Lausen

The match occasionally crackled.

The room was silent. Apart from the occasional sound of Lu Yuan turning pages, there was only Lausen's somewhat heavy breathing.

"I've been having the same dream lately..." Lausen finally spoke.

But the moment he heard the word "dream," Lu Yuan snapped his book shut and instinctively looked up.

A bad feeling had suddenly risen within him.

"At the start of the dream, I was always standing on a beach at night, my feet on the sand. The waves soaked my goatskin shoes, and then I woke up."

Lausen looked at Lu Yuan and continued.

"After that, whenever I fell asleep, I dreamed that I was standing by the sea, listening to the waves and watching the moonlit ocean. At first, it felt rather nice. After all, not everyone got the chance to see the sea up close at night."

"But..."

Lausen's face looked deathly pale in the firelight, and deep fear showed in his eyes.

"I discovered that I was getting closer and closer to the sea."

A chill instantly surged through Lu Yuan. He had already guessed what Lausen would say next.

Strange Dream. Lausen had definitely been infected by it.

Unease began rising from the depths of Lu Yuan's heart.

What Grim Port would face in the future might far exceed Lu Yuan's imagination.

Strange Dream might already have swept through the entire port.

Sitting in the shadows, Lu Yuan rapidly calculated in his mind, lightly tapping the armrest with his fingers without interrupting Lausen's account.

Because he was observing.

[Observation target: Lausen. While recalling the Deep Sea, the mutation symptoms are slowly increasing.]

Lu Yuan had no intention of interrupting the recollection. He wanted to see just how many traits Strange Dream still concealed.

It was only a memory, yet it could increase the infection's progress. That was far too terrifying...

"In the dreams afterward, the sea came closer and closer. The seawater almost swallowed me whole. It was freezing to the bone!"

"I can no longer tell whether I'm the one moving closer, or whether the sea wants to swallow me!"

Lausen's face was pale, his voice trembling slightly. After a long pause, he continued.

"Anyway, now whenever I fall asleep, I dream of that damned sea! All I want now is one peaceful night's sleep!"

"Have you seen any other doctors?" Lu Yuan finally asked.

"Yes. I went to the church, and I also saw Doctor Bulin." It was as though Lausen had cast off some burden, and his tone gradually calmed.

Once Lausen's emotions settled, the previously visible text vanished.

Has the mutation stopped? Lu Yuan thought.

"What did they say?" Lu Yuan held his notebook steady and wrote down "emotions, memories" for reference.

"The church's doctors said the same old nonsense, that I'd provoked something in the darkness. At least they made me drink several cups of Holy Water! And they prescribed a pile of outrageously expensive medicine that was completely useless." Lausen's voice clearly rose as he spoke.

"I don't know what that Holy Water was mixed with, but I never want to drink it again for the rest of my life."

"What about Doctor Bulin? What did he say?" Lu Yuan continued.

"Doctor Bulin... He only prescribed some medicine and told me not to go near the sea recently. He said it would be best if I left Grim Port for a while." Lausen visibly looked troubled as he said this.

Clearly, he was dissatisfied with Doctor Bulin's instructions. After all, how could a landlord who depended on low-rent housing possibly leave his low-rent housing behind?

"After drinking the church's Holy Water, did you feel that your symptoms became less severe?" Lu Yuan asked.

"For example, did your dreams become shorter, or did you stop dreaming altogether?"

Lausen thought carefully.

"It seemed to have some effect. After drinking the Holy Water, the dream that night really did become very blurry."

"But what I want isn't a delay. I want to blast that damned dream out of my head!"

Lu Yuan wrote in his notebook:

"Church, Holy Water."

From what Lausen had just said, the church's Holy Water seemed to have some suppressive effect on this kind of dream.

But the effect was not obvious. It was probably diluted... He could find time to visit the church later.

"And Doctor Bulin's method? You haven't tried it at all?" Lu Yuan stopped writing and continued.

"I tried it. I've stayed away from the shore lately and remained in the inner harbor, but asking a low-rent housing landlord to stay away for a long time is simply impossible." Lausen set down his teacup and snorted.

"If I dared leave for even a little longer, those bastards in the low-rent housing would definitely turn my place into a complete mess! They'd even keep delaying the rent!"

"As a landlord, I have a duty to maintain my property."

"How did you feel after staying away from the port?" Lu Yuan could not be bothered with Lausen's lordly manner. Apparently, he was another man who valued money over his life.

Silently labeling Lausen in his mind, he continued asking:

"Also, I need to know when you started having this dream."

"Staying away from the port did make things slightly better, but the dream still continued whenever I slept." Lausen continued, "Sometime around the middle of November, I think. The Iron Whale had just returned to port around then, and after that, I started dreaming about the sea."

"Before you began having this dream, did anything strange happen to you? Or did you go out to sea or anything like that?" Lu Yuan tried to draw as much useful information from Lausen as possible.

"No. The dream appeared suddenly. Before that, everything was the same as usual. I received guests and saw off batches of guests." Lausen was clearly becoming impatient.

"So, Doctor Lu, how much longer are you going to ask questions? Or have you found some way to treat my illness?"

Faced with Lausen's doubts, Lu Yuan was in no hurry. He simply reassured him.

"Don't worry, Mister Lausen. There are only a few questions left."

"While the Iron Whale was docked, did you receive any of its crew? Or any unfamiliar faces?" Lu Yuan shifted his posture on the sofa.

"And one more question, Lausen. Other than yourself, have you heard of anyone else having similar symptoms? Including your tenants."

Lausen suppressed his emotions and answered.

"I never received any crewmen from the Iron Whale. Every time they docked, they acted all mysterious. That business was never mine to take. As for unfamiliar faces..." Lausen seemed to recall something.

"I did receive several unfamiliar faces. I kept running into a few during that period, but what does that have to do with my illness? Are you saying they infected me? Then why are my tenants fine?"

"And Doctor Lu, do you actually have a solution or not? If you don't, you'd better say so. It's already very late."

Lausen looked displeased, dissatisfied with Lu Yuan's endless questions.

"I can't guarantee anything, but there's a medicine you can try." After writing "infection slow" in his notebook, Lu Yuan rose and took out the Silverlight Grass Mixture Laisen had left behind from the medicine cabinet.

Lu Yuan did not know what exactly this mixture contained.

But the diary's records revealed that this medicine worked well against Strange Dream. Though it could not cure it, it could at least delay it for a while.

At the same time, it could confirm whether Lausen truly had Strange Dream.