Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 632: Reconciling the Dream Accounts

Erin—still in her eight-legged state—ambled back and forth on the little hill, eventually realizing that apart from grass and stones, there was nothing here. As for the other half of the hill that might have had something, it was probably flattened when the World Bridge crashed down.

So she concluded her exploration and started descending the slope littered with rubble and debris, heading towards the wilderness at the foot of the hill.

As the wind blew across the hill, carrying with it a whisper of sighs, Erin stopped in her tracks, looked back toward the hilltop, but all she saw was the lone dark Tower slanting distantly, like a pillar connecting heaven and earth, piercing through the chaotic clouds of the sky. Broken Space Rifts surrounded the Tower, making it look like a bizarre tree.

"This is getting weird... really weird..."

Erin murmured a few words under her breath and unconsciously quickened her pace, as though feeling some unease from this 'Dream Realm.' Instinctively, she distanced herself from the broken Tower and the collapsed hill.

The increasingly chaotic and wailing wind intensified, as if forming a Barrier around the little hill, with a gentle yet omnipresent force that seemed to prevent her from reaching the plains. But suddenly, as if an Illusion, the obstruction dissipated into nothingness. Erin burst through the whirlwind, feeling surrounded by a familiar and tranquil aura, while the nameless tall grass swayed gently in the breeze, making her eight legs itch a bit.

The Puppet (Omen) spaced out for a moment, then turned once more towards the little hill, only to find it was now in the distance, and both the 'World Bridge' on the hill and the Space Rifts in the sky had vanished, as if they had never been there.

The eight long limbs scratched at the ground a few times, and Erin turned to look in another direction. She saw a thin mist swirling ahead, and the Derivative Star Crystal Tree stood tall in the wilderness, its magnificent canopy overshadowing a solemn black cathedral beneath.

The Happy Home built by the C-type clasp and her Knights—it's far prettier than the toilet Yu Sheng cobbled together.

The Puppet's Dream Realm ended, and her Consciousness drifted past the Border of memory and illusion, finally arriving at the Soul Wilderness.

Erin thought for a moment, then suddenly laughed joyfully and started heading towards the cathedral.

She intended to create some chaos for the C-type clasp—starting with the garden seemed like a good idea.

But she had only taken a few steps when she felt a familiar presence suddenly appear nearby, followed by a voice in her ears: "…How did you get here?"

Erin made a sudden stop, turning her head to see Yu Sheng standing in the wilderness with a perplexed expression.

"Hey Yu Sheng!" Erin exclaimed happily as she approached, "I gotta tell you, I was just dreaming..."

"I was dreaming too, just now dreaming about the barbecue festival at Sun City with unlimited grilling, getting ready to take Hu Li there to eat, and before I knew it, I ended up here—did your sleepwalking drag me over?" Yu Sheng stood there stunned, looking at the giant spider Erin with a trace of dreaminess still on his face, "Hey, wait, why do you look like this here?!"

"I didn't drag you," Erin first waved her hand, then a smug look appeared on her face as she looked down at Yu Sheng, flaunting her long legs, "How about it, amazing, right? I'm not bound by that oil painting anymore. It's way cooler than floating around as a paper figure! Just look at my height, look at my legs... In this dream, I can use this body directly! After unlocking here, it seems I don't have to wait for a cooldown..."

Yu Sheng, for a moment, didn't know if he should remind her that "only growing taller in dreams" wasn't something to boast about, but still held back his words, instead changing the topic abruptly: "You said you were dreaming just now? What did you dream about?"

The Puppet (Omen) who was showing off suddenly came to a stop, a brief look of confusion flickering across her face.

Oh right, she had been dreaming just now, a really long and increasingly odd dream towards the end... She had lots to tell Yu Sheng, but what exactly did she dream about?

"You haven't already forgotten, have you?" Yu Sheng's voice sounded again from the side.

Erin furrowed her brows tightly, trying hard to navigate through the chaotic interferences in her mind, waving her hand instinctively, and turned back towards the "forever unreachable hill" in the Soul Wilderness, where the scattered fragments of her dream finally pieced together.

It was just in that flash of a moment.

Yu Sheng saw the giant Erin's face suddenly tense up, although he didn't understand what was happening, he instinctively shut his mouth and focussed his mind, and then Erin took a deep breath—the next moment, Miss Puppet's remarkably swift tongue started to churn out words:

"I dreamed that I was created by the Ancient Saints as an experimental model supposedly designed specifically to handle the World Bridge, but the first task was a bust. Also saw the previous version of the Boundary Land, which looked like a box garden map. The World Bridge's failure to connect was because it wasn't fully attached to the Boundary Land, but punctured through the map and crashed into another dimension. That place looked like this Soul Wilderness, with the bridge piers crashing on the mountain there, and I couldn't figure out what was happening. Coming down from the mountain, I just ended up over with you. Ah, my tongue, my tongue hurts..."

