茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

So, at Xia Libing’s suggestion, Xiang Kun looked up some recipes online and processed some of the box of roses. He then made a large pot of rose scrambled eggs.

Before serving it to Old Xia, Xiang Kun tasted a few mouthfuls, sampled the flavor, but didn’t swallow it down.

Although it was his first time cooking it and he had not made many specific taste adjustments, he had basically followed the recipe. But surprisingly, the taste was not bad. It was a refreshing delicacy.

He had not expected roses to have this “practical” use. If it weren’t for Old Xia’s suggestion, he wouldn’t have known it before.

However, the cost of using Valentine’s Day roses for scrambled eggs is quite high—one bite costs dozens of yuan.

After eating a large plate of rose scrambled eggs in three minutes, Xia Libing looked at the still dark sky outside the window and said, “That was Officer Zhao’s dream just now.”

Xiang Kun nodded, “I know, it’s Officer Xiao Zhao who was in charge of our case before the New Year. If I remember correctly, his name should be Zhao Feng.”

Xia Libing asked, “Is the one in his dream related to your emotional projection of the wood carving?”

“Did you notice that too?”

“I guessed it,” Xia Libing replied.

So, Xiang Kun shared his intuition from the dream and the possible ways Officer Xiao Zhao might have learned about the ‘Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving’ emotional projection with Xia Libing.

What surprised Xiang Kun a bit was that after pondering for a while, Xia Libing shook her head and said, “He must have heard more than just the image from the case of the car thieves at the abandoned warehouse in the Yun Gang District. Otherwise, the virtual image coming from a single information source would have at least some related scenes or elements appear when it co-manifests in dreams subconsciously.”

Xiang Kun also nodded thoughtfully. Indeed, in the dream, the scene where the “giant” appeared and some of its characteristics didn’t seem to have come only from the hallucinations seen by the car thieves in Yun Gang District.

So Xiang Kun quickly recalled in his mind, up until now, who might have intersected with Officer Xiao Zhao through dreams or illusions.

Meanwhile, Xia Libing continued to analyze Officer Xiao Zhao’s perception of the “multi-armed giant” and his judgement based on what she observed in her dream, to help Xiang Kun determine the origin of this monstrous image in Officer Xiao Zhao’s dream.

Xiang Kun was initially uncertain, but after Old Xia’s analysis, he immediately found a direction of suspicion.

Experiencing an Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster in a dream affected by “emotion-infused objects”, and perceiving an Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster illusion “emotionally projected” in reality, have different emphases for the person experiencing them.

And the physical traits and movements of the “giant” in Officer Xiao Zhao’s dream suggested that whoever had described the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster to him had likely experienced the illusion in reality.

Based on this, there were only three possibilities: the three suspects scared by Xiao Pingguo’s illusion on New Year’s Eve night; the three car thieves scared by Xiang Kun’s illusion at the abandoned factory in Yun Gang District; or Qi Haoguo, who had been “projected and manifested” by Xiang Kun outside Tongshi Town on the national highway the previous year.

Based on Old Xia’s analysis, the scenes exhibited in Officer Xiao Zhao’s dream indicated that the source of the description was not or not solely derived from the car thieves in the abandoned factory. Therefore, it was either described by the three suspects scared by Xiao Pingguo’s illusion, or it was Qi Haoguo.

From a positional standpoint, it seemed likely that Officer Xiao Zhao had contacts in both parties and had ways to obtain information.

However, if the scope narrowed down to these two parties, the subsequent investigation could be much easier. Besides, there was an easier way—”a dream within a dream” again, just let Old Xia directly ”interview” Officer Xiao Zhao.

Initially, his plan was just a one-off ”dream-invoking alarm”, but now it seemed he might have to conduct ”long-term follow-ups”.

Xiang Kun also wanted to investigate the extent to which the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed” urban legend he created had spread and how many people had connected it with him.

He also thought about the dream he had tonight. If Officer Xiao Zhao followed the guidance in the dream and went to the Zi Huan Mountain Area and discovered that cave and those bodies, his curiosity about that “multi-armed giant”, or we can say the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster”, would probably be piqued even more.

“Every person’s native dream carries a lot of subconscious information, which is of great help in understanding a person’s psychology, spirit, and memory.” Xia Libing said again, “Many psychological theories and tools can be used more efficiently in dreams.”

Xiang Kun understood her meaning. In reality, it is difficult to get someone to confess to you honestly. Even if someone is willing, you have to determine how much of what they say is true and how much is false, which also takes a lot of effort.

Moreover, many times, people’s true thoughts at heart may be inconsistent with what they subjectively express. Some memories, which they think they have forgotten and can’t recall no matter how hard they try, are actually hidden deep in their minds and emerge clearly under certain specific stimuli.

However, in the dream world, especially in the “dream within a dream” guided and edited by Old Xia, the master of the dream is like a fortress that has shut down all its security systems. How many secrets this fortress can uncover and how much control it can exert depends on the explorer’s own ability.

