The Book of Troubled Times

  Chapter 1 Dream

  In the university classroom, the professor is talking about the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms with great interest.

  A burst of snoring came suddenly, the professor stopped talking, and looked at the source of the sound expressionlessly.

  The students also held back their smiles and turned their heads to look. On the corner seat in the last row, a tall young man was lying on the table and sleeping soundly.

   "It's him again."

   "What's going on with Zhao Changhe recently? He's obviously a vigorous athlete? Is this a young model at the Tiantian Club recently, or are you all reading Spring and Autumn at night?"

  A roommate answered wearily: "No, he has had nightmares every day recently, woke up sweating profusely in the middle of the night, and sometimes yelled, which made us all so noisy."

   "What is this, ghost upper body?"

  The students' discussions were heard in the professor's ears. The professor shook his head, but he didn't wake them up. He knocked on the podium calmly: "Continue."

  Zhao Changhe didn't know that he has evolved to the point where he not only has nightmares at night, but even naps in class...

  The noise in the classroom lingered in my ears in a daze, and turned into the chaotic sounds in the dream. The sound of footsteps, shouts, curses, screams, and the sound of metal and iron clashing with each other, all mixed together.

  The environment quickly changed from blurry to clear, and Zhao Changhe knew that he had entered the dream that had been repeated these days again.

   It is the same ancient costume martial arts drama every time, in different scenes, the same **** fight.

He could already feel the familiar weight in his hand. It was a heavy broadsword, about 1.5 meters long and more than 10 centimeters wide. Zhao Changhe had to hold the long handle with both hands, because he couldn't swing it with one hand. Heavy stuff is tough even with your hands.

  I didn’t have it in my dream for the first time. I was chased and hacked by someone with my bare hands, and I grabbed it by the nearby corpse in a panic. Since then, it has been fixed in every dream.

  Zhao Changhe is not sure if there is such a knife in reality. It feels too heavy to last. It should not be a conventional weapon, but it is at least very useful in low-end melee, as long as you can swing it.

   "Whoosh!" The sound of a sharp weapon piercing through the air came from the side, Zhao Changhe let out a loud shout, twisted his waist, and used the strength of his waist to drive the heavy knife in his hand, and swept it away.

  The knife moves, the wind blows!

  The assailant broke out in a cold sweat, and subconsciously forced the long sword in his hand.

   With a sound of "clang", the long sword snapped and its head flew up, leaving only a headless corpse holding a broken sword awkwardly, with blood bubbling from its neck.

   Destroy!

   "That's right, why do long swords and daggers also want to use broadswords? What's wrong..."

  The headless body was sprayed with blood mist, and the **** scene was extremely horrifying, but Zhao Changhe no longer felt the discomfort he felt when he saw it for the first time, and he felt like complaining.

  Suddenly there was a faint gust of wind behind him, and Zhao Changhe's skin instantly tightened, and goose bumps appeared.

   There is a sneak attack with a sharp weapon!

  He subconsciously turned around, and a dagger passed silently from the right side.

  The fragrant wind blew past, and the moment the dagger hit the air, a ghostly figure had already reached the left.

   If there is any fatal weakness of this heavy knife, it is that the action is too slow. Zhao Changhe tried to drag the knife around, but he was already a beat slower.

  The dagger lightly slashed across the throat, a bone-chilling pain came, and the dream shattered.

  The last image is a slender and graceful body, smiling lightly and going away.

  Zhao Changhe was furious: "It's you witch again, I will kill you sooner or later!"

  Woke up just as soon as I spoke, my throat was bruised, how could I be so angry?

  Zhao Changhe opened his eyes. There was a silent classroom in front of him. Everyone from the professor to the classmates looked at him strangely.

  Professor has no expression on his face: "How did you get on with the witch, please explain in detail?"

  Zhao Changhe: "..."

  A tragic death is more painful than cutting your throat.

  Professor's showdown: "I endured it for a long time, and stood sober at the door."

