Chapter Forty: Kiss of Dreams

At that moment, I had just crawled out from a pile of corpses! Especially after the incident with the fat white corpse exploding, the stench clinging to me was simply unbearable.

To put it bluntly, I smelled exactly like the dead.

Yet Xian Hongye showed no sign of disgust. What moved me even more was her unwavering commitment to caring for me. To help me regain consciousness quickly, she fetched water to wipe my forehead and even assembled a makeshift stretcher for me to lie on.

Her care awakened a feeling deep within me that I dared not explore further. After all, she was the girl Wang Hou had set his sights on. Whether or not Wang Hou could win her over was none of my business, but I certainly couldn’t pursue her.

So, I forced a smile to cover my inner turmoil and embarrassment.

From that moment on, I realized Hongye was far from a simple or delicate girl. She was capable, intelligent, and possessed a resilient spirit—a true woman of talent.

But after I learned all that had transpired, a sense of disappointment inevitably welled up inside me.

Seeing that Hongye had survived Little Jiu'er’s assault, I felt a heavy weight lift from my heart. However, the crux of the matter was that our foray into the Shadow Store had yielded nothing.

I still hadn’t found a way to cure Hongye. Worse yet, during the white boss’s corpse explosion, I might have been infected with the Bai Food Gu worm…

All in all, we’d lost more than we gained.

As I sat there, lost in dejection, a doctor strode over to me.

He nudged me with his foot and said, “Are you Tian Buer? Time to get on the bus!”

Perplexed, I replied, “Where are we going?”

“The county hospital. You’re the last batch of wounded. Can you walk? If not, get on the bus.”

Damn, this doctor sure had a temper.

But his words reminded me of my own sorry state. Not only had I been smoked like a ham by the fat white corpse, but I’d also been bitten all over by that dwarf, A Si, until I looked like a sieve—hardly a glorious sight.

Since the doctor had called me, there was no need to put on a brave face. I was injured enough to need proper treatment before I could plan my next move.

I nodded and tried to get up.

But just as I mustered all my strength to rise from the stretcher, a wave of dizziness hit me. My legs buckled beneath me, and I collapsed.

In my haze, I realized this was a lingering effect of carbon monoxide poisoning. The gas was truly potent—even a grown man like me couldn’t withstand it.

What I couldn’t figure out was whether the carbon monoxide was released by Little Jiu’er setting the fire, or if it had come from the white boss’s wretched belly. If it was the latter, the thought alone made me sick.

But I had no time to ponder. I was toppling over like an avalanche.

Just as I was about to hit the ground, I suddenly felt a strong support at my waist, lifting me from behind.

Though I staggered, I didn’t collapse completely. Thanks to this intervention, I avoided a dangerous chain reaction—who knows what might have happened otherwise.

Catching my breath, I looked down to see who had caught me and was startled to find it was still Xian Hongye.

There she was, her slender frame straining to support my heavy, powerless body, trembling under the pressure.

The sight moved me deeply.

To be honest, Hongye was a truly good person. I sensed none of the arrogance that often clings to the wealthy or the elite. On the contrary, she was genuinely helpful and kind-hearted. Though I hadn’t known her long, I could feel her innate goodness and her deep trust in the two of us.

Still, being held by Hongye like that just felt… improper.

I didn’t know how she felt, but I was certainly embarrassed.

So, I said softly, “Um… Hongye, let go. I’m fine now—I can walk.”

But to my surprise, Hongye didn’t release me. On the contrary, her delicate hands only tightened their grip.

Then, out of the blue, she said something that made my face flush and my heart race.

“Holding you isn’t a big deal,” she said with a smile. “After all, you’ve held me before, haven’t you?”

Her words were laden with meaning.

Her sudden warmth left me utterly at a loss. If there had been a crack in the ground, I’d have gladly crawled into it. If things continued like this, I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself.

To avoid losing control, I forced an awkward smile and reached for her hands, intending to gently push her away and stand on my own.

She might not want to let go, but I couldn’t let myself indulge in it either.

Yet my efforts were useless. To my astonishment, Hongye’s actions only grew bolder.

She slowly lifted her head and gave me a smile no man could possibly resist.

That smile was as alluring and dangerous as the lingering carbon monoxide in my brain.

Perhaps it was the gas, perhaps it was hormones—whatever the reason, I gazed, entranced, at her bewitching, radiant smile. My vision began to blur and distort…

In the shifting firelight and the haze of night, I lost myself entirely in her beauty, as if under a hypnotic spell.

Suddenly, I felt something was wrong—Hongye’s face seemed… not her own.

I was dumbstruck by the shocking transformation in her features. The intoxication in my mind was swiftly replaced by cold terror.

At some point, the enchanting smile on Hongye’s face had morphed into Little Jiu’er’s!

