High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1242: Chapter 304: The Witness (Part 1)

Regarding the conversation outside the teapot, Zheng Qing inside the teapot didn’t know much.

He vaguely felt that someone outside was saying something, but he could never hear it clearly. From the moment he entered the teapot, he felt as if he had entered a steamer, enclosed and sultry; the sounds from the outside world were as if muffled by a thick quilt by the time they reached his ears, faint as the buzz of a mosquito.

This kept his consciousness in a consistently drowsy state.

Yet, in this stupor, many different colored specks of light swayed and bobbed unsettically in his sea of consciousness, like anchors, keeping his consciousness from completely sinking into the unknown.

The young wizard curiously touched one of the red specks of light.

The red light was a bit prickly to the touch, like a needle’s point.

A great suction came from the speck, and after a whirlwind sensation, Zheng Qing found himself standing in a red world.

The sky was red, and so was the ground; mountains, rivers, grass, trees, and stones—all red. A small figure stood in the center of this red world, looking up and spreading its arms as if embracing the sky.

A chaotic murmur reverberated through this world, the sound growing louder and more piercing. Then the red clouds tumbled downwards, pressing down like roaring waves, engulfing the small figure.

Plomp!

With a loud noise, the red world shattered into tiny fragments, and Zheng Qing’s strand of consciousness returned to its stupor. The slight clarity allowed him to realize—that red world was his dream, a place he had dreamt about many times.

With this realization, the contents within other specks of light became traceable.

In those lights, Zheng Qing saw himself being chased by giants, desperately fleeing under massive shadows; he saw himself chased by wild dogs, running wildly with thorns piercing him, blood flowing; he saw himself swallowed by red waves; he saw himself buried by a red mountain landslide. Over and over.

A great puzzlement rose from his heart—why were the underlying colors of his dreams always such unsettling hues?

Besides the red specks of light, there were also some golden ones.

Zheng Qing tried touching one.

The golden light felt warm, as if touching the real world.

After the same sensation of the world spinning, he found himself in a completely different world.

Zheng Qing was back in a dream from last summer: thin mist, a red plastic track, light music coming from his arm band, and ahead, a black cat leading the way.

It was when he was taking the entrance exam in his dream.

The young wizard watched himself from a third-person perspective as the black cat led him off the track, into the examination room; he watched Sister Korma pushing him gleefully through a black door; he saw himself buried in writing his paper—from this third-person perspective, Zheng Qing realized how bizarre it was that he had obediently sat at a desk to answer the exam.

He would bet the school had definitely cast some magic in the examination hall that compelled one to answer the paper irresistibly.

Another golden speck’s dream differed only slightly from the first, both concerning that summer, that morning dream.

Only, in the second golden speck, the protagonist was no longer the running boy but the guiding black cat—the boy and an old man discussing the Dao, a water buffalo lying quietly to the side, tumbling down the mountain to become the runner’s guide.

Zheng Qing felt his brain a bit muddled.

He didn’t remember this dream.

Yet, he could easily discern that this dream was just as real as the previous one. This brought him even bigger troubles: in other words, was it he himself who had led himself into the examination room and became a student at the First University?

Following the logic in his dream, Zheng Qing always felt that something was not quite right.

With questions in mind, he clicked on the third color of light. These were some blue lights, not many in number, and distributed unevenly, some exceedingly large, some very small and dim.

Touching them felt like touching ice, chilling one from the inside out.

After the world spun around, Zheng Qing saw the scene inside the biggest and brightest blue light.

Under the pitch-black night sky, the rippling lake water gently lapped against the shore. On a huge rockery, a white kitten meowed, playing with a tall witch.

Zheng Qing saw another ”transparent” version of himself.

He also saw a demon with a face smooth as porcelain, devoid of eyebrows and eyes.

The forgotten memories had their seal broken.

The fear from that time, the anger from that time, surged up like a tide, occupying every corner of the young wizard’s mind. He remembered, this was the scene he dreamt of in Professor Yao’s office while undergoing tests.

He felt his thoughts trembling.

Countless confusions and questions tumbled and boiled in his mind, as if they would burst his brain at any moment. He urgently needed some explanations, some evidence to dispel the dreadful thoughts at the bottom of his heart.

This urgency was so strong that it made his previously groggy sensation much clearer.

He clearly heard the sound of the fire burning under the pot, the bubbling of the potion inside it, and he heard Mr. Wu and the Yellow Flowered Cat conversing outside the pot.

Then he heard a faint, thumping, thumping sound.

It was his heart.

His newly formed, still growing heart.

From the moment he heard the heartbeat, the ”thumping” sounds grew louder and louder, more and more resonant, until at last, like thunder, it caused the pot lid to buzz and jump.

”It’s ready,” Mr. Wu’s voice said, ”Prepare to open the pot... Don’t stand in front of the spout, be careful of the potion vapors hitting you.”

”Nobody knows how to dodge better than I do!” the Yellow Flowered Cat confidently replied.

Then Zheng Qing heard a loud ’clang,’ as if someone was striking a huge bronze gong next to his ear, causing him to tremble from head to toe, his mind going blank and thoughts completely severed.

By the time he came to his senses, he was wrapped in a blanket, sitting in Mr. Wu’s recliner shivering.

Outside, it was dark, and lights inside the shop shone on the young man, providing no warmth.

Zheng Qing opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but found he couldn’t make a sound.

He looked at Mr. Wu in terror.

”Don’t rush, take it slow,” Mr. Wu, holding a cup of tea, brought it to the young wizard’s lips, ”Drink some tea first, warm your body. Just out of the pot... I mean the teapot, it might not be that warm.”

”He could’ve totally gotten you a bigger pot,” the Yellow Flowered Cat assured him with certainty, ”but he’s always been stingy... Did you know? During the time you were being ’cooked’ by him, he gave away all my dried fish!”

Zheng Qing tugged at the corner of his mouth, forcing a difficult smile.

Mr. Wu turned his head and looked at the Yellow Flowered Cat with a smile, ”Now that Zheng Qing is awake... it’s time for you to run another errand. Bring the young lady from the Jiang Family here.”