Dream Ghost

The training room lights were dimmed to their lowest setting. Not dark, but a deep blue, almost twilight, like the color a diver sees at a depth of fifty meters. Lin Ye sat cross-legged in the center of the room, his hands resting on his knees, palms facing upwards, the deep purple marks on his skin glowing faintly in the dim blue light. His breathing was slow, his heart rate had dropped to forty-five beats per minute, and his consciousness had sunk into Qiu Ye's rule library.

Twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven rules. He used three yesterday, and today he'll learn one. Not "memorize," but "learn." Memorizing is like carving words into stone; learning is like turning stone into a part of yourself. He closed his eyes and mentally opened the first page of the Autumn Leaf Rule Library.

The first rule wasn't written by Qiu Ye, but by the first generation of Night Watchmen. The text of the rule wasn't words, but symbols—a circle, a vertical line, and a dot. The circle represented "the world," the vertical line represented "boundaries," and the dot represented "existence." Together, these three symbols meant "the world is a bounded existence." Lin Ye looked at the combination of symbols, and an image surfaced in his mind—a void, without up, down, left, right, front, back, near, or far. In this void was a circle, its boundary a luminous line. Inside the line was "existence," outside the line was "non-existence." Between existence and non-existence, there was no transition, no gradual change, only a line. That line was the rule.

"The world has its limits," Lin Ye murmured to himself. Not understanding, but internalizing. He etched that rule deep into his consciousness, not with ink, but by "writing the rule." His consciousness traced the text of the rule, once, twice, three times. On the seventh trace, the rule glowed. It was no longer Qiu Ye's rule, but Lin Ye's rule.

He opened his eyes. The dark blue light of the training room lingered in his pupils for a second before slowly dissipating. Su Wanning sat in the corner of the training room, silver threads weaving a fine net around her. She was monitoring his state of consciousness—22% of his consciousness remained, stable. Fragment fluctuations were normal. Qiu Ye remained asleep, unchanged.

"Have you finished learning?" she asked.

"I learned one thing."

"What rules?"

"The world has its limits."

Su Wanning looked at him, waiting for him to continue. Lin Ye stood up, stretched his wrists, walked to the edge of the training room, and stretched out his hand, his fingertips touching the boundary between the dark blue light and the wall. Not a physical boundary, but a boundary of "rules." The boundary of the training room light wasn't the wall, but the air. But he felt it—there was an invisible line between the air and the light. On this side of the line was light, on the other side was air. Two existences, separated by a line.

"I used to only know that rules could be written, woven, and dismantled. But I didn't know why rules existed." Lin Ye withdrew his hand. "Now I know. The meaning of rules is 'division.' Dividing into existence and non-existence, right and wrong, what is possible and what is impossible. Without rules, the world is a pot of porridge. It has everything, and it has nothing. Rules are the walls of the pot, holding the porridge inside and preventing it from overflowing."

Su Wanning looked at him, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.

"You're talking like a philosopher today."

"Qiuye's rule base is full of this kind of thing. The first generation of Night's Watchmen were not warriors, but thinkers. He used rules to explain the world, and then used rules to change the world."

The training room door opened, and Chen Xuan walked in. He was holding a tablet with new monitoring data on the screen. He handed the tablet to Lin Ye, his expression more serious than usual.

"The Dream Weavers have moved again. This time it's not an attack, it's a 'retreat.' They've evacuated all known strongholds. The Third Processing Plant, the Fourth Processing Plant, the liaison station in the east of the city, and the safe house in the west of the city. Everything has been cleared out; not a single person has been left."

Lin Ye took the tablet and looked at the map on the screen. Red markers were flashing, one after another, like lights going out. All seven strongholds were cleared out. Not destroyed, but "actively evacuated." They took everything they could—containers, bottles, runic devices, fragments of consciousness. What they couldn't take was destroyed. The basement of the Third Processing Plant was blown up, the pyramid of the Fourth Processing Plant was shattered by the rules, and the Dream Weaver Society's logo—a circle, a vertical line, and a dot—was left on the wall of the East City Liaison Station.

"Why did they withdraw?" Lin Ye asked.

"I don't know. Maybe they're afraid you'll continue to raid their strongholds. Or maybe—they've gotten what they wanted."

Lin Ye returned the tablet to Chen Xuan. He walked to the window and looked at the sky outside. The sky was blue, cloudless, and a bird flew over the rooftop, its wings shimmering in the sunlight.

"What they want is in me."

Chen Xuan remained silent.

"The third piece, the sixth piece, Qiu Ye, Lin Yuanshan, the Shen family's bloodline. Everything they want is in me. They don't need the stronghold anymore, they don't need the processing plant anymore, they don't need those bottles and containers anymore. They only need me."

Su Wanning's silver thread trembled slightly at her fingertips.

"So what do you plan to do?"

