Chapter 136: An Unexpected Guest

A bicycle moved leisurely along the asphalt-paved road. The two people, riding one behind the other, remained completely silent. The road was so quiet that it almost gave Ji Ning the illusion that they had misread the map and wandered onto a route where someone had forgotten to post a "Road Closed" sign at the entrance.

The last time they had caught sight of human architecture was half an hour ago. That red-brick earthen house had long since been stamped with the character for "Demolition," but its fate, much like this road, seemed to have been forgotten by the world.

"We've been on this road for almost half an hour now, right?" Ji Ning stopped his bicycle and turned to look at Qin Mo.

Qin Mo nodded. However, she had completely shed the relaxed demeanor she had worn earlier like a suburban sightseer, her expression now grave and solemn. She had encountered such cleared-out zones before and was all too familiar with them. Long ago, she had begun guarding against the trench-coated figures who might materialize at any second.

"Have you ever seen a short film with a very interesting premise? It's about a family taking a road trip and getting trapped in an infinite loop. No matter what they do, they always return to the starting point, eternally unable to drive off that highway." Ji Ning leaned against his bicycle and took a sip of water.

"That doesn't sound very interesting at all." Qin Mo shot him an irritated look.

"See that road sign?" Ji Ning pointed to a sign not far off to the side of the road.

"What about it?" Qin Mo looked at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant.

"Speed limit forty, twenty kilometers to Dawang Temple."

A sense of familiarity washed over her, and Qin Mo's heart skipped a beat. She had heard Ji Ning recite those exact words about half an hour ago.

At that time, upon seeing the sign, Ji Ning had read it aloud and remarked how fortunate they were to have a directional post, which had made him briefly wonder if they had taken a wrong turn.

Qin Mo quickly steadied her emotions. After all, this place still belonged to a dream, and anything was possible. She spoke up, "Let's move forward a bit."

Not long after, the dilapidated red-brick earthen house came into their field of vision, the "Demolition" character still stark upon its wall.

Qin Mo wanted to say something, but she sensed a subtle anomaly—Ji Ning's mood was far too calm, as if he had anticipated all of this beforehand.

"Don't you have anything you want to ask me?"

Ji Ning sighed, "I know everything. This is just a mental world."

Hearing this, Qin Mo almost jumped to her feet. "He finally remembers!"

Yet, she immediately fell into confusion. Since he had already remembered, how could the dream still exist?

Before she could question him further, Ji Ning gave her a deep look, then closed his eyes and continued, "The road sign is fake, the earthen house is fake, the road is fake, and even you are fake. You are merely a product of my imagination, and this journey never existed to begin with."

Ji Ning opened his eyes, only to find that the surrounding environment remained entirely unchanged. He couldn't help but freeze for a moment. "Shouldn't the imagined mental world collapse and disintegrate the moment I become aware of it?"

Qin Mo sighed in turn. Thinking this fellow had finally remembered, she realized she had celebrated prematurely. She walked up to Ji Ning and, with an unfriendly expression, gave him a kick. "You're the one who's fake."

Ji Ning looked at Qin Mo with a complex gaze. "It seems I've lost my mind rather deeply if I still can't wake up from this."

Qin Mo nodded, gave him another kick, and then began to survey the surrounding environment.

A looped highway like this was obviously the handiwork of Adonis, with no need for guessing. The only slight surprise was that the trench-coated man hadn't appeared this time.

Could it be that he expected to trap them to death using this method?

Qin Mo deemed it unlikely, because Adonis would never stoop to such tactics. From the very first moment she laid eyes on that fellow, she knew he was a man who would never change course midway. He had a clear understanding of his own actions; unlike those who acted merely to satisfy selfish desires, he operated in pursuit of an exalted ideal as he perceived it. A man who proudly fancied himself a god would never deign to alter his will over minor setbacks.

Adonis had stated that he would forge dreams shaped by the deepest desires within everyone's hearts, so he would surely adhere to this principle. He wouldn't modify it just to capture her. Otherwise, trapping Ji Ning alongside her simply to ensnare her would be no different from throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Ji Ning walked straight toward Qin Mo. Before she could react—or rather, because she harbored no defense whatsoever against the person before her—Ji Ning wrapped her in a solid embrace. Qin Mo raised her head to see his eyes filled with lingering reluctance.

"What kind of look is that?"

