-- "A little bonus skit" --
About everyone's ages...
Xiao Yi: I'm the oldest here, a strapping twenty-year-old, and yet I'm stuck working for Song Xunfeng, that monster!!
Meng Yichen: I was only eighteen when I met Yilin. Oh, my phone's ringing. (Answers.) What? My sister's being bullied again??? Just you wait! Someone bring me a weapon!!
Song Xunfeng: I'm two years older than Yilin, so I'm still in high school... But that's fine. It won't get in the way of my career.
Xiao Yanting: I'm five seconds younger than my brother, Xiao Yi. Good enough. Court is now in session.
Yilin: I'm fifteen now. Uh, am I a little young to start high school? Forget it, I'm terrible at math and can't figure this out. Practicing the piano is what matters!
Mo Li: I'm... ten days younger than Yilin... (When is my big brother coming... I'm scared of the people down there QAQ.)
Song Mingyu: (Crosses his arms indignantly.) You lot downstairs, I'm older than your ancestors!
Qingming: Song Mingyu, who are you talking about? ← An eight-thousand-year-old monster
Lanying: ... (Stays silent.) ← A spirit deer about as old as Qingming
Hua Jing: Hmph, so what if you were born earlier? I'm only four thousand years younger than you. (Hua Jing is from the Huqiu fox clan of Qingqiu, and is about a thousand years old.)
Baize: ... So noisy. Stop disturbing my sleep. (Baize is probably about ten thousand years old?)
-- "Blurb" --
Perhaps time stopped the day Yilin was pushed into the Linxi River.
After all, how could a river flow backward?
And yet the backward-flowing river swept her away to the carefree maple forest. Amid its pavilions and waterside halls stood Fengzhai, a realm of dreams.
There are seven layers to the dream. The first is drifting dust, with smoke rising from a pot of millet; the second, rippling currents and Zhuang Zhou's butterfly transformation; the third, woven illusions, where the heart's fantasies knot together; the fourth, a painted realm, where worldly splendor makes one forget the way home; the fifth, an abyss, where fog shrouds the darkness; the sixth, a spirit bell, where time and space have no walls; and the seventh, the void of return, where fragrant souls sleep forever.
Fengzhai is the realm of worldly splendor in the fourth layer of the dream. A Migou tree stands there, preventing those within the dream from venturing deep into its mist and falling into an eternal slumber.
Dream and reality lie between opening and closing one's eyes. But so do life and death.
How could Yilin know whether the dazzling stage of "Starfall Miracle" and her stumbling journey through life were just a dream?
How could Yilin know whether her extraordinary abilities were real, or whether everything was nothing but one long dream?
She lamented, "I can unravel everyone else's nightmares, but I alone cannot escape my own cycle of rebirth."
He cried out in anger, "In her previous life, Tang Xi sacrificed herself so that others could live. But why should her reincarnation, who remembers nothing, have to pay the price by dying young in every life?"
When the memories of her past life burst forth from the vivid red birthmark of a red spider lily, the scheme of "prolonging life means hastening death, and salvation means self-destruction" revealed the keys to every client's nightmare...
"When we wake from the great dream of life, we will head to a new station, where the dream bus will carry us off to another unpredictable, wondrous dream..."
-- "A little note" --
* The story is set in modern times, but includes plenty of historical fantasy elements.
* Anything related to historical records should not be taken seriously! Don't take it seriously! Don't take it seriously! This is an alternate world, all made up by me!
* I wrote the first three volumes while preparing for the college entrance exams, so I spent a long time rewriting them. But some of those immature ideas are too hard to change, so let's treat them as a memento of my younger self. Starting from Volume Four, things might get less dull.
(Actually, in June 2025, I decided to make some sweeping revisions TMT.)
* Dreaming at Fengzhai takes place in the present, while The Classic of Mountains and Seas: A Wanderer's Song takes place in the future. I'm considering writing Tang Falls, Ming Rises as a prequel.
--
I wrote this book out of conviction, so no matter what, I'll give it an ending.
If it can bring you some warmth, even in a small way, then I'll consider it a success.
--
Temporarily on hiatus (I'm going to write the past-life arc first.)
After the past-life arc is finished, Dreaming at Fengzhai will be locked for a long time while I thoroughly revise every chapter and paragraph. The content will undergo major changes, so... enjoy this version while it lasts.
Theme: Mending the imperfections of childhood and healing the unhappy years of youth
😆 Come to support = ͟͟͞͞ =͟͟͞͞ _(:3｣ )=
(???) Free, that's great