I'm Trapped in the Block

"Have I transmigrated?"

As the young man asked this question, Martin’s figure instantly materialized, standing beside him.

"Hello, I’m Martin. It’s been three minutes since you arrived in this world. Please do as I say."

"Close your eyes, then silently repeat ’this is a dream,’ count to three, and open your eyes."

The young man was so startled by Martin’s sudden appearance that he stumbled back a few steps.

"Is this a dream? No wonder," he muttered to himself.

Martin paid no mind to his muttering. Instead, he walked up and pinched the young man’s arm.

"No pain. I guess it really is a dream," the young man murmured.

Martin continued questioning him, "Do you remember how you got here? Does any of this look familiar to you? Have you noticed that you’ve lost your sense of smell?"

As he spoke, Martin picked up a nearby trash can and held it in front of the young man’s face.

The young man was forced to back away, but he also seemed to realize that the trash can had no smell.

"It seems everything you’ve said is right."

Martin had somehow blocked the young man’s senses.

After realizing something was off, the confusion and gravity on the young man’s face vanished completely. He said lightly, "So it really is a dream. How interesting. Someone even came to remind me I’m dreaming. But I don’t really feel like waking up just yet."

This was clearly not the result Martin wanted.

The moment the young man finished speaking, Martin raised his own arm, took out a scalpel, and viciously slashed it. Blood sprayed out, splattering onto the young man’s face.

At that, the young man’s relaxed expression instantly vanished. He began to tremble all over, hastily shutting his eyes and starting to chant.

"One... two... three."

The young man vanished. Martin casually smeared the blood on some nearby documents, leaving the area in a total mess.

Then, Martin returned to the room and closed the door. He watched as a young man reappeared in the chair, followed by a guard knocking on the door, the young man throwing a flowerpot, and then jumping out the window to escape.

The plot here now perfectly matched what Martin had described earlier, getting back on track.

"What was with that ’Martin’ just now?" Mo Ling asked in a low voice.

"That was Number 0. He was just generated, and we don’t know where his memories come from. He’s the one we have to save."

"Number 0?" Mo Ling was very confused.

"Yes. This is the first layer of the dream," Martin explained, grabbing Mo Ling’s hand.

When a Martin enters a dream, the Martin from layer 1 descends to layer 2, the one from layer 2 descends to layer 3, and so on.

But this creates a paradox: where does the Martin on layer 1 come from?

The answer is layer 0.

"I’m taking you to layer 0 now to save him. We must be frugal with our time there; it passes very quickly." Martin seemed somewhat exhausted.

It was only then that Mo Ling noticed faint cracks on his glass jar. The pickles inside were generating much more slowly, and fewer tentacles were materializing out of thin air.

"Are you okay?" Mo Ling asked with concern.

"I’m fine. Let’s not waste any more time." Martin gripped Mo Ling’s hand tightly, and with a single pull, brought him into a vast void.

"This is layer 0."

Mo Ling stared in shock at the scene before him.

Countless beds stretched into the distance. Above, a dense canopy of text bobbed up and down, rising and falling like ocean waves.

These two parallel oceans floated in the endless void, the work of some unknown, great creator.

Looking at the text, Mo Ling couldn’t help but murmur, "Is the world really a novel?"

"Believe it or not, it doesn’t matter." Martin’s voice was extremely weak. "Forget about that for now. Look over there."

He pointed to a familiar figure amidst the ocean of beds.

It was the young Martin. He was sitting on a bed, staring in terror at his surroundings. The people lying in the beds and the oppressive Celestial Curtain of text were suffocating him.

Seemingly convinced he was still dreaming, he clutched his chest, opening and closing his eyes repeatedly, but he couldn’t wake up no matter what.

"The tide is going out," Martin said faintly, looking at the Celestial Curtain.

As he spoke, the ocean of text slowly descended, about to crush the beds below.

"I need your help. I need you to destroy his bed." Martin pulled Mo Ling along, stepping on the bodies of countless sleeping people as they made their way toward the young man’s bed. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

At first, Mo Ling was cautious, worried he might harm them.

But he soon discovered that the bodies of these sleeping people were as hard as stone. They seemed to be welded firmly to the beds, like parts of a single, massive sculpture.

"Step wherever you want. They’re all empty shells," Martin reassured him.

When they reached the young man, Martin pointed at the bed and asked, "Your ability should be able to handle this, right?"

He didn’t rush him, but Mo Ling could still sense the urgency in his tone. The cracks on the glass jar were also becoming more and more pronounced.

"I’ll try."

Aiming his teleportation frame at the narrow bed, Mo Ling activated his ability.

Thankfully, his teleportation didn’t fail him at the critical moment. The bed beneath the young man vanished instantly, reappearing inside the Block.

The young man, suddenly without support, plummeted into the void.

"Thank you," Martin said gratefully.

Mo Ling watched the young man continue to fall and asked worriedly, "What will happen to him?"

"The other Martins will catch him. If we hadn’t destroyed his bed, he would have been trapped here forever. Even if he jumped, it would be useless; he’d be forcibly pulled back and eventually crushed to death by the Celestial Curtain. Then all the Martins would die."

"You’re the first person I’ve found who can destroy these beds. By saving him, you’ve saved all of us."

Mo Ling looked at the still-descending Celestial Curtain of text and asked, "Where did he come from? Layer -1?"

Martin followed Mo Ling’s gaze upward, and after a moment of silence, he shook his head helplessly. "Who knows?"

He grasped Mo Ling’s hand tightly again and said, "Let me send you back."

As he spoke, he pulled Mo Ling and jumped off the bed. In the blink of an eye, the ocean of beds was above them.

The space where Martin’s bed had been was now empty, a stark and solitary gap in the endless ocean.

"What are those beds for, anyway?"

Mo Ling watched the sea of beds recede into the distance, comparing it to the bed inside his Block, but he couldn’t see anything unusual about it.

While they were in mid-air, the cracks on Martin’s glass jar became more pronounced, and some shards of glass even began to slowly flake off.

Just as Mo Ling was growing worried, a hand suddenly appeared, grabbed his other arm, and pulled hard.

After the scenery changed once more, Mo Ling found himself standing inside a black tower.

Seeing what was before him, Mo Ling froze on the spot.

There were Martins as far as the eye could see. Countless strange figures in long robes, each with a glass jar of pickles on his head, were staring at him.

Colorful tentacles writhed inside their heads. In the dim light of the black tower, the glass jars looked like glittering, colored lanterns. Mo Ling turned his head and saw that the person who had just grabbed him was also a Martin.

"Hello. I am Martin Number 736. Thank you for your help."

He gave Mo Ling a deep bow.