Reality or Dream

An hour later, in the node space.

The old mage leaned on his staff and looked at him with satisfaction. "The gains of this past hour are greater than the month I spent staying near the node back then! Thank you, Cheng Yun!"

"I should be the one thanking you." Cheng Yun felt his mind growing more and more fatigued. "If not for you, I wouldn't know how long I'd have to grope around to unearth these functions of this thing, and I might not even have realized it could be used this way."

"There are still many things waiting to be discovered, and perhaps some that even I wouldn't think of." The old mage said, "Let's stop here for today. I can see you're already very tired. Don't worry, I'll let you sleep peacefully without dreams until tomorrow morning. Tonight when nobody's around, I'll set up the magic array, and it'll be much smoother for you to rest from now on. I remember I still have an item with similar functions, let me look for it and give it to you tomorrow, so that even if you're not in the hotel in the future, you can still rely on it to sleep soundly through the night."

"Thank you." Cheng Yun was quite touched.

"Consider it the living expenses I'm leaving with you," the old mage said. "The cooking at noon today was very delicious."

"Uh, sorry!" Only then did Cheng Yun remember that the old mage hadn't eaten yet this night. "My mind has been too unsettled lately, so I'm bound to slip up. I'll order you some takeout right now."

"Actually, I wouldn't starve to death even if I didn't eat." The old mage shook his head in embarrassment. "I am definitely not asking you for food..."

Cheng Yun ordered some takeout for the old mage, only to find that Anju Hotel still couldn't be searched on the map. So he downloaded a few more commonly used map software applications and filed a report. Then he went downstairs to remind Cheng Yan to pay attention to safety during her night shift and told her not to stay open too late, before going upstairs back to his room amidst Cheng Yan's incessant disdain.

The old mage cast a spell on him, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Gorgeous and peculiar karst landforms, vividly colored plateau scenery, the boundless ocean with rolling waves, continuous sand dunes on the desert stretching straight to the horizon, the breeze blowing through the bamboo sea as if carrying a clear fragrance, and salt lakes acting like mirrors on the earth reflecting the sky and white clouds... Scene after scene of scenery entered Cheng Yun's dream once again. The frame-by-frame paintable beauty was silently displayed before Cheng Yun just like that, leaving him puzzled and bewildered.

People often said that what one thought about during the day would appear in dreams at night. Cheng Yun was indeed a person who loved natural scenery, yet he hadn't had the time to think about these things at all these days, and had never even seen those landscapes.

He was also deeply troubled in his dream—

Clearly maintaining clear thinking abilities, he couldn't feel his own existence, nor could he control his own movement, and couldn't even perform a very simple action of lowering his head to examine himself. He was completely unable to exert any influence on the images in the dream either. It was like someone had tied him up, put virtual glasses on him that couldn't be rotated in angle, and forcefully placed those images one after another before his eyes, while he couldn't even manage to close his eyes.

Because of this, he was extremely resistant, and even somewhat frightened.

Early the next morning, he woke up feeling his head groggy, as if he hadn't slept at all the whole night, and his mind was even more fatigued.

The old mage is really a scammer!

He still had a slight impression of last night's dream, but only a few scattered fragments remained, and they had become very blurry. He vaguely remembered how real last night's dream was; that magnificent scenery could only be created by the miraculous craftsmanship of heaven and earth, far exceeding the scope of his imagination. Yet now it was very difficult for him to recall those clear outlines anymore, and as he sat on the bed for a while, it seemed to be getting even blurrier—

Dreams were mostly like this; one started forgetting them upon waking up.

Thus Cheng Yun hurriedly tumbled out of bed, wearing oversized shorts and running outside without even putting on his shirt.

As a qualified 'research subject', he naturally had to report his situation to the big shot in a timely manner! And in his heart, that big shot was probably the person in this world most likely to solve these strange troubles for him!

Ten minutes later, the old mage had finished listening to his description.

"This kind of situation is indeed quite rare." The old mage narrowed his eyes to scrutinize him. "I already cast Wei's Sleep Induction Technique on you, medical grade, so it's impossible for you to dream naturally! It's clearly the impact the spacetime node has had on you. There's no doubt about it."

"Is it troublesome?" Cheng Yun asked nervously. Put this way, wouldn't taking sleeping pills be useless too?

"Troublesome! I can tell that your brain's rest time last night was no more than two hours. If your dream was truly as real as you said, rather than an illusion attached to you by the dream, it's very likely that your brain didn't rest at all while dreaming, and the activation state of your brain cells was just like when you're awake." The old mage said, "An ordinary person's body is neither as fragile as you think nor as strong as you think. If it can't rest, you won't last long!"

"Then what should I do?" Cheng Yun was stunned.

