[Blurb]
1.
Ever since the car accident, Lan Ye has been having black-and-white dreams.
Whether it was towering skyscrapers, empty sports fields, or surging rivers, everything within sight was drained of color.
He dreamed of many people too, rushing back and forth anxiously, as if earnestly acting out one frantic silent film after another.
Later, he remembered that dreams had no sound either.
2.
Then a man wearing a gold tie appeared and told Lan Ye that he was trapped inside his dream.
How could that be? A dream was just a dream. Only the person dreaming might realize they were dreaming.
How could someone in a dream tell that they were dreaming?
The man in the gold tie stared intently at him and grabbed his hand. In an instant, the backdrop behind them changed to a falling spacecraft.
Amid streaks of light and shadow jolting past at high speed, Lan Ye shouted.
The black-and-white dream came to a steady halt.
The blazing meteorites flashing overhead stopped closing in, too.
The man in the gold tie nodded at him reassuringly, then vanished in an instant.
3.
A woman in a red dress wielded a giant cannon, firing boldly into a charging swarm of gigantic insect beasts.
"Could you stop putting me in disgusting places like this? If I die, you won't even have a grave to cry at!"
Lan Ye was baffled.
"Are you talking to me?"
"Obviously!"
4.
A little girl with a purple rabbit backpack sang a strange nursery rhyme in a hospital crawling with zombies.
She kept appearing and disappearing, toying with the stinking, rotting corpses. She herself was like a cute little ghost doll.
Lan Ye had no idea which was more terrifying.
He ran around in a panic.
But the zombies walked right past him without even biting him.
"Let me out, Brother Lan Ye. I don't like this place. It's no fun at all."
"Out... where would you go?"
"Where do you live?"
5.
A man with teal eyes played the piano underwater, sinking down along with the soundless melody.
A giant whale groaned in the distance.
Sea monsters were drawn to him in waves, prostrating themselves like mountains beneath the water.
Eyes closed, the man played, elegant and defenseless.
"Does it sound good?"
"...I can't hear it..."
The man opened his eyes, apparently angry.
He stared at Lan Ye and pressed a jarring note.
The earth rumbled, the crust cracked, and a volcanic tsunami swept away the tiny sea creatures.
As if they had never been masters of this ocean.
6.
A green tattoo glowed on the boy's back.
He walked through a vast field of ruins. The source of the plague, burning in the air, scorched the earth with its heat.
"Dream Master, all members of our MYT-7 team have learned the rules and laws of your world.
Requesting permission to descend."
7.
Lan Ye woke with a start in the car.
Leaning on his crutch, he got out and returned to the university for class.
"You were in such a bad car accident, and you're back already?"
"Yeah. Just hurt my leg a little."
"You're really lucky, Captain Lan."
Lan Ye turned and met a pair of unfamiliar eyes.
Their owner wore a gold tie.
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| From primordial prehistory to gods who destroy the world.
Theme: Save the civilizations of the universe through unrelenting effort.