Cheng Tingyu read the "Check-in Instructions" all the way to the end. She turned the paper over and found there was actually another line on the back.
...Judging by the obviousness of this hint, she felt that the inspection team did not hold much hope for the guests' chances of successfully escaping in a crisis.
[Supplementary Clause Ten: Holding the "Check-in Notice" in your hand as you fall asleep ensures that you will definitely enter the instance during this sleep. This method can only be used once per "Check-in Notice."]
As a player who had obtained a true name, Cheng Tingyu knew she was still some distance away from re-entering the spiritual world. She lay back on the bed and began to meditate, clearing her mind of distractions so she could fall asleep quickly.
Apartment No. 6, Room 501.
"Thud."
"Knock, knock, knock."
Ji Shijiu, who was in a deep sleep, suddenly woke up.
Not yet fully awake, he heard the irregular knocking sounds coming from the hallway.
Ji Shijiu was not entirely an inexperienced novice when it came to dungeons. After a moment of intense panic, he had somewhat grasped the current situation—there was something suspicious outside the door, and it was extremely dangerous.
He immediately reached for his phone to contact the staff to handle the issue, but found himself completely unable to control the trembling of his arm. The muscles on his face began to twitch, revealing an expression that seemed both like crying and laughing.
Invisible madness is eroding his sanity.
Ji Shijiu finally managed to find his phone, trembling as he did so. He prepared to open the contacts page, searching for a contact in the area..
However, the moment his fingertips touched the phone, the screen of the small rectangular device suddenly lit up and emitted a piercing sound.
"Ring, ring, ring—"
He received a text message.
However, Ji Shijiu clearly remembered that before falling asleep, he had already set his phone to vibrate mode.
It was as if he had been burned; he threw the phone onto the bed, completely lacking the courage to open the message and check it.
However, the text message displayed itself.
[Ji Shi Lu: Alright, let's meet up.]
[Ji Shilu: Alright, let's meet up.]
[Ji Shilu: Alright, let's meet up.]
[...]
The cold light of the phone shone on Ji Shijiu's face, making the young man's features appear deathly pale. In the center of the screen, the same content was continuously refreshing.
He was completely stiff, too scared to move. After dozens of messages saying "Okay, let's meet," the content of the texts finally changed.
[Ji Shilu: I have come to find you.]
Ji Shijiu felt his heart stop for a moment, as if something had seized it, and he was so terrified that he was almost suffocating.
"Thud—"
Perhaps sensing the commotion inside the room, the object outside began to approach 501, and the banging sound shifted to the door.
Ji Shijiu felt a chill all over his body. He crawled out of bed and kept retreating, step by step, until he reached the balcony. Then, he closed the door as quietly as possible, curled up in the corner, and hoped to avoid the monster's detection.
In the midst of the deathly silent darkness, he held his head in his hands.
The surroundings were very quiet. Ji Shijiu thought, as long as he continued to hide..
At this moment, his thoughts suddenly became confused—did this apartment originally have a balcony?
After passing through the dense darkness that seemed to be condensed from the night itself, Cheng Tingyu once again fell into the replica of the dream.
The pale golden light shone through the glass onto the beige floor tiles, casting a human-shaped shadow.
Cheng Tingyu, dressed in blue plush pajamas, stood at the respawn point of the NPC for the third time, repeating the words he had said upon dying and logging out: "'Dreams are fragments of reality,' 'Dreams are silhouettes of the future.'"
According to her speculation, these two sentences respectively describe the compositional logic of the copy and the dreamer's certain expectation of the "future" contained within its existence.
All those who have entered the instance know that in the dream starting at 401, the participants' clothing has changed.
Similar situations had also occurred in the Rainy Day Graffiti and the Cold Shelter instances. At that time, not only did Cheng Tingyu's clothes change, but his identity also underwent a transformation.
Then, following the same logic, what kind of new persona has she been given in Room 401?
Cheng Tingyu gazed at the reflection in the mirror and softly asked, "Who am 'I'?"
"Wearing sky-blue 'pajamas' means 'I' live here."
She walked to the entrance and opened the shoe cabinet.
Sure enough, even though the other luggage hadn't been sorted out yet, the shoes for going out had already been taken out.
Cheng Tingyu stared at the two pairs of shoes in the cabinet and quickly identified their details.
[The black leather shoes in the shoe cabinet: No special effects.]
[Rubber-soled sneakers in the shoe cabinet: Can increase movement speed by 20%, reducing stamina consumption during activities to 87% of the original.]
The sneakers had shiny stickers on them, clearly in a children's style.
Cheng Tingyu muttered to himself, "'I' am, of course, a child."
So wearing leather shoes wouldn't bring any improvement, because those aren't shoes meant for children.
——Actually, in the dream, obtaining one's identity is not very difficult. Participants can judge from the stylistic differences between the two bedrooms in 401 that the master bedroom belongs to the adults, and the second bedroom to the children. Coupled with the style of the pajamas, the answer becomes obvious.
After Cheng Tingyu entered the kitchen, she swiftly opened all the cabinets and rummaged through them. Just in case, she wanted to find an additional, sturdier tool but was unsuccessful. In the end, she only took a pair of scissors.
However, during his search, Ting Yu found three types of food in the cabinet: a large piece of bread, a liter of mung bean porridge, and a liter of lemon water.
After she casually picked up the lemonade, the other two items of food simply vanished.
Cheng Tingyu suddenly realized: "Although the props are hidden very discreetly, the hints given are quite obvious."
