CNC: Chapter 5

In this dream, Chi Nan had recovered his eyesight. This dream should be the reproduction of fragments of his memory. He was still imprisoned in the painting and his vision was like a camera that couldn’t be moved. Only limited scenes could be seen.

It was a rainy afternoon. The curtains were open but the bedroom was still dim, as if the sky would never be bright again.

Chi Nan recognized that this was You Yu’s bedroom. The little You Yu sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes closed as he faced the cloudy window. He clearly couldn’t see anything but he always insisted on facing somewhere for a long time, as if the scenery would eventually respond to him.

Not long after, the bedroom door opened and the maid brought medicine. “Young Master, it is time to take your medicine.”

Little You Yu ignored her but the maid directly took the medicine to him and repeated, “Young Master, it is time to drink the medicine.”

You Yu pursed his lips into a line. “I won’t drink it.”

The maid had no choice. “Young Master, if you don’t drink then I’ll have the madam come in personally.”

As she spoke, the maid took out a small bottle from her pocket. The young master couldn’t see so she blatantly poured a black-gray powder into the medicine bowl. The concoction immediately showed a weird, dark color.

Little You Yu’s expression changed slightly when he heard the word ‘madam’. The maid saw it and struck while the iron was hot. “Listen, Madam is usually busy filming. Let’s not add to the chaos. Young Master, drink the medicine well so you can get better.

You Yu took the medicine bowl and the maid continued to urge him, “Madam likes good children. Young Master, drink the medicine obediently and the madam will like…”

“I know what type of children my mother likes.” His lips curved up as he spoke. He smiled gently and quietly, like a lovely little angel, but the actions of his hands were different. He calmly poured the concoction onto the ground. The milky white carpet was immediately covered with red, shocking like a splash of blood. Finally, he handed the empty medicine bowl to the maid with a smile. “It’s finished.”

The maid’s expression changed sharply and she spoke coldly as she cleaned up the medicine stains on the ground, “Then I’ll ask the Madam to come.”

Once the maid left, the smile on little You Yu’s face disappeared. He was as empty and indifferent as he was in the beginning as he looked into the distance. It wasn’t until the door was pushed open again that You Yu’s expression changed slightly.

“Why are you being disobedient again?” Bai Yingzhi pushed open the door of the room and turned on the light. Her voice was smiling but in the painting, Chi Nan could clearly see the impatience on her face.

“Mom.” Little You Yu turned around and faced her sideways.

Bai Yingzhi crouched down in front of him, her eyes sweeping over the medicine concoction on the carpet. “You lost your temper and increased the workload of me and Aunt Mei. Disobedient children should be punished.

You Yu’s eyelashes trembled and he skillfully and obediently held out his left hand. His pale, thin arm was full of finger marks and pinpricks. They were so dense that it was hard to look directly at them.

Bai Yingzhi took his hand, pulled out a fine bronze needle and pierced You Yu’s middle finger. She relentlessly pinched his finger until blood leaked out and turned into a bead-sized blood bead. Then Bai Yingzhi took out a talisman paper and absorbed the blood with it. From beginning to end, little You Yu didn’t frown like he was used to it.

Bai Yingzhi pressed down on the wound of the middle finger to stop the bleeding, her voice as gentle as a loving mother. “You aren’t in good health so you have to drink medicine for a long time. How else can your disease get better?”

“Mom, what’s wrong with me?” You Yu asked.

Bai Yingzhi’s actions paused. “It is a very serious illness.”

“Why don’t you let me go to the hospital?”

Bai Yingzhi looked stiff. “What is so good about being hospitalized? We have a family doctor.”

You Yu nodded, a smile with an unknown meaning on his face. “Is that so?”

Bai Yingzhi finally frowned impatiently. “You are still young and I can’t explain it to you clearly. I will tell you when you grow up.”

“Hopefully, there is such a day.” Then You Yu curled up under the quilt, not planning to talk to anyone any longer.

Bai Yingzhi got up and left with the blood-stained talisman. She was at the door when she left with a final sentence. “You Yu, this will be over soon. Your mother will always love you very much.”

The door closed and the dimly lit room returned to dead silence. You Yu smiled silently under the quilt. Around 10 minutes later, You Yu sat up again. He crawled down from the bed and was only one step away from Chi Nan.

He reached out to Chi Nan. To be exact, he reached out his hand to ‘The Crying Young Man’ and touched it lightly, his face calm and quiet. “Are you there?”

Forgotten memories came like a tide. Chi Nan gathered the memory fragments bit by bit. He remembered that when he was the spirit of the painting, You Yu often spoke to him. As for what he said, Chi Nan really couldn’t remember.

“Do you really exist?”

Just as the colors of the memories were becoming more vivid, Chi Nan felt like there was a bad signal. The picture in front of him flickered and You Yu’s appearance became blurred and distorted. Finally, there was a click as the signal was interrupted. All the pictures disappeared and Chi Nan lost his vision again. It was just a little bit…

“Are you dreaming?” It was still little You Yu’s voice but it was a little different from the You Yu that Chi Nan knew in the dream. He continued, “It is strange that you can still dream in the Nightmare World.”

