Chapter 74.1 Dream
Lin Banxia always thought that the moment he fell asleep was after he and Song Qingluo entered the base, but now that he thought about it carefully, they should have been infected by the dream on the train. The sound of continuous rain after the thunder was the signal for them to fall asleep.
Cui Gaoyu was right when he said to Lin Banxia, ”You can’t tell the difference.” Without Xiaohua’s existence, it would indeed be impossible for Lin Banxia to distinguish between reality and dreams. He would think that he had come out, and innocently continue to live in the first level of dreamland, until one day, the dreamland suddenly revealed its true face – no one could accept the fact that they were still in the dream.
Xiaohua was the “anchor” in the dream sea, stabilizing the coordinates of Lin Banxia and Song Qingluo, preventing them from falling into never-ending doubts.
This sleep was the longest that Lin Banxia had ever slept. However, looking at the time now, it had only been five hours. Amidst the heavy rain that lasted for so many days, he wondered what Cui Gaoyu went through. What kind of torture did he experience to finally choose to compromise?
Thinking of Cui Gaoyu, Lin Banxia couldn’t help but look at Song Qingluo and asked him how Cui Gaoyu was doing now.
Song Qingluo lowered his eyes and whispered, “I’ll make a call first.” He took out his mobile phone and dialled a number. However, although the call was connected, no one answered. Song Qingluo called four or five times, but no one picked up. In the end, he chose to give up and dial another number.
“Hello.” Li Su’s tired voice came from the other end of the phone. His voice was hoarse and he didn’t sound energetic.
Song Qingluo asked: “Where are the people on Bai Luze’s side?”
Li Su said: “…Am I really awake?”
Song Qingluo said: “You’re awake.”
Li Su said nothing.
Song Qingluo knew that this was the sequelae of the dream, and it was difficult for everyone to get rid of it. He could only watch him trying to get out of this emotion. Li Su didn’t speak for a long time. It was so long that Lin Banxia almost thought he had fallen asleep again. Then he heard a whisper from the other end. He said, “Li Ye is not dead?”
Song Qingluo said calmly: “Probably not.”
Li Su said, “Okay, I’ll go to Bai Luze’s place and have a look.” Then there was the sound of getting dressed, “I’ll call you later.”
Song Qingluo agreed.
Lin Banxia turned to look out the window and saw that the pouring rain had stopped, the sky had cleared up, and a bright moon was vaguely exposed behind the dark clouds, but it did not have the cold unreal feeling in the dream. On the contrary, it made Lin Banxia calm down.
Although there were still many things to deal with, at least they had come out.
In the second half of the night, neither of them slept. Song Qingluo was waiting for Li Su’s reply, while Lin Banxia hugged Xiaohua and curled up on a chair to take a nap. The two of them leaned together in tacit understanding, half asleep and half awake, and welcomed the dawn.
With a loud whistle, the train slowly entered the terminal platform.
Lin Banxia and Song Qingluo got out of the car with their luggage. When they got off, Lin Banxia felt that the scene was very familiar. After thinking about it carefully, he realized that he had already experienced it once in the dream. Only that time, it was Bai Luze who picked them up at the station. This time, the people picking them up turned out to be Li Su and Li Ye.
Li Ye drove, and Li Su sat in the passenger seat, still fully armed. When Lin Banxia and Song Qingluo got in the car, he pulled off the mask he was wearing and stuffed a cigarette into his mouth. He nodded towards the two of them as a greeting.
Lin Banxia and Song Qingluo sat in the back seat and watched the car drive away from the platform. No one spoke, and the atmosphere in the car was a bit stagnant.
“Bai Luze’s situation is not very good.” Finally, Li Su spoke first. He lowered the car window halfway and blew out smoke. “Cui Gaoyu’s situation is not very good either.” He said, “What are you doing? When did you come in?” He was referring to entering into a dream.
Song Qingluo raised his hand and looked at his watch: “Ten hours ago.”
Li Su pinched the corners of his eyes, feeling a little irritable, and said, “What exactly is going on?” He now also had memories from the dream. He remembered high school and the experience of working with Song Qingluo, but later on, the dream was completely out of control. He dreamed that he woke up in the base, surrounded by countless corpses. Then the staff came over and told him that out of hundreds of people, he was the only one who survived, and Song Qingluo was dead. Lin Banxia died, and so did Li Ye.
Li Su collapsed on the spot. Only then did he realize that a person can’t cry when he is extremely sad. He kept shaking while holding Li Ye’s body, telling himself that this was just a dream. Because of his illness, Li Su had been squeamish since he was a child. He was almost always pampered by his family growing up. Even if something unexpected happened later, he rarely suffered. He was actually quite afraid of pain, but he was so afraid that after learning that Li Ye was dead, he took out a dagger and chopped off several of his fingers.
However, this did not wake up Li Su.
“I have sealed the heretical object.” Song Qingluo’s voice floated over, calling back Li Su’s gradually crumbling rationality. He suddenly came back to his senses, only to find that the cigarette butt was about to burn his fingers, and he was in pain from the burning. It came from the skin. He paused deliberately, letting the sparks touch his fingers, and then put out the cigarette butt pretending to be casual.
“Then what?” Li Su turned around and asked, pretending that nothing happened, “What happened to Cui Gaoyu?”
