Chapter 348: Bonus Chapter

Nobody had expected the sweeping cold to arrive and extinguish the campfire outright. The bunker plunged into darkness, but darkness couldn’t stop Zhang Xingcang and the others from seeing; and the darkness lasted only an instant, because in the next second the Cold Mountain Sword blazed with a cold, stark white light.

As though snowflakes were falling, a bone-deep chill poured from the Cold Mountain Sword like a pale white stream of light, arced right past the campfire, and shot straight toward the Stargazer.

The Stargazer raised his right hand to block without time to prepare; the cold instantly wrapped around his entire right hand, leaving a layer of fine white frost on the back of it. The pain of the cold was like someone gripping his hand with crushing force, trying to pulverize it.

“Control your sword!”

The Stargazer’s expression was thunderous. His sharp gaze snapped to “Bai Xiaosheng” and he began moving toward him. This absolutely had something to do with that man.

But Wei Xun had been prepared and was already a step ahead, retreating to the fireside. When everyone’s attention was pulled toward Half-Life Daoist and the Stargazer, only Wei Xun’s calm, steady voice came:

“Control your sword, Half-Life.”

As though responding to the Stargazer’s words, utterly deflecting any thought that he might be the cause; the kind of thing that could make someone’s teeth itch.

Yet Wei Xun’s attention was entirely on the Cold Mountain Sword. Just as he had expected, this time he was beside Half-Life Daoist, yet the sword hadn’t attacked him. It had gone for the Stargazer. But tasting this carefully, Wei Xun felt the Cold Mountain Sword’s power this time was far weaker than during the old chieftain’s battle, not even half of what it had been then. And—

Wei Xun looked toward Chen Cheng. Chen Cheng was standing anxiously by the Yu twins near the extinguished fire, apparently worried they might be caught in the sword’s shockwave; he wasn’t showing any abnormal signs. Wei Xun checked with An Xuefeng and confirmed no battlefield contamination had appeared this time.

It seemed that this time the butterfly fragment being activated by Stargazer hadn’t fully connected to Chen Cheng and the others missing on the battlefield, and hadn’t produced any change in the Chen Cheng of this scene re-enactment. The Cold Mountain Sword’s reaction looked more like an instinctive release of some emotion.

This much of a grudge? Wei Xun’s heart jumped. Ten years had passed and Chen Cheng still remembered this clearly? What exactly had his brother done to get hold of this butterfly fragment? Especially since this fragment alone was a quarter of the full piece; how many people had Wei Xuechen managed to offend?

Naturally, the cold sword light blazed for only an instant before Half-Life Daoist brought it back under control and stopped it from going at the Stargazer again.

Watching the Stargazer, more disheveled than usual and clearly in a foul mood, stride toward him with a dark face, Wei Xun pressed down all the emotions swirling inside him and nodded calmly.

“As expected, it worked. You were right, Stargazer.”

“Tch.”

The Stargazer gave a derisive snort at “worked.”

“How strange that I’ve forgotten what I said.”

This time Stargazer wasn’t cooperating, but Wei Xun was unruffled; he simply glanced at him from under lowered eyelids, then smiled and nodded, as if keeping a secret between the two of them. Zhang Xingcang beside him couldn’t stand it.

“You two, stop with the riddles. What just happened? Why did Dreamchaser stop moving?”

Just as he said, in the instant the cold sword light extinguished the campfire, both Lily, who had been gently swaying in her trance state, and the Dreamchaser dragon, which had been sitting irritably on Yin-Yang Butterfly’s face and smacking him with its wings, had suddenly frozen, as still as statues.

This sudden freezing and falling quiet actually looked more like a sign of successfully slipping into the dream; Zhang Xingcang hadn’t dared disturb the little Dreamchaser dragon, but seeing the thin layer of frost coating both of them, he couldn’t stop worrying and wanted to know what had happened.