Chi Nan didn’t speak and You Yu’s footsteps circled him. “Did you dream of something sad? You look so sad? You are also crying? Hmm?”

Chi Nan suddenly asked, “How did your eyes recover?”

Little You Yu smiled teasingly. He stood on tiptoe to hold Chi Nan’s neck, leaned toward his ear and said, “Guess.”

***

Chi Nan was awakened by the alarm and a cold wind blowing on his face. The windows on the south side had been opened at some point and the temperature in the room plummeted. Chi Nan was afraid of the cold. He shrank his entire body under the thin quilt while reaching out a hand reluctantly to fumble for the phone alarm. He went with the flow for the alarm most of the time. He turned over and was about to go to sleep again when a wet, sticky thing fell on his cheek, making him itchy.

Chi Nan irritably pulled at the thing that was hanging down. He felt that it was a strand of hair. It was cold and wet in his hand and liquid dripped from it. His hand became wet.

Drip, drip.

The blood dripping from the hair spilled over the edge of the bed only the floor. There was no carpet in the room so the sound of blood dripping was particularly harsh. The blood also soaked the formation on the ground, the glutinous rice garlic and the talisman seal on the bedside, making them a shockingly bright red.

However, Chi Nan had turned around and was about to fall asleep again.

The female ghost, “……”

As a supporting actor, she worked hard to give full advantage of her death expertise. She tilted her head in an exaggerated arc and her neck bones made a creepy rattle. The broken bone pierced the skin deeper and viscous blood leaked from the skin tissue connected with the muscles, dripping onto Chi Nan’s cheeks.

Chi Nan wasn’t awake and buried his head in the pillow.

The female ghost, “……” This blind man was ignoring her, right?

Then the female ghost glanced at Chi Nan’s garlic glutinous rice array in the bedroom. “……”

Who was this looking down upon? Was it treating her as a zombie?

A large part of human fear came from vision. Since Chi Nan was blind, she couldn’t scare him with her unique, frightening appearance. She had to work hard to create fear through other channels.

For example, she squeezed out the last drop of her blood, making the entire room bloody and smelly. She dangled her body and shook it to make the bed creak. She opened the window to let the cold wind blow into the bedroom. For example, she raised her bloody hand and was about to grab Chi Nan’s white and slender neck…

Of course, the sleepy and confused Chi Nan didn’t know how hard the female ghost was working. He just felt something pulling away his quilt, deliberately lowering the temperature to interfere with his sleep and removing the pillow that covered his face.

Chi Nan didn’t have a temper. His only temper came from getting up. He frowned impatiently and tears oozed from the corners of his eyes. His tears were often uncontrollable when he was sleeping. Once the gate was opened, he couldn’t stop it…

The ghost hand about to drag him to death suddenly stopped in the air and couldn’t move for a long time.

The moment the female ghost saw his tears, her blood-red eyeballs almost popped out of her eyes. Her face was incredibly stiff like a stone carving. It was a hundred times more terrifying than a talisman from a celestial master.

Chi Nan’s tears washed away the blood stains on his face and dripped onto the blood-stained pillowcase. The smell of blood in the room also faded. The female ghost trembled violently with fear like she had seen a ghost. The book shook with her fear and was about to collapse. It was such a big movement but Chi Nan still didn’t wake up.

“Don’t make any noise.  It is the critical moment in the dream…” Chi Nan murmured, half asleep and half awake.

The female ghost’s face turned blue. Her twisted neck rotated 365 degrees to escape but she couldn’t move. She opened her mouth helplessly. “Wooooo save me—”

Chi Nan was impatient. From under the pillow, he pulled out the handkerchief that You Yu had used to wipe his tears. He shoved it toward the female ghost’s bloody mouth—

“Don’t be noisy.”

“Woo…”

Chi Nan retracted his head under the quilt. This time, the female ghost stopped bothering him. The ghost had been stiffly hanging above his head, biting the handkerchief full of Chi Nan’s tears. She could no longer make a sound.

The ghost was dead.

Chi Nan finally got what he wanted and fell asleep again. It was a pity that he didn’t dream about that bedroom or get to see little You Yu from back then.

It was the height of summer in July but dawn only came after 9 o’clock because it was the Nightmare World. Since the window was opened by the ghost, the morning light diffused into the room. Chi Nan’s sleep became shallow.

He turned over a few times in a daze. His sleepiness faded and his consciousness gradually returned. He tapped on the phone screen, which showed that it was 9:40 a.m. Chi Nan was instantly awake and alert as he sat up. What was going on? Did he miss the trial? Didn’t this mean his plan would fail?

Originally, Chi Nan had thought of using Hei Cha’s method to deal with the female ghost. Then he would use the female ghost to replace himself as the corpse. After all, Bai Yingzhi said he could improvise. This meant he could find a stand-in…

Now it seemed to be messed up.

Chi Nan wiped his eyes in a frustrated manner. Then his movements became stiff as he realized that something was wrong. There was a strange smell in the air… the stench was so terrible. Chi Nan put his hand to his nose and sniffed. The strong smell of blood made him immediately alert. Did something happen last night?

