Dream Ghost

Su Wanning's car was parked on an old street in the north of the city.

Far from the city center, this area is lined with low-rise buildings constructed in the 1970s and 80s, with peeling paint and dusty windows. Most of the shops along the street are closed, with "Prime Location for Sale" signs posted on their roller shutters.

Only one store had its lights on.

"Old Times" Cafe.

The storefront is small, sandwiched between a hardware store and a scrap metal recycling station. If it weren't for the dim tungsten filament lamp at the entrance, no one would notice it at all.

Su Wanning got out of the car and walked to the door.

A wooden sign hangs on the door with the words: "This shop only serves regular customers."

She opened the door.

Behind the door was a small space of less than twenty square meters. There were four or five tables, but only one was occupied—an elderly man with gray hair, wearing a gray Zhongshan suit, with a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.

The old man looked up at Su Wanning, his gaze lingering on her association uniform for a second.

"Did Chen Xuan send you?"

"Yes." Su Wanning sat down opposite him. "He said you know some things."

The old man picked up his coffee and slowly took a sip.

"About your father?" he asked.

Su Wanning's fingers tightened slightly: "How did you know I came to see my father?"

"Because every time Chen Xuan comes to see me, it's for his daughter." The old man put down his cup. "And you look exactly like your father when he was young."

"Do you know my father?"

"I know him," the old man said. "Thirty years ago, your father and I joined the association together. Back then, the association wasn't called the Nightmare Hunters Association; it was called the 'Night Watch.' I was his partner."

Su Wanning was stunned for a moment.

"Thirty years ago? And now..."

"Seventy-one." The old man smiled. "Doesn't look like it? Those who enter dreams live a little longer than ordinary people, but only by a dozen or so years."

He stretched out his hand, and on the back of his hand was a mark similar to Lin Ye's palm, but lighter in color, almost disappearing.

"My abilities are declining," he said. "At this age, my consciousness isn't strong enough to enter dreams anymore. So I opened a café here to guide young people."

"Do you know Gu Yan?" Su Wanning asked directly.

The old man's smile vanished.

"I know," he said. "He came to see me. Two years ago."

Su Wanning's heart raced.

"Two years ago? Didn't he disappear three years ago?"

"Missing doesn't mean dead," the old man said. "When he came to me, he had changed a lot. The scar on his left cheek was new, and his eyes were different. The Gu Yan of the past, though aloof, still had warmth in his eyes. That time, his eyes... were cold."

"What did he say?"

"He said that the 'Dream Weavers' are not controlled by one person, but by a group of people. A group of people who have lived for a very, very long time. They have mastered a certain technology that can transform human fear into a controllable force." The old man paused. "He also said that the sealed thing—'Primal Fear'—is awakening. Not because they want to awaken it, but because the seal itself is aging. Three thousand years have passed; even the strongest seal will loosen."

"Then why do they create dream creatures?"

"To repair the seal," the old man said.

Su Wanning was stunned.

"What?"

"You heard that," the old man said, looking at her. "The Dream Weavers aren't trying to awaken that thing; they're trying to repair the seal. But they're using the wrong method—they're using human fear as material to fill the cracks in the seal. Each time they fill it, the seal gets stronger, but the price is that those whose fear has been extracted become vegetative."

"Then why didn't they just tell the association?"

"Because the association wouldn't agree to use living people as materials," the old man said. "But the Dream Weavers believe that sacrificing a few to save the many is worthwhile."

Su Wanning remained silent.

"What about Lin Ye?" she asked. "What's with his ability to devour?"

"Lin Ye is a 'fragment'." The old man's voice became very low. "Three thousand years ago, when the 'Primal Fear' was shattered, its fragments of consciousness scattered into the collective subconscious of humanity. Every few hundred years, a fragment would coalesce in a certain person, granting them the ability to devour fear. There have been six such people in history, and Lin Ye is the seventh."

What happened to those people afterward?

"Most of them were found by the Dream Weavers," the old man said. "Some were persuaded to voluntarily donate their fragments to repair the seal. Others were forcibly taken away."

What would happen if I gave up the fragments?

