Seizing Dreams
Ch28 – Sounding Out
Translated by: DMlations/Zryuu
Edited by: Amelea, FistFullOfDollars and Juurensha
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This was the first time for Yu Hao to encounter someone who ordered this many dishes, so he quickly said, “Don’t order so much, it’ll be a waste.”
“We can finish it.” Zhou Sheng said, “Do you have some sort of misunderstanding about how much I can eat?”
Everyone laughed again. Yu Hao said, “Okay then, if we can’t finish the food we can pack it away and bring it back. It’ll be enough to eat for several days.”
“We can’t bring any back, if my Mum knows that we came here, she’ll turn into a madwoman.” Zhou Sheng said to the foreman, “Bring two strips of Agarwood over.”
The foreman brought over two strips of cigarettes that Yu Hao had never seen before, then Zhou Sheng said to Yu Hao, “Put them all in your bag, my Mum won’t rummage through yours. When we get back to college, we can give them to the others.”
The dishes they ordered filled their huge table. Zhou Sheng poured a cup of tea for Yu Hao and asked, “What did you want to talk to me about?”
All the waiters sensibly stepped out, so only Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao remained in the palatial room. The impact of this scene was truly too strong, so Yu Hao was trapped in a daze for awhile. However, when Zhou Sheng was the one putting on such a show of extravagance, it was nothing like going to Chen Yekai’s house, since no sense of inferiority emerged in Yu Hao’s heart.
Perhaps it was because of this guy’s sloppy appearance as he sat in front of him. It stood in stark contrast to this opulent scene, and the difference was so striking that it seemed a bit absurd, as if the drawing style of this scene had changed within an instant.
A few days ago, he was still living in a down-to-earth doc.u.mentary about an impoverished student that was playing on CCTV-8, but within the blink of an eye, he suddenly transmigrated into an idol drama where the characters were indulging in a life of luxury.
“Nothing much.” Yu Hao said in the end.
Zhou Sheng lowered his voice and said, “I’ll tell you a secret, Yu Hao.”
Yu Hao, “……”
Yu Hao didn’t know what to expect so he leaned in closer apprehensively. Yet Zhou Sheng said mysteriously, “Actually, everything here today is totally fake! I was deceiving you!”
“My Dad isn’t the boss of Yun Lai Chun! I paid over 20,000 yuan today to get everyone here to act this all out with me! When we return, you’ll need to pay my credit card bills! Let’s both go wash the dishes ba!”
Yu Hao immediately spat out a mouthful of soup. Zhou Sheng burst into laughter and motioned for him to continue eating and indicated that he wouldn’t tease him anymore. Halfway through their meal, someone knocked on the door and came in. Zhou Sheng impatiently chased that person away — the one who had come in was a man who looked to be about thirty years old. After he retreated to the door, he said respectfully towards them, “Director Zhou is out of town today.”
“I especially chose this time to come because he’s away.” Zhou Sheng said, “Is it strange?” Then he said to Yu Hao, “My Dad’s chauffeur.”
“Director Zhou said,” That man continued, “If you need to use the car later, please let me know. He asked me to accompany both of you to the department store and buy something good for the New Year.”
Zhou Sheng said, “We won’t go, I have legs. Close the door, it’s so d.a.m.n noisy outside.”
The chauffeur closed the door with very precise and clean movements, Yu Hao said, “Don’t be like that. You’re so polite to the staff here, so why are you so aggressive towards your father’s chauffeur?”
“He often uses his position to bully the staff.” Zhou Sheng snorted disdainfully, “Disgust’s mother would cry as she says, ‘so d.a.m.n disgusting’.”
Yu Hao could only say, “I take my words back.”
Zhou Sheng said with concern, “Eat a little more, I won’t be cooking after tomorrow. I’ll let you have a taste of my Mum’s universally appalling Motherwort bitter gourd stew with fish soup.”
When Zhou Sheng saw the expression on Yu Hao’s face, he laughed so hard that he couldn’t sit up straight anymore. Yu Hao said, “You must be doing this out of revenge!”
“What am I taking revenge for?” Zhou Sheng tried to hold his laughter back and asked seriously.
“For abducting you home!” Yu Hao felt like after Zhou Sheng came back, he began to let go of himself more and seemed a little different from how he was at school, though he couldn’t explain how he was different.
“Just eat ba.” Zhou Sheng said, “Do you want the Hermes scarf that Kaikai wears? Get that chauffeur outside to buy 10 of those for you.”
