Xie De breathed a cloud of warm white vapor into his frozen palms. Winter in the Northern Country was bitterly cold, and the dream reproduced it with perfect accuracy.
I really have that brat to thank. Otherwise, how would I ever have experienced the Northern Country's icy winds firsthand? Haha, I nearly froze to death.
Drifting snow landed on his dark leather coat before the wind swept it away again. Xie De ducked into a coffee shop to escape the wind. Knowing full well that he was in an Instance's dreamscape, he ordered the most expensive coffee without a second thought.
Unfortunately, this was Hu Songlin's subconscious, and everything here was constructed from his memories.
He lowered his head and took a small sip. Tasteless. Hu Songlin had never drunk it before. The truth was chilling.
Xie De sat stone-faced in a corner of the coffee shop, tapping irritably on the table. The shop had floor-to-ceiling windows screened by greenery. Looking outside from here, he couldn't see a single person on the street.
"455, have you located him?"
"It's hard to pinpoint someone in a dream, but we can guess where he might be," 455 mused. "The Lost Domain scrambles people's memories and is formed from their subconscious. We could guess what this guy longs for and work out where that desire would be reflected here."
"But we don't know him. All we know right now is that he has absolute luck and the ability to make people ignore him completely." Xie De clicked his tongue and looked outside. The snow was coming down heavily. Even inside the heated coffee shop, he could still feel that bone-piercing chill.
As he watched, he suddenly noticed something wrong. "Wait, 455, don't you think something's off out there?"
"What is it?"
"Holy crap, why does it feel like I've gone from abroad back home? That bakery outside turned into a noodle shop."
455: ╭(°A°`)╮ Utterly baffled.
Sure enough, the entire space had been divided in two. His half was the Northern Country, battered by wind and snow, while across the street stood Hua Country, also battered by wind and snow. The buildings were fundamentally different, and although both sides were caught in a snowstorm, the wind and snow on Hua Country's side were noticeably milder.
Xie De stepped out of the coffee shop and squinted against the cold wind. Then he made a startling discovery-he saw Qiu Shanyi.
She was sitting in an upscale restaurant, admiring her manicure.
What was going on?
455 was analyzing the situation. "Strange. Didn't we fall into Hu Songlin's subconscious? Why has someone else's subconscious appeared? Can Lost Domains actually merge? But we didn't bring any equipment."
"Then that means someone else came in, and they brought equipment."
Xie De offered this explanation, finding his guess quite reasonable. "And it's probably the protagonist. He might have guessed that his enemy dragged me into the Lost Domain, or he might have come here to search for clues. We can go find him now and take down Hu Songlin together."
The more Xie De spoke, the more convinced he became. He was even itching to get moving right away. He eagerly awaited 455's response, only to be struck by a bolt from the blue.
455 fell silent for a long time. "But if it really is the protagonist, wouldn't that make this subconscious incredibly dangerous? Everything the protagonist has been through is terrifying!"
"Huh?"
Speak of the devil. It had been daytime a moment ago, but now night was falling rapidly. Black clouds blanketed the sky, fierce winds rose on all sides, and their mournful howling sounded like someone weeping.
Xie De looked ahead, his pupils trembling in shock.
A crowd dressed in white and black had gathered at the intersection, holding prayer banners. They bobbed up and down as though hopping along, their tongues dangling far out of their mouths and their faces tinged blue. Basins of fire lined both sides of the road, burning yellow paper amid swirling smoke.
Ghost soldiers borrowing the road. The living must stay away.
"Just what the hell has the protagonist been through?!"
Xie De let out a terrified yelp and hurried back into the Northern Country constructed by Hu Songlin's subconscious. He hid in the coffee shop, not daring to look outside.
Find Wei Yanchi? To hell with that. He wanted to cry, but no tears would come.
In truth, Xie De was only at the edge of the subconscious. Had he ventured deep into Wei Yanchi's domain, he would have discovered all manner of even more terrifying, more indescribable entities lurking there.
Perhaps this was the special treatment afforded to the protagonist of this world. Wei Yanchi's body held secrets even he knew nothing about.
A ghost bride as tall as a building sang nursery rhymes beneath a red bridal veil. An immensely corpulent landlord in a golden riding jacket greedily guarded his mountain of gold. A Giant Dragon rotted down to bare bones occupied the largest high-rise...
They were all watching him-Wei Yanchi.
Dressed in his school uniform, Wei Yanchi walked through his high school. He felt exhausted, and the moment he entered the classroom, he slumped over his desk to sleep.
Then the class representative came over and knocked on his desk, telling him to take out his Chinese textbook and memorize the passages.
A countdown above the blackboard announced that there were one hundred days left until the college entrance exam. Below it was a schedule of back-to-back classes, and apparently there would be a test later too. This was an absolute nightmare.
Wei Yanchi stared at the poem in his Chinese textbook. Honestly, things had felt deeply wrong lately. First, he constantly felt as though someone was watching him. Second, for some reason, this world felt fake.
For instance, the passersby he had seen on the first day walked down the same streets in the same clothes on the second, as though he were trapped in a loop.
This wasn't right.
None of this was right.
Putting down his Chinese textbook, he took out a pen and began doodling in it, following his instincts. On the first page, he drew a ghost staring at him with wide eyes right in front of him.
Boring. Wei Yanchi turned to the next page and kept drawing. This time, he drew a ghost bride as tall as a building. Delighted, the ghost bride bent down outside the window and smiled at him.
Now this was interesting. Wei Yanchi put pen to paper again, drawing faster and faster. He drew the corpulent landlord, the Giant Dragon's skeletal remains, a hanged ghost dangling from the classroom wall, and a baby ghost at his feet clamoring for his affection...
Until he drew a man.
His pen stopped instantly. Wei Yanchi traced the drawing with his fingers, and a ripple finally disturbed his perpetually calm eyes. His drawing was remarkably lifelike. The man lounged against a sofa with a cigarette between his fingers, his long hair spread out like smooth brocade. He had cold, deep-set eyes and was exceptionally beautiful.
Who was he?
Frowning, Wei Yanchi stood and headed straight outside. His classmates questioned him, and so did the teacher. But since they were all fictional, why should he answer?
Once he finally realized that everything was false.
Everything he had just drawn on paper appeared before his eyes in reality.
The Giant Dragon lowered his gaze and bowed his head, studying Wei Yanchi closely.
Wei Yanchi instinctively knew they wouldn't hurt him, so he asked, "What are you? Why are you here?"
The Giant Dragon said, "We have flowed through your bloodline for generations."
The ghost bride said, "Only members of the Wei Family whom we acknowledge are worthy of meeting us."
The landlord said, "This is a blessing, but also a misfortune. As we see it, though, this is your destiny. It has come a little early, but you would have learned of our existence sooner or later."
"Is that so?" Wei Yanchi lowered his eyes. His figure looked somewhat frail, surrounded by all those ghosts and monsters, like the sole spot of purity that had wandered into their midst.
The Giant Dragon kindly asked, "Is there anything you'd like to ask us?"
"Who is that man?" Wei Yanchi raised his eyes and looked at him earnestly.
The Giant Dragon: ...
The Giant Dragon drew his head back. "I don't know."
"Isn't he one of you?"
"No. He's a real person," the Giant Dragon said, his tone complicated. "You really can't get him out of your head, can you, kid?"
"Huh?" Wei Yanchi felt his ears grow a little warm.
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