Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 56 Embers and Rebirth

Another few days of drowsiness...

Consciousness is like a stubborn rock sinking into an icy sea, finally touching the hard bottom of the real world after a long journey of falling.

A beam of light slowly descended before our eyes.

It was a soft white light from the medical pod, which slowly pierced his sea of ​​consciousness through his eyelids.

Bai Yu's eyelashes trembled almost imperceptibly, like butterfly wings dampened by dew. This subtle movement drew back a curtain in the room that had been shrouded in worry for days.

"He moved! He moved! His eyelashes moved!"

Mo Fei's voice cracked slightly from excitement and hoarseness; this was the first kind of "noise" he heard after Bai Yu gradually regained consciousness. This noise was rough and clamorous, yet it also carried the warmth and humanity of everyday life.

Then came Lan Ce's calm voice, but with a hint of barely perceptible excitement: "His vital signs are recovering! Heart rate 48, 55, 63! Blood pressure is below the danger threshold! The dissipation of soul energy has completely stopped! He has fully stabilized!"

Bai Yu slowly opened his eyes, feeling as if his eyelids were filled with mercury.

What came into view was the pure white alloy ceiling of the medical area, and those familiar faces who had stayed up all night because of worry. Their faces looked a little haggard, but at this moment they were all filled with ecstasy.

The muscles on An Mu's face, which had been tense for several days and nights, finally softened. He exhaled a heavy breath, which seemed to carry away the burden that had been pressing on him for days, making him feel much lighter.

Mo Fei's bloodshot eyes were already brimming with tears. He was biting his fists so hard that he didn't burst into tears on the spot.

After confirming that all the data had stabilized, Lan Ce swayed as if all his strength had been drained. He leaned against the instrument behind him, supporting his nearly slipping black-rimmed glasses with his hand. Behind the lenses, his eyes held a relief that could not be quantified by data.

I'm back……

Bai Yu's lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but his throat was so dry that it felt as if it had been blown by the Sahara winds for hundreds of years, and he could not utter a single syllable.

He could feel that his body was still as weak as an empty shell, and the cracks in his soul that had just been glued back together were still sending out a persistent, nagging pain like the tide.

But... that heart that had once willingly sank into nothingness began to beat again, wearily, under the desperate embrace and call of a girl.

He remembered the cold, dark sea, the tower of ten thousand heads built of despair, and the girl who dispelled the boundless darkness for him with the light of her own tiny soul.

Lu Yueqi...

The name flowed gently through his heart like a warm current, bringing a glimmer of thaw to his frozen, desolate sea.

"How are you feeling?" An Mu strode forward, reached out his hand, his rough palm felt unusually warm, and gently placed it on Bai Yu's forehead to check his temperature.

His voice remained low, but his heartfelt concern was evident.

Bai Yu slowly shook her head, then used all her strength to slowly raise her right hand, trying to indicate that she was alright.

However, the moment his gaze inadvertently fell on the back of his hand, his eyes, which had just regained some of their luster, suddenly flickered again.

The previous sensations were not an illusion; the mark of the "Eye of the Vortex" had indeed become clearer.

The twisted lines no longer seemed like simple branding marks, but rather like black worms slowly wriggling beneath his skin.

It is no longer a passive "beacon", but more like a "coordinate" that has been completely bound to him.

Bai Yu could feel that "gaze" filled with scrutiny and greed, which was locking onto his soul from a distant dimension, across endless void, through this mark.

Bai Yu looked at the mark, slowly withdrew his raised hand and placed it beside him. His face showed no abnormality, as if he had just discovered a trivial matter. Then he turned his gaze to the glass window of the observation room.

He knew that Lu Yueqi must be there.

"Cough cough...let her...come in." He cleared his throat and finally managed to squeeze out a few hoarse words from his dry throat.

An Mu and Mo Fei exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of helplessness in each other's eyes.

"That girl... hasn't slept a wink in the three days since you were brought in. She's been waiting outside like a statue waiting for her husband," Mo Fei said in a muffled voice. He walked to the door and called out, "Hey! Girl! He's awake, you can come in now!"

The door was quickly pulled open from the outside.

Lu Yueqi appeared at the doorway.

She looked terrible, still wearing her filthy combat uniform. Her once chubby, adorable face was now much thinner, making her chin appear sharper. Her eyes were red and swollen like two ripe peaches, and her lips were dry and cracked from lack of moisture.

Lu Yueqi looked like a fragile flower that had been battered by a storm all night, her face etched with exhaustion and haggardness.

But upon seeing the young man on the hospital bed who had already opened his eyes, her dull eyes instantly shone with a light that could illuminate the entire world.

She didn't cry, nor did she shout like Mo Fei. She simply stood there quietly, a few meters away, staring at him without blinking.

There was ecstasy, lingering fear, grievance, and heartache in his eyes... Countless complex emotions intertwined, ultimately transforming into a sense of relief at having something lost and then regained.

An Mu and Lan Ce walked out in perfect unison, dragging Mo Fei, who was still thinking of staying to watch the commotion, along with them. They chose to leave this small space to the two young people who had just crawled back from the brink of death. Lu Yueqi walked step by step to Bai Yu's bedside, each step cautious, as if still trying to confirm whether what she was seeing was an illusion, or as if afraid that everything in front of her would suddenly disappear.

She didn't speak, but simply extended her still slightly cool hand and gently grasped Bai Yu's unmarked left hand, which was resting by the bedside.

When her fingertips touched his cold skin, she could no longer hold back her tears, which fell like pearls from a broken string onto the pure white sheets, leaving a small dark stain.

