Mr. Chunyu, shamed and furious both, let out a roar.

Then he calmed down.

He found that he was standing, for reasons he could not account for, at the gate of the Tianra Imperial Palace — exactly where he had been on the way in, as though his feet had never taken a single step. Hall Master Dongfang, in his middle-aged scholar’s dress, felt precisely the same thing. The two of them stared at each other, and neither had the least idea what had happened. Hadn’t they just gone in and seen Her Majesty of the Tianra Imperial Palace? They had gone into the Mirage and broken the dream — that was certain. How had it turned into this?

The guards on duty at the gate of the Tianra Imperial Palace stood at their posts without so much as a glance sideways, as though there were nobody in front of them at all.

That most alert and most loyal Thousand-Eye General had a hand resting on his sword.

Equally motionless.

Just then a palace maid came gracefully out from inside, and both Mr. Chunyu and Hall Master Dongfang recognized her. It was the courteous, admirable maid they had met outside Her Majesty’s hall before, on her way to announce the meal.

The little maid came toward Mr. Chunyu and Hall Master Dongfang with steps as light as lotuses opening, dipped a small bow, and spoke in a voice like a clear bell. “Honored guests. Her Majesty invites you in.”

Hadn’t they already spoken? She had told a whole story at them, mockery and all — how had it turned into this?

Could everything before this have been a dream?

Something stirred in Hall Master Dongfang’s mind, and before the little maid could leave he asked, “Might I ask — have you announced Her Majesty’s meal?”

The little maid smiled slightly at that and did not answer him directly. She stopped, turned back, gave Hall Master Dongfang a small bow, and only then went off again in her quick, light little steps. The two men watched her back until it disappeared, then turned to look at each other — and discovered, with a jolt of fear, that at some point the two of them had come to be standing in front of Her Majesty’s great hall.

Inside, a little maid was walking out in quick, light steps… the same maid on her way to announce the meal.

She saw Hall Master Dongfang and Mr. Chunyu.

She appeared to be startled.

But her expression recovered almost at once, and she dipped a small bow and went on to announce the meal.

Both Mr. Chunyu and Hall Master Dongfang felt as though they had fallen into a dream. They could make no sense of it. What in the world was going on? Hadn’t this already happened?

Could it be…

Both men heard a sound behind them and turned at once.

And what they saw finally made two men change color — two men who would not have flinched at a mountain coming down in front of them. Because there stood another Mr. Chunyu and another Hall Master Dongfang, and the second Dongfang was saying, with no regard for anyone around him, “Mr. Chunyu, watching this, I sincerely feel the girls at home could stand to improve themselves. What is breeding? What is bearing? What is courtesy? What is refinement? This! I think there is nowhere else in the world you will find maids of such quality.”

“You two came ten thousand li to discuss my maids?” Her Majesty’s voice, and Her Majesty’s challenge, came again.

“Naturally that is not the only reason… This old man is a lover of dreams himself. I have come ten thousand li hoping to discuss with Your Majesty that thing which ordinary mortals puzzle over and grope after and never get hold of: the ‘dream.’ I ask Your Majesty not to be sparing with her instruction.” That was the other Mr. Chunyu.

From outside himself, Mr. Chunyu could see it very clearly.

He watched it happen while the words were still coming out of him.

There was a smugness on that “own” face of his, and a challenge, that he had made no attempt to hide. The discovery appalled Mr. Chunyu, because he had never once noticed how insolent his own manner was, or how arrogant and overbearing his own eyes were. Without everything that had happened since, he might not have thought it so excessive. As it was, all he could produce was a head full of cold sweat and nothing whatsoever to say.

Nothing to say about himself. That was the thing.

In front of that Majesty inside, the arrogance and the swagger had gone on display far too early.

