Su Huilan was startled, like a student flipping through cheat sheets during an exam, only to find the proctor standing right in front of them. She sat up abruptly, the entire dream space becoming extremely unstable due to the chaos. She thought about changing the scene, but couldn't decide what to change it to. Her confused thoughts made memory retrieval equally chaotic; the dream was like a series of disordered flashbacks from a movie, one moment a coffee shop, the next the sea, then a classroom...
But amidst these changing scenes, there are always intermittent glimpses of a dimly lit corner of a bar and the pattering rain outside the window.
Human consciousness is a strange thing; the more you fear something, the more you try not to think about it, the more likely you are to remember it.
"Hey! Stop changing your mind like that, it's making me dizzy!" Qingmu said.
Upon hearing his words, Su Huilan quickly composed herself, like a television that had been constantly changing channels, now frozen on a specific channel after pressing a remote control.
Huh, how did we end up back at the bar?! Su Huilan knew she couldn't change her ways again, or he'd laugh at her even more!
"How did you get in?" She tried to conceal her thoughts, but the subconscious world couldn't hide them at all, especially when facing a mentally powerful person like Qingmu. Her panic and tension, as well as some thoughts that even she herself couldn't understand, left faint traces in the dream, combining with other things in the space to make the dream a little strange.
"So that's how you got in!" Qingmu said.
"But—" Su Huilan bit her lip, looking as aggrieved as a child whose parents had read her diary from her drawer, "Didn't we agree to count to three?"
"I counted to three!"
How is that possible?
"You only told me to count to three, but you didn't specify how fast I should count, or whether I should count aloud or mentally, so I just mentally counted 1, 2, 3 in no time."
"Huh? You can do that!" Su Huilan wanted to accuse him of being a liar, but then she realized she hadn't explained herself clearly. "But how could I not know you came in? How did you do that?"
"Of course my coming in would cause mental disturbance; with your abilities, it wouldn't be hard for you to notice, but..." Qingmu pointed to himself, "You dreamed about me!"
Su Huilan suddenly realized, oh yes, she had dreamt about him herself, and in such a scene, how embarrassing! But seeing Qingmu's serious expression, as if he wasn't thinking about anything else, her flustered heart gradually calmed down.
Her Mental Power was already formidable, especially the precision with which she controlled it, which even Qingmu greatly admired. So once she stabilized, everything passed like smoke.
"What did you borrow my dream for? Now you can do it," she said.
Qingmu slapped his forehead, "Oh dear, you almost made me forget!"
Su Huilan glanced at him sideways, thinking to herself, "What did I do? You came in without even saying hello!" This thought naturally surfaced in her subconscious dream.
Qingmu didn't communicate with her subconscious anymore, but instead called out " Boss Coal." Of course, this wasn't a real call, but a subconscious thought, but in the dream, from Su Huilan's perspective, it was as if he had called out "Boss Coal" very loudly.
This means that his Mental Power was greatly consumed by this one thought. Su Huilan also felt the vibration of this Mental Power in her Tushu space, as if the entire space was filled with a force that was about to expand.
She didn't understand the point. Could such a thought transcend the constraints of time and space and reach the Boss Coal? Could they really have a long-distance, even cross-time-space, dialogue like this?
But what happened next was completely unexpected for Su Huilan.
A bird's shadow was reflected on the rain-dampened, yellowish glass. Then, the bird's black head darted through the glass, its eyes darting around, and it Guagua twice, saying, "Wow, where is this? A bar! Oh, is this the Ruhua Bar? It feels a little different... um..."
It came in, chattering away, completely soaked.
"Hey, this is just a dream, you don't have to make it so realistic, it's like you're really getting caught in the rain outside the window," Qingmu said.
" Guagua, I didn't get caught in the rain, I fell into the sea and got soaked to the bone! Oh no, I'm a soaked Crow!" the Boss Coal shouted, jumping up and down. "You have no idea how salty the sea is! You have no idea how miserable I am! And you still have the nerve to dream about picking up girls!... Don't look at me like that, you two... adulterers! Adulterers, caw caw!"
Qingmu asked in surprise, "Did it fall into the sea? Is it dead?"
"You're not dead yet!" said the Crow. "Don't expect that just because I'm dead, no one will care about you two traitors..."
Qingmu interrupted him, saying, "Alright, stop talking nonsense. Even though it's a dream, wasting time is shameful. What exactly happened?"
The Crow then said, "Oh, we ran into that guy you were talking about, the old man with the stick. His Mental Power was incredibly strong, incredibly strong, incredibly strong! Just one wave of his hand and I felt like my brain was emptied. Guagua, you have no idea how dangerous it was! Luckily, I'm quick-witted, I fly fast, I just kept flying and flying until I reached the clouds. I didn't believe your damn Mental Power could cover the sky! But, I damn caw caw, I never imagined that the sky was actually the sea!"
"...?" Qingmu didn't react for a moment.
"I've never seen such a strange, godforsaken place. I was fucking convinced I'd fallen for the old man's trick and was in his dream. But when I plunged into the sea and nearly choked to death, I knew I wasn't in his dream," said the Crow.
"Could you explain it more clearly? What do you mean by 'the sky is the sea'?" Qingmu said.
"Oh, your brain! When did it become so stupid?" Crow complained, glancing at Su Huilan and muttering, "A man should stay away from beautiful women to maintain his intelligence!"
Su Huilan glared at it.
The Crow pretended not to notice, shook its head, and said, "After I flew up into the sky, I wanted to try to get a bird's-eye view of the entire island. Although I've flown around many times before, I haven't been able to fly very high because of missions. Maybe I just didn't pay attention before, or didn't see it clearly. Anyway, I suddenly remembered this, and I should take a look at the whole island. Maybe I can discover some secrets or something."
"And the result? Did you see it?"
"No, I can't see the whole picture at all! Guagua... No matter how high I fly, it's useless. I can only see a little more than I can see from a tree branch. I feel like I'm not on an island, but on a vast plateau. Um... saying this might mislead you and make you think this island is really big, right?"
Seeing Qingmu and Su Huilan nod, the Crow Guagua, "That's unbelievable, isn't it? But what I'm about to say is even more unbelievable; if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it myself."
"Can you finish it all in one go!" Even Su Huilan was getting impatient with its old lady-like storytelling pace.
"Wow, how can such a thrilling experience be simply recounted? Shouldn't it be a bit exciting, with twists and turns?... Um, okay, okay, I'll just go through it quickly. Generally speaking, the higher you fly, the smaller things on the ground appear in your field of vision, right?"
Qingmu and Su Huilan nodded helplessly once again.
The Crow continued, "Well, when I flew into the sky, I didn't see the whole island, but I did see the large lake in the center. Strangely, the higher I flew, the bigger the lake appeared to me. The bigger it got, the higher I flew, and the bigger it became, until it turned into a sea..."
By then, I had passed through at least two layers of clouds, and the air had become thinner. I was worried that a flight might pass by and suck me into its engine. But instead, I crashed headfirst into the sea. Yes, the sea in the sky!