Chapter 158
Chapter 158
Qin Lan had no idea whose memory this was, but its owner had clearly been a deeply traumatized, spectacularly unlucky child.
After all, watching your mother get launched by a truck, then die on the operating table while you witnessed the whole process was bound to leave a mark.
The woman on the table was not Qin Lan’s mother, but even he could faintly sense the helplessness permeating the room.
Lost. Powerless. Abandoned by the entire world.
Only faintly, though.
More than helplessness, what he felt was sheer awkwardness.
That awkwardness reached its peak when the nurse crouched in front of him and began soothing him in a gentle voice.
The poor soul whose trauma had created this memory must have been very young at the time. That was why the nurse had crouched down to look at him.
But Qin Lan was a young man well over six feet tall.
The result was… extremely strange.
With the nurse crouching before him, her gaze was level with a point slightly below his waist.
It felt as though she were speaking specifically to one particular part of him. One particular organ, even.
“Could you look me in the eyes when you talk…?” Qin Lan complained. “And I don’t mean that eye…”
“A little respect, at least?”
[I know this feels awkward…]
[But could you please get into character? If the monster realizes you’re lucid and know this is a dream, it’ll be much harder for me to pick it out.]
[At least cry a little.]
Qin Lan looked uneasily at the operating table, then at the nurse in front of him.
After a brief attempt to summon the proper emotion, he dropped to his knees beside the table and began wailing at the top of his lungs.
“Oh, my dear mother…”
[That is painfully fake…]
“That’s still not good enough?” Qin Lan’s wailing stopped dead, and annoyance crept into his voice. “Is that thing a monster hiding in dreams, or the world’s most savage film critic?”
“Am I auditioning for Best Actor in Hollywood here?”
“You’re lucky I’m crying at all. I’ve never even visited my parents’ graves–hell, I don’t know where they’re buried.”
“Make do with what you’ve got. I’m not getting paid, so how good do you expect my acting to be?”
[Forget I said anything. Carry on.]
Qin Lan snorted and resumed his dry-eyed lament.
“Oh, my own dear mother, whom I’ve never met and barely know…”
“How could you leave me like this… woe is me…”
“Who would’ve thought that today, the white-haired elder would bury the black-haired youth…”
Yin Manqing finally cracked.
[You’re the black-haired youth!]
[If you’re going to improvise, could you at least think before you speak?]
Qin Lan’s wailing paused again.
“Mother… I still remember when we drank and made merry, becoming sworn brothers beneath the peach blossoms. Though we were not born on the same day, we vowed–”
[That’s the Oath of the Peach Garden!]
[Which one is your mother supposed to be, the bean seller or the sandal weaver?]
“First this is wrong, then that’s wrong. What do you want from me?”
Qin Lan irritably wiped away tears that did not exist. “Give it a rest already.”
[Who exactly needs to give it a rest here?!]
At that moment, the woman on the operating table slowly raised a hand toward Qin Lan.
Her fingertips trembled as though she wanted to stroke his cheek. Her slender fingers were deathly pale, utterly bloodless, and merely raising her arm seemed to consume all her remaining strength.
Her feeble voice reached him, the words too garbled to distinguish. All he could hear was the profound sorrow in them.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll study hard every day and grow into a useful member of society…”
“You can pass on in peace.”
Qin Lan immediately clasped his “instant mother’s” hand, sobbing so hard that snot and tears streamed down his face.
[Qin Lan, listen carefully to what I’m about to say.]
[I’ll tell you what is inconsistent about this scene. The instant you hear it, the monster will attack.]
Yin Manqing stopped criticizing his acting. Her voice became deadly serious.
[You must react quickly. If it touches you, you’ll fall into a deeper layer of the dream.]
Qin Lan’s heart tightened, and his vigilance rose, though outwardly he continued sobbing his eyes out.
[This person’s mother once worked at a manufacturing plant.]
[Her right index finger was severed in an accident years ago.]
[But right now, all ten of her fingers are intact!]
[Get back!]
The instant Qin Lan heard the word “intact,” the “mother’s” hand in his grasp transformed into something like burned charcoal–black, hideous, and reeking with an indescribable stench.
Yin Manqing’s sharp cry of [Get back!] came immediately afterward. Without thinking, Qin Lan deployed the ultimate art of survival: the graceless donkey roll.
His body moved with admirable agility, even if the dodge itself looked atrocious. Its effectiveness, however, was remarkable.
The withered, charcoal-black hand shot toward his throat like lightning, only to skim his scalp and catch a few strands of hair.
“Holy shit! Have you no honor, you old hag? Sneak-attacking a fresh-faced twenty-year-old like me…”
Qin Lan touched his suddenly chilly scalp and let out a strange yelp. He rolled backward once more, opening the distance between himself and the indescribable “thing.”
Every muscle in his body tensed, ready for the next assault.
Calling the thing across from him human would have been generous. It did not even possess a human shape.
It was draped in green surgical cloth blotched with dark-red blood, and the hands protruding from beneath it were twisted like charred chicken feet.
There were a lot of those limbs, too.
Like some especially avant-garde octopus, it rose from the operating table and loomed over Qin Lan.
He could not see its eyes, but he had a strong feeling that whatever gaze it fixed on him was less than friendly.
The failure of its first strike seemed to enrage it. It kept releasing muffled growls filled with fury and frustration.
Yet the thing showed no intention of attacking a second time.
The surrounding walls began to warp. The lights flickered, and a wave of vertigo swept over him.
Under Qin Lan’s wary gaze, the monster slowly retreated and curled into a corner, becoming compressed together with the twisting, collapsing walls until it vanished altogether.
Then the scene changed, and he inexplicably found himself somewhere new.
“Uh, can I ask something…?”
Qin Lan could not resist raising his hand. “What exactly was that?”
“I thought we’d be in for a thrilling chase to the death. Why did it just take one swipe at my scalp and call it a day?”
[Are you disappointed?]
Yin Manqing sounded tired. [The monsters lurking in this dream only attack once. Concealment and disguise are what they truly excel at.]
[Finding that one already drained a good deal of my energy.]
[I don’t have the strength to waste on any more of your nonsense…]
Yin Manqing inhaled deeply. The fatigue in her voice intensified, and a hint of weakness became audible.
[I’m trying to locate the owner of this dream. It’s an enormous undertaking, and I can’t promise I’ll succeed.]
[You may not want to leave, but I certainly do…]
[Could you please stop distracting me?]
Qin Lan answered with an embarrassed chuckle. “Fine, fine. You’re the boss…”
“But…”
He looked around and frowned. “Are we out now?”
“This place looks familiar… Isn’t this one of the garden areas at Clear Spring Academy?”
[No. We’re still inside the dream.]
[More precisely, we’re still in the layer between reality and dreams.]
[You’ve merely moved from one person’s memory to another’s.]
“This is such a pain. Then how do we–”
Qin Lan cut himself off.
A girl had suddenly appeared before him in a miniskirt so short it left almost nothing to the imagination.
She looked young and innocent, but her makeup was immaculate, and her eyes carried a worldly allure completely at odds with her face.
She looked Qin Lan up and down. Then her lips curled into a seductive smile.
“Don’t you know, Senior, that these woods are the school’s favorite place for a stroll? Someone passing by could spot us at any moment.”
“That’ll cost extra.”
Qin Lan froze.
“Spot us doing what?”
“And what’s costing extra?”
“What the hell is this woman babbling abou–hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?!”
Qin Lan recoiled in horror, retreating again and again as though faced with some primordial beast.
“I’m warning you!”
“That kind of behavior is an affront to public decency!”