“That’s right.”
Yang Jian nodded.
“It’s my dad. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Once a person is dead, they should be properly buried in the earth.”
Yang Jian glanced at Xiao Yuan and continued,
“In this dream world, ghosts can be killed. In other words, we only need to find the source ghost of the nightmare, kill it, and we can get out.”
“Ghosts can be killed?”
Lin Bei was stunned at first, then immediately understood what Yang Jian meant. In this dream world, the ghosts that appeared likewise followed the killing pattern of the nightmare itself, following the fundamental nature of fierce ghosts.
Yang Jian nodded and continued, “A fierce ghost can recreate the experiences of those pulled into the dream, then use those experiences to kill them. If we want to get out, we have to find it under the fierce ghost’s attacks and kill it.”
Lin Bei frowned. What Yang Jian said sounded simple, but actually carrying it out would be as difficult as ascending to the heavens.
The fact that it could pull him into a dream without him noticing at all meant that this fierce ghost was even more terrifying and dangerous than the one that had hunted him in his dreams before.
And right now, this was only the initial stage of entering the dream. As time passed, the dream would only become more and more dangerous.
Lin Bei had already confirmed Yang Jian’s authenticity. He said, “Captain Yang, I don’t possess any supernatural power here. Right now, I’m no different from an ordinary person.”
Yang Jian nodded and raised his incomplete left hand. “Everyone is the same. In dreams, no one possesses any supernatural power.”
Lin Bei looked at Yang Jian’s left hand and continued,
“My situation is rather special. There has always been a ghost hunting me in my dreams, but the supernatural power I control can prevent that ghost from finding me. As long as there is a mirror as a medium, I can make the fierce ghost hunting me lose its way inside the mirror.”
Yang Jian began to ponder. Combining this with the current situation, he rapidly analyzed things, trying to find the key information to break this bizarre dream.
Yang Jian asked, “You mean that no matter where you are, as long as there is a mirror, you can use the mirror as a medium to connect to the fierce ghost you control?”
Lin Bei nodded and said,
“You could say that. At the very beginning, that dream ghost tried to kill me in a small room, but there, I encountered a Buddha statue. An extremely dangerous supernatural object. Even now, I still can’t confirm whether I have truly controlled it.”
Deep fear appeared in Lin Bei’s eyes. He continued,
“After that night, the ghost kept appearing in my dreams, but in the dream, I could use mirrors to travel between various scenes. That room also gradually became larger as I shuttled through it, and that Buddha statue grew larger and larger as the room expanded...”
Yang Jian looked at the mirror shard in Lin Bei’s hand. His previous guess had been correct. That strange giant Buddha was indeed connected to Lin Bei.
If what Lin Bei said was true, then the fierce ghost Lin Bei controlled was not consciousness-type. If he really had to describe it, this was a special type of fierce ghost Yang Jian had never encountered before.
Mind-dependent.
As long as there was a mirror somewhere, no matter where it was—even in a dream—that ghost could use Lin Bei and the mirror as mediums to invade any place.
And what Lin Bei was doing did not seem like controlling the supernatural so much as a method of utilizing it.
If Yang Jian’s guess was right, then each time the ghost that attacked Lin Bei in his dreams passed through that space, it would be suppressed by that giant Buddha.
But this suppression was mutual. At that moment, Lin Bei could take advantage of that gap to indirectly control that strange giant Buddha and use its supernatural power.
When the bus had stalled, Lin Bei sleeping had been his way of using the giant Buddha to contend against the mummified bride.
In that case, it all made sense. Based on Lin Bei’s information, Yang Jian could confirm that the appearance of mirrors in this dream was not because of him, but because of Lin Bei.
Due to Lin Bei’s involvement, that giant Buddha was also invading this space. In other words, two kinds of supernatural power had now collided. This dream world was no longer merely recreating Yang Jian’s experiences.
Just then, a familiar voice came from the doorway:
“Young man, what kind of car are you driving?”
“AE86. What of it? Wanna drift?”
Zhang Wei? Yang Jian stood up, walked to the door, and pushed it open.
“Wait, Captain Yang!” Lin Bei suddenly thought of something and was about to stop him, but it was already too late.
The three of them were sitting in a speeding taxi. Outside the windows was Dachang City, with a fine drizzle drifting through the sky.
Yang Jian looked toward the driver’s seat. There was no one there. This taxi was barreling down the road at full speed, and ahead lay a cold, gloomy lake.
