The door manifested as the east lake in the nightmare. The ice-sealed lake held the despair of many people. The dark thoughts morphed into fish in the water. They were delicious meat but also monsters who ate others. This was the path that was closest to the deep-level nightmares. It was the place where people would get lost and the spot where the flesh tree loved.
The fish was pierced through by the branches. The flesh tree absorbed all the negative emotions hungrily. Human anxiety triggered its appetite. Its horror was more than pure greed.
The tree grew in a short span of time. It became larger than most of the fish. Its branches grew and expanded. The branches were about to break through the surface. Its roots grew downwards to connect with the blood door at the bottom of the lake.
The tragedies that befell the nightmare owner came from the blood door. The door was the core of the nightmare. The face that chased after Gao Ming twisted. The rotten face stared at the giant tree that grew attached to the door. Its childhood trauma consumed its soul. The nightmare owner was united with the blood door. As long as he was there, the blood door couldn’t be forced open! However, his main consciousness had just been awakened, and he had left the door to kill Qian Jin!
The door under the lake became ownerless, just like how it was many years ago when the owner’s grandfather encountered it.
The lake water surged against the giant tree. The nightmare owner abandoned Gao Ming and swam deeper into the lake!
The schools of fish were controlled to charge at the tree. As they bit on the leaves, their bodies were punctured by the roots. Snow floated above the lake. Meat fluttered under the lake.
After consuming sufficient food, the tree roots gathered around the door. They covered the original patterns of the door. Meat fragrance wafted out. Following a loud sound, the blood door was crushed by two giant forces!
The souls howled. The fish started to grow human faces. The nightmare’s control on them weakened. The rules were broken. The connection between the nightmare owner and the blood door dwindled. Giant roots reached out from inside the door. The nearby fish was shredded. Not only the nightmare owner but also Gao Ming was stunned. He knew the three seeds he had were special, and they might come from deep-level nightmares, but he didn’t know the seeds would be so powerful. Their strength was far beyond the threshold of the middle-level nightmares.
While Gao Ming was taken aback, the two trees inside and outside the door joined their roots. Endless tree branches grew out from Gao Ming’s sides like giant arms. They avoided Gao Ming and hunted the fish around him. Then again, they were not fish anymore. After the rules were shattered, the fish turned back into wandering souls. Most of them came from behind the door and were entrapped in the east lake by the nightmare owner.
The fight between the giant trees and the nightmare owner ended in mere seconds. After losing control of the blood door, the nightmare owner rapidly weakened. Plus, as his humanity returned, his memory and obsession held him back. He was no match for the flesh trees. The branches cut into the nightmare owner’s body. As he yelled in pain, the tree grew once more. The canopy touched the lake’s surface. As the world shook, the ice layer was shattered.
Nothing remained to stop the tree. With the east lake as the centre, it started to absorb the whole nightmare. Even the mountains looked minuscule compared to the tree.
The testers by the shore were shocked. They had no idea what was behind this change. This nightmare was beyond their understanding. Their previous experience looked like a joke.
The blood door was taken over. The pattern on the door appeared on the veins of the leaves. The tree didn’t forget about Gao Ming. It combined the nutrients it gained from the fish and the nightmare owner into a red fruit. It was like a pounding heart.
The tree was about two-thirds of the lake. It was larger than the mountain, but it only managed to produce a fruit the size of one’s fist.
Gao Ming could sense the kindness from the tree. They seemed to share the same source of blood. Gao Ming had a strange feeling that he was the tree’s grandfather. They shared a complicated familial relationship.
Gao Ming held the fruit and sensed its pulse. As he was about to eat it, a weak voice came from the canopy. “Don’t eat it. You’ll regret it.”
Gao Ming turned to the voice. The little brother was impaled by many branches. His head and body were overgrown with leaves. The family portrait and letter were stuffed into his body. He was no longer as scary as before. After he was drained by the tree, he looked no different from how he was in real life. He was weak and tired. His eyes glowed with kindness and death.
“You’ll get bound to the door and carry the imprint and curse of that world. You won’t be able to escape.”
“Thank you for the warning, but I should be connected to that world already.” Gao Ming swallowed the fruit in a few bites. The power from the nightmare and the door stimulated his brain. His eyes lost focus. He felt like he was in a dream.
He was back on the bus. However, he was not there as a teacher. He was programming some kind of game. Then, the car accident happened. He crawled out of the bus and lifted his head. The bus headlights shone down the tunnel. His corpses, which were encased in the wall, stared at him.
“Hungry Ghost Festival!”
Gao Ming’s heart pounded. It was like drums or thunder. He grabbed the memory threads and yanked!
“That was not a dream. It happened for real.”
Gao Ming digested the fruit. It recovered his body greatly. He became much stronger than Bai Feng. Blood threads appeared on his skin. They looked like a blood city.
“Am I carrying a blood city on me?”
Gao Ming once remembered the manor owner saying that the other world had thirteen blood cities. Gao Ming suspected he was the owner of one of them.