Nightmare (7)-While Sleeping

Faced with Zhao Ruru's question, Yu Xing fell into deep thought.

He already knew that the lingering aura of a curse in Zhou Xue's house had caused some things to become distorted.

To put it simply, because the curse was always around Zhou Xue, and Zhou Xue went home every day without any other living beings to keep the peace, the anomaly that originally only existed in her dreams gradually seeped into reality.

For example, there were bright red lights, a scratched wardrobe, embroidered shoes, and paper figures.

Just now in the bedroom, separated by two doors, he didn't sense anything outside the door, but since Zhao Ruru said she saw it, it must be part of the alienated thing.

It could also be Zhao Yijiu, but Zhao Yijiu wouldn't be so foolish as to not regroup when he sees them. At the very least, even if he's restricted in some way and can't be seen by his teammates at this time, he would still find a way to convey the message that "he's nearby."

Therefore, what Zhao Ruru saw was definitely not Brother Jiu.

"Maybe... if you don't close the door, it will follow you in." Yu Xing thought for a moment based on Zhao Ruru's description and added, "Or maybe... it's already in here, right here in this room?"

Zhao Ruru looked at him with dead fish eyes.

"No."

She said with absolute certainty, "It didn't come in. Don't try to scare me."

Yu Xing chuckled softly twice.

Indeed, it seems that these mutated beings do not yet have the ability to attack others in reality; otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to walk out of Zhou Xue's room so easily just now.

Those red embroidered shoes, so determined to express their malice towards him, couldn't keep up once they left the house.

Therefore, we can draw a relatively certain conclusion: alienated things cannot leave Zhou Xue's house, and the Black Shadow in the corridor can only linger in front of Zhou Xue's door. This is a very reasonable guess.

The audience had already noticed Yu Xing's quirky sense of humor and made fun of it for a while. Then, almost half of them chose to go to other live streams to watch the first stage of the mission, skipping over Yu Xing's somewhat boring free time.

[For Luo Liang's group, the door was practically their coffin.]

[Xu Yaoyao has controlled a person in white and is also making deductions towards the mourning hall.]

[Wow, Luo Jue has so many talismans! Burning them is like burning money!]

[Fangpian?? They have such great chemistry, I never expected that! They must have been training for a long time. Are they planning to participate in the open tournament in February?]

[Ugh, I haven't checked for a while, can anyone tell me why Zhao Yanran's group had fewer members?]

[They've already suffered losses in the first phase; things won't be easy for them later.]

The situation of each group has been thoroughly investigated. Apart from Yu Xing's group, the progress of the other eight groups varies, but none of them have fallen too far behind.

The most heartbreaking part was when a member of the Zhao family's team, who wasn't a member of their own clan, was captured by the man in white, and the audience finally witnessed the fate of someone who fell into the hands of the man in white.

Countless hands pinned down the unavoidable diviner, sharp fingernails tearing flesh from his face amidst his agonizing screams. Then, sheets of dripping paper were placed over him, leaving no breathing holes. In the end, the outsider died in excruciating pain and prolonged suffocation.

Zhao Yanran was extremely emotionally affected by this. According to gossip from members of the LSP Foundation, the deceased was Zhao Yanran's boyfriend.

The situation suddenly became grim. Whether she, who had lost her lover, could lead another teammate to survive in this Death Parallel Line was no longer a prospect that was viewed favorably.

Finally, following Yu Xing's group, the second team to enter the long table time appeared!

[We cleared it! Luo Liang and his team beat it!]

[It's been over forty minutes late!]

[That's already pretty good, okay? He even got the clues from the coffin. He'll definitely come back to win in the second phase!]

As the night deepened, Yu Xing tried her best to extend her less acute senses outward, spreading them through the wall towards Zhou Xue's bed.

He can tell whether someone is asleep by observing the state of their being. For example, Zhou Xue's breathing is steady right now, as if she has just fallen asleep.

"She's asleep. Keep an eye on her; I want to know what changes will occur in the bedroom when the ghosts come in her dreams." Yu Xing actually twirled his phone on his fingertip, making Zhao Ruru extremely worried that he would drop it and break it.

Upon hearing his words, she immediately sighed, "My perception is alright, but I can only sense whether her room has gotten colder or whether the ghostly aura has increased. I can't see the specific changes because I don't have X-ray vision."

