Chapter 156.2

The boy couldn’t quite describe the feeling. It seemed like a kind of trust, so deep that she did not need to speak. A single glance was enough for them to understand each other, and any extra explanation would only be useless baggage.

Li Lan asked, “Looks like my son really did have fun.”

“Mm, I had a lot of fun.”

Right now, Li Zhuiyuan had no idea what kind of environment he was in. He still had not broken through the memory suppression beneath the “mind fog.”

But from the Dream Ghost’s point of view, even without any other troublesome distractions, an opponent like this was already a massive headache.

With anyone else, forcibly dragging them in and then grinding them down again and again would, sooner or later, erode them step by step until they finally collapsed.

But with this boy, even though the Dream Ghost had already peered into him and calculated the most suitable dreamscape, what the boy displayed was not numbness...

He was adapting!

Every scene it summoned, every setup meant to trigger an emotional breakdown, was overcome by him one after another until, in the end, none of it could stir even the slightest ripple in his heart.

He could even draw a certain kind of pleasure from the process of overcoming those extreme emotions.

Still, he was not without flaws.

He was hiding something. He was preserving something. He had another breaking point. So long as it could pry open even the tiniest crack there, what awaited him would be a complete and total collapse.

But the problem was...

Outside the amusement park ticket gate.

A figure holding a candle and bowing its head stood there. When it tried to walk inside, the turnstile in front of it refused to open for it.

The Dream Ghost slowly raised its head, revealing a face that was neither male nor female.

That face was filled with bafflement.

It felt that it had already found another way to break through the boy’s mental defenses. But the problem was that, as the creator of this dream, it had actually been blocked outside the dream itself.

It could not alter the dream in any way.

Which meant that no matter how many times the dream cycled, what the boy experienced here was always the very first version of the dream.

If the first version of the dream really did affect him, even if only by 0.99, then repeated multiplication would still weaken him bit by bit.

But what if, for the boy, this version of the dream was 1? Then no matter how many times you multiplied it, it would have no effect.

And if it really were just 1, that would at least be acceptable. At the very least, it could keep him trapped here. But what if it was 1.01?

That was also why the Dream Ghost had pulled the boy back out of the dream. It feared that if this continued, its dream would only go on strengthening the boy’s state of mind.

The clearest sign was that each time the boy entered the dream, the time required to overwrite his fixed cognition was taking longer and longer.

But after being pulled out, he had actually... walked back in on his own.

And even that was not the most outrageous part.

The Dream Ghost stepped backward once, and in an instant its figure appeared at the center of the bridge.

On either side was the lake.

On the eastern side, turtles of all sizes swam across the water, stretching endlessly into the distance, with no end in sight.

On the western side, ghostly figures were swimming beneath the surface. Countless hands kept reaching out of the water, as if enduring some kind of torture and desperately trying to grab something to take their place.

The Dream Ghost looked at the candle in its hand.

Originally, the flame had been red.

Now, one third of it was blue, one third black, and only the thin middle strip remained red, and even that was still being compressed.

This was its dream, yet it was gradually losing control over it.

It did not know why this was happening. It truly could not understand it.

As a Dream Ghost, this should have been its home ground. Here, it should have ruled over everything.

That was also the thing that frightened it most.

What kind of terrifying existence could forcefully intervene in its absolute domain in this way?

The Dream Ghost closed its eyes.

The next moment,

it opened them.

It was lying in a pond, a burning candle planted upright in its chest.

All around the pond was pitch-black darkness, but by the faint light of the candle, more than a dozen blurry figures could be seen.

They all sat cross-legged around the pond, each performing their own method.

Some were counting on their fingers to calculate, some were using turtle shells for divination, some were casting lots, some were working an abacus, some were shaking coins...

The thought force produced by their calculations formed rings of radiance around them.

It was an extravagantly luxurious lineup. In this world, there were truly not many forces capable of assembling a deduction array like this.

The Dream Ghost was not one of them. In fact, they had always been on guard against one another.

