Chapter 453 - 395: Fu Tailan - Not Because He’s Smart

Chapter 453: Chapter 395: Fu Tailan - Not Because He’s Smart

He was still standing in this apartment.

Fu Tailan was split in two. Half of him was in the familiar apartment he’d lived in for two years, missing a person he’d just met.

The other half knew he was still seventeen years old, standing alone in a torrential downpour.

...’So I can’t escape, even after realizing it’s an Illusion?’

’This is a little strange.’

Fu Tailan closed his eyes and tried to feel his two hands separately. One was holding a doorknob, the other a machine gun.

He realized that if he didn’t look, he couldn’t even feel the shape of the doorknob... It had no weight, no temperature, no form or material.

’What color was it? What style? I can’t remember a single thing. Even if it’s an Illusion, I should be able to remember what it looked like within the Illusion, right?’

Likewise, he couldn’t recall the details of Zhen Zi’s face. ’What color were her eyes? Did she wear earrings? Did she have freckles?’

When he reached out for the memory, he grasped at nothing.

Only the impressions of a "doorknob" and "Zhen Zi" were projected into his mind, like 3D holograms—and strangely, his brain was convinced with such ease.

No, it wasn’t even that he "was" convinced. It was more like... more like his body had been removed. His brain was soaking directly in sensory signals, making everything more real, more intense, and closer to his soul than reality itself.

What was even stranger was that the weight of the machine gun in his right hand felt heavy and distinct.

The pads of his fingers traced the welding lines of the machine gun, the texture of the grip, the individual screws... He could even feel the manufacturer’s stamp.

Such rich and abundant detail could not be explained away as a mere Illusion.

’The machine gun is real—what’s going on?’

Absolute reality in one hand, a vague concept in the other.

Even though he knew it was all fake, his brain remained deeply immersed in a hazy "sense of reality," unable to wake—ah, so that’s how it is.

’No wonder this feels so familiar.’

"This is a dream," Fu Tailan said, his voice slightly muffled. "I... I’m trapped in a dream."

After he spoke, nothing changed.

’Why can’t I wake up? Is this an effect caused by the Illusion? But even an Illusion’s effect should have an end... Does this mean the condition to end it hasn’t been met?’

’Is just realizing I’m dreaming not enough?’

Fu Tailan kept his eyes closed. The rain beat down on him heavily, his wet clothes so heavy they felt like they would press him deep into the earth. His hands and feet were ice-cold.

"Letting me pick up a real gun in a dream..." he murmured. "It’s because you want me to shoot a target."

Wherever Fu Tailan had been when the dream captured him, the target certainly wasn’t right next to him.

This was obvious from the dream’s content. If the dream continued as planned, Fu Tailan would "enter the Nest" and inevitably have to rush about and search within it. This "search process" would likely lead him to the target in the real world.

Once the target was in his line of fire, he would presumably also "find" Zhen Zi in danger within the dream.

"Is the condition for ending the dream to open fire?"

Fu Tailan suddenly understood and gave a slight smile. "Shooting the target is the ultimate goal. Once that’s accomplished, there’s no need for the dream to continue. So... what if I fire early? Could you have predicted that someone would wake up halfway through the dream?"

Before the words had even faded, he had already raised the machine gun.

He pointed the muzzle into the downpour and unleashed a continuous stream of countless bullets into the sky. The gunshots pained his eardrums, shook the four walls of the apartment, and shattered the dream his mind still clung to.

Fu Tailan opened his eyes and woke from the dream.

He was standing on a street painted into murky darkness by the storm. For a moment, he even thought he was back in the Nest.

Blackmoor City, a place people joked would still have traffic jams during a nuclear winter, was now completely empty. Not a single car could be seen on its streets and roads.

The streetlights, neon signs, and lights from within buildings were like flickering candle flames, torn apart by the long, dark winds between heaven and earth, their shreds drifting in the rain.

Fu Tailan slowly lowered the gun. Halfway down, he turned the muzzle and aimed it at his own left shoulder.

Peeking out from his left shoulder was a resident’s face.

