Chapter 34 The Land of Freedom (Part 1): Bustling Cities and Spiritual Beliefs...
The room truly lived up to its name; no matter how noisy it was outside, all the commotion was shut out as soon as you stepped inside, and it seemed as if some kind of protective barrier had been erected around the room. Twenty Divine Strategy tokens were actually a great deal; the accommodations were even better than those of star-rated hotels, and meals were included. The group was a bit tired from just waking up, so they ordered some hot food and ate it casually in the room.
And most importantly, it's absolutely safe to fall asleep here.
Having spent too much time on Divine Strategy these past two days, the four decided to rest for one night and enter the dream again tomorrow morning to try and get as many stones as possible before the exchange day.
Xia Zhu and Feng Feng shared a room, with a gauze curtain separating the two beds. She slept by the window, which faced the Three Peaks. Smoke and clouds drifted through the windowpanes. She hugged her little sword and closed her eyes contentedly.
There was an unprecedented sense of security.
Everyone slept in late and got plenty of rest, so it was time for a good meal. We were too tired to go downstairs last night, so we decided to take Xia Zhu out for a stroll.
My sleep tonight was unusually quiet, lacking the lively atmosphere of last night. The ornate decorations and carved beams and painted rafters looked like a beautiful lantern with a flickering candle that had burned all night.
A few people were eating breakfast in the lobby. Feng Mian and Ying Ya went downstairs one after the other, and the four of them found a table and sat down.
"Judging from this, either we got up too early, or we're already asleep," Feng Mian said, referring to the menu and writing the names of the dishes on a plain piece of paper on the table.
"Damn it! This has really ignited my fighting spirit! Let's finish eating quickly, then we'll go too!"
Everyone wrote down what they wanted on the paper and added the table number at the end. The paper floated up into the air and, with a slight shake, spontaneously combusted. All that was left was to wait for the wind to carry the food.
Xiao Feng was determined to attend the event several times before the conference, so the four of them quickly finished their meal and returned to their room.
Just like last time, after reciting some unknown incantation, they gathered at the Dream Eater.
However, Xia Zhu noticed that Ying Ya's incantation differed from theirs in some details. The Feng family used the Spring Emperor to pave the way, while the Ying family used the Phoenix.
Sure enough, people don't disappear, they just move. The Dream Eater was packed with people, completely different from when they came last time. You had to be careful walking around, lest you get pushed and fall into the pool. If you fall into the pool without ringing the bell, you'll just get soaked for nothing.
"This is terrible," Xiao Feng said with a worried look on his face when he saw so many people. "There are too many people, and there is a risk of us having a dream-like encounter."
"It's alright. If we can win, we'll fight. If we can't, we'll just offer up the fortune-telling stone. We can be flexible, right?" Feng Mian ruffled her hair haphazardly.
The Dream Eater was even more lively than last night's good sleep, mainly because in addition to people, there were flying creatures in the sky, crawling creatures on the ground, and many strange creatures that Xia Zhu had never seen before.
She wondered how they could compete if they ran into each other, relying on the four of them bare-handed. Thinking this, she glanced back at Ying Ya, wondering where his crows came from. Perhaps those little birds were always there when called, and as long as the Ying family spoke, they would appear no matter where they were, even if they had to cross the rift in time.
Thinking about it this way, she felt that Ying Ya was like a little bird in the wind, appearing in unexpected places at any time.
In the Dream Eater, choosing a dream only requires picking a bell to ring. Apart from the difference in difficulty, the content of the dream cannot be seen from the outside. Not wanting to squeeze into the crowd, they chose a red wind chime that was not surrounded by anyone.
Before jumping in, Feng Feng prayed that he wouldn't run into other teams, as any armed conflict would be extremely troublesome at the time of the tournament.
My body felt light and airy. All my senses were initially closed off, but gradually opened up over time, as if I were trapped in a bubble, waiting for the air to pierce the membrane.
Xia Zhu smelled a sweet fragrance, like the fuzzy skin of a crisp pink peach in summer, or newly unfolded flower buds on a branch after a spring rain. It wasn't strong, but it lingered in her cerebral cortex for a long time.
Then came the sound of her own heartbeat, one beat at a time, slowly blending into a more compact and focused drumbeat, as if the heartbeats of tens of thousands of people were perfectly aligned. It was also like being in the midst of a grand festival, surrounded by cheering crowds, only for some reason, her eardrums were shrouded in a hazy mist, and all sounds seemed distorted.
She felt it was about time, so she opened her eyes. Unable to adjust quickly to the bright white light, her vision was only focused on a shoulder with its back to her, and everything around her was still blurry. She blinked hard, and as a peach-pink petal gently fell onto the shoulder of the person in front of her, her senses returned to normal.
The crowd was in an uproar, and the shouts were deafening.
A string of heavenly sounds flowed between countless raised arms, ethereal and exquisite, soothing and elegant yet inspiring.
The source of the music is unidentifiable; it has the texture of a tide and can only come from beyond the heavens.
Xia Zhu finally saw the scene before her clearly. It was an unprecedented spectacle. Tens of thousands of people were crowded in the center of a modern square, surrounded by skyscrapers. The giant glass screens tirelessly reflected the already brilliant sunlight, which then generously shone on everyone's face. In a daze, she felt as if the Morgan Stanley Building, which she had seen in pictures and books before, was right in front of her.
Seven major streets converge here, each teeming with people. In the distance, towers chime the hour, giant gears turn, and Gothic spires point straight to the sky.
To be honest, this was the first time Xia Zhu had ever seen such a bustling scene. The charm of the city lies in the fact that even if you feel very small in it, there is always a flame of hope to guide you forward.
The dazzling lights and bustling traffic create an illusion that you can create endless miracles here, but most of the time you just end up becoming one of the prisoners in the steel prison.
