Chapter 7: Into the Nightmare

As the light receded, Xie Yuzhu rubbed her eyes and said, "It hurts! What is going on? Why was it so bright all of a sudden?"

She tentatively opened one eye, then gasped, her eyes and mouth wide open in shock. Her pupils reflected the world before her, trembling like a small boat in a vast ocean.

"This... this..."

What met her eyes was a quiet, rainy alleyway in Jiangnan, with tall white walls, black tiles, and bluestone paving beneath her feet. Clouds and mist swirled, the alley stretching deep into an endless void, and there was no one else around but her.

"Is... is anyone there? Yunchuan? Uncle Zhuang? Is anyone there? Where is this?"

Xie Yuzhu was astonished and terrified, calling out loudly as she walked forward. Yet, the end of the alley was just more alley, and the end of the silence was just more silence. In such a long passage, there was not a single door, not a single person.

Xie Yuzhu did not know how many corners she had turned in this alley. The rain grew heavier, forming curtains of water along the eaves, and the drainage channels beside the road began to surge with water. Drenched to the bone, she grew increasingly anxious. After turning a corner, the road suddenly doubled in width. A group of young girls holding oil-paper umbrellas stood with their backs to her, their clothes fluttering as they walked forward, step by step.

"Ladies! Wait for me!"

Overjoyed, Xie Yuzhu picked up her skirt and chased after them in the downpour. But the girls paid no heed, their pace not slowing in the slightest.

Xie Yuzhu finally caught up to the girl at the very end and reached out to grab her shoulder. "Wait!"

The moment Xie Yuzhu touched the girl’s shoulder, all the umbrella-holding girls stopped. Then, in perfect unison, they turned their heads. The range of the turn was extreme—if an ordinary person did it, their neck would surely snap—but their movements were swift and stiff.

What turned toward her was a sea of masked faces. The masks had white bases painted with long, upturned eyes and large patches of pink around them—the makeup of a *huadan* from the opera. In a world of white walls and black tiles, it was eerily vivid.

The pretty *huadan* faces filled the rain-drenched street, layer upon layer, densely packed, staring at Xie Yuzhu in silent stillness.

An ominous premonition rose in Xie Yuzhu's heart. Trembling, she reached out and pulled the mask off the girl closest to her. The girl's face was revealed bit by bit—the brows, eyes, nose bridge, and lips, all painfully familiar.

It was a face exactly like Xie Yuzhu’s own.

The girls under the oil-paper umbrellas stared at her unblinkingly—the eyes behind the masks, the hands holding the umbrellas, the figures drenched by the rain.

The longer she looked, the more familiar they became.

Everyone was her.

The rain fell harder, and the world was left with nothing but the sound of rain, the tall windowless white walls, the black tiles like storm clouds, and the many Xie Yuzhus born in this gray world.

Xie Yuzhu’s hands began to shake violently. Her gaze darted frantically across their faces, her chest suddenly feeling as thin as a sheet of paper, her heartbeat so fierce it felt as if it might burst through. Fear rendered her mute, and the strength to even retreat vanished entirely.

The girl whose mask she had removed suddenly smiled. If one could call it a smile—it was more like she was manipulating stiff skin to form an expression resembling one.

Beneath the dense rows of masks, the eyes were also filled with amusement.

The wrinkles on the girl’s neck loosened in rings as she slowly turned around.

At that moment, the sound of splashing water suddenly approached from afar. The mask in Xie Yuzhu’s hand was snatched away, and the newcomer slapped it back onto the girl's face, grabbed Xie Yuzhu’s wrist, and spoke a single, short word.

"Run."

Xie Yuzhu was pulled along as she turned and ran. Behind them came the chaotic sound of splashing water. She stumbled forward for a few steps before, in her terror, she managed to see the profile of the person leading her. The girl pulling her forward had long, silver-white hair, soaked and plastered to her body by the rain. Her features were elegant, and on her wrist was a gold bracelet adorned with two rings.

"Sister Yunchuan!"

Xie Yuzhu finally caught her breath, nearly bursting into tears. She knew the umbrella-holding girls were chasing them and dared not look back, only straining herself to run desperately after Yunchuan, asking through her tears, "What is going on?"

Yunchuan turned her head, and through her profile, Xie Yuzhu saw the vision stone in front of her eyes, marked with faint, crisscrossing blue lines.

"A slight mishap with the technique; we’ve entered a nightmare," Yunchuan said, her tone natural.

Xie Yuzhu froze, gasping, "A slight mishap? You call this a slight mishap! Sister Yunchuan, we’ve entered a nightmare controlled by a Nightmare Master! If you die in a nightmare, you’re really dead!"

In this situation, even if the dream didn't kill her, she would be scared to death!

Yunchuan replied, "Didn't you want to see a Nightmare Master manipulate dreams?"

"Watching a Nightmare Master and actually entering the nightmare are two different things!"

Xie Yuzhu shrieked, her voice echoing through the alleyway, cutting through the sound of the rain. She followed Yunchuan as hard as she could, running through the alleys. The girls chasing them seemed to be finding amusement in it; their laughter grew louder, clear as pearls falling on a jade plate, which Xie Yuzhu found bone-chilling. Fortunately, the girls seemed not very clever; every time they reached a turn, they couldn't stop and would crash into the walls before turning to continue the chase. Thus, in these winding alleys, although she and Yunchuan couldn't run fast, they hadn't been caught.

"Where are we running to?" Xie Yuzhu asked loudly.

As soon as she spoke, Yunchuan came to an abrupt halt, and Xie Yuzhu nearly slipped and fell to the ground.

