Bai Li’s Dream – Chapter 140

Chapter 140: Calling Out

The streets were bustling with people, noisy and lively.

Madam Zhuang stood among them, tears sliding down her cheeks: “She… is she sick again?”

The two women beside her also shed tears: “What’s wrong with the child?”

Madam Zhuang sighed: “That child, she can’t remember the way home, she can’t remember who she is.”

The two women looked panicked: “What should we do? What should we do?”

With each question, Madam Zhuang seemed to panic: “Don’t worry, don’t worry, Feizi is here, Feizi—”

As she spoke, she turned her head. She was no longer on the street, but in her house. A figure lay on the bed, hazy and indistinct. Her husband stood by the bedside.

“Feizi—” Madam Zhuang grabbed his arm, asking urgently, “She can’t wake up, what should we do? What should we do?”

Master Zhuang held his wife’s hand: “Don’t be afraid, I’ll go find her back.”

As he spoke, the surroundings changed again. They were no longer in their house, but in a dense forest.

Madam Zhuang held Master Zhuang’s arm, while he held a lamp in his hand.

The forest seemed to be shrouded in night, or perhaps thick fog. There was no path to be seen, only tall and short trees standing in clusters. Strange birds and beasts flashed through the woods from time to time, their cries sending chills down one’s spine.

Madam Zhuang felt her steps getting heavier, her feet more and more unsteady. The thick fog surged from the forest, threatening to engulf them.

Master Zhuang suddenly raised his hand, and another lamp appeared in it, hanging alongside the original one.

The two lamps flickered.

The surging fog retreated.

Shadows flickered between the trees, as if someone was standing there.

Madam Zhuang felt a surge of joy and couldn’t help but move towards the figure. But in the next moment, more fog surged forth, obscuring her vision and threatening to swallow the figure among the trees.

“Feizi—” she couldn’t help but cry out.

Master Zhuang’s body trembled, and another lamp appeared on the bamboo pole. Three lamps burned like fire.

Master Zhuang strode into the fog, which retreated step by step. The figure among the trees gradually became clearer.

It was a woman, standing with her head bowed, her long hair reaching the ground, clad in a gauze dress.

“Come, come—” Master Zhuang called, shaking the bamboo pole in his hand.

The lamplight flickered, like a spirit snake, winding towards the woman.

“Go, go—” Master Zhuang called again, then slowly retreated.

The woman, entwined by the spirit snake-like lamplight, was pulled forward. The fog seemed to transform into countless hands, grabbing the woman as she walked. Her long hair flew, and her gauze dress was instantly torn to shreds.

Was this how Master Zhuang brought her back from the depths of the labyrinth?

Zhuang Li stood beside Madam Zhuang, watching this scene unfold.

Master Zhuang kept waving the bamboo pole, and with each wave, the flames of the three lamps grew stronger. His whole being seemed to be burning.

“Wake up—”

With this shout, the woman with her head bowed raised her head.

Zhuang Li saw a face and was stunned.

This face… wasn’t hers.

Moreover, she wasn’t standing beside Madam Zhuang, but at the edge of the fog, directly in front of the woman entwined by the spirit snake flames. Their faces were almost touching.

The fog clawed at them, trying to engulf them.

“Wake up—”

With this shout, Zhuang Li watched as the woman, entwined by the spirit snake flames, was suddenly pulled and crashed into her.

Zhuang Li felt her body sway, and she heard Madam Zhuang’s cries in her ears.

“…Mian’er, is Mian’er back?”

Who was Mian’er?

She suddenly opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, and figures intertwined. She was standing indoors, watching Madam Zhuang and Master Zhuang surround the person lying on the bed.

“Mian’er is back,” Master Zhuang said, “but she saw Ah Li, she thought she was Ah Li—”

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” Madam Zhuang sat down, reaching out to gently stroke the face of the person on the bed, “She can be Ah Li first, she can live for Ah Li.”

What did it mean to live for Ah Li?

She was here, she was clearly alive, Master Zhuang had saved her.

Zhuang Li felt her thoughts in turmoil.

“It’s all my fault, my incompetence,” Master Zhuang turned around, his expression filled with self-blame and grief, “I couldn’t find Ah Li.”

Madam Zhuang shook her head tearfully: “Perhaps for Ah Li, being with her father and family is what she wants most.”

Master Zhuang stroked his beard and sighed. Madam Zhuang raised her hand to wipe her tears.

Zhuang Li shook her head.

No, no, she was clearly alive.

She was clearly lying on the bed.

