Sister

"Children, after you finish eating, it's time for prayers..."

The nun's voice echoed through the empty dining hall, yet received no response.

She shook her head helplessly, passed through the dormitory, and pushed open the Church's heavy wooden doors.

The Church was dimly lit. The setting sun shone through the stained-glass windows, its light shattered into fragments that cast mottled patches of color across the floor.

Zhou Kai stood behind the nun with a cold expression, like an observer from another dimension, sweeping his gaze over the room indifferently.

He raised his head, his eyes following the images of saints on the stained-glass windows until they finally landed on the Altar, where a divine statue should have stood.

It was completely empty, as though God had long since abandoned this place.

"Evelyn, what are you doing?"

"Where did everyone go?"

At the very front of the Chapel, a little girl in a bright red dress was bent over, drawing with crayons.

In the darkness, she stood out like a streak of blood.

Watching this bizarre scene, Zhou Kai felt a tightness in his chest.

Here it came again—a dream within a dream...

What was the point?

That girl was Evelyn, the one the Paper Doll kept mentioning?

Unable to break free and with nowhere to escape, Zhou Kai could only patiently continue playing the role of spectator.

"Evelyn!"

The nun, who had been speaking gently just a second ago, suddenly let out a shriek and swung her fist hard into the back of the girl's head.

Then, the girl was pinned viciously to the table, struggling and screaming miserably.

"Fuck!"

Zhou Kai's eyelid twitched. Perhaps it was that distinctly local curse of his that shattered the logic of the dream.

The nun and girl, who had just been hurting each other, froze mid-motion. Both pairs of eyes turned toward Zhou Kai at once.

Their pupils had shrunk into strange pools of black, churning with venomous hatred that seemed ready to devour him alive.

"Fuck off! What are you staring at your old man for?"

Zhou Kai snorted and met those two gazes without flinching.

Crack...

The scene around him shattered in response, like a mirror smashed by a heavy hammer.

For an instant, he felt weightless, as if he were plunging into an abyss.

Huff!

Zhou Kai panted and abruptly opened his eyes.

The bedroom was pitch-black, and the sheets beneath him were wet and cold.

Exactly the same as last night.

Zhou Kai switched on the bedside lamp. A dim yellow glow spread out as he sat expressionlessly at his desk.

He turned on his computer, logged into a virtual machine with practiced ease, and erased the original traces through several redirects.

Some special tricks his college roommate had taught him had unexpectedly come in handy now.

[Evelyn Soraka]

He typed in the name.

He had happened upon it on the Nightmare Forum before, though he had dismissed it as nonsense at the time.

Could a name that kept appearing in his dreams really be connected to a foreign actress in reality?

The same given name, the same surname.

It was hard not to read something into such a coincidence.

Zhou Kai's intuition told him that the Nightmare was slowly lifting its mysterious veil.

Solving these riddles might be the key to his survival.

"Born in 1994... released her first record in high school, influenced by her parents from a young age..."

He read every piece of information on the screen word by word, going over it several times, yet still found nothing of value.

Zhou Kai found it absurd when he thought about it.

Staying up in the middle of the night to search reality for a woman from a dream would have sounded like a serious mental problem in the past.

But now that something like Nightmare Syndrome had become real, what was impossible anymore?

"If only I could find pictures of her as a child."

After searching without results, Zhou Kai filed the matter away and decided to investigate it more deeply when he had the chance.

For now, he had to cherish every second of [Clear-Headed] and turn time into the capital he needed to survive.

There was still a long while before dawn, and after being tempered by the furnace, he was full of energy.

Zhou Kai began practicing Comprehensive Combat and Light Footwork at the same time.

Light Footwork was an extremely versatile skill that could be practiced alongside almost any other skill.

The intensely focused concentration not only did not conflict, but instead complemented each other.

For combat techniques that required rapid shifts and agile movement, practicing Light Footwork at the same time could produce results greater than the sum of its parts.

[A night of efficient combined training]

[Light Footwork experience +7]

[Comprehensive Combat experience +2]

A full nine points of experience. The gains were considerable.

He tossed the sweat-soaked sheets into the washing machine, then lay on the bare mattress, adjusted his breathing, and entered meditation.

"The efficiency is high. If I can stay Clear-Headed the whole time, my strength can soar in a very short period!"

He quickly estimated that under the Clear-Headed state, Light Footwork training efficiency had increased by more than three times, while Comprehensive Combat had nearly doubled.

There were still more than forty hours until he was forcibly summoned into the Nightmare again.

He was absolutely confident that he could raise one of those skills on its own.

As for the other, he could directly break through its bottleneck by allocating points.

"Strength!"

Zhou Kai clenched his fists. A moment later, determination flashed in his eyes, and he came up with a new plan.

In the Clear-Headed state, both his memory and hands-on ability had been enhanced.

In about twenty minutes, Zhou Kai used tape, a broom, and several water-filled bottles to make a crude but effective substitute for a Two-Handed Sword.

The key was controlling its weight and center of gravity.

He then began training Soraka Swordsmanship.

"The results of practicing any single skill rise steadily at first, then plummet off a cliff."

"For me, that growth period lasts around three to five hours."

"The moment efficiency starts falling, immediately switch to another skill... that's the optimal solution."

Standing on the mattress, Zhou Kai began slowly and precisely swinging the broom, feeling the resistance and strain between the lever arm and his muscle groups.

"Zhou Kai, come downstairs."

At eight in the morning, his phone screen lit up.

It was a message from his sister, Zhou Qing.

[Soraka Swordsmanship experience +3]

After glancing at the experience panel, Zhou Kai quickly dismantled the practice sword, put the miscellaneous items back in place, got dressed, and went downstairs.

At the entrance to the alley beside the old apartment building, Zhou Qing was chatting cheerfully with a tall woman.

The moment she saw Zhou Kai arrive, she warmly grabbed his hand and pulled him in front of her.

"Sui Die, this is my little brother. Handsome, right?"

Zhou Qing's voice was full of barely concealed pride.

Zhou Kai extended his hand and introduced himself concisely. "Zhou Kai."

A barely noticeable change flashed across Sui Die's face, but she still shook his hand perfunctorily. Her touch was cold.

"Come on, come on. Sui Die is treating us to breakfast."

Zhou Qing seemed to be in an excellent mood.

Seeing his sister's heartfelt happiness, the corners of Zhou Kai's mouth rose slightly as well.

He was not very good at handling situations like this, so as usual, he stayed half a step behind and followed a short distance behind his sister.

His gaze swept quickly over the two women.

Zhou Qing was about 1.65 meters tall. Her features somewhat resembled Zhou Kai's, but her lines were softer and her eyes larger. She was the kind of beautiful woman with an elegant air.

Her neat, jet-black short hair made her look sharp and capable.

As for the woman named Sui Die, she was nearly as tall as Zhou Kai. Even subtracting her heels, she was at least 1.82 meters tall.

She was very slender, with a cold and stern temperament that carried an indescribable air of nobility.

Zhou Kai guessed she was a model, or...

"A soldier."

"There are calluses on her hands. Could they have been left from handling a gun...?"

In the Clear-Headed state, Zhou Kai's powers of observation were as sharp as those of some great detective from a movie, his thoughts racing.

Zhou Kai decided to pretend he knew nothing.

No matter who she was, as long as she did not hurt his sister, that was enough.

As for whether she had come for him...

That seemed unlikely.

It had only been a week at most since he first showed symptoms of Nightmare Syndrome.

And judging from how close the two women were, they should have known each other for a long time.