Chapter 492: Good and Evil Mask

"Many people have forgotten how they felt the first time they looked into a mirror. It was a sense of dread woven from wonder, excitement, and fear. No matter how rich and colorful the world is to the human eye, without a mirror, you can never see yourself. To ourselves, we are forever blind. That first impression of seeing yourself in a mirror is the most profound; that dread, born from excitement, remains permanently imprinted in the human cerebral cortex."

"You might have forgotten that feeling, but your dreams haven't. In everyone's dreams, a special mirror lies hidden in the deepest part of the soul."

"To see it is to see another version of yourself."

Onitsuka Ayaka was the one speaking. Because of Sakurako, she knew a great deal about the Dream Realm.

Taking out her phone, she showed me some of her notes on the Dream Realm.

"Many things in dreams have special meanings. For example, a vending machine represents desire, an eggplant represents a pregnant woman, and a maze represents being lost and helpless. You need to pay special attention to these when you are in the Dream Realm, especially in the Middle Dream Layer and Deep Dream Layer."

"Another thing to note is color. Most dreams are black and white, so you need to be careful if you encounter other colors. The colors in a dream carry incredibly strong symbolic weight. For instance, red represents anger and sexual passion, total black expresses suppressed emotions, and so on..."

Onitsuka Ayaka had always worried that Sakurako would be forever lost in a Nightmare, so she had collected a lot of knowledge about the Dream Realm over the years.

After reading through it all, I felt a bit more confident.

"Gao Jian, you should really reconsider. What I've told you is only enough to handle the Middle Dream Layer. The Deep Dream Layer is a complete blank slate in academic circles. No one understands it," Onitsuka Ayaka said, taking her phone back and slightly reining in her natural charm.

"Academic circles? Boss, your Chinese is getting better and better." I could hear the tactful dissuasion in her words, but there were some things I just wouldn't be satisfied with unless I tried them myself.

"Gao Jian." Fingers grabbed mine. Sakurako handed me a piece of paper from the table. "You absolutely must not enter the Deep Dream Layer. Absolutely not."

I took the paper she handed over and paused. Drawn on it was a little girl with braids. The strokes were childish—like a background character in a comic book—made of simple lines that barely formed a general shape.

"Were you drawing this while I was talking with your mom?" I put the paper away and looked into Sakurako's large eyes. "What is this for? Can you tell me?"

"Keep it safe. Don't lose it," Sakurako said, cherishing her words like gold. This little girl's personality was the complete opposite of her mother's.

I folded the paper and tucked it safely into an inner pocket. Then I asked Sakurako a few more questions, which she answered one by one. It wasn't until past seven in the evening that the mother and daughter finally left.

'No one has ever returned from the Deep Dream Layer. Even if I just hover on the edge between the Middle Dream Layer and the Deep Dream Layer, I only have a thirty percent chance of making it back. That probability is just too low.' Leaning against my pillow, I stared at the ceiling. Ever since I put on Teacher Chen's Buddhist Prayer Beads, there had been no distracting thoughts interfering in my mind. My thoughts were crystal clear, every idea shining brightly. 'Given my body's current state of recovery, there's no way I can carry out the next livestream normally. Intense movement will immediately tear my wounds open, and then there's the will of heaven causing trouble. Forget it. I'll just use ten points to exempt myself from this livestream and put all my effort into helping Ye Bing. I'll consider it paying back Teacher Chen a favor.'

I took out the Underworld Live Show Phone. As soon as I entered the interface, I suddenly noticed something was wrong.

In the column recording my merit, the numbers were constantly changing!

'What is going on?' I clearly remembered that my original merit was negative 100,000, but now it had become negative 99,900 and something.

The value was still changing, albeit at a very slow speed.

'My own merit is rebounding?' Surprised, I instinctively looked at my wrist. 'Could it be that these Buddhist Prayer Beads contain the merit Teacher Chen accumulated over the last twenty years? That's impossible! How could a person's merit condense into an object?'

I tried taking off the Buddhist Prayer Beads, and the number recording my merit immediately stopped changing.

'It really is because of this bracelet. If it can help me make up for my lost merit, then I owe a pretty big debt of gratitude.' I looked at the Buddhist Prayer Beads, a storm of shock raging in my heart, but I soon felt relieved. These Buddhist Prayer Beads had probably been with Elder Chen for so long that they had absorbed a portion of his merit. Having a few hundred points was already quite good.

'This Teacher Chen... I really can't see through him.' Touching the Buddhist Prayer Beads, I let out a long sigh and made a decision. 'I'll help Ye Bing as much as I can. I'll enter her dream and only search the Shallow Dream Layer and Middle Dream Layer. If I can find her, great. If not, at least I did my best.'

Having figured that out, I sent a message to the Underworld Live Show, wanting to spend ten points to cancel my next livestream task, but it went unanswered for a long time.

