Chapter 787: The Rift Between Dream and Reality
“What?”
Aipuli stared blankly at the passing figure and finally reacted.
The person in front of her was fake.
As the illusion dissipated, she found herself alone.
At the moment those two figures vanished, Aipuli felt a twinge of impending breakdown.
It wasn’t that the two maids, Aila and Aini, meant that much to her, but during her time back, her pressure had reached its limit.
Aila and Aini were just the last straw that nearly crushed her.
She instinctively wanted to sense whether someone was playing tricks around her, but found nothing unusual.
She was left with only her concentrated mental power to perceive; she had lost all her auxiliary spells and spellbooks, leaving her feeling somewhat at a loss.
She could only shower by herself.
Even though she had lived like this at the Witch Academy for many years.
Her spellbook for maintaining personal hygiene was also gone; bathing seemed a bit distant, but today she had no choice but to do it, otherwise, her body’s natural metabolism would give her an uncomfortable night.
“Is this girl named Aipuli, right?”
In her guestroom, no one noticed the two figures standing in the corner, but an oblivious Aipuli passed right by them.
“Yeah~ I didn’t expect her to care so much about those two maids. From the heart sense I picked up earlier, she looked like she was about to break down.”
“Just the last straw.”
“What if she knew that her two maids had long since become playthings of another old man from the Hothorn Family? Those maids have known the news while she’s been back, and they’ve even been avoiding her.”
“That’s a bit pitiful…”
“It really is~” I nodded without objection. Everyone looks pitiable when they show their vulnerable side, but that pity is of no value.
“Let’s have a few more rounds with her~” I flipped through the scenes of the Earth Vein Retracement, which captured Aipuli’s interactions with the two maids when she was younger—joyful moments during bath time. The warmer and happier the scene, the more unattainable hope it would bring to someone in despair.
“By the way, aside from those two maids, what other connections does Aipuli have? That father of hers, or her deceased mother?” I continued to inquire, not at all thinking whether this method of manipulating her was too harsh.
I had already said that I came here to achieve my goals, and during this time, I would harm many people. This harm was not just collateral damage but direct harm caused by me. As the main target of my endeavors, Aipuli was undoubtedly the one I was toying with the most.
I quietly shifted my gaze from the bathroom and subtly unfolded my field.
With the orderly resonance of the field’s order, the Core Realm’s Primordial Dream began overlapping within Aipuli’s house.
I was preparing to give Aipuli an unforgettable night; since reality had its constraints, the instincts within a dream could trigger a person’s most primal emotions.
However… the dream realm was still a somewhat unattainable field for me. Although I possessed the Soul Blessing, the Dream Space, and had mastered the Dream Rewriting Spell, actually controlling someone’s dreams was quite challenging.
So I was also experimenting.
Trying to project an individual’s own dreams into the Primordial Dream and then controlling it via the Dream Rewriting Spell.
“Someone should be falling asleep now; Sister Bai, come along with me to do an interesting experiment. It seems like Aipuli still has some time before falling asleep.”
“Sure~” Sister Bai willingly followed my thoughts. Although she found my intentions somewhat whimsical, she was happy to accompany Xiao Han in some mischief.
As the two figures left the room, it became as empty as before, with only the sound of water from the bathroom continuously echoing.
“Thank you… Aila… I’ll wash by myself… and…” Aipuli was just about to respond when the familiar figure disappeared again under the shower.
In the bathroom, only she remained, along with the sound of dripping water.
“Is this… another illusion?”
After a while, Aipuli supported her forehead; she preferred to call it an illusion rather than admit someone was playing tricks on her. She had started to gradually fall into her own world.
“Aila, Aini… you’re gone again. I don’t even know which to use first, this conditioner or shampoo…”
Meanwhile, in another guest room, my dream overlaps had already covered half of the castle.
However, there were no dream creatures causing trouble here, as there was no high concentration of extraordinary energy, nor the soul material they favored. To dream creatures, this place might just be an obscure corner of the Primordial Dream.
But I was curiously conducting my experiments.
This was the first time I had so intuitively felt the inclusiveness of the “Primordial Dream.”
The Primordial Dream is a general concept referring to the dreams that life can occasionally produce while sleeping; it mainly occurs when the essence of life inadvertently touches the Primordial Dream.
However, as soul material, dreaming mostly belongs to the shallow dream realm. Once trapped in the deep dream realm, the soul material itself cannot bear it, leading to situations of sleeping endlessly.
Taking my soul essence as an example, the soul essence could be borne by the dream, so the dream could be very stable and deep without being stuck due to excessive depth.
Unless there was some external factor or stimulus, basically, there wouldn’t be situations of endless sleeping.
But what I wanted was not these comparisons of advantages and disadvantages; what I needed was how to control dreams. This feeling was somewhat akin to illusions, but it was fundamentally different.
“Xiao Han, running into difficulties?”
“Not really~ Just a minor problem; the soul material is primarily too fragile to withstand my overly precise operations.” I waved my hand, indicating it was a small issue.
Although I couldn’t absolutely control someone’s dreams, being able to intervene was enough. As the primary dream’s leader, they or their instincts would perfectly compensate for this deficiency.
To achieve this, the key was still the other party’s subconscious. As long as you grasp the basic instinctive rule that the more someone fears something, the more it will come, controlling the rhythm and tone of a dream was relatively simple.
At this moment, the person I was testing on the bed began to unconsciously curl up, as if dreaming of something not so pleasant.
As progress slowly advanced, the subject began to struggle violently. Accompanied by murmurs, after reaching a certain threshold, a startled cry woke them.
“Looks like the effect is pretty good,” I said casually.
