A Midsummer Night's Dream

Hao Ren scrambled up from the ground with all four limbs, then pinched his thigh and muttered, "Damn it, can't I be a normal Earthling in peace..."

He was absolutely certain that he had been sitting outside his home enjoying the evening just moments ago. The old streets and alleys he had known for over twenty years, the shabby houses along Baishi Road in the South Suburbs, and the pothole-riddled concrete beneath his feet had all been vivid in his mind. Yet he had merely squinted for a moment, and everything around him had completely changed.

Hao Ren discovered that he was standing on a vast, boundless grassland!

He gazed into the distance. The view stretched endlessly, with nothing but knee-high green grass spreading as far as the eye could see. The night breeze swept over him in waves, fresher than anything in the city, while the grass beneath his feet rolled like waves. Hao Ren looked up at the sky. It was a clear, star-filled night sky unlike anything he had ever seen in the city. The stars were so dense and bright that he could see the grassland even beneath the night sky.

And at the farthest edge of the horizon, two silver moons, one large and one small, were slowly rising into the sky. A halo of radiant light even surrounded the larger one—two moons!

"I knew I shouldn't have read so many novels!" Hao Ren watched the two moons slowly rise, with unfamiliar stars scattered across the night sky. (Of course, he didn't recognize more than a few of Earth's stars either.) He finally couldn't help jumping up. "What the hell, did I transmigrate?"

Hao Ren had pinched his thigh more than once by now, and it hurt so badly that he could barely walk. That convinced him he wasn't dreaming. Then what was all this? Could someone be dumped into another world just for sitting on a curb enjoying the evening? Good grief, there were still two monster girls at home waiting to be fed!

Countless chaotic thoughts raced through Hao Ren's mind like a Phenix. He thought of more than a dozen classic cases of people transmigrating to other worlds, then considered the two troublemakers at home and his newly acquired identity as an employee of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. In the end, all those thoughts became a long sigh. He realized he couldn't simply wait here, because he had heard a wolf howl earlier...

Hao Ren bade his reclining chair a final farewell, then headed toward the two moons on the horizon. In that direction, he could vaguely make out silhouettes that seemed to be buildings, which at least gave him a destination. Of course, he knew wandering around in an unfamiliar environment wasn't exactly wise. He could either waste his energy or run into even greater danger. But the key point was that he thought he had "transmigrated"! The way he had arrived was abnormal, and waiting in place certainly wouldn't bring anyone to rescue him. He might as well inspect his surroundings first.

"Even the transmigration drop point is unreliable. They threw me onto a grassland this huge, without even a tree in sight. How am I supposed to survive?" The grassland's night chill was biting, so Hao Ren hugged his arms and grumbled as he walked. "Am I going to have to eat grass? If I run into poisonous grass, I'm screwed. If only there were a forest. I could punch down a tree, make a crafting table, and maybe survive..." (A Minecraft reference.)

Hao Ren was clearly not a qualified transmigrator. Barely ten minutes after arriving in this unfamiliar environment, his mind was already running wild, utterly failing to fit the transmigrator cliché of becoming calm, wise, resolute, and courageous the moment they entered a strange world. But he couldn't stop his wild thoughts, because they helped dispel some of the unease and tension that had seeped into his bones. He was just an ordinary man, a small-time citizen muddling through life. Until three days ago, the greatest crisis he had ever faced had merely been failing to rent out his house. How was someone like that supposed to become calm, courageous, and clever?

Another faint wolf howl drifted over from far away. It might have been nothing more than an illusion caused by excessive nervousness, but Hao Ren couldn't help thinking of the mentally defective Werewolf at home. Lily could make that sound too, and hers sounded much better. If only that Werewolf were here... Her brain might be lacking, but she should at least be enough to deal with ordinary wolves, right? Come to think of it, he had no idea whether she could get along peacefully with Vivian. If he couldn't make it back, the two of them would tear the house apart within three days. But whatever—let them tear it apart. It wouldn't have anything to do with him anymore.