And then everything that had happened before happened again — the story, the conversation, and then the earth-shaking declaration that he was the god of dreams, the pressure laid over the whole field, time turned on its head, the flowers opening and falling, the meteor called down, the blossom scattering… Mr. Chunyu discovered that every opening he should have kept shut and every one it had never occurred to him to worry about, he had left wide open. That show of force had looked magnificent from the inside. From here it looked like the performance of a complete idiot. Even a hide as thick as Mr. Chunyu’s, old article that he was, went scarlet at this. He could not have felt smaller. He would have crawled into a crack in the floor if he could have found one.

“What does Your Majesty think?” Hall Master Dongfang watched his other self put the question.

“A decent dream. About on a level with that story.” Her Majesty answered exactly as before — though there seemed to be more mockery in it now.

“What did you say?” Mr. Chunyu watched his other self lose his temper. He could see with perfect clarity the ugly shape his own anger made, and it embarrassed and frightened him at once. He wanted to leave that instant and never set foot in this Tianra Imperial Palace again.

“To borrow the words of a certain badly behaved little brat — you’re out of your mind. Talking to you is a waste of breath. I’m going to rest now. Don’t let me keep you.” Her Majesty began exactly as she had begun before, and this time Mr. Chunyu did not wait for her to reach the end of it. He fled the Tianra Imperial Palace at the fastest speed he had managed in his life. He did feel like a man out of his mind. Of every place in the world he could have gone, he had come here, to the Tianra Imperial Palace — knowing perfectly well that this Majesty was the greatest master of dreams alive, and coming anyway to break her dream, with no measure of himself at all.

If what he had felt a moment ago was the shame of waking under the great locust tree and finding an anthill — a fool caught talking about dreams.

Then what he felt now was the sensation of being one of the ants inside that nest.

Dreaming the absurdity of somebody else’s dream.

And waking from it not even a man. Only a small ant that had wandered into another person’s dream…

He had no idea how many thousand li of running it took before Hall Master Dongfang, calling after him again and again, telling him not to lose heart, brought Mr. Chunyu to a stop. He shut his eyes in pain. It seemed that the moment he opened them he would see that arrogant version of himself in front of the great hall of the Tianra Imperial Palace, both hands thrown up in triumph, announcing at the top of his voice that he was God, the god of dreams, that there was nothing he could not do — that ridiculous image.

Never mind a god of dreams. He did not even amount to a man.

In front of that Majesty, the self who had spent several thousand years in bitter cultivation, the self who had believed he could do anything, was at most a small ant that had blundered into somebody else’s dream, and didn’t have the sense to know it, and had bared its teeth and waved its claws and called itself a god…

Mr. Chunyu tipped his head back and laughed like a madman, and two streams of old man’s tears came rolling down.

Not until today.

Today he saw himself clearly for the first time.

All this while he had been living in a dream. He had never once seen himself as he was, and he had never once seen this world as it was.

“Mr. Chunyu, this defeat was not a defeat of strength. Losing is perfectly normal. I anticipated it.” Hall Master Dongfang consoled him kindly. “If that person were really so easy to handle, plenty of people hiding in the shadows would have made their move long ago. Not only us — even the one inside the Hall has no confidence he could break that dream. Everyone knows the only safe entrance to the core of the Ruins of the Gods lies beneath that Mirage. But who, exactly, has a way to get safely through it?”

“It galls me. It truly galls me. Several thousand years of work, and I turn out to be as small as an ant.” Mr. Chunyu closed his fists in pain.

“Breaking that dream was never going to be easy. We did not succeed this time, but it was a very good attempt — and at the very least we came away whole, didn’t we? Large as the Heavenly Realm is, how many people could come away whole out of that Mirage?” Hall Master Dongfang went on soothing him patiently. He had prepared himself long ago for Chunyu being outmatched and the dream-breaking failing. One failure did not matter. What mattered was that Mr. Chunyu had the talent for breaking dreams, and if he could keep advancing, then given time there would certainly come a day when he broke one.