“No need.” Yu Hao said expressionlessly.
“Do your friends know that you’re……you’re……”
“The young master of Yun Lai Chun?” Zhou Sheng continued his sentence for him.
Zhou Sheng was riding his bike while Yu Hao sat on the front b.u.mper. After their dinner, they wanted to slowly ride back home to digest their meal. Yu Hao had stuffed himself so much that he almost vomited.
“Un.”
“In high school, some knew, and some didn’t.” Zhou Sheng answered, “In college, no one knows.”
“Qts vlv sbe afii wf?” Te Ljb aegcfv tlr tfjv rilutais. Ktfrf akb ylu uesr kfgf rlaalcu bc bcf ylmsmif — bcf rja bc atf ogbca yewqfg ktlif atf batfg gbvf atf ylxf rb atfs kfgf ralmxlcu abb mibrf ab fjmt batfg. Po Te Ljb aegcr jgbecv, tf kbeiv jmmlvfcajiis xlrr Itbe Vtfcu.
“There’s no ‘why’.” Zhou Sheng said, “Laozi wanted to.”
“Why do you take care of me so much?” Yu Hao suddenly asked again.
Zhou Sheng, “Yo, you’re stirring things up again. Could you not be so corny?”
Zhou Sheng stopped. He supported his bicycle with one foot as he said, “Yu Hao, why have you been so strange lately? What the h.e.l.l do you want to say? Don’t tell me you’re really going to confess to Laozi ba? I’m not gay, I like girls!”
Yu Hao’s heart jolted. He hurriedly clarified, “No! Let’s go ba.”
Zhou Sheng sized Yu Hao up with a doubtful look and said, “Oh right. Yu Hao, are you gay?”
Yu Hao could only say, “How could I be?! I like girls too!”
Zhou Sheng studied Yu Hao and asked suspiciously, “Really?”
Yu Hao’s thoughts were immediately reduced to a chaotic mess. Countless thoughts surfaced in his mind: Zhou Sheng was a straight guy through and through, but on the train, he had a vague feeling that he had begun liking him a little. No matter if……he was the “General” in his dream.
When Yu Hao was cornered like this, he instantly panicked, as if all his plans had fallen apart without warning.
Yu Hao hastily asked, “Have you ever been liked by a guy?”
“Never!” Zhou Sheng said angrily.
“It’s not like I said you liked guys.” Yu Hao didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, “Being pursued by a guy isn’t something you can decide.”
Zhou Sheng said seriously, “Never.”
“Let’s go, let’s go.” Yu Hao urged.
“It’s a red light!” Zhou Sheng said, “Where are you looking at?”
Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng suddenly began laughing again. Yu Hao laughed so hard he leaned over the handlebars. Zhou Sheng had one foot on the pedal while his other foot was planted on the ground, and after they laughed for awhile, he suddenly raised his hand to rub Yu Hao’s head.
Yu Hao understood. Zhou Sheng might just treat him as a younger brother that he needed to take care of — such protective tendencies were a man’s natural instinct.
“I have a girl I like.” Yu Hao suddenly said.
“Oh.” Zhou Sheng looked at the cars on both sides of the road a bit absent-mindedly, “And?”
Yu Hao said, “I don’t have the guts to confess; I’m really too poor.”
Yu Hao thought Zhou Sheng would sigh ruefully or something, yet he suddenly uttered an earth-shattering shout, “Good job!”
Yu Hao, “……”
Zhou Sheng said, “Swear to be a single dog for life! It’s great to have such freedom, right? Why stifle ourselves for no reason?”
Yu Hao really didn’t know how to evaluate Zhou Sheng’s life creed at this moment, so he could only say, “You’re right.”
It would be New Year’s Eve tomorrow. When Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao returned home in the evening, they saw Mama Zhou and another guy sitting on the sofa. Zhou Sheng didn’t even spare them a single glance before he went to take a bath. Mama Zhou went to cut some fruit for Yu Hao and quickly tried to act the genial host to him, “Come come come, Yu Hao, sit here.”
When Zhou Sheng came out after he took his bath, he saw his mother pulling Yu Hao’s hand as she said,
“……that old white-eyed wolf wanted to get the small white-eyed wolf to learn medicine at that time……”
Yu Hao tossed Zhou Sheng a gaze that said ‘save me’.
