"Gongsun has been sleeping for 12 hours."
Shigure Reiichi looked at the wall clock in the hall and made the above report.
It was now 12 noon, and he was dutifully observing the situation of his friends. Gongsun Ce lay motionless on a large piece of rice paper with complicated formations, occasionally humming, sleeping as soundly as a pig.
Yan Qi was holding a plate of fried shark fin and sea cucumber in front of the dining table and said without even looking at it: "I've been sleeping for 12 hours and I'm still in a shallow dream. Is he a pig?!"
The young man in a suit defended himself out of friendship: "He will be 20 years old in the second half of the year..."
The practice of impermanence usually begins in childhood. Children have simple thoughts and simple dream structures. They can enter deeper levels quickly under the care of teachers. Assistants can also use secret techniques to help young children find spiritual light.
But Gongsun Ce had more twists and turns in his heart than the wrinkles on a walnut. As his teacher, Yan Qi was watching from the side without any help, which made the time for him to fall asleep longer than usual. In Reiichi Shigure's opinion, it is normal for him to be unable to go deep into his dreams for a long time.
"You know better than me?"
The young man in a suit fell silent. Yan Qi released Kuaizi and said, "Wait!"
·
"Quack—! Huh—! Whoa, whoa, whoa—!"
The biochemical kangaroo made a crow-like cry and jumped more and more happily in the sandpit.
Gongsun Ce was so upset that he felt like vomiting. Even after much thought, he didn't know where he was doing. Why has the sun turned black? What is this ship in the sky? Why are there biochemical kangaroos in the desert? Everything seems inexplicable, but it is logical to experience it. He had just complained about where he was, but in his mind he naturally felt that he should be here.
Experience a wild desert kangaroo off-road race here.
The sense of dislocation and familiarity made him feel almost schizophrenic. Gongsun Ce subconsciously wanted to close his eyes and blend into the hot desert wind to experience the game. But vaguely, he heard a voice speaking next to his ear, and his tone sounded particularly annoying.
"Go deep, Gongsun boy."
Go deep, he muttered. Deep in the desert is an old apartment building. He wants to go there, go there...
After walking for so long, it’s time to arrive. Thinking like this, Gongsun Ce had an idea.
"drive!"
He pulled the reins - this thing shouldn't have been there just now, but it was there somehow - and the biochemical kangaroo responded loudly: "Quack!"
The kangaroo punched twice, pressed his body down, and rushed forward with his head buried in the air. They ran straight into the towering sand dunes and rushed out of the straight tunnel from the front, causing the mountains of yellow sand to collapse behind them, causing massive amounts of sand and dust to fly all over the sky in the wind. Not long after, the rampage of the biochemical kangaroo caused a sandstorm in the desert.
When the wind and sand covered the entire sky, they finally arrived at their destination and arrived in front of the old apartment building.
Gongsun Ce got off the kangaroo's back, patted his partner on the face, and said solemnly.
"Well done, my friend. A great adventure. I promise you, I've never had a Bio-Kangaroo Fort."
The biochemical kangaroo kept talking: "You lied. When the new product was first launched, you joined in the fun and bought one with Caldesia."
"I haven't eaten it since then. It tastes really bad." Gongsun Ce waved his hand, "Goodbye, good friend. Next time, remember not to play boxing hurdles on the road, as that will make everyone come and beat you up. you."
"Ah, bye my friend, bye~!"
The biochemical kangaroo sang a song, and its body turned into yellow sand and returned to the desert. Gongsun Ce cried sadly, with deep emotion and tears streaming down his face.
He sat in the dust and sobbed for a while before wiping away his tears and stepping into the apartment building.
The moment he stepped into the door, all the feeling of Mohu disappeared, the unnatural sense of harmony immediately disappeared, and calmness and reason returned to his mind. He clearly remembered the purpose of his trip: he was practicing in his dream, trying to find the spiritual light in his heart.
"--Wow."
And the so-called actions he didn't know just now were also clearly remembered by him. The gray-haired young man opened his mouth and said dryly: "People are really stupid when they dream."
·
There doesn't seem to be an elevator in the building. It was very weird. When he realized this, a spiral staircase suddenly appeared in front of him.
“That’s so thoughtful, thank you from my heart.”
