Chapter 511: Poem of Torment

Wind swept across the sky, blowing along the edge of the Dream Realm. Ripples spread across the bubble-like world. The moment the girl spoke, ripples stirred in the heart of the dream's owner.

This had to be his warmest memory.

"Ye Bing..." the Hunchbacked Boy muttered over and over. He lay on his stomach on the roof, his face smeared with dust.

"You haven't told me your name yet."

Ye Bing's tone was as lukewarm as ever. It sounded perfectly ordinary to me, but to the Hunchbacked Boy, it was something else entirely. As if he had heard the most beautiful melody, he hurriedly patted the dust off his clothes and offered a shy smile. "The director gave me my name, too. I'm Chen Jiuge."

'Chen Jiuge?' Hiding a short distance away, I frowned when I heard the name; it was completely different from what I had expected. 'With a nine in his name, it seems the character I decoded from the TV in the Shallow Dream Layer wasn't a mistake.'

Near the end of the Shallow Dream Layer, I had spotted a boy's figure on the black-and-white TV in the living room. He only mouthed words without making a sound, as if trying to pass me a message. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to read lips. I had strained to figure it out, but I only managed to decipher a single character: nine.

The number nine had been popping up frequently lately, and my mind naturally began linking all the clues involving it together.

'After usurping fate, there was an ad card with the number nine left in Room 444 of the Underworld Live Show. I suspected the live show streamer taking my place would have a nine in their name. Before the Death Train Live Broadcast started, someone disguised as Feng Minglong spied on me from a bathroom stall. I still don't know what they wanted, but according to Feng Minglong's description, their forged ID badge also carried a number nine.'

Those two incidents happened before I even started this broadcast. I never expected the number nine to show up again inside the broadcast, let alone in a form I never could have anticipated.

'Could it be that the number nine represents this Hunchbacked Boy? Is everything actually revolving around him?'

Knowing the boy's name didn't mean much on its own. There was still one crucial detail I hadn't figured out.

I had clearly entered Ye Bing's Dream Realm, so why had I ultimately ended up inside the Hunchbacked Boy's dream?

As long as I could answer that question, a lot of other things would easily fall into place.

The situation was tangled and confusing as running hares. I didn't have enough evidence or clues on me, so for now, I could only take things one step at a time.

While I was thinking, Ye Bing climbed on top of the storage room. She and the Hunchbacked Boy stood at the highest point of the orphanage, looking out into the distance.

The Hunchbacked Boy excitedly shared everything he saw from up there with Ye Bing, gesturing wildly. Other than his Plush Bear, Ye Bing was probably the only one willing to talk to him, and this delicate connection seemed to leave the boy completely thrilled.

"One day, I'm going to leave Heaven's Gate. I'm going to go outside and take a look." In front of Ye Bing, the Hunchbacked Boy voiced the thought buried deep in his heart.

"Why leave? We don't have families. This is our home," Ye Bing said blankly, almost as if she were in a daze.

"You're wrong. This is Heaven, not our home. We don't have a home at all." The Hunchbacked Boy hugged the Plush Bear. The torn, tattered toy had grown significantly; it was now nearly as tall as the skinny boy himself, reaching about an adult's waist.

"We should go," Ye Bing urged. She had realized that what the boy was saying was entirely different from what the teachers taught them.

"Oh. Can I still come find you to play later?" the boy asked, his beautiful eyes wide and full of expectation.

"Yeah."

Ye Bing offered a soft hum of agreement. The boy looked incredibly excited, hugging his toy and jumping up and down a few times. "Then we're friends! When I'm getting ready to leave here, I'll give you a special present! This is a promise between the two of us. When the time comes, I'll hide the present right here, where only we know about it."

Nodding, Ye Bing slowly climbed down from the storage room, the boy following closely behind.

Seeing that they were heading my way, I slipped away early and returned to the school building.

Downstairs, the Hunchbacked Boy and Ye Bing parted ways. Hugging his Plush Bear, he returned to his dorm room.

Fu Xin, Fu Ming, and the other boy sharing the dorm had just been disciplined by the vice director and were seething with pent-up anger.

The atmosphere in the room was intensely eerie. No one spoke. Sensing something, the Hunchbacked Boy let his smile fade. He quickly reverted to his usual self, keeping his head bowed and back bent as he hugged his Plush Bear and lay down on his bed.

