Chapter 1

A faint scent of decay, mingled with the fresh breath of the wilderness, drifted into her nose.

Beside her ear, there seemed to be the murmur of running water.

Three uneven stones were stacked atop a mound of soft, brown, withered leaves. A pair of black Chelsea boots stood on them, a scrape marking the leather uppers and yellow-gray mud caking the edges of the soles. Beside blue denim trouser legs, the hem of an open black overcoat fluttered in the air.

She lifted her gaze.

Dense branches and leaves above let shafts of molten gold spill through their gaps. The warmth bathed her face. A hand slowly rose to shield her slightly narrowed eyes, and her vision sharpened bit by bit. A maple leaf slipped free from a branch, drifting down through the air and brushing past a length of frayed hemp rope hanging from the trunk.

Rope?

Her hands moved forward of their own accord. Rough fibers scraped her palms, then her elbows drew back, pulling her closer and closer to the rope. At once, a prickling pain and abrasive sting spread across her neck.

...What was this?

The next instant, her calves kicked hard, and beneath her feet came the dull crash of stones striking the ground.

The coarse rope had looped around her throat as if it had bitten into flesh. Her airway was seized shut. Suffocation surged violently. Her heartbeat pounded so hard it throbbed in her ears. Her face burned hot and tight. Both hands clawed frantically at the rope biting into her neck while her feet thrashed wildly in the air.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

S University, Department of Psychology, Class One, First-Year Graduate Cohort, Room 404.

At the back row, a slim girl sleeping with her head by the window had not even fully opened her eyes when she suddenly sprang up from her seat. Her pale face flushed crimson in an instant, her brows drawn tight. Clutching her throat with both hands, she broke into a violent fit of coughing, gasping as though she had just been pulled from the brink of death and abruptly granted the chance to breathe again.

Her movement was too abrupt; as she rose, the chair flipped with a sharp crack, accompanied by her coughing.

Everyone in the classroom turned to look toward the back row.

Even the teacher on the platform was startled. Through his glasses, he stared at the girl who had suddenly stood up and bent over, coughing wildly, and frowned. "Student, what's wrong?"

A fine sheen of cold sweat broke out on Zhou Huaixia's forehead. Her black pupils were veiled by a layer of physiological tears. She looked at the classmates around her, then up at the familiar teacher on the podium, and finally managed to wrench herself free of the suffocating sensation.

She swallowed hard. The pain of the rope tightening around her neck in the dream still lingered. The illusion of a broken throat remained too, but she quickly understood what had happened and forced herself to calm down, inventing an awkward excuse. "Teacher, I... I'm fine. My leg cramped a little."

The teacher on the platform regarded her for a long moment, doubtful. "Are you sure you're all right? If you feel unwell, you can take leave."

Her face had gone so red just now. It was alarming.

Zhou Huaixia still insisted, "Teacher, I'm fine."

The red flush on her face vanished so quickly that her complexion had already returned to its usual pallor, making her seem indeed all right.

Seeing that, the teacher could only say, "Sit down first. If you feel unwell, you must say so right away."

Zhou Huaixia turned sideways, folded down the chair, and sat while holding back her breathing. Leaning against the backrest, she subconsciously touched her throat, lowered her eyes to glance at her watch, then surveyed the students in the classroom before finally frowning toward the window.

4:20 in the afternoon. Classes were still in session across the various colleges. Who would be sleeping at this hour?

And having such a nightmare, no less.

...

Zhou Huaixia had kept a secret for many years.

She never dreamed. She only entered other people's dreams.

After years of repeated testing and deduction, she found that entering a dream generally required two conditions: first, the dreamer had to be in an intense emotional state; second, she had to be near the dreamer at night.

There was one other common point: it was always from a third-person perspective.

Zhou Huaixia had always been a bystander in dreams.

But this time, it had been first person.

Could that have been her own dream just now?

Impossible. She never dreamed.

Dreams were more or less connected to reality. By her own judgment, her mental state was good, and she had no inclination toward self-destruction at present.

The only possibility was that some student at the university was under too much psychological pressure, enough to have such a nightmare in broad daylight.

The teacher on the platform was still lecturing.

Zhou Huaixia had already recovered from the illusion of dying. She lowered her head, took a candy from her pocket, slipped it quietly into her mouth to ease the dizziness, then looked out the window again and thought: as expected of S University, a gathering place for top students. Even their dreams are in high definition here.

Whether it was the dead leaves and branches beneath her feet or the scrape on the black Chelsea boot, everything was sharply visible. She could even feel the warmth of sunlight on her fingers.

