Manifestation

After confirming that there were no Mutated Creature in the hospital, Xiang Kun quietly left the hospital, retrieved the electric scooter he had hidden, put away the empty food box, and prepared to go home.

However, before getting on the electric bike, he sensed the pair of chopsticks he had given to Lao Xia and unexpectedly, he directly sensed the dream.

Lao Xia just finished his late-night snack, went back to the duty room, locked the door, and went straight to sleep?

I wonder if I still hiccup after falling asleep...

Although Xiang Kun's current brain processing ability is sufficient to perceive Lao Xia's dream while riding an electric bike, he has high expectations for Lao Xia's dream tonight, so he still needs to concentrate on perceiving it.

So Xiang Kun pushed the electric scooter to the side of the road, leaned back on it, looked down at his phone, and pretended to be waiting for someone to use their phone.

Once again sensing Lao Xia's dream, Xiang Kun didn't see the enclosed room he was hoping to see, but instead found himself walking down a restaurant corridor.

Through Lao Xia's perspective in the dream, Xiang Kun discovered that she was very short, and the arm she was holding by the adult next to her was also very thin, obviously when she was young, and she might not even be in elementary school yet.

The person holding her hand was a young woman who was dressed quite elegantly and had a scholarly air about her. On her other side was a young man wearing glasses who also looked like he was doing academic work or working in technology. Xiang Kun guessed that these two might be Lao Xia's parents.

It looks like this is where Lao Xia's parents took her to eat when she was a child?

Ahead, the waiter in the restaurant uniform who led them to their seats was surprisingly short, even a little shorter than Little Lao Xia from a distance.

Although he could only see her back, Xiang Kun knew from that silhouette and the sense of Emotional Injection projected onto the screen that the little girl cosplaying as a restaurant waitress was Liu Shiling —or rather, the projection of those chopsticks Emotional Injection in the dream.

After sitting down at the table, the food was served very quickly, an unbelievable speed, clearly because it was a dream. Moreover, "waitress Liu Shiling" seemed to have teleportation abilities, bringing over two dishes and then two more in the next second.

Most of the dishes on the table looked blurry and were not very clear. Xiang Kun could only vaguely tell what kind of dishes they were. However, he could see one dish that was closest to Lao Xia clearly: a plate of crispy pork knuckle.

"Come on, Xiao Bing, try this 'Golden Pork Knuckle,' it's the shop's signature dish, it's delicious..." The lady with a somewhat scholarly air picked up a piece of crispy pork knuckle and put it in Lao Xia's bowl, but before she could finish speaking, Lao Xia didn't use utensils and directly grabbed the pork knuckle with his hands and ate it in big bites.

In the dream, Lao Xia's emotions were very intense, with a very obvious feeling of hunger and a possessive desire for food.

"Slow down, Xiao Bing, have a sip of soup..."

"Try something else."

"Eat slowly, there's more."

The two people, presumably Lao Xia's parents, were trying to persuade him, but after Lao Xia finished eating the crispy pork knuckle in his hand, he got up and grabbed a piece himself, continuing to eat it heartily.

As you can imagine, the way they ate was rather unrefined, even a bit crazy, just like in the last dream, when they ate that toast in that enclosed little room.

The voices of the two adults beside him gradually became indistinct; in his dream, Lao Xia's attention was focused on the food.

Just as Xiang Kun was wondering why Lao Xia had such a strong feeling about food, all his emotions vanished like the receding tide, replaced by calmness and rationality.

The next moment, Xiang Kun noticed that Lao Xia's gaze began to rise. She stood up, and higher and higher, clearly exceeding the height she had reached when she stood up as a child. And she wasn't standing on a chair.

Next, as his gaze swept across the scene, various previously blurry details began to become clear. The two young men and women sitting on either side of him, however, appeared to have aged considerably, looking like they were in their fifties or sixties. Their clothing, however, had become more modern and fashionable. The way they looked at Lao Xia remained very gentle.

Xiang Kun knew that, as expected, Lao Xia had "woke up" from his dream again.

As soon as she "woke up," she immediately transformed into an adult, and the two people who appeared to be her parents also aged, which should correspond to her real-time memories in reality.

Of course, the "waitress Liu Shiling" not far from the table also looked just like she did in her previous dream.

Xiang Kun's spirits lifted, and he focused intently. He wanted to see what Lao Xia's plans were this time, given his previous experience.

Hopefully, this time when she is "awake," the dream will last a little longer.

