Buzz.

The phone vibrated. The group chat window for “Non-Normal Humans Praise Circle” flickered incessantly on the screen.

Hand-Cut Lemon: Fellow big shots, I need some advice. I’ve been having recurring dreams lately where my boyfriend seems a bit… off. What should I do?

Bionic Wonder House: How is he “off”? Give me the specifics.

Hand-Cut Lemon: He seems like a total psycho.

Bionic Wonder House: What kind of psycho? Elaborate.

Yu Ning stared at the string of “Now you’ve got my attention” replies from the group members. She suddenly began to doubt the wisdom of seeking help in this particular chat.

Hand-Cut Lemon: I dreamt he installed a tracker on my phone.

Bionic Wonder House: That’s crossing the line. Anything else?

Hand-Cut Lemon: He was stalking me, too.

Bionic Wonder House: Terrifying. And then?

Hand-Cut Lemon: …Are you just here for the drama? I want to solve my problem!

Bionic Wonder House: Back to the point: are you sure these dreams are real? Dreams aren’t reality, you know.

Yu Ning began to recall.

Starting a month ago, she had begun having these dreams every night, and they were always about the people around her.

Hand-Cut Lemon: I’m not entirely sure, but they’re too realistic. Do you guys have dreams with this level of detail? Even when I’m dreaming, I know I’m dreaming—I’m conscious within the dream.

It was an abstract thing to describe. Yu Ning had had dreams before, but they always felt floaty and unreal.

Hand-Cut Lemon: The most ridiculous part is that for a while there, I was dreaming every single night. It was just like watching a TV series. I was literally binge-watching in my sleep.

Bionic Wonder House: Hm, a dream is a dream, but are you certain these things actually happened in reality?

They had happened, Yu Ning thought.

That was exactly what made her the most uneasy.

She still remembered the scene from that first night.

In the dream, she was in the first-person perspective, and the sense of immersion had been incredibly strong.

At the time, she hadn’t known whose perspective she was in. She had simply watched the scene change, wandering around the first-floor living room before stopping at the entrance to the kitchen.

Bionic Wonder House: The first floor?

Hand-Cut Lemon: That’s not the point.

Immediately, from that first-person perspective, she had seen the knives hanging on the kitchen wall.

Hand-Cut Lemon: A whole row of knives. In that pitch-black environment, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering in through the window, it looked especially chilling.

Bionic Wonder House: A row of knives hanging on the kitchen wall?

Hand-Cut Lemon: That’s not the point either. My boyfriend likes collecting knives. He keeps some in the kitchen because it’s convenient for daily use.

Bionic Wonder House: …?

Hand-Cut Lemon: Is that weird? I like them too.

Bionic Wonder House: …

Maybe this hobby was a bit strange for some people, Yu Ning thought.

However, she just had a vague feeling that what she was experiencing had surpassed the scope of normal human understanding, which was why she had joined this group to seek help.

Did it seem like it wasn’t going to work out?

Yu Ning felt a headache coming on and deleted everything she had typed into the input box.

Just then, a rabbit avatar flashed in the bottom right corner. It was Bionic Wonder House.

She had a decent impression of Bionic Wonder House. This netizen was quite enthusiastic; whenever she spoke in the group, Bionic Wonder House would almost immediately appear to reply.

Bionic Wonder House: It’s hard to talk about the details in the group. Can we chat privately?

Hand-Cut Lemon: Yes, please! I’m so troubled right now.

Bionic Wonder House: Why do you like knives? Is it because of your boyfriend’s influence?

Hand-Cut Lemon: That played a part, but it’s not the whole reason. Because of my own hobbies, I really do feel a curiosity toward these things.

Bionic Wonder House: Hobbies? You mean other than knives?

Yu Ning thought for a moment and decided to be more forthcoming with this enthusiastic netizen.

Hand-Cut Lemon: Knives are an extension of my hobby. I used to like writing in my spare time—mostly suspense and horror—so I’ve always been interested in things related to that.

Bionic Wonder House: You write novels?

Hand-Cut Lemon: Something like that.

Yu Ning actually didn’t want to mention her current situation. Her income from writing novels wasn’t stable; if she were being precise, she was currently unemployed.

Hand-Cut Lemon: Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about my boyfriend. Regarding the knives, not long after we made our relationship official, he told me about his hobby and showed me his collection, asking if I could accept it.

At the time, Yu Ning had felt he was quite sincere. Plus, she didn’t usually write “proper” things anyway. Suddenly encountering an “improper” person had sparked a sliver of curiosity, and when combined with that handsome face…

Hand-Cut Lemon: A lot of the knives in his collection were bought by me as gifts for him. It’s hard to find a partner who shares even a little bit of your interests, especially one with a face like that.

This was the part that made Yu Ning conflicted and hesitant.

Hand-Cut Lemon: The dreams I have are too aligned with reality. Sometimes I wonder if they’re precognitive dreams—a warning. Under normal circumstances, the right thing to do would be to get away from the source of the nightmare.

But Yu Ning couldn’t bear to leave.

