Nightmare’s Call

“When did this thing come in here?” Lin Sheng was scared stiff. With his back against the door, he clasped the hilt of his sword and felt a chill run up his spine.

“No! This is a different one!” Lin Sheng quickly figured it out. A large chunk of this swordsman’s right arm was missing as if something had bitten it off. The difference was hard to miss.

“I’m in deep sh*t!” Lin Sheng did not want to die again. It had given him a severe hangover feeling for the past days.

As the thing got closer, Lin Sheng identified the pustules on the swordsman’s neck as small blisters; they were dense and bulging.

Clenching the hilt of his sword and staring dead at his opponent, Lin Sheng’s muscles tightened.

Suddenly, the rotten swordsman lunged forward, thrusting the sword in his right hand straight into Lin Sheng’s chest.

Lin Sheng roared and raised his sword in the air in an effort to parry his opponent’s attack from above, but he missed.

Lin Sheng felt a great pain in his chest and lost strength in his hand, but the momentum kept the sword’s motion going, and it sliced off the rotten swordsman’s arm. However, it only slashed off a small bit of flesh.

Looking down at his chest, Lin Sheng noticed that his enemy’s black sword had pierced the left side of his chest, instantly immobilizing him.

“Again…”

His vision went black, and Lin Sheng lost consciousness.

After an unknown amount of time, Lin Sheng woke up on his bed at home. The sky outside was gray, and the sun was about to rise as he heard roosters crowing in the distance.

“I died again.” Lin Sheng touched the area on his chest where his heart was and felt a tingling sensation. “It felt so real.”

He slowly sat up and discovered that his underwear, which he had just changed into the previous night, was now drenched in sweat. He got out of bed and quickly took a new set of clothes. Following that, he entered the bathroom to clean the sweat off his body with hot water before he put on the clean set of attire.

“I can’t go on like this. I have to think of a way…” Lin Sheng sat at his desk, opening the drawer to take out the translated notes, which were written in neat and tidy Chinese characters—the most secure way he could come up with to prevent anyone in this world from understanding it except him. It was the best encryption method.

“Having checked online before, the illustrations and annotations seem to suggest that the swordsmanship is a real thing. But I’ve never learned anything like this. Nevertheless, it’s not a figment of my imagination but something real from another place!” Lin Sheng was absolutely convinced now.

“The dream world is filled with dangers. A defenseless person like me will only be slaughtered like cattle there. I could barely hurt that crippled monster.” He stared at his notes and the illustrations in front of him.

“I have to go out and explore if I want to find out the secrets of my dream. However, I couldn’t even defend myself against the wounded monster. I have to find a way…”

Lin Sheng sat in silence and soon thought of an idea.

“Since I already have the Handbook of Swordsmanship with me, I should try to find out if there’s any way to learn it. Only then will I know whether this thing’s real or not and improve my self-defense skills. After all, I still have a cross sword in my dream.” Lin Sheng relaxed and made up his mind.

Before his parents got up, Lin Sheng quickly ate his breakfast and headed straight to school. After the morning class, he could not wait to leave and wander around downtown Huaisha.

In this era where the Internet was still primitive, Lin Sheng could only go out and scout the area to find places where he could learn European swordsmanship, which was the rarest of the martial arts in this part of the world.

Huaisha, where Lin Sheng lived in, may have been a small town, but it was a port town with bustling international trading activity. Many foreigners went there and became the driving force behind the growth of its local industries.

Lin Sheng first went to a street in Huaisha, where most foreigners stayed. Soon, he found what he was looking for: two associations and a club.

The two associations charged expensive membership fees so Lin Sheng decided not to visit them. Now, there was only one option left.

“It looks rundown, but I’m sure it’s a lot cheaper.” Standing in the middle of the quiet street, Lin Sheng looked up at the shop on the second floor, where an inconspicuous wooden plaque with three rows of little characters was hung.

Tengchong Swordsmanship Club

Blackmud Street Office

Blackmud Street Pigeon Association

Apparently, the three entities shared the same signboard. Below the sign was a dirty and dilapidated stairway. The wooden steps squeaked loudly when people stepped on them. Two hooligans were squatting on the staircase, puffing on their cigarettes while chatting.

Lin Sheng looked down at his school uniform, grabbed his schoolbag tightly in his arms, and climbed up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, Lin Sheng saw three arrows drawn with red chalk on the wall, each pointing in three different directions.

One of the arrows indicated that Tengchong Swordsmanship Club was on the right. He followed that arrow and turned into the corridor on the second floor. After he walked a dozen meters, Lin Sheng stopped in front of an open office door with a sign on it that read  Tengchong Swordsmanship Club.

It was pretty empty inside with only three rectangular black desks forming a large table in one corner, and three people sitting there working on something.

Lin Sheng knocked on the door. “Hello, is this the Tengchong Swordsmanship Club?”

A girl sitting closest to the entrance turned to look at him. “Who are you?”

“I’d like to learn orthodox Naxi swordsmanship. Is it available here?” Lin Sheng replied.

“You’ve come to the right place.” The girl suddenly smiled. “We’re the most professional non-profit hobby club in Huaisha.”

“Hobby club?”

“Yeah, a club for people sharing a common interest,” the girl explained. “Come in. Not many people are interested in Naxi swordsmanship because boxing and MMA are the in-things now. Martial arts like ancient Naxi swordsmanship require learners to bring their own swords. It’s quite troublesome and pretty impractical. So, no one makes it to the end unless they’re really interested in it.”

The girl smiled and pulled a chair out for Lin Sheng to sit on. As they sat down, Lin Sheng’s eyes darted around the place.

The walls of the entire office were bare, and the chair under his butt was shaky.