Chapter 423: Spread

The afterglow of the evening shone in from outside the window and the entire room was covered in a dusky amber hue.

There was an inexplicable buzzing sound in Marcus’ ear. The sound seemed to hover between reality and illusion. It sounded like tinnitus, but also like a mysterious call from the distant horizon.

Marcus sat on the edge of the bed blankly, his eyes dull and vacant, his hair disheveled. He looked as though he had not woken up yet.

However, at this time, his mind was already turned upside down...

“This Man, does it exist?”

Marcus muttered in a low voice as he kept going over that indescribable realization he had in the dream. It was only when this feeling began to fade that he reluctantly opened the drawer on the side and recorded everything in the dream.

As a fanatic of dream research, he had this special hobby. He recorded every interesting dream he had so that he could recall them quickly in the future.

This method was also done by those who loved to lucid dream.

According to scientific theories, dreams were the product of the subconscious. As an example, if one dreamed they were looking everywhere for a toilet, it was because one had drunk too much water before going to bed, which led to the urge to urinate. If one encountered a situation in reality that made one feel at a loss, this might be expressed in a dream in the form of non-stop running.

When people said dreams came from the heart, it was due to this principle.

Lucid dreaming was a special physiological concept of dreams.

When dreaming, most people were incapable of rational thinking. Their ideas and thoughts diverged along with the flow of the dream, just like a mindless zombie.

However, in the lucid dream state, dreamers had the ability to think and recall as if they were awake in the dream. They would ponder upon and observe this dream state as if this were reality, and some people could even actively control the dream.

This was an exchange between the subconscious and the surface consciousness, an exchange between the ego and the id.

“To think that lucid dreaming only happens once in a while. Yet it occurred again this time and it’s in such a situation... Sure enough, This Man has magical powers.”

The words of the man in the dream still echoed in Marcus’ ears, but there was a mystified glint in Marcus’s eyes. He had a feeling that maybe the man in the dream was the meaning of dreams he had been searching for.

“Because I wanted you to appear, so you appeared. What’s the difference between This Man and God, then?”

He looked at the printed pattern of the weird face on the table again and a zealous look gradually emerged in his eyes...

...

Nighttime quickly arrived.

Sanimo had finished an entire day of class. He returned to the dormitory but found that his roommate was still not there.

“What is that guy doing these days?”

Sanimo muttered, a little puzzled. He opened the forum again, wanting to see what was new in the comments that day, but just after logging onto the website, he saw that there was an enlarged and bolded title pinned to the top of the forum’s homepage. It was none other than the one he saw last night.

At this time, the post did not just have dozens of comments like before. It had soared to tens of thousands of replies and the popularity of the post had surged through the roof.

“What the...”

Sanimo’s heart clenched. He hurriedly clicked on the post, only to see that countless people had posted underneath, yet their content was shockingly consistent!

[I shouldn’t read this post before going to bed. Can you believe it? After seeing this man’s photo, I saw him in a dream. The dream was very strange and the man seemed to have told me something!]

[What a coincidence, I also dreamt about him. The man said he was called This Man and he said a lot of reasonable things. Surely it can’t be...]

[That dream is disgusting. I don’t know if you guys are just trolling here, but I really dreamed of him. It was a nightmare and the point is I’m a person who rarely dreams!]

[How weird, this guy also appeared in my dream...]

[Did you all dream about him? No way, he also appeared in my dream!]

[...]

Sanimo kept scrolling down, comment by comment, page by page... He read surprisingly similar remarks. These comments were all saying the same thing, namely, after reading this post last night, the posters had all seen the man in their dreams!

Seeing this, Sanimo could not help frowning. It seemed that he could no longer cover up the source of this picture.

Quashing his intention to claim this picture as his own, Sanimo felt a little regretful. He then turned off the computer, leaned against his bed, and started swiping on his phone.

As he swiped, a wave of sleepiness overcame him silently. Sanimo yawned and then his head slowly dropped...

...

When Molly regained consciousness, she found herself standing in a dark and cramped room.

