Chapter 257: Different Beds, Same Dream
Chapter 257: Different Beds, Same Dream
Blocking the light from the corpse oil lamp, the girl squatting in the pile of clothes in the corner still did not disappear. Judging from the corpse oil lamp placed at her feet, this petite blonde girl should also be a player.
Ning Zhe walked up to her and squatted down in front of the girl.
The girl's shoulders trembled when she heard the footsteps, and then she quickly calmed down. She squatted in the corner with her hands on her knees, motionless, without making any sound, and without trying to look up at him.
"Hmm..." Ning Zhe picked up the oil lamp at her feet, removed the lampshade and took a look. The cotton rope wick soaked in corpse oil was pure white, with no traces of burnt black.
In other words, the lamp has never been lit.
This girl has most likely been squatting at the 'birth point' since she arrived here, without moving. She has not lit the corpse oil lamp for illumination, nor has she tried to explore here to find a way out. She has just been squatting in the corner without moving, with a few pieces of clothes covering her body, acting as a background board, quietly waiting for the end of this game.
Such a familiar operation...
Ning Zhe thought for a moment, put the corpse oil lamp back, and whispered in Chinese: "Is the hazelnut chocolate delicious?"
The girl's head, which was buried in her arms, suddenly raised up, and her face with light freckles was full of an expression as if she had seen a ghost.
"It's really you." Ning Zhe was happy: "I didn't expect to see you here again."
The blonde girl looked at him suspiciously and said nothing.
Ning Zhe continued nonchalantly, "Hazelnuts and dark chocolate look quite similar after you peel off the packaging. Did you feel surprised when you ate them?"
"A little bit of a surprise." The girl nodded, and the suspicion in her eyes finally dissipated: "Are you Ning Zhe? How come you are here... Am I dreaming?"
"What a coincidence, I was dreaming too." Ning Zhe squatted in front of Bai Zhi and said, "For some reason, I have also started to have this kind of weird nightmare recently. I didn't expect that we were having the same dream."
What is this, dreaming the same dream but sleeping in different beds?
"Hey? You too?" Bai Zhi was stunned for a moment, and then the corners of her mouth that had been pursed up slightly, then she quickly reacted and waved her hands hurriedly: "No, no, that, I don't mean to gloat over other people's misfortunes. It's just... it's just that I used to have nightmares alone, and now someone is with me, so I'm a little happy."
"Really, just a little bit." After thinking for a moment, she added cautiously.
Bai Zhi stood up and took a set of clean clothes from the table, spread them on the corner where she had been squatting before, smoothed them out with her hands, and then said, "Ningzhe, sit here, let's hide together."
"The rule here is that you can't be found by ghosts. It's a bit like hide-and-seek? So we just need to hide, hide ourselves in a corner, and wait until this dream ends..."
Ning Zhe and Bai Zhi sat down against the wall side by side and asked, "We can't be found by ghosts. Is this the only rule here?"
The precautions that Baizhi felt were the same as what he felt when he first entered the dream, but Taiyi's copying ability was not the original after all, and he felt that Baizhi's own feelings might be more accurate.
"Hmm..." Bai Zhi thought for a moment, spent a few seconds organizing her words, and listed out all the precautions she knew:
1. Cannot be found by 'it'
2. Don’t touch the dead
3. Don’t go near places that don’t exist 4. Don’t eat food that doesn’t exist
5. Do not seek knowledge that does not belong to this world.
"That's about it." Bai Zhi counted on her fingers. The things she felt should not be done could generally be summarized into these five precautions. Nothing could be clearer.
Ning Zhe nodded. Sure enough, his own information was more detailed.
There seem to be many things to pay attention to listed by Baizhi, but in fact there is only one core - in this castle, there are some people, things, objects, and even specific places that should not exist, which can be understood as a non-existent parallel world.
Once people from "this side" come into contact with things from "that side", such as eating food from there, reading books from there, or being noticed by people from there, something terrible will happen.
What allowed these two parallel worlds to intersect briefly was the light from the corpse oil lamps.
"It may be a little late for you to remind me now." Ning Zhe smiled and said, "Not only did I take some things that shouldn't exist, I also read a book that doesn't exist. Now I have been targeted by 'it'. This castle will probably not stop until it kills me."
That hand had been holding his foot for a long time.
"Don't lose heart, there will always be a way." Bai Zhi looked at him seriously, "We are fine now, aren't we? The nightmare will eventually end, and you will definitely be fine."
As she spoke, Bai Zhi tore off the clothes covering herself and covered Ning Zhe with them. According to her experience, as long as she hid well and stayed still, 'it' wouldn't be able to find her.
"Thank you for your kindness, but I won't use it." Ning Zhe stood up and put his clothes back on Bai Zhi's shoulders: "I am more accustomed to proactively solving problems, rather than passively waiting for problems to disappear on their own."
Bai Zhi sat on the ground and watched Ning Zhe stand up and pick up the corpse oil lamp without saying a word, with a complicated expression.
"By the way, have you met any other 'players' besides me?" Ning Zhe asked again.
"Huh? Yes." Bai Zhi nodded, and imitated him, standing up with the corpse oil lamp in hand, and pointed to the end of the long laundry room, where there was a stone archway without a door panel.
This laundry room is a semi-open-air pavilion. When you walk out of the pavilion, you can directly see the rose beds surrounding the lecture room and the cleansing hall. On the other side is a stone path leading to the deeper part of the castle.
"About an hour ago? When I was squatting here, I heard footsteps coming into this laundry room from the direction of the flowerbed."
Bai Zhi thought for a moment and said, "But that person wasn't as careful as you. He didn't notice me hiding in the clothes pile in the corner. He hurried through the laundry room and headed towards the clock tower. I quietly glanced at the person's back. He was a tall and thin boy with blond hair. He was running very fast. He was talking to himself while running, but I didn't hear what he said clearly."
Baizhi's English level is above average among freshmen at Yundu University, but grades are grades and spoken English is spoken English. She can hardly understand the highly colloquial English mumbling of foreigners.
"The clock tower..." Ning Zhe looked at the stone path leading to the laundry room: "Thank you for telling me this. I guess I have to hurry up and catch up."
"I'll go with you." Bai Zhi followed with an oil lamp and said softly, "It's dangerous to go deep into the castle, but I can feel that the more things I come into contact with here, the more I will know. I... should be able to help you."
"Thank you." Ning Zhe didn't say much.
(End of this chapter)