With his mind filled with wild thoughts, Hao Ren walked across a grassland that seemed to have no end. His surroundings were so vast that even after walking for so long, the distant scenery seemed utterly unchanged. If his reclining chair hadn't vanished beyond the edge of his vision and the two moons ahead weren't marking his direction, he might have thought he was simply walking in circles.

The temperature was dropping as well. The night wind on the grassland wasn't something a T-shirt could withstand. At first, Hao Ren had thought the air here was fresh and the breeze refreshing, but now he genuinely missed Earth's slightly stuffy, polluted city air from half an hour ago.

Just then, another wolf howl rang out. This time it was very close, and crystal clear. It was definitely not an illusion.

The hairs on the back of Hao Ren's neck instantly stood on end. The bizarre sixth sense he had developed over twenty-five years sprang into action. He realized that he had unknowingly walked into an area of thick grass. The grass around him even rose above his knees, and in every direction, pairs of eyes glowing with a ghostly green light gradually appeared, as if surfacing from the darkness.

One ghostly wolf silhouette after another emerged from the grass. Hao Ren had no idea how they had crept so close without him noticing. To be honest, he was terrified. When had he ever faced anything like this?

Fortunately, even as an ordinary citizen, Hao Ren possessed a calmness he was proud of. He restrained the urge to run or scream, because he knew either would only get him killed faster. Hao Ren faced off against the Wolf pack, desperately searching for a way out while a mass of frustration welled up inside him. Could I be any more unlucky? What was the point of dying for no reason like this?!

If only he had a weapon for self-defense. Hao Ren was certain that even if he were holding a Green Dragon Crescent Blade, he still couldn't beat the twenty or thirty grassland wolves before him. But at least a weapon would give him some courage. He cautiously felt around his body for a long while, only to pull out an old Nokia... Fine, in a certain sense, this thing was a super weapon. Tie it to a stick, and it might even serve as a war hammer. But this was a life-or-death situation—could they please stop joking about the divine phone of the universe?

The Wolf pack naturally gave Hao Ren no chance to keep thinking nonsense. The moment his attention drifted, the nearest wolf suddenly pounced at him without a sound. Hao Ren only saw a black shadow rushing toward him. Judging from its shape, it seemed somewhat different from the wolves on Earth, and all he could do was instinctively raise a hand to block...

"Landlord! Landlord!"

A voice that sounded like it was calling for his life suddenly rang beside his ear. Hao Ren felt a sharp pain in his head, and the entire world instantly grew dizzy and turned upside down. When he dazedly opened his eyes, he saw familiar streets, familiar old houses, the familiar gray city night sky with its sparse stars, and Lily's foolish-looking face.

Hao Ren sucked in a deep breath. He hadn't managed to finish that action when the wolf had pounced earlier. Then he looked around in a daze. "I'm back?"

"Back from where?" Lily poked Hao Ren's arm, then hauled him to his feet. "Landlord, you didn't come inside for ages. The winged one told me to find you, and then I saw you lying on the ground. You were making weird noises too."

The absurdly strong Werewolf nearly pulled Hao Ren's arm out of its socket, but at least he woke up completely. Seeing that everything on his body was fine, he turned to look at the reclining chair, which had somehow tipped over onto the ground. Only then did he finally confirm that the incredibly realistic "transmigration" he had just experienced was actually a ridiculous nightmare.

But wasn't that dream a little too realistic?

"It's nothing. I just had a dream." Hao Ren waved at Lily, rather touched that the two troublemakers at home cared about him. It would be even better if they could stop fighting.

It was only when Hao Ren waved that he noticed something sticking out from between the fingers of the fist he had clenched in his nightmare.

A tuft of black wolf fur.

"Holy crap!!" Hao Ren flung the tuft away as if it were a hot coal and leaped to his feet. "What the hell?!"

(Well, let me think... I'll keep asking for votes for a satisfying ending to The Record of Unusual Creatures.)