Ding--

After a long while, the bell rang.

The teacher on the platform switched off the projector. "Class dismissed."

At once, the classroom filled with the sharp clacking of folding seats snapping up as students left in waves.

Zhou Huaixia rose slowly. Class ended at five-thirty, just in time for dinner. She left the teaching building and headed for the nearest second cafeteria.

The afterglow of the autumn dusk fell on her face, tinting her usually somewhat pale complexion with a warm yellow, while a long slanted shadow trailed behind her.

Shua--

As Zhou Huaixia stepped up the cafeteria stairs, she casually turned her face and glanced back. She caught sight of a police car driving past.

...

After leaving the cafeteria, Zhou Huaixia slowly made her way toward Dormitory Building 23, Room 407.

Building 23 was the women's dormitory for the medical school, but she had been assigned here from another department.

S University's psychology program was its own separate school. Zhou Huaixia ought to have been placed in the psychology dormitory, but this year the university expanded enrollment and there were not enough rooms, so she had been assigned to Building 23 of the medical school women's dormitory.

At present, there were only two people in 407.

She and a medical student from the clinical program, named Lu Jin, a textbook good student with gold-rimmed round glasses and a head of short, naturally curly hair.

Their schedules differed, so most of the time they could only see each other at noon and at night. And since the other spent Saturdays and Sundays in the library, they could not yet be called especially close after this period of enrollment; they merely exchanged a few polite words occasionally.

When Zhou Huaixia reached the door of 407 and saw that it was half open, she was immediately surprised. Normally, after class, Lu Jin would go to the library and would not return until after it closed at eleven.

She pushed the door open and indeed saw Lu Jin sitting at the desk. Unusually, she was not flipping through that pile of blue-covered books, but looking at something on her phone.

"Something happened in your medical school?" Zhou Huaixia closed the door, walked to the right-hand desk inside, put down her backpack, and asked.

Lu Jin turned her head and gave her a strange look. "The news has spread?"

So something really had happened?

Zhou Huaixia froze. "I just saw a police car..."

The road where the police car had come from led only to the medical school, so she had guessed at random.

"Yes, someone had an accident." Lu Jin did not continue with what had happened to the person.

Zhou Huaixia completed the thought in her own mind: had someone gone mad?

The medical school was one of S University's flagship departments. Rumor had it that every year there were students with questionable mental states. On her first day of school, someone had even gone berserk and smashed up a laboratory before being taken away.

Seeing that Lu Jin did not wish to say more, Zhou Huaixia did not ask further. She reached for her pajamas from the bed, preparing to wash up.

At this hour, while everyone was still awake, she could quietly get some more sleep.

With her back to Lu Jin, Zhou Huaixia went straight into the bathroom.

Lu Jin turned her phone face down, covering a photo on the screen that had not been censored.

...

The night was pitch-black, and the surroundings were eerily silent. A cold wind blew past, making the wild grass rustle.

"Ahhhhh!"

A shriek suddenly tore through the night.

A girl with her hair tied into a bun ran out of the darkness, barefoot along a narrow path through the fields. On both sides stood tall cornfields, their leaves and tassels whispering, as if something unknown might spring out of them at any moment.

She kept looking back. Behind her, a pair of blood-red eyes suddenly floated through the night like ghostly fire, pursuing her.

"Ahhh!!"

The girl's expression collapsed. Her face twisted into terror as she looked at the identical small paths around her and screamed, "Why can't I run out of here?"

"Because you've been running in place all along."

Zhou Huaixia had both hands stuffed into the pockets of her yellow duck pajamas. She had stood beside the girl watching for quite some time and, glancing at the other's legs, answered softly on her own initiative.

The girl's legs were clearly swinging so fast they nearly sparked, yet she remained in the same spot.

"Ahhhhhhh--"

The bun-haired girl's scream climbed another pitch, completely ignoring Zhou Huaixia's words.

She looked back and found that the blood-red eyes in the darkness had vanished. Her frantic running slowed. Before she could relax, a heavy, viscous, inhuman panting suddenly sounded by her ear, carrying a hot, bloody wind.

Huff! Huff!

The girl's neck turned stiffly to the right, and her eyes widened suddenly as she stared in terror toward Zhou Huaixia's direction.

Zhou Huaixia first looked puzzled, then turned to look behind herself.

Sure enough, behind her, a massive white pig as large as a hill had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, two tusks jutting from its mouth. It was staring with two copper-bell-sized blood-red eyes, its mouth gaping and drool streaming down.

