Paper Rabbit, Music Box, Doll

[Main Quest:]

[Proceed to the target location and search for the quest item “Basement Key”]

“Do one thing, then get a reward for the next event… It’s just like a sect mission.”

Zhong Yi grumbled softly to himself as he headed downstairs toward the bookcase.

First, he had to find candy for two kids, and now he was searching the bookcase for a key.

What used to be routine RPG fetch quests for players in his past life were now things that cultivators in this world were slowly getting used to.

“’Twilight Town’? The love story between a girl and a zombie? Haha, the Old Master has some interesting taste.”

Zhong Yi chuckled as he retrieved the quest item from the pages of Twilight Town.

Following the children’s directions, he arrived at the door of the darkroom where Gu Yun often went.

“Creak—”

The old wooden door dragged a long, trailing sound.

Total darkness lay ahead.

“So dark!”

The moment he lit the candle in the room, the originally gentle, melodious background music suddenly turned eerie and oppressive.

Zhong Yi’s heart jolted, and he shivered.

“Damn, that scared me… I thought a great demon was about to spawn here!”

Zhong Yi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

In the dim room, there was no great demon.

Under the flickering candlelight, the entire space was crammed with countless origami rabbits, spreading from the floor all the way onto the bed.

Paired with the sudden shift in melody, the scene was indescribably eerie.

“Are these… origami? Rabbits?”

Zhong Yi picked up a few origami rabbits curiously and examined them.

Apart from their different colors, they seemed no different from one another.

[Origami Rabbit: Precise folds, meticulous workmanship, appears to be made by the same person]

Besides the floor covered in origami rabbits, there were two other items in the room that could be inspected.

[Music Box: A specialty toy from the Canglan Realm. Old and worn, barely functional]

[Platypus Plushie: A child’s doll. Covered in patches, seemingly quite old]

“Origami rabbits, a music box, a plushie…”

Zhong Yi pinched his chin and frowned, pondering the connection between the three.

“They’re all kids’ stuff? I can’t figure out anything special about them at all.”

In the end, Zhong Yi decided to give up.

“Huh? I can take this platypus? Might as well bring it along.”

After putting the platypus plushie into his backpack, Zhong Yi left the room.

The BGM at this point was still a bit tense, giving him a strong urge to explore further and uncover the truth.

“What? Are you saying there are paper rabbits in other places too?”

“Yeah, right in the lighthouse on the cliff. Grandpa goes there all the time!”

“Take me to see it, please!”

Hearing the children’s answers, Zhong Yi immediately felt that these paper rabbits were likely the key to solving the mystery.

Gu Yun’s old mansion was built on a steep cliffside.

The “lighthouse” the children mentioned was located on the cliff behind the mansion.

[Lighthouse: A special structure in the Canglan Realm. Its top is fitted with a strong-light stone that can pierce through darkness and thick fog, guiding ships at sea]

“Never heard of such a building… but it sounds pretty useful, huh? Maybe we could promote it in the mortal world.”

Zhong Yi looked up at the tower, over ten meters tall, and only noticed a modest, neatly kept grave at its base.

The tombstone read:

[Grave of Beloved Wife, Lin Xi]

“Huh? Is this the wife of Old Master Gu who passed away?”

Zhong Yi glanced at it twice, then, urged on by the children, climbed the lighthouse.

Just as the children had said, the top floor of the lighthouse was filled with colorful origami rabbits, just like the darkroom in the basement.

On a small table at the top floor, a single origami rabbit made of blue and yellow paper stood out prominently.

“Strange, that colorful rabbit wasn’t here the last time we came up to play…”

“Grandpa comes here to sit every day. He must have put it there!”

The two children were both curious and puzzled by this yellow-and-blue paper rabbit.

“The only rabbit with different colors… What could it mean?”

Zhong Yi held this special origami rabbit in his hands and examined it for a long time. Apart from the extra color, he couldn’t find any other distinctive feature.

“I can put this in my backpack too? Then it’s definitely a key clue! But what on earth does it mean…”

Just as he was perplexed, the sound-transmission jade tablet around his neck lit up.

It was Qin Li’en, the Senior Sister from the Dream-Making Sect.

The dream-creation array was ready. They just needed Zhong Yi to return for it to be activated.

“Understood. I’m heading back now.”

Zhong Yi cut off the transmission and put the special yellow-and-blue paper rabbit into his backpack before hurrying back to the old mansion.

All the way, he kept pondering the meaning of the paper rabbits, the plushie, and the music box.

Aside from being playthings that kids liked, he couldn’t find any other connection between them.

Let alone how they related to “going to the Lunar Realm.”

…

Back on the second floor of the old mansion.

Qin Li’en had already set up all the magical instruments.

Seeing Zhong Yi arriving late, Qin Li’en said, a bit annoyed, “You could have waited a little longer, until the Old Master kicked the bucket, and then come back.”

Zhong Yi waved his hand helplessly. “No choice… Going to the lighthouse meant climbing the cliff. It wore me out.”

“Next time you go that far, just jump down to save time,” Qin Li’en said, displeased.

“You think I didn’t try? I just died from the fall…”

Zhong Yi complained in his mind.

He had actually wanted to jump to save time, but it turned out the cultivators in the Canglan Realm were much weaker than he thought. He just ended up dying and restarting.

“After investigating so long, you must have gained something, right?”

“Reporting to Senior Sister, I got nothing at all!”

“…You sound pretty proud????”

Qin Li’en shook her head helplessly.

“Never mind. Since we can’t find anything, we’ll just go ask the client ourselves.”

With that, she sat cross-legged by the bed.

Following the quest’s guidance, Zhong Yi sat down on the other side of the bed.

As the two injected their spiritual power, the dream-creation array began to glow more and more brightly.

“Dream creation…”

“Begin!”

…

…

The scene plunged into brief darkness.

A very familiar sensation of sinking consciousness.

“Isn’t this just entering an illusion? Playing an illusion inside an illusion?”

Zhong Yi found it both amusing and exasperating.

The dream-creation art of the sect was to construct the target’s memories into an illusion.

The brilliance of this technique was that the people and objects in the illusion weren’t just acting out a script from memory—they could interact and even be changed.

In a way, it was like traveling back in time or entering another parallel world—except that all of this happened within an illusion.

“I see! So we could have just gone to ask the Old Master directly… Wait, no! If that’s the case, why did you make me run all over the old mansion investigating?”

After Qin Li’en reviewed the principles of the array with him, Zhong Yi couldn’t help complaining.

If the main subject possessed independent consciousness within the illusion, then why did he have to go through all that trouble investigating?

All that running around for nothing!

“Idiot… Your past lessons were all for nothing.”

Qin Li’en gave him an extremely dismissive eye roll, but patiently explained anyway.

“It’s simple, because memories can lie.”

Zhong Yi was taken aback. “Lie?”

“Exactly.”

Qin Li’en nodded.

“Memories can be jumbled or missing, or the other person’s character may have certain flaws, making them unwilling to tell the truth... In short, the human heart is far more complex than any magical art.”

“So that’s how it is...”

Zhong Yi suddenly understood, deeply resonating with Qin Li’en’s reasoning.

“Anyway, first we need to find Old Master and try to get to the bottom of things... He doesn’t have much time left.”

Qin Li’en hurriedly rose and walked out of the room.