Chapter 533: The Last Room

The first time I interviewed for the Live Show, I knew this building had many more underground floors. I just never had the chance to go deeper. I hadn't expected this broadcast in the Deep Dream Layer to finally give me the opportunity.

I checked the rooms one by one. The interiors were largely identical, so I quickly lost interest and headed for the stairs.

"Are we leaving?" Chu Men followed behind me. This place was completely foreign to him.

"No rush." I followed the stairs down to the fifth floor, a place I had never visited before.

The long corridor seemed endless, the eerie creaking of wooden floorboards echoing in my ears.

'Is this the bottom?' I wondered. Standing at the fifth-floor landing, I saw the stairwell leading to the sixth floor was sealed shut by an iron door. The only areas I could explore were the top five floors.

"How many underground floors does this building have?" I peered down through the gap in the handrail, unable to see the bottom. "A conservative estimate would be over ten. Could this building's structure correspond to the legendary Eighteen Levels of Hell?"

Faint shadows shifted in the depths. I had no idea what they were. The iron door was locked and the passageway sealed; there was simply no way down.

"The Live Show's greatest secret is probably hidden even deeper. Forget it, getting the chance to explore the top five floors is hard enough." I maintained a good mindset, refusing to let things I couldn't change affect me.

Retreating to the fifth-floor corridor, I prepared to check the rooms one by one.

"Room 451?" The number on the rotting wooden door was still clear. I pushed it open and walked in.

A moldy stench assaulted my nose. Probably from being sealed underground for so long, the room was damp and stuffy. Stepping inside abruptly induced a feeling of suffocation.

"Streamer, be careful. Something is definitely wrong with this room." Chu Men seemed particularly averse to these rooms.

"Keep watch outside, I'll be out soon." Searching all the fourth-floor rooms had already delayed us. On the way here, I had been so focused on finding the No. 44 Doorplate that I hadn't bothered to cover my tracks. Those two nightmares would very likely follow us.

I stepped onto the thick carpet and entered the room. There were noticeably more leftover items inside the fifth-floor rooms—blank books, pens that wouldn't write, and the like. It seemed few "people" ever visited this place. The "thoughts" that had chased Chu Men and me earlier hadn't dared to enter this block. Only the nightmares had the courage to come in, and even they hid themselves completely upon entering, seemingly terrified of waking some horrific entity.

"What's this?"

I rummaged through the cabinets and suddenly spotted a torn Paper Doll Mask under the desk.

"It's different from the ones worn by the Live Show Examiners." The mask was covered in cracks and shattered the moment I touched it, preventing me from getting a better look. "What a pity..."

Just as I sighed, my gaze swept across the floor. I suddenly noticed a faint trace of green where the mask had been resting.

Green signified life within the Dream Realm, making it a very rare color here. I crouched down, crawled under the desk, and used my phone to record.

Growing under the desk, right next to the Paper Doll Mask, was a bizarre little plant.

It was tiny, only about as thick as a baby's pinky finger. Its solitary leaves curled inward, somewhat resembling a real-world mimosa.

'Are you kidding me? I actually found a plant in the Deep Dream Layer? And inside a building suspected to be the Underworld Live Show's headquarters!' If I didn't possess the Judging Eye, anyone else would have probably overlooked it. 'Should I ask Chu Men? He has a deeper understanding of dreams than I do. But... never mind.'

I thought of something that had happened earlier and decided against alerting Chu Men outside. 'Better to Have One Less Trouble. I should just hurry up and find something useful.'

Just as I was about to stand up, a faint trace of consciousness suddenly emerged from my Liver Aperture, as if trying to tell me something.

'It's coming from inside my body?' I looked inward. The only living thing inside my Liver Aperture was the Dream Wing Gu. Logically speaking, with it around, I should be able to freely enter and exit at least the Middle Dream Layer. The problem was that during my confrontation with the Three Yin Sect, the Current Meng Po had tried to snatch my soul. The Dream Wing Gu had risked severe injury to protect me, consuming more than half of the Thousand-Year Locust Tree Flower and falling into a deep slumber as a result.

I stared at the little plant under the desk. It was brimming with vitality and didn't look poisonous. "If the Dream Wing Gu needs it..."

