed his body tremble slightly. He seemed not to have expected it either.
I didn't know what was happening, but I felt it had something to do with what I had said.
"How is that possible?" he muttered.
"You deserve to die!" He suddenly raised his head and threw a punch at me.
I threw out a punch as well, and our fists collided.
Pain! It hurt so badly!
My fist felt as if it were about to explode.
But he didn't seem to be doing much better. He staggered back several steps, one arm hanging limply at his side.
Xu Qiuyan asked anxiously, "Are you okay?"
I shook my head and stared coldly at Abe Ichinan.
Then he vanished. But a strange sound rang beside my ears, like a monk chanting scriptures, though I couldn't understand a single word.
Still, I was certain the sound came from Abe Ichinan. He wasn't chanting scriptures. He was probably reciting some kind of spell.
Suddenly, clumps of black mist rose all around us.
Looking closer, they weren't mist at all. Every clump had eyes and a nose, their huge mouths gaping as though they wanted to swallow Xu Qiuyan and me whole.
Xu Qiuyan said softly, "This is bad. He's using Ghost Taming!"
These black mists were all ghosts?
Xu Qiuyan pulled me back, but there was no way we could retreat faster than those black mists. Before long, we were tightly surrounded.
The encirclement closed in tighter and tighter. Then I heard Abe Ichinan's laughter, that piercing sound like metal scraping against glass.
My heart sank at once.
Xu Qiuyan had already released my hand. Her hands turned rapidly as she muttered something under her breath. A beam of golden light shot from her fingertips and struck one of the black mists. With a shrill scream, that clump of black mist completely dissipated.
"What was that?" I asked in surprise.
After Xu Qiuyan destroyed that clump of black mist, the other black mists noticeably slowed down.
"I don't know." Xu Qiuyan looked frightened too. She shook her head and stared at her fingers.
I asked, "Can you do it again?"
She nodded, then repeated what she had done before. The black mists actually retreated as though they were conscious.
Xu Qiuyan must have used some kind of ghost-banishing technique just now. But how did she know it? Where had she learned such an ability?
Abe began chanting again, his words coming faster and faster.
As he chanted, the full moon hanging in the sky began to change color, turning blood-red. The entire world was shrouded in a crimson glow.
More and more black mist gathered around us. They no longer feared Xu Qiuyan as they had before. On the contrary, Abe Ichinan's chant seemed to excite them, and they closed in even faster.
And then, the black mists I saw were no longer mist. They turned into people, people I recognized. They were all from Little Ancestral Hall Entrance, neighbors I knew all too well.
Xu Qiuyan's hands stopped moving as well. She stared blankly around her, her gaze settling on a woman—an elderly old lady.
I had a bad feeling, because that woman was Xu Qiuyan's Grandma. Her parents were usually busy with work, so she spent most of her time with her Grandma. They had been very close.
Two months before the incident at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance, her Grandma had passed away. Although Xu Qiuyan had been young then, she already understood life and death. I remembered how she had cried her eyes out at the time.
It was only natural for her to react this way upon seeing her Grandma now.
But I knew this was merely one of Abe Ichinan's tricks.
He wanted to throw our minds into chaos.
He had seen that Xu Qiuyan possessed a technique capable of dealing with these ghosts, so he was using this method to make her give up resisting.
"Qiu Yan, this is fake! It's all that Abe's doing!" I shouted, patting her shoulder.
"Hahahaha! Kid, are you sure it's fake? What if it's real? What if she truly is this little maid's Grandma's soul? Aren't you afraid you'll scatter her soul and prevent her from entering reincarnation? Little maid, think about how she treated you. Can you really bear to let her vanish into nothingness?"
Xu Qiuyan didn't move. She simply stood there in a daze.
I was getting anxious. If this continued, Xu Qiuyan and I might both die at the hands of these ghosts. They would devour us until not even scraps remained.
But what could I do? I knew that if I were Xu Qiuyan, I wouldn't be able to strike either. Even if Abe was lying, what if it was true? If she really caused her Grandma's soul to vanish, she would never know peace for the rest of her life.
How could we break this deadlock?
Just as I was burning with anxiety, Xu Qiuyan moved. She moved quickly, a dagger appearing in her hand. She crouched down and drew a large circle about one and a half meters in diameter.
The circle enclosed us.
By then, those ghosts had already reached the outside of the circle.
One of the faster ghosts had already approached the circle Xu Qiuyan had drawn. Xu Qiuyan glared furiously and shouted at it, "Those who trespass upon sacred ground shall be annihilated!"
The moment the ghost touched the circle, it burst into flames with a whoosh.
Then several more ghosts were burned away without even ashes remaining.
Xu Qiuyan looked toward "Grandma." I could see the conflict in her heart, but there was a trace of resolve in her eyes.
"I don't know whether you really are the neighbors from Little Ancestral Hall Entrance, but I know you were forced into this too. Leave now, and it's not too late."
I gently took her hand, and she looked at me.
After hesitating for a moment, I asked, "What if that really is Grandma?"
Xu Qiuyan closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. "If that truly is Grandma, then I'll avenge her. If she still has any awareness, I don't think she would blame me."
Her gaze fell upon "Grandma," and her voice was very soft, almost like she was speaking to herself. "Grandma, is that really you?"
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