Chapter 677: Entering the Door
"What's going on...?"
A thin layer of sweat oozed from his forehead, and then he closed his eyes once more.
He cast aside all of his "convictions," telling himself over and over in his mind that this was just a dream, that everything was fake, that he had merely had a nightmare, and that as soon as he opened his eyes, he could return to the real world.
But no matter how many times he opened his eyes, all that lay before him was this blood-red city.
Every building in this city was pulsating, and the eyeball in the sky kept staring at him. Even though the situation was already this bizarre... it still felt real.
Yes, it was all too real—so real that he couldn’t sever his own convictions at all.
"Damn it..." Xiao Cheng tremblingly stood up, looking around in bewilderment. "This is just a dream... let me out..."
He tried his best to shake his own convictions, but his brain was already completely out of control. If there was one of the most helpless things in the world, it was knowing full well that you were in a "nightmare" yet having no way to wake up from it.
Xiao Cheng stood there for a moment, his eyes flickering, when a thought quietly surfaced in his mind—
There wasn't no way out yet. There was still one last retreat left.
Perhaps... only by helping Qi Xia rebuild his psychological defenses could there be a slim chance of getting out unscathed...
Xiao Cheng could only keep comforting himself, telling himself that maybe this city wasn’t originally like this. Maybe it had only become so ruined because of external damage.
If he could just find the "source," maybe everything could still be saved.
But in this vast city... where was he supposed to find Qi Xia?
What memory was Qi Xia experiencing in this dream?
Xiao Cheng slowly lifted his head and suddenly realized that while the situation was extremely difficult, it was also a little easier than he had imagined.
In a nearby residential building made of flesh and blood, a faint light was shining from one window. All the other windows in that building were pitch black, like hollowed-out holes in the flesh, but a single window on the fourth floor was lit.
It seemed there was a figure moving inside.
Since all the people here appeared to be immobile, the one moving must surely be Qi Xia himself.
Xiao Cheng steadied his mind and slowly walked toward that residential building.
The people on both sides of the street remained standing still, their faces turned in all directions. No matter how Xiao Cheng moved, some of their faces were always facing him.
Although those people had no eyes, Xiao Cheng could clearly feel countless gazes falling upon him.
The pupil in the sky was also fixed on Xiao Cheng’s steps. He felt as if every step he took was a performance.
All the "people" in this world were the audience of this performance. They stood motionless, intently watching his footsteps.
This feeling made Xiao Cheng’s whole body turn cold, as if the moment he did something wrong, a crowd would immediately pounce on him and kill him.
Under the "gaze" of countless people, Xiao Cheng walked forward trembling. Although it was only a little over a hundred meters, it felt like he had used up all his strength.
Stepping on this slightly elastic, constantly pulsating ground, Xiao Cheng’s legs refused to obey him. He barely managed to reach the entrance of the residential building, where he quickly reached out to support himself on the doorframe of the unit to rest for a moment. But the moment he touched it, he jerked his hand back as if he had been shocked.
It was too bizarre. This flesh actually had temperature.
In the instant his cold hand touched the wall, he felt a warmth, delivering another massive blow to his barely sustained mental fortitude.
Was the building alive... or was the city alive?
He slowly stepped back and looked up at the unit door before him. The door was entirely made of deep red flesh, like the bloody maw of some monster, quietly waiting there for prey to walk in on its own.
If Xiao Cheng had any other choice, he would never step through that door. But the master of this terrifying dream was inside that door; he was the source of all the problems.
Xiao Cheng took a deep breath and walked straight in. The temperature of the surrounding air suddenly rose a few degrees, but his cold sweat still soaked his back.
He remembered that the faint light came from the north-facing room on the fourth floor of this building, so he followed his memory and climbed the stairs.
The sensation of the stairs was even stranger. After just a few steps, Xiao Cheng’s scalp began to tingle.
Although the stairs were also made of flesh and blood, to give them shape, there seemed to be bones inside. Each step felt like stepping on a rib with raw meat still attached, making a constant "squish squish" sound that made it impossible to even think.
Suppressing his nausea and fear, Xiao Cheng finally stood in front of the room on the fourth floor.
Just looking at the security door before him, countless questions arose in Xiao Cheng’s mind.
Unlike the warm, sticky flesh all around, this was an ordinary iron security door, even covered with patches of rust accumulated over the years.
This iron door seemed to have grown into the flesh.
Did this place... have some difference from the rest?
Xiao Cheng steadied himself and raised his trembling hand to knock on the iron door. But he forgot that he was in someone else’s dream; the iron door he knocked on made no sound at all.
Just as he had said, he was not the master of this dream, and it was extremely difficult for him to affect anything in this dream.
Now, even the simplest knock was impossible.
"Hey!" Xiao Cheng could only change tack and called out at the top of his voice, "Anybody here?!"
Qi Xia, the master of this dream, was the absolute ruler of this entire area. But according to past experience, the master of the dream often could neither hear nor see him. Perhaps his control over "entering dreams" was not yet refined enough, or perhaps his own "conviction" was not strong enough. It was incredibly difficult to have any effect on them.
Just as Xiao Cheng was hesitating, a strange set of footsteps came from behind him. Cold sweat broke out all over his body, and he quickly turned to look.
He saw a young girl dressed in white, carrying a plastic bag, stepping on the flesh and blood as she walked up the stairs step by step. She was quite different from all the other pedestrians on the street—not only did she have delicate, refined features, but her expression also looked somewhat tired.
Though full of confusion, Xiao Cheng wisely stepped aside.
The girl indeed did not spare him a glance. She walked straight to the door on the fourth floor, pulled out a key from her handbag, and opened the door.
"Xia, I'm back," the girl said.
She didn’t close the door behind her. Carrying several plastic bags, she walked straight inside.
Seeing that the security door was about to close, Xiao Cheng hurriedly reached out to pull it, but then remembered he was in someone else’s dream. Even the simple act of opening the door was impossible. The closing security door felt as heavy as a thousand pounds; he couldn’t budge it at all.
So he quickly slipped sideways and squeezed through the door just before it shut.