Dream Ghost

At 8:55 a.m. the next morning, Su Wanning's white SUV stopped right downstairs at Lin Ye's building.

Lin Ye opened the car door and got in, finding a cup of coffee and a paper bag on the passenger seat.

"Breakfast," Su Wanning said. "I don't know what you're drinking, but it's an Americano, without sugar."

"Thank you." Lin Ye took the coffee. Inside the paper bag was a sandwich, still warm.

The car started and headed towards the outskirts of the city. Lin Ye ate breakfast while observing the route—it wasn't going to the city center, nor to the shantytown from last night. The car passed through the main urban area, got on the ring road, and drove for another twenty minutes before exiting at what looked like an abandoned industrial park.

"Is the association headquarters in a place like this?" Lin Ye asked.

"What do you think? A downtown office building?" Su Wanning glanced at him. "The things we deal with aren't suitable for ordinary people to see."

The car stopped in front of a drab four-story building. There were no signs on the outside, the paint was peeling, and the windows were covered in dust, making it look like it had been abandoned for at least ten years. But Lin Ye noticed that the two crooked trees in front of the building were symmetrical, the tire tracks on the ground were fresh, and—his extended senses told him that there were a large number of human heat sources ten meters underground.

"Underground?" he asked.

Su Wanning raised an eyebrow: "Not bad perception. Let's go."

She led Lin Ye into the building, through a long corridor, and pushed open a door at the end that looked like a storage room. Behind the door was no storage, but an elevator. Su Wanning pressed the elevator button; there was no floor display, only a fingerprint recognition panel.

She pressed her thumb, and the panel lit up with a green light.

"New applicant registration, recommended by Su Wanning," she said to the air.

"Received. Welcome, Commissioner Su Wanning." A mechanical female voice came from the elevator. "Accompanying person's identity verification in progress... Lin Ye, Awakened One, first visitor. Please proceed with iris scan."

A scanning window popped up on the elevator wall. Lin Ye glanced at Su Wanning, who nodded. He leaned closer, and a blue light swept over it.

"Identity confirmed. Welcome to the Nightmare Hunter Association, East China Branch."

The elevator began to descend.

Lin Ye felt a slight sense of weightlessness, which lasted for about seven or eight seconds. When the door opened again, the scene before him had completely changed.

The underground space was enormous, at least the size of two football fields. The ceiling was high, illuminated by bright but not glaring white fluorescent lights. The space was divided into different areas—to the left was a training field where people were doing physical training; to the right were rows of workstations where people were working at computers; directly in front was a huge electronic screen displaying various data in real time: case number, status, priority, responsible hunter…

"This isn't some underground organization," Lin Ye said.

"We've never been an underground organization." Su Wanning led him out of the elevator. "We're a global organization, just not open to the public. The Nightmare Hunter Association has branches in thirty-seven countries, with its headquarters in Switzerland. The East China branch is responsible for dream creature incidents in six provinces and one municipality in eastern China."

How many people are there?

"There are currently forty-seven registered Dream Enterers in the East China branch. There are about two hundred logistics, analysis, and support personnel." Su Wanning paused, "But fewer than twenty are actually available for field missions."

Why?

"Because entering a dream is risky," a voice came from the side.

Lin Ye turned his head and saw Chen Xuan walking over from the other end of the corridor. He wasn't wearing a jacket today, but a dark blue uniform with the "eyes holding the moon" emblem embroidered on his chest.

"Being killed in a dream means dying in reality." Chen Xuan walked up to Lin Ye. "Not everyone is willing to take this risk, nor is everyone capable of taking it."

"But you have forty-seven dreamers."

"Forty-seven people have the talent to enter dreams," Chen Xuan corrected. "Most of them only handle auxiliary tasks, such as dream analysis and rule deduction. Including you, there are fewer than ten who actually dare to enter dreams and confront those things head-on."

Lin Ye noticed that he said "plus you".

"I haven't decided to join yet," Lin Ye said.

Chen Xuan looked at him without saying a word. Su Wanning stood beside him, also silent.

The three of them remained silent for about five seconds.

"Let's take a look first," Chen Xuan said, turning around. "We'll talk about it after we've seen it."

He led Lin Ye through the office area to a door. The door had an electronic lock; Chen Xuan swiped his card, and the door opened.

Inside was a small room, the walls covered with photos and written materials, resembling a case analysis room. But Lin Ye's attention was drawn to something in the very center of the room—

A transparent container, about the height of a person, contained a cloud of black substance suspended inside.

It had no fixed shape, resembling a plume of smoke, slowly churning and writhing within the container. It was very similar to the Fear Hunter that Lin Ye had devoured last night, but larger, more… “active.” The moment Lin Ye’s senses reached it, a word flashed through his mind: hunger.

It was watching them. Not with its eyes, but in some more primal way.

"What is this?" Lin Ye asked.

"The dream creature we captured," Chen Xuan said, "is a page-level being, codenamed 'Time Eater.' Its ability is to accelerate the passage of time within dreams, allowing the dreamer to experience decades of life in their sleep, causing their mind to age rapidly."

"Why not remove it?"