  Zhao Changhe left the classroom silently, but he was willing to stand still and leave directly.

  He was never a good student who followed the rules, not to mention his mental state is not right now.

   Being in the **** battlefield day by day, the mental stress is like a substance, and I sleep more tired than during the day. If this continues, the body will definitely collapse. And this dream is extremely real, every time they are either hacked to death by knives or have their throats cut by a sneak attack, or die from unknown AOE, the palpitations and pain are so real, it can really drive people crazy.

  Go to the doctor, the doctor said that it seems like playing games or reading novels into obsession, it is recommended to stay away from the Internet, almost said that you are going to receive electrotherapy.

   But Zhao Changhe knew that he hadn’t played games for a long time, not to mention that these scenes were not the same as those games he was familiar with, and only some elements were similar—martial arts and fantasy things are not all swords, guns, swords and halberds, so you can’t open Gundam.

   Is the novel obsessed? But the novel that Zhao Changhe secretly posted on Qidian has hit the street miserably. He has been an **** for several months, and he hasn't even opened Qidian's APP in these months.

  I usually do fitness and play ball, and I am still a member of the bow and arrow club. What a healthy lifestyle, why is it like this?

   Leaving the school gate, the student street is relatively deserted during the morning class time, but many men and women skip class to go shopping and eat. You eat a piece of grilled sausage, which makes Zhao Changhe roll his eyes.

  He just wanted to stuff the grilled sausage into the witch's mouth.

  Actually, the single dog may not have a little jealousy in his heart...Zhao Changhe curled his lips to ignore the love between the dog and the man, and suddenly turned around and walked into the alley of Student Street.

   This is a dead-end alley, and there are also storefronts inside, and most of them are closed at this time. Zhao Changhe walked to the end of a quiet alley, and there was a small shop open, with a plaque at the door that read "House of Troubled Times" in seal script, and a sign beside the door read "Fortune-telling, Interpreting Dreams".

   This is a fortune-telling hut that has just opened for three days. It is extremely low-key, but its reputation spreads quickly.

  There is no other reason, just because the owner of the fortune-telling store is a woman, and she is also very beautiful. A group of animals waiting to be fed have been winking and discussing for two or three days. Zhao Changhe also came here after hearing the news yesterday. Of course, his reason for coming was different from others. He really wanted to interpret his dream.

  Walking into the store, the lights inside were not turned on, and it looked a little dim. A woman with short hair was sitting quietly in a corner, closing her eyes and sorting out the cards on the table.

  She is wearing a black ancient warrior costume, just like coming out of a martial arts movie, she is indeed very beautiful. Especially the way he gently closed his eyes, like a quiet statue. But Zhao Changhe looked at it, and could only feel a kind of mystery and strangeness.

  Can ordinary people organize things with their eyes closed?

   "Closing your eyes can create a sense of fortune-telling for others. Why do you keep your eyes closed when you squat in the house to pack things?" Zhao Changhe suddenly said.

  The woman didn't even raise her head, as if she already knew about his arrival: "Why can't it be because I'm really blind?"

   "You don't even have a cane, so who are you fooling around?"

   "I don't need it." The woman responded calmly: "It's you who scolded me for being sick yesterday and came back today. Did you finally understand that you are the one who is sick?"

  Zhao Changhe said: "Because the dream treatment you mentioned sounds too fake, if you tell anyone, who won't call you sick?"

  The woman said lightly: "That's not necessarily the case. I told others that several people sincerely invited me to sleep with him... I think you can probably find the answer from here, why don't you have a girlfriend."

Zhao Changhe, who was slapped in the face, only hated that he had leaked too much reality and privacy yesterday in order to understand the dream. He regretted it and said, "Who is so rare to fall into a dream with you...Speaking of which, why can your expression and tone be so indifferent when you say such things? like a robot?"

  The woman said: "There is no need for expression and tone to explain the facts."

  Damn it...Zhao Changhe directly changed the subject: "No matter how fake it is, I'm here to try it out anyway. What's this saying about falling into a dream?"

