Courtyard House: My Long and Hard Body Makes Me Play with All the Women in the Courtyard

Chapter 1249 The Rules of the Stage

Everyone was staring at him.

The young man knelt down, his voice trembling: "If...if you still allow me to go on stage...I am willing...to spend the rest of my life making amends."

Mengli looked at Su Ting.

Su Ting was silent for a moment before finally speaking: "The first rule of the stage—whoever steps onto the stage is responsible for their own dream. Are you ready?"

The young man looked up, tears streaming down his face: "I...I'm ready."

Mengli raised her star-studded pen, pointing the tip at him: "Then—you're allowed to 'want' it."

As the starlight fell, the young man trembled violently. Countless images he had personally erased flooded his mind like a tidal wave. He buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly, yet he also cried out to the heavens, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I was wrong... I was wrong..."

The girl in the cloth skirt said softly, "Look, even the law enforcement officers... are starting to dream."

The one who had just broken through stood before the crack, staring intently at the scene, his body trembling slightly.

"Impossible... Order... is necessary..."

“Order is not maintained by fear.” Su Ting walked towards him step by step, his voice low but thunderous. “When you start to fear people’s hearts, your order is already dead.”

"I...I did it for the world..." the novice murmured.

“But you’ve never asked what the world wants.” Mengli stood in the center of the stage, holding her star-shaped pen high. “Now, it’s our turn to ask.”

She pressed down with the tip of her pen, her voice echoing through the starry sea:

"Next—who wants to go on stage?"

Deep within the sea of ​​stars, countless points of light began to move, like sleeping souls finally opening their eyes.

Just then, the young man suddenly raised his head, his voice filled with horror: "Wait... the One Who Has Begun to Sever His Fate... his Fate Threads... are moving! He's not alone... there's something behind him!"

Everyone turned around abruptly.

The man who had just broken his bond stiffened, his eyes rolled back, and the threads of fate were no longer in his control. Instead, they wrapped around him like living things, dragging him toward the dark crack.

"Quickly..." he began with difficulty, his voice no longer human, "Stop... 'The Law of Origin'... It... has never... died..."

Deep within the rift, a pair of eyes, enormous beyond description, slowly opened.

Whispers like the chanting of millions of dead souls:

"...Dreams...will eventually...return to...silence..."

Su Ting suddenly pulled Meng Li back to his side, staring intently at the crack.

Mengli gripped the stardust pen tightly, but her voice was eerily calm:

"So what you were afraid of was never Chaos."

"What you're afraid of... is that someone actually wakes up."

She gazed at the countless points of light converging towards her and whispered:

"Now—it's our turn to dream the dream that will wake everyone up."

Su Ting looked at her and suddenly smiled.

So—who's next?

"it's me."

A small, thin figure emerged from the light, his steps faltering yet resolute.

It was a boy of about ten years old, dressed in rags, his left arm bare from the elbow down, replaced only by a rusty metal hook. His right eye was covered with a black cloth, but his other eye shone with an astonishing light, like a flame that refused to go out.

He stepped onto the stage, each step accompanied by a sluggish, mechanical sound—the friction of the life-ordained chains embedded in his leg bones.

"What's your name?" Mengli asked softly.

The boy looked up, his voice soft yet clear:

"I have no name. My number is 739."

There was silence.

Su Ting's pupils contracted: "The Heavenly Fate Division's 'Dream Purification Experiment Subject'... Shouldn't you have been deregistered long ago?"

739 smiled, a crack of an old wound appearing at the corner of his mouth: "Yes, I should have died long ago. But you deleted three hundred and twenty-seven dreams, yet forgot—I dreamt I was alive."

Chapter 1250 The Devourer of Dreams

He raised the metal hook, pointing it in the direction where the First Severer had been dragged into the crevice: "I know what 'Source Law' is. I've seen it... before I was transformed into a 'Dream Purifier'."

“It’s not law, it’s not order.” The boy’s voice suddenly turned icy. “It’s the devourer of dreams. It eats up all resentment, all resistance, all ‘thinking’—and then turns people into shells to carry out its will.”

Mengli gripped the stardust pen tightly, the tip trembling slightly: "Then... why are you still alive?"

“Because…” Qi Sanjiu slowly lifted the black cloth covering his right eye.

The eyeball was gone, replaced by a pale blue crystal that pulsated slightly, like a heartbeat.

“They stuffed a corner of the ‘Source Law’ into my brain.” He grinned. “They called it a ‘purification container.’ But it didn’t eat me… Instead, I heard what it was afraid of.”