The fluorescent lamp above her head flickered with a buzz, but at its brightest, it could only illuminate a range of two or three meters while the rest of the room remained in a dim state.

This room was empty. The only thing there was an old wooden door directly in front of her and a sink next to the wooden door.

There was a steady sound of dripping water from the sink. On the old door, there was a frosted glass window and a dusky light shone in through this window, adding a new light source to the room.

There was only silence in the room.

However, in this silence, there was the faint sound of footsteps approaching.

“Clomp!”

“Clomp!”

“Clomp...”

“Who’s there...”

Molly, who was standing in the dark, felt a little uneasy. She slowly stepped back, keeping herself buried in the dark.

The footsteps were getting closer and the air in the room became more oppressive. Molly retreated to the corner of the room and backed into the wall completely.

At this moment, a dark shadow moved through the dim yellow light of the corridor and was reflected on the door window.

The sound of footsteps stopped.

“Who is it, who is there?...”

Molly asked again in a low voice, but her voice was already full of terror.

“Click...”

Suddenly, there was a sharp sound from the doorknob, which rang like thunder in Molly’s ears, causing her body to convulse. The next second, the wooden door suddenly emitted a long squeak that was extremely harsh and piercing, like an echo from hell.

As the wooden door slowly opened, a hand came in from outside the door. Molly covered her mouth tightly. From her perspective, she could see that the owner of that hand was wearing a dark red string on the wrist...

“Ahh!”

Molly sat up abruptly, clutching her chest in horror and constantly gasping for breath.

“Molly, what’s wrong?”

Her roommate’s voice came from the bed next to her, with a trace of concern. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Seems like it...”

Molly nodded. She got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, and splashed plenty of cold water onto her face, which made her feel better.

She walked out of the bathroom again. She did not go back to sleep. Rather, after thinking about it, she took out from the drawer the pattern that she had retrieved from the club during the day and looked at it again.

Sure enough, the man in the dream was the same as the one in the pattern...

“What are you looking at?”

The roommate did not blame Molly for having disturbed her sleep. Instead, she ran to Molly’s side barefooted and suddenly saw the pattern in Molly’s hand.

“It’s so scary! What is this?”

Her roommate asked curiously.

“This is...”

Molly opened her mouth and then recalled the name Sanimo had said when she was in the club during the day, so she promptly said, “He’s called... This Man.”

“This Man?”

Her roommate let out a whisper.

Ignoring the words of her roommate on the side, Molly began to recall her dream earlier, but at this time, she found that her dream had begun to turn blurry. The only thing she remembered was the scene in which the man opened the door and walked toward her step by step.

The strangest thing was that, while walking, the man kept shaking his head until Molly had started to see double...

He seemed to have said something or perhaps he had not said anything. Nonetheless, Molly had forgotten after waking up from the dream.

Molly scratched her head in distress, anxious to remember what he had said, but the more she tried, the less she could remember.

Then she spotted her wrist from the corner of her eye and suddenly, she had a flash of realization!

He seemed to have worn a red string on his wrist.

The moment she thought of this, a faint impulse appeared in her heart. As if possessed, she slowly opened the drawer, found a piece of red string, and wore it around her wrist.

The moment she put it on, a feeling of peace gently washed over her heart. It felt as if this red string could protect her from harm.

Then, she climbed into the bed again and slowly fell asleep...

...

When Sanimo woke up again, it was early in the morning.

He stretched lazily, having slept very well last night. His fatigue was erased.

There was still the picture of This Man on the table, but at this moment, in his eyes, this picture was not as scary as before. This was because in the dream last night, he and This Man had sat side by side and carried on a long conversation about many things.

“Unexpectedly, I dreamed of him not only on the first day but also last night...”

Sanimo shook his head and was just about to get up for class, but at this moment, he heard a loud commotion coming from the window.

“What’s going on?”

Sanimo stood up curiously, opened the curtains, and looked out. He saw a large crowd of people gathered at the bottom of the building. These people had assembled in front of the bulletin board and were discussing something heatedly. Some were exclaiming softly while others were laughing constantly.

In the crowd, Sanimo even saw Marcus.

Maybe there was a new announcement or something?