“Really… really?” Some of the knot in Mr. Chunyu’s chest loosened. He opened his eyes, meaning to go looking for more comfort.

Except that when he looked, he cried out in horror.

Because of what he saw.

At some point he had come back to the gate of that same Tianra Imperial Palace, and the guards before it were still standing straight as spears, still at rigid attention without a glance sideways.

Inside, a little maid was coming out in quick, light steps, and she bowed to them courteously, and her voice was like a clear bell. “Honored guests. Her Majesty invites you in.”

At this, even Hall Master Dongfang frowned. Unlike Mr. Chunyu, who was shaking from head to foot with terror, he drew a deep breath and prepared to ask the same question he had asked before. “Might I ask — have you announced Her Majesty’s meal?”

The little maid did not wait for him to ask it. She stopped, turned back, and bowed. “This servant has already announced Her Majesty’s meal.”

For an instant Hall Master Dongfang’s eyes registered something like the pain of being struck by a hawk’s beak. Then he returned her bow.

And he recovered the bearing of the deeply read gentleman he had been.

He looked again at Mr. Chunyu, shaking all over, and his eyes turned to something like regret. He shook his head slightly.

The scene shifted again, and they were back in front of the great hall, and there was still a little maid coming out in small quick steps to announce the meal… Mr. Chunyu began to thrash with his arms and legs as though trying to tear free of something, and then to howl like a lunatic, his voice full of shock and fear, the grief in it trailing on and on. But none of it could stop the scene from restoring itself — the conversation, the story, the challenge, the claim to godhood, the display of power. All of it, running again. Mr. Chunyu dropped to his knees on the ground in terror and watched it as though he were suffocating, his eyes bulging out of his head like a man being hanged alive.

Hall Master Dongfang, by contrast, watched all of it with perfect calm.

Her Majesty said Don’t let me keep you.

He bowed toward the great hall. “Bring out the Peerless Emperor Wushuang, and Dongfang will return to speak with Your Majesty again.”

Inside the hall there seemed to be a sigh, half heard and half not — or it might have been the sound of wind, or it might have been that nothing whatsoever had happened. Hall Master Dongfang thought about it briefly, and remembered that the first time the scene ran, after Her Majesty said I think I have made myself clear enough, there had been a sigh exactly like it.

Could Her Majesty have known, even then, that he would eventually say the name of the Peerless Emperor Wushuang?

Carrying that question with him, Hall Master Dongfang appeared once more at the gate of the Tianra Imperial Palace.

Mr. Chunyu began screaming like a madman and shot into the sky, streaking across it like a meteor… Hall Master Dongfang shook his head slightly. He bowed once more toward the inside of the gate, and then he started walking, one steady step, two steps, striding out toward the plaza beyond — and just then Mr. Chunyu, who had become a meteor and vanished a moment before, appeared at the palace gate again, collapsed on the ground in terror, waving his hands and shrieking at the little maid coming out of the gate. “No — don’t come near me, I beg you, don’t come near me, let me go, let me go, I’ll never dare come to the Sky Tower again, I’ll never come again, please, let me go…”

Hall Master Dongfang shook his head gently.

Several thousand years of work.

And this was what it had bought. One madman, frightened until even his will had collapsed…

“No wonder she was the one chosen to hold the Ruins of the Gods. How interesting.” Hall Master Dongfang clasped his hands behind his back and walked out, unhurried and unruffled, straight ahead, his steps never once faltering, murmuring to himself as he went. “This is exactly why the Sky Tower has to be destroyed. And this is exactly why destroying everything here will mean so much more.”

Hall Master Dongfang stood in the street and looked out at a city thick with traffic and full of life.

His face was all smiles.

And he said one more thing. “Life is a dream, and a dream is a life… only, why was I not permitted a dream of my own, back then? Since I have no dream, I may as well destroy every dream there is. That will make it fair.”

(End of Chapter 1223)