Chapter 2
Jiang Lan dialed the phone of Li Zhiqiang, the official person in charge of Dream Cube, and described her dream from last night in detail: "Captain Li, in my estimation, this major accident should correspond to a water accident, and the number of people involved should be in the hundreds."
Could you specify a more concrete timeframe?
"The weather suddenly changed in the dream. It should have happened on a rainy day outside of spring and winter. The accident site should be on one of the major rivers in the country, possibly a bridge collapse. Can you please specify the time and location?"
Li Zhiqiang held his phone with a hint of helplessness. The range given was practically the same as not giving any range at all.
Wang Qianyun, a team member listening to the hands-free call, asked curiously, "You said the people in the aperture are always closely following the dream maker, but the dream maker is always riding a bike. How did you manage to keep up?"
A clear, slightly magnetic male voice chuckled and replied, "In a dream, if the dream creator feels they can keep up, then they can."
"Wouldn't that mean..."
“Alright,” Li Zhiqiang interrupted her, “who can control their own dreams? Dream creators are just ordinary people too.”
Li Zhiqiang turned off the speakerphone, walked into the small office, closed the door, and asked Jiang Lan, "Has your dream weaver's control over dreams become stronger?"
Jiang Lan pondered for a moment, "I'm not sure, the feeling is sometimes strong and sometimes weak."
"Try to go outside more often and interact with people. See if you can recall some memories. After all, the streets, buildings, and environments in dreams are reflections of the real world. The fact that you can frequently enter and exit this dream creator's dream means that the geographical distance between you is not far. Also, can you recall the shape, style, color, and brand of that electric scooter you mentioned?"
"It should be black; the rest is completely obscured. However, judging from the Dreamer's riding posture, that two-wheeled vehicle must be her favorite, so we can guess it's a mid-to-high-end electric vehicle."
Li Zhiqiang smiled wryly: "Another piece of information so broad that it's hard to know where to focus your efforts. Okay, I understand, Comrade Jiang Lan, thank you for your report!"
After finishing his chores, Jiang Lan teamed up with some people to play a few rounds of PUBG, then packed up and headed out. He also wanted to buy an electric scooter.
There aren't many mainstream mid-to-high-end electric bicycle brands on the market. Jiang Lan followed the navigation and parked her bike on the road in front of an electric bicycle shop. It was rush hour, and apart from delivery guys who suddenly darted by, there weren't many people on the street.
Jiang Lan rolled down her car window and called out to the men repairing cars in front of the shop, "Boss, where can I park around here?"
The middle-aged man, presumably the owner, looked up and shouted, "Buying a car? If you're buying a car, come around and park in front of my door."
After getting out of the car, two young men, presumably employees of the shop, circled his vehicle, looking it over and occasionally making admiring remarks: "Brother, you must have spent a lot of money on this car, right?"
This sports car is indeed cool in appearance, and it's incredibly attractive to all men.
Jiang Lan smiled upon hearing this but did not reply.
The shop owner laughed: "You two should study hard. If you do something on your own in the future and make a name for yourselves, maybe you can drive a car like this too."
He then beckoned Jiang Lan into the store: "Brother, what kind of car do you want? My brand has good performance, the quality is excellent, and the appearance is cool. It's perfect for young people like you."
"Black, the best model, top-of-the-line."
Upon hearing this, the boss offered him a price, and seeing Jiang Lan nod, he grinned broadly and laughed heartily.
"I offer modification services here. Do you have any particular preferences?"
Upon hearing this, Jiang Lan's mind flashed to an image of a spirited young man with blond hair riding a flaming electric scooter, accompanied by deafening music blaring from its speakers, speeding along at breakneck speed.
He shook his head sharply: "No need for modifications."
After paying the fee and getting the license plate, Jiang Lan instructed the boss to take the car to the designated location, and then drove off to find something to eat.
