Dream Ghost

Lin Ye didn't tell anyone right away.

He returned to Chen Xuan's ward, closed the door, and leaned against it. Chen Xuan was drinking water; seeing his expression, he put down his cup.

"What's wrong?"

"There's a mole in the association," Lin Ye said in a low voice. "I just saw something that wasn't human in the hallway."

Chen Xuan paused for a moment.

"shell?"

"Yes. Just like the gatekeepers of the Dream Continent. The outside is humanoid, but the inside is something else. The Dream Weavers have already infiltrated."

Chen Xuan remained silent for a few seconds, then got off the bed, walked to the door, and locked it from the inside.

Are you sure?

"My perception of form is never wrong," Lin Ye said. "That person—or rather, that thing—flashed past the end of the corridor, very fast. By the time I caught up, it had already disappeared. But I sensed a lingering fluctuation of consciousness at the spot where it vanished, exactly like the dream creatures created by the Dream Weavers."

Chen Xuan leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a while.

"I should have thought of that sooner," he said. "The Dreamweavers Society has been able to operate in the Dream Continent for three thousand years; it's impossible for them to have no roots in the real world. There must be people from their ranks within the association, and more than one."

"What should we do?"

"We can't alert them." Chen Xuan opened his eyes. "If we conduct a public investigation within the association, the mole will hide even better, and might even destroy evidence, escape, or harm someone. We need to investigate secretly."

"How do I check?"

"You've just returned, no one will suspect you," Chen Xuan said. "Use your extended perception and form perception to 'scan' everyone in the association headquarters. Find all those who aren't human. Don't disturb them, just record them. Once you find them, we'll deal with them one by one."

Lin Ye nodded.

"From when?"

"Now."

Lin Ye walked out of Chen Xuan's ward and slowly strolled down the corridor.

His perception extended to its fullest extent, with form perception like a thin membrane covering it. Everyone who passed by him was perceived as having two layers—an outer layer of physical body and an inner layer of consciousness. Most people's consciousness structure was normal, like a warm ball of light, varying in form but the same in essence.

But there are some differences.

As he walked through the office area, a young woman sitting at her workstation caught his attention. Her outer layer was normal—twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, long hair, glasses, and wearing the association's blue uniform. But her inner layer was wrong. A normal consciousness should be fluid, warm, like living water. Her inner layer, however, was solidified, cold, like a stone.

Lin Ye didn't stop. He continued walking, pretending to be looking for a restroom.

His form perception gave him more details—the woman's consciousness structure wasn't "human," but rather a tightly compressed dream creature encased in a human-like shell. The person who created this shell was highly skilled; if Lin Ye hadn't just returned from the Dream Continent and his form perception hadn't been at its sharpest, he wouldn't have noticed it at all.

One. Lin Ye noted it down in his mind.

He walked to the cafeteria. It was afternoon tea time, and there were about a dozen people in the cafeteria. Lin Ye queued up and bought a cup of coffee, then slowly walked to a corner and sat down, using his extended senses to scan everyone.

There are two unusual things happening in the cafeteria.

One was a chef, a plump man in his fifties, stir-frying vegetables. His inner layer was a low-level dream creature, compressed into a small sphere, embedded in the center of the consciousness structure. The other was a cleaning lady, around sixty years old, hunched over, wiping the table. Her inner layer was more complex—not a single creature, but three, intertwined like a three-strand braid.

That makes three.

After finishing his coffee, Lin Ye threw the cup into the trash can and walked out of the cafeteria.

Next was the training room. There were people training inside—two young dreamers were practicing sparring. Lin Ye stood at the door for a while, scanning them and their coach with his extended perception.

The coach is normal. One of the two trainees is not normal.

His inner layer was a dream creature the size of a book page, compressed so deeply that it was almost integrated with normal consciousness. If one's perception of form weren't so precise, it would be completely invisible.

Four.

Lin Ye searched every corner of the association's headquarters—the office area, medical room, warehouse, equipment room, lounge, and even the restrooms. He discovered seven anomalies in total.

Seven traitors within the Dreamweaver Society.

They were distributed across different departments of the association—there were administrative staff, logistics personnel, technical analysts, and even one field hunter. They were very well disguised; their daily work was no different from that of normal people. They spoke, laughed, ate, and argued—everything was seamless. If it weren't for Lin Ye's ability to see through consciousness structures, no one would ever have discovered them.

He returned to Chen Xuan's ward and wrote the list on a piece of paper.

"Seven." Chen Xuan looked at the paper, his face grim. "Seven traitors. The association's East China branch only has a little over two hundred people. Seven traitors is too high a ratio."

"Their inner layers are all dream creatures," Lin Ye said. "It's not that people are being controlled, it's that creatures are wearing human skin. The real person may no longer be there."

