Chapter 128: Parting Shot
Chapter 128: Parting Shot
In the dim glow of the night market lanterns, Chen Jindong was so startled he nearly lost his wits entirely.
Isn’t this Zheng Zhuxi’s junior brother?
Wasn’t he meditating in his room, which was why I could only enter Zheng Zhuxi’s dream?
When did he slip out of the inn without a sound and end up at this noodle stall, seated right across from me?
Ding Songyan smiled slightly.
"So it was you after all."
Chen Jindong’s expression shifted slightly. His somewhat horse-shaped eyes conveyed a measured look of confusion.
"My friend, what do you mean by that?"
"You’re a deeply sinister person." Ding Songyan offered no further explanation, only the wistful remark.
Chen Jindong frowned slightly.
"I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at. In your view, does coming to the market at night for a bowl of noodle soup count as sinister?"
"You have admirable composure, my friend," Ding Songyan apologized with a cheerful smile. "I spoke without thinking."
"Then would you like a bowl? The broth is rich and the noodles have a good bite. It settles nicely in the stomach." Chen Jindong laughed.
Ding Songyan let the smile fade from his face. He looked at the Huangliang Sect’s heaven-favored son with a thoughtful expression.
"If doing something wrong leaves no trace, and one can only be caught in the act, does that mean a person can do wrong without restraint?"
"You are mistaken," Chen Jindong said with righteous conviction. "A gentleman is vigilant even when alone. It is easy to deceive others, but difficult to deceive oneself. If one intends to walk the path of martial arts, it is better to have a clear conscience."
"So Young Hero Chen always has a clear conscience?" A hint of amusement crept into Ding Songyan’s eyes.
Chen Jindong nodded with pride.
"Of course."
Then he smiled and changed the subject.
"You’re Heroine Zheng’s junior brother, I take it. Might I ask your name?"
Ding Songyan rose from his seat. He clasped the hand holding Frostshade behind his back and shook his head with a smile.
"You don’t deserve to know."
Chen Jindong’s smile froze. Ding Songyan strolled leisurely out of the alley and back to the inn.
Once Ding Songyan’s retreating figure disappeared from sight, Chen Jindong’s expression darkened rapidly.
......
Back at the inn, Ding Songyan knocked on his senior sister’s door.
"Come in." Zheng Zhuxi’s clear voice rang out.
She had already changed into a green cotton dress, no longer in her white inner robe.
"Junior Brother, where did you go?" Zheng Zhuxi asked, puzzled.
She had heard his footsteps coming up from the inn’s main hall.
Ding Songyan set Frostshade on the table and sat down with a smile.
"I just followed the dream connection and found Chen Jindong. I sat with him for a bit. He was at the noodle stall in the alley behind us.
"Unfortunately, Senior Sister, your will is resolute and your Candlelight Heart is clear. You woke too quickly. Before I could catch Chen Jindong in the act, he had already ended it and left no trace. We have to let him go for now.
"If I had acted without proof, it would have meant all-out war between the Brightnight Sect and the Huangliang Sect."
"So it really was him." Zheng Zhuxi was unsurprised.
On the way back from the yamen that morning, Ding Songyan had quietly told her that he planned to enter her dream that night to lie in wait for Chen Jindong.
"He acts without restraint because dreams leave no evidence, and he’s the Huangliang Sect’s greatest hope. He’s quite brazen as a result." Ding Songyan shook his head. "His temperament is impressive, and his composure is extraordinary. I baited him twice just now, and he played the fool both times. There wasn’t a trace of panic or impatience, nor was there a single crack. Heh. A clear conscience is a fine thing. As long as you indulge evil and discard virtue, you really feel no guilt at all."
Zheng Zhuxi, ever proper, gave a sound of acknowledgment.
"When morning comes, we’ll tell Marshal Zhong. There are martial arts capable of discerning truth from falsehood and piercing through lies. The imperial court has recruited quite a few practitioners of such arts. Half of them are in the military, the other half in the Ministry of Justice and the Martial Prohibition Bureau."
"That’s all we can do for now." Ding Songyan’s expression turned serious. "Once Chen Jindong enters the Dharma Realm and becomes a Grandmaster, you’ll need to be even more careful, Senior Sister. He’s petty and holds grudges. If we’re still in Qisong Prefecture by then, he’ll certainly invade our dreams in revenge. For me, though, that’s actually welcome news. It would fulfill my wish to cross swords with a Dharma Realm master from the Huangliang Sect."
Before this, neither Ding Songyan nor Zheng Zhuxi had figured out how to arrange a match between him and a Huangliang Sect Grandmaster.
At most, Ding Songyan could reveal an early Great Proliferation Realm cultivation. Challenging a Dharma Realm Grandmaster directly would only invite ridicule and would never succeed. Yet if he worked his way up by challenging Huangliang Sect disciples one by one until he reached the Grandmaster level, that would expose his secret entirely.
Ding Songyan had occasionally entertained the thought of waiting for some Huangliang Sect Dharma Realm powerhouse to be alone, then covering his face, changing his clothes, and staging a "surprise attack" that was really a sparring match in disguise.
That Chen Jindong was petty and would repay every slight was something Ding Songyan had inferred from tonight’s events. The man truly let no grudge last past sundown.
Zheng Zhuxi nodded seriously to show she had taken it to heart.
A moment later, her curiosity got the better of her.
"Junior Brother, how did you track down Chen Jindong just now?"
"I wasn’t sure whether Chen Jindong could enter two people’s dreams at once, so I stayed awake and pretended to meditate. Besides, Senior Sister, you’re the brilliant one, so Chen Jindong’s main target for revenge is you. He wouldn’t bother much with a small fry like me," Ding Songyan said in a joking tone.
