Chapter 392 - 342: Dual Perspective — Perfectly Calm, a Beautiful Dream

Chapter 392: Chapter 342: Dual Perspective — Perfectly Calm, a Beautiful Dream

The baby was short and round, with folds of fat layered upon its chubby limbs.

Its fleshy, ball-like palm opened up, revealing five short, puffy fingers. It swiped at the air as if trying to touch its mother’s face—and then the baby giggled.

The laughter came from the face of a grown man.

The head, belonging to the adult male Ivan, was simply shrunk a few sizes and stripped of hair before being placed on the baby’s body. When it saw the toy wind chime swaying gently, it seemed to raise its eyebrows in surprise—and thin, dry wrinkles immediately creased its forehead.

Mai Mingle stumbled back several steps, her back nearly hitting the wall.

Through the bars of the crib, Ivan turned his long, thin face toward her. He opened his black-hole of a mouth and continued to babble at her.

’What in the world is going on?’

’What is Ivan trying to do by suddenly taking on this appearance?’

’Even if—even if he looks like a baby now, he’s not a real baby. He’s obviously not even human.’

’Can I do something to him? He must be helpless right now, right? Find... find something... and hit him?’

Ivan peered through the bars, his oily, greasy eyes and a mouth that seemed to stretch longer and longer—a black hole that could never close—staring unblinkingly at Mai Mingle.

"He’s cute, isn’t he?"

The sudden voice from the doorway made Mai Mingle jump again. She whipped her head around and, sure enough, saw her husband standing there.

If Lan Zhui had also been twisted into some other form—with oily eyes, teeth vanished into a gaping maw, laughing ceaselessly, nostrils flaring with every sniff and breath...

...then Mai Mingle might have found the courage to act.

But Lan Zhui—her partner whom she hadn’t seen for more than half her life—was just as she remembered: quiet and shy, as if always afraid of disturbing someone.

Even his body language was uniquely Lan Zhui’s. He held his hands clasped gently in front of him, one shoulder leaning against the doorframe, always careful not to block the light or the doorway.

Faced with someone so familiar and peaceful, there seemed to be no need for courage at all.

’What is the Nest trying to do? It can’t be anything good.’

’But on the other hand... if not for the Nest, I would never have seen this person who died so long ago. After my parents passed, Lan Zhui was the only person in the world who would worry about what would become of me after he was gone.’

’He doesn’t have to worry anymore.’

’Seeing the Mai Mingle of today, he would surely let out a quiet sigh of relief, wouldn’t he? That’s just the kind of person he was.’

Before the Nest showed its fangs, perhaps she still had time to ask her husband, "How have you been?"

"Alright, maybe not so cute."

Seeing she wasn’t speaking, her husband suddenly sighed and lowered his head. "Don’t be angry. He just has such an old-looking face, it’s strange. Maybe he’ll grow out of it... Sigh... I don’t know who he takes after, but it’s definitely not you."

Mai Mingle looked at him, then back at Ivan in the crib.

Ivan’s mouth was still open, his eyes yellow and greasy. He tilted his head, staring fixedly at Mai Mingle. The toy wind chime swayed and tinkled softly, its sound faint.

It was all just too wrong. It was like a photograph so grotesquely distorted in every aspect that you couldn’t pinpoint what was the most wrong thing about it.

"...We don’t have a child," Mai Mingle said in a low voice.

’No, that doesn’t seem to be the most wrong thing—though it’s also very wrong.’

It was like listening to Dr. Nate yesterday; she knew there was something right in front of her that didn’t fit with anything else in her field of vision, but for a moment, she just couldn’t identify it.

"You must be talking about the other timeline," Lan Zhui replied with a smile.

Mai Mingle whipped her head around. "What?"

"The one from the TV show last night, the other parallel timeline," Lan Zhui said softly. "Didn’t we both think it was interesting? The same people, the same world, but different things happen..."

’Is that so?’

’Is the Nest showing me another timeline?’

At that moment, Mai Mingle desperately wished it were true.

It wasn’t that she hoped to enter another timeline and live a life as a wife and mother. No, she hoped for another world where Lan Zhui hadn’t gotten throat cancer, where he had just lived on peacefully, day by day, and grown old surrounded by loved ones.

"Dinner is ready," Lan Zhui reminded her. "Let’s go."

Mai Mingle couldn’t wait to get out of the nursery.

She shut the door tightly, her mind picturing Ivan, alone in the sealed room, slowly sitting up and climbing out of his crib. With that image in her head, she finally sat down at the dining table.

There were no strange noises from the nursery. Nothing but the sounds of a baby came from the monitor.

It was as if Ivan’s face was there purely to disgust her and had no other malicious intent.

’...This is a very strange state to be in.’

