Chapter 52: The True Meaning of Illusion Techniques

"Very well." Su Mu leaned heavily on his Snakewood Cane and rose from his chair. The elegant noble issued his first command.

"First, we need to find Tingting."

"Wait a minute. You still haven't said who Tingting's sister actually is," Yang Dongqing asked, genuinely curious about the sister who didn't exist in the photograph.

Su Mu glanced at him. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Of course." Yang Dongqing frowned, puzzled as to why Su Mu would ask such a question.

"In that case, I'll tell you my theory." Su Mu paused, then continued, "First, you need to understand one thing. The real Tingting is not this small. She isn't a little girl, but a young woman."

Yang Dongqing nodded. "I know. She looks like a little girl because her mind is stuck in childhood."

"So," Su Mu said, "when a frequently abused young woman speaks of a sister who doesn't exist in the family portrait... who do you think it is?"

"How should I know who the sister—" Yang Dongqing suddenly froze. An instant later, his expression darkened drastically. Boiling murderous intent surged through him, causing his heavily injured frame to tremble uncontrollably.

He gritted his teeth so hard they nearly shattered. Veins bulged on his face, twisting his features into the ferocious visage of a demon.

In that instant, he understood everything. There was no sister in the family portrait, and there was no sister in the shadowy flashbacks of Tingting's life. Her home only held the signs of two people living there, and Grandmother had always left out a single plate of dumplings...

"It seems you've figured it out. Tingting may never have had siblings. The reason she called her a sister is because her mind had no concept of..."

"Enough! Don't say another word!" Yang Dongqing roared in absolute rage.

"Fuck! Fuck! Ahhhhh!!!" Venting his fury, Yang Dongqing smashed the room's tables and chairs in a frenzy, only stopping when the place was a complete wreck. The exertion tore his wounds open once more, soaking his clothes in crimson blood.

However, the next moment, a metallic luster surfaced across his skin. Under its gleam, his injuries continuously knit back together, and even the surface of his flesh took on a faint golden hue.

A sharp glint flashed through Su Mu's eyes. Was this Heart of Steel?

He had already confirmed that emotion and willpower could enhance this body of steel, but he never expected that extreme emotion could push Yang Dongqing's enhancement to such an astonishing degree.

He even suspected that if Transcendents had tiers, Yang Dongqing would have been tier one before, and had now become tier two.

This was obvious. Ye Fanyu had become a Transcendent earlier and was noticeably stronger in combat than Yang Dongqing, which proved that their abilities held further potential for development.

"Your ability has grown stronger?" Su Mu asked.

Yang Dongqing's chest heaved violently. It took him a long time to calm down before he finally gave a heavy grunt of confirmation.

"Excellent. That gives us a much better chance of success," Su Mu said. "I'll briefly explain my plan. It's actually quite simple: we are going to hypnotize Tingting."

Yang Dongqing abruptly turned his head, clearly sensitive to the word "hypnotize."

Su Mu ignored his fierce expression and continued, "Finding Tingting's family is impossible, because they died a long time ago. Even Tingting herself only exists within the Nightmare. Furthermore, even if we did find them, it wouldn't be a happy ending. After all, her parents deliberately abandoned her.

"Therefore, the only method is hypnosis. Through hypnosis, we can make Tingting experience an illusion, allowing her family to reunite."

"What kind of method is that!?" Yang Dongqing roared. "Even if you succeed, what's the point? It's all fake! It's all an Illusion Technique!"

Su Mu pushed up his Tinted Glasses, hiding his gaze behind them, and said calmly, "You are wrong. This is the true meaning of Illusion Techniques.

"The people you cannot see in reality, you can see within an Illusion Technique.

"The things you cannot achieve in reality, you can achieve through an Illusion Technique.

"Do you still remember the last line of the lullaby?

'Sleep in this night, ask not what is false or true; until the break of dawn, the Nightmare turns from you.'"

Yang Dongqing fell silent. His mind was in absolute turmoil, so chaotic that he couldn't even think.

"Do you think the Nightmare before us is fake or real? Since the boundary between dreams and reality has been shattered, it means truth is falsehood, and falsehood is truth! Since Tingting can manifest such a Nightmare, why can't I use an Illusion Technique to construct the beauty in her heart, allowing her to escape this nightmare and manifest a beautiful dream instead?"

"Can it really be done?" Yang Dongqing asked hoarsely.

Su Mu nodded. "Theoretically, it is absolutely possible. First, Tingting is the source of the Nightmare, which means everything is born because of her. As long as her perception is changed, the Nightmare will naturally change accordingly.

"However, there is one complication. I suspect that during the process of hypnotizing Tingting, the rules of the Nightmare will shift. Hypnosis is effectively modifying her cognition, and this Nightmare relies entirely on that cognition to exist.

"Furthermore, the villagers will definitely try to stop me. After all, they rely on the Nightmare to exist. Changing the dreamscape is equivalent to completely killing them, so..."

"Leave them to me!" Yang Dongqing growled. The metallic luster across his skin flared even brighter. "Those damn animals! Even if they're only living in a dream, I absolutely will not allow it!"

"Very well. Then we wait for nightfall." With that, Su Mu sat back down on his stool.

His fighting spirit surging, Yang Dongqing suddenly faltered. "Aren't we going to find Tingting? Let's go!"

Su Mu shook his head. "This is Tingting's Nightmare. If she doesn't want to come out, no one can find her. She won't come out during the day, because she has to hide from the villagers. If Tingting's house hadn't been destroyed, we could go there to look for her, but now we can only wait."

"Then I'll go out and kill a few villagers first." Yang Dongqing couldn't hold back anymore and was about to set off immediately.

"Wait a moment." A Snakewood Cane blocked his path.

"What you need to do now is save your strength. There will be a massive battle tonight."

"But can you guarantee we'll find Tingting tonight?"

Su Mu smiled mysteriously. "Of course. But before that, I still need to get some sleep."

After speaking, under Yang Dongqing's astonished gaze, Su Mu leaned back in his chair and drifted off to sleep. His hands were folded over his stomach, and his posture remained perfectly upright. Even fast asleep, he still exuded an air of refined elegance.

Su Mu wasn't sleeping because he was tired, but because his mental energy was depleted. Previously, in order to hypnotize Ye Fanyu, he had consumed a massive amount of it.

In truth, he had been laying the groundwork to hypnotize Ye Fanyu from the moment they first met. Whether it was repeatedly checking his Pocket Watch or smoking Jasmine-scented cigarettes, every action had been for the sake of hypnosis.