Chapter 666: Confirming the Boundary

11: 8?

After seeing the current time displayed on his gold-cased pocket watch, Lu Mi's eyelid twitched slightly; he sensed something amiss.

He felt he'd slept for over an hour—how could only seven minutes have passed?

Although distorted time perception was entirely possible, this wasn't just one issue: the vanished mosquito corpses and the utterly silent environment also corroborated certain possibilities.

Lu Mi, with prior experience, murmured silently to himself:

"Could I have entered a special dream?"

Does sleeping in this brownish house at midnight lead one into a special dream?

Did "Siso" Tewanako rebuild this house to make his own sleeping here seem more normal, less suspicious?

But why would such a thing happen?

Lu Mi lowered his head, gazing at the floor before him; his vision seemed to pierce through wooden planks and other obstacles, revealing the ground below.

He wasn't certain what caused this anomaly, so he could only make educated guesses based on common sense and experience.

In the deathly silent, pitch-dark environment, Lu Mi shifted his steps, leaving the house once owned by "Siso" Tewanako amid the creaks and groans of his own footsteps.

The street was empty; livestock kept by townsfolk in building basements had vanished into the night, their presence indiscernible, and the occasional clattering footsteps of patrolling soldiers had disappeared entirely.

The night's damp, hot wind swept unimpeded down the street, pushing Lu Mi step by step toward the entrance of the "Giant Anaconda" Bar.

Lu Mi listened closely and found it utterly silent—even the rustling of insects and the buzzing of mosquitoes were gone.

His expression unchanged, he extended his right hand and pushed open the heavy wooden door.

Inside was darkness; with the dim moonlight filtering through the windows and his "Hunter" Path's superior vision, Lu Mi barely made out the shapes of the bar counter, liquor cabinet, small round tables, chairs, candle sconces—but saw no human being.

The bar had clearly closed for some time.

"That's even more wrong—I fell asleep while this bar was still lively; it's impossible to have cleared out all patrons, cleaned every corner, and shut down in seven or eight minutes."

"From my experience, while country bars do close earlier than city ones and rarely stay lively past two or three a. ., they still don't stop serving alcohol until after midnight—and even then, they tell drinkers to finish their current glass before leaving; if someone gets drunk and refuses to go, they delay even longer…" As a regular patron of the old tavern in Kerdou Village, Lu Mi had visited many bars across multiple places and felt qualified to make this judgment.

This further confirmed his belief that he was now inside a dream that seemed utterly real.

Lu Mi suddenly recalled events from Kerdou Village; his hand, gripping the heavy wooden door of the "Giant Anaconda" Bar, froze.

After a moment, he left the place and walked slowly back to the Brieu Inn.

Passing through the dark, unlit staircase and the corridor lined with aged flooring, Lu Mi returned at a steady pace to his second-floor suite and pushed open the wooden door of the children's room.

Dim crimson moonlight spilled into the curtained room, illuminating the blue-and-patterned quilt and sheets.

No one was sleeping here.

Ludwig was gone too.

Combining what he'd seen on the way, Lu Mi strongly suspected that only he existed in this dream.

All townsfolk, livestock, and outsiders had vanished—only he remained in the entire town of Tizamo!

"This clearly can't be called a festival—unless it's the Festival of Solitude…" Lu Mi thought for a few seconds, turned, left the Brieu Inn, and walked all the way to Saint Cien Church near the cemetery.

In the deep, dim moonlit night, the church's golden dome and ornamental decorations seemed to have lost their luster, sinking into slumber.

Lu Mi didn't bother expending energy to push open the double doors; he simply pried open a stained-glass window beside them and leapt inside.

In the dark night, the place was silent and empty; the high dome radiated a heaviness and chill unseen during daylight.

Lu Mi searched around but found no abnormality in Father Cali, nor any assistant priests or servants.

"It's really just me…"

"Only those who fall asleep inside 'Siso's' house enter this special dream?"

"Hmm, and only at midnight."

"How could a Dream Festival be held? Would everyone have to line up at 'Siso's' house to sleep at a set time? Not to mention whether there's enough space—how could such a widespread collective act be hidden from patrol officers and the army outside town?"

"Besides, it doesn't seem like everyone was dragged in—those Tizamo people I questioned earlier knew nothing…"

"And most importantly:"

"If this is a dream, why am I still conscious?"

Lu Mi pondered for a while, extended his right hand, and touched the wall adorned with religious frescoes.

The texture was cold and hard—real stone.

With rich experience in vivid dreams, Lu Mi suppressed his inner questions and decided to begin with the simplest reconnaissance.

He needed to confirm the dream's true size and boundaries.

