Light Fortress-Chapter 77 - 75 The Broken Pocket Watch
77: Chapter 75: The Broken Pocket Watch
77 -75: The Broken Pocket Watch
Gu Shen let out a small sigh.
The second hypnosis was inevitable…
Zhou Yexin turned out to be sharper than others, she even caught a glimpse of her own Chi Huo.
However, before hypnosis, he decided to tell Sister Xiao Xin the truth she had been tirelessly searching for.
“That wisp of flame…
is the same kind of thing as your pocket watch,” Gu Shen said calmly, “There are indeed phenomena in this world that science cannot explain…
Your research direction is correct, and your thinking is not flawed.
Dreams and the material world are intricately linked; they influence each other.
Matter affects the spirit, and the spirit, in turn, can determine matter.”
“This is one of the reasons…
Mr.
Tang Qingquan sent me here.”
Gu Shen affirmed Zhou Yexin’s experimental direction.
But unexpectedly, she did not show any signs of relief or relaxation.
Calm.
Very calm.
Just calm.
Discovering the Transcendent in the ordinary world is a lonely road fraught with thorns and wind snow; from her studies in Central Continent to sampling in Da Du, this woman’s experiments had led her through untold hardships.
“I know.”
But she just smiled, looking at her pocket watch, and said, “… My experiment is right, I’ve always known.”
She lifted her head, “Are you and Mr.
Tang the same kind of people?”
“Yes…
In a way, we are all the same, except that a small portion of fellows are somewhat luckier.”
Gu Shen did not know what made Sister Xiao Xin so determined.
He suddenly thought of the Awakening Decree, of what Cui Zhongcheng had said by the lake – that Transcendent Awakening could be controlled by humans, and if one day the decree was truly issued, then everyone might have the potential to become a Transcendent.
Perhaps one day, the secrets of Transcendents would no longer be secrets.
After a moment of silence, he looked into Zhou Yexin’s eyes and said seriously, “Our kind of people…
are called ‘Transcendents.'”
“Transcendents…”
Zhou Yexin murmured softly, lowering her eyelids, and her hair fell forward, covering her cheeks.
No one saw the slight moistness in her eyes.
She took a deep breath, wiped her face, and when she looked up again, the Chi Huo flickered on the young man opposite her.
“Sister Xiao Xin, thank you for taking care of me these past few days…” Gu Shen’s voice was very soft, “Now is not the time, please forget all this.”
The Chi Huo flickered.
The pocket watch ticked, fighting against Gu Shen this time.
Zhou Yexin smiled with satisfaction, holding the pocket watch.
The next moment, as the owner’s will succumbed to sleep, the hands of the pocket watch ceased their agitation…
“Finally…
it’s just us now.”
Gu Shen’s gaze focused on the malfunctioning pocket watch, his Chi Huo swept out, coming to rest at the spot between Zhou Yexin’s brows, slowly melting in, “Let me have a good look in the Dream, at your true origin.”
…
…
Vehicles sped by.
The sunlight was glaring.
Opening his eyes, Gu Shen saw shadows of cars streaking across the asphalt road, the roaring and clamor suddenly receding in his ears.
This was the first time he had entered such a bright and warm Dream, without any oppressive clouds or peculiar rules; it felt like a very real world on an afternoon, and he could even sense that his mood was quite cheerful…
He originally intended to investigate the origin of Zhou Yexin’s pocket watch during this hypnosis session.
This Extraordinary Item contained a weak aura, but it still fell within the category of sealed items.
“The earliest memory of the pocket watch…
is it from childhood?”
Gu Shen lowered his head.
He saw his own tender, pale palms.
Then…
he felt himself slowly walking forward; although he could move his gaze freely, his body’s movements were not under his control.
The owner of this body was the childhood Zhou Yexin.
Although he had come to the Dream, he was just a spectator, or rather, a ghost dwelling within the host’s shell.
“Be careful.”
A broad, powerful palm landed on top of his head.
Gu Shen saw a tall man in a suit, holding “himself”.
The man’s voice was warm, comforting, though his face was obscured by a mass of scrambled code…
“Is this…
Zhou Yexin’s father?” Gu Shen was startled, “But…
why can’t I see his face?”
The girl in the Dream murmured with a hint of grievance in her voice.
“Dora is missing… ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
I need to find her…”
The man crouched down, his face a torrent of scrambled code, yet his voice remained heartwarmingly gentle, “Don’t cry, daddy will buy you another one.”
