Chapter 149 Chapter 149: Collapse
Chapter 149: Collapse
The dream ended, but not entirely.
Xiao Cheng's dream had ended, but Su Tao's "dream" was still ongoing.
A dream called "reality."
She opened her eyes, her vision blurred by tears, still holding the warm body in her arms.
The sound of breathing in her ear, the clear sensation of a heartbeat, both tugged at Su Tao's sanity, ceaselessly telling her that Xiao Cheng was still alive.
Ye Liang had not killed Xiao Cheng.
And she herself had not had her face cut open and been hospitalized.
Because of Xiao Cheng's extremism and yandere tendencies, she had been able to see Ye Liang's true nature early on, and they had gone their separate ways.
It had only been a dream.
Sleep, wake, then forget.
But could she truly forget?
The tragic image of Xiao Cheng in the dream still constantly flashed through Su Tao's mind.
Eating leftovers scavenged by stray cats and dogs, sleeping in dark corners or on park benches, too terrified to sleep or make a sound every midnight, her clean and lovely self became increasingly stained with "ink."
Finally, after being recognized because of her face, she even resorted to slashing her own face with a knife.
Without anesthesia, she heated a fruit knife with fire, bit down on a strip of cloth, and then began the act.
Whether it was atonement or pain, her tears never stopped; she would pass out from the pain, wake up, and continue.
From initially fleeing on the ground, she gradually resorted to barely surviving in the sewers.
Beaten, abused, drowned.
The world was vast, yet not a single person was willing to lend her a hand.
At the end of the dream, Su Tao didn't even dare to look at such a scene, merely feeling a heartache so intense she could barely breathe.
She wanted to blame the Su Tao in the dream, but gradually realized that if she hadn't changed because of Xiao Cheng's yandere tendencies, would her ultimate fate have been precisely this?
The 'self' in the dream, how was it any different from her true self?
She felt the pressure was too immense; while lost in thought, she often wondered what the future would be like if Xiao Cheng weren't a yandere.
Now, she had her answer.
In the first dream, Xiao Cheng had a dream while sleeping that Ye Liang would harm her, and then began to act somewhat abnormally, becoming paranoid and extreme, especially targeting Ye Liang and others.
Initially, she found it hard to believe; could a dream truly make someone so obsessive? Was it possible?
Now, she was somewhat convinced.
Could the dream Xiao Cheng had before have been similar to hers?
In the dream, watching Ye Liang torment and kill her.
She believed it to be true, wanting to change such a future.
The gears of fate had turned from that point on.
Now she had experienced two such dreams, so real that she didn't believe they were fake.
She even began to wonder if this might be her and Xiao Cheng's future?
She didn't become a yandere, and died alone.
Now that she had become a yandere, yet hadn't reached the level of a lucid dream, what was the final outcome?
Those around her left one by one, all stabbed to death by Xiao Cheng; ultimately, in Su Tao's world, only Xiao Cheng remained.
Su Tao feared Xiao Cheng's departure, but also feared the latter outcome.
Ye Liang was a lost cause; let him die if he would.
But her other friends, the people she cherished, she didn't want them to be implicated.
Now Long Mian had met with trouble first, and her mentor, who had always wanted to guide her and cared deeply for her, had also followed in Long Mian's footsteps.
Were these two outcomes truly fated?
She wanted other solutions, but this suffocating pressure left her breathless, making her afraid to even ponder it deeply.
She wanted to hold Xiao Cheng tightly in her arms, yet dared not hold her too tightly.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Xiao Cheng being tormented and drowned in her dream.
Even until her last breath, she was still murmuring "Tao Tao."
At four in the morning, Su Tao couldn't sleep.
She didn't dare to fall asleep either.
She stayed awake like this until dawn.
Gaunt and exhausted, even her expression was somewhat dazed.
After quietly slipping out of bed, Su Tao didn't wake Xiao Cheng. Instead, she washed her face with ice water, the bone-chilling cold making her skin sting.
But it was precisely this pain that allowed her to clear her head.
"Today is the third day."
Su Tao glanced at the calendar, then noticed that New Year's Day had already passed.
It was now January 4th, a brand new year.
If there was anything special about today, it was that Xiao Cheng had promised this 'dark room' game would only last three days.
After today, would Xiao Cheng let her go?
Su Tao took out the pill Xiao Cheng had given her last night from her pocket.
It was the stress-relief pill, but Su Tao didn't know this little thing could relieve stress.
She merely took it as something Xiao Cheng had ulterior motives for.
But after experiencing the dream last night, she felt some regret.
"Would it be better if I took this pill?"
No longer resisting Xiao Cheng, just letting time slowly pass.
And then...
"No, I can't!"
Su Tao vigorously shook her head, slapping her own face hard. "I can't give up just yet. If I take this medicine, there really won't be any chance to change things."
She stood up, taking a deep breath.
As if to brace herself, she thumped her chest with her hand.
But when she looked at her hands, her pupils involuntarily constricted.
Her hands... were trembling.
Even when she clasped them tightly with her other hand, they still trembled.
She glanced sideways at the television.
The liquid crystal display, turned off and unplaying, was like a mirror, clearly reflecting her gaunt, deathly pale face.
She hadn't had a good night's sleep for two days.
Every moment, her nerves had been taut.
Even when she slept, the nightmares she had almost made her break down in the dream.
"Is there really... still a chance?"
Xiao Cheng's yandere nature, and Xiao Cheng's heavy love...
Just then, Xiao Cheng's voice suddenly reached her ear. "Tao Tao, are you up so early today? How did you sleep last night?"
Xiao Cheng rubbed her sleepy eyes, moved closer to Su Tao, and stared intently at her cheek.
With a surprised expression, she said, "Tao Tao, your complexion is so bad. Couldn't you sleep last night?"
Those crimson vertical pupils stared at her like that.
Their eyes met.
Su Tao only felt boundless terror surging towards her.
With a blink of her eyes, Xiao Cheng's adorable pretty face suddenly transformed into the slashed face from her dream.
Wearing a despairing smile.
Her last spark of courage vanished completely.
In her ears, she seemed to hear Xiao Cheng's accusing voice, "Tao Tao... why didn't you save me? I love you, why didn't you save me!"
In an instant, the slashed face reverted to normal, but it was stained with bright red orange juice, and the smile at the corner of her lips was utterly pathological.
"Na Tao Tao~ Everyone is peacefully asleep now, no one can disturb our world for two anymore, we can stay together forever like this, you're happy about that too, right?"
Though that pretty face was undeniably adorable, in Su Tao's eyes, both versions of Xiao Cheng from her dreams seemed to occupy that single face.
Until Xiao Cheng asked again, "Tao Tao, why are you spacing out? Why don't you have a cup of hot water?"
But this sentence, to Su Tao's ears, carried a different meaning entirely.
—Why are you spacing out?
—Why don't you have a glass of orange juice~
In her state of extreme mental exhaustion, compounded by fear, she had begun to experience auditory hallucinations.
Her pupils struggled, and she looked at Xiao Cheng with disbelief, slowly asking, "Xiao Cheng, why can you hurt yourself so calmly and make orange juice for me to drink? I told you, didn't I?"
Xiao Cheng involuntarily turned her head. "Said what?"
The girl suddenly shouted loudly, "I told you I don't like orange juice!"
Su Tao snapped.
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