The dorm door closed. The night seemed exceptionally long, and the room was too quiet. I waited outside the door for a long time. Just as my patience was about to run out, a rustling sound came from inside.

Fu Xin opened his eyes. He had been pretending to sleep the whole time.

Wearing a vicious expression on his oversized head, he waved to Fu Ming and the other roommate. The three of them had already planned this out.

They walked over to the Hunchbacked Boy's bed. Fu Xin, the tallest of the three, suddenly jumped onto the bed and smothered the boy's face with the quilt. "Beat him!"

With his arms and legs pinned down, the Hunchbacked Boy jolted awake in terror. He tried to scream, but no sound came out. Fists rained down on his skinny body, blow after blow, until Fu Xin and the others finally grew tired and stopped.

"It's your fault we didn't even get to eat dinner. Today's just to teach you a lesson." Fu Xin spat on the boy's bed. Exhausted from the beating, the three of them sat together and laughed at the Hunchbacked Boy's miserable state, as if this were one of their only forms of entertainment.

"Aren't you good at tattling? Let's see you tattle now." After resting for a moment, the three were still unsatisfied. They snatched the Hunchbacked Boy's quilt away and, making sure no one was outside, threw it straight into the bathroom. They turned on the faucets to soak the blanket, then bobbed their oversized heads and lifted their deformed legs to stomp hard all over it.

The torment lasted for half an hour before it stopped. Panting, the three boys returned to the dorm, wrapped themselves in their dry quilts, and went to sleep. Not saying a word, the Hunchbacked Boy waited until he was absolutely certain they weren't pretending to sleep before he dared to get up, retrieve his soaked quilt from the bathroom, and spread it over his bed.

The nights in Jiangcheng were cold, with a drastic difference in temperature between day and night. The boy sat huddled in the corner of his bed, clutching his Plush Bear for a very long time.

Time flowed completely differently in the Dream Realm than in reality. I couldn't say exactly how much time had passed; I only knew that ever since the robin died, the sky in the dream had remained pitch-black. Not even Ye Bing's appearance had changed that.

The boys in the room woke up one after another. Rubbing their eyes, they hurried off toward the classroom without grabbing their books.

'I suppose a new day has started?' The Middle Dream Layer was only showing me the scenes the dream's owner wanted me to see—his deepest, most vivid memories. Time and dimensions held very little meaning in the Dream Realm.

It was the same chaotic, disorderly classroom. The teacher and students were mostly just muddling through the day. The only change was that there was a new girl in the class—Ye Bing.

Teacher Hu had purposely seated her in the front row, closest to himself. He paid special attention to her, his gaze constantly sweeping her way as if by accident.

The first class ended quickly, and Teacher Hu called the Hunchbacked Boy out into the hall.

"The vice director called me in for a chat. She seemed to be warning me. Did you secretly tell her something?" Teacher Hu reached out and gently stroked the boy's head. The Hunchbacked Boy trembled in terror, shaking his head frantically.

"It wasn't you? Then who could it have been?" The deformed teacher's gaze quickly landed on Ye Bing. "Could it be her?"

A dark flame burned deep in Teacher Hu's eyes. He stared at Ye Bing, looking as though he wanted to pop her into his mouth and swallow her whole.

The inability to have her only made the torment worse. Thoughts that utterly crossed ethical boundaries continuously stimulated his already twisted, perverted soul.

Before the second class could begin, the vice director suddenly walked into the room. Looking at the woman as fat as a small mountain, a sliver of hope sparked in the Hunchbacked Boy's heart. He felt that with the vice director here, his friend definitely wouldn't be hurt.

Unfortunately, he was dead wrong. The adult world was far more complicated than what children saw. Teacher Hu plastered a smile on his face and went to meet the vice director. "Auntie, what brings you here? Inspecting my work?"

"How many times have I told you? In Heaven's Gate, you need to call me vice director." Her massive body blocked the classroom door, as if sealing off all avenues of escape. The vice director glared at Teacher Hu with a hard face. "That new little girl still has some medical checkup items she hasn't done. Take her to the infirmary in a bit. No one is over there right now, so you go help her finish the items she missed."