Stranger Danger

Chapter 137: Fog of Nightmare

Rumble…

As if crushed by an invisible power, the bizarre, monstrous dream that had trapped Ye Qing’s consciousness abruptly shattered into a million pieces. The next moment, Ye Qing opened his eyes and realized he was back in his room, eyes still glowing white with power.

“Huh? Why is there so much fog?” The first thing Ye Qing noticed after waking up was a thick white fog shrouding his whole room.

“Is this the source of that strange nightmare?” He tried probing the fog with his spirit, but it felt? just like a normal fog would.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

It was at this moment a loud scream came from Wawa’s room. He immediately dashed over to see what was going on.

As soon as Wawa saw him, she immediately flew over to his shoulder and hugged him tightly. She sobbed, “Friend, friend! A really, really, really big worm wanted to eat me! I’m so scared! Uuuu…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ve already squashed the big worm, so don’t be scared!” Ye Qing consoled her, though he was surprised that she was able to wake up on her own. He reckoned that it was because Wawa was really a book, and her mind was pure and simple. That was why the nightmare couldn’t really entrap her.

“Let’s check up on Kung Fu Frog and Faceless!” Ye Qing declared and went over to his companions’ room in an instant, thinking that there was also the possibility that the nightmare only affected humans. He was wrong. Faceless and Kung Fu Frog’s faces were contorted in fear, and their entire bodies were drenched in cold sweat. They were even rolling back and forth as if trying to shake themselves awake. Unfortunately, it was no use.

Ye Qing tried calling out to their minds with his spirit, but nothing happened. He couldn’t help but frown deeply. “What on earth is going on here?”

“I should ask the Annon Sutra!” When in doubt, just ask the Annon Sutra!

Ye Qing encountered a small problem when he was attempting to cut his finger though. It had been a while since he used the Strange Artifact, so it was only now he realized that his body had become too resilient. He literally could not cut his finger even with the sharpest tool he could find. Eventually, he had no choice but to punch himself in the chest and spray out a mouthful of blood.

His blood wriggled atop the vellum for a bit before slowly disappearing. Soon, the familiar blood text surfaced once more.

“I had encountered a strange incident while traveling to Luo Shui. Everyone on Cloud Mountain had fallen into a nightmare, from which they could not awaken.”

“I managed to avoid the same fate thanks to the Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method, but I do not know who or what is behind this nightmare.”

“Perhaps I should observe the fog closer. Something doesn’t feel right about it!”

“The fog?” Ye Qing withdrew the Annon Sutra and frowned. The fog was the first thing he suspected since waking up, but he hadn’t discovered anything strange about it. Was he mistaken?

Suddenly, Ye Qing looked toward the exit. “Someone’s awake!?” He could feel someone exiting his room and appearing on the deck. Not only that, he was someone he had just recently gotten acquainted with. It was none other than Xu Banren.

“He’s awake too?” Ye Qing immediately chased after the guy.

As soon as he appeared on the deck, Xu Banren turned around to face him. Ye Qing greeted him first, “You had a nightmare too, Brother Xu?”

Xu Banren hummed affirmatively before asking, “You too?”

Ye Qing nodded. “It’s not just me, my two friends are having a nightmare as well. However, they wouldn’t wake up no matter what I did. If I’m not mistaken, everyone besides the two of us are trapped in a nightmare as well.”

Xu Banren looked surprised. He had come out because he noticed something odd, but he wasn’t expecting everyone on the ship to be trapped in a nightmare as well. At the same time, he was curious how Ye Qing managed to wake up from the nightmare. He succeeded only thanks to his coffin, but what about Ye Qing?

Xu Banren didn’t say anything though. He was, by nature, not a very curious person, and this was hardly the time to indulge in his curiosity.

“Brother Xu, you’re a Lieutenant of the Luo Shui Pacification Bureau, right? Do you know what Stranger this is?” Ye Qing asked.

Caught off guard, Xu Banren grew wary and stared at ye Qing with cold eyes. He did not answer his question.

Realizing why Xu Banren was acting like this, he quickly explained, “You misunderstood me, Brother Xu. Jiang Yuzhen is the one who told me about you!”

Xu Banren was still silent, but most of the wariness in his eyes vanished after he heard Ye Qing’s answer. He fell into thought for a good few minutes before he finally shook his head. “I do not know.”

Ye Qing frowned deeply. “This isn’t good. I have a feeling that something bad would happen if we cannot wake everyone up as soon as possible!”

“I agree.” Xu Banren’s tone was still icy, but now there was a tinge of severity in it as well. “Have you found anything yet, Brother Ye?”

Ye Qing purposely looked out to the thick fog shrouding the river and mused out loud, “I think something’s not right with this fog!”

“The fog?” Xu Banren followed his gaze and fell into deep thought. Just when Ye Qing thought he would turn into a pest and ask a million questions, Xu Banren raised his fist and launched a mighty punch at the fog.

The Heavenly Yin Corpse Qi swept through the river and stirred up the waters like crazy. It should’ve been more than powerful enough to dispel the fog completely, but it didn’t. More accurately, the fog had rolled back into the clear space after just a short while.

“You’re right. Something is wrong with this fog!” Xu Banren confirmed and withdrew his fist.

Ye Qing blinked and swallowed his justification back down his throat. As expected of Halfman Xu, his tactic was simple yet effective!

“So, did you

find anything, Brother Xu?” Ye Qing asked.

“No.”

