Chapter 116: Chapter 110: Mutation 1 Chapter 116: Chapter 110: Mutation 1 In the brightly lit operating room.

Chen Jing sat on the operating table, her face filled with confusion. The room was deserted, with only the continuous beeping sound from a nearby instrument. Silence prevailed; there wasn’t a hint of human presence.

“Wasn’t I undergoing surgery?” Chen Jing looked at both her hands in puzzlement, examining the backs of them. Not a trace of needle marks was to be found. She also checked the surgical gown she was wearing, which was neat and intact. There were no signs it had been taken off, although the surgery she was supposed to have required removing the pants below her abdomen.

“Is anyone there?” she called out softly. But the only response was her own echo, with no one replying. The silence of the operating room was so profound that she could hear her own heartbeat. Suddenly, she began to feel afraid. This eerie scene seemed like something only seen in horror movies.

She jumped down from the operating table, her bare feet striking the cold floor. She distinctly remembered lying on the operating table surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses just ten minutes ago. Yet, ten minutes later, after waking up from the anesthesia, she couldn’t see a single person around.

She found a pair of sterilized shoes under a nearby cabinet. Chen Jing hurriedly put them on.

Suddenly, faint footsteps approached slowly from outside. Chen Jing’s heart leaped with joy. She quickly rushed to the operating room door and flung it open. Down the empty, pitch-black corridor, the footsteps inched closer from the distant darkness.

As time trickled away, not a single figure appeared.

“Is someone there?” Chen Jing felt a chill at the base of her spine, a sense of unease rising within her.

The footsteps, coupled with her shout, abruptly stopped. Only a pair of red boots were visible in the darkness. Chen Jing strained her eyes to see, but she could only make out the boots’ owner—white socks and slender, crystalline, snow-white skin.

“Who are you?” She called out loudly.

Suddenly, the darkness engulfed the area even more, swallowing up the red boots once again.

A chill shot up Chen Jing’s back. She glanced back at the operating room where the bright lights seemed nearly confined within the room, not extending into the corridor at all, as if the corridor and the operating room were two different spaces. She didn’t dare to make another sound. She held her breath and listened intently to every sound around her.

“What the hell is going on?” she swallowed hard. “Right, my phone is still in the ward. If I can get my phone, I should be able to contact Xiao Wu!” A glimmer of hope suddenly rose from the bottom of her heart. But then her eyes drifted back to the dark, eerie corridor, and a moment of hesitation surged within her again.

“Is someone there?” A childish voice suddenly came faintly. Chen Jing listened carefully; it sounded like a little girl, no more than eight or nine years old.

She instinctively wanted to respond.

“Don’t make a sound!” Suddenly, a man’s voice sounded from behind her. Startled, Chen Jing spun around, about to scream, but a pair of strong hands quickly covered her mouth.

“Don’t yell! If you do, we’ll all die!”

The man who covered her mouth was pale, with handsome features and appeared to be about twenty years old. He was wearing a down jacket and jeans, sporting a crew cut.

Chen Jing’s eyes widened in horror, staring at the man in front of her, her body tensed.

“Is someone there?” The little girl’s tender voice echoed once more through the empty, silent corridor, sounding especially lonely and pitiful.

“Promise me you won’t scream, and I’ll let go,” the man whispered. “I mean no harm.”

After hesitating, Chen Jing looked into the man’s clear eyes, now tinged with a bit of panic, and slowly nodded her head.

As she nodded, the hand covering her mouth gradually loosened.

Chen Jing took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart before whispering.

“Who are you?” She eyed the man, stepping back to create some distance, still on guard.

The man responded with a wry smile, “Just like you.”

Chen Jing was taken aback: “Just like me?”

“My name is Chen Da. I used to work in a company and was working overtime when I suddenly ended up here. Just like you, there’s no one around, just me. And what’s strange is that just a moment ago, I was with a lot of colleagues working overtime.” Chen Da’s face now wore even more bitterness and helplessness.

Chen Jing was still half in doubt. Seeing her disbelief, Chen Da looked around at their surroundings.

“You were having surgery, right?”

“Yes.”

“Follow me and you’ll find out.” He grabbed Chen Jing’s hand, who didn’t resist and let him lead the way. She wanted to know the situation she was currently in as well.

The two of them pushed open another door in the surgery room, which was a metal door that had appeared at some unknown point in time. Chen Jing remembered that she had not seen it when she first awoke.

“Creak…” The metal door opened. Inside was another hallway. Long and gloomy, the dim yellow lights above flickered intermittently, making a hissing sound like electricity. The light was unstable.

Chen Jing’s gaze fell on the door of an open ward to the side of the corridor, where a person stood—a tall, thin figure wearing white-and-blue striped patient clothes, his expression tense.

“Is anyone there?” The little girl’s voice came again.

“Shh…” Chen Da put his finger to his lips, signaling Chen Jing to keep quiet; she nodded. They stood at the entrance, watching the scene in the hallway.

“Who’s there? Who’s that!” the tall, thin man shouted loudly.

“I’m so scared, someone please help me…” the little girl’s delicate voice said, laced with pleading.

The tall, thin man slowly walked out of the ward, apparently holding a fruit knife, walking nervously toward the depths of the corridor. He soon disappeared into the darkness,

“Ah!!” A scream suddenly erupted.

Chen Jing shuddered all over, about to cry out in alarm when Chen Da quickly covered her mouth, and they both slowly retreated to the surgery room.

Chen Jing’s chest rose and fell rapidly, her eyes filled with intense fear.

“We can’t save him; as soon as we step out of this room, that becomes her world.” Chen Da said helplessly.

“What do you mean, ‘her world’?”

“My world is gone, and now she is consuming your world. We won’t last long; we must figure something out immediately!” Chen Da’s voice was heavy. “The so-called worlds are like our dreamscapes, though I am not very clear about it, but ‘world’ is the term I use. For instance, you should have been in the surgery room earlier, right?”

Chen Jing nodded.

“A person’s world environment is determined by the place they are in. I was originally working overtime at my company, so my world was the company at that time. After our powers awaken, whenever we enter a dream, we enter our own world. It’s a range that radiates outward from ourselves.” Chen Da explained.

“Exactly, the so-called worlds are our dreamscapes, just a controllable kind of dreamscape.” On the other side of the surgery room’s white wall, a metal door suddenly materialized. The door opened automatically, and a tall woman with two crossed scars on her face strode in.

Chen Jing’s eyes widened at the sight of this suddenly appearing metal door.

“Don’t be surprised. This is your dreamscape, as long as within your range, we will not harm you,” the woman said with a smile, “Let me introduce myself, my name is Wang Chunli, I am an Awakener also being hunted by the one with the red boots.”

“Red boots?” Chen Da and Chen Jing both voiced their confusion in unison. “It seems like you know a lot, can you explain it to us?” Chen Da took the initiative to ask.

“Of course, that’s also why I am here,” Wang Chunli nodded. The metal door behind her closed automatically, and at the same time, the two other doors nearby closed automatically as well.

“It’s better to close off the heart’s door first; the one with the red boots is not to be taken lightly.”

Seeing that all the surrounding doors were secured, Wang Chunli finally sighed with relief.

“Come over, let’s all sit down and talk slowly. We’re safe for the moment.”

Chen Da and Chen Jing exchanged glances and both nodded in agreement.

The three of them sat around the surgery table.

This woman named Wang Chunli spoke again.

“Actually, we are a group of people with the power to control dreams; in our dreams, we can connect with each other, do whatever we want, and have abilities and strength far beyond ordinary people.”

“Let’s focus on the current situation. Our situation is not good,” Chen Da interjected.