He Li said that Wu Lun had dreamed of a woman.
I guessed she must have been a very beautiful woman.
Otherwise, he would not have said, "You're so beautiful!"
He had merely taken a nap and had a beautiful dream, yet he had never awakened. No one knew whether he was reluctant to wake up himself or whether someone had trapped him in the dream.
He Li came over to me. "I know you're planning to leave. I'll make arrangements for you right away."
But I raised a hand to stop her. No matter what, Wu Lun and I had met by fate. Since something like this had happened to him, we could not just leave him behind.
I asked He Li, "Unit Nine should have people stationed in Harbin, right?"
He Li nodded. "Yes, but they're busy with something else. Xie Ke took everyone from Unit Nine across the three northeastern provinces."
Xie Yi had actually taken away the entire Ninth Bureau Special Section in the northeast. I could not help recalling the exhausted look on his face when I had met him. It seemed he was dealing with something major, which made it even less likely that we could leave.
No matter what, I would not stand idly by over Wu Lun's situation.
I glanced at the fat man beside me. "Buddha Lord, in his condition..."
"He's trapped in a Dreamscape. The only one who can help him is you." The fat man smiled at me, but his smile always seemed vaguely ill-intentioned.
I knew what he meant by saying only I could help Half-Immortal Wu. I had entered Zhuanghe's dream before. In that dream, I saved Zhuanghe and scared away that faceless man in black robes.
But I was deeply troubled myself. Although I had inexplicably entered other people's dreams several times, it had always seemed passive. I had muddled my way in without knowing how. If I had to enter someone else's dream on my own, I truly did not know the method.
The fat man smiled at me. "You can do it."
I gave a bitter smile and looked at Xu Qiuyan. Xu Qiuyan shook her head. She did not know what to do either.
I let out a soft sigh, and then I heard another sigh. It was not mine, but a woman's.
When I came back to myself, I realized I was no longer in that hospital room.
At that moment, I stood on the rooftop of a high-rise building.
Wu Lun, Half-Immortal Wu, stood at the edge of the roof. He only needed to take a few more steps forward to fall and be smashed to pieces.
Not far from him stood a woman, a woman so stunningly beautiful that she defied description. She looked around twenty-three or twenty-four, dressed in a sheer purple gown, barefoot, with her lovely hair loose over her shoulders. She looked like an immortal untouched by the dust of the mortal world.
A smile rested on her face, and her eyes seemed able to speak. Every frown and smile was enough to enthrall the soul.
"Are you truly willing to die for me?" Her voice was sweet and lovely, like heavenly music.
"I am!" Wu Lun answered, taking another step forward.
"Wu Lun!" I shouted, but he had no intention of stopping. It was as though he had not heard me at all.
The woman turned to look at me.
I looked back at her. "Make him stop."
The woman in purple did not lose her smile. "He said it himself. He's willing to die for me."
I shook my head. "Is there any point in using such a method to befuddle his mind? Even if he says he is willing to die for you now, it is not from his true heart. He has merely been bewitched."
As soon as I finished speaking, the smile on the purple-clad woman's face gradually faded.
I continued, "Your real purpose was to lure me into this dream, wasn't it? I'm here now, so there's no need to actually kill him."
"You understand." The vanished smile returned to the purple-clad woman's face. She looked at Wu Lun. "Stop!"
Wu Lun truly stopped. At that moment, he was only one step away from plunging off the roof.
"Wu Lun!" I roared.
I saw Wu Lun jolt as if electrocuted, instantly waking up. When he saw where he was, he subconsciously stumbled several steps back, his face pale.
He looked at me, then at the woman in purple, as though he had no idea what had just happened.
"Mr. Jiang, why are you here?" Wu Lun asked me.
But he quickly frowned again. "Where is this?"
I said calmly, "This is your dream."
"My dream?" Wu Lun looked utterly incredulous.
He looked at the woman in purple. "Why are you here too?"
He actually knew the woman in purple. Otherwise, he would not have asked that.
