I am the Ruler of the Kingdom of Mysterious-Chapter 254 - 222: Source of the Nightmare

Sang Que woke up again with a start. Her heart pounded from weak to strong, her breathing became increasingly rapid, and the ticking of a clock echoed incessantly in her ears.

Her whole body felt weak and powerless; it took her a while before she could sit up. She was still in the bedroom of her small courtyard in Wangshan City, and there was still no sign of Xia Chan and Xuan Yu.

A burning pain shot through her arm. Sang Que rolled up her sleeve to find her pale arm covered with scratches, with fresh blood oozing and skin turning outward, healing slowly, the flowing blood carrying the scent of rice wine.

The healing made her mouth dry and tongue parched, inducing a craving for blood.

The ghosts she saw banging bowls at the intersection were not an illusion; the ticking in her ear indicated that the power of Recovery had been triggered and now the countdown of side effects was in progress.

The slow healing of her wound and the rice wine scent of the blood showed that the force from the Evil Spirits within her had not completely vanished.

Resisting the irritation brought on by the ticking, Sang Que calmly thought for a moment and quickly came up with a bold guess.

She was likely trapped in the nightmare of the Dream Ghost.

How could it be so silent?

Only she was drawn in, while Xia Chan and Xuan Yu, including the Black Donkey, were not caught in the Dream Ghost’s nightmare, which is why she couldn’t see them here?

What about the others?

What exactly happened outside?

The thought of these questions got Sang Que’s anxiety and irritation spiraling uncontrollably. She took a deep breath and reminded herself to stay calm.

No matter what happened, as long as Xia Chan was by her side, she would never leave her. Her primary task now was self-rescue, to find a way to wake up.

Sang Que remembered Yu Da told her that when trapped in the Dream Ghost’s realm, one must find the dream’s origin and break it to awaken.

In the dream, everyone would turn into ordinary people, almost unable to resist the nightmare ghosts, only trying to hide as much as possible.

In-dream death means death in reality.

But those cursed with the spell cannot be directly killed by the Dream Ghost before the curse completes.

Sang Que looked again at her slowly healing wrist. Back in the Ming Mansion, the village resentment swallowed the cursed heart of the old monk, which endowed her with part of the Undying Curse ability, accelerating wound healing by consuming her own life force.

Could this part of the curse’s power fend off the Dream Ghost?

When she encountered that group of ghosts banging bowls, she must have died once, as the Recovery power had been triggered. This left her unable to determine whether the curse revived her or if it was the effect of Recovery.

Now that Recovery has been triggered, even after the twelve-hour countdown ends, she couldn’t mark a new time point in the dream, meaning she couldn’t use Recovery power again in the dream.

It’s best not to take any risks, not to rely on the curse as a crutch. Consider herself as just an ordinary person with only one life; she must be extremely cautious and find Yu Da, go to the Evil Suppression Bureau to see if anyone else is caught in the Dream Ghost’s nightmare.

Sang Que looked at her right palm. The Yansheng coin was not omnipotent; in the nightmare, she couldn’t feel its existence. Now, she truly had to rely on herself.

After regaining her strength, Sang Que got off the bed, took her knife, slung her bow and arrow over her back, and left the small courtyard once more.

This time she planned to take a different direction, a different route, and head to the Evil Suppression Bureau first.

At this moment, a disturbance suddenly came from the courtyard next door belonging to Kou Yushan, making Sang Que’s heart jolt. She immediately turned back and climbed up the wall in a few steps.

She saw Kou Yushan sitting on the ground behind the main door of his courtyard, looking terrified at the tightly closed door, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.

"Uncle Yushan!"

Sang Que whispered. Kou Yushan abruptly turned his head. Seeing her, his eyes lit up like he had grabbed a lifeline.

Sang Que scanned the surroundings. Seeing nothing unusual, she flipped over the wall.

Kou Yushan, using both hands and feet, moved away from the front door, scrambled up, and rushed to Sang Que. "Where did you go? I didn’t see you just now. I even went to your courtyard to look for you!"

Sang Que paused. Could it be that people trapped in the dream might not necessarily see each other? Does the dream have zones or layers?

Before Sang Que could speak, Kou Yushan swallowed hard. Usually steady, he now looked pale, as if he had encountered something terrifying.

"Forget about that, I remember now. I remember everything!"

Kou Yushan glanced at the courtyard door. Outside, a flower sedan still stood—a thing he feared the most. It was the appearance of the Ghost Flower Carriage that led to his mother being taken as a bride on it, forcing him and his sister to flee, barely escaping death.

Kou Yushan didn’t remember how they were rescued later, but seeing the flower sedan, that splash of vivid red, reminded him of what important things he had forgotten.

"Granny Zhuang’s son is back. He’s the one you saw in Black Mountain Village!"

One sentence made Sang Que open his eyes in shock, staring at Kou Yushan in disbelief.

Did Kou Yushan mention the Wan Xiangtou? Does he still remember this?

