"Have you ever dreamed?"
A female MC held her microphone toward me and flashed a charming smile, dressed in a cool office outfit. For a split second, I almost said that my dream was standing right in front of me, large and obvious.
But I quickly regained my composure and recited the line I had practiced for so long.
"My dream is very simple. It is…"
…
Beep.
Beep.
I was sitting in front of an operating table. No, actually outside an operating room. Inside, nurses and doctors were performing surgery, and I could only watch through a small glass window.
Beep.
That was when I realized the strange sound was coming from my phone.
It was my editor. Apparently, he urgently needed a manuscript.
"It's already the deadline?"
Too fast. Everything over the past few days had happened far too quickly, so quickly that it could be summarized in just a few sentences. Or was it simply that I felt it was too fast?
I hurried into the restroom, opened the Notes app on my phone, and tried to find the manuscript I had prepared in advance.
"Did I save it? I remember writing it, right? I did, didn't I? Where is it? Where is it?"
I clenched my teeth and slammed against the restroom stall door, hoping I wasn't disturbing anyone.
I tried to close it, but it wouldn't lock. Had I broken it? It seemed so.
Sitting down on the toilet seat, I decided I wouldn't submit anything at all.
To hell with the money.
"Ahhhh, damn it."
I stared blankly into nothingness, trying to forget this false reality.
But when I tried to sink into the emptiness, my head began to buzz.
Like a bottle of cola lightly shaken, my brain started hissing, gas and soda spilling out in the form of meaningless song lyrics.
It was gentle at first. Then it wrapped around my head like a soft tide gradually swallowing the shore.
The last thing I remembered was someone shouting. Someone holding me back. Someone pinning me down.
I didn't understand what was happening. I lifted my eyes.
The restroom mirror had shattered into a thousand pieces.
…
Have you ever dreamed?
Dreamed of escaping reality, of living inside your dreams instead.
There are lives we long for, yearn for, because they are too perfect, too beautiful.
So we seek illusion, where reality and dreams are separated by only a single step.
Someone once said that reading a novel is living a life, and dreaming a dream is becoming a person.
My name is Joe. I heard that line in passing during a business trip and decided to try dreaming about it.
"Hmm… why don't I try reading some novels?" I asked myself.
Classic literature was too long winded, too dry. So I started with web novels instead.
"Oh, this is great."
I read the trending ones, the newly rising ones, the long completed ones.
"But why… is everything so simple?"
The joy I felt at the beginning gradually turned into doubt.
There was always a regressor. A transmigrator. Someone overwhelmingly powerful. Someone weak but pretending to be strong. Someone who knew everything that would happen.
"Oh no, there are still other genres, other lives I can read," I thought, searching through different tags.
…
I'm not sure when it happened, but I began to feel oversaturated with web novels. So I tried reading classics instead.
Some were good. Some were difficult. Some I dropped. Some made me wonder why no one seemed to know about them.
But the feeling was not the same as at the beginning.
Perhaps I still preferred that dreamy sensation when reading those familiar archetypes.
I knew it was strange. The characters were all predictable in some way, yet they made you dream more deeply. Even knowing how the story would unfold, how it would end.
"Why don't I try writing something myself?" I thought.
After all, I was tired of my repetitive life. Why not try something new?
I wrote familiar character types. Sometimes slightly novel, sometimes classic. I walked back and forth, daydreaming about plotlines, about characters, about stories.
I dreamed of stories where I could be those characters and become part of the narrative.
But come on, that is enough fantasy.
I liked those types of characters, but I could never be like them. I had lived this life for many years. I knew dreams were always beautiful.
And then one day…
I rested my head on my desk.
Reports were scattered across it, and my computer screen still displayed unfinished work.
I took a sip of coffee. Comfortable enough. I had not slept for over a day. What I needed now was a long sleep.
In my exhaustion, I often thought about one thing.
Why do online authors and readers love stories about transmigrating into fictional characters and standing above ten thousand people?
I always knew the answer.
I just kept postponing giving it, because thinking about it would not change anything anyway.
I yawned.
It was already past 10 PM.
A short nap would not hurt, right?
I glanced at my phone's wallpaper. Several figures were there.
But none of them had faces.
…
"Hey! Someone call an ambulance!"
"There's a dead person!"
What the hell? I was just trying to sleep. What happened? Who died?
I tried to push myself up and open my eyes.
All I saw was pitch black.
"Ah… everyone…"
…
What was the title of the novel I wrote again?
Heaven Splitting Sword?
Whatever it was.
I was already trapped inside it.