Dream

Falling.

Falling again.

Falling without end.

Bang—

Gu Shen jolted awake.

He opened his eyes to find himself standing upon a vast, boundless wilderness. Grass clippings drifted in the wind, while dark clouds hung oppressively low overhead. Faint thunder rumbled within the leaden cloudbank, held back from breaking loose. The entire world was quiet, lifeless, like an apocalypse about to arrive.

This was...

His memories surfaced, stopping at the finger Senior Apprentice Sister Luo had pointed at him.

"This is a dream imposed by a Mental Affinity Transcendent."

A familiar voice rang out.

Gu Shen turned around in astonishment and saw the little white dress he had been longing to see. Its skirt fluttered in the wind, revealing the girl's delicate, fair calves.

Seeing Gu Shen's stunned expression,

Chu Ling brushed aside a lock of hair at her temple and asked with a smile, "What? You didn't want to see me?"

"No, no, how could that be?!"

Gu Shen hurriedly waved his hands. After carefully choosing his words, he said slowly, "I just never expected... to meet you here."

He felt somewhat wistful.

If this was a dream Luo Er had imposed on him, then was everything before him merely his imagination?

"Although this is a dream, everything that happens here will become a real memory for you," Chu Ling said seriously. "Reality and illusion were always two worlds with blurred boundaries. No one could describe the exact substance or form of the spiritual consciousness that controlled our physical bodies... yet it truly existed. And within a dream like this, spiritual consciousness could manifest itself in tangible form."

Gu Shen recalled his first encounter with Chu Ling.

That 00 Me train... had that also been a dream?

"As for why I appear here... now is not the time to explain the specific reason." Chu Ling said softly, "Gu Shen, you only need to remember that even without the Deep Sea, I can still establish a Mental Link with you. So..."

"As long as you need me, I will appear."

She looked at Gu Shen. "Without fail."

Gu Shen stared blankly at the girl. In this dream-forged world, everything was so vast—the endless wilderness, the Leaf Sea that could swallow a boy and a girl whole, the dark clouds pressing down overhead as if they might collapse at any moment.

In this world,

a single person was so tiny, and so alone.

But with one more person, he was no longer tiny, nor was he alone.

"Hiss..."

Gu Shen felt a slight headache. He said in a low voice, "I remember now. The reason I came here was because Senior Apprentice Sister Luo wanted to show me something... What was that something?"

As for that question,

Chu Ling merely smiled without answering.

Gu Shen realized that he needed to uncover the answer himself. He reached out and caught a spinning blade of grass. Everything here felt incredibly real. Tiny shards of ice and frost still clung to its surface, as though it had not fully thawed.

He rubbed it hard.

The ice shards crumbled into water beneath his fingers.

More and more grass clippings rose into the air. Some broke free from their snowy covering, while others unfurled tender green shoots. The grayish-white, desolate world before him gradually turned verdant beneath the rumbling thunder, like a painting being filled with color.

In this age of surging electronic data, such scenery had long since disappeared. The steel jungles of the present were filled with cold, rough monstrosities of concrete and metal. A newly sprouted blade of spring grass would soon be trampled bent, while a fresh plot of land would soon be uprooted entirely... Even in undeveloped wastelands, it was difficult to see vast, unbroken stretches of wilderness.

As the painting expanded, desolation and decay were swept away. The thunder grew fiercer and fiercer, as if an invisible tide were rolling in from afar—

Gu Shen seemed to see all living things awakening. The dead winter shattered, spring arrived, countless leaves and grasses swept across the land, and frost and snow were shaken apart.

He instinctively adjusted his breathing.

Every sound became clear, including his own breathing... Even time itself seemed to slow at that moment.

An invisible force guided Gu Shen to sit down. He became a tiny blade of spring grass in the wilderness. The moment he sat, a thin layer of frost formed over his hair, only to be scattered by the wind almost immediately—

Countless blades of grass were blown into the air.

Yet he remained utterly still.

At that moment, it seemed as though countless words poured into his mind, or perhaps endless chains of virtual images—fragmented lines, smeared colors—

Accompanied by a roar from the heavens,

Spring thunder rang out.

