Thousand Dusts Ferry Me - Chapter 18

Jiang Baiyu did not fully agree with Yun Qing’s decision.

A person’s dreams were complex and intricate, like a labyrinth. Entering someone else’s dream meant losing autonomy, and once lost, the consequences could be unimaginable.

So Jiang Baiyu grabbed Yun Qing’s wrist and said, “You mustn’t.”

Fu Xue also said, “Senior sister, why don’t we first transfer some spiritual energy to her and see what happens?”

Fearing they would delay further, Fan Erlang suddenly lifted his robe and knelt before Yun Qing. “Fairy maiden! Yunniang’s body is weak and cannot endure such torment. Please save her now!”

Yun Qing quickly helped him up and said, “Yunniang’s nightmare is suspicious. I should look into it myself.”

She looked at Jiang Baiyu and Fu Xue. “Don’t worry, my method of entering dreams is different from what you guys understand.”

This statement startled Jiang Baiyu. Why did she say “you guys”? Did even her own junior sister not know this method?

People’s methods of entering dreams varied widely, but they all shared a common principle. Generally, one entered another’s dreamscape as an outsider, and being an outsider meant having no control over the dream, which made it dangerous.

But Yun Qing’s method came from Emperor Xi’s Wordless Book and was completely different.

Formation name: Shared Dream.

The person who arranged the formation could directly experience another person’s dream from a first-person perspective. In the formation, two people shared the same identity within the same dream, hence the name “Shared Dream.”

In the Shared Dream formation, Yun Qing could not only witness the dream as Yunniang but also manipulate Yunniang’s actions to some extent, thereby changing the course of the dream.

Yun Qing had Fan Erlang arrange Yunniang’s body to lie flat on the bed, with her hands placed on her lower abdomen, and lit a lamp one fist’s distance away from the Baihui acupoint at the top of her head.

She tied a red string around both her and Yunniang’s wrists, sat cross-legged beside Yunniang, and instructed the others: the lamp must not be extinguished.

Yun Qing said, “If it goes out, both of us will die.”

In reality, she wasn’t telling the truth. If the lamp went out, it would merely mean the Shared Dream had failed, and she would immediately leave Yunniang’s dream, nothing more.

She exaggerated the consequences to test Jiang Baiyu. His strange loyalty to her had always made her uneasy, and she felt that if he truly meant her harm, this would be the perfect opportunity.

Then she closed her eyes, prayed, and slowly sank into the dream.

…

Yun Qing opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was a pitch-black coffin.

She was wearing mourning clothes, kneeling before the coffin, mechanically returning bows to mourners who had come to pay their respects. The guests whispered among themselves:

“First a wedding ceremony, now a funeral. How inauspicious!”

“Indeed! This old man Han is pitiful. His son and daughter-in-law died early, and he finally raised his granddaughter and married her off. He was looking forward to some comfortable days.”

“What a shame! Young Master Fan was such a good man, who could mistreat him? It wasn’t meant to be!”

“This coffin is wonderful. I heard it cost two or three hundred taels of silver.”

“The Fan family is truly wealthy and generous.”

“How did a great family like the Fans end up marrying into the Han family?”

“I heard Second Master Fan fell for her at first sight, and the old madam couldn’t do anything about it despite her objections.”

“They were indeed mismatched.”

…

She was Han Yunniang, born to a craftsman’s family in Guangling City. She married at fifteen, and shortly afterward lost the last relative she had in this world.

Yun Qing felt a surge of sourness, loneliness, and confusion—these were Yunniang’s emotions. She uncomfortably rubbed her chest and stood up to walk outside.

A flash of white light covered her eyes, and the scene changed.

She was holding a teacup, raising it high above her head, and saying shyly, “Mother, please have some tea.”

Her heart was filled with sweetness and joy. She had married the man she loved, and he loved her too.

Before her sat a richly dressed woman who remained perfectly still. She had been holding the cup for a long time; her arms ached, and she couldn’t help trembling. The lid of the teacup made a slight clinking sound against the cup.

Yun Qing felt anger rising within her. This anger was her own, not Yunniang’s—Yunniang’s emotion was fear.

At this moment, Yun Qing was torn between two emotions, feeling mentally split. She wanted to overturn the teacup but failed after several attempts. This action was something Yunniang resisted, so she couldn’t do it.

In the Shared Dream formation, changes could only be made if they didn’t conflict with the dreamer’s will.

“Mother,” Fan Erlang in the dream reminded the woman.

The woman finally reached out to take the teacup and said insincerely, “Get up, the floor is cold.”

The woman barely touched the cup’s rim with her lips before putting it down and saying:

“If Erlang hadn’t been so stubborn, I would never have allowed you to enter our door. I don’t know what kind of love potion he drank… Now that you’ve entered the Fan family, you are Fan family’s madam. You must change those humble habits from your small household, or else you’ll embarrass us all when word gets out that I haven’t taught you properly.”

While Yun Qing cursed internally, she felt Yunniang’s determination: I must listen to Mother, I must be a qualified Fan family’s madam, if I do well, Mother will surely like me.

Sigh. Yun Qing understood her. She was a girl without support, carefully treading through this cruel world. Did she have any better choices?

