Early in the morning, Zhou Kai woke up naturally, feeling perfectly refreshed.
He picked up his phone and cleared his messages while washing up.
The first piece of good news for the new week came from Ma Yifan.
Although it was only a message, Zhou Kai could imagine his excitement.
“Kai-ge, I’ve got enough people! Four of my buddies are interested!”
“Our own martial arts club can finally get started!”
……
Ma Yifan had sent a long string of rambling messages.
Zhou Kai gave him a brief reply.
Then he began dealing with another message—
Lu Yan: “Good morning, Xiao Kai.”
As always, an extremely punctual good-morning greeting.
Zhou Kai’s replies depended on his mood. Sometimes it was a perfunctory sticker; sometimes he simply left it on read.
But today, the reply that popped up on the screen made Lu Yan suspect she hadn’t woken up yet: “Morning, Yanzi-jie. Eaten yet? Together?”
Lu Yan: “???”
Lu Yan: “What happened? Did your account get hacked?”
Looking at the screen, Zhou Kai shook his head and smiled as he typed into his phone: “What could have happened?”
Lu Yan: “…This sudden enthusiasm of yours seriously deviates from your character setting, little brother.”
“……”
“Character setting? What character setting could I possibly have?”
After they agreed on a place to meet, Zhou Kai turned off his phone screen.
Lu Yan wasn’t wrong. He was indeed acting a little abnormal right now.
But in truth, it was perfectly normal.
“After all… I made it back from hell safe and sound!”
A brush with death, survival after disaster, and a deep, sound sleep through the night.
Zhou Kai changed into a neat set of casual clothes. When he stepped out, his stride was light.
He walked through the narrow, dim alley. Even the musty smell of damp mildew that had lingered by the wall corners for years, and the twin-tailed little sprites poking their heads out from the cracks, seemed warm and adorable now.
When he walked out of the alley, warm sunlight came smashing down on him head-on, brilliantly golden.
Zhou Kai narrowed his eyes. An impulse was rampaging around in his chest, making him want to roar at the sky.
‘I fucking survived!!’
Of course, most of the time, when Zhou Kai faced the outside world, he was like a stone thrown into a deep pool. No matter how great the waves inside him were, on the surface there would only be a negligible ripple.
At this moment, the irrepressible smile hanging on his face was already the most ostentatious indulgence he could allow himself.
……
“That kid usually keeps a straight face. Why’s he suddenly smiling today like a three-hundred-jin stomach pouch? Did he win the lottery?”
Behind a snack cart at the intersection, Huang Zhang was holding a hand-grabbed pancake, staring eagerly as Zhou Kai walked out from the alley.
When he saw that relaxed smile on Zhou Kai’s face, so smug it practically begged for a beating, he even stopped chewing, somewhat dazed.
He suddenly thought of his own daughter.
Wenwen… She used to always ask, “Dad, why don’t you smile more?”
But after she left, Huang Zhang had already forgotten what it felt like to truly laugh from the heart.
He tried to pull the corners of his mouth apart, but his facial muscles were as stiff as frozen zombie meat. After tugging at them for a long time, all he managed was a grimace that looked like a smile without any real joy.
After trying too many times, the corners of his mouth even began to cramp.
So Huang Zhang had no choice but to reach out with greasy fingers and smooth the corners of his mouth.
He stared at Zhou Kai’s retreating back and said in a voice only he could hear:
“Congratulations. You’re still alive.”
As long as Zhou Kai was still alive and hadn’t been dragged into a Nightmare dead end, Huang Zhang felt a little more at ease… That was good.
With the small task completed, Huang Zhang prepared to call it a day.
He lowered his head and glanced at the hand-grabbed pancake in his hand, more than half of it still left. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed it down in two or three bites.
The scalding sauce and tenderloin burned him so badly that he hopped in place, huffing and gasping.
“Buddy, eat slower! Is our pancake really that good?”
The snack stall owner stared until his eyes went wide. This was the first time he’d learned that his own pre-made hand-grabbed pancakes could provoke such a huge reaction from someone.
“I’m fine… haha, fine.”
Huang Zhang’s tears were almost scalded out of him. Forcing down his embarrassment, he staggered away.
……
Zhou Kai and Lu Yan arrived at the agreed location almost at the same time.
She had put on exquisite makeup today. Her eyeliner was drawn just right, and the peachy red bean-paste lip gloss made her look even purer and more beautiful, deliberately narrowing the age gap between herself and Zhou Kai.
It was obvious she had put in effort, yet she was still punctual to the second.
“Come on, what are we eating?”
As soon as Lu Yan saw Zhou Kai, she put one hand on her hip and swung the bag in her other hand in front of him.