Gongsun Ce muttered to himself and climbed up the stairs step by step. He confirmed that he was on the second floor, but the sign in the corridor said "0".
"Would it be the first floor below to go up? To be honest, this looks like a haunted apartment building." The gray-haired young man said nonchalantly, "Am I going up or down?"
He got the answer to this question in 0.1 seconds. The moment these words came out of his mouth, Gongsun Ce's feet were empty, and the original floor was replaced by endless darkness. Gravity pulled his body, causing the young man to fall to the bottomless depths.
"This trap is too old-fashioned. Do I have such nostalgic taste?"
He sighed and said without any expectations: "Let you see my super power floating..."
He couldn't use his telekinesis, nor could he use his white matter. The feeling of powerlessness belonging to ordinary people reminded him of Xu Junyi's Inch Yin Game. The wind howled and the young man fell, leaving only a dry muttering in the empty corridor.
"I knew it."
·
Gongsun Ce felt that his thoughts were firmly bound by some kind of force. The thoughts that usually scattered in his mind were now squeezed into a very small area, as slender as a steel needle.
He was descending in the lightless darkness, heading towards unknown yet familiar territory. Thoughts like steel needles twitched in his mind, and the stinging sensation awakened memories from the recent past. He had experienced this feeling before, in mid-February, when he drove Yan Qi's ink sword into his heart...
He was heading to the depths of his heart, falling towards the place where the Final Sword was sealed.
Unlike last time, this time Gongsun Ce felt down to earth after only a very short period of time. His eyes flashed, and he found himself standing in front of a familiar door. The iron gate has the house number 707, which is his residence in the Sky Capital.
There was only one door standing alone in the darkness, like a misplaced scene map in a game. He glanced around and found some magical light spots not far away from him, which were colorful and colorful. The light started to vibrate as soon as he paid attention to it, and all kinds of strange objects were reflected in it. He was attracted to it as soon as he saw it, and subconsciously wanted to walk over...
Gongsun Ce quickly looked away and looked back at the door. He still remembered what Yan Qi taught him about the precautions for dreaming.
To explore the true spirit, one needs to enter dreams, and the lightless sea of mind turns into a deep abyss. All the wonders are illusions, and the plainness remains the same... This is the formula taught to him by the painter in black, and what he remembers more clearly is the popular explanation: the soul without aura is as black as an abyss, and there are all kinds of messy things in it. All. Look away from any signs that seem unusual and look for the symbols that are most familiar to you.
A key appeared out of thin air in Gongsun Ce's hand. As he opened the door, he thought, what would happen if he really encountered those light spots? Could it be that he was insane, or a real mental illness... The more he thought about it, the more likely it was. He couldn't help but shudder, and hurriedly stepped into the door of the dream room.
The dazzling feeling came over again, and this time Gongsun Zhiyi slightly adapted. He found that there were no lights on in his living room, but it was extremely lively. Four people were gathering around a square table in silence, not knowing what they were doing. Seeing Gongsun Ce coming, they all said together: "You are finally here, Gongsun Ce. Everyone is waiting for you!"
The superpower's expression remained unchanged, and he said with a smile: "I'm sorry to keep everyone waiting. I'll turn on the light in a moment."
As soon as he finished speaking, the light turned on automatically. The room was bright, allowing him to see the four guests clearly.
Facing him was an unclear mosaic. The shape of the thing kept shaking, like an old TV screen that had lost its signal, or like a video file that had run incorrectly on a computer and been moved into the real world. The mosaic monster made a girlish voice: "Ah, it's so bright!"
This contrast made Gongsun Ce tremble. He quickly looked at the other three people and found that there was not even a human-like thing sitting at home!
"Ouch!" Sitting on the left side of the plane monster was a beast-shaped flame. This thing burned his beloved furniture, and he roared repeatedly, but couldn't utter a single human word.
There was a large white robe floating on the right hand side. The white robe was stained with dirty blood. There was an emptiness under the robe and no body could be seen. There was a beautiful half-gold and half-gray mask where the face should have been.
The white-robed monster looked at him through the mask and asked with a smile: "Are you having a nightmare again, Gongsun?"
It's hard to say this isn't a nightmare. Children may wake up crying when they see their home turned like this.
Gongsun Cegan smiled and said: "Hahahaha how could it be possible? Mr. Gongsun, my sleep quality has been quite high recently... Thank you for your concern, Mr. Shiyu."