"Because it's a dream, things will disappear without reason. Because it's a child, it's impossible to hold too much food at once."
Cheng Tingyu looked at the lemonade: "You can only take one bottle of a one-liter drink. 'I' am very young, so I won't be very tall, and I won't have much strength either."
She twisted open the lemon water, took a big gulp, and then tossed a candy into her mouth.
Cheng Tingyu's attributes slightly recovered.
Both foods were sweet, perfectly suited to a child's taste.
Next to the wooden platform where the sugar jar was placed, there was a child's chair that reached only to the middle of Cheng Tingyu's calf. She put down the bottle, then picked up the chair with both hands and placed it by the window. She then stood on the chair and pushed the glass with all her might.
Accompanied by a soft creak, the window that had been immovable was effortlessly opened by Cheng Tingyu.
Cheng Tingyu nodded slightly, a thoughtful expression appearing in his eyes: "…An interesting design concept."
Perhaps because dreams contain phenomena that defy common logic, to balance this, the copy provides participants with numerous hints.
If they plan to go out, the door will display "Only fools climb a hundred floors," reminding participants that climbing the stairs is not the correct way to pass through.
The first time he entered, Cheng Tingyu wasn't very familiar with the situation in the dungeon. He mistakenly thought it was hinting that he should go downstairs. After taking just a couple of steps, his head was twisted off by a sudden black claw.
As long as there is a way to clear this level, by eliminating all the wrong answers, what remains is the correct path.
"The only way to pass is within room 401, as going upstairs or downstairs is not an option."
Cheng Tingyu had previously tried to break the glass on the window but unfortunately failed. Many participants would thus draw the wrong conclusion, thinking that the glass was an invincible part of the background of the replica. However, this was simply because they hadn't found the right way to open it.
"My height and strength are insufficient, so I have to use a chair to stand on in order to open the window."
After confirming that her strategy for passing the level was correct, Cheng Tingyu's movements became increasingly swift. She used scissors to cut the bed sheet, soaked it with water, tied one end to the table leg, and held the other end in her hand. Then, she carefully climbed out of the window and moved down along the outer wall.
Cheng Tingyu could feel her stamina burning at an incredible speed as she moved. The long rope made from bed sheets cut into her palms, drawing blood. The surging hot wind blew her hair, and the golden sunlight grew richer, its color deepening to resemble blood.
——That was fire.
Flames spread over the building, and after Cheng Tingyu fled the room, the illusions of dreams and fantasies began to waver, with unstable black cracks appearing throughout the entire world.
Just as there was only a little distance left to the ground, Cheng Tingyu's stamina was almost depleted. She assessed her condition and felt quite steady, so she simply let go and jumped down, losing about a third of her remaining health in the process.
"Since we finally escaped from the building, it should be considered a good dream, right?"
Cheng Tingyu looked up, gazing at the sky dyed red by the firelight. In the next moment, as if struck by an invisible iron hammer, spiderweb-like cracks spread across the surface of the dome above. The scene shattered, and all the colors gradually peeled away.
[Congratulations to the player for clearing the dungeon, you have obtained [Dream Maker's Attention] ×1, [Music Box - Lullaby] ×1, [Exemption Pass] ×1, [Endless City Resume] ×1.]
Cheng Tingyu's vision darkened, but he did not immediately exit the instance.
All around was the darkness of a long night. After an indeterminate amount of time, a flickering glimmer appeared in the far distance.
[Looking directly at ▇▇, the mental value increases.]
Although the key parts of the appraisal content were mosaicked as usual, from the latter half of the sentence, it could be inferred that what he was observing was probably not something fatal.
The faint light moved towards where Cheng Tingyu was, and the enhanced vision brought by her keen eyes quickly allowed her to see the outline behind the glow.
It was a "person" carrying a lantern.
Cheng Tingyu recalled the information he had obtained from the "Check-in Instructions," and a suspicion arose in his heart. His current situation was likely connected to the [Dream Maker] in some way..
As she made the judgment in her mind, a new prompt flashed across her vision—
Many players know that the [Lantern Bearer] is the messenger of the [Dream Maker].
"..."
Cheng Tingyu's earlier deduction satisfied the activation requirements of her second skill, automatically explaining the surrounding situation. However, in the current space, she did not feel the physical exhaustion that usually accompanied the use of her ability.
It was as if all the losses had been compensated for in a bizarre, absurd yet satisfying dream.
The [Lantern Bearer] in front of him was dressed in a dark blue robe, wearing a mask that made it impossible to discern their appearance or gender. The mask depicted exaggerated and grotesque features, with eyebrows, eyes, and mouth all curved like new moons
The being known as the [Lantern Bearer] approached Cheng Tingyu with a courteous tone: "I am the envoy of the dream's master, here to retrieve the [D6639-M-76391] dream seed and to provide you with a blank resume that you can submit to Endless City."
Cheng Tingyu rubbed his temples and spoke honestly, "…Although it's been quite a while, I still have a bit of a reaction to the word 'resume'."
The presence before her did not react to her words, continuing its workflow like an AI. The lantern in its hand flickered, releasing a wisp of gauzy, hazy light that fell in front of Cheng Tingyu, coalescing into a blank resume sheet.
Cheng Tingyu glanced at the resume paper and, unsurprisingly, couldn't identify any information. Clearly, this was an item far beyond her current abilities. She then asked, "What is this Endless City you mentioned?"
The voice of the lantern bearer in front of him carried an almost dreamlike ethereal quality: "That is another city, designated D6639, ruled by the great Lord of Dreams."