Chapter Seventy-Three: Within the Nightmare

"Hey, hey, stop it! Listen to me—" Little Huo, desperate, struggled hard and lunged forward, rushing right up to Kaler. "Hey, the two of them are completely defenseless and have nothing to do with martial arts disputes. Besides, if they get terrified, their minds will become even more chaotic, making it impossible for them to pick that lock..."

Kaler ignored him completely. Suddenly, with a swift kick, he struck Little Huo squarely in the chest, sending him spinning backward twice before he crashed down behind a bookshelf.

"Whether I stop or not is up to me. No one gets to make decisions for me here." A cruel and evil smile crept onto the corners of Kaler's mouth as he leaned over to watch the glass enclosure descend into the deep shaft.

"Baoling, Baoling... Are you alright? Have you woken up?" Guan Wen gently called out to Baoling. He was burning with anxiety, yet he dared not touch Baoling for fear of triggering disastrous consequences.

The renowned philosopher Sigmund Freud believed that sleepwalking is the manifestation of suppressed subconscious emotions erupting at the opportune moment. Baoling had long been plagued by nightmares, and the previous lives lingering within her subconscious harbored unimaginable hardships. Sleepwalking and depression were most easily triggered in her.

In fact, the theory of the famed European psychoanalyst Jean-David Nasaw offers a very intuitive explanation for sleepwalking: when the power of the id accumulates to a certain extent, it breaches the guard lines of the ego's sentry like a flood breaking through a dam. Faced with the surging force of the id, the on-duty ego can only flee in helplessness, and a few sentry egos are even dragged in as accomplices. Because human speech and action are the responsibilities of the ego, once the id has wreaked havoc for a while and consumed a massive amount of energy, the ego's sentry immediately drives the id back into its cage and restrains it anew. To escape punishment for "dereliction of duty," the ego's sentry conceals the truth, resulting in the sleepwalker having no recollection whatsoever of what just transpired upon waking up.

This explanation sounded like a fairy tale, but its logical framework was entirely sound.

Guan Wen hoped to awaken Baoling at this critical juncture so the two of them could face the predicament together. The glass enclosure had dropped five meters, its lower edge coming close to the pit of snakes. The venomous serpents all around were twisting their ugly bodies impatiently, darting their forked tongues toward Guan Wen and Baoling.

"Guan Wen, wake her up quickly! Wake her up!" Gu Qingcheng screamed from above.

Since both she and Little Huo had already been captured, the entire team had lost its external rescue force and could only rely on seizing any opportunity to save themselves.

Guan Wen cautiously took a step forward, gently touching Baoling's elbow, but she did not even lift her eyelids.

"This princess has never opened it. What on earth is inscribed inside?" Baoling asked.

"That is the key to subduing the demons, the accumulated insights of wise men through the ages since antiquity on vanquishing demons. If one fails to comprehend the spells hidden deep within, no one can successfully conquer the demons. Right now, open it, open it..." Baoling answered herself.

"This princess has tested it thousands of times. It's useless," Baoling asked again.

"There have already been thousands and tens of thousands of times? Then test it one thousand and one times, ten thousand and one times. There are no excuses, it must be done." Baoling answered herself once more.

The dialogue between the refined feminine voice and the ancient Tibetan female voice rose and fell, but neither was Baoling's true voice; they were two other souls using her lips to express their respective opinions.

Bang! A venomous snake with a white belly and red patterns lunged forward. With excessive force, its flat, triangular head crashed into the glass, bursting open with blood, and its corpse was instantly swarmed and devoured by its companions.

"Baoling, stop! Look at the predicament right in front of you!" Gu Qingcheng screamed recklessly.

"Try once more," Baoling muttered to herself, slowly leaning forward, pinching the key handle with her right hand, and turning it gently. With a click, the keyhole actually responded.

"Good, good, very good! It really is her!" said the ancient Tibetan female voice.

"It truly is her! Wonderful, wonderful!" said the refined feminine voice as well.

Guan Wen watched the white copper pillar unblinkingly. Although the keyhole had moved, the white copper pillar remained completely unresponsive.

"I know, I know." This was Baoling's natural voice. "Extremely complex seals have been placed within the keyhole. They must be the Five Directions Edict Star Great Seal of ancient Tibetan Buddhism and the Great Tang Mystery Gate Yin-Yang Treasure Vase Seal. Unless the sealer releases the binding lock of the soul, outsiders can do nothing even if they possess the key. The Five Directions Edict Star Great Seal is an ancient secret technique of Tibetan Buddhism, while the Yin-Yang Treasure Vase Seal is a supreme esoteric art of the Central Plains. How could they possibly be applied simultaneously to an object in Nepal? Unless... unless..." Baoling shrieked, abruptly opening her eyes.

Directly in front of her, four or five venomous snakes had coiled together into a "serpent braid," crawling upward along the glass wall of the pit. The scales on their bellies opened and closed alternately, creating a terrifying and grotesque sight beyond verbal description.

"Where is this place? What is this—No, this is a dream! This is my nightmare!" Baoling screamed, instantly closing her eyes and trembling all over.

Guan Wen stepped over, wrapped one arm around Baoling's shoulder, and comforted her in a low voice, "Don't be afraid. The venomous snakes are all outside the enclosure; they can't get in at all."

"I'm in a dream, right? Tell me, is this just a nightmare?" Baoling shook violently.

"Yes, just pretend it's a nightmare," Guan Wen replied.

"It's fortunate that you're here. I've hoped for so long, longing for someone in my dreams who could protect me and comfort me, and now it has finally come true. I used to wish my nightmares would end quickly, but at this moment, I wish this dream would never end..." In extreme adversity, a girl's innermost feelings are most easily revealed. What Baoling said at this moment was undoubtedly the sincere utterance of her heart.