Zheng Zhuxi gave her junior brother a resigned sideways glance and said nothing.
Ding Songyan continued, "Then I used the Celestial Heart imprint to split my consciousness in two. One half entered your dream to watch for Chen Jindong and guard against anything unexpected. The other half kept control of my body. Once Chen Jindong entered your dream, I followed the spiritual connection step by step until I found him."
The Celestial Heart imprint was a foreign element, essentially a tool he could draw upon. This was why Ding Songyan could still use it while operating the Great Dream of Three Thousand Years. The two did not conflict, no different from Chen Jindong having a Celestial Heart imprint planted in him.
Zheng Zhuxi thought back for a moment, her eyes shifting slightly.
"So the you in my dream was actually you playing a role?"
"Yes." Ding Songyan made no denial. "Senior Sister, it seems the matter of the Demon Sovereign weighs on you with genuine fear. In the nightmare Chen Jindong constructed, the terror your own mind conjured was Tan Guanchan."
He had been observing the entire time. If his senior sister had been unable to break free of the nightmare and risked dying in the dream or losing her mind, he would have intervened and woken her in time.
That was what he had meant by guarding against anything unexpected.
Zheng Zhuxi understood as much. She gave her junior brother a grateful look and sighed.
"The Demon Sovereign is one of the architects of the Brightnight Sect’s destruction, after all. And his power far exceeds anything we can match right now."
Having said it frankly, Zheng Zhuxi sat with it for a few breaths, then said, "Junior Brother, I think having that nightmare has made me grow in some way. I understand my own choices more clearly now. I’m still worried about the Demon Sovereign, but I’m not as afraid as I was."
"So it seems the Great Dream of Three Thousand Years can help cultivators temper their character, but it must be done gradually, never pushed too far. That balance is extremely difficult to judge. You can do it because your Candlelight Heart is already clear, Senior Sister. Otherwise, what just happened would not have been tempering at all, but falling into a nightmare and regressing in cultivation." Ding Songyan mused carefully.
The deeper he thought, the further he went.
"Also, entering a dream can awaken the target’s deeper consciousness and inner thoughts, which then shape the nightmare. If the same effect could be achieved while someone is awake, my Dream Sword could construct far more convincing illusions of past-life reincarnation..."
The two discussed it for a while before Ding Songyan suddenly smiled.
"Senior Sister, I may enter your dream again shortly."
Zheng Zhuxi’s bright eyes shifted slightly. She made no effort to hide her puzzlement.
What is this for now?
"In case Chen Jindong tries a parting shot and catches us off guard," Ding Songyan said softly with a laugh. "I just humiliated him. He’ll be furious."
Both of you are endlessly scheming... Zheng Zhuxi filed it away carefully and nodded her agreement.
......
A vast lake stretched out to every horizon, its surface rippling gently.
Zheng Zhuxi and Junior Brother Ding walked the lakeshore together, admiring the scenery and discussing martial arts, occasionally stopping to exchange a few moves.
Then, all at once, she saw Junior Brother Ding reach out and give her shoulder a push.
She jolted to attention at once, knowing she was dreaming, yet she had not left the dream.
"A cultivator of the Great Dream of Three Thousand Years can keep a target lucid within the dream, so they can communicate," Ding Songyan explained with a smile.
Zheng Zhuxi paused, then said without thinking, "You’re here..."
"I didn’t expect you to be this diligent even in your dreams, to always be discussing martial arts, Senior Sister," Ding Songyan teased.
Zheng Zhuxi glared at him.
"And whose fault is that?"
Ding Songyan didn’t answer. He glanced toward the Brightnight Sect’s gate and lowered his voice.
"I entered your dream a while ago. What just woke you wasn’t me. Our two dreams have been strangely linked together."
The push he had given his senior sister had not been intentional on his part.
"Chen Jindong really came back?" Zheng Zhuxi felt equal parts admiration for her junior brother and some level of irritation.
Chen Jindong is going too far!
Both of them sensed something at the same moment and turned their eyes toward the Brightnight Sect’s boundary marker.
They saw a figure in a light-blue robe walking toward them at an unhurried pace. The features were ordinary but the bearing was elegant. His eyes were slightly horse-shaped, face tapered and sharp like a serpent’s, blue-black scales visible across the skin. It was unmistakably Chen Jindong.
"Young Hero Chen, you went out of your way to wake both my senior sister and me within this dream. What is it you want?" Ding Songyan asked with an easy smile.
Chen Jindong’s expression was heavy and his complexion was poor. He looked at Zheng Zhuxi and Ding Songyan, who watched him calmly, then walked close, clasped both fists, and bowed deeply.
"Please, I beg both of you to help me. Help me rid myself of that demon!"
"What do you mean?" Zheng Zhuxi had assumed Chen Jindong had come to ambush them with a parting shot. She hadn’t expected him to be asking for help.
Chen Jindong pressed his lips together and let out a slow breath.
"When I first completed the Great Dream of Three Thousand Years, I was often lost in dreams and plagued by dark desires. Sometimes I thought of entering the dreams of a girl I admired, peering into her secrets, learning her preferences, and guiding her to gradually grow fond of me. Sometimes I thought of entering the dreams of someone I despised, night after night nudging them into worshipping me, obeying only my commands. Sometimes I thought of finding others’ hidden treasures through their dreams and taking them without effort...
"I told myself I had it under control, that they were only fantasies. Until one day, a beautiful young woman began doing everything she could to get close to me, obsessing over me, calling me her ’Dream Lover.’
"That was when I realized there was another me inside my body, one who grows active whenever I fall asleep.
"He has grown more and more dominant. Now, I can only appear when he sleeps."