"Zheng Mingcui, I'm going to kill you—"
The silence of the dormitory was suddenly shattered by a furious roar, causing Chen Cheng, who was playing games on mute, to jump in fright and fall to the floor.
He turned toward Ling Ze, pondering, "How deep must the hatred be for someone to curse about killing in their dreams with such gnashing teeth..."
Zhang Xu and Zhou Haoran, who had been asleep, stuck their heads out, their eyes groggy, and asked, "What's going on? Why the loud voice... who's going to kill whom?"
Both had been sleeping soundly when they were jolted awake by the angry shout, and they were plenty annoyed.
Chen Cheng was the most annoyed, for he hadn't even gone to bed yet, and had recently been playing a horror turn-based game. Being startled by Ling Ze's sudden outcry was nearly enough to make him wet himself.
Still shaken, he caught his breath and said, "Don't know, the shout was so loud. And he claims he never talks in his sleep—scared the life out of me..."
Before he could finish his sentence, they heard Ling Ze, still dead to the world, let out a cold laugh, which in the dead of night sounded extra clear and bone-chilling.
"Zheng Mingcui, rest assured, if I could kill you once, I can do it a second time as well. What, were you dissatisfied with where I left the body last time?"
!!!
Zhou Haoran: ...
Zhang Xu: "This, this..."
Finally, Chen Cheng wiped his stunned face and said emotionlessly, "Who would've thought... Inside, Ling Ze is really twisted..."
He shivered as he spoke, because Ling Ze's tone was terrifying, like that of a psychopath.
He glanced at Ling Ze, who still hadn't awakened, hesitated for a moment, and decided not to wake him. Then he went to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. The dormitory had suddenly gotten colder, so he figured it might be better to get some sleep early.
In the small room, Ling Ze looked at Zheng Mingcui's expressionless face and suddenly dropped his anger, smiling as he said, "Zheng Mingcui, rest assured, if I could kill you once, I can do it a second time as well. What, were you dissatisfied with where I left the body last time?"
His lips curled into a smirk, his eyes fierce beyond measure. His voice, however, remained calm and gentle, like an intimate whisper between lovers. The slight tilt of his chin and his upright posture showed that this indeed was the truly arrogant Ling Ze.
"These must be your little games," he said disdainfully with a smirk.
"There's no need to put on airs with a dead person: You're still as pathetic as before. What else can you do, besides fulfilling your dream of marrying me and feeling a sense of superiority over me?"
Zheng Mingcui sneered.
In Ling Ze's eyes, she was both vulgar and shallow. Did he really think her dying obsession was to marry him?
Idiot!
The expression on the aging Zheng Mingcui turned angry as she cursed, "Ling Ze, what the hell are you rambling about with this kill, not kill nonsense. I work hard every day to earn money and support our family, and you, an utter failure, dare to disturb me! Have you forgotten that I even paid for your college?"
Ling Ze's greatest flaw was his perpetual arrogance and refusal to accept mediocrity and failure. Just by pinpointing this, she knew plenty of ways to make him reveal the truth. As long as he became emotional in his dream, he would speak the same words out loud in reality.
After all, no one bothers to guard against a dead person, right? Moreover, once he woke up, he wouldn't remember a thing he had experienced.
There was a public class at eight in the morning, and Zhou Haoran struggled to wake the heavily sleeping Chen Cheng. Looking at Ling Ze, who was packing up his things, he hesitated to speak.
Ling Ze certainly noticed something was off with him, but in his opinion, these three people in the dormitory all had their own flaws, and there was no need to interact much with them. So after packing up his things, he left on his own.
It wasn't until the sound of the door closing that Chen Cheng snapped back to reality, he sighed, "Ah, I forgot to ask him what dream he had last night, sounded so thrilling!"
Zhang Xu gave him a look of disdain, "Give it a rest, didn't you see he wouldn't even give us a proper glance? Even if you did ask, he probably wouldn't admit it."
Chen Cheng also realized this and sighed before going to wash up.
As Zhang Xu was putting on his pants, he chatted with Zhou Haoran, "Ling Ze sure knows how to fill in the details of his dreams, even came up with a name. Could she be someone who dumped him? Zheng Mingcui... sounds like a woman, but I haven't heard of her in our department, have you?"
Zhou Haoran frowned, "I think she might not just be a person in his dreams..."
His statement was cryptic, yet Zhang Xu understood him unexpectedly, his legs went weak, "For real? Haozi, you better not be scaring me!"
At midnight, the dormitory was dead silent.
The people in the three bunk beds all slowly sat up and then whispered to each other, "Come on, over here, I'm closer!"
Their voices were very soft, and Ling Ze, deep in sleep, had no response at all.
The three of them were Chen Cheng, Zhang Xu, and Zhou Haoran.
The three squeezed onto Zhang Xu's bed, which was opposite to Ling Ze's, moved the laptop away from the lower bunk, then turned on the power of their mobile phones, and started playing cards with the faint light.
"A pair of fours! Aren't we making quite a bit of noise? In the past, Ling Ze would even complain about me disturbing his study when I went to the restroom."
"A pair of eights! No idea, well, whatever, Haozi, was there any truth to what you said today? Otherwise, we still have class tomorrow morning, and staying up all night definitely won't do."
"A pair of twos! Right, what you said was way too scary, man. I often slay monsters in my dreams, too."
"A straight flush! I win! Would you say something in your dream like, 'Zhou Haoran, if I could kill you once, I can kill you a second time. You're not satisfied with where I left the body last time?'"
"Damn, lost again! But now that you mention it, it is kind of scary. It's almost one o'clock. He usually talks around one or two, so we'll probably hear it soon."
Once again, he found himself in a small room, looking at the woman who looked haggard and old and who had disdained him. The anger that Ling Ze had suppressed was rekindled by Zheng Mingcui's expression!
He sneered, "You seem so smug now, have you forgotten how you died?"
Zheng Mingcui's complexion suddenly turned pale.
"So you know how you died? Makes sense, they say people become ghosts after death. I drugged your sleeping pills. You wanted to keep the child in your belly, right? But look at the situation now. Could it be I gave you too many pills? So, the kid didn't make it? Tsk tsk, if I had known, I wouldn't have bothered to prepare so much in advance. Do you know that look on the female doctor's face in the infirmary every time I hoarded sleeping pills, saying I had insomnia? Just like you, utterly nauseating."
"But since you're dead, did you feel anything when I used a machete to chop up your bones and limbs? Do you want to kill me now?"
Looking at Zheng Mingcui's bloodshot eyes, Ling Ze felt like he had finally grasped a sense of powerful self.
He laughed triumphantly and delivered the final blow, "That suitcase of yours was really big. I chopped you up, wrapped you in plastic bags, and put you inside. There was even extra space... But luckily it was big enough that I could add other debris and dirt, ensuring it would sink forever in your favorite Lover's Lake..."
Tears of blood finally streamed down Zheng Mingcui's eyes, "I only hate myself for being so foolish, for supporting your education, for your living expenses..."
"What's this about supporting? Wasn't it you who willingly gave me that money?"