Chen Xuan's fingers tightened slightly.

"It has been replaced."

"right."

Chen Xuan folded the paper and stuffed it into his pocket.

"I'll handle it," he said, "but not now. We need to figure out their purpose for infiltrating. Is it surveillance? Sabotage? Or are they waiting for some instructions?"

"I can track them," Lin Ye said. "My sensory extension won't be detected. My form perception can see through their disguises, but they won't feel me watching them."

"It's too dangerous."

"It's safer than letting them stay in the association," Lin Ye said. "Captain Chen, I'm not afraid of danger. What I'm afraid of is not knowing anything."

Chen Xuan looked into Lin Ye's eyes and remained silent for a long time.

"Okay," he said, "but you promise me you'll only follow, not act. If you find anything unusual, tell me immediately, and don't do anything yourself."

I promise you.

Lin Ye left the ward and began his first act of surveillance.

The first target was the young woman sitting in the office area.

Her name was Fang Qing, a clerk in the logistics department, responsible for purchasing supplies. Lin Ye checked her work records—she joined the association three years ago and had always performed well, with no abnormalities. But Lin Ye's perception of form didn't lie. Her inner self was cold, solidified, and not human.

Lin Ye sat in the lounge opposite the office area, pretending to look at his phone. His senses extended through the wall, locking onto Fang Qing's every move.

Fang Qing was typing. Her fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, no different from a normal office worker. But every fifteen minutes or so, she would stop, look up, and gaze towards the corridor—not at any particular person, but at the door at the end of the corridor. That door led to the second basement level, to the location of the teleportation array.

She was observing the frequency of use of the teleportation array.

Lin Ye noted this detail down.

He followed Fang Qing all day. After get off work, Fang Qing packed her things, left the association headquarters, and took a bus. Lin Ye followed her in a taxi.

The bus drove for about twenty minutes before stopping at the entrance of a residential compound in the west of the city. Fang Qing got off the bus and walked into the compound. Lin Ye bought a bottle of water at a convenience store across the street, stood at the entrance, and extended his senses to follow her.

She walked into a residential building, went up to the sixth floor, and entered room 602.

Then her consciousness structure changed.

That outer shell of human consciousness peeled away, like a garment being removed. What was inside was revealed—a black, writhing dream creature, slowly moving through the room. It had no fixed shape, flowing like a liquid across the floor, from the living room to the bedroom, from the bedroom to the kitchen, and then stopping in front of the window.

It looked out the window.

Lin Ye stood at the entrance of the convenience store, holding a water bottle in his hand, without looking up.

But his perception extended and he saw everything.

The dream creature stood by the window for about five minutes, then shrank back into the room, donning its human form once more. Fang Qing's "body" reappeared, went to the kitchen, and began cooking.

She is cooking.

A dreamlike creature, dressed in human skin, is chopping vegetables, turning on the stove, and stir-frying in the kitchen. The range hood hums, and the oil in the pan splatters and crackles.

Lin Ye took a sip of water, then turned and left.

He didn't continue tracking. Chen Xuan had said he would only track, not act.

But a question kept popping into his mind—what were these moles waiting for?

Back at the association headquarters, Lin Ye reported Fang Qing's whereabouts to Chen Xuan.

"She's observing the teleportation array," Chen Xuan said. "The Dream Weavers want to know how frequently and how many of us enter the Dream Continent. They're assessing our defensive capabilities."

"and then?"

"Then they'll strike when they're at their weakest," Chen Xuan said. "Not at the association headquarters—they don't have the capability. Their target is the fragment. It's you."

Lin Ye remained silent for a few seconds.

"So they sent in seven moles, not to sabotage the association, but to keep an eye on me."

"That's right," Chen Xuan said. "After you returned from the Dream Continent, the power of the fragments remained within you. To the Dream Weavers, you are a ready-made target. They don't need to wait for the fragments to attach themselves to someone else; you're right here."

"What should I do then?"

"Don't go out alone," Chen Xuan said. "Stay in crowded places as much as possible. Don't go to secluded places. Don't go home alone at night."

"I can't live at headquarters."

"Okay," Chen Xuan said. "I'll arrange a room for you. It's next to the medical room, with surveillance cameras and alarms. Dr. Jiang will also be there tonight."

Lin Ye thought for a moment and nodded.

He didn't want to live here. But Chen Xuan was right, safety comes first.

That night, Lin Ye lay in the room next to the medical room, staring at the ceiling.

The room was small, containing a bed, a table, and a wardrobe. The windows were closed, with only a vent. The door had an electronic lock, and only Chen Xuan, Dr. Jiang, and he himself had keys.

His senses extended throughout the entire room and hallway. Nothing unusual.

But he couldn't sleep.

He took out his phone and flipped to the photo Gu Yan had sent him—the one of his father standing on the misty coast.