Information exploded in his mind.

A fine rain began to fall. It was not heavy, yet it covered the entire wilderness. The threads of rain descended without bringing cold... instead, they brought incomparably warmth.

This was a spring rain, carrying the entire world away from winter.

Grass clippings drifted down onto Gu Shen's brows, shoulders, and hair.

The boy forgot everything. His breathing rose and fell steadily like stone. Within this dream, Gu Shen seemed to enter an even deeper dream. His spiritual power slowly increased, and with every passing second, he felt more grounded and at peace.

The girl in the little white dress stood beside him, smiling as she quietly kept him company.

Countless grass clippings whistled past before being knocked down by the rain. Yet whenever they neared Chu Ling, they became broken numbers. Because of the girl's presence, this perfect, real world contained a small patch of illusion that could neither be reached nor touched.

No one knew how much time had passed.

Gu Shen slowly opened his eyes and sensed the changes within himself.

He felt as though he had slept for a very, very long time. This dream world had felt more real than reality itself.

The exhaustion from using the Truth Ruler and failing to rest through the night had been completely swept away. His heart was now filled with the positive emotion of spring returning and all things reviving.

At last, he understood what Senior Apprentice Sister Luo had meant by the thing that could help him control his Transcendent Ability.

This dream was more like a lesson.

There was no better method of teaching than experiencing something firsthand... This entire dream world, from the grass clippings to the thunder, from every creature to every living thing, had been teaching him... how to breathe.

It was a Breathing Method that could only be understood, never explained.

"That's unbelievable."

Gu Shen's eyes became brighter and more radiant. He looked at Chu Ling, his gaze filled with gratitude.

While he had slept, Gu Shen could feel that someone had been by his side the entire time.

"This is Awakening of Insects, which Gu Changzhi left behind for the Adjudication Court," Chu Ling said softly. "Across the Five Continents, there probably isn't a Breathing Method more suitable for beginners than Awakening of Insects. As long as you master it and regularly temper your spirit, you can greatly reduce the chances of losing control."

"Awakening of Insects..."

Gu Shen clenched his fist. He felt an enormous power hidden within his body. His spirit had become exceptionally full and vibrant, as if he possessed inexhaustible energy.

It was as though a bolt of lightning lay hidden within his spine.

Just like the words Awakening of Insects!

"The only drawback is that comprehending Awakening of Insects is very, very, very... difficult."

Chu Ling used "very" three times in a row. At the same time, she looked at Gu Shen with a complicated expression. "The vast majority of people, even if they have the chance to enter this dream world, won't experience the slightest resonance or insight."

Gu Shen lowered his head to look at the grass clippings in his palm.

Was it difficult?

But his own comprehension seemed to have encountered no difficulty at all... Everything had gone so smoothly that calling it a straight, open road would not have been an exaggeration.

"You chose to establish a Mental Link because you were afraid I'd run into trouble?" Gu Shen smiled. "Sorry to disappoint you."

Chu Ling neither confirmed nor denied it. "Yes, but not entirely."

"If I hadn't entered this dream world... then once you comprehended Awakening of Insects, this dream would have ended."

Chu Ling raised her head and looked toward the end of the world after the spring rain had faded. The distant dark clouds dispersed, the cloud layer fractured, and the horizon at the edge of her vision began to contract.

This dream world had already begun to collapse. Yet patches of blurry symbols and code descended from the Sky Curtain overhead, slowing the collapse of the Awakening of Insects Dream Realm to an extreme degree.

"You can't leave yet."

Gu Shen froze.

"Only fifteen minutes have passed in the Real World."

Chu Ling gave a simple explanation. "The fastest comprehension record in the Adjudication Court's history was one hour and forty-five minutes. If you go out now... no matter how Zhou Jiren protects you, those people from the Adjudication Court will probably propose slicing you up for research."

"...Fifteen minutes?!"

Gu Shen was stunned. If someone told him fifteen hours had passed in this Awakening of Insects Dream Realm, he would have believed it.

Yet only a quarter of an hour had passed in the Real World.

Gu Shen understood what Chu Ling meant.

