Dreamless Sleep

The person has disappeared!

Zhao Yijiu's heart skipped a beat, but his face showed no sign of his inner turmoil.

He'd only been in there for less than a minute. Where could Zhou Xue have gone? She didn't seem like the type to abandon her helpers and run off. Besides, if the faceless servant had caught her, she should have screamed.

Rather than believing that Zhou Xue left without permission or was caught by a servant, Zhao Yijiu was more inclined to believe that Zhou Xue was attracted away by someone covering her mouth.

Perhaps it was Lingren, or perhaps it was Yu Xing and Zhao Ruru?

If it's the former, then things are probably in a bad way.

Zhao Yijiu made a quick decision and immediately tried to close the window, but she was stopped by a force that pushed against her when the window shutters were only half closed.

He recoiled as if electrocuted, Stop Killing. Looking up, he saw a large object being thrown in through the window, its size magnifying in his pupils.

He instinctively moved to the side to avoid it.

"Ah!" The object fell to the ground without any suspense, let out a low cry, then arched itself up, rubbing its sore bottom, and raised its face.

It's Zhou Xue.

She got up, and as soon as she saw Zhao Yijiu, she lifted the hem of her red dress and hid behind him.

"Brother groom, someone's here!" Zhou Xue hid behind Zhao Yijiu, feeling wronged and scared.

She said there was something wrong with Fang Xing, since he even appeared in her dreams!

She had been crouching under the window when she suddenly heard footsteps. Turning around, she saw that handsome face that she should only see while working.

His gloomy expression rivaled that of ghost groom, but she had previously suspected that the madman in the Fang Xing Fang Mansion might be the eccentric Fang Xing.

It was just a random association at first, but now, this person has entered her dream and is coming to find her in his true form, without a mask!

That's terrifying, sob sob...

Zhou Xue completely ignored the modern clothes Yu Xing was wearing, thinking that the madman had taken off his mask to kill her. She immediately prepared to shout for help to attract the kind ghost groom in the room to save her.

"Shh--" Yu Xing quickly covered Zhou Xue's mouth and looked at her with a warning look, but Zhou Xue struggled even more. Zhao Ruru peeked out from behind Yu Xing and pointed her chin at the window.

Seeing that Zhou Xue was not cooperating, the two decided to just throw her in and be done with it.

And just like that, Zhao Yijiu was nearly hit by the person she was supposed to protect.

"If I don't cover your mouth, you'll bring all those shameless servants over here, and I don't want to see that." A soft murmur came from outside. Zhao Yijiu's tense body relaxed slightly. He recognized Zhao Ruru's voice.

The next moment, Zhao Ruru grabbed the window frame with both hands, and with what seemed to be some kind of leverage, she flipped herself over.

She was much more agile than Zhou Xue; clearly, her modern attire brought her great convenience, while Zhou Xue, in her red dress, had difficulty even walking.

"Don't come any closer..." Zhou Xue saw her neighbor Liu Ruru and recalled being chased by something unknown in the stairwell the night before. Everything connected.

It turns out that Liu Ruru was also part of the crazy group. My God, she even ate the food Liu Ruru cooked, talked to her about her recent ghost sightings, and went to pay respects to her grandmother with her!

"Zhou Xue, can we make a deal? Could you please not act like you've seen a ghost the moment you see us?! Holy crap!"

Zhao Ruru already knew that Zhao Yijiu was in the room. She and Yu Xing saw Zhao Yijiu and Zhou Xue's red figures from afar and decided to come and meet them.

When she looked up and saw Zhao Yijiu's face, her words, which were halfway through, suddenly turned into a gasp of surprise.

After exhaling, Zhao Ruru realized what was happening and quickly covered her mouth.

Zhou Xue failed to call out; instead, she called out first. But what happened?

She looked at Zhao Yijiu's face with surprise and doubt, her voice trembling slightly. "What happened to you? How did you get so badly injured!?"

Thump.

A soft sound came from behind, and Yu Xing climbed in, closing the window behind her.

Zhao Yijiu didn't answer Zhao Ruru's question. He unconsciously glanced at Yu Xing, their eyes meeting, and he clearly saw the surprise in Yu Xing's eyes. Remembering his current miserable state, he awkwardly looked away, only coldly saying to the trembling Zhou Xue, "No need to hide, we're on the same side."

Zhou Xue couldn't accept it for a moment. She was stunned and repeated dryly, "Our... our own people?"

Her own people almost scared her to death! Couldn't they just walk over from the front?! What was with that backstab?

As if knowing what she was thinking, Yu Xing's impatient voice grew closer with the sound of footsteps, "You saw me from the front, and before we could explain, you had already run away. It's troublesome to find you, and the Faceless Man would easily discover you. Who told you not to trust us?"

