Dream Ghost

By the time we got back to the association headquarters, it was almost dawn.

Lin Ye sat in a chair in the medical room, his right hand outstretched on the table. A middle-aged woman in a white coat was examining the mark on his palm, her brows furrowed.

"How long has the bleeding from the mark lasted?" she asked.

"About... a few minutes," Lin Ye said, "it stopped after the crack disappeared."

"How did you feel during the bleeding?"

"Burning. It feels like something is burning beneath the mark."

The woman in the white coat—Lin Ye later learned her surname was Jiang and that she was the association's medical consultant—attached several sensor patches to his palm, connecting them to a device. A string of data appeared on the device's screen, and her brows furrowed even more.

"0.7% residual consciousness isn't a high number," she said. "But this 0.7% is strange. It's not just residual fear, but also... something I don't recognize. It's like consciousness itself has been 'marked'."

"Mark?" Chen Xuan stood at the door, his voice turning somber.

"You can think of it as someone leaving a 'beacon' in Lin Ye's consciousness," Dr. Jiang said. "This beacon itself is harmless, but it sends out signals. If someone can receive this signal, they can know Lin Ye's location at any time—whether in reality or in a dream."

The room was silent for a few seconds.

"Can it be removed?" Lin Ye asked.

"It's worth a try, but the risks are very high," Dr. Jiang said. "Operations at the level of consciousness can easily cause permanent damage if not handled carefully. I suggest observing it for a while first. If the beacon doesn't activate, then you don't need to do anything about it."

"What if it's activated?"

Dr. Jiang glanced at Chen Xuan but did not answer.

Chen Xuan walked over to Lin Ye and patted him on the shoulder: "Go back and rest first. I'll investigate this matter."

Lin Ye stood up and paused at the door.

"How is that boy?" he said.

"He's still unconscious," Chen Xuan said. "His vital signs are stable, but too much of his consciousness... has been drained from him. Even if he wakes up, he might not be the same person he used to be."

Lin Ye nodded and walked out of the medical room.

In the corridor, Su Wanning leaned against the wall, waiting for him. Her white dress was covered in dust and black liquid—residue left behind after the tentacle creatures evaporated.

"I'll take you home," she said.

"Need not."

"You have a beacon in your mind right now, and you could be located at any time. Do you think I would let you walk alone at night?"

Lin Ye glanced at her and did not refuse again.

Neither of them spoke in the car.

Su Wanning drove steadily, his white SUV navigating the empty streets in the early morning. The streetlights had just gone out, and the sky was beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn.

"Are you scared?" Su Wanning suddenly asked.

"What?"

"Thirty days." Su Wanning's eyes were fixed on the road ahead. "You saw that countdown."

Lin Ye remained silent for a few seconds.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe he hasn't realized it yet."

"When I first went on a mission, I thought I wouldn't be afraid," Su Wanning said softly, "until I almost died in my dream. After that, I was afraid to sleep for two whole weeks. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see that thing's face."

"And then?"

"Later, Captain Chen said something to me," Su Wanning said. "He said, 'Fear is not your enemy; ignoring fear is.'"

Lin Ye did not speak.

The car stopped downstairs at Lin Ye's building.

"Get some rest," Su Wanning said. "There's a training session at headquarters tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM. Don't be late."

Lin Ye got out of the car and walked into the building.

He didn't turn around, but his senses told him that Su Wanning's car had been parked downstairs for a long time, until the light in his room came on, before it drove away.

Lin Ye did not sleep.

He sat down at his desk, turned on his computer, and searched for a word:

"Dream Depth App"

Search results were scarce. There were only a few scattered user reviews, mostly saying things like, "The test was too long, I gave up halfway through," "The results were quite accurate, but a bit scary," and "I don't know why, but I had nightmares for several days after completing it."

Lin Ye searched for the development company again. The result was a shell company—the registered address was a non-existent house number, and the legal representative's name could not be found in the business registration system.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Photo wall. Thirty-day countdown. The third offering.

This means there are also first and second offerings.

Lin Ye opened his phone and sent a message to Su Wanning:

"Has the association received any similar cases of dream invasion recently? Not ordinary dream creature invasions, but the kind that are 'marked'."

