Dream

Lumian sat on the roof and did not climb down right away. The expression on his face had long since withdrawn completely; his calm, serious look seemed like a different person from the laughing, prank-loving young man in the tavern. Ever since he'd accidentally discovered that Aurore possessed those wondrous abilities, he'd wanted them for himself. But Aurore always told him this was not something to envy or pursue; on the contrary, it was very dangerous and full of pain. That was why she would not agree to let her younger brother walk this path, and even though she truly did possess a method that let ordinary people wield supernatural power, she would not tell Lumian. There was nothing Lumian could do about it but keep looking for chances to persuade her and plead with her; he couldn't force her. After ten-odd seconds, Lumian stood, moved nimbly to the edge of the eaves, and climbed back up to the second floor along the wooden ladder. He strolled over to the outside of Aurore's room. Seeing the brown wooden door standing open, he poked his head in for a look. At that moment, Aurore, in a loose, casual blue dress, was sitting behind the desk by the window, bent over writing something by the light of the bright desk lamp. Writing something this late? Something to do with sorcery? Lumian raised a hand, pressed it against the door, and started joking: "Writing a diary?" "What respectable person keeps a diary?" Aurore didn't even turn her head, going on writing with the delicate champagne-gold pen in her hand. Lumian refused to accept that: "Haven't plenty of Emperor Roselle the Great's diaries survived?" Roselle was the last emperor in the history of the Republic of Intis, the country where the brother and sister now lived. He had ended the rule of the Sauron royal house, then been crowned "Caesar" from his post as consul, and styled himself the Great. Among his many important inventions was the steam engine; he found the sea route to the Southern Continent and set off a wave of colonization. He was the symbol of that era more than a hundred years ago. Sadly, in his later years he was betrayed and assassinated at the White Maple Palace in Trier. After this emperor's death, several volumes of his diaries circulated in the world, but they were all written in a script no one else could read, one that seemed not to exist in any place on this world. "So Roselle wasn't a respectable person either." Aurore, her back still to Lumian, gave a scoff of laughter. "Then what are you writing?" Lumian asked, following along. This was what he really wanted to know. Aurore answered carelessly, "A letter." "To whom?" Lumian couldn't help frowning. Aurore stopped the champagne-gold pen carved with delicate patterns and checked the words and sentences she had written before: "A pen pal." "A pen pal?" Lumian was a little baffled. What on earth was that? Aurore laughed, and as she tucked her golden hair back behind her ear, she began to lecture her younger brother: "This is why I say you should read more newspapers and more books, and stop running around outside playing every day, and drinking, too! "Just look at you—what's the difference between you and an illiterate now? "A pen pal is a friend you meet through newspaper columns, periodicals and magazines, someone you've never met face to face and communicate with entirely by letter." "What's the point of a friend like that?" Lumian was quite bothered by this. He couldn't help drawing back the hand that had been pressing on the door and rubbing his chin. Aurore had never even had a boyfriend; he couldn't let her be taken in by some fellow she'd never laid eyes on. "The point?" Aurore thought about it seriously. "First, emotional value. All right, I know you don't understand what emotional value is. Humans are social animals; we need to communicate. There are things, feelings, that I would certainly not talk about with the village people, and could not possibly tell you. I need a more private outlet. A pen pal I'll never meet is perfect for that. Second, don't you dare look down on my pen pals—several of them are very impressive, and some are remarkably learned. That lamp using a battery, for instance, was a gift from one of my pen pals. Kerosene lamps and candles are too hard on the eyes, not suitable for writing at night…" Before Lumian could ask more, Aurore raised her left hand and waved it back at him: "Go to bed now, my drunkard of a brother! "Good night!" "All right, good night." Though Lumian was reluctant to let it go, he didn't press further. Aurore added at once, "Remember to pull the door shut for me. With the door open and the window open too, it's a bit cold in here." Lumian slowly drew the brown wooden door closed. Step by step he walked back to his own room, took off his shoes, and sat down on the bed. In the dim, dark night, the wooden desk set against the window, the chair placed at a slant, the small bookshelf leaning against the side wall, and the wardrobe on the other side all came into Lumian's view. He sat quietly, sinking into thought. He had always known that Aurore had secrets of her own, many things she had never told him; this did not surprise him at all. He only worried that these secrets, these matters, might bring Aurore into danger. And if something truly did happen, there was very little he could do. He was only an ordinary man with a sturdy body and a reasonably nimble mind. One thought after another surfaced, then one after another sank away. Lumian let out a soft breath, left the bed, and went to the washroom to wash up briefly. Then he took off his brown jacket-style coat and threw himself into the bedcovers, which had not