The night before the promotion

Chapter 73 Dreamland
In Zhou Si's view, the essence of life can be misinterpreted as a continuity of consciousness. Every time humans wake up from sleep, it is like welding the broken continuity back together and continuing again.

Therefore, Zhou Si simply and crudely believed that every time he fell asleep and woke up, it was a death and resurrection of consciousness.

For Zhou Si at the moment, coming back to life from the dead is not a happy thing.

……

An intense pain spread from deep within Zhou Si's consciousness, as if someone had inserted an ice pick into his skull, vigorously stirring his brain.

The painful torture disturbed the tranquility of nothingness and forcibly condensed Zhou Si's scattered consciousness, allowing Zhou Si to regain control of his body and once again perceive the stimulation of the outside world with this body.

The first sense that Zhou Si recovered was hearing. The familiar song danced alone in the silence.

the voice sang.

"Slowly, you notice the wind caressing your face and stealing your smile..."

Zhou Si's body senses recovered, as if a solid body had condensed in the world of nothingness.

A cool breeze caressed his body, and along with the singing, it slowly soothed the pain lingering in his mind, like a link that took Zhou Si's memories back to the past.

Zhou Si opened his eyes, and the pain in his mind disappeared, leaving only peace and tranquility.

It was as if he had slept in the same position for more than ten hours straight. Zhou Si did not feel comfortable and at ease after waking up. Instead, he felt sore muscles all over his body and some of his joints even ached slightly.

Ucchusmo's majestic and angry eyes suddenly flashed before Zhou Si's eyes. He smelled the scent of fire and rain, and at the end of his memory, Huo Daochuan's face under the lightning.

Zhou Si stood up nervously, his consciousness was highly tense, and he looked around vigilantly.

His fist was clenched like a block of iron, but Zhou Si didn't find any enemy.

"What...is going on?"

Zhou Si muttered to himself, standing there in a daze.

He remembered that before he lost consciousness, he was fighting with Ucchusma in a hidden alley. Due to exhaustion and injuries, he was anesthetized and knocked down by Huo Daochuan.

Zhou Si would not be surprised whether he woke up in prison or was locked in a water tank, but he never expected to end up here.

The sunlight filtered through the half-open curtains onto the soft beige carpet. In the center of the living room stood a large light grey fabric sofa with a few soft-colored pillows scattered randomly on it. Zhou Si had just woken up here.

He casually fiddled with the pillows. One of them had Zhou Si’s ugly portrait printed on it.

Zhou Si didn't expect that he would see this thing again. He remembered that when he broke up with Ruan Linrui, she sent all these things to the incinerator.

Yes, an incinerator, not a garbage dump or a second-hand store. Ruan Linrui's eyes were red as she watched these things burn to ashes with her own eyes.

Opposite the sofa is a wall-mounted TV with a moderately sized screen that does not appear out of place but can satisfy the needs of two people watching movies together. Below the TV, a row of game discs are neatly placed, and next to them are game consoles of various platforms.

In a corner of the living room, a retro-style record player stood quietly, and the song Zhou Si heard came from it.

The record player has a light wooden sheen, and next to it are stacks of carefully collected records, ranging from classic rock to movie soundtracks.

What attracted Zhou Si's attention most was the photo wall behind the record player.

The walls are covered with all kinds of photos, including moments captured with Polaroid cameras, carefully printed travel scenes, and funny selfies of the two of them.

Zhou Si looked at the photos with nostalgia, and then his expression gradually became dazed. He picked up the phone that fell on the sofa, woke up the screen, and looked at the date in disbelief.

"2038... four years ago?"

After noticing the abnormality, Zhou Si touched his left arm and felt real flesh and blood.

Before Zhou Si could figure out what was going on, the bedroom door was pushed open and Ruan Linrui walked out in loose pajamas and yawned loudly.

"Ah... I'm so sleepy. I can't wake up no matter how hard I try during the holidays."

She sat down on the sofa with a complaining look on her face, curled up, and stuffed several pillows into her arms, like a squirrel protecting chestnuts.

Zhou Si stood beside the sofa without saying a word, his eyes seemed to have lost focus and no one knew where he was looking.

He remained silent for several minutes, and the silence was uncomfortably quiet.

Ruan Linrui glanced at Zhou Si with sleepy eyes and asked curiously, "Hmm? What's wrong with you?"

She rubbed her eyes vigorously, reached out and grabbed Zhou Si's sleeve, and laid him down on the sofa.

A storm of thoughts was raging in Zhou Si's mind, but he remained calm and gave Ruan Linrui a helpless smile.

"I just had a nightmare, a very long nightmare."

"Oh?" Ruan Linrui became interested. "Tell me about it."

Zhou Si narrowed his eyes and spoke intermittently, "I dreamed that not long after, the test of the Ascension Project failed, I was injured and admitted to the hospital, and the project was shut down... I dreamed that many things had changed, and it lasted until four years later..."

Rather than telling a story for Ruan Linrui, it would be more accurate to say that Zhou Si himself is recalling the so-called "long dream" bit by bit.

Reality and dreams were intertwined, and the more Zhou Si thought about it, the more confused he became about what was true and what was false, until Ruan Linrui pulled him hard again and leaned against him.

Ruan Linrui comforted her, "Don't think about things that are so far away. We are living in the present."

Zhou Si did not respond and remained immersed in thought. The more he tried to sort out his thoughts, the more a strange sense of difference emerged.