The dream shifted again.

Yun Qing saw herself holding a porcelain jar. She curiously opened it, and Yunniang didn’t resist.

Inside was a jar full of small balls about the size of bayberries, wrapped in tangerine leaves, which appeared to be some kind of food. Yun Qing took one and put it in her mouth—it was sweet, fragrant, and quite delicious.

The woman’s scolding voice came from nearby.

“She just coughed a couple of times, and you rushed to find this? A single bayberry requires more than ten medicinal ingredients to refine?

Is she made of gold? I raised you all these years and never saw you looking for such things for me. I only get to taste yimei because of your wife’s influence!”

Yun Qing thought, so this thing is called yimei.

“If she wants to eat it, let her buy it herself! Let’s see how many she can afford with those few shabby dowry items! I spent lavishly to bring her into our home, first spending hundreds of taels on a coffin!

Now you’re feeding her delicacies as if she were more pampered than a princess! Your Han family people have really made a good deal, it’s laughable! Have you no shame?”

“Mother, haven’t I told you? Yunniang said the money for the coffin was borrowed, and she’ll gradually repay it from Mingyue Tower’s rent.”

“Don’t mention Mingyue Tower to me! She only brought that haunted building as dowry, and now it can’t even be rented out. Yet you’re still sending people to clean it up. Aren’t you usually good at business? Why are you so eager to make such a losing deal?”

“Mother, please say no more.”

“You’re still defending her? You really forgot your mother after getting a wife. What fox spirit tricks did she use on you? You’re so bewitched you don’t even recognize your own mother!”

Yun Qing felt her face itching and touched it—it was already covered in tears.

After her sadness, Yunniang began anxiously reflecting. She felt she had neglected her mother-in-law’s feelings, hadn’t shown enough respect and affection, and had taken her husband’s kindness too much for granted.

Yun Qing shook her head and sighed. This Yunniang was truly too kind.

But did this kind person know that for someone as vulnerable as her, kindness usually wouldn’t become armor for protection but rather a knife that stabbed her?

Yunniang began trying to please her mother-in-law—making shoes and socks for her, preparing food and clothes—but the mother-in-law never gave her a pleasant look and occasionally punished her by making her kneel in the ancestor hall.

As Yunniang trembled while kneeling in the ancestor hall, Yun Qing saw the look in the mother-in-law’s eyes.

That look was like an emperor who had finally tamed his only subject, or a child enjoying the struggle and screams of a small animal being tortured, filled with a twisted sense of satisfaction and pleasure.

Yun Qing truly wanted to run her through with a sword.

Yunniang’s fear grew day by day, and pleasing and obeying almost became her instinct.

The only thing she could rely on was her husband’s love, so she became increasingly humble before him. She was grateful for this love but also troubled by it.

When she failed to conceive after a long time and her mother-in-law threatened to “kick her out of the Fan family if she didn’t produce a child soon,” her fear reached its peak.

She saw her mother-in-law send a strange woman to her husband, and after he refused, she was once again made to kneel in the ancestor hall.

…..

Dreams were chaotic and sometimes repetitive. Yun Qing herself was confused, alternating between cursing and crying, as if two souls inhabited one body—she was going mad.

But she had discovered how to awaken Yunniang: by resolving her fears.

The source of her fear was this damned mother-in-law, so the solution was to deal with the mother-in-law.

Pleasing her was impossible.

Trying to please such a person was like offering blood to a blood demon—this action wouldn’t receive any kindness in return but would only make the other party greedier, wanting to extract more blood from you.

Stabbing her with a sword would be the simplest solution, but Yunniang wouldn’t accept that.

Having a child might temporarily improve the mother-in-law’s attitude toward her, but unfortunately, there were no conditions for creating a child in the dream.

Yun Qing tried bribing the mother-in-law’s head maid, but was met with mockery; she tried using spells to control the mother-in-law and tried setting up formations… but nothing worked. None of her usual skills were effective in the dream.

Yunniang was the master of the dream, and the dream’s rules were determined by her. She didn’t understand these techniques, so naturally, they wouldn’t work.

Yun Qing finally realized she seemed to have reached a dead end.

She had boasted too much earlier, acting like an otherworldly expert in front of Fan Erlang, even asking for money. It was really something—she laughed at her own arrogance.

After experiencing the dream several more times, Yun Qing passed by the main gate once and thought that since she had no clues, she might as well go outside to look around.

Yunniang didn’t resist her going out.

Walking out of the Fan family’s gate, she first saw a residential area, which Yun Qing knew must be where Yunniang lived before her marriage. In reality, this residential area certainly wouldn’t be right outside the Fan family’s gate. The time and space in the dream had been spliced together.

Among the residences were all kinds of people full of life: men fetching water, women washing clothes and vegetables, vendors calling out their wares, and children playing on the streets…

Yun Qing passed through the residential area, and gradually there were fewer people on the street.

Not only were there fewer people, but the houses along the road became increasingly strange, like a painting that had been soaked in water—blurry and indistinct, their original appearance unrecognizable.

Yun Qing thought the dream was about to change again, but it didn’t.

