That Past, a Nightmare

I couldn't see anything wrong with Xu Qiuyan mentally. She seemed perfectly normal to me.

"Xiaobai, take me away. I don't want to stay here anymore," she whispered in my ear, linking her arm through mine.

For some reason, when she held onto me like that, I had no improper thoughts. I only felt a long-lost sense of closeness.

I turned to look at Xie Yi. He gave a light cough but said nothing.

"How did you end up here?" I asked Xu Qiuyan. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes as though thinking about something. In the end, she shook her head. "I don't know. I can't remember."

"Then do you remember Li Sen?" Xie Yi asked.

At the mention of Li Sen's name, her body trembled slightly, and her face turned pale.

Xie Yi sighed. "She was at the scene when Li Sen had his accident. She was scared senseless at the time, completely lost control of her emotions, and kept muttering things no one could understand. The people there said she looked terrifying, utterly uncontrollable. They couldn't reach her family either, so the responding officers had to restrain her and send her straight here. I don't know the exact circumstances from back then, but after we took over the case, I came to see her several times. Today was the only time she'd been lucid."

After Xie Yi finished, he looked at me with a questioning gaze. Did he think Xu Qiuyan had regained consciousness because I had appeared?

"Do you recognize him?" I asked Qiu Yan.

She stared at Xie Yi for a moment, then nodded lightly. "I've seen him before. In a dream too."

I frowned, and Xie Yi looked equally surprised.

"But he was younger than he is now. He was wearing a Daoist robe, and he looked kind of ridiculous." She actually smiled as she said it.

I smiled too. When I first met Xie Yi, I'd thought he looked like a Taoist priest as well.

Xie Yi asked, "Oh? Then where did you dream of seeing me, and what was I doing?"

"On Qixia Mountain, telling fortunes," Xu Qiuyan answered seriously.

I looked at Xie Yi and saw shock on his face again. His mouth fell open, but for a long while, he couldn't say a word.

"You really told fortunes on Qixia Mountain?" I asked.

Xie Yi pursed his lips and took a deep breath. "That's right, but that was nearly twenty years ago."

I looked back at Xu Qiuyan. "He's visited you several times recently, and you don't remember any of it?"

She shook her head.

I was puzzled too. I didn't know what had happened to her, but I was very curious about her dreams. She said she'd seen me in her dreams, and dream-me looked exactly as I did now. She had seen Xie Yi too, but it had been Xie Yi from twenty years ago. How could she have such strange dreams?

"Can I take her away?" I asked Xie Yi.

"You can, but have you thought about how you'll arrange things for her?"

I froze. Right, I could take her away from this place, but what would happen to her afterward?

I was still a student myself.

But when I saw the resentful look in Qiu Yan's eyes, I made up my mind. No matter what, I would get her out of here first. Even a normal person would go crazy after staying in a place like this for too long. As for whether she really had mental problems, that wasn't a big deal. At worst, I'd have that idiot Eccentric Song give her some more psychological counseling. He was good at that sort of thing.

"That's none of your concern. I'll figure something out."

Xie Yi said, "You can take her with you, but..."

"But what?" I asked.

Xie Yi said, "You said before that you wanted to join us?"

I nodded. Even now, that was still what I wanted.

I was someone who lacked a sense of security. I wanted to join their department because I hoped to find some kind of protection. From Xie Yi, I could tell that his department was formidable, not because they had any special privileges, but because they had plenty of capable people.

More importantly, anyone who dared to meddle in Little Ancestral Hall Entrance's affairs had to have some serious skills.

"I can make the decision on this matter. I'm the person in charge of the Ninth Bureau Special Section. I agree to let you join the Ninth Bureau Special Section, but she must join with you. That's my condition."

He went on to explain that the Ninth Bureau Special Section was also called the Special Incident Investigation Department. Its main purpose was to investigate unnatural phenomena, such as what had happened at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance ten years ago.

