CH 30

Yu Le had a very absurd dream.

In the dream, a young man with a gentle expression was sitting at his desk. It was the beginning of autumn, and the ginkgo leaves outside the window were dyed with a hint of golden green. The evening light shone in from the window and through the gaps of the leaves to fall bit by bit on the white letter paper. The young man was holding a pen in his hand and writing with a slight rustling sound.

He was writing a letter.

The young man seemed to be very troubled as he thought of his following words and paused to bite his pen. His face changed, showing his thoughts clearly, melancholic and reminiscent of past joys.

Finally finishing his letter, he folded it carefully, took a music box out of the cabinet beside him, and gently opened the back cover to stuff the white envelope inside.

The music box started playing jerky violin music, and the little man in a suit spun around.

Amidst the ethereal sounds, the young man calmly took out a medicine bottle full of small white pills and poured a handful into his palm. Showing a wry smile, he swallowed them in one go.

After witnessing this scene, Yu Le finally realised this was the memory of the original owner, the memory from right before he disappeared.

Why was he being shown this now?

Just as he was wondering this, the originally quiet and soft atmosphere in the room darkened. The sunset shining in darkened, growing thicker and carrying traces of scarlet blood. The man’s shadow started to morph, gradually stretching until it was able to cover the walls of the room.

This short memory was twisted to such an extent.

Yu Le stood at the door, possibly outside the frame.

He wasn’t even sure if he existed in this room.

But at this moment, the young man at the desk turned his head backwards to look at him with an empty, black gaze.

Anger, unwillingness, jealousy, resentment, love…so many complex emotions were surging within him. Through those eyes, he seemed to feel a treacherous sea.

In comparison to the expressfull eyes, the man’s face was particularly numb. His words came out in a dry, raspy voice, “Are you very proud?! You thief!”

About to respond, Yu Le was awoken before he could say anything at all by a touch on his cheek.

In the boundary between dream and reality, he felt sticky sweat dripping down his face. The tightly wrapped quilt was like a mountain pressing down on him, and he struggled to free himself from its restraints.

As he moved about, a pair of cold hands rested on his forehead, accompanied by a worried voice, “Yu Le? Yu Le? What’s wrong?” The touch that had woken him from his dream left, moving away and back into the realm of what was socially permissible between acquaintances. “You aren’t burning up anymore, how do you feel?”

“I’m fine…I just had a dream…” Immediately after he opened his mouth, Yu Le heard how hoarse his voice was, worse than the sound of shaving wood.

The next second, a cup of warm water was brought to his mouth. Still struggling inside the cocoon on blankets, he managed to free his arms at least and gulped the water down with hungry abandon.

“Did your fever cause a nightmare?” Yu Youzhi helped prop his back as he sat to drink. Anxious at his unsteady body, he added, “Drink slowly, don’t choke yourself.”

Yu Le nodded slightly, breathing deeply as he calmed down. A refreshing fragrance was in the air, a familiar, pleasant smell. He seemed to know it from somewhere and soon remembered that it was what surrounded him as Yu Youzhi carried him back earlier that morning.

Finally, his sleep-ridden mind was beginning to wake up.

Finishing a second glass of water, Yu Le glanced carefully at Yu Youzhi and said, “It wasn’t a nightmare. I saw the original owner in my dream.”

“Original owner?”

“The original owner of this body.”

“What happened in the dream?”

“He was writing a letter.”

“Why did you dream about him?”

“I don’t know.”

The topic stopped abruptly, and neither knew how to continue the discussion. For a moment, silence reigned.

Yu Le glanced around at the unfamiliar surroundings, “Where is this place?”

“This is my home. You had a fever of forty degrees, and while I can’t take you to the hospital, I can call my doctor here at least.”

Smiling, Yu Le was rarely sincere with this man, “Thank you.”

Yu Youzhi nodded indifferently. Handing him the thermometer, he instructed, “You felt cooler once you woke up, but it’s still better to measure it again.”

“Okay.”

Seeing him obediently taking his temperature, Yu Youzhi walked over and stood by the window.

The sky had darkened, and one could see the round moon hanging low in the sky. Its deserted appearance made the world seem especially quiet, “How long did I sleep?”

“Seven or eight hours.”

“As I was asleep, what happened to the outside world?”

This question was a bit strange, and Yu Youzhi showed a puzzled look, “For example?”

Thinking momentarily, Yu Le wasn’t sure, “Such as the sky collapsing, or maybe being torn apart? Something like that?”

“Well…” He pondered but still answered seriously, “It was quiet near my apartment, and I haven’t seen anything strange on the news. I don’t think anything happened.”

“Oh.” Yu Le’s face was slightly disappointed, “I thought that if Zhu Luo knew the truth, something would definitely happen to this world.”

“…” Puzzled, Yu Youzhi had many questions but, looking at Yu Le, continued to smile politely and didn’t ask, “This is your cell phone. I saw that you were on it earlier while you were sick, so I put it on the bedside table,” he pointed to the right. “A lot of messages have come in, you might want to deal with it.”

Yu Le blinked.

“Also, the emoticon is pretty good.”

Uh…the screensaver he had made privately to vent his anger was actually discovered. Feeling a little embarrassed, Yu Le buried his face in his phone, “I’m sorry, I’ll delete it when I get back home. Today was really…Thank you for all your help. I must have caused you a lot of trouble, I will pack my things and go home right away…”

Hearing this, Yu Youzhi frowned, “Yu Le, you don’t need to leave immediately, right?”