But Wei Xun, that insufferable person, looked at Stargazer, then looked at Zhang Xingcang, with an expression that clearly communicated “Stargazer doesn’t want this said out loud,” and simply skipped over the whole business of the butterfly fragment triggering the Cold Mountain Sword, saying only:

“Half-Life’s sword has a connection with them, it will make the right choice.”

“My speculation is that the nightmare they’ve fallen into is probably the inverse of our current reality. Our campfire here has gone out; in their nightmare, a campfire may have just had the chance to ignite, guiding them back to reality.”

And the sudden change in Lily and the Dreamchaser dragon the moment the fire went out proved the extinguishing was a turning point.

At the end, Wei Xun gave the Stargazer a gratuitous nudge:

“You thought the same, didn’t you, Stargazer?”

“There are no stars tonight; say whatever you like.”

The Stargazer said coldly, but Chen Cheng and Zhang Xingcang had already surrounded Half-Life Daoist. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Zhang Xingcang was asking him questions in a low voice; Bai Xiaosheng and Stargazer weren’t talking, but Half-Life Daoist definitely knew more detailed information.

“It doesn’t count as Sword Out from Cold Mountain, it’s just a little residual energy left over from the last time.”

Wei Xun had already briefed Half-Life Daoist beforehand, and he said this to Zhang Xingcang, still clearly moved but somewhat more composed than before. Holding the Cold Mountain Sword, Half-Life Daoist carefully tapped its blade against the shoulders of the Yu twins and Yin-Yang Butterfly one by one.

“Bai Xiaosheng is right, the campfire needs to go out.”

The old saying went that a person carried three fires: one at the crown of the head, one at each shoulder. People in certain old trades who walked at night generally didn’t wear hats, lest the hat smother the flame at the crown.

If someone called out from behind you, you were never to spin around sharply; doing so could snuff the fire at your shoulder. But a Daoist sword was not an ordinary weapon, and this unfinished Cold Mountain Sword of Half-Life Daoist’s carried its own particular weight.

The sword cut through evil and malevolence, cut through wicked ghosts. Half-Life Daoist had long since opened his yin-yang sight, and with it he could see the Yu twins and Yin-Yang Butterfly had no fire on their bodies; in falling into the nightmare, they had left the living world behind, existing at the boundary between it and the realm of the dead.

But when the frost extinguished the campfire, Half-Life Daoist had seen with his own eyes as a faint, weak flame flickered to life at each of their heads.

The old saying said that divine protection loomed three feet above the head. The flame at the crown signified that protection. There were no divine presences here, yet something was watching over these three who had fallen into the nightmare. Half-Life Daoist’s other hand was still tightly gripping Chen Cheng’s; he didn’t look back, and he knew this time Captain Chen’s consciousness hadn’t descended.

But the power that lived in the Cold Mountain Sword, the emotion and conviction that had been left behind in the blade, was guarding them. A cold blade, yet it kindled blazing, fierce guardian fire. Half-Life Daoist’s nose stung a little. He breathed deeply, pushing down the surging emotion, and could feel a faint warmth at the crown of his own head. Captain Chen was watching over him too.

Under the Cold Mountain Sword’s guidance, the flames at the three people’s heads grew steadily stronger, and finally the empty left shoulders also gained a thread of light. The fire at the left shoulder represented yang vitality; when it ignited it meant these people had a chance of being brought back.

Wei Xun and the others didn’t have yin-yang sight, but they could see the change in the Yu twins’ and Yin-Yang Butterfly’s complexions. Medium Lily closed her eyes; the flame in the black candle in her hand had gone out from the cold, but it lit again strangely of its own accord, burning higher and higher, and the Dreamchaser dragon’s body grew more and more translucent beside it. Light rippled across beautiful silver dragon scales, as insubstantial and lovely as dream bubbles.

Everything was moving in the right direction; what was needed now was to wait. But before long, the Stargazer suddenly frowned.

“David and the others have run into trouble.”

He left it at that and left the bunker without any hesitation. Wei Xun and Zhang Xingcang exchanged a glance. Who would count as trouble for all three of David, Katie, and the Infected at once?

