Chapter 515: Orphanage

The question that had been troubling me since I entered the dream finally had an answer. The dream I had entered using the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman didn't belong to Ye Bing. It belonged to the Hunchbacked Boy.

"Was it you causing trouble? Have you been on Ye Bing this whole time?" Knowing the Plush Bear had already discovered me, I simply stepped out of hiding.

The dirty, tattered plush toy lay motionless on the ground. Covered in knife wounds, it looked completely battered. It ignored my words, merely watching me in silence.

"What is your goal in doing this? Trying to win my sympathy? You want me to help you?" I climbed atop the utility room, standing at the highest point of the orphanage. Beneath the mask, my eyes looked down over the entire dream. "Dreams are woven from illusion and reality. Everything seen in a dream could be true, or it could be fake. I won't use my own life as a bargaining chip to save someone who has nothing to do with me."

The Plush Bear slowly crawled across the ground, moving exactly as it had in the Shallow Dream Layer.

The mention of the Shallow Dream Layer reminded me of another detail.

In that terrifying apartment, the boy's figure had been hidden within the television screen, and the Plush Bear only moved when the screen went black. This indirectly proved that the boy and the Plush Bear were one and the same; the boy was the one controlling it.

The Shallow Dream Layer had seemed terrifying, but it actually hadn't been very dangerous because the boy never intended to hurt me. He just wanted me to experience everything he had suffered.

"I knew it felt like someone was secretly manipulating things in the Shallow Dream Layer. Whenever I was about to break the rules of the game, an accident would happen. So it was you causing trouble all along." Having more or less figured things out, I followed the Plush Bear downstairs. The zipper on its back slowly slid open, and blood and filth oozed out, leaving a hideous bloody trail.

I had no idea where it was going. Since I couldn't find an exit to this dream, I could only follow it.

"Did Ye Bing eventually go to the roof to find you—the Plush Bear?"

"Is the person who took over your body and assumed the name Chen Jiuge still alive?"

"Do you want me to help you catch that person so you can take back your body and escape this damn nightmare?"

"Have you been living in Ye Bing's dream, protecting her all these years?"

"Why is Elder Chen's image a Faceless Man in your heart?"

...

I asked a lot of questions along the way, but the Plush Bear didn't answer a single one.

The nightmare in the orphanage continued. Those large-headed children still lived in their muddled daze. The only difference was that no one seemed able to see the Plush Bear or me.

Following the bright red bloodstains, the Plush Bear and I arrived at the main gate of the orphanage.

"What are we doing here?" I didn't even know how many times I'd asked a question, not expecting an answer at all.

"Sending you away."

The crooked, bloody words on the ground served as the Plush Bear's response. I raised an eyebrow when I saw them. "You can understand me? That's great! Tell me the truth. I can help you!"

Staring into its black button eyes, I crouched down in front of the Plush Bear, expecting it to reveal all the answers.

"Ye Bing eventually found the Plush Bear, and because of that, my consciousness has lived in her dream ever since. I saw you in her memories. I was jealous of you. I wanted to kill you, but I was afraid she would get angry." Bloody words appeared in the dirt one after another, looking incredibly macabre.

"You actually wanted to kill me?" I tilted my head, sizing up the tattered little bear in front of me. In this dream, all my Daoist spells and ghost arts were heavily compromised. If it had carefully laid a trap, there might really have been a slim chance of it killing me.

"I won't kill you. You are the only one who can save her now. I dragged you into my own dream just to show you my past and to tell you that I bear no ill will."

"Are you sure? Just to tell me this?" I was dumbfounded, at a loss for words. This stream had terrified me so much that my face had turned green several times, yet it was telling me the real broadcast hadn't even started? This was just an appetizer?

"I cannot enter and leave other people's dreams as I please. In Ye Bing's Middle Dream Layer, I can only say a single sentence. And with just one sentence, you would never trust me."

The bloody words in front of the Plush Bear sent me into deep thought. A long time ago, when I entered Huang Xue's dream, Sakurako had seemed to say the same thing. After entering someone else's dream, she couldn't speak freely; at most, she could only say a single sentence.

