Qiu Mian fell backward, plummeting headfirst as his reflection mirrored in the dark red vortex eye of Jupiter, looking no larger than a tiny pixel. The fierce gale whipped and buffeted his clothes. Spreading his arms wide, he overlooked and observed the convergence of the dream and reality.
A cold, clear Jovian light poured down upon the world, bright as an afternoon sky after rain, limpid and pure. The giant worm greedily chased this ray of light, its eyeless maw climbing endlessly upward like a practitioner yearning single-mindedly for ascension. Yet beneath its colossal torso lay a scene of utter, disorderly chaos. The erupting pus and filth, resembling toxic floodwaters, eroded countless buildings, submerged acres of paddy fields, paralyzed highways, and left doors tightly shut. People screamed and fled with their heads in their hands as if the apocalypse had arrived.
It was not until he stepped out of thin air onto the towering head of the worm that Qiu Mian halted his descent. His transparent physique had nearly fused into one with the convergent dreamscape; even at such close proximity, the worm remained entirely oblivious, showing no instinctive resistance whatsoever.
Instead, it was Qiu Mian who could not help but recoil. The stench of rotting corruption pierced straight from the tip of his nose into the depths of his brain, so nauseating that he wished he could carve his nose off.
Qiu Mian was profoundly shaken. This was his first time experiencing such a churning, stomach-turning foul odor.
Ever since birth, his five senses had never been particularly acute, and his perceptions of everything around him had always been muted. His sense of taste required intense spiciness for him to enjoy food, his sense of smell required overpowering fragrance to detect shifts in odor, and even the dopamine release needed to produce pleasure required heavy-duty stimulation. Thus, he had never encountered anything that could truly be called heart-pounding.
Yet he was actually expanding his horizons right here in this convergent dreamscape.
He reined in the urge to turn around and leave, closed his eyes, and blocked off his own sense of smell and touch.
To be honest, he really did not want to get close to this thing. When he first saw it, it could still be called somewhat cute.
What had been the catalyst for the change? He recalled. Could it be that in the initial dreamscape, that captain had killed the pink worm? But that was just a dream, and over two months had passed; nobody took two months to fail to distinguish reality from illusion. Moreover, if one assumed it stemmed from a mental disorder, the worm’s behavioral logic within the dream actually displayed clearer objectives than an ordinary person’s, nothing more than attacking, devouring, and phototaxis.
Therefore, relatively speaking, it was far more likely that it had suffered trauma from reality.
Qiu Mian pondered, then reached out and poked one of the worm’s fleshy tumors. The sludge instantly swallowed half of his arm.
Two consciousnesses came into contact with one another. On this side was a chaotic flame of disorderly collisions; on the other was the calm, waveless, deep ocean. The worm did not even notice that its memories and thoughts had been silently and imperceptibly invaded.
Just like a crashing wave swallowing a flat-bottomed skiff in an instant, the outcome was sealed in a breath. The worm’s dream in Qiu Mian’s hands was, likewise, nothing more than a tiny pixel.
Simultaneously, fragments flashed before Qiu Mian’s eyes.
In a classroom, over a dozen children gathered closely around a desk, bunching their heads tightly together with peals of excited laughter: “It is growing so fast, it turned white and plump in just a few days, so cute!”
“It should be my turn to raise it today, give it to me, put it in my desk drawer!”
“Why are you cutting in line! Beibei and I already agreed, she was going to let me raise it after she finished!”
“This is not even Beibei’s silkworm, Chengjie and I already agreed!”
“I, I am okay…” the worm stammered. “At home, I, I still have a lot more, I will bring them tomorrow, e, everyone can raise one…”
In a dilapidated living room, the perspective leaned to the left. The right eye seemed blocked by something, leaving only a hunchbacked, bald, middle-aged man visible in front of him. Every single scar on his face swelled with a rolling, furious redness as he spewed constant curses: “Bitch! Going behind my back to spawn this bastard with someone else! And daring to steal my money to run to the hospital! What illness? This bastard is not sick at all! It is just punishment for your rotten cunt! I will hack him to death!”
A woman shielded the person behind her with her dying breath. Her weeping and grievance were suppressed beneath boundless hatred. She used her flesh and blood to counter the sharp blade, yet she remained dauntless and fearless: “I did not steal your money! Nor did I sleep around! The doctor said if we had gone for surgery earlier, it at least would not have been life-threatening! It was you who refused, you who wanted to gamble! This illness is congenital, it is hereditary! It grew right out of the scars on your face! Go ahead and hack us, hack the two of us to death, and we will just grow right back out of your body again!”
On a hospital bed, a long, heavy tumor compressed nerves and distorted facial features. The field of vision was reduced to a slit the width of a pinky finger, while the rest was deep, pitch-black ink, as though the sky had turned off all its lights. Through that narrow slit, all he could see was the doctor’s pure white lab coat and the title and name on the chest badge.
Doctor Cai asked softly, “Did you have another nightmare? Is it the same as last time?”
“Mn, yes. I dreamed again that I, turned into, a silkworm.”
“This time, there were also, other people, they, killed Mom…”
“I, am so scared…”
“You do not need to be scared, Chengjie. Dreaming is a way to release stress. You are very miserable in reality, so you need to vent and channel it through dreams instead. You can imagine things a bit more freely, like avenging Mom, or destroying the hospital so you do not have to stay hospitalized anymore.”
“P, People, but, I want even more, to get cured, and play, with Mom and Beibei.”
Doctor Cai smiled: “You cannot be cured, Chengjie. I am a doctor, and I am telling you that you cannot be cured. You are going to die soon.”
