Dream Ghost

The gray-green markings on Lin Ye's wrist became the top topic of conversation at the association headquarters for the next three days. People discussed them while holding their lunchboxes in the cafeteria, whispered among themselves in the corridors, and even the nerdy guys in the technical analysis room who usually only stared at data screens came over to look. Zhou Zhou even applied for two scans, wanting to analyze the composition of the markings, but Lin Ye refused. "It's not a thing, it's a person." Zhou Zhou pushed up his glasses, wanting to say, "But it doesn't have the characteristics of human consciousness," but he swallowed the words back, because he could indeed sense something from those markings—not consciousness, but emotion, a very faint sadness, like leftover tea.

The veins were grayish-green on the first day, like newly sprouting grass in spring. On the second day, they turned dark green, like summer leaves. On the third day, they began to turn yellow, like autumn ginkgo leaves. Lin Yuanzhou said it experienced all four seasons in one night—a season it hadn't experienced in three thousand years—it didn't know the world had colors. It thought the world was grayish-green because it had lived in a grayish-green space for three thousand years, and grayish-green was all it knew.

Every morning, Lin Ye would go to Lin Yuanzhou's room and sit for a while, extending his wrist so the old man could see the changes in the lines on it. Lin Yuanzhou would look at it for a long time each time, without saying a word. On the third day, he finally spoke.

"It turned yellow."

"Um."

"It's learning," Lin Yuanzhou's voice was a little hoarse, "learning how to live."

Lin Ye looked down at the yellowing lines on his wrist. They flowed slowly beneath his skin, like an autumn river with fallen leaves floating on its surface. He felt a faint emotion emanating from the depths of the lines—not sadness, not fear, but a fresh, steaming curiosity, like freshly baked bread.

It wanted to know what yellow was. It wanted to know what autumn was. It wanted to know what fallen leaves were.

Lin Ye gently touched the pattern with his finger, and the yellow area brightened as if in response.

"It likes you very much," Lin Yuanzhou said.

"It had no choice. I am the first person it has encountered in three thousand years."

"The first one is enough." Lin Yuanzhou turned around and looked at the sky outside the window. The sky was very blue today, without any clouds, like a piece of washed blue glass. "When the first generation separated it, they didn't give it a name. It only had a code name—'Negative.' Later, everyone called it that. It called itself that too. But it's not negative. It's just an existence that was separated and didn't know what to call it."

Lin Ye looked down at the lines on his wrist. The yellow area was slowly deepening, changing from light yellow to golden yellow, like the color of the setting sun.

"What do you want to be called?" he asked.

The pattern lit up briefly. Not flashed, but brightened, like someone in the dark suddenly being asked their name, pausing for a moment, and then desperately trying to remember.

After a long time, it provided the answer. It wasn't language, but a feeling. Lin Ye translated that feeling into two words.

"Autumn Leaves".

Lin Yuanzhou turned his head and looked at the golden pattern on Lin Ye's wrist.

"Autumn Leaves," he repeated, a slight smile playing on his lips. "A good name."

The moment Qiu Ye heard her name, her entire wrist lit up. It wasn't just a partial glow; the entire line from her wrist to her elbow illuminated, like a lit LED strip. Golden light filtered through Lin Ye's skin, casting dappled shadows on the room's walls. Lin Yuanzhou gazed at those shadows, a complex expression appearing on his aged face—not relief, not sadness, but a deeper, more profound sense of nostalgia, as if he were seeing something long forgotten.

"When the first generation peeled it off, it was also autumn," he said. "The ginkgo leaves outside the window were turning yellow. It remembers that color."

Lin Ye didn't speak. He looked at the autumn leaf on his wrist, its golden light shining quietly beneath his skin, like a lamp that would never go out.

After leaving Lin Yuanzhou's room, Lin Ye went to the training room.

Su Wanning was already inside. She was wearing that dark gray bodysuit, silver threads hanging from her fingertips, slowly floating in the air. She wasn't training; she was just standing there, eyes closed, as if listening to something. She opened her eyes when Lin Ye walked in.