Lao Xia looked down at the half-eaten crispy pork knuckle in his bowl, and the next moment, the half-eaten crispy pork knuckle suddenly returned to its original state.

Or rather, it's not the same piece she took from the table before, because it's clearly different in shape and size.

Lao Xia sat down, still without using utensils, reached out and picked up the crispy pork knuckle, opened his mouth wide, and slowly took a bite, skin and all.

When the meat enters your mouth, you feel nothing at first; you can't feel any texture or taste, as if you've bitten into air. But soon, the texture and taste quickly appear.

The texture and taste were completely different from when Little Lao Xia was gnawing on crispy pork knuckle in the dream; the details were much richer and more specific.

The texture... the taste... and the presentation— Xiang Kun quickly realized that the "real crispy pork knuckle" that Lao Xia had conjured up in his dream after he "woke up" was made by him.

It seems that Lao Xia's fondness for "crispy pork knuckle" is related to a particular experience she had as a child. But for her now, it's clear that her specific taste and memories of this dish come from Xiang Kun's "crispy pork knuckle."

Moreover, as he began to chew the pork knuckle, his previously calm and rational state changed again, replaced by a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment from eating, quite different from the feeling of "frantically grabbing food" in his previous dream.

Lao Xia quickly finished the "crispy pork knuckle," then contentedly picked up a tissue and wiped his mouth.

The next moment, she flipped her left hand over, and three Coin lay in her palm.

Upon seeing the three Coin, Xiang Kun immediately sensed a subtle connection between himself and them. He quickly realized that the three Coin in his dream were not simply something Lao Xia imagined and manifested based on her memories; they seemed to have a real connection with the three Coin he had given Lao Xia, with whom he had established a "Super-Sensory Link."

In his dream, Lao Xia held three Coin in his hand, constantly rubbing them together so they would collide, and then they would wander around the restaurant.

She observed the restaurant's environment, and just like last time, wherever her gaze fell, she began to fill in the details according to her memory.

Xiang Kun was worried that, like last time, the dream would quickly collapse and Lao Xia would wake up.

Unexpectedly, after wandering around the restaurant and returning to her table, the Lao Xia persisted. Although she remained "conscious," she did not wake up.

Next, all the Chinese dishes on the table disappeared, and a Napoleon cake appeared.

This Napoleon cake isn't very big; it's only about one serving.

Lao Xia stared at the cake for a while, and then the cake slowly grew larger, as if it had been inflated, until it was the size of a computer case.

The next moment, the cake shrunk back to its original size.

Then the cake began to transform, turning into the shape of a rabbit, and then into a goose.

Looking at the cake, which kept changing size and shape, Xiang Kun felt a sense of unease. The three Coin in Lao Xia's hand were gone, and the Coin had replaced them, establishing some kind of connection with him.

Xiang Kun realized that Lao Xia had somehow materialized the projection of three Coin in his dream, and this projection was likely related to their "Super-Sensory Link" in reality, and thus connected to Xiang Kun.

That cake was made up of those three Coin.

Just like Liu Shiling and Little Apple, Lao Xia was using Xiang Kun's "Super-Sensory Link" item to request the "access" of his abilities—and this was all within a dream guided by the "Emotional Injection" item!

The changes weren't limited to the cake. Xiang Kun soon discovered that his perspective was no longer limited to Lao Xia's subjective viewpoint; he could now shift to the perspective of "waitress Liu Shiling," the projection of Emotional Injection in the dream.

He immediately thought of the dream he had on the way back to Citong, where he sensed the Little Chubby Girl Liu Shiling. Although he sensed that dream through "Emotional Injection objects," it was a dream he intervened in halfway through. In that dream, his perspective was the "chopsticks" in Liu Shiling's hand that were being used as a magic wand.

This means that Liu Shiling's dream back then, Lao Xia's dream now, are no longer based solely on Xiang Kun's "Emotional Injection objects," so they no longer need to maintain a connection between his perception and that of the dream's owner.

As for what sustains the dream state now, Xiang Kun also has a guess. There is a high probability that it is the three Coin, or rather, the ability that the three Coin "request" from him through "Super-Sensory Link".

Next, Xiang Kun saw Lao Xia in her dream constantly changing the shape and size of the "Napoleon cake." Later, she even turned it into a large piece of crispy pork knuckle, and then continued to change the shape of the pork knuckle... But this was rather creepy.

Can you imagine a laptop made entirely of crispy fried pork skin and pork, except for the screen? It would look like it's usable, like it's edible, and even smell delicious!