Seeing this, Sanimo was not too bothered. He quickly went to the bathroom to finish washing up, then put on clean clothes and walked downstairs.

He went all the way to the bottom of the building, only to realize that the group of people had not dispersed yet. Dozens of people had gathered here, looking at the huge bulletin board in front of the dormitory.

However, when Sanimo followed everyone’s gaze and looked at the bulletin board, he was stunned.

A huge white sheet of paper was posted on the bulletin board, which was the size of a blackboard. On the paper, there was a strange face with large, thick eyebrows, huge hollow eyes, and that wide mouth.

Who else could it be other than This Man?

Seeing this, Sanimo gasped sharply.

Just then, Marcus walked out of the crowd. While talking loudly to the people, he was about to turn around and leave.

Seeing this, Sanimo quickly went up and grabbed Marcus. “Hey, why had this pattern appeared here?”

“I enlarged it and printed it out.”

Marcus replied calmly, “And I also know that this picture wasn’t created by you. Instead, you found it on the Internet. Am I right?”

“Uh, yes.”

Sanimo nodded in embarrassment and then he said, “But this picture has the power to make people have nightmares. Won’t you cause trouble by doing this?”

“Who said you’ll have nightmares?”

Hearing this, Marcus stopped walking. He slowly turned his head and looked directly at Sanimo. “As long as you’re willing to accept This Man, he’ll drop the act and talk to you in an easygoing manner, right?”

Looking into Marcus’s eyes, Sanimo suddenly felt a chill for some reason. He nodded. “Well, that’s my fault. I didn’t have a nightmare last night... But...”

“There’s no but!”

Marcus squinted and put his hands on Sanimo’s shoulders solemnly. “Have you ever thought that This Man is probably evidence of God’s existence that we’ve been looking for?”

“God... What do you mean?”

Sanimo was even more confused. He subconsciously wanted to retreat, but his shoulders were so tightly gripped that he could not escape.

“A dream is a symbol of the human subconscious and the subconscious is a symbol of all thoughts and desires deep in the human heart...”

Marcus said with a serious expression, “It’s precisely because humans desire the appearance of God that countless people’s subconscious minds display a high degree of unanimity. When these unanimous forces are condensed in one place, they will affect reality sooner or later. Therefore, This Man appeared...

“This is what This Man told me personally. Because we want him to appear deep in our hearts, so he appears. Everything is that simple!”

“What are you talking about?”

Sanimo was completely dumbfounded. He looked at Marcus, whose expression gradually changed from calm to fanatical. At this moment, he seemed to be looking at a religious fanatic.

Staring at the somewhat crazy Marcus, he hurriedly broke free of the other guy’s grasp, only to notice that Marcus’ right wrist was tied with a thick red string.

“This is...”

Sanimo felt his scalp turn numb because he remembered that there was a piece of red string like this in the hands of This Man in his dream!

“Ah, you’ve noticed this.”

Seeing that Sanimo was staring at his wrist, Marcus laughed darkly as he raised his hand, revealing the dark red string on his wrist. “This is proof of belief in This Man. Sanimo, you’re my evangelizer, so you must wear this red string too, got it?”

“Marcus, you’ve lost your mind!”

Sanimo shouted in agitation. After that, he swiftly turned around and ran away, disregarding everyone’s surprised gaze. When he ran into the teaching building and when he could no longer see Marcus, he leaned against the wall and gasped heavily.

He managed to flee...

He had never thought that a mere pattern would have such a massive influence. Even Marcus was bewitched.

Thinking of this, Sanimo seemed to have thought of something. He quickly took out his mobile phone and logged into the dream forum again.

However, what made him shudder in fear was that it was not just at the top of the forum’s homepage. At this time, in the entire forum, almost every post on each page had someone talking about This Man and the indicator on the original pinned post also showed that it had been reposted more than 100,000 times.

In other words, This Man had broken free from this forum and had begun to spread on the Internet...

At this time, Sanimo, who had recovered his senses, felt a faint pang of remorse. Perhaps he should not have exposed this picture on campus.

The power of this picture was far greater and scarier than he had imagined.