Yu Hao looked down at his WeChat chat window with Zhou Sheng. Aside from those few simple conversations, they never exchanged any further opinions.

“About that…we’ll have to start from the day I tried to commit suicide in the back mountains.” Yu Hao murmured, then told Huang Ting roughly about what had happened. Huang Ting just listened earnestly and didn’t interrupt Yu Hao, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“That was the first time I met Zhou Sheng in my dream.” Yu Hao said, “As for the rest, I think you can already deduce what had happened.”

Huang Ting didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. An idea suddenly surfaced in Yu Hao’s mind; it was vague, hazy, and he understood some of the kind of arrangement and set-up Zhou Sheng had planned in the dark. Huang Ting wasn’t entirely clear about the Golden Crow Wheel and their motive for entering dreams, or in other words, he has a certain degree of misunderstanding regarding this device. Telling him the truth posed quite a huge risk, but it also opened up another possibility— perhaps Huang Ting would change some of the ideas he had first held after he realised the true power of the Golden Crow Wheel.

Sure enough, Huang Ting answered, “It’s a little different from what I imagined, but the difference isn’t that significant.”

Yu Hao, “What was the Golden Crow Wheel you had originally envisaged?”

Huang Ting didn’t reply. At this moment, Yu Hao clearly recalled the information provided by the research report on the second slide of the PPT; it disclosed a lot of content that he and Zhou Sheng had never thought of before, and he had no way of understanding it with his current body of knowledge, so he could only forcibly commit it to memory before going back to find relevant literature for comparison.

Huang Ting, “So this is a device that can be used to change the hearts of others.”

“To be exact,” Yu Hao answered, “It’s a device used to help others and to change their hearts. We can’t directly interfere with a person’s dreamscape; we can only find the master of the dreamscape and help him seize back his totem.”

Huang Ting didn’t seem to take it seriously. He flipped a slide, and a photo of Liang Jinming lying in bed unconscious appeared on it.

“That is to say, as long as you’re willing, you guys can enter my dreams as well.” Huang Ting said.

“It’s my turn to ask questions.” Yu Hao cut in precisely at the best opportunity and released a smoke grenade, “Where’s the Golden Crow Wheel now?”

“No comment.” Huang Ting answered, “In any case, it’s not with me.”

“Then our conversation can’t continue.” Yu Hao was ready to get up. He said to Huang Ting, “This isn’t how friends communicate.”

“All right.” Huang Ting stopped Yu Hao from getting off the bed, “It was handed over to my superiors.”

“Which superior?” Yu Hao said, “I remember you had quite a few.”

Huang Ting dismissed it with a laugh, but he was still thinking. Yu Hao said, “How do you guys plan to study it now?”

Huang Ting answered, “It’s my turn. How did you guys wake up someone who was unconscious?”

“Subconscious.” Yu Hao said, “I’m not sure about the general principles behind it, only Zhou Sheng understands them.”

Yu Hao roughly described what had happened in Liang Jinmin’s dream that day. Huang Ting said, “So in the end you realised that Liang Jinmin had forgotten about the surveillance video. And I was wondering too…how she managed to get suggestions from you about things that even she couldn’t recall.”

Huang Ting cast another meaningful glance at Yu Hao, signalling for him to ask his question.

Yu Hao pondered for a moment. “Now that the Golden Crow Wheel is with you guys, all your questions can be answered through research. Why are you guys still pursuing us so relentlessly?”

Both on the surface and underneath, Yu Hao’s words have always been trying to sound Huang Ting out. He wanted to know if he knew that the Golden Crow Wheel they had switched out and taken was a fake. However, through Huang Ting’s observation, Yu Hao was now almost certain that they still didn’t know that they had taken a fake Golden Crow Wheel.

“You know why better than I do.” Huang Ting said absent-mindedly, “Aside from you and Zhou Sheng, no one else can activate it.”

Yu Hao, “I can’t activate it. Only Zhou Sheng has control over it. Let me take a look?”

Huang Ting said, “It’s not with me, don’t try to sound me out anymore. Come, next question. Can you guys erase other people’s memories through it?”

Huang Ting flipped to the next slide. This slide was completely bereft, except for a player at the bottom of the screen. He clicked on ‘autoplay’, and it started playing a recording of Ou Qihang when he was hypnotised. Sure enough, it was just as what Yu Hao had speculated — through hypnosis, Huang Ting made Ou Qihang recall the memory that he had lost, and even the entire process had been reconstructed!

“……at the beginning, I dreamed of Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao, then saw that scene in my dream again.” Ou Qihang sounded a little drowsy while he was under hypnosis, “But common sense told me that it was impossible…”

After Yu Hao listened to the whole recording, Huang Ting turned it off.

“How do you guys erase a person’s memory?” Huang Ting asked.

