Encounter?

"Hello?"

Zhou Kai frowned and tapped twice on the counter.

"Oh, oh, oh! I'm here!"

The young girl jolted awake, her hands going limp, and her upper body nearly tipped over the counter.

Her cheeks flushed red as she said awkwardly, "Checking out, right... which table?"

Zhou Kai said flatly, "B6."

"Aren't you supposed to get off at eleven-thirty? It's only a little past ten, how are you this sleepy..."

The girl had a stainless steel name tag pinned to her chest that read Chu Siwen.

Chu Siwen looked mortified. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... I'm just so tired."

"Please don't report me... I'm really sorry!"

Catching a glimpse of her supervisor not far away, she pressed her palms together and bowed repeatedly to Zhou Kai in a panic.

Zhou Kai certainly wouldn't do something like that, so he nodded and said, "I won't. Let's settle the bill."

"Right... B6, that's two hundred and nineteen in total. Cash or scan?"

"Scan."

With a "beep," Zhou Kai paid and turned to find Lu Yan.

Just then, a figure brushed past him, and the scent of gardenias washed over his face.

Zhou Kai instinctively took a second look.

The woman was looking at him, too.

Through her elegant, semi-rimless glasses, their gazes collided in mid-air.

Zhou Kai was certain she was a stranger; he was stunned for a fleeting moment by her flawless face before quickly looking away.

But the woman?

She didn't leave. Instead, she leaned idly against the back of a chair, tapping her fingertips against her arm, watching Zhou Kai with the gaze of a cat observing a clumsy hamster.

With his mind Clear-Headed, Zhou Kai's senses were sharp; the woman's gaze felt almost physical, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"Xiao Kai... Xiao Kai."

Lu Yan suddenly grabbed Zhou Kai's arm from behind, mumbling incoherently, "This crappy restaurant has the AC set like an ice cellar, I'm freezing to death. Let's go home."

Knowing she couldn't walk on her own, Zhou Kai let her hang off him.

"Fine, I'll call a cab to take you back."

"Don't you dare throw up on me."

Zhou Kai warned her.

Lu Yan groaned, "How much is that cheap shirt of yours worth? If I get it dirty, I'll pay you back..."

The two of them leaned on each other and walked past the woman once more.

This time, the woman didn't cast an inquisitive glance; she simply looked down at her fingernails.

Supporting Lu Yan, Zhou Kai pressed the button for the elevator.

From behind the half-open fire door of the stairwell, a few fragmented sentences drifted out.

One of the voices belonged to the girl at the front desk, Chu Siwen.

Her tone was full of grievance: "...I'm starting to suspect someone is sticking pins in a voodoo doll of me..."

"Two days in a row, the exact same Nightmare."

"I can't sleep well at night, and I'm exhausted during the day. What am I supposed to do..."

Zhou Kai's expression froze instantly.

He instinctively looked back.

Half of the face of the woman in the semi-rimless glasses, framed by the lenses, was turned directly toward him.

"It's Dreamless."

Zhou Kai's pupils contracted.

He understood everything in an instant.

"We need to leave, quickly, before we get stuck with this."

What exactly is the goal of the Dreamless organization?

Is someone who is also seemingly being hunted by a Nightmare being targeted by Dreamless as well?

Zhou Kai felt more and more that reality was like a net tightening around him.

He went downstairs and hailed a taxi.

Zhou Kai said softly.

"Driver, take me to Android Residential Complex."

Ten minutes later, the taxi pulled up at the east gate of an old residential complex in the city center.

The middle-aged driver, whose hairline was in a precarious state, glanced through the rearview mirror and whistled, making a greasy joke: "Young man, this girl looks really juicy."

Zhou Kai's eyes turned cold; he couldn't be bothered with nonsense: "Get lost!"

In a daze, the driver felt a strange, icy aura rise from Zhou Kai's body.

He gave a sheepish laugh, slammed on the gas, and the car sped away.

Zhou Kai carried Lu Yan upstairs.

It seemed that starting a few months ago, his older sister had stopped living with Lu Yan.

Now, Lu Yan lived alone.

Just like before, Lu Yan might have forgotten her own door code, but the Zhou siblings certainly remembered it.

He opened the door, tossed Lu Yan onto the sofa, and pulled a thin blanket over her.

Zhou Kai sat directly on the cold floor and closed his eyes to meditate.

It was just past eleven o'clock; there was still some time before entering the Nightmare.

He was already very tired, so he didn't plan on doing anything extra... naturally, that meant practicing skills.

Less than an hour passed quickly. The phone alarm vibrated with a faint electric shock, and Zhou Kai opened his eyes.

This electric shock was said to affect the lifespan of phone keyboards, but a few brands stubbornly insisted on using it.

The one Zhou Kai used was one of them.

Glancing at Lu Yan, who was sleeping soundly, Zhou Kai said softly.

"Load Nightmare."

Compared to the few times he had entered at home, this entry into the Nightmare was exceptionally painful.

His consciousness was violently dragged out of his body, as if hooked to an anchor, whipped repeatedly through thick, tar-like fog.

Every time he was about to land, an invisible force would yank him back into the high air.

The world spun.

This dizzying process lasted for a long time until Zhou Kai felt a warmth on his back and sensed the familiar glow of the fireplace.

With his eyes already open, he opened them once more.

The thick fog surrounding him dissipated with a roar.

[Welcome back, the Moonlight Orchid is sprouting new buds in the Nursery.]

The dialogue box from the Nursery pierced through several meters of soil and floated to Zhou Kai's side.

Under the shroud of the firelight and the mysterious silvery glow, Zhou Kai's fatigue and discomfort began to be slowly purged.

The fuel in the fireplace had thirty-seven minutes of durability left.

This time, Zhou Kai did not intend to use it all at once...

During tomorrow night's mandatory conscription, ten or twenty minutes of light might prove to be of great use.

Five minutes later, Zhou Kai had mostly recovered.

The erosion progress had not changed; it seemed that after restoring one life, needing more would require some heavy-duty materials.

The window in the study exuded an unsettling aura, so Zhou Kai did not rashly approach it.

The second floor and the areas above were not yet ready for exploration.

Zhou Kai went down to the basement to take a look.

The red door had not appeared, and the basement was terrifyingly quiet.

The Moonlight Orchid buds, emitting a silvery glow, grew slowly in the soil.

It looked like it would still be a long time before they matured.

The hole blocked by debris showed no abnormalities; at least for now, nothing would crawl out of it.

"Tomorrow night... I must survive!"

Zhou Kai clenched his fists and returned to the fireplace.

"Exit Nightmare!"

However, the moment Zhou Kai returned to reality... he choked.

Something was gripping his throat with a deathly hold!!

His throat bones creaked, the sensation of suffocation turning lethal.

Zhou Kai's expression twisted for a fleeting moment, but the next second, he used every ounce of his strength to wedge his hands into the gap between his neck and those iron pincers.

Snap!

A crisp sound rang out.

Zhou Kai's eyes snapped open.

He was standing in an incredibly awkward posture, looking down at Lu Yan on the sofa.

And those hands, he knew not when, had already been raised and were hovering in mid-air.