Chapter 43: Key Guidelines
The combined power of their four minds, like an invisible blade, pierced the nightmare barrier ahead. There was no loud noise, no explosion. Chu Yun, Li Ge, and Mo Li felt nothing but a flash before their eyes. The sea of fire, the vengeful spirits, and the cage that had entangled them were instantly ripped apart by a tremendous force, leaving them far behind. Their consciousnesses passed through a turbulent stream of chaotic colors and cacophony of sounds. When they finally settled, they found themselves in a completely new place. "We... succeeded?" Mo Li's voice held a hint of uncertainty. She could sense she had escaped the suffocating mental cage. "Only halfway," Li Ge's voice remained serious. "We've only broken through the outer 'nightmare zone' and entered a deeper level of the dream. But Chu Yun, the cage within you hasn't completely vanished." Chu Yun remained silent. He could sense that even though the sea of fire had been left behind, the image of his "father," the symbol of his fate, lingered like a shadow in the depths of his mind, lingering undispelled. "Leave me alone for now," Chu Yun forced himself to suppress his discomfort. "Zhilan, are we in the right place now?" The four of them were standing in a large meadow filled with wildflowers. There was no broken sky, no dark river, but instead, warm sunshine and the melodious chirping of birds. Not far away, there was a clear stream and several beautiful wooden houses with smoke rising from their chimneys. "Here..." Mo Li looked at the peaceful and tranquil scene before him, his face filled with confusion. "This doesn't feel like a nightmare lair, but more like a paradise." "No," Zhilan shook her head, a look of disgust crossing her face for the first time. "This place... makes me feel even more uncomfortable than that place just now." "Why?" "Because everything here is fake." Zhilan pointed at the vibrantly blooming flowers. "They don't have 'hearts'. They're just paintings, with no scent or feeling of wind." She pointed at the warm-looking wooden houses. "No one lives there either. Just empty spaces that repeat the thought 'I'm happy.' They're deceiving." Zhilan's words startled Chu Yun and the other two. They immediately took in their surroundings and discovered that beneath this seemingly beautiful scene lay a profoundly false, cold, and repetitive energy wave. "This is what she called the 'dream trap,'" Li Ge's face darkened. "...
The power formed by the combined will of the four people, like an invisible knife, pierced fiercely into the nightmare barrier ahead.
There was no loud bang or explosion.
Chu Yun, Li Ge, and Mo Li felt their eyes flash before their eyes. The sea of fire, the vengeful spirits, and the cage that had entangled them were instantly torn apart by a tremendous force and left far behind. Their consciousness passed through a turbulent flow of chaotic colors and noisy sounds. When they stabilized again, they found themselves in a completely new place.
"We... succeeded?" There was a hint of uncertainty in Mo Li's voice. She could feel that she had escaped from the mental cage that was suffocating her.
"Only halfway there." Li Ge's voice was still serious. "We just broke out of the outer 'nightmare zone' and entered a deeper level of the dream. But Chu Yun, the cage in your heart has not completely disappeared."
Chu Yun remained silent. He could sense that even though the sea of fire had been left behind, the image of his "father," who represented his fate, still lingered in the depths of his mind like a shadow, and would not dissipate.
"Don't worry about me for now." Chu Yun forced himself to suppress the discomfort in his heart, "Zhilan, are we in the right place now?"
The four of them were standing in a vast meadow filled with wildflowers. There was no broken sky, no dark river, but instead, warm sunshine and the melodious chirping of birds. Not far away, there was a clear stream and several beautiful wooden houses, with smoke rising from their chimneys.
"Here..." Mo Li looked at the quiet and peaceful scene in front of him, his face full of confusion. "This place doesn't look like the lair of nightmares, but more like a paradise."
"No." Zhilan shook her head. For the first time, an expression of "disgust" appeared on her face. "This place... makes me feel even more uncomfortable than the place just now."
"Why?"
"Because everything here is fake." Zhilan pointed at the blooming flowers. "They have no 'heart'. They are just paintings. They can't smell the fragrance, nor can they feel the wind." She pointed at the wooden houses that looked warm. "No one lives there either. There are only empty spaces that keep repeating the thought 'I am happy.' They are deceiving."
Zhilan's words startled Chu Yun and the other two. They immediately carefully sensed everything around them and discovered that beneath this seemingly beautiful scene, there was an extremely false, cold, and repetitive energy fluctuation like a machine.
"This is what she called the 'dream trap'." Li Ge's expression turned ugly. "It's using the most perfect illusion to lure us into letting down our guard. If we hadn't had Zhilan leading the way, we would probably have thought this place was a safe zone to rest, and then... we would have been trapped here forever, unable to get out."
At this moment, the doors of the wooden houses slowly opened.
