seizing dreams
Under the Great Wall, the autumn breeze blew as they ran and jumped between the walls. Yu Hao was breathless as he really couldn’t keep up with Zhou Sheng.
“Punch, turn sideways, kick!” Zhou Sheng ordered, “Don’t pretend to be dead, come on!”
Yu Hao said, “Let me take a break, we can get tired in dreams too!”
Zhou Sheng, “Letting you learn, yet you don’t want to; what if I’m not by your side at times?”
Yu Hao said helplessly, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t learn, but aren’t we together all the time?”
Yu Hao walked towards the stake, and Zhou Sheng sat on the city wall. Yu Hao turned his head sideways to look at him, yet there was a hint of a smile in Zhou Sheng’s gaze.
“Who wants to be with you everyday?” Zhou Sheng said, “Could you not be so lovey dovey and sticky?”
Yu Hao glanced at Zhou Sheng, didn’t answer, and faced the stake as he practiced in earnest.
Zhou Sheng stared for awhile, then continued, “Ai? You’re angry just because of that?”
Yu Hao answered, “I’m not. You’re right, we’ll part one day.”
Zhou Sheng fell silent. Yu Hao thought about it, then said, “What do you think we’ll be like in ten years? Will we go to different places? You should go to a first-tier city, right? I may stay in Ying City, find a job, celebrate the New Year and festivals, give you a call to ask about how you’re doing, you’ll get married and have a baby…”
“You’ll have your boyfriend too.” Zhou Sheng said, “Let me guess, what would your future boyfriend be like?”
Yu Hao said, “I won’t find a boyfriend. I don’t want to look for one anymore.”
Zhou Sheng laughed and said. “You can use me as a comparison to find one.”
Yu Hao stopped talking again. Zhou Sheng said, “You know what, Yu Hao? If you were a girl, I would definitely woo you, and I’d do anything to succeed in wooing you.”
Yu Hao said, “Stop talking about it!”
Zhou Sheng sighed again, “But if you were a girl, you wouldn’t like me.”
Yu Hao said, “I don’t want to learn how to fight. After learning how to, you won’t care about me anymore.”
Zhou Sheng held his forehead with one hand and could only snap his fingers in the end, saying, “Never mind, never mind, let’s ride the roller coaster ba.”
“Wait!” Yu Hao immediately said, “Since I’m going to forget this anyway, why don’t…”
As he spoke, Yu Hao leapt toward Zhou Sheng, who was sitting on the city wall, and brazenly straddled Zhou Sheng across his waist. Zhou Sheng hadn’t reacted when Yu Hao had already kissed him on his lips forcefully, taking him along as they rolled down the city wall and fell down.
Zhou Sheng, “!!!”
When the flames burned Yu Hao’s memories, Yu Hao revealed a blank expression for a brief moment, then snapped out of his stupor and shouted loudly. Zhou Sheng shouted as well. Yu Hao immediately spread his wings out, taking Zhou Sheng along as he made a sudden about-face and flew back to the city wall.
“We fell just now?” Yu Hao said with slight trepidation, “Were we parkouring? It’s still too dangerous.”
Zhou Sheng, “……”
Yu Hao, “Why do you look so weird?”
“Fuck me!” Zhou Sheng said angrily to Yu Hao, “Fuck!!!”
Yu Hao, “Why are you flaring up??”
Zhou Sheng practically couldn’t do anything with Yu Hao at all. He turned around, wiped his lips, then pinched his lips, all the while looking irascible. When he turned around to look at Yu Hao again, a bunch of question marks could be seen above Yu Hao’s head.
The golden flames was burning more and more intensely, setting the entire world on fire. All the dissipated memories were converging once again amidst the flames; countless scenes and images swept by quickly, and finally paused at one instant——
——Zhou Sheng ran quickly, jumped into the air, and unleashed a slam dunk.
Yu Hao felt like he got struck in an instant. He stared blankly at Zhou Sheng, and time seemed to stop. When Zhou Sheng landed, he was immediately knocked into and fell to the ground.
The flow of time recovered in an instant. Yu Hao instinctively wanted to run up to take a look at him, but after taking two steps out, he realised that Zhou Sheng seemed like nothing had happened as he staggered a few times before standing up. Zhou Sheng ran beyond the three-point line and inadvertently caught a glimpse of Yu Hao, who was passing by. He proudly raised an eyebrow at him, and brazenly flirted once with this boy he didn’t know who was just passing by.
Light revolved around Zhou Sheng’s body, then paused at a certain evening: after running 30 kilometres, he was sweating from head to toe. He looked at the stands, and Yu Hao had fallen asleep while leaning against the railings. Zhou Sheng took off his sports T-shirt, wrung his sweat out of it, threw it over his shoulder, then went up the steps to look at him.