With each sentence Yu Xing spoke, she took a small step closer, until she stopped right in front of Zhao Yijiu.

He looked at Zhou Xue, who was trying hard to calm down, and said sarcastically, "If you trusted me, you wouldn't have sent me those text messages to test me during the day, would you?"

"Who knows if you guys are bad people? I have to be careful!" Zhou Xue retorted. Perhaps because they were of similar status at the company, she tolerated being disliked by the ghost groom, but she was still unconvinced by being disliked by Fang Xing, even though he seemed to have some skills.

"Suit yourself, move aside." Yu Xing only glanced at her, using this gesture to reinforce her character setting, and then focused all her attention on Zhao Yijiu, brushing Zhou Xue's hand off Zhao Yijiu's shoulder.

Tsk, what a joke, Zhao Yijiu still has an injury on her shoulder, she won't make a sound even if she's being scratched, she'll just act like nothing happened.

Those wounds look really painful.

"Zhou Xue, come with me, let me tell you about our identities." Seeing the situation, Zhao Ruru pulled the still somewhat shaken Zhou Xue to another corner of the room, intending to use some nonsense to give Zhao Yijiu and Yu Xing some space to talk freely.

Zhou Xue trusted the ghost groom completely, and since ghost groom said the two of them were on her side, she could accept that fact for the time being.

So Zhou Xue left with Zhao Ruru, thinking, "Could these two be the ghost groom who placed them by my side to protect me?"

Over here, Yu Xing frowned slightly as she looked at Zhao Yijiu. Zhao Yijiu didn't speak either, and the two fell silent.

After a while, Zhao Yijiu realized he couldn't hold on any longer. He opened his mouth, but finally only managed to say, "Actually, I'm fine."

"He doesn't look alright." Yu Xing took a step closer and finally spoke, staring at Zhao Yijiu, "Is his eye alright?"

Under that gaze, Zhao Yijiu swallowed the words she was about to say and could only honestly tell the truth, "It hurts, but not as much as you see. I'm not sensitive to pain."

"Heh." Yu Xing chuckled softly.

Zhao Yijiu didn't quite understand why he was laughing, and gave him a puzzled look with her left eye.

Yu Xing raised a hand to rub her temples, her mood seemingly a little low. "To be honest, I expected you to look like this before I came in, so I'm not surprised at all."

"Are the Lingren in this space?"

"Hmm." Zhao Yijiu wasn't surprised that Yu Xing knew the Lingren was here; perhaps he and Zhao Ruru had obtained some clues from the outside world.

"When I realized that the Lingren was playing the role of some kind of mastermind in this deduction, and that Liang Erni was using dreams to avoid him, I was certain that if he was active, it must be in a dream." Yu Xing didn't explain to Zhao Yijiu who Liang Erni was or who was using dreams to avoid whom; he seemed to be talking to himself.

"He's in a dream, and you're in a dream too, so you're very likely to run into each other... Facing Lingren head-on, getting hurt in various ways is normal. Worse things might happen too, to be honest, I'm mentally prepared."

He murmured, then raised his eyelids and looked at the young man in front of him who had been suppressing his emotions too much. "I'm sorry, a large part of the reason you got hurt is because of me."

A hint of disapproval rose in Zhao Yijiu's heart.

"This is none of your business."

His gloomy voice was as it always was, but this time it was noticeably weaker due to his injury.

Yu Xing gave a bitter smile to himself; this really did have a lot to do with him.

If he hadn't been there, the Lingren probably wouldn't have interfered as a special guest, and wouldn't have put so much pressure on Zhao Yijiu and the other people assigned to the dream.

It was precisely because he and his teammates were part of this Death Parallel Line that the Lingren came with malice to toy with them.

He had realized before that he was a protective person and couldn't stand seeing his own people get hurt.

Zhao Yijiu is simple and persistent. Even though she carries a secret, she is still judged by the system to be on the Righteous Path.

Zhao Yijiu was always a "kid" he liked very much.

After receiving Liang Erni's reply and activating the side quest, he was told that he could only break the white jade and enter the dream if he was near Zhou Xue. Liang Erni did not want to be discovered by the person watching this place because of too many flaws, so she refused to send them directly back to Zhou Xue's house.

He and Zhao Ruru had no choice but to drive home again, and he had been thinking about this on the way.

What if the Lingren messes with Brother Jiu...?

What if, in order to anger or make him lose control, the Lingren tries to torture the person in his hands...?

Furthermore, what if the Lingren uses her most powerful ability to try and sway Zhao Yijiu with words, leading Zhao Yijiu down Fallen Path...?

What will happen to him?

Yu Xing imagined the scene and came to a conclusion.

He didn't seem to show any exaggerated emotions. After all, he had lived for so long and had seen all sorts of unacceptable things, let alone Zhao Yijiu, whom he had only known for a short time.