A familiar figure emerged from the first wooden house—Chu Yun's father, Chu Jiang. He was no longer the imposing and cold figure he had been in the sea of fire. Instead, he was dressed in clean, casual clothes, with a gentle smile on his face and a few strings of candied haws in his hands.
"Yun'er, look, Dad bought you your favorite candied haws." He smiled and waved to Chu Yun, "Come here quickly. Don't worry about those fighting and killing things anymore. Our family will live a peaceful life here, okay?"
Chu Yun's body shook uncontrollably.
From the second wooden house, an equally familiar figure walked out - it was Li Ge's sister. Her eyes were no longer empty, but filled with health and a gentle smile.
"A-Li," she called softly, "Look, I'm completely cured now, all thanks to you. Don't try to be a ghost doctor anymore, that's too hard. Stay and talk to your sister."
Li Ge's breathing suddenly became rapid.
Dozens of figures emerged from the third cabin—all of Mo Li's clansmen who had died unjustly. They were all smiling, and her father was the leader.
"Li'er," Mo Li's father said with a smile, "The emperor has vindicated us. You see, everyone knows that our Mo family's mechanical engineering is the most useful knowledge in the world. You don't have to bear hatred anymore. Come home, my child, we are all waiting for you."
Mo Li's eyes, which had just rekindled his fighting spirit, instantly became moist when he saw this scene.
This was the scene each of them longed for most: Chu Yun sought ordinary happiness after escaping fate; Li Ge sought the recovery of her family; Mo Li carried the burden of preserving his family's innocence. The nightmare exposed their softest, most vulnerable vulnerabilities in the most gentle and irresistible way.
"No..." Mo Li was the first to let out a painful groan. She wanted so badly to go over, to hug her father, to tell him that she had not let him down.
"Mo Li! Keep calm!" Chu Yun shouted. His voice exploded in everyone's mind through the "Bridge of Heart", and he himself was also engaged in a fierce ideological struggle.
"This is all fake!" He forced himself to turn his head away from the "father" handing over the candied haws. "Once we go over there, our wills will be completely melted by this false happiness! We will become like everyone else in this village, drained of everything in this beautiful dream!"
"But...what if this is true?" Mo Li's voice was filled with tears. "What if...this is a kind of 'compensation' from the dream?"
"No compensation!" Li Ge's voice was icy, yet filled with undeniable determination. She stared intently at the smiling "sister" and spoke word for word, "I know better than anyone that my sister's soul has long been shattered by my practice of forbidden techniques. She couldn't possibly recover to her current state. This person before me is simply a fabricated, perfect 'fake'!"
Her words were like a bucket of cold water, waking up Mo Li who was about to fall into despair.
Yes, fake. Mo Li looked at the smiling tribesmen. She knew they were all dead, and the dead could not be resurrected. What she pursued was "rectification," to let the world know the truth, rather than hiding in a false illusion and deceiving herself.
"Heaven's work is the creation of nature, and man can conquer nature..." She gritted her teeth, squeezing out each word, "I, the Mohist people, never believe in 'miracles' that come without effort! We only believe in 'creations' in our own hands! I... disdain this kind of false happiness!"
As her will became stronger, the illusions of the tribesmen in front of her began to distort.
"Very good." Chu Yun said approvingly, "Li Ge, Mo Li, remember how we felt just now. Remember our own 'Tao'. This is our only weapon against these illusions."
"That... very sad adult is not there." Zhilan, who had been protected by the three people behind her, suddenly spoke. Her voice pulled the three people back from the confrontation with their inner demons.
"What?" Chu Yun asked.
Zhilan didn't look at those tempting illusions. She just shook her head, then stretched out her finger and pointed to an inconspicuous valley shrouded in darkness behind this "paradise".
"He's there." Zhilan's tone was very certain. "I can feel that all the 'light', all the 'sun', are locked up in that valley. And the 'happiness' in those wooden houses is just a little shadow of the 'light' stolen from that valley."
This crucial guidance instantly made the three of them understand the nightmare's entire deception: it used the glimmer of light stolen from "hope" to create these false "dream" traps to ensnare the rebels who broke in. And it itself, along with all the true "hope," hid in the most inconspicuous valley, even deliberately shrouded in darkness.
"What a clever trick," Chu Yun said coldly, "If we had been deceived and walked into those wooden houses, we would have been completely lost and would never have been able to find our true home."
"Now we know." Li Ge's eyes became sharper. "Chu Yun, the cage in your heart has not been completely released. How long can you hold on?"
"That's enough." Chu Yun's answer was calm. "As long as we are still connected, as long as I can still feel your will, that illusion will not be able to truly crush me."
"Alright." Mo Li also regained his composure and confidence. "Then our goal is very clear. Abandon this false 'Paradise Garden' and head directly to that valley. Zhilan, continue to guide us."
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