But what I intended to give Aipuli was not a nightmare; on the contrary, I was giving her beautiful dreams. Only beautiful dreams would make her yearn more, making the contrast with reality hit her even harder.
That night.
Unable to hold on any longer, Aipuli finally fell asleep.
Though Aipuli was a high-level assistant, she couldn’t continuously undergo the self-consumption and mental drain brought by her entire family without feeling tired.
Gradually losing consciousness in reality, Aipuli’s awareness began to awaken in her dream.
She found herself seemingly transformed into her younger self. The dream’s rationality allowed her to accept this setting without any doubt.
I was preparing to create this dream into her spiritual harbor, according to her current heart. Since she was willing to immerse herself in her own world, I would create a perfect one for her.
Her father treated her very well, and so did her mother; she would personally save her mother, compensating for the tragic loss of her childhood.
She would re-enter the Witch Academy, experiencing a completely different academy life, making the purest friends, and being assigned to the most caring instructor, Chris.
In the dream, Instructor Chris would once again teach her the principles of life and the extraordinary, revisiting her witch topic research, and she would once again face a life decision…
Letting her know that life could indeed be so fulfilling, and that perhaps life didn’t need harsh choices at all.
“This is truly… an enviable life,” Sister Bai exclaimed while watching me share the past simulated scenes and the “plot” I crafted.
“If we add the premise that this is my charity, would such a life still be enviable? Life always requires striving for oneself,” I sighed in response to Sister Bai.
“True… looking at it this way… she might become even more tragic, but can such a long life really be completed in one night?” Sister Bai asked, puzzled.
“As a time sense body cultivator, how could you ask such a question~ The time rules of dreams are highly malleable, but this feels a bit rushed, so I divided the dream into many days. Only by letting her feel the sedimentation of time, coupled with the contrast with reality and a little bit of her escapism, will she come to anticipate her dream world even more.”
“If she dreams the same continuous dreams for several days, won’t she suspect anything?”
“Of course she will! But who told her to be so good at deceiving herself? In any case, there’s no need to worry~” I waved my hand dismissively, “Just treat it like a fun spectacle; once she wakes up, the fun will be over.”
“Xiao Han… sometimes I feel like your ability to manipulate people’s hearts is scarier than I expected…”
“Is it? It shouldn’t be, right? If I were very good at manipulating hearts, would I have such poor social skills and so few friends?”
“That’s different…”
“It’s the same~ Anyway, don’t pay too much attention to these details. Next, we need to arrange some real scenes~” I looked up at the pitch-black sky; this statement referred to beginning to shape the fools of reality.
“Are we going to take action against those people?”
“Mm-hmm~” I nodded lightly, instantly deciding the fates of many people.
However, what surprised me was that Monopeng City was just the residence of the Hothorn Family, but the important figures controlling the entire family operation would not have a normal schedule like ordinary people; they were always busy with very important matters, truly operating in the realm of billions at every moment.
But it didn’t matter; I wasn’t in a hurry for a day or two. Even if I spent ten days or half a month here, it wouldn’t be an issue.
When I had nothing to do, I could study the Self-Generated Magic improvement ritual, ensuring nothing would be delayed.
In the blink of an eye, two or three days had passed.
After I shared the new Self-Generated Magic improvement ritual with Tan Han through the Great Knowledge Tree, I exited the Instance Realm along with Sister Bai.
During these days, Sister Bai and I had also finished building the small house in the Instance Realm, but there were still many things left to arrange, and several tools had not been decorated, making it seem rather empty.
But it didn’t matter; as long as there was a big bed that could accommodate me and Sister Bai, everything was enough.
During these days, the Hothorn Family visibly experienced several major changes, including a significant decision-making error and an unpleasant incident during communication with other families.
Many of the great families around the Wizard Academy quickly noticed the Hothorn Family’s abnormalities but couldn’t pinpoint the exact reasons or determine who was dissatisfied with the Hothorn Family’s secretive maneuvers.
However, the most changed was Aipuli.
Continuous dreams had created a huge rupture with reality for her, to the point where these days, she had started to lose track of the difference between dreams and reality.
These days, her father had scolded her and yelled as if to vent his emotions. In her impression, her father had never been this emotional, but it was exactly this emotional outburst that softened the authoritative aura she felt from him.
She increasingly felt that her father was gradually shedding his hypocritical mask, and she was slowly recognizing his true nature.
It turned out… her father was just a person capable of impotent rage…
The vast contrast arising from her dreams began to construct a peculiar notion in her mind: did he truly deserve to be her father?
This was not her first rebellion against her father, nor her first defiance of the family’s will, but she felt she had never been as courageous as she was now.
Perhaps this transformation wasn’t solely due to the perfect family in her dreams bestowing her a sense of “rebirth,” but also because of the life lessons taught by her instructor Chris in the dream.
She felt as if there was someone silently encouraging her from behind, helping her distinguish right from wrong, bravery from perseverance.
Yet, she still felt an instinctive fear.
She had experienced a false “self-awakening” before, but every rebellion ended in failure. Numerous attempts had made her fear the inevitable outcome of failure.
“Indeed… Aipuli still harbors fears deep down…” I sighed and remarked to Sister Bai.
“The Earth Vein Shackles on her mind aren’t easy to break.”
“Then what mindset did you hold when you advanced back then, Sister Bai? It was really quiet, without any signs at all~” I gently poked Sister Bai and asked with a smile.
“I… of course, was thinking of you~”
“You’re lying! We hadn’t confirmed our relationship back then… Oh~ I understand! You were actually trying to play hard to get, already having inappropriate thoughts about me deep down, right?”
