On the first floor lobby, a scattering of white tables and chairs were placed here and there. Around forty or fifty tables, only about a dozen customers were sparsely seated.

Most of these customers were young people, each with some self-served cheap desserts in front of them.

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006 World Four (The Leader)

William Thompson simply chose a self-service dessert set, placed his order and paid, then got up to fetch a tray, ready to get his desserts.

“...I can't take it anymore, really, I really can't take it anymore!”

As he walked to the self-service dessert counter, he suddenly heard a voice choked with sobs.

“...It's okay, you just didn't rest well at night, the exam pressure is a bit too much. Take a good rest these days, try the meditation I told you about before, adjust your mindset, and you'll be fine.” Another female voice comforted softly.

“It's useless... I told you, it's not a hallucination, not a dream!” The previous female voice continued.

“I even cut myself at the time, look, the wound is still here, it's all real! Really!” The girl's voice was very young, probably only seventeen or eighteen, and her emotions were clearly on the verge of collapse.

“Have you seen a psychologist online? You can book a consultation with the best. Tell them your situation, maybe they've seen it all, all kinds of cases, they should be able to...”

“I said it's not an illness! It's all real! Really!!” The girl was starting to get agitated.

“I'm going to die... sob... If I go in there again, I'll definitely die...” She started crying.

“You're just too nervous, too tired, nothing will happen, don't worry, I'll stay with you.” The other girl comforted her seriously and gently.

William Thompson picked up a piece of yogurt cake with strawberries and put it on his tray, glancing out of the corner of his eye in the direction of the voices.

Right next to the self-service dessert counter, at the second table over, sat two young women.

The one crying was a delicate-looking girl in a white sweater with black dots, shoulder-length black curly hair, and white glasses.

Her fingers were tightly gripping the coffee spoon in front of her, her knuckles white, almost as if she was about to snap the porcelain spoon in half, her whole body trembling.

Across from her, a short-haired girl in a dark blue hoodie was quietly comforting her with a worried look.

The two seemed to notice William Thompson's sidelong glance, and their voices quickly dropped.

William Thompson quickly grabbed another small cake shaped like a banana, turned to get a glass of milk, and instead of returning to his previous seat, sat down at another table not far from the two girls.

He was very interested in the topic the two had just discussed. What the girl in the white sweater had experienced reminded him of what he was currently going through.

But his actions seemed to have caught the girls' attention as well. They glanced at him out of the corners of their eyes and instinctively lowered their voices, making them almost inaudible.

William Thompson lowered his head, eating cake while hesitating inwardly.

He was considering whether to take the initiative to talk to them and ask about their situation.

But whether everything he had seen was good or bad was still unknown. After hesitating, he remained seated.

Not long after, the two girls at the next table got up, picked up their small bags, and quickly left.

William Thompson never spoke to them in the end, just sat where he was.

Recalling what the girl had just cried about, he silently frowned slightly. Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind.

‘I really am an idiot.’

In the information age, he was still foolishly sitting there doing nothing. Since there was a problem, the best solution was naturally to...

He took out his phone from his pocket, William Thompson unlocked it skillfully, and opened the browser.

Then he searched: dreaming of entering a strange place.

Tap, he hit enter, and instantly a whole page of information links appeared on the screen.

‘Dream interpretation for a fee.’

‘Comprehensive Dream Interpretation, Premium Edition.’

‘Northern School psychology master Su Lun answers your unknown...’

‘Dreaming that my dad wants to chop me.’

‘Dreaming of falling into a strange toilet.’

The messy search results made William Thompson a bit dizzy. Scanning through, none of them were what he was looking for.

But that's how information is, like looking for a needle in a haystack, you can only filter bit by bit.

He patiently clicked on the most likely ones to check.

The light outside gradually dimmed, the sunlight slanted, and more people filled the café.

People getting off work started to arrive.

William Thompson finally finished his milk, got up, and picked up his phone.

With more people around, it was no longer convenient for him to quietly do his research, so he decided to change locations.

Creak—the café door opened. As he passed by the cluster of white flowers by the door, a flash of black appeared on the back of his right hand, and a line of clear writing surfaced.

It was written in the language and script he had learned in his previous life.

The message was extremely concise.

‘Loading in progress... Please keep touching for ten seconds before letting go.’

Except for William Thompson, no one else could see this black writing.

But he was still holding his phone in his left hand, searching nonstop, completely unaware of the change on his hand.

As he walked farther away, the distance between him and the flowers increased, and the writing on the back of his right hand quickly faded.

‘Activation failed, please maintain contact for ten seconds...’ The writing vanished rapidly, as if it had never appeared, like a device running out of power.