Dream

(This chapter is free.)

The strange, twisted sky looked especially terrifying at this moment.

Gray was the dominant color of this world: gray towering buildings, gray alloy ground, gray vehicles, gray sky, and the three incomparably enormous gray spheres hanging overhead.

A dead world of metal.

This was supposed to be ruins, right?

Walking through the silent forest of steel, I could not help thinking that. Yet unlike the ruins I imagined, nothing here bore any sign of damage. At the very least, from the outside, there was not a single scar on those cold steel surfaces. They did not seem to have been abandoned because of severe destruction, but rather as if they had entered a dormant state. A sleeping beast—that was the more fitting name I could think of for it.

This sleeping world was so quiet that my footsteps became the only sound in my ears. After walking for who knew how long, I finally began to feel tired. So I found a place that looked like some kind of landing platform for flying vehicles and sat down.

There was still some time before I had to leave, so out of boredom, I began studying the three enormous metal spheres in the sky again. They were so huge that they nearly occupied a third of the sky. Countless sharp protrusions and grid-like patterns could vaguely be seen on their surfaces, making them feel like giant planetary fortresses from a science fiction movie. Honestly, everything in this world was more sci-fi than any science fiction film.

With nothing else to do, I stared at those three planet-sized metal spheres in the sky until the oppressive feeling they gave off forced me to look away.

It felt like they had gotten closer to the ground again.

In fact, they really were constantly approaching the ground. The first time I came here, they had only been three tiny black dots hanging high in the sky. But every time I entered this world, they came a little closer to the ground. Sometimes they drew much closer in a single visit; sometimes the change was so slight that, without looking carefully, it was impossible to tell whether they had moved at all. But I knew they had been descending all along. Maybe one day they would touch the ground. Would this world change when that happened? Bored as I was, I was actually quite looking forward to it.

"Still haven't found it..." A voice suddenly resounded across the sky, and then the whole world began shaking violently. It was time to leave.

"Ring-ring-ring..." A shrill alarm dragged me out of my deep dream. I forced my eyes open and shook my groggy head hard. The things in my vision swayed for quite a while before finally settling down, and only after a long time did I finally wake up from that inexplicable strange dream I had been having all night.

A strange dream...

I did not know when it had begun, but I had been having this strange dream for a long time. In it, I walked alone through a silent metal world, surrounded by scenes that looked like the future. An apocalyptic desolation was the main theme of that world. Yet despite how oppressive the surroundings were, I never felt the slightest panic in the dream, as if everything there were scenery I had long been familiar with. Every time the dream ended, a voice would always sound, saying in what seemed like a disappointed tone, "Still haven't found it..."

The whole thing was like some shoddily made version of The Promise. You could not possibly piece together anything useful from that pile of nonsense fragments. Anyway, even now, I still could not figure out what the things in that dream meant.

What exactly was that voice looking for? Or was it hoping that I would look for something?

Unfortunately, I had never found the answer in the dream.

I had never mentioned this dream to anyone. Although I did not know what it meant, I always had an instinctive feeling that it carried an unusual significance, and that rashly telling someone else this secret would bring me enormous trouble.

"Monday..." I muttered, crawling out from under the covers with extreme reluctance. The early winter weather made me shiver, but I ultimately managed to resist the warmth of my bed. If I did not hurry, I would be late for class.

I was Chen Jun, a senior in high school. I had been an orphan since childhood, with no parents or siblings. I had been adopted by a merchant couple when I was young. After my adoptive parents passed away, the only one I had left was my older sister, who was five years older than me and not related to me by blood. My life was as bland and tasteless as a cup of plain water. The only fortunate thing was that my sister and I had inherited a considerable fortune from our adoptive parents, so our lives were not as difficult as those of other orphans. My sister, who had managed the family business on her own since she was very young, treated me well too. At least I could still feel the warmth of a home.

Just as I was wondering whether last night's dream had been any different from usual, my sister's voice came from outside the door. "A Jun, are you up? It's getting late!"

"Yeah, I'm coming!" I replied, quickly got dressed, and opened the door. Standing outside was a beautiful long-haired girl—my adoptive sister, Chen Qian. She looked delicate, but she was actually incredibly strong. Although she was only five years older than me, I could always find a sense of warmth by her side.

"What's wrong, A Jun? Is there something on my face?" Perhaps embarrassed by the way I was staring at her, my sister blushed and asked somewhat flusteredly.

"Ah, nothing. I was thinking about something... I'm heading to school!"

"Hey—wait, you haven't eaten yet..."

"There's no time. I'm leaving first!"

Canglan Private High School was a true aristocratic school. Not only were its costs exorbitant, but its educational standards far surpassed those of ordinary public schools. As a result, this renowned elite school was somewhere ordinary students did not even dare dream of attending. The students who could study there were either children of billionaires or powerful figures, or super geniuses who ranked among the best in the country. After all, money alone was not enough for a school to develop; outstanding students capable of adding prestige were also indispensable. In short, this school was a Sacred Ground that perfectly met every standard for the prince-and-Cinderella plots found in youth idol dramas.

The reason I had introduced this school in such detail was because I attended the school—across the street from it...

K City Second High School. This was the school I actually attended.

No matter how one looked at it, it was an ordinary school to the extreme. Compared to Canglan Private High School across the street, which looked like an imperial garden, one was a city and the other a countryside village. The students here were equally ordinary. Most of us could not even name the clothes worn by the students at the school across the street. These two sharply contrasting schools, separated by only one road, had also become one of the area's famous sights.

I was one of the students here. After all, though my sister and I were fairly well-off, we were still far too inferior to Canglan's young masters.

"A Jun!" A clear voice sounded behind me. I turned around and happened to see a petite short-haired girl running toward me.

Xu Qianqian was one of my closest friends, the kind of childhood sweetheart who had grown up with me and had even bathed with me when we were little. But after entering junior high, she moved to another part of the city, and we had far fewer chances to meet. Still, that had not affected my relationship with Qian Qian. After coming to this school, which had both a Junior High Department and a Senior High Department, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that we had both chosen this school in our city. So it felt as though we had returned to the days when we went to school together. According to the usual plot progression, a childhood sweetheart who grew up with me like this had about an eighty percent chance of becoming my girlfriend. In fact, we thought so too. Yet for some reason, we had never managed to take things any further, maintaining a relationship somewhere between best friends and a couple. As for the reason—were we simply too familiar with each other?

That was indeed part of it. After all, when the other person was a girl whose childhood bedwetting incidents you knew all about, it was difficult to see her as someone you could date.

"A Jun, what are you thinking about?" Xu Qianqian hurried over, vigorously waved her little hand in front of my face, and complained.

"Oh, I was introducing you to the readers..."

...You can ignore that last sentence...

Just then, a crowd suddenly gathering not far away caught my attention.