Return

The moment the striped goat pupil crawled out of its eye socket, the densely packed eyeballs in the room seemed to be startled and retracted with a series of pops.

Even the floating ghost turned transparent and vanished.

"Go back!"

Ning Xiuyuan reached out and pressed his left eyeball, forcefully shoving this "independent entity" back into its socket.

With a blink of his eyelids, it transformed into a pitch-black pupil.

"Is this my subconscious dreamland?"

Ning Xiuyuan let out a long breath, expelling the horrifying sight he had encountered the moment he opened his eyes.

Yes, he had now stepped into the dreamland.

The bizarre scenes in the room were less a manifestation of the dreamland's strangeness and more a disruption of Francis's dream corner caused by his personal dream.

In his subconscious, he had always felt like he was being watched.

He figured this was the origin of the densely packed eyeballs and the ghosts in the room.

Ning Xiuyuan stood up and glanced around the bedroom.

Most of the things in the room were still there, but everything looked a bit distorted, as if seen through a fog.

No!

The crystal lantern was still very real!

It stood quietly on the bedside table, emitting a faint candlelight that didn't belong to this world.

Ning Xiuyuan's gaze flickered.

One must know that when entering the dreamland with one's mental body, if one wishes to bring anything along, it must be wrapped in spirituality and brought into the dream beforehand.

Ning Xiuyuan had only wrapped himself, not the crystal lantern.

Yet, this thing had followed him automatically.

Was this a fated conspiracy? Or was this crystal lantern particularly special, capable of reflecting all worlds?

As soon as the thought arose, Ning Xiuyuan suppressed it.

Because thinking about these things now was meaningless.

He had previously observed the lantern carefully with his striped goat pupil, but regrettably, he still couldn't find anything unusual about it.

This made him basically certain that the power exerted on the lantern likely surpassed the rank of the striped goat pupil! If that was the case, thinking too much would only add to his fear and achieve nothing else. Why bother thinking about it?

Ning Xiuyuan shifted his gaze from the lantern to himself.

At this moment, he was still wearing the cleric's robe of the Dawn Church. With a thought, a protective suit, a pig-nose mask, an oxygen tank—a highly sci-fi outfit—covered his body.

'It seems extraordinary powers can still be used in the dreamland!'

'That's right, extraordinary powers are integrated into the self, and the mental body is also a part of the self. It's not surprising that extraordinary powers can be used normally.'

Ning Xiuyuan mused. After a brief experiment, he confirmed that he could fully disguise himself when coming here, and his mind was put at ease.

He picked up the lantern and pushed open the dormitory door. A familiar yet unfamiliar scene unfolded before him.

The familiar stable;

The familiar Francis.

What was unfamiliar was that the pit left by the death corrosion of the Linley aberration in the stable yard was still shocking;

In the distance, the church's light soared into the sky, like a divine miracle descending from heaven.

Outside the church, a hazy expanse stretched out, with distorted buildings and bizarre, surreal architecture, resembling ultra-modern architectural art.

Angela had mentioned these things to him. The dreamland of Francis, influenced by the dreams of Francis's residents, was generally similar in layout to Francis.

However, in local details, it would exhibit varying degrees of distortion and aberration.

Unless absolutely necessary, one must never trespass into residential buildings.

This was not the lowest level of dreams, the Dreamland, where the environment, terrain, and cities were very stable.

This was a dreamland situated between the Dreamland and reality.

It was a place where the dreams of countless living beings intertwined, and the environment would change with the fluctuations of these beings. In densely populated residential areas, one could not predict what terrifying things might emerge from the convergence of dreams.

Ning Xiuyuan took out his pocket watch and checked the time: ten-ten.

Ten minutes past the agreed time.

Perhaps Angela was delayed on the way.

Ning Xiuyuan waited patiently for a while. After another ten minutes, Angela still hadn't arrived.

This time, Ning Xiuyuan started to feel restless.

He frowned slightly, thought for a moment, and left the groom's quarters.

Stepping onto the street, the surroundings were empty. The entire city seemed to be shrouded in smog.

As Ning Xiuyuan walked, his expression turned surprised.

Where the candlelight spread, several tattered living corpses, either with flattened heads or missing legs, crawled around the street.

In the pitch-black alley, a massive werewolf monster was curled up in a pile of garbage, chewing on something, with toes vaguely visible rolling around its lips.

Outside the street windows, several strange people, covered in arms like spiders, were clinging to the windows, desperately peering inside.

Walking to the landmark clock tower, Ning Xiuyuan looked up and saw that the giant clock face had transformed into a large eyeball, staring at him with a dim glow.

"Tsk, tsk, so this is Francis's Dreamland? I wonder what kind of reaction would be triggered if I provoked those monsters?"

Ning Xiuyuan clicked his tongue in amazement.

Wielding the striped goat pupil, he could see through the essence of those terrifying monsters at a glance – they were woven from the dreams of countless living beings.

They were either urban legends;

Or the deceased who still lived in people's hearts.

This made the entire world appear bizarre and terrifying.

