Chapter 142: Unspeakable Secrets

"Suppression Talisman!" I formed a practiced hand seal and threw the talisman, suppressing the nurse just before she could bite Huang Xue.

Golden light bore down, and wisps of black smoke rose from the nurse's face, her twisted features freezing mere centimeters from Huang Xue's eyes.

Scorched by the light, her neck twisted like a wrung towel. She thrashed and screamed like a venomous snake tossed into a fire, unable to force herself a single step closer to Huang Xue.

Huang Xue's beautiful eyes were wide, brimming with terror. The sight of something so far beyond normal human comprehension left her completely stunned.

Only when the nurse's body collapsed limply to the floor did she finally let out a scream, kicking at the ground to scramble backward.

"Do you believe me now?" I pressed my hands down on Huang Xue's frail shoulders, stopping her retreat. "Look closely. Burn the image of this monster into your mind. If you still refuse to cooperate, we'll be trapped in this terrifying world forever, spending the rest of our days with ghosts."

Huang Xue leaned back desperately, her hands flailing in a panic. "What is that thing? Where exactly are we?!"

"Calm down." I grabbed her arm. "This is your dream. You're currently trapped in a nightmare that is incredibly difficult to wake up from."

"A dream?" It took a long time for Huang Xue to calm down and process everything I had told her earlier.

"You've had heart problems since childhood and can't handle extreme shock. If this were reality, you probably would have suffered a heart attack and died by now." My words were harsh, but they were the truth.

After a long hesitation, Huang Xue finally chose to believe me, accepting the fact that she was asleep. "You say I'm dreaming. So how do I wake up?"

That question left me stumped.

Master Hypnotist Fantasy had told me that once someone fell into the Middle Dream Layer, they could only wake up if their physical body was subjected to an external force in reality. But right now, both Huang Xue and I were inside the Dream Realm, so no one was out there to wake her body up.

"There is a way, but it requires a specific opportunity," I said.

Huang Xue and I were currently in the Middle Dream Layer. If we wanted to wake up quickly, our first option was to find the exit to the Shallow Dream Layer. Once we returned to the Shallow Dream Layer, Huang Xue could simply kill herself to escape the nightmare.

The other option was to wait for Sakurako to appear. She could traverse dreams freely; we could have her leave Huang Xue's dream and wake her up in reality.

To be safe, I still took out my phone to ask the livestream viewers for advice. "Master Fantasy, are you there? I've found the owner of the dream. What do I need to do to bring her back to the Shallow Dream Layer?"

I waited for over ten minutes before I finally saw Master Hypnotist Fantasy's chat message: "Returning to the Shallow Dream Layer from the Middle Dream Layer isn't difficult. You just need to find a memory node."

"What's a memory node?" I asked.

Master Hypnotist Fantasy replied: "It's the place etched deepest in the dream owner's memory. These things act as guiding beacons, impossible to erase even within a dream. Seek out the deepest, most unforgettable memory in the dream owner's heart. Once you find it, you will naturally understand how to leave the Middle Dream Layer."

Master Fantasy's words were vague and confusing. After sending that message, he didn't post anything else.

"Find the place etched deepest in memory?" I turned to look at Huang Xue. "What are the most unforgettable things in your life?"

Huang Xue stammered, still refusing to share the secret buried deep in her heart.

"What are you hesitating for? This is a matter of life and death, and your only choice is to trust me." My tone grew impatient as I spoke to her with absolute seriousness. "We aren't playing house. This is a life-or-death livestream where failure means sinking into an abyssal nightmare forever! Every single move we make impacts the lives of over a hundred innocent people!"

Huang Xue sat helplessly on the floor. She didn't dare meet my gaze, opening her mouth several times only to stop herself before speaking.

"Think it through. Besides..." I gently lifted her chin with one hand. "I need a teammate who can help, not a burden who will drag me down. Do you understand?"

Huang Xue wasn't irreplaceable to me. With over a hundred lives at stake, I knew exactly what mattered most and who had to be abandoned in a moment of crisis.

