Dream Ghost

The moment Lin Ye stepped out of the teleportation array, everyone sensed a change. It wasn't the injuries on his body—he wasn't injured; it wasn't the expression on his face—his expression was the same as before he went in: calm, indifferent, like a still pond. The change was on his right hand. The deep purple mark was still there, the crescent-shaped pupil was still there, but something else had appeared in the pupil—a single, transparent tear. The tear wasn't etched on; it was "grown" in, like a gem embedded in a ring, fused with the mark, indistinguishable from it.

Chen Xuan was the first to notice. He didn't speak, but stared at Lin Ye's right hand for a long time, then nodded, turned, and left. He didn't need to ask; he saw the result. Lin Ye went in, came out, and brought back what was behind the door. That was enough.

Lin Yuanzhou was the second to notice. The old man, sitting in a wheelchair, was pushed by Shen Heting to the teleportation array. His cloudy eyes stared at the single, transparent tear in Lin Ye's right palm for a long time, so long that Shen Heting thought he had fallen asleep. Then he reached out and gently touched the tear with trembling fingers. His fingers were cold, and the tear was cold. Cold touching cold, no exchange of temperature, but the old man's eyes reddened.

"These are the tears of the first generation of Night Watchmen." Lin Yuanzhou's voice was a little hoarse. "When he peeled the autumn leaves, he held back his tears, not letting them fall. But he couldn't hold back his regret. Regret took root in his consciousness, grew for three thousand years, and became an invisible tree. Tears are the shape of regret."

Lin Ye crouched down so the old man could see the tear more clearly. It was transparent, small, like a frozen dewdrop. But it wasn't still; it was slowly flowing, from one side of the mark to the other, and back again, like a heart that never stops.

"It's still moving," Lin Yuanzhou said.

"It's not a tear. It's a 'door'," Lin Ye said. "The door is closed, but it hasn't disappeared. It has become this tear. The first generation of Night's Watchmen hid the door in the tear, and the tear is hidden in my mark. As long as the tear remains, the door will not truly close. It has simply changed form."

Lin Yuanzhou withdrew his hand, placed it on his knees, and looked out the window at the sky. It was already dark outside, the streetlights were on, and their orange glow cast a blurry halo on the glass.

"Three thousand years. The door opened, the door closed. The seed sprouted, the seed vanished. The moment the first Night's Watch waited three thousand years for, you ended it for him." The old man's lips curled slightly upward, not in a smile, but in a faint expression, like he had finally let go. "What he owed Qiuye, you repaid for him. What Qiuye waited for him, you waited for it. You are not the first Night's Watch, you are his continuation. The continuation of bloodline, the continuation of rules, the continuation of regret. But you have more than just regret, you have something else. You have Su Wanning, you have Chen Xuan, you have your father, you have your mother. You have something he didn't have. So you will not become him. You will become yourself."

Lin Ye stood up and turned to look at Su Wanning. She stood at the edge of the teleportation array, the silver threads already withdrawn from her fingertips, but a faint mark remained on her wrist—a mark left by the threads being wrapped too tightly. Noticing Lin Ye's gaze, she hid her wrist behind her back, not letting him see.

"I saw it," Lin Ye said.

"There's nothing to see."

"It's become famous."

"It will be fine tomorrow."

Lin Ye didn't say anything more. He walked up to her, reached out, and gently took her wrist, pulling her hand out from behind her back. There was a red mark around her wrist, not from being strangled, but from "overuse." Her silver threads had been taut in front of the teleportation array for an entire day, never loosening. The threads were connected to Lin Ye; Lin Ye was inside the World Tree, and she was outside. She dared not loosen them, afraid that if they did, she would never feel him again.

Lin Ye's thumb gently traced the red mark. His fingertips were warm, and when they touched her reddened skin, she flinched but didn't pull away.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"It doesn't hurt."

"It's become famous."

"It will be gone tomorrow."

Lin Ye released her wrist and took a step back. The two stood face to face, the blue light of the teleportation array slowly fading between them, the temperature of the rune array dropping from scorching to lukewarm. Zhou Zhou stretched in front of the control panel, her joints cracking. Meng Xiaoqing, holding her laptop, the light from the screen reflecting off her glasses, was still looking at the data—Lin Ye's consciousness fluctuations after entering the World Tree, a record of the entire day, every second of which she had saved.

"Your consciousness fluctuations showed an unusual peak when you entered the space behind the door." Meng Xiaoqing turned the screen to Lin Ye. "The frequency isn't yours, it's not Qiu Ye's, it's not from the first generation of Night Watchers. It's a fourth frequency. I can't analyze it."