"Perhaps the moment I laid eyes on you, I entered a state akin to a coma. Everything here is my dream, and the real me is lying in some hospital bed at this very moment. The only explanation for encountering this situation now is that the me in the real world is about to wake up. Consequently, bugs will naturally appear in the dream. Maybe in ten minutes, maybe in the next second, I will wake up. Perhaps I'll still remember you, but I'll never be able to see you again." Ji Ning's voice sounded profoundly sorrowful, and as he thought about it, he tightened his embrace even more.

Qin Mo felt utterly helpless and patted his back. "Have you ever considered that maybe everything I said is true?"

"That speech of yours wouldn't even fool a three-year-old. I know you're just as reluctant to part with me, right? I know, I know it all."

"You know nothing!" Qin Mo forcefully swallowed those words back down, silently chanting that good girls must not curse, maintaining a poised and unruffled composure even within a dream.

"Actually, I knew your true identity from the very beginning, but I still couldn't help being drawn to you. Everyone falls in love with a part of their own soul, after all. You are, after all, the most perfect template for romance in my heart; how could it be hard not to fall for you? I know, the sooner I wake up, the more responsible it is for myself and everyone else. But you're the first girl I've ever fallen in love with, and I really, truly want to spend a little more time with you. No wonder some people say that the more hesitant and dragging things are, the harder it is to extricate oneself. Yet, even the longest dream must have a day when it wakes up. I thought this day was still far off in the future, but I didn't expect it to arrive so soon. I'm sorry, please forgive my unannounced departure on this journey. My dear Qin Mo, I will remember you forever and ever."

Ji Ning's words were somewhat incoherent, but Qin Mo didn't mind at all. Even her initially irritated mood became much more cheerful.

"You said you'd remember me forever. How long is forever?"

"Forever," Ji Ning answered solemnly, then quickly added, "Even when I'm seventy and suffering from senile dementia, I'll still recount this story to my children, telling them that Grandpa once fell in love with a girl from a dream."

Children? As Qin Mo followed Ji Ning's train of thought just a step further, an inexplicable wave of fury welled up inside her. Since you think I'm a character in a dream and you're ultimately going to return to the real world, doesn't that mean you tacitly assume you'll marry some other woman in that so-called real world? Otherwise, where would the children come from?

Qin Mo cast a cold glance at Ji Ning, the bone-chilling expression in her eyes instantly snapping him out of his daydreamed future. Not understanding what he had said wrong, he wisely and prudently released the girl in his arms and retreated to the side. "Well... if you don't want anyone else to know, I won't tell a soul."

"Shut up." Qin Mo turned her head and began adjusting the authority ring on her hand. She silently added another tally to her mental ledger; once she dragged this fellow out of the dream, she would settle accounts with him slowly.

The glyphs on the authority ring emitted a faint glow, and Qin Mo could clearly feel it contending with Adonis's spiritual power. She was sometimes deeply curious: why was it that, although her relationship with this authority ring was fundamentally antagonistic, its behavior was more like that of a symbiotic entity? Most of the time, it guided her actions according to her will. Although Professor Christina had cast isolation spells on the ring to prevent it from directly receiving instructions from the outer-dimensional Old Gods, it still shouldn't have been willing to obey her commands. However, now was not the time for such ponderings; the most pressing task at hand was to activate it in order to find a way to break out of the loop.

This authority ring from the Church of the Abyss Light proved remarkably reliable, and its contest with Adonis's spiritual power quickly yielded initial results.

At the end of her line of sight, a human figure was walking along the highway toward them.

A silver trench coat fluttered with each stride, and no one could tell what kind of expression was flashing behind the dark sunglasses. The long boots struck the asphalt with a crisp, rhythmic "tap, tap," letting both of them clearly know that a trench-coated person was approaching.

Unlike the black trench-coated figures from previous encounters, this person's coat was a striking, dazzling silver. Even across a vast distance, the silver garment still shone brilliantly in the sunlight.

Qin Mo glanced back and adjusted her position so that Ji Ning was directly behind her. Only by crossing her path could anyone harm him. Her peripheral vision remained fixed on him; the moment any mishap befell him, she could react at lightning speed.

