Before I could answer him, Da Xiong asked me again, "How am I here? Weren't you going to show me the truth?"

I was completely bewildered and asked, "What nonsense is this? You’ve been in a coma for more than ten days, did you know that?"

Da Xiong froze for a moment and said, "Impossible. You must be joking. Look at this sweat all over me; it’s from running just now. We barely managed to escape that underground labyrinth, only to find a swamp we couldn't cross. Then you told me and Xie Yuting that you were going to show us the real truth."

As he finished speaking, he seemed to notice the talisman stuck on his forehead and muttered, "Huh? What is this?"

With that, he ripped the talisman off.

Even though it was bright daylight, the bizarre scene from last night still made me uneasy. So, I reached out, trying to stop Da Xiong from tearing the talisman off.

However, my movement wasn't as fast as his; he had already ripped it off by the time I extended my hand.

Luckily, Da Xiong seemed fine. Holding the piece of paper, he asked me, "What on earth is this? Are you treating your great master Xiong like a jiangshi?"

I felt a wave of awkwardness. Accidentally, I saw Xie Yuting, who was opposite us on the platform, also waking up. Almost instinctively, he pulled off the thing stuck to his forehead as well.

Seeing me looking around, Da Xiong leaned closer and said to me, "You’re something else, kid. We were being hunted by that old man with white hair all the way, but in the end, you actually managed to drive him off. Being a soldier really makes a difference."

Hearing Da Xiong say that, I could roughly guess what the physical condition of the two of them had been like these past two days. It turned out they were still trapped in an illusion and had fought I don't know how many rounds with the white-haired old man. No wonder their psychological activity was so intense.

I wondered if every time they faced imminent death, it was right when they were about to be beaten to death?

So, I asked, "Last night, did you go to a place that kept getting hot and cold?"

Da Xiong paused, then said, "Not us, but we!"

I knew he meant not just him and Xie Yuting, but me as well, but his wording was so clumsy that he ended up saying "not us, but we."

I cut him off and said, "What 'we' and 'you'? Just tell me if it was like that or not."

Da Xiong slapped his thigh and said, "Yes! Have you forgotten? Then let me tell you, that place was truly goddamn miraculous. Do you believe that ice pillars can grow out of lava? Last night, we were fighting the white-haired old man above the lava in that place, stepping on ice blocks floating on the lava, and yet we didn't sink."

I had no interest in knowing how that happened, because it was all Da Xiong’s hallucination.

So, I asked again, "Then, was it around 1 AM last night when I defeated the white-haired old man?"

Da Xiong recalled for a moment and said, "I don't know! But counting backward, it has been about *hours. I was so tired, I fell asleep, just woke up, and as we were about to cross the swamp, a burst of white light suddenly appeared from behind chasing us. So I ran and ran with all my might along the lake shore, but the white light still caught up. Then, I was here."

After he finished speaking, I was about to tell Da Xiong that everything he saw was an illusion, but at that moment, Xie Yuting on the platform ahead calmly said, "That was all an illusion. I discovered it long ago. If Xiao Chuan hadn't used the spiritual talismans to wake us up, we might have been trapped in that world forever."

Da Xiong rubbed the back of his head and said, "No way? It felt so real; how could it be an illusion?"

I noticed a thin, black substance dripping from the corner of Da Xiong’s mouth as he spoke.

Thinking it was blood, I was alarmed and said, "Da Xiong, are you feeling unwell? Why are you bleeding?"

Da Xiong wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but the black substance seemed to evaporate. Not a trace stuck to his hand; instead, it turned into a powdery substance and scattered away.

Da Xiong stared, startled, at the black smoke rising in front of him and said, "What is th—"

Before he could finish the word 'this,' he quickly added, "Ah, my stomach hurts so much! I feel like throwing up!"

I thought, what illness is this now? I hurried to find a basin.

But before I could find one, Da Xiong just threw up with a loud waa.

The black stuff in his mouth poured out like a waterfall, but before it even touched the ground, it turned into a cloud of black smoke and dispersed.

I was so amazed by the sight that I forgot what I was doing and just stared at the substance coming from Da Xiong's mouth.

At that moment, Xie Yuting beside me also said, "It's coming out!"

After saying that, he too threw up with a loud waa, all of that black stuff.

This vomiting didn't last long, only about ten seconds. Da Xiong wiped his mouth and said, "What the hell was that thing! It was disgusting! Why would I have something like that in my stomach?"