If there were any immediate danger, if her memories were in disarray, or if there were even the slightest sign of her mind clouding over, Mai Mingle would have fought back, either by lashing out or fleeing the apartment.

But as it was, she knew clearly that this was all an illusion. Ivan was not her child, and Lan Zhui had died long ago.

Her mind and memories were perfectly clear. Not only was she wary of the nursery, but she also didn’t dare to touch dinner. She had even tried opening the apartment’s front door once and found she could leave whenever she wanted.

’It’s as if the Nest is simply saying, "See? I can show you the past."’

Precisely because there was no threat, no danger, and she could leave at any time—Mai Mingle was no longer in a hurry to escape.

Across the small dining table, she softly asked her husband, "...How have you been?"

***

...There was no one outside the door.

Chaisi’s fist was clenched so tightly that it felt as if his muscles and bones were swelling with a heavy power, ready to unleash their surging force into someone’s face. Even his knuckles ached from the pressure. But when he yanked the door open, the hallway was empty. There was no one there at all.

All his simmering rage had nowhere to go.

Dim light filtered through the window panes, leaving the hallway dim, cool, and silent, disturbed only by the dust he had stirred up by opening the door.

For a fleeting moment, Chaisi had the absurd thought that he would see a twelve-year-old Damian still standing outside the door, whispering, "Chaisi, come quick, I want to show you something." But his brother, dead for seventeen years, still refused to appear in his dreams tonight.

’This must be a dream,’ he thought.

’I must have been half-asleep and dreaming just now. Dreams are illogical, which is why I dreamt of Nate, someone I never even think about during the day.’

Emotions in dreams are often particularly intense; no wonder he had been so furious.

Chaisi glanced back at his childhood bedroom, at the single bed in the corner. After realizing it was a dream, his exhaustion and sleepiness washed over him again. Still, going right back to sleep felt somehow unsettling.

Chaisi walked barefoot to the next room. His phone, which he had forgotten to grab before bed, was still sitting on the table where he’d left it.

There were several unread messages. The latest one was from Tian Xi, saying he couldn’t watch over Chaisi tonight because Jin Xueli had just returned from the Nest. She seemed to have something urgent to discuss and was insisting on seeing Tian Xi, and he couldn’t refuse her.

’When did she get so close to Tian Xi? Or did she settle for him because she knew she couldn’t see me?’

Chaisi scrolled down and saw that Mai Mingle had actually sent him five messages in a row. The first four seemed to be practice attempts, sent before she could finish typing. It wasn’t until the fifth message that he saw the first complete, coherent sentence.

Unfortunately, the one complete sentence was also a bit vague...

After quickly scanning his phone, it seemed like nothing important had happened. At least, nothing so urgent that it should keep him from going back to sleep.

Holding his phone, Chaisi dragged his feet back to his childhood bedroom, locked the door again, and collapsed heavily onto the bed, his eyelids slowly closing.

"Chaisi," Nate called out softly from behind him.

’...Dreaming again.’

’So annoying. I really want to kill him... even if it’s just in a dream...’

"I’m here to warn you," Nate’s breath, warm and moist, hit the bed frame. "I’ve had some terrible luck because of you, but I’m not here to harm you..."

’Where is he...? This feels so disgusting...’

’I don’t want to be in this dream anymore. Open your eyes. Hurry.’

"Let me give you a heads-up,"

Nate stood by the bed and leaned down toward him. His pale, bloated face was like that of a drowned man submerged in the Black Sea. He was pressed close to Chaisi, his mouth opening and closing.

"Mai Mingle is lying, she’s lying... She found out about you and me torturing people at sea, and she used violence to threaten me into telling the truth... She knows the rumor is about you, you have to be careful. Didn’t she say she saved a drowning person? That was her hinting at you."

Chaisi used all his strength and finally managed to open his eyes again.

The room was so quiet it was almost desolate. The night outside the window was motionless. All the furniture and objects in the room stood in their proper places, not daring to move an inch.

Of course, there was no one by the bed.

Chaisi even looked under the bed and behind the desk, finally confirming that he was alone in the room.

The dream kept continuing, refusing to end, and it felt so real... so real it was infuriating, making him regret ever having known Nate.

But in Chaisi’s current state, he simply couldn’t stay awake.

Even sitting up in bed and pinching himself hard whenever he felt his eyes closing, he couldn’t fight off the drowsiness and fell fast asleep again a few minutes later.

Nate crouched down by the bed, the deep sockets of his eyes on his face aimed directly at Chaisi.

"Mai Mingle puts on this harmless, grandmotherly act. She’s fooled so many people, and she really did a number on me—it was at her hands that I met my downfall... You have to remember: on December 6th, she’s going to get the Time Illusion. Catch her, take her Time Illusion, and you’ll be just one step away from victory..."