"Losing your abilities will turn you back into an ordinary person," the old man said. "But if they are forcibly taken from you... you will die."

Su Wanning's fingers gripped the edge of the table tightly.

"Where is Gu Yan? Which fragment is he?"

"The fourth one," the old man said, "but he's different from three years ago. He's found another way."

"What method?"

The old man didn't answer directly. He stood up, walked behind the counter, took an envelope from a locked drawer, and handed it to Su Wanning.

"This was left to me by Gu Yan two years ago. He said that if a girl surnamed Su came to find me one day, I should give this to her."

Su Wanning took the envelope and opened it.

There was a photograph inside.

The photo shows a man in his forties, with a square face, short hair, and wearing a gray jacket.

It was Chen Xuan.

But Chen Xuan in the photo is different from now. There is a light in his eyes that Su Wanning has never seen before—not gentleness, not perseverance, but a kind of almost fanatical obsession.

A line of text was written on the back of the photo:

"Chen Xuan is the fifth fragment."

Su Wanning's hands began to tremble.

"Impossible," she said. "Captain Chen's ability is at the late stage of Dream Weaver, but he has never devoured a dream creature. He has always advanced through training and talent—"

"You don't understand," the old man interrupted her. "Fragments aren't about devouring abilities. Fragments are about an affinity for 'rules.' Lin Ye's devouring is one form of expression, Chen Xuan's rule analysis is another. Gu Yan's dream devouring is yet another. Every fragment holder has different abilities, but the root of all their power is the same—an absolute understanding of the rules of dreams."

"So Captain Chen knew too?"

"He knew," the old man said. "He knew five years ago. But he chose not to face it because he was afraid. Not afraid of death, but afraid of knowing that all his achievements—his talent, his speed of advancement, his ability to become a dream weaver—were not his own, but belonged to that fragment."

Su Wanning put the photo into the envelope and stood up.

"Where are you going?" the old man asked.

"Go find Chen Xuan," Su Wanning said. "He's on the Dream Continent, and he might be close to finding the seal. If he really is the fifth fragment, the Dream Weaver Society will definitely be after him."

"You can't enter the Dream Continent. Your level is too low."

"Then I want to go too."

The old man looked at her and remained silent for a few seconds.

"You're just as stubborn as your father." He sighed and pulled a silver metal plate from his pocket. It was smaller than the ones the association had issued, but the patterns on it were more intricate.

"This is an 'anchor point.' Wear it on your body, and once you enter the Dream Continent, no matter how far you go, you can use this anchor point to return to reality," he said. "But you must remember—the Dream Continent is not a dream; it's a real world. If you die there, you really die."

Su Wanning took the metal piece and held it in his hand.

"Thanks."

She turned and walked towards the door.

"Wait a minute," the old man called out to her.

Su Wanning turned around.

"Gu Yan invited Lin Ye to the crematorium not to harm him," the old man said. "It was to let him see the truth. Beneath that crematorium is a 'processing plant' of the Dream Weaver Society. There, they transform human fear into sealing materials. Lin Ye needs to see those things with his own eyes before he can make his choice."

"What choice?"

"Is it to offer up the fragments, or to fight to the end?" the old man said. "Gu Yan chose to offer them up back then. But he regretted it."

Su Wanning stood there, the night breeze blowing in from outside the door, ruffling her long hair.

"Is Gu Yan now a member of the Dream Weaver Society?"

"Yes and no," the old man said. "His body is in the Dream Weaver Society, but his consciousness—at least part of it—is still rebelling. The trap he set for Lin Ye is his rebellion."

Su Wanning nodded, pushed open the door, and walked out.

She got into the car and started the engine.

She didn't go to the crematorium—she knew Lin Ye could take care of himself.

She was going to the medical center at the association's headquarters.

There lie two sacrificial offerings that were "harvested".

If the old man's words are true, their consciousness has not disappeared, but has been extracted to fill the seal.

Maybe... there's a way to bring them back.

A white SUV drove into the night.

In the coffee shop, the old man picked up his now-cold coffee and drank it all in one gulp.

