The instant he entered the room, Xiao Cheng felt his sanity, which had been on the verge of collapse, recover slightly.

This was a very ordinary small room, except it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time and had accumulated quite a bit of dust.

Although he couldn’t smell anything in the dream, Xiao Cheng could feel that inside and outside the room were like two different worlds. The atmosphere here should be warm and cozy.

“Xia, I’m back from buying groceries,” the girl said again.

As soon as her words fell, Qi Xia’s figure emerged from the innermost room. He reached up to scratch the back of his head, his expression somewhat dazed.

“An…?” Qi Xia called out softly. “I’m… this is…”

Seeing Qi Xia himself appear, Xiao Cheng quickly stepped forward. “Hey! Brother Qi, can you hear me?”

But Qi Xia clearly couldn’t hear Xiao Cheng speaking. He only stared straight at the white-clothed girl before him.

“Brother Qi!”

Xiao Cheng stepped forward to tug at Qi Xia, but Qi Xia’s seemingly soft clothes were as hard as steel. No matter how Xiao Cheng touched them, they didn’t deform in the slightest.

“Brother Qi, your world is sick!” Xiao Cheng continued shouting loudly. “You need to find a way to maintain your mental state!”

But the loud voice didn’t even produce an echo in this room.

“Xia, you look very tired. What’s wrong?” the white-clothed girl asked.

“I… I don’t know either…” Qi Xia vigorously scratched his hair, as if trying to recall what had happened.

But looking at his expression, he had clearly already been affected. He was about to accept his dream.

After thinking for a long time, Qi Xia slowly said, “I feel like… I had a very long dream…”

“A dream?” The white-clothed girl smiled. “What kind of dream?”

“I don’t remember…” Qi Xia shook his head. “It was very chaotic… it felt like it lasted a very, very long time…”

“Oh…” Qi Xia nodded somewhat absent-mindedly.

The white-clothed girl reached out to pick up two plastic bags, revealed an unusually sweet smile, and then asked, “Xia, I bought two kinds of vegetables. Guess what I’m going to make today?”

Qi Xia froze for a moment, thought for a few seconds, and then said, “Bean sprouts… and braised eggplant?”

“Huh?” The white-clothed girl opened her mouth in surprise. “How did you guess?”

She placed the plastic bags on the kitchen counter, then opened them to show Qi Xia.

“I only bought two vegetables today—one is bean sprouts, and the other is eggplant. I didn’t expect you to guess it right away.”

“I…” Qi Xia smiled bashfully. “I was just guessing randomly…”

Seeing what was in those plastic bags, Xiao Cheng slowly opened his mouth wide. “Qi… Brother Qi… wait…”

Qi Xia still heard nothing. He took a step forward and embraced the white-clothed girl from behind, saying softly, “You’ve worked hard.”

“I’m not tired. Just wait, I’ll make it for you right away.”

Xiao Cheng looked toward the kitchen counter, his entire body turning cold.

The bag containing “bean sprouts” was completely filled with curved, writhing earthworms, while the bag containing “eggplant” held a blood-drenched heart.

“Brother Qi… can’t you see it…” Xiao Cheng asked with trembling lips. “What’s wrong with you?”

Xiao Cheng’s brain raced. Qi Xia’s dream was showing Xiao Cheng a situation he had never seen before.

Usually, people having nightmares knew they were having nightmares. They would panic, be afraid, and want to escape in their dreams until they woke up with a start. But Qi Xia was different.

His dream was already riddled with holes. The world outside the window was in complete chaos, and extremely abnormal phenomena had even appeared around him, yet in his eyes, everything seemed normal.

This wasn’t like having a dream—it was more like hypnotizing himself.

The white-clothed girl threw the bag of earthworms into the vegetable washing basket, then turned on the faucet. Dark, viscous blood flowed from the tap, continuously pouring over the writhing creatures in the basket.

Taking advantage of this moment, she walked to the cutting board, picked up the heart, and then grabbed the kitchen knife to skillfully cut it into irregular chunks. Her fair fingers were now covered in fresh blood.

Xiao Cheng covered his mouth with his hands several times, swallowing hard for a long while to keep himself from dry-heaving.

Qi Xia turned around with a blank expression and walked over to sit by the sofa.

Only then did Xiao Cheng realize this room was a bit strange. It was clearly a room for two people to live in, yet there was only a single-person sofa and a small dining table in the living room.

Theoretically, these two people had no way to sit down and eat at the same time.

“Brother Qi…”

Xiao Cheng followed Qi Xia’s steps into the living room, trying everything he could to get Qi Xia’s attention.

“Can you hear me?!”

He kept waving his hands in front of Qi Xia’s eyes, but Qi Xia sat with his head lowered, lost in thought, unable to see anything.

“This is just a dream!” Xiao Cheng shouted. “We’re both trapped in a dream!”

Qi Xia sat quietly for a while, then stood up again and slowly walked to the window to gaze outside.

Xiao Cheng followed Qi Xia’s gaze and discovered that he seemed to be gazing at the “sun” in the sky.

The massive pupil in the sky also twisted around at this moment to lock eyes with Qi Xia.

“Today’s sun… is so beautiful.”

“Brother Qi!”

Xiao Cheng no longer knew what to do. If Qi Xia couldn’t see, hear, or sense him at all, how could he rebuild his mental defense?

He was clearly the master of the dream, yet at this moment he seemed to have completely lost control of his own dream. What kind of bizarre situation was this?

Qi Xia didn’t notice Xiao Cheng at all. Instead, he lowered his head to look at the window. Just at this moment, a crack appeared on the window, visible to the naked eye.

Both Xiao Cheng and Qi Xia noticed this crack at the same time. Both of their expressions were somewhat strange.

Qi Xia extended a single finger to slowly trace along the crack, murmuring “strange” under his breath.

“Could this be the ’cause of the illness’…?” Xiao Cheng widened his eyes to look at the crack on the window, but immediately felt something wasn’t right.

Was this crack really caused by “dream invasion”?

He couldn’t even smooth out a wrinkle on Qi Xia’s clothes, yet someone could create a crack on this glass window?

“An…” Qi Xia called out softly.

“What is it?” The white-clothed girl raised her voice from the kitchen. “Xia, did you just say something?”

“Our window is broken…” Qi Xia murmured.

“The window…?”

The white-clothed girl walked out wearing a white apron. As she walked, she extended both hands to wipe them on the apron, and two bright red bloody handprints appeared on it.

“Huh…?” She walked to the window to take a look and discovered there was indeed a crack.

“How did this happen?” Qi Xia asked.

“I don’t know…” The white-clothed girl smiled and shook her head.

“Was it a bird?” Qi Xia blinked, though his expression seemed somewhat vacant. “But I didn’t see any bird just now…”

“Maybe someone played a prank?”

The white-clothed girl raised her hand to cover her mouth as she laughed softly. Then she slowly turned her head, wearing a face full of sweet smiles as she looked toward Xiao Cheng.

“Don’t you think so?”