yet warmed. In the mountains at the end of March or the start of April, the weather was still a little cold. … In his muddled half-sleep, Lumian seemed to see a stretch of gray fog. It spread all around him, making anything in the distance vanish completely. Lumian walked with his mind blurred, but no matter which direction he went, no matter how far he walked within the gray fog, in the end he always came back to the same place: His bedroom. The bedroom made up of a bed dressed in a white bedding set, the wooden desk and chair set crosswise before the window, the bookshelf, the wardrobe, and so on. … Phew. Lumian opened his eyes. The morning sunlight came through the not-too-thick blue curtains and lit up half the bedroom. Lumian sat up and stared blankly at the scene, with the illusion that he was still dreaming. He'd had that dream again. Dreamed of that gray fog that seemed as if it would never disperse. He raised a hand and rubbed his temples, saying silently to himself, "It's been getting more and more frequent lately, almost every day now…" If this dream hadn't brought him any harm at all, Lumian would never be as calm as he was now. Of course, it hadn't brought him any good either. "I really hope there's some amazing adventure hidden in this…" Lumian muttered, and rolled off the bed. He had just opened his door and stepped into the corridor when he heard sounds coming from Aurore's room. What a coincidence… A hint of a smile showed on Lumian's face. Suddenly a thought struck him; he stepped back and stood at the edge of the door. When the door of Aurore's bedroom opened, Lumian quickly raised his right hand, pressed at his temple, and let a slightly pained expression come over his face. "What's wrong?" Aurore noticed this. Success! Lumian cheered inwardly and put on the look of someone trying hard to compose himself. "I had that dream again," he answered, his voice low. Aurore's golden hair hung loose, and a touch of worry gradually gathered between her brows: "The last plan didn't work after all…" She thought for a moment. "Perhaps… I should find you a hypnotist, a real hypnotist, to see exactly what's causing it." "The kind with wondrous abilities?" Lumian asked deliberately. Aurore gave a slight nod in reply. "One of your pen pals?" Lumian couldn't help asking. "Why do you care about that? Think about how to solve your own problem!" Aurore did not answer directly. Aren't I thinking about it right now? Lumian grumbled inwardly. He took the opening and said: "Aurore, if I became a sorcerer, someone who wields supernatural power, I should be able to unravel the secret of the dream and end it for good." "Don't even think about it!" Aurore answered without hesitation. Her expression softened: "Lumian, I won't lie to you. This path is dangerous and painful. If I weren't out of other choices, if this world weren't getting more and more dangerous, I'd rather be an ordinary writer and live happily." Lumian said at once, "Then let me bear that danger and pain. I'll protect you, and you only need to live happily and do the things you want to do." He had thought these words over in his heart many times. Aurore was silent for two seconds, then her smile suddenly bloomed: "Are you discriminating against women?" Without giving Lumian a chance to restate it, she said with a serious face, "It's useless. Once you choose this path, there's no chance to regret it. "All right, all right, I'm going to wash up. You study hard at home today and get ready for the unified higher-education entrance examination in June!" "You just said the world is getting more and more dangerous—why bother with an exam?" Lumian muttered. He felt that what mattered most right now was gaining power, not taking exams. Aurore smiled: "Knowledge is power, my illiterate brother." Lumian had nothing to say to that and could only watch Aurore walk into the washroom. … In the afternoon, in the square of Koldu village. From a distance, Raymond Craig saw Lumian Lee squatting under an elm tree, thinking about who knew what. "Weren't you supposed to be studying at home?" Raymond walked over, obvious envy in his tone. He was Lumian's friend, just shy of 1.7 meters tall, with brown hair and brown eyes, an ordinary face, and a slight flush on his cheeks. Lumian lifted his head and said with a smile, "Didn't Aurore tell you? Even a man about to hang himself deserves a breath of air! I've studied so long, I've got to rest a little." All morning he'd been turning over whether there was any way to gain supernatural power without going through Aurore. That would take searching, it would take clues, it would take him actively investigating. In the end, he decided that the stories circulating in the village, the ones involving wondrous power, might hide some truth and certain clues, and so he had come here specially to wait for Raymond. "If I were you, I'd rest a quarter of an hour at most," Raymond said, leaning against the elm. "Not all of us have a well-read older sister to teach us. Next year I'm going to learn shepherding." Lumian ignored that and said thoughtfully, "Tell that legend about the sorcerer you told me last time. Tell it again." Raymond didn't quite understand what Lumian was after, and recalled with some confusion, "The sorcerer one? "There used to be a sorcerer in the village, and later he died. On the day of the burial, an owl flew in from outside and perched on top of the bed, and it didn't fly away until the corpse was carried out. "And then the coffin became very heavy—it took a full nine oxen to drag it." "How long ago is 'used to'?" Lumian pressed. Raymond grew even more bewildered: "How would I know? I heard it from my dad."