"We're here," Yunchuan said.

Xie Yuzhu looked up. Suddenly, a vast stretch of open wilderness appeared before them. Standing water covered their ankles; the white walls and bluestone slabs had vanished. The end of the land was shrouded in a vague, hazy mist. Scattered across the ground were a group of white, paper-cut-like figures, their clothing identical to those of the girls. Their faces were buried in the soil, half their bodies submerged in water, bloating, their long hair floating on the surface, intertwined with one another.

Xie Yuzhu covered her mouth to stifle a scream, trembling as she asked, "Where... where is this? Is this our... our burial ground?"

"The boundary," Yunchuan replied briefly, crouching down to test the mud beneath the water.

The sounds of chasing and laughter behind them grew closer. Xie Yuzhu looked back in panic, and the girls had already joyfully appeared at the last corner, their graceful figures rushing toward them.

"They're catching up..."

Before Xie Yuzhu could finish her sentence, she felt a powerful tug, and her entire body lurched forward. Because the ground was slippery, she couldn't keep her footing and fell face-first into the mud. Seeing that she was about to share the same fate as the people soaking in the water, Xie Yuzhu closed her eyes, resigned to her end.

The dampness was but a fleeting moment, and the suffocation was as brief as an illusion.

The pain of crashing into the mud did not come as expected. Xie Yuzhu felt as if she had fallen too far, spinning in a semicircle around her feet before standing up again.

She suddenly opened her eyes to see a golden sun hanging in the sky. As far as she could see, there were rolling grassy hills, the grass reaching her shins, and the surrounding wind was warm and scented with flowers.

"This is... a grassland? I've never been to a grassland before... Am I dead? Is this Nirvana? Is this a place where wishes come true?" Xie Yuzhu murmured.

"No, this is just another nightmare."

The voice beside her startled Xie Yuzhu. She turned to see Yunchuan standing next to her, unfastening her sodden cloak. Yunchuan was drenched, her hair clinging to her body, water dripping down her face, and her cloak was heavy and dripping.

She shook the cloak out in the air, as if she were merely a hapless traveler who had escaped a heavy rain into a house and her priority was to dry her clothes.

Xie Yuzhu wasn't doing much better. She looked down at her own filthy, damp clothes, paused for a moment, and then raised her hand to wipe the muddy water from her face.

The girls couldn't follow them here; they were safe for the moment.

As this thought occurred, Xie Yuzhu’s strength vanished. She let out a long sigh, sat down on the grass, and opened her arms to lie back. "Finally... ah! Help!"

She hadn't realized that the moment her body touched the grass, she would once again crash into the void just like before, falling too far and spinning around.

Her face was once again immersed in rain, and the girls’ laughter surged forward once more.

Xie Yuzhu’s heart nearly stopped. In a desperate struggle, her wrist was grabbed, and with a violent pull, she was hauled back.

She sat on the grass, still shaken, looking at Yunchuan, who was holding her.

Yunchuan’s hair and eyelashes were still dripping water, and her vision stone was covered in droplets, yet the eyes behind the stone were bright and steady.

Yunchuan let go and pointed to the grass beneath them. "Don't lie down here. This is the boundary between two dreams; if you lie down, you'll fall back through."

Xie Yuzhu immediately sprang to her feet, wishing she could stand on one leg to minimize contact with the grass.

Heaven have mercy, if she had to go back once more, she would rather die of a broken heart!

In the new dream, the sun was scorching, and the air was sweltering. Xie Yuzhu and Yunchuan found another grassy hill and sat cross-legged, finally able to catch their breath.

Xie Yuzhu felt the water on her body evaporating rapidly; her clothes and skin were gradually drying. Although Yunchuan said this was no longer the boundary, Xie Yuzhu dared not lie down again and sat perfectly straight and upright. Surviving the ordeal, her mind was now full of questions, and she picked one to ask.

"Yunchuan, how did you know that was the boundary of the dream?"

Yunchuan was squeezing the water out of her hair. Hearing this, she took off the vision stone and handed it to Xie Yuzhu. "I saw it."

Xie Yuzhu took the stone skeptically. The moment she put it on, her vision distorted, and a wave of dizziness rushed to her crown. She waited a long while before opening her eyes slightly to see the image on the vision stone.

The entire world was divided by thin blue lines, as if trapped in a grid of uneven checkerboard squares, or covered by a fishing net. As Xie Yuzhu turned her head, the scene changed, and the distribution of the blue lines shifted with it.

"This... this is..."

"Can't you see it?"

Xie Yuzhu swallowed hard and said honestly, "I see it, but I don't understand it. What are these blue lines? Why do they show the boundary?"

Yunchuan pondered for a moment and replied solemnly, "I don't know either."

Xie Yuzhu’s eyes went wide. "Then how can you say you saw it with this?"

"I guessed."

"How did you guess?"

"It's hard to explain."

Xie Yuzhu was speechless. She clutched her heart and thought for a long time, then asked without much hope, "Can you use an analogy?"

Yunchuan thought for a moment, reached out, and gestured in the air. "Suppose this dream is a lantern. We are inside the lantern, and what we see is the paper pasted on it, while the blue lines in the vision stone are the bamboo frame supporting this lantern. The distribution of the bamboo frame has its own pattern. Where the frame is densest, the dream is more solid and closer to the core. Conversely, where the frame is sparser, the dream is thinner and closer to the edge."

Yunchuan spoke quickly. Xie Yuzhu followed her train of thought and continued, "So, we kept running toward where the bamboo frame was sparsest, and then we crashed through the lantern paper and fell into another dream?"