"Wait. Their withdrawal means they're preparing for a final blow. Once they're ready, they'll come for me. Not just the seven Dream Realm Overlords to test me, but all of them together."

Chen Xuan walked over to him and stood side by side with him by the window.

"You can't beat all of them by yourself."

"I'm not alone. You're all here."

Chen Xuan looked at him. Sunlight fell on Lin Ye's profile, clearly outlining his features.

Are you sure?

"Sure."

Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Shen Heting entered; his new body had almost fully recovered, and he no longer needed support to walk. He wore a grey jacket, Chen Xuan's, the sleeves rolled up twice, a bit too long. He walked up to Lin Ye and pulled a coin-sized metal piece from his pocket—not an anchor point, but a "key." It was bronze, engraved with a symbol: a circle, a vertical line, and a dot. Exactly the same symbol as the first generation of Night's Watch members.

"It was left to you by your maternal grandfather." Shen Heting handed the bronze plate to Lin Ye. "It's not mine, it belongs to your mother. Shen Heting carved it for her when she was little. The front has regular symbols, and the back has your mother's name."

Lin Ye flipped the copper plate over. Two characters were engraved on the back—"Shen Ruo." The characters were small, but each stroke was deeply engraved, as if it had been carved many times. Lin Ye's fingers slowly moved over the two characters, stroke by stroke.

Did my mother know she was a descendant of the Night's Watch?

"I know. But she didn't awaken. Shen Heting sealed her fragments when she was born, and she remained an ordinary person her whole life. She never entered the Dream Continent, never saw dream creatures, and never used any abilities. She was just an ordinary person, growing up in an ordinary way, going to university in an ordinary way, meeting your father in an ordinary way, and giving birth to you in an ordinary way."

Lin Ye held the copper piece in his palm. The metal was cool, but not a cold one; it was the kind of cool that comes from being held for many years and slowly warmed by the body temperature. He held it for a long time until the temperature of the copper piece was the same as his body temperature.

Su Wanning walked to his side, not looking at the copper plate, but at his hand. His hand was trembling slightly, not from fear, but from "endurance." Holding back tears. He knew his mother was gone, knew her consciousness was only ten percent intact, knew she had passed away peacefully without pain. But holding the copper plate, he suddenly missed her terribly. He missed her voice, her face, the tone of her voice when she read stories. He remembered nothing, because she was gone when he was born. But the copper plate remembered. The copper plate had been held by her hand, warmed by her body heat. It bore her mark, not a lingering consciousness, but "temperature." A person's body heat remains on things they've held, not forever, but for a long time. Twenty-two years had passed; the warmth on the copper plate should have long since dissipated. But it remained. Faint, but still there.

"Autumn Leaf," Lin Ye called out in his heart.

There was no answer. But the copper plate warmed slightly, like someone reaching out in the dark and touching his palm.

Lin Ye put the copper piece into his pocket and pressed it against his chest. The metal piece quickly warmed up from his body heat, making it hard to tell whether it was the copper piece's temperature or his own.

"Training continues," he said. "We'll learn another rule today."

Chen Xuan looked at him, nodded, and turned to walk towards the training room door. Shen Heting followed him out. Su Wanning walked to the corner of the training room and re-laid out the silver threads. Lin Ye walked back to the center of the training room, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes.

Consciousness sank into the autumn leaves' rule library. Twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven rules. Today, we'll learn the second one.

The second rule wasn't written by the first Night's Watchman, but by Lin Yuanshan. The text of the rule isn't symbols, it's words—"Boundaries aren't for separating, they're for connecting. On either side of the wall are two different worlds. The wall itself connects the two worlds."

Lin Ye stared at the words, and an image surfaced in his mind—a wall, not high, but very long, stretching as far as the eye could see. To the left of the wall was a desert, to the right a grassland. There was no transition between the desert and the grassland, only the wall. The wall wasn't made of bricks, but of "rules." Different symbols were carved on the two sides of the rule-based wall. The left side was "dry," the right side was "wet." Dry and wet were separated by the wall, but the wall itself was both dry and wet. The left side of the wall was dry, the right side was wet. The wall connected dry and wet.

Lin Ye opened his eyes. The dark blue light of the training room lingered in his pupils for a second before slowly dissipating. Su Wanning sat in the corner, silver threads weaving a fine net around her.

"Have you finished learning?" she asked.

"I learned one thing."

"What rules?"

Boundaries are for connecting things.

Su Wanning looked at him, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly.

"You speak like a poet today."

"Lin Yuanshan's rule set is full of this kind of thing. He's not a thinker, he's an architect. He uses rules to build boundaries, and then uses those boundaries to connect the world."