Her expression now bore Little Jiu’er’s unique confidence and pallor.

The abrupt change snapped me to my senses—

But it was too late.

Little Jiu’er clung to me, triumphant, her false eyes slowly weeping blood.

“You’ve lost,” she whispered—just three simple words, but it was as if she had pronounced my death sentence.

I tried to cry out, but no sound escaped.

For at that moment, Little Jiu’er’s cold lips sealed my mouth.

Her icy, slippery “tongue” forced its way into my mouth, my throat, my esophagus…

I knew then—it wasn’t a tongue, but the thick, white Bai Food Gu worm.

There was no doubt—I had been infected.

I wanted to fight back, but all my strength seemed to have been drained by Little Jiu’er. Worst of all, my consciousness began to fade as the worm invaded deeper and deeper…

In the final moments before I blacked out, I was filled with regret, recalling something Little Jiu’er had once said—

She had threatened to come for Hongye, to take revenge on us. I had been far too careless.

Hongye was probably already possessed by Little Jiu’er.

But I had no time to think.

After that, I heard singing—a sorrowful, bleeding melody in a language I could not understand…

…

The next day, when I awoke, Wang Hou and Hongye were at my bedside, staring at me with wide eyes.

The first thing I did upon waking was to scream hysterically at Hongye.

I don’t even want to recall the sound I made; according to the hospital, my outburst gave two elderly men on the upper floor heart attacks and summoned every nurse and doctor on the ward.

Yet I continued to shriek uncontrollably.

Eventually, I heard a doctor say casually, “It’s nothing, everyone calm down. This is a classic case of carbon monoxide sequelae. One shot of sedative and he’ll be fine. I’ve seen it before…”

And so, Wang Hou pinned me down while a nurse administered a tranquilizer—pants forcibly removed and all.

After that ordeal, I was powerless to object.

Once the sedative took effect, all I could do was stare helplessly at Hongye’s confused expression, knowing there was no escape. I suspected Little Jiu’er, perhaps even now lurking within Hongye, was laughing at me from the shadows.

Resigned, I sighed and tried to accept my fate.

Hongye, however, seemed oblivious to the change in my attitude. I even doubted she had any idea that something so sinister might have happened.

She explained calmly to Wang Hou and me that the previous day, when I was brought from Qingzhuan Alley to the ambulance, I had fainted from standing up too quickly, and had been unresponsive no matter how they called me. At one point, she said, my heart nearly stopped. Only in the early hours of the morning had my condition stabilized. There was no need to worry—the danger had passed.

Her words, coupled with the sedative, finally brought me some measure of peace.

Maybe everything I’d experienced after fainting was just a hallucination. I hoped it was, because I couldn’t bear to think about it any longer—it was simply exhausting.

Just then, Wang Hou, also dressed in a hospital gown, handed me a bowl of pungent herbal medicine.

He said nothing, but I knew what it was—gastrodia and notoginseng powder, intended to suppress the Bai Food Gu worm.

Because of the sedative, I was expressionless and mute, but I understood his meaning.

I had been infected with the Bai Food Gu.

Wang Hou sighed, “The police said the scene was badly damaged—no trace of the Gu worm, and Little Jiu’er has vanished.”

I nodded and downed the medicine in silence.

Over the following days, our spirits hit rock bottom.

The Shadow Store case was officially classified as “trafficking and fraud.” Due to its bizarre nature, it was handed over to “relevant authorities” and “experts” for further investigation.

But the results were disappointing. Those frenzied, red-eyed diners were all declared to be suffering from some kind of “delusional disorder” and sent off for psychiatric treatment. As for what exactly that disorder was, I had no idea—nor, I suspected, did the experts.

Little Jiu’er disappeared as if she had evaporated into thin air. Though the police put out a warrant, I knew it would be nearly impossible to catch her.

With her intelligence, her abilities, and especially her knack for reading people, no ordinary investigative methods would suffice.

After all, she was the one who could turn the tables on a native shaman… This enigmatic woman had slipped from my world, for now.

But her shadow still haunted me like a ghost. As Hongye put it, she was a woman without a past—no one knew her origins, why she’d been trafficked to Laos, or why she opened the Shadow Store to harm people. She was like a shadow with no substance—you simply couldn’t catch her.

But one thing was certain.

She had infected both Wang Hou and me with the Gu worm. Though we could temporarily suppress it with medicine, we could not eradicate it—because we hadn’t destroyed the “human brain” that controlled the Gu.

That knowledge left me in utter despair.

Yet just as we were at our wit’s end, our future shrouded in uncertainty, fate seemed to take pity on us. The crisis we faced suddenly took a dramatic turn.

On the fifth day after the Shadow Store incident, my old squad leader—whom I’d been unable to reach—finally returned my call.

It was a call that would save my life.