Back then, when Yan Daozi planned to sacrifice the entire village, Sang Que overheard the conversation between Yan Daozi and Wan Xiangtou in the Hidden Realm. Later, she told Kou Yushan everything, including the matter about Wan Xiangtou controlling a Deceitful Bride.

But afterward, Kou Yushan forgot about the matters related to her biological mother, and the incidents of their meeting.

Since then, Sang Que had never probed how much Kou Yushan remembered about other things.

Kou Yushan steadied himself and continued, "It was probably over ten days ago; I can’t recall the exact time. One morning I went to visit Granny Zhuang, and at her doorstep, I heard..."

Kou Yushan quickly recounted what happened to Sang Que that day. After hearing noises in the courtyard, he was noticed by the people inside, and when he turned around, he saw the bright red wedding dress. It was a Deceitful Bride wearing a red veil and a wedding dress but barefoot.

After being caught by the Deceitful Bride, he thought he would surely die. Granny Zhuang came out from the house and halted Wan Xiangtou.

It’s possible Wan Xiangtou never intended to kill him initially but knocked him out. When he woke up, he stood at the entrance of Cui Liu Lane, feeling dazed and unaware of what happened, continuing with whatever he was doing.

After hearing Kou Yushan’s story, Sang Que immediately connected all the dots and made a reasonable deduction.

During the Deceit Dynasty period, her thinking abilities swiftly advanced.

"Now it seems, Wangshan City won’t be peaceful tonight. Granny Zhuang is certainly the source of the Dream Ghost nightmare, chosen from the start. If we’re not careful, everyone in the city might be stuck in nightmares. We can’t delay any longer. We must leave the nightmare quickly; otherwise, if something happens outside, we won’t be able to resist, and even if we wake up, it might be too late!"

Intense unease made Sang Que uncontrollably agitated as she gripped her long knife, wanting to slash and vent.

Granny Zhuang managed archives at the Evil Suppression Bureau for years and remembered many bizarre case files. Letting the Dream Ghost parasite in Granny Zhuang’s nightmare creates an unsolvable existence.

Just imagine, due to Granny Zhuang’s memories, all the bizarre cases that happened in the city over the years are now unfolding in Wangshan City. Out of the over thirty thousand citizens, how many can survive?

No wonder she refused to sleep no matter what when I visited Granny Zhuang yesterday. Though she was senile, her subconscious was still guarding against this, but unfortunately, no one took her words seriously.

And Granny Zhuang relied on calming soup to sleep over the years, living alone in Cui Liu Lane, perhaps for this reason.

Calming soup would allow her to directly enter deep sleep without nightmares, avoiding the attention of the Dream Ghost.

If by chance it attracted any attention, with no other person in Cui Liu Lane, her nightmare wouldn’t drag innocents into it; as long as it was discovered promptly, only she would die.

Sadly, Granny Zhuang’s son turned out to be Wan Xiangtou of the Ghost Opera Troupe. Granny Zhuang suddenly fell ill, and her nightmare dragged the whole city into slumber, surely related to Wan Xiangtou.

What does the Ghost Opera Troupe intend to do? Massacre the city?

No, the whole affair isn’t without flaw, in fact, recalled now, there are flaws everywhere. But why didn’t anyone at the Evil Suppression Bureau suspect anything?

Not to mention Wei Ziyan, even someone like Yu Da who deals with bizarre cases daily, sensitive and cautious about Evil Spirits and Evil Ghosts, how could he completely overlook Granny Zhuang’s abnormality?

Sang Que sensed that there’s another force here disrupting everyone’s judgment before the incident, a force very much like...

The storyteller!

A chill shot straight through Sang Que’s head, making her tremble all over.

Gripping her long knife tightly, Sang Que tried hard to suppress the panic within. The more protagonists and side characters there are in the storyteller’s narrative, the more aggressively he is corroded by eerie forces. To pull over thirty thousand townsfolk into the story, he wouldn’t last a quarter of an hour before dying.

So surely, they are not trapped in the storyteller’s tale now.

Just like in Tianliang City, where Mom influenced Cheng Ge’s plan with the story’s opening.

Making what’s destined to happen occur earlier, seeming coincidental naturally, cleverly neglecting every flaw.

All the storyteller can do is nothing more, the true driver of events being the Ghost Opera Troupe.

If the Ghost Opera Troupe didn’t lay a foundation or design intricate schemes, the storyteller would also be powerless to influence them to act.

After the events of Tianliang City concluded, she analyzed with Mom that utilizing a storyteller’s power to propel events can only gather relevant individuals due to only having a beginning, hastening related occurrences at the opportune time.

The outcome will still depend on how each person involved acts.

Like an open-ended story’s conclusion where unlimited possibilities arise; lacking a formal start, set processes, fixed outcomes, who wins and who loses remains uncertain.

No matter what the Ghost Opera Troupe aims for, she must swiftly exit the dream. Otherwise, should something happen outside leading to her physical death or damage, she would still perish after awakening.

Sang Que’s gaze set firmly, "Uncle Yushan, you stay here and don’t go anywhere. I’m going to find Granny Zhuang!"