a woman in a grey coat and a sky-blue scarf continuously glanced back over her shoulder.

She never turned fully around, so the three of them didn’t pay much attention and continued walking. Though it hadn't rained that day, the damp coldness of the south made everyone shiver.

Just as they passed by the woman, they heard an eerie laugh. While human laughter is generally hearty or shallow, this woman's laugh felt misplaced, as if it belonged in a horror movie.

Tao Ci shuddered, his heart skipping a beat. If he'd heard this laugh somewhere, it would be in an old Chinese horror film, where the ghost of a mother who’d lost her child wanders, cursing young men. Reflexively, Li Jie turned to look, but Tao Ci grabbed him swiftly.

“Don’t look.”

Surprised, Li Jie turned his half-twisted neck back, "What’s wrong?"

Tao Ci himself didn't know why he pulled Li Jie back, only feeling that if he didn’t, the three of them would encounter trouble. "Nothing, let’s just go."

Returning home, Tao Ci opened WeChat.

"I've been having strange dreams lately."

..."Like?"

"Dreamed of a dragon the day before yesterday, today it was a woman."

His friend CPP laughed, "How did your dream girl look?"

"...Her chest was bigger than yours."

"Whoosh," Tao Ci imagined he heard himself being blocked.

"Again?! Just don't re-add me in a couple of days.”

Thinking quickly, Tao Ci grabbed his phone, "Hey, don't block me. Just a tiny bit bigger than yours. You're beautiful, she'd be lucky to be half as pretty."

"Hmph."

"I’ll buy you some books, alright? Send me the list."

"Hmph, guess you know your place."

Minutes later, a book list arrived. Tao Ci sighed, picked the cheapest one, and placed the order.

"Reckon I owe you from a past life."

"Like I don't owe you."

Chatting for awhile, with "Goddess needs to bathe, hehe," Tao Ci laughed and replied with a simple "Go away."

Shutting down the chat with CPP, he instinctively opened the chat window with Bai Yun.

“Seriously, lately the dreams are becoming more frequent, vivid, and strange.”

“How frequent, how vivid, how strange?”

“@#￥%”

“What do you want to do, see a psychologist? You’ll either not go or get sent straight to the loony bin if you do.”

“...”

“Just a dream, are you stressed? Lower your expectations for the first house, get a small one-bedroom wedding suite and reduce stress, then consider a second one to live off.”

*cough cough* “Work is easy lately, sigh, guess this feeling is hard to explain.”

"Try explaining it.”

“Dreaming as Zhou Gong (Duke of Zhou) and the butterfly? Or a butterfly dreaming of Zhou Gong? It’s too real not to question.”

“Mate, get some rest. You’re clearly not right, take care of yourself.”

“If someday I'm not around, take care of my parents.”

“Stop talking nonsense, don't think that

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