While other children opened their eyes, Dehua was still in the dream world with Liwu. Inside the fading dream, Liwu hugged the boy. "It’s okay. I have had my moments when I wanted to create a world of my own and gather everyone I wanted and trap them inside. I would force them to love and accept me. But trapping people does not keep them. It just makes them dislike you. You and your friends can play outside."

"I can’t." Dehua wailed. "My sickness is bad. The doctors, my parents, don’t allow me to play outside. My bones break easily. I can’t even go to school. I have never even been to amusement park."

She smiled weakly, pigtails flying in the wind. "I have a special pill that will make your sickness go away. Then, you can go and play in the amusement park all you want."

The boy just cried even more. "I know about the special pill. I heard mommy asking the doctor about it. He said the list is long, and I am number 6897. It will be six years before I reach the top 100."

She patted his back. "I know someone who makes the special pill." She whispered, like it was a secret meant for them two alone. "He is my brother. As soon as we leave this dream, I will get the pill for you. If I lie, may I...hmmm...what’s the worst punishment you can think of?

"Picking up my dog’s poop." He replied.

She chuckled. "If I lie, I will become the official dog poop picker for you, Xie Dehua. But I am not lying, and you know why?"

He shook his head.

"Because my mother is Tai Alix." She replied. "I am Tai Liwu. Maybe you don’t know...."

"I know you." He pushed away from her, staring at her as if she was the devil. "You are the lady with the bad luck." He looked at his empty world and screamed. "No wonder you ruined it all." Suddenly, he vanished.

Liwu opened her eyes, in the hospital bed, her team cheering around her.

She smiled weakly, croaking, "Is it over?"

Ali nodded, "Yes, it is. The boy, Dehua, he opened his eyes ten seconds before you did. Doctors are checking on him now and we are preparing to transport him away for an extraction."

She sighed. "Good, good. Mom, give him a bone growth pill. On my bill."

Alix raised her eyebrows. "I read the file. He has Osteogenesis Imperfecta. I already made a deal with his parents. In exchange for a cure, we will take his system and wipe his memories of ever being a host. The rest of the families are signing NDA’s and their memories will be wiped as well, just in case one feels the need to talk to the media.

The doctor’s and nurses will be allowed to keep their memories, just in case this happens again. But, no records of the event are to be kept and they will also sign NDA’s. This little incident is going into the black files. A team of agents is going to be assigned the task of finding every host with a dream system in the country.

According to Qiren, who abandoned you in the dream world three hours ago, there are at least eight that she has met."

This was not the first black file case the team had worked, so they knew how things operated. The case would not even be made a public record. It was as if they had investigated a ghost case. Which was what the officers called such cases.

"How did you get the kid to wake up, other than causing chaos?" He Xiao Yi asked curiously.

Liwu giggled, tipping her head back against the pillow. "I said my name, thinking the kid did not recognize me. He did. He said, ’you are the bad luck lady,’ screamed and vanished immediately."

Everyone in the room laughed.

Alix touched Liwu’s shoulder. "Look at that, your bad luck has turned you into the boogeyman of the country."

"Try world." She replied. There had been some people in Austria that went out of there way not to be near her. Her bad luck had made her famous world wide. She was like a black cat! Only, their case was a myth, while hers could be proven.

One by one, the team mates, technicians, her sister and mother and everyone else left. Only Weijun remained, and he was squeezing her hand tightly. "You were reckless. You were in the dream world for eight hours Liwu. Look outside, it is already getting dark."

She snorted. "I was right. If I had known that saying my name was all it would take to end this, I would have announced it loudly when I walked into that dream amusement park. It would have saved me the nightmare of having to run around in squeaky shoes, giggling like a seven year old."

Weijun laughed softly. "Squeaky shoes!!!"

"Yeeees!" Liwu hissed, voice raspy as if it had been dry for so long. "Squeaky pink shoes! As if that was not bad enough, I noticed later that they had glowing lights at the back." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Weijun’s laughter became louder.

"And I had pig tails!"

He gasped.

She covered her eyes with one hand, groaning loudly. "Pigtails and squeaky shoes. What in the world was my sister thinking? I can assure you that I never wore such attire in my life. Oh, I feel so humiliated, even though nobody actually saw me."

"Qiren is somebody." He reminded her.

She groaned again. "You mean she is something. I can’t believe she decided to exit the dream world and leave me in there when she was my way in! I knew that dream walker could not be trusted."

There was a knock on the door, and a nurse entered, pushing a cart. "More fluids. and dinner." She announced.

Weijun got up to rearrange the bed and set the table partition for her manually. Meanwhile, Liwu frowned because the nurse looked familiar. "Aren’t you my cousin Zhang Rulan?"

The nurse nodded. "Yeah, I started the job here yesterday. Anyway, just a heads up, there is a whole bunch of relatives about to descend on you in twenty minutes. Sangzhu shared a picture of you in the hospital bed and said you had a fever."

Liwu paled. "Oh no!"

Rulan chuckled deviously. They would be bringing more flowers, gift baskets, pills and a whole lot of noise. And this was not as bad as the fussing of the older women. Her family’s hospital visits were as chaotic as their parties.

Then Rulan said something that had Liwu freeze. "There is a three second video of you from your childhood going around in the family chats. Squeaky shoes, a pink frilly dress and pigtails." She giggled.

Weijun groaned.

Liwu sat up, throwing the blanket to the side, roaring, "I am going to kill her."