Sharing Dreams with My Bestie's Cousin

Wen Zhi had another dream.

In her dream, her father Mu Yanzhou left her a vast sum of money, an amount she couldn’t exhaust in hundreds of lifetimes.

But the price for this money—

"Zhizhi, you must part ways with Shang Hexing, ensure you never see him again in this life, become strangers."

Hearing her father Mu Yanzhou say this, Wen Zhi cried and shook her head, "No, I don’t want to be apart from him, I want to be with him forever."

Mu Yanzhou said, "Don’t you want the money?"

Wen Zhi replied firmly, "No, I would rather be penniless and suffer with him than be without him."

Mu Yanzhou sighed, "Alright, I respect your decision, my dear."

At that moment, Wen Zhi was overjoyed. No one could separate her from Shang Hexing; she could stay with him forever!

But when she turned around to look for Shang Hexing, suddenly everything went dark, and she couldn’t see anything.

Not until she opened her eyes again did a cold wind whistle past her ears, making her shiver.

Looking around, Wen Zhi found herself in a desolate forest, the night pitch-black, with half-human-high thick grass all around her, bleak and desolate. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Where is this?" she asked herself, disoriented and frightened.

She didn’t know what lay beyond the grass, but followed her intuition and chose a path.

Guided by the moonlight, she stumbled toward that uncertain direction. Not knowing how long she walked, she was so tired that she had to bend over to catch her breath. Sensing something, she abruptly looked up and saw a small cabin in front of her.

There was light in the window of the cabin.

Light meant there must be someone living there.

The light in the darkness undoubtedly symbolized hope for a lost traveler. Wen Zhi no longer rested, quickening her pace toward the cabin.

Knock knock knock—

She knocked on the cabin door.

After a while, the door opened, revealing a tall and robust figure before Wen Zhi.

The man was wearing a grayish-white tank top, bare-chested, his every inch exuding strength. Wen Zhi unconsciously swallowed and looked up to meet the man’s face.

It was a strange face, with particularly deep eye sockets, exuding a foreign charm.

Wen Zhi stared at the handsome face in a daze until the man asked her with a magnetic voice, "What do you want?"

Wen Zhi came back to herself, her face flushed, and she looked down, too shy to meet his gaze, "I’m lost."

The man asked her, "Where do you want to go?"

Wen Zhi shook her head, "I... I don’t know where I should go, I..."

Is this also a dream? But what kind of dream is this? She clearly remembered talking to her father, and saying she was going to find Shang Hexing, but when she opened her eyes, she was in this desolate place...

And why did this tall and robust man in front of her resemble Shang Hexing so much, yet have a different face? How strange...

Seeing her stammer and unable to give an answer, the man made a move to close the door.

Wen Zhi panicked and immediately reached out to stop the door from closing, "Please, don’t close the door!"

The man looked at her.

Wen Zhi shook her head, her voice trembling as she said, "It’s like this... I’m lost, I don’t know where I came from, nor where I should go, please..."

The man calmly asked, "Please what?"

The wind outside howled intermittently, causing the lantern hanging under the eaves to sway back and forth. The flickering light cast upon Wen Zhi made her look alternatively illuminated and shadowed, adding to the eeriness.

Wen Zhi was scared, tears shimmering in her almond-shaped eyes. She clutched the man’s hand, her fingertips trembling as she struggled to utter her plea, "Please, can you give me shelter?"

The man didn’t react, as if weighing the pros and cons.

Just when Wen Zhi thought all hope was lost, the man asked, "I can shelter you, but how will you repay me?"

A teasing smile flickered in his eyes.

But Wen Zhi was too anxious at the moment and didn’t notice.

Her jet-black eyelashes trembled under the light, and she asked softly, "Repay, how to repay?"

The man said, "Do you have anything valuable on you?"

Wen Zhi looked down at herself, her clothes worn and ragged, with nothing of value on her.

As she was mired in distress, the man pulled her inside, closed the door, and tossed her a sentence: "I think you’re quite valuable."

Wen Zhi hugged herself with both hands, biting her lip stubbornly and shaking her head: "I can’t!"

The man pulled up the corners of his mouth in a faint smile, then turned around to boil water.

Seeing him walk away, Wen Zhi looked slightly bewildered. So, he was just...scaring her?

He must be a good person.

His eyes and brows were very similar to Shang Hexing’s.

She took in the cabin’s amenities, noting that the windows and table were old and battered, without a single decent piece of furniture. Turning around, she saw a big iron basin on the ground with a pile of fire beneath it, and a kettle hanging above. The man lifted the lid off the kettle to add water and then put in more firewood. The entire cabin was cozy and warm, yet truly impoverished.

The man busied himself with his tasks, paying no attention to her.

At first, Wen Zhi simply stood in place watching him, but gradually she realized she was being ignored and started to boldly follow him around.

She followed him everywhere he went;

When the man stopped to work on something, she would stand quietly by, a silent but strong presence.

When the water boiled, the man took down the kettle and poured a bowl of water, placing it on a wooden cabinet at the side, "Drink it once it’s cooled."

Wen Zhi’s mind was a haze, catching only the word "drink," she reached out for the bowl, only to scald her fingertips on the hot edge. She withdrew her hand with a whimper, "---Hot."

The man came over with big strides, picking up Wen Zhi’s hand to examine it carefully.

He didn’t blame her, nor did he angrily repeat his earlier reminder to ’drink it once it’s cooled.’ All he had was a frown of concern etched between his brows for the burn on her fingertip.

Even his examination was meticulous, and full of care.

Under his gentle treatment, Wen Zhi had already forgotten the pain and watched him dumbly, asking, "What’s your name?"

The man didn’t answer but took a bottle gourd scoop from the water jar nearby, filling it with cold water before pressing Wen Zhi’s hand into the scoop.

The icy water quickly soothed the burn on Wen Zhi’s fingertip.

His lips moved: "Soaking it in cold water will help."

"Oh," she replied.

His face didn’t reveal much concern, but everything he was doing now was a gesture of care.

Wen Zhi wanted to talk to him again, fearful that he might not respond, her lips quivered for a long while without uttering a word, her gaze firmly on him.

He noticed and glanced at her: "What do you want to ask?"

Wen Zhi spoke in a measured tone: "I want to ask who you are?"

He answered slowly: "Whoever you hope I am, that’s who I can be."

"I hope you’re..." In the clarity of her mind, an image surfaced.

That face, resembling the one before her slightly – the deep-set eyes and prominent nose, exuding an allure of a foreign land, then slowly merged.

As she thought this, the man’s face transformed before her. When Wen Zhi saw it, her eyes widened in shock: "Your face..."

The man was very composed: "Has my face turned into what you were thinking of?"

Wen Zhi: "..."

In her mind, she had unconsciously conjured the image of Shang Hexing.