Bionic Wonder House: Do you have any concerns?

Hand-Cut Lemon: He’s handsome, rich, and treats me well.

Bionic Wonder House: …Haha, then you definitely have to hesitate.

Yu Ning had always believed that in dating, it was better to be single than to settle. But when someone she was interested in appeared, she had to find a way to hold onto them.

Ling Wangjin was just such an interesting person. His excellent exterior had caught her eye the moment he appeared, and he perfectly fulfilled the requirements her parents had set when they helped her go on blind dates.

In fact, the first time Yu Ning saw the requirements they had posted in their “Pity the Hearts of Parents Everywhere” blind-dating group, she wondered if her parents had some fundamental misunderstanding of her.

Aside from the material requirements, there were many other nonsensical demands.

First, the profession: they insisted on doctors or police officers. A step down to related undergraduate majors was acceptable, but this was a hard requirement.

Yu Ning couldn’t understand it. While parents generally favored government-affiliated jobs, what was the deal with doctors and police officers?

Furthermore, her parents wanted her future partner to have enough free time to spend with her, to have a “correct” mindset, and to exercise frequently and be physically strong.

It was an all-encompassing requirement, from character and intellect to physical fitness and income.

Looking at this list of requirements, even Yu Ning felt that such an outstanding talent probably wouldn’t be found in the blind-dating market.

And so, when someone like Ling Wangjin appeared, he satisfied the visual, material, and even the parental requirements.

Hand-Cut Lemon: So, what should I do?

Bionic Wonder House: Keep telling me about your dreams. I’ll analyze them for you.

After the detour in their conversation, Yu Ning continued typing.

Hand-Cut Lemon: I was just saying how I went to the first-floor kitchen from a first-person perspective, right?

At that time, because it was her first time having such a reality-aligned dream, Yu Ning had been a bit dazed.

As the perspective walked into the kitchen and took down a slender Santoku knife from the center of the wall—the handle was wooden, with wave-like grooves at the bottom that perfectly fit four fingers—

Hand-Cut Lemon: In the dream, I even thought to myself that he had good taste. That was my favorite knife in the kitchen.

The blade was smooth and patternless, simple and elegant.

It looked unremarkable, but only when you held it in your hand could you feel its lightness and sharpness.

When slicing meat, the blade followed the grain of the muscle; it wasn’t even really cutting—the blade just glided in, slicing off a piece of meat.

Ling Wangjin: “It might not be the best-looking, but it’s definitely the most useful.”

His voice suddenly echoed in her head, and Yu Ning couldn’t help but smile involuntarily.

This was one of the reasons for her distress. Because the content of the nightmares was so close to real life, remembering them also linked to things that happened in reality.

And those things in reality were often sweet.

Just like now—even though she was recalling the content of a dream, her thoughts drifted to other things.

Yu Ning sighed and continued typing.

The owner of the perspective held the knife. The bright, clean blade was as clear as a mirror, reflecting a face—it was Ling Wangjin’s face.

The slightly sunken eye sockets, the long eyelashes, and the gaze directed from above.

When Yu Ning dreamt of this part, she shivered.

The Ling Wangjin in the dream was completely different from the one she saw every day; he looked much colder.

Before she could compare the subtle differences in the dream, the knife in her hand was put down and hung back on the wall.

Then, the perspective turned to the living room. He walked out of the kitchen and started heading upstairs along the spiral staircase.

Under the dark perspective, the same objects felt completely different.

Hand-Cut Lemon: In the morning, the house feels bright and open, but at night, it feels eerie and inexplicably oppressive.

He walked through the second-floor hallway and turned into a bedroom. And in that first-person perspective, Yu Ning saw herself.

Hand-Cut Lemon: Dreaming and seeing yourself—that is truly terrifying.

Bionic Wonder House: …Indeed.

And the protagonist of the dream, Ling Wangjin, sat at the head of the bed, quietly gazing at her as she slept.

Hand-Cut Lemon: Can you imagine waking up from a nightmare, and seeing the person who was watching you in the dream sitting at your bedside, watching you in real life?

Bionic Wonder House: …My condolences.

Bionic Wonder House: Didn’t you ask him why he did that?

Hand-Cut Lemon: He said he couldn’t sleep at night and wanted to look at me.

Bionic Wonder House: And then?

Yu Ning fell silent. In the first-person perspective, she couldn’t see the protagonist himself.

So, after she woke up, she had clearly seen the person sitting at the head of the bed.

He must have taken a shower downstairs; the scent of lemon body wash permeated the air, allowing her to inhale several lungfuls even as she gasped for breath in terror.

But in her past experiences, lemon body wash always appeared in scenes that made her heart race.

Yu Ning felt a heat flush through her by reflex, and the fear gradually receded.

The curtains had been left with a tiny gap—her own negligence before sleep.

The moonlight streamed in like flowing water, slowly spilling onto the person sitting at the head of the bed.

She saw the smooth lines of his shoulders and a bead of water on the hollow of his neck, which rolled along the grain of his muscle and into his collar.

This was Yu Ning’s greatest trouble.