Volume One: Scroll of New Rain Chapter Thirty-Two: The Dream Shattered

The rain in the small town had been falling for three days.
Yet this new rain lingered on, unending.
Ye Mingke was startled awake at midnight by the sudden tolling of a bell in the rainy night. Propping himself up in bed, he listened intently, as if the sound came from the tower at Tao Yao’s house.
“Dong… Dong…”
The distant, resonant bell echoed time and again through the soft patter of rain in the darkness, as though bidding farewell to something, making one’s thoughts drift.
Ye Mingke listened quietly to the bell, and suddenly felt an emptiness within, as if something important had abruptly departed from him.
The bell rang only for a short while, then gradually faded into silence, leaving only the sound of rain in the night.
He closed his eyes again, trying to sleep, but an inexplicable unease made slumber elusive. He rose, donned a robe, opened the window, and listened more clearly to the rain outside.
Dawn was not far off. He stood by the window, his mind in disarray, and remained there until morning.
After daybreak, Ye Mingke, as usual, began his training and cooking. When breakfast was ready, he was pleasantly surprised to see the rain had suddenly lessened.
Though heavy clouds still brooded overhead and a light drizzle persisted, there was no real obstacle to going out.
He had spent the past three days at home, catching up on missed training, barely venturing outside. Coupled with the uneasy feeling brought by last night’s bell, he suddenly longed to see Qiao Qiao and Tao Yao.
His uncle had not yet risen, so Ye Mingke decided to eat breakfast alone and then seek them out.
He hastily finished a bowl of thin porridge, set down his bowl, and opened the courtyard gate to leave.
“Mingke.”
His uncle’s door creaked open, and Sword Uncle suddenly called out to him from the doorway.
But Ye Mingke was already running out the door. Hearing his uncle’s voice, he did not look back, only waved his hand and called loudly behind him,
“Uncle, I’ll be back soon. Breakfast is in the kitchen.”
Before he finished speaking, he had already rounded the street corner, vanishing from Sword Uncle’s sight.
Jian Nantian watched the direction where Ye Mingke’s figure disappeared, his gaze grave and sorrowful.
“This day has come after all.”
“Mingke, you’ve always wanted to know, but if you learn everything, what kind of person will you become?”
Ye Mingke ran along the street of the small town. He had started off quickly as usual, but soon slowed, confused.
He stood at a fork in the road, bewildered, looking around.
Had he taken the wrong path? Yet this road he had walked countless times since childhood—how could he have gone astray?
But…
Wasn’t the village chief’s grand house just at this corner? Why had it become an empty lot?
Wasn’t Hunter Old Chang’s house just ahead? Why was that a wasteland now?
Ye Mingke lifted his head again, dazed, and found the tower, which should have been visible from every corner of the village, nowhere to be seen.
But hadn’t he heard the bell from the tower before dawn?
Was this the small town?
Ye Mingke lowered his gaze; beneath his feet was still the familiar stone-paved street.
He felt as though he had fallen into a strange dream. Dragging heavy steps, he walked forward, eyes vacant, staring at the sudden patches of emptiness scattered throughout the town.
The village chief’s house, the hunter’s house, the tower, Old Li’s house, Old Qin’s house… It was as if a hand had wiped away parts here and there, erasing a third of the vast painting that was the small town, leaving glaring, abrupt blank spaces.

