On the other end of the receiver, there was silence for a second or two, seemingly too embarrassed to speak: "So, about that thing, the bedwetting incident! I just told you about this—she certainly doesn’t know I told you about it!"
Fushimi Rokushin felt his doubts lessen slightly; he knew now was not the time for pleasantries. Getting straight to the point, he asked, "What did you mean by ’don’t commit suicide’?"
"If you die once in the dream, you’ll forget something!" Minamoto Tamako said urgently. "I’ve just died three times, only to find gaps in my memory... damn it! What exactly did I forget?!"
With her reminder, Fushimi Roku realized where the sense of anomaly had come from.
He activated the Judicial Court in his mind, quickly retrieving his memory files, and discovered that all memories from April this year were gone. He couldn’t even recall what he had forgotten.
Minamoto Tamako didn’t pause, and he heard her continue: "If you die too many times, you’ll forget that you’re in a dream! So definitely don’t commit suicide, and don’t get killed! This hypnosis treatment is different from the last one; dreams are very dangerous!"
Fushimi Roku understood the first part; dying once makes you forget part of your memory, and eventually, you would forget who you are or where you are... if unlucky, maybe the next death would make him forget about the Nishino siblings.
What’s worse, Fushimi Roku wasn’t a local.
He lived two lives, with Zhou Hao’s memories being dominant, while "Fushimi Roku’s" memories acted as a backup—if Zhou Hao’s memories were gone, would he still be himself?
Even if he could wake up, the soul in his body might not be himself anymore!
Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Fushimi Roku clamped the phone between his shoulder and ear, rushed into Tamako’s room, found a ballpoint pen, and wrote a sentence on his arm:
"No system means it’s a dream."
When Fushimi Roku woke up, he noticed that there were no criminal entries above Tamako’s head, which was the first indication to him that he was dreaming.
Now, he planned to use this to differentiate between dreams and reality.
Fushimi Roku wasn’t sure if this would be effective; perhaps the next time he woke, the words on his arm would disappear.
While writing, he didn’t pause his questioning: "What do you mean by ’dreams are very dangerous’? Will there be monster attacks?"
"No... it’s not that kind of danger..." Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novel✦fire.net
The voice in the conversation became distorted, an ear-piercing electronic noise overshadowing the speech.
Fushimi Roku uttered a few ’moshi moshi’ into the phone, vaguely hearing Minamoto Tamako shouting, but couldn’t make out what she was saying.
He thought it might be because the landline was too far away, affecting the call, so he held the phone and returned to the living room, only to find the sound quality still poor.
"I’ll hang up first and call you back!"
Fushimi Roku shouted, looked down, and found there was no caller ID on the landline.
Fushimi Roku was startled, and before he could react, he heard the sound of the door opening from outside the living room. Minamoto Tamako’s voice seemed to come from a great distance, mixed with faint words like ’die,’ ’obedient,’ ’rules’... simultaneously, footsteps came from the hallway entrance, and he turned to see a pale face peeking from the corner.
That face looked like a paper cutout from a photograph, lacking any vitality, with hollow eyes staring straight at Fushimi Roku, accompanied by a grim and hoarse inquiry:
"Is your homework... finished?"