And Xia Libing’s series of theories also made Xiang Kun feel as if he had caught on to something again.

So far, in the dream world, he and Old Xia have achieved a horizontal extension—forming a dream fusion with Little Fatty Girl; they’ve also achieved a vertical extension—diving deep into others’ “dream within a dream”.

Perhaps on this basis, a more complex, more powerful, and more efficient dream system can be established?

Just as he was pondering, Xia Libing said again: “The ‘mutants’ around that rabbit wood carving, have they not gone to sleep yet?”

Xiang Kun said: “No.” Then he paused, shook his head and said: “Or maybe they did sleep, but it just so happened to coincide with my period of blood-drinking hibernation, and I missed it, not having time to sense it. Or perhaps I can’t trigger their dreams through this Emotion Infused Object – the rabbit wood carving – when they are in hibernation. I’ve been using various cognitive information in the ‘Super Sensory State’ to determine their location. But unfortunately, so far, apart from knowing that it is a huge building made up of a lot of metal, I don’t know anything else.”

“Could there be a ‘Mr. Liang’ among those ‘mutants’?” Xia Libing asked again.

“Can’t confirm.” Xiang Kun shook his head.

Xia Libing lightly stroked the soft-skinned book she named “CAKE01” and said, “We can continue to ‘interrogate’ Mijoe and first ascertain ‘Mr. Liang’s’ location.”

Xiang Kun naturally understood what she meant by “interrogation.” Last time, he and Old Xia influenced Mijoe’s dream through the method of dream within a dream and asked her some information. However, since this was the first time using this method, Old Xia worried that overly complex and sensitive questions could arouse Mijoe’s subconscious alertness, and wouldn’t be conducive to erasing and covering up this part of the dream, so they didn’t ask any information directly related to the identity of “Mr. Liang.”

But clearly, now that Old Xia is becoming more proficient in handling dreams within dreams and understanding more about the messages expressed in the native dreams within a dream within a dream, her ability to interpret dream information and guide dreamers’ subconscious thoughts will only get stronger.

“However… she may not know much,” Xiang Kun remembered the conversation he overheard between Mijoe and “Mr. Liang.”

But Xia Libing argued, “She might know more than she thinks. At the very least, we can use her to figure out where we should start looking.”

Xiang Kun knew that Old Xia’s main target was still “Mr. Liang.” Her real target for snooping through “dream within a dream” was still “Mr. Liang”—or rather, the research progress of the secret department of Divine Technology, and the information on even more “mutants.”

Now Xiang Kun and Old Xia were like a pair of hackers, except that they weren’t hacking computers through the internet but exploring other people’s memories through dreams.

By the time Zhao Feng arrived at Zi Huan Mountain, it was nearly nine. But today was Saturday, his day off, so he didn’t have to take any more leave.

After getting out of the car, he followed the route he had flown on the multi-armed monster in his dream, checked it against the terrain on the map APP when he woke up, and walked towards the mountain.

Zi Huan Mountain itself is a tourist area with Winding Mountain Road, as well as a few small paths and stone stairs for tourists to climb.

But according to the route in the dream, the location of the cave is deep, in an area where there are practically no tourists and no tourist spots.

He just had to follow the course plotted on his phone’s map app, walk along the road first, cut into the woods, keep the direction accurate while finding the most convenient route.

Zhao Feng naturally didn’t have Xiang Kun’s monkey-like climbing ability, or his super athletic ability and stamina. He walked from nine o’clock to three o’clock in the afternoon and still hadn’t found that cave that appeared in his dream.

Breakfast was a hastily purchased bread and milk from a food stall outside the sub-bureau while he was waiting for the car. He only brought a bottle of mineral water for the hike into the mountain. The water was now gone, and he was hungry and exhausted.

But he was in no way ready to give up his search or to go back early.

Along the way, even though he hadn’t found the cave yet, he had seen many places in the mountain forest that were identical to the sceneries and environments he discovered in his dream.

He was also very sure that he had never been to these areas before.

These discoveries made him realize that perhaps the dream he had last night wasn’t the same as the previous ones?

That feeling was like scratching an itch, always scratching around the itchiest place, always feeling like he was “almost there, just a little more”, so he couldn’t give up. He was determined to see if there really was a cave.

In some of the places he passed by, he could see obvious traces of trees being split by lightning and scorched. They were very dense, and he could see one after walking not too far.

He immediately remembered the small-scale but high-intensity thunderstorm that occurred in some areas of Zi Huan Mountain the night before last, or rather, yesterday morning.

There was a lot of discussion online about this thunderstorm, especially on the local social media sections of Citong. There were all kinds of unreliable guesses, some of which were just like fantasy novels, and not in a good way.

The “Zi Huan Mountain Fire Phoenix Rebirth” video he watched was also filmed that night, and the uploader mentioned the same thunderstorm.