"Is it called Autumn Leaf?" she asked.

"Lin Yuanzhou told you?"

"Everyone in the cafeteria is talking about it. Zhou Zhou said it." Su Wanning walked over and looked at the golden pattern on his wrist. "It's beautiful. Like autumn."

The autumn leaf brightened slightly. It was responding. Su Wanning's lips twitched slightly. She reached out and gently touched the golden leaf with her fingertips. Just like last time, the autumn leaf flinched for a moment upon her touch, then slowly unfolded, as if testing—who is this person? Is she friendly? Can she be trusted?

"It's getting to know you," Lin Ye said.

"I know." Su Wanning withdrew her hand. "It's smelling my scent."

Lin Ye was taken aback.

"smell?"

"The consciousness's 'smell' isn't through its nose. It's through its consciousness. It's touching my consciousness with its own, like a dog sniffing its own kind." Su Wanning looked at her fingertips. "It's very gentle. It doesn't seem like something that's lived for three thousand years."

"It has lived for three thousand years, but the time it truly 'lived' was only three days." Lin Ye walked to the center of the training room. "For the first three thousand years, it wasn't living, it was just enduring."

Su Wanning remained silent for a few seconds. Silver threads extended from her fingertips, weaving a fine net in the training room. Not a training net, but a perception net—she was using the threads to scan Qiu Ye's consciousness structure.

"It has no hierarchy," she said suddenly. "It's not a dream creature, not human consciousness, not anything I've ever seen before. It's a... container. Empty. There's nothing inside."

"Because it gave everything away," Lin Ye said. "Three thousand years ago, when the first generation extracted it, they stuffed fear, anger, and despair into it. It held that for three thousand years. Now, those things have been absorbed by Lin Yuanzhou's seal. It's empty."

What happens if it's empty?

"It will start all over again." Lin Ye looked down at the golden color on his wrist. "Like a newborn baby. It has to learn everything from scratch. Colors, smells, sounds, temperatures. Today it learned 'yellow.' Tomorrow it will learn 'blue.' The day after tomorrow it will learn 'red.' After learning colors, it will learn shapes. After learning shapes, it will learn sounds. There are so many things it has to learn."

"Do you have the patience to teach it?"

"It has the patience to learn. I also have the patience to teach." Lin Ye reached out and gently touched an autumn leaf with his fingertips. The golden leaf brightened, like a person smiling.

As Su Wanning watched this scene, something flickered in her eyes. It wasn't the light of tears, but a warmer light, like that of a winter fireplace. She retracted the silk thread, walked to a corner of the training room, picked up her water glass, and took a sip.

"Let's train," she said. "You missed three days. Captain Chen said he'll make up for them."

"How to replenish it?"

"I'll play for twelve hours today."

Lin Ye looked at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Will you hit me or should I?"

"I'll attack. You defend, I'll attack. You can only dodge, you can't fight back." Su Wanning put down his water glass, and silver threads flew from his fingertips, weaving a dense net in the air. "I'll use these threads to block all your escape routes. You can only hide in the net. If you can't dodge, you'll be hit. It won't be my fists hitting you, it will be the threads. Threads hurt a lot."

"You've fought before?"

"Yes, I've been hit. Captain Chen had me practice." Su Wanning cracked his knuckles. "He said that if my silk threads could only detect but not attack, it would be a waste. So I practiced silk thread attacks for three years. You're the first person to get hit."

Lin Ye didn't ask, "Why me?" He knew why. Because Su Wanning wouldn't attack others. She had practiced her silk thread attacks for three years but had never used them in actual combat. Not because she was unskilled, but because she didn't want to hurt anyone. But now she was going to hurt someone. Because she knew that if Lin Ye encountered danger inside the World Tree, what could save him wouldn't be her detection, but her attack.

"Come on." Lin Ye assumed a defensive stance.

Su Wanning's silk threads moved. They didn't fly over, they "fell." Like rain, they fell from the sky, dense and numerous, each one aimed precisely at Lin Ye's body. Lin Ye's senses extended to their fullest extent, capturing the trajectory of each thread. His body moved swiftly among the threads, dodging left and right, crouching, leaping. The silver threads grazed past his ears, shoulders, waist, and knees, each time narrowly missing him.