But the town was not a painting, was it? It was the home he had lived in for sixteen years, the entirety of his life, all that he loved.
“Mingke, if one day my butterfly awakens and takes me away, don’t be sad.”
Qiao Qiao’s words, spoken as she smiled and wept on his back, suddenly echoed again and again in his ears.
“Qiao Qiao.”
Only now did a tremendous fear pierce through his confusion, pressing upon his heart like a sharp blade. Suddenly, he ran madly.
The abrupt blanks in the town flashed past him again and again as he ran along the familiar street, racing toward what had once been his most beautiful memories, now his greatest terror.
A coldness enveloped him as never before; he felt ice flowing in his veins. He slowed, mouth agape, struggling to breathe, but something seemed stuck in his throat. His eyes were red, but no tears would come.
Blankness.
He had never known such a word could be so terrifying.
The dye workshop with the tallest walls in town was gone, the girl who loved to dream had vanished, leaving only incongruous, dreadful emptiness—the most terrifying kind.
“This must be a dream, it must be a dream.”
He stared at the emptiness before him, shaking his head, mouth open, muttering again and again, but the sharp pain from his fingernails digging deeply into his palm, and the warm blood seeping forth, told him another answer.
“It must be a dream, it must be a dream… Where are the others in town?”
At last, tears flowed from his eyes. He turned and ran madly again.
“Where is everyone? Where are you? Tell me this is a dream.”
He ran through street after street, searching with tear-filled eyes along the empty roads, until finally he saw the familiar back of an old man.
He ran up to him.
“Uncle Wang, why is the dye workshop gone? Why are the tower and the village chief’s house gone? What happened in town…”
He poured out his terror to this familiar figure.
Uncle Wang, who had been walking with head bowed, slowly raised his cloudy eyes to look at him.
Ye Mingke suddenly felt fearful, stopping mid-sentence. That was not the gaze Uncle Wang usually gave him; it was hollow and mechanical, like a soulless corpse.
Uncle Wang stared at him for a long time before a glimmer of life stirred in his eyes.
“It’s Ye, isn’t it?” he rasped slowly. “There has never been a village chief, never a tower, never a dye workshop in town.”
Ye Mingke felt as though he had fallen into a deeper nightmare, shaking his head, listening to Uncle Wang’s incomprehensible words.
“Impossible, impossible. Is there a girl named Bai Qiao Qiao in town? Uncle Wang, I’ve told you about her many, many times.”
Ye Mingke stepped backward, clinging to a sliver of hope.
“No. You’ve never told me.”
Uncle Wang continued, his voice slow and mechanical.
“Impossible. You’re lying. You’re not Uncle Wang.”
Ye Mingke shook his head, stepping back, deeper coldness enveloping him, as though freezing all his blood.
He opened his mouth for another deep breath, then turned and left, searching for the next person he might encounter.
But this nightmare would never end.
Among the few remaining townsfolk, a third—like Qiao Qiao, Tao Yao, the village chief, Old Chang—had vanished completely, as if they had never existed.
More residents lay in their homes, caught in a sleep from which they would never awaken. The few who wandered the streets did so numbly and mechanically, having utterly forgotten those who had disappeared.

Yet they could not even explain themselves. Whenever asked about the missing people, confronted with evidence that could not be ignored, they froze, standing motionless as if they were jammed machines.
The world had gone mad. Only Ye Mingke remained lucid, desperate, wandering through ever deeper layers of nightmare.
That day’s conversation with Qiao Qiao kept echoing unconsciously in his ears.
“A problem that can’t be proven isn’t a problem. Whether it’s the butterfly dreaming of Zhuang Zhou or Zhuang Zhou dreaming of the butterfly, it’s something that can’t be proven, which means it’s meaningless.”
“But… what if there is proof?”
“What kind of proof?”
“For example… if one day Qiao Qiao’s butterfly suddenly wakes from the dream.”
What proof?
Do those who vanished like dreams count as proof? Do the vast empty spaces left behind count as proof? Do the familiar residents, suddenly soulless, count as proof?
Have all your butterflies awakened?
So you all left?
Even so, why was I left behind? Why did you not take me with you? Why leave me here?
“Mingke, if one day you discover you are living only in a butterfly’s dream, what will you do?”
What can I do? What am I able to do?
Ye Mingke wandered in despair until he was utterly exhausted, only to find himself unconsciously near the rear mountain behind the bamboo cottage.
Trapped in a nightmare more dreadful than reality, he gazed upward at the mountain that, for six years, had brought him countless terrifying dreams according to the fears in his heart.
“It’s alright, Mingke. I just had a very, very frightening dream.”
“In the dream, I am no longer Qiao Qiao, the town is no longer the town, and everything is just a butterfly’s dream.”
Qiao Qiao, you always knew, didn’t you? So you were saying goodbye that day?
Tao Yao, was it you who rang the bell last night? Were you also saying farewell to me?
Why did you all know, yet leave me, the one who knew nothing?
I know nothing, understand nothing. Why did no one tell me? Why did it suddenly become like this?
He laughed and cried.
And from the depths of terror and sorrow, suddenly tasted a helpless rage!
He stared, tears streaming, at the towering mountain before him, and then, resolute, strode toward it—the mountain that had brought him countless nightmares.
This had once been his most powerless, most terrifying training. He had even despaired, believing there were no people without fear in the world, and thus no one could climb that mountain.
But now, in true despair, he realized that fear was not the most terrifying thing in the world—despair was. That no matter how frightening the nightmare, reality could be crueller still.
He climbed upward in self-destruction, the pressure as heavy as a mountain weighing down every inch of his flesh, forcing out blood. Layer upon layer of illusion flooded his mind, trying to draw out his deepest fears.
But he kept moving forward, crying, laughing, raging.
The dense, heavy clouds overhead flashed with dazzling light, followed by thunder crashing through heaven and earth. Once again, a torrential rain poured from the sky.