"What?" Qiming blurted out.

“Laughter,” 739 said. “A girl’s laughter. Clear and bright, like a wind chime.”

Mengli was suddenly startled.

Su Ting grabbed her wrist: "No—did you hear me?"

Laughter seemed to echo in the air.

Ding-ling--ding-ling--

It seemed to come from a very distant time and space, or it seemed to rise from the depths of everyone's heart.

“She…is still alive,” Mengli murmured. “She’s been waiting for me in my dreams….”

739 turned to her, his mechanical eye suddenly flashing with strange patterns of light: "Lady Mengli, you don't remember me, but I remember you. Seven years ago, on the thirteenth underground level of the Dream Cleansing Division, you came once. You were carrying a crystal box, inside which was a strand of silver hair... You said: 'When I return, I will take you away.'"

Mengli staggered back a step: "...Xiaoyue?"

“Xiaoyue is my older sister.” Qi Sanjiu lowered his head. “I took the first ‘Source Law Fusion’ for her. She escaped, but I… was left behind. But her dream has always been in my mind—she refuses to sleep, and she refuses to forget.”

He suddenly looked up, his mechanical eyes flashing with a blinding light: "So, I can see things you can't! I know the weakness of 'Source Law'!"

Su Ting narrowed his eyes: "Speak."

“It fears ‘unfinished dreams’.” Seven Three Nine said each word carefully. “It can erase memories and change fate, but it fears those obsessions that should be severed but are stubbornly refusing to be. For example… Sister is waiting for you to come back. For example, I dreamed that I had hands. For example… Qiming wants to see Mom.”

Qiming was startled.

Mengli's breathing quickened: "So, as long as there are still people... dreaming, 'Source Law' can't kill everyone?"

“No.” 739 shook his head. “It’s not afraid of dreamers. It’s afraid of someone who is willing to die for their dream.”

Before the words were finished, the void at the edge of the stage suddenly distorted.

A figure appeared, draped in black robes, with a blurred face, except for a rotating seal on his chest—the symbol of the highest law enforcer of the Heavenly Mandate Bureau.

"Enough." The voice was hoarse, like rusty iron scraping. "739, you have violated the seventh law of the 'Law of Silence.' Meng Li, you have arbitrarily opened the 'Star Dream Stage,' disrupting the order of fate. Su Ting, you have protected a traitor. From this moment on, your fates... will all be erased."

Mengli sneered: "The same old tricks again? Deleting dreams, erasing lives, pretending to be holy? You're not upholding order at all—you're just watchdogs of 'Source Law'."

The man in black robes slowly raised his hand, a string of twisted runes appearing at his fingertips: "The final purge order... has been activated. In three minutes, the starry sea will fall silent, and all unauthorized dreams will be completely evaporated."

Chapter 1251 The Source of the Purge Order

Su Ting narrowed his eyes: "Where did the purge order originate?"

"In the 'Clock Tower'," 739 suddenly said, "the central hub of the Fate System! As long as the 'Law Core' inside the Clock Tower is destroyed, all the locked dreams can awaken!"

Mengli's eyes sharpened: "Then let's go to the clock tower."

“Impossible.” The man in black chuckled. “The clock tower is outside of reality; only those who control the course of fate can enter.”

“Not necessarily.” 739 raised his mechanical arm, his crystalline eyes flashing violently. “I have a ‘Fragment of the Source Law’ inside me. I can locate the entrance to the clock tower—but it can only be opened once, and… the person who activates it will be completely vaporized.”

"Are you crazy?" Qiming shouted. "Isn't that death?!"

Qi Sanjiu laughed, a laugh that carried a childlike purity: "I've never truly lived. Now, at least I can die like a human being."

Mengli rushed forward and hugged him tightly: "No! There must be another way!"

“Lady Mengli.” Qi Sanjiu gently nudged her. “You once said that dreams are the starting point of freedom. But if no one is willing to ignite them… then dreams will forever remain just dreams.”

He turned to Su Ting: “Take her to the clock tower. I’ll open the door.”

Su Ting stared at him for a long time before finally nodding: "Ready?"

739 took a deep breath: "I've been prepared for this for a long time."

He raised the mechanical arm and pointed it at the sky. Suddenly, the mechanical eye exploded, turning into a ball of ghostly blue flame!

"In the name of a broken dream—open the door!"

boom--! !

Space tore open, and a colossal clock tower suspended in the void appeared, with a giant bronze bell hanging on it. The bell's surface was engraved with writhing musical patterns, and with each swing, countless points of light dimmed.