Sharing a Bed, Nightmare

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock.

Tick... tap.

Cold water droplets fell on her face, Yu Xing unconsciously frowned, suddenly waking up from the chaos.

Tick-tock.

In the darkness, he heard the sound of water droplets crackling. He held his breath, stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, and as his vision gradually adjusted to the darkness, he realized he was still in the room, still in bed.

When did you fall asleep?

Yu Xing's gaze sharpened. She had clearly intended to pretend to be asleep after lying down, waiting until midnight to see if anything would go wrong, but somehow she had fallen asleep without realizing it?

Clearly, trouble has already occurred.

He tensed up, remaining motionless, and listened intently. The sound of dripping water seemed to come from near and far, its source unseen, but it was definitely unusual.

While listening to the sound of dripping water, he also heard the breathing of another person very close by, very steady, who was also fast asleep.

Whatever it was, it was only hovering around for the time being, without attacking or frightening them. Yu Xing guessed that either it was waiting for an opportunity, or it wanted to create psychological pressure, or... it was waiting for them to wake up?

He moved his hand inch by inch to the side, his body hidden under the blanket, making his subtle movements difficult to detect.

Soon, he touched the hem of Zhao Yijiu's clothes.

Yu Xing paused for a moment, then continued to reach out. Since he was sleeping on his back and Zhao Yijiu was sleeping on her side facing him, he easily found Zhao Yijiu's hand resting on her abdomen.

Her hands were cold, but that wasn't a problem; Zhao Yijiu's body temperature was naturally low.

The problem is, he's already touched Zhao Yijiu's skin, why isn't this guy awake yet??

Zhao Yijiu is the kind of person who is extremely vigilant and can wake up at any time, whether she is asleep or not.

Was it because of that thing that came, or because of myself?

Yu Xing hesitated. He didn't have much experience sleeping with others, but the last time he was in Coffin Village, Xiao Xuechen slept in the bed next to his and fell asleep immediately.

But whatever the reason, since he has already woken up, it means that Zhao Yijiu will definitely wake up as well. He squeezed Zhao Yijiu's hand and heard that Zhao Yijiu's breathing was not as steady as before.

The next second, his hand was swiftly grabbed by Zhao Yijiu, who used the strength to catch ghosts. Yu Xing almost gasped.

Enduring the amplified pain, he patted Zhao Yijiu's hand. Fortunately, Zhao Yijiu realized it was him and immediately let go. The two did not communicate further and lay quietly on the bed, with only the sound of dripping water coming from near and far around them.

Yu Xing was waiting, and Zhao Yijiu, who had just regained consciousness, was also waiting. They were just unsure whether the ghost that had arrived... was actually waiting for them.

Tick-tock.

A drop of water landed on Zhao Yijiu's cheek. He was also open-eyed. In the darkness, his perception was slightly better than Yu Xing's, especially his eyesight and hearing. He looked at Yu Xing's calm face while hearing that Yu Xing... wasn't breathing.

The breathing was coming from the ceiling to his side.

"Knock knock knock."

Suddenly, a series of irregular knocking sounds came from under the bed. At the same time, a glass on the desk in the room fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.

One of the fragments flew up from the ground, grazed Yu Xing, and shot straight at Zhao Yijiu's hair.

He felt a shard of glass graz the edge of his hair; thankfully, he didn't move, or he might have been injured.

It was a false alarm.

The knocking under the bed stopped for a few seconds, then resumed, even more violently, as if determined to wake them up.

"Knock knock knock..."

Zhao Yijiu moved the arm that was under his head and grasped the long nail hidden under the blanket.

Although this move might alert the enemy, he had to keep his weapon in hand, otherwise he would be completely at a disadvantage.

"Us..."

An unfamiliar voice, one I'd never heard before, came from under the bed. The sound was so faint that it was impossible to tell if it was male or female.

The voice said softly, "Back... to... back."

Tick-tock.

Water droplets shattered on the hard wooden pillow, and then silence fell.

There was no sound? Yu Xing's brows twitched. Suddenly, a slight breeze blew from the bedside. He smirked and sat up abruptly. At the same time, Zhao Yijiu's long nail pierced the spot where he had been lying. A sharp scream exploded in their ears, and something sprang up from beside Yu Xing, leaving the bedside.

Just as Zhao Yijiu was about to roll off the bed to give chase, Yu Xing suddenly grabbed her and pressed her firmly back onto the bed. "Don't get carried away, you can't get out of bed at night. It's tempting you."