I didn't agree right away. Instead, I looked at Xu Qiuyan. I couldn't make that kind of decision for her so casually.

"I'll listen to you," she said softly, her hands still tightly wrapped around my arm.

When Xie Yi heard that she was willing to join Bureau Five, Section Nine with me, a smile appeared on his face.

Seeing that smile, I suddenly felt as if I'd been tricked. The feeling made me very uncomfortable.

"But before that, I want to talk to you alone," I said to Xie Yi.

He nodded. "Fine."

Then he turned and walked out of the hospital room. I gently pulled Xu Qiuyan's hands away from my arm and told her, "Wait here for a while. I'll be right back."

Xu Qiuyan gave a soft "Mm" and obediently sat down beside the bed.

I followed Xie Yi. He led me into a room that looked like an office based on its furnishings.

"The Little Ancestral Hall Entrance incident happened ten years ago. Why did you only think to investigate it now?"

Honestly, I was full of questions. Unless I got to the bottom of them, I would never feel at ease.

Xie Yi thought for a moment before saying, "Actually, our people came looking for you years ago. You hadn't even graduated middle school then, had you? It was about six years ago. But back then, you were impossible to communicate with. You had completely shut yourself off. No matter what we said or asked, you gave no response at all. At the same time, we were trying to find the other people who had escaped from the Little Ancestral Hall Entrance incident. But aside from you, it was as if they had vanished from this world completely. If Li Sen hadn't suddenly committed suicide, we might never have found them even now."

I was beginning to understand. "You mean Uncle Long and Aunt Qin were only found after Li Sen committed suicide? And when you found them, they were already like this?"

"That's right. Even I never expected you to wake up this time. When I bragged to Old Shu that I would definitely make you wake up, I was still somewhat uneasy. You had been living in your own fantasies all along. There's a saying that describes you perfectly: you can never wake someone who is pretending to sleep. You weren't pretending to sleep, but you had hypnotized yourself and numbed yourself to real life."

I lowered my head. Thinking back over the past ten years, hadn't I been living exactly as he described?

"I know that making you remember what happened ten years ago is a painful torment for all of you, but there's no other way. Only by learning what truly happened at Little Ancestral Hall Entrance ten years ago can we know how to deal with it," Xie Yi said solemnly.

I closed my eyes and tried my best to recall that night ten years ago.

That night, there was a waxing crescent moon, and the night sky was dotted with stars.

My dad and I were sitting outside on the street to cool off. He was lying in a bamboo lounge chair, waving a large fan in his hand.

I couldn't remember what the two of us had been talking about. I only remembered that the wind suddenly rose, and black clouds began swirling through the sky. They moved quickly, covering that crescent moon in the blink of an eye.

Then the whole world suddenly went dark. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and there wasn't even a sound. I was terrified and shouted for my dad, but there was no answer.

I fumbled around, trying to get back home, but no matter how I walked, I couldn't find my front door. There wasn't a single obstacle around me. I had clearly been on the street, yet it felt as though I had been dropped into an empty wilderness.

My heart was filled with fear. I didn't know what that darkness meant, nor did I know what was hidden within its endless depths. Maybe, somewhere, a hand would suddenly reach out and drag me into a bottomless abyss.

I didn't know how long had passed before a faint light appeared far away. It was green, just a pale little dot, but it gave me hope. I ran toward it without caring where I stepped. In truth, there was no need to worry about my footing, because at that moment, there were no obstacles or restraints anywhere in that world.

I drew closer and closer to the green light, and I began to hear a sound. It was harsh, like a steel spoon scraping across glass. It tore at my heart, and the feeling was unbearable. I shouted again, "Father! Father, where are you? Mother! Mother..."

"You had another nightmare."

At that familiar voice, I abruptly opened my eyes. I found myself lying on a bed, while Eccentric Song sat beside it, propping his head up with one hand as though studying me intently.

I looked around. I knew this place well. It was my home in Qiao City—No. 44 Yongle Road, that scrap collection station.