Chapter Sixty-Five: Am I Myself, or the Butterfly?

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“Don’t underestimate sleep. On average, a normal person spends one third of their life asleep, but who truly understands why we sleep? Or what it means to sleep correctly?” The mysterious man didn’t get upset at Qin Anyi’s distracted expression. Instead, he sat down casually, picking at his toes with an air of nonchalance. “For all advanced mammals, there are four fundamental needs always ranking first: food, water, reproduction, and sleep. Of these, sleep is the most easily overlooked. Because sleep is passive—there’s nothing difficult about it, no elaborate preparation needed—it becomes a blind spot in our thinking.”

Qin Anyi listened in a daze, scratching his head. “Isn’t the point of sleep just to rest? After a day of exhaustion, both body and mind recover through sleep. What does this have to do with further training the spirit?”

“You’re not wrong. Rest is a vital function of sleep—a buffer, if you will. But that’s just for ordinary people. Let me give you an example: every night, everyone dreams, but some can recall fragments, while others forget them entirely. As for me, I can control my dreams, guiding them in the direction I desire.”

The mysterious man, having finished with his left foot, began on his right, his focus as intense as if he were facing a lover. “Is that all? Sometimes I realize I’m dreaming, and can control things within the dream…” Qin Anyi said, not seeing what was so special.

“That’s different. You control your dream because you know it’s a dream. Whenever you encounter something unstable, you wake up, because to you it’s too illusory, too fragile. What I want to teach you is different: I truly use my dreams to create a world. Once this dream world is formed, even I am merely an ordinary character within it. By training and honing my spirit within this stable dream world, I strengthen my mind. That’s what I do.”

Finally done picking at his feet, the mysterious man looked smug. “But… by your explanation, isn’t this self-hypnosis? If you hypnotize yourself too deeply, won’t you lose the ability to distinguish dream from reality?” Qin Anyi had grasped the essence of the mysterious man’s words, and he also understood that dreams had a major advantage—time becomes blurred. You might sleep only six hours, but inside the dream you could live ten days, half a month, even longer. A thousand years in a dream is not an exaggeration, depending on the dream you’re having.

Qin Anyi was well aware of how terrifyingly the mind could affect the body. There had been scientific experiments where subjects were hypnotized into believing their bodies had been wounded. Miraculously, though they were perfectly safe and unscathed, their bodies manifested the exact injuries their minds believed to be real. The body obeys the mind—even if the mind’s perception is false, the body will simulate those false realities. The body cannot escape the mind’s command. That’s why Qin Anyi asked such a question: if the mysterious man’s “creating a world” was, indeed, deep self-hypnosis, then unless the hypnosis was deep enough, any doubt would shatter the illusion, making spiritual training pointless. Yet, too deep a hypnosis risks losing touch with reality, leading to cognitive disorder—a very serious matter for Qin Anyi.

“Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly. Was he Zhuangzi, or the butterfly? How do you know everything you face now isn’t just a dream you’ve lost yourself in? Does it matter?” The mysterious man chuckled. “Kid, I’ll say it again: everything comes from the heart. Who can distinguish what’s real and what’s fantasy? As long as you have no regrets, no guilt, that’s enough. Life is short—why not live freely? Always worrying and hesitating, isn’t that exhausting?”

Qin Anyi felt there were many holes in the mysterious man’s logic, yet couldn’t find a single point to refute. It was as if, when a person is nearly perfect but has one flaw, you can easily target it, but when flaws abound, you don’t know where to begin. That was exactly how Qin Anyi felt now, especially as the mysterious man’s displays of strength in the past days had left him dazed and uncertain. Power could justify everything, forcing Qin Anyi to accept the man's words, no matter how absurd they sounded.

“Enough, kid, get up here. I’ll teach you how to sleep properly. This is the fruit of ten years’ hard work, don’t look so ungrateful—you’re getting a huge benefit.” The mysterious man beckoned Qin Anyi to climb onto the bed.

As Qin Anyi lay down, a thought occurred to him. “Hey, old man… If I fall into deep sleep, and really can use my dreams to build a world like you say, how will I wake up? Wouldn’t I just become a vegetable, trapped in dreams forever?”

“Idiot!” The mysterious man spat. “You were clever a moment ago—how did you become so stupid in an instant? Do you think that with your current level of spiritual cultivation, you could really hypnotize yourself into a dream world? Don’t overestimate yourself. Even if you enter deep sleep, you still can’t treat dreams and reality equally. If you ever reach my level, you’ll be able to wake or sleep at will!”

His scolding didn’t make Qin Anyi understand much more. After all, this was a new field to him—he had no experience, not even Kirin had ever studied the human spirit or soul.

“Uh… old man, could you make it simpler? I still don’t quite get it.”
“Useless! Put simply, right now you can distinguish between dreams and reality. Your spirit isn’t strong enough to perfectly hypnotize yourself. When you can believe dream is reality and reality is dream, then you’ll be able to truly self-hypnotize.”
“Then… how do you wake up whenever you want?”
“Heh, that’s because I’m supremely gifted and have reached a higher level. Reality is reality, dream is dream! In any case, you won’t understand now. When you reach my level, you’ll naturally get it. Now go to sleep—close your eyes. I have ways to make you fall asleep instantly.”

Despite his mind still turning over the mysterious man’s words, Qin Anyi obediently closed his eyes, curious about what method the man would use. Most people know that the more you think, the harder it is to sleep; only an empty mind drifts off easily.

But before he could ponder further, he felt a heavy blow to his forehead…

In the final moment before losing consciousness, Qin Anyi had only one thought left:

Damn it… This bastard just knocked me out! How is this sleeping at all!