In a Dream Where No One Wakes [Infinite]

My new novel, Two Worlds, One Lamp, will launch at the end of the year or early next year.

As an agent for the Dream Monitoring Bureau, Yi Chu's job is to enter dreams, mend broken hearts, and eliminate the nightmare beasts that spawn within them.

According to the Bureau's records,

nightmare beasts should have no consciousness, personality, or feelings,

and certainly should not look human.

But on his very first mission, Yi Chu encountered an exception.

Yi Chu's dagger was already pressed against the nightmare beast's neck.

Su Yuan looked down at the hand holding the blade.

Then he suddenly smiled and spread his hands indifferently. "You can't kill me."

The dagger plunged into his throat.

But the blade passed through nothing but a mass of dispersing black mist. Su Yuan's figure vanished before Yi Chu's eyes, then appeared behind him the very next moment.

"I told you."

His voice was so close, laced with amusement.

"You can't kill me. I don't belong to this dream."

The handbook's records were completely overturned.

Nightmare beasts could actually leave the dreams they were born in and exist across the boundaries between dreams.

To kill him, Yi Chu would have to find the dream that belonged to him.

But until then, in the high-risk dream, the only nightmare beast that existed by day

was him.

And so the dream agent and the monster were forced to work side by side.

Together, they traveled through countless people's dreams.

Desire, obsession, fear, love, and hatred ran wild in these illusory worlds.

Dreams were repaired, and people were saved.

Yet feelings took root in the illusion and spiraled out of control.

Deep in the dream, the blade had yet to fall.

And the monster was drawing closer to his heart, one step at a time.

Standing in the dream that belonged to Su Yuan, he opened his arms, his gaze obsessive and burning.

"Come, Yi Chu. Embrace me, or kill me."

A monster learning to love and a hunter whose heart wavered for his prey had both fallen into a dream from which they could never wake, ever since the moment their eyes first met.

Yi Chu tilted his head back, his tone casual. "What if one day I met someone who seemed just like you to me, or even more special?"

Su Yuan lifted Yi Chu's chin with his hand. Yi Chu raised an eyebrow and gave him a half-smile, waiting for his answer.

Su Yuan's fingers slid down bit by bit, slowly closing around Yi Chu's throat. His dark eyes were filled with possessiveness. "Then I'd have to do my job and take you back, lock you up, and make sure I'm the only one in your eyes."

A moment before their lips met, Yi Chu's voice reached Su Yuan's ears. "It's always been only you."

Dream agent × human-shaped nightmare beast

"So monsters don't deserve to be saved?"

Pre-release: Two Worlds, One Lamp

Could two completely different eras ever overlap, even for just one moment?

If they could, how many people who were never meant to meet would fate push toward one another in that instant?

Fang Ning never believed in fate.

He was adopted at seven, killed for the first time at ten, and became famous throughout the martial world at fifteen.

Until an assassination that should have been routine.

On a stormy night, blood flowed through the long street.

Fang Ning leaped down from the eaves. The instant his short blade sank into his target's chest, he suddenly heard something shatter beside his ear.

The next moment, heaven and earth turned upside down, and he fell into an unfamiliar forest of red maples.

Demons prowled everywhere, spiritual energy ran rampant, and he sat covered in blood amid a heap of corpses. When he looked up, he met a pair of strangely bewitching, smiling eyes.

The first time Yu Qiuchi saw Fang Ning, the other man was sitting in a heap of corpses, covered in blood.

The young man's long hair was disheveled. Dozens of rampaging demon beasts lay sprawled around him, and blood stretched all the way to his feet.

He crouched down and lifted Fang Ning's chin with a fingertip. "Human? You actually made it into the Northern Wastes alive. You've got a tough constitution."

Fang Ning immediately struck back with a knife.

The cold gleam skimmed past Yu Qiuchi's neck, cutting off a few strands of silver hair.

Yu Qiuchi froze for a moment. In all his years, he'd never met anyone so vicious.

"Little killer, are people from your world all this fierce?"

Later, Fang Ning held his blade to Yu Qiuchi's neck.

Yu Qiuchi looked down at him, but his hand was already wandering over Fang Ning's waist. "Trying to kill me again?"

"I heard great demons like you have some kind of inner core. If an ordinary person eats it, they can gain powerful demon arts." Fang Ning frowned and slapped away Yu Qiuchi's wandering hand.

Yu Qiuchi didn't mind. Instead, he took Fang Ning's hand and pressed it against his own chest.

Beneath Fang Ning's palm, his heartbeat was steady and strong, radiating a warmth far greater than any human's.

"Want it?" He lowered his head slightly, his silver hair falling over Fang Ning's shoulder.

Fang Ning watched him with interest. "You'd give it to me?"

Yu Qiuchi tapped his own lips. "Kiss me, and I'll give you my life."

Fang Ning's breath caught.

Noticing the change, Yu Qiuchi leaned in, his lips almost brushing Fang Ning's ear.

"What, don't dare?"

"Our little killer can kill people, but can't kiss them? Want me to teach you?"

The next second, Fang Ning grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him hard toward himself.

Fang Ning had thought this was nothing more than an absurd encounter.

But later, he realized that the two worlds had not overlapped for the first time.

A thousand years ago, someone had crossed through time and space.

Someone had also desperately tried to hold on to another person before fate collapsed.

Only that time, no one could rewrite the ending.

But in this life, it was their turn.

One was a killer destined to walk alone.

The other was a young lord bearing the fate of the entire demon clan.

Both had once believed they would never stop for anyone.

Late one night, Yu Qiuchi wrapped his arms around Fang Ning from behind, resting his chin in the hollow of his shoulder.

"Fang Ning."

"Mm?"

"What if, one day, only one of the two worlds could remain?"

In the stillness of the long night, Fang Ning answered calmly.

"Then we'll split the sky open."

Yu Qiuchi paused.

Then he suddenly laughed.

His laugh was bold and unrestrained.

"All right."

"Then we'll split this damn fate open together."

Theme: Love yourself well.