Ning Xiuyuan navigated through streets and alleys. At a street corner two hundred meters from the convent, he saw Angela.

She was curled up in the middle of the road, hugging her knees, her small head buried in her lap, trembling all over.

"Angela!"

"Ah—" Angela screamed suddenly, trembling even more. "Don't eat me, don't eat me... Wuwuwu... Don't eat me!"

"It's me, Arthur!" Ning Xiuyuan said, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

"Ah?"

Angela, still trembling, raised her face. Upon seeing Ning Xiuyuan, her emotions completely broke down.

"Wuwuwu, Arthur, I'm so scared! Wuwuwu, I don't want to come here again... Wuwuwu..."

Angela looked terrified, slumping to the ground, a mess of snot and tears.

Ning Xiuyuan was stunned.

Is she kidding me? This is a transcendent?

"What's wrong? What happened to you?" Ning Xiuyuan walked closer and reached out to help Angela up.

As Angela held Ning Xiuyuan's thick palm, the familiarity of her companion finally allowed her to gradually recover from her breakdown.

She sniffled a little embarrassedly and described her experience.

It turned out that after entering Dreamland and leaving the convent, she had gone to find Ning Xiuyuan as agreed. However, she encountered too many monsters on the way, and the more she walked, the more panicked and overwhelmed she became, leading to her losing composure and curling up on the road crying.

Of course, this was Ning Xiuyuan's understanding.

In Angela's words, it was because she hadn't been here for several years, and Francis's Dreamland had changed too much, causing her to get lost. On top of that, she was attacked by monsters, which led to her emotional breakdown.

Uh, well, both descriptions were pretty much the same.

"You said before that you came here once when you first became a transcendent, and then you never came again?" Ning Xiuyuan asked.

"Mm." Angela nodded, her eyes still fearfully glancing at the surrounding darkness.

Great.

A hothouse flower.

It was also his fault for overestimating all transcendent beings.

From another perspective, so-called transcendent beings were actually just people with a specific skill.

Cowardice, weakness, pride, arrogance, perversity... all sorts of human weaknesses were still present.

"I'll take you back! I know the way anyway," Ning Xiuyuan said.

"N-no need, I-I'm fine, I can walk," Angela waved her hand, refusing. She felt a bit embarrassed.

When it came to transcendent knowledge, she had always considered herself Arthur's senior.

To lose face here like this made her wish she could find a hole to crawl into.

But... but she had been so scared just now!

She clearly remembered that the first time she came to Dreamland, she hadn't felt this terrified while following Priest Bulwo?

But what had she just experienced? The sinister muttering in the darkness, the ghostly fleeting shadows she could always catch in her peripheral vision, and the living corpses crawling on the road with their intestines dragging... As soon as she recalled it, her hair stood on end, and she was filled with extreme terror.

However, for some reason, with Arthur standing beside her holding the lantern, and looking at the surrounding darkness again, it seemed... it didn't seem so scary anymore.

"Are you really okay?" Ning Xiuyuan asked for confirmation.

"I-I'm fine, really fine," Angela said with newfound courage.

"Alright, let's go then!"

Ning Xiuyuan no longer tried to persuade her and walked towards the North City Market, carrying the lantern.

—That was where Francis's Dreamland Black Market was located.

They walked in silence.

As Angela gradually moved from trailing behind him, to clutching his clothes, and finally to holding his arm, they finally saw other living people on the street.

Groups of living people, some openly displaying their true faces, others concealing them with masks that distorted their features, stepped into the Black Market.

Once here, Angela's courage finally returned. She looked around with curiosity, occasionally letting out exclamations of wonder.

Speaking of this Dreamland Black Market, it didn't seem fundamentally different from a farmer's market.

The only difference was that the items displayed on the stalls were very strange.

Additionally, there were very few stalls, only a dozen or so if you counted them all, and you could reach the end after just a few steps.

In fact, there were very few people in the Black Market as well.

Around several dozen people, it was unclear if it was because the peak time hadn't arrived yet, or if the number of people was always this small.

Most people who came here walked with great haste. After glancing at the stalls and not finding anything they liked, they would turn and leave.

"Those should be the information dealers. They raise Dreamland creatures and can stake out the market long-term. No one understands this place better than them. If you need anything special, you can buy it from them."

Angela noticed Ning Xiuyuan's gaze lingering on a few people hunched over tables in the market's corner and instinctively explained.

Ning Xiuyuan nodded without asking further questions.

After lingering in the Black Market for a while, the two left in a hurry.

Ning Xiuyuan, wanting to see the good deed through to the end, escorted Angela to the entrance of the convent. After watching her enter, he turned and left.

He returned to his dormitory safely.

"Creak!"

As soon as the door closed, a pitch-black protective suit suddenly materialized on Ning Xiuyuan's body. A tactical pig-nose gas mask fastened over his face, and an oxygen tank with a metallic sheen was strapped to his back, containing a crystal lantern within.

Having completed all this, Ning Xiuyuan vanished in an instant.

In the displaced spacetime of the Dreamland, he phased through walls and passed through countless dangerous residential buildings, once again arriving at the edge of the Black Market.

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