Dream Ghost

Four days to go. Lin Ye stood at the vault door, which was open. Chen Xuan stood behind him, not going in. The vault was quiet, the air cool, carrying the smell of metal and preservatives. Lin Ye walked in, his footsteps echoing in the empty room, each beat like someone striking a distant drum. He didn't look at his father's bottle, nor his mother's. He walked to the innermost shelf, squatted down, and looked at the bottle on the very bottom shelf. The bottle was smaller than the others, and the light inside wasn't blue, gold, or white; it was gray. The same color as Qiu Ye when she slept. The label on the bottle read—"Qiu Ye · Fragment of Consciousness · 97% Completeness".

Yesterday, after the seeds emerged, Lin Ye asked Lin Yuanzhou, "When Qiuye was peeled away, did the first generation of Night Watchmen leave anything behind?" Lin Yuanzhou thought for a long time, then said, "Yes. A tear. When the first generation of Night Watchmen peeled away Qiuye, their tear fell onto the trunk of the World Tree. The trunk absorbed the tear, and the tear turned into fragments. The fragments slept inside the World Tree for three thousand years, and no one ever found them. Because no one knew where they were." Lin Ye knew. Qiuye told him in a dream. Not with words, but with temperature. Its veins felt a warmth, and in that instant, an image appeared in Lin Ye's consciousness—on the trunk of the World Tree, there was a thin crack. Embedded in the crack was a transparent fragment, like a frozen tear.

Now, the fragment was in Lin Ye's palm. The bottle was cool, the light inside faint, but it hadn't gone out. It was waiting. Waiting for Qiuye to awaken. Waiting for them to merge into one. Lin Ye took the bottle down from the shelf and held it between his hands. The glass was cool, the light filtering through and falling into his palm, very faint, almost imperceptible in temperature. But he sensed something else—not consciousness, not memory, but "echoes." The moment the first Night Watchman's tear fell onto the trunk of the World Tree, the trunk trembled, emitting a deep hum, like a struck bronze bell. The bell's sound echoed for three thousand years, growing weaker and weaker, but never ceasing. Now, the bell echoed in the bottle, echoed in his palm, echoed in the sleeping patterns of Qiuye. Qiuye heard it. Its patterns lit up briefly, very faintly, then vanished. But it heard it.

Lin Ye put the bottle back on the shelf, stood up, and walked out of the vault. Chen Xuan was still waiting in the corridor, holding a cup of tea instead of a water glass. He handed the tea to Lin Ye, who took it and took a sip. It was hot, but comfortably so.

"Fragments of autumn leaves?" Chen Xuan asked.

"Yes. The tears of the first generation of Night's Watch. They slumbered within the World Tree for three thousand years."

"How do you plan to use it?"

"When Qiuye wakes up, let it decide for itself. The fragment is part of it; it can merge with it if it wants to, or it can choose not to."

Chen Xuan looked at him and remained silent for a few seconds.

You've changed.

"What has changed?"

"You used to make decisions for others. You don't anymore."

Lin Ye returned the teacup to Chen Xuan and turned to walk deeper into the corridor.

In the afternoon, Lin Ye went to Lin Yuanzhou's room. The old man was sitting by the window, holding a book—Lin Ye's *The Interpretation of Dreams*. He read slowly, turning the pages one by one, occasionally pausing to write a few words in the blank spaces with a pencil. Lin Ye went over and saw that what he was writing on the pages weren't annotations, but regular symbols—circles, vertical lines, and dots. He was interpreting Freud's dreams in the language of the first generation of night watchmen.

"Did you understand it?" Lin Ye asked.

Lin Yuanzhou didn't look up. "Freud said that dreams are the fulfillment of wishes. The first generation of Night's Watch said that dreams are the projection of rules. Both of them were talking about dreams, but not the same dream. Freud's dream is in the human heart, while the first generation of Night's Watch's dream is in the rings of the World Tree. The dream of the heart will wake up, but the dream of the rings will not. The dream of the rings is 'rules,' and rules will not wake up."

Lin Ye sat down next to him. The sky outside the window was very blue, without any clouds. A bird flew over the rooftop, its wings shimmering silver in the sunlight.

"Grandpa, when the first Night's Watchman stripped the Autumn Leaf, he regretted it. But he didn't retrieve it. Why?"

Lin Yuanzhou paused for a moment as he turned the pages of the book.

"Because he can't. The separation is irreversible. Once Qiuye leaves his consciousness, she can never go back. It's not that he doesn't want to, it's that he can't."