“The memory is always there.” Yu Hao recalled Chen Yekai’s and Zhou Sheng’s deductions and answered, “We just sealed it off temporarily; transfer a portion of the dreamscape out and throw it into the subconscious.”

“Learnt that from traversing Liang Jinmin’s subconscious?” Huang Ting raised an eyebrow and asked Yu Hao.

“I’m not sure,” Yu Hao answered, “You’ll have to ask Zhou Sheng. My turn.”

Yu Hao pondered a bit, then suddenly got some inspiration from Huang Ting’s words. Could it be exactly as how he had guessed; after Zhou Sheng entered Liang Jinmin’s subconscious, he had learned how to convert memories in the surface consciousness into ones in the subconscious and vice versa, as well as discovered a certain set of rules? No, that’s not right. At an even earlier time, Zhou Sheng had suggested ‘erasing’ Chen Yekai’s memory to avoid leaking the secret.

Then has he used that sort of technique before? Who did he use it on? Zhou Sheng had never told him before…Why? Him not asking was one of the reasons, of course, and there wasn’t a lot of opportunities for them to discuss the Golden Crow Wheel…

“Wei.” Huang Ting said, “Fell asleep?”

Yu Hao, “Why did you only take the Golden Crow Wheel away and not Zhou Sheng as well?”

Yu Hao wanted to confirm their speculation about Huang Ting, yet he got another answer.

“I didn’t want my superiors to make things difficult for you guys.” Huang Ting said, “Give out ample autonomous decision-making rights (??); this device is too powerful, and Zhou Sheng can’t keep it long-term, so I made a deal with my superiors: I’ll be responsible for getting the Golden Crow Wheel and handing it over to them. In exchange, the organisation has to let you both go and stop interfering with your daily lives.”

“But clearly, it didn’t succeed,” Yu Hao said, “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation today.”

Huang Ting declined to comment. “It’s my turn. How many people’s dreams have you guys entered in total?”

“Not many.” Yu Hao told Huang Ting about all the ones that Huang Ting knew about, or the ones he thought that Huang Ting would be able to infer, including Fu Liqun’s.

“Just those few?” Huang Ting didn’t really believe him and glanced at Yu Hao.

“Since you don’t believe me, why ask?” Yu Hao said, “What attitude do your superiors have towards us now?”

“I can’t answer that question.” Huang Ting said, “You can only trust me, I will do my best to protect you guys.”

“Thank you.” Yu Hao answered.

“You’re welcome.” Huang Ting said, “According to your conjectures, without you knowing about it…”

Yet Yu Hao said, “But you’re the one who exposed this for us too.”

Huang Ting said seriously, “Do you think that if I had chosen not to pursue it, that your secret of entering dreams would have never been discovered? Student Yu Hao, you have already stepped into society, you’re no longer a child.”

Yu Hao remained silent. He took the remote control and flipped through the PPT, then stopped at the slide with forensic photos taken in the past. He was searching for an opportunity to flip to the earlier slides to look at the English analysis report on the second slide.

Huang Ting said, “Then, let’s solve the last problem. It’s not early anymore either. Stop flipping through it, Yu Hao.”

So Yu Hao stopped going through the slides. He turned sideways to look at Huang Ting, and Huang Ting said, “Still that same question. Has Zhou Sheng ever entered other people’s dreams without you knowing about it?”

Yu Hao answered, “Impossible. If he wants to enter someone’s dream, he’ll definitely tell me.”

Huang Ting, “Is that what you two agreed upon? His performance in his office is quite outstanding. It’s not that easy to grasp ahold of the whereabouts of some of his targets.”

Yu Hao asked instead, “The office was one of the steps in your plan, right? They know about the Golden Crow Wheel’s secret too? How many more people know about it?”

“Not many.” Huang Ting casually said, “I can’t tell you any specifics about the personnel who are in on this secret.”

Yu Hao, “The office was set up by Qin Guodong. What’s his relationship with Ren Chong and Zhao Liang?”

“They’re ex-colleagues.” Huang Ting got up and said, “I’ll take you back? Xiao Fu has arrived in Beijing, you’re not going to say hello to him?”

Yu Hao, “???”

Yu Hao had put down his phone for some time. He quickly checked it and saw that Fu Liqun had sent him a message that he hadn’t replied to, so he asked again in their group chat. Zhou Sheng replied that Yu Hao was eating with Huang Ting, so Chen Yekai asked if he wanted to stay with him. Meanwhile, Ou Qihang asked if he should pick Fu Liqun up, but Fu Liqun still ended up going to Yu Hao’s company to wait for him.

Fu Liqun didn’t have the keys to their house. He had planned to arrive in Beijing tomorrow, so they hadn’t expected for him to come tonight. Last year, he had sent an express delivery package to Yu Hao, and Yu Hao left the address of his newspaper office for it. Still, Jin Weicheng should still be on duty in the office right now.