Infinite Nightmares

Looking down at the scenery through the glass, Song Jianguo raised a hand and slapped Zhang Wenda’s arm, pointing down excitedly. "Haozi! Haozi! Quick, look! That’s our house!"

Following his finger, Zhang Wenda saw the round, junk-piled treehouse hanging from a telephone pole.

"Why are we back here? Isn’t Thought Wave One a bit too small for this?" Zhang Wenda’s brow gradually furrowed, feeling none of the joy of returning to a familiar place.

"Maybe it’s a coincidence. What’s wrong with this place? We’re back again."

But Zhang Wenda didn’t think so. ’The odds of ending up in the same place again are just too small. The probability of this being a trap is getting higher and higher.’

’Whatever Old Tan is planning, I’m not about to get sold out without even knowing what’s happening.’

After Zhang Wenda and the others landed in the outskirts, he had already secretly raised his guard.

’Hello? Maomao, can you hear me?’ Zhang Wenda asked inwardly.

"Call me Auntie." Hearing her voice put his mind at ease. He turned his head to look at Shuisheng. "What’s our mission this time? Where are we going? How many do we kill?"

"One. According to intel from the intelligence group, a high-ranking member of the Big Circle is living in Thought Wave One. Our mission is to find him." Shuisheng raised a flashlight and shooed away a few small drones that had flown over to see what was going on.

"A student?"

"Yes, a student. So this time we’ll need to split up. We’ll infiltrate the school first to pinpoint his location, then contact each other by phone."

It was unclear what ability they used, but as Wang Xiaohua opened her cracked black pupils and a gray light shone from them onto the others, their forms quickly shrank, until they took on the appearance of children.

It was the first time Zhang Wenda had seen 2826’s face. He was a little boy with a bandage on his left cheek.

"Do you want to?" Wang Xiaohua asked Zhang Wenda.

Zhang Wenda shook his head. "No need. I have my own way. But are we just supposed to search randomly? Doesn’t this person have any distinguishing features?"

"No. And even if he did, he could change his appearance just like us. But he’s not from Thought Wave One. We don’t know why he’s living here, but his way of thinking will definitely be clearly different from the kids here. We can start from that angle."

"I want to! I want to!" Song Jianguo raised his hand at Wang Xiaohua as if he’d found a new toy. Soon, under the beam of light...

Song Jianguo, who was already in a young girl’s body, instantly shrank into an even younger one. The flesh on her face below her bowl-cut hair was plump and rosy, and her light brown skin had turned fair, making her look very cute.

Seeing Zhang Wenda looking at her, the now-smaller Song Jianguo laughed and made a playful monster face at him.

By the time they were ready and had reached the school entrance, the final bell rang, and students swarmed out. The others instantly blended into the crowd, leaving Zhang Wenda standing there looking particularly out of place.

Zhang Wenda simply lifted the petite Song Jianguo with one hand and set her on his shoulders, transforming into a parent picking up his child from school and instantly blending into the environment.

"So how do we find him? Grab a few kids and beat them up until they tell us which of their classmates are acting weird?" asked Song Jianguo, her hands wrapped around Zhang Wenda’s head.

"Doing it your way would just tip off our target. Don’t worry, I have a plan." Zhang Wenda quickly fell in behind a little boy who was so engrossed in the manga he was reading that he was oblivious to the world around him.

Just as the boy turned a corner, Zhang Wenda lifted his finger, which glowed a faint blue, and made a light swiping motion against the boy’s back. A door to the Inner Self Island appeared out of thin air.

He stepped through and headed directly for the boy’s Prefrontal Strait.

’No wonder Ouyang Shuangdian said my ability was perfect for this mission. With this blue power, I don’t need to search at all. I can just open up someone’s inner self and freely browse their memories in the Prefrontal Strait.’

Once Zhang Wenda arrived, he raised his scythe-like hands and, like a mantis, quickly began to climb the bookshelf of memories.

A child’s memories were few, and their school memories even fewer. Zhang Wenda finished flipping through them in no time.

Unfortunately, his luck wasn’t that good. There were no unusual children in the second-year, class three, where this first child belonged.

’But that’s okay. This is just the beginning. With this new ability, you could say I’m perfectly suited for this kind of manhunt.’

After that, Zhang Wenda started from the first year, going class by class. For each class, he only needed to check one child’s memory.

’After spending a whole semester together, if a classmate were truly strange, it would definitely leave an impression.’

His search lasted two hours, from the noon dismissal to the start of afternoon classes, and he went from the first year all the way to the third year with no results.

Just as Zhang Wenda was thinking he’d have to search through the entire school, a particular memory suddenly caught his attention.

"There’s a weird kid in Class Five. He talks like a grown-up, and he’s all twitchy and paranoid."

After finding this memory, Zhang Wenda felt a surge of joy. He immediately took Song Jianguo’s hand and headed into the school, looking for this "Class Five."

But as he walked, Zhang Wenda gradually realized something was wrong. ’Why does this path look so familiar?’

When he looked through the window and saw the Little Fatty in his seat, eating a baked bun with preserved vegetables, he understood instantly.

’After all that work, the kid that boy thought was so weird was actually... my past self.’

’Was I really that weird back then?’ Zhang Wenda thought back but couldn’t quite see it.

"Haozi, I’m hungry," Song Jianguo said, looking up at Zhang Wenda.

"Sigh... Come on, let’s get something to eat first. This mission is a real pain."

As they walked back, Zhang Wenda contacted Hu Maomao again. ’Auntie, how are things on your end?’

"No signs of any large-scale movements for now. Nothing unusual at the Bureau. What about you guys?"

’More or less the same here. It seems like a routine mission. They said a Big Circle member is hiding out in Thought Wave One, and we’re looking for him.’

𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"Are you sure what they told you is true? Could you be overthinking things?"

Zhang Wenda walked out the school gate, leading Song Jianguo toward a nearby top cake stall.

Amidst clouds of rising steam, the cake maker, a simple and honest-looking middle-aged man, skillfully ladled rice flour into a small wooden mold. He spread a layer of dark brown osmanthus sugar in the middle, then covered it with another layer of rice flour.

"Sir, two of those, please."

"Sure thing. Two cents apiece."

’I still have some spare change from my last time in Thought Wave One. Didn’t think I’d get to use it again.’

Zhang Wenda replied to Hu Maomao as he fumbled in his pocket. ’If I am overthinking it, then that’s for the best. I really don’t want to get tangled up in all this. I just want to finish this mission peacefully and get back to figuring out how to find Yellow.’

Just as he was thinking this, Zhang Wenda noticed a scruffy, unshaven middle-aged man on the side of the road, grinning and chuckling to himself as he watched some little boys roughhousing.

’Gotta go. Something’s come up on my end.’

Zhang Wenda led Song Jianguo, who was busy blowing on her steaming hot rice cake, over to the man.

"Hey buddy, you picking up your kid too?" Zhang Wenda asked casually, as if making small talk.

"Nah, I just like hanging around school gates."

Watching a boy with a red scarf jump from high up on the steps and playfully crash into another boy in the distance, the man’s face once again broke into an enigmatic smile, a trace of nostalgia in his eyes.

A hint of melancholy entered his voice. "Sigh... I really wish I could be a kid again..."