Chapter One: The Dream of Mu

  （1）

  This is an old abandoned warehouse. The air around seems to have a faint smell of industrial alcohol mixed with dust. Yu Chen strained his eyes, but it was futile due to the darkness. He couldn't remember how he got here or what he did before that, as if he had just opened his eyes in this eerie place. Although he couldn't see the surroundings clearly, a line of text appeared in his mind as if someone deliberately controlled it: "The medical school warehouse scheduled for demolition." There was no other information besides this.

  Yu Chen is a sophomore at Y University, originally his poor grades wouldn't even get him accepted into a vocational school, but because of his father, a real estate tycoon in W City, Yu Chen was able to attend Y University and enjoy the luxuries.

  Apart from the sound of his own breathing and the crunching of gravel beneath his feet, the warehouse was eerily quiet, making even Yu Chen, who normally feared nothing in heaven or earth, feel a chill run down his spine.

  Damn it! He cursed quietly, this broken warehouse is so big, he has been walking for half a day and still can't find the main door, and his phone just happens to not be on him.

  Damn it, if this goes on any longer, the appointment with Ge Tianyu at the inn will be ruined! To think that he had put in so much effort to get her - thinking of this, he quickened his pace. The "dang dang" sound of footsteps echoed hollowly in the empty warehouse.

  Underfoot, a small object was stepped on, making a grinding sound that made one's teeth ache. It was a lighter, and it was unknown who had discarded it here, but it was still slightly warm to the touch, with a smooth texture.

  The lighter is very old-fashioned, and the flame is also small, only illuminating an area with a radius of less than half a meter around it. The dim light appears to be somewhat unstable due to the flicker of the flame.

  A slender girl with long black hair down to her waist sat on a low medicine cabinet at Yu Chen's feet, her back to him. The wide white skirt spread out on the gray-black cement floor, showing a wonderful color contrast.

  Yu Chen almost reflexively shifted his gaze to the wall after seeing her, and only then did he let out a sigh of relief when he saw the small black shadow belonging to the girl on the mottled wall surface - this couldn't be blamed on him for being superstitious, it was just that in an abandoned pharmaceutical warehouse, sitting quietly like this was a girl who was hard not to associate with certain horror movie female ghosts - but as a man, thinking this way was indeed too childish. Yu Chen smiled self-deprecatingly.

  The girl was intently arranging some white cylindrical objects, completely ignoring Yu Chen, which made him somewhat unaccustomed to being ignored. Just as he was about to speak up, he heard the girl softly muttering to herself, her slender fingers continuously counting the cylindrical objects that were neatly arranged on the ground.

  "How did one go missing..."

  Her voice was soft and gentle, making Yu Chen's heart skip a beat. He hastily took a step forward, half-kneeling beside the girl, and asked softly: "What are you looking for, little sister?" But in the instant he saw the white objects in front of the girl, his voice came to an abrupt halt, as if someone had grabbed his throat.

  The girl slowly turned around, with a gentle smile on her delicate face. After seeing the lighter in Yu Chen's right hand, she exclaimed in surprise: "I said why was one missing, it turns out to be with you!"

  Yu Chen slowly turned his head to an angle, and his somewhat out-of-focus eyes cleared up the object in his hand - no, it wasn't a lighter, but a white bone with tiny green fluorescent spots shining on it.

  The light went out abruptly in the next second, and the suffocating darkness enveloped this small corner again. Yu Chen's right hand relaxed, and the pale white bones fell from his hand to the ground with a dull thud, then rolled into the midst of the neatly arranged bones.

  （2）

  Yu Chen suddenly opened his eyes, a hint of heart palpitations flashed across his face, he struggled to calm down his heavy breathing, cold sweat soaked the pillow into an irregular large circle.

  7:22. Yu Chen picked up his mobile phone from the bedside table, pressed a few keys, and the ringtone "Dedicated to Alice" had just rung for a few seconds when the person on the other end answered.

