More and more flowers bloomed, red, white, pink, and purple, weaving together to create a beautiful picture. You could almost hear the petals opening, a soft, popping sound, like the slightly parted red lips on a woman's delicate face.
Pollen was blown everywhere by the wind, like a colored autumn mist.
Du Juan smiled charmingly, "Does it smell good? Smell it some more!"
"Poppies are really beautiful and smell wonderful, but it's a pity they're poisonous!" Qingmu sighed.
"Knowing it's poisonous, how many can resist?" Du Juan wrapped her arms around Qingmu's neck, her body drawing ever closer, her breath brushing against Qingmu's face. "It can make you feel like you're in heaven, so why bother about whether it's poisonous or not!"
"Your medicine jar, which you've been soaking in since you were little, was full of opium, wasn't it?" Qingmu also grabbed Du Juan's waist, and the two of them tumbled down into the flower bushes.
"Hehe, what do you think?"
"Have you heard of the burning of opium at Humen?" Qingmu suddenly asked.
"What?"
"A historical story that tells you how to fight against opium."
"No one can resist the temptation of opium! Unless you don't touch it at all."
No, there is a way.
"What?"
"Fire."
"What?"
"The burning of opium at Humen was simply Lin Zexu burning the opium with a single fire."
"Heh, are you trying to burn me too? Fine! I'm already on fire, come on, hurry up..."
However, amidst the fragrance, Du Juan detected a discordant, pungent smell of smoke.
She sniffed and glanced to the side, noticing black smoke rising from a corner of the wooden building.
She recalled the cigarette butt that Qingmu had carelessly tossed away earlier; the meteor-like trajectory it had left across the sky seemed to still linger in the room of the small wooden house.
Dead leaves kept being blown in through the window by the wind, gathering in the corner like moths drawn to a flame.
Where the black smoke had tainted the land, the poppies withered and died.
Fire!
Du Juan wanted to get up and put out the fire; once the small wooden building caught fire, there would be no way to escape.
However, she was now being held tightly by Qingmu, her four legs intertwined, and she couldn't stand up unless Qingmu let go.
"Hey! It's really on fire!" Du Juan shouted. "I didn't expect you to use such a method to break my Incense Art. You've got some nerve this time! Let me go, or we'll be burned to death!"
Qingmu, however, looked at her with a grin. "To die beneath a poppy is to die a romantic death!"
"You!" Du Juan struggled fiercely, but couldn't break free. The two were entwined like mating snakes. "What are you doing? Don't move! I give up! Oh, no... let me go..."
Her body trembled, pleasure and pain occurring simultaneously. She clearly sensed something was wrong, but didn't know why.
The black smoke gradually decreased because the fire had grown larger. The flames not only burned the dry leaves, but also began to ignite the floor and walls of the small wooden house.
Everything here is flammable; there is nothing that can block the flames or extinguish the fire.
It's not too late to escape!
"Let me go! If you want to have fun, I'll let you have your fill when we get out! But please don't choose such an extreme method, okay? I don't want to die with you." Du Juan even started pleading.
Who said I wanted to die with you?
Qingmu's voice was lazy, showing no sign of the urgency of someone in dire need of help.
Wait a minute! Du Juan realized that Qingmu's voice wasn't coming from below her.
She looked up.
The man with the messy hair was standing not far in front of her, his hands in his pockets, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, looking at her with a half-smile.
Flames raged all around.
Du Juan saw Qingmu's old trench coat swell backward under the impact of the flames' heat, like an inflated hot air balloon.
And this damned man actually had the nerve to act cool in the raging fire, slowly tilting his head to the side and lighting the cigarette with the flames that shot up to a height of more than a person.
Who the hell is this person?!
Du Juan suddenly remembered that he was beneath her; wasn't he making out with her right now?
She looked down and saw the man beneath her with his eyes closed, looking like he was enjoying himself. She looked up again and saw that the two men looked exactly alike. But she already knew that the one standing there pretending was the real one.
So who is this?
Du Juan's chest heaved violently; although she was lying face down, it felt like a heavy stone was pressing on her chest. She wanted to move, but the man beneath her was entwined too tightly, like being coiled by a python.
She felt short of breath and couldn't even move her fingers.
What a long-lost, familiar feeling this is!
Du Juan remembered that when she was little, every time she fell asleep while soaking in a pot of medicine, she would end up like this, unable to move at all. Then she would see her master come, sit down beside her, and tell her that she was dreaming.
At first, she was terrified. Because of her fear, she would wake up from her sleep in a fright, often spilling the medicine everywhere.
So many years have passed! She thought she would never be trapped by dreams again, never again be unaware that she was dreaming. She was a the Awake People; her master said that people like her were called Awakened.
In all her life, besides her master, she had only encountered one other Awakened —that man captured her heart the moment he appeared, even though she was only thirteen years old at the time.
She tried to seduce that incredibly handsome man with her youthful body and unique fragrance, but she failed. The man named Situ seemed immune to all her tactics.
Master said that Situ has reached the point of controlling the collective consciousness, and may be the most powerful among the few remaining Awakened in the world.
All these years later, Du Juan still wants to try again to see if that man is truly immune to everything about her, even if she treats him with genuine affection, and not just in a dream.
Now, there's another man, a man who's hard to conquer.
She knew that everything that had just happened might have been a lie; she hadn't hypnotized the man, yet she had been hypnotized by him. She didn't know what method he used or when he did it.
Right now, she's at the critical moment of her nightmare, with a sliver of clarity still lingering in her mind.
You won't succeed!
Relax, relax... relax some more... Du Juan kept telling herself, slowly slowing her breathing and controlling her rhythm. Then, her consciousness finally returned to clarity.
For a true Awakened like her, she was naturally not as flustered and at a loss as those who were just entering lucid dreaming. After the nightmare ended, she immediately emptied her consciousness, broke free from the dream, and returned to reality.
The person beneath her suddenly vanished, and she fell to the floor with a thud, her chin hitting the ground and hurting slightly.
It's okay, this is real pain. It proves you're awake.
The poppies and vines around them had also disappeared.
But why are the surrounding flames real? A huge fire is raging! The little wooden house is about to collapse.
That damn messy-haired guy is still there, smoking and acting all high and mighty.
"I can't believe you'd try to sabotage my Incense Art like this! You're something else!" Du Juan leaped to her feet, and since there was nothing to hide behind, she had no choice but to bravely push her way out. "Aren't you afraid of being burned to death?"
She crossed the wooden building, jumped out of the back window, and fled as fast as she could, patting the flames off the few burning locks of her hair.
The small wooden building behind us collapsed in the fire, sending countless Mars soaring into the sky.
Du Juan stopped, turned around, and snorted coldly, muttering to herself, "Only a fool would use fire! So what if you broke my Dream-Inducing Art? You'll still burn yourself to death!"
As soon as she finished speaking, she saw a figure emerge from the ruins of the still-burning building.
The man had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and two or three embers flickering on his messy hair. His old overcoat billowed and rustled from the steam, and his slippers clattered on the path behind the mountain...