The silver-coated figure walked at an unhurried pace, carrying a leisurely air reminiscent of a stroll. It was precisely this composure that made Qin Mo feel they might actually converse with the trench-coated person this time. The previous black-coated figures had been like rigid machines, attacking in absolute silence, feeling neither pain nor the slightest emotion. That had deeply disappointed her. Rather than simply eliminating these dream messengers, she preferred to gather intelligence through them. Even if it were only a few words, as long as conversation was possible, information would be generated. This was infinitely precious information to everyone, because ever since Adonis forged his dreams, intelligence regarding him had remained entirely unupdated.

No one knew what a demi-god's patterns of thought and behavior were like. Adonis's dream realm was far too sensational, bearing no possibility of coexistence with the mundane world. Therefore, for the sake of future confrontations, any piece of intelligence was immensely valuable.

When the white-coated figure was still about a dozen meters away, he stopped in his tracks. "Miss Qin Mo, long time no see."

Qin Mo did not dwell on how the white-coated person knew her name. This was a dream constructed single-handedly by Adonis; every flower, tree, blade of grass, and twig was fundamentally an extension of his spiritual power. He was the absolute sovereign across millions of dreams, capable of knowing everything should he so desire.

"Are you also a dream messenger dispatched by Adonis? Compared to those black-coated figures, someone like you who can communicate must be the highest-grade existence, right?" Using questions to drive dialogue was the optimal means of gathering information—using one obvious question to mask another seemingly equally obvious question. These were mandatory lessons taught to them at the Deer Academy. At its core, this statement contained only a single query: how did Adonis's system of managing these dreams operate?

The man in the white trench coat did not answer. He smiled faintly, and as if some curtain were being drawn back, the visage of a quintessential Greek beauty was visually unveiled.

"My apologies for not introducing myself; allow me to make amends. My name is Adonis Keith, and I am a physician."

Though he stood right before her, Qin Mo found that she could only hazily draw a single conclusion from her visual perception: "A man wearing a silver-white trench coat is standing before me." It was as if this cognition had been directly implanted into her mind. The moment she tried to observe him closely, she discovered that his entire body was shrouded in a layer of mysterious radiance, making him utterly unobservable.

"He is the Adonis you keep mumbling about?" Ji Ning felt inexplicably nervous, subconsciously sidling closer to Qin Mo.

Qin Mo nodded and kept her gaze locked on Adonis. Facing an entity of his caliber, even the slightest lapse in attention was an unpardonable mistake. "You came in person... is it because of this ring?"

Adonis neither nodded nor denied it. With an air of great poise, he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. On either side of the road, a pair of benches appeared out of nowhere. Adonis walked with steady strides toward one of them.

"Let's sit down and talk. Ji Ning has carried you quite a long distance on that bike after all." Adonis possessed extraordinary bearing, his every gesture entirely distinct from the way he had appeared during their encounter in the real world. Having touched the realm of divinity, he could no longer be addressed merely as a human. Even if he did nothing at all and simply sat there, the presence of a demi-god was as dazzling as the sun in human perception.

This man might have remained obscure, but the present him was unquestionably forging his own Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Even though Qin Mo held absolute antipathy toward his actions, she had to concede that as he walked through his domain, he deserved to be met with respect.

Qin Mo sat on one side of the bench across the road. Rather than occupying the center like Adonis, she reserved half the space for Ji Ning. Just as Ji Ning obediently followed her lead and prepared to sit down, Adonis suddenly patted the seat beside him and spoke, "Ji Ning, I don't think sitting over there is a good choice for you."

Ji Ning paused in his tracks and turned back to look at Adonis. "Why?"

"I said I am a physician; you should be able to guess my purpose." A subtle, unfathomable smile graced Adonis's handsome face, resembling an older brother looking at a mischievous younger sibling who had solved a problem incorrectly.

"Did you come to save me?" Ji Ning asked tentatively.

Adonis nodded. "Miss Qin Mo was not wrong; this is indeed your dream. Roughly from the moment you laid eyes on her, you stepped into a dream of your own creation. The you in the real world actually suffered a car accident and is currently in a coma. This place is a world forged by your brain, where subconscious desires that could not be fulfilled in reality are catalyzed under these conditions. As you can see, Miss Qin Mo's appearance is simply the manifestation of your yearning for romance."

Before Qin Mo could retort, Adonis glanced in her direction. "I won't interrupt you later when you speak." Though his expression remained gentle as he said this, Qin Mo involuntarily swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue, as if she had just heard an unviolatable divine decree.

Qin Mo glared fiercely at Adonis. If she weren't outmatched in strength, she would have given this bastard a couple of slaps no matter what.

How dare he try to steal her man?