Lin Ye stood up, walked to the wall of the training room, and placed his hand on it. The wall was cement, cool and hard. But his senses extended through the wall, reaching the corridor. Someone passed by in the corridor, their footsteps light. It was Zhou Zhou, holding a coffee and looking down at his phone. The wall separated the training room and the corridor, but it also connected them. Without the wall, the training room and the corridor would be the same space. With the wall, the two spaces were separated, yet connected by the wall. The wall was a boundary, and the boundary was a connection.

He withdrew his hand and turned to look at Su Wanning.

"I see."

"Understand what?"

"Understand how to use the seventh fragment. It's not a key, not something used to open doors. It's a 'boundary.' The first Night Watchman placed the seventh fragment in the Shen family bloodline, not to hide it, but to 'connect.' Bloodlines connect the past and the future, the living and the dead, reality and dreams. The use of the seventh fragment isn't 'activation,' but 'acknowledgment.' Acknowledging the bloodline is the boundary, and the boundary is the connection. Once connected, the door opens."

Su Wanning looked at him without speaking. Her silver threads swayed slightly around her, like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

"How do you plan to 'admit'?"

Lin Ye remained silent for a few seconds. He walked to the center of the training room, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes. His consciousness sank into his bloodline. Not blood vessels, not blood, but "bloodline." Three thousand years ago, the blood of the first generation of Night Watchers flowed in the veins of the Shen family descendants, passed down from generation to generation, to his mother Shen Ruo, to him. There are memories in the bloodline, not memories of consciousness, but memories of the "body." Cells remember, genes remember, every drop of blood remembers.

His consciousness touched something deep within his blood. Not a fragment, but a "point." Tiny, like a speck of dust, suspended in his blood. But it was not dust; it was a "door." The first Night's Watch hid the door in their blood, and the key in their blood as well. The door and the key were the same thing.

Lin Ye's consciousness touched that point.

The training room lights went out. Not just turned off, but "swallowed up." The dark blue light vanished, plunging the training room into complete darkness. Su Wanning's silver threads emitted a faint silver glow in the darkness, like fireflies. Chen Xuan rushed in from the corridor, clutching the anchor point in his hand. Shen Heting followed closely behind him, his steps quick.

"Lin Ye?" Su Wanning's voice rang out in the darkness.

"I'm fine." Lin Ye's voice was steady, but his consciousness was no longer in the training room. He was deep within his bloodline, before that "dot." The dot's color wasn't black, nor white, but a color he had never seen before—like transparency, but transparency wasn't a color. The dot had no color because it wasn't a "thing," it was a "door." A door isn't a thing; a door is "between." Between inside and outside the door.

Lin Ye reached out and touched that spot.

The door opened.

It wasn't a physical opening, but an opening of "consciousness." His consciousness passed through the door to another place. A place he had never been to, yet knew of—the core of the World Tree. Not the trunk, not the roots, but the "seed." When the World Tree was still a seed, the first Night's Watch placed the door here. The seed sprouted, grew into a tree, its roots reaching into reality, its branches extending into dreams. The door remained within the seed, never opened.

It's been three thousand years.

Lin Ye stood inside the seed. The space was small, barely enough for one person. But this "smallness" wasn't physical; it was small according to the "rules." The seed's rule was "small," therefore it was small. If he rewrote the rules—making "small" "large"—the space would expand infinitely. He didn't rewrite them. He stood in that tiny space, looking at the words carved on the wall. Not symbols, not characters, but a "painting." A painting of the World Tree. Not the World Tree as it is now, but what it looked like when it was still a seed. The seed floated in the void, surrounded by no soil, no water, no sunlight. Yet it sprouted. Because it had a "door" inside. The door wasn't an exit, but an "entrance." Light poured in from the door—not sunlight, but the light of the "rules." The light of the rules shone on the seed, and the seed sprouted.

Lin Ye stared at the painting for a long time. Then he turned and walked out the door.

He opened his eyes. The training room lights came back on, the dark blue glow returning to normal. Su Wanning stood before him, silver threads weaving a net around her. Chen Xuan stood in the doorway, holding the anchor point in his hand. Shen Heting stood beside Chen Xuan, his expression calm, but his eyes were shining—not with tears, but with the light of "you've finally found it."

"You went in?" Shen Heting asked.

"We're inside. The seed of the World Tree. The door is inside."

"What did you see?"

"A painting. It depicts the World Tree sprouting."

Shen Heting's lips curled up slightly.

"The first Night's Watch didn't leave you fragments, abilities, or knowledge. It left you a painting. A painting of the World Tree sprouting. He wanted to tell you that seeds can sprout. They don't need soil, water, or sunlight. As long as there's a door, light will come in. And when the light comes in, the seed will sprout."

Lin Ye looked down at his hand. The deep purple mark shimmered faintly in the dark blue light. Deep within his bloodline, that "dot" remained. The door wasn't closed; it didn't need to. The door wasn't about opening and closing; it was about "between." He was between inside and outside the door.