Seizing Dreams

Zhou Sheng walked towards the Golden Crow Wheel. His black dragon wanted to follow along, but Zhou Sheng made a ‘stop’ gesture and extended a hand towards Yu Hao. The two of them entered the Golden Crow Wheel, and Chen Yekai jumped in as he followed behind.

Just like before, as soon as they entered, he separated from Zhou Sheng amidst the fierce howling gales. While he was preoccupied, Yu Hao looked back and only saw a full moon in the sky!

He shot out from the moon this time!

Thunder rumbled, and Yu Hao was instantly submerged within the clouds. Following which, rain started buffeting down, showering him until he was drenched from head to toe. Lightning flashed beside him, intertwined and in disarray, and it illuminated Yu Hao’s entire body.

“AH——” Yu Hao shouted loudly. At the moment he fell from the sky, his adrenaline levels started soaring crazily. He didn’t know why, but this dream seemed a lot more realistic than any of the other dreams he had entered before –from the vapour, from the mist that assaulted his senses, to the ground that he was continually closing on!

“Zhou Sheng!” Yu Hao turned his head and shouted. He was getting closer and closer to the ground. He tried shaking his wings open — he could use his wings! He didn’t have time to think too much about it and just flapped his wings violently, but the fierce gales kept changing its course, and just one flap of his wings would make him tumble about in the air. He couldn’t control his direction, so he could only spread his wings open and glide along with the wind.

Looking down at the earth from the air, Yu Hao realised that the land comprised entirely of a vast maze area. To the back of the maze was a giant wall that extended indefinitely upward into the depths. He had no way of estimating the specific area of the maze from where he was, but from the looks of it, it was obviously much smaller than Loulan. The area outside the maze was submerged in billowing black fog, which was constantly engulfing the maze.

The walls of the maze stood nearly ten metres tall. When Yu Hao fell down, he knocked into a brick, but he was prepared for it long ago; he turned his body, kept his wings, kicked off the high wall, and flipped in mid air. With his shoulders against the wall, he slid down along it.

The maze was filled with water flowing everywhere. Yu Hao stood in the water that didn’t even go past his ankle and felt a chill. Could it be that he didn’t cover his legs with his blanket before sleeping? But he didn’t plan to get up and cover himself with the blanket. He still remembered seeing the center of the maze when he was looking down from the sky where there was a bathhouse-like building as well as a temple.

“Zhou Sheng!” Yu Hao felt along the maze’s wall and waded forward as he shouted.

He tried to spread his wings open again, but the path in the maze that people could pass through was only three-metres wide, so he couldn’t fly up the top of the wall to survey his surroundings and search for Zhou Sheng. Where did Zhou Sheng go? And where was the master of the dream world?

“They have indeed entered Huang Ting’s dream.”

“Director Zhao, you can use this equipment to connect with the periphery.”

“There’s no hurry.” Zhao Liang had his hands behind his back as he stood in front of a huge screen. He looked pensive as he stared at the analysis of signals on the screen. Huang Ting was fixed onto a chair. He had been injected with a tranquilizer, and his forehead and neck were covered in sweat. The veins on his arms were especially prominent.

Atop the surrounding high walls, rainwater continued flowing down endlessly. Yu Hao was halfway through when he suddenly stopped walking. Within a split second, the wall inverted, revealing a massive hay cutter that was slicing horizontally towards him!

With a loud cry, Yu Hao immediately plastered himself against the wall sideways to dodge it. After the hay cutter was activated, it sliced across once within seconds, and its sharp edges cut into the high wall opposite. If he hadn’t stopped then, he would’ve been cut into half by this mechanism in an instant!

Why was there this kind of weird mechanism in Huang Ting’s dream?! Yu Hao felt like he was playing a maze runner game, where he could be crushed or sliced to death at any time. His heart was beating wildly. After seeing an opportunity, he did a run-up, stirring up a series of splashes behind him, and rushed across the ramp area.

Suddenly, he heard a peculiar, deafening sound mixed within the rainstorm and rumbling thunder — it sounded like gunfire! He tried discerning it for a while and muttered to himself, “Chen Laoshi?!” So he quickly ran over, turned around a corner of the maze, and the sound of gunshots rang out more and more loudly and clearly. Yu Hao shouted from underneath the high wall, “Chen Laoshi!”

“It’s me!” Zhou Sheng shouted.

“Zhou Sheng!” Yu Hao heard the sound of bullets ricocheting off a shield, and it was getting more and more intense. Zhou Sheng shouted, “Face my direction! Run to your left! Beware of the mechanism!”

Yu Hao immediately turned around and began to run. He shouted, “What mechanism?”

However, right at the next moment, innumerable sharp blades suddenly rose from the ground. Yu Hao let out a loud cry, Zhou Sheng shouted, “Jump!”

Yu Hao jumped into the air, across the sharp blade mechanism, and leaped onto an open space. This open space happened to be a fracture at the end of a wall in the maze. Yu Hao turned around. Zhou Sheng was rushing towards him with a shield on his back; he extended his hand and pulled Yu Hao up. Yu Hao jumped from the ground, flared his wings open, hugged Zhou Sheng within that limited space, and rolled away.

