Zhao Chen opened his eyes.
Before him was a bed, a scene familiar and strange at once.
He sat bolt upright.
And looked around.
This… this was, of all things, his own room?
Zhao Chen stared in astonishment at the room's furnishings, very familiar, yet giving off a breath of strangeness.
A 1.8-meter bed, a coffee-colored sheet, and the thick quilt kept for winter.
He turned his head and saw, on the white nightstand, a box of tissues and a white cylindrical bedside lamp of a certain well-known brand.
To the left stood a wardrobe of the traditional dark-wood color; in the corner between the wardrobe and the door was a three-tiered curved shelf, very much of its era, where odds and ends or ornaments could be set.
Across from the bed was a big white wall.
Zhao Chen dimly remembered that in those days, when he had time on his hands, he had loved to watch films on that wall with a projector.
It had been more fun than words could say.
In the corner to the right of the foot of the bed stood a wooden desk.
On the desk were a computer, the tower, a keyboard, and some cups, pens and other scattered odds and ends.
Cups most of all.
Zhao Chen liked to drink water.
There were three cups on the desk.
A 1-liter orange thermos cup, mainly for drinking water in winter.
A free ceramic mug, mainly for coffee and tea bags.
And an ordinary green cup, when the water in the thermos was too hot, he would pour some into it and let it cool a while before drinking.
On the desk there was also a little cat-shaped ornament.
It was one of the few 'ornaments' he had ever bought, for he loved cats.
But his home was no place to keep a cat.
Beside the desk there was also a wastebasket.
To the right of the bed hung blue curtains; because they did not block light well and there was no valance, shafts of light could be seen shining through, like Roman columns.
Zhao Chen's breathing slowly quickened.
Heedless of the southern cold, he jumped straight out of bed.
Barefoot on the floor, he went straight to the window.
He pulled the window open in one motion.
Two panes of glass, and a screen.
Outside was glaring light.
Across the way was a residential complex built only a few years before.
Heedless of wearing only a thin shirt, Zhao Chen pulled the window wide.
A cold wind blew in.
The chill made Zhao Chen shiver.
Inside the guardrail outside the window, two succulents stood out plainly.
But they were in very different states.
The peach-egg plant had sunburn scars in several places from the summer, and looked somewhat bedraggled.
The pansy-colored one was doing very well; because of the winter, the tips of its leaves had even turned red.
Zhao Chen was dumbfounded.
He… he had come back now?
Then all that had gone before, had it all been a dream?
No!
Impossible!
He remembered it all so clearly.
How could it be a dream!
Those six or seven years, the Owl Dragon Interstellar Empire, Charlotte, Lilith, and the children about to be born.
How could that be a dream!
Zhao Chen backed away helplessly, struck the edge of the bed, and sat down hard on it.
He was utterly at a loss.
He could not accept anything about this at all.
Hsss-hsss-hsss.
Just then the computer screen, which had been off, came on by itself.
Zhao Chen's gaze moved to it.
The computer started up.
First, naturally, the desktop appeared.
On it were all sorts of Zhao Chen's documents.
At first glance they seemed somewhat strange to him.
But soon the memories began to assault his mind.
He… was a young man of 2023, not long out of school.
Unable to find work, he had stayed at home, now and then writing a novel to earn a little on the side.
These on the desktop were some of the materials he used.
But why… at the start of his crossing, had these memories seemed to go somewhat blurred?
Because too much time had passed?
He looked again at the bottom right corner of the computer screen.
There was the time.
Linhai City, February 26, 2023; temperature 3 degrees;[1] light rain.
Had all of this truly been only a dream of his own wild imagining?
Hsss-hsss-hsss.
Suddenly the grating sound rang out again.
At that, the whole screen broke up into static.
Then a pitch-black figure appeared on the screen.
"Do you wish to know the truth… Then come and find me…"
With that, the world around Zhao Chen began to crumble.
Just as he had thought: all he had been through was no dream; it was here that was the dream.
But the dream was truly too lifelike.
Zhao Chen looked at the crumbling room.
Suddenly something came to him.
He looked sharply at the closed door.
He rushed at it and tried to open it.
The door swung slowly open.
Outside were the familiar living room and dining room.
Two familiar figures sat on chairs in the dining room, drinking hot congee and eating breakfast.
Before Zhao Chen could see their faces clearly, everything before him crumbled away entirely.
There was only one unfinished sentence.
"Oh, how come you're up so early today…"
Zhao Chen woke with a start.
He looked around.
Familiar surroundings.
It was the captain's quarters he was using for the time being aboard this interstellar warship.
"Your Majesty!"
A delighted voice came from beside him.
The Panther-Girl was looking at him in great excitement, her eyes full of worry.
Zhao Chen mastered his feelings and asked straight out, "What just happened? How did I come to be here!"
The Panther-Girl mastered her own feelings and said at once, "Commander. Just now on the bridge, after the meeting on the great decisive battle against the Hive Nests, as you rose from the throne, you suddenly fainted and fell to the floor. However I called to you, you would not wake. But all your vital signs were normal. I brought you to the captain's quarters and used some equipment to try to rouse you."
Zhao Chen now noticed several pieces of emergency equipment set out beside the bed, all in disarray just now.
The Panther-Girl went on: "From your fainting to your waking, eight minutes and thirty seconds have passed. By the emergency plan we settled on, if you had not woken within ten minutes of fainting, I would have contacted Grand Marshal Charlotte and Lady Lilith, the supreme secretary officer, and told them all that had happened."
Having heard the Panther-Girl, Zhao Chen nodded.
These were indeed all things already agreed.
He had been unconscious for about eight minutes,
about as long as he had spent in that dreamlike space.
Too uncanny.
Above all, everything in that space had been so very real.
Even in a dream, one could not dream anything so real.
Some things Zhao Chen could no longer clearly remember himself had been restored, one by one, in the dream.
At the time, Zhao Chen had truly suspected that everything of his in this world was the great dream.
"Your Majesty. Are you… all right now?" the Panther-Girl asked again, somewhat worried.
"I'm all right now. Don't worry. What just happened, there's no need to tell Charlotte and Lilith. It would only worry them. Let's go back to the bridge first. I expect that girl Tao Beibei is frightened out of her wits by now," Zhao Chen said with feigned calm.