"I almost forgot." Zhao Yijiu said casually, giving up on moving and instead using the sound he had just heard to re-lock the location of the thing. He hadn't actually seen what form the thing took around; he had only seen Yu Xing sit up as if trying to dodge, and he had simply followed up with an attack.

In the darkness, the sound of mice gnawing on wood began to rustle from the foot of the bed; the sound of wood chips being chewed apart effectively interfered with their hearing.

But Zhao Yijiu still has her sight.

He squinted, his gloomy gaze sweeping across the room, but saw nothing. He couldn't help but remark, "It seems there's no physical form."

"It has no physical form..." Yu Xing murmured, repeating himself as he sat there.

Zhao Yijiu looked at him and listened to Yu Xing's breathing again... still, nothing.

"So what do you think its attack method is?" Yu Xing turned her head, her face looking somewhat eerie in the darkness. "It's not waiting for us to wake up, it's trying to scare us?"

"Maybe, but I don't think it can scare me." Zhao Yijiu adjusted her position; although she was still in bed, her legs were strong enough to support her weight. "Is my brother still asleep?"

They were on the same bed, with Zhao Mou's bed only a little over a meter away from theirs. It was quiet there, with the blanket billowing out in a human shape, as if he were sleeping soundly.

As Zhao Yijiu finished speaking, Zhao Mou's blanket stirred, and a voice came from inside. "I'm here."

Yu Xing also glanced in that direction for a moment. Zhao Mou's blanket was lifted slightly, revealing a calm and composed elite face.

"Anyway, they're here for you guys, so good luck." Zhao Mou acted as if it were none of his business, then casually said to Zhao Yijiu, "Little brother, good luck."

Zhao Yijiu: "..."

Yu Xing cursed.

Tick-tock.

The water droplet fell again, this time landing on Yu Xing's head.

He looked up at the opportune moment and saw something flash across the ceiling. He couldn't see it clearly, but it ran towards Zhao Mou.

"Under your bed," Zhao Mou warned, "There seems to be a face."

Upon hearing the reminder, Yu Xing didn't look under the bed. Instead, because of the thing on the ceiling earlier, she looked at Zhao Mou.

Upon seeing this, he involuntarily held his breath, because from his angle, he could vaguely see a blood-stained hand emerging from under the corner of Zhao Mou's blanket.

Zhao Yijiu frowned. "In your blanket."

Zhao Mou paused, "In my blanket?"

He looked down, and in that instant, the bloody hand withdrew. Zhao Mou didn't notice anything unusual, so he lifted the blanket.

A shadow flashed across Zhao Mou's face. Zhao Mou was still looking at the blanket when a thin line of blood appeared on his neck.

The next moment, Zhao Mou seemed to realize something, his eyes widened, a look of doubt in his eyes, and he touched his neck.

Before his hand could even reach halfway, his head shifted to the side, revealing a clean cut to Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu. His head fell to the ground with a dull thud.

Glug glug...

The head rolled towards the two of them, finally stopping at the foot of the bed under Yu Xing's gaze. Its meticulously styled hair was soaked with blood flowing from its neck. Its wide eyes stared at the two people on the bed, its mouth opening to emit two "ha... ha..." sounds before saying, "There's someone under the bed..."

This drew a sneer from Yu Xing.

"Who sleeps so meticulously?"

Zhao Yijiu: "..."

He silently agreed, and Zhao Mou never called him "brother" directly, only "A Jiu".

"When we went to sleep, Zhao Mou was still awake, writing something in bed." Yu Xing ignored the head on the floor that seemed to be showing disgust. "His hair was indeed very neat back then. Although there's no hair gel on Dead Silent Island, he still habitually slicked his hair back, so what we see now is what we saw before we went to sleep."

Zhao Yijiu: "Yeah, he lets his bangs down when he sleeps, so I can tell it's not real as soon as I see it."

"So we were dreaming." Yu Xing stroked his chin. "I see, the punishment is the dream ghost..."

"It might be trying to lure us off the bed in our dreams," Zhao Yijiu said. "Right now, it can only scare us. In other words, getting out of bed is the condition that unlocks its attack restrictions."

"And why don't you suspect that I'm also a dreamer?" Yu Xing suddenly turned and asked, "Maybe... after I finish saying that, my head will fall off too?"

Zhao Yijiu: "Try dropping one."

Yu Xing: "..." That's really impossible.

