Chapter Sixteen: Campfire One

  "Hey, Li Lin?" Lin Fang was currently holding his phone and talking.

  "Lin Fang, sorry about that just now, something suddenly came up. Is your friend okay?" Li Lin said on the other end of the phone.

  "It's nothing, she was just playing with me," said Lin Fang. "Have you been in Jinghua District for the past few days?"

  "Yes, let's not talk for now, I'm busy at the moment. I'll look for you when I have time." Li Lin seemed very busy and ended the conversation.

  Soon after the three landed, Ye Wan said she was tired and Lin Fang accompanied her back to the villa before calling Li Lin, at which point he didn't want to go back to the shore either.

  Lying in bed was a bit boring, Lin Fang thought of what Zhou Yi had said before, it seemed to be No. 5 Fuhua Road in Jinghua District.

  "Hey, Zhou Yi." Lin Fang dialed Zhou Yi's phone number.

  "What's wrong, Lin Fang?" Zhou Yi said.

  "I'm in Jinghua District right now, are you free? I'll go find you," said Lin Fang.

  "Look at my memory, come on, there's nothing busy now, remember the address?" Zhou Yi stopped for a moment before saying.

  Zhou Yi's residence is not far from their villa, but it's not easy to take a car in the suburbs. Lin Fang has to walk for a while to get to the station.

  Jinghua District, Fuhua Road.

  Looking around at the two-story high houses, this place seems like a small village, with some simply dressed villagers visible on the periphery.

  After calling Zhou Yi's phone again, Zhou Yi said to wait a moment and he would come out to greet him immediately.

  After a while, Lin Fang saw Zhou Yi hurriedly running over from a bend.

  "Here it comes." Zhou Yi let out a breath.

  "Why so anxious?" Lin Fang smiled and said.

  "I was just doing something at home and got into it." Zhou Yi explained.

  Two people came to a two-story house, looking at the decoration was pretty good, estimated that it took a lot of money to decorate.

  "I just moved in, and there's still some furniture that hasn't been arranged properly at home. Let's just go straight to my room, my family members aren't around either." The furniture in the room is quite new, it should be newly purchased.

  "What are you busy with?" Lin Fang glanced around and then followed Zhou Yi into his room.

  There are some small toys, models, figurines and even drums scattered around Zhou Yi's room.

  "I was just assembling a Gundam model and I'm almost done." Zhou Yi said, sitting down at the table and fiddling with the model.

  Lin Fang saw that it was a palm-sized model, the body part had been assembled, and only one wing was left. Zhou Yi was helping this Gundam assemble the wing continuously. On the side, other models could be seen, whether they were for games or anime, Lin Fang didn't study them carefully, so he couldn't tell.

  "You're just messing around with this stuff at home." Lin Fang casually picked up a box and opened it, revealing a large pile of magnetic beads.

  "Yes, there's usually nothing to do anyway, and I like it." Zhou Yi had already connected the high wings together and turned around to face Lin Fang.

  "So you don't have a job, what about income?" Lin Fang casually played with the magnetic beads in his hand, looking at the photos on the box. It seemed that these magnetic beads could be assembled into a cube, but Lin Fang tried and it seemed very difficult. There should be some method, but it wasn't mentioned on the box.

  "I set up an online store, usually selling some small items, which is still a good way to make money these days. The prices are high, and very few people buy them. Most people who shop online have a psychology of seeking cheap deals." Zhou Yi didn't say this during the last gathering.

  "Selling stuff, it's not bad, is the income good?" Lin Fang asked casually, without much interest.

  "Haha, not bad, not bad, this is not a problem." Zhou Yi laughed uncontrollably, with a hint of pride in his eyes. "But the most important thing is that I like it, I'm interested in doing it, if I wasn't interested, no matter how much money you gave me, I wouldn't want to do it, our family situation isn't bad, we don't lack this bit of money."

  Lin Fang saw Zhou Yi's serious expression after speaking and didn't know what he was thinking about.

  "Right, finding a job you like isn't easy." Lin Fang said somewhat dejectedly.

  "Not mentioning me, how about you? You didn't say much during our last gathering," said Zhou Yi.

  "I'm probably just what Chao Ge said, choosing a job I don't like, no interest, no motivation, nothing I want to take on, just wanting to muddle through this life. Lin Fang looks very different now, this kind of decadent look has never appeared in front of others before."

  "What's that, don't you have any hobbies or interests usually?" Zhou Yi wanted to comfort Lin Fang, but he had no experience and didn't know what to say.

  "As for hobbies, I have one, which is what I asked you guys last time, lucid dreaming." Lin Fang said with a hint of excitement in his eyes.

  "Oh? What's that?" Zhou Yi was initially surprised, but upon realizing that Lin Fang wasn't joking, he suddenly became interested.

  "I can control the direction of dreams, and even stop dreaming. Sometimes I can even predict what will happen in the future while I'm still in a dream." Lin Fang said with the same proud expression as Zhou Yi earlier.

  "So fierce? Tell me, what's going on." Zhou Yi was no longer hiding his curiosity.

  "I once saw in a book that there are methods for preparing to dream, controlling consciousness in dreams, and some incantations that allow me to control the process and outcome I want in my dreams." Lin Fang sorted out his vocabulary and said slowly.

