Dream Ghost

Five days to go. Lin Ye didn't go to the training room. He sat on the edge of the association headquarters rooftop, his legs dangling over the edge, his feet resting on the thirty-meter-high building wall and the hazy city in the distance. The morning mist hadn't yet dissipated, and the distant buildings resembled islands floating on a sea of ​​clouds, only their upper halves visible. He wasn't looking at those buildings; he was looking at his own hands. The deep purple mark appeared faint in the morning light, like a faded birthmark. Yesterday, he had met the old man inside the World Tree—a student of the first generation of Night Watchers, who had lived for three thousand years, without a body, only consciousness. He said he had come to see what Lin Ye looked like. After seeing him, he left. Lin Ye thought about it all night, about the old man's light blue eyes, about every word he had said.

"The door is in the rings of a tree, and the rings of a tree are in the future. The future is not time, but 'position'."

Location. Not when, but where. The future isn't a point in time, it's a place. A place that doesn't exist now, but will soon exist. The fourth ring of the World Tree will grow, not on the tree itself, but on "time." Rings are the marks of time, one ring representing a thousand years. The fourth ring represents the period between three and four thousand years. That "between" is the future. Not the distant future, but the future that is about to arrive. The future five days from now.

Su Wanning emerged from behind the door on the rooftop, carrying two cups of coffee. She handed one to Lin Ye, sat down beside him, and dangled her legs over the edge. She didn't look down; instead, she gazed at the sun peeking out after the fog lifted in the distance, like a freshly peeled egg, pale yellow and soft, hanging in the gaps between the buildings.

"You didn't sleep all night," she said.

"I can't sleep."

"Thinking about what that old man said?"

"I'm thinking about location." Lin Ye took a sip of coffee; it was bitter, without sugar. "He said the future isn't about time, it's about location. If the future is location, where is it now? In a place that doesn't exist? Or in a place that exists but we can't see it?"

Su Wanning didn't answer. She placed her coffee cup on the concrete platform between them, freeing her hand to release the silver thread from her fingertips. The thread wasn't woven into a net; it was just a single, long strand that stretched from her fingertips to the edge of the rooftop, then drooped down, swaying gently in the wind like a fishing line.

"When I was a child, I thought about a question," Su Wanning said. "What is the future? It's tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next year, ten years from now. But tomorrow comes and becomes today. The day after tomorrow comes and becomes tomorrow. There's always a 'future' ahead, which you can never reach. Later I thought, the future isn't about time, it's about 'possibility.' What might happen is the future. Whether tomorrow comes or not, the possibility is always there."

Lin Ye looked at her.

"Therefore, the location of the door is not in time, but in 'possibility'."

"Yes. The door is in the fourth ring of the World Tree that it may grow. It may, but it's not certain. The 'possibility' that the Dream Weavers have been waiting for for three thousand years will become a 'certainty' in five days. Because the first generation of Night Watchmen wrote a rule—'The door will open in three thousand years.' Once a rule is written, it will come true. Whether anyone is guarding it or waiting for it, once a rule is written, it will come true."

Lin Ye finished his coffee and placed the cup on the table between the two of them, next to Su Wanning's cup. Two cups, one white, one black. The white one was Su Wanning's, the black one was his. The two cups sat side-by-side on the rooftop, steam still rising from their rims, slowly dissipating in the morning light.

"Su Wanning."

"Um."

Are you scared?

"What are you afraid of?"

"The door will open in five days. I'll go in. You can't. You're outside, you don't know what's happening inside. You can only wait."

Su Wanning gently flicked the silver thread with her finger. The thread swayed more violently in the wind, like a person shaking their head.

"I was afraid. But even if I was afraid, I had to wait. When my father disappeared, I waited for three years. For three years, I didn't know where he was or whether he was alive or dead. Then you found him. Waiting isn't in vain. What you do while waiting won't be in vain."

Lin Ye didn't speak. He reached out and took Su Wanning's hand. Her hand was cool, his was warm. In the morning light on the rooftop, the two temperatures clashed, inseparable.

Chen Xuan leaned halfway out from the stairwell, not coming up, and called out from the bottom of the stairs, "Zhou Zhou has made a new discovery."

Lin Ye and Su Wanning stood up simultaneously and walked down the rooftop. The staircase was long, and the motion-activated lights on each floor lit up with their footsteps, only to turn off behind them. Floor by floor, it was as if someone was paving the way for them in the darkness. In the technical analysis room, Zhou Zhou sat at the control panel, three screens in front of him lit up simultaneously. The screens didn't display data, but a drawing. Black and white, with rough lines, like a child's pencil doodle. But the content of the drawing was not something a child could draw—the World Tree. Trunk, branches, crown, roots. Each part was labeled with coordinates and regular frequencies.

