9 Am I a nightmare?

Tang Ning couldn't believe it; his once peaceful dream had been twisted into a nightmare by Zhang Yaoyang's influence.

As Zhang Yaoyang pondered, Tang Ning suddenly let out a scream from his dorm bed, jolting awake.

"Huff, what's going on... it was just a dream..." Tang Ning gasped, wiping his forehead, only then realizing his sweat-soaked sheets.

"That dream, the person trying to kill me in it was him?" Tang Ning shrank back, glancing at the nearby Zhang Yaoyang, still sleeping soundly with closed eyes.

"Damn, no wonder I felt familiar with him in the dream, it was him!" Gritting his teeth, Tang Ning, caught between the humiliation of the afternoon's defeat and the recent nightmare, felt a surge of unnamed anger, but the memory of the guy's fierce gaze made him hesitate.

"Let it go for today, there will be plenty of chances to deal with him later." Quietly justifying to himself, Tang Ning shifted uncomfortably and drifted back to sleep.

As Tang Ning's snores filled the room once more, Zhang Yaoyang slowly opened his eyes on the other bunk, a hint of suspicion in his gaze.

"Oh no, he remembers this dream." Frowning, Zhang Yaoyang's worst fear had come true.

According to information he had found online, while people dream multiple times a night, they usually only remember one or two dreams. However, studies showed that waking someone during REM sleep could result in a 90% to 95% dream recall rate, leaving a deep impression.

One or two instances could be dismissed as coincidence, but recurring nightmares involving Zhang Yaoyang might raise suspicion. His abilities could be exposed.

Moreover, even if he didn't wake the other person, frequent visits to their dreams could lead to them remembering him. People forget many dreams, but some stick.

To infiltrate dreams undetected, Zhang Yaoyang realized he might need to disguise himself.

Recalling a segment of Western mythology, he remembered a creature called a "nightmare," which could manipulate and traverse dreams, symbolizing war and death.

It typically appeared as a black stallion with flaming mane and hooves, exuding an aura of fear. It would infiltrate dreams, inducing terror akin to hell.

Reflecting on this, Zhang Yaoyang saw parallels between himself and the nightmare. While he only gained minimal value from altering ordinary dreams, turning them into nightmares could yield substantial rewards, aligning perfectly with the nightmare's attributes.

However, frequent entry into others' dreams meant he needed to disguise himself better to avoid exposure.

If he could disguise himself in dreams like a nightmare, it would be perfect.

With this realization, Zhang Yaoyang understood the purpose of "dream creation value." He immediately closed his eyes, immersing himself in sleep.

Soon, he successfully entered the dream world.

Zhang Yaoyang noticed his proficiency in lucid dreaming was rapidly improving; he could enter dreams within minutes, almost instinctively.

This time, instead of entering through a dream screen, he experienced sleep paralysis again. As he was already in the dream, he merely shifted and sat up from the dream bed.

This method of dream entry, called "out-of-body," was a passive form of lucid dreaming.

Looking around, Zhang Yaoyang found himself in the dorm setting, with all the beds empty except for noises coming from a drawer, as if a small animal were struggling inside.

As Zhang Yaoyang casually pulled open the drawer, that eerie figurine leaped out with a click, its two tentacles wriggling as it landed on Zhang Yaoyang's shoulder, rubbing against his cheek with a look of affectionate adoration.

"Ah, I see now," Zhang Yaoyang murmured, casting a deep glance at the figurine.

This peculiar figurine could move in his dreams, and evidently, it had some intimate connection with the monster that had granted him power initially. Even Li Dazhuang's death seemed to be intertwined with it in some inexplicable way...

He wondered whether having this strange figurine by his side was a blessing or a curse.

Zhang Yaoyang had contemplated tossing away this oddity, but his abilities were likely closely linked to it. He had an intuition that losing this figurine might be the greatest loss of his life.

Moreover, wasn't this eerie figurine a kind of totem?

Dreams were always different from reality. Even the most realistic dreams couldn't match the perfection of reality. It was akin to the movie "Inception" Zhang Yaoyang had once watched, where the protagonist used a spinning top to determine whether he was in a dream or not. If the top stopped spinning after a while, it meant he was in reality; if it kept spinning indefinitely, it meant he was trapped in a dream.

This method was essentially what lucid dreaming referred to as 'reality checking.' The spinning top could determine whether the protagonist was in a dream, and the unique characteristic of this figurine, its activity in dreams, served as Zhang Yaoyang's benchmark for distinguishing between reality and the dream world.

Zhang Yaoyang had a faint sense that, with his abilities, he might spend more time in dreams than in reality in the future. Although he currently believed he could differentiate between reality and dreams, prolonged traversing between the two realms could easily affect his psyche, leading to a complete loss within the dream if he wasn't careful.

To avoid confusing dreams with reality, the role of this figurine was crucial. It might even be the source of Zhang Yaoyang's ability to enter dreams.

Therefore, Zhang Yaoyang understood that he must not lose this figurine, even if its existence concealed some fatal danger.