The letter connected all the clues and proved the girl’s tale. It filled up the pieces in the puzzle. The nightmare owner didn’t listen to his grandfather and accidentally released the ghost behind the door. The ghost swapped the body with the sister first and then killed the other family members and the guests. To ensure the ghost would stop killing, the nightmare owner chose to sacrifice himself to trap the ghost inside his brain. He became comatose and was tormented by the ghost every day.
The middle-level nightmare presented everything in a realistic and absurd way. Everything and everyone in the nightmare was symbolic.
“I think I have everything now. I just need to consider one thing. The manor owner is in control of the manor and has the keys to the hidden rooms. However, he didn’t destroy the letters and clues but chose to hide these things. Does he intend to use these things for something?”
Normally, before the nightmare owner died physically, the ghost behind the door had no chance of escaping. However, Immortal Pharma found this nightmare owner. Whenever they sent the testers into this nightmare, it was a chance for the ghost to escape.
“The ghost behind the door once swapped his soul with the little sister. He might use the same method to escape the nightmare.”
At first, Gao Ming suspected the owner’s soul-swap target was Bai Feng. Bai Feng showed the anomalies yesterday night. Then, she appeared in the hidden room with the owner’s mother’s clothes. However, the anomalies in Bai Feng were too obvious. It was like telling everyone she had issues.
“Stay away from her!” Zhi Ge seemed to understand something from the letter. He aimed the axe at Bai Feng, “Speak! Is it your purpose to lure us to discover this letter? Don’t try to hide. Qian Jin noticed something was wrong with you when he sent you the food. The real Bai Feng wouldn’t touch anything in the nightmare. However, you wolfed the food down! Who are you? What will happen when the ritual is completed?”
“I am Bai Feng?” Bai Feng was too lazy to explain. She didn’t need to beg for other people’s trust.
“Sister Feng, I trust that you haven’t been swapped,” Gao Ming suddenly interrupted, causing Bai Feng to turn to him.
“You are similar to Bai Xiao whom I know. He is just like you in the nightmare. Other than his sister, nothing can budge him.” Gao Ming mentioned Bai Xiao. He was trying to say that the only thing that could budge Bai Feng was her children.
Bai Feng went into thinking when she heard the names of her children. She chose to share the information with Gao Ming, “After entering the middle-level nightmares multiple times, I’ve sharpened my intuition and can sense the hidden malice in people’s emotions. At first, I couldn’t be certain of the manor owner’s identity. I couldn’t tell if he was the nightmare owner. However, I could sense the deep malice hidden within him. Do you remember how he first appeared? The violin music echoed in the manor. His eyes were sad, just like the male character in the picture. However, if you looked closer, you’d realise the manor owner was acting.
“After confirming that, I started to conduct my own investigation. I went to the east lake yesterday night.
“After all the nightmares I’ve experienced, there hasn’t been a location as suspicious as the east lake. I confirm that there is a path that can lead to deeper nightmares in the east lake.” Bai Feng’s eyes glowed. Her goal was to venture deeper into the nightmare to locate her missing children. “I checked along the shore. I noticed many big fish underneath the lake, which was about two meters long. I had a strange feeling watching them at night.” Bai Feng got into the mood, “I tried to get close to them. But as I did so, I realised they were not like fish. When I walked on the lake’s surface and looked at them through the ice, I realised they were humans. From the way they were dressed and how they died, they didn’t have anything to do with the wintry manor. They probably came from the other nightmares.”
“The manor owner said his mother needed to eat the fish from the east lake after she fell ill. Was she eating humans?” Gao Ming caught a glimpse of the woman on the fourth floor. She wore a red dress.
“I found some information about the grandfather in the owner’s room, Room 3003. The old man was strong even though he was eighty-plus. He died without warning. In the house owner’s record, his grandfather liked to eat the fish from the east lake. He was a great fisherman. Every time he ate a fish, he would look ten years younger.” Bai Feng spoke quickly. She touched the black band around her wrist. “I checked the nightmare owner’s life before coming here. The east lake does exist in the real world. However, it has been given a different meaning in the nightmare. I suspect the nightmare owner discovered his grandfather’s secret when he was young. When he asked what his grandfather was eating, the old man lied to him and told him it was a fish from the east lake.”
Bai Feng didn’t tell the truth directly, but everyone knew the hidden meaning. This nightmare was more complicated than they thought. The nightmare owner’s grandfather had control of a special door. He used the thing behind the door for his own benefit. His daughter could retain her youth forever because of it. However, due to certain reasons, the thing behind the door escaped and tragedy occurred.
“To verify my suspicion, I tried to catch a fish yesterday night.” Bai Feng took out a large fish scale. “They wanted to trick me through the hole in the lake. I tricked them back and got them to get close to the shore. The injuries you see on me are from me trying to catch the fish.”
“What about the fish? Where did you hide it?”
“They are humans in the lake, but once they leave the lake, they become fish. That apparently is the rule of the nightmare.” Bai Feng continued, “I carried the fish I captured to the small house behind the firewood storage. I conducted a trade with the owner of the brick house.” Bai Feng’s voice dropped. She looked down the dark corridor. “I will help him kill the manor owner, and in return, he’ll help me open the door that will allow me to travel deeper into the nightmare.”
Zhi Ge and Xu Deyi’s faces dropped. They finally understood why Bai Feng was unwilling to say anything. Their goals were categorically different. They just wanted to earn money through Immortal Pharma. Bai Feng wanted to enter the deeper nightmare through this nightmare.”