Seeing that the vehicle was about to plunge into the lake, Yang Jian twisted sideways and slipped into the driver’s seat. Gripping the steering wheel tightly with one hand, he slammed on the brakes. The car’s rear end drifted past, skimming the very edge of the lake.
“That was close...”
Lin Bei looked at the gloomy lake beside them. Its color was clearly abnormal.
Outside the car window, the gloomy sky hung low. Gray-white condensate was slowly drifting down from the clouds, and the entire world was being covered in a layer of deathly ash.
“The Ghost Painting’s ghost domain?” Yang Jian looked at the gray-white covering the sky, a trace of surprise flashing through his eyes.
“Impossible. The ghosts here only possess their appearance, not their supernatural power.”
At this moment, Lin Bei said, “Maybe something has gone wrong with the mirror world where the Buddha statue exists...”
“Imitation, but not imitation in the true sense. As long as something has been reflected by a mirror, it can be simulated. But it can only simulate the outward manifestation, not the real thing. This ghost domain is false.”
After hearing this, Yang Jian began to think.
When the Ghost Painting lost control, Lin Bei had still been on the bus. He had never seen the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain. As for Yang Jian’s cousin, that was even more impossible. Here, only Yang Jian himself had seen the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain.
Then how had the mirror world Lin Bei controlled imitated the Ghost Painting’s ghost domain?
The only explanation that made sense was that, during the supernatural clash between the giant Buddha and this dream, it had stolen some of the scenes Yang Jian had experienced from the dream.
But through this false ghost domain, Yang Jian could confirm that the giant Buddha had become more deeply entangled with this nightmare. This allowed him to see a sliver of opportunity, a chance to escape this place.
Xiao Yuan suddenly pointed at the rearview mirror and said, “I saw that giant again.”
The two of them looked into the rearview mirror. A Buddha statue sat within it, its features indistinct.
It was exactly the same as the Buddha statue Yang Jian and Xiao Yuan had previously seen in that mirror world.
“Again?”
Lin Bei’s expression changed. He asked,
“Captain Yang, you’ve seen the Buddha statue?”
“Yes,” Xiao Yuan nodded.
“Just now, my cousin and I fell into a mirror. There was a really, really big Buddha statue sitting there.”
As Xiao Yuan spoke, she spread her arms wide to gesture.
Lin Bei’s face turned deathly pale. “Under normal circumstances, only I can see that giant Buddha.”
“What do you mean?” Xiao Yuan tilted her head and asked.
Lin Bei explained,
“I’ve never been able to figure out the relationship between the giant Buddha and mirrors...
“But once, a ghost controller who had a grudge against me used a skull to invade my dream. He forcibly tore through my dream and barged into that mirror world. The instant he observed the giant Buddha, the number of Buddhas increased to two. Then he died, and even that skull fell into a deadlock.”
“What do you mean?” This time, it was Yang Jian who asked.
Lin Bei continued, “Ever since then, I’ve suspected that as long as someone’s gaze sees the Buddha statue in the mirror world, its number will increase. The more people who see it, the greater its number becomes. Like observing a mirror, the giant Buddha uses the reflection of sight on the mirror surface to stack countless versions of itself... until it bursts that space apart and completely invades reality.”
Yang Jian gripped the steering wheel, his expression growing increasingly grave as he listened. According to Lin Bei, this Buddha statue was far too mind-dependent.
He and Xiao Yuan had once entered that mirror world. Logically speaking, they should have died the instant they saw the Buddha statue.
But the two of them had survived. It seemed that, in its confrontation with the dream, the Buddha statue had fallen into a disadvantage and been suppressed by the dream.
However, according to Lin Bei, the Buddha statue could autonomously stack its own supernatural power. As long as gazes and mirrors existed, there would come a day when the Buddha statue stacked itself to a number even this dream could no longer suppress...
Looking at the Buddha statue in the rearview mirror, Yang Jian realized that this dream world and that mirror world were currently colliding with and invading each other.
If another overwhelming attack like the previous one by the female corpses of Ghost Lake occurred, the gazes of those female corpses would cause the number of giant Buddhas to increase exponentially, reaching a terrifying figure.
Thinking of this, Yang Jian suddenly considered another possibility. Perhaps that mirror world had been created by predecessors using some kind of supernatural power to imprison that strange Buddha statue there. It was only because of Lin Bei’s appearance that this giant Buddha had reemerged in the world.