Infinite Nightmares

Three colors and three forms appeared in the expanse of chaos.

Zhang Wenda looked at the red monster in the mirror, then at the blue rabbit beside it. He couldn’t help but take a step back. "Who are you? Where is this?"

Then, he saw the rabbit take a step forward and come to his side. It opened its three-lobed mouth, as if saying something, but Zhang Wenda couldn’t hear a thing.

"What are you saying? I can’t hear you."

The rabbit leaned close to Zhang Wenda’s ear, forcefully saying something loud. "Re—"

A tremendous BANG made Zhang Wenda instinctively look over. He then saw the huge mirror, which was being smashed by the red monster inside, spiderwebbing with cracks.

When the monster saw Zhang Wenda looking its way, it shook its head vigorously at him.

Just then, a blue rabbit’s paw reached down and covered Zhang Wenda’s eyes. Then, its exceptionally muffled voice sounded again, and this time, he could finally hear it clearly.

"Red... too much..."

Hearing this, the red monster seemed to grow frantic. It roared, clawing wildly at the surface of the mirror. With a loud SHATTER, the mirror broke, and the monster lunged straight at Zhang Wenda.

Though his eyes were covered, Zhang Wenda heard the rapidly approaching footsteps. Fear took over, and he instinctively turned and fled.

But as he ran, Zhang Wenda saw the monster leap directly in front of him. It spread its arms wide and lunged.

The instant it made contact with Zhang Wenda, the surroundings shifted rapidly, transforming into the walls of a familiar classroom.

The next second, someone once again forced his head down, and a hand swung directly at his face.

Zhang Wenda squeezed his eyes shut and threw his hands up in front of his face. A crisp SMACK echoed, yet he felt no pain.

When he slowly opened his eyes, he saw a child who looked exactly like him had taken the slap in his place.

He, too, was Zhang Wenda. Except he was red, and the one he was protecting was yellow. He was also much smaller.

Suddenly, the surroundings changed again. A clothes drying rack from a tenement building shot up from the left like a mountain peak. Then, a hanger became a blur as it flew toward him, only to be blocked by the red boy again.

This time, the boy was a little taller. When a leather belt whipped toward them, he grew taller still.

Attacks came from all directions, and the red boy forcibly intercepted every one. The moment he was kicked off the bed, the red Zhang Wenda finally began transforming into a monster and started to counterattack with a scythe.

The more vicious the attacks, the stronger its counterattacks became. The hanger was bent out of shape, and the leather belt was severed.

Bright arcs of electricity shot out from all directions. Amidst the crackling energy, the red, scythe-wielding monster fully formed. Its eyes were filled with violence, hostile to everything around it—including the yellow Zhang Wenda.

Just as the monster raised its scythe and lunged at Zhang Wenda, a mirror descended from the sky, landing squarely between them.

When Zhang Wenda looked into the mirror again, he saw a yellow child standing inside it, staring at him in terror.

Zhang Wenda looked down at himself and saw the body of a blood-red monster riddled with holes.

’I’m the monster... but then who is that child?’

Zhang Wenda reeled in disbelief. Just as he was about to voice his question, the ground vanished. A powerful sensation of weightlessness hit him, and he plummeted into a bottomless abyss of nothingness.

"GASP!" Covered in sweat, Zhang Wenda shot up in bed, startling awake. He took a deep breath, and as his eyes fell on the air conditioner on the wall, he finally realized it had all just been a dream.

Relieved, Zhang Wenda lay back down. But the moment he did, a thought surfaced in his mind.

’The red monster, the blue rabbit, the yellow child... was that really just a dream? Or did it mean something?’

’What did "too much red" mean? What does red represent? Am I the red monster? Then who are they?’ Zhang Wenda, who hadn’t been awake for long, was now completely sleepless.

In his old world, he might have dismissed it as just a nightmare. But in this bizarre new world where anything was possible, he didn’t dare to let his guard down.

Besides, the dream had been too strange. And far too vivid.

He suspected someone was secretly meddling with his dreams. This suspicion grew stronger when he recalled the baffling things Tan Yougen had said to him earlier. ’Could this be Old Tan’s handiwork? What on earth is he up to?’

"AGHHH!" An irritated Song Jianguo kicked the bed frame, making it jump. "Are you ever going to cut it out?! I just fell asleep and you woke me up again!"

Frowning, Zhang Wenda rolled onto his side. He lay there, feeling the vibrations of the bed frame as his mind raced, and stayed that way until dawn.

At the crack of dawn, Zhang Wenda couldn’t stay put any longer. He went to Tan Yougen’s office and knocked on the door.

"Come in." As soon as Zhang Wenda entered, he saw the man eating breakfast.

"Well now, you’re up early, young man. Don’t you sleep much either?" Tan Yougen asked, taking a bite of a steamed bun.

"I had a very strange dream last night," Zhang Wenda said, getting straight to the point.

"That’s it? You’re done? If everyone in the bureau came to me every time they had a dream, I’d never get any other work done." Tan Yougen assumed the kid was joking.

"I just want to know if what you said to me yesterday has anything to do with my dream. Why did three colors appear as physical entities in it?"

After listening to Zhang Wenda’s description of the dream, Tan Yougen’s brow furrowed slightly. "I don’t know why you’d think that dream has anything to do with me, but I’m telling you, it doesn’t."

"Is that so? Your credibility isn’t exactly stellar. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I want to remind you that we have the same enemy: Big Circle. I don’t appreciate being plotted against by my own people."

Hearing this, Tan Yougen put down his soymilk and met Zhang Wenda’s gaze. "If I were really deceiving you, do you think you’d be able to tell?"

"Then what did you mean yesterday? Why would you say all that for no reason?"

Just then, the door was pushed open. A mild-mannered, bespectacled young man carrying a stack of files walked in. "Director, here are today’s—"

The young man glanced at the rabbit in the room and immediately swallowed his words.

Tan Yougen pulled a fountain pen from his breast pocket, quickly scribbled something in cursive on a piece of paper, and handed it to Zhang Wenda. "I’m not like you. I’m a busy man. As for your so-called three-color dream, go to the Archives Department and find Ding Xiaojin. You can ask them about these things."

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