My eyes lit up as a possibility struck me. This little plant under the desk was highly likely the Dream Wing Gu's favorite food—Dream-Entangling Grass!

I reached out and grabbed the roots. It had sprouted straight out from beneath the carpet, a truly unbelievable sight.

A glowing green light rippled with vitality. The moment my fingers brushed against it, the inward-curling leaves instantly wrapped around my hand. Specks of green energy surged into my body, rushing straight toward my Liver Aperture. Then, like a stone sinking into the ocean, all movement stopped.

"It must be Dream-Entangling Grass, but there's too little of it. It's not enough to help the Dream Wing Gu recover." I glanced at my palm. The plant had withered, its color shifting from vibrant emerald to an ashen yellow.

"If I can find a large amount of Dream-Entangling Grass to restore the Dream Wing Gu, my chances of escaping will skyrocket!" The Dream Wing Gu couldn't be artificially cultivated. It was born of heaven and earth, an extremely rare wild Gu. Becoming its master was truly a coincidence. I actually had the Blood Fox to thank for that. Faced with a life-or-death crisis, the Dream Wing Gu had finally bowed its head and agreed to leave with me.

Although I hadn't found any clues regarding the Underworld Live Show, gaining a potential avenue of escape still left me quite pleased.

"Let's keep looking." Leaving Room 451, I went to check the other rooms on the fifth underground floor. I quickly discovered a pattern: wherever there was a Paper Doll Mask, Dream-Entangling Grass was guaranteed to be growing nearby.

'Dream-Entangling Grass only exists within dreams, and it's always accompanied by a Paper Doll Mask. What is the connection between the two?' Plant growth required nutrients, and this was my first time seeing a plant grow inside a dream. 'Could it be absorbing nutrients from the Paper Doll Mask? No, that can't be right. What kind of nutrients could a mask possibly have?'

A sudden realization struck me. 'The Paper Doll Mask might not have any nutrients, but the people who wore them—or their memories—are gone. Could these stalks of Dream-Entangling Grass have sprouted by absorbing the vitality and memories of the mask wearers?'

I still didn't understand the Dream-Entangling Grass well enough, so I could only make wild guesses.

After continuously absorbing six stalks of Dream-Entangling Grass, the vitality contained within my Liver Aperture grew even denser. The liver belonged to the Wood element, so the more plant-based items I absorbed, the more it would help me unlock the Liver Aperture Dao Lock.

The only pity was that despite consuming so much Dream-Entangling Grass, the Dream Wing Gu showed no signs of changing. It remained in a deep slumber.

'The item information the Underworld Live Show originally gave me stated that Dream-Entangling Grass was the Dream Wing Gu's favorite food. Taking a large amount could even help it break through. Did the Live Show lie to me? Or is this amount still not enough?' Just to find these six stalks of Dream-Entangling Grass, I had searched through most of the rooms on the fifth floor, wasting a lot of time.

"Streamer, it's about time we leave, right? You've just been running in and out blindly without gaining anything substantial. I think we should get out of here quickly," Chu Men urged from the corridor. He hadn't taken a single step inside any of the rooms, so he was completely unaware of me harvesting the Dream-Entangling Grass.

"Just wait a little longer." Reassuring Chu Men, I conducted a carpet search, not letting a single room slip by, until I reached the very end of the hallway.

Aside from those six stalks, I found nothing else. Standing before the final door, I no longer held much hope.

I reached out and pushed the door. The wood didn't budge an inch, much to my surprise. "It's actually locked?"

I didn't think much of it at first and delivered two full-force kicks. The wooden door still didn't budge, which finally grabbed my attention. "Something's off. The other wooden doors are completely rotted through and can be kicked open with a single strike."

Using my phone's flashlight, I examined the lock. It was a very strange composite lock, and the core was shaped like a plum blossom.

"A plum blossom? That looks a bit familiar." I compared it to the wound on my wrist. The lock core was identical to the bite mark left by the Plum Blossom Gu. "This kind of composite lock can only be opened by finding something shaped just like the core. Randomly shoving a couple of wires in there definitely won't work."

I was just muttering to myself unconsciously. Right after I spoke, my eyes suddenly landed on the pendant hanging from my Underworld Live Show Phone. This little gift from Xia Qingzhi was in the exact shape of a plum blossom!

"So the key was given to me all along..."