Zhao Yixing didn’t look up at Fu Songcheng, as if the two before him were just a breeze threading through the forest.
His gaze was clear and persistent, fixed on the work in his hands. Every stroke of the knife turned up a fine layer of thin shavings from the bamboo’s skin.
“Uncle Zhao, this is fake.”
Bai Mu stepped forward, her tone earnest. “We’re trapped in an instance dream. If you don’t wake up, everyone will be stuck here. Dawn still needs you.”
Zhao Yixing remained deaf to it.
His movements were frighteningly precise, the carving knife wandering across the bamboo node, outlining an intricate dragon-scale pattern.
Fu Songcheng’s brows furrowed slightly.
Zhao Yixing was different from Bai Mu.
Bai Mu was a strong, ordinary girl—Fu Songcheng only needed to remind her once, and she’d push herself forward. But Zhao Yixing, an old-generation craftsman, carried a certain stubbornness—once he’d set his mind on something, when his temper rose, there was no changing it.
Might as well try physical awakening.
Bai Mu watched as Fu Songcheng’s dagger tip drew a light slice, leaving a thin red line on Zhao Yixing’s forearm.
Beads of blood seeped out.
Yet Zhao Yixing didn’t even frown; his hand steady as ever, the carving knife continuing to sculpt across the bamboo surface.
Time ticked by.
The light and shadow in the bamboo forest didn’t shift a fraction. Bai Mu couldn’t help growing anxious. This was only the third person, and twelve had to be awakened in total. Seven days were given—she worried whether they could finish.
“Uncle Zhao! Stop carving bamboo! We have to leave here quickly!”
Bai Mu stepped forward and shook Zhao Yixing, but it still had no effect.
Fu Songcheng looked around, his gaze sweeping over those verdant, drippingly green bamboos, and finally landing on the nearly finished work before Zhao Yixing.
“Since reason doesn’t work, then I’ll just have to play the villain.”
Fu Songcheng sneered. “Since you care about these bamboos, then let’s make it so there’s nothing left of what you care about to see.”
The moment the words fell, Fu Songcheng’s figure exploded into motion. He swung the dagger, slashing at the thickest nearby nan bamboo beside Zhao Yixing.
Crack!
The crisp snapping sound seemed especially jarring in the silent bamboo forest.
Fu Songcheng moved extremely fast. In the blink of an eye, three emerald bamboos to Zhao Yixing’s left crashed down, crushing fallen leaves all over the ground.
The Zhao Yixing who’d been still as an old monk in meditation jolted violently.
That one stroke had carved crooked.
Zhao Yixing finally raised his head.
He glared at Fu Songcheng with anger and helplessness. “Stop! You’re destroying my bamboo.”
“Finally looking up.”
Fu Songcheng halted, standing with his blade held across, calmly meeting his gaze. “I apologize for destroying your bamboo. Please leave here with me.”
Zhao Yixing’s fist landed on cotton—his anger had nowhere to vent. He stewed in it, then buried his head and started working again.
“If you still insist on staying, then even with an apology, I’ll destroy this whole place.”
Fu Songcheng’s tone was mild and respectful, but the content was hardly friendly. “No matter what, this is all an illusion. The works you create here—no one will appreciate them.”
Zhao Yixing sighed.
“You really are something.”
He looked at the crooked scratch mark, then at the broken bamboos, his anger gradually settling. “Couldn’t you have woken me at the very end? Let me stay a little longer.”
Zhao Yixing slowly set down the carving knife in his hand.
“The bamboo here has no earthy smell—clean and fragrant… I haven’t seen such good material in a long time, and you philistine went and chopped it.”
Zhao Yixing braced on his knees and stood, his originally hunched back seeming slightly straighter. “Let’s go.”
As Zhao Yixing relented, the surrounding bamboo forest began to fade like a watercolor washed by water.
When the three stood again in room 7401, the atmosphere fell into a brief silence.
Zhao Yixing looked down at his injured arm, then at Fu Songcheng. “Good thing you cut the forearm. If you’d cut my hand, I’d have fought you to the death.”
“It was urgent. Many apologies.”
“Uncle Zhao, forget your hand—leaving the instance is what matters.” Bai Mu handed Zhao Yixing a low-grade recovery potion; the wound Fu Songcheng had cut on her own hand hadn’t even healed yet.