"Oh." Yu Xing seemed quite disappointed.

"If you really need to collect information about the changes in her room, why don't you just climb over there again? I'd like to see how you manage to jump around on this wall." Zhao Ruru nudged him, pretending to stir things up. "So, even though you might get surrounded by ghosts as soon as you get there, don't be afraid, face them bravely, go for it!"

"That's a good idea." Yu Xing's gaze shifted, her smile widening as she nodded in agreement.

"Huh? You really want to go?" Zhao Ruru hesitated for a moment, thinking to herself why Yu Xing never played by the rules. "Let's play it safe. Don't push yourself too hard. What if those ghosts over there can actually come out of dreams..."

"The possibility is too small, isn't it? If she could really come out, would Zhou Xue, who was asleep, have been hiding that jade?" Yu Xing saw Zhao Ruru's smile freeze, and felt very pleased. "Actually, I was planning to go and take a look anyway, but I was thinking that you're not strong enough to go, and you might be scared to stay here alone. Since you've said so, then I'll go."

Zhao Ruru: "Damn."

The knife stabbed her so deeply that she didn't know for a moment where she should grieve.

In the end, she could only wave her hand dismissively, like shooing away a fly. "Go ahead, go ahead, I'm not scared at all. You said yourself that ghosts can't come out, so why should I be afraid of snakeskin?"

Time ticked by, and when the wall clock struck twelve, Yu Xing paused slightly as she typed in the notes app on her phone. A chill rose from the floor, significantly reducing the effectiveness of the air conditioner's heating.

The atmosphere on the other side of the wall suddenly became chaotic. He could vaguely hear some mixed and illusory sounds, as if someone was talking in whispers.

But if you listen carefully, you can't hear anything at all; it's like an illusion that you can't quite grasp.

"Here it comes," he said softly.

The scene was exactly the same, nothing had changed, but the world in Zhao Ruru's eyes seemed to have become darker. An inexplicable force made her heart pound heavily like a drum, each beat extremely tiring.

Normally, this symptom would indicate that something bad is coming her way, and she would need to consult a divination master.

But today, she didn't need to consult the oracle. Instead, she found her companion's narrow, phoenix-shaped eyes in the bedroom light and saw a sense of peace within them.

She moved away from the wall and whispered, "Are we going?"

A cold light suddenly appeared in Yu Xing's hand. The dagger, with its ancient design, was shrouded in a blue mist, making it impossible to see its exact appearance. All that could be seen was that it gleamed with a fierce intent, just like its owner, who never seemed to truly show fear or helplessness.

"Don't worry, we're just going to take a look. The first night shouldn't be too difficult. Zhou Xue might die, but I think we can trust Brother Jiu on that. He won't make a mistake."

After comforting Zhao Ruru, who was worried about him, Yu Xing got up, put on his coat, and opened the window. A cold wind mixed with a thick, eerie atmosphere rushed in, blowing him straight in and making him feel like a fool.

He hissed, "It's so cold."

The coat was completely useless.

To avoid spending too much time in the cold night, he quickly climbed out the window. The biting wind kept seeping into his collar, and his nose immediately turned red from the cold. With a heavy leap, he jumped towards the next room.

He used the blade to steady himself by the window, squinting as he peered inside.

Zhou Xue's bedroom was pitch black from the outside. It wasn't that the light didn't reach her, but rather that it was a pure black, as if it were covered by a curtain, as inky as ink, sticky and cold.

Yu Xing tried to open the window, but unsurprisingly, it was firmly fixed and couldn't be opened at all.

"Tsk." He glanced back. It was already very late. The streetlights were flickering, and there were no pedestrians. There were one or two windows with lights on in the other buildings, but they were covered by curtains.

For reasons unknown, Zhou Xue left her window curtains open.

He reached up and grabbed the window frame, suddenly pulling out the dagger. His lips moved a few times, but no one could hear what he said. Instead, Yu Xing aimed the dagger at the window crack and made a light slit.

The reason he didn't exert force was because it was difficult for Yu Xing to find a point of leverage. He was afraid that if he exerted force, he would be pushed off by the force.

Fifth floor.

That will hurt a lot.

In short, a wisp of smoke rose silently, the window, which had been motionless, shook slightly, and when Yu Xing touched it again, it was no longer bound by the strange force.

He smiled inwardly, "Thanks, Yiqing."

