Seizing Dreams [B1]

Ch14 - A Child's Dream

"It's Christmas Eve today." General continued.

Yu Hao was sprawled on General's back as he said, "It's already cold enough in the day, I didn't expect it to still be this cold at night in my dream."

General casually asked, "What did you do during the day?"

Yu Hao answered, "Working part-time."

He didn't know why - maybe it was intuition - but Yu Hao always feels like he knows General in reality, and General was deliberately trying to hide his identity.

"What kind of work was it?"

"Distributing leaflets."

"O, then that is quite cold." General said, "Fortunately I have a lot of fur, so I'm not afraid of the cold."

Yu Hao began to laugh. He hugged General's neck and his whole body leaned forward onto his back.

"Be a bit more serious, keep your furry hands to yourself1." General scratched his neck and said, "Reproductive isolation exists between monkeys and humans."

Yu Hao couldn't help himself from breaking out into laughter after he heard a monkey use the phrase "keep your furry hands to yourself". General asked again, "Did you find a boyfriend in the real world?"

"It's only been a few days!" Yu Hao said, "My problems haven't been resolved yet, how could I spare time for a relationship?"

As they were approaching the village, General suddenly stopped. Yu Hao said, "What's wrong?"

The huge monkey looked to his left and right as if he had sensed some kind of danger. He whispered, "Shh."

The seaside village was clearly more visible now: most of the wooden houses were covered with a thick layer of frost; the surface of the sea was frozen solid, and frozen Viking boats were spread out in a disorderly mess along the harbor. It was as if a chilly, piercingly cold wind had swept across the harbor and froze all the living things it touched within an instant.

At the end of the harbor stood a towering lighthouse; a black mass of air levitated above it.

"Is that a 'totem'?" Yu Hao whispered as he asked.

General motioned for Yu Hao to come down, then whispered, "Maybe, but we haven't found the owner of the dreamscape, what should we do?"

It was impossible for anyone to survive on this snowfield sealed in ice for thousands of miles - this was a true Land of the Dead. General had already scanned their surroundings when they were on the mountain; after he turned into Sun Wukong, it seemed like he had inherited the skills of the monkey's fiery golden eyes2, so he could be absolutely certain that the banished owner was not on the snowfield or within the mountain ranges.

Yu Hao said, "Could the owner have been banished to the subconscious?"

He knew little about dreamscapes, and most of his deductions were based on what General had told him and the knowledge he had gleaned from books.

"Shouldn't be?" General rubbed his head as he muttered to himself.

"Then what about the safe haven?" Yu Hao said uneasily, "Let's look for that?"

General said, "There isn't a place that looks like a safe haven here."

Yu Hao thought for awhile before he said, "There isn't any aboveground, but what about underground? You said that this is a little girl's dream. Kids all love to build their own secret base, it could be analogous to a sort of 'underground work'2."

"You're pretty good at Psychology." General suddenly said, "You might have guessed right, let's go in and take a look ba."

In front of the frozen dwellings, General used his sword to forcefully prise a door open. Yu Hao's staff emitted a bright light that illuminated its interior.