"Why is it like that? What would happen if you said a second sentence?" I was genuinely curious.

"It will attract a nightmare." The bloody words continued to appear. "Any traces left by an outsider, whether handwriting or sound, will attract a nightmare. I've seen many bizarre people enter dreams, but you are the only exception. Your method of entering is very special—silent and isolated from everything. Even for me, the master of this dream, finding you in the dream wasn't easy."

"Wait, I still don't quite understand. What exactly is this nightmare you're talking about?"

"Something very terrifying. You wouldn't want to encounter it."

No matter how I pressed, the Plush Bear refused to speak again. I still had a ton of questions left unasked.

"Then where are we going now?"

"Sending you where you need to go." The Plush Bear crawled out of the orphanage gate. The last line of bloody words behind it slowly dissipated: "Once you step through this door, until you pass through the next one, you absolutely must not look around. This is a path of no return."

"Why does that line look somewhat familiar?" Without overthinking it, I stepped out of Heaven's Gate.

The dream shattered. The pitch-black canopy of the sky was torn apart by lightning. Following the Plush Bear, I walked step by step toward the edge of the world.

"Bang!"

Like a bubble popping, I instinctively closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the Plush Bear was nowhere to be seen.

"This..."

I looked up at the gate in front of me. Three rust-mottled characters caught my eye—Heaven's Gate!

"How did I end up back here?" At first glance, the dream hadn't changed, but upon closer inspection, I noticed the previously brand-new gate was now rusted. The road had been newly paved with cement, and the saplings planted at the entrance had grown much taller.

"What's going on? Could this be Ye Bing's Middle Dream Layer?" With the Plush Bear gone, I didn't even have anyone to ask. I just had a lingering feeling that something was about to happen.

I wasn't in a hurry to go in. Standing at the gate, I pondered, 'If everything I just saw in the Plush Bear's dream was real, then it's certain the Plush Bear would never hurt Ye Bing. It made me experience its dream to help Ye Bing escape.'

Both the Plush Bear's dream and Ye Bing's Middle Dream Layer were the orphanage. With my previous experience, I would naturally take to Ye Bing's dream like a duck to water, instead of running around blindly like a headless chicken.

"Now I've officially entered Ye Bing's dream." I checked the items on me. Not only was nothing missing, but I had even gained an extra one. On my left wrist, right next to Elder Chen's Buddhist Prayer Bead Bracelet, a red thread had been tied on at some point.

"This thread looks a little familiar. Could the Plush Bear have left it?" That guy was elusive—the divine dragon is seen its head but not its tail—and who knew where he had run off to. "Once an outsider speaks or leaves traces in someone else's dream, they might attract a nightmare. This isn't good news."

My situation was an exception. I didn't know if it was because I had used the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman, because I was wearing the Good and Evil Asura Mask, or for some other reason. Anyway, judging by the Plush Bear's tone, I was the only one who could casually speak and move through other people's dreams without creating ripples in their memories or drawing the attention of a nightmare.

However, I wasn't the only one who had entered the dream this time. The master hypnotist, Chu Men, had entered the dream before me, and I was worried he had already run into a nightmare.

"Chu Men is considered an eccentric genius; he shouldn't make such a rookie mistake." I looked at Heaven's Gate in front of me. This would be my second time entering this place.

"The small saplings outside the gate have already grown several meters tall. Although the orphanage in the Plush Bear's dream and Ye Bing's dream are the same location, the time period is different." The orphanage in the Plush Bear's dream looked like it did twenty years ago, while the orphanage in Ye Bing's dream was stuck at how it looked over a decade ago.

"A few years probably wouldn't result in too drastic a change."

By following the Plush Bear, I had already walked through every corner of the orphanage. As long as Ye Bing was still here, I would definitely be able to find her in no time.

"I hope I can find you in the Middle Dream Layer. If you aren't here, I probably won't go any deeper." Touching the cold mask on my face, I stepped into Heaven's Gate.