Lin Ye stared at the unfamiliar waveform on the screen. It didn't resemble the fluctuations of human consciousness, the consciousness fluctuations of dream creatures, or any known regular frequency. It was flat, almost a straight line, but every now and then a sharp peak would appear, like the R wave on an electrocardiogram.

"This is the frequency of the door itself," Lin Ye said. "The door isn't dead; it's alive. It's breathing, waiting, preparing. For three thousand years, it has been preparing. Now the door is closed, but the frequency remains. In the tears."

He raised his right hand, and the transparent tear in his palm glistened briefly under the light. It wasn't a reflection; it was its own light, very faint, flashing and then disappearing. But Meng Xiaoqing's computer captured that flash; the waveform on the screen jumped slightly before returning to its flat state.

"It's still active." Meng Xiaoqing pushed up her glasses. "The door hasn't really closed. It's just changed form."

"It's not a door. It's the 'root,'" Lin Ye said. "The root of the World Tree. The seed is gone, but the root remains. The root is in the tears, and the tears are in my memory. As long as the root remains, the World Tree will not die."

Chen Xuan walked back from the corridor, holding a tablet in his hand, his brows furrowed.

"The Dream Weavers detected your entry into the World Tree. They know the door opened, and they know it closed. They don't know what you got behind the door, but they know you were inside for a whole day. A day is enough time to do a lot." He handed Lin Ye a tablet; the screen displayed a monitoring report, with timestamps for every hour of the day. The Dream Weavers' consciousness fluctuations frequently appeared around the World Tree, not as attacks, but as "scanning." They were looking for the door's location, but the door was closed, and the coordinates had disappeared. They couldn't find it.

"They won't give up," Chen Xuan said. "The door may be closed, but the roots are in your hands. They want the roots."

Lin Ye returned the tablet to Chen Xuan and walked to the window. The city nightscape unfolded before him, a myriad of lights resembling an inverted starry sky reflected on the ground. Beneath each light was a person, a family, a story. They knew nothing of the World Tree's existence, nothing of the Dream Weavers' conspiracy, nothing of someone who had just returned from behind a door that opened only once every three thousand years. They didn't need to know. They only needed to know that the sun would rise again tomorrow.

Autumn leaves shone quietly in his right palm. Within the transparent tears, an extremely thin, silvery-white thread was slowly growing. It wasn't Su Wanning's thread, but a "root." The root of the World Tree, growing from the tears, taking root in his mark, and from the mark in his bloodline. The root was very thin, thinner than a hair, but it was very stable. It was growing, a little bit each day, a millimeter longer today than yesterday.

Lin Ye returned to his room without turning on the light. He lay on the bed, raising his right hand to his eyes, gazing at the single, transparent tear. Moonlight streamed in through the gap in the curtains, silvery-white, settling on his palm and making the tear resemble a tiny star. Within the tear, a silvery-white root slowly grew, like a sleeping snake coiled deep within the imprint. It was in no hurry; it had plenty of time. It had waited three thousand years; a few more days wouldn't make a difference.

Lin Ye closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking deep into his bloodline. The door was still there, but it was no longer a door. It had become a "dot," tiny, smaller than before, almost imperceptible. But the dot remained, the roots remained, the tears remained. He reached out and gently pressed that dot. The dot vibrated, like someone suddenly awakened, responding groggily. It wasn't language, but frequency. The frequency of the World Tree, coming from the roots, from the tears, from his palm to his heart.

He opened his eyes. The moonlight was still there, the tears were still there, the roots were still there. Everything was still there, everything was alright.

The next morning, when Su Wanning knocked on the door, Lin Ye had already been sitting on the rooftop watching the sunrise for half an hour. She wasn't carrying coffee; instead, she held a thermos, unscrewed the lid, and poured out two cups of hot tea. The tea was red, steaming, and looked like two small pieces of amber in the morning light.

"When did you arrive?" she asked.

"Six o'clock. The sun has just risen."

"You watched for half an hour?"

"I watched it for half an hour."

Su Wanning sat down next to him and handed him a cup of tea. Lin Ye took it and took a sip. It was hot, but comfortably so. It wasn't the bitterness of coffee, but the astringency of tea, which melted on his tongue and then left a sweet aftertaste.

"How's Qiuye doing today?" she asked.

Lin Ye raised his right hand, the transparent tears in his palm shimmering in the morning light. The silvery-white root in the tear was a little longer than yesterday, extending from the center of the mark to the edge, like a seedling just breaking through the soil.

"It's growing. It grows one millimeter every day."

"Where will it grow?"

