Chapter 107 Ouroboros Dream
"Poisoning? What kind of poison is Brother Shao poisoned with? How could he be poisoned? He was perfectly fine just now?"
Zhou Jiming looked puzzled and paced anxiously back and forth beside Shao Yanzhe.
"In that case, let's hurry up and go! Take Brother Shao to the county town ahead to find a doctor!"
He was about to turn around and find the coachman to get Shao Yanzhe into the carriage when Bai Ling stopped him.
"etc!"
If anyone else had tried to stop Zhou Jiming, he probably wouldn't have listened. But Bai Ling was a spirit, and he was naturally afraid of her, so he subconsciously obeyed her and stopped.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
The other end of the white silk ribbon was placed on Shao Yanzhe's head, and it was quickly touched all over his head. Soon, the reason why he was unconscious was found.
"No ordinary doctor can cure this poison."
The people standing nearby looked puzzled upon hearing this.
"Do you know what kind of poison Brother Shao is suffering from?" Although Wen Yanqing asked, he already had the answer in his heart.
Bai Ling retrieved the cloth that had been placed on Shao Yanzhe's head. He quickly circled around and then precisely picked up a few bones from beside the fire to show them.
"Look, see these bones, especially this one,"
As he spoke, the silk fabric began to shake rapidly, and then only a thin bone remained.
Everyone instinctively looked over and saw that the thin bone looked like a toothpick, and was white all over, dazzlingly white in the sunlight.
Just as they were about to look away, they noticed that the tip of the bone was faintly purplish.
"This... could it be because of that purple hue?" Wen Yanqing asked hesitantly.
Bai Ling threw away the bone and said, "Yes! This is the venom of the ouroboros. Once you are poisoned by it, you will slowly die in your sleep."
As he spoke, he scrambled up a tree trunk and drooped down, looking somewhat dejected.
"I never imagined that snakes, which were supposed to be extinct, still existed in the world. If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have let you eat snakes."
Wen Yanqing smiled faintly, looking at Bai Ling with gentle eyes, and said, "This has nothing to do with you; we're going to eat snakes. The most important thing now is to find a way to wake Brother Shao. Since you know something about ouroboros, you should know how to help Brother Shao get rid of the snake venom, right?"
Bai Ling immediately perked up. He freed himself from the tree trunk and approached the group, saying, "I do know a method, but I'm not entirely sure about it."
Tell me about it.
"As you know, I can help you enter other people's dreams. Right now, Shao Yanzhe is trapped in a dream and can't wake up because of the venom of the ouroboros. So, someone needs to enter his dream and wake him up."
“Alright! I’ll go! I was able to wake up last time thanks to Brother Shao, so I’ll do it this time!” Wen Yanqing said, his eyes full of determination.
"That won't do! Brother Shao saved me too, I'll go instead!"
"I want to go too!"
"And me! I can't bear to watch Brother Shao die!"
"I have to go!"
"Let me go!"
Several people started arguing over the spot.
Bai Ling looked the group up and down, and a question mark seemed to materialize above his head. As a spirit, he really couldn't understand why humans would argue over such a simple matter.
"Wait! You must understand that entering someone else's dream is not a simple matter. If you fail to wake up the dream's owner, you may also be trapped in the dream forever and eventually die with the dream's owner. This is an extremely dangerous thing, and you must think it through."
"Of course I've thought it through! I'm definitely going!" Wen Yanqing replied earnestly.
The others immediately nodded in agreement.
"What a strange bunch of humans! Have you really thought this through? Have you really decided to enter Shao Yanzhe's dream?" Bai Ling asked one last time.
"certainly!"
"Meow!"
Bai Ling glanced at Xuan Yao subconsciously and found that he also looked determined, which made her feel a little helpless.
Not only are these humans strange, but this spirit cat is equally strange, actually willing to take risks for a human!
"Very well! In that case, I will send you into the dream world!"
As Bai Ling spoke, she made a hand-on-hips gesture and earnestly instructed, "All you need to do is find Shao Yanzhe and make him wake up on his own. The dream will collapse, and you will wake up as well. I will protect your physical safety, so you don't need to worry about any health problems."
"Okay, then I'll leave it to you!"
"Then let's begin!"
...
Wen Yanqing suddenly opened her eyes and saw a group of men surrounding her again. They looked at her with anger or mockery, as if she were a heinous person.
She simply participated in the imperial examination as a woman and became the top scholar.
When these scholars found out, they came out and accused themselves of being unchaste and doing immoral things, saying they should be drowned in a pig cage.
No matter what choice she makes, she always ends up drowning for one reason or another, which is not much different from being drowned in a pig cage.
Wen Yanqing pushed through the crowd expressionlessly, ignoring the accusations, shouts, and curses from those around her.
She needs to figure out why she's stuck in this cycle and can't move forward.