  "Are you stuck in traffic? Why aren't you here yet?" The low, sweet voice was tinged with a petulant complaint. The sound was incredibly alluring, but it reminded Yu Chen of the girl from his dream earlier, and he suddenly lost his desire to flirt.

  "Tian Yu." He struggled to steady his voice, frantically searching for an excuse "My dad is back, I can't go out."

  "Oh." Ge Tianyu responded with a somewhat disappointed tone, "So you won't be able to come?"

  "Okay." Yu Chen somewhat helplessly coaxed her, "Next time I'll make it up to you properly. You like that Dior long windbreaker, right? I'll give it to you on your birthday." He put down his phone and rubbed his icy forehead, then tossed the phone back onto the bedside table, but knocked a lighter to the ground in the process. He glared fiercely at the expensive lighter, and cold sweat seeped out of his forehead again.

  A dimly lit medical school warehouse, a pretty girl who seems somewhat familiar, and those white bones spelt out the word "wood". The dream was so real that he could recall every detail with his eyes closed, so real that it didn't even feel like a dream.

  "Master, dinner is ready. Will you be going downstairs to eat or would you like it brought up?" asked Zhen Ayi respectfully from outside the door.

  If Yu Chen had been in his usual temper, he would have impatiently mumbled a reply, but today was different. He even felt somewhat grateful that Mrs. Zhen had come to call him - this helped him gradually extricate himself from the quagmire of his nightmare and wake up.

  "I'm going downstairs to eat." Yu Chen walked out of the bedroom in her slippers, and the dark brown solid wood floor felt very comfortable underfoot. The arrangement of various decorations in the hall matched perfectly with it, giving a warm and grand visual effect. Yu Chen's heart was slightly at ease.

  Zhen Yi is the housekeeper of Yu's residence, and has been in the Yu family for more than six years, earning the trust of Old Master Yu, that is, Yu Chen's father. When she first came to Yu's residence to apply for a job, her family had just suffered a great disaster - her husband and one daughter died unexpectedly, and due to medical expenses, they owed a huge debt, so she could only bring her eldest daughter to seek employment everywhere. Mr. Yu also saw that her life was pitiful, and since her upbringing and temperament were not bad, he kept her.

  Miss Zhen put a plate of caviar on the dining table, then said respectfully, "Young Master, just now the Old Master called to remind you that you must attend the company's anniversary dinner at 8 o'clock tomorrow night."

  It's another anniversary dinner! Yu Chen hummed and pushed the exquisite porcelain plate to one side. He didn't know how many times he had done this in the past few days. Heaven knows that he was completely uninterested in those mysterious banquets with fragrant clothes and shadows, wearing a suit, tie, holding a high-footed cup like an idiot for four or five hours, and from time to time facing the gaze of successful people from all walks of life, either praising or criticizing him. Even those women were all dignified and noble, as if they were Princess Diana.

  He muttered a curse under his breath, but didn't dare show his dissatisfaction with his father openly. He picked up an ancient coin from the table that he had taken a photo of earlier and lightly flicked it with his finger, causing the coin to spin rapidly.

  It's unknown whether it was the special weight distribution of the ancient coins or the small friction on the desktop, but the coin wouldn't stop spinning. Yu Chen watched as the spinning coin seemed to be enjoying itself, and his heart burned with anger: "Damn it, why am I so unlucky today? Can't even get along with a broken coin!" He swept the coin off the table with one hand, grabbed his jacket, and stormed out of the door, slamming it shut behind him.

  Madam Zhen waved her hand indifferently, letting the servant clear away the dishes on the table. Behind her, in the corner of the wall, that ancient coin was still spinning non-stop.

  （3）

  Yu Chen didn't know how many times he was late again.

  But he didn't care, and neither did any of the teachers. So the new psychology teacher on the podium just glanced at him and continued to read the courseware on the slides in a half-dead tone.