Qiu Mian suddenly stirred his intent, his fingertips twitching slightly as he silently concealed certain thoughts belonging to the worm.
He withdrew his arm from the fleshy tumor; not a single speck of pus or sludge stained it. After a brief, dazed pause, the twisted and ugly worm suddenly began to shake violently. Countless fleshy pustules peeled off as if melting, and the purulent sludge erupted and burst completely like a yellow-black waterfall, creating a localized torrential downpour. Its colossal torso also seemed like a burned-down candle, shrinking and withering away until gradually only the part belonging to the wick remained: a milky-white worm no taller than a human.
And this time, the milky-white worm seemed finally to realize Qiu Mian’s presence. Its plump yet not entirely repulsive mouth hesitantly stretched and retracted, but in the end, it bypassed Qiu Mian and grew endlessly toward the sky.
Qiu Mian likewise raised his head to look at the sky.
Jupiter hanging in the pristine sky still cast its cold, drifting light, identical to before in every way.
“So Jupiter was your own idea to begin with. Well, nothing to be done about that.”
Qiu Mian gathered his focus, his eyes fixed on the massive celestial body within the dream. One second, two seconds… By the third breath, Jupiter had vanished without a trace, as though it had never appeared at all.
The sky reverted to the silvery-gray of early dusk with hazy moonlight.
The towering mouth of the milky-white worm gradually drooped, like a blind person who had lost their guide. Its eight pairs of fleshy claws curled together, pulling its body inward bit by bit until it shrank smaller and smaller, finally condensing into a cocoon.
In a matter of mere minutes, the convergent dreamscape had been turned upside down.
This was Passerby, the Passerby who possessed absolute control over dreams.
“You…”
Jiuying, who had witnessed the entire process from the side, stopped midsentence: “Confused its consciousness?”
He had appeared here from who knows when, perhaps still wary of Passerby, but at least he had granted that final sliver of trust and had not jumped in to meddle on his own.
“Cleared it.”
Qiu Mian opened his palms; they were clearly empty, yet Jiuying felt no surprise.
“Someone implanted a few thoughts into its consciousness. Once the dream was bewitched, those elements formed. I just removed those thoughts.”
“It did not violate your dream-traveling rules, did it? Of course, even if it did, it is none of your business.”
In truth, it did violate them, but Jiuying had no intention of reporting it.
While observing Passerby, he had experienced prolonged self-doubt. Passerby’s strength clearly exceeded expectations, even exceeding the research lab’s expectations, barring situations where death was inevitable, even he could not restrict Passerby’s movements. This was less like firearms circulating in the wild and more like the button to a nuclear bomb resting in the hands of someone who could neither be seen nor caught.
Extremely dangerous. Passerby’s risk rating must be extremely dangerous.
Yet Jiuying had no wish to break ties with him just like that.
Perhaps because he owed a favor that made burning bridges difficult, or perhaps because Passerby possessed a unique temperament.
At this moment, Passerby stretched lazily: “A bit tired, do not feel like moving. I will leave the rest to you guys, okay?”
The fantasy elements belonging to the dream were already quite scarce. The yellow-black waterfall rain had long since stopped, and the milky-white worm turned cocoon vanished as time passed, indicating that his dream had effectively ended.
The dream owner had awakened. Although the convergent dreamscape still persisted, every dream traveler knew the standard procedure for handling it, and the alert level could be downgraded from red to yellow.
Jiuying nodded: “Rest assured.”
“Thanks.”
“…That should be my line.”
“I accept it, but my gratitude is genuine too.”
Qiu Mian always spoke his mind. Now that the crisis had just passed and they temporarily set aside their mutual prejudices, the atmosphere unexpectedly turned mild and gentle: “Dreams require details. I can conceal Jupiter and confuse the worm simultaneously, but I cannot imagine the peace and stability of hundreds of thousands of people. If it were only me, casualties would be inevitable. Though your efficiency is a bit low, your insistence on playing it safe is not laughable.”
“The dream travelers at the Dream-Clearing Base are pretty good, hope the more the merrier. Although I am not one of them, we are not standing on opposite sides.”
His words were sincere, his tone sounding calm and comfortable. Lacking any clanging inflections or impassioned expressions, it was merely as flat as narration, yet sufficient to knock open closed hearts.
Not to mention that his voice was so clear and captivating.
Jiuying was dazed for a fraction of a second, but he simply took a deep breath: “My ability is purely destruction; I cannot imagine protection and have never contributed to rescue work. I will make sure to convey this gratitude to the others.”
Qiu Mian thought for a moment: “Mn, alright, but I will leave something for you too. Give me your hand.”
Jiuying stared blankly at Passerby’s blank face for a moment. A moment later, his left wrist detached of its own accord, floating sluggishly toward the front of Passerby with the palm turned upward.
Passerby showed no confusion whatsoever at this hand-extending gesture. His ten fingers moved with lightning speed, peeling away half of the fingerless glove on Jiuying’s left palm to expose the wide, pale skin underneath.
Jiuying: “…………”
He forcibly suppressed his discomfort and tension, watching as Passerby paused slightly in thought, then extended an index finger to write something stroke by stroke across his palm. Jiuying felt every single nerve concentrate right there, tingling, tickling, like a gentle lick.
“Done, take it back.”
Jiuying pulled back his palm and remained silent for a long time.
“What is this?”
“A signature.”
Jiuying saw two neatly written characters squarely centered in his left palm: “Passerby”, neat and identical down to the Microsoft YaHei font.
“I am giving you my signature as a gift, no need to thank me.”
Passerby spoke in an arcane manner possessing his own unique logic. He had no idea why he had suddenly gifted a signature, yet he acted completely as he pleased: “I am leaving first, goodbye.”