"I don't know. Maybe it will cover the entire mark, maybe it will grow from the palm of my hand, maybe it will grow to my arm, shoulder, and heart. The roots need to find soil. It is looking for the soil in my veins."

Su Wanning looked at the thin, silvery-white root in his palm. It was slow, but resolute. Growing millimeter by millimeter, unhurried and unperturbed. He had waited three thousand years; a few more days wouldn't make a difference.

"It will be found," Su Wanning said.

Lin Ye finished his tea and placed the cup on the concrete platform between them. Su Wanning's cup was still full; she hadn't drunk from it, and was gazing at the distant city. Morning light surged in from the east, bathing the entire city in gold. The glass curtain walls of the buildings reflected the sunlight like giant mirrors, refracting it into every corner of the city.

"Lin Ye".

"Um."

"The day you went in, I waited outside. The silk thread was taut, and I could feel you walking, running, and stopping. When you stopped, I stopped too. When you walked, I walked too. I stood outside for as long as you stayed behind the door. My feet went numb, my legs ached, and my back hurt. But I didn't sit down. I was afraid that if I sat down, the silk thread would loosen. If it loosened, I wouldn't be able to feel you anymore."

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.

"It won't happen again," Lin Ye said.

"Can't do what?"

"I won't keep you waiting that long."

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

"You don't get to decide. You don't get to decide when the door opens. You don't get to decide when the Dream Weaver will come."

"But I will come back. That's my decision."

Su Wanning didn't speak. She leaned on his shoulder and closed her eyes. The morning light fell on the two of them, casting their shadows on the concrete ground of the rooftop, one on top of the other, like two trees very close together, their roots intertwined in the soil, their branches touching in the wind.

Chen Xuan leaned halfway out from the stairwell, not coming up, but standing there calling out, "The Dream Weavers are making noise again." 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 were turned on by their footsteps, then turned 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 map. It was a new map of the World Tree, not the previous one. Meng Xiaoqing had reconstructed a 3D model of the World Tree's interior using data collected when Lin Ye entered it. One area in the model was empty, black, like a missing piece of a puzzle.

"This is the space behind the door," Meng Xiaoqing pointed to the black area. "After the door closes, this area disappears. It's not destroyed, it 'no longer exists.' It exists when the door is open, and it doesn't exist when the door is closed. It's not space; it's the 'door' itself."

Lin Ye stared at the darkness. He had been inside; he knew what was there. Seeds, tears, a small, silvery-white tree. Now, none of it remained. The seeds had sprouted, the tears were in his palm, and the tree had vanished. That space had fulfilled its purpose and was no longer needed.

"What's the Dream Weaver Society up to?" Lin Ye asked.

Zhou Zhou switched screens and pulled up a monitoring dataset. The consciousness fluctuation curve was pulsating, with a high frequency and large amplitude.

"They are gathering. Not seven people, but many. At least twenty, scattered throughout the Dream Continent. They are moving in the same direction—towards the World Tree. It's not an attack, it's a 'gathering.' They want to establish an encirclement around the World Tree. Not to fight, but to 'encircle.' To surround the World Tree, preventing anyone from entering or leaving."

"They want to trap the World Tree."

"Yes. The door is closed, but the root is in your hands. They can't find the root, but they know it's in the World Tree. They don't know the root is already in your hands. So they surround the World Tree and wait for the root to appear."

Lin Ye watched the fluctuations of consciousness on the screen that were moving toward the World Tree. Twenty points of light surged toward the same coordinate from all directions, like a pack of wolves hunting a deer.

"They won't live to see it," Lin Ye said. "The root isn't in the World Tree. The root is in my hands."

He raised his right hand, and the transparent tear in his palm glistened under the fluorescent light. The silvery-white root in the tear had grown a little longer, peeking out from the edge of the mark, like a curious snake sticking its head out of its hole to observe the outside world.

Chen Xuan walked to his side and looked at the thin root.

"Where will it grow?"

"I don't know. But it won't grow into the World Tree. It will grow inside me. It will fill my bloodline, fill my consciousness, fill every inch of me. Then, I will be the World Tree. The World Tree will be me."

Chen Xuan looked at him and remained silent for a long time.

"Are you ready?"

"No. But the roots are growing; they won't wait for me to be ready. They just keep growing. I just need to follow along."

Lin Ye walked out of the technical analysis room and into the corridor. The corridor was long, and the warm yellow light made the walls look like a golden tunnel. Su Wanning followed behind him, silver threads hanging from her fingertips, leaving two thin streaks of silver light on the floor.

The autumn leaves shone quietly in his right palm. In the transparent tears, the silvery-white root grew another millimeter. It grew, unhurriedly. It had plenty of time. Lin Ye also had plenty of time.