Fantasy Clock～Dream Ruler～

It was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning, and in the dark corridor, the girl holding the rabbit doll leaned her head sideways against the wall, her long black hair naturally hanging down on the doll's folded ears. A few strands of black hair drooped on her eyelashes. Following the movement of her eyebrows, the girl suddenly opened her eyes and leaned back. Her right hand instinctively rubbed the elbow of her left hand.

Xia Yinci's expression looked as if she had just experienced unusual pain, but she still stood up reluctantly against the wall, and took unsteady steps towards the opposite side.

The lights in the corridor turned on because of her movement. Xia Yinci carefully raised her little hand, and put her right hand underneath to gently support her numb left hand.

"Boom...boom boom boom."

The sound of high heels hitting the ground came from the other side of the door. Xia Yinci put her hands on her chest instinctively, took a step back timidly, and then the door was pulled open with a little emotion.

The door was answered by a blond woman with a face in no way over thirty years old.

Before the woman asked anything, Xia Yinci mustered up the courage to ask the question she cared about.

"Um... Su... Is Su Huohuo at home?"

Xia Yinci who had been waiting at the door was not waiting for her family. Xia Yinci's parents are not at home all year round, and they can't get home. There is only one maid who prepares her three meals a day and cleans the room in the morning, and she never sees others at other times. So she can't be waiting for her family.

If she didn't care about Su Ruoyang, Xia Yinci would never have stayed at the door so late and waited.

Xia Yinci has never seen Su Ruoyang since he sent herself out of his dream world. According to the maid, Su Ruoyang's father took Su Ruoyang somewhere early in the morning, and Su Ruoyang never came home after that.

She had nothing else to do, and she was also concerned about what would happen to Su Ruoyang, so Xia Yinci sat at the door until she fell asleep in a daze. Normally, Xia Yinci would rather stay at the door than enter the house, and it was because she always stayed at the door that she met Su Luoyang.

"What are you doing with him so late?"

The tone of the blonde woman was overly unfriendly. Although she was facing such a child who was only six or seven years old, she still had a questioning tone, as if the other party had done something wrong. Xia Yinci couldn't help but lose the courage to continue kissing because of the other party's attitude.

"I..I'm a little worried about him..that..I haven't seen Su Luoyang all day today.."

"Does he have anything to do with you like this?"

Xia Yinci was stunned for a moment. At first, she thought that the other party was telling herself that what happened to Su Luoyang had nothing to do with her, but she later realized that the other party's tone was to know something from her mouth.

"Blonde sister... what does 'this' mean?"

"Is it related to you?"

The blond woman didn't respond to her, she took a few steps forward and kept approaching her.

This made Xia Yinci keep backing away, and finally slammed her back hard into the door of her own house.

"When you and Su Luoyang usually play together, what are you doing? Are you just playing like other children?"

"I can't tell...Su Huohuo told me not to tell anyone..."

Xia Yinci muttered softly. The voice was so low that the blond woman couldn't hear it clearly, but it seemed that it was just her talking to herself.

"Or...did you take him to do something dangerous?"

The sight of the blond woman was fixed on Xia Yinci's eyes as if they could pierce through them. Xia Yinci's eyes enlarged unconsciously. The woman seemed to have a confirmed answer. Beside Xia Yinci, his eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a dangerous light.

"I hope you have nothing to do with this."

After all, the blond woman stopped making things difficult for Xia Yinci, turned around and walked into the house, closing the door without hesitation.

The lights in the corridor dimmed slowly. Xia Yinci came back to her senses, clasped her hands restlessly on her chest, and looked at the door of Su Ruoyang's house with hesitation and fear.

Wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but didn't have the guts to do so.

the other side of the door. The blond woman rubbed her hair and sat back on the sofa. There was the sound of the door being creaked and opened nearby. Su Erin, who was wearing pajamas, had her eyes hidden under the wide brim of her hat, staring at the blond woman with great concern.

"Mom...who knocked on the door just now?"

"nothing."

The blond woman didn't intend to elaborate, but was thinking about something carefully.

Both she and Su Guokai were members of the Core Research Association, and she went one step further than Su Guokai in the past, and did many things for them that could not be said publicly. So she knows what they are doing, and anyone around Su Luoyang may have a relationship with the Core Research Association. Even children cannot be underestimated.

She couldn't rule out the possibility that Xia Yinci had something to do with them, not to mention that she had never met Xia Yinci's family, so she felt that Xia Yinci was suspicious enough just based on this.