  "Ordinary people have lucid dreams like yours that can completely control behavior. Dreams are omnipotent. You can get whatever result you want in your dream. You should have had a similar dream?"

   "Yes." Zhao Changhe felt that her choice of words was beginning to be strange. For example, this "zhi", shouldn't normal people use "of"?

  The woman continued: "But your dreams these few times can only control your own actions, not other things, and everything is always counterproductive, isn't it?"

"right."

"You will be trapped in the nightmare, and the cycle is endless, because the unfinished thoughts in the dream have not been completed. If you complete it, you can escape." The woman asked: "So what is the result you want to achieve? For example... Defeating a certain opponent? Killing all the people present? Or just getting out of the battle? Even dominating the world? No matter how difficult or easy, you need your true thoughts, otherwise it is meaningless."

  What result do you want to achieve?

  Zhao Changhe's mind flashed a beautiful figure in black, and he blurted out: "Of course I want to kill that witch!"

  The woman's calm expression twitched invisibly.

   "What? The sixth child must die, is there a problem?"

   "No." The woman regained her composure, and said slowly: "What result you want to achieve is up to you, and I can't go in and help you. I just want you to confirm the goal, know what to do, and how to end it, that's all."

   "Since you can't help me, I still can't beat the witch after falling into a dream, so go in and send it?"

  The woman silently pushed the cards in her hands: "Draw three."

"What's this?"

   "The first one, add an ability to you in your dream to help you achieve your wish."

   "Is this called a bonus cheat?"

   "After all, it's a dream, so it's not surprising that there are any peculiarities."

   "That's right... what about the second one?"

   "Determine your initial position, not directly in the most dangerous place, you can be prepared."

   "This is good, this is good. What about the third one?"

   "Clues to your goal, such as who she is, or how to find her."

  Zhao Changhe was stunned for a moment, and said strangely: "Just tell me if you have a clue, why should I smoke it myself?"

   "Because I don't know what it is, I can only answer it based on the cards you draw. You can regard it as divination."

  Zhao Changhe glanced at the cards on the table, without saying a word, he randomly drew three cards from the middle.

  In fact, until now, he doesn’t really believe what the woman said. He basically treats a dead horse as a living horse doctor. Try it.

  Flip over the first card, the main pattern is a huge eye, and the card has a blurred background, like a person's back.

  The second one is a round jade pendant carved with a dragon, with a magnificent background, like a palace dragon chair?

  The third one is pitch-black, like a pure black curtain, with a faint hint of gold, which outlines a face like a **** and Buddha, and the details cannot be seen clearly.

  The woman remained silent for a long time.

  Zhao Changhe was also a little speechless: "Why are you still closing your eyes, can you see?"

   "This first one is nothing more than a back eye." The woman finally woke up, and said slowly: "It can slightly increase your eyesight, and more importantly, it can allow you to see things behind you."

  You can really see... Zhao Changhe was taken aback for a moment, and suddenly felt a little interesting.

   What I hate the most is being attacked, isn't that a coincidence? Regardless of whether the woman listened to the intentional interpretation of her dream, at least the eyes in the painting are indeed behind her.

   Could it be that this card draw actually reflected my subconscious mind?

   "Then... the second one is the position? What does this jade pendant represent?"

  The woman was silent again, and after a while, she suddenly said, "You'll know if you go in."

  Zhao Changhe: "???"

  The woman suddenly reached out to pick up the eye card, Zhao Changhe didn't even see the movement of her hand clearly, the card was already pressed on his forehead.

  The next moment, the world turned around, and Zhao Changhe disappeared, as if he had never existed here.

  Even the eye card disappeared, and the other two remained on the table.

  The woman picked up the last black card, sat quietly for a few seconds, and whispered to herself: "Unexpected...he can really pull out my roots..."

  She slowly opened her eyes, the pupils were as black as ink, like a barren night, cold and dead.

   "Kill the demon girl? Heh... I'll wait for you."

  (end of this chapter)