  "Ah Chun, over here!" Ge Tianyu stood up straight from the back row and beckoned to Yu Chen. She was wearing a blue off-the-shoulder dress with a deep V-neck and intricate eye makeup, looking pure and charming. As soon as Yu Chen saw her, his heart skipped a beat, and without any regard for being in class, he pulled Ge Tianyu into a passionate kiss.

  "You annoying guy!" Ge Tianyu said with a slightly red face, "We're in class right now."

  Yu Chen then casually wiped her face with a towel and sat down comfortably, teasingly saying, "It's not like we haven't kissed before, why are you blushing so much."

  Ge Tianyu glared at him and ignored his words, continuing to take notes on her own.

  When his girlfriend ignored him, Yu Chen could only lie on the table bored, listening to that middle-aged woman in her menopause speaking with a strange tone and accent from who-knows-where, dryly talking about what should have been an interesting psychological analysis.

  "There's a saying: the day has its thoughts, and the night has its dreams. The content of dreams is related to the impressions retained in one's consciousness when awake. Many times, we can analyze a person's psychological state through their dreams. It can be said that certain people and things that appear in dreams are the most real memories for people."

  Yu Chen's face changed color.

  "We say that dreams are a physiological phenomenon produced by the temporary neural connections in the cerebral cortex after the biological body receives certain stimuli from the outside world, and when weak stimuli from both inside and outside reach certain parts of the cerebral cortex during sleep. Because the brain's memories are often disordered and unclear, the content of dreams is mostly chaotic and illusory - but this does not mean that valuable information cannot be extracted to explore people's psychological activities."

  This theory about dreams is like forcing open the long-sealed gate of memories, and the girl in the dream slowly turns her head with a gentle smile.

  Yu Chen's pupils suddenly contracted.

  Some things from a few years ago flooded his mind. It was still in high school, and he remembered that there was a very beautiful girl in the neighboring class who was considered the campus belle by boys, and the girl's name was Qiaomu.

  That was a beautiful and proud girl, who had always ignored his pursuit. Yu Chen had always been a person who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals, and soon after one evening self-study session, Yu Chen and some of his friends cornered Qiao Mu in an abandoned warehouse on the school grounds that was about to be demolished. He still vaguely remembered Qiao Mu's struggling expression at the time, and the terrified look had perfectly satisfied them.

  Later, Qiao Mu's parents surprisingly reported to the police. A day later, he threw the battered Qiao Mu in front of her parents.

  "I don't want to interfere with your decision to call the police, but if you insist on doing so, your daughter will lose more than just a rib." Seeing the terrified expressions of Qiao Mu's parents, he really felt like he could dominate the world at that moment, and no one, not even the law, could threaten him.

  Later, Qiao Mu transferred from their high school and lost contact, until he heard that she was also in this university when he went to college, but he didn't pay attention to it, just a passing mention.

  But after all these years have passed, why would she appear in his dream in such a terrifying form?

  He has done many similar things over the years, and even six years ago, he caused a loss of life. However, after his father settled the matter, he simply treated it as a topic for conversation and then threw it to the back of his mind.

  He had never felt guilty about it - he had even forgotten about it, so why was he still having such dreams?

  "These teachers only know how to read from the textbook, they never talk about anything interesting." Ge Tianyu closed her notebook, grumbled for a while, then suddenly pulled Yu Chen and said with great interest, "Do you know? Sometimes dreams are very magical. I heard that a few years ago, a foreign fugitive was given up by the police, but one day he died in his own dream. It's said that the souls of those people he killed entered his dream..." She talked to herself for a while before realizing that her boyfriend's face didn't look quite right, and asked hurriedly, "What's wrong? Are you uncomfortable?"

  Yu Chen snapped back to reality and forced a smile, "Didn't sleep well last night."

  "Had a nightmare?"

  "No." Yu Chen's gaze shifted elsewhere, "Stayed up late."