They wanted to use its setup to kill someone, or at least cripple them.

It, in turn, needed their reinforcement in order to obtain stronger deductive support and push its dream a step further.

Each side was taking what it needed.

But the question now was:

Who exactly is the person you want me to kill?

No,

do you even really know who it is that you want me to kill?

No,

how dare you people

do this at all?

Just then, a figure walked in from outside. His entire body was wrapped in a gray robe, exposing nothing at all, and even his voice had been distorted.

The Dream Ghost did not know who they really were. They had concealed and masked themselves from it with the utmost precision, not just in reality, but even within heavenly secrets and karmic causality, erasing all traces of what they had done.

“You can stop now, can’t you?”

The other party asked.

The Dream Ghost replied, “I can, but I’d like to enjoy it a little longer.”

“Do not be too greedy. The reinforcement you have received is already more than enough. End it quickly, before too much time passes and things go wrong.”

The Dream Ghost said, “I like it when the night runs long. I like it even more when dreams do.”

It was impossible to tell them the truth.

The Dream Ghost knew perfectly well that if it told them what was really happening inside the dream, the first thing they would do would be to cut ties with it, perhaps even turn around and suppress it themselves.

But judging from their attitude, they also felt this matter was already all but settled. They did not think anything could go wrong under such thorough arrangements, just as it had at the very beginning.

“End it soon.”

“All right.”

The Dream Ghost closed its eyes again.

It can’t be ended anymore.

Only if everyone goes into the water together

will I have even the slightest chance of taking advantage of the chaos to climb ashore.

...

The gray-robed man turned and walked out. He pushed open a door. Outside it was dark and gloomy blackness, while inside it was brightly lit by torches.

Though separated by only a single door, the restriction formations in between were intricate and densely layered, making the two sides completely different environments.

Inside the room was a well. The mouth of the well was wide, though not very deep.

The well walls were covered in chains, and talisman papers were pasted onto those chains, locking something inside.

What was bound there sometimes turned into a human shape, sometimes into a bird, but no matter how it changed, the chains restraining it remained exceptionally firm.

There was another person in the room as well, also dressed in a gray robe.

The two gray-robed figures stood opposite each other across the well.

They came from the same family, yet they did not know one another.

Because although the family had a main branch, that main branch could usually manage only itself. The family’s offshoots were scattered like stars, and among them even the surnames were different.

This was a way of avoiding disaster, and also a means of preserving the inheritance.

Only at certain times, when the main branch unsealed the summons, would people like them gather together under concealed identities to act.

Once the matter was over, they would scatter again, hiding their names and identities once more, each ignorant of the others.

“I never expected that after all these years, someone from their family would start River Walk again.”

“Perhaps they learned from the lesson of the last one who failed at River Walk. This time, the person moved without a sound.

“If our ancestors had not once had deep grievances with the Liu Clan and left behind an opening, allowing us to calculate the abnormal movement in the river through that link, then I’m afraid no one in the jianghu would have noticed anything at all.”

“Maybe they only started recently and haven’t had time to make a name yet.”

“Not necessarily. That old lady of the Liu Clan has never been someone easy to deal with.”

“She’s old.”

“That’s true.”

“Are you curious about this person?”

“No. It’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen a fish so cooperative, one that obediently swims straight into the net.

“I even wonder whether putting on a formation like this and paying such a huge price just to remove him is really worth it.”

In order to cut off karmic connections as much as possible, they had been exceedingly cautious while laying out and pushing the plan, spending enormous resources and doing everything they could to avoid stepping in personally and leaving traces.

But this time, most of the lines had progressed quite smoothly. One line, however, had been exceptionally troublesome.

In the end, they had no choice but to send one clansman to intervene personally and correct it. After making the correction, he committed suicide.

So although the trap had been arranged by them, they did not actually know who the person they wanted dead was.

Because only the ignorant could remain blameless.