"This is the data Meng Xiaoqing brought back from inside the World Tree," Zhou Zhou said, pointing to the screen. "Although her laptop screen was broken, the memory chip was intact. She collected all the regular structures of the World Tree's bark, and then I used this data to reconstruct the World Tree's 3D model. Look here." He zoomed in on the middle section of the trunk. There was a faint ring of lines there, not the natural texture of the bark, but "growth rings." First ring, second ring, third ring. Next to the third ring, there was a faint dotted line. Not solid, but dotted. Fourth ring.

"The fourth growth ring hasn't grown yet. But the position of the dotted line has been determined. The door will open here." Zhou Zhou tapped the dotted line on the screen with his finger. "The coordinates have been calculated. It's not inside the World Tree, nor outside, but 'in between.' When the door opens, it will be there. When the door closes, it will be gone. It's not fixed; it 'appears.'"

Lin Ye stared at the faint dotted line on the screen. It looked like an unfinished line, missing the final stroke.

"At what time, five days from now?"

"I don't know. The first Night's Watch only wrote 'three thousand years later,' without specifying a time. It could be the beginning of a day, or the end. It could be the middle of a day. Nobody knows."

Lin Ye memorized the coordinates. Not written on paper, but etched into his consciousness. The numbers of the coordinates were arranged in a sequence in his mind, like a string of codes.

Chen Xuan walked to Lin Ye's side and looked at the dotted line on the screen.

"Five days. You have three things to do. First, learn the most crucial rule in the Autumn Leaf Rule Library. Second, find the way to enter after the door opens. Third, prepare for what you will face once you enter. No one knows what lies behind the door. But what the Dream Weaver Society has waited three thousand years for will not be empty."

Lin Ye nodded. He turned and walked out of the technical analysis room into the corridor. The corridor was long, the warm yellow light making the walls look like a golden tunnel. He walked slowly, his steps light, as if afraid of crushing something. Su Wanning followed behind him, neither speaking nor walking fast. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the corridor, one beat after another, like heartbeats.

Lin Ye returned to his room, closed the door, and didn't turn on the light. He lay on the bed, took the copper plate from his pocket, and held it up to his eyes. The copper plate was small, not much larger than a coin. The front had regular symbols, and the back had "Shen Ruo." His mother's Shen Ruo. Shen Ruo, the daughter of the first generation of Night Watchmen. Same name, same blood, same fate. Two names engraved on the same copper plate, separated by three thousand years, held by the same hand.

Lin Ye placed the copper plate against his chest and closed his eyes. His consciousness sank deep into his bloodline, finding that "point." The door was open; he stepped inside and stood within the seed. The space was still so small, with drawings etched on the walls, and beside them, his own words. He walked to the wall, reached out, and pressed his hand against the words—"The seed will sprout." The words were still golden, glowing in the darkness. His palm touched the words, feeling their warmth—not his own, but Qiu Ye's. It had been here. It was still here.

"Autumn Leaf," he called out in his heart.

There was no answer. But the words on the wall lit up. Not light, but "temperature." The temperature inside the seed changed from cool to warm, like a heart that had been held in the palm of one's hand for too long.

"I need you at the door in five days. You promised you'd wake up when I need you."

The wall lit up again. This time it wasn't temperature, but "sound." Not language, but frequency. Qiuye's consciousness vibrated deep within his veins, like a plucked string. The frequency was weak, but steady. He heard it. It was responding. He wasn't awake yet, but he knew.

Lin Ye withdrew his hand, stepped out of the seed, and opened his eyes. The copper plate was still on his chest, slightly warmer than his body temperature. He put the copper plate in his pocket, stood up, and walked to the window. The sky outside was already bright; the sun rose between the tall buildings in the east, dyeing the entire city golden. On the distant streets, more cars and more people were appearing; a new day had begun. The door to five days later opened; he went in, not knowing if he would come out. But that was something he would have to think about five days later. What he needed to think about today was to learn the most core rule in Qiuye's rule library. He didn't know what that rule was, but he knew it was there. In the deepest part of Qiuye's consciousness, at the moment the first generation of Night Watchmen peeled it away. Rules aren't written down; they "grow." Like the rings of a tree, one ring per year, one layer per year. Qiuye's rule library contained 12,990 rules, but the most core one wasn't in the library; it was below it. At the moment Qiuye was peeled away, the first generation of Night Watchmen's tears fell on it, and that warmth was etched into the deepest part of its consciousness. That wasn't a rule, it was an "echo." The regret, reluctance, and helplessness of the first generation of Night's Watchmen were all condensed in that single tear. Autumn Leaf lived with that tear for three thousand years, never wiping it away. Because it knew that if it wiped it away, nothing would remain.