“What?”

“You had a fever of forty degrees. I’ve been so busy taking care of you all afternoon and was even misunderstood by Brother Song because of you…and you don’t want to repay me at all?”

“Well, how do you want me to repay you?”

The man stared at him for a minute without speaking.

Just as he was beginning to worry that the other would make some excessive demands, Yu Youzhi suddenly laughed. Walking over to stand in front of him, he rubbed Yu Le’s messy head, “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you for anything right now. Instead, remember this in the future.”

In the future, wasn’t it worse to wait for this type of thing, though?

“You see, I worked so hard to keep you company without eating or sleeping all day. No matter how much you hate me, you can still force yourself to have dinner with me, right?” Yu Youzhi’s beautiful grey eyes looked at him persistently, “We should be considered friends now, right?”

Meeting his eyes, Yu Le felt that he would be a heinous bastard if he refused.

With such a sense of guilt, he could only nod.

“Speaking of which,” Yu Youzhi clapped his hands as if remembering something, “did the thermometer time out?”

“Ah…” He had completely forgotten about it.

But Yu Youzhi didn’t mind, laughing as he said, “There’s no rush anyway, we can check again after the food is delivered.

And sure enough, Yu Le ended up staying for dinner and was reminded to check his temperature later that night.

By the time their business had wrapped up, it was almost midnight, and with Yu Youzhi’s persuasion, Yu Le ended up letting nature take its course as he stayed the night again.

During this period, Yu Youzhi didn’t ask even once about his rebirth.

It was as if he had changed to be someone else, suddenly becoming considerate and easy to get along with. But strangely, Yu Le felt subtly uncomfortable and even had a slight feeling of nausea as he faced him.

Nothing happened overnight.

It wasn’t until he woke the next morning when his fever had completely subsided that Yu Le finally found an excuse and planned to leave.

As he was doing so, the big star winked at him, “Yu Le, if you need me, remember that I am free for you at any time. I’ll be waiting for your call!”

Holding himself tightly as he felt goosebumps on his body, Yu Le left even faster.

“Message, message…”

After returning home, Yu Le began to deal with the problems left over from yesterday’s fever. He had been absent from work and had to reply to messages from Qi Dongyi before too much pay was deducted. He held his mobile phone carefully and apologised for a long time before the matter was settled with three days’ salary being deducted.

An An also had not left him alone, but luckily, it was just her usual happy-go-lucky self, and things were easily brushed over as he mentioned he had been distracted with other matters.

“News, news…” He continued to mutter to himself as he looked for any news he had missed, “Really? Nothing happened after he found out?”

The day passed quickly, but that night, Yu Le had a restless sleep.

Something was wrong, the dream he had thought nothing much of, was repeating.

It was still in the same room, still a beautiful day, still the same main character.

The golden sunlight turned to blood, and the man spun to face him solemnly, “Are you very proud?! You thief!”

In his dream, Yu Le linked in confusion, the same sentence? Was this just a record?

But this time, no one was here to wake him up, so the dream continued.

“Thief! Robber! Outsider!” The man at the desk stared at him with his black eyes, anger surging out with his words like an endless spring, “This is my body! Why did you get to take it?! You…thief! Get out! Get out before I kill you!!”

Chanting the same words over and over, the man stood up and rushed over to him, grabbing his neck with both hands. The opponent’s fingers dug into his neck, and even in the dream, there was a real feeling of suffocation.

The lack of oxygen caused Yu Le’s eyes to bulge, and the blood rushed to his face as he struggled to breathe. He turned his wide eyes to look at the ferocious young man’s figure with difficulty, “Are you…the vice-captain?”

It was clearly a situation where he should be fighting for his life, but Yu Le still managed to convey his disdain as his gaze looked down on the other.

Seeing this, the nightmarish figure couldn’t help but be startled.

Yu Le seized this opportunity, picking up the camera from the desktop beside him, and slammed it into the other man’s head.

Just once was not enough, so he used his remaining strength and hit a second, third, even a fourth time in succession.

There was a loud impact each time he brought it to beat the other.

The hand on his neck had already loosened. Pulling off the spasming fingers one by one, Yu Le kicked the sorry figure into the corner.

The camera had been smashed to pieces long ago, and the pieces fell from his fingertips. Yu Le dropped the rubble from his hands, touching his sore neck as he approached the corner, “I must be dreaming now, right? What kind of place is this? Our consciousness?” He couldn’t help but feel the strangeness, even in the world of a book, this felt a bit too magical to be real, “I didn’t expect dreams to be so real. You can feel pain and even inflict it on others.” Looking down with still grey eyes, he asked, “If I beat you to death here, will you never bother me again?”

Obviously, Yu Le did not intend to wait for an answer.

As the young man in the corner opened his eyes and flinched back in horror, he had already raised his fist high.

“Dang-dang-dang-”

“Dang-dang-dang-”

A familiar ringtone suddenly permeated the space.

The ringing was very harsh, close to his ears, yet still far away.

Someone was calling him.

The dream in front of him began to collapse rapidly.

Frowning, Yu Le woke from his sleep. Picking up the phone, Zhu Luo’s name was displayed on the screen.