Reading the online discussions, aside from finding them amusing and worrying about forest fires, Zhao Feng didn’t have any other thoughts.

But walking through these woods that had experienced that thunderstorm, seeing the traces left behind, reflecting on the images of the thunderstorm that some netizens had captured from afar and described, he could only now truly imagine the terrifying force of the short, localized storm, marveling at the power of nature.

In this marvel, around four o’clock in the afternoon, Zhao Feng actually found a cave in the mountains that was similar to the one in his dream.

Looking at the entrance to the cave, hidden by branches and dense bushes, Zhao Feng didn’t know whether it was because of hunger, fatigue, low blood sugar, fear, excitement, or a combination of both, but his hand began to slightly tremble.

He took out his phone, recording while climbing towards the cave.

Although the cave was quite remote and hidden, it wasn’t on a steep cliff. It was just a small slope, which you could climb up as long as you didn’t mind getting dirty.

But Zhao Feng was holding his phone one hand, and just climbing with one hand, he almost rolled down half way, had to put the phone back into his pocket, and didn’t take it out to continue recording until he reached the side of the cave.

On his way here, he had imagined many scenarios.

For instance, if after all this searching, the cave did not exist, he would just consider it a mountain climbing trip during the holiday, a chance to exercise and breathe in some fresh air from nature;

Or if he did find a similar cave, but there was nothing inside, then he would think about why he had such a dream, what the significance of this cave was;

He even thought about finding an injured, seeking help hiker in the cave. If he found such a person, his clairvoyance-like superpower would really come into play for him being a policeman;

But no matter what, he had never thought that after finding the cave, when he illuminated it with the “flashlight” on his phone, he would see such a sight.

Zhao Feng had been working for a few years now, and he had not seen too few bloody scenes or pictures. He had a certain resistance and adaptation ability to certain images.

But suddenly seeing so many highly decomposed, skeletal corpses in the cave still shocked him. He backed up two steps, his hands slightly shaking. The phone almost fell off, and he almost rolled down the slope.

He grabbed onto a branch next to him, stabilized his body, took a few deep breaths, adjusted his emotions, and then took out his phone again to shine a light into the cave. After observing for a few seconds, he began to make a call.

But surprisingly, there was no signal here. So Zhao Feng had to spend another 10 or so minutes finding a place where he could finally make a call.

Zhao Feng contacted his partner, senior, and commander Old Xu directly, and informed them of the situation and his location, then stayed put waiting for his colleagues to arrive.

Perhaps it was because the sun was about to set, the slightest chill started to creep into the wilderness, in addition to missing both lunch and dinner, he truly felt both cold and hungry.

But at the moment, he really wasn’t paying too much attention to how his body felt, his mind was entirely occupied by last night’s dream and the sight he had just seen in the cave.

If he had received a report and then saw such a sight, Zhao Feng wouldn’t react so strongly. If he had accidentally seen the cave in the wilderness, he would only be shocked by the event itself.

But today… he found the cave guided by the dream he had last night, and that gave him a great shock.

Why?

Why would the multi-armed monster in the dream “guide” him to find these bodies?

Did it… kill these people?

No, that’s not right.

The people who saw the “multi-armed monster” were all suspects. However, after they had experienced the “hallucinations”, and saw the monster, they either confessed, repented or were shocked as if by a judge punishing their sins.

So, in Zhao Feng’s intuitive judgment, if the “monster” guided him to find these bodies through the dream, it was to let him find the bodies and catch the murderer.

After nightfall, Zhao Feng finally saw Xu Zhao and his other colleagues.

As the forensics team and others were examining the scene, Zhao Feng took the bowl of eight-treasure porridge that Xu Zhao handed him, eating one can in just a few bites. He barely suppressed the hunger in his stomach, and his hand did not shake that much anymore.

“Xiao Zhao, how did you find this place? Are you sure you didn’t receive a tip-off? Don’t worry, if it’s a special informant, you don’t have to tell me who they are,” Xu Zhao frowned at the situation around him and couldn’t help but ask.

Even with the location sent by Zhao Feng, it took a lot of effort for them to find it. This wilderness, no matter how you look at it, does not seem like a place where people would normally go.

And that cave entrance, if you didn’t climb up the slope and get close to it and move those weeds, you wouldn’t notice it at all!

Zhao Feng knew that Old Xu didn’t believe it. But what could he do? He couldn’t just tell him that he was guided by the dreams invoked by the “multi-armed monster” he had been investigating.

When they returned to the station, it was already past three in the morning.

The results of the forensic examination hadn’t come out yet, but some initial judgments had been made based on the scene investigations.

There were a total of three people in the cave, one man and two women.

According to the scene, it appeared as though the man had killed the two women with a knife before committing suicide. There were no signs of a scuffle.

None of the three had cellphones or identification on them, but a switched-off cellphone was found at the bottom of the backpack carried by the man.

After charging, turning on, and unlocking it, the police were able to confirm the identities of the man and two women, and also learned why they had been there.