He gazed out the window in the direction where Su Wanning had disappeared and murmured:

"Old Su, your daughter is better than you."

Then he stood up and turned off the light by the door.

The sign for "Old Times" went out in the night.

Abandoned crematorium in the west of the city.

Lin Ye stood outside the gate.

This place has been abandoned for at least ten years. There are cracks in the walls, the iron gate is rusty, and the yard is overgrown with waist-high weeds. The main building is a two-story gray-white building, and the chimney above the main entrance pierces the night sky like a black finger pointing to the heavens.

Lin Ye's senses extended and swept across the entire area.

There is no heat source.

No moving objects.

No abnormal signals were detected.

But there was a strange smell in the air—not of decay, not of chemicals, but a deeper, instinctively unsettling odor. It was as if something had once been burned here, but something that didn't belong to this world.

Lin Ye pushed open the iron gate and went inside.

The grass in the yard was tall, rustling underfoot. He crossed the yard and walked to the front of the main building.

The door was locked.

Lin Ye didn't pick the lock. He reached out and placed his hand on the door, using his senses to "see" the structure behind it.

Behind the door was a large hall, about one hundred square meters in size, with a cement floor and white ceramic tiles on the walls. In the center of the hall was an incinerator, its door tightly closed.

At the far end of the hall, there is a door. Behind the door is a staircase leading underground.

Lin Ye pushed open the locked door—no key was needed. He directly used the rules to create a "contradiction" on the lock. The two rules of "locked" and "open" existed at the same time, and the lock got stuck.

He walked into the hall.

The incinerator is large enough to fit a person.

Lin Ye walked to the furnace door and opened it.

It's empty inside.

But there was something on the furnace wall—it was covered in runes. The runes were the same style as the ones Lin Ye had seen in the basement, but denser and more complex.

He closed the door and walked towards the stairs at the end of the hall.

The staircase was narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time. An emergency light shone dimly every few meters along the wall.

Lin Ye walked down step by step.

One floor. Two floors. Three floors.

His senses told him that he had reached a depth of about fifteen meters underground.

At the end of the stairs was a heavy iron door.

There's a sign on the door that reads:

"Dreamweaver Club - Third Processing Plant"

"Unauthorized entry prohibited"

Lin Ye pushed open the door.

The space behind the door was large, at least two hundred square meters. The ceiling was high, with several rows of fluorescent lights hanging from it, illuminating the entire space brightly.

The space was filled with transparent containers.

Like the container at the association headquarters that held the "Time Eater," but there were more here—at least twenty. Each container contained a mass of black matter, varying in size and shape. Some were slowly wriggling, some were violently churning, and some were motionless, as if asleep.

Lin Ye walked to the nearest container.

The black substance inside sensed his approach and began to churn violently, as if in fear.

[Multiple dream creatures detected – Levels ranging from fragment to page]

[Source: Man-made]

[Recommendation: Avoid consuming them simultaneously, as this carries the risk of contamination.]

Lin Ye did not devour it.

He continued walking forward.

At the end of the space is an even larger container.

It doesn't contain black matter.

is a person.

A young woman, about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with long hair, closed eyes, and an expressionless face. Her body was suspended in a transparent liquid, with more than a dozen transparent tubes inserted into her body.

On her chest was a mark similar to the one on Lin Ye's palm.

But the mark was gray.

He is already dead.

Lin Ye stood in front of the container, looking at the woman's face.

An image flashed through his mind—a photograph on the photo wall. The second offering.

This is the second person to be "harvested".

She wasn't unconscious. Her fragments had been removed, leaving her an empty shell.

Lin Ye's hand was pressed against the container wall, which was icy cold.

"Did you see that?"

A voice came from behind.

Lin Ye turned around.

Gu Yan stood at the entrance of the space, wearing a black trench coat, his long hair tied back, and the scar on his left cheek was particularly noticeable under the fluorescent lights.

His eyes were cold.

But Lin Ye's extended perception told him that deep within those cold eyes, a fire was burning.

"This is the truth," Gu Yan said. "It's not a story of a hero saving the world. It's a knot that hasn't been untied in three thousand years."