What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 617: Chapter 617: Who Wakes Up from the Great Dream First (Part 2)

Normally, Liu Shiling wouldn’t be able to “wake up” by herself in her dream. Old Xia would “awaken” Tang Baona first, then through Nana’s special melody “broadcast”, “awaken” Yang Lao San and deal with her dream, before finally coming to Little Fatty Girl’s dream to “wake her up”.

However, unexpectedly, Liu Shiling “woke up” on her own before Old Xia arrived or Nana’s melody even began.

…

In Liu Shiling’s dream, the scenery became very realistic, with only a trace of the 2D style left in the rolling mountains. She was wearing her signature black robe with gold-rimmed cat ears, wielding a short magic wand that looked just like a chopstick, commanding her troop of chocolate, ice cream, and lemon tea, five small soldiers in total, battling all kinds of dark monsters to protect ten thousand chubby rabbit subjects.

The slightly roundish little magician with her robe hood was perched on the back of a large “tiger” with four pairs, eight wings in total.

This eight-winged mount was naturally “Custard Pie”.

The little fatty girl, whose hands were as small as steamed buns, pointed her short magic wand forward, and shouted, “Custard Pie, let’s charge! Wipe them out!”

However, the eight-winged mount beneath her didn’t move, instead, it turned its feline face around and uttered several crisp barks, “Woof! Woof, woof!”

Despite having eight wings and being larger in size than an average Siberian Tiger, its face was that of a chubby orange tabby cat. It should not have been making dog barks under any circumstances.

In the dream, Liu Shiling felt it was very abrupt, she frowned in confusion, “Custard Pie, a cat should act like a cat, not bark like a dog…You are not a dog…”

But before she could finish speaking, she suddenly froze, locking eyes with Custard Pie beneath her. Her eyes gradually brightened, they shone even brighter until she cried out in surprise, leaping up in excitement.

“I understand now, I’m dreaming! I’m just dreaming!”

Liu Shiling shouted, thus “waking up” in the dream.

Actually, after she finished dinner and Xiang Kun called, the “Chongyun Village Team” knew they needed to help Xiang Kun in their dreams so Liu Shiling went to “brief” “Custard Pie” by herself.

She instructed “Custard Pie” to wake her up with the code “woof woof woof” in the dream.

“Custard Pie” responded with “meow meow meow” to indicate understanding.

This process was actually reported to Xiang Kun by Alice, but he didn’t pay much attention to it.

Although it had been verified before that “Custard Pie”, now part of the “Super Sensory Item System”, could indeed be connected to the special dream induced by “Emotion Infused Objects”, how could “Custard Pie” remember Little Fatty Girl’s instructions and “wake her up” in the dream without being conscious itself?

Therefore, after leading Little Fatty Girl into the dream, Xiang Kun didn’t specifically include “Custard Pie”, and “Custard Pie” hadn’t fallen asleep yet either.

Anyway, there was already Nana’s special melody awakening scheme, which was certain.

However, unexpectedly, not long after Little Fatty Girl fell asleep, “Custard Pie” also fell asleep on the rooftop, then, through its connection with Little Fatty Girl, it directly projected into her dream.

More miraculously, even though “Custard Pie” itself was not “conscious” in the dream, it really did obey Little Fatty Girl’s previous instructions, emitting the dog barking signal “woof woof woof”.

Thus, the dazed Little Fatty Girl in the dream was indeed “awakened” by the signal.

“Waking up” in the “Emotion Infused special dream” was really this easy?

As the support base of the entire dream, feeling clearly everything happening in Little Fatty Girl’s dream, Xiang Kun could only smile helplessly. Little Fatty Girl always managed to surprise him. Even though he provided the fundamental abilities, it was the unconventional “developer” like Little Fatty Girl that could bring more innovative and distinctive applications.

When Little Fatty Girl “woke up” in the dream, the entire dreamland changed dramatically.

Except for the dream projections of chocolates, ice cream, and other five “super-connected coins”, including “Custard Pie”, everything else, whether the various demons and ghosts, the mountains filled with fat rabbits, or the mountains underfoot, the blue sky and white clouds above the head, all disappeared.

She, along with Custard Pie and the five super-connected coin soldiers, seemed to be standing in empty space.

