Chapter 349: Dreaming, Unaware That I Am a Guest!

Su Ming didn't know when he fell asleep.

His consciousness was a chaotic void.

It felt as if someone had grabbed him by the back of his head and hurled him hard into a bottomless dry well.

Buzz—!

"Hm?!"

The scene before his eyes lit up frame by frame.

Su Ming stood on a road.

Under his feet was rammed earth, hard as stone, digging into the soles of his feet.

The road surface was absurdly wide.

Eight horses could run side by side with room to spare.

Rows of stone men and stone horses stood on both sides.

Their bodies were bluish‑gray, with no faces at all.

Their expressions weren't blurry.

They simply hadn't been carved.

There was no wind.

There was no sound.

Even the sky above his head didn't look like a sky.

There was neither sun nor moon.

Only a murky lead‑gray dome pressed down tightly, as if someone had sealed the ceiling with cement.

"Am I... dreaming?!"

Su Ming lowered his head and looked at his own hand.

It was still his own hand.

The joints were distinct, the pads callused, with no defects.

But…

Where's the clothing?!

His whole body was wrapped only in a layer of white mist.

Indescribable, as if he were wearing a bathrobe stitched together with steam.

"Is this... the First Emperor's Tomb?"

"Am I a soul?"

Su Ming opened his mouth subconsciously.

His vocal cords seemed to have been pulled out.

His mouth moved.

Not a single sound sprang out.

No, that's not right.

It's not that he can't produce sound.

It's that this whole world—

has swallowed the sound.

The stone men and stone horses on both sides of the road remained perfectly still.

At the road's end, there was a city.

A black city.

The city walls were so high their tops were invisible.

Dense seal‑script inscriptions crawled over the walls, overlapping horizontally and vertically.

They resembled a nest of writhing black insects, making one's scalp tingle.

"Hm?!"

Su Ming's feet moved forward uncontrollably.

He tried to stop.

But they wouldn't obey at all.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

The city Gate grew nearer.

The Gate was open.

Inside the doorway was a pitch‑black void.

Only a lamp hung in the exact center.

The light was a grim white.

Blindingly white.

The light illuminated a silhouette deep within the doorway.

The person faced away from him.

Wearing an old jacket faded to near‑white.

His figure was slender, shoulders slightly slumped.

His left hand was in his trouser pocket, and his right hand seemed to be holding an unlit cigarette.

Su Ming's whole body went rigid.

Sss—!

His heart felt as if clamped by iron pliers, then jerked sharply.

This silhouette.

He was too familiar.

Familiar enough that he could draw it even with his eyes closed.

The back he had watched for over twenty years—

Father!

Su Ming opened his mouth.

He wanted to shout.

He shouted with all his might.

His mouth opened to its limit, the muscles in his throat tensed.

But it was useless.

This world would not allow him to make any sound.

Fortunately—

That silhouette moved.

Standing under the pallid light, it slowly turned its head.

At first, only a quarter.

Su Ming saw half of a profile.

The curve of the nose bridge.

The outline of the chin.

Seamlessly matching more than twenty years of memory.

Exactly the same.

The angle of the turn kept widening.

Su Ming's breathing became completely chaotic.

Because he saw the eyes.

Those eyes—

No!

The exposed eyes were exactly the same as the state he saw every day in the mirror after he had activated the Eye of Truth…

Exactly the same!

The pupils were vertical.

Gold-colored.

But in his father's vertical pupils…

There was nothing that any human should have.

It wasn't cold.

It wasn't hatred.

It wasn't restraint.

It was alienation.

That kind of utterly detached, bird‑s‑eye view from the clouds over an ant hill…

Indifference!

Like looking at a stone by the roadside.

Su Ming felt all the blood in his body freeze.

Unfamiliar!

Is this… my father?

The next second.

The silhouette lifted its right hand and tucked the unlit cigarette into its mouth.

Its left index finger, casually pointing toward the area above the city Gate.

Su Ming looked up.

Directly above the Gate was set a stone plaque.

Two characters were engraved on the plaque.

But they were not seal script.

Not clerical script.

Not any writing he recognized.

The strokes resembled bones, the bends like joints.

Each stroke trembled faintly.

As if something sealed within the characters was desperately struggling to break out.

Su Ming stared at those two characters.

His eyes widened until they ached.

He couldn't understand.

He tried to activate the Eye of Truth.

It wouldn't activate.

It's not that activation failed after starting.

Rather, in this dream—

His golden eyes simply wouldn't power on.

They're blind!

Damn!

Su Ming felt, deep in his heart, a wave of helplessness he had never known.

Suddenly.

Above the city Gate, two bone inscriptions suddenly ceased trembling.

The stone tablet exploded.

Shards of stone sprayed, dust filled the sky.

Yet there was no sound at all!

Black mist surged out of the crack like a ghost.

Su Ming's pupils contracted sharply.

Right in front of him, the black mist had already swallowed the figure in the old jacket.

Completely clean.

Not even a wrinkle remained.

Su Ming's chest felt as if someone had scooped it out.

If he could make a sound, he would already be shouting until his throat tore.

But he couldn't.

At the same time—

The rammed earth road beneath his feet, the stone men and stone horses on either side, the lead‑gray dome overhead, the distant black city wall…

All exploded.

As if someone swung a hammer and smashed a mirror to pieces.

Fragments rained down everywhere.

The world collapsed.

"Huff... huff..."

Su Ming gasped heavily, breath after breath.

The fragments were reassembling.

The scene was switching.

He didn't know how long had passed.

It could have been an instant, or a century.

When he could see his surroundings again—

The ground beneath him changed.

Cracked yellow earth.

Stretching endlessly.

So dry that even the cracks held no trace of moisture.

The sky was red.

Not the kind of red of a sunset.

As if the whole sky had been soaked in blood water, then air‑dried and hung up.

Su Ming moved his neck slightly.

Over a hundred meters ahead, a rust‑stained folding chair stood, one leg missing a footrest, crooked and wobbly.

It was jutting abruptly in the very center of the wasteland.

A person sat on the chair.

Their face was indistinct.

Because in front of them floated an open book.

The book was enormous.

Its pages yellowed, edges curled like old bark, as if it had been turned tens of thousands of times.

Above, the ink varied in darkness.

In some places the strokes were so heavy they nearly pierced the paper; in others they were so light they seemed about to break.

Su Ming squinted, straining to discern.

First line—

"Dragon spine buried in yellow earth, golden scales unseen by the sky."

He could understand it.

He recognized every character, and the combination made sense.

Like a fragment of a poem.

Or an inscription on some stele.

Second line—

"Carry a lamp into the ancient abyss, ten thousand bones become a mud field."

Su Ming's foot unconsciously shifted forward a step.

He wanted to see clearly.

The third line—

"A tiger clutching a talisman in the case, the guest on the seat is not an immortal."

Boom!

Su Ming's mind exploded for a moment.

Tiger in the case?

Tiger talisman?

That wooden box on the coffee table!

Inside it is a fragment of a Qin terracotta tiger talisman!

So…

This is not some boring poem.

This damn thing is about him!

"Huh…"

Su Ming's adrenaline surged instantly.

He wanted to quicken his steps, eager to rush over, snatch the book, and dissect it word by word.

But this body is not under his control.

Neither fast nor slow.

Step by step.

Like being led on a leash!

The fourth line catches his eye—

"One glance peers at all phenomena, two pupils see different heavens."

Two pupils?

Su Ming's breathing grew more rapid.

It's nailed it, 100% talking about him.

Just…

Two pupils, different heavens…

What does it mean?

His Eye of Truth, from the moment it was activated until now, the left and right eyes have always moved in sync.

Open together, close together.

No difference has ever appeared.

So this sentence…

Is it referring to some state he hasn't triggered yet?

Or is it saying…

Will the future be vastly different?

The fifth line—

"Old skin wraps new bones, kin blood forges an unusual parchment."

Old skin?

New bones?

Su Ming's mind raced wildly.

The words Huochai Ge said not long ago are unforgettable—

"You still have some other remnants hidden in your body!"

"They could never possibly belong to a human!"

The old husk.

Enveloping bones that aren't human?

What about "blood of kin"?

Is it his own blood?

Or…

The blood of that man in the old jacket with golden vertical pupils?

Su Ming's lips tightened into a line.

Too many questions.

"Hm?!"

Suddenly, the page turned.

Not from the wind.

It was the person on the chair who extended a finger and lightly flicked it.

A new page.

Only two lines of text remain.

The handwriting changed.

Completely changed.

Though the previous ink characters were sloppy, they were still written by a human's pen.

Now these two lines—

are burned.

Each character's strokes have blackened, curling edges.

Like holding a scorching hot branding iron, each stroke sears rigidly into the paper.

The paper is still smoking.

First line—

【The Dragon Eater Will Awaken.】

Sss?!

The Dragon Eater?

The thing that eats dragons?!

Who can eat a dragon?!

It ate the National Fortune Golden Dragon that at the time was covered in black cracks, being held up with their lives by the three old men of Jingcheng?

But there was no time to think further.

The last line of text leapt into the eyes.

All thoughts.

Abruptly stopped!