Chapter 30: Dreams

The fantasy creatures absolutely could not accept the changes in their creator.

“Our Big Bro could never go bald!”

“It might be hormonal hair loss. Staying up late long-term can do that. Look at that guy—those dark circles are massive,” Tao Fangyi said gently. “With dark circles that bad, he’s definitely pulled a lot of all-nighters and lost a lot of hair.”

“My Wenwen would never be a mean, vicious woman!”

“She was pretty gentle and sweet when chatting with her aunt. Her smile was quite lovely,” Tao Fangyi felt the woman hadn’t turned into some evil creature either. “It’s perfectly normal to act differently in front of your boss.”

Tao Fangyi had been working hard, and finally, he managed to make the fantasy creatures believe their creators had turned into boring adults.

Tao Fangyi breathed a sigh of relief, while the fantasy creatures wept and wailed in despair.

“You see, letting them know their creators didn’t abandon them unties the knot in their hearts,” Tao Fangyi said with relief.

Wang didn’t think so. Wang felt these fantasy creatures were even more stuck now.

After all, compared to being forgotten by one’s lover or brother, what’s far harder to accept is the other party becoming someone unrecognizable.

Wait, what were that older female cousin and her uncle and aunt talking about earlier?

Oh, right. She’s getting married and wants to bring her boyfriend over to meet her uncle and aunt.

Wang lacked a physical body, so he could wander the house freely, and he did love collecting gossip.

While the fantasy creatures were crying, Wang relayed the older female cousin’s situation to Tao Fangyi.

This family’s older female cousin and older male cousin were the children of the male homeowner’s older brother. Their mother was also once a close friend of the female homeowner.

The siblings’ parents died in an accident when the kids were young, so they were raised by this family, making their relationship far closer than ordinary cousins.

“I saw a picture of her boyfriend. He’s a doctor. Square head, blocky face. Can’t call him handsome, can’t really call him ugly—just whatever,” Wang reported.

Those handsome men with built-in special effects were weeping so hard they nearly ran out of breath.

Wang glanced their way, then continued discussing the older male cousin’s situation: “That older male cousin got married ages ago and even has a daughter now. His phone is completely full of photos of his daughter and his wife. Oh, and their cat—they have one really, really fat cat.”

That crowd of burly men and copy-pasted beauties wept even more bitterly.

Tao Fangyi didn’t catch on. He was still clapping for the happy lives of those two people.

Tao Fangyi thought this was merely a painful adjustment period for the fantasy creatures. He never imagined that, that very night, these imagined beings would break free from the constraints of the toy room and drag their creators into a dreamscape.

At first, Tao Fangyi didn’t register what was happening. He was teaching the physical toys to read while Wang was already asleep.

Truthfully, Tao Fangyi didn’t quite understand why Wang had lately been sleeping at regular hours like a human. He was a little worried something was wrong with Wang’s body.

What he didn’t know was that Wang wasn’t sleeping at all. Wang was simply waiting.

Wang was waiting for Tao Fangyi to come and hold him.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before he felt Tao Fangyi’s hand touching his body.

Wang couldn’t control himself and twitched slightly.

He heard Tao Fangyi’s puzzled voice: “Hm? Not sleeping soundly?”

Tao Fangyi rocked him gently, like soothing a child.

Truth be told, Wang didn’t lack physical contact. His mother always loved grooming his fur and liked to revert to her original form to snuggle up with his original form.

It was Wang himself who sensed things shouldn’t be that way and distanced himself on his own, yet his mother never seemed to understand why Wang disliked it.

Of course, Wenren Huaishu didn’t much care either. She’d just transform back to her original form, flop heavily onto the ground with a bang, and be perfectly comfortable that way.

But this kind of intimate contact from Tao Fangyi was very special, completely different from Wenren Huaishu.

Wang desperately wanted to lift a strand of Tao Fangyi’s hair and twine it around his fingers. He wanted to lick the puzzled expression right off Tao Fangyi’s face.

He held these thoughts until Tao Fangyi placed him down on the mattress.

Wang hadn’t originally intended to sleep, but under the influence of this atmosphere, he felt his eyes growing too heavy to keep open.

But just as he was about to slip into a sleeping state, an unfamiliar male voice rang out in the room: “Who are you?”

The owner of the voice was questioning Tao Fangyi.

Wang shot up instantly, staring intently at the black-clothed man who had suddenly appeared.

The dark-clothed man had no physical entity. His wide-sleeved long robe bore archaic patterns at the collar.

The robe was blurry, like a cloud of smoke that might scatter at any moment. The dark-clothed man was the same—the ends of his hair were likewise a drifting mist, floating in midair.

“Oh! You’re that blade spirit!” Tao Fangyi patted upward with his paw.

Wang grew even more vigilant. He threw off the blanket and stood up, positioning himself squarely between Tao Fangyi and the dark-clothed man.

The dark-clothed man only felt that the power within his body shared the same origin as Tao Fangyi’s. He skirted around Wang and continued facing Tao Fangyi directly. “You recognize me?”

“I’m that Big Wooden Cauldron!” Tao Fangyi explained. “The super huge one, the one that can kick people with its cauldron legs—the Big Wooden Cauldron!”

The man tilted his head.

“You’ve lost your memory?” Tao Fangyi asked him.