"First, describe in detail the feelings you had while dreaming, the conditions inside the dream, and everything else. I need to figure out why you're dreaming in the first place." The old mage said calmly, with a slight smile. "Don't be too nervous either; as long as we can find the cause, I don't think there's anything about you from head to toe that can stump me."

"Alright."

Cheng Yun had no choice but to shout out 'the big shot is mighty' in his heart.

"I remember my consciousness was extremely clear, but I couldn't move, and I couldn't change anything... I can't quite remember some of those images anymore, but I still remember a part of them. I feel it must be related to that spacetime node; it let me see the scenery of another world..." Cheng Yun spoke in detail, little by little, saying a whole lot, and then looked at the old mage with eager anticipation.

The old mage refuted him point by point: "First of all, after waking up, you cannot guarantee whether you were actually sober in your dream. In other words, everything you felt in the dream could just be an illusion given to you by the dream! Including consciousness such as feeling very clear-headed and knowing you're dreaming."

"Secondly..."

"The last point also has loopholes. If you simply feel that the images in the dream are incomparably real and beautiful yet are unable to recall their clear outlines, it's very likely that you only felt they were real and beautiful inside the dream, and the dream merely gave you a false perception, while the reality wasn't like that at all." The old mage said, "It's very easy for a person to deceive their own cognition."

"That's not right!" Cheng Yun frowned. "I clearly remember certain images among them; those could never be scenery created by my own dreams! Because it was simply too peculiar and too beautiful, completely exceeding my imagination!"

The old mage smiled indifferently. Ordinary people were actually very hard put to understand themselves, because they couldn't materialize their own concepts, and everything came from perception.

Yet an ordinary person's perceptual ability, strength of consciousness, and ability to distinguish between true and false were far too fragile.

Still, he did not argue further.

Cheng Yun pondered for a moment, then continued: "I remember at least two sceneries. One is an endless forest of towering mountains. Because it was so steep and magnificent, I was incomparably shocked while looking at it; they stood upright on the earth like sharp spikes, fierce and towering! But in fact, every single mountain was ten thousand zhang tall, and each had its own characteristics. Every detail from the ecological environment to the surrounding humanistic environment was incomparably clear! I feel that if these were all scenery I imagined, my brain might have already burned out."

The old mage's complexion changed, his expression abruptly turning solemn as he said, "What about the other one? Continue."

"The other one was a salt lake, a mirror of the sky." Cheng Yun said, pausing for a moment. "Because... before my parents died, they said that this summer vacation our whole family would go on a trip to Xihai, and I really wanted to see Chaka Salt Lake, but in the end... we never made it. So I have a very deep impression of that lake. I remember that lake looked somewhat like a duck when viewed from high above in the air. A very magnificent and grand castle was built at the duck's throat, there were also a few households living on its tail, and the rest of the places were salt-mining pits..."

The old mage pressed his lips together and fell silent, thinking rapidly. After a long while, he actually directly jumped to a conclusion: "You truly saw the scenery of another world, which was clearly caused by the spacetime node. However, I didn't expect that my own reason was mixed into it as well."

"Your reason?" Cheng Yun was stunned.

"The Ten Thousand Mountains Forbidden Zone used to be the gathering place of the Gao clan of Yingda Prefecture. Ancient people called them demons, and they were in constant warfare with mortals year after year. As for me, I originated from the banks of Yan Lake; it was truly extremely beautiful, and we called it the Realm of the Gods." The old mage finished speaking calmly, and looked up at Cheng Yun. "You saw the scenery of my world, and if I guessed correctly, you saw those sceneries through my perspective."

"Your family originally had such a huge castle?" Cheng Yun was incomparably astonished. The image of the old mage patching clothes against the twilight glow was still fresh in his memory!

"...I really don't know what to say to you. Isn't this something you shouldn't be focusing on right now?" The old mage was somewhat helpless. "If I remember correctly, that castle was the military garrison of the Wolves of the North family of the Jia Nuo Kingdom on the banks of Yan Lake at that time, while my family was one of the few households on the tail. I was born into a family of salt workers."

"Oh." Cheng Yun nodded. "You said those landscapes were your perspective?"

"Yes!"

"How did you reach that conclusion?" Cheng Yun felt this was too absurd, even more absurd than the spacetime node forcibly making him watch slide shows.

"First, that castle completely vanished a thousand years ago along with the collapse of the Jia Nuo Kingdom; second, Yan Lake was turned into a tourist attraction long after the expansion of the Iron Horse Kingdom, and it stopped producing salt long ago; third, many towns were established around Yan Lake later on, and before I left, Yan Lake had already been designated as a spaceport. So you couldn't possibly see a castle, a few households, and salt mines at all. The images you saw were from at least a thousand years ago."