Before Zhou Huaixia could move aside, the monstrous pig the size of a mountain charged forward with booming steps, passing straight through her body and lunging at the girl.

"Ah!"

The girl had only time for a short cry before the pig, pouncing from the side like a mountain, sent her flying. The moment she hit the ground, her neck gave a crack and twisted to an impossible angle.

The white pig did not stop there. It rushed after her, planting its hooves on the girl's rigid, immobile body. First it rooted at her arm with its snout, then opened its mouth and bit down hard.

Squeak, crack!

In the darkness, the sound of flesh being chewed was especially clear.

Zhou Huaixia looked at the girl lying face-down on the ground, twitching as the pig gnawed at her, but she had no intention of helping. In fact, she even yawned sleepily.

After waiting a bit and seeing no change around them, Zhou Huaixia moved closer and crouched down, looking at the girl's unfocused eyes. She muttered to herself, "She still won't wake up after being bitten like this?"

The girl paid her no heed at all. Her eyes did not even reflect Zhou Huaixia's figure.

She could not see Zhou Huaixia at all.

Only when half her arm had nearly been devoured did the girl, who should already have been on the verge of death, suddenly widen her eyes. Her twisted head snapped back into place, and the half-arm that had been eaten grew back out of thin air. Supporting herself on both hands, she scrambled to her feet and cried in panic, "It's over, it's over. I filled in the data from this afternoon wrong."

The moment she said those words, the white pig still chewing froze abruptly. All sound in the surroundings vanished in an instant, as though everything had been plunged into a vacuum. Then the cornfields on both sides of the path began to dissolve away, rapidly spreading to the white pig, and finally even the girl herself began to disintegrate after standing up.

Zhou Huaixia's body beside her likewise started to fade at the same pace.

...

3:58 a.m.

Zhou Huaixia suddenly opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling in the darkness for a long while before silently exhaling.

She had been at school for barely over half a month, yet these chaotic dreams had been multiplying. Perhaps it was related to communal living. Through the thin walls, people lay above, below, left, right, in front, and behind.

She forced herself to close her eyes again. Sleep a little while longer if she could.

At 6:30 a.m., the alarm in Dorm 407 rang on time, and Lu Jin sprang out of bed with speed.

Zhou Huaixia rolled twice under the blanket, then sat up slowly with a nest of messy hair on her head. After blanking out for a moment, she gradually slid down from the upper bunk.

Lu Jin had just finished washing up and made room for her.

They had known each other for only half a month, excluding the ten days of military training, but that was enough to gradually learn one another's routines.

Lu Jin filled her thermos and, along the way, performed a full set of tai chi, the image of perfect health and wellness.

Zhou Huaixia had not nearly so much to do. After washing up in a daze, she slung on her backpack and headed out.

At 7:00 a.m., the two left the dorm in succession.

Lu Jin went early to claim the front row. Zhou Huaixia went early to claim the back row.

After Lu Jin locked the door and looked back, she found that Zhou Huaixia had not gone far. Her roommate walked far too slowly, like a turtle.

"Going to the second cafeteria again?" Lu Jin caught up to her in a few steps and asked as they walked side by side.

"Mm." Zhou Huaixia thought the second cafeteria was the most convenient; after eating, she could go straight to the psychology school.

Lu Jin said, "The first cafeteria has the most breakfast options. If you get the chance, you should try it."

Zhou Huaixia asked strangely, "You know the campus cafeterias very well?"

Lu Jin was the type of textbook good student. Although the semester had not yet begun for a month, Zhou Huaixia already knew she liked spending time in the library, and did not seem like someone who would have run all over the cafeterias in such a short time.

Walking down the stairs beside Zhou Huaixia, Lu Jin explained, "My mother is a professor of clinical medicine here. You could say I grew up here. Not just the cafeterias; I know all of S University very well."

Zhou Huaixia nodded in realization. "A medical family."

At that moment, someone rushed hurriedly along the second-floor corridor. The stair landing was not especially wide, and the girl did not stop in time. Lu Jin, turning too late to the side, happened to bump into her.

"Sorry, excuse me, my apologies, thank you." The girl was holding a stack of books in both arms, with a folder on top. She apologized repeatedly, but did not even glance to the side; her feet never stopped moving as she dashed down the stairs ahead of them.

Lu Jin frowned from behind. "What's the rush this early in the morning?"

Zhou Huaixia moved her gaze from the hurrying girl's face to the bun on her head and said darkly, "She's in a hurry to go correct the data."

Lu Jin looked at her. "You know her?"

"I don't." Zhou Huaixia said slowly, "I've seen her in a dream."