The man stood frozen for a long moment before finally remembering: “Oh! Right! I only exist because I gouged out a little decorative piece of you back then!”

After saying this, the man was somewhat ashamed. “Sorry. I was being completely nonsensical at the time.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Tao Fangyi waved a hand dismissively.

“It is not fine!” Wang once again stepped between the two of them. He stretched out his hand toward the dark-clothed man. “Give him his body back, or I’ll kill you.”

“I want to give it back,” the man said. “But since I’ve already awakened, it means some obsession connected with the me of back then has been stirred. That portion of power is with them, and it must be retrieved.”

“What’s your relationship with Liu Xuanyong?” Tao Fangyi was more concerned about his mission target.

“No relation whatsoever. It’s just that before dying in my first life, I left behind an obsession that latched onto this small piece of wood,” the man said. “Once the wood returns to your body, I will dissipate. This was never mine to begin with. I’ve been trapped here far, far too long. I share memories with every incarnation of the blade spirit. I’ve… dreamed so, so many dreams.”

“You can dream now?” Tao Fangyi remembered this blade spirit always bringing up the topic of dreams.

“If a life is but a dream, then yes, I can dream now.”

He had been a man, a woman, a rich man, a beggar. He had lived a perfect life, and he had been casually killed.

He had closed his eyes surrounded by sons and daughters, or hobbled alone on a cane up a hillside, waiting for the sun to rise so he could toss a rope over a tree branch.

So many, many dreams. So much he could not let go of.

The worst things happened to him, and the luckiest things happened to him too.

He had loved many people and finally understood what true love really looked like.

The man told his story in fits and starts. With his sharply defined face, he described his final day as an old lady.

After he finished, he asked Tao Fangyi how he had ended up in his current state.

Tao Fangyi then began recounting his own story.

The two sat facing each other, occasionally breaking into laughter.

Wang hid behind Tao Fangyi. He had now confirmed the other party wasn’t some major threat, but he still didn’t like him.

Just as they were about to continue discussing that man’s reincarnation, Wang warned: “It’s almost dawn. Don’t forget there are two groups of fantasy creatures, driven by obsession, who’ve trapped their creators.”

“They don’t want to kill anyone,” the man felt there was no rush.

Wang: “Daylight is coming. If they still can’t wake up by dawn, guess whether they’ll get sent to the hospital.”

“Right, right, right!” Tao Fangyi smacked his head. “We need to save them, fast!”

…

Liu Wen opened her eyes to a field of blinding white.

“Woman, you’re finally awake,” a deep, bubbly voice murmured beside her ear.

Liu Wen broke out in goosebumps. She sat up and looked toward the source of the voice, only to see no one at all.

There was nothing before her but mattress after mattress. And that dark, lumpy mass beside the mattress was probably the speaker.

This room was so huge it made one question the load-bearing capacity of the walls, given the total lack of structural pillars.

Liu Wen’s hands groped over the bed, searching for her glasses. But instead of finding them, she unearthed a bouquet of roses from a pile of blankets.

Liu Wen: …

Why did the roses have what looked like sparkling special-effect stars twinkling on them?

Was she dreaming?

A dream this lucid?

“Haha, you’ve found me out,” that man laughed.

A black shadow squirmed. Liu Wen couldn’t make out exactly what movement the other party made, since she lacked her glasses.

Speaking of which, did myopia carry over into dreams?

“Still unwilling to get up?” The man seemed to sigh. “So playful~ Fine, just this once, I’ll carry you down.”

The voice’s owner began to traverse mountains and rivers to reach her.

Liu Wen immediately fled in the opposite direction.

The man paused, then changed course.

Liu Wen also switched direction.

So they circled around and around, over and over.

The man kept calling out “So playful,” while Liu Wen became increasingly certain this strange man was sick in the head.

Running and running, she suddenly collided with something soft and squishy.

Liu Wen turned her head to look and discovered a two-meter-tall plastic dinosaur.

The giant plastic dinosaur opened its mouth and declared: “You cannot stay here!”

Liu Wen turned and sprinted, a little worried the man might chase after her. But then she realized the man was also sprinting.

This man was scared of the big dinosaur?

Between the man and the big dinosaur, there was one good person? And she had to make a choice?

What kind of death game was this?!

The giant plastic dinosaur was somewhat puzzled.

“You can’t blend in like that,” Wang had also run into this dream. He tapped the plastic dinosaur’s body. “You need to revert to your true form.”

Tao Fangyi changed back to his human form.

“Then put on a wool coat! A pair of leather shoes! A trench coat draped over your shoulders. Tie your long hair up in a low ponytail. Then grab a cane! Yes! That’s the vibe!” Wang looked over Tao Fangyi’s appearance and rubbed excitedly against his chest.

“Like this?” Tao Fangyi felt a bit awkward. “Should I get rid of my gloves?”

“No! Absolutely not!” After rubbing against him, Wang also altered his own appearance.

His height shrank, his figure became slender, his hair turned into silver curls, and his eyes became gold.

The current Wang could only be described as beautiful; he wasn’t the slightest bit dashing.

Though when he smiled, his mouth was still full of triangular teeth.

“I’m going to show them what a real villain looks like,” Wang giggled.

Tao Fangyi was somewhat uncertain. “Will this work to bring that girl back?”

“It’ll work~” Wang linked his arm with Tao Fangyi’s. “Uncle~ let’s go~”