“Is the monster that Uncle Bald wants to deal with coming out?” Liu Shiling’s little face showed a serious expression. She tucked her short magic wand under her arm, pulling the hood cord on either side of her robe to tighten it slightly. The cat ears on the hood moved as a result, which seemed to give her a sense of security.

“Custard Pie, let’s go ahead and check. Chocolate, Ice Cream, you guys protect the left and right. Lemon Tea, Sachima, Mung Bean Cake, you three face the back and stay on alert.”

After Liu Shiling finished speaking, she realized that the “Custard Pie” beneath her feet had not moved. Looking down, she saw no trace of her eight-winged cat mount. She was standing directly in a void of darkness.

Looking left, right, forward and backward, “Chocolate”, “Ice Cream” and other coin warriors had also disappeared. Now, all she could see around her was an empty void of darkness. She could see her hands and feet, but all the light seemed to be restrained to her body. The outside world had swallowed all the light.

“Custard Pie! Chocolate! Ice Cream! …” Shouted Liu Shiling, she ran for a few steps, looked around and it was still the void, with no changes, no scenery in sight, and no signs of Custard Pie, Chocolate, and others.

Liu Shiling stopped, took a deep breath, suppressed her fear and anxiety, raised the magic wand in her hand, and shouted, “All the monsters from the dark world… enemies of Bald Uncle! You can’t scare me in my dream! Hand over my kitty and warriors now!”

“I’ll count to three! If you don’t hand them over! I’m going to get tough!”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“One… two…”

“Three… four…”

“Five… oh, I over-counted!”

With some annoyance, Liu Shiling chucked her magic wand, and a flash of lightning appeared out of the void, tearing the surrounding void with a sputtering sound, bringing a moment of light.

Then there was continual thunder and lightning, but after thunder and lightning, it still remained quiet and silent. She seemed to have struck nothing, annihilated nothing, as if she had always been outwitting herself.

Liu Shiling became more and more panicked inside and couldn’t help but shout: “Bald Uncle! Chicken Wing Sister! Old Fairy Sister! Where are you? Gorgeous Sister! Sister Apple! Are you there? Xiao Luosi! Xiao Luosi!!”

After shouting for a while, she stopped because it seemed somewhat embarrassing. She aspired to be a “great wizard”, the most powerful kind of “great wizard”. How could she keep shouting out of fear of the dark and loneliness? This is not the performance of an excellent “magician”.

If Old Fairy Sister saw her, she would definitely laugh at her and would probably say, “Xiao Lingdang, come here, call ‘Sister Silver Armor Fairy’ three times and I’ll come to save you”.

No, that’s too embarrassing, she must remain calm.

As the ancients said, “Train for a thousand days, fight in a pinch”, she always thought about practicing magic so that one day she could fight monsters with Bald Uncle and protect the world together. The opportunity finally arrived, the monster hadn’t even shown up yet, how could she be so frightened?

“I am learning magic with Bald Uncle!”

“I am Liu Shiling!”

“I am very brave!”

After some self-encouragement and motivation, Liu Shiling was immediately invigorated and continued to wander in the void with her magic wand, looking for a way to break the stalemate.

As time trickled by – though she had no idea how long it had been, it felt as if it had been many, many years. The courage she had mustered and the confidence that had been raised quickly faded away.

Why?

Why is there nothing here?

Did Uncle Bald, Chicken Wing Sister, Gorgeous Sister and others finish fighting the monsters and forgot about me?

Did they forget me?

Liu Shiling stopped wandering around since everything looked the same, she could see nothing, there was nothing.

She squatted down, hugged her knees, pulled the drawstring on her hood tighter and tucked her face inside. Her little face was framed roundly by the edge of the hood.

“Uncle Bald… Chicken Wing Sister… please come to save me quickly… don’t you want me anymore? Do you think I am too weak, and don’t want to take me with you… Old Fairy Sister, Sister Apple, where are you… Xiao Luosi, I’m so scared… Mom… Mom…”

Teardrops streamed down her face and fell with a patter, disappearing into the void beneath her feet.