Fuck, I feel like I completely wasted my time there, Ye Qing thought as he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. In the end, the only one he could rely on was himself.

Ye Qing closed his eyes and spread out his spirit in every direction like the wind. He was trying to see if there was anything unusual around them. There were bad news and worse news. The bad news was that he couldn’t sense anything unusual whatsoever. The worse news was that this made no sense, because even the shores were completely devoid of activity. He couldn’t hear any Stranger, people, animals, or even insects! It was the entire world had fallen dead!

“Phew…”

In the end, Ye Qing withdrew his spirit without anything to show. A wave of fatigue washed over him as he rubbed his forehead.

So, the fog was strange. But how was it strange, and what could he do about it?

This was the first time he encountered a Stranger that he had absolutely no idea how to deal with. What a conundrum!

“What do we do, Brother Ye?” Xu Banren asked.

“I’m the one who should be asking you that!” This time, Ye Qing did roll his eyes at the man before suggesting, “What if we carry the passengers out of the fog? Perhaps they’ll return to normal after they get out of its range!”

Xu Banren frowned. “But there’s only two of us. How many people can we save before it’s too late?”

Ye Qing sighed. “I know. But it’s better than saving no one.”

Xu Banren wasn’t a pedantic man. A few seconds later, he nodded. “Very well. We shall do as you say.”

But right as they were about to move, a gentle voice rang beside their ears, “There’s no need to go through all that trouble. This is the Fog of Nightmare, a Hatred-class Stranger. It has no fixed body, shape, form or substance. It usually appears during the night and at places with huge bodies of water as a fog.”

“When the Fog of Nightmare appears, everyone who is asleep will fall into an eternal nightmare. If they do not awake, their mind would eventually perish, and they would turn into a vegetable [1].”

“Since the Fog of Nightmare has no form, it cannot be dispelled or killed. Although it’s just a Hatred-class Stranger, it is extremely dangerous and difficult to deal with. Barring a handful of exceptions, any warrior below the Astral Refinement stage is probably not going to walk away from a Fog of Nightmare alive.”

“The Fog of Nightmare?” Xu Banren shuddered as if he recalled something. “Now I remember. I’ve read a few cases in the archives where the Fog of Nightmare is the culprit. Everyone in those cases were dead.”

“According to the records, the Fog of Nightmare has no obvious weaknesses except sunlight. Every time the sun rises from the east, it would naturally disappear into nothing.”

Ye Qing rubbed his nose. “So, we just need to wait until daybreak?”

Xu Banren nodded once but shook his head quickly. “You and I can afford to wait until daybreak because we’re awake, but those trapped inside the nightmare are most likely going to die.”

Ye Qing thought for a moment before clasping his hands together. He asked, “Miss, you recognize the Fog of Nightmare, and you’re the one who said that there’s a better way of handling this, so…”

Once again, the woman’s clear, quiet voice rang beside their ears like dark orchids in an empty valley, “The Fog of Nightmare is a dreamweaver who weaves nightmares to kill its victims. Therefore, all you need to do is to enter a dream and destroy the nightmares it weaved to wake everyone up. It’s very simple!”

Ye Qing: “...”

Xu Banren: “...”

Excuse me, but what part of that line sounds simple?

Plunk…

Suddenly, they heard a sound that sounded like a stone falling into a spring. It was crisp, clear, and melodious. It was the sound of a qin being plucked.

Ye Qing and Xu Banren immediately sharpened their hearing. The woman had only plucked the first note, and already their minds were drawn to it.

What followed was a peaceful, auspicious song that sounded like the spring wind blowing past a massive stretch of plum blossom trees and blooming them all at once; or a single flame lighting the candles of ten thousand households at once. It was a song of peace and prosperity.

The music was quiet, but not one-note. It was mild, but not uninteresting. Just because the world is big and chaotic, doesn’t mean you can’t lead a pure, peaceful life.

“This tune… it’s the Song of Purity and Peace!”

Ye Qing’s eyes lit up. The song the woman was playing was a very famous song. He had heard it in Coming Clouds before.

The Song of Purity and Peace was a quiet, mild song that most people might find boring be it sung or played using an instrument, which was why most songstresses and musicians tried to mix it up and add some richness to the tune so to speak. Regardless of the successes, it was a fact that the song’s original meaning and intent had been distorted by the alterations.

On the other hand, the woman did not make any changes to the song. She played it exactly as it was meant to be—pure and peaceful.

“Clouds, one thinks of her clothes; flowers, one thinks of her countenance;

the spring wind sweeps dew from her balustrade, splendid and dense.

If not seen at the peak of the Jade Mountain,

then she will be encountered under the moon on the gemstone terrace…” [2]

Ye Qing and Xu Banren were more or less tone deaf, but even they were fully absorbed in the wonderful music. Their irritation, worry, fear, sorrow, anger, and all other negative emotions were silently removed from their hearts, leaving only peace, purity, and calm.

Plunk…

They didn’t know when it happened, but when the music finally ceased, silver light shone down from above like the grace of heavens. A beautiful moon hung in the sky, and the river glittered like a bed of stars.

1. Not literally. I realize now I have to clarify things like this because of how insane this world is XD

2. I borrowed this from a website called eastasiastudent.net, which is part 1 of the Song of Purity and Peace. This is NOT what the author did, he basically threw in some random wishes he made up himself as if he was interjecting the narrator’s perspective, which no matter how I tried to translate, felt jarring at best or devastating at worst. Hence the alteration.