Lin Ye reached out and pressed his hand against the windowpane. The glass was cool, his palm warm. The coolness met the warmth, and a thin layer of fog formed on the glass. He wrote a single character in the fog—"Door." The character quickly disappeared, and the fog dissipated. He turned and walked out of the room, into the corridor, and into the training room.

Su Wanning was already in the training room, silver threads weaving a net around her—not a defensive net, but a "sensory" net. She was monitoring his state of consciousness. She was waiting for him. She did this every day. He trained, she watched over him. He entered the Seed Realm, she watched over him. He returned, and she was still there.

Lin Ye walked to the center of the training room, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes. His consciousness sank into Qiu Ye's rule repository. Twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety rules. He wouldn't learn any of them today. Today, he would find the rule that wasn't in the repository. His consciousness was like a needle, piercing the deepest part of Qiu Ye's consciousness. There was no light, no sound, no rule structure. Only a tear. Transparent, cool, like a pearl sunk to the bottom of the sea. Sealed within the tear was a sound, not language, but a "sigh." The sigh of the first generation of Night Watchmen, very light, like the wind blowing across a distant valley.

Lin Ye's consciousness touched that tear.

His tears shattered. Not shattered, but dissolved. The transparent liquid dissolved in his consciousness, like ink dripping into clear water, staining his entire consciousness a deep blue. Within that deep blue consciousness, an image surfaced—the first Night's Watchman standing beneath the World Tree, holding an autumn leaf in his hand. The leaf glowed in his palm, golden, like a small leaf warmed by the sun. He gazed at it for a moment, then pressed it into the trunk of the World Tree. The leaf sank into the trunk, and his tears welled in his eyes, but did not fall. He held back. He could not cry; he was the Night's Watchman. The Night's Watchman could not cry; crying would soften his heart, softening his heart would lead to hesitation, and hesitation would lead to mistakes. He could not make mistakes. The World Tree needed him, the seal needed him, humanity needed him. He could not cry.

He held back his tears, but couldn't hold back his regret. Regret took root in his consciousness, growing for three thousand years, becoming an invisible tree. The tree had no leaves, no flowers, no fruit. Only roots. Roots were embedded in every decision he made, in every slumber of the autumn leaves, in the three thousand years of waiting at the door. Regret wasn't a negative emotion; regret was "what if." What if he hadn't peeled away the autumn leaves? What if he hadn't entered the World Tree? What if he hadn't left that door? Every "what if" was a thorn, stuck in his heart, impossible to remove.

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. Her face was pale, but her eyes were bright.

"Found it?" she asked.

"Found it. The core rule isn't a rule, it's 'regret.' When the first Night's Watchman peeled away Autumn Leaf, he held back his tears, but he couldn't hold back his regret. Regret took root in his consciousness and grew for three thousand years. Autumn Leaf lived for three thousand years with that thorn. It wasn't that it didn't want to wake up, but that it was afraid that if it did, the first Night's Watchman's regret would be in vain."

Su Wanning looked at him.

"What are you planning to do?"

"Tell Qiuye that her regret wasn't in vain. She lived for three thousand years, guarded for three thousand years, and waited for three thousand years. It wasn't in vain. And now that she's with me, it's not in vain either."

Lin Ye looked down at the gray lines on his wrist. Autumn Leaves were still asleep, their color a little paler than yesterday. But he could feel it—it was dreaming. In the dream, there was a tear, and in the tear, a person. That person stood beneath the World Tree, holding light in their hands. The light was bright, like a small leaf warmed by the sun. That person looked at the light, and the light looked at him. Neither spoke. But they knew this was the last time. They would never see each other again.

In her dream, Qiu Ye reached out, wanting to touch that person's face. Her hand passed through his body, like passing through a wisp of mist. He was no longer human; he was the "Night Watchman." The Night Watchman needs no face, no body, no warmth. He only needs to guard the door.

Qiuye's hand remained suspended in mid-air, not retracted.

The man stared at the hand for a long time. Then he reached out and grasped Qiuye's hand. His fingers were cold, Qiuye's palm was cold. Cold touching cold, devoid of warmth. Yet he held it. For the first time in three thousand years, he had held Qiuye's hand. Not a physical hand, but a hand of consciousness. Once he held it, he wouldn't let go.

Lin Ye felt a warmth spread across the lines on his wrist. Not warm, but scalding. For a fleeting moment, the gray veins of the autumn leaf turned golden, like a small leaf warmed by the sun. Then the gold slowly faded, returning to gray. But it had been warm. It had shone. It remembered.

The countdown has ended after five days. Four days left.