"Is... Xia Yinci?"

Su Erin's question made the blond woman stop rubbing her hair. She raised her eyes and glanced at Su Huilin.

"Is it related to you too?"

"What's the meaning?"

Su Huilin didn't know why instead of answering her own question, she asked herself instead. She couldn't help but looked at her mother in front of her in confusion.

"Did Xia Yinci deliberately drag you into something dangerous?"

"I don't understand what you're saying at all?"

The blond woman couldn't help lowering her eyes when she heard such an answer. Although she couldn't tell from Su Huilin's answer whether Xia Yinci had done such a thing, she really felt that she might have taught Su Huilin physical skills. Only then did she avoid some threats.

Although the training was hard, it was also to prevent Su Eirin from ending her life like her father, who was defenseless.

"I knew I wouldn't have joined such an association from the start."

She grinned bitterly and complained softly.

"What did you say?"

"It's okay." The blond woman took a deep breath, shook her head, and forced a smile, "Go to bed early. Don't worry about Su Luoyang, we will find a way to solve his matter."

"Who...who is worried about that kid?"

Su Huilin retorted angrily. After seeing the meaningful smile on her mother's face, she couldn't help being inexplicably displeased. She turned around and went back to her room, closing the door heavily, as if protesting with the sound of "bang".

But after returning to the room, Su Huilin couldn't help being stunned. Even though she changed the subject like this, her own question was still not answered.

"Then it must be Xiaoyin coming..."

Su Huilin glanced at the door, thinking that she might be teased by her mother when she opened the door to go out, so she still didn't open the door in the end.

An animation popular among children recently was playing on the TV, and the protagonist with the saber ring flying around his waist happened to say his iconic lines to the enemy at this moment. ——"Admit it. It is your destiny to be defeated by me."

"Even though I'm an adult, I still like to joke so much...just like the main character in the anime, I'm not mature at all."

She puffed her cheeks angrily, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Su Huilin knew that her mother was very suspicious, maybe even a child of Xia Yinci's age would be suspicious, if it was really Xia Yinci who knocked on the door just now, she would not be sure what her mother had said to her.

"Forget it. Just in case, let's go find Xiaoyin tomorrow..."

Thinking of this as if she had found the answer, Su Huilin lay back on the bed. The sleepiness that had not arrived for a long time finally covered the field of vision with a layer of black paint. Then she fell into a sleepy dream.

...

Under the pitch-black night sky, the ward of the Core Research Association is still shining with pure white light.

Su Guokai frowned and stood a few meters away from Su Ruoyang's hospital bed. At this time, a woman in a nurse's uniform approached Su Ruoyang, gently took his hand, and skillfully inserted the needle into Su Ruoyang's bed. Ruo Yang's upper arm looked normal, as if he was taking care of a frequent patient. Su Guokai couldn't help but believe more and more that every time Su Ruoyang met his mother, he was doing strange experiments in this ward.

The more he thought about it, the more he didn't understand why the chairman was so indifferent to the matter of "doing human experiments on his own son", and the more he hated this woman who had made a marriage contract with him.

The door of the ward was opened lightly, and while humming a cheerful tune, the president walked into the ward and came to Su Luoyang's side.

"Wait for me, you have to tell me before that, how are you going to save him?"

The president slightly raised the corners of his mouth, and tilted his head at Su Guokai.

"Is that why you don't believe me? Don't worry, besides, if something happens to Su Luoyang, it won't be a good thing for me?"

"The words of a person who judges the safety of his son by whether it is good or not are not trustworthy at all, right?"

The smile suddenly disappeared from the president's face, replaced by a coldness that made one's back shiver uncontrollably.

"Okay." After making a one-word response without any ups and downs, she took out a square touchpad from the pocket of her coat, and after tapping it a few times quickly, an image emerged from Su Guokai's right wall.

"I have been very interested in dreams since I was a child. At that time, I often had questions such as "what is the relationship between dreams and reality?", "What is a dream, another parallel world?" So. Until now, I’m still studying dreams, a different world that’s not quite the same as reality.”

A light spot appeared on the black screen, and then the black background was gradually replaced by the street scene of the big city, but it was covered with a blur filter.

"I've worked hard here for a long time before I finally came to the conclusion that dreams are not parallel worlds... let alone a unilateral product of the human brain."

