So cold, so quiet, surrounded by pitch-black stillness. He had seen this scenery in his dreams countless times, though he had no idea how many.
"Shall we make a trade?" A young boy fumbled as he climbed up, hearing that voice drift out of the darkness. There was always a voice in his dream repeating this question to him.
"Trade what?" He did not expect a reply, because every time he asked that question, the dream would cut off abruptly. After that, nothing faced him but solitude and darkness. He tried walking out, only to find this darkness boundless and entirely empty, save for himself.
"Shall we make a trade? Brother." The voice in the dream repeated those words.
He thought he must have misheard. This was a situation that had never happened before; in all his past dreams, he had never received an answer.
It was not until that voice repeated it once more that the boy believed he hadn't heard wrong.
"Who on earth are you?"
The darkness began to fade, the boy's eyes suddenly lighting up as a landscape he had never seen before appeared before him.
"How beautiful." Raising his head, the scenery before him was too dreamlike to be real. Schools of fish swam among grayish-white clouds, and the sea was a fiery red, the color of an evening glow. Looking ahead, one side was a gentle riverbed, while the other was a jagged cliff glowing crimson in the sunset. On closer inspection, that wasn't the setting sun, but surging magma. Beneath his feet were cracks of gold, and magma burned to a crimson red spewed intermittently from the fissures of the crust, intertwining with the seawater. Thunder rumbled in his ears, and the intense heat of the magma scorched his skin; he felt as though he were about to be cooked through.
Standing before him was a boy dressed in a pitch-black formal suit, wearing a hideous mask on his face, painted to resemble a barn owl.
"You've finally come, Brother." The boy in the suit leaned forward slightly, making a "welcome" gesture.
Only then did the boy in pajamas see everything around him clearly. He was in an ancient city of magnificent scale; half of the ancient city had slipped into the river of magma, and the other half was reduced to broken walls and ruined ramparts. Only a tall tower stood unyielding in the center square, as if flaunting past glories. This was a city sunk deep on the ocean floor, like Atlantis in Greek mythology. The boy no longer knew what words to use to describe it.
"Who are you, and where is this?" The pajama-clad boy appeared somewhat panicked. This was the first time someone other than himself had appeared in his dream, and his face was even covered by a bizarre mask that terrified him, making him look like an emissary from hell.
The suited boy snapped his fingers. The scorching heat vanished, though the chill of the seawater did not appear in its place.
"Let's go, Brother."
"Who's going anywhere with you?" Even as he said that, his body moved of its own accord, following behind the suited boy.
"Hey, what's your name?" The pajama-clad boy asked, somewhat flustered.
"Before asking someone else's name, shouldn't you state your own first?" The suited boy's tone carried a hint of playfulness and banter.
"My name is Lu Mingfei." Seeing that the suited boy didn't speak, he stopped in his tracks. "Who are you, where are you taking me, and is it your doing that I keep having this dream?"
"You have too many questions, Brother." The suited boy looked at the bewildered pajama-clad boy. "I'm your younger brother, Lu Mingze. Don't you remember, Brother?"
Lu Mingze? Wasn't that his chubby cousin who was a year younger than him?
"I am no chubby cousin of yours. We are real brothers, Brother." The suited boy looked as though he saw right through his thoughts.
Lu Mingfei didn't understand what he was talking about. He lived with his uncle and aunt, and he had a cousin named "Lu Mingze." No matter how he tried, he couldn't connect the boy before him with his cousin, whose height and weight were virtually identical.
Before he knew it, the two of them had walked a long way, and a torii gate appeared before them. It was completely flawless, clashing utterly with the surrounding scenery, and the suited boy suddenly stopped.
"Welcome to Takamagahara." The boy claiming to be Lu Mingze bowed like a waiter.
"Takamagahara?" Wasn't that where the Sun Goddess lived in Japanese mythology? He happened to have seen it in a book.
Lu Mingze pointed to the serpentine script on the torii gate — "Takamagahara."
Lu Mingfei's heart was shaken to the core. He couldn't understand how he, a mere elementary school student, possessed the qualifications to recognize these ancient scripts at a glance. Could it be that his parents, who were archaeologists, had taught him when he was little? As for things from his childhood, he could only recall vague outlines; all his memories seemed veiled in a light mist, remembered yet impossible to recall with clarity.
"This is our language. Some call it the Izumo Grotto Script." Lu Mingze said.
While they were talking, the two of them passed through the torii gate, and the scenery around them underwent a heaven-shaking transformation. It was as if they had suddenly returned from the deep sea to dry land; the ocean had vanished, and the city was no longer a ruin, having recovered its bustling appearance. The central plaza was surrounded by circles of people holding torches, their facial expressions indistinguishable, as if they were performing some mysterious religious ritual. An unimaginably large full moon was half-sunk below the horizon, and the sound of a bell echoed, ethereal and vacant, seeming to come from a distant church. People began to run, leaping from the mountain peaks toward the moon — bizarre, frenzied, devout, yet deeply mysterious. For some reason, Lu Mingfei had a feeling of deja vu.
If everything he saw at that moment had already left him dumbfounded, what happened next was even more incredible.
A pitch-black giant dragon flew in from the direction of the horizon, fighting fiercely with a white dragon that had appeared from nowhere.
Dust flew, yellow sand filled the sky, and the violent wind whipped up by the giant dragons' wings during battle knocked Lu Mingfei flat onto the ground.
The slaughter between the giant dragons was not as dazzling as in comic books or video games; there were no flashy elemental impacts, no magic, and no battle qi. All there was were pure physical clashes—blow for blow, flesh and blood flying, heroic yet wretched.