He knew it was a resident’s face, not a human one—even though he couldn’t make out the details in the hazy gloom of his peripheral vision.

Because no human face was like... like a dream.

How could he describe it?

No human has ever "seen" a dream. People only have dreams, walk within dreams, see the world of dreams, and talk to the people in dreams... but a "dream" itself is just a series of neural signals, invisible to the naked eye.

Until now.

Fu Tailan couldn’t describe it with words, but even a slight glance from the corner of his eye sent a clear signal of "dream" to his brain. He didn’t dare turn his head, terrified that if he did, he would be trapped in the dream once more.

"How did you figure it out?" the resident on his shoulder suddenly asked, its mouth opening.

Its voice was like an ocean wave wrapped in thick fog, neither male nor female. Every word was tempered with countless emotions... as if the dreams of innumerable humans had been condensed and dripped into its throat.

"Zhen Zi doesn’t exist," Fu Tailan said with a calmness that surprised even himself. "That was your biggest mistake."

"...Oh? But you clearly treasured her. You even picked up the gun."

"A mistake is a mistake."

The impression of Zhen Zi was rapidly dissipating from his mind, leaving only a faintly bitter aftertaste. Fu Tailan said in a low voice, "...I’m not a good target, am I? It must be hard to create a dream that could make me lose myself, I imagine?"

The resident was silent for a few seconds, then erupted in fury. When it got angry, it was like a dream filled with rage itself—highly infectious. If he wasn’t careful, even Fu Tailan would find himself getting angry at himself.

"Waking up is one thing, but how dare you look down on me! Your soul is empty, no one cares about you, you’re full of schemes, you have no convictions, and nothing is important to you! Tell me, what’s the difference between you and a piece of dead meat? I painstakingly wove such a wonderful dream for you, and you have the nerve to get all high and mighty with me!"

Just moments ago, when Fu Tailan had the machine gun propped on his arm and shoulder, the resident hadn’t even flinched, clearly unconcerned. But now, the angrier it got, the more it began to drift away from his shoulder.

It had no discernible form. No matter how many times he glanced at it, his brain registered only one thing: "a dream floating in the rain."

"If it were you weaving a dream, with that hollow soul of yours, you wouldn’t be able to weave shit. So you woke up halfway through—what’s there to be proud of? It’s only because your life is pathetic! Stop acting like you’ve outsmarted me."

As long as Fu Tailan wasn’t infected by its emotions, its words couldn’t anger him.

After all, these were all things he was perfectly clear about himself.

"I shouldn’t have come looking for you. You’re not even a contestant."

The resident’s tone suddenly changed. "I originally thought that even though you’re not a contestant, as long as you fired the gun, you could be of some use... The result really shouldn’t surprise me. You were always a superfluous person, how could I expect you to be useful."

Fu Tailan was silent for a moment, involuntarily replaying its words in his mind.

"That dream I was trapped in just now, you ’wove’ it specifically for me," he said in a low voice.

"What else did you think?"

Fu Tailan gave a silent smile, then suddenly turned his head, his gaze locking onto the dream in the pitch-black storm.

"Then that means..."

Even though it had no physical body, it seemed to be pinned in place by his gaze. Not only did it stop drifting away, but it couldn’t help asking, "Means what?"

"It’s hard to trap me without weaving a special dream just for me, right?"

Fu Tailan narrowed his eyes, his gaze sinking deeper and deeper into the dream that was the resident. His tone, too, became more and more like sleep-talking. "...If I keep looking at you, I don’t have to worry about falling back into a dream, right?"

"What are you doing?" The dream floated in the curtain of rain, as if it were about to be pulled apart by his gaze, revealing the very material of dreams.

"Don’t be scared," Fu Tailan soothed, his voice almost gentle. "I just want to see what kind of dreams are hidden inside you."

"Huh?"

The next second, the machine gun hit the ground with a loud CLANG—before the dream could react, Fu Tailan had already shot out his hand and seized it.

"Eh? EHHHHHHH? How did you? How did you do that??????"