A Good-for-Nothing 6: A Plague of Dream Eaters

There was a deathly hush in the cabin. He Zheng observed that apart from himself, the man on his left side whom he nearly strangled to death, and the man standing in front of him, all other passengers in the cabin were fast asleep. Remarkably, he had made such loud noises yet none of them was woken up, as if they were dead.

The man made no response to his question. He fished a Thermos bottle out of somewhere and passed it to the man who was coughing constantly. As if it was some kind of treasure, Zu Zhichong hurriedly took the bottle, opened it and took two gulps, heedless of the temperature of whatever it was in the bottle. It was not until this moment that his face, which was ghastly white due to hypoxia, regained part of its former ruddiness.

Zu Zhichong wiped off the tears that had reflexively flowed out of the corners of his eyes, and then he abruptly rose from his seat and moved behind that man so quick that He Zheng couldn't even see his movements clearly. Not having yet got over the scare, Zu Zhichong thundered, "Fuck! You still have the nerve to ask? I was asleep, and the moment I opened my eyes, you came at me and held me around the neck with a frighteningly ferocious look on your face. You tried to strangle me to death!"

Mind in a mess, He Zheng feebly shook his head, having no idea what had just happened.

"I tried to strangle you?"

"Of course you did. Surely you don't think I was trying to strangle myself, do you?" Zu Zhichong was angry but afraid to approach He Zheng due to what he had done to him a moment ago.

Finally, that man spoke. "Enough. Go back to your seat."

"No. He scares me, Chief." Tears in eyes, Zu Zhichong was determined not to go back.

He Zheng didn't have the time to watch the two of them goofing around. The moment that man spoke, he found that the man's voice was exactly the same as that of the one who previously yelled "Cease!"

"What on earth happened? What is going on?" He Zheng thundered.

The man cast a bland glance at him. Zu Zhichong was still crouching beside his legs, eyes brimming with tears. The man didn't make him sit back to his seat. "If you are strangled by a common person, your Master Shifu would probably rejoice when he hears the news," said the man as he leisurely looked at Zu Zhichong.

Hearing this, Zu Zhichong felt a cold shiver of fear run through him. He fought back his tears but made up his mind not to go back to his original seat. With a frustrated look on his face, too afraid to say anything, he just stood on the spot.

"Chief, let's swap places. You should sit with your man!"

The man looked at He Zheng. Remarkably, as if his gaze really possessed some kind of power that could calm people down, He Zheng's rapid heartbeat gradually returned to normal.

The man's attitude towards He Zheng was somewhat different from that he held towards Zu Zhichong. And the tone of voice in which he spoke to He Zheng was also not as cold, but it was not perceivably friendly either. It was just considerably milder. "There's a Dream Eater on this plane. You were dragged into the dream created by it. This Dream Eater is very powerful. It's actually capable of manipulating you into attacking people in the real world."

By attacking people in the real world, he was referring to He Zheng's trying to strangle Zu Zhichong a moment ago.

He Zheng was instantly on the alert. No matter what a Dream Eater was, he could tell that it was definitely something evil by the mere name of it.

The man sat down beside He Zheng, his eyes sweeping around the cabin. He Zheng subconsciously followed suit and looked around. The whole cabin was deathly still.

"What happened to them?" He Zheng unhappily knitted his eyebrows.

As if the situation was a little tricky, the man put his hand onto the armrest, tapped his fingers on it and heaved a soft sigh. "All people on board have been bewitched by the Dream Eater."

He Zheng's mind went blank and he blurted, "All people on board?!" Zu Zhichong, who originally had been acting vulnerable, instantly stopped pretending. With a grim look on his face, he looked at the man and asked in a quivering voice, "Including the pilots?"

The man let out a deep sigh. Manifestly, he also had never expected that things would get so intractable.

The sigh was, without doubt, an affirmative answer. The countenance of Zu Zhichong changed drastically. "People enchanted by a Dream Eater cannot be woken up by external forces. Otherwise, their souls will be disembodied..."

'We're tens of thousands of feet high above the ground! Now even the pilots are enchanted. Aren't we doomed?' he thought in panic.

The man told Zu Zhichong, "I just wounded that Dream Eater in the dream it created and weakened it. I can easily locate it. When I do, kill it."

He Zheng was totally bewildered by their words. 'What the hell are they talking about?'

Hearing this, Zu Zhichong nodded with seeming seriousness. "Okay. I can do that."

The man said, "I'll go into the dream to look for it right now. You know what to do when the occasion arises."

"I got this, Chief."

He Zheng's brows furrowed. The man rested his eyes on him and said, "We need you to cooperate with us."

"What do you need me to do?"

Before he could ask any further questions, Zu Zhichong, who was behind him, smiled maliciously at him, stretched out his hand and gave him a severe blow on the neck. He Zheng felt a sharp pain and with that he passed out. Before losing his consciousness, he heard Zu Zhichong smile wryly, "The Dream Eater's target is you. How are we supposed to find it if you don't enter the dream?"

He Zheng was speechless. If it weren't for that he fainted soon after that, he would definitely roar, "Why did you hit me so fucking hard?! You nearly broke my neck!"

Chapter end