Dream Guide

The first thing Zhao Pengcheng did after he was released from prison was to go to Liuying Lane.

Liuying Lane is no longer as lively as it used to be. The shops along the street looked dilapidated, many shop doors were broken, and the signboards above the doors were covered with dust. There are few pedestrians on the street, and no one is cleaning the garbage all over the street. Only the row of old willow trees are still swaying in the wind as before, unmoved by the changes in the world.

In the years when humans have been fighting against parasitic consciousness, people have continued to die due to the Gray Brain Virus. Although medical organizations have developed vaccines for the virus, vaccine rollout has encountered difficulties. The parasitic consciousness controls most of the resources in society. In the face of money and power, all ideals are nonsense.

The United Nations Space Management Committee and the parasitic consciousness organization Dream Society conducted peace talks and recognized the legitimacy of alien consciousness. Anyway, they have inherited people's memories. As far as human beings are concerned, there is no difference between the person who was parasitized and the person before he was parasitized, except that it may cause disharmony in the couple's bed life.

The Dream Club also agreed with the earth scientists, recognized the rationality of the method of continuation of the human race, and promised not to destroy the existing achievements of human civilization, and to allow human civilization to continue as much as possible.

In fact, these so-called inter-race agreements are nonsense. Not to mention scientists, even ordinary people know that it is impossible for those parasitic consciousnesses to abide by this agreement. In a few hundred years, maybe only a few decades, there will be no human beings on the earth. There are no more humans. When the resources are exhausted, they will leave the earth. At that time, not even the human body can be saved.

A small number of scientists headed by Mei Yiqiu still persisted in fighting. They established an underground resistance organization and hid. Now the United Nations and various governments are searching for members of these underground organizations everywhere.

Zhao Pengcheng walked along Liuying Lane for a while, feeling the comfortable feeling of the warm wind blowing on his face at the turn of spring and summer. There is no such pleasant air in a prison.

In the past ten years, his mental strength has improved a lot, and it has become so powerful that even he can't believe it. He really wanted to compete with Aoki again to see if he was still that vulnerable.

In the dream, the all-out blow with a scalpel that gathered mental power was still before his eyes, but his memory of Aoki's power was quite vague, but his special image could not be forgotten to this day.

Zhao Pengcheng stopped and checked the address carefully.

In front of you is a wide shop with three connected rooms. The original exquisite decoration on the outer wall has gradually corroded and fallen off in the wind and rain, but the mottled marks make it look more literary and artistic. The signboard above the door is incomplete, but the four characters "Ruhua Bar" can still be seen.

There was a huge hornet's nest hanging under the eaves of the window on the second floor, and some wasps that had just been awakened by the warm wind were flying around in front of the window. The glass was dusty, and traces of writing could be faintly seen. Zhao Pengcheng carefully identified it for a while and only recognized the words "dog" and "name".

Zhao Pengcheng walked to the door and tried to pat the door.

The banging sound was like knocking on a broken gong, but there was no response from the door. Only a lot of ash fell from nowhere, falling on Zhao Pengcheng's head, dyeing his hair that was already graying in prison even whiter. .

It looks like this bar hasn't been open for years.

Zhao Pengcheng took out his phone, opened the memo, and checked the house number again. The number is correct, it is indeed here. He wondered in his heart whether the information given by the organization was wrong.

The sound of footsteps sounded, and a middle-aged woman in her thirties walked up the street. She was wearing a dark gray sports sweater and had short, energetic hair. If it weren't for a women's small bag in her hand, she was also carrying a small bag. As a netizen, Zhao Pengcheng almost thought she was a man.

The woman walked to the door of the bar and stopped. She looked Zhao Pengcheng up and down, then looked at the palm prints on the door and asked, "Who are you looking for?"

Zhao Pengcheng seemed to see hope and said, "I'm looking for Qingmu."

"Who are you and why are you looking for him?" The woman looked wary.

Zhao Pengcheng said: "I... am his friend and came to see him."

The woman looked at Zhao Pengcheng, as if looking for a flaw. After a long time, she turned around and walked towards the alley next to him, saying, "Follow me."

Zhao Pengcheng was sure that this woman knew Qingmu, so he followed her and asked tentatively: "Excuse me, are you...?"

"Lifelong Flower." The woman didn't have any impatience, but her voice was full of indifference, as if she didn't care about anything.

Zhao Pengcheng followed the woman to the path behind the house. The bluestone slabs on the path looked old. There were several pots of succulents placed on the steps at the back door. Shisheng bent down to move a pot of Star Beauty. He did not shy away from Zhao Pengcheng's presence. He took out a key from under the pot and opened the back door.

Zhao Pengcheng didn't ask, and Bi Shenghua didn't say anything. Zhao Pengcheng had no choice but to follow quietly, watching Lifespan Hua enter the kitchen first and put the vegetables and fruits into categories, putting some in the refrigerator and soaking some in water with disinfectant. Then Bishenghua took the towel and washbasin, picked up the hot water bottle, and went upstairs.

Zhao Pengcheng also followed upstairs. The aisle on the second floor was filled with miscellaneous things. There was a row of old chairs by the window, just like the ones used for waiting in a hospital. They were very old, but they were all clean. It could be seen that they were cleaned frequently.

A few steps along the corridor, I saw a door with the sign "Shenwu Studio" hanging on the door and couplets on both sides:

Only green wood,

Can live in Shenwu.

The couplets were written on red paper with a brush. The color has faded very lightly. They must have been pasted up a long time ago.

The room inside the door is small and square, with various books neatly placed on the shelves against the wall. There is a desk in the middle, and a sofa and coffee table on the left. There were many magazines scattered seemingly randomly on the table, sofa and floor.

As a surgeon who was too busy to sort out but had to read many professional journals every day, Zhao Pengcheng once had magazines scattered all over the floor at home, so he could tell at a glance that those magazines were not thrown away naturally at all. Someone placed it like this on purpose, and the magazines are very new, some of them were just published this month. This was completely inconsistent with what he saw when he walked in.

He guessed that the woman in front of him did it deliberately to commemorate something, and it was probably due to some kind of human emotion.

When he saw the couplet at the door, Zhao Pengcheng was already sure that he was in the right place. This is Aoki's former studio.

There was another door in the studio. Lifespan Hua did not use the key, she just pushed it gently and the door opened.

The room is very simple, with almost no decoration. Four white walls and a bed in the middle. There is a small cabinet beside the bed with a lamp on it. On the other side is a birdstand with a black crow on it.

What surprised Zhao Pengcheng was that the room was extremely clean, with almost no trace of dust. As a surgeon, I am very sensitive to a dust-free environment, and this room actually seems to be cleaner than the hospital's operating room.

Of course, what attracted all Zhao Pengcheng's attention at this moment was Aoki lying on the bed.

Aoki was still wearing the same clothes - a close-fitting pure cotton T-shirt inside, an old gray windbreaker on the outside, jeans with cutouts and slits, and the pull-down board was neatly placed in front of the bed.

His hair was still messy, and his face looked a little white, but not pale, but as warm and white as white jade.

When they reached the bedside, the crow on the birdstand remained motionless.

Only then did Zhao Pengcheng realize that the crow was not alive, but a specimen. However, it was so delicately made that there was no trace of the specimen at all.

When he looked back at Aoki on the bed, he had the illusion that this person was no longer a living person, but a living specimen.