Chapter 14 | Embers of the Past

Bullets were hard to inflict much damage on Father Xia, whose bones were turned inside out, but they could effectively threaten the flesh-and-blood body of Xia Jie.

Everything Father Xia did was to protect his child. Active or forced, to shield Xia Jie from the bullets, his speed visibly slowed down.

One of the Special Response Squad members seized the gap when the opponent's bone blades retracted, raising his hand. Pinching his thumb and middle finger together, he aimed at Father Xia and gently spread his fingers, as if zooming in on a screen out of thin air.

The next second, something magical happened.

Father Xia, who had already rushed several meters away, was directly “zoomed in” right before everyone's eyes, returning to the bedroom.

The pineapple-haired man closely followed. He tore off a shred of cloth from Father Xia's tattered trousers, pinched it in his palm, and strolled casually toward Father Xia. Amidst Father Xia's impotent, stabbing rage and Xia Jie's disbelieving terror, he brought his hand down, gouging out Father Xia's heart with his knife.

All the erect bone blades instantly went limp and quickly dissolved into bloody water, spilling all over the floor.

In the final second of his life, Father Xia struggled to look at Xiao Jie. The emotion in his eyes was so complex that the tears flowing out were not pure tears, but mottled blood.

He closed his eyes, unwilling but ultimately set free.

Xiao Jie burst into tears from fright.

Losing all his previous arrogance and playfulness, he sobbed and begged for mercy with a runny nose, pleading with the Special Response Squad members to spare him, crying that he didn't want to die.

No one said a word. The man in the white trench coat raised his gun and aimed directly at him.

“Repent for your sins.”

Seeing that begging was useless, Xiao Jie's face contorted once more.

Clutching his hair, he shrieked hysterically.

“What sin have I committed? Why do you say I'm guilty? Yes, I wanted to kill you, but aren't you still alive? None of you died! This is just a dream. I was influenced by a Nightmare, giving me twisted thoughts. How can you blame me for that?! You don't have any evidence to prove I'm guilty, and the Bureau's laws will uphold my innocence! Come on, do it! I'm the Dream Core. Even if I die in the dream, I won't die in reality. Once we return to reality, you still won't be able to convict me! I'm not wrong, I've never been wrong! What's wrong is the prejudice of this world, and what's wrong is all of you!”

With that, Xiao Jie lifted his chin, his eyes sweeping across everyone present with venomous hatred.

He wanted to remember every single face so he could exact his revenge on them one by one later on.

Seeing that sinister gaze, Yu Jin grew impatient. He snatched the gun from the man in the white trench coat and put an end to him with a single shot.

Bang!

The corpse fell limply to the ground.

Much better.

Yu Jin handed the gun back and looked at the stunned crowd with distaste.

“Sheesh, what a bunch of slowpokes. Don't you know that wasting every extra second here makes reality one bit more dangerous? And you call yourselves a Special Response Squad. You don't have any sense of urgency at all.”

After saying this, the red hair on his head faded away. Leaving only a black-haired Yu Jin, he froze awkwardly in place as he faced the bizarre, scrutinizing gazes of the five Special Response Squad members.

“...”

Yu Jin felt like he had been “framed.”

But the problem was that the person who framed him was himself.

Who could he even complain to?

The atmosphere became exceptionally awkward for a moment.

After a long while, his toes practically cramping, Yu Jin had no choice but to bite the bullet and squeeze out a smile, trying to find the words to apologize for his offensive remarks earlier.

But before he could speak, his expression suddenly shifted. He realized something was wrong.

“!!!”

If Xia Jie was the Dream Core of this dream, the moment he died, the Nightmare Disaster should have been dispelled, and everyone present should have been ejected back to reality.

But right now, why did the dream still exist?!

Yu Jin froze. His eyes suddenly went wide as he looked at the Special Response Squad in front of him, utterly bewildered.

The members of the Special Response Squad wore varied expressions, exchanging glances. Finally, the man in the white trench coat pushed up his glasses and stepped forward.

“Haicheng Nightmare Disaster Emergency Response Bureau, Special Response Squad 172. Dream Profiler, Zhou Li.”

“Yu Jin, I am sorry to inform you that you are currently inside a dream.”

“The Bureau detected small-scale, high-frequency conscious disturbances and confirmed that a Nightmare Disaster was occurring, ordering our Squad 172 to take over the operation.”

“But this operation is a bit special.”

“Before entering the dream, we also had no idea that the content of this dream would be a reenactment of the previous Nightmare Disaster's tragedy.”

“And you are the Dream Core we are looking for this time.”

“?”

Yu Jin was utterly dumbfounded.

He took a long time to process it before confirming that the other party wasn't joking with him.

He was the one having this nightmare?!

“Are you sure?”

Zhou Li nodded with a serious expression.

“Absolutely sure.”

“But I was clearly an Affected Party dragged in because I intervened in last night's Nightmare Disaster. How could I possibly be the Subject?”

Yu Jin couldn't believe it, yet looking at Xia Jie's corpse on the ground, he had no choice but to believe it.

Xia Jie, the only suspected Dream Core, was already dead. The fact that the Nightmare Disaster hadn't ended meant he had mistaken the Dream Core once again.

Of course, having experienced a few delusions, Yu Jin wasn't without other thoughts. He was wondering if the current moment might also be a delusion, waiting for it to end.

But after waiting for a long time, nothing happened.

Yu Jin panicked.

His heart sank into an abyss. Looking at the surrounding Special Response Squad members, he clutched his head and kept backing away.

As he retreated, he asked.

“What on earth happened? Why am I the Dream Core? What do you mean by a reenactment of the previous Nightmare Disaster's tragedy? There was another Nightmare Disaster? And what's going on now?”

The situation was complex, and explaining it clearly would take some time.

Normally, when the Special Response Squad encountered such a situation, they would quickly deal with the Dream Core to dispel the Nightmare Disaster first, saving the explanation for when they returned to reality.

However, rather than instantly dispelling the Nightmare Disaster to eliminate the risk, they preferred to spend a little time talking to the dreaming Yu Jin about what was going on with that red-haired Yu Jin, who was remarkably similar to Father Xia and Mrs. Xia.

Nightmare Disasters had the characteristic of manifestation. With a tragedy already behind them, they could not afford to let another “Xia Jie” loose.

Watching Yu Jin fall into confusion and anxiety, Zhou Li sighed and explained to him bit by bit.

“Let's start from the beginning. Yesterday—yesterday night in reality—a Nightmare Disaster occurred. The Bureau detected the Nightmare Disaster signal and immediately responded, dispatching Special Response Squad 6 to handle it.”

Hearing the designation “Squad 6,” Yu Jin subconsciously mumbled, “Lu Ren?”

Zhou Li nodded.

“Exactly, Lu Ren's squad. Squad 6 acted swiftly and arrived on the scene in no time. They found that the Nightmare Disaster was at most Class C, with no signs of large-scale spreading and had not yet begun to affect reality. Following standard operating procedures, they left a safety officer behind to work with the field team in protecting the bodies of those entering the dream, while the other five immediately entered the dream to find the Dream Core and eliminate the Nightmare Disaster. No one knows what happened in that dream. Before dawn the next day, the Nightmare Disaster was dispelled. Everything in reality was normal, and no one was harmed. Except...”