In the sunset, Yu Hao slept soundly while wearing his earphones. His brows furrowed deeply, as if he had some troubles that couldn’t be resolved. He had fair skin, messy hair, very long eyelashes, and ruddy lips. Half of his face was hidden in the shadows, and his slim yet delicate face was so beautiful it looked like the silhouette of a bird flying past a mountain range, like the arc of a meteor drawn as it streaks across the night sky.
Zhou Sheng took his phone out and casually took a picture of Yu Hao sleeping soundly, then patted him.
“Wei, wake up!”
Yu Hao shifted uncomfortably, and he hadn’t opened his eyes before Zhou Sheng left the stand and walked away by himself. From then on, he would see Yu Hao sitting on the stands almost every day.
“Wei.” Yu Hao whispered in the golden light, “Have you slept enough?”
In an instant, Yu Hao’s hand passed through the light of the totem and grasped Zhou Sheng’s wrist firmly. Both of them embraced each other in the golden light.
A gentle breeze blew; the golden light retracted, then spread out endlessly between the heavens and earth, turning into wheat fields that connected with the horizon.
Zhou Sheng bowed his head and looked at Yu Hao, who was in his arms, then looked up at the sky again. At the same time, both of their bodies was set ablaze. Yu Hao lifted his hand, and a music box appeared within. Amidst the jingling of the music, countless memories on earth began recombining themselves, constructing the surface conscious world.
Outside the tree of the world.
Dark monsters advanced dauntlessly in waves. Ren Chong’s indignant voice resounded through the sky.
“Just a motley crew! You’re still not giving up?!”
“There’s too many!” Fu Liqun said, “We can’t finish killing them no matter how many we slaughter!”
Fu Liqun and Ou Qihang stood in front to ward them off; Huang Ting and Chen Yekai stood in front of the shining scepter and guarded the entrance of the cave. Huang Ting shouted, “Hold on!”
Chen Yekai said, “You have to find their weak point! These are all dark thoughts from ordinary dreams! They’re not hard to kill!”
Huang Ting, “Don’t just fly around, get down and kill monsters!”
Fu Liqun, “You guys have AOEs that can blow up a whole area, and Xiao Ou even has a Gundam! I fucking…”
Fu Liqun rode his celestial horse and dragged away the monsters that were besieging them. Ou Qihang followed behind to shoot his cannons, while Huang Ting began releasing his fireball arrays and bombed their enemies indiscriminately.
More and more monsters appeared, and they were even abandoning the Great Wall as they returned to the world tree as reinforcements.
Ou Qihang shouted, “All of the monsters are coming!”
“Hold on!” Chen Yekai shouted.
“He should have woken up by now ba?”
“This nap of his is really long…But why do I still seem to be waiting…”
“Un? What are you waiting for?”
“Waiting…I don’t know either. I always feel like something’s missing…”
Yu Hao raised one hand in the darkness, a light glimmering in his palm.
In the grand world of consciousness, the Great Wall suddenly disappeared!
Amidst earth-shattering cries, the Great Wall turned into silver white light particles that swooshed over, forming a starry river that shot swiftly into the entrance below the world tree, then disappeared without a trace.
The dark titan giant made one last swing down with its hammer, but it staggered and smashed harshly into the ground.
The fog broke through the border, advancing rapidly as it invaded the billions of dreamscapes guarded by the Great Wall!
“Is this it?” Yu Hao held a ball of silver white light with both hands and lifted it up to Zhou Sheng’s face. A totem appeared in Zhou Sheng’s hand. Yu Hao placed his hand on Zhou Sheng’s palm; two balls of light merged, then emitted a dazzling glare. Zhou Sheng lowered his head and kissed Yu Hao on his lips.
“Integration of permissions, activation of the World mode.” The Golden Crow Wheel’s voice rang out.
The Great Wall collapsed, and the fog billowed. Seeing as how the barrier was lost, the dark monsters gushed toward the entire world like a tide. Chen Yekai rode his Feathered Serpent God and soared into the sky, but millions of demonic birds assembled by black flames flew from the tree, wreaking havoc and tearing apart everything in sight.
“Nicky!”
“Yu Hao’s scepter disappeared!”
What came next was a ray of golden light bursting from the cave at the bottom of the world tree that broke through the void—
In the dream of that world, the one who was dreamed of awoke.
—
Juurensha: Omggg, so their real first kiss happened in a dream???
Zryuu: AND NOW WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED DURING ALL THOSE FUZZY TIMES