Chapter 11: Bugging Out
Night Lan returned to the break room with two lunchboxes, beckoning Night Star out of the theater to join her for a meal.
“Getting caught up in bizarre events for no reason at all—this is what the capital is like? How terrifying! When can I go back to Yun Chang City…”
Night Star slurped her noodles, her tone dripping with melancholy.
They should have been heading home today, but the unexpected appearance of Star Eclipses tossed their plans into disarray.
Night Lan sighed in unison.
“Star Eclipses showed up out of nowhere… That annoying Mo Rabbit should’ve told me earlier! If she had, we wouldn’t have run into Star Eclipses today!”
“It’s all Mo Rabbit’s fault!”
“Absolutely, all her fault!”
Thus, the two little lolis began drawing circles in their bowls, jointly cursing the troublemaker who just wanted to watch the chaos.
A little while later, Night Lan and Night Star finally filled their bellies.
Now, they’d have to rely on the work of the theater crew for the rest of the time.
As time ticked away, night fell.
The headquarters gradually settled into silence, signaling the arrival of rest time.
In the command room, the Leader and a group of Sunlight Night Watchers were busy analyzing the information they had gathered and contemplating strategies.
They’d managed to dissect quite a bit of data, but without hands-on experience, they could only wring their hands in frustration; further solutions demanded practical trial and error.
The so-called dream world was the only place to prove their theories.
“Leader, we’ll be diving into the Star Eclipses dream to investigate its mysteries. However, we’ll lose our memories when we wake up. Do you have a plan for conveying the information back to reality? While I trust you, Leader, this is crucial. We Sunlight Night Watchers need to shoulder the responsibility together. Without concrete methods, we might be hamstrung.”
The Leader fell into deep thought.
He understood the need to share this information in usual situations, to keep everyone in the loop.
But this time was different.
Night Lan’s existence was far more significant than this so-called capital Star Eclipses event.
Should their secret be exposed, it might trigger a level of chaos far beyond mere disruption in the capital’s order.
“It’s a matter of utmost secrecy. The only thing I can tell you is that there’s someone who can disregard the memory interference between dreams and reality. With her on our side, we won’t have to worry about all our hard work going to waste.”
Upon hearing this, the Night Watchers ceased their inquiries.
They didn’t care who this person was—just as long as they knew it wasn’t some wishy-washy approach.
“Then let’s take action tonight.”
With that, the Night Watchers returned to their respective break rooms, gearing up to enter the eerie Star Eclipses dream.
Their skills in the dream might be no different from ordinary folks, but as Night Watchers, their intuition and judgment were top-notch.
Rather than just watching from the sidelines in the real world, they’d rather plunge headfirst into the enemy’s domain.
Whatever the opponent was up to, they needed to uncover the reasons and goals behind it, using those findings to further resolve the issue.
That was the responsibility of the Night Watchers.
They could only hope that the Leader’s mentioned companion would extract all the useful information.
The Leader returned to his office, prompting Ji Yun to bring Night Lan over.
Before long, Night Lan appeared in the office, waiting for the Leader’s instructions.
“Uh… Leader, is there something else?”
“I’ll be entering the dream you mentioned shortly. When I do, I’ll come looking for you.”
“Eh? You’re going too, Leader? Isn’t that a bit dangerous?”
Night Lan felt that if something went awry in the dream with the Leader around, the headquarters outside would undoubtedly descend into chaos.
After all, not every leader would willingly put themselves in such dangerous situations.
In response, the Leader chuckled lightly.
“What? Are you worried I might d*e in the dream? No need for that concern! I’m not just the Leader of the headquarters; I’m also a Sunlight Night Watcher. Leaders often lead their troops into battle throughout history—it’s nothing new. I’ll be fine.”
The Leader spoke with impressive confidence, seemingly unfazed by the risk of personal harm.
Even if he shed his powers in the dream world, so what?
The will of the Night Watchers transcended that of most ordinary people. They could still delve into the mysteries of Star Eclipses.
If such a level of challenge was enough to deter them, they clearly underestimated the Night Watchers.
Night Lan nodded, deciding against any further protest.
“I understand.”
“Then go prepare yourself. Although we don’t know if that so-called dream will indeed pull in those who are asleep tonight, we should be fully ready.”
“Mm.”
Night Lan left the Leader’s office as Ji Yun escorted her back to the break room.
“Please rest well tonight.”
“Uh-huh, I’ll probably rest just fine.”
Then Ji Yun vanished from the break room.
Night Lan realized that even spending a night in the Star Eclipses dream wouldn’t leave her feeling mentally drained when she woke up; rather, she’d be fully refreshed.
If the Star Eclipses dream could offer experiences unlike anything she had encountered before without affecting her energy levels afterwards, that would be quite nice.
But it was still Star Eclipses.
Until she knew their true intent, she couldn’t afford to let her guard down, even if everything they were doing so far hadn’t caused any alarm.
“Sigh~ I hope this Star Eclipses isn’t a bad one. It’d be best if we could communicate as smoothly as with the Group Leader and the others. If it turns into a ‘first talk, then fight’ scenario, that would be just disastrous. I really can’t stand violence!”
Night Lan protested silently before lazily settling into bed.
She peeled off her white stockings, which hugged her slender legs, and laid them neatly to the side.
Since she already took a shower, she figured it was best to just throw on some pajamas and go straight to sleep.
“Ugh…”
Night Lan stared at the ceiling of the break room, unable to drift off right away.
She wanted to try something.
That was to see if she could enter the dream while Night Star was awake.
Night Star was currently within the Rising Sun Theater, not having come out, solely so she could potentially avoid the mysterious sway of Star Eclipses.
After all, she had experience with one side sleeping and the other side awake—it was just a matter of whether she could pull off the bug this time.
Inside the theater.
Night Star stood alongside a number of female theater members.
Kong Yu Bai and the others had already learned about the events in the capital from Night Star.
“So, does this mean Night Star wants to exploit a bug in the system?”
“Uh-huh! I want to give it a try and see if I can have both reality and dream views. It would make it way easier when I’m recording information. I mean, it’s not like I can go home until I help the Night Watchers finish their jobs. Ugh~”
Hearing this, the makeup artist looked puzzled.
“Are the Night Watchers… similar to the Holy Knights?”
“No, no, no! The difference is vast! While the Night Watchers sometimes ‘cause trouble’, they’re a thousand times better than the Holy Knights—those guys are a whole different level of awful!”
Night Star earnestly explained the differences between Night Watchers and Holy Knights, ensuring the makeup artist didn’t harbor any misconceptions.
“I see, I get it! I wish people like that had appeared in my era!”
“Uh…”
In response, Night Star figured it was time to switch topics.
“Cough cough! In any case, my other self is getting ready to sleep, so make sure to protect me!”
“Got it!”
Kong Yu Bai, Lianhua, Book Yao, and the makeup artist gathered around Night Star, staying alert for any mysterious interference.
“Whew~” x2
Night Star and Night Lan both exhaled at the same time, the latter on the verge of slumber.