About a minute later, Su Wanning replied:

How did you know?

Lin Ye's heart sank.

"There are two. The first was three months ago, a 35-year-old man who was found unconscious at home, completely drained of consciousness. The second was a month ago, a 28-year-old woman with the same symptoms. The association still hasn't found the cause."

Where are they now?

"They're all at the association's medical center, in a coma. Dr. Jiang is trying to restore their consciousness, but progress is very slow."

Lin Ye stared at the screen.

Three months ago. One month ago. Now.

Thirty days later.

He was the third.

It's not random. It follows a pattern. It happens every two months.

Lin Ye turned off his phone, lay on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.

Thirty days.

He closed his eyes.

This time, he didn't dream. Or perhaps he did, but he doesn't remember.

At 2 p.m. sharp, Lin Ye appeared in the training room at the association headquarters.

The training room is on the second basement level, a spacious area of ​​about 200 square meters. The walls and floor are covered with some kind of silvery-white metal, which Su Wanning said is a special "dream isolation material" that can prevent the leakage of consciousness fluctuations during training.

Chen Xuan was already waiting in the training room. He was wearing a black training uniform today and looked a few years younger than usual.

"Today's training is simple," he said. "I want you to find the rule weaknesses of the dream creatures I create within one minute."

"Did you make it?"

"Yes." Chen Xuan took out a metal plate from his pocket and placed it on his palm. "I will create a dream creature, level controlled at the page level. You use the rule rift to find its weakness, and then destroy it."

"Can't we use Devour?"

"You can't use it. You can only rely on rule analysis." Chen Xuan looked at him. "Your ability to devour is very strong, but it's a double-edged sword. The more you devour, the more residue remains in your consciousness. If one day you devour something you shouldn't, you will suffer a backlash. So I want you to learn not to rely on devouring."

Lin Ye nodded.

Chen Xuan closed his eyes. A few seconds later, a blurry figure of light appeared in the center of the training room. The figure gradually coalesced, transforming into a—

猫？

A black cat, about the size of an ordinary house cat, with glossy black fur and amber eyes, sat in the center of the training room, tilting its head to look at Lin Ye, its tail swaying leisurely.

"Is this the creature from your dream?" Lin Ye asked.

"Don't underestimate it," Chen Xuan said. "Start the timer."

The cracks in Lin Ye's rules have opened.

The black cat's body appeared to him as a semi-transparent structural diagram—bones, muscles, blood vessels, and… a glowing line. That line ran from the top of the cat's head to the tip of its tail, like a spinal cord.

"Is its weakness the notochord?" Lin Ye said.

"wrong."

The black cat moved.

It didn't attack Lin Ye, but instead... it split. One cat became two, two became four, and four became eight. In less than three seconds, the training room was filled with black cats, densely packed, each one staring at Lin Ye with the same amber eyes.

"Thirty seconds," Chen Xuan said.

Lin Ye remained calm. His cracks in the rules swept across each cat—

No. These cats aren't separate entities. They're all "clones," with only one true entity. But where is the true entity?

He examined the glowing lines closely. Each cat's notochord was glowing, but at different brightness. Most cats' notochords were dark red, except for one—

In the corner, the most inconspicuous black cat had a golden spine.

"Found it." Lin Ye rushed over and grabbed the golden-spined cat.

The cat exploded in his hand, turning into a cloud of black smoke that dissipated into the air.

All the clones disappeared at the same time.

"Fifteen seconds." Chen Xuan glanced at his watch, a satisfied expression on his face. "Not bad. You found the main body on the first test."

"How did you do that?" Lin Ye asked. "How did you create so many clones and make them all have independent movement trajectories?"

"It's not 'manufacturing,'" Chen Xuan said. "It's 'rules.'"

"What do you mean?"

"That cat's rule is 'existence through division'," Chen Xuan explained. "Its original body is very weak, but each time it splits, the original body transfers to one of the clones. If you can't find the original body, you can never kill it. And by the time you find the original body, it's too late for it to transfer."

"This is the core of rule analysis—not through overwhelming force, but through understanding." Chen Xuan patted Lin Ye on the shoulder. "You already have this talent. Now, what you need to do is turn it into instinct."

