A Dream

At dawn, a chorus of clear birdcalls rang out. A ray of morning sunlight slipped through the branches of the Greeting-Guests Pine, squeezed through the half-open window, and fell across the face of the person in bed.

Shen Luo's eyelids trembled slightly. He squinted them open a crack, then immediately raised a hand to shield his eyes.

"Ugh..."

The moment he lifted his hand, a cramp-like soreness swept through his muscles, and his mind instantly cleared.

A powerful wave of panic rose from the depths of his heart. Shen Luo bolted upright in bed, drew himself in, and hurriedly looked around.

Not far ahead, against the wall, stood a narrow table piled with a stack of worn old books. A window and a door stood side by side nearby. Everything was so strangely familiar.

A look of wild joy appeared on Shen Luo's face, and he lowered his head to inspect his body.

His clothes were completely intact. Though his body ached unbearably, there was not a single wound on him. It felt more like the discomfort that followed excessive exertion.

A familiar damp, moldy scent mixed with sandalwood rushed into his nostrils, making him sneeze.

Only then did Shen Luo finally believe that he was in his quarters at Spring Autumn Temple, not that ghost village steeped in sinister yin energy.

"What happened last night was only a nightmare!" Shen Luo touched the very real wooden bed beneath him and let out a long breath. The events of the previous night remained vivid in his mind, leaving him with the disorienting feeling of having lived through another lifetime.

Shen Luo raised his sleeve and wiped his forehead, only to discover that his brow and temples had been soaked with cold sweat. Even his back was damp, his clothes sticking uncomfortably to it.

He sat blankly on the bed for a while before realizing that he had already missed his usual, unshakable waking hour. At this rate, even his morning cultivation practice would be delayed.

"Just a dream..." Shen Luo murmured softly, as if forcing himself to believe it. Then he moved and got out of bed.

But the moment his feet slipped into his cloth shoes and he tried to stand, his legs went weak, and he pitched straight forward. When he tried to brace himself with his arms, he found them just as weak and sore. He fell flat onto the floor.

"Ow..."

Shen Luo cried out in pain, struggled up from the floor, and slowly sat back down on the edge of the bed.

Only then did he realize that something was truly wrong with his body. His constitution had never been particularly robust, but now he was clearly utterly drained.

"What is going on?" Alarm began to rise in his heart. If he had merely slept and had a nightmare, he should never have ended up in such a state.

In truth, ever since yin energy had invaded his body, Shen Luo had often suffered from nightmares. He had experienced all sorts of strange dreams, but now that he thought about it carefully, they felt completely different from what he had gone through the previous night.

Besides, if it really had only been a dream, why did he remember it so clearly and vividly? And why was his body so exhausted, as though he had truly been through a desperate battle?

But if it had not been a dream, how could he explain it? Could it be that he had sleepwalked down the mountain to some village below, then sleepwalked back?

Yet that made no sense either. In that mountain village last night, he had practically lost his life. His body had been covered in wounds, and his clothes had been torn to rags. He should not have looked like this now.

As he thought about it, Shen Luo's expression shifted uncertainly. The more he considered it, the stranger last night's events seemed, until his head felt as though it had grown several sizes larger.

He rubbed his brow, leaned back, and simply lay down on the bed again.

Bang.

Shen Luo felt the back of his head strike something hard. He jolted upright again and hurriedly turned to look.

At the head of the bed sat a long, rectangular yellow object. It was the "treasure" he had found before—the mysterious ancient Jade Pillow. The woven rattan pillow had been pushed aside against the wall.

Shen Luo stared in disbelief!

Last night, he had slept on this Jade Pillow for the entire night without even realizing it!

But he clearly remembered placing it on the table beside that stack of old books before going to sleep. How had it ended up at his bedside?

"Could it be... that last night's nightmare had something to do with this? Or is there something unclean inside this Jade Pillow?"

He recalled a record in Records of Zhang Tianshi's Demon-Slaying Adventures. It said that a scholar in Qian'an County, Lingnan, had gone on an outing in the countryside one spring day and found an ancient bronze mirror by the river. Seeing the two characters "Free-and-Easy" inscribed on its back in ancient seal script, he assumed it was an antique and secretly brought it home.

As it turned out, the Free-and-Easy Mirror had sealed a female ghost within it. Every full-moon night, she emerged from the mirror and drained his yang energy. Had Zhang Tianshi not happened to be traveling through the area and saved him, the scholar's yang energy would have been exhausted, and he would have died without even knowing why.

At the thought of that story, Shen Luo ignored his weakness and hurriedly got out of bed. He took the wolf-hair brush awl from the table and cautiously used the blunt end of its shaft to gently poke the Jade Pillow on the bed.

The Jade Pillow shifted backward. No strange light appeared on it, nor did any sinister ghostly creature leap out. It looked no different from an ordinary object.

Still uneasy, Shen Luo took out a small porcelain bottle and poured out some Cinnabar. He rubbed it between his hands until his palms were fully coated, then carefully extended one index finger and tapped the Jade Pillow with its tip.

Other than the Jade Pillow's icy touch, there was still nothing unusual.

"Don't tell me some sinister thing has secretly possessed me again..." Shen Luo withdrew his hand, his brows still furrowed as unease filled his mind.

After thinking for a moment, he glanced at the Jade Pillow, then quickly walked to the door. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he clasped his hands before him, focused his mind, and silently began circulating the Minor Transforming Yang Art.

But the nightmare had left his mind somewhat unsettled. He could not enter a meditative state no matter how hard he tried. It took him a full two hours before he finally circulated the Minor Transforming Yang Art through one Lesser Heavenly Circuit.

The technique flowed extremely smoothly, and Yang Gang energy filled every part of his body.

When he finished circulating his energy, Shen Luo slowly opened his eyes and gently let out a breath. Only then did the weight in his heart finally lift.