"So regretting it is useless."

"Regret is useful. Regret made him remember Qiuye. If he hadn't regretted it, he might have forgotten long ago. Three thousand years is enough time to forget someone. But he didn't forget. Because he regretted it."

Lin Ye remained silent for a few seconds. He looked at Lin Yuanzhou's aged profile; the wrinkles were deep, the skin thin, and the bluish veins beneath were visible. But his eyes were not old; they were cloudy, yet bright.

"Do you regret it?" Lin Ye asked.

Lin Yuanzhou remained silent for a long time. The clouds outside the window moved, casting shadows from one end of the room to the other, like a slowly crawling insect.

"Regret. Regret for not entering the World Tree. My brother went in, my son went in, but I didn't. I stayed outside, guarding the teleportation array, guarding those bottles, guarding those who would never return. I thought guarding was more important than entering. Now I know, guarding is just as important as entering. Without those who guard, those who enter can't come back. Without those who enter, those who guard don't know what they're guarding."

Lin Ye reached out and placed his hand on the old man's aged hand. The old man's hand was cold, while his hand was warm. Cold touched warm; there was no exchange of temperature, just contact.

Three days until the end of the countdown. Lin Ye spent the entire day in the training room. He didn't learn the rules, didn't acquire any seeds, and didn't use any abilities. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, with the bronze plate in front of him—the front bearing the symbol of the rules, the back bearing "Shen Ruo." He was looking at the bronze plate, not with his eyes, but with his consciousness. The surface of the bronze plate wasn't smooth; it had fine lines, like human fingerprints. These lines weren't engraved; they "grew" out. For three thousand years, it had been held by countless hands, each hand leaving its mark on the bronze plate. Not physical marks, but marks of "temperature." The warmth of the hands would remain on the bronze plate, not forever, but for a long time. Three thousand years had passed; the body temperature of the first generation of Night Watchers should have long since dissipated. But it remained. Faint, but still there. Because so many people had held it, each person's body temperature had accumulated on the bronze plate, passed down from generation to generation, until it reached Lin Ye's hands. Holding the bronze plate, he felt not only his own temperature, but the temperature of everyone who had held this bronze plate. They were all there. In the copper sheet, in the blood, in the rules.

It was already dark when Su Wanning pushed open the door. She didn't turn on the light, walked to Lin Ye's side, and sat down against the wall. The two sat side by side in the darkness, without speaking. After a long while, Su Wanning spoke.

"Lin Ye".

"Um."

"Once the door opens, you can go in, but I can't. My threads follow you; I can see and hear, but I can't touch you. If you encounter danger inside, I can't help you."

Lin Ye didn't speak. He reached out, groped in the darkness, found Su Wanning's hand, and took it. Her hand was cold, his was warm. Cold against warm, exactly the same as the first time on the rooftop. But this time, he held it tighter. Not because he was afraid she would let go, but because he was afraid he would let go.

"You can help me," Lin Ye said.

"How can I help?"

"Your presence outside is helping me. I know you're out there, so I'll come back. It's not that I'm not afraid of death, it's that I'm afraid of making you wait."

Su Wanning's fingers trembled slightly in his palm.

"When did you become so eloquent?"

"After meeting you".

Su Wanning didn't speak. She leaned on Lin Ye's shoulder and closed her eyes. In the darkness, her breathing was light and steady. She had fallen asleep. Lin Ye didn't move, letting her lean on him. He held her hand in one hand and the copper plate in the other. The copper plate was slightly warmer than his body temperature, like a tiny, inextinguishable heart.

Two days until the countdown. Lin Ye stood before the teleportation array. Zhou Zhou sat at the control panel, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, the screen displaying real-time data about the World Tree. Meng Xiaoqing stood beside Zhou Zhou, her laptop in her lap, the blue light from the screen reflecting off her glasses. She had returned, but hadn't left. She lived at the association headquarters, collecting data, analyzing it, and writing reports every day. No one made her do it; she did it on her own.

"Are you going to the World Tree?" Meng Xiaoqing asked.

"Remove the outer skin. Not the inside."

"What are you going to do?"

"Go see the dotted line on the fourth ring of the tree. The door will open there, and I want to see it with my own eyes."

Meng Xiaoqing pushed up her glasses, placed her laptop on the control panel, and began rapidly typing on the keyboard.

