Dreaming for 10,000 years

Chapter 426 Awakening from the Dream (The End)

Working late into the night in the office, his wife's reproachful gaze, being late again on his child's birthday, Shi Fei's ambiguous smile at the dinner table...

Finally, there was a crisp "click," like the sound of glass shattering.

Old Liu suddenly opened his eyes as the blinding sunlight slanted in from the window.

He instinctively raised his hand to shield his eyes, inhaling the fresh, earthy scent unique to the area after the rain. Outside the window, the sycamore trees dripped water droplets, refracting a rainbow of colors in the sunlight.

"It was just a dream..."

It turns out the rain has stopped and the sky has cleared up.

He blinked blankly, his fragmented memories fading at an alarming rate. Collapsing skyscrapers, twisted and writhing streets, and endlessly falling abysses all turned into fleeting, dreamlike remnants, like morning mist.

It was as if he had a very, very long dream.

The dream was so long that he could hardly distinguish between reality and illusion.

In his dream, he seemed to have become another person, and at the same time, he seemed to live in the bodies of many people: Yu Tian, ​​the convenience store clerk, and even that metallic, muscular woman...

It's not just people, it seems to have become...

"Meow!" A round, black cat jumped onto the bed at some point and nuzzled affectionately against his palm. Its glossy fur gleamed like satin in the sunlight.

“No wonder…” Old Liu chuckled, gently scratching the black cat’s chin: “It would have such an absurd dream.”

No wonder I had such an absurd dream, dreaming that a city was created by a cat god.

He checked the time and when he saw that it was 1:30 on his phone, he realized that he had just been taking a nap.

It was supposed to be a nap, but I had such a long dream.

As the afternoon shift was about to start, Liu Feishi sat on his bed, recalling that absurd and bizarre dream.

He thought of Shi Fei in his dream, of himself, Lao Liu, in his dream, of the strange city, and of its final collapse. He couldn't help but smile.

So he picked up his phone and recorded the story as he spoke, planning to organize it later.

When it was almost time, he got up, put on his clothes, and went to work.

He is in his thirties, unmarried, and has no family. He works for a medium-sized company, neither a civil servant nor a state-owned enterprise.

In this city, he can't be considered a successful person, nor a wealthy person; he can only be considered an ordinary person.

An ordinary working person.

He left home and rode his electric scooter towards his workplace. His workplace wasn't far, only a ten-minute ride; for most people who had to cross half the city to commute, he was undoubtedly lucky.

That's why he has time to take a nap, which makes many people envious.

After arriving at the company, he turned on his computer, made himself a cup of goji berry tea, and began his afternoon work chatting and laughing with his colleagues.

He works for a planning company, and he is a graphic designer.

There's not much work to do today, or rather, there hasn't been much work lately.

The economy has been sluggish in recent years, and many companies have cut costs and reduced marketing expenses, which has also affected downstream industries like theirs.

Based on his years of work experience, he doubted this company would last long. The company's boss was rarely in the office, preoccupied with other schemes.

However, he wasn't in a hurry because he had many private clients who could do freelance work every now and then. He had been working for over a decade without achieving much success. In the workplace, he was getting older, lacking the eloquence to switch to marketing, and also lacking the ability to become a fashion designer.

They didn't save any money to start a small business or achieve financial freedom.

Speaking of small businesses, many of his former colleagues made money and wanted to start their own small businesses, but the barriers to entry were low, the products were highly homogenized, and they didn't really understand them, so they failed miserably and lost a lot of money.

In the end, those colleagues were forced to go back to working. Some colleagues continued their businesses, but they weren't making money, so working wasn't as good as it was for them.

Liu Feishi understood this very well: profitable industries rely on connections, experience, or barriers to entry. Businesses with no barriers or technical skills are extremely difficult to run and make money in.

Therefore, Liu Feishi considers himself an ordinary person. Or rather, after more than thirty years, he has clearly realized that he is an ordinary person.

It seems that his life has become like this: making a little money with a little experience and skills.

From the perspective of a successful person, his life is nothing short of a failure.

Perhaps that's why he had that dream! The dream contained a strange city, strange people, and strange stories.

With these thoughts in mind, Liu Feishi opened his drawing board and began using AI to generate some characters, then used himself to modify them.

Shi Fei, Lao Liu, Fang Yuan, Shi Zichen, Lu Nanxing... In one afternoon of slacking off, he took out all those characters and pieced them together into a painting.

"Old Liu, what's this?"

He was concentrating on drawing when he saw his colleague at the next workstation sticking his head out to look.

"What do you think this is?" Liu Feishi asked with a smile.

"Hmm... stickers or decals? Or something anime-themed?" my colleague asked, puzzled.

"No! It was a dream," Liu Feishi said mysteriously.

After getting off work, Liu Feishi returned home, fed the cat, and then turned on the phone.

Normally at this time, he would meet up with his friends to play games, but he didn't do that today.

He turned on the long-lost learning videos, learning about 3D image processing and model building, and also tried to build a few models himself as today's homework.

After that, he opened his document and began to organize the stories of his dreams.

He thought of those people in his dream, indulging in illusion and comfort—people who had given up on life. He was still young; he could recognize his own ordinariness, but he couldn't give up on life.

Life may be full of trivialities, but life won't defeat you; the only person who can defeat you is yourself!
He didn't want to be someone who indulged in illusions; he wanted to shatter those illusions and face reality and life. Therefore, he decided to change himself through a disciplined life and studies.

Self-discipline and perseverance are powerful in themselves!
This power is small at first, but as long as you persevere little by little and don't give up, it will unleash a life-changing force!

He slowly pieced together the story of his dream.

Maybe one day, he'll become an art director. Maybe one day, he'll become a 3D designer. Maybe one day, he'll become a novelist.

Whatever the future holds, it all stems from the perseverance and change we make today!
The black cat leaped onto the bookshelf, its golden pupils reflecting its owner's hunched back as he hunched over his desk. Outside the window, the city's neon lights gradually illuminated, while on Lao Liu's monitor, an exquisite 3D city model slowly took shape.

That was the dream city that collapsed in the dream!

(End of book)

(End of this chapter)