Tan Jiao

  I suddenly opened my eyes and found myself lying on the sofa at home.

  My mind is stuck.

  The patter of the rain is still echoing in my ears, and I can even feel the chill of the rainy night. But everything around me thats familiar - the room, the sofa, the cabinet - clearly reminds me where I am.

  I sat up and poured myself a cup of hot water from the thermos, and only then did my body start to feel real.

  So I dozed off just now and had a dream about that trip from several weeks ago? And this dream was so real, it was as if everything was happening all over again. Every word that was said, every feeling, was still fresh in my memory. My fingertips even remembered the fine sandy feeling of touching the curtains on the balcony.

  I glanced at the clock, just past 10 am. My heart gradually calmed down, leaning on the balcony, basking in the sun thinking: It shouldnt be like this. Since the first day I boarded the ship and had a confrontation with that man, I havent seen him again. After the trip ended, there was even less contact between us. He disappeared from my sky without a trace, like a cloud. How did I suddenly dream of him today? And it felt so vivid too.

  I went back to the living room, turned on the computer and told my best friend Zhuang Yu about this confusion.

  Zhuang Yu, also known as Zhou Xiaoyu, is an online writer from Dali City. Hes younger than me and still in college. Zhuang Yu is famous for his thrilling science fiction stories on the internet, and we get along famously, like two strings of a lute that harmonize perfectly. We can talk about anything together.

  "I said: Fish, why did I suddenly dream of that boat and him?"

  "It doesnt matter who you dream of, what matters is that you dreamed of a man."

  Me: "What?"

  "Are you hungry, are you thinking of spring, Maiden Pearl?"

  I calmly replied: "Hehe... it sounds like youre not a rookie."

  "...... What are we actually hurting each other with?"

  "Haha, its just that all the authors are too empty-headed."

  She made an appointment with Zhuang Yu to have dinner together tomorrow, and then went offline to rush her homework. I was browsing the news online as usual. This is one of my ways to accumulate writing materials.

  I live alone in a house in the city center, which I paid for with the advance payment from last years best-selling book (the one that was thrown to the ground by that scumbag). This is my daily life, sleeping until I wake up naturally and then going downstairs to find food. During the day, I work at home, look up information or write. In the evening or on weekends, I go out for a walk, meet friends for dinner, and sometimes dont leave the house all day, staying in and watching TV or playing games. As for traveling like that time on the boat, it depends on when I suddenly feel like it, and then Ill book a tour and set off with my backpack.

  So its true that people like us are empty and hungry...its not entirely unreasonable.

  There is a netizen who exposed that the son of a certain billionaire was caught in a prostitution crackdown. I took a glance at the photo of this young master, and hes really ugly. Moreover, his hairstyle is too outdated, not interesting.

  A WeChat public account broke the news that a murder case occurred in a community in this city two days ago. The victim was a woman over 40 years old, and her body was found with severe injuries and signs of sexual assault. I felt a chill after seeing the blurry photo, which showed dense wounds all over the body, and I have no idea what could have caused them.

  However, some netizens soon analyzed with reason and evidence that the photo was synthesized. Some people even made more terrifying remarks, saying that this is not the first case, but a serial murder case. Last month, another man in his thirties died in the same way, and even his name and work unit were written out. But immediately, another netizen strongly refuted: Bullshit! I am a colleague of XXs at the same company, he died from a drunk driving accident...

  The news on the internet is like this, true and false, everyone is drunk. So I say that every day I just gnaw on these spiritual foods, no wonder I cant find a boyfriend.