Hmm?

She stood confused at the roadside, looking at the scene that seemed to be infused with water, and suddenly a strange guess arose in her heart.

Could it be that the dream had become like this… because Yunniang knew too little about the outside world? She hadn’t seen much, so naturally lacked imagination? So the dream had become blank?

If Yunniang’s dream had blank spaces, could she fill them in?

Yun Qing recalled the streets of Immortal-Seeking Town. The streets there were narrower than those in Guangling City but equally lively. She closed her eyes and tried hard to remember the opera performers and monkey trainers she had seen on the street that day…

When she opened her eyes, a male actor in crude theatrical costume portraying the Sacred Goddess Xi was singing at the roadside—it was the segment about the goddess manifesting to drive back the flood.

Next to him, a small monkey squatted on a wooden rack, staring with round eyes, extending its hand toward Yun Qing asking for money.

It worked!

Before Yun Qing could rejoice, her vision blurred, the dream changed, and she was back kneeling in the ancestor hall. Yunniang had returned to her familiar fear.

Yun Qing patiently waited for the dream to change again, and when she passed the Fan family’s gate once more, she stepped out again.

Passing through the residential area, Yun Qing concentrated all her attention, focusing her mind on recalling details of Immortal-Seeking Town, and the streets gradually became clear and concrete.

Yun Qing could feel that Yunniang was curious about this unfamiliar world.

Just as she was about to show Yunniang something interesting, her vision blurred, and she found herself crying while making lamb face meat for her mother-in-law.

Yun Qing wanted to taste the lamb face meat but couldn’t—it was for her mother-in-law, how could she steal a taste!

Waiting for another opportunity to go out, Yun Qing ran at full speed after passing through the residential area.

As she ran, she recalled her experiences practicing cultivation on Longshou Mountain.

She only selected memories that made her happy or peaceful, hoping these emotions could offset some of Yunniang’s fear.

The mountain forest after rain was filled with the scent of fresh grass, and sunlight slanted down through the branches and leaves in beams, as if light had taken form.

She ran through this forest, her ears filled with the music of wind and birds, a melody surpassing all worldly instruments.

She suddenly stopped, raised her arm, and a small squirrel jumped down from a tree, landing on her arm.

The squirrel made a chirping sound, and she seemed to understand what it was saying. She raised her other hand and opened her palm. The squirrel placed a pine nut in her palm, and she laughed out loud, thanking the squirrel.

After bidding farewell to the squirrel, she continued running. The scene before her changed, and she ran into a field of flowers.

Clusters of pale yellow wildflowers stretched like a velvet carpet to the horizon. She bent down, picked a yellow flower from the carpet, puffed her cheeks, and blew gently. The petals scattered and danced in the wind, curling and floating into the distance.

Suddenly she rose from the ground, her toes stepping on flower petals as she flew toward the sky.

That was when she first learned the Art of Riding the Wind.

The wind made her clothes and hair flutter loudly. She was like a free bird, her eyes filled only with the sky.

The sky was azure, vast, and boundless, like a gentle, broad embrace, accepting and accommodating her without limits.

She took a few steps in the air, then fell from the flower petals onto a bamboo leaf.

The flower field disappeared, and she was now traveling above a dense bamboo forest. Fine rain fell like silk, hitting her face as silence enveloped the world.

She felt as if she were melting into this fine rain, becoming a raindrop, like countless other raindrops, cycling endlessly in this world.

Reaching the end of the bamboo forest, she stepped into empty space.

“Ah-ya-ya——“

Below was a cliff shrouded in thick fog. She fell into the fog but wasn’t afraid. It was as if everything returned to the beginning, with pure chaos surrounding her—no happiness or sorrow, no joy or sadness, not even herself.

Passing through the fog, with a splash, she fell into water.

Before her eyes spread a vast blue expanse.

It was the ocean.

That year, she had learned the Water Avoidance technique, and her master had taken them to the sea.

She swam like a fish, grabbed a colorful shell, and the shell slowly opened and closed, blowing a bubble at her.

She frolicked with schools of unnamed fish, and one fish kissed her on the cheek. She passed through a dense thicket of purple seaweed, and suddenly a huge form appeared before her!

What a big fish!

She playfully stepped on the fish’s head, and suddenly the large fish raised its head and propelled her out of the water!

She flew straight up out of the water’s surface, hovered for a moment, but didn’t fall back down. At that moment, her feet had already landed on a stone.

She ran across the stone, and a winding mountain path appeared before her. She ran along the path, all the way to the mountaintop.

Standing at the summit, looking out, beneath her feet stretched a sea of clouds like rolling waves. At the edge of the cloud sea, a red sun slowly rose, like a golden elixir reflected in snow, like white waves spitting out vermillion.

A sense of magnificent heroism rose in her heart, and she shouted toward the red sun:

“I will become a great hero known throughout the world! I will make Longshou Sect famous across the land!”

The scene before her eyes began to fade. Like a piece of flowered cloth repeatedly wrung out, becoming fainter each time, until finally it faded to blank whiteness.

Yun Qing slowly opened her eyes. The dream was over.

Looking down at Yunniang, she saw that she too had awakened.