Nightmare

The final shot froze on their faces, and the episode ended...

[I can't take this anymore. Why does it always cut off at the most crucial moment?]

[Production team, I've got something to discuss with you. Mind giving me your address?]

[Nothing we can do. Another week's wait. One episode a week is torture.]

[That's some cheeky shit.]

After watching the latest episode, Li Xiang casually closed the viewing screen.

With nothing else to do, she opened the system's built-in fanwork site with a thought.

Ever since she had appeared in the story of Dr. STONE, the audience discussion had grown with each new episode, and fanworks about her had sprung up everywhere. Li Xiang knew that perfectly well.

Sure enough, the moment she refreshed the page, the homepage was flooded with tags and works bearing her name, all ridiculously popular.

She casually clicked on the most popular collection of fan art.

When the first image appeared, Li Xiang paused briefly.

The woman in the picture was modeled entirely after her.

The illustrated "Li Xiang" wore an utterly aloof expression, with none of her usual gentleness in her features. Her sleek, fitted black combat outfit had crisp, sharp lines, and she stood tall and poised, radiating an overwhelming presence.

Her entire demeanor had changed. She looked like a sinister venomous snake lurking in the shadows, ready to strike.

Her gaze was sharp and icy, her eyes dark and intensely oppressive. The way she stared ahead resembled a predator locking onto its prey-cool and indifferent, yet too intimidating to approach.

The lighting and shading were superb, and the art style was cool and commanding, capturing her ruthless, composed, forceful side to perfection.

Li Xiang couldn't help taking another look.

She had to admit, people online really had imaginations.

This is so good, hehe. Liked! Liked!

She gently swiped down to the next picture, still feeling perfectly composed.

Then the next image left her utterly stunned.

The picture was titled: [Gender-swap AU | A Thousand-year Standoff].

The gender-swapped version of her was tall and straight-backed, with a chilling presence and piercingly cold features, securely holding a gender-swapped Senku in a one-armed bridal carry.

The most outrageous part was the contrast between their characterizations.

Senku, who was supposed to be rational and a little sharp-tongued, looked completely different here.

The gender-swapped Senku had soft, delicate features and fair skin, with slightly flushed ears. He huddled in her arms, his eyes dewy like a startled fawn's, leaning obediently against her without a trace of his usual confidence.

Meanwhile, her illustrated self held him with a gaze cold enough to kill, radiating an icy, domineering aura that practically told the entire world to stay away.

Li Xiang froze on the spot, her finger hovering over the screen without moving for a long while.

OMG~ You scared me~

Good grief.

She genuinely hadn't expected people online to come up with something like this.

A wave of mortification washed over her. Even though no one was watching, she couldn't help feeling her cheeks grow warm.

She braced herself and kept scrolling, only to discover that the absurdity went far beyond a single picture.

Below it was a dense assortment of ship-focused and solo-character fanfiction titles.

Li Xiang/Senku ship-"My Thousand-year-older Big Sister Told Me"

Li Xiang/Senku ship-"Forbidden Zone of Desire."

Senku/Li Xiang ship-"The Ache of Youth."

Li Xiang spin-off-"Your Girlfriend Is a Doctor Who Neglects Her Day Job."

Li Xiang solo-"An Angel Fallen to Earth."

Senku solo-"The Absolute Rationality of the Science Kingdom."

Every style was covered: comforting stories, tragic endings, romantic tension, redemption, dark fiction, and everything in between. The tags filled an entire screen.

Li Xiang hesitated for two seconds, but curiosity got the better of her. She casually opened the most popular story, "My Thousand-year-older Big Sister Told Me."

She had expected ordinary slice-of-life fanfiction, but then she opened it.

The writing really was impeccable: delicate, atmospheric, full of emotional push and pull, with richly drawn character dynamics that never felt awkward.

And precisely because it was so well written, it was incredibly immersive.

As she read on, Li Xiang found she couldn't take it anymore.

It was clearly fictional fanwork with absolutely nothing to do with reality, yet the leads were based on her and Senku. Every scene felt far too familiar, and the more she read, the more embarrassed she became.

In real life, she spent every day doing perfectly serious science with Senku, yet the fanfic had turned that into endless romantic tension and the tender, doting affection of an older woman.

The more she read, the redder her face grew. Her ears burned, and even her heartbeat quietly quickened.

She truly couldn't handle fanworks that felt like public humiliation.

Li Xiang exited the story at lightning speed and promptly closed the entire fanwork site.

That's enough, that's enough. If I keep reading, I won't sleep tonight.

She raised a hand and rubbed her burning cheeks.

Just go to sleep! Fanworks, fanfiction-clear all of it out of my head!

Li Xiang lay on her back, pulled the thin blanket over herself, and closed her eyes, emptying her mind and forcing herself not to recall what she had just read.

The mountain forest was quiet and cool at night. The evening breeze rustled the leaves, and the camp was peaceful and secure. Before long, drowsiness swept over her, and she fell sound asleep.

What she never expected was that the fanwork images she had browsed before bed had already quietly etched themselves into her subconscious.

That night, she plunged straight into an absurd, bizarre dream.

The dream was hazy and unreal, its atmosphere tender and romantically charged.

There was no desolate mountain forest in the dream, no camp of wooden cabins, only a soft, hazy expanse of white mist.

At the center of it all, Senku looked strikingly different.

His familiar onion-like hair had become softer and wispier. A pair of tiny snow-white antlers had quietly sprouted on his head, and two pink animal ears twitched gently, making him look especially soft and adorable.

Stripped of his usual cool rationality, sharp tongue, and prickly pride, the Senku in her dream was unbelievably docile, gently curled up against her in her arms.

The boy's features were gentle, his gaze clear and pure, carrying a faint hint of dependence as he stayed there quietly.

As for her, she still had that cool, commanding demeanor, securely sheltering the person in her arms.

The imagery and characterizations throughout the dream perfectly recreated the intensely heartwarming fanfic she had read before bed.

It was intimate and absurd-so absurd it made her scalp prickle.

The dream felt far too vivid and real, and its ridiculous premise overwhelmed Li Xiang completely.

The next second, she jolted awake, her eyes flying open.

The night was still deep, and the wooden cabin was silent, save for the occasional sound of wind outside the window.

She lay there in a daze, staring at the wooden beams overhead, her mind blank for several seconds.

Seriously, help.

Who could have imagined that casually browsing a couple of fanfics before bed would lead to such an embarrassing, ridiculous dream? Even recalling it for a second made her toes curl with mortification.

It really proved that old saying-never look at bizarre fanworks before bed!

How on earth did my brain come up with something so ridiculous?!

She took several deep breaths. It was all a dream. None of it was real. Just my brain splicing things together at random. It had absolutely nothing to do with reality.

Dreams often carried emotional undertones. During REM, or rapid eye movement sleep, when the brain processed negative emotions, it lowered levels of stress-related neurotransmitters and hormones such as norepinephrine, allowing a person to confront fear or anxiety in a relatively safe environment.

Every time... Could you stop releasing hormones at random, please? ~_~

She calmed her agitated emotions and drove the jumbled images out of her mind.

The night remained deep, and drowsiness slowly crept over her again.

Li Xiang gently closed her eyes, settled flat, and tucked herself properly beneath the blanket. Closing her eyes once more, she sank into peaceful sleep.