Xiang Kun, who had been constantly monitoring the dream, was instantly on guard. He was about to jolt Little Fatty Girl out of the dream, allowing her to wake up first. Given the dream states of Old Xia, Nana, and Yang Lao San, one less person, Little Fatty Girl, would not make a big difference. It would only make the process a bit longer than intended.

Even in a dream, he couldn’t bear to see the Little Fatty Girl being upset.

However, just at this moment, Xiang Kun received feedback from other dreams, and had an idea, so he didn’t immediately remove Little Fatty Girl from the dream.

A melodious sound of a flute started to play, and Liu Shiwei, who had been crying in distress and grief, raised her head, listened through teary eyes, and seemed to think of something. She wiped her tears and snot with the hem of her robe and got up from the ground.

In the music, a gentle female voice began to sing. The familiar song was like hot milk in winter, warming Liu Shiling, her entire being, and her heart.

The feelings of loneliness, fear, despair, and inferiority were instantly dispelled, her star-like eyes brightened again, and the little bun holding the chopstick magic wand… her little fist regained its strength.

“Pretty sister! Is it you, pretty sister? Where are you, pretty sister?” Liu Shiling cried out.

She received no response, but the song continued. Liu Shiling was no longer afraid, and even felt a bit embarrassed about her behavior just now.

As she walked in the void, she suddenly bumped into something. With a ‘huh’ and due to her robe’s hood being tied too tightly and getting knocked off, it covered her eyes.

She frantically readjusted her hood, crouched down to pick up her magic wand that had fallen, and was about to take a fighting stance, but realized that she had bumped into a familiar figure.

“Sister Grilled Chicken Wing!” Liu Shiling yelled with joy.

Appearing in the void was Xia Libing.

She walked over to Little Fatty Girl, helped her adjust her robe’s hood, touched her cheek, “Did you cry?”

“Ah! I didn’t… I did… I was pretending to cry, I wanted to lure the monster out, but it didn’t fall for it, um, I did it on purpose…” Liu Shiling said a little embarrassedly.

“Monsters aren’t always what they seem.” Xia Libing gently pinched Liu Shiling’s cheek, took her hand, and said, “A monster is a strange thing in your dream, something you don’t think you dreamt of, like me, like this song. But you know who I am, you know who is singing this song, and everything else you don’t know where it came from, that’s a monster.”

Liu Shiling could only vaguely understand what she was told. But she nodded anyway: “Hmm, I understand.” In any case, with Sister Grilled Chicken Wing by her side and Pretty Sister’s song in her ears, she wasn’t scared at all now.

“What can you see, Little Bell?” Xia Libing asked. She navigated through the dreams of others to assist them in discovering the elements brought by the “Ultimate Predator” and what they expressed in the dream.

Their method of supporting Xiang Kun in engaging the “Ultimate Predator” in dreams is not to eliminate the “Ultimate Predator” in the dream, because that is not achievable.

When Xiang Kun trapped the “Ultimate Predator’s” consciousness in dreamland while it was engulfing Mr. Liang, Old Xia, Tang Baona, Yang Zhen’er, Little Fatty Girl, Xiao Pingguo were needed as “users” of the dream, using various dream expressions to present the consciousness structure and consciousness model of the “Ultimate Predator”.

In this process, Xiang Kun and Alice would continuously collect, analyse and construct the consciousness model of the “Ultimate Predator”. Once they complete the construction of its consciousness model, through the “Super sensory Item System”, they can directly damage its consciousness structure on a “High-Dimensional Factors” level, disrupting its control over special factors scattered around the world and within various organisms.

If a metaphor had to be used, Xiang Kun’s initial plan was to cut all the internet cables of the “Ultimate Predator” all over the world, but first he needed to have scissors prepared all around the world. Now its more like they had directly found the server address, paralyzed the server, and burnt the server room’s cabling.

Due to differing biological compositions, the consciousness of the “Ultimate Predator” would be incompatible with the dreamland constructed by human consciousness. But as it is trapped in it, it will inevitably attempt to exert influence. This influence displayed in the dream is the interface for translation and analysis by Xiang Kun and Alice.

After listening to Old Xia’s words, Little Fatty Girl tilted her head in bewilderment, looked around, and said, “I don’t see anything, it’s pitch-black.”