Petals rained down from the sky, falling on everyone with a holy glow. Xia Zhu snapped out of her daze and looked up blankly, trying to see where the petals were falling from.
Then she saw a sight she had never seen before in her life, a sight that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
She saw a pair of holy eyes, compassionate eyebrows, a merciful nose and mouth.
The vast universe resides only in her eyes, and all the most beautiful things in the world adorn her. She smiles gently, and even the wind that caresses the world carries a mesmerizing scent.
It was a colossal celestial maiden, slowly and gracefully floating overhead. Her body seemed larger than the city itself, yet her movements were light and agile, her form like the autumn moon, adorned with a jeweled crown and necklaces, her celestial robes fluttering, her jade belt hanging down, and countless peach-pink petals scattering from her sleeves.
Words cannot describe the grandeur of the scene and the absolute oppressive feeling brought by the celestial maiden.
Everyone waved their arms, trying to catch more sacred flowers, hoping to draw the favor of the gods and get just a glance.
But her mere presence on earth is already the greatest blessing to humanity; why would she linger and bestow even a single glance upon us?
When the woman's head swam directly above the square, she did something that made tens of thousands of people hold their breath.
She slowly lowered her head, her solemn power instantly silencing all the noise. She lowered her entire body, her aura icy, as if coming from beneath a glacier formed over millions of years. From among the tiny, fragile crowd, she chose Xia Zhu, who appeared the most dull and undevout, and gazed at her with eyes that contained everything yet revealed no emotion.
Xia Zhu felt as if the celestial maiden's face was a colossal object pressing down on him, absorbing all light and even oxygen. This eye contact seemed to last a long time in the dimness and suffocation, but it was also fleeting.
Xia Zhu was confused about the situation and could only stare back at her, taking a moment to think about whether she was as tall as one of her eyelashes.
Finally, the celestial maiden straightened up, withdrew her gaze, gently raised one arm, gracefully drew an arc in the high sky, and then stretched out a finger towards the end of the world.
Xia Zhu turned around blankly and looked in the direction the giant celestial maiden was pointing.
That place is the West.
She opened her eyes again and found herself lying on an incredibly comfortable bed.
The blankets and sheets were as soft and white as cotton, and my body sank deep into them until all my fatigue disappeared.
Golden sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling window on the left, casting a warm glow on Xia Zhu and creating an unparalleled sense of tranquility.
The room's decor leaned towards minimalism; everything seemed white, clean, and with crisp, clean lines. Of course, Xia Zhu didn't care about any of that; she simply commented on the scene.
Big, bright, and costs a lot of money.
That modern feel was quite a shock to Xia Zhu, so much so that she got out of bed barefoot and wandered around the house in a daze.
In addition to a large bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows, there is also a large living room with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, as well as a study, kitchen and dining room, all of which are very spacious!
Xia Zhu was stunned. She searched every corner of the big house, but there was no Feng Mian, no Feng Feng, and no little bird!
She was frustrated and wondered if she had jumped into the wrong puddle.
But then she thought, maybe it was like the previous dream, where they were not together, but in the same building. So Xia Zhu moved to the French windows and looked down.
My legs feel weak.
My legs are weak.
Cars flowed like water, horses galloped like dragons, and people were like pores on the face of the city. Her room must have been a hundred stories high, with the entire city laid out before her. The sun hung directly overhead, making the sunlight incredibly bright. So when she got out of bed, she even felt a sense of weightlessness, as if she were dizzy and lightheaded.
In other words, the world map of this dream is at least as big as the entire city of New York.
Xia Zhu stared blankly at the relatively shorter tower below, its Gothic spires pointing straight to the sky, where seven streets converged in the central square, teeming with people.
Not only did she quickly have a dream that was exactly the same as this place after entering the dream, but she also lost contact with Feng Feng and the others.
It took Xia Zhu five minutes to accept this reality. Fortunately, her backpack was still on the bed where she woke up, and everything inside was there, including her most beloved little sword. While rummaging through it, she suddenly found her old smartphone and remembered that she was actually a modern person. But when she picked it up, she realized that she not only didn't have any of Feng Feng's contact information, but the phone also had no satellite signal here, except for showing the date as the 32nd of a certain month and year.
No wonder I've never seen Feng Feng or Feng Mian use a mobile phone; it seems that real-world communication devices simply don't work in dreams.
So she decided to tour the room again, wondering if it had anything to do with the spirit.
If anything, Liang might be a germaphobe, Xia Zhu guessed as she toured the study.
Until she opened the door to the study.
The curtains in the room were drawn tightly shut, with only a sliver of light filtering through the gaps. Even from the general outline, one could tell that the room must be incredibly chaotic. Xia Zhu fumbled for the light switch on the wall and turned it on. The floor was covered with books, notebooks, and some strange mountaineering tools. There were two walls of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books that smelled rather old, as well as several rock specimens encased in glass cases. On the small stool next to the desk, there was even a plate of unfinished cookies and a cup of cold coffee.
It seems that Ryou isn't a germaphobe; it's just that her life seems to exist only in this study.
Xia Zhu jumped over the pile of clutter on the ground and came to the desk. There was nowhere to start here. Open pages of books, notes that were hard to understand, and a pile of old newspapers were piled high on one side.
Overwhelmed by the sheer number of things, she turned her attention to the sticky notes covering her computer screen.
Xia Zhu pushed up her glasses on the bridge of her nose. Her head started to hurt again, and her eyelids twitched wildly.
Not only on sticky notes, but also in thick notebooks that are randomly flipped open, densely filled with her handwriting.
She turned to the first page of the notebook beside her, where the owner's name was written solemnly on the title page.
"Summer Candle".
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