Her intuition told her that this was very important.
Just as Wen Yanqing continued her exploration, in several other places in this ancient town, Zhou Jiming was experiencing a cycle of having his marquisate stripped away and dying tragically in the streets.
Liu Mingyuan experiences a cycle of repeated failures in the imperial examinations, Chen Yunhe's family falls into ruin and he becomes a beggar, Shen Jingzhou is killed while wandering the world with a sword, and Su Yuheng witnesses his two friends, Wen Yanqing and Shen Jingzhou, dying one after another in front of him.
Everyone is going through cycles, but no one can find a way to break them.
On the edge of this ancient town, a black lynx was basking in the sun on a wall, occasionally looking up with puzzled expressions in its heterochromatic golden-black eyes.
He didn't remember why he was there, but he had a feeling that there was someone or something important to him here.
But what exactly is it?
The black cat tilted its head slightly, its eyes filled with confusion.
He stood up from the top of the wall and slowly walked along it, occasionally looking around.
He quickly walked through the entire town.
He walked around and around, and saw several strange people more than once. He looked at these people and felt a vague sense of familiarity, but as a spirit cat, he had no idea that he would recognize these humans.
This puzzled him, so he paid more attention to them and soon discovered that they, like him, were in a constant cycle.
Xuan Yao then realized that they were different from the other humans in this town.
Finally, he discovered the strangeness of the town.
It seems that apart from him and a few other people who keep coming back in the same loop, the townspeople are like NPCs, and their behavior patterns remain very rigid no matter how many times they are cycled through.
So Xuan Yao followed behind those humans, helping them whenever they encountered danger.
But after helping them out of this danger, they will inevitably be brought into danger again, until they finally meet their fate of death.
It was during these few battles that he found the weakness of this town.
Xuan Yao stared coldly at the entrance of the town, then stepped forward and reached out his claws to grab at the air in front of him.
An astonishing scene unfolded: several cat paws suddenly appeared in what had been an empty space.
The air seemed to be torn apart by claws, forming streaks of cat scratches that shimmered with brilliant colors.
As these scratches appeared, a dazzling energy wave suddenly radiated outwards, sweeping across the entire town.
The townspeople who were walking on the road or sitting at home suddenly disappeared.
For a time, only Xuan Yao and Zhou Jiming remained in the town, making it seem unusually deserted.
After this energy fluctuation subsided, the people who were trapped in the cycle finally woke up and remembered that the place they had appeared in was Shao Yanzhe's dream.
They came here to find Shao Yanzhe and awaken him.
Zhou Jiming and his group walked through the town, gradually gathering with a few other people. They then explored the entire town together, but did not find Shao Yanzhe.
"Brother Shao doesn't seem to be here," Zhou Jiming said, looking puzzled.
This town isn't very big; logically, they should have been able to find Shao Yanzhe's people long ago.
But after searching several times, they found no one else besides them.
For a time, everyone was stuck in a bottleneck and unable to make any progress.
Xuan Yao, who was walking with them, was the same; his heterochromatic golden-black eyes were full of anxiety.
Since they entered this dream, quite some time has passed. If this continues, they might die along with Shao Yanzhe.
He swished his tail irritably, slapping it wildly on the ground to vent his frustration.
Meanwhile, Shao Yanzhe, who had been being searched for, woke up in a clean white room. He stared blankly at the room he was in, unable to understand why he was there.
Just then, the door to the room was pushed open, and a person wearing a white coat appeared in front of him.
"You're awake? How are you feeling?" the doctor asked gently.
Shao Yanzhe stared at him, then said, "I feel fine, but why am I here?"
Seeing his bewildered expression, the doctor kindly explained, "Have you forgotten? You fainted because of frequent overtime work. Your colleagues brought you here, and luckily you arrived in time and were resuscitated, otherwise you might have really died suddenly. Young man, you shouldn't work so hard anymore. It's a pity to earn so much money if you don't have the life to enjoy it."
Shao Yanzhe slowly recalled that it seemed to be true. He had been working overtime recently because he had to rush a big project and was sleeping less than three hours a day. He was indeed suffering from sleep deprivation.
He never imagined that he would almost die from this, and while feeling lingering fear, he promised himself that he would never stay up late again.
After seeing the doctor off, he lay down to rest again, but as he lay in bed with his eyes closed, strange images kept flashing through his mind, which looked like scenes from ancient TV dramas he had watched before.
However, he couldn't remember which TV series these belonged to.
The more he tried to think about it, the less he could remember, and at the same time, his head began to throb. Since it wasn't anything important, Shao Yanzhe simply gave up and closed his eyes to rest.
When he closed his eyes, he didn't see that the doctor, who was supposed to leave, was standing outside the ward, staring intently at him through the half-open door. His eyes, hidden behind his glasses, faintly shone with a purple light, radiating a cold, beast-like gaze.
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