Is this cyberpunk or Lovecraftian style?

Just as Xiang Kun Lao Xia's vivid imagination somewhat amusing, Lao Xia's "lucid dream," which was significantly longer than the last one, came to an end.

In the duty room, Xia Libing suddenly sat up on the hard bed.

She immediately looked at her left hand, loosened her fist which she had been clenching even in her dream, and found three one-yuan Coin stacked together in her hand.

She recalled the scene from her dream, then clenched her left hand again and closed her eyes.

Time passed slowly, and the duty room was very quiet, with only the ticking of the second hand on the wall clock audible.

When she opened her eyes again and looked at her right hand, which was not holding Coin, she was surprised to find that her previously empty right hand was now holding a small piece of Napoleon cake!

But she only blinked once, and the cake "vanished" without a trace, as if it had never been there at all, and she had just imagined it.

But she knew she wasn't seeing things.

She raised her right hand to her nose and smelled it, but there was no aroma of Napoleon cake. She licked it, but there was no cake flavor either.

Xia Libing rubbed the three Coin in her left hand, sitting on the bed deep in thought. After a while, she glanced back at the small wooden box containing chopsticks on the bedside table, seemingly having an epiphany. Then she put on her shoes and got out of bed.

Xia Libing walked to the table with Coin in one hand and a phone in the other, staring intently at a medical reference book on the table. A dozen seconds later, a small piece of Napoleon cake suddenly appeared out of thin air on the reference book.

Xia Libing's expression remained unchanged. She quickly picked up her phone with her right hand, opened the camera, and pressed the video recording button.

But before she could press it, the cake had vanished, as if it had appeared out of thin air, leaving no trace, as if it had been "edited out".

Xia Libing reopened the video recording function on her phone, adjusted the angle, propped it up on a corner of her desk with a few books, and then, looking within its recording range, tried to "recreate" that Napoleon cake again.

But after trying for several minutes, with beads of sweat forming on her forehead in the winter night when the temperature was only 4 or 5 degrees Celsius, she still couldn't recreate the cake.

Xia Libing wasn't discouraged. She picked up her phone and turned off the recording function.

Then he continued to stare at a spot on the table, and a few seconds later, the Napoleon cake reappeared.

Xia Libing nodded thoughtfully. She reached out and picked up the cake on the table. The cake had a substantial feel, but compared to a real Napoleon cake, it seemed a bit "floaty" and the weight didn't seem quite right.

She carefully brought the cake to her lips, smelled the sweet aroma of cream, and then slowly opened her mouth and took a bite...

But the moment she took a bite, the cake vanished.

Xia Libing seemed to have anticipated this scene and was not surprised. She continued to rub the Coin in her left hand and glanced at the clock on the wall.

Hmm, it's almost time for our routine evening ward rounds.

She took her phone, put on her coat, then her white lab coat, left the duty room, and went downstairs.

When Xia Libing appeared at the door of the duty room, the two female nurses downstairs were a little surprised. Their regular night rounds were conducted by the nurses, and the on-duty doctor would only be notified if there was a problem.

"I couldn't sleep, so I came to do rounds with you," Xia Libing explained simply.

So the three of them checked the wards in their area to make sure the patients were resting, and then returned to the duty room.

"Are you hungry? My friend brought over some late-night snacks earlier, there's still some left, would you like some?" Xia Libing suddenly said before leaving.

Both nurses were somewhat surprised, even a little flattered. They knew that when Xia Libing first arrived at their hospital, she was extremely popular. Not only was she tall and beautiful, but she was also rumored to be related to the hospital's leadership. Everyone, regardless of gender, wanted to befriend her and invite her to meals, but they almost always received polite yet firm rejections. Dr. Xia always maintained an aloof and unapproachable demeanor, and gradually, people even developed a strange sense of awe towards her.

This is the first time Xia Libing has offered to treat someone to a meal in the months she's been at the Third Hospital!

So the two of them reluctantly went upstairs with Xia Libing to her duty room, and then heated up the late-night snack that Xiang Kun had brought earlier in the microwave.

When one of the nurses was carrying a hot dish to place on the table in the duty room, she suddenly noticed a rather high-end-looking cake on the table. It wasn't wrapped or placed on a plate; it was just placed directly on the table.

"Huh? I don't think this cake was here just now?" the nurse said in surprise.

At that moment, another nurse, who was also carrying a hot dish, turned around and asked instinctively, "What cake?"