  "Cattle can control process and result, so where does it start?" Curious people seem to have a keen intuition.

  "I really don't know about this, it seems like every time I dream, I only realize it's a dream halfway through, and I've never known how I got in." Lin Fang looked at Zhou Yi with furrowed brows, thinking back.

  "But that's also amazing, you just said you know about the future, as far as I know, it seems that in reality every time we encounter something familiar but haven't experienced before, it appears in our dreams. Well, but don't know what the future will be like, it's just a kind of hindsight." Zhou Yi expressed his own views, Lin Fang understood him, he would have great interest and desire to learn about something he had never understood before.

  "Yes, I'm just a latecomer too. So after waking up every day, I will record the events that happened in my dreams. But what I said earlier about being aware beforehand is not me, but a friend named Li Lin. We met on the street for the first time and both felt familiar with each other, as if we had seen each other somewhere before. Then we started chatting, he told me that he actually remembered the details of meeting me in his dream, and knew that he would meet me, although not remembering the exact time." Lin Fang said a lot, his mouth was a bit dry, but couldn't hide the excitement and thrill inside, no less than when he talked to Li Lin that time.

  "Awesome, I also want to get to know this person. By the way, what book are you reading?" Zhou Yi said after savoring Lin Fang's words for a moment.

  "He's also in Jinghua District, says he has something to do, and when I'm free, I'll introduce you to him. As for that book, I didn't bring it with me, it's at home. As for the title... um..." Lin Fang thought of saying the title, but after opening his mouth, he seemed to have only glanced at the first page and couldn't remember the name of the book. "I forgot, I'll show it to you when I'm free." He scratched his head in embarrassment."

  "It's nothing, it's nothing. Oh right, speaking of dreams, let me show you something." Although Zhou Yi said it was nothing, he still revealed a disappointed emotion, as if his curiosity wasn't satisfied.

  Before Lin Fang could respond, Zhou Yi had already opened the computer that was on standby and smoothly opened a website. Lin Fang looked at it and it seemed to be some kind of forum.

  Zhou Yi let Lin Fang move forward and take a closer look. Indeed, on top was a famous Tieba forum post with the title written on it:

  Everyone, this is a true story, but it happened in a somewhat strange way

  Lin Fang looked down at the article below:

  I can predict the future, and I predict the future by dreaming. However, I only predicted it once, but it left me with a lingering fear.

  That was this summer, because I had just graduated from college and was in a state of unemployment, which is what people call a vagabond, so I had a lot of time, resulting in me being idle all day long. Plus, my parents were supporting me at home, and usually I would just play games, go out with friends to drink and chat, and then after getting tired, I would just go back home to sleep. You could say that my life was just about eating, drinking, having fun, and sleeping.

  But from that night on, I was no longer normal, and my life changed.

  I was playing games as usual, got tired, had a midnight snack and went to sleep. Then I started dreaming.

  It was a night without moon, without stars, the view was very dark, I could only see a few meters away from the scene, and it was very blurry. At that time, I was in a forest, like an unconscious person, walking around randomly.

  I don't know how long it took, but it seemed like a very short time. I couldn't remember clearly, but I felt as if the whole world had shaken once. Then, some unknown birds in the forest flew up in groups in one direction, as if they were escaping. Even several wild dogs, those mountain dogs that I usually didn't dare to approach, came running from the front. They were the kind of dogs that could bite a wolf to death when they went mad. Now, they were actually fleeing towards me. I was able to see fear in their eyes, and I saw fear in the eyes of several dogs.

  I also wanted to escape, but my body couldn't move, I just stood there stupidly until all the sounds passed behind me and disappeared.

  I thought nothing was wrong, but you absolutely can't imagine, I actually walked in that direction, it's the direction where those black birds flew up, I could feel my palms were all sweaty, my scalp was numb, but what scared me the most was, I still couldn't control my body, I stepped forward step by step.

  In this state where I wanted to die, I saw a blurry object in front of me, which seemed to be a house, a house in the forest. But what was even more terrifying was that there was a figure in front of the house, and that figure, I seemed to have seen it somewhere before. He was holding something unknown, with ** dripping from it, drip, drip, creating the only sound on the ground.

  I don't know where I got the strength from to control my body, but I immediately crouched down. Luckily, there was a patch of very tall weeds in front of me, but I still couldn't escape, and my body was shaking.

  That figure that looked like a person moved, he raised the thing wrapped in cloth with both hands, I saw clearly, it was an axe, he was chopping downwards, there was a human shape below him, but it wasn't just any human shape, it was actually a person. Once, twice, I don't know how many times he chopped, the person below had already been chopped into a bloody pulp.

  The ground was stained with blood, the only clear color I saw, and the most deadly. There was a stream of blood flowing in my direction. The man holding the axe saw me. Damn it, why did the blood flow over here? He would see me because of that.

  I was completely scared, I could feel my legs trembling and couldn't move, I could only desperately move backwards, he came over, the axe in his hand was still dripping with blood, even though I had my back to him, I could still hear the sound of dripping, getting closer and closer.

  I was caught by him, a huge force that directly made me fall down from behind, finally, I saw his face clearly, and fear overwhelmed me.