The woman in purple ignored him and merely stared fixedly at me.
Wu Lun came to my side and stood with me.
"You know her?" I asked Wu Lun.
Wu Lun pressed his lips together and nodded, but then he shook his head.
I did not understand what he meant.
"I've seen her a few times, but... but I only saw her in dreams."
I narrowed my eyes. I had initially thought Wu Lun had met this woman in reality.
"Come on. I'll take you out of here." I spoke to Wu Lun.
"Are you in such a hurry to leave? Aren't you curious why I used this method to trick you here?" The purple-clad woman smiled even more brilliantly.
I froze slightly. To be honest, I really was curious, but I did not show it. I merely snorted coldly and made as if to take Wu Lun out of the dream.
"Don't you really want to know what Abe Ichinan looks like?" she asked again.
I stopped and turned to look at her. "Don't tell me you're Abe Ichinan?"
"If I said I was Abe Ichinan, would you believe me?"
Was she really Abe Ichinan?
For a moment, I did not know how to answer.
This was Wu Lun's dream, and Wu Lun had not met her in reality, but in this dream. From what Wu Lun had said about seeing the woman several times, her first appearance should have been before I came to Harbin.
When I entered Wu Lun's dream, I had felt that the woman was waiting for me by preventing Wu Lun from waking up. She had not denied it either. In other words, this woman controlled Wu Lun's dream, and she had entered his dream because of me.
But when she had set Wu Lun up, I had not even planned on going to Harbin.
In other words, she had calculated far ahead, and with great precision.
She truly controlled Wu Lun's dream. Of course, that control was based on the fact that she had already bewitched Wu Lun beyond reason.
"Fine. I'll stay and hear what you have to say."
Since I was already here, I might as well settle in. I was not worried; a dream like this could not trap me.
With a light wave of her hand, Wu Lun vanished, and the scene before us changed as well. There had originally been nothing in front of us, but now there was a tea table and several chairs.
She sat down in a chair and began carefully washing the tea set.
I sat down as well, across from her. "Wu Lun woke up? We've already left his dream?"
The woman in purple smiled and nodded. "That's right."
"Then whose dream is this?"
"Mine," the woman in purple said.
"Who exactly are you?"
The woman in purple did not answer. She focused on brewing tea instead. "This is aged Pu'er. It has been preserved very well. You can't buy this tea on the market at all. Its price has been driven up terribly, and even then, it's nearly impossible to find."
After she finished preparing it, the woman in purple placed a cup of tea before me.
I caught the faint fragrance of tea.
Without hesitation, I picked up the cup and drank. The tea truly tasted excellent, carrying a faint earthy fragrance as well.
"I don't know who I am either, because no one has ever told me who I am."
I was stunned. How could someone like that exist?
"But you can call me Purple Clad. That's what I call myself."
"All right."
The smile on Purple Clad's face grew even brighter and sweeter.
"Why did you lure me into a dream this way?" I asked again.
She lightly bit her red lips, a gesture that could not help stirring one's imagination. "Because I can't get out, so I could only invite you in."
Her words always left me feeling that she was impossible to read.
She continued, "Ever since I first had memories, I could only live in my own dreams. In my own dreams, and in other people's dreams." She gave a self-mocking smile as she said this.
"What was so important that you had to see me?" That was what concerned me most.
"I wanted to form a good connection with you."
Hearing that, I understood somewhat. She simply wanted to get acquainted with me. As for whether she had some ulterior purpose, she naturally could not possibly reveal it now.
"I can enter other people's dreams, so I can obtain much information that others do not know. Later, from an old researcher, I finally gained a vague understanding of myself. I was born from dreams, so I am called a nightmare. I can control other people's dreams. I can even destroy heaven and earth within their dreams. But there is one thing: I cannot exist independently apart from dreams."
I had actually guessed as much before, but why had a nightmare sought me out?
"Then how did you know about Abe Ichinan?"
How could someone who had never left dreams know about Abe Ichinan?
Before you continue