"The current rule structure of the World Tree's bark is very stable, with no anomalies. However, the rule frequency around the dotted line is fluctuating, albeit slightly, at 0.3 hertz per second. The door is approaching. Not physically, but probabilistically. The probability of the door appearing is increasing. Yesterday it was 30%, today it's 40%, and tomorrow it might be 50%. The day the door opens, the probability will become 100%."

Lin Ye stepped into the teleportation array and stood in the center of the rune array. Su Wanning stood beside him, silver threads extending from her fingertips to his wrist, running alongside the gray patterns of autumn leaves.

"I'll go with you," Su Wanning said.

"Didn't you say you couldn't get in?"

"You can get in through the outer layer. You can't get in through the inside. The outer layer is still outside the World Tree, not inside."

Lin Ye didn't refuse. He extended his hand, and Su Wanning grasped it. Their hands clasped together in the blue light of the teleportation array, one cool, the other warm. Zhou Zhou pressed the activation button, and the rune array lit up with white light, the radiance engulfing everything.

A feeling of falling. Darkness. The sound of wind. Then—landing. Lin Ye opened his eyes; he was standing on the bark of the World Tree. Silvery-white fibers stretched out beneath his feet, like a flattened snowfield. Su Wanning stood beside him, silver threads weaving a net around her—not a defensive net, but a "perception" net. She was scanning her surroundings, searching for anything unusual.

"The dotted line is located to the east, about three kilometers away," Su Wanning said.

The two walked in that direction. The silvery-white fibers underfoot were soft, like walking on thick snow, but without leaving footprints. Su Wanning's silver threads left fine marks on the fibers, like two silver snakes crawling on the snow. After walking for about twenty minutes, Lin Ye saw the dotted line. It wasn't drawn on the tree trunk, but "grown" on it. The silvery-white fibers thinned out there, revealing the dark wood beneath. The wood had patterns, rings upon rings, like tree rings. First ring, second ring, third ring. Next to the third ring, there was a shallow crack. Not a crack that had opened, but a crack that was "about to open." The edges of the crack were blurred, like a wound that hadn't fully healed.

Lin Ye crouched down, reaching out to press his hand against the edge of the crack. The wood was cool, not icy, but the kind of coolness that comes from being buried deep in the earth, unseen by sunlight for thousands of years. His senses extended through the crack, entering the interior of the wood. It wasn't solid; it was hollow. A very small space, barely enough for one person. Words were carved on the walls of the space—not by the first Night Watchman, but by Qiu Ye. The characters were small, but each stroke was deep, as if carved many times.

"I'll be waiting for you here."

Lin Ye's fingers moved slowly across the characters. Each stroke, each line deliberate. When Qiu Ye carved these words, it hadn't yet been stripped away. It knew it would be stripped away, knew it would fall into slumber, knew it would wait a long time. So it carved these words—"I'm waiting for you here." Waiting for whom? Waiting for the first Night Watchman? Waiting for Lin Ye? Waiting for anyone willing to come to it. The person it had waited for for three thousand years had arrived.

Lin Ye stood up and took a step back. The crack, in his perception, slowly widened—not physically, but probabilistically. The probability of the door appearing was increasing. Forty percent today, fifty percent tomorrow, one hundred percent the day after. When the door opened, this illusory crack would become real. He would walk in.

Su Wanning walked to his side, looking at the crack. Her silver thread dangled from her fingertips, gently touching the edge of the crack. The thread trembled, as if someone had been electrocuted.

"There's something inside," Su Wanning said.

"What?"

"It wasn't a thing, it was a 'sound.' It was very low and very soft, like a heartbeat."

Lin Ye closed his eyes, extending his perception to its limit. His consciousness passed through the crack and entered that small space. There was no light, no sound, no structured rules within the space. But there was a frequency. Not Qiu Ye's, not the first generation of the Night's Watch, but the "Door" itself. The Door was not dead, but alive. It was breathing, waiting, preparing. For three thousand years, it had been preparing. Preparing to open, preparing to let someone in, preparing to fulfill the mission entrusted to it by the first generation of the Night's Watch.

Lin Ye opened his eyes, staring at the illusory crack. It was illusory today, but it would be real the day after tomorrow. He would walk into that crack, into that door, into the world behind it. He didn't know what lay beyond, but he would find out. He would find out the day after tomorrow.

Su Wanning took his hand.

"Let's go."

The two turned and headed towards the teleportation array. Silvery-white fibers scattered at their feet like snow. Su Wanning's silver threads trailed two thin streaks of light behind them, like two rivers that would never run dry.

The countdown has ended, day two. There are still two days left.