683 Dream

 

Han Fei rushed to the room where Fu Tian was in with the fastest speed. The corridor wasn’t long, but it seemed to take him forever. To prevent any accident, Han Fei pulled on the red threads. When the curses surfaced, everything seemed to return to normal.

He pushed open the door. The living room was empty. Han Fei shouted Lee Guo Er’s name. Soon, the confused Lee Guo Er and Fu Tian walked out of the kitchen. The thin girl followed beside them.

“Did any stranger come here?” Han Fei walked toward Lee Guo Er with his knife.

“No. What happened?”

“We’re being targeted by something very vicious.” Han Fei looked around carefully. Suddenly, he heard sobbing from Yan Yue’s room. “Is he hiding inside the bedroom?” Han Fei was not as permissible as Yan Yue’s father. He kicked down the room door and charged in.

“Yan Yue?” The lights inside the bedroom were off. Yan Yue’s body was floating in the air, and her limbs were twisted. Her mouth was open wide, and her belly had expanded. It was like a snake had slithered into her body. The girl behind Han Fei screamed. Lee Guo Er and Fu Tian were scared too.

“Is Yan Yue Dream’s target?” Han Fei bound the red threads around his fingers and moved forward. The darkness inside the room was as thick as ink. It was suffocating. “I have an innate hostility against Dream. Not every ghost will be able to crawl into a girl’s stomach.”

Yan Yue was in pain too. Three different voices came out of her body.

“Yan Yue, Yan Yue’s mother, and Dream?” Han Fei speculated. He realized the three crying voices were uniting. To stop this ritual, he cut at the darkness!

Strangely enough, when the cursed blade touched the darkness, it slashed through the shapeless darkness so that light could filter in. “What a strange world.” Han Fei ran forward, grabbed the girl, and pulled her out.

The bedroom changed instantly. The posters on the wall started to bleed. The humans in the posters turned, and their hollow eyes looked at Han Fei. From the corners, arms tainted with envy and resentment grabbed at Yan Yue and Han Fei!

“I’ve seen crazy fans, but this is the first time I’ve seen celebrities trying so hard to keep their fans.” The cursed presence radiated from Han Fei. The paper doll in his arms opened her eyes. Without doing anything, the doll only looked at the darkness, and the arms retreated. Han Fei used this opportunity to bring Yan Yue out of the room. Her condition didn’t improve after leaving the bedroom.

“Follow me upstairs! Don’t get left behind!” Han Fei gathered everyone important. Before knowing Dream’s actual goal, this was the most logical solution. Han Fei led the group back to the fifth floor. Brain was kneeling on the ground. His eyes were red. His condition was bad.

“If you have any last words, you better say them now.” Han Fei went to help Brain up from the ground. He realized Brain was a lot lighter than a normal adult. It was as if his body had been hollowed out.

“Quick! Destroy all the tapes with death. The kids have been used. The ghosts are hiding inside the tapes!” Brain shouted very loudly as if he was afraid the people couldn’t hear him.

“Uncle, Yan Yue and I are in our school’s photography club. Normally, we’ll record the activities held at school. About half a year ago, Yan Yue stopped hanging out with us. She went to record things on her own and had collected many tapes.” The female student resisted the fear and tried to help Han Fei, “I’ve once sneaked a look at the contents. There are some that recorded the death of a worm and the rotting process of a wild cat. There was even one about a suicide victim! She seemed to know that the student would commit suicide, so she went to the crime scene early to capture a good video.”

“It’s Dream who told Yan Yue that! My wife had a deal with Dream. To revive Yan Yue, they had made the greatest mistake!” Brain held his bleeding eyes. He heard his daughter’s cries. He touched his daughter’s bulging stomach, and he finally revealed his family’s secret. “My wife and I were the theme park’s night shift workers. We met and fell in love 10 years ago.”

“I’m not interested in your love story. What has your wife done?”

The man raised his bleeding face. “Dream plotted everything from 10 years ago. My wife was hypnotized before she even knew me.”