Lin Yuan.

His father.

A person he had never met, but who had sacrificed everything for him.

Lin Ye placed her phone next to her pillow and closed her eyes.

He tried to sense the "still active" consciousness energy—Dr. Jiang said that when the seal was broken, six streams of consciousness energy were released. One of them matched his DNA.

His father is still alive.

Somewhere.

Lin Ye tried to extend his senses to search. But he knew it was useless; his senses only extended 150 meters, while his father's consciousness might be thousands of kilometers away, perhaps in some corner of the dream continent, or somewhere in the real world.

He needs to be more capable.

He needs an upgrade.

Lin Ye opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

He will continue training tomorrow.

It's not for the Dream Weaver Club.

It's not for sealing.

It was to find his father.

The next morning, Lin Ye went to the training room.

Chen Xuan was already waiting there, wearing his training uniform, and looked much better than yesterday.

"Your goal today is to learn to control chapter-level abilities," he said. "Your fragment level has reached chapter level, but you don't yet know how to use chapter-level abilities. Form perception is currently your only chapter-level ability, but it's only supplementary. You need offensive chapter-level abilities."

"How do I obtain it?"

"Devour," Chen Xuan said. "But you're at the association headquarters now, so there are no dream creatures for you to devour. So today we won't practice devouring, we'll practice control."

He walked to the center of the training room and took out a white metal plate from his pocket.

"This is a specially made training tool. It simulates the rules of a chapter-level dream creature. You need to use rule interference to break it."

Lin Ye took the metal piece and placed it on his palm.

A flash of white light.

He entered a virtual dream—not a real dream, but a training space constructed from metal plates. The space was empty, just a vast white void.

Then, something appeared in the void.

A giant eye.

It wasn't a human eye. It was a golden eye, at least two meters in diameter, with vertically slit pupils. It hovered in the void, staring at Lin Ye.

[Simulation Target: Chapter-Level - Eye of Insight]

[Rule: It can see through all your thoughts. Whatever you think of, it will attack that location the instant you think of it.]

Lin Ye tried not to think about it.

But the more he tried not to think about it, the more he thought about it. A thought flashed through his mind—"left side." The pupil of his Eye of Insight suddenly contracted, and a golden light shot out from it, striking Lin Ye's left side. He barely dodged, but his clothes were burned with a hole.

[Rule analysis in progress—]

The weakness of the Eye of Insight is that it can only attack the location you are currently thinking about. If you can think about two locations simultaneously, its attack will split and its power will be halved.

Lin Ye gave it a try.

He was thinking about both the "left" and the "right" at the same time.

The Eye of Insight shot out two golden beams, one to the left and one to the right, their power indeed halved. The two beams struck two locations in the void, leaving two shallow marks.

But Lin Ye needed more than just to distract its attacks. He needed to break it down.

He kept thinking. He thought of three positions at once. Four positions. Five positions.

The Eye of Insight's attacks became increasingly scattered, the golden light thinner and thinner, and its power weaker and weaker. By the seventh position, the golden light had become as thin as needles, leaving almost no trace when it struck the void.

Lin Ye rushed forward.

He didn't think about any position.

He wasn't thinking about "location," but rather "non-existence."

The rule of the Eye of Insight is "attack where you are thinking of." If you don't think of any location, it won't know where to attack.

But it's impossible to "not think about any position." The human brain is generating thoughts every moment.

Unless—you interfere with the rules, creating a "blank area" in your own consciousness. It's not that you don't want to, but that you temporarily block out the act of "thinking".

Lin Ye closed his eyes and created a wall in his mind.

On one side of the wall is "thinking," and on the other side is "not thinking." He pushed all his thoughts to one side of the wall, leaving the other side blank.

The Eye of Insight was stunned.

It cannot find its target.

In the instant it froze, Lin Ye's hand pierced through its pupil.

[Breaking the Rules - Chapter-Level Insight (Simulation)]

Training complete.

The white light disappeared. Lin Ye returned to the training room.

Chen Xuan looked at him with an expression Lin Ye had never seen before—not surprise, but relief.

"You did it," he said. "You created a 'blank area' in your own consciousness. This is a power only the master of dreams possesses."

"I just blocked the thought."

"Blocking thoughts is harder than controlling dreams," Chen Xuan said. "Thoughts are the source of consciousness. If you can block thoughts, it means you can control the underlying layers of consciousness. Many people practice their whole lives and still can't do it."

Lin Ye looked down at his palm.

The blue mark is brighter than before.

[Fragment Evolution: Chapter-level (3%) → Chapter-level (7%)]

[Gained Ability: Mind Blocking (Can temporarily block specific thoughts, resisting mind-reading attacks)]

He clenched his fist.

I'm one step closer to my father.