  The teacher on the platform put away his lesson plan and walked out of the classroom on time. However, the boys in the class did not rush out of the classroom as usual, but instead gathered in small groups to discuss something in hushed tones, and the girls were doing the same, each with a serious expression on their faces.

  "What's going on?" Yu Chen furrowed his brow, but he was actually delighted to have this opportunity to change the subject.

  Ge Tianyu also quieted down at this moment, remaining silent for a while before speaking softly, "Don't you know? Qiao Mu from the medical department committed suicide in that old warehouse behind the experimental building."

  （4）

  Yu Chen said he couldn't describe his current feelings, and since Ge Tianyu told him the news, he had been feeling stifled. On the way from the classroom to the cafeteria, almost everyone was talking about Qiao Mu's death, but each person was so calm, it was unclear whether it was because such events were too frequent or human nature was too indifferent.

  The scene was sealed off after the identification was completed, and the campus was filled with figures in police uniforms and reporters from various media outlets who were lugging photography equipment in the scorching heat. Ge Tianyu did not see the scene herself, but one of her roommates was a medical student and was one of the few people who had seen the scene.

  Yu Chen didn't know why he was so eager to learn about Qiao Mu's suicide, when he should have stayed far away from it. But as soon as he thought of the eerie figure of Qiao Mu in his dream yesterday, nothing else mattered.

  "Everyone can't understand how someone as excellent as her would commit suicide, with good looks and great grades." The girl said, "But she left a note on the BBS, and in the past few days we thought she was a bit strange. Qiaomu is a introverted person who doesn't like to talk much, but those few days were weird..."

  Yu Chen was not interested in these things, so he didn't wait for the girl to finish speaking and interrupted her, "Did Qiao Mu commit suicide in your department's pharmacy warehouse?"

  "Right, that warehouse is going to be demolished and rebuilt in a few days - it was said to be a dangerous building when the school building was inspected last time - I don't know how she got the key from there either."

  "Can you describe the situation on the scene in detail?" Yu Chen gently pressed the part of her heart, and the scene in her dream became clear again, as if it were real.

  “She was dead in the corner of the warehouse, with blood all over the floor, staining her white dress red. The wound looked like it had been torn open by some sharp object, ripping through her abdomen... In front of her, there was a wooden sign made from bones, they said it was a ribcage, and that she had dug it out herself...”

  Everything was so perfectly matched, weaving reality and fantasy together, communicating the past and the future. It's unbelievable yet impossible to doubt: the same warehouse, the same person, the same white bones. He remembered the bone he had picked up before, with a clear mark on it where a steel plate had been clamped, indicating that it was one of his own broken ribs.

  When coincidences pile up, they are no longer coincidences but reality. All this reality made Yu Chen feel bewildered and terrified: could it be true that Qiao Mu's soul had entered his dream to take revenge on him, just as Ge Tianyu had said? Yesterday he had the dream around 7 o'clock, which happened to be within the range of Qiao Mu's death time announced by the forensic doctor. This was not a premonition, nor a flashback, but a live broadcast.

  Soul entering a dream? No, in this world, there's no such thing as a soul. Whoever it is, after death, they're just an empty shell. If there was a soul, why didn't Zhen Tianqi, who jumped off the building and killed himself after being toyed with, come to his dreams instead of Jiao Mu, who only broke one rib? Yu Chen let out a cold laugh, feeling ashamed of his earlier loss of composure. He stood up and said to Ge Tianyu, "Let's go."

  She had only taken two steps when the girl caught up with her again, pulling out a sky-blue letter from her bag. "I found this in Qiao Mu's psychology book. If you're interested, take a look."

  The letter paper carries a faint tea fragrance, presumably written recently. Qiao Mu's words are introverted and elegant.

  With bones as medium, transformed into good wood

  I wish to dwell in it and become enchanted, entering your dream realm

  The God of Death descended, beginning with the dream of wood.

  Hope you all collect more ~~ If you think it's good, give some comments and recommendations ~~ I love you all ~~

  The Rebirth of the Killer Queen Consort