Guan Wen's feelings were complex, filled with both the sweetness of being acknowledged by the one he loved and the anxiety of being trapped in a desperate situation with no way out.

"Can you open that lock?" he asked cautiously.

"Those seals were condensed from the lives and souls of ancient wise men. Yet their lives have remained forever in the land of Tibet, and what was cast upon the keyhole are merely the dreaming souls of their dreams. Since they are dream-souls, they must be dismantled within a dream. Hold me; I need a longer, deeper dream right now," Baoling replied softly.

A flash of inspiration struck Guan Wen's mind. He suddenly understood what Baoling meant, hurriedly helped her sit down, and dragged the half-globe over to his side.

"If you want a dream, I will give you a dream. Don't worry, whether in the dream or awake, I will be by your side, not leaving you for a single step." He pulled Baoling into his embrace, letting her face press against his chest, while his other hand patted her back rhythmically, just like gently coaxing an infant in a swaddle to sleep.

"Then... I am falling asleep... I need this sweet dream... With it, the nightmare will shatter, shattered forever..." Baoling murmured, curling up her legs, resting most of her body in Guan Wen's arms, and gradually drifting off into dreamland.

The people at the top of the pit stretched their necks to look down, every single one of their faces bearing expressions of sheer disbelief, confusion, and bewilderment.

"What is he doing? What are they doing?" Kaler asked, gritting his teeth.

"I can't understand it, but I heard what Miss Baoling said—'The dream-soul seal must be dismantled within a dream.' This sentence has profound meaning and is worth pondering deeply," Little Huo said, lowering his head. He chewed on the phrase repeatedly, his expression solemn, as if his mind had wandered far beyond this realm.

"Sigh, I originally wanted to use the venomous snake array to force out her inner potential, but who knew this whole thing would become more and more complicated! Had I known this earlier, I would have invited top Asian psychologists to fix this sleepwalking weirdo; wouldn't that have been much simpler? I went through so much effort and couldn't even handle this minor task. How embarrassing it would be in front of Jin Chanzi!" Kaler scratched his head fiercely, pacing back and forth in the study.

"Who on earth are you? Who on earth is Jin Chanzi?" Gu Qingcheng seized the opportunity to question him.

"I might as well tell you, since you're all going to die here anyway—" Kaler replied in exasperation.

"I understand! I understand, Sister Gu, I understand the meaning of those words!" Little Huo took a step forward, realized his feet were handcuffed, and immediately leaped forward to stand before Gu Qingcheng. "That key is indeed used to open the white copper pillar, and there are indeed seals of ancient wise men upon the pillar, most likely left behind by the two princesses who assisted King Songtsän Gampo in suppressing demons back in the Tubo era. However, due to chronological confusion, the two princesses could not have personally come to the Summer Palace, especially since the construction history of this estate long postdates the Tang Dynasty. Alternatively, this period can be explained thusly: the white copper pillar was originally hidden in Lhasa, first sealed by the two princesses, and then drifted to foreign lands, becoming a treasure of the Kanna family. That seal was not applied through normal time or normal methods, but was blessed by the dreaming souls of the two princesses. As the old saying goes, 'To untie the bell, one must find the person who tied it.' A seal blessed in a dream can only be unraveled within a dream. Yet, as so many years have passed, no one has ever been able to manipulate their own dreamscape to merge with the dream-soul seals of the two princesses and unlock that mechanism which possesses both physical and metaphysical structures."

Gu Qingcheng grasped the concept instantly and picked up the thread of thought: "Baoling has been tormented by nightmares for so long because it was destined by her past life. Every cause and effect is preordained; deities have mysteriously appointed her as the successor designated to unlock the two princesses' seal."

"Exactly, exactly! Such a twist-and-turn design is utterly marvelous, hardly inferior to the process of finding a reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist soul boy. Without the Holmes-like spirit of reasoning by analogy and repeated deliberation, it is truly hard to find a solution to the problem. The spiritual world of Tibetan Buddhism is simply too profound, far too profound!" Little Huo could not help exclaiming repeatedly, obviously stirred with incomparable excitement.

Among the various religions of the world, the wisdom passed down from predecessors to descendants is usually transmitted through secret manuals, handwritten manuscripts, treasure maps, and other methods easily understood by ordinary people—in other words, hand-to-hand transmission. A slightly more sophisticated method is the heart-to-heart transmission of the Western Buddha holding a flower with a subtle smile that illuminates all mountains. The most sophisticated of all is the heart-to-heart transmission style of "leaving no written texts, yet capturing all the grace." One might say that all traditional modes of transmission cannot escape these three categories, remaining within the scope of "what you see is what you get." As long as later wise men are willing to search attentively, they can inherit the mantle and achieve great accomplishments.

Right now, the transmission significance borne by the white copper pillar transcended the aforementioned three categories, transforming into a interlocking model of "dream-soul seal, heart-dream transmission, dream-against-dream, and unraveling seals in dreams," undergoing one, two, and three layers of elusive transformations. Furthermore, beyond the third layer, whether there were a fourth or fifth layer remained entirely unknown.

Being able to discern these changes demonstrated that Little Huo possessed a fairly meticulous capacity for deduction, far outshining Kaler a hundredfold.

"This time, Baoling will definitely succeed," Gu Qingcheng said.

"Let's hope so. Judging by her condition, she is already at the end of her tether, unable to pierce even thin silk. She is holding on purely by an extraordinary willpower. If she cannot sustain it, she will exhaust her mental strength and die in the line of duty. In that case, the secret of the white copper pillar will sink into the abyss of darkness forever," Little Huo sighed deeply.

He had seen through the entire ins and outs of the incident, yet he was reduced to a mere spectator, powerless to lend a helping hand.