Over the next two hours, Chen Xuan created various dream creatures—some could become invisible, some could replicate, some could reverse time, and some could read minds. Lin Ye found the weaknesses in the rules each time, taking anywhere from fifteen seconds to a minute and a half.

By the time he defeated the last creature, Lin Ye was drenched in sweat. Not from exhaustion, but from the strain of intense mental concentration.

"Take a break." Chen Xuan handed him a bottle of water. "There's another training session this afternoon."

"What kind of training?"

"Consciousness digestion," Chen Xuan said. "You have 0.7% residual fragments in your consciousness, including that memory. This afternoon, you need to learn how to digest them."

Lin Ye took a sip of water and nodded.

The afternoon training session took place in the medical room.

Dr. Jiang attached over a dozen sensor patches to Lin Ye's head, connecting them to the device. Su Wanning stood beside him, holding a tablet to monitor Lin Ye's brainwave data in real time.

"The core of digesting consciousness is not 'clearing' the fragments, but 'understanding' them." Chen Xuan sat opposite Lin Ye. "Those fragments are other people's fears, memories, and obsessions. You can't throw them away like garbage, nor can you let them control you. What you need to do is—stand from an observer's perspective, see clearly what they are, and then decide whether or not to accept them."

"How do I do it?"

"Close your eyes and find that fragment of memory," Chen Xuan said. "Haven't you already seen it? Look at it again. This time, don't just 'look.' Go inside it."

Lin Ye closed his eyes.

He returned to that dimly lit room. A photo wall, densely packed with pictures, with his own in the center, and a thirty-day countdown.

But this time, he was not a bystander.

He stood in the room. He could smell the damp, musty odor, feel the coldness of the cement floor beneath his feet, and hear the sound of water dripping in the distance, drop by drop.

He walked up to the photo wall and looked at the photos carefully.

It wasn't just his own. There were many people he didn't know. Men, women, the elderly, children. Each photo had a caption below it, in the same format as his:

"First Sacrifice - [Name] - Status: Completed"

"Second Sacrifice - [Name] - Status: Completed"

"Third Sacrifice - The Sleeper - Status: Awakening - Estimated Harvest Time: Thirty Days Later"

"Fourth Offering (Blank) Status: Pending"

"Fifth Offering (Blank) Status: Pending"

……

Up to the "twelfth offering".

Twelve offerings.

He was the third. The first two had already "finished"—the comatose couple.

Lin Ye's gaze lingered on the blank space of the fourth offering. There was no photo, no name, only a line of blurry writing, as if it were obscured by something.

He reached out to touch it.

The handwriting became clear for a moment—

"Gu Yan".

Lin Ye suddenly opened his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Su Wanning asked.

"The fourth sacrifice," Lin Ye said. "The name of the fourth sacrifice is Gu Yan."

Chen Xuan's expression changed.

Are you sure?

"I'm sure," Lin Ye said, "but the handwriting is blurry, as if it's been deliberately hidden. Maybe... it hasn't been marked yet? Or is there some other reason?"

Chen Xuan remained silent for a long time.

"Gu Yan," he finally spoke, "is the one who disappeared three years ago and entered my dreams."

"Do you know him?"

"He is the youngest Dream Domain Overlord candidate in the East China branch." Chen Xuan's voice was deep. "His talent is extremely high, even higher than yours. Three years ago, he entered the Dream Continent during a mission and never returned. Everyone thought he was dead."

"What if he were still alive?"

"Then he is the fourth sacrifice that has been marked." Chen Xuan stood up. "But that's impossible. With Gu Yan's abilities, no one could mark him."

"Unless he did it voluntarily," Lin Ye said.

The room fell silent.

Dr. Jiang glanced at the data on the instrument and said softly, "Lin Ye's residual consciousness has decreased by 0.1%, it's now 0.6%. The digestion is progressing very well."

But nobody cares about that.

Chen Xuan walked to the window, turned his back to everyone, and remained silent for a long time.

"I will investigate this matter," he finally said. "You continue your training. Thirty days is neither too long nor too short. If those people really intend to 'harvest' you after thirty days, we need to be prepared."

Lin Ye nodded.

But he knew in his heart that thirty days was not the end of the countdown.

Thirty days is the start of the countdown.