Dream Walker: Feng Shui Master Bai Ya

Shang Muchen stood up and looked around the room, searching for the cat he had brought back, but it was nowhere to be found.

At the doorway, next to the shoe cabinet, Li Qing's empty schoolbag lay there; there was no cat.

Shang Muchen asked Chicken Jump, "Hey, have you seen a white cat?"

"Isn't that her?" Li Qing, who was trembling and wrapped in a blanket, raised her chin.

Sure enough, she was actually a cat in disguise—or she turned into a cat; in any case, it was absurd.

What should we do now?

Shang Muchen was at a loss and wanted to ask for help, so he looked around for his phone.

Upon seeing the phone on the coffee table, Shang Muchen reached out to grab it, but after several attempts, he couldn't manage to pick it up even though his hand passed right through it.

After gathering my strength for a while, I reached out again and finally managed to grab the phone.

Shang Muchen thought of calling Liu Qingyang, even if it was just to ask her to bring Li Qing some clothes, it would be better than letting her wrap herself in a blanket and huddle on the sofa.

When I turned on my phone, everything that came into view was blurry and I couldn't understand the characters on the screen.

Letters, numbers, and various symbols were all mixed together, like a bowl of fried liver, making it impossible to distinguish which was the intestine and which was the liver; it was all a disgusting, gelatinous mess.

Shang Muchen thought he was just still half asleep and couldn't see clearly, so he rubbed his eyes and looked again carefully.

Now it's not just fried liver anymore, it's turned into a pot of porridge, and even the outline of the phone itself is blurred.

Shang Muchen suddenly realized that he was dreaming.

Chicken Leap was proudly shining its phone at its face when Shang Muchen snatched the phone away. It was completely blurry and couldn't see anything clearly.

"You have yours, why are you taking mine?" Chicken Jump snatched the phone back with great dissatisfaction and started looking at it with a smug look.

"Hey, can you even see the characters on it?"

"certainly."

"That's strange..."

"It's not surprising." Chicken Jump pointed at Shang Muchen's phone and said, "Your frequency is out of focus, which is like tuning a radio but not getting the frequency right, so it's normal that you can't understand it."

"Hmm, what should I do then?"

"How would I know?" Chicken bounced away, shaking his head.

Shang Muchen sat back down on the sofa, feeling utterly helpless. Suddenly, he thought of his older brother, Shang Muming.

My brother is very knowledgeable about things like dreams; if he were here, he would definitely be able to give good advice.

Just as I was thinking of my brother, the doorbell rang.

Like hearing an ambulance siren when you're in a sudden illness, Shang Muchen jumped up from the sofa, rushed to the front door, opened it, and sure enough, there was her brother Shang Muming, followed by the very beautiful but all-black-clad maid as usual.

"Brother, I was just thinking of you..."

"The realm of the mind is the state where wishes come true," Shang Muming said with a smile, patting Shang Muchen on the shoulder. "I know you've run into a little trouble, so I'm here to help you."

Shang Muchen invited his brother into the house and sat down, looking around for some tea to serve him.

The maid in black said coldly, "No need for that."

As she spoke, she walked familiarly toward the kitchen.

After a few minutes of fiddling around, she returned with two cups of coffee.

Shang Muchen himself didn't know that there was a coffee machine at home—but even if there was a coffee machine, he didn't know how to use it.

The coffee was steaming, but there was no aroma. It looked very hot, so Shang Muchen didn't dare to taste it.

"Brother, um..." Shang Muchen pointed to Li Qing, who was sitting in the corner of the sofa.

When Li Qing saw someone coming to visit, she simply covered her face with a blanket.

"I already know what happened," Shang Muming said with a smile. "You and your friends have fallen into a trap and experienced a 'reality mirror phase jump'."

"A trap?" Shang Muchen's eyes widened in surprise.

"Yes," Shang Muming said, "she is the biggest victim."

"Brother, what do you know? Tell me quickly!"

"I have briefly read your memories. If I am not mistaken, this girl named Li Qing has come to you, hoping that you can help her find the answers."

Her friend Joanna Wang disappeared next to a primary school toilet, didn't she?

"Yes, but..."

"Later, you went through a hole in the wall of the toilet, and you experienced the 'Mandela Effect,' and your memory became disordered."

This girl claims to be Joanna Wang, and everyone else thinks she is Joanna Wang too. Only you remember her; she's Li Qing, right?

"That's how it is."

"When you passed through the hole in the wall for the second time, she simply disappeared, and no one even remembered her existence."

"That's right!"

"Then, you found a stray cat, and it eventually became Li Qing, right?"

"yes!"

"The matter is very clear," Shang Muming said with a smile. "Let me explain what happened to you from the beginning."

However, before explaining things, I must first briefly explain the truth about the universe to you.

"The truth of the universe?"

"Yes," Shang Muming waved his hand, conjuring a whiteboard out of thin air. He tapped the whiteboard with his knuckles and said, "Class is starting. Pay attention, or you won't understand everything I'm about to explain."

You must first discard all your existing knowledge of the universe and consider yourself a newborn baby as you listen to what I am about to say.

"Okay, go ahead and say it."

Shang Muming drew a candle on the whiteboard, and then drew several mirrors around the candle.

"Please look at this scene carefully," Shang Muming said, as if casting a spell, lighting the candle and reflecting its image from different angles in the mirror.

"The candle is the essence of consciousness, which is the experience of the universe itself."

Each mirror represents a single consciousness, and simultaneously, a parallel universe.

"Wait... Brother, I don't understand, please explain slowly."

"Okay, I'll explain slowly." Shang Muming waved his hand and zoomed in on the image.

Like a 3D projector, each mirror reflects a person's complete life.

A mirror reflects the life of an ancient Egyptian merchant who sells food to the stonemasons building the pyramids and pays taxes to the pharaoh's tax collectors.

In the other mirror is the Pharaoh's tax collector, born into a minor noble family, who was in charge of the arduous but lucrative job of collecting taxes, and eventually died of old age;

In the third mirror is a stonemason building a pyramid. He is a member of the Nile Stonemasons' Guild and has learned the spells of "Sound Levitation" and "Stone Softening." He diligently chants spells every day to levitate the giant stones and build the pyramid.

The fourth mirror represents Shang Muchen's life. He was born into an ordinary family and lived an ordinary life for more than 20 years.

The fifth mirror represents another Shang Muchen, born into a family of business tycoons. His older brother is a psychologist who graduated from a prestigious university, and he himself is the heir to the family business, a promising young business star.

Shang Muchen was stunned, finding the projections incredibly amazing.

"These are all you—you are the merchant, you are the tax collector, you are the stonemason," Shang Muming said. "There is no one else in the universe; you play every role yourself."

You make bread, sell it to yourself, pay taxes to yourself, build a pyramid for yourself, whip yourself, force yourself to work, and then flatter yourself—

You are not a person reflected in any of the mirrors; you are the candle outside the mirror.