Why did they say they couldn’t find her?

Zhuang Li walked to the bedside and looked at the woman lying there.

The first thing that caught her eye was the white gauze dress, scattered in shreds, revealing bare calves. A string of rubies was tied around her ankle.

Zhuang Li froze, her gaze slowly moving up to the woman’s face.

It was a face that was half unfamiliar, half her own.

Unlike the mirror in the dream, now the unfamiliar half of the face opened its eyes, clear and bright, while the half she recognized as her own was wooden and blank….

“Mian’er, you’re awake.” Madam Zhuang walked through her and leaned over to look at the woman with the half-familiar face, her eyes filled with joy, “That’s great, Mian’er—”

Mian’er?

Mian’er…

Zhuang Li subconsciously cupped her own face.

So…

She looked at Madam Zhuang and murmured, “So, I’m not the treasure of the human world in your eyes…”

As she spoke, the surroundings twisted like a whirlpool, and everyone was swept into it, vanishing in an instant.

With a thud, Madam Zhuang rolled off the bed.

Perhaps because she hit the ground hard, Madam Zhuang lay there, covering her face and crying.

A servant woman walked over and, seeing Madam Zhuang crying on the ground, did not panic or shout, but sighed.

“Madam, isn’t this good?” she said, “Isn’t it better for someone like Her Majesty to live in this world? This was Master Zhuang’s choice. Don’t you believe that what he traded his life for is worth it?”

Madam Zhuang, who had been covering her face and crying on the ground, suddenly laughed and looked up: “That was just a personal choice. Everything in this world, every person, even a blade of grass, is the same. There’s no difference, no right or wrong, beauty or ugliness, good or evil, noble or lowly. There’s no worth or unworth, and whether something should exist is not determined by others.”

The servant woman was silent for a moment: “Madam, just think of it as the inevitable course of events. There is life and death, the natural way of heaven. Please grieve in moderation.”

After saying that, she turned and walked out.

Madam Zhuang sat up from the ground, but did not get back on the bed. She leaned against the edge of the bed, looking at the dimly lit room in the morning light.

There is life and death, the natural way of heaven.

Ah Li hadn’t come to visit her dreams through Jiang Yun, but she had come through someone else.

She recalled the remnants of the already blurred dream. On the bustling street, a gaze from somewhere unknown had looked at her, pulling her into a new dream. But in the end, because she asked who she was, she violated this woven dream.

Once she asked who she was, it meant she didn’t know who she was, so it was up to others to tell her.

The words “I’m not the treasure of the human world in your eyes…” still seemed to echo in her ears from before the dream shattered.

Madam Zhuang’s tears slid down her cheeks again.

So, from now on, she had also lost her treasure of the human world.

✿✿✿

✿✿✿

The world spun. Zhuang Li spun out of Madam Zhuang’s dream, out of the dream of the person Shangguan Yue had sent to Dengzhou.

She fell back into her own dream.

✿✿✿

She opened her eyes, like a withered leaf floating in the void, surrounded by boundless chaos.

Her eyes were blank.

So she wasn’t her.

She was someone else.

Countless lights and shadows seemed to appear in her chaotic vision.

She raised her hand. As long as she touched them, she could grab these lights and shadows, open them, and see who she was, where she came from, her past—

But just as she reached out, she stopped, looking at the piece of incense she held in her hand.

A rough, unrefined piece of incense.

She had given Shangguan Yue a piece of incense, and she had given the person Shangguan Yue sent to Dengzhou a piece of incense.

When she fell out of that person’s dream, the incense had burned out and scattered.

But Shangguan Yue’s dream hadn’t scattered yet.

Her chaotic consciousness became clear. The dream wasn’t over yet—

As this thought flashed through her mind, her body, floating in the chaos, suddenly plummeted. The world spun again, and she landed on the ground with a thud.

Zhuang Li saw the familiar empty world, the familiar sleeping child. She rolled over and lay on the ground, clutching her head.

It hurt.

No, it wasn’t pain.

You couldn’t feel pain in dreams.

Zhuang Li looked at her own body, which seemed to be constantly changing, sometimes clear, sometimes illusory.

This was because her spirit was on the verge of collapse.

The continuous dream-hopping had left her mind in disarray.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her thoughts and sort out the chaotic dreams.

As she had instructed, the person Shangguan Yue sent was to observe Madam Zhuang from afar, to see her in their mind and heart, and to do nothing else.

This person had indeed seen Madam Zhuang and had obediently just watched, without approaching her.

