Dream-Knowing Bird

While Lu Yuan was thinking about the various matters concerning Jiangzhou First Hospital, preparations at the ritual site were complete.

The unnamed guard walked out of the prayer hall and locked the door from the outside.

Li Tailai, dressed in a black robe and wearing a bird-shaped mask, spread his arms. The noisy cultists around him all fell silent.

"Holy!" Li Tailai cried. "Descend!"

Incandescent spiritual light rose from his body, and spiritual light also gushed from his eyes beneath the mask. His imposing appearance reminded Lu Yuan of Ji Yin during their battle at the abandoned factory.

It seemed Li Tailai was also a cultivator of considerable level.

As the ritual continued, Lu Yuan sensed a special power emanating from the divine statue behind Li Tailai.

But unlike the several previous prayers, this time the power was surging fiercely enough to be visible to the naked eye.

Pale pink spiritual light rose from the statue, changing the color of the entire prayer hall.

Bathed in the spiritual light, the cultists stopped muttering. They slumped every which way, every one of them asleep.

It was not just them. Even the three guards sat down cross-legged and closed their eyes, their chests rising and falling as if they were napping.

Needless to say, the same went for the three middle school students.

Seeing this, Lu Yuan felt a chill of fear. He immediately followed their example, slumping to the floor and closing his eyes to feign sleep.

In a situation like this, he had to check the system at once.

Sure enough, his Divine Sense had plunged!

It had dropped from 24 to 17.

Lu Yuan had experienced something similar before. But during the previous prayers, his Divine Sense had only dropped from 24 to 22.

Back then, Lu Yuan had only felt a little sleepy.

Now he was overwhelmingly sleepy.

Lu Yuan struggled to keep his mind clear. He keenly realized that the most important part of this ritual was putting people to sleep. As long as he stayed awake, the cult's methods could not touch him.

It seemed only a while had passed, yet it also seemed a long time had gone by. All that remained around Lu Yuan was the sound of steady breathing.

Up above, Li Tailai had stopped shouting slogans as well.

Lu Yuan stealthily cracked his eyelids open and saw that Li Tailai above him had actually fallen asleep too.

Is this a group therapy session for insomniacs? Lu Yuan grumbled inwardly, while considering whether this was a good chance to escape.

No! The prayer hall doors were locked, and a guard was standing outside.

Should I take the chance to kill everyone?

The moment the thought occurred to him, Lu Yuan could not help trembling. Maybe there's a chance? Though he would still die in the end.

Just as he was agonizing over it, a strange change came over the sleeping Li Tailai.

Pink spiritual light surged around his head. Before long, something flew out of his ear.

Lu Yuan squinted at it for quite a while and discovered that it was a brightly colored hummingbird!

Perhaps hummingbird was not the right word, because it merely looked a lot like one: tiny, with wings beating at high speed.

But it was translucent and did not seem to have a physical form.

As it beat its wings, starlike dust fell from them, showing that this hummingbird was no ordinary creature.

The hummingbird flew a circuit around the prayer hall, scattering dust from its wings. It fell like raindrops gleaming with pale pink spiritual light, rosy and dreamlike.

A scene so explosively girly was not what Lu Yuan had expected. He had originally thought that whatever the cult produced would be covered in tentacles and suckers, spraying blood and venom everywhere.

The dust the hummingbird scattered fell on everyone. The breathing of those already asleep suddenly grew fainter, as if they had fallen into a deeper sleep.

Some of the raindrops of spiritual light also landed on Lu Yuan's clothes and seeped into his body without lingering.

Lu Yuan checked the system again. His Divine Sense had plunged further, from 17 to 9. A tremendous wave of sleepiness swept over him, and he had to bite the tip of his tongue to keep his mind clear.

It seemed the pink spiritual light the hummingbird scattered had a powerful sleep-inducing effect.

Only then did the translucent hummingbird slowly descend. It flew around the four people at the center of the ritual, finally landing on Xu Wenbin's shoulder.

It first tilted its head and looked him over, scratching beside his ear with its little claws. Its movements were much like those of a tame oriole.

Seeing no reaction from Xu Wenbin, the hummingbird grew bolder. It moved closer and pecked beside his ear for a while. It seemed to have pecked something apart; Lu Yuan heard a faint cracking sound, and then the hummingbird zipped into Xu Wenbin's ear and disappeared.

Panic rose in Lu Yuan's heart. He did not know what this meant. The bird looked quite pretty, but having anything burrow into one's brain was still creepy. He could not think about it too much, though. His eyelids kept drooping, and he was as sleepy as if he had just finished ten comprehensive test papers.

Before long, the hummingbird emerged from Xu Wenbin's ear again. Nothing had changed about him; he had not suddenly stood up and turned into a zombie, and he still appeared to be fast asleep.

The hummingbird did the same thing again, burrowing into the ears of the other two students. Finally, it landed on Lu Yuan's shoulder.

Though Lu Yuan was feigning sleep, he was not far from truly falling asleep. The hummingbird hopped beside his ear and pecked at it with its tiny beak.

The Divine Sense displayed by the system plunged, falling one point at a time from 9. Lu Yuan was only one step away from passing out.

I can't keep waiting here to die!

He knew that once he lost consciousness, something very bad would definitely happen. When his Divine Sense fell to 5, Lu Yuan suddenly opened his eyes and reached for the hummingbird, intending to squeeze the strange, unknown creature to death.

No matter what, I have to take a gamble!

He immediately mobilized the True Essence in his body and activated the Body-Protecting Shield. No matter how sharp the damned bird's beak was, the shield should be able to hold it off for a little while.

The hummingbird was startled by Lu Yuan.

But the attack Lu Yuan had expected never came. It was just a very timid bird, with no fighting ability whatsoever. It beat its wings and quickly flew away.

Lu Yuan watched the hummingbird land on Li Tailai's shoulder. Apparently feeling safe, it chirped twice at Lu Yuan, then burrowed into Li Tailai's ear and disappeared.

Lu Yuan's vision went black, and he finally passed out.

At the same time, in a dark room far from Jiangzhou City, a dignified-looking middle-aged man suddenly opened his eyes.

"Hmm?"

He lowered his head in thought, seemingly puzzled.

A person standing guard outside the door heard the movement inside and came in to ask:

"My lord?"

"I'm all right.

But something seems to have gone wrong with the Dream-Knowing Bird."

The newcomer's expression froze. A moment later, he asked, "Then should we tell the people in Jiangzhou to pause their operation for now?"

"No need to stop. Time is pressing... tell Li Tailai and his people to keep a close watch."

"Yes, my lord!"