Seeing the young girl like this, Zhao Yixing—a man past fifty—felt too ashamed to be willful and stubborn again, and declined the potion. “What do we do next?”
Fu Songcheng put away his dagger and looked at Bai Mu. “Bai Mu, the next moves proceed as planned. You and he go to the other players’ dreams together.”
From the look of it so far, the dreams weren’t dangerous—even if awakening failed, one would only be trapped.
Having spent half a day with Bai Mu, Fu Songcheng found her reliable. Though she was the key person to protect, he still decided to let her and Zhao Yixing wake the others together.
Bai Mu glanced at Zhao Yixing, confirmed his mental state was still acceptable, and only then said to Fu Songcheng: “We’ll split up to wake the remaining players. Uncle Zhao and I will find Mr. Lin Feng on the third floor. Mr. Fu, you go find…”
“I’ll go find Xu Zhun.” Fu Songcheng took out two love letters and gave them to Bai Mu. “If you run into a situation you can’t handle, contact me through this.”
“Mm, thank you, Brother Fu.” Bai Mu took the pink item, not daring to harbor the slightest romantic thought, and thanked him sincerely.
Fu Songcheng didn’t linger long in 7401. After settling Bai Mu and Zhao Yixing, he headed straight for the elevator.
Twenty-seventh floor. Xu Zhun.
Following the sound, Fu Songcheng pushed open the door of room 270861 and saw Xu Zhun sleeping. He cut Xu Zhun’s hand to enter his next dream layer.
In the dream, Xu Zhun kept using his skill to contact friends and family—from parents and relatives to classmates and close friends, even neighbors he hadn’t seen in years—asking through [Interstellar Broadcast] whether they were safe.
Only then did Fu Songcheng discover what a garrulous person he was—verbose, using a skill that let him communicate with anyone to send out masses of junk messages.
Unlike Yu Huaiting, who pestered him with nonsense and harassed him with blank love letters, Xu Zhun seemed to have endless pointless chatter—every skill use carrying much of his longing, blessings, and comfort for others.
Fu Songcheng clearly couldn’t out-talk Xu Zhun—talk therapy was useless. But Xu Zhun, no matter how many dream layers, was terribly afraid of pain. Fu Songcheng just kept cutting him with the knife, cutting through layer after layer, until the man woke himself up from the pain.
The cuts on his hand were almost enough to write the character for “tally.”
“Mr. Fu, isn’t there a more dignified way to wake me up?”
Xu Zhun looked at his hand and complained a little.
“There isn’t.”
Having woken Xu Zhun, Fu Songcheng hurried him onward without pause to the 1846th floor. In Xu Qingyao’s dream, she’d been promoted and gotten rich, reached the pinnacle of life, and was happily preparing to marry a handsome young man as her kept husband.
Suddenly she heard someone whispering by her ear, asking her to help buy things in the system shop.
This was Xu Zhun’s idea—because of the [Robbery Discount] skill, Xu Qingyao had to follow Chen Ke’s arrangements all day, milking the system shop to buy items and distribute them to all the Dawn players who needed them, while also training to prevent dying the moment she entered an instance.
Her days at Dawn were unspeakably miserable.
In just five short days, she’d gotten a full face of “workplace burnout.”
Now, hearing she was asked to buy items, she jolted alert, her face full of resistance and reluctance as she slowly woke.
“…”
“So it’s true—those closest to you know best how to hurt you.”
Fu Songcheng brought the two back to the hall.
At the giant clock in the hall, the clock now had four hands. The originally handless clock now had a pen-shaped hand, pointing at the calculator representing Xu Qingyao, Xu Zhun’s envelope, Bai Mu’s unopened gift box, and Zhao Yixing’s bamboo carving.
This clock should function something like a counter.
He looked down at his personal panel; the system timer showed eighteen hours had passed.
“Seven more to go.” Fu Songcheng didn’t dare let down his guard, because there was no hour hand on the clock pointing at himself.
The four people he’d awakened were all on the clock.
But the person who woke them wasn’t.
Just then, Zhao Yixing hurried out of the elevator, looking panicked.
“Mr. Fu! Something’s happened!” Zhao Yixing didn’t bother wiping his sweat, grabbing Fu Songcheng’s arm. “Bai Mu went to 3751 to find Mr. Lin Feng—it’s been six hours and she still hasn’t come out.”
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