Cleaner?!

Upon hearing the exclamation of "Nightmare Yi Ji," the boundary between dream and reality instantly plunged into deathly silence. Immediately, almost all the dream realm creatures around, without any prior communication, made the same choice without hesitation.

Run! Run quickly! The farther the better!

...

If it were a few years ago, the dream realm creatures, though wary of the Cleaning Bureau, wouldn't have fled at the mere sight of them.

But alas, in recent months, humans in the present world seemed to have been provoked by something. Suddenly, abandoning their thousands-of-years-old defensive habits, they began to expand furiously outward. Among all the planes, those that suffered first were precisely the dream realm and the moon, directly connected to the present world.

About two months ago, when a level-two Cleaner suddenly went missing on the moon, it took less than two hours for a search team from the Cleaning Bureau to storm the moon with great momentum, searching the moon's dark side, and getting into a big fight with the Moonfolk, ultimately all getting killed by the furious Moonfolk.

But before the Moonfolk could even catch their breath, the souls of those dead Cleaners were forcibly dragged to the Realm of the Dead by the underworld branch of the Cleaning Bureau, and were resurrected the next day, this time returning with a director and eight branch managers to seek revenge...

And although the dream realm was more neutral and didn't face as bad a situation as the Moonfolk, who had a grudge against humans, it was so close to the present world that it too was disturbed by the locust-like Cleaners, leaving almost every layer of the twenty-one-layer dream realm filled with human footprints.

These Cleaners infiltrated the dream realm in squads, with all sorts of messy tasks. Although not all of them were formidable, and there were quite a few novices, even the weakest Cleaner couldn't be casually provoked.

Because as soon as one Cleaner got beaten up, a bunch more would immediately come over; if even they couldn't handle it, then it was the branch managers, Zodiac managers, twelve directors... each level escalated continuously.

The Lord of Confusion of Dream Mist Village couldn't resist the temptation, and when his mouth watered, he grabbed a few Cleaners and stuffed them into his dream belly. However, before he could digest the spiritual power of those Cleaners, the Cleaning Bureau people swarmed down.

This group of Cleaners entering the dream realm was similar to the one sent to the moon: a director, two Zodiac managers, six other branch managers, and several level-one Cleaners, just enough to flatten a small plane.

And their actions were much like what went down on the moon, surrounding the Lord of Confusion for a beating, then turning Dream Mist Village upside down inside and out, taking him and his entire race, presumably all thrown into the Realm of the Dead to serve their sentences.

Meanwhile, other True Gods of the dream realm, who were trembling in their depths witnessing the capture of the Lord of Confusion in its entirety, came to a sudden realization through the plight of the missing Lord of Confusion...

This is obviously a trap!!!

Those Cleaners wandering all over the dream realm might not be very strong, but their spiritual power is quite good. Catching just one could yield heaps of spiritual shards, definitely the best nourishment for dream realm creatures.

The problem is that behind these tasty spiritual shards, the Cleaning Bureau's dimensional sweep combo was probably already raring to go. More crucially, since the dream realm doesn't need travel time, one could enter merely by dreaming. The second a Cleaner went missing in the dream realm, the Cleaning Bureau's director could arrive the next moment.

And the Cleaning Bureau folks were fond of dragging others into the mess, too, practicing limitless collective punishment, meaning if one person gets involved, the whole tribe serves time. As for the reason... don't ask, because humans are face-blind; they see the whole tribe looking the same, and the victim doesn't know who the real culprit is, so they simply take everyone back for a slow interrogation.

It's utterly shameless!

Thinking of the Scorpion Director who barged into Dream Mist Village, in front of the snake-bodied, human-faced Lord of Confusion and a bunch of human-bodied, snake-faced Ouroboros nightmares, insisted he couldn't tell who was who, the dream realm creatures ran even faster.

With the current behavior of the Cleaning Bureau, it was clear they weren't planning to be reasonable. Even if a female Cleaner who accidentally bumped into a nightmare tripped and fell, they'd probably say all of us teamed up to assault her... Go! Get out of here!

The dream realm creatures, uninvolved and just coincidentally present at the scene, turned and fled, especially Nightmare Yi Ji. Shivering, he even abandoned the things he bought with his "life-selling money," instinctively wanting to dive into the Demonic Soul Abyss, yet...

"Please hold on for a moment!"

Accompanied by a gentle voice, the "female Cleaner" emerging from the Dream Soaking Well reached out to grab the black mist surrounding Nightmare Yi Ji, then gently inquired:

"May I ask if this is 3… if this is the dream realm around the present world? If I choose to move forward ceaselessly, crossing the boundary between dream and material world ahead, can I reach the present world directly?"

"..."

Are... are you asking for directions? Not here to take me back for remedial lessons for those two demons?

After struggling to no avail, unable to escape, Nightmare Yi Ji turned his head tremblingly, nodding with trepidation:

"This is indeed the dream realm... you... you want to go to the present world?"

"Yes."

The fair-skinned, beautiful, and charming-eyed "female Cleaner" nodded earnestly, answering seriously:

"If the present world you're talking about has Cleaners and other humans like me, then the present world you're referring to should be exactly where I'm determined to go!"

What on earth...

Troubled by the woman's odd expressions, and sensing she didn't seem to want to frame him up, Nightmare Yi Ji, who had been a substitute teacher for several days, temporarily relaxed and couldn't help but correct her:

"'Determined to win' shouldn't be used like that. Although the meaning can barely be conveyed, this phrase is usually used to describe a goal you wish to achieve or something you want to obtain, and can't be directly used to describe your destination."

"Oh!"

Confronted with Nightmare Yi Ji's correction, the woman nodded as if having a sudden realization. Then from her frail, almost ungraspable waist, she pulled out a small notebook and asked eagerly:

"Then if I want to express this sentence, what should I use to pour out my heartfelt emotions?"

"You should use... forget it..."

Seeing the woman randomly stuffing another idiom into her sentence, Nightmare Yi Ji, after opening his mouth, couldn't hold back and asked:

"What exactly do you want? Directions or a question?"

"Oh, directions, primarily directions!"

Finding that the scholarly and kind-hearted nightmare in front of her didn't seem very eager to help resolve her questions, the woman reluctantly put away her little notebook, nodding slightly with a regretful smile:

"I just learned the language here recently, not very fluent yet, really regrettable."