Chi Nan started to fumble to the side carefully. Around three minutes later, there was a sudden ‘click’ as the female ghost’s head hanging on the mosquito net was finally overwhelmed. It rolled down stiffly, falling to the side of the pillow.

Chi Nan reached out his hand and touched it. “……”

He finally found the dried up female corpse hanging from the mosquito net above his head. It looked like the exorcism method given by Hei Cha was very effective… Chi Nan was grateful.

He removed the female ghost’s body from the mosquito net and placed it neatly on the bed. Then he called Aunt Mei using the internal phone and asked her to bring him a clean change of clothes. Once the clothes were delivered, Chi Nan put his hands together and told the female ghost’s corpse, “I have to offend you.”

Then he took off his bloody clothes and placed them on the female ghost’s corpse. The system finally woke up from its deep sleep.

[Congratulations to ‘Chi Nan’ for successfully passing the trigger point of the nightmare story: playing a corpse.]

[The sleepwalker ‘Chi Nan’ has fully engaged in the audition process and has excellent acting skills. In particular, the improvisation section was particularly strong in its handling of the plot and character. It is a wonderful performance that won the dream god’s favor.]

[The favorability value will be settled at the end of the instance. Stay tuned.]

[Sleepwalker ‘Chi Nan’, please continue to work hard to gain more favorability in the nightmare.]

The nightmare system finished reporting and Chi Nan let out a sigh of relief.

He guessed right. The audition play was indeed an important plot point for increasing favorability. Now he wanted to receive a script every night and for the female ghost to come to him, so he could increase the favorability in an infinite manner.

In the end, Chi Nan fumbled his way to the bathroom and took a hot bath, washing away the blood and his sleepiness. The sound of water in the bathroom was loud and Chi Nan couldn’t hear the banging on the door of his bedroom.

***

Last night, Hei Cha had constantly thought about it in bed. He was still a bit worried about his little blind man who was like a porcelain doll. After tossing and turning, he simply got up from the bed and prepared to go to the other person’s room for the night.

Perhaps it was due to the rules or because the maid heard their conversation, but his door and window was locked from the outside. His phone had no signal and he couldn’t call anyone…

Hei Cha had a weak heart. He waited anxiously until dawn when he heard the sound of his door being unlocked. The first thing he did was to rush to Chi Nan’s room and bang on the door.

“Chi Nan! Chi Nan! Are you okay?”

No one responded.

Hei Cha’s forehead was soaked with sweat and his temper was violent. He couldn’t stand the lack of news and kicked the door violently. He was so loud that he woke up Cheng Xu next door.

Cheng Xu was an old sleepwalker and knew not to be nosy. He heard the strange screams last night but didn’t respond. Now that it was dawn, he finally poked his head out. He looked at Hei Cha and hurriedly asked, “What is it? Is Chi Nan okay?”

“I don’t know! No one will answer the door!” Hei Cha broke down the door with three or four kicks. Then a strong bloody smell rushed at his face.

“Not good!” He rushed into the room. Cheng Xu hesitated for a moment before following.

“Ah, this!”

Hei Cha saw a blood-drained, unrecognizable corpse lying on the bed. He was shocked and his eyes instantly became wet. The veteran Cheng Xu also took a step back in shock, his entire body as stiff as a statue. It was too miserable. This death was too miserable and terrible…

“If I knew this would happen, I would’ve insisted on staying with Chi Nan last night, regardless of the bullsh*t rules!”

Hei Cha had a mediator temperament and he was a pure novice. He had never experienced death and he really liked Chi Nan. After seeing the corpse, he immediately broke down and slammed his fist against the wall. His actions alarmed the sleepwalkers on the second floor and Chi Nan in the bathroom also heard it.

It seemed that Hei Cha had come over.

“Good morning.” Chi Nan got dressed quickly, poked his head out of the bathroom and greeted them politely. All the people who rushed over were stunned. They looked at the horrible corpse on the bed and the blind man with dripping hair in confusion.

“Chi Nan? You… you are okay?” Hei Cha returned from his grief. His emotions had gone up and down and he was a bit confused.

Chi Nan rubbed his hair with a bath towel. After taking a hot shower, his pale skin finally turned red. The two teardrop moles at the corners of his eyes became more vivid. “Yes, I’m fine. I was taking a shower.”

Cheng Xu’s girlfriend An Ran trembled. Her eyes darted between Chi Nan and the corpse as she asked in an eerie manner. “But this is obviously… could he be a ghost fooling us?”

Chi Nan didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. “I’m alive.”

Everyone except for Hei Cha, “……” We don’t quite believe it.

“I remember that you were wearing this outfit yesterday…”

Chi Nan was silent for a moment. “My hair isn’t as long as hers.”

The group, “……” This was right but… who would care about a detail like hair length at this time!

Hei Cha slightly slowed down. He was relieved to see the fresh Chi Nan. Then he pointed to the corpse on the bed and asked, “What’s going on with the bed?”

“The corpse is a stand-in that I found,” Chi Nan answered naturally.