"Let go. I'll tell you everything I know." Huang Xue opened her eyes, which were as brilliant as summer flowers. She pried my hand away and revealed a shocking secret.

"My mother might have been driven to her death by Huang Boyuan!"

"A long time ago, I started having the same recurring dream. It was a very realistic dream, just like what we're experiencing right now."

"In the dream, I would go back to when I was very little. Our family still lived in a run-down rental house."

"It felt like I possessed my younger self, observing everything from an infant's perspective. The dream was blurry at first, but every time I had it, what I saw became a little clearer."

"It was one morning. My mother was pointing at a painting and cursing loudly. In my memories, my gentle and elegant mother had never lost her composure like that."

"This went on for about an hour until a man suddenly appeared in the room. It was incredibly abrupt, as if he had been hiding in the corner the whole time."

"That man wanted to kill me, but my mother fought desperately to stop him and finally drove him away."

"But then something even more terrifying happened. Just a few minutes after that man vanished, the door was pushed open, and Huang Boyuan walked in. He had a horrifying expression on his face and was holding a packet of traditional Chinese medicine. He started arguing loudly with my mother."

"I couldn't hear their conversation clearly. All I know is that Huang Boyuan rushed off later, and after my mother drank the medicine he brought back, she never woke up again."

As she spoke, Huang Xue's fingers twisted tightly together. "I've had this dream too many times. It feels like the moment I close my eyes, I see the scene of my mother dying!"

After listening to her story, I drew in a deep breath of cold air. "Could Huang Boyuan really have murdered his own wife?"

I glanced back at the livestream chat. Master Hypnotist Fantasy had posted another message: "What she saw might not be a dream, but an actual memory."

I angled my phone screen away from Huang Xue and continued watching. A moment later, Fantasy posted a new message.

"For normal people, memories from before the age of three are incredibly blurry or even completely forgotten. In reality, these memories don't disappear; they are engraved in the deepest parts of the mind. No external stimulus can awaken these sealed memories. They can only be seen by entering the Dream Realm, and these memories usually only exist in the Deep Dream Layer! Streamer, this woman has definitely entered the Deep Dream Layer before. You must be careful!"

Master Fantasy's warning put me on high alert. I didn't completely believe Huang Xue's words. "Your memory node is the old house from your childhood. As long as we find that old rental house in this dream, we should be able to escape."

"I do know where that old house is, but after so many years, it was probably demolished a long time ago," Huang Xue said, looking at me helplessly as she voiced her concern.

"The foundation of a dreamscape is your memory, so that place shouldn't have changed. Get ready to move."

Huang Xue and I had stayed here for far too long. I had originally intended to wait for Sakurako, but even with a 60-to-1 time difference, she should have arrived ages ago.

"Sakurako probably ran into some sort of trouble. Now, we can only rely on ourselves." I helped the weak-legged Huang Xue to her feet. "Once we step out this door, no matter who you see, don't talk to them. Stay away immediately. In your dream, aside from me, absolutely nothing else that appears is human."

Hearing my words, Huang Xue's face paled even further. She followed behind me and gave a stiff nod. "I understand."

Holding the Suppression Talisman, I gently pushed the door open. The corridor outside was incredibly dim, without a single sliver of light bleeding through.

I turned up the brightness on my phone screen. When I finally saw the scene in the corridor, I stopped in my tracks. The terror in my heart was beyond description.

"What's wrong?" Huang Xue peeked out from behind me and looked around. "That's strange. This doesn't look like the hallway outside my room!"

As I touched the peeling wall paint and saw the familiar color of the floor tiles, my scalp went numb. "This is a corridor in the Xinhu High School Laboratory Building! Damn it! How did we end up in a place like this?!"

I had overlooked a very important detail. Even though this was Huang Xue's dream, the entity hiding in the dark and manipulating the dreamscape was the Primal Destiny Divine Fiends from the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman.