Chapter 713: Always Falling Asleep

Qingque sat up abruptly, gasping heavily, as if she were forcefully expelling the blood‑scented air from her recent dream.

The clothes on her back were soaked through, clinging coolly to her skin, and a few strands of her ash‑gray long hair stuck to the sides of her cheeks.

She raised a hand to press her forehead, pressing her fingertips firmly against her temples, feeling her fingertips tremble slightly.

She dreamed again.

It was Shuhuo again.

She whispered the sentence in her mind, her tone having shifted from the terror of the first time to the numbness of now.

Isn't it just that she keeps dreaming?

Qingque squeezed her eyes shut hard, forcing that frame of image out of her mind.

It had happened repeatedly, each time a Shuhuo invasion, each time the same beginning, the same development, the same ending.

There was not a hint of novelty.

She lowered her fingers from her temples, opened her eyes, and the emerald‑green pupils reflected the distant Golden Giant Tree still slowly swelling.

If nothing else, she could at least have the old "General" dream again.

Back then she thought that dream was absurd, but now it seemed like a five‑star luxury dream.

Or she could have another Grand Diviner‑related dream; although its ending was odd, it was still better than being beaten by Shuhuo.

She would rather be chased by the Grand Diviner into overtime than be stared at by the tree with billions of faces.

It has to be Shuhuo.

It has to be the Abundance Envoy.

It has to be this kind of "san"‑draining, apocalyptic scene that ends up at grandma's house.

Qingque scratched the back of her head, her fingers slipping through the ash‑gray hair, and wondered what principle was at work.

As a Diviner who dabbles in fishing, her usual hardest job is helping Fu Xuan move files; she rarely even has nightmares, yet these past days she's repeatedly dreamed of the same Abundance Envoy, the frequency as if someone had pressed the repeat button on her dream channel.

And why does she keep falling asleep?

She was just riding a fish in the sky, admiring the scenery, and as she watched, her eyelids drooped and she plunged straight into a dream.

Instinctively she lifted her head to look at the blue moon above.

-O- is still sleeping.

The little face sits quietly on the moon's surface, two short dashes closed, while a round O is slightly open.

Qingque squinted and stared at that -O- for a while.

She does often look at that moon; there's no choice—compared with the giant tree that keeps sprouting eyes, the blue moon is the most soothing visual rest area.

Each time she stares at the tree too long and her san drops near zero, she unconsciously looks up at the moon to wash her eyes.

Then she falls asleep.

Could it be the moon's fault?

She sat up, hands braced on the fish scales, her emerald eyes locked straight onto the blue moon.

-O- remains oblivious, still sleeping peacefully.

The more Qingque thought about it, the more suspicious she became; the creature appears only while sleeping, and each time she watches it too long she falls asleep—far too coincidental.

Hiss—no.

She slapped her forehead.

She can't keep draining herself like this.

If the moon really is the culprit, she must not stare at it any longer.

Otherwise she'll periodically fall into a Shuhuo invasion of Luofu, wake up still lying down, lie and fall asleep again, dream nightmares again— isn't that a loop?

If she doesn't break this state, she may never truly wake up.

Qingque stood, her ash‑gray long hair blown backward by the high wind.

The blue fish beneath her sensed her movement, flicked its tail fin lightly, and steadied itself in midair.

She looked over the fish's head toward the towering giant tree in the distance, glanced for a few seconds before averting her gaze; the faces on the trunk remained, now even denser, each expression subtly different.

Qingque quickly pressed her sight downward, down to the sea surface.

It was the vast ocean formed after the city was submerged, the water surface calm like a turquoise mirror, reflecting the tree's golden light and the moon's blue.

The tree's horror exceeded any description; each glance drained her san.

Still, on second thought, she wondered if she could use the tree to wake up; it isn't truly dying, just dying within the dream.

In that recent Shuhuo‑invaded dream, a branch crashed down with a boom and she woke up on the fish's back.

In theory, dying in a dream triggers waking, but in practice she felt nothing; after all, it's a dream—being crushed dead in a dream is like being killed by a low‑level monster in a game, everything goes black instantly, no pain.

If she confronts the massive tree head‑on, she might actually trigger a revival mechanism.

After all, no matter how strong it is in a dream, a dream death still lets her bounce back awake, so it's never a loss.

Yet before she sacrifices herself, she suddenly feels curious about what lies beneath this sea.

Since she's going to die anyway, she might as well dive down and see what's on the seabed.

Qingque's thought shifted, the blue fish beneath sensed its master's will, flicked its tail fin lightly, carving a smooth arc in the air as it dove toward the sea surface.

The moment the fish's head touched the water, it barely splashed; the surface acted like a soft film enveloping her whole body.

Then she saw the scene beneath the surface.

The entire seabed was carpeted with golden branches.

From where she entered the water to the farthest point where her sight faded, every inch of the seabed was covered by the giant tree's roots and branches.

The branches overlapped in layers, some as thick as Luofu's main street, some as thin as fingers, the finest filaments drifting gently in the current as if breathing.

Every branch was studded with dark‑red glints, which, refracted by the underwater light, appeared an unreal scarlet, like countless eyes opening beneath the water.

Because underwater the light is blurred and distorted, the eyes' outlines are even less clear than on land, yet their sheer number densely blankets the entire edge of her view.

When she looked at them, a few of the eyes also turned toward her.

Qingque couldn't help opening their mouth.

Sea water rushed in, cool and tingling, with an indescribable astringent taste of plant sap.

She snapped into reaction, wildly slashing her hands in front of her, and the blue fish beneath her sensed her panic, flicking its tail sharply, propelling her through the surface and into the air.

The splash burst, scattering a spray of azure water droplets that twirled a few times in the air before falling back.

Qingque lay on the fish's back, coughing desperately, still spitting sea water from her mouth, her ash‑gray long hair clinging wetly to her face, looking utterly disheveled.

She couldn't stop a string of wailing "aaah—aaah—" from her mouth, half choked by the sea water, half terrified by the countless eyes on the sea floor.

So bizarre.

Far too bizarre.

The sea floor is full of eyes; who could endure that?

Qingque coughed for a while while lying on the fish's back before calming down.

The soaking ash‑gray strands clung to her cheek one by one; she lifted a hand and tossed the hair back, and her gaze suddenly changed.

A flash of reckless, throw‑away resolve flickered in her emerald eyes—since it's all a dream, and dying wouldn't matter, after being killed so many times in the dream, if she doesn't get a splash of color, she won't be called Qingque.

Even though in most cases she's treated as a mere fish and kicked to death.

But at least she can die a bit more heroically.

She inhaled deeply, rubbed her sleeves forcefully with both hands, and fixed her gaze on that massive, still writhing behemoth in the distance.

Regardless of the odds, she'll go all out against Him!