My organs are too abstract.

"Bang bang bang!"

Late at night, a sudden burst of intense pounding sounds rang out in the dormitory, sounding particularly abrupt in the quiet night.

Xu Yuan held the shadowy figure's head, unleashing a torrent of electricity, hoping to somehow repair it in an emergency.

"Sizzle..."

Suddenly, the shadowy figure's eyes flashed wildly, emitting an unstable electrical crackling sound, and a few wisps of faint black smoke billowed out, as if it had been completely broken.

Xu Yuan slowly withdrew his hand, looking at the dark figure whose head had been deformed by the hammer, and said with a disappointed expression: "The quality is so poor?"

Just then, a thought struck him, and he subconsciously pulled out the photo of Xu Liang from his pocket, letting out a soft "Eh."

The photo, which had previously developed a complete image of Xu Liang, suddenly began to distort and become disordered without warning.

The outline of the portrait on the photographic paper swayed wildly, the lines seemed to be crushed by an invisible force, and the clear facial features disintegrated and blurred layer by layer.

The colors faded layer by layer and then suddenly became chaotic, turning the once vibrant portrait into a mottled mass of color.

It's as if a predetermined program has encountered a fatal conflict, some unknown error has occurred, causing everything to go into chaos.

At the same time, the face of the shadowy figure, which was extremely similar to Xu Liang's, also seemed to have triggered the same erroneous command and simultaneously went out of control.

His face contorted and flickered violently, then reverted to the initial blurry shadow state, looking much weaker.

"Sizzle... sizzle..."

Perhaps as a backlash from this conflict, the shadowy figure broke free from the shackles of malfunction. The lenses that had been spinning wildly in its eyes slowly came to a stop, the deathly dim light stabilized again, and its body resumed functioning.

"You're finally awake!"

Xu Yuan was overjoyed. He grabbed its shoulder and excitedly said, "Quick! Take another picture! This time, take a good one, don't do anything messy. I'll give you a 50-cent reward afterwards!"

"..."

The shadowy figure completely ignored Xu Yuan's ramblings.

For the first time, a clear sense of panic flickered in those eyes that had always been as still as a camera lens.

Taking photos, replicating, and replacing are commands ingrained in its instincts, and it has never made a mistake before.

But the person before it was different; it was an unknown entity it had never seen before, impossible to analyze, impossible to replicate, and impossible to fight against.

Without any hesitation, it didn't even dare to look at Xu Yuan again. Its black aura suddenly surged, and its figure instantly transformed into a wisp of ethereal black mist, like a frightened ghost, and rushed straight out of the window.

In the blink of an eye, the black mist rushed out of the dormitory, growing fainter in the night, and was about to completely dissipate.

However, just as it was about to escape—

"call out!"

A black rope shot out like a venomous snake, its end automatically forming a precise noose, and then it was suddenly swung at what seemed to be an empty void!

"stretch--"

The noose tightened suddenly, making a sharp, taut sound.

The next moment, the black rope suddenly pulled back, looping around the neck of a semi-transparent humanoid phantom and dragging it back.

From its escape to being dragged back, the entire process took only a few breaths. The dark figure was standing in front of Xu Yuan again, in the same posture and position as before it fled.

The shadowy figure: "..."

Xu Yuan glanced at the dutiful Black Rope and nodded in satisfaction: "Not bad, you deserve credit."

"Buzz..."

The black rope trembled slightly, as if responding to this praise.

Xu Yuan looked at the dark figure, tightly bound by the ropes, struggling desperately but unable to move. He pressed his hands down on its shoulders again, a sinister smile on his face, and said, "Still dare to run?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he swung his arm and fired a flurry of blows at the dark figure from both sides.

"Clap clap clap clap clap!"

The shadowy figure was violently shaken by the blow, and tried several times to turn into shadow and escape, but was forcibly suppressed in place by the power of the black rope, and was unable to leave at all.

It blinked a few times, but only produced a few click-clack sounds, which had no effect. Instead, its form became increasingly faint, and its blurry face twisted suddenly, as if the signal was unstable.

Immediately afterwards, the two faces began to rotate uncontrollably at high speed.

One moment it shows the delicate, pale face of the girl who fell from the building, and the next it switches to Xu Liang's frivolous face. The data flickers and changes repeatedly as if it's malfunctioning, like a photo frantically freezing.

Just as the scene froze, capturing Xu Liang's flirtatious and smug expression upon seeing a beautiful woman—

"Brother Yuan?"