Halfway through the meal, his friend Liu Zhen called to invite him to play ball that evening. With two hours to go before the agreed time, Jiang Lan found a coffee shop to kill time and took out his tablet to browse the mercenary group chat.
The group has only about two hundred members, and apart from a few women, it's all men.
What everyone is most concerned about is the real identities of the dreamers, but so far, including by the authorities, no useful information has been uncovered.
Just like the house from last night, if he can remember it, he can draw it from memory and then compare it in the real world. It wouldn't be difficult to find the corresponding location.
But it's like the rules of a Rubik's Cube: all information about the dreamer is blurred, and once you leave the dream, the memory is immediately formatted.
I browsed through the news again and saw a case report about a well-known female tycoon who was dismembered by her husband, and the body parts were found by the police after they drained the septic tank.
A while ago, someone in the group took a job from this wealthy woman, but she didn't trust the mercenary who took the job enough. In her dream, she was strangely torn to pieces and flushed down the toilet.
After a bloody night, the mercenary ran away with the money. The next day, he cursed and berated everyone in the group, asking them to keep an eye on the wealthy woman for updates.
Jiang Lan looked at the freshly released case report and forwarded it to the group chat.
People who had been lurking in the group started to surface and complain. Such things were common in the group. There were only so many people who had run into the system, and they were earning money by risking their lives. They were losing their lives in the dream, and after a while, it was not uncommon for them to die suddenly outside the dream.
Although the price is high, it's all about mutual consent.
Since you don't believe it and think the price is too high, then just don't place the order. But if you're afraid it's true and want to find someone to place an order to save your life, yet you don't want to pay anything, trying to have all the benefits, that doesn't make sense.
With such thoughts in mind, if you cause trouble in your dream, it's a pipe dream to expect to come out alive.
On the way to the stadium, Jiang Lan unconsciously paid attention to the two-wheeled vehicles on the road, especially those ridden by women.
While waiting at the traffic light, he noticed a girl riding a motorcycle in the next lane and took the opportunity to look her up and down.
He wore a white t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, with a backpack slung over his back and a tennis racket with its long handle sticking out.
Tall and thin, wearing a helmet and mask, his face was not visible.
It's a scooter, a very old model, but it looks well-maintained.
He turned while she went straight. The green light came on first, and he watched as the girl slowly accelerated and rode past.
Upon arriving at the stadium, after the exhilarating game, Jiang Lan and Liu Zhen sat in the rest area chatting.
"You haven't been out and about lately, what have you been up to?"
"Nothing much, just busy with nothing. I've finished these past few days and am planning to take a break."
"Perfect timing! I've recently met a lot of girls, all of them attractive and charming. If you're willing to come out, I'll organize a party right away."
Liu Zhen is not only Jiang Lan's friend, but also her former colleague and current business partner.
Jiang Lan studied electrical engineering in college and successfully entered a large technology company after graduation. Liu Zhen, who is a few years older than him, works in software engineering.
He worked there for less than two years before being pulled into Dream Cube and then resigning.
After taking on more orders, he quickly accumulated a considerable amount of money. He had known about Liu Zhen's desire to start his own business for some time, so he became Liu Zhen's investor. He contributed capital, while Liu Zhen contributed technology. Some venture capital firms also invested after hearing about the venture, but their stakes were relatively small.
Liu Zhen assembled a team to establish a technology company, found reliable team managers, and started developing the project. After several rounds of financing, Jiang Lan remained one of the company's major shareholders due to equity structure preservation clauses. In just two years, the company grew from a dozen people to over two hundred, and has now begun to turn a profit. The newly minted tech tycoon, Liu Zhen, is riding high.
Seeing Jiang Lan just smile and remain silent, Liu Zhen felt a bit disappointed in her: "Look at you, a high-quality man, rich, handsome, and a graduate of a prestigious university, yet you've wasted your youth. It pains me to see you like this. If I didn't know your ex-girlfriend, I would have suspected you were a prostitute!"
