Nightmare Despair

Chapter 35 Mirage

"No, under normal circumstances."

Ding San said with a worried expression.

Before he finished speaking, he had already opened the car door and was the first to slip inside.

Huang Zhang and Li Xiangqian exchanged a glance and then followed him onto the bus.

"What about the surveillance footage? Can't you pull it up?" Huang Zhang was still a little confused by their serious expressions and asked casually.

Upon hearing this, Li Xiangqian glanced at him.

He lowered his voice and said, "It's very strange. All the surveillance footage around here, including this car, has been completely wiped clean. That's why I suspect it's the thing Third Sister was talking about."

That thing.

Huang Zhang clicked his tongue.

Ding San and his gang of locals were indeed keeping things hidden from outsiders like them.

Up to this point, aside from knowing that Ding San's personality was contradictory and she was like a mental patient, and that she might have fought in underground boxing matches in Southeast Asia, Huang Zhang knew less about her than he did about that kid named Zhou Kai.

He paced aimlessly around the carriage.

After walking around twice, he felt a little tired, so he plopped down in the last row of seats.

He instinctively placed his hand on the handrail next to him.

Ok?
Huang Zhang stopped moving.

He frowned in surprise, his fingers tracing the cold metal armrest several times.

Why is this steel pipe flat?
He swiped his phone, and the flashlight beam shot out instantly.

The beam of light shone on the handrail, and a section of the originally round steel pipe was forcibly pinched into an oval shape, the width of the indentation almost exactly the same as his palm.

Flattened?

This is an old-fashioned bus, made with such solid materials that it could be driven like an armored vehicle; the steel pipes for the handrails are at least three fingers thick.

What kind of person has such abnormally strong hands?

"Perhaps I'm overinterpreting..."

Huang Zhang laughed self-deprecatingly, finding his guess ridiculously absurd.

How could a normal person possibly mold a solid steel pipe like clay?

That must be an incredibly strong grip...

Besides, if someone really had that ability, who would still need to take the bus?

Ding San noticed the light coming from his side and turned his head: "Have you found anything?"

Huang Zhang shook his head and turned off the flashlight: "It's nothing."

He changed the subject and asked directly, "What exactly is that mirage?"

Li Xiangqian's phone beam shone vertically onto the ground, the metal floor reflecting a ghastly white light that distorted the faces of the people in a sinister way.

A suffocating silence fell over the carriage.

After a long silence, Ding Sancai sighed deeply and said, "If it really is that thing..."

"This means that there are unregistered Nightmare Walkers who died in their nightmares."

"Huang Zhang, I advise you to confirm whether Number Seven is still alive."

Huang Zhang looked up in astonishment.

Ding San never explained what "mirage" actually was, but for some reason, when she uttered the word, Huang Zhang felt a chill rise from the soles of his feet, and goosebumps rose all over his body.

That was something absolutely capable of utterly destroying them all.

“You still believe he is a wanderer… Fine, I’ll go take a look at him at dawn.”

Huang Zhang suppressed the inexplicable sense of dread that was rising in his heart and nodded.

The strange bus ultimately failed to provide any further clues.

The appearance of what appears to be a mirage is like a mirage in the water, leaving no traceable evidence.

But Ding San, relying on his beast-like intuition, still gave Li Xiangqian an order: "Old Li, increase the patrol intensity again... the nights in Xishan will only become more and more unsafe."

Li Xiangqian always trusted Ding San's judgment. He coughed lightly twice and replied, "I'll write a report when I get back."

At 3 a.m., Xishan City fell completely silent.

Ding San and his group planned to go back to the police station to grab some breakfast before parting ways.

This kind of upside-down lifestyle is already ingrained in their very being, especially for frontline officers like Li Xiangqian.

Habit?

How can anyone get used to hell?

It's just a matter of doing one's best and leaving the rest to fate... Meanwhile, at Chu Siwen's home, Ye Zi received a text message from Ding San.

She stared at the screen in silence for a moment, then opened an encrypted folder.

The folder was named "Mirage". She opened one of the documents and typed a note in it: Suspected of appearing.

She opened other documents, flipping through them, her gaze occasionally drifting across the laptop screen to Park Hyo-yoon, who was dozing by the bedside, and the pale-faced girl on the bed. Her struggles in the dream were clearly not going well.

【Mirage: Nightmare】

[Cause of appearance: a mystery. Early theories suggested it was a demonic martial artist who had gone mad. Recent research leans towards another possibility: a nightmare traveler who died in a nightmare.]

[Note: Deaths of nightmare sufferers often manifest in real-world ways such as organ failure and cardiac arrest. However, the body of a nightmare walker completely disappears from the real world upon death.]

Whether there is a link between "mirages" and the spread of nightmares remains to be confirmed.

……

[Character: Zhou Kai]

[Status: Erosion, Clear Mind]

【技能：综合格斗lv3（0/50），轻盈步伐lv3（10/50），索拉卡剑术lv2（5/25），神秘学lv1（0/15），隼击术Lv1（8/15）】

[Items: Residence Permit, Bloodstained Axe, Morning Star Notebook (Part 3, Part 2), Moonshine Orchid Seed (Plump), Moonshine Orchid Amulet (Old)]

[General Experience Points: 16]

Zhou Kai has woken up from the nightmare.

That final stretch of perseverance went smoothly without any major mishaps.

He practiced steadily in the shelter, and his skills improved slightly.

Wow!

Rinse your face with cold water.

The biting chill instantly pulled him out of the lingering discomfort of the dream, and with a clear mind, he became even more lucid.

He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, which looked perfectly normal, then grabbed a towel and wiped his face haphazardly.

With his hands braced on the rusty washbasin, Zhou Kai took a deep breath, his chest heaving violently.

The man in the mirror has more defined muscles and his shoulders are much broader.

His features looked as if they had been re-carved with a chisel, sharp and cold.

The martial arts training in reality and the life-and-death battles in nightmares are all pushing him to grow stronger at an astonishing speed.

Aside from the lingering, excruciating pain of being torn apart by a cart, which seemed to still linger in his nerve endings and constantly reminded him of the despair of his nightmare...

Really, really...

Nothing unusual.

click!
Zhou Kai slammed his fist on the rusty metal sink, making a dull thud.

He lowered his head, and when he looked up again, most of the coldness and ferocity in his eyes had faded.

Instead, it possesses a dazzling brilliance.

"No matter what, I made it through tonight. Now, I have a full seven-day rest period."

"Every day, every night, I am getting stronger."

"One day, what I call nightmares will no longer be a source of despair for me!"

Thinking about the future.

Zhou Kai's mood suddenly improved, his mind filled with thoughts of what he was about to do.

He needs a new weapon, and he needs to find a new crop that can be planted in the nursery.

He needs to contact his university classmates across the ocean, earn money to make his real life more comfortable, so that he can give back to the Nightmare World and gain greater assistance.

"Take steady and solid steps, and seek speed while proceeding slowly."

Zhou Kai stretched his limbs, letting the last bit of chill from the nightmare roll out of his body.

He felt a sense of peace he hadn't felt in a long time and lay down on the bed.

Senior Brother Chen Ping is right; martial arts training requires a balance of tension and relaxation.

It applies to everything.

Physical fatigue is easy to dispel, but mental strain can break if it's stretched too tight.

He needs a good night's sleep and a big meal to let the colors and warmth of real life neutralize the coldness and torment in his dreams.

Lying in bed, Zhou Kai's thoughts drifted for a while before he quickly fell into a deep sleep.

I slept soundly and thoroughly.

(End of this chapter)