Saying this, she tightened her grip on old Xia’s hand slightly.

“What can you hear?”

“I hear a song, it’s a nice song, sung by Pretty Sister, I’ve heard it before…” Liu Shiling tried to hum a few lines, but unsurprisingly, she was off-key.

“Anything beyond the song?”

“It seems… there is no other sound.”

“Feel it, do you smell anything?”

Liu Shiling closed her eyes and moved her nose a bit. Suddenly she exclaimed in surprise, “It seems there is a burnt smell, as if something is overcooked.”

“Can you tell which direction the smell is coming from?”

“Over there!”

Liu Shiling led Xia Libing by the hand and walked forward. Suddenly, light radiated all around them, and a series of buildings appeared.

It wasn’t a city, nor was it green hills, but a barren land covered in smog.

There were no constructions, nor plants. All sorts of bizarre, clay sculpted structures distorted beyond recognition made their appearance. The sky was also veiled in a layer of gray fog, creating a dull scene where both the sky and the earth were gray.

However, some areas were completely charred and continuously emitted smoke.

“What are these?” Liu Shiling curiously observed this desolate, peculiar place and asked in confusion. Presented with this scene alone, she would most likely feel fear.

“These should be the ‘monsters’,” Xia Libing answered, “The smoking ones are probably those struck by your lightning.”

“Should I strike them all with lightning then?” Liu Shiling asked, looking up.

“No need. We just need to find it, and we’re done. Let’s see if there’s anything else,” Xia Libing said.

After visiting the dreamlands of Tang Baona, Yang Zhen Er and her own, she could compare and find that the dream of Little Fatty Girl was most affected by the consciousness of the ‘Ultimate Predator’. It seemed that the ‘Ultimate Predator’ saw Little Fatty Girl as a breakthrough point and was bullying her.

Of course, what the ‘Ultimate Predator’ didn’t know was that there was no chance for it to win this “game”. The only difference was between early defeat and late defeat.

With Xia Libing’s company and help, Liu Shiling became increasingly brave, and gradually mastered the control of her dream during a “lucid dream”. Riding the “flying carpet,” they roamed freely in this bizarre space.

Then, as time passed, the surrounding scenes became more diverse. They found more “unusual phenomena”, and the environment rapidly shifted towards areas familiar to Little Fatty Girl. The “unusual phenomena” became less conspicuous, hiding in various familiar environments.

“There’s someone over there.”

At the end of the pedestrian street of Tongshi Town, Liu Shiling saw a boy squatting by the roadside, playing with a remote control car.

Although she could only see his back, Liu Shiling was pretty certain that she didn’t know this boy. This wasn’t her dream, but rather an “unusual phenomenon”.

So she tugged Xia Libing’s hand and whispered, “Sister Roast Chicken Wing, is that a monster?”

Xia Libing didn’t reply and slowly walked forward, holding Little Fatty Girl’s hand.

Seemingly hearing footstep sounds, the boy playing with the remote control car suddenly turned his head.

His face only had two large, round eyes, but no eyelids, nor any nose, mouth or other facial features. It looked extremely odd.

Little Fatty Girl was startled and her body shivered, stopping in her tracks. She instinctively tried to hide behind Xia Libing’s thighs, but remembering her identity as the “great wizard” and that this was her own dream, she braced herself and stood forward again. Holding the magic wand in her other hand, she pointed it at the eye-only boy, intending to cast a lightning bolt at him.

However, Xia Libing pressed down her wand and looked at the boy, whose eyes were filled with fear. She said, “He’s not a monster.”

“Mom, my mom is gone, where is my mom…” The boy picked up the remote control car on the ground and anxiously ran off into the distance.

As he ran, his body grew larger, and his voice became weird, both coarse and deep, as if some metallic grains were rubbing against each other. The content of his screams also changed:

“Teacher… Our research is about to succeed… I didn’t let you down… I used the company’s money… I didn’t waste the nation’s funds…”

“Old He, rest assured, those beasts that feed on human blood, I will catch them. There’s no place for them in our country.”

“Xiao Xue… you deceived me…”

“Xiang Kun, don’t worry about me, do what you have to do.”

“Xiang Kun, I don’t want to die…”