“But…
another one…
won’t be Dora…”
The girl sobbed and vigorously wiped her cheeks, straining to look across the street, her voice intermittent, “I lost Dora…
I have to find her…”
The man whose face couldn’t be seen extended a hand, wiping away the tears on the girl’s face.
“No crying, okay?
If you cry and your face gets all smeared, you won’t look pretty…
Daddy will take you to find Dora.”
He led the girl across the street, then through the grass.
Gu Shen noticed…
the colors in this Dream had suddenly changed.
The originally warm sunshine began to fade, clouds covered by leaden skies, and the bustling sounds of car horns no longer filled the air.
The whole world became quiet, desolate.
The man holding her hand, however, walked with steady steps, exuding a very strong sense of security.
The two eventually stopped in front of a villa, red bricks with white tiles.
The day had ended.
Leaden skies pressed down.
At this moment, the Dream was no longer warm as it began but instead emanated an immense sense of oppression from every direction.
“Daddy…
I see Dora!”
The girl shouted with joy, under the eaves of the villa hung a rabbit doll, the small toy swinging in the wind.
Her expression of delight froze after she took just one step, her voice coming to an abrupt halt.
The once immaculate little rabbit doll now had its chest pierced, its body hollowed out, and a red string hung it up, shaking and covered with mud.
“We found Dora,” said the man softly.
“Xiao Xin, stand here and don’t move.
Daddy will bring Dora back home.”
He walked toward the villa.
Thunder rumbled from within the leaden clouds.
As the thunder sounded, the villa in the Dream suddenly exploded, large shards of glass bursting forth, a fierce Chi Huo wave spurted from inside, a fiery blaze shot straight to Skytop, the mighty flames instantly swallowing up Daddy’s figure—
The girl stood there dazed, her pupils reflecting a fierce crimson inferno.
She was standing on the edge of a sea of fire.
At her feet, a small flame had just sprung up from the wild grass, immediately extinguished by the pouring rain.
Thunder trembled, rain poured down, and the whole world was ice-cold in its silence, with only the ruined villa dancing in the soaring firelight, which felt as hot as a purgatory.
A tall figure in the core of the explosion got hit by the massive impact, was thrown into the air the moment it happened, and crashed heavily to the ground, but he did not die…
He struggled to his feet, knelt on the ground, and slowly moved until he reached the boundary between the pouring rain and the searing tide, his trembling hand presenting a doll.
The rabbit doll’s surface was coated with a layer of light red, as if time had reversed, restored to its original clean and unblemished state.
“Daddy…”
The girl’s voice was soft.
She took the rabbit and hugged it tightly in her arms.
She recognized the man who had been burned beyond recognition.
This time, the man didn’t wipe her tears away.
His hand lifted somewhat awkwardly, wanting to reach out, but ultimately held back.
“Xiao Xin…
be good from now on…”
The man smiled gently, the crimson flames having engulfed him completely, making him look like a tragic bloodied figure.
These were flames that ordinary people couldn’t understand, blood-red and blinding, as though they could swallow everything, burn everything.
The wind howled, the blood-red light in the storm flickered wildly, like evil ghosts laughing maniacally.
Daddy’s figure was burned by fire, blown out by the wind, shattered by the rain.
The firestorm raged on for a long time, the girl stood in the rain, holding the rabbit tightly, as countless passersby walked through the Dream’s world.
They were unimportant, leaving behind only dark silhouettes and blurred faces in the Dream.
In the end, the sirens wailed softly, ambulances arrived.
Many people gathered in front of this burned-out sea of fire, they spectated, investigated, collected evidence.
But they didn’t find anything here.
Not even a shred of cloth to prove that this man had existed; all had been turned to nothing.
Only a lonely survivor remained…
a little girl holding a rabbit doll.
After a long while, when everyone else had left,
there were no more clear skies in the Dream after the fire, just endless rain, a world shrouded in darkness.
“…”
The little girl felt a hard object inside Dora’s body.
“Click.”
“Click.”
In the silent Dream, a rhythmic, monotonous ticking sound emerged.
The girl pulled out from inside the rabbit doll the only thing her father had left behind in the fire.
It was a pocket watch.
The watch had suffered severe damage, its face was shattered, it could no longer keep time correctly, and its hands were permanently stuck at the 12 o’clock mark.
But.
It was still ticking.
