Chapter 347: Training in the Dream

I opened my eyes. Glaring sunlight reflected off the pristine white tiles.

People came and went in the corridor, doctors and nurses in white coats hurrying past.

Cries echoed in my ears. A middle-aged woman wearing a headscarf, dressed like a tea farmer, sat in the corridor outside the hospital's emergency room.

She wailed hoarsely, crying until she was on the verge of fainting.

Beside her sat a child, around twelve or thirteen years old—exactly the age when one truly begins to understand the meaning of death.

The boy didn't shed a single tear. His eyes were bloodshot as he supported the middle-aged woman beside him.

Before long, the emergency room doors were pushed open and a nurse walked out. "Your husband's chest cavity was crushed, and two ribs pierced his lungs. I'm sorry. We did our best."

At the tragic news, the woman's vision went dark and she collapsed. The nurse quickly called for a doctor, and they carried her away.

The smell of disinfectant wafted through the hospital corridor. People continued to come and go, leaving the boy sitting all alone on the cold, hard bench.

He clasped his hands together, trying his hardest not to cry.

"Er Gou." I reached out and rested my hand on the boy's shoulder. His bones jutted out; he was even thinner and frailer than I had imagined. "Pull yourself together. The weaker you are, the more this world will bully you."

"Who are you?" The boy's eyes were filled with confusion. He found me familiar but couldn't call out my name.

"I'm here to help you. From today onward, no one will ever make you bow your head again." I didn't tell the boy my identity. This was Er Gou's Shallow Dream Layer; if he suffered any intense stimulation, he could wake up from the dream at any moment.

"Let's go. Follow me and you will become stronger." I led the boy through the Shallow Dream Layer, searching for a memory node connecting to the Middle Dream Layer. Looking at the first half of Er Gou's life, his two most unforgettable places were the hospital where he learned his father's resuscitation had failed, and his old house in the countryside.

We arrived at the place where Er Gou used to live with his father. But when I pulled open the door, a completely different world lay inside.

"The Middle Dream Layer!"

...

Over thirty people were brawling in the streets. None of them looked very old.

The side with more people had hair dyed in all colors of the rainbow, holding iron pipes as they surrounded the smaller group.

They held an absolute advantage in numbers. It was a one-sided beating.

On the outnumbered side, people fled and scattered until only a young man fighting like a mad dog was left struggling.

He was trampled underfoot, his calves and back covered in bloody welts from the iron pipes.

He was brutally beaten for several minutes before police sirens finally wailed in the distance. The attackers scattered in a panic. The young man didn't seem to have much fondness for the police, either; bleeding from the lips, he barely managed to scramble up.

Covered in blood and dirt, he looked thoroughly miserable. He hadn't taken more than a few steps before he collapsed at the entrance of an Adult Shop, looking just like an abandoned wolf cub.

The heavy military coat serving as the shop's door curtain suddenly lifted, and a pair of hands dragged the young man inside before the police cars arrived.

"Er Gou, wake up. This is just your dream." I hadn't expected the scene of our very first meeting to appear in Er Gou's Middle Dream Layer. Memories from years ago surfaced in my mind, filling me with a wave of emotion.

"Jian Ge?" Chen Er Gou blurted out, his eyes slowly coming into focus. "This is a dream? Then why are you in my dream?"

"To be exact, this is your Middle Dream Layer. Alright, cut the chatter. Do you still remember the boxing manual and the stances I made you memorize during the day? Hurry up and start practicing."

When a person was in the Shallow Dream Layer, they might wake up due to a sudden stimulus, but that wasn't the case in the Middle Dream Layer. Unless their physical body was touched in reality, the dreamer could not voluntarily leave the dream.

Never mind me telling him he was dreaming—even if he jumped off a building and killed himself in the dream, he wouldn't wake up.

Er Gou was still in a daze. After slapping himself across the face, he was just as bewildered.

Looking at his foolish expression, I had no choice but to explain everything to him—how the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman allowed entry into dreams, and how the flow of time in a dream differed from reality.

"Time flows ten times faster in the Shallow Dream Layer than in reality, and a hundred times faster in the Middle Dream Layer. Doesn't that mean training here for one night is equivalent to training for a hundred days in reality?" Er Gou looked completely shocked.

"That's roughly it. But training in a dream does nothing to strengthen the physical body. It only tempers our mental will and gives us time to keep experimenting until we find the proper way to exert the crushing force. Once we get used to this inner strength, we'll only need a little practice after getting out to let our bodies adapt, and then we'll be able to unleash the true power of the Crushing Fist."