"Dreams—that's reality."

The president shook his index finger, moved his hand aside, and snapped his fingers crisply. The hazy filter on the screen suddenly disappeared, and Su Guokai was presented with the usual street scene, but the street was filled with strange beams of light and glowing spots.

"Why do we always see strangers we have never met in our dreams? Why do we come to places we have never been to when we dream? Even sometimes, we are lucky enough to come to our previous dreams in reality. Strange places that we have seen in our dreams? That’s because we have indeed visited places in our dreams that we have never been to in real life, and met people there that we have never seen in real life.”

The picture began to fall apart, and blindfolded faces emerged from the fragmented scene, making strange expressions.

"The people we see may be real people, or they may be other people who are dreaming."

"If what you say is true, then why...we never see dreamers in reality?"

Using the snap of fingers again as a signal, the picture on the screen was replaced by darkness, and then a door in the darkness appeared, and a dazzling light was shining at the other end

"'World Gate'. This is a term that some lucid dreamers always talk about. It is said that every dreamer has such a world gate, through which you can enter other people's dreams. The reason why you can't see dreamers People, because reality, as well as everyone's dreams, are separated by a "barrier" in different dimensions."

Photos of the crowd appeared on the screen. The dense sea of ​​people accompanied by the noisy human voice caused Su Guokai to feel an abnormal sensation in the back of his head, as if he was getting an electric shock.

"All of us, whether we are dreamers or awake people, we are in the same world, and the "World Gate" divides the same world into "several different worlds", including the parallel real world. It’s the so-called “world layer.”

"'World Layer'...is it..."

"There is not only one dream world, but also the real world. The world gate is not only a barrier between the worlds, but also an intermediary that connects the worlds, so you can go to other worlds through it. I don't know if the dreamer uses brain waves Reality wanders in other world layers, but I know that lucid dreamers who can maintain lucid consciousness in sleep are the most closely linked reality and dreams. In addition to these unique groups, the world layer also has uniqueness.”

What finally appeared on the screen was the scene of the Core Research Association and Rong Tam Street. Su Guokai couldn't help but feel his heart tighten.

"According to our investigation, this Rong Tan Street is the only place in this world where any real world layer exists. Since discovering this, I have been thinking about why for a year. Finally, guess what happened ? I found the breakthrough point of the problem from Su Luoyang!"

Su Guokai clenched his fists tightly and stared at the increasingly emotional woman in front of him.

"There are many lucid dream experimenters in the Core Research Association, but only Su Luoyang is different. Apart from the peculiarities of his personal abilities, the most important thing is that the dream world he goes to after falling asleep is a group of people who claim to be" The place where the lucid dreamers of the Ruler gather."

"They call it—"Dream Gap."

The president approached the screen on the right wall of the ward, touched the wall lightly with his fingers, and a painting appeared on the screen immediately.

The painting depicts a strange world filled with gigantic clocks.

"We don't have the equipment to monitor dreams, and we've only recently started research, so we can't see what the dreamers go through after they fall asleep. We can only investigate after they wake up and ask them what happened."

"Did Su Luoyang tell you about this world called 'The Gap of Dreams'?"

Su Guokai was also a little agitated. He took a step forward and asked the president with a more serious tone.

"Yeah... Su Ruoyang is such a good boy, that's why I hope nothing will happen to him? But... didn't he tell you what he was doing? Oh, it seems that compared to you, he Or do you trust me more, the incompetent mother you say?"

The president's tone seemed to deliberately provoke Su Guokai. She lightly raised the corners of her mouth, waving her index finger in front of her lips playfully, and then said softly——

"Having said that, it is precisely because there is a "dream gap" common to all dream world layers. This spatial resonance affects the world layer of the real world. And there is only one world itself, so Rong Tan Street with the same location has become a place for any dream world. A place where all the layers of the real world exist.”

"In this case, the abnormality of Taoyuan Tavern...is it also related to the world layer of the dream..." Su Guokai muttered as if talking to himself, which was a task he had to deal with when he was in the Core Research Association.

"Isn't it a wonderful fate that our Core Research Association decided to choose a location here?"

"Stop talking about 'I'm destined to study the mysteries of dreams'! After all, what method do you want to use to wake up Su Luoyang?"