Bai Yu felt the trembling warmth from her palm, the real touch of a living person. He felt as if his heart, which had been floating in the sea of ​​nothingness, had finally found a harbor to dock in.

With the little strength he had left, he gently grasped her hand in return.

"Thank you." His voice was still hoarse, but it carried an unprecedented tenderness and solemnity. "Thank you... for being willing to bring me back."

Those few simple words were like opening a floodgate, instantly shattering Lu Yueqi's strength that she had maintained for days. She could no longer hold back, so she bent down and buried her face deeply in the edge of the not-so-wide bed, and her long-suppressed sobs burst forth like a flood.

The cries were a mixture of endless fear, immense grievance, and the ecstatic joy of regaining what was lost.

Bai Yu didn't speak again. He simply let her hold his hand and listened to her sobs. He knew she needed this complete release. And he also needed this most direct way to confirm that he was truly alive.

His eyes were very gentle, and a genuine smile played on his lips.

Outside the window, a long-awaited ray of sunlight pierced through the heavy alloy porthole of the Investigation Bureau headquarters, gently bathing the small room and casting the shadows of the two people close together.

……

A week later.

A team's own tactical meeting room.

The atmosphere here is very somber.

A huge holographic projection floated in the center of the conference table. Instead of displaying a map or information about the location of a nightmare, it showed a conceptual model similar to a galaxy map. The model was extremely complex and composed of runes filled with ominous meaning.

At the center of the model is a constantly rotating black vortex that seems capable of swallowing all light. Beside the vortex, its name is marked in scarlet lettering—the Tower of Ten Thousand Heads.

Bai Yu is already able to perform some normal activities. With the top-notch medical resources of the Investigation Bureau and Dr. Lin Lan's almost costless "soul nourishment fluid," his body is recovering at an astonishing speed.

Although her complexion was still somewhat pale, it was at least no longer the transparent look that seemed like it could shatter at any moment.

He sat quietly in his seat, his index finger tapping lightly on the table unconsciously, his eyes fixed on the huge model drawing.

“Based on the intelligence Bai Yu and Lu Yueqi brought back from that ‘memory prison,’ and our further deciphering of Ruan Bo’s notebook,” Lan Ce stood in front of the holographic projection, adjusting his glasses. His voice was as calm as a supercomputer reading a report. “We can now basically confirm that the ‘Tower of Ten Thousand Heads’ is not any kind of nightmare we previously understood. It doesn’t originate from human fear, nor is it a distortion of rules. It’s more like… a ‘predator’ from a higher dimension.”

He pulled up another set of data models: "If we compare our world to a two-dimensional plane, then the 'tower' is a 'needle' that pierces through this plane from three-dimensional space. It does not exist entirely in our dimension; what we can observe is only a small part of its 'shadow' projected into this world. And its 'predation' method is not physical consumption, but conceptual 'inclusion' and 'assimilation'."

“It spreads its ‘mark’ through various media—such as the taboo knowledge that Lu Yueqi’s maternal grandfather and Ruan Bo’s friend came into contact with. These marks are like fishing hooks; once someone’s spirit resonates with them, they will be ‘marked’ by it. Then, like a clever virus, it will continuously infiltrate and pollute the marked person’s cognition, and eventually it will completely ‘cut’ the marked person’s soul out of our reality dimension, turning it into a new ‘brick’ to build its magnificent ‘structure’.”

"Wen Maoran, the director of Anling Mental Hospital, his so-called 'Tower of Babel Project' is actually imitating the behavior of the 'Tower of Ten Thousand Heads'. He thought he was building a stairway to the kingdom of gods, but he didn't know that he was just building a more efficient hunting ground for this 'predator'. And the intern nurse Yao was the first 'sample' to be completely corrupted and assimilated, and eventually became the direct agent of the 'Tower' in this world."

Lan Ce's detailed analysis of the current situation made the atmosphere in the conference room even heavier.

"So what do we do now?" Mo Fei scratched his hair in frustration. "We don't even know where the enemy is, how are we supposed to fight? We can't exactly run into some higher dimension and fight them hand-to-hand, can we?"

“This is precisely the biggest dilemma we are currently facing,” An Mu said in a deep voice, his sharp eyes filled with solemnity. “All our weapons and tactics are based on the physical and energy rules of our own dimension. But the ‘Tower’s’ attack is a ‘dimensional reduction attack’ that is completely beyond our comprehension. We don’t even know how to effectively ‘defend’ against it.”

"We may have a way to deal with this."

A clear, cold voice suddenly rang out, instantly attracting everyone's attention.

It is Bai language.

He slowly raised his head to meet everyone's gaze. His deep eyes no longer held the weariness and lifelessness of before, but had regained their calmness and determination.

“We don’t need to go looking for it,” he said, emphasizing each word. “The pattern of this war changed the moment we returned from Anling Mental Hospital.”

He slowly raised his right hand, revealing the now crystal-clear "Eye of the Vortex" mark to everyone.

“Before, we were the hunters, and it was the prey. But now…”

“I am its ‘prey.’ And it has become our only ‘target’.”

"It left indelible coordinates on me. It thought that this would completely lock me in, but it overlooked something very important..." A dangerous smile appeared on Bai Yu's lips.

"This coordinate system is bidirectional."

"This means that when it can see me through this coordinate, we can also perceive it through this coordinate."

“From now on, I will be its living radar, and also the best bait to lure it out of that shadow in the higher dimension and make it bare its fangs.”

(End of this chapter)