“We cannot allow Qin Clan Dragon King and Liu, the Dragon King to rise again. The people of those two families are all lunatics.”

“I know. But I’m looking forward to that old lady of the Liu Clan losing her mind first.”

“That is what we want to see as well.”

“The Dream Ghost’s side is nearly done.”

“Then prepare to suppress it. Let this Boqi spirit-form devour the Dream Ghost and erase all traces completely.”

“This Boqi spirit-form was once suppressed by the Liu Clan in history. That does fit the karmic pattern.”

As they spoke, the two gray-robed figures straightened their chests together, and their voices shifted from gloomy murkiness to righteous grandeur.

“The Dream Ghost is difficult to deal with and brings calamity upon the mortal world. We have poured forth immense effort and joined with a River Walker to set this trap, all for the sake of the righteous path, to eliminate this evil fiend!”

“We who walk the righteous path may all sacrifice ourselves if need be, so long as the jianghu may remain clear and the human world at peace. Heaven and earth can bear witness to our resolve to eliminate evil and defend the Dao!”

...

After a short rest, Li Zhuiyuan and Li Lan entered the haunted house together.

Haunted houses these days needed enormous costs to produce proper light-and-shadow effects. So in order to save money while still creating a terrifying atmosphere, they often went in the direction of earthy realism, or even something closer to the underworld.

Inside were coffins, paper effigies, Black and White Impermanence, torture scenes, and all kinds of setups designed for maximum physical discomfort. As long as they scared you, the ticket was worth the price.

Li Zhuiyuan and Li Lan walked through the haunted house hand in hand.

The mother and son were “scared” completely out of their wits.

Li Lan would hug her son, and Li Zhuiyuan would hug his mother as well.

It was very dark inside the haunted house, so the acting did not need to be especially fine in its details. Both mother and son were able to catch their breath and relax a little.

After all, even the finest seasoned actor, playing against an old master performer, would grow tired after long enough.

Still, there were certain scenes that stirred Li Zhuiyuan inwardly.

He saw a huge man crouched on the ground gnawing on a corpse.

He saw a woman lying in a coffin suddenly sit upright. She was made from a paper effigy, and her skin was deathly pale.

He saw a young man possessed by a malicious spirit, slamming himself again and again into a wall.

He saw a man having his flesh torn into by two child ghosts.

As he passed those four scenes, changes of expression appeared on Li Zhuiyuan’s face. Not all of them were fake, even though deep down he knew they were false.

After they came out of the haunted house, Li Lan fixed her hair, even deliberately turning away from her son so he would not see his mother in a frightened state.

Li Zhuiyuan, meanwhile, kept talking over and over about the classic scenes inside in the babbling way of a child.

Once Li Lan had composed herself, she crouched down, looked at her son, and smiled. “Our Little Yuan is so brave!”

As she spoke, she pulled the boy into her arms, gently patted his back, and comforted him. “It was all fake, all fake. Be good now. Don’t have nightmares tonight. Little Yuan is a brave, strong boy, right?”

Li Zhuiyuan tilted his head slightly and looked at his mother’s delicate earlobe.

He could practically imagine the mocking smile curling at the corners of her mouth behind his back.

Perhaps his mother also knew that he could imagine what her expression looked like right now.

Then should he put on a show of hurt and cooperate with her a little?

Li Lan gently pushed Li Zhuiyuan away and looked at his face. In the depths of the boy’s eyes, she caught a fleeting trace of sorrow and pain.

“There’s a riddle-solving game up ahead. Shall we go there?”

“Okay.”

Li Zhuiyuan continued walking, led by Li Lan.

He knew that he and his mother shared the same illness. He often saw her standing before the mirror every morning before leaving the house, taking one deep breath after another.

But for some reason, whenever he had been with his mother in the past, he would rack his brain trying to make her happy. And beyond all that, he had also gained a very special kind of comfort from it.

Something like satisfaction, dependence, habit, attachment?

He had never truly just been acting. Beyond the performance itself, he had invested something else into it too, something unfamiliar even to himself.

