Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  Zhang Zian dreamt that he was in a snowy plateau. The sky was gloomy, the chilly wind was sharp as a knife, and he was surrounded by white snow. Beside him were a few people whose silhouettes were fuzzy. They seemed to have lost consciousness, and only he was awake, wrapped tightly by the overwhelming loneliness. He held the steel gun tightly to his chest and would not throw it away, even as he shivered in the coldness.

  There was something moving around him, he looked down and found that it was Famous. It was lying alongside those figures, as if trying to warm them up with its own body.

  The snow kept falling, piling thicker and thicker on the ground. It seemed that in this world, only two creatures, he and Famous, were alive.

  Suddenly, Famous’s ears moved. Sitting up from the lying position, its eyes stared at the snow-covered distant place.

  “What’s the matter, Famous?” Zhang Zian asked and stretched his ears like Famous. He did not hear any sound, but the wind and snow had brought some smell, like the rancidity emitted from some beasts.

  His heart was racing. Holding his steel gun firmly on the snow wall built by his comrades in defense of the enemy’s attacks, he starred in the direction of the wind.

  Pairs of ghost-fire like green eyes appeared one-by-one in the blizzard. The dark sky had sketched their muscular bodies. They silently stopped beyond the firing range of the steel gun, besieging him in the distance in the shape of a fan. Without taking the risk of attacking, they just needed to trap those humans and wait for them to all freeze to death—a perfect hunting plan. Their leader must have been as cunning as a fox.

  His heart was pounding faster, and he glanced back at his injured comrades. In the face of being besieged by the beasts, he could not withstand it for long by himself. All of them were doomed to be devoured by these beasts.

  “Famous, run! Only you can escape from this,” he said to Famous.

  Famous looked at him, then shook its head. Suddenly it jumped on the snow wall, roaring at the distant beasts as if trying to provoke them! T

  he beasts were aggravated. No matter how organized they were, they were beasts after all.

  “What are you doing, Famous?” He asked in astonishment.

  Famous looked back at him. Its eyes were so pure and calm, without any fear of death.

  “Famous wants to be an angel,” Famous said.

  Before he could stop it, Famous had jumped off the snow wall, running and barking in the other direction.

  Just like iron sand attracted by a magnet, the formations of the beasts became chaotic and messy. Driven by their instincts, innumerable beasts chased after Famous.

  “Famous!” He yelled.

  …


  “Fa… Achoo!” Zhang Zian loudly sneezed and sat up from the bed suddenly.

  The sky was not yet completely bright, and the elves in the bedroom were awakened by his sneezing. Eyes of various colors were silently watching him, but fortunately, there had been no ghostfire-like green eyes in his nightmare. Fina’s eyes were green, but were shiny like emeralds, completely different from the ghostfire-like green eyes.

  He looked down. He was sitting on his own bed, without a steel gun in his arms. But where was his quilt?

  Looking to the side, he found that the quilt had been pulled off and was covering Richard. It seemed that it was not enough for Richard to take his clothes. Where the hell did a bird have so much strength?!

  No wonder he had had this strange dream in the snow, and no wonder he was frozen; he had suffered from the coldness the whole night…


  Zhang Zian really wanted to throw Richard out of the window, but it would certainly imitate a girl’s voice and shout for help. Not only could he not punish it, but he would cause trouble for himself as well!

  “I had a nightmare.” He laughed innocently at the elves. “Don’t blame me. Blame Richard. It took my quilt away.”


  He looked to the location where Famous was lying, and their eyes met. For some unknown reason, Zhang Zian felt that Famous knew that he had just had a nightmare, and it was conveying a reassuring message to him with its deep black eyes.

  He touched the pajamas on his chest. They were drenched in sweat. He must change clothes now or else it might worsen his cold. Bedside him there was a clean pair of spare pajamas. In order to prevent them from being soiled by Richard, he had stuffed it under the pillow. He reached out and pulled out his pajamas. A pamphlet on the pillow fell to the ground. It was the script of Dog Warrior.

  What you read is what you dream. He must have been engrossed in the script, causing him to have such a nightmare.

  The drowsiness of the elves was scared away by his sneezing. Since the sky was brightening up, they got up gradually.

  After practicing Kung Fu for a while, Zhang Zian cleaned the store a little and went to fetch breakfast for the elves. Time was passing quickly.

  Lu Yiyun still came to work early, much earlier than when Zhang Zian had specified. She was carrying a digital drawing board and a shoulder bag, which contained her cat Jasmine.

  “Mr. Store Manager, you don’t look very well. Did you not sleep well last night?” She placed the drawing board on the cashier’s desk, turned her head, and noticed the strangeness on his face.

  Zhang Zian was stunned, he could not help but reach out and touch his face. “Is it so obvious? I had a nightmare this morning.”


  “You look paler than usual,” she said. In fear that he did not believe her, she pointed at her thick glasses. “Although I am myopic, I am sensitive to colors.”


  This explanation was so convincing that Zhang Zian had to believe her. He had seen some of Lu Yiyun’s work. As a professional artist, she had a very accurate grasp of colors and always colored her work just right. When she was in the shop, she only drew an outline. She would color the pictures only after she returned to her apartment, using the professional graphics monitor, which was more upscale than the normal monitor in Zhang Zian’s shop. She said that his monitor was simply “hard on the eyes.” But Zhang Zian was not to blame for this. Who would buy a professional graphics monitor for the computer used at the cash register in the store?

  Lu Yiyun took Jasmine out of the bag, and Zhang Zian handed her a food bowl. “Did Jasmine have breakfast yet? Here are some skewers with no salt. Eat them while they are still warm.”


  “Well…this…this is too much,” she muttered.

  “It’s nothing. This is part of your employee benefits. You don’t have to prepare breakfast for Jasmine at home, just bring it here. There is always excess barbecue here anyway.” Before she could decline, Zhang Zian put the bowl down and left.

  Jasmine smelled the flavor of barbecue, broke free from Li Yiyun’s arms, walked to the edge of the bowl, sniffed, then gobbled up the meat.

  “Is it delicious?” Lu Yiyun stroked Jasmine’s neck, smiling happily. Jasmine felt comforted by her touch. It narrowed its eyes and meowed.

  When it finished the barbecue, Lu Yiyun went to clean the food bowl. A police vehicle parked in front of the shop.

  With a grim expression on his face, Sheng Ke took a kraft paper portfolio bag from the passenger’s seat and trotted into the shop. There was no file number on the cover but there was a surname scribbled on it—”Guan”.