"Or are you still thinking about Meng Lin? How about I tell her your actual situation? I guarantee she'll dump her current boyfriend immediately and come back to you."
Seeing that he was getting more and more outrageous, Jiang Lan slapped him on the back and laughed, scolding, "Get lost! Mind your own business. Keep your mouth shut about my affairs. Besides, Meng Lin and I were only together for less than two months, and I was the one who broke up with her. What are you thinking about? She's doing well with her boyfriend now, so don't go looking for trouble."
Jiang Lan took a shower at the venue and walked towards the parking lot with her bag. When she passed the two-wheeled vehicle parking area, the girl riding towards her on a bicycle looked like the girl at the traffic light.
Jiang Lan watched as she rode past her without looking to the side, then turned her head to watch her turn into the lane.
Liu Zhen nudged him with his elbow and gestured with his chin in the direction the girl disappeared: "If you liked her, why didn't you just stop her and scan her QR code? Now that she's gone, it's no use looking now."
Then, in a cheeky tone, he said, "You know, this guy is really shameless. So many girls were giving him flirtatious looks and asking him to scan their QR codes, but he ignored them completely. Yet this one ignored you so much that you couldn't even see what he looked like, and you still managed to keep an eye on him."
Jiang Lan felt somewhat annoyed after hearing Liu Zhen's words; he should have stopped the person and asked them to scan the code.
Jiang Lan slept soundly that night and did not enter the Dream Cube, while Zhou Xiaoming had a series of dreams and did not sleep well.
In her dream, she was in her hometown, where her parents, brother, and sister-in-law had prepared a meal, and the whole family sat around the table to eat.
A pair of twins were sitting on the ground playing, and a young woman was watching over them.
Zhou Xiaoming felt uneasy. [Wait a minute, don't I only have one nephew? Who are these people?]
She got up and walked over, asking the young woman, "What's your name?" Then, pointing to the two children, she asked, "What are their names?"
The woman smiled at her and said, "My name is Wang**, and those two are my sons, this one is called Zhang**, and that one is called Zhang**."
Zhou Xiaoming nodded, letting them sit in his house, and walked towards the door. Her house was a single-story building, but now it suddenly became a tall building with an elevator at the door.
The elevator doors opened, she entered, looked at the lit-up number 13 on the keypad, and pressed 1.
As the elevator doors closed, the space began to narrow. Zhou Xiaoming went from sitting to lying down, and the elevator slowly tilted to the left and began to fall.
Zhou Xiaoming thought to himself, "I must have rolled over and been lying on my side in bed."
The elevator doors opened, revealing a pile of shoes on the floor. Xiao Ming stared at a pair of dirty white sneakers, wondering, "I just washed these shoes and they were drying on the balcony. How did they end up here?"
Then the shoes disappeared instantly, and Zhou Xiaoming felt relieved.
Looking up at the two people swaying around her as soon as she got off the elevator, Xiaoming looked confused. The bald man in the suit smiled and said to her, "I'm the owner of this factory."
The tall, thin man next to him smiled and nodded at her.
Zhou Xiaoming nodded to them, and the building began to twist and change. The shoes scattered on the ground disappeared, the elevator entrance became the stairwell, and various fire safety and production slogans appeared on the corridors and walls. The floor also changed from bare cement to the factory's dark gray painted floor.
After watching the two disappear down the corridor, Zhou Xiaoming climbed onto the railing, jumped down, and flew into the air.
She hovered and circled around the building, which had a traditional Chinese red-tiled roof with upturned eaves. Every now and then, some dark, unidentifiable things would fly out from under the eaves. Zhou Xiaoming thought they were mosquitoes. Sure enough, those dark shadows began to flap their thin, transparent wings and fly up and down around her. Zhou Xiaoming flew over and swatted them dead one by one.
She didn't know how many she had killed before she opened her eyes and woke up from her dream.
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