Chapter 412: Eerie Dream (Part 2)

‘If anyone was going to be implicated, it should be that dead Black-hearted Scholar. What did it have to do with him, Fang Rui?’

…

The next day, the sun rose as usual.

Fang Rui stretched, stood up, and with a twitch of his ears, all the sounds in the inn flooded his senses.

“My mushrooms have sprouted! There are so many!”

“Mine too!”

“This method really works! I didn’t believe it yesterday, but it’s actually true.”

“No wonder no one starved to death in Pinghu County during such a disastrous year. This place is a treasure trove!”

“We should bring more people next time…”

…

Fang Rui glanced at the head of his bed. A night had passed, but the pot was still just filled with dirt, unchanged. His face darkened.

‘Why haven’t my mushrooms sprouted? This is discrimination!’

He spat in disgust and analyzed the situation. ‘What went wrong? Was it because I didn’t eat a mushroom? Or was it because I meditated all night instead of sleeping?’

He couldn’t come to a conclusion, so he dropped it, deciding to try again tonight.

After breakfast, he went out.

The sky was clear and the air was fresh. Sunlight bathed the land. People, both strangers and acquaintances, greeted each other warmly as they came and went. A beautiful day had begun.

Fang Rui took Xin Xue’Er on a tour of the town. Everyone they saw was the picture of purity and kindness. Even the traveling merchants who had come to Pinghu County seemed to have been influenced, performing good deeds everywhere.

At noon, he once again encountered the white-robed woman from the day before.

‘Judging by her aura and the feedback from my Spiritual Sense, she doesn’t seem like someone tainted by the Great Black Heaven. That means… she’s from the Great Yu Court?! Is the Great Yu Court also investigating Yuwen An?’

‘It seems she probably hasn’t found any clues either.’

Fang Rui still made no contact with her.

A day passed without incident, and they returned to the inn.

…

Once again, the sun set, filling the sky with crimson clouds.

The old men playing chess under the trees dispersed in twos and threes. Children skipped and hopped through the streets and alleys. The clatter of pots and pans echoed from every home…

Fang Rui stood by the window, watching this incredibly peaceful scene. For some reason, he couldn’t shake a strange sense of dissonance.

“Xue’Er, what do you think? Do you like it here?” he asked casually.

“I don’t like it,” Xin Xue’Er replied after a moment’s thought.

“Oh?!”

Fang Rui’s eyes narrowed. ‘How could anyone dislike a Peach Blossom Spring like this?’

‘Perhaps a child’s mind is more perceptive and has noticed something?’

He wondered, crouching down to ask seriously, “Why not?”

“At night, it’s very dark… and very cold.”

Hearing this, Fang Rui grew thoughtful.

He had felt it too, but even using his Divine Technique, Emperor’s Gaze, he couldn’t spot the slightest anomaly.

After dinner, he told stories as usual to lull the little girl to sleep.

On the bed, Xin Xue’Er was curled into a tiny ball, trembling and murmuring in her sleep, “Mom…”

‘The little girl is having a nightmare… Hmm? A dream?’

A flash of Spiritual Light sparked in Fang Rui’s mind. ‘I already had a theory. My mushrooms didn’t grow last night because I didn’t fall asleep. To be precise, was it because I didn’t dream?’

‘So, the abnormality in Pinghu County isn’t in reality, but in the dreamscape?’

‘I seem to recall having a method for creating and entering dreams.’

He stroked his chin. With a thought, a wisp of his Divine Soul Will flew out.

「Inside Xin Xue’Er’s dream.」

It was a rainy day.

PITTER-PATTER!

In a dilapidated, small courtyard, her grandmother was wiping down cured meat, muttering, “My dear grandson, when will you be born? Grandma has been waiting for so long…”

A short, dark-skinned man sat on the threshold weaving a bamboo basket, cursing, “You useless woman, you’ve only done this much work all day. What good are you…”

Beside him, a small, thin woman could only offer an apologetic smile.

“Dad, Mom’s legs hurt a lot when it rains, so she’s a little slow with her work…” Xin Xue’Er poked her small head out of the kitchen. She was tiny and thin, dressed in rags, her hair a dull yellow—exactly as she had looked when Fang Rui first met her.

“When adults are talking, what right do you have to interrupt? Isn’t dinner ready yet?” Her grandmother glared over, her face vicious.

“It’s almost ready.” Xin Xue’Er couldn’t help but shrink back.

“Useless thing! A waste of money! Just you watch…”

The grandmother picked up a broom.

“Mother, Xue’Er is still little…”

“You’re useless too! I’ll beat you both!”