But ultimately, it's a bit of a pity and I'm not entirely satisfied.

This emotional fluctuation then provides the Lingren with the means to incite him to lose control.

Yu Xing was well aware of the tricks of the Lingren.

So as soon as he got close to Zhou Xue, he didn't waste much time before smashing the white jade. Looking at the "Ling" character on the white jade shattered into pieces, he felt quite comfortable, if nothing else.

But before smashing the white jade...

"I'm not going to rush into taking the blame, Brother Jiu." Yu Xing's dark gaze shifted slightly. "Only you know best whether your body can handle it, so if you feel like you can't go on, tell me immediately, and I'll put you in the safest place."

"I—" Zhao Yijiu started to say she didn't need it, but paused halfway through and changed her words, "I understand."

Yu Xing nodded, and the topic had to be dropped, because the circumstances did not allow them to waste time on empty words of condolence that offered no real solution.

As for the issue of the Lingren, it's not appropriate to explain it during the live simulation. He'll probably reveal some of the truth to Zhao Yijiu and Zhao Mou after they leave the simulation.

Yu Xing steered the conversation back on track. "You fought the Lingren, who was he impersonating? Could he inflict damage using physical means?"

"Okay," Zhao Yijiu said.

Yu Xing's lips curled into a cold smile.

He will definitely take revenge on Zhao Yijiu during this simulation, just like the Lingren did to him.

Isn't it the perfect opportunity to stab Lingren in the back when they're only one-ninth of their strength and can be killed by physical means?

He continued, but this time the question was a bit more broad, "How long did Zhou Xue's dream last? Did you give any hints?"

Zhao Yijiu nodded.

"The last time she appeared in my dream in reality was last night, lasting for an hour. Five hours passed in between. This time it lasted a little longer, an hour and a half—wait." A hint of hesitation crept into his voice. "The time has changed."

After the Side Quest started, he hadn't paid attention to the passage of time, and as a result, the protection period for Zhou Xue that had been given at the beginning had been changed without him noticing.

Yu Xing, with her hands in her coat pockets, asked, "How long has it been like this?"

"... Four hours." Zhao Yijiu looked at him. "Was this caused by the activation of a side quest?"

"It's not because of the side quest." Yu Xing waved to the two girls who were sneaking a peek in their direction, signaling them to come over, and then said to Zhao Yijiu, "I gave Zhou Xue sleeping pills so she could sleep a little longer."

By forcibly extending Zhou Xue's sleep time, she also had longer dreaming sessions.

Zhao Yijiu was taken aback. "Why?"

The shorter Zhou Xue's dreams are, the safer she is, because her biggest danger is the "Master" in her dreams.

Why did Yu Xing prolong the time it took for Zhou Xue to enter the dream? Wasn't that just making things more difficult for herself?

"Now that I know the Lingren is in the dream, how could I bear to come in for a short while and leave Brother Jiu alone to face him?" Yu Xing revealed a fleeting smile. "Although Zhou Xue is in danger here, I am confident in my ability to protect her. It doesn't matter how long she dreams, but you, I must keep you in my sight to prevent the Lingren from threatening you."

In short... to prevent you from being tormented by the Lingren, I can sacrifice the difficulty of the mission.

Zhao Yijiu's eyes widened slightly, a touch of emotion in her eyes.

However, he always felt that Yu Xing's actions always carried a sense of guilt whenever Lingren were involved.

The logic that Yu Xing should not let others face the Lingren out of guilt, and should bear all the harm suffered by others, is probably wrong.

Zhao Yijiu wanted to remind him not to take all the blame, but then she saw Zhou Xue walking over with a look of utter disbelief.

What did she hear?

"You fed me sleeping pills?"

"I can dream for as long as I want?"

Zhou Xue was incredulous.

Listen to this! Is this even human language?

Mentioning this, Zhao Ruru's eye twitched. She said to Yu Xing, "I've already confessed to Zhou Xue. She now knows that our true identities are actually a professional ghost-hunting team. We became acquainted with the ghost groom because we decided to intervene in this paranormal event. She's no longer afraid of us."

This was the result of her rambling for the past few minutes, and the message was so obvious that even Yu Xing almost rolled her eyes.

However, Zhou Xue was so shocked by Yu Xing's words, "I gave her sleeping pills," that she didn't notice for a moment.

Zhao Ruru then explained on Yu Xing's behalf, "Zhou Xue, since we're a professional team, we definitely have some lock-picking skills..."

"That doesn't mean you can come into my bedroom!?" Zhou Xue covered herself in horror, "Especially you—"

She pointed at Yu Xing: "You, a grown man, came into my bedroom!"

Yu Xing glanced at her, maintaining her persona of having a bad temper. "To be honest, even without me, your bedroom is quite lively every night."

Zhou Xue: "..."

Is this really true?