"This is the battle between Kings. There is no clash of Spiritual Speech, only the collision of flesh." Lu Mingze looked very nervous. Although the expression beneath his mask could not be seen, it was evident enough from his tightly clenched fists.
Spiritual Speech? What on earth was that? Lu Mingfei struggled to his feet, looking at Lu Mingze beside him. How was this guy not blown away by the wind?
"Who's going to win?"
"The black dragon will win."
"Why?"
There was no reply. Lu Mingfei looked at Lu Mingze, who was looking extremely angry, his fists clenched even tighter.
Lu Mingfei didn't dare ask any further, turning his gaze back to the battle instead. By now the black dragon had gained the upper hand. The white dragon had snapped the black dragon's wings; as the price, it had lost one of its own wings and its tail, and its left arm looked severely injured, hanging limp.
The black dragon grabbed the white dragon's broken tail, swung it viciously, and hurled it away. Then it leaped into the air, slamming down onto the white dragon with a "Mount Tai presses down" blow. It was hard to imagine that massive body, devoid of wings, could leap to such a height.
"Will the white dragon die?" Lu Mingfei couldn't hold back and spoke up. As the battle reached its white-hot climax, he too clenched his fists, fixing his gaze on the ever-changing battlefield. He didn't even understand why he was feeling nervous to this degree.
"Mn," Lu Mingze answered coldly, two tracks of tears actually hanging from the owl mask.
"You know that white dragon, right? Is he your... friend?"
"More or less."
Accompanied by the fierce battle, the earth was torn apart, tall buildings collapsed, and half the city slipped into the magma, which gushed forth from the cracking ground and gradually crept to the edges of the two boys' feet. The city became ruins, matching the earlier sight precisely.
By this time, the battle had taken on a one-sided defeat. The white dragon was pinned to the ground with no power to parry. They saw the black dragon tear off the white dragon's remaining half-wing, put it in its mouth, and chew—brutal and bloody. Lu Mingfei felt a sudden wave of nausea.
Lu Mingze was consumed by rage, cursing hysterically, "Beasts, beasts, beasts!"
Lu Mingfei felt a tearing pain in his chest, an unknown wildfire burning in his heart. Why? Why did I feel sadness? Why do I want to cry so badly? Why do I feel anger, wanting to rush up and tear that black dragon to pieces?
The white dragon tried to get up. A longsword suddenly materialized in the black dragon's hand, piercing straight into the white dragon's chest and pinning her to the ground. The white dragon looked toward the direction where Lu Mingfei stood, a tear flowing from her cyan eyes. Disregarding the pain, she lunged and knocked the black dragon down.
"Run!" Lu Mingfei clearly heard her voice. Clearly not human language, yet he just knew that was what it meant, exactly like "Takamagahara" on the torii gate.
The black dragon hugged the white dragon, rolled a few times, and pinned the white dragon beneath it once more. With a single claw, it stabbed into the wound cut by the longsword, gouging a beating heart out from the chest. The white dragon's wails were deafening, one after another, lingering long in the air, making Lu Mingfei feel as though his own heart were being torn apart. The black dragon tortured and killed the white dragon bit by bit, until it was entirely devoured.
Lu Mingfei fell to his knees, his fists hammering viciously against the ground. A scalding droplet of liquid slid down his cheek and landed on the back of his hand, and only then did he realize that his palms had been punctured by his nails, bleeding. That brownish blood was slightly different from human blood, bearing quite a resemblance to the fresh blood shed by the giant dragon.
"Brother, let's go. Don't look anymore." Lu Mingze helped Lu Mingfei up.
"I want to save it. I don't know why, I just can't help wanting to rush over." Snot and tears streamed down Lu Mingfei's face.
"It's no use, Brother. What we're seeing is just footage from a very, very long time ago. We can't change anything."
"Who are you? Who is it? And who am I?"
"I'm your brother, Lu Mingze, and you're my brother." Lu Mingze paused, looking into the distance once more. "Brother, we're going to take revenge. Revenge on this world."
"Right, we're going to—"
"Revenge." Lu Mingfei bolted upright from the bed. The wind blowing in from outside the window ruffled the curtains, and the moonlight shone in, as cold and clear as in the dream. A damp trace of tears still lingered on the pillow.
His cousin, Lu Mingze, sleeping next to him, turned over, smacked his lips, and resumed snoring.
"It was a dream." Lu Mingfei patted his chest. Even though it was just a nightmare, the sense of loss in his heart felt incomparably real; that heart-rending sorrow and bone-deep hatred didn't seem fake at all.
"This dream really is more thrilling than a Hollywood blockbuster." He gently shook a fan, lingering fear gripping him over the scenes in the dream. Lu Mingze truly remained the same Lu Mingze.
Looking at the bright moonlight at the window, he fell into deep thought. Why had he in his dream reacted so strongly to the white dragon's death? Why did the boy in the black suit pretend to be his cousin Lu Mingze? Why did he dream of that pitch-black, silent deep sea more than once? And why had only this time revealed a completely different dream?
Behind the curtain where he couldn't see, a boy in a pitch-black suit sat on the windowsill, whispering softly, "Shall me make a trade, Brother?"
As if hearing something, Lu Mingfei looked toward the window, but found nothing. Only the sound of cicadas mixed with the fan's hum and his cousin's snoring answered him.
That boy jumped down the moment he turned his head, disappearing into the night.
"Time to go find the little monster." The suited boy said so.
He took off his mask, his Golden Eyes shining brightly in the night.