"Because we're studying it." Chen Xuan walked to the container. "We need to understand the structure of dream creatures in order to eliminate them more effectively. This Time Eater took us more than half a year to capture. Its rules are very special and will help us understand the structure of dreams."

Lin Ye stared at the black substance. A strange sensation came from his right palm—not pain, not heat, but a kind of…craving. Like a person who had been starving for a long time smelling food.

His mark is that he "wants" to devour this thing.

Lin Ye put his hands in his pockets, forcing himself to look away.

"Your ability will 'crave'," Chen Xuan noticed his movement, his tone calm. "That's normal. But you can't eat it now. A fragment at the page level can't swallow a creature at the page level. If you force it, you'll suffer a backlash."

How did you know?

"Because we've all studied your situation." Chen Xuan turned to look at him. "Su Wanning submitted a report last night, and headquarters analyzed it overnight. Your 'Dream Devouring' ability has no record in the association's database. You are unique."

That word again. Unique.

Lin Ye disliked this word. In psychology, "unique" often means "unclassifiable," and "unclassifiable" often means "dangerous."

"So what do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Training," Chen Xuan said, "First, learn to control your abilities. You can currently sense a range of ten meters, but your perception accuracy is very poor. You can only distinguish 'whether there is someone,' not 'what kind of person.' You can devour lower-level creatures, but you don't understand the deeper logic of rule analysis, so you'll suffer when you encounter a slightly stronger opponent."

"How long will the training last?"

"It depends on your talent," Chen Xuan said. "It could be a month if you're quick, or half a year if you're slow."

"and then?"

"Then you will become a true Dream Enterer." Chen Xuan looked at him. "You will receive missions to infiltrate other people's dreams and eliminate those who feed on fear. You will save people and face death. Your abilities will grow stronger and stronger, you will devour more and more high-level creatures, and you will become the Association's sharpest blade."

"Sounds very good," Lin Ye said. "What's the price?"

Chen Xuan remained silent for a few seconds.

"The price is that the more fear you consume, the less human you become," he said. "Dream creatures are essentially condensations of fear and negative emotions. When you eat them, you're absorbing those things into your body. It's fine in the short term, but in the long run... your personality, your emotions, your way of thinking will all be affected by those things."

Lin Ye did not speak.

"That's why we need you to undergo training," Su Wanning said from the side. "It's not about teaching you how to fight, it's about teaching you to guard your own mind. Don't let those things control you."

The room was silent for a few seconds.

The black substance inside the container churned slowly, as if listening to their conversation.

"There's one more question," Lin Ye said. "Have you found out who made those things?"

Chen Xuan and Su Wanning exchanged a glance.

"No," Chen Xuan said, "but we have clues. The people who were attacked have one thing in common—they all participated in an online psychological test."

"What test?"

"An app called 'Dream Depth'." Su Wanning took out his phone, opened an interface, and handed it to Lin Ye. "It was launched three months ago and has a huge number of downloads. We checked, and the development company is a shell company registered overseas. But the data flow points to China."

Lin Ye took the phone and quickly browsed the app's introduction page.

"Explore the depths of your subconscious," "Discover the side of yourself you don't know," "Professional dream analysis and psychological assessment"—standard psychological gimmick copywriting. But Lin Ye noticed a detail: this test has 108 questions and takes nearly 20 minutes to complete. Ordinary users simply wouldn't have the patience to finish it, unless… it collected some specific psychological characteristics during the test.

"It's filtering," Lin Ye said.

"What?"

"This test," Lin Ye looked up, "has 108 questions. A normal person would give up before finishing. Those who can persevere and finish it must be people with a certain psychological type—for example, people who are prone to nightmares, or people who are easily influenced by suggestion, or... people with weak subconscious defense mechanisms."

Chen Xuan narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Go on."

"If my guess is correct, then this app isn't creating victims," ​​Lin Ye said. "It's filtering 'suitable containers.' Those who are attacked aren't randomly selected, but rather 'marked' by this test."

Su Wanning's expression changed.

"You mean, the people who create dream creatures have a list?" she asked.

"There's more than one list." Lin Ye looked at her. "They have a psychological profile of each person. They know who is most prone to fear, whose nightmares are most likely to invade, and whose subconscious is most vulnerable."

"And you're on that list too," Chen Xuan said.

Lin Ye nodded.

"Because I've taken this test."

The three of them fell silent again.

The black substance in the container suddenly churned violently, as if it had sensed something.

Chen Xuan was the first to react. He quickly walked to the control panel by the wall and brought up an interface. The screen displayed a map, densely marked with red and green dots.

"What's wrong?" Su Wanning asked.

Chen Xuan did not answer. His gaze was fixed on a location on the map—east of the city, less than ten kilometers away.

A red dot of light is flashing.

"Alert." Chen Xuan's voice turned serious. "A dream creature invasion has occurred in the east of the city. Level... Page Level."

He turned to look at Lin Ye.

"Didn't you want to 'take a look'?" he said. "Now you have an opportunity."

Lin Ye stared at the flashing red dot.

The mark on his palm was slightly warm.

"Let's go," he said.