“It hurts… Don’t hit Mom… Grandma, please stop… I’ll be good…”

Xin Xue’Er curled up, looking smaller than ever, trembling uncontrollably. Her hair was soaked by the rain, her small face pale.

Just then, the pain suddenly vanished.

The little one opened her eyes and saw a figure standing in front of her. His smile was as gentle as the morning sun as he ruffled her hair. “It’s okay now.”

“Uncle?!”

Xin Xue’Er cried out instinctively. Her emotions surged, and the dream began to shake and shatter as she was about to wake up.

But in a flash of light, the scene changed.

The grandmother was gone. Under the eaves, it was just her and the woman.

“Mom, this blanket is so soft. If you cover yourself with it, your legs won’t hurt.”

“You’re right!” The woman’s eyes were gentle.

“Mom, this is meat soup. I’ve had it before, it’s delicious. You should try some.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Yeah, where did it come from?”

Xin Xue’Er tilted her head, thinking for a good while. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. “I… I remember! Uncle gave it to me.”

“Uncle?!”

…

Fang Rui quietly withdrew. He saw the tear stains on the corners of Xin Xue’Er’s eyes had dried, and a happy smile spread across her small face.

‘This little girl…’

He sighed and collected his thoughts. ‘So it really is a problem with the dreamscape. There’s some kind of field, or domain, here that I can’t detect, one that causes nightmares.’

‘However, if I’m not mistaken, the abnormality in Pinghu County is related to dreams, but it’s also related to the Black Mushrooms.’

‘Those Black Mushrooms might be… the key to Pinghu County’s collective dreamscape!’

Fang Rui murmured, and with a flick of his finger, a Spiritual Light from his Divine Soul Will flew out. It passed through the wall and vanished into the forehead of the guest in the next room.

…

‘Huh? This is… still the Yuelai Inn?!’

Fang Rui used his Spiritual Power to turn invisible. He looked at the familiar surroundings, but the guest from next door wasn’t there; he seemed to have gone out.

After a moment’s thought, he went to the window and looked outside.

It was…

a scarlet sun hanging in a black sky, its light the color of blood.

He went outside.

The road was littered with Black Mushrooms. On their caps grew swiveling eyeballs, or snake-like writhing tentacles, or forked, hissing tongues…

And there were all the people from the real Pinghu County.

A child bumped into a nobleman dressed in silk, who cackled madly as he strung the child up and beat him.

In a restaurant, the owner dumped out food, stomped on it with the sole of his shoe, and roared with laughter as a circle of beggars groveled on the ground, licking it up. HAHAHAHA.

A family couldn’t pay their taxes, so a petty official forced himself upon the wife in front of her husband… laughing wildly…

…

Fang Rui remained expressionless as he walked, eventually arriving at the Yuwen Family’s home in the dream.

Mr. Yuwen’s eyes were blood-red. He was holding a knife, drool dripping from his mouth, as he walked toward a young boy. “My dear grandson, let Grandpa…”

“No!” the boy trembled in terror, backing away step by step.

Just then, a group of men and women suddenly appeared, blocking Mr. Yuwen.

“Old Master, really, how could you do such a thing?”

“Exactly! He’s not grown up yet, how could you… You should wait…”

“A sour fruit should be allowed to ripen before it’s enjoyed…”

…

The shadows of the group swayed and twisted under the blood-red light.

…

‘Some Peach Blossom Spring! This is clearly a chaotic den of demons!’

‘Pure good in reality, pure evil in dreams. Does splitting the two like this create something so extremely paranoid and insane?’

It was like a spring, compressed to its limit before it could rebound.

‘But what’s the use of all this?’

The moment the thought arose, a new theory formed in Fang Rui’s mind: ‘This level of pure evil… the people tainted by it can be turned into anchors. When a single spark starts a prairie fire, the Great Black Heaven will probably be able to ‘open the gate’.’

‘The Black Mushrooms must be made from something they harvest… like shearing a sheep for wool, then using a portion of the money to buy feed. They call it an investment, but in the end, the sheep is just going to become jerky.’

‘In this process, their control over everyone in Pinghu County will also deepen.’

As for why his own mushrooms didn’t grow, he now had a rough idea.

Everyone else was frenzied and crazed, contributing *something*. But he was a cheapskate who hadn’t given a single thing, and he still expected to get Black Mushrooms?

Would the Great Black Heaven—or rather, the Evil God—let him get away with freeloading?

‘An Evil God!’

Fang Rui murmured, looking up at the sun in the sky. He suddenly realized: it… it looked like a mushroom!