"I can't feel your body temperature," he said directly. "For a moment, I also suspected you'd been switched, but your reaction after waking up was so real."

"I can't hear your breathing either." Zhao Yijiu pursed her lips. "So I pretended to try to get out of bed, but you stopped me."

This means they both tested each other and concluded that the other was a real person.

"It can affect some of our perceptions, hoping we'll become suspicious of each other, plus the disguise of Zhao Mou, and other miscellaneous frights..." Yu Xing clicked his tongue twice, looked around, his eyes had fully adapted to the darkness, and he was much more comfortable now than when he first woke up.

So he said, "They're still pretending they only have this much ability to lower our guard."

As the last sentence fell, the temperature around them suddenly dropped, as if they had gone directly from a cool autumn day into an icy wasteland.

The incessant dripping water droplets condensed into ice beads, falling from above, and a little frost spread onto the blankets, causing the two people, who weren't wearing many clothes, to shiver instantly.

"It's so cold..." the "Zhao Mou" head on the ground sighed for them, "If you stay in bed and don't move, you'll freeze to death... along with the blankets..."

Yu Xing touched the goosebumps that had appeared on her body and sat up cross-legged.

Zhao Yijiu said in a low voice, "Forcing us to get out of bed is a death trap."

"Of course, but they won't come down. Judging from this posture, they really want to freeze us on top." Yu Xing watched helplessly as the frost spread upwards from the foot of the bed, piling up and freezing into ice. He couldn't help but shrink back towards the head of the bed.

Unfortunately, it's quite large, so the effect isn't obvious.

"Could it be a sensory deception and an illusion?" Zhao Yijiu speculated in a deep voice. He couldn't feel the body temperature or hear the breathing; these were all sensory deceptions. The head under the bed was an illusion. These were all tricks that the ghost had used. Combining them to create a realistic frost illusion didn't seem difficult.

"That's exactly the effect it wants—to make us lower our guard, and then freeze us to death here." Yu Xing shook his head, already convinced of Zhao Yijiu's idea. He was more inclined to believe that this ghost did indeed possess the power of frost; otherwise, there wouldn't be water droplets falling from different distances—it would be unnecessary.

"Then let's find the original body." Zhao Yijiu was decisive. In fact, he knew more about some of the types of ghosts in the deduction than Yu Xing, because he was Zhao family.

He was a Zhao family who was raised as a weapon from childhood, and was eventually persuaded by Zhao Mou to stay away from his own family so as to avoid being used as a mere tool.

"The ghosts that enter dreams are either nightmares or dream demons. I wonder if the rules of Dead Silent Island are any different." He used the long nail in his hand to form a defensive stance. "These kinds of ghosts, when they enter a dream, their true form must also be present. Expelling the true form will awaken them."

As they discussed this topic, the frost spread even faster, meaning they were probably right.

Yu Xing asked, "Where do you think the real body will be?"

Zhao Yijiu: "Under the bed, the one where we're back to back."

Yu Xing smiled. He knew that his deliberately displayed "aggressiveness" had alerted Zhao Yijiu and sharpened her thinking. After they met, Zhao Yijiu had gradually come to trust him and entrust him with her mental tasks. Although, from an emotional perspective, this was a sign of establishing a relationship,

He initially thought it was fine, since they were teammates and there was no need for him to be as meticulous as a lone wolf. Having different roles would make things much easier. However, the vengeful spirit inside Zhao Yijiu was still throbbing, and he had to bring Zhao Yijiu's thinking back to normal to avoid a serious mishap.

Isn't that a significant improvement?

Previously, the ghost deliberately made noise under the bed, broke a glass, and even staged the fake Zhao Mou and Blood Hand incident. Wasn't it all to make them think that the noise under the bed was just another part of the scare tactic, thus confusing the real ghost?

They can overcome the other frightening elements one by one, but not the one under the bed. As long as they dare to lean down to look, the ghost will naturally have a hundred ways to pull them off the bed.

Zhao Yijiu realized this, which is why she acted so decisively.

Perhaps sensing danger, rustling sounds began to come from under the bed. Yu Xing coldly said, "Stab!"

Zhao Yijiu suddenly exerted force with the hand holding the end of the long nail, driving it through the bed board in a fierce posture. The long nail was not flexible and had many limitations, but when it was used for a single strike, its length and strength were much greater than that of Stop Killing.

The long nail pierced the bed board with ease, and a faint cracking sound could be heard.