Several machine guns rolled out from the wall and raked them with machine-gun fire. Zhou Sheng held his shield up in the air to withstand it. Yu Hao shouted, “Watch out for your back!”

Zhou Sheng turned around and only saw a huge block rush toward them with a loud rumble from the end of the corridor. If the two of them were to get hit, they would be sent flying in an instant, but right at the last moment, Zhou Sheng wrapped one arm around Yu Hao, turned his shield into his jingubang, stabbed it into the ground, and his jingubang suddenly elongated and took the two of them up with it with a ‘whoosh‘.

The maze around them seemed to sense Zhou Sheng’s intention to escape in an instant; the high walls began rising upward at the same speed. Yu Hao said, “We can’t rush out!”

Zhou Sheng rose to the top of the high wall, but he couldn’t break through any further. He shouted, “Hold on tight!”

Immediately afterward, the block collided with the jingubang. Zhou Sheng felt an acute pain in his wrist at once, and it nearly fractured. The jingubang was knocked out of his hand, and the two of them tumbled in the air from the impact. Zhou Sheng grabbed the edge of the block, flipped in the air with Yu Hao, and leapt onto the top of the block mechanism!

Its top was level with the apex of the maze’s high walls. The block retreated rapidly with the two of them on top of it as it prepared for its next attack. Yu Hao shouted, “Jump!”

Both of them jumped onto the top of the wall. Zhou Sheng reached out to summon his jingubang back. Yu Hao almost fell towards the other side of the wall, but he was pulled back by Zhou Sheng just in time. The two of them just barely managed to stand on the top of the maze’s wall.

Yu Hao kept gasping for breath. “The wall of this maze can extend upward.”

Zhou Sheng said, “We can’t go past it too much, it should be a limitation in Huang Ting’s dream. But it’s okay to walk along the wall, be careful of sliding down.”

Yu Hao looked into the distance. A beam of light flashed, and shot towards the sky from another corner of the maze.

The high wall of the maze was about two metres wide. Standing on the top of the wall, they could roughly see the winding paths inside, but they couldn’t get a full view of the whole maze. Zhou Sheng said, “Huang Ting should be near the boundary of the subconscious, like you were last time. We can look for Kaikai on our way there.”

Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng walked along the wall toward the mist in the distance. He tried to shake his wings open and fly, but the wall underneath would continue rising along with his movements.

“Don’t waste your energy,” Zhou Sheng said, “It’s no use. Rely on walking ba.”

Yu Hao looked down. Every time they walked past a section, they would trigger mechanisms that were densely packed together, and there was even a giant spherical boulder that rolled over. Fortunately, they were on top of the maze’s wall, or else they would’ve been crushed into meat patties even if they had a shield.

“Are you hurt?” Yu Hao said, “Let me see.”

There were abrasions on Zhou Sheng’s shoulder and arms from being grazed by bullets, and they were still bleeding. He smoothed his wet hair to the top of his head. Yu Hao released his energy from one side to heal him. Meanwhile, Zhou Sheng looked at the periphery of the maze and seemed to be determining where Huang Ting might be.

“Why did you come out of the moon?” Zhou Sheng asked, “I appeared in the maze right after coming in.”

“I don’t know.” Yu Hao said, “I’m done, let’s go. Maybe it’s because Huang Ting thinks I have some ability to illuminate his night? Speaking of which, what do you think the boss of this dream would be?”

Zhou Sheng uttered a “wu” and didn’t answer. After Yu Hao treated him, his superficial wounds were healed, but his torn clothes weren’t restored, so Zhou Sheng took off his wet shirt and then tied it around his waist. It was more convenient to move about half naked.

“These are the volleys of gunfire and severe trials he had dealt with in the cases he has handled over the years.” Zhou Sheng said, “Be careful, you mustn’t fall down at all costs.”

Yu Hao guessed that as a special criminal detective, perhaps the impression formed in Huang Ting’s spiritual world when handling cases was of running through a maze. The kind where countless puzzles lay before him while he had to be on guard against any danger that could appear at any time, and those dangers had all materialised as the mechanisms in the maze.

“Kaikai’s a bit anxious today.” Zhou Sheng walked in front and looked back to say to Yu Hao.

“Huang Ting is his good friend, it’s normal to be anxious.” Yu Hao said.

“No, I just think his anxiety’s a little abnormal.” Zhou Sheng answered, “He’s too anxious in urging us to come into Huang Ting’s dream. What do you think he said to Zhao Liang that day?”

Yu Hao pondered for a moment, then said, “Since he didn’t trick you into the car and drive to Zhao Liang’s base, there should be no problems.”

“He’s by himself, so he’s no match for me.” Zhou Sheng continued.

Yu Hao said, “But he could have also gotten someone to lie in wait in the car or in the hotel.”

“Un.” Zhou Sheng said, “So you trust him.”

“If you didn’t trust him, you wouldn’t have let him in with us.” Yu Hao said.

Zhou Sheng answered, “I’d like to see what Zhao Liang’s up to.”