Chapter Two: Dreams and Reality

For a brief moment, he was utterly confused. Then, the man asked Zhou Shu in shock, "Your age... Are you a new recruit? Did you go into battle without any training?"

Zhou Shu understood most of the question, thanks to his experience with foreign shooting games. He looked at the man's somewhat familiar face and hesitantly nodded.

"Am I considered a rookie right now?"

"I don't know who the enemy is, haven't fired a single shot, just followed behind my 'teammate' as best I could."

"One teammate went down, and before I could switch to the next, I ran into this current 'senior teammate'—who also doesn't know how to disengage the weapon's safety."

Thinking this through, Zhou Shu glanced again at the man before him.

Despite not knowing how to disengage the safety, the man's face was covered with a stubbly beard, his skin slightly sagging and weathered by dirty water, making him look far from a proper new recruit.

But Zhou Shu had only partly understood the man's two questions, not fully certain. Perhaps the safety wasn't stuck; maybe it was simply broken?

He himself genuinely didn't know where the control for the safety was on the weapon's handle.

Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling he'd seen this weathered face somewhere before.

Suddenly, inspiration struck!

The stubbly beard, the small bump on his face, the muddy and worn look, the heavy powered exoskeleton suit, all in the chaos of a beach battlefield...

Wasn't this Tom... Uncle?

Alright, though there was a considerable age difference, the guy's nickname was "Tom Cruise," so he'd just call him Tom Cruise.

He'd seen all the films this actor starred in—Mission Impossible, War of the Worlds, Oblivion, Edge of Tomorrow...

Yes, it was Edge of Tomorrow! Zhou Shu remembered!

After watching the meteor shower that night, he'd returned to his dorm, washed up, and watched a video on Bilibili about Edge of Tomorrow before going to bed.

So... was this really a dream?

If it was, it felt far too real.

He'd never had a dream like this.

If not a dream, then considering his own unique circumstances, perhaps...

He was still pondering when Tom Cruise's "Oh shit!" snapped him out of it.

He looked at Tom Cruise, who was staring in shock behind Zhou Shu and quickly dove to the side.

Curious, Zhou Shu stepped back and turned to look behind him, only to see a ball of fire trailing a long spiral of black smoke barreling toward him!

Boom—

The fireball struck his chest dead-on, and instantly his whole body went numb with a violent pain radiating from his chest!

"Ugh..."

The agony snapped something in his mind, plunging his vision into darkness.

...

Dongyuan No. 1 High School, early morning.

The entire campus was shrouded in darkness except for the necessary lights.

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Boys' Dormitory 204. Six students were all sound asleep.

From the entrance, two bunk beds could be seen. On the lower bunk closest to the door, a student was softly snoring. His upper bunk mate was grinding his teeth, while the other upper bunk student was facing the grinder, and the lower bunk student slept peacefully.

On the other side, another bunk bed; the lower bunk student slept soundly, but the upper bunk student was restless.

Dongyuan City, situated on the North China Plain, is the capital of Jizhou, the foremost of the twenty-seven provinces of the Great Qin Empire. On an early April night, temperatures were low, dropping below ten degrees Celsius in the early hours, yet the student in the upper bunk was sweating profusely.

Not only sweating, but trembling all over.

Suddenly, he sat up with a gasp, eyes wide, mouth open in a scream!

"Ah—"

The scream jolted the silent dormitory awake.

"Holy shit!"

"Huh? What's going on?!"

"Damn, scared me to death!"

"What happened?"

The startled roommates immediately grabbed their phones, switching on the torch function, shining it around to find which idiot was howling like a banshee in the middle of the night instead of sleeping.

They scanned each face, each person wearing a "Why are you shining me?" expression, until the light rested on a terrified, sweaty student sitting up, clutching his chest with both hands.

"Ugh..."

Initially, his roommates wanted to berate him loudly, but seeing his miserable state, their tone softened to gentle concern.

"Bro, are you alright?"

"Man, what's wrong?"

"Zhou Shu, did you have a nightmare?"

"Bro" and "Man" were nicknames, but "Zhou Shu" was his real name.

Hearing his name, Zhou Shu looked up, still shaken.

The phone light was harsh, so he raised his hand to block it. Just as he did, he remembered his chest was blasted open by a fireball and quickly pressed his hand back down.

Though he didn't speak, his roommates saw his gesture and considerately moved the light away.

"Zhou Shu, are you alright?" one of them asked.

Was he alright?

He wanted to know that himself.

Zhou Shu felt odd. When he pressed his hand to his chest, he found no gaping wound; his hand just touched something damp. He brought it up to his eyes and saw only sweat, not a trace of blood.

Still dazed, he heard his roommate's question.

His thoughts raced as he recalled the events just now.

Maybe because he'd watched an Edge of Tomorrow video before bed, he dreamt about related scenes.

That made sense!

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But dying on the beach at the end... that felt far too real!

He felt the heat of the fireball, and just before death, he vaguely smelled the stench of burning protein—his own flesh being scorched.

The sensation alone was enough to make his scalp tingle.

And speaking of real sensations, the pain piercing his chest was so intense he could still recall the "true gut-wrenching" agony even after waking up.

But his chest was perfectly fine—unscathed.

He'd felt the weightlessness of falling from a plane in other dreams, like those where he jumped from a building, soared into the air, or flapped his arms to fly.

But the sensation of seawater soaking him, the grit of sand, the clash of machinery—this dream felt almost excessively real.

If it was a dream, it shouldn't be possible for it to be so vivid.

He wasn't a stranger to dreaming; his dreams were usually either wildly surreal, full of stream-of-consciousness, or so realistic that he'd urgently search for a toilet and...

But this was his first time experiencing a dream both supremely "sci-fi" and supremely "real."

As he pondered, something flickered through his mind.

"Zhou, you alright?"

Seeing him lost in thought, another roommate asked.

"Ah, oh, I'm fine, just had a nightmare," Zhou Shu replied, wiping the now-cool sweat from his forehead. He climbed out of bed, saying, "It's pretty chilly tonight, you guys go back to sleep. I'm going to the bathroom to wash my face and calm down."

"Alright, take care, don't catch a cold."

"Yeah, wash up, wipe off that sweat and get some rest. Early study hall starts soon."

"Don't stress too much, still two months till the college entrance exam."

"..."

"You saying that just adds to my stress!"

But seeing he was truly alright, his roommates said a few words, then returned to their beds.

It was only four in the morning; the temperature was low, and soon they'd have to get up for early study. Sleep was essential.

After everyone settled back in, Zhou Shu grabbed his phone and glasses from beside his pillow and headed to the bathroom.

Dongyuan No. 1 High School's dormitories each had a private bathroom. As he passed the cupboard, he grabbed his towel, checked in the dark that everyone was settled, then quietly locked himself inside.

Switching on the bathroom light, the small space belonged to him for the moment.

He washed his face with cold tap water to clear his mind, wiped away the sweat, and started thinking.

He was so cautious because something had appeared in his mind, helping him understand a few things.

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