In many games, the top record was always broken. If someone beat the previous first place by only a little, then the record-breaker would be a respectable new champion. But if they were faster by several times, or dozens of times... people would probably think that person was a shameless cheater.

"The Awakening of Insects world is about to collapse."

Gu Shen saw the distant sky caving in. He really did not want to leave now, and he nearly cried. "How much longer can we hold on? You should've told me sooner. I could have slept here before trying to comprehend it."

"Many things in a dream world are not controlled by one's conscious will." Chu Ling smiled. "The subconscious determines the outcome of a dream. If you chose to sleep, perhaps you would have completed your comprehension in the next layer of the dream. That is why so many people painstakingly try to comprehend Awakening of Insects, using every possible method, only to fail in the end."

"The good news is... with my intervention, the world is collapsing more slowly. We'll still set a new record, but only by a tiny bit faster than first place." Chu Ling raised one finger and revealed a rare playful smile. "Just a tiny bit."

"A tiny bit?"

"Still just a tiny bit faster than the previous first place?"

Gu Shen sighed and asked sincerely, "Lady Chu Ling, you're all-powerful. Could you make me finish dead last instead? Say, the kind that's just a tiny bit slower than the last-place person. Compared to being first, I'm much better at hiding in the back. That really makes me feel safe."

The girl tilted her head slightly, her eyes filled with confusion.

She could not quite understand why Gu Shen wanted to finish last.

Everyone wanted to be first. Everyone wanted to be the one to set records, to shine brilliantly and draw everyone's attention.

"I only ever wanted to be an ordinary, unremarkable person..."

"I never wanted to shine brilliantly or draw attention..."

Gu Shen took a deep breath. His originally slow speech gradually quickened. "Once you become first, many people will place expectations on you for no reason. You have to desperately keep running forward, faster and faster, and you can never stop. Mr. Shu used an Amnesty Decree to save me. Senior Sister and Senior Brother came from so far away to teach me. They gave me a new place to live and a huge sum of money. Now I feel like I'll be letting them down if I don't get an S-rank. But... Chu Ling, do you know? They're helping me so earnestly, yet they don't know that I don't have any of that fucking Transcendent Ability at all!"

Chu Ling stared blankly at the boy.

After the spring rain, grass clippings and droplets clung to either side of Gu Shen's face. In those clear pupils, three parts were struggle, while seven parts were pain.

It was not that he did not want to be first.

He was simply afraid of letting down the people who had been kind to him.

Gu Shen only felt that everything had happened too quickly, and far too absurdly. Fifteen days later would be the Adjudication Court's assessment. They were going to rate his "Transcendent Ability"... but who could have imagined that he had no Transcendent Ability at all!

What use was special training?

What use was comprehending Awakening of Insects?

Even if he exhausted every effort, all his efforts were destined to come to nothing.

"Who said that?"

From the collapsing edge of the world,

a gentle voice rang out.

"Who said you don't have a Transcendent Ability..."

Chu Ling shook her head. Her face was utterly serious, her voice sincere. It spread together with the rain, misting through the air around them and calming the heart.

"You simply haven't awakened yet."

The world slowly collapsed.

Gu Shen no longer looked at the grass clippings, the rain, or the broken clouds. The scenery in his eyes no longer mattered. All that remained was this girl.

In Chu Ling's eyes, he saw something different from what he saw in everyone else's.

It was neither expectation nor encouragement, nor consolation.

It was an unequivocal declaration, a prophecy that would certainly come true.

"Gu Shen, you must believe in yourself... You deserve an S-rank evaluation!"

The concept of time within a dream world could not be understood.

The time spent comprehending had clearly been so slow.

Yet the time of collapse was so fast.

Nothing happened, yet the end of the world had already come into view. The sky collapsed, replaced by countless blurry blocks of code.

Chu Ling stood in the darkness and said with a smile,

"Since you don't want to be the one who sets the record, then I'll accompany you from behind. The road ahead is still very, very long..."

This time, the girl reached out her hand, wanting to touch the boy.

This time, she still did not truly touch him—

Garbled code scattered through the air.

Darkness descended.

The dream shattered.