"What?"
"What happened?"
"It's Brother Scum."
"Another nightmare?... You scared me."
The dorm lights suddenly flicked on. Fatty Xin and Xiao Xiao woke from their dreams one after the other and peered outside their bed curtains. Seeing that Zheng Qing had fallen to the floor, the Fat Wizard muttered as he hugged his pillow again, rolled over, and started snoring within a second. Xiao Xiao, meanwhile, fumbled for and put on his Black Frame Glasses.
Zheng Qing sat there in a daze, cold sweat streaming down the back of his neck.
After a long while, he raised a hand and slapped himself hard. Hiss, that hurt. So this was the real world, not a dream?
That still did not reassure him.
After all, when he had thought he woke up in the dream earlier, it had felt just as real as this! Especially the chilly moonlight and the cold night wind brushing over the black cat's fur—it had felt utterly immersive!
The greatest difference between dreams and reality was the lack of logic and continuity. Yet the Magic World lacked logic as well. The conceptual clash left the not-yet-fully-awake Zheng Qing trapped in a sluggish muddle of contradictions, unable to tell dream from reality.
"Possessed?"
Dr. Xiao's voice rang out again, as calm as ever. "If you're not sure whether you're awake, check the charms under your pillow... That's better than stupidly slapping yourself."
The young publicly funded student narrowed his eyes and, without another word, swiftly climbed back into his bed curtains. He lifted his pillow and looked at the row of Nightmare Dolls lying beneath it—he had bought them wholesale from Green's General Store after his identity was exposed and people began cursing him frequently. He had stocked up on quite a few and had not used them