In the long dream, Zhou Si went through four years and all kinds of setbacks. In that future, he had broken up with Ruan Linrui, and his mood was completely different.

Now, Zhou Si suddenly came to the past when everything had not yet begun, but he found it difficult to integrate into this beautiful moment.

Ruan Linrui was unaware of Zhou Si's complicated feelings. She moved her body and stretched out her snow-white thighs from under her pajamas. In the sunlight, Zhou Si remembered what the ancients said about skin as white as cream.

No, it's not that her skin is as white as cream. It's just that Ruan Linrui has a reversed day and night schedule, and almost never goes out or gets sun exposure.

But it was a great scene. Ruan Linrui stretched her thighs as far as she could, flexing her toes and trying to reach the handle under the TV.

Even though she tried so hard, there was still a long distance between her and the handle, so Ruan Linrui hugged Zhou Si tightly, and slowly let her hips and waist stick out of the sofa and hang in the air.

Zhou Si sighed and patted her thigh hard.

"You are so lazy!"

With a scream, Ruan Linrui quickly retracted her legs like a scallop closing its shell.

She stuck out her tongue at Zhou Si, "What do you care?"

Zhou Si shook his head and sighed, picked up two handles and handed one to Ruan Linrui.

Everything was just as familiar as she remembered. The TV lit up and Ruan Linrui pressed the joystick. Then they would play a two-player game for a while to relax, and then have a fighting battle to decide who would do the housework today.

Zhou Si usually lost, but Ruan Linrui would let him win a few rounds from time to time, about once a week. In this sense, she was a real lazy dog.

Sitting on the soft sofa, Zhou Si could clearly feel Ruan Linrui's presence, her warmth, and her breath beside him.

"Come to think of it, I dreamed that we broke up."

"what?"

Ruan Linrui immediately turned her head and looked at Zhou Si in shock, while Zhou Si looked indifferent. After all, in the long dream, they had broken up for four years and he had already accepted this fact.

"Ah? What did you say! Zhou Si!"

As Ruan Linrui spoke, she rode on Zhou Si's body, grabbed his head, and put their foreheads against each other.

"Tell me again, what did you dream about?"

From this perspective, Ruan Linrui appeared in Zhou Si's eyes as if she had been distorted by a wide-angle lens, which made him both angry and amused.

Zhou Si said calmly, "I dreamed that we broke up, what's wrong."

"anything else?"

"What else?" Zhou Si was puzzled. "Is there any follow-up to this?"

"Of course."

Ruan Linrui leaned close to Zhou Si's ear and said viciously, "You probably still dreamed that I hacked into your account, made you destitute, and then hired someone to lock you up..."

Zhou Si raised his hands in surrender, "Stop, it's just a dream."

"Not even in dreams!"

Ruan Linrui grabbed Zhou Si's collar and looked at him angrily. The two looked at each other for more than ten seconds. Then Ruan Linrui slowly let go of Zhou Si and curled up into a ball.

"Zhou Si, don't joke with me like this," Ruan Linrui whispered, "I can't tell a joke from a joke, and I take every word seriously... So, do you understand?"

Zhou Si stared at Ruan Linrui in a daze. She lowered her head. She was so excited in the last second, but became so depressed in the next second, as if she had been drenched by heavy rain.

As far as she could remember, Ruan Linrui had never said such gentle words to Zhou Si...That's right, in her own memory, nothing like what happened today ever happened.

"Sorry, I get it."

Zhou Si stood up and walked towards the kitchen, and asked loudly, "Would you like some fruit?"

"Well... there's some dragon fruit I just bought in the refrigerator. Cut some for me."

"it is good."

Zhou Si picked up the fruit knife and wiped the blade carefully with a rag. Zhou Si's face was reflected on the shiny mirror.

A lifeless, calm face.

He gripped the fruit knife tightly, put it behind his back, and walked slowly towards the living room like a cold-blooded murderer.

Ruan Linrui recovered from her depressed mood. She was focusing on the TV screen. When Zhou Si approached, she opened her mouth and made an "ah" sound.

Zhou Si aimed at her throat and stabbed her with the knife accurately and quickly, and the "ah" sound stopped abruptly.

The handle fell heavily to the ground. Ruan Linrui covered her throat which was bleeding continuously. She looked at Zhou Si in disbelief, but there was no emotion in Zhou Si's eyes.

Zhou Si was sure that his skills were superb and Ruan Linrui could not feel any pain...if she could really feel the so-called pain.

Soon, Ruan Linrui's struggle gradually slowed down. Like a suffocated fish, she fell on the carpet, and the blood gradually spread and overflowed under Zhou Si's feet.

Zhou Si held up a fruit knife and asked loudly, "How long are you going to watch?"

The sound ripples and returns to silence.

After a long time, the bedroom door was pushed open again, and a dark shadow walked in.

He asked curiously, "Interesting, you are the first person who can detect abnormalities. Was it Professor Chen Wen-Ge who gave you the mental training?"

Zhou Si shook his head. "No, it's just that the illusion you created has flaws."

His interest was piqued. "What's the flaw?"

Zhou Si did not answer immediately. Instead, he glanced at Ruan Linrui's miserable corpse and then looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar living room.

"It was so beautiful," Zhou Si recalled sincerely, "It was so beautiful that it was unreal and made me feel sick."

(End of this chapter)