Murim's Weakest Princess

Chapter 12: Butterfly Dream

Chapter 12 - Butterfly DreamIt was a peculiar sensation. How did slumbering souls discern their dream state? Anji typically traversed dreams unaware until rousing from slumber. Yet, this day unfolded differently. The young princess held firm knowledge of her dream-bound state. Certainty enveloped her awareness.

"Where am I?" she tried to recall what she was doing before falling asleep but could not remember anything.

The dream world Anji found herself in was a vast expanse of darkness, like an endless pool of ink. It was disorienting, like being blindfolded in a pitch-black room. She couldn't tell if she was standing or floating, up or down. Everything was the same, and yet, everything was different.

Was this what Zhuangzi, the philosopher, meant in his poem of the Butterfly Dream?

Anji furrowed her brow, delving deep into the recesses of her memory in

There was a low humming sound coming from somewhere distant. At the same time, Anji felt sensations tingling all around her body. They were less itchy than when Yan Ping was checking her pulse. However, the places that tingled were similar to the places that itched. Finding something more interesting to do than wait around for someone to wake her up from this strange dream, Anji focused her attention on these minute sensations.

At first, nothing happened. The tingling sensations merely tickled. However, when Anji shifted her mind to pay attention to the tingling sensation in the middle of her forehead, the inky world of darkness suddenly burst into a world of lights.

Instead of getting blinded by the flashing colours of the rainbow that swirled together, Anji felt as if she were watching the coloured lights from at least three different angles. Her brain felt as if it would explode as it failed to keep up with the amount of information her eyes were capturing. The colours were familiar to Anji. They were the colours she normally saw around cultivators with her Heavenly Eyes.

This time, the colours were moving freely instead of surrounding a person. They sometimes mixed and turned into a different hue. Other times, a stronger colour would eat a fainter colour, replacing it entirely. There were no boundaries between these moving masses of colours.

Anji reached out to touch a sluggish ribbon of blue, but it quickly slithered around her arm, avoiding contact. Although there were finally lights in her world, Anji still could not grasp anything. There was nothing else she could do but watch these confusing colours do their thing, as she could not shut her eyes even if she wanted to.

"...ji", a familiar voice called out.

"Anji..." that sounded like a lady.

"Anji, wake up!"

Immediately, the colours vanished, and Anji screamed as she felt the sudden drop of gravity pull her downwards at the speed of light.

Snapping her eyes wide open with a strangled gasp, the young princess was finally back to the world of the living.

"Is Anji alright?" Zhao Wanting asked nervously, peering at her daughter, who was finally awake.

Confused about the situation, Anji looked at her mother. Then, she shifted her eyes to see Yan Ping sitting on her bed, checking her pulse again. Her father had knotted brows as he scanned her from head to toe.

"Her soul was spirited away," Yan Ping concluded after giving Anji a clean bill of health. "Has this happened before?"

Shaking her head, Wanting gently approached her daughter while Yan Ping talked to her father. Anji let her mother fuss over her for a while, still confused. She finally remembered what she had done earlier. After sitting still while the blind sect leader checked her pulse for an hour, they were going to have lunch and then nap. However, she must have fallen asleep before lunch because she was overly exhausted.

"Mother, I'm fine. Did we miss lunch?"

Judging by how the servants had lit the candles, Anji estimated that it was already past seven in the evening. However, when Wanting told her it was closer to ten at night, Anji baulked.

Grrr...

Before Anji could ask any questions, her stomach interrupted them.

"Let's get you some food first," Wanting smiled and hugged her daughter briefly before finding the servants.

Reeling from shock, Anji wondered if Yan Ping knew what was happening. If the Mystical Qilin sect leader was still awake after dinner, Anji had many questions to ask her.