Creatures in Dreams

Sure enough, dreams were interconnected.

He had found Li Luo in this world.

They had arrived in the same dream.

Thinking of this, Mo Ling moved closer to Li Luo and typed two words on the electronic screen.

"Awaken."

He knew that Li Luo had already realized this was a dream and could awaken at any time.

But the girl shook her head.

"We can't wake up yet. The investigation isn't over."

She then began explaining to Mo Ling.

The Shock Beasts controlled by the Red String Worms were not trying to fight over Black Horn. They all wanted to use Black Horn to come to this world.

But for some reason, they could not get here.

Perhaps the Dream did not accept them, or perhaps they had no way to pay the price.

Previous records contained no cases of other creatures entering the Dream Relic.

As for why Mo Ling and Li Luo had entered the dream without paying any price, perhaps they had triggered some mechanism that happened to bypass the payment.

Mo Ling suddenly realized that not only had he not paid any price, he had even stolen the pickled vegetables that were meant to be the price.

A strange thought occurred to him.

"I brought the pickled vegetables from that strange space into Dawn City in the dream. Isn't that still inside the dream?"

If you moved something from one hand to the other, did that really count as stealing?

Mo Ling could not think of an answer, so he emptied his mind and continued listening to Li Luo's explanation.

"Red String Worms can only parasitize living creatures, and there is only one kind of creature that can live in dreams."

Li Luo took out the electronic screen and typed a term on it—Dream Qilin.

She then handed the electronic screen to Mo Ling.

It was a creature discovered in the Abyss First Layer.

When people first entered the Abyss, they had never seen this creature before.

It had no physical form, or perhaps people had simply never discovered its physical form.

At the time, hunters had just entered the Abyss and begun exploring it.

Because hunters had to face all manner of strange creatures every day, they did not find it odd even if they dreamed of such a creature.

They merely thought that what filled their days filled their dreams.

Nor would anyone mention it to others.

At most, while chatting with companions, they might suddenly discover that both of them had dreamed of a creature with the same appearance, one that neither of them had ever seen in reality.

But even then, it had not drawn people's attention.

Until one day, a hunter came to the hospital at the First Monitoring Station and awkwardly told a doctor about his injury.

Only when the doctor asked how he had gotten hurt did he describe the strange creature he had encountered in a dream.

That night, the hunter had drunk a great deal of water.

So, in the middle of the night, he dreamed that he was driving when he suddenly needed to use the bathroom.

He pulled over by the roadside and found a secluded patch of bushes with no one around.

Just as he had taken down his pants, he saw a colorful creature in the bushes by the road.

The creature resembled a horse, but was much smaller, only about a meter tall, with a single horn growing from its head.

It hid in the roadside bushes, its whole body filled with dazzling light, colorful as a rainbow.

It stood out brilliantly in the darkness, like a blurry multicolored texture, making the hunter's head spin.

For some reason, his brain short-circuited.

He aimed at the rainbow creature and urinated on it.

Then he was kicked and jolted awake by the pain.

Not only had he wet the bed, but the pain from the dream had carried over to his real body.

Moreover, the injured area was exactly the same as in the dream, which was why the wound was in such an odd place.

The doctor looked at his already swollen injured area and applied medicine while holding back laughter.

Because the hunter's story was so entertaining, it spread far and wide, even reaching Dawn City from the Monitoring Station.

This was also the first time people discovered traces of Dream Qilin.

Afterward, people became curious about this creature as well.

A creature that could live within dreams was simply too wondrous.

Many researchers eagerly began studying it.

But Dream Qilin, which appeared only in dreams, could not provide a physical specimen, and the research soon hit a bottleneck.

Fortunately, people gradually came to understand Dream Qilin's habits, and it became a relatively well-known Abyss Creature.

Later, other hunters also began discovering Dream Qilin in their dreams.

It was not harmful. As long as you did not provoke it, Dream Qilin would not bother you.

But if you provoked it, it would attack you directly.

Most people would wake up from the pain immediately.

Then they would discover that the place where Dream Qilin had attacked them was injured in reality as well.

Some people were even gored to death by its horn in their dreams.

When their companions found them, they were clutching their necks with both hands, a hole pierced straight through their throats.

Mo Ling was a little puzzled.

How could someone get stabbed in the neck by such a short creature?

There were especially many records about Dream Qilin, because it was simply too conspicuous.

Its rainbow-like skin color made it difficult not to notice.

Although it could harm people in bizarre ways, the authorities ultimately classified it as a harmless creature.

After reading the records,

Mo Ling typed his question onto the electronic screen.

"Can this creature also be parasitized by Red String Worms?"

Li Luo nodded. "Yes. As long as it's a living creature, it can."

Mo Ling was still wondering how they could find a Dream Qilin in Dawn City. It was such a tiny creature.

But Li Luo had already made a call. Before long, she received a reply.

After exchanging a few words, she turned to Mo Ling and said, "They found one. Wait a moment. It's being delivered now."

Mo Ling once again marveled at how money really could make anything possible.

This was incredibly efficient.

Before long, a group of men in black brought a caged Dream Qilin to Li Luo's home.

Mo Ling walked over to the cage and examined the Dream Qilin.

It truly looked like a tiny rainbow-colored horse, its skin like spilled paint.

The paint glowed as it continuously rolled across the surface of its skin.

Every part of it was covered in surging colors, blurry and indistinct. Only its outer outline could be seen; details such as its eyes were invisible.

Its appearance was completely at odds with its surroundings, as though a game texture had glitched.

This Dream Qilin did not resist either. It stayed obediently in the cage, eating its food.

And in the bowl were the pickled vegetables Mo Ling knew so well.

That was right. Dream Qilin's favorite food was pickled vegetables.

When Dream Qilin was first discovered, a hunter had found one in his dream stealing pickled vegetables from his home.

After learning that Dream Qilin liked pickled vegetables, researchers spontaneously linked it to the Relic Dream.

Some even claimed that the Relic Dream did not exist at all.

Rather, the pickled vegetables attracted Dream Qilin, which brought people into dreams.

But that theory did not hold up, because it could not explain the Glass Jar or the gram limit.

Not to mention that Dream Qilin also entered human dreams.

In the end, people could only regard it as a coincidence.

Perhaps pickled vegetables and dreams really did have some wonderful connection.