The Source

Translator: Cinder Translations

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"How is it?" The Fatty jogged over and asked Jiang Cheng, "Is everything going smoothly?"

Jiang Cheng was silent for a few seconds before suddenly asking, "How long have I been gone this time?"

The Fatty thought for a moment. "About 20 minutes?" He added, "Anyway, it wasn't long because it got too cold here in the evening. I just changed into some thicker clothes. Then... then I heard some noise downstairs. When I came down to check, you were back."

After hearing the Fatty's answer, Jiang Cheng had a clearer understanding of the nightmare.

The time he spent in the nightmare was definitely not as long as 20 minutes. What the Fatty referred to as 20 minutes should have been from when he entered the bedroom.

But he hadn't accounted for the time it took for him to fall asleep.

Excluding that time, Jiang Cheng thought the actual time he spent in the nightmare was only a few minutes, maybe even less.

After all, in the nightmare world, he had experienced several days' worth of time.

Clearly, the flow of time in that place was different from that of the real world, and the portal connecting the two worlds was that black iron door.

The Fatty stood beside Jiang Cheng and noticed that Jiang Cheng seemed different from when he had first returned. Jiang Cheng appeared down, speaking less than usual.

"Doctor," the Fatty swallowed nervously and said in as calm a voice as possible, "Are you... okay?"

"Has anything unusual happened while I was gone?"

The Fatty thought for a moment and answered seriously, "No."

"After you went to your bedroom, I've been guarding outside. I didn't notice anything unusual," he continued, "I didn't see you leave the bedroom, and then you reappeared here."

Jiang Cheng took the cup again and took a sip of water. "What about any sounds?"

"This..." The Fatty hesitated.

Jiang Cheng turned to look at him. The Fatty's expression didn't seem like he was hiding something but more like he wasn't sure about the matter and didn't know how to express it.

"You can just describe what you observed," Jiang Cheng said.

"Doctor, actually, I had a premonition just before you were about to come out," the Fatty stammered.

Jiang Cheng furrowed his brow sharply, his hand holding the cup stalling. "Go on."

"I'm not sure how to describe this feeling, it was like a sudden surge of electricity in my head, a very strange feeling. When that sensation came over me, I just knew something was wrong. I connected it to you entering the nightmare, so I guessed you must have come back."

Jiang Cheng slowly narrowed his eyes.

The Fatty seemed to recall something and quickly spoke up, but his voice involuntarily lowered. "Doctor," he cleared his throat, "Before, when I was driving late at night, I often felt drowsy. One night, I randomly found a radio station that specialized in ghost stories."

"I thought I'd listen to it to stay awake, and that night, their theme was about how to see a ghost."

"They even called a few guests who claimed to have had experiences seeing ghosts."

"I remember the first person was a student. She said she once saw a ghost by playing the 'Spirit Writing' game, and the next day, one of her friends broke their leg. She believed it was related to playing that game."

"But I don't believe this," the Fatty explained, "She said she was a high school student, but her voice sounded like someone in their 30s or 40s. I think she was probably an actor hired by the show."

Jiang Cheng didn't respond, only listened quietly. He knew the Fatty must have noticed something for him to talk so much.

"The second person claimed they saw a dozen or so emaciated black shadows through a bowl filled with half-cooked rice on a crossroad."

He swallowed, continuing, "He said that if the chopsticks didn't stop knocking the bowl, the ghosts wouldn't notice."

Then the Fatty mentioned other methods like holding an umbrella indoors, bending down to look through one's legs, saying one's name in front of a mirror at midnight, combing hair in the middle of the night, and drawing eyebrows on a deceased person's photo with a red pen—various ways supposedly to summon ghosts.

Jiang Cheng slightly furrowed his brow, indicating his patience was running thin.

He wasn't here to hear these ghost stories.

"Doctor," the Fatty bit his lip, "Please let me finish."

Jiang Cheng looked into the Fatty's eyes. The words he was about to say were held back. It was rare for the Fatty to look at him like this.

He was afraid. Jiang Cheng could tell for sure.

The Fatty took a deep breath and slowly continued, "Until they connected with the last guest."

"It was an elderly person. I could tell their health wasn't great, and they were breathing heavily as they spoke."

"The method they introduced was..." The Fatty looked up at Jiang Cheng, lips trembling, "Brain waves."

"I later checked something similar, and I think they meant brain waves, but..." The Fatty didn't continue.

He seemed to fall into some kind of memory, his speech becoming more disjointed. "I don't know if that person was male or female. They probably had a damaged throat."

"The person spoke very slowly, and it was really hard to understand. I could only make out their last few words."

"They said, to see a ghost, your brain waves need to be in sync with the ghost's brain waves."

"In other words..." The Fatty looked up, "When you think of seeing it, the ghost is thinking of you too."

The Fatty still clearly remembered that when that person finished speaking, the guests and hosts, who had been joking and mocking him for trying to create a scary atmosphere, immediately fell silent.

Because their show was about discussing how to see a ghost.

According to that person's logic, right now, at this very moment, ghosts could very well be around them.

"Doctor," the Fatty's face showed a look that was hard to describe, "It wasn't until much later that I realized something."

"That night, it might not have been that the person was unclear, making it hard for me to understand their words," he paused, his body trembling from fear, "But maybe something was nearby. Because their brain waves were close, it..."

"Created interference," Jiang Cheng said coldly. "Like electromagnetic waves."

"Exactly!" The Fatty nodded violently, his face twisted in terror.

What the Fatty didn't expect was that Jiang Cheng's face suddenly changed. His pupils contracted sharply.

Jiang Cheng suddenly remembered something.

In the audio recording made by Hu Yan, who had sought help the first time, there were long segments of static noise.

TL/N: Hu Yan, the woman who came to meet Jiang Cheng and then went missing. Chapter 1.

(End of the Chapter)

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Read (NS) ahead on (pa treon . com / CinderTL) – Chapter 250.

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Translated 4 Series, 1.5K+ Chapters and 1.78M+ Words.