Lu Mi activated the black sigil on his right shoulder, sensed the Spirit Realm, and "saw" every corner of Tizamo Town.

He performed a "Spirit Realm Transit," his figure vanishing from the spot and reappearing on the packed-earth road leading from Tizamo Town to Pailos Port.

"I can 'teleport'… Of course—since this is a dream, nothing's impossible; as long as I believe I can, I should be able to…" After the Kerdou Village incident, Lu Mi had read many books on dreams and conversed with the "Justice" Lady, Miss Su Qian, Anthony Reed, and other spiritual experts, gaining deeper insight.

He slowed his pace, walking steadily toward Pailos Port; after two or three hundred meters, he saw the path ahead grow blurry, as if swirling with illusory mist, and under the dim moonlight, the mist was a deep, pitch-black.

Suddenly, his spiritual intuition warned him: if he truly entered that blurred, mist-shrouded zone, it would be extremely dangerous—something horrific would almost certainly occur.

Indeed, there were limits—he couldn't walk directly to the edge of the mind… Lu Mi didn't risk it; he hurried back to Tizamo Town and searched for the opposite boundary.

This side bordered the primeval jungle.

Crossing three or four hundred meters, Lu Mi reached the jungle's edge and saw the rainforest plants standing still in the night, like densely arranged tombstones.

Seeing no blurring or mist-filled zone yet, Lu Mi cautiously yet decisively pressed forward.

Passing beneath cascading vines and towering trees, he stepped across thick layers of humus, delving deeper into the primeval jungle.

Along the way, no flying mosquitoes, no venomous creatures lurking in the foliage.

After another seven or eight hundred meters, Lu Mi sensed increasing hallucinatory qualities in the surroundings.

Some areas grew blurry, others twisted, some appeared clear at a glance but vanished under close scrutiny.

These zones constantly shifted and changed.

This was more like a normal dream… Lu Mi, seeing no spiritual warning, cautiously took a few more steps.

Suddenly, the entire world shattered into scene after scene, overlapping and unfolding around him.

His state of awareness was disturbed, becoming slightly dazed.

The next instant, he saw black stones and multiple figures clad in dark robes appear within those scenes.

One of the figures lifted his head, revealing a pale face with a light-brown base, eyes of flaxen hue tinged with faint green, and well-defined facial features.

"Siso!"

"Siso" Tewanako!

He was "Siso" Tewanako!

The figure in the dark robe straightened fully, his face bearing "Siso" Tewanako's appearance.

His gaze seemed to pierce through the overlapping scenes, fixing on Lu Mi.

With a phantom *pop*, the surrounding scenes shattered violently.

Lu Mi jolted upright, finding himself back inside the brownish house rebuilt by "Siso" Tewanako, back in the dark room, back on the simple wooden bed.

He quickly glanced around, pulled his gold-cased pocket watch from the left breast pocket of his shirt, snapped it open, and checked the time:

1: 8 a. .

Outside the window, the crimson moonlight was neither too bright nor too dim; the nearby "Giant Anaconda" Bar was closed, but from the distant primeval jungle came a wild animal's howl.

A quiet, but not deathly silent, night.

"So I'm awake? That makes sense—I slept for over an hour and forty minutes, matching my perception…" Lu Mi rolled off the bed, looked down at the floor, and unsurprisingly saw the charred corpses of mosquitoes and numerous insects lingering outside the window, repelled by the scent of Serenity Oil.

He exhaled in relief, then pondered the appearance of "Siso" Tewanako in that special dream:

"If this is a festival, the 'Dream Festival' can't have happened only once—one-off is just a party; could 'Siso' have attended multiple Dream Festivals in past years, leaving some kind of imprint within the dream?"

"Is the Dream Festival truly tied to that primitive tribe? That's why, when I ventured into the jungle, I triggered certain imprints or images stored in the dream—hence seeing 'Siso'…"

"What is 'Siso' trying to achieve through the Dream Festival?"

"Dream Festival, Dream Festival—if it's a festival, it must occur on fixed dates; entering the special dream at other times yields nothing, like tonight?"

"Which date could it be?"

Lu Mi fell into deep thought.

He quickly formed a direction for his guess:

On December 17 last year, that primitive tribe attacked Tizamo Town, causing heavy casualties.

"Is the Dream Festival on December 17—or two or three days before, like the 'April Fools' Day' here, when pranks are played?" Lu Mi's spirits lifted; he immediately checked today's date.

It was now the early hours of December 11.

ps: Recommended book: *Tokyo Prank Agent: KGB Layoff and Reemployment*—after the Soviet Union collapsed, the entire KGB Tokyo station graduated, supplying talent to society. 2002 · Detective Agency · Lighthearted, Funny Shenanigans

(End of Chapter)