Mama Zhou, “Aiyo, hasn’t he heard of that saying? Persuade someone to learn medicine and you’ll get struck by lightning, persuade someone to learn magic and you’ll get chopped up by ten thousand knives……”
Zhou Sheng shouted angrily, “Get in the room!”
Yu Hao quickly slid into the room, and Mama Zhou’s demonic voice that had irrigated his ears finally disappeared.
In the end, Yu Hao took out his《Higher Mathematics, Volume II》out and took the opportunity when he wasn’t working to study.
Zhou Sheng said, “This is my territory, could you put your textbook away?”
Yu Hao said, “My math sucks too badly, I have to prepare for it in advance.”
Zhou Sheng, “I’ll teach you. This is my territory, put your textbook away! When I see it I just think Disgust’s mother……”
“Would cry as she says.” Yu Hao completed his sentence for him.
“No, she opened the door for Disgust.” Zhou Sheng said, “Disgust has come into my house.”
So Yu Hao could only put his textbook away, then he and Zhou Sheng looked at each other. Right at this moment, from the adjacent room came a voice……Mama Zhou’s……voice as she cried out.
“Read your textbook ba.” Zhou Sheng said.
Yu Hao had never encountered such a mortifying event in his life before, so he could only say, “Sorry.”
Zhou Sheng, “Never mind, that guy lasts for 3 minutes and 40 seconds at most.”
Yu Hao, “……”
That being said, 3 minutes and 40 seconds felt infinitely long right now. If it was just the usual situation then so be it, but after a few seconds, the words uttered by that man were simply too unbearable, and his reverberating voice was filled with pa.s.sion that colored his words and language in a way that Yu Hao could have never imagined. Yu Hao quickly searched everywhere for his earphones. Zhou Sheng couldn’t stand it any longer. He went out and violently knocked on the door, then shouted angrily, “Disgust’s mother! I dare you to open the door for your f.u.c.king Disgust!!” Then he kicked the door, and they immediately quietened down.
Zhou Sheng went back to his room and picked up his manga, then said to Yu Hao, “I scared him so much he shot it out.”
Only then did Yu Hao realise how the hole in that door was kicked in.
When night fell, it began snowing outside again. Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao had one blanket over them. Zhou Sheng slept half naked. His arms were placed outside the quilt, and the bracelet that Yu Hao had woven for him was tied on his wrist. The golden wheel ornament on his wrist reflected the faint, twinkling light outside the window.
Yu Hao looked at the bracelet, then at Zhou Sheng. Zhou Sheng wasn’t snoring.
“Zhou Sheng, are you asleep?” Yu Hao asked softly.
Zhou Sheng said groggily, “What is it?”
Yu Hao, “Nothing.”
He turned around, and his back faced Zhou Sheng. His mind was filled with thoughts about what Zhou Sheng had said in the day, as well as the General in his dreams — he saw the one he used to love so much that he couldn’t extricate himself from that feeling of love.
“Don’t you feel moved by me protecting you like this?”
“Yes, I’m very moved.”
“So wouldn’t it be better to like me instead of that sc.u.m?”
“I have always yearned for someone who would still stand before me after countless sunrises, and find me once again……”
“Unfortunately, dreams are just dreams, and they can only stay as dreams. When the sun rises, we have to say goodbye……”
“Zhou Sheng, are you asleep?”
Yu Hao turned around to look at Zhou Sheng. He didn’t move. After a short moment, he softly responded with an “un”.
“Haven’t slept?” Yu Hao asked again.
Zhou Sheng’s brows furrowed slightly. Yu Hao said, “I……still want to talk to you.”
Zhou Sheng opened his eyes and exploded with impatience, “What? Yu Hao?! What did you say?”
Yu Hao realised that Zhou Sheng had probably fallen asleep, and that “un” could have been him sleep talking. Now that Zhou Sheng had been awoken by Yu Hao, he looked like his temper had erupted, “Nothing, go back to sleep ba. Good night.”
Zhou Sheng lifted the blanket and sat straight up, “Yu Hao! What the h.e.l.l do you want to say? Say it, and do it all at once, or else I’ll beat you to death!”
As he spoke, Zhou Sheng stretched his hand out to turn on his bedroom lamp. When the light switched on, both of them exclaimed at the same time. Even Zhou Sheng — the one who had turned the light on — couldn’t stand it so he quickly turned the light off again and turned on the table lamp instead.
“Talk.” Zhou Sheng grabbed a short-sleeved T-shirt and sat cross-legged on the bed. He stared at Yu Hao angrily, and the two of them looked at each other for a moment before Zhou Sheng said, “Finish saying everything that you want to today, otherwise we both won’t need to sleep anymore!”