"Don't you understand?" the chairman suddenly asked Su Guokai in displeasure, his tone became a little cold. She turned around lightly, and the screen behind her was suddenly turned off and returned to the original wall, "Since the dreamer is similar to a 'soul', in other words - it appears in an existence similar to an 'electric wave' If it is in the dream world layer, then, as long as Su Luoyang’s brainwaves, or thinking, are pulled back to the real world layer, he can be awakened.”

While speaking, the nurse just walked up to Su Luoyang's side, and put a device that looked like an earphone on Su Luoyang's head. It was only then that Su Guokai noticed that the slightly bulky retro machine next to the hospital bed was monitoring Su Ruoyang's ever-changing physical condition in real time and converting it into various fluctuating values.

Seeing that Su Guokai was still thinking about something while staring at the screen, the president simply ignored him, and walked to Su Ruoyang's hospital bed on his own, stopped in front of a computer next to the retro device, and quickly started to operate. keyboard.

"Wait! This method...is it dangerous?"

"Well, even if I deny it, you won't believe it, right?" The president didn't even look at Su Guokai, his gaze kept moving between the keyboard and the screen, "—blindness, temporary nerve paralysis, psychosis Disorders, somnambulism... anything indeterminate can happen."

Speaking of this, she paused the movements of her hands again, and whispered in a teasing tone, "But if these things happen, Su Luoyang will no longer be a perfect test subject. I hope he can take care of himself. performance

"Hey! Isn't this the same as...it's the same as taking Su Luoyang as your experimental product?"

The president was not in a hurry to answer Su Guokai, she knew that even if he said such words with anger, he must be hesitant to continue. But he is definitely unwilling to take this kind of risk, but he has no other choice besides this.

"If Su Luoyang stays in the world layer of dreams, he may never wake up? You understand, right, a former scholar of the Core Research Association. The longer this kind of thing drags on, the greater the risk .”

The atmosphere in the ward was oppressively silent. Su Guokai stared at the woman who was also looking back at him, anxious and hopeless. He knew he had no other choice. Even if the risk is indeed great, this kind of matter can only be turned around if it is handed over to the core research association.

"You, you'd better hope that nothing happens to Su Luoyang."

"Can I take your threat as a compromise?"

A slight smile appeared on the president's face again. Su Guokai was once attracted by such a gentle smile, but now he finds her smile so disturbing, even the curvature of her mouth reveals a dangerous atmosphere.

Su Guokai quickly turned his gaze away. Everything that Fang Caichang said was revolving in his mind, with such a wavering mood, he looked at Su Ruoyang who was frowning on the hospital bed, as if trying to struggle in the edge of the world.

...

Early in the morning. Su Erin washed up and walked out of the bathroom. The mother in the living room was leaning on the sofa to take a nap, Su Huilin lightly picked up the coat at the side, and put it on her mother, then tiptoed to the door of the house, and closed the door gently.

At this time, the door of the elevator opened with a "ding", and a woman in a skirt noticed Su Huilin, and her footsteps when she got off the elevator paused.

"Xiao Lin, why did you wake up so early today?"

"Ah.. so..."

Su Erin rubbed her blond hair that had not been taken care of. The woman standing in front of her was the maid who took care of Xia Yinci's daily life.

"I have something to do with Xia Yinci."

Hearing the name Xia Yinci, the maid's expression changed for some reason, and there was a hint of worry between her brows. She nodded her head after a few seconds, and came to the door of Xia Yinci's house. While taking out the key to open the door, she took another look at Su Huilin.

"I don't know what's wrong with this child. When I came here in the morning, she was sleeping at the door. After I carried her in, I went out to buy breakfast."

The maid's words made Su Huilin more convinced that the person who knocked on the door yesterday was Xia Yinci. No matter how I think about it, I feel that Xia Yinci is at least aware of Su Ruoyang's affairs.

"She's in the bedroom."

"OK, thanks."

Su Huilin nodded to the maid, turned around and walked into Xia Yinci's bedroom. Xia Yinci tossed and turned restlessly, closed her eyes tightly, and seemed to be muttering something. Su Huilin hesitated for a moment, then gently shook Xia Yinci's shoulder.

I don't know why Xia Yinci's expression was not very good when she woke up, but she got better when she saw the expression on Su Huilin's face.

When Su Huilin asked, Xia Yinci only replied that she had a terrible dream just now and told her not to worry. Seeing the forced smile on Xia Yinci's face, Su Huilin inevitably suspected that Xia Yinci at least knew about the fact that Su Ruoyang was trapped in a dream and could not wake up.