'Could it be that I don't need to send a message in advance at all? As long as the livestream task isn't completed, the points are automatically deducted?' I had never canceled a livestream task before, so I didn't quite understand the process. 'This Live Show acts all mysterious all day long. They don't even give you an employee handbook.'

I muttered under my breath. Turning my head, I saw Feng Minglong secretly observing me again and immediately frowned. "What do you want now? I saved your life, so don't you dare bite the hand that fed you!"

"No, no," Feng Minglong said, waving his hands repeatedly, his voice hesitant. "What's your relationship with that mother and daughter from earlier? I couldn't understand what you guys were talking about, but you seemed pretty close, and they both seemed to care about you a lot."

Feng Minglong winked, expressing his meaning in a very roundabout way.

"It's nothing. We're just ordinary friends," I replied casually, silently memorizing the intelligence I had gotten from Sakurako and Onitsuka Ayaka.

"Oh, then I'm relieved."

Feng Minglong's voice was very sincere, carrying a hint of shyness. He scratched his head in embarrassment, as if recalling some happy scene in his mind, the corners of his mouth unconsciously curling into a smile. Raising his scalded hand, he struggled to fish out his phone. "Bro, could you give me that Japanese lady's phone number?"

"Japanese lady?" I stared blankly for a second.

"Yeah, yeah, the one from just now with the blue tattoo on her chest..."

"You're practically disabled, and you still have time to think about a Japanese lady? Screw off and don't interrupt my train of thought." I rejected him outright before he could even finish.

Close to eight o'clock, Tie Ningxiang hurried over with dinner. "You must be starving. I had some things to handle at the bureau and couldn't get away. Eat up quickly. If need be, I'll stay here tonight and take care of you."

"There's no need." I wasn't kind enough to share with Feng Minglong this time. After eating, I reached out and stopped Tie Ningxiang as she prepared to leave. "Senior, I need you to do me a favor."

"What is it?"

I stared at Tie Ningxiang for a long while before saying, "I need to go to the Central Bank. Could you drive me?"

"No. With your current physical condition, how can you just run around? Your wounds are already infected. What if something happens out there? Just stay here and rest." Tie Ningxiang packed up the bowls and chopsticks. "Besides, why do you need to go to the bank? Are you short on money? I've already covered your medical expenses, so there's no rush."

"No, I need to go to the bank to retrieve an item." As soon as those words left my mouth, I felt like I had messed up. The bank connection was extremely crucial to the investigation into the Underworld Live Show. It was a loophole that wasn't quite a loophole, and I originally hadn't wanted anyone to know about it.

"Retrieve an item? You can store things at the bank?" Tie Ningxiang worked in criminal investigation, so she naturally caught the flaw in my words.

"Yes, that item is somewhat special. I'm the only one who can retrieve it in person." I looked up at Tie Ningxiang, my gaze slowly settling into calmness.

My unquestionable tone made Tie Ningxiang hesitate for a good while. "Fine, I'll drive you over, but just this once. It won't happen again. You'd better stay put in the hospital for the next few days and not sneak out anymore."

She helped me out of bed and went to the parking lot to get the car. I took the opportunity to send a text using the Underworld Live Show Phone, asking if I could go retrieve the Damaged Good and Evil Asura Mask now.

After receiving a confirmation text from the Underworld Live Show, I finally felt at ease. No accidents occurred on the way to get the mask. The bank was already closed by then, but the lobby was still brightly lit, and the male manager had been waiting for me the whole time.

Seeing me walk out holding a black package, Tie Ningxiang was vaguely suspicious. "Although the Central Bank of Jiangcheng is just a city commercial bank and isn't that large in scale, making the entire bank delay its closing time just for you... isn't that a bit of an exaggeration?"

She was very curious about the black package in my hands, but she didn't make any inappropriate moves.

Faced with Tie Ningxiang's suspicion, I suddenly realized I might have made the wrong decision. I shouldn't have rushed to retrieve the Damaged Good and Evil Asura Mask under the pressure exerted by the will of heaven and the Deep Dream Layer.

Fortunately, Tie Ningxiang didn't press the matter further. After dropping me back off at the hospital, she left.

Returning to the hospital ward, I turned my back to Feng Minglong and opened the black package. When the final layer of black cloth was pulled away, a mask covered in cracks appeared.

It was very ordinary, split in two down the middle—half black, half white. It was almost excessively simple.

"An item worth twenty points looks like this?" I reached out and stroked the surface of the mask. I didn't know what material it was made of, but I felt a bone-piercing chill.

I picked it up and tried putting it on my face. It was very light and fit the contours of my face perfectly, as if it had belonged to me all along.

I looked up out the window. Gazing at the sky through the mask, my field of vision was incredibly wide, entirely unhindered by the clouds. I could clearly see every ray of starlight, looking as though they were cascading down from the distant future.

I exhaled a breath of stale air. The mask seemed to block out something between heaven and earth. That constant feeling of being spied upon vanished, my body completely relaxed, and my mind became serene.

'I wonder if this mask will have any effect in a dream.'