Yu Sheng felt like each word from her mouth spewed out like a machine gun, explosively hammering his brain with hurricane-like impact, leaving him dazed once he'd heard it all, nearly losing his breath in shock: "Whoa, wait—"

At that moment, Erin was gasping for breath, sticking out her tongue. Seeing Yu Sheng's reaction, she widened her eyes: "I'm telling you, if you want me to say it again, I'll flip—I nearly bit my tongue off..."

"No, no, I heard it. I heard it all," Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand, trying hard to go over the torrent of words he'd just heard in his mind several times to reinforce his memory. After running through it four or five times, he finally split his focus to contemplate what he had heard—he felt unpacking the contents of those words was like unzipping a compressed file, and many layers of details were clearly missing, "But I need to sort this out... starting from the Ancient Saints bit, what do you mean by 'you were created as an experimental model by the Ancient Saints'? What exactly did you remember?"

Erin quickly took that sentence as a keyword to extract from her chaotic memory, folding her arms and pondering seriously for a few moments before nodding and pointing at herself with her thumb: "Me, Alice Puppet Special Type, awesome."

That's all she got to say in the end.

Yu Sheng: "…Messed up the first mission that badly?"

Erin: "…Yu Sheng you bastard!!"

…

Yu Sheng and Erin were reconciling some mysterious accounts in the Dream Realm for who knows how long, until a phone call from the real world woke them up.

As soon as he opened his eyes, the daylight outside was already bright; it was nearly noon. The phone on the bedside table was buzzing, and Yu Sheng turned over to see Baili Qing's name on the caller ID.

Erin also scrambled up, sitting on the edge of the bed pointing at Yu Sheng: "Haha, you got woken up by Ironclad Expression too… Ah—"

The little puppet was so giddy that it tumbled off the edge of the bed.

Yu Sheng ignored the cursing little thing, answered the phone, and put it to his ear: "Hello? Director Baili?"

A familiar cool voice came from the other end: "Yes, it's me… Still not up?"

"Stayed up too late last night," Yu Sheng said casually, "but it's no big deal. What's up?"

"It's about those Hidden Monastery Sect members who invaded Boundary City yesterday," Baili Qing got straight to the point, "I'm limited in what I know, can you come over, so we can talk in person?"

Yu Sheng readily agreed: "No problem, I'll tidy up and head over."

"Alright, I'll wait for you in my office," Baili Qing said, adding, "You can bring Hu Li over for a meal. Song Cheng says the cafeteria's braised chicken drumsticks are excellent today."

"No problem!"

Yu Sheng hung up but didn't rush to the Bureau. Instead, he watched Erin (blonde) crawling back onto the bed, then glanced at the four boxes in the corner of the room opening one by one, as a line of puppets climbed out, rubbing their sleepy eyes and heading to the bathroom.

Erin (blonde) clung to the edge of the bed, both hands grabbing the sheets, half of her body dangling off the side, staring wide-eyed at Yu Sheng.

"Aren't you going to help?"

"Oh, oh." Yu Sheng finally reached out and pulled the little puppet up with a yank.

"In the end, we didn't figure out what that scene in my 'dream' at the World Bridge in the Soul Wilderness meant," the little puppet sat cross-legged in front of Yu Sheng, arms crossed, and murmured while rocking, "Mainly because I can't remember the details… just the impression of 'a tower piercing the sky and landing on the hill.'

Yu Sheng stroked his chin, pondering as he stared at Erin for a long time, until she began to bare her teeth before he spoke: "Do you think these were real events?"

Erin blinked: "What do you mean?"

"Your dream, though a lot of it is generated by your chaotic 'memories', making it feel very real, is still a dream… Maybe that scene was just because there's actually a Derivative Star Crystal Tree in the Soul Wilderness and a 'World Bridge' fused onto the Crystal Tree now? That impression might have led you to see the tower on the hill in your dream…"

Erin's blue eyes stared intently at Yu Sheng, and the little puppet rarely wore such a serious expression: "Do you really believe that explanation?"

Yu Sheng opened his mouth but only ended up scratching his somewhat messy hair.

"See, you don't even believe it," Erin scooted forward, her body slightly leaning, "I think that scene is definitely conveying some important information… Three thousand seven hundred years ago, in the last version of Boundary Land—Ironclad Expression calls it the 'Classical Era'—on that day, the Omen Goddess came to this world, I went out for my first mission, and the World Bridge punctured Boundary Land, the Tower landed in the Soul Wilderness, yes, on that day… everything happened…"

Yu Sheng stared blankly at the puppet in front of him, finding Erin so serious… quite imposing.

The imposing little puppet lifted her hand, pointing towards Yu Sheng.

"So," she said with a grave face, "what about you? Were you there on that day as well?"