A thread hit his forearm.

It hurt. Not the pain of flesh and skin, but the pain of fine needles piercing bone. Su Wanning was right, the silk threads hurt a lot. Lin Ye gritted his teeth, not crying out. He increased his movement speed, but the silk threads also sped up. Su Wanning stood outside the net, her hands moving rapidly in front of her, like a conductor directing an orchestra. Under her direction, her silver silk threads precisely tracked Lin Ye's every move; he moved left, the threads moved left; he moved right, the threads moved right.

The second thread struck his back. The third struck his shoulder. The fourth struck his knee.

Lin Ye squatted on the ground, clutching his calf. There was a red welt there, as if he had been whipped.

"You cried?" Su Wanning asked.

"No," Lin Ye's voice was a little muffled, "It hurts too much."

"Bear with it." Su Wanning's voice was flat, but her eyes betrayed her. She was heartbroken, but she wouldn't stop. She couldn't stop.

Lin Ye stood up and resumed his defensive stance.

Su Wanning's silk thread fell again.

For four hours that morning, Lin Ye endured forty-seven blows. Each red mark resembled a thin snake, coiling around his arms, back, thighs, and calves. He didn't cry out, didn't beg for mercy, and didn't say "stop." Su Wanning didn't stop either. Her silver threads flew from morning until noon, until Lin Ye could no longer stand up.

He lay on the training room floor, panting heavily. His workout clothes were soaked with sweat, clinging to his skin, sticky and cold. Su Wanning walked over, squatted down beside him, and reached out to gently touch the red marks on his arm.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"You just hit me forty-seven times, and now you're asking me if it hurts?"

"You shouldn't have asked. If you had, you would have softened your heart. And if you softened your heart, you wouldn't have been able to continue fighting." Su Wanning's voice was very soft. "If you can't continue fighting, you won't be able to practice."

Lin Ye looked at her. There was a thin layer of tears in her eyes, but they didn't fall. He sat up from the floor and stretched his arm, which had been slapped red.

"I've practiced enough," he said. "Out of forty-seven attempts, I dodged twenty-three. My accuracy dropped from sixty percent to forty-nine percent. I've improved."

Su Wanning looked into his eyes. There was weariness and pain in those eyes, but no retreat.

"We'll continue this afternoon." She stood up, reeling the thread back into her fingertips. "You can rest at noon. I'll get you lunch."

She left. Lin Ye lay alone on the training room floor, staring at the ceiling. The fluorescent lights cast white spots of light in his eyes, like shapeless clouds. Autumn leaves flowed slowly across his wrist, their golden light flickering like breath.

"Are you worried about me?" Lin Ye asked softly.

The autumn leaves shone brightly.

"No need. She hit me for my own good. Hitting me teaches me to dodge. Dodging is the only way to survive. And surviving is the only way to show you more colors."

The autumn leaf lit up again. This time, its light wasn't golden, but a very pale pink, like cherry blossoms. Lin Ye stared at that pink, momentarily stunned. He didn't know when the autumn leaf had learned "pink," nor where it had learned it from. Perhaps it had stolen it from Su Wanning's consciousness when she touched it earlier.

"You stole her color?" Lin Ye asked.

The autumn leaves didn't shine. They were playing dead.

Lin Ye smiled. This was the first time he had smiled in so many days. It wasn't a bitter smile, nor a smile of relief, but a very faint smile, like a spring breeze.

When Su Wanning returned with the tray, she saw Lin Ye sitting against the wall, eyes closed, a smile still playing on his lips. She didn't call out to him, but placed the tray beside him, then sat down opposite him, closing her eyes as well. The training room was quiet, save for the hum of the fluorescent lights and the soft breathing of the two of them.

The autumn leaves shone quietly on Lin Ye's wrist, their golden light spreading a warm patch between the two shadows. It was learning. Learning how humans interact—not speaking, not getting close, not touching, but neither leaving.