“Cui Gaoyu has become the companion creature of 47777.” Song Qingluo said, “It was not sealed previously, so people who woke up had no memory of the dream. Cui Gaoyu used his own memory as nutrients to support its growth.”
This was a long story. Song Qingluo deliberately left out the existence of Xiaohua, only saying that he sealed the dream and Cui Gaoyu with his body, so they could wake up with their memories.
After listening to this, Li Su said: “Cui Gaoyu is not dead, but his mental state is very poor. If I must say, he seems to have become retarded.”
Song Qingluo was not surprised, and said lightly: “It was expected.”
“Several of the recorders who were with us died.” Li Su continued, “They are Qin Xu, Jiang Xin and the others in the dream…do you still remember them?”
Of course Lin Banxia remembered.
“They’re all dead.” Li Su originally wanted to light a second cigarette, but Li Ye, who had been silent next to him, stretched out his hand and took the lighter from his hand.
Li Su wanted to snatch it back, but Li Ye gave him a look. He had no choice but to withdraw his hand, pulled up his mask, and stopped talking.
Song Qingluo said: “Go to the base first.”
Li Ye said: “Okay.”
Lin Banxia felt that the atmosphere between Li Su and Li Ye was strange. Thinking about it carefully, he remembered what happened to them in their dreams. The worst thing was that they seemed to bring the memories of their dreams to reality. Just thinking about it makes him feel a little embarrassed.
Song Qingluo and Li Ye chatted some more about the base, and most of the content was similar to what Lin Banxia knew in the first-level dream. On the days when they returned to Lin Banxia’s hometown, Li Su and Li Ye fell asleep early. Before entering the campus dream, they also experienced some other dreams, most of which were bizarre. The two quickly noticed something unusual, but after Song Qingluo and Lin Banxia fell asleep, they were taken directly into the school and lost all their previous memories. They really thought they were students of the school.
“That school is not where I went to school.” Li Ye said, “It seems that the person who constructed this layer of dreams has a very strong spiritual power, otherwise he could not have pulled everyone else in without a sense of violation.” He glanced at Song Qingluo in the rearview mirror, “Is this your dream?”
Song Qingluo said: “Yes.”
Li Ye said: “Oh.”
Of course, this was not Song Qingluo’s dream, but Lin Banxia’s, but Song Qingluo responded to Li Ye’s question lightly, seemingly not wanting him to know that this dream was related to Lin Banxia.
A few hours later, the car arrived outside the base.
What Lin Banxia didn’t expect was that this base was exactly the same as the one he saw in his dream, except that Bai Luze was missing.
The group of people walked directly into the building, and Song Qingluo was quickly taken away by the staff. It was said that they were going to deal with the heretical object sealed in his body.
Lin Banxia and Li Su were arranged to sleep in the lounge. They said it was for sleeping, but honestly, they were not tired at all.
Li Ye sat on the sofa and took a nap, Li Su squatted in the corner and closed himself up. Lin Banxia had nothing to do. He took out his mobile phone and casually browsed the news. In the quiet room, you could hear a pin drop.
At that moment, the door to the room was suddenly opened, and a pale, bloodless face appeared at the door. Lin Banxia raised his eyes their gazes met. The two looked at each other for a moment, then the person smiled: “Hello, Lin Banxia.”
It was Bai Luze who came.
He was exactly the same as in the dream. He was very slender and was wearing a set of loose overalls. His face was a bit paler than Li Su’s, and there was no trace of blood in his lips. His whole body exuded a lifeless look.
Lin Banxia said: “Hello…”
“You should know me, right?” Bai Luze walked to Lin Banxia’s side and sat down naturally. Although his body was tightly covered by work clothes, Lin Banxia could still smell a very faint smell of blood. There was no doubt that Bai Luze was just like him in the dream, with wounds all over his body.
Fortunately, he has woken up from the dream now and it stopped raining, so he didn’t have to hurt himself anymore.
“Where is Song Qingluo?” Bai Luze asked.
“He went to deal with the heretical object.” Li Su replied, “How is Cui Gaoyu doing?”
“He’s still tied up,” Bai Luze said, “but he has calmed down. Have you really succeeded in sealing the dream?”
“Of course.” Li Su said, “How else would we wake up?”
Bai Luze said oh.
Lin Banxia felt that Bai Luze seemed to want to say something, but when the words came to his lips, he chose silence.
“You must be hungry after riding the train all night.” Bai Luze looked at the time and asked, “Would you like to go get something to eat with me?”
“I don’t need it.” Li Su said, “I’m not hungry.”
Li Ye also shook his head, so Bai Luze looked at Lin Banxia.
Lin Banxia didn’t rest all night, and he was indeed a little hungry now, so he nodded and went out to look for food with Bai Luze.
Li Su looked at the two people’s backs and suddenly said: “Do you think he knows?”
Li Ye said: “He knows.”
“It’s better not to know.” Li Su smiled bitterly. He glanced at Li Ye and found that he was also staring at him, with a complicated expression in his green eyes. After a while, he suddenly reached out and held his face.
“Am I awake?” Li Ye lowered his head and kissed Li Su’s lips, “Why don’t you hide?… Am I still dreaming?”
Li Su laughed, stretched out his hand and punched Li Ye, and cursed: “You bastard, don’t take advantage of me, stay away.”
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