Cheng Yun was left dumbfounded.

Then the old mage smiled indifferently: "A thousand years ago, the Jia Nuo Kingdom designated Yan Lake as a military restricted zone. Anyone flying overhead would be regarded as a provocation and suffer anti-air strikes from the Wolves of the North."

Cheng Yun said in a daze, "You... you've actually lived for over a thousand years!"

"..."

"Then... how did you fly up?"

The old mage revealed a mysterious smile, shook his head without answering, and instead said, "This problem is much trickier to handle than I imagined. The complexity of spacetime nodes is not something I can see through, and I still don't know the cause at present. But we can start with yourself first, to improve your spiritual power and resistance so that you can cope with this situation."

Then he produced a card the size of an ID card: "This is what I said I'd give you last night. Although it's quite old, I haven't used it much, and its functions are well-preserved. It's an object used by mages to assist in meditation, which can quickly calm a person's mind, banish distracting thoughts, and also allow ordinary people to sleep better. It's just that this seems already unable to cope with your situation."

Cheng Yun blankly took it. The card was very thin, even thinner than an ID card or bank card, roughly about the same as a playing card, but very hard, with a brass color all over.

"The magic array I set up in the hotel last night is clearly useless to you as well." The old mage shook his head. "Next, I will teach you a meditation method. It can improve your spiritual power, make your brain stronger and its recovery ability greater. During the meditation process, it can quickly restore you to a better mental state, and can also increase your resistance to external invading forces. And this card can just help you enter the meditative state better."

"No problem!" Cheng Yun nodded with solemn weight, and then looked straight at the old mage. "Thank you so much!"

He felt this set of meditation methods was definitely not simple!

Perhaps it concealed the secret of achieving divinity! It might well be the inheritance of some ancient primordial emperor!

Thus, he began the learning process of the meditation method.

This was also his first contact with a magical civilization, since being cast upon by the old mage before didn't count.

The meditation method was unexpectedly simple, but Cheng Yun felt this exactly matched the truth of the Great Dao being simple, and therefore didn't look down upon it on that account, instead learning it with exceptional earnestness. So much so that his learning speed even exceeded the old mage's expectations.

Just as he was trying the first step of the meditation method for the first time and was about to succeed, he suddenly heard a knock on the door from across the room.

"Knock, knock, knock..."

Following that was Cheng Yan's cool voice: "Cheng Yun, get up! Don't tell me you're still lingering in bed!"

"Uh." Cheng Yun was very embarrassed. "Is the sound insulation of ordinary single rooms really this bad..."

He looked at the old mage, and the old mage looked back at him.

Should he go out or not?

Right then, Cheng Yan's voice was heard again: "Cheng Yun, open the door! Stop pretending you didn't hear me. It's already ten o'clock; if you don't open the door again, I'm going to come in myself!!"

Actually it was quite quiet, basically not enough to disturb anyone, but the hotel was truly dead silent in the morning.

"..." Cheng Yun was helpless.

When he opened the door and stepped out of the old mage's room, he happened to see Cheng Yan holding the master card, preparing to directly swipe open his room door. She was also carrying a bag of xiaolongbao and a tube of soybean milk in her hand.

Instantly, Cheng Yan froze.

The two of them stared at each other in blank dismay.

One of them wore athletic shorts and a white T-shirt, with sweat sticking strands of hair to her forehead and her cheeks slightly flushed, clearly just back from a morning run.

The other wore oversized shorts, was stripped to the waist, wore flip-flops, and had disheveled hair. His dark circles were darker than yesterday's color, and his complexion looked even more decadent and fatigued than before he had rested yesterday. Clearly... he had just been drained of his vital essence by the female ghosts of the Lanruo Temple.

Cheng Yan instinctively took a step back, checked the room number above, and then looked at the neighboring one.

That was right!

The two of them were speechless toward each other.

After a long while, Cheng Yun broke the silence and said sheepishly, "J-just... just got back from a run?"

Cheng Yan simply stared at him in a daze, completely failing to answer. When she finally came to her senses, her very first action was actually to stand on tiptoe, tilt her head, and directly step past Cheng Yun to look inside the room—

An old man with completely white hair!

The expression on her face gradually shifted from blankness to astonishment, and she fixedly stared at Cheng Yun. After a long while, she shoved the steamed buns and soybean milk into his hands and said, "Breakfast I brought for you..."

Without waiting for Cheng Yun to explain, she turned around and left!

Having walked two steps, she turned her head back again: "Right, the buns and soybean milk are seven-fifty, plus what I ate... thirty-eight-fifty in total. WeChat transfer please!"

Having said that, she quickened her pace.

Cheng Yun opened his mouth, but nothing came out at all before her figure vanished at the end of the hallway.