"It's that amazing?! I'm not dreaming right now, am I?!" Er Gou pinched his own cheek in disbelief. "Did I think about it so much during the day that I ended up dreaming about it?"

"Strictly speaking, you are indeed dreaming." I ignored Er Gou and walked out of the shop to find an open space, starting my practice against the decorative tree by the entrance.

Nothing was easy to succeed at. Just by being able to train according to a lost boxing manual, Er Gou and I already had a starting point far beyond ordinary people.

I repeatedly threw punches at a tree the thickness of a bowl, feeling the way strength circulated through my body. Legs, waist, arms—my movements grew more and more precise.

The Eight-Step Crushing Fist focused on two words: 'fast' and 'ruthless'. Every strike was a killing blow, built entirely upon the foundation of actual combat. Swift and fierce like an arrow leaving the bowstring; the moment the intent flared, the body would jolt, sending an opponent flying a dozen feet away.

I poured my heart and soul into practicing the fist. Every punch required full-body coordination; every punch brought steady improvement.

Time held little meaning in the Dream Realm. Around my nine thousandth punch, I felt a sudden insight. My body condensed into a single strand of power. As I threw the punch, I took a half-step forward. The speed of a normal straight punch sharply increased, and a force I had never felt before surged through my muscles and sinews.

Bang! The bowl-thick tree snapped in half.

"Was that inner strength just now? I only gathered momentum for a half-step when I punched, and it already had such power. If I took eight steps, to what terrifying extent would the power multiply?" I looked down at my hands with a smile. "I've firmly memorized the circulation method. Training in the Dream Realm really works."

I continued my grueling training. By the time I threw my twenty thousandth punch, I had mastered the pressing force and the wrapping force on top of the crushing force. My attacks became unpredictable. A punch that looked completely ordinary on the surface could harbor multiple types of inner strength, making it impossible for an opponent to guard against.

I turned my head and saw that Er Gou had also cultivated the crushing force. His talent for martial arts was even better than mine, born with an inherent ruthlessness.

'When I entered the dream, I checked Er Gou's destiny star, and there were faint signs of him taking the place of the Greedy Wolf Star. Is this influence because his ties with me are too deep?' I thought. The Greedy Wolf Star was the first star of the Big Dipper; its ability to suppress the Broken Army and Seven Kill stars showed its ferocity. However, under this star, Fortune and Misfortune Are Interdependent. It wasn't an auspicious star. Er Gou's path would only become more treacherous from here on.

Now that we had cultivated our inner strength, our training could temporarily come to an end. I led Er Gou through the Dream Realm to find his childhood home, and pushed open the door to return to the Shallow Dream Layer.

After trying a few methods, I finally managed to wake Er Gou up, and I withdrew from the dream in turn.

Sitting blankly on the bed, staring at the morning sun outside, Er Gou felt as if a lifetime had passed. His drunkenness had long since dissipated, but he still found it a bit hard to believe. "Jian Ge, I think I dreamed of you last night."

I put away the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman and gave him a helpless glance. "Entering dreams is my biggest secret. You absolutely must not speak of it to anyone. Get up. Let's head downstairs and test the results of our dream training."

Er Gou nodded in deep agreement and followed me downstairs.

On the first floor, Wang Yu was still asleep, hugging Bai Qi. Bai Qi was already awake, but afraid of waking Wang Yu, the large, docile dog simply rolled his eyes around, lying completely motionless on the floor.

I opened the shop door, letting the sunlight spill inside. I walked over to the decorative tree by the entrance and reached out to stroke its bowl-thick trunk. I had struck this tree tens of thousands of times in the dream; now, I had memorized every single groove and texture of its bark.

"Let's test it out. As long as I can achieve a tenth of my training results from the dream, it will have been worth it." I circulated my qi and regulated my breathing. Inside my body, the two qi meridians—one overt and one covert—nourished my muscles like dragons playing with a pearl.

To the passing pedestrians, my actions looked like someone staring blankly at a tree. Rushing to work, they only cast a curious glance. If I had run into someone with a bad temper, they probably would have cursed me out for being a psycho and told me to get out of the way.

Ignoring the stares of outsiders, I calmed my mind and breath, having already reached my peak condition. I slowly raised my right hand. Power began to gather from my feet, drawing back like a taut bowstring!

Taking a half-step forward, in less than a tenth of a second, my right fist blasted into the tree trunk like heavy artillery!

Bang! The loud crash caused pedestrians to stop in their tracks. Even the vehicles going back and forth along Ting Tang Road slowed down to look in my direction.

The bowl-thick tree swayed a few times before snapping straight through the middle and crashing onto the street.

For a moment, the entire street fell dead silent. It was unnervingly quiet.