The room suddenly fell incredibly silent, and only the rusting sound of the falling snow outside the window could be heard.
Yu Hao finally looked into Zhou Sheng’s eyes within this tranquil scene and began speaking slowly.
“I exist in the sunlight, the winds, between the heavens and the earth, and also in dreams.”
Zhou Sheng, “?”
Zhou Sheng frowned slightly, “Whose poem is that?”
“Yours.” It was as if Yu Hao’s heart had stopped beating, “Are you General?”
Zhou Sheng’s face was full of doubt as he said, “What the h.e.l.l is that? Yu Hao, are you okay? Did you just have a dream?”
Yu Hao, “You came into my dream before, Zhou Sheng. You’re General.”
“Wait wait wait.” Zhou Sheng’s expression twisted, “What the h.e.l.l are you saying?!”
“Before I jumped down the Great Wall in my dream and fell into my subconscious, you pulled me back.” Yu Hao said uneasily, “Zhou Sheng, you brought me along as we lit up the fire beacons in my dreamscape. The first time you came, you protected me and convinced me not to give up on life. The second time you came, you brought me to the center of my dreamscape. The third time you came, you helped me seize my totem back and restored my previous self.”
Zhou Sheng’s expression looked incredibly complicated. As Yu Hao fumbled about, even he himself didn’t know what he was saying anymore.
“After that, you entered Shi Ni’s dream, to save her and to help her seize her totem back……”
Then Yu Hao described the entire process of him meeting General in his dreams from the beginning to the end to Zhou Sheng. When Zhou Sheng heard Yu Hao’s outrageous story, he said, “Oh, so I did that many things in your dreams? Wait, you don’t actually think I have some sort of superpower that can help me enter other people’s dreams ba! Don’t joke around anymore, let’s sleep……”
Yu Hao said uneasily, “This is just my delusion, I have hysteria, right? Zhou Sheng, I’m too confused!”
Zhou Sheng looked at Yu Hao in deep contemplation.
Both of them fell silent. Zhou Sheng seemed to have made a very difficult decision, “You’re serious? That’s too ridiculous!”
The furrow between Yu Hao’s eyebrows deepened considerably, “I feel like I’ve been a little schizophrenic recently, is it very serious……forget it……” Yu Hao gave up and said, “When we go back, I’ll look for a psychiatrist.”
“Wait!” Zhou Sheng raised his hand and said, “You don’t have hysteria! We’ve been taught this before, the main manifestations of hysteria are dissociation and……”
“Conversion.” Yu Hao said.
Zhou Sheng said, “You don’t have any symptoms that belong to either of these two groups.”
Yu Hao said uneasily, “But if you’re not General, then I am mentally ill, aren’t I?”
Zhou Sheng finally reacted and blew up, “Aren’t you digging a pit for me to jump into?! Are you making me decide whether or not to send you to a psychiatric hospital?!”
Yu Hao quickly clarified, “I’m not digging any pits! I really do suspect that I’m going crazy! For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about it over and over again. I can’t even repudiate my own deductions with logic anymore. Firstly, you can only enter my dream after I form an impression of you, which is why my first impression of you is ‘Iron Man’, because the event you were training for was the “Iron Man Triathlon”. That’s why you appeared in my dream as an “Iron Man.”
Zhou Sheng held his forehead, “I had just inadvertently seen you buy some things at the shop near our college’s back gate, and when you opened up your bag, there was a pack of charcoal inside!”
Yu Hao said a bit vacantly, “So you asked me for a lighter, to see if I had one to confirm your speculation, right?”
Zhou Sheng admitted, “Yes, that’s right. Let me ask you, at that time, did you still possess the will to live? Did you hope that someone would save you? And that person could have been me? Because only I could possibly know your whereabouts, right?”
Yu Hao answered, “Yes, in my heart, I still had that last bit of desire to live. In my subconsciousness, I had some hope that you would realise something was amiss, and that you would come to save my life……”
Zhou Sheng said, “That’s right! Which is why you had that strange dream, it’s very normal. I’m surprised you even remembered that much. Sleep ba, don’t think so much about it anymore.”
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Zryuu: Ahaha…….blame Feitian (author) for the cliffy………….
Ame: ;O;
Dollars: Someone pls give a trophy to Zryuu for trans of the mind bending Disgust metaphor