“This plot started ten years ago? What a cunning man.”

“My wife never revealed any anomaly until Yan Yue died from an ‘accident’. My wife’s love spiraled out of control. She was desperate to revive Yan Yue, even if it meant she had to harm the innocent.” Brain crawled to his daughter and touched her daughter, which had turned into a monster. “I was too caught up in the warmth of love to realize that love is selfish and crazy too.” He laid his hands on Yan Yue’s expanded stomach. There was where the ghost was hiding. Guilt, anger, and despair colored the man’s eyes. He gritted his teeth. “Brain has the highest turnover rate among all the five managers because the other four managers all want to know the secret protected by Brain. I can’t remember who came for me, but it’s definitely not just one.” Seeing how helpless and angry the man was, Han Fei seemed to see himself from a few days ago. He had forgotten everything, so he could only be bullied. To save the man, Han Fei decided to deal with the other managers, to create a city without the theme park.

“Truth is a monster with a mouth. As long as it has happened, there will be traces of it.” Han Fei said confidently. “You have forgotten the past, but the people around you will remember. I can help with that.”

“There’s no need. In this city, only my wife knows about my past. She is currently inside my daughter’s body. I can try to awaken her.”

“Your wife is inside your daughter?” Han Fei didn’t quite get it.

“Resurrection ritual requires live sacrifices. The scarier the ghost that is going to be revived, the greater the sacrifice. Yan Yue was a normal ghost, but her mother had killed 9 people and injured 99 people to ensure the ritual’s success. Yan Yue couldn’t sustain so much hatred, so her mother voluntarily sacrificed herself and entered her body to suppress the other resentment.”

“Is the ritual that scary?” Han Fei seemed to remember something. He appeared to have experienced this ritual before a room with the number 4. “If someone like Dream wants to resurrect himself, how big will the sacrifice be?”

“It’s hard to say, but I suspect he’ll drag half of the city down into hell with him.” The man’s bleeding eyes looked at Yan Yue and her daughter’s expanding stomach. If this continued, her daughter might explode. “Dream has cut off all my connections. I have no one I can trust in this city. If something happens to me, I hope you can look after Yan Yue. She is actually a very nice kid.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have forgotten everything, but my wife still remembers something. I will try to awaken her. With her love for Yan Yue, she will help us, or at least she won’t let Yan Yue die.” When the man said these things, his body opened with wounds. The wounds under his scorched skin bled. The map on his body blurred. “Love is really the world’s most precious and also the saddest thing.” Blood covered the maze on the man. At the same time, a black pattern appeared on the spot where he touched Yan Yue.

“Before the new Brain appears, the answer on my body will slowly disappear. I’ve long forgotten the use of this tattoo. Only the new Brain will find the thing hidden deep inside the maze.” The Brain was rapidly growing old. “Dream can attack others through media like pictures, videos, and movies. All the external stimuli might be lying to you to lure you into his nightmare. I also don’t know how to defeat that monster. I’m sorry. That’s all I can do to help you.”

The missing maze tattoo appeared on Yan Yue. Her stomach stopped expanding, but she struggled harder.

“Her mother is coming soon. Go to Room 444 at the end of the corridor on the fourth floor. That was where she performed the ritual.”

The group helped each other to stand up. When they moved to the living room, Han Fei noticed his cat was kneeling on the couch, staring at the black cocoon coughed out by the student’s mother. The cocoon had cracked, but the black mist inside the cocoon was slowly absorbed by the ugly kitten.

Seeing this, Han Fei quickly rushed to pick up the kitten. He was afraid that the kitten might be injured.

“Huh? Its wounds have healed.” Han Fei placed the kitten on Fu Tian’s shoulders so that they could protect each other. Then, they left the room. Once Han Fei opened the front door, he felt something was wrong. The night was exceptionally dark. The neighborhood had no light at all.

“Quick! After you enter Room 444, don’t leave it!”

The man urged, but Han Fei had a bad feeling about Room 444. He had a natural hatred of the number 4.