The white-robed monster accepted the title as if nothing had happened, and then talked with him about chess and card games. The guests seemed to be playing a card game in his home, and there happened to be one missing from the group. "Gongsun Ce, it's just you~" "Won't you come and play, Gongsun?" "Ooooooo!" The three monsters enthusiastically invited him, but the thing that had been turning its back to him said nothing. hair.
Gongsun Ce looked at the appearance of the last monster. This guy looked particularly special: it wasn't even a living thing.
It is a piece of wood as tall as a person, with countless cold weapons densely inserted on it. It points the sharp tip at everything except itself, but also stabs the end of the weapon into its own body.
Taped to the top of the wood was a crude crayon drawing of a childish smiling face.
Gongsun Ce felt even more chilled. He forced a smile and said, "Everyone is dressed up in a very special way today, haha?"
"You look different from usual!" Mosaic Monster said cheerfully, "I have a mirror here, do you want to take a look?"
He refused forcefully, almost rudely. The monsters were not angry, but just invited him to "come and play" again and again.
Gongsun Ce almost agreed immediately. He really thought it was a good suggestion, and even took two steps unconsciously, but he still remembered his purpose.
"Wait a moment, I'll go get something from the house."
After dealing with it casually, he walked towards the bedroom door——
"Ace, do you want to go inside?"
At this time, a familiar voice came from behind. Not surprisingly, those were Qin Qianbai's words.
"If you go further in, you will see something unpleasant." The eldest lady's voice said, "You might be sad."
Gongsun Ce was silent for a few seconds.
"Thank you, miss. I'll just go inside and take a look, and I'll be right back."
He resisted the desire to look back, pushed open the bedroom door, and stepped in without looking back. In an instant, the sense of confusion when the scene changed reappeared.
This time Gongsun Ce found himself standing in a deep tunnel, with countless fuel torches on both sides illuminating the space. He tried reaching for the torch and found that he could easily remove it.
The torch he took down contained scenes of past memories, scenes of him talking endlessly in front of others. There is no doubt that Gongsun Ce is a talker. The torch is very bright. If you take this thing back, it should be able to illuminate a large area of darkness.
He observed the surroundings under the light of the fire, and found that there was a small sign under each torch: "Superpower", "Helping", "Kind", "Zhai", "Strong"...
"Fake, all fake. All illusions..."
Gongsun Ce thought quietly and hung up the torch. He walked deeper into the tunnel, and with every step he took, a beam of fire went out. When he reached the end, all the flames were gone. With his naked eyes gradually getting used to the darkness, he could vaguely make out that there was another door at the end of the tunnel, a door carved on the stone wall.
There was a small Maza in front of the door, and sitting there was a person he was very familiar with. He couldn't see his appearance in the darkness, but Gongsun Ce immediately understood who it was.
"Brother, are you looking after the door?"
The eldest brother in the darkness replied leisurely: "Yes, isn't this to help you guard the door? There are so precious treasures inside the door. If it were anyone else, they wouldn't be allowed in."
"Wow, thank you very much. Brother, can you answer my question by the way? Why don't I see Orianna and the others in my heart, but Qiluo, who I have only known for a few days, is there?"
"Because you haven't seen them for a long time. Dreams are related to memory. No matter how deep the friendship between friends was three years ago, they can't be remembered as clearly as friends who meet every day. It's like you came here on a biochemical kangaroo. , why are you sitting on this thing?"
The last time Gongsun Ce saw a biochemical kangaroo was in January this year. A small accident occurred in a laboratory that was trying to mass produce biochemical animals, causing three thousand biochemical kangaroos to jump onto the streets of the Sky City and start passionate fistfights with the superpowers celebrating the New Year. The competition makes the city in the sky full of a different flavor of the New Year. He had to say that he was impressed by the strength of these animals' feet, second only to their unpalatable flesh.
"I understand." He walked towards the door on the stone wall, "Let's go, thank you brother..."
The young man in the darkness stretched out his hand to stop him.
"Ace, this is the door for the real you to enter. People who don't even want to look like themselves can't enter."
Gongsun Ce frowned: "Brother, please be accommodating..."
"There's nothing to talk about. Go back, look in the mirror, and make your own choice."