Calculating the date, she had seen Madam Zhuang through this person’s dream.

Then she had smoothly entered Madam Zhuang’s dream.

What was unexpected was that she had actually seen Jiang Yun in Madam Zhuang’s dream.

She then remembered that she hadn’t seen Jiang Yun for a while, before and after the New Year. So Zhou Jingyun had sent him here?

Was he specifically sent to watch Madam Zhuang?

Whatever, it didn’t matter anymore.

Then she had pulled Madam Zhuang into her own dream. It was fine at first, but when she asked that unusual question, the dream collapsed, and she was pulled back into Madam Zhuang’s dream. Then she saw the scene of Master Zhuang and his wife rescuing her from the labyrinth.

She hadn’t remembered anything when she woke up back then.

She didn’t remember how Master Zhuang had woken her up after she woke up. She only knew that from that time onwards, Master Zhuang’s body had been failing.

And she had been drowsy, taking more than half a year to recover.

Recover…

Zhuang Li was stunned. So it wasn’t her who had recovered, but that… Mian’er?

Who was Mian’er?

Was she Mian’er?

Wasn’t she Bai Li?

How could she not be Bai Li?

Her body scattered, as if pulled apart by an invisible force, about to be torn to pieces.

She couldn’t think about it anymore.

Zhuang Li scrambled up and lunged at the sleeping child. The world spun again as she fell, layer after layer, until she hit the ground once more.

“Li Yu, Li Yu.” She crawled over and grabbed the sleeping child, shaking him, “Wake up.”

The child was shaken awake, his eyes blankly staring at her. He pouted, as if about to cry, but Zhuang Li was faster, tears falling from her eyes.

“I want to see your mother’s mirror,” she choked out, “Let me see your mother’s mirror—”

She didn’t know why she was crying.

She had never been one to cry.

Perhaps it was because she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, and the person she was facing was a silly child, so she could vent her fear, panic, and sadness without restraint.

The child stared blankly at the crying face in front of him, holding back his own tears.

“My mother’s…” he murmured, “mirror?”

Zhuang Li nodded tearfully: “Yes, that, the most beautiful mirror in the world.”

Perhaps because he heard the praise of “most beautiful in the world,” the child grinned: “The most beautiful mirror in the world!”

As he spoke, a dressing table with a mirror appeared before Zhuang Li. It was a larger and more ornate mirror than before.

The mirror was adorned with pearls and gemstones, sparkling brightly.

Zhuang Li couldn’t help but smile.

For a child, any sparkling gemstone was the most beautiful thing in the world.

She patted the child’s head: “It’s really beautiful.”

The child shook his head to avoid her hand, his expression returning to blankness: “Don’t be rude.”

Zhuang Li laughed again, wiping away her tears. In this realm of no dreams, she would watch the previous dream again. If she really wasn’t her—

She would cry then.

She took a deep breath and looked into the mirror.

Although it wasn’t the first time she had seen it, she still needed to muster some courage each time she looked at this two-faced face.

Especially this time.

Her eyes in the mirror blinked, while the clear eyes on the other side remained blank.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the other way around, like she had seen in Madam Zhuang’s dream.

At least it meant that the soul that truly existed now was still hers.

Yes, that’s right, she was still her.

Compared to the dreams of others, she believed in her own dreams more.

Zhuang Li looked at her own eyes in the mirror. A whirlpool appeared in them, growing larger and larger, covering the entire mirror surface. Figures churned within the reflected whirlpool.

“Feizi—” Madam Zhuang’s voice trembled as she grabbed Master Zhuang’s arm, “She can’t wake up, what should we do? What should we do?”

Master Zhuang raised a lamp.

The dim lamp she saw in the mirror now had a long wick, extending from Master Zhuang’s arm to his heart.

The burning wick wasn’t the dim yellow she had seen in the previous dream, but a bright, leaping red.

Zhuang Li couldn’t help but press her hand to her heart. So this was how Master Zhuang had burned his own spirit to find her.

The forest, the fog, illuminated and dispelled by the burning soul lamp, reflected the gemstones surrounding the mirror, making them sparkle even brighter.

Zhuang Li looked at the figure gradually appearing in the fog.

“Feizi—” Madam Zhuang cried out in joy.

She rushed out from the dimness, as if to run towards the figure.

The soul lamp illuminated her face.

The mirror surface flickered. Zhuang Li froze. That wasn’t Madam Zhuang!

It was a strange man!

So the person supporting Master Zhuang wasn’t Madam Zhuang!