The live streaming system didn't impose many restrictions on Yi Qing at all; perhaps the biggest restriction was on him and the viewers.

The window creaked and screeched, and as he looked into the swirling black mist inside, he sensed an undisguised danger emanating from it.

[Wow, this looks really dangerous]

[It was pitch black, like being shrouded in a nightmare.]

[Hello, Sister Li upstairs, no problem.]

[Highly recommended]

[Does he really want to go in? I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so. He's very capable and smart, but it seems like he's really courting disaster.]

[You can't get good clues without courting disaster, doesn't the person upstairs understand that?]

[If I understand, then I'm no longer a newbie]

The question is, is it really possible for him to travel safely under these circumstances?

[Didn't he say that nothing should happen on the first night, and that he was just going to check things out?]

[You actually believed his comforting words to the fortune teller?]

[What kind of Absurd Deduction this? I've never seen a deduction that can safely Differentiation Tier on the first night.]

[Doesn't Zhao Ruru know? Even if she did, she still chose to trust her companions. Why are you all so worried about them?]

Yu Xing was about to reach out and touch the dense, impenetrable fog, a warning instinct flashed through his mind.

He withdrew his hand and instead used the blue mist from the Sheqing Dreamscape to probe inside.

Upon contact, the blue mist and the black mist produced a corrosive sound that made one's teeth ache. The two mists intertwined, repelled, and compressed each other, but in the end, the blue mist gained the upper hand, managing to force a small opening in the black mist, which then quickly spread like wildfire across the entire black plain.

The black mist was forced open, creating an opening large enough for most of an adult. Yu Xing licked his lips, which were dry from the wind, and leaned into a patch of blue.

Once inside, the cold wind subsided.

The black mist didn't just fill the room; it spread out in a thick layer along the four walls, like a cocoon.

The scene inside the room... resembled an unhatched insect, its limbs covered in blood vessels, ugly, ferocious, and deformed.

[What the hell is this?!]

[It's such a mess]

I feel nauseous; I bet the person inside feels even more nauseous than I do.

[Does Zhou Xue sleep in this environment every day? I admire her for being a tough woman.]

It's no wonder the viewers in the live stream couldn't accept it at first, because it looked... like a hell made of flesh and blood.

As soon as Yu Xing landed outside the window, she smelled a strong stench of blood. Her eyes were filled with crimson, and the unpleasant smell came in waves. In the small bedroom, the floor was covered with scratches, deep as ravines. Blood dripped from the ceiling, occasionally mixed with a small piece of flesh that fell to the ground with a splattering sound.

The ground was uneven; the protruding parts were piles of flesh and blood, while the sunken parts were pits formed by unknown principles.

Zhou Xue's bed sheet turned Da Hong. Beside the bed, a rough paper figure wearing those red embroidered shoes stood at Zhou Xue's head, bending over and looking down. Its face was only about a fist's distance from Zhou Xue's face.

On the other side, a blurry Black Shadow swayed under the stark white bedside lamp, appearing tall and slender.

Yu Xing's shoes made a sharp sound as they stepped on the blood-soaked ground.

The shadow paused, and judging from its silhouette, it seemed to be looking at him.

The paper figure paused for a moment, then slowly and stiffly straightened up, its legs leading its upper body, which in turn supported its head, and slowly turned around.

Yu Xing lowered her gaze slightly and saw that the paper figure's paper hands were lying flat on either side of its body, as if it was still unable to move.

Zhou Xue lay on the bed covered with a red velvet quilt, her body curled up, her brows furrowed, cold sweat dripping down her face like beans, her face pale, and even her lips were an unnatural bluish-purple.

Everything outside of her is irrelevant; she is trapped in another world, experiencing a nightmare no better than reality.

The paper figure turned completely towards him, its embroidered shoes on its feet, once again pointing the toes towards him.

Yu Xing wasn't intimidated at all and even greeted him calmly, "Oh, we meet again?"

"Ah"

In response to his attitude, a woman's scream suddenly echoed in the air. The sound reverberated in the confined space, not harsh, but faint as if it were from afar.

He strained his hearing to listen carefully and could barely make out the disjointed words such as "let go," "die," and "he has already."

Just as he was about to continue listening, the paper figure collapsed as if it had lost its support. The next instant, a red phantom emerged from the paper figure, rose into the air, and pounced on Yu Xing with bared teeth and claws!