ALL NOVEL Chapter 22 - Dream
After ending the communication, the faint smile on Jiang Hui’s face quickly faded.
It was quiet around her; in the distance, the sound of footsteps could be heard, along with people chatting. Above, scheduled shuttle buses occasionally passed along their designated routes, and planets in the sky quietly rotated, their presence undeniable… It was undoubtedly just another ordinary day on this planet.
Yet for Jiang Hui, a Blue Star inhabitant, it was anything but ordinary.
She stood in the pavilion for a moment, lost in thought, before slowly getting up and making her way toward the entrance of the nearby apartment building.
The lobby on the first floor was as modern as ever, primarily featuring a color scheme of white, light blue, and a stable gray-brown. The floors, walls, and ceiling were adorned with various high-tech material panels. To be honest, she found it somewhat unsettling. This extremely cold, minimalist decor carried a sense of mechanization and industrialization, devoid of any warmth, which left Jiang Hui—coming from a society rich in human connections—feeling quite out of place.
It constantly reminded her that she had arrived in a world that was entirely different from the one she had known—a world from which she could never return.
The front desk was staffed by a smart robot, and behind it was a large wall lined with small cubby-like lockers that resembled delivery boxes, which should be the mail delivery area according to her memory.
The intelligent system detected her presence and politely asked if she needed any assistance. Jiang Hui simply glanced around, realizing she didn’t need help, then looked for a while longer before heading to the elevator that led to Building B of her apartment complex.
Interstellar citizens generally had spacious living arrangements, as space expansion across the galaxy meant that homes were typically built with ample room. Take the apartment where her original self lived, for example: it was a single residence per floor, and even the surrounding greenery and common areas essentially belonged to her alone.
Building A had a larger base, so there were two units per floor, which was also quiet, but Jiang Hui preferred this layout.
Building B featured a circular design. After taking the elevator and passing by a specially designed decorative screen that provided privacy, she finally arrived at her apartment door.
It seemed that Hailusi Group was truly wealthy; the front door was made of much better and sturdier materials than her previous one, complete with an upscale wood grain finish. Just the cost of this door alone could nearly match typical maintenance expenses; it was truly extravagant.
Jiang Hui thought this as she used her retinal recognition to unlock the door.
“Click.” The door opened instantly.
It wasn’t supposed to open this quickly, as the intelligent system would usually need to verify biometric data and log it before unlocking the door. However, since the original core of the intelligent system had been taken away by Hailusi Group, the apartment now contained only some automated smart furniture.
This brought it closer to the kind of high-tech residences she was familiar with on Blue Star—barely still within her realm of understanding.
That was fine; her current state and mindset were more suited to this environment. Suddenly confronting too many ultra-modern things would really leave her feeling lost, unable to distinguish between dream and reality.
She stood dazed at the doorway, her eyes blank, as the door closed automatically behind her with a heavy thud.
“Only those whose brainwaves have completely ceased can be considered brain dead.” This phrase once again floated into her mind.
In the hustle and bustle, she hardly noticed anything, only feeling a heaviness in her heart, as if a stone were weighing it down, a deep sense of frustration she couldn’t shake. But when everything settled, the weight that had pressed on her heart poured out uncontrollably.
“We’re back,” she said to the empty room.
Of course, no one would respond to her.
She turned to confirm that the door was locked and passed through the unfamiliar hallways, rooms, and corridors, finally arriving in front of the bedroom door at the end of the hall.
Next to the bedroom, a whole section of the wall had been removed; it had originally been a dividing interface for the intelligent system, leaving it empty.
The bedroom door automatically opened when it detected the homeowner’s presence, and she walked straight in. This was the only part of the house she was familiar with.
The room looked exactly as it had on her first day there, except that the smart robot was gone. It was quite spacious, even larger than her initial impression—about sixty square meters, she guessed. The bed was positioned north to south, facing a half-arc shape, and thick curtains blocked the view from the outside, making the interior feel completely sealed off.
The automatic sensor lights emitted a warm yellow glow, the brightness just right.
Jiang Hui stood in the room for a while before flopping down onto the soft bed. It should have been a relatively comfortable experience, but in the blink of an eye, an entirely unfamiliar atmosphere enveloped her, causing her body to tense up suddenly.
She turned over and pulled a soft pillow over her face, holding her breath until she felt a slight suffocation, which made her feel like she was still alive.
“Ugh, never mind that; I really have a headache…”
The girl’s murmuring voice faded, becoming quieter until it was just the sound of her breathing.
The lights in the bedroom turned off at the right moment, plunging the room into darkness.
Jiang Hui found it hard to tell whether she was awake or dreaming. This was… her home?
Had she finally returned home? Could it be that everything before was just a dream?
Like a wandering spirit, she moved around the small apartment, and during this process, she began to regain her senses. The feeling of her actions and thoughts being somewhat uncontrollable and surreal was something she only experienced in dreams. It was clear that this was her dream…
Yes, on the day of the meteor shower, she had inexplicably left Blue Star due to a bowl of instant noodles and a computer malfunction, ending up in a world marked by interstellar years, far away in the starry sky.
There, she had encountered countless technologies that were unimaginable on Blue Star in just a short time.
For Jiang Hui, a Blue Star inhabitant, it was an incredibly foreign land. The fact that her original self was suspected to be brain-dead weighed heavily on her heart.
At some point, without her knowing, a soul had perished, and then this strand of her soul, whose origins were unknown, inherited this body, identity, and everything in life.
Jiang Hui didn’t want to die, but she was even less willing to occupy someone else’s body. She was grateful to the heavens and the original self for giving her a chance to live again, but she would much rather return to her own world and continue her ordinary life.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the original self had truly perished, and she clearly could no longer return to her own world.
What path should she take next? Jiang Hui was at a loss, just as she was lost in this dream that felt somewhat too realistic and vivid.
Sigh, who could tell her why a person, knowing they are in a dream, still cannot wake up in time?
If this is a dream, then she wished she could wake up quickly; she really felt uncomfortable looking at a scene that reminded her of a home she could never return to.
She wandered around the dream home once more, finally stopping in front of the floor-to-ceiling window where the strangely mutated giant computer was embedded, a fleeting sense of emotion passing through her heart.
Even having switched worlds, she still kept dreaming about this cursed computer, which showed how deeply she felt that her death was unjust. Yet in this dream, the other culprit never seemed to appear; she felt that the instant noodles also played quite a significant role in this matter.
Ugh, she never expected that before her death, she wouldn’t even get to eat a single bowl of instant noodles. Working people really have it tough.