Gongsun Ce took off his glasses and wiped them carefully for half a minute before putting them back on.
"good."
In an instant, the once extinguished torches lit up at the same time, illuminating Mo Yuankai's face and the stone door at the end of the tunnel. The stone door was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the firelight, allowing him to see clearly what he looked like now.
He smiled wildly in the mirror, his eyes full of self-esteem. Gongsun Ce in the mirror was wearing an exaggerated black suit embroidered with gold patterns, and a red-on-black cape draped behind him. His hair, which was deliberately long, was tied into a single ponytail at the back of his head, and his face was much more childish than now.
This image is undoubtedly completely different from what he is now, and the biggest difference is his hair color: Gongsun Ce now has his iconic gray hair, but the hair of the person in the mirror is as black as the night sky.
Gongsun Ce raised his hand and touched the ponytail and cloak behind him. "He looks like a funny clown," he said with a deadpan expression.
Everything in the tunnel was illuminated, except Mo Yuankai who was still sitting in the dark corner, not showing his true face. He smiled and said, "Don't be like that, Ace. I think he's quite handsome."
"I know this is my own idea, but thank you anyway."
Gongsun Ce stretched out his hand towards the mirror door. The moment he touched the mirror, a dazzling light struck his eyes——
·
When the light dissipated, he found himself back in the original old building. This time he arrived on the 7th floor and was in front of the door of Room 7, but what he saw was no longer the door of his room in the Sky City.
In front of him was a bronze security door with a security net between the iron bars. It looked like it had been used for several years. Through the anti-theft net, you can see another off-white door with an upside-down word "福" on it and several animated stickers stuck on by children.
There is a faint smell of oil smoke in the corridor, the harsh chirping of cicadas comes from outside the building, and there is a faint and unpleasant piano sound. It must be that the neighbor's child upstairs is practicing the piano again... These are unforgettable and familiar impressions. Awakening the memories hidden deep in his heart. Gongsun Ce suddenly realized that he finally knew why there was this building deep in the desert.
This is the place where he has lived the longest since he was born and grew up. It is an old residential building that he has not seen for nine years.
This is the home where Gongsun Ce lived for ten years.
"...very reasonable."
The superpower took out the old key with some sadness and returned to his real home. He tentatively shouted: "Mom, Dad, I'm back!"
No one answered.
Gongsun Ce took out his pocket watch. The current time was five o'clock in the afternoon. He remembered that his parents had gone out to work at this time, and it would be some time before they returned.
The appearance of the home was exactly the same as before he left: the new sofa, the old TV that had been used for several years, the peony paintings hanging on the wall, the small square table piled with remote controls and books... He looked at them one by one, almost thinking Sitting here waiting for my parents to come back. But the person with superpowers did not lose his memory, and he did not forget the purpose of his dream. Gongsun Ce reluctantly looked away and held the door handle of his room.
His intuition told him that this was the deepest he could reach in this dream.
"call……"
Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the last door.
There is a small bed next to the wall, and above the bed is a bookshelf filled with fairy tale books. Next to the bed is his desk, which is also filled with various toys that he loved when he was a child... His house is exactly the same as before he left, with only a few more something.
There is one more person.
There was a mature woman sitting at the desk with her back to him.
She wore a deerstalker hat, a dark blue top, black trousers, and a long brown windbreaker. Her long silver hair was spread behind her head. She was as pure and beautiful as the new snow in winter, firmly attracting his attention. look.
After hearing the sound of entering the door, the woman turned her head and looked into Gongsun Ce's eyes. Their eyes met instantly, because Gongsun Ce lowered his head subconsciously.
She looked unchanged from the past, and the gray twin children were exactly the same as in his memory, which almost made Gongsun Ce suffocate.
The silver-haired woman stood up from her seat and said calmly.
"Long time no see, Ce."
Gongsun Ce stumbled and was at a loss.
"I haven't seen you for a long time, Miss Alandia. I, I'm surprised. Really, I didn't expect to see you here."
He spoke faster and faster, injecting more emotion into his words. That is different from surprise and joy, a different kind of emotion.
"I, I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous, I'm overwhelmed. I really, I don't know what to say. I mean..."
Gongsun Ce clenched his fists little by little, stared at the woman in front of him, and shouted with unprecedented fury.
"—Get out of my heart, Knight of the Dawn!
"