A drowsy murmur suddenly came from Xu Liang's bed.

As the shadowy figure's influence dissipated, he finally broke free from the nightmare and woke up with a start.

"Brother Yuan, what's wrong?"

Xu Liang looked blankly in Xu Yuan's direction, but the dormitory was pitch black and he couldn't see anything.

Xu Yuan's movements suddenly froze, and his breath caught in his throat.

Oh no, why did I have to wake up at this time?

Seeing no response, Xu Liang muttered to himself in bewilderment, "Did I hear wrong? Or is Brother Yuan talking in his sleep?"

He reached for his phone by the bedside, his fingertips touching the screen, preparing to turn on the flashlight to check the situation.

"Buhao!"

Xu Yuan was startled. He was currently beating the shadowy figure frantically. If Xu Liang saw this, what would happen?

After thinking for a moment, he immediately said in a deep voice, "No, you misheard me. I'm not talking in my sleep."

"Brother Yuan?" Xu Liang was taken aback, half believing and half doubting, "But I clearly heard you making a weird 'giegiegie' laugh just now, it was really weird, and it sounded like you were hitting someone... What else could this be but sleep talking?"

"?"

Xu Yuan's face darkened, but he didn't say anything more, calmly saying, "You're having a nightmare."

Am I having a nightmare?

Xu Liang didn't believe it at all, and directly turned on his phone's flashlight, raising the beam—

The next second, he froze on the spot, his pupils contracted sharply, and he was completely dumbfounded.

Xu Yuan was standing by his bedside, holding a rope in his hand, and the noose of the rope was tightly around the neck of "the other Xu Liang".

What shocked him even more was that "Xu Liang" had a smug expression on his face, seemingly enjoying the constraints before him, looking like a complete idiot.

This abstract and bizarre scene made Xu Liang question his existence. He stared wide-eyed: "This is my...nightmare?"

"That's right," Xu Yuan said seriously, "You'd better get ready, this nightmare has a second half."

Xu Liang, who had been staring at the scene before him with a complicated expression—not one of fear, but rather a strange sense of self-collapse—was immediately drawn to the words: "What second half…?"

Before he could finish speaking, he felt a numbness in his neck, his vision went black, and he fell straight down, instantly losing consciousness.

Xu Yuan placed the unconscious Xu Liangping on the bed, covered him with a blanket, and sighed helplessly: "This is the second half."

After saying that, he casually pulled the black rope with his left hand, dragging the struggling shadow closer. Without even looking at it, he suddenly clenched his left hand and elbowed it hard in the chest!

The shadowy figure's expression froze instantly. He looked down at the large hole punched into his chest, and his body suddenly stopped.

"Sizzle...swish..."

The shadowy figure's body shattered like pixels, with countless tiny specks of random data appearing at the edges.

Immediately afterwards, as if it had been forcibly formatted, it flickered twice and then completely returned to zero, turning into a stream of cold, black data smoke that was instantly sucked away by the air and disappeared without a trace.

The black rope automatically retracted and obediently adhered to Xu Yuan's wrist, transforming back into an ordinary wristband.

Xu Yuan took out the photo of Xu Liang from his pocket, and the photo paper, along with the shadow, turned into specks of light and disappeared.

He breathed a sigh of relief and yawned widely: "Done, time for bed."

He turned back to bed and quickly fell asleep, his breathing gradually becoming steady.

However, in a corner he hadn't noticed, an unknown change was quietly taking place.

Inside the jewelry box on the table, the color photograph of the girl who fell from the building was slowly fading at a rate imperceptible to the naked eye, the colors gradually disappearing, and it looked like it was about to become a lifeless black and white.

But just as the shadowy figure crashed while filming Xu Yuan, the fading process of the photo suddenly froze, like a film that had been forcibly paused, frozen at the moment where color and black and white met, unable to advance even a fraction of a second.

When the shadowy figure was suppressed by the black rope, became disordered, and finally completely dissipated, the girl's photo strangely began to "return".

The faded colors gradually flowed back, black hair became dark again, skin regained its lightness, and clothes slowly took on vibrant hues.

The entire photo has been restored to its most complete and clear form. The girl looks at the camera with delicate features, soft lips, and a faint, sunny smile.

The surroundings were quiet, with only the even breathing sounds from inside the dormitory. No one noticed that the girl in the photo's slightly upturned lips... seemed to have subtly curved upwards a few degrees.