novelraw Chapter 1 : Lucid Dream
Chapter 1 : Lucid Dream
Chapter 1: Lucid Dream
Huang Xing sat atop a towering totem pole.
Looking down at the unfamiliar world below.
Glowing vines coiled around thick, sturdy trees.
Shimmering blue motes of light drifted through the air, and in the distance, winged creatures flew across a purple sky.
Everything was strange, yet beautiful…
But Huang Xing felt very calm inside.
He knew he was dreaming—a lucid dream.
Here, he could do whatever he wanted.
Soon, the sky darkened, and night fell.
Then, the stars lit up one by one.
It was not the sparse starry sky he was familiar with, but a brilliant river of light formed by billions of stars.
Below the totem pole, a bonfire was lit in the open clearing.
The flickering firelight illuminated tribespeople painted with oil pigments, dressed in crude leather skirts.
The crowd parted.
A hunched old priest, draped in heavy feathered ornaments, staggered forward to the base of the totem pole.
He raised both hands high and began chanting in an ancient and obscure language, his voice hoarse yet full of power.
Those syllables were twisted and unfamiliar. Huang Xing was certain he had never heard them before, yet strangely, he understood their meaning.
“O great Lord of the Stars,”
the old priest cried, “please bless your people…”
When he heard “Lord of the Stars,”
Huang Xing suddenly felt something strange, as if the one being called was himself.
But he quickly dismissed the thought. After all, it was just a dream—no matter how strange anything felt, it was nothing unusual.
The priest’s chant reached its climax.
Waving his bone staff, three children who appeared to be only five or six years old walked respectfully to the front of the totem pole.
The priest gazed up at the starry sky and continued his prayer:
“O great Lord!”
“Please have mercy on your servants, bestow your grace, and guide the tribe forward!”
Oh?
So this is… asking me to grant a blessing?
Huang Xing raised an eyebrow, finding the plot of this dream increasingly interesting.
Playing the role of a god seemed like a rather entertaining pastime.
He looked at the three boys and felt that the one in the middle was the most pleasing to the eye.
You, then.
As that casual thought of his fell—
The totem pole, which had stood for an unknown number of years,
suddenly erupted with a burst of dazzling light that was impossible to look at directly, shooting straight into the sky.
At the same time,
the stars above rippled and grew even more brilliant, like a cascading waterfall of light.
Below, the tribespeople dropped to their knees in waves.
Even the old priest trembled with excitement, prostrating himself on the ground.
The boy standing in the middle was enveloped by a pillar of starlight, and his figure vanished from the spot in an instant.
The boy felt himself thrown into a boundless sea of stars, with rotating celestial bodies in every direction.
At the center of that starry sea,
stood a figure so immense that it could not be described with words, surrounded by countless stars.
He strained to look upward, yet all he could glimpse was merely a strand of light flowing beneath the god’s feet.
A voice sounded—
calm, indifferent, carrying a kind of eternal languor, directly echoing within the depths of his soul:
“From this day forth, you shall be the head of my twelve constellations—Leo…”
“From now on, your name shall be Apollo.”
……
Huang Xing woke up to the familiar sound of his phone alarm.
Opening his eyes, what he saw was not that fantastical world, but the slightly worn ceiling of his rented apartment.
The noise of the city morning drifted in from outside the window, and everything seemed to return to reality.
He got up as usual, washed, squeezed into the subway, and went to work.
The tedious tasks and repetitive routine did not make him feel dull as they usually did. On the contrary, his mood today was inexplicably light and pleasant.
Because that vivid dream remained in his memory, not fading away upon waking.
Especially that boy he had casually named “Apollo”—his frightened yet devout expression was quite amusing to recall.
“To remember it so clearly… seems like this dream was worth having.”
He thought to himself as he processed documents.
Night fell once more, and Huang Xing drifted into sleep with a trace of anticipation he himself did not notice.
In a haze, the rough, solid sensation of the totem pole beneath his feet returned once again.
He had indeed come back here.
“A continuous dream? Interesting.”
Huang Xing looked around and found that the atmosphere of the tribe was completely different from last night.
The people no longer wore expressions of numbness and supplication. Instead, their faces were filled with ease and hope, and even the sound of children running and playing seemed especially cheerful.
“What good thing happened?”
As he wondered, a commotion arose from the outskirts of the tribe.
Apollo walked at the front, followed by a group of strong men carrying prey.
The prey was an enormous wild bull, its size comparable to a motorhome in the real world. Just looking at it, one could feel how ferocious it must have been in life.
At this moment, it was being laboriously carried back by more than a dozen people.
The entire tribe instantly erupted into excitement!
People cheered as they surged forward, gazing at the massive prey with eyes full of hunger for food and admiration for Apollo.
“Thank the great Lord of the Stars!”
“It is the Lord’s blessing! A blessing brought by Apollo!”
Many people excitedly knelt toward the direction of the totem pole, loudly praising the god’s “greatness” and “benevolence.”
Listening to the noisy praises below, Huang Xing gradually understood.
It turned out that after this boy, originally named “Lin,” had been casually appointed by him as “Leo of the Twelve Constellations,”
he had seemingly truly gained some kind of extraordinary power.
He was able to single-handedly hunt such a giant beast that previously required the entire tribe’s strength just to barely handle.
Because of this, the tribe now had sufficient food and no longer suffered from hunger.
Watching everyone joyfully processing the wild bull, Huang Xing felt that the “plot” of this dream was developing quite coherently.
Soon, the wild bull was completely dismembered.
Apollo respectfully held the still faintly beating heart and came to the altar beneath the totem pole.
He carefully placed the heart down.
Then he knelt, looking up at the totem, and said with excitement and devotion:
“God, Apollo thanks you for your grace, for granting me great power so that everyone can eat their fill.”
“I offer my heart to you. May you be pleased.”
Huang Xing sat atop the totem pole, propping his chin as he watched this scene.
He found Apollo’s devotion quite interesting.
But he had absolutely no interest in that blood-soaked heart, and even felt a bit repulsed.
After all, it looked far too bloody.
Perhaps because that so-called “blessing” had truly established some mysterious connection,
Apollo sensed Huang Xing’s indifference, even a trace of displeasure.
The excitement and joy on the boy’s face instantly froze, turning into extreme fear.
He lowered his body, his voice trembling:
“God!”
“You… do not like this offering?”
“Did Apollo do something wrong and anger you? Please forgive me, please quell your anger…”
His fear spread to everyone around him.
The celebratory atmosphere vanished instantly.
The entire tribe fell silent. Everyone knelt in unease, not daring to raise their heads.