The Silver Moon Killer, or the Lizard Duke.

“They should be waking up soon.”

But Half-Life Daoist exhaled with some relief, and a touch of luck.

David’s group running into trouble meant the other side had probably woken from the nightmare already. Which meant the three in the dream, the Yu twins and Yin-Yang Butterfly, should now only be facing the giant; there were no other enemies.

And sure enough, the moment Half-Life Daoist’s words landed, the little Dreamchaser dragon snapped its eyes open, bit down on Yin-Yang Butterfly’s head, and flung him with force. Then it bit Yu Hexuan with the same force at the same angle and flung him too.

Thud.

The sound of someone hitting a wall, the dazed Yu Hexuan. Yin-Yang Butterfly had regained consciousness the moment he was slung into the air, planted his feet on the stone wall to push off and land on his feet, a series of movements agile and precise. A killing aura and the smell of blood spread outward from him; bruises and wounds appeared all over him after waking, as though injuries taken inside the nightmare had been fed back to his physical body.

He didn’t react immediately. Sharp eyes swept the room; fine butterfly down had even grown at the back of his neck. Only when he spotted “Bai Xiaosheng” did he gradually come back to himself.

I’m awake?

In an instant he was both moved and elated.

“Your Gr— Mr. Bai!”

The instinctive form of address made Yin-Yang Butterfly awkwardly correct himself, but it still sounded slightly strange. His heart gave a jolt; without thinking he immediately compensated by calling toward the Phoenix bird:

“An sir, many thanks to you all for your help.”

If Bing-1 was “sir” and Return people were “surname-sir,” that sounded reasonable enough. Yin-Yang Butterfly thought uneasily, though for now nobody was paying attention to him.

“My sister! [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Help my sister, save her, please, please save her!”

Yu Hexuan woke from the haze and immediately threw himself across the extinguished firepit. His injuries were far worse than Yin-Yang Butterfly’s; half his body was charred black as though struck by lightning, his mouth full of blood, two teeth knocked out as if something hard had dislodged them, and most horrifyingly the wounds in his mouth were slightly yellow and oozing, with the lips corroded away by nearly half; a brutal sight. Yet he paid none of it any mind, his frantic gaze locked onto his sister, still unconscious, in medium Lily’s arms.

Actually, Yu Feiluan had briefly woken. The moment Dreamchaser slung Yin-Yang Butterfly and Yu Hexuan out, Lily’s black candle flame surged, and she rasped a murmur, biting her own finger and pressing the blood to Yu Feiluan’s lips.

The next instant the candle flame went out. Yu Feiluan jolted awake from the nightmare, but in the moment after waking she lost consciousness again. Her injuries were too severe; her body bore the marks of lightning strikes and fire burns all over, with fingerprint-shaped bruises on her jaw, her neck, her chest, and her calves. Her lower jaw was dislocated, the cervical vertebrae seemed to have been damaged from the crushing, and her whole neck was swollen red. She breathed in labored, shallow gasps, the sound growing weaker; it looked as though she might not make it.

But Tong Hege was there, and nothing was going to not make it. Flesh wounds were even more straightforward for him to treat than the giant contamination affecting Yu Hexuan. In the course of treatment, it came out naturally; the Yu twins, Tong Hege the ferret, Zhang Xingcang, and a listless, low-energy Dreamchaser dragon all moved to the adjacent chieftain’s tower to rest and recover. In the bunker the campfire was lit again, and an exhausted Lily wrapped in a thermal blanket sat cradling a cup of warm date water.

Yin-Yang Butterfly, with no particularly serious injuries, recounted everything about the nightmare.

Darkness and a campfire gone out. Everyone else appeared to be asleep and couldn’t be woken, only the three of them were conscious; the nightmare was the inverse of reality, just as Wei Xun had speculated. But the most dangerous part had been—

“The giant killed me.”

Yin-Yang Butterfly said with irritation:

“Now we’ve woken up, but the nightmare won’t end. It’s going to come back.”