And yet this time, when he came to the amusement park with his mother, he discovered that he could no longer find that unfamiliar emotion.

If he never saw her again, that seemed fine.

If he left her, that also seemed fine.

If she never appeared in his life, then maybe he would not have to be so tired.

That thing... seemed to have suddenly been lost forever.

Li Zhuiyuan lifted his head and looked at the sky.

It feels like I suddenly lost a lot of things at once.

“Son, what’s wrong?”

“Mom, I’m a little tired.”

“Then that works out perfectly. Let’s do a puzzle game and relax.”

“Mm.”

The puzzle area was huge. It was one of the larger attractions in the amusement park, with three corridors side by side, partitions set up inside them, and after solving one question, you could move on to the next table.

In the end, based on how many questions you solved, you could choose from a selection of rewards.

Naturally, it also required a ticket. The prizes were not expensive, and many of the questions were riddles or brain teasers. Managed properly, the visitors had fun and the park still made a profit.

“Son, shall we have a competition?”

“Okay!”

Mother and son each walked into a different corridor.

Normally there should have been a staff member behind each table, or if it was not busy, one person might watch over two or three tables. But here, there was no one.

The questions were simply laid out on the tables for you to answer yourself.

The mother and son did not need to compare with an answer sheet either. Whatever they solved counted as correct.

Li Lan paid the fee.

The challenge began.

The first question was a photograph the size of the whole table, filled with identical faces. Within a limited time, you had to find the one that was different.

The difficulty was absurdly high, because there were simply too many small images. This was not the sort of thing that should have appeared in a place like this.

But neither mother nor son felt anything strange about it.

After all, there was not a single other person in the entire amusement park, and neither of them found that odd either.

Li Zhuiyuan only glanced at it once before reaching out to point at the odd square, then he walked around the partition and moved on to the next question.

Even he found it a little strange. Logically, no matter how good his memory was, he should not have been able to memorize so many faces and find the difference that quickly.

For instance, his mother was still stuck on the first question.

The second question was an arithmetic problem, but it used a special Bagua format, requiring you to substitute those unusual symbols in order to calculate the answer.

Li Zhuiyuan still only needed a glance for the answer to appear. He wrote it down and moved on to the next question.

He still found it odd. He seemed not to need any familiarity with those special symbols at all. The moment he looked at them, they naturally began moving on their own and told him the final result.

The third question was a color problem. You had to dip a brush into pigments and complete the painting on the table.

If you looked closely at that painting, it seemed to be moving. The stream was flowing, the mountain wind was blowing, and the weather-pattern energy was surging.

This was no longer the sort of question that should have appeared here. Even without considering whether one could match its atmospheric rhythm, the painting skill alone would have blocked ninety-nine percent of the amusement park’s visitors.

Li Zhuiyuan picked up the brush. After only a few simple strokes, the work flowed smoothly and naturally.

The next question was a puzzle, stacked very high, and you were supposed to put it together.

Li Zhuiyuan spread out the puzzle pieces and looked at them for a moment before beginning to assemble them. The densely packed tiny pieces were all fitted together in no great time.

He barely thought at all. Most of the time was spent simply performing the act of assembling.

When it was complete, it showed a flood dragon poking its head out from the clouds.

If an ordinary person tried to finish this, it would probably take days and nights.

Before going on to the fifth question, Li Zhuiyuan deliberately walked back a little to the edge of the corridor and saw that his mother had only just finished the second question and was now holding a brush as she worked on the third.

When did Mom get so stupid?

Li Zhuiyuan turned and walked toward the fifth table. Because of the angle, and with three partitions between them, mother and son could no longer see each other at that moment.

But when Li Zhuiyuan reached the fifth table, he froze.

Because there was actually someone sitting behind it.

Li Zhuiyuan could not make out the person’s face, nor even the person’s clothes, but he knew there was someone sitting there.

“Who the hell had so much free time that they dragged me into a dream?”

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