Chapter 679: Helpless
Seeing the girl in white staring at him, Xiao Cheng felt his scalp tingle.
He couldn't help but take a step back, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his arm.
Gritting his teeth, he turned to look—a pot of ivy on the windowsill had cut his arm.
Because he couldn't move anything in this world, when his arm brushed against the ivy's leaves, it felt like scraping against an extremely sharp blade.
His blood spilled like beans, pattering and scattering all over the floor.
Since the blood couldn't stain the floor, every drop turned into tiny red beads, rolling around everywhere.
He had no time to deal with that. He quickly turned his head to look at the girl in white, only to find that she had already looked away, focusing intently with Qi Xia on studying the crack in the window.
As if her gaze just now had been nothing but an illusion.
Since the girl in white didn't look at him again, even Xiao Cheng himself couldn't be sure whether he had really been discovered.
In theory, the only person who could notice him was the master of the dream. That girl, as a product of this dream, had probably just glanced at him by accident.
Just then, a muffled voice came from above the sky, as if someone was speaking at the edge of the heavens.
"This kid is hurt!"
"How did this cut appear? Hurry and bandage him."
The voice from beyond the sky sounded like Chen Junnan and Tiantian.
At that moment, Xiao Cheng also felt something was wrong. This dream seemed both solid and unstable—while everything felt very real, he could even hear voices from the outside world.
If he were to be woken up, his consciousness might remain here forever, and only an empty shell would awaken.
So what should he do next? If he wasn't woken up from the outside, how could he escape from this absurd, terrifying dream?
"I think it might have been a little stone thrown by someone," the girl in white said. "Don't worry about it, Xia. I'll get someone to change the glass tomorrow."
"Oh... okay..." Qi Xia nodded slightly.
After speaking, the girl in white walked into the kitchen. From the sound, she turned on the gas stove, poured oil, sautéed the aromatics, and then tossed in a bunch of wet things. The sizzling sound of hot oil crackled loudly.
That was "bean sprouts."
Qi Xia didn't stay by the window either; instead, he came to the dining table and waited.
Xiao Cheng couldn't think of any other way. He took a few steps forward and stood opposite Qi Xia.
Then, gritting his teeth, while Qi Xia was staring blankly at the table, he suddenly reached out his finger and poked at Qi Xia's eye.
The human eye is the most vulnerable part of the body. Although it was hard for Xiao Cheng to affect things in the dream, attacking Qi Xia's eye might make him notice.
*Bang!*
The sound didn't come from Qi Xia's eye, but from Xiao Cheng's finger.
It felt like he had poked extremely hard fiberglass. Qi Xia didn't even flutter his eyelashes, but Xiao Cheng's finger hurt badly.
He clutched his finger, frowning deeply.
"Damn... his mental defenses are tougher than I thought."
This dream was truly unshakable.
Xiao Cheng thought of many other methods, but no matter what, he couldn't get Qi Xia's attention. This left him feeling quite perplexed.
Was Qi Xia somehow different from other people?
In previous dreams, most people couldn't notice his existence, but as long as he managed to touch them—never mind poking an eye, even just tugging at a corner of their clothes—they would immediately become aware of him.
But Qi Xia's dream seemed to completely defy this concept. Everything here was abnormal.
"Xia, I've stir-fried the bean sprouts."
The girl in white walked out of the kitchen carrying a steaming plate, filled with dark, twisted lines. Yet the girl seemed to be genuinely putting effort into cooking this dish.
Not only had she chopped green onions into the "bean sprouts," but she had also sprinkled in small pieces of fresh chili peppers. The red and green accents made the color of this plate of "bean sprouts" less monotonous.
"Eat first," the girl in white said, placing the "bean sprouts" on the table in front of Qi Xia. "The eggplants take a while to cook; you'll have to wait."
Qi Xia nodded blankly, then took the girl's hand. "An, don't work so hard... one dish is enough..."
"No way!" The girl in white laughed. "I've already cut the vegetables. They just need to go in the pan. You eat first."
With that, she handed a pair of chopsticks to Qi Xia and turned back into the kitchen.
Qi Xia took the chopsticks, still with a vacant look in his eyes. He straightened them on the table, then picked up a clump of black, twisted things.
"Brother Qi!!" Xiao Cheng shouted. "You can't eat that! Can't you see what it is?!"
Xiao Cheng looked at Qi Xia's chopsticks in panic. He had never noticed before that earthworms had pointed ends. After being heated, their bodies stiffened into twisted curves—whether the chopsticks had pinched them or they had coiled around the chopsticks was unclear.
As Qi Xia slowly brought the clump of "bean sprouts" to his mouth, Xiao Cheng hurriedly reached out to stop him. But Qi Xia's hand, like the door earlier, was as heavy as a thousand pounds—impossible to pull back.
In the end, Qi Xia put that clump of black, chili-and-scallion-covered worm bodies into his mouth and chewed expressionlessly.
Xiao Cheng quickly covered his eyes, feeling like he was going crazy from this bizarre dream.
What was going on?
How could someone lose their cognitive system in their own dream?
The most normal outcome by now would have been Qi Xia suddenly realizing the plate contained earthworms, waking up in shock, shuddering in fear, and then saying with relief, "It was just a dream."
But the Qi Xia before him seemed to be trying his best to turn a nightmare into an ordinary dream.
Even though his inner dream was already so horrifying, he still acted as if nothing had happened.
"Wait..."
Xiao Cheng paused, feeling like he had noticed something else.
Qi Xia's cognition was impaired... Assuming that was true, his own cognition was not impaired. He could clearly see that this world had changed.
That meant... only Qi Xia himself had changed. He had used some method to prevent himself from seeing all this.
The more Xiao Cheng analyzed it, the more it made sense. This way, every "nightmare" could be treated as a "good dream," which could serve as a motive.
But thinking about it this way...
Xiao Cheng's heart, which had just settled, suddenly rose again. His hands and feet, which had just regained some warmth, turned cold once more.
That girl in white... the world she saw must be the same as his.
She could see everything!