At six o'clock on friday morning, Zheng Qing jolted awake from a chaotic dream.
In the dream, a gigantic purple spider crawled into the pitch-black dormitory. A row of white spindle-shaped cocoons of varying sizes hung from the ceiling. The spider brandished its sharp forelimbs and tore open those web-woven cocoons, revealing the rotten, mold-green corpses of every member of Dormitory 403.
There were young wizards like Zheng Qing and Xiao Xiao, as well as the little elves he kept, and that fat cat—its mouth still held a half-eaten chicken leg covered in mottled mold.
"Crack, crack!"
A series of fine, dense collisions rattled between the spider's jointed limbs, quickly merging into a strangely intoned sentence: "...What a beautiful row of fruit... Pity it isn't in my orchard."
The night wind blew into the dormitory through the crack in the window the spider had climbed through. The young publicly funded student felt the torn fragments of spider silk drifting up and clogging his nose, making it hard for him to breathe.
He struggled desperately, calling for help in his heart.
When he propped himself up with his elbow and climbed out of bed, drenched in cold sweat, the last thing that flashed through his mind was the strange thought: I'm already dead, so why do I still feel like I can't breathe?
A hand touched his forehead, cold and slender, uncannily like a spider's claw. The young publicly funded student let out a scream.
"Had a nightmare?"
Xiao Xiao's familiar voice rang out, sounding unusually proactive. "I still have a few doses of calming soul-restoring potion here. Want some before morning practice?"
Ever since Zhang Jixin had nightmares for an entire night after the first qualifying match, the You Zui Hunting Team had carefully prepared all sorts of protective measures,