Just then, soone happened to walk by.
Seeing this, he tapped a key, exiting the page he was on and returning the computer to its normal state.
Then, he stretched his arms and neck, working out the numbness in his body from sitting in the sa position for so long.
He leaned back against the heavily worn leather chair.
Hu Qi’s eyes were half-closed as he recalled and organized the information he had just gathered.
His online search had indeed yielded so significant discoveries.
Although the information was cryptic and nothing was stated outright, by continually piecing it together, Hu Qi had still managed to gain a considerable understanding.
’It seems the Extraordinary System of this world is related to Nightmares!’
Hu Qi mused to himself.
He summarized and inferred from the information he’d gathered, and an outline of this world’s Extraordinary System began to form in his mind.
So people, under special circumstances, could be marked by monsters from within a Nightmare.
These monsters could enter reality, and any ordinary person who encountered one was almost certainly dood to die.
However, nothing was absolute; there were exceptions.
So of these lucky few, or elites, could not only survive but also, after paying a certain price, successfully harness the power of the Nightmare and beco beings who wielded Extraordinary Power.
However, there wasn’t much information on how to harness the Nightmare’s power or evade the pursuit of its monsters.
’Monsters from a Nightmare... interesting!’
A glint flashed in Hu Qi’s eyes.
From a scientific perspective, dreams—and the reason people have them—could be attributed to no more than three factors.
Physiological, psychological, and environntal.
From a physiological standpoint, the brain doesn’t completely shut down during sleep. During the REM stage, in particular, brain activity is frequent and neurotransmitters are in constant flux, which prompts the creation of various dreams.
On a psychological level, daily experiences and mories can surface in dreams, allowing repressed emotions to be released and the subconscious to express itself.
Environntal factors were also not to be ignored. External stimuli during sleep, like sounds or temperature changes, can be integrated into dreams by the brain. A comfortable sleeping environnt can reduce negative stimuli and lower the frequency of dreaming.
In short, dreams are a product of the interplay between physiology, psychology, and environnt.
However, in Hu Qi’s understanding, dreams had a much deeper explanation.
The dreams of living beings were a derivation of the Mind Realm.
The Mind Realm, as a part of the Spirit Realm, could, by a stroke of luck, reflect a sliver of imagery and information from the Spirit Realm itself.
This allowed living beings to see familiar yet strange scenes in their dreams.
Those scenes were, in fact, mory fragnts from one of their past lives, washed clean by the waters of the Sea of Suru.
In certain specific circumstances, one could even see fragnts of future events that had not yet occurred.
This was why so people, upon encountering certain situations, would suddenly find them incredibly familiar, as if they had experienced them before.
But regardless, dreams shouldn’t be able to interfere with reality.
’There’s sothing very wrong with this world.’
It seed he would need to find a Transcendent to understand things more clearly.
But before that, he needed to acquire so ans of self-protection in case of an ergency.
At this thought, he glanced at the ti in the bottom-right corner of the computer screen. It was 7:35 PM.
He stood up, shut down the computer, and walked out of the internet cafe.
The night sky was like a deep, black cauldron turned upside down, its thick darkness seeming to swallow everything.
The rain was still drizzling down.
The downpour had lessened, but the rain now seed to carry a faint chill.
...
Before long, Hu Qi returned to his residential district, carrying a bag of dicinal herbs to replenish his Qi and Blood.
He had picked them up at a pharmacy on his way back.
This purchase nearly wiped out the original owner’s already ager savings, but Hu Qi didn’t care.
Money was only yours once you spent it. Right now, he needed to get this body back into shape as quickly as possible.
A short while later, Hu Qi arrived at the complex and entered his apartnt building.
While waiting for the elevator, he heard the faint sound of footsteps from outside.
Monts later, a young man in his early twenties walked in. He was holding a black umbrella in one hand and had a white backpack slung over his shoulder.
The Young Man was holding a phone in his other hand, apparently chatting with soone.
Although the building had two elevators, one of them had a black, dead screen.
Only one elevator was still in operation.
The Happy Ho District, where Fang Xi lived, was a resettlent housing complex. The elevators were old and severely degraded, frequently breaking down and trapping people on random floors.
Elevator maintenance had beco a regular occurrence, and the residents were full of complaints. However, applying to use the complex’s special maintenance funds to replace the elevators required signatures from over half of the hoowners.
But because it was resettlent housing, most of the residents were elderly, many of whom wouldn’t sign. Compounded by the inaction of the property managent staff, the matter was indefinitely delayed.
Fortunately, not many people were going up or down at this ti, so the elevator soon arrived on the first floor.
The elevator doors opened, and a woman in her thirties wearing a black dress walked out, leading a dog. After she had exited, Hu Qi and the young man stepped inside.
Since Hu Qi entered first, he imdiately pressed the button for the 33rd floor.
Seeing this, the Young Man, who had been about to raise his hand to press a button, paused.
He put away his phone and glanced casually at Hu Qi. Then, as if suddenly rembering sothing, his gaze shifted, a flash of astonishnt in his eyes before he quickly concealed it.
He spoke with a smile.
"You’re Fang Xi?"
Hu Qi glanced at him, a perfectly asured look of confusion on his face.
"And you are?"
"It’s , Wei Fan! Don’t you recognize , old classmate?"
the Young Man said.
Hearing this, Hu Qi imdiately rembered who this person was.
He was the neighbor who lived across the hall from the original owner of this body, and he had also been his middle school classmate.
But unlike the original owner, who had dropped out, this man had earned exceptional grades and gotten into a top-tier university in another city.
Thinking of this, he glanced at the other man.
"Shouldn’t there still be so ti before winter break? Why are you back so early?"
"We got out early this year," Wei Fan said casually.
As he spoke, his gaze fell on the bag in Hu Qi’s hand. "But what’s going on with you?"
"Just a minor ailnt."
"Take care of yourself..."
The two chatted, and soon, with a DING,
the elevator reached the top floor.
Afterward, they parted ways, agreeing to grab a drink soti before entering their respective hos.
—BANG!
The door shut, and the smile on Hu Qi’s face instantly vanished, replaced by a cold expression.
’Interesting... He acts very concerned about , but according to the original owner’s mories, they were just neighbors and not actually close. Moreover, he seed shocked when he recognized .’
Not only that, but while they were chatting, although his outward deanor was normal, his eyes kept darting around.
This was an involuntary, instinctual reaction that only occurred when soone was nervous.
He could clearly sense that the other man was wary of him.
If he had to describe the feeling, it was as if Wei Fan had seen soone who was supposed to be dead, now standing there alive.
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