Xie Yuting said, "Not in your stomach, but in your brain. We both had an unwelcome guest in our minds all along, which is why we kept having hallucinations."

Da Xiong took a sip of water, went to the restroom to rinse his mouth, and still managed to ask, "Unwelcome guest? What is it?"

Xie Yuting replied, "I don't know. In short, the area near that haunted building was fine before, but a few days ago, something fell from a parallel dimension into the swamp, causing all the miasma that generated illusions to disappear, allowing us to wake up from the dream."

"But the things in that parallel dimension are slightly different from our world. A creature like black smoke volatilized from the meteorite. This is a high-level being that can control the brains of any intelligent creature, making you live in an illusion and become their slaves."

I smiled and said, "No wonder those four people said you weren't following the boss's orders and wanted you dead. I didn't expect you knew so much."

I was speaking to Xie Yuting, but Da Xiong froze, as if remembering something, and said, "Oh, right! Didn't we confront those four people before? Then you and Nie Chuan went into the bronze gate, and then... I entered another world. It seems this really was an illusion."

Xie Yuting added, "It was only after they entered the bronze gate that the meteorite fell. Once all the miasma was broken, those black, misty creatures took the opportunity to drill into both of our brains, making you think you had time-traveled."

Da Xiong shook his head and said, "That doesn't make sense either. According to you, those black creatures are wild. So how did we end up in the white-haired old man's dream?"

Xie Yuting replied, "Of course. It determines that by utilizing the deepest fear in your heart."

Da Xiong said, "Impossible! Does that mean I was actually terrified of that white-haired old man deep down?"

Xie Yuting said, "Who knows? Only you would know that."

I paused and asked Xie Yuting, "Then why were you so afraid of the white-haired old man? And if you knew everything from the start, you were awake when you were stuffed into that sack, right?"

My questioning almost froze Xie Yuting stiff, but the reasonable always fear the resorting to trickery.

He just asked me, "So what if I knew? So what if I was awake? Everything is over now."

I became somewhat angry and said, "Do you have any idea that because of your selfishness, Boss, Second, Third, and Fourth are all dead!"

Xie Yuting looked at me coldly and said, "Are you sure they ever existed?"

I froze and asked, "What do you mean?"

Xie Yuting smiled faintly and said, "Remember the listening device in Third's hat before we set off for Mount Liujia?"

I recalled for a moment and nodded.

Xie Yuting seemed to be considering how to explain.

After a few seconds, he said, "I checked Third's suitcase before we left. The green hat was already inside then; later, he took it out and put it on himself."

Before I could speak, Da Xiong said, "Damn it, this kid is too unreliable. So he planted the listening device himself! I thought some Japanese little sister gave it to him!"

I frowned deeply and said, "Are you saying those four were actually undercover agents all along?"

Xie Yuting said, "Remember Second, the trap master?"

I had a bad premonition and asked, "What about him...?"

Xie Yuting said, "Why did all those inexplicable things always fall into his traps? It wasn't because a group of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattvas were following us, but because he designed it all."

I was completely shocked and asked, "This... how is that possible? There was no need for that!"

Xie Yuting said nonchalantly, "Making us constantly on edge was his goal."

Before I could reply, Xie Yuting continued, "The chain mechanism on the door when we entered the shrine wouldn't stop rising just because the door was cut. There was a mechanism under the door; if you stepped on it, the door would slowly rise. I saw it clearly: after Boss entered the door, he kept his head down looking for something on the ground, and then he deliberately stepped on a rock near the passage."

"Also, we didn't see a single ghost in the Thunder Cloud Shrine, but when we were in the passage, arrows were shot from above. That wasn't someone shooting arrows; it was an automatically firing trap mechanism. Think about which one of us is the trap master."

I was stunned speechless by what he said and replied, "But..."

This time he didn't let me finish speaking. Instead, he took out his phone and said, "This is a text message I received from a friend before we set off."

I took the phone to look. It read: "Louis Koo, Shawn Yue, Nicholas Tse, Edison Chen were found dumped in the southern river channel last night. The people around you are not real."

Seeing this message, before I could speak, Da Xiong asked, "You saw this message and still came? Isn't that looking for death? And you not only screwed yourself over but also us! Why?!"

Xie Yuting smiled slightly and said, "Some things, if you don't take a risk, how can you know the truth?"