“Originally, I should’ve treated you for passing your little exam, but Brother Ma beat me to it.”
“Today, I absolutely have to make up for that meal!”
The corner of Zhou Kai’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
When it came to others treating him to meals, Zhou Kai had always upheld the life philosophy of accepting with humble gratitude.
He gave Lu Yan full face, pondering solemnly for a few seconds before speaking. “Jie, let’s go eat at the botanical garden.”
A nearly tangible question mark seemed about to pop up above Lu Yan’s head. “What is there to eat in that damn place?”
Zhou Kai smiled mysteriously. “You’ll know when we get there.”
“Brother Ma’s club has some progress this afternoon, so I’ll need to head over. I’m free this morning anyway. After eating, we can stroll around the park. Isn’t that nice?”
Eating was just an excuse. His real goal was to take the opportunity to get some plant seeds.
The rarer and more peculiar, the better.
Online shopping records and express delivery packaging were both easy clues to investigate.
Lu Yan’s ears felt a little hot and pink, but they were well hidden behind her hair.
She didn’t even notice it herself. After muttering a few complaints, she stopped objecting.
So the two of them picked a breakfast shop to fill their stomachs, then went to the botanical garden.
The garden was clearly divided into sections, with all kinds of exotic flowers and rare grasses in great variety.
Zhou Kai, who had never even given such flowers and plants a proper look in the past, now developed enormous interest in them.
He looked extremely carefully, taking out his phone from time to time to photograph the plants and search them up.
Lu Yan had originally prepared a bellyful of topics, but seeing Zhou Kai so absorbed in study, she couldn’t bear to disturb him. She could only quietly follow behind him like a dutiful assistant.
After a dozen minutes or so, she suddenly burst out laughing with a “pfft.”
Zhou Kai turned back. “What is it?”
Lu Yan waved her hand. “Nothing.”
Her eyes curved like two crescent moons as she smiled. She simply felt that this kind of quiet companionship, each person harboring their own thoughts, was rather interesting too.
……
Chu Siwen slept for a very long time, very deeply, and, miraculously, she didn’t even dream.
But after waking up, her body did not feel full of vitality as it usually did after deep sleep.
Quite the opposite.
Weakness, pain, exhaustion, and a damp chill that seemed to seep out from the cracks between her bones wrapped tightly around her.
“You’re awake?”
A gentle voice sounded.
Park Hyoyun pressed a hand on Yezi’s shoulder, letting the young girl stand in front of her. One tall, one short, the two of them were smiling as they looked down at her.
Chu Siwen’s body twitched as if she had been electrocuted. Then, the fragmented and terrifying scenes from last night, along with her current situation, pieced themselves together completely in her mind.
She forced out a smile uglier than crying, closed her eyes, then abruptly opened them again.
“Nightmares… are real.”
……In the end, Chu Siwen used her phone to contact the shift supervisor and quit her job. Although she needed money badly, right now, money had already lost much of its meaning.
At least for the recent period, she probably wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.
A smile uglier than crying squeezed onto Chu Siwen’s pale face. “What you said is true, right?”
“Special funds for Nightmare syndrome patients?”
Looking at her pretending to be strong, Park Hyoyun felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest, but she still nodded firmly. “Absolutely true.”
“As long as you cooperate with us properly… there will be a monthly fund quota of ten thousand yuan. Whatever you want to buy, whatever you want to do, it’s all up to you.”
Giving these poor patients a sum of money so they could live a little more comfortably in their final days… This was a tradition of their Second Team.
Chu Siwen struggled to sit up from the bed. “Then I’ll absolutely cooperate.”
Seeing that she seemed to be in decent spirits, Yezi opened her laptop and prepared to begin working.
She got straight to the point. “What was your Nightmare like?”
Chu Siwen’s expression instantly collapsed. Her pupils trembled violently, as if she had once again fallen into that terrifying abyss.
After a long silence, she clutched tightly at the corner of her clothes, her voice hoarse. “Xishan City… Subway Line One.”
“I dreamed of Subway Line One!”
Yezi’s originally calm note-taking suddenly paused.
The moment she heard the words “Xishan City,” her expression changed abruptly.
Since its opening, Xishan City Subway Line One had operated smoothly and had never had any accidents.
And yet, it had appeared in Chu Siwen’s Nightmare…
Without changing her expression, Yezi gave Park Hyoyun a look, then closed her laptop and walked out of the bedroom as if nothing had happened.
She stood in the corridor for a full half minute.
Then she dialed Ding San’s number. “San-jie, she’s a ‘Reality Nightmare.’”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Then Ding San’s voice came through, calm to a frightening degree.
“I know.”