"It was right there on the table..." The nurse who had been there first stared blankly at the empty left side for a second, then reached out and touched the spot where she had just seen the cake, puzzled. "Strange... it was definitely there, how did it disappear in the blink of an eye..."

Behind her, Xia Libing, who had brought over disposable bowls and chopsticks, asked with an unchanged expression, "Would you like some cake?"

"Oh, no, no, I just had a momentary lapse of vision," the nurse who saw the "cake" said with a smile and a shake of her head. She thought she must have been seeing things, just like the rolling sound she'd heard earlier. She guessed it was because she'd been working too many night shifts lately.

Although the dishes Xiang Kun made were all adjusted to Xia Libing's taste, their foundation was "deliciousness," and even after being reheated, they still tasted good.

Both nurses ate it and kept praising it, believing that it must have been bought from the restaurant by Dr. Xia's friend.

After they had almost finished eating, a nurse wanted to pick up her phone from the table to check the time. She was still holding disposable chopsticks in her right hand, so she raised her left hand, which had been resting on her lap.

But when she raised her hand, she was shocked to find that she was "holding" a piece of crispy, golden-brown fried pork knuckle!

She was startled and instinctively shook her left hand hard, but nothing came off.

Her strange behavior also attracted the attention of another nurse and Xia Libing: "What's wrong?"

She carefully examined her left hand under the light of the room; it was clean and free of anything strange. She then looked down at the floor, which also remained free of any foreign objects.

"It's nothing, I think... I think I just saw myself holding a piece of meat...?" she said uncertainly. "I think I was just seeing things."

"What kind of meat?" Xia Libing asked calmly.

"Uh, it's nothing, I must have misread it," she said, shaking her head.

Another nurse exclaimed in surprise, "No way, you're hallucinating too? I just saw a piece of cake, and it disappeared in the blink of an eye!"

What I think I'm seeing is... pig's feet? Uh, it looks like they're fried or roasted.

"This building's been acting strange tonight, Dr. Xia. Did you hear the sound of beads rolling earlier?"

Xia Libing said, "The sound of the beads rolling is probably from the thermal expansion and contraction of the reinforced concrete." Then she asked the nurse who had seen the pig's feet, "You said you held it, did you feel anything in your hand?"

"On my hands? It seems... no. No, it seems like there is, like cotton... uh, maybe not, I'm not sure." The nurse frowned as she recalled.

"There's a problem with the lighting in my duty room, have you noticed? Because of the position of that cabinet, most of the room is covered by its shadow, creating a visual disturbance," Xia Libing said to the nurse who had seen the cake. "Sister Lu, when you were heating up the food, you were probably staring at the microwave, right? Then you suddenly turned your gaze to the table, and your eyes were still lingering on the image from before. Due to the influence of the ambient light, you might think you saw something else, like the cake."

She then said to the nurse who had seen the "pig's trotter," "Sister Chen, the spot where you're sitting is halfway in the shadow of that cabinet. Try quickly raising your hand. Notice how, when you raise your hand above waist level, it enters the shadow? If you raise it quickly, the contrast between light and shadow makes it seem like you're holding something. Because I just mentioned that my friend makes delicious crispy pork knuckles, you were influenced and imagined what 'crispy pork knuckles' looked like. Think back, wasn't what you saw 'crispy pork knuckles'?"

Xia Libing's voice was gentle and her pace was slow, making her sound very convincing and inspiring genuine agreement.

Nurse Chen nodded subconsciously. "That's right, I think I did see a pig's trotter with the skin fried until crispy."

The two nurses, relieved by the explanation, finished their meal, tidied up Xia Libing, and then went downstairs to their duty room.

But in the hallway downstairs, Nurse Lu couldn't help but say to her colleague, "I have a feeling... something's a little strange tonight."

Nurse Chen also felt a chill run down her spine. She glanced back at the closed wards, adjusted her collar, and whispered, "Don't scare yourself. It's the New Year."

Upstairs, in the guard room with the door tightly shut.

Xia Libing sat at the table, elbows resting on it, three Coin in her left hand, her right hand clasped in her left fist, her hands together supporting her chin as she looked at a Napoleon cake on the table, pondering the information she had received.

Before her eyes, the cake disappeared a few seconds later, turning into a crispy pork knuckle; a second later, it disappeared again, turning back into a cake.

After repeating this several times, Xia Libing suddenly slumped forward, her face slamming onto the table, and she fainted.