The remaining members of team China waited in the hotel. They crammed into a room due to the lack of larger suites. The season was fortunately refreshing. A cool breeze circulated through the room once they opened the windows. It would have been disastrous if the season were summer. The air would smell stale from closing the windows in order to turn on the air conditioner.
The two new girls didn't want to stay alongside so many men. However, they also feared Freddy's attack. They grabbed Lan and headed to the window side. The girls chatted among themselves while they bathed in the cool breeze. The men also converse topics they were interested in a low volume. Kampa and Zero talked about improving their weapons. LiuYu, WangXia, and TengYi talked about the possibilities of abilities from novels. The scene looked peaceful and no one was particularly worried.
HongLu suddenly said to Zheng, "Hey, I want to ask you something."
Zheng was meditating at the time. He opened his eyes as he heard HongLu's voice and saw HongLu staring at him with a frown. Zheng asked, "Sure, go ahead."
HongLu breathed out then said, "Everything I am about to say assumes that Freddy is listening. So some things, I can't speak in direct words. You have to think to get the meaning. The first point is there are two criteria for any person to have a nightmare. One, the origin of the nightmare. In reality, this origin comes from deep within a person's inner conscious. It might be a physical stimulation, such as an urge to use the restroom could provoke a dream where you are being flooded. Or a prickle on your finger could provoke a dream where your hand gets eaten by a monster."
Zheng said, "I know this but what does it have to do with our situation?"
HongLu seemed stuck. He thought for quite some time before continuing. "That is the origin for a nightmare in reality. However, we are already in a dream, which also means we are inside the movie world. I speculate there is also an origin for this dream. It is the center of this series of nightmares."
Zheng said with enthusiasm, "Does that mean we can leave this nightmare once we find out its origin?"
HongLu shook his head and said, "No. The origin is the origin. Leaving is leaving. Our thoughts flow in momentum. The nightmare won't simply vanish when the pain on your finger stops. Your brain will continue on with the nightmare by itself. Such as you lose sensation of your hand and then a pack of monsters chase after you. We have to make the nightmare vanish along with finding out its origin."
Zheng muttered, "By waking people up?"
"There's another method to make the dream vanish aside from waking people up." HongLu sighed.
He looked at Zheng with a peculiar gaze. After a while, he moved his eyes away and sighed deeply again. "I have told you, our conversation assumes that Freddy is listening. I can't tell you the details. What should be said has been said. I have fulfilled my responsibility. Lastly… our lives are placed on your hands, Zheng. Thanks to you, our team made it through so many movies. So let fate decide our lives. Save us if you can. Otherwise… we will leave everything to fate."
Zheng was more confused than before. He stared at HongLu for a while then said, "Your words are too strange. It's on the same tone as Xuan. I really can't get what you people are thinking… Speaking of which, I wonder if their mission is going well."
"That's the situation. The two of us rented a house on the east of the town. The house is fully furnished. The first floor is large enough to fit all thirteen of us." Xuan spoke while holding a piece of document.
Zheng laughed. "Great. I was worried since it took you so long. Since the house can fit all thirty of us… thirteen… Eh? Thirteen?"
The rest of the team looked to Zheng in confusion. Zheng counted them one by one then yelled, "Heng? Xuan! YinKong! Where's Heng? Where did you lose him?"
Xuan and YinKong were puzzled. YinKong said, "Who's Heng? Have you seen someone not from our team again?"
Zheng took a deep breath and looked over the people around him. These people were here with him the whole day. There was no demon that manipulated them. They should remember Heng.
"Heng? No. We don't have this person in our team. Team China had ten people then we get three newbies. So we should have thirteen people." Zero, Kampa and WangXia all verified.
Zheng was speechless. He asked the rest of the team but the answers were the same. There was no such person in team China. Either he had gone insane and caused false memory or the whole team had gone insane.
"Heng vanished. Do magical weapons not work on Freddy? What should we do? How did Freddy make Heng disappear? Is Heng still alive? Why have everyone forgotten him?"
Zheng was feeling worse and worse in this world. If there was one person that he feared, it could only be his clone. He would not back off from fighting anyone else. He had the strength to not lose in such a baffling manner. Yet, it was the unknown that struck the most terror into people, because you never knew what would happen. You would feel baffled.
This was the unknown Zheng was facing. Teammates disappearing one by one and the remaining members lost their memories of those who disappeared. The stress weighing on him grew with each disappearance. He felt as though he would vanish in the next second. All his teammates had died once. They couldn't be revived again. Disappearnce equted to eternal death. Those who once fought alongside him so suddenly disappeared. Worse yet, forgotten by their comrades.
It was dusk when Zheng led the team out of the hotel. Everyone stayed close to each other because Zheng affirmed there was a person named Heng. He disappeared when he went out with Xuan and YinKong. Zheng required everyone to stay close and yell if anything out of the ordinary happened. This was how they would prevent another disapperance. He didn't want to see another one… That feeling was terrible.
"This is the house?" Zheng asked as he looked at the ordinary house in front.
YinKong nodded, "Yes. Xuan and I checked it out before going back. That was why we took so long. The first floor has a big living room, enough to fit all thirteen of us. It has three floors. The upper floors can also accommodate all of us."
Zheng nodded and went in. Twelve people followed behind him. He was slightly relieved since nothing happened on their way here. Night was gradually coming. Even though death could come at any time in this world, bright daylight still felt safer to them. Everyone rushed into the lighted house as darkness began to overtake the sky. This was perhaps human nature.
"Wah!" The two new girls exclaimed. The house looked ordinary from the outside but was gorgeously decorated on the inside. It rivaled the rooms of the wealthy portrayed in movies. The girls obviously loved the house. They asked YinKong the cost of renting this house.
But Zheng stopped them. "You are a member of the teams in God's realm. Money is useless to you from this point. If you want gold, platinum, diamond, just exchange it in God's dimension with a minute amount of points. You can even travel back to the real world and be a super human or even God in that world. Why bother with money?"
Zheng then assigned the team members' tasks. He brought out the charms, incenses, and weapons. He told everyone they must stay in the living room. If they had to go somewhere, someone else must accompany them. He also brought out the eight little flags.
"Come! Freddy! If you dare to come out I will destroy you!"
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