Qingmu never expected to see this familiar symbol in the mountains of Southern Yunnan. He closed his eyes, slowly calmed himself down, and reached out to touch the cave ceiling.
The rock face was covered in moss, damp and smooth to the touch, and icy cold. The chill spread from his palm throughout his body, making him shiver.
Du Juan asked anxiously from outside, "How is it? Did you see it?"
Qingmu said, "I've seen it, but what should I do?"
Du Juan said, "Touch him, touch him! Touch him like you're caressing a lover's face... um..." She seemed to remember something, and her face suddenly turned red. "Even though you're both men,... two handsome men would be okay, right..."
The Crow, who had been waiting nearby, sensed something was amiss and asked suspiciously, "Caw, what did you say? A man? What did you see?"
"You need a strong Mental Power to sense and touch something, but I don't have that anymore. I can't see anything," Du Juan said dejectedly.
"No, no, no, I'm not talking about just now," the Crow shook its head, "I'm talking about before, the first time, what did you see?"
Du Juan said, "I saw Situ's face; he was on the rock face. His eyes were so gentle, looking at me like a lover. I touched him with my Mental Power, and he became a physical being, and then I, I..."
"Wow, I heard you were only thirteen back then." The Boss Coal did some calculations. "Hmm, thirteen isn't young for Crow, but humans... what a strange species!... Hmm, and then?"
"Then... I discovered that I could communicate with the power of this entire space. I could use the power of space to control the consciousnesses that entered this place. Of course, only to a certain extent; I couldn't completely control them. So, in this space, I didn't dare to go very deep, and I never encountered..."
Du Juan continued, recalling her earlier encounter. She wrapped her arms around herself, looking somewhat frightened. "I've never met Japan before."
Qingmu ignored their conversation and closed his eyes, carefully sensing the coolness of the rock face. Slowly, he noticed the two triangles protruding from the rock face, shimmering in his mind.
Of course, Qingmu knew this wasn't real. It was a dream, and he had his eyes closed. Yet, this thing still gave him different experiences in terms of touch and sight, influencing his consciousness.
This is a mark of consciousness.
Qingmu realized. This was the backdoor left by the original dream maker, like deliberately leaving a bug in the game's background program. Game designers could use this bug to modify player and NPC data to quickly complete the game.
When the imprint of consciousness is deeply etched into your mind, you can gain sufficient authority. The extent of authority is directly proportional to your own Mental Power, which is why the Du Juan only gained a portion of the authority here, while the Medicine Granny's authority was even smaller.
I wonder how much Situ received? Could it be all of it?
With that thought in mind, Qingmu began to accept the etching of his consciousness.
"It won't be the same as what you see," the Crow said to the Du Juan. "I guess what you see here is human desire; you see what you desire most in your heart. Hmm, that's it, so you see a man, and then my master... oh my god..."
The Boss Coal tilted his head to look at the hole. "Who will this idiot see? Oh no, I have to go and see, for my dear Ruhua, for my braised pork knuckle!"
As it spoke, it spread its wings, moved its two claws which were good at jumping but not so good at walking, and waddled into the cave.
"Hey buddy, who did you see?" The Crow leaped onto Qingmu's shoulder, looking up. "Caw? What's that? Guagua!"
It stretched its neck and pecked at the apex where the two triangles met, and the symbol suddenly made a 180-degree turn.
Although it looked the same after turning around, it startled the Crow: "What the hell!"
Suddenly, it heard a sound like surging waves crashing against the rocks coming from behind it.
The Boss Coal took a few steps outside the cave, cautiously poked his head out, and saw huge waves of water surging upwards from the abyss outside the cave.
It shrank back in fright and cried out, "Run... croak..."
But before it could finish its cry, water rushed in. The powerful current engulfed it and Qingmu, pulling them out of the cave and plunging them into the dark abyss.
Before falling, the Boss Coal quickly grabbed Qingmu's hair tightly with its sharp claws.
Qingmu was undergoing the etching of his consciousness when he suddenly felt the surrounding space rapidly collapsing, like the feeling of space collapsing when a dream is about to end. However, he could not withdraw as easily as before, and his consciousness sank into darkness.
The only remaining sensation was the feeling of something forcefully pulling at the hair on the top of my head.
He didn't know how much time had passed before he regained consciousness.
I opened my eyes, but it was still pitch black; I couldn't see anything. The ground beneath me was wet, and I could feel the water slowly rising.
Qingmu tried to sit up, but his head hit the ceiling with a thud.
He felt around in his pocket and found his phone. The phone was wet, but it still worked, so he turned on the flashlight.
He found himself still inside the arched cave.
A pattern was carved on the ceiling of the cave, but it was blurred under the cover of moss.
He wiped away the moss with his hand, and the two triangles became visible. When he touched them again with his hand and sensed them with his Mental Power, there was nothing there except a cold sensation.
Just as he was about to give up, he noticed some tiny scratches around the symbol. He scraped away all the moss and dirt with his fingernail, and upon closer inspection, he realized it was a line of Japanese characters.
Kitano Masatake created his dream here.
The water level rose, and the waterfall outside the cave began to grow larger, with a rushing sound of water.
Qingmu had no choice but to exit the cave. He was also certain that he had now exited the dream.
That symbol might not only be a backdoor left by the person who created the dream, but also a self-destruct mechanism. Just now, he or the Crow must have triggered something, causing the underlying structure of this dream to collapse.
Du Juan lay in the river outside the cave, wearing the same clothes she had worn inside the small wooden building, without any signs of tattering. The river had already submerged her body. Qingmu went up and checked her breathing and pulse, then opened her eyelids to look at her, before giving up on the idea of saving her.
Iron cages hang on the riverbank, the power lines on the rock face above have come loose, and the spotlights are corroded and rusted.
The cages, half-submerged in water, reflected a dim, black light under the flashlight. Many cages contained scattered skeletons, some still intact human figures.
Qingmu walked back along the riverbank and soon heard sobbing and cries for help.
He walked over and saw Han Laizi's father and several brothers locked in a row of cages. They were now peering at him through the bars of his cell phone, pleading for help. Han Laizi, on the other hand, was completely still, floating in the water, clearly dead.
The iron door of the last cage was open, Qingmu knew this was the cage where he had just been locked. Logically, there should have been a mad beggar between him and Han Laizi. But strangely, that cage door was also open, and the mad beggar was nowhere to be seen.
A bunch of keys hung on the cage door.
Qingmu took the key down, walked to the cage of the Han Laizi family, and weighed the key in his hand. "I'll give the key to Xiaoqin. You just wait, if she's willing to come and rescue you."
The men in the cages stared at him, their eyes filled with murderous resentment.
But as Qingmu turned and left, all the resentment, anger, regret, and fear were swallowed up by the boundless darkness and silence, except for the distant sound of clattering footsteps.