Chapter 2: Dreamscape: Wandering the Stellar Seas

Du Qiu’s father was once the deputy head of the Criminal Police Brigade, and since childhood, Du Qiu was no stranger to spending time doing homework in their offices. Most of the criminal detectives knew him.

He too thought he would become one of them, but during his senior year of high school, he discovered details about something from his childhood that almost led to a fallout with his father.

Du Qiu even gave up on applying to the police academy and chose to study mechanical engineering at Shanghai University instead. With his intelligence, it only took him six years to earn a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Electronic Engineering.

It was only a little over a year ago that his father left the Criminal Police Brigade to join a peacekeeping police force, and Du Qiu secretly went to the brigade to see his father off.

Little did he know, that would be their last farewell.

Over a month ago, Du Qiu received a notification from Uncle Tang informing him of an earthquake in the region where his father was on a mission—five peacekeeping police officers, including his father, had been sacrificed.

Among the five, two were from the Modu police force, and three were from Susheng Province.

A grand memorial service was organized by those from Modu.

It was also at the memorial service that he unexpectedly ran into his ex-girlfriend, Zhang Mingliu, whom he had broken up with and lost contact with two years ago.

Zhang Mingliu’s brother, Zhang Shangqing, was the other officer from Modu who had perished.

“Du Qiu, Du Qiu… please don’t get into any trouble…”

Just as he put on his headphones, Du Qiu heard Zhang Mingliu’s mumbling voice and realized he had forgotten to hang up the call.

“Liuli, I’m fine. In a few minutes, I’ll be at the entrance of your neighborhood,” Du Qiu responded.

With that said, he pressed down on the gas pedal, and the car immediately sped up.

In just a few minutes, Du Qiu picked up Zhang Mingliu from the entrance of a neighborhood. Seeing her clothes soaking wet, he guessed that her umbrella became ineffective as she ran, indicating her panic and haste at the time.

Du Qiu brought her back to her place and, after listening to her intermittent story, learned that she had encountered this situation because she had to work overtime and got home late. Luckily, she had taken shelter in a convenience store along the way.

In a somewhat joking tone, Du Qiu comforted her by saying, “Maybe it was your secret admirer who deliberately followed to scare you, then planned to appear later to comfort you. Sadly, I might have ruined their plan.”

Although Zhang Mingliu was a strong-willed woman, having Du Qiu by her side and being back in her own home revived her spirit substantially.

Upon hearing Du Qiu’s words, she couldn’t help but glare at him and retorted, “It wasn’t you, was it? Still obsessing over me so much that you followed me to give me a scare. Weren’t you secretly chuckling when I called you?”

“Me, obsessed with you?” Du Qiu was about to argue with her as he usually would when he suddenly felt a bit softer seeing her drenched state.

“Go ahead and take a hot shower; you might catch a cold otherwise. I should head back now; I’ve got work to do,” he continued.

As he opened the door to leave, Du Qiu turned back to add one last reminder, “Make sure to lock the door properly, okay?”

“Hey, are you really leaving?” Zhang Mingliu’s voice trailed off as the door closed.

Zhang Mingliu stared at the closed door, a glint of sadness passing through her eyes.

It had been almost two years since their breakup, and even though they were in the same metropolis, there had been no contact between them.

Had they not reunited on that sorrowful day a month ago, they might have never seen each other again.

Two years—it’s neither a long nor short time, but upon seeing Du Qiu again, Zhang Mingliu realized she had never truly forgotten him.

Returning to his own place, Du Qiu didn’t dwell on the events of the evening.

In fact, after a quick wash, he immediately went to bed and turned off his cellphone, as he didn’t want to be disturbed and have his sleep—especially his dreams—interrupted.

For the past month, Du Qiu had been looking forward to his nightly escapades into the world of dreams.

Ever since he started sleeping on the crystal pillow his father gave him, his nights were filled with bizarre dreams.

Well, not every night.

He would dream for six consecutive nights, then on the seventh, there would be no dreams.

This meant the dreams would pause after every six days.

At first, Du Qiu couldn’t remember much about his dreams, but lately, he was able to recall them with more clarity.

And because he could remember the dream content, Du Qiu found them to be quite strange.

Initially, his dreams took place in the vast, dark universe.

Even though he was an engineering Ph.D. who had seen photos from NASA and experienced various American interstellar sci-fi movies in IMAX, none compared to the realism of space he saw in his dreams.

It felt as though he himself were in space with the ability to observe the cosmos in all directions.

That profound darkness when far from star systems, the blinding brightness when near stars, and the brilliant reflected light of planets up close…

The star systems he witnessed in his dreams were so clear and real that he would wake up feeling an infinite sense of longing.

Some star systems, like ours, had a primary star surrounded by numerous planets of varying sizes.

Others had binary stars with planets orbiting around the barycenter of the two suns.

There were even systems with three stars, like our neighbor the Alpha Centauri, filled with planets amongst the trio of stars.

There were star systems with four stars, where planets within would observe four “suns” in their sky…

Speaking of stars, Du Qiu saw all kinds of stars in his dreams: main sequence stars like the Sun, white dwarfs, giants, and supergiants.

In every night’s dreams, Du Qiu could see hundreds of star systems, as if he were swimming through a sea of stars.

To tour hundreds of star systems in just one night, the speed had to be many times faster than the speed of light.

Just when Du Qiu thought that tonight’s dream would be another journey through the sea of stars, he realized something different—his journey through the stars seemed to follow a specific path, starting from his home planet, Earth.

The first celestial body he encountered was mankind’s most familiar—the Moon, which quickly fell behind him. He sped past Mars, then through the asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune…

The voyage through the solar system was over in mere seconds, followed by an endless void. Unfamiliar with the cosmos, Du Qiu didn’t know which constellation he was heading towards.

However, he seemed to pass Sirius, a bright star in the sky with which he had some familiarity.

As with the rest, he zoomed past Sirius, not even getting a clear view of the system—in stark contrast to his previous dreams.

It felt to Du Qiu like he was rushing through the stars.

Eventually, he became somewhat numb to it; since he couldn’t discern the direction, he let the dream unfurl on its own.

Suddenly, he felt he had crossed an endless void devoid of stars—this void seemed vast and boundless, and Du Qiu didn’t know how long it took before he saw star systems again, easing his anxious heart.

Just as he resumed passing through thousands of star systems, he was cast into the darkness once more. As he began to panic, a voice seemed to echo deep within his consciousness.

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