Eldritch Horror Theatre

In the past, Fu Qian might have chalked this peculiar convergence of concepts up to the strange laws of the dream realm.

After his meeting with Excellency Patches in the Archipelago and their deep dive into the true nature of dreams, however, he had gained a much clearer understanding.

The version of himself inside a dream wasn’t truly him—it was more like a Reflection.

Compared to the rule that ”a Night Demon’s true form cannot be recognized,” could this seamless, imperceptible convergence also be understood as a special kind of projection?

It was like looking into a mirror, except it was a funhouse mirror.

Take the Seed of Writhing corresponding to him, for instance. It appeared to be sitting right inside the communion chalice, yet in essence it was merely a warped image in a funhouse mirror; theoretically, the real thing was still lodged in his chest.

The reason for emphasizing this point was to answer the earlier question—where had the Red Moon’s Seed of Writhing gone?

Fu Qian didn’t think the Red Moon had used her high status to brute-force an exemption from the dream’s laws.

If the ”projection” theory held true, then as long as the Red Moon was connected to this dream, the Seed of Writhing in her eye socket should have manifested here naturally as well.

Yet it was nowhere to be found. What was he to make of that?Was the Red Moon merely pulling strings from the outside without participating directly?

That seemed like a reasonable guess, though it was also the last thing he wanted to see. The whole point of this trip was to resolve the Red Moon’s problem; failing to establish a connection with her midway through would undoubtedly diminish the value of the entire operation.

All he could do next would be to use Serana’s advancement ritual to study the ultimate principle behind the curse that ”Annalise is Tilanqi.”

Fortunately, there were other possible explanations.

Consider it from the Red Moon’s perspective. As noted earlier, helping open this dream was likely a rather painful experience for her.

Because it was something ”Annalise” was supposed to do.

Wouldn’t every trace reflected in this dream serve as a sharp reminder of that fact, stirring up her disgust?

So if she had no choice but to be inside it, wouldn’t the Red Moon be inclined to hide whatever the funhouse mirror showed?

Yes. That Seed of Writhing should have been here all along—it had simply been hidden away.

It was a speculative guess without much hard evidence, not worth pouring too much energy into chasing down.

Still, if he had an angle, there was no harm in testing it out while he was at it.

As luck would have it, Fu Qian had just such an idea, and it was easy to test—

Rather than doing anything drastic to the pupa inside the chalice before him, he walked on and stopped beside the last empty cup he had inspected. ...

Given the symmetry of the long table, couldn’t this last chalice theoretically be considered the first one as well?

Especially when the two adjacent chalices both held something inside.

Going by chronological order, the pupa on the Red Moon should indeed be the earliest one to hatch.

In short, if the Red Moon’s Seed of Writhing was here too, this vessel was the obvious choice any way you looked at it.

Even though it really was empty right now, with no cheap illusion merely hiding the contents from sight.

Running his index finger across the bottom of the chalice, Fu Qian came up with nothing.

The gesture even carried a faint sense of déjà vu—like being given the cold shoulder by The Church and denied even a bite to eat.

With his firm Dao heart, however, he didn’t mind at all, and sat down squarely on the high-backed chair beside him.

Yes, Fu Qian had wanted to comment on it the moment he laid eyes on it.

The style of the ritual tabletop didn’t matter, but this was his first time seeing a chair placed right beside the table.

It felt a bit too casual. If there hadn’t been only a single chair placed at one end of the long table, he might have mistaken the setup for a summit of world leaders. And that wasn’t even getting into how mismatched the furniture was.

On one hand, the long table was ridiculously tall, clearly designed for conducting rituals while standing.

On the other hand, while the chair was finely styled, it was the backrest—not the legs—that had been dramatically elongated.

The end result was that once he sat down, barely more than his head cleared the tabletop, and his field of vision was completely filled by the massive communion chalice right in front of him.

Any trace of solemn dignity was gone, degrading the scene from a summit of leaders to a competitive eater with eyes only for food—wait a second, the portion size really did look huge.

Unbothered by how it looked, Fu Qian had made a point of putting the lid back on the chalice before sitting down, turning the cover—shaped like a Xenomorph’s head—to face him squarely, looking every bit like a diner eager to dig in.

And as he lifted that elongated lid once more, a pupa marked with strange patterns filled the exquisite vessel.

Not only was it pulsing faintly like the others, it was so huge that the chalice could barely contain it.

...

So the chair really had been moved here temporarily? The Red Moon certainly knew her way around things like this.

It was still spindle-shaped, though its surface was no longer quite as smooth.

Beneath patterns that looked even more sinister, unsettling curves were faintly visible inside. This Seed of Writhing had clearly made it through a fair portion of its incubation and was much closer to breaking out of its Cocoon.

From that detail alone, the odds that it belonged to the Red Moon shot up dramatically.

As for why the chalice had been completely empty a moment ago, only for the thing to pop right out once he sat down to eat?

Simple. That was how the Red Moon had hidden it—an unoccupied seat didn’t need food in its cup.

Indeed, practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.

Since he had deduced that the essence of this dream worked like building blocks made of various concepts, he shouldn’t let himself be bound by mundane thinking when figuring out how the Red Moon had concealed her Seed of Writhing.

Instead, he had to follow the rules of the dream—only a concept could counter a concept.

For a Seed of Writhing that had become part of the communion meal, making it vanish outright was impossible, just like the roses earlier that grew right back after being plucked.

Not to mention that because of his earlier instructions, the Red Moon would try to avoid doing anything too drastic to it.

That meant finding another way—like dragging a chair over from somewhere else to link the concepts of ”diner” and ”chalice.”

From there, the empty chair implied that ”the diner is absent,” effectively hiding the food inside the cup.

The moment he sat down and occupied the chair, however, that effect broke.

It was admittedly a bit abstract; without his usual sound habits of thought, coming up with that angle wouldn’t have been easy.

Besides, there was another key point: in Fu Qian’s eyes, the Red Moon’s way of thinking already worked along similar lines.

The last time they had tea at The Bookstore, the way she had shoved the entire teacup straight into her mouth had hinted at that.

It was by combining those two angles that Fu Qian had leaned toward this guess.

All in all, empathy took a lot more than empty words or shedding a few tears.

And right now, holding himself to such strict standards had paid off.

”Don’t worry, everything is under control.”

Forced out of hiding, the Seed of Writhing seemed to give a strange twitch.

Fu Qian didn’t dig in, however; he merely gave a slight nod, softly reassuring the name behind it.