Ryan had a dream.
Or rather, Lin Yuan had a dream.
...
A shrill alarm clock rang out.
Beep—beep—beep—
Lin Yuan frowned and rolled over.
He pulled the blanket over his head. He wanted to keep sleeping.
But in the next second, the bedroom door was pushed open.
“Still sleeping?”
A familiar voice called out.
“It's eight o'clock.”
Lin Yuan opened his eyes drowsily.
What came into view was his bedroom ceiling.
A white pendant light hung there, and the walls were covered in slightly yellowed wallpaper.
On the desk lay his college textbooks, along with a laptop he had used for many years.
Sunlight streamed in through the window.
He could faintly hear the cries of the breakfast stall downstairs selling steamed buns.
Lin Yuan froze.
For a long time, he couldn't react.
This was...
Home?
He slowly sat up.
His head felt a bit swollen and heavy.
He felt as if he had forgotten something.
It felt like he had had a very, very long dream.
But when he tried to recall it, he couldn't remember a thing.
There was only a strange, inexplicable sense of exhaustion.
“Are you up yet?”
The voice called out from outside the door again.
“Right away,” Lin Yuan answered subconsciously.
After the words left his mouth, even he was stunned for a moment.
It was too natural.
As if this was his actual, original life.
He put on his slippers and pushed open the bedroom door.
In the living room, the TV was playing the morning news.
His father sat on the sofa, looking at his phone.
His mother was busy in the kitchen.
Sizzling sounds drifted from the pans, and the aroma of fried eggs and soy milk filled the air.
Everything was as familiar as could be.
“What are you dazing off for?”
His father looked up at him.
“Did you stay up late playing games again last night?”
“No.”
Lin Yuan rubbed his hair and sat down at the dining table.
His mother came out carrying breakfast.
“Hurry up and eat.”
“Take the trash down when you're done.”
“Got it.”
Lin Yuan took the soy milk.
A warm sensation radiated from his palm.
He suddenly fell into a daze.
For some reason, this scene gave him a long-lost feeling.
But yesterday had been exactly the same.
Why would he think that?
“Do you have a fever?”
His mother reached out to feel his forehead.
“You look so pale.”
“No,” Lin Yuan shook his head.
“I just didn't sleep well.”
His mother didn't say anything else, only placing an egg in his bowl.
“Don't stay up so late.”
“Yeah.”
Breakfast was very ordinary.
Steamed buns.
Eggs.
Soy milk.
Yet Lin Yuan ate with extreme focus.
His father glanced at him, unable to help but laugh.
“What's with you today?”
“Eating like a starved ghost.”
Lin Yuan smiled as well.
“I don't know.”
“I just think it tastes really good.”
His father and mother exchanged a glance, both finding it a bit baffling.
...
In the morning, Lin Yuan accompanied his parents to the supermarket.
The weather was nice.
The streets were packed with people.
Elderly people buying groceries, children chasing each other and playing.
Long queues lined up outside the milk tea shops along the street, and promotional banners hung at the mall entrance.
Everything was as ordinary as could be.
Lin Yuan pushed the shopping cart, following behind his parents.
He suddenly became a bit lost in thought.
Because he kept feeling like he hadn't seen these things in a very long time.
Shelves.
Drinks.
Snacks.
Billboards.
They were clearly things he saw every single day, yet at this moment, they felt inexplicably dear to him.
“What are you dazing off for?”
His father placed two bags of rice into the cart.
“Keep pushing the cart.”
“Oh.”
Lin Yuan quickly caught up.
But just as they passed the fresh produce section, he suddenly stopped.
For some reason, he felt as though someone in the crowd was watching him.
It was a very strange sensation.
Lin Yuan instinctively looked back.
Behind him were only shoppers.
No one seemed unusual.
He frowned.
Soon, he let it go.
It was probably just an illusion.
...
In the afternoon, the family of three returned home.
His mother cooked in the kitchen, his father watched TV, and Lin Yuan lay on the sofa scrolling through his phone.
Short videos scrolled by continuously.
Game advertisements.
Funny videos.
Movie recaps.
Life remained ordinary.
But gradually, a sense of dissonance began to surface.
Lin Yuan suddenly realized that he couldn't remember a lot of things.
For example, what happened yesterday.
What happened the day before.
Or even what he had done last week.
His memories had become blurry and indistinct.
Whenever he tried to delve deeper, his head would throb with a dull ache.
“Strange...”
He rubbed his temples.
A sliver of unease rose in his heart.
But in the next second, his mother's voice drifted from the kitchen.
“Dinner's ready!”
All of his thoughts were instantly interrupted.
Lin Yuan stood up, walking toward the dining table.
The food was steaming hot.
His father was already seated.
The family chatted just like any other day.
They talked about work, housing prices, and their relatives' children.
These topics were so ordinary they were almost boring.
Yet Lin Yuan listened with utmost attentiveness.
...
Nighttime.
Eleven o'clock.
The apartment fell quiet.
His parents had already gone to sleep.
Lin Yuan lay in bed, staring at the familiar ceiling.
For some reason, he felt that something was wrong.
Something was being forgotten.
Something was leaving.
But no matter how hard he tried to think, he couldn't remember.
Outside, the night grew deeper.
Moonlight filtered through the gap in the curtains.
The room was completely silent.
Just then, he suddenly heard a voice.
It was very faint and very distant.
“Ryan...”
Lin Yuan was startled.
Who was that?
The voice didn't respond, only echoing once more.
“Ryan...”
A name both strange and familiar.
Lin Yuan frowned, his heart rate inexplicably quickening.
For some reason, when he heard this name, he felt a sudden urge to cry.
But in the next second, the voice vanished.
Quiet returned to the room once more.
Lin Yuan lay in bed, staring into the darkness, unable to fall asleep for a long time.
And in a place he couldn't see, in the shadows near the window where the moonlight couldn't reach, a greyish-white moth sat quietly.
Its wings fluttered slightly.
The next day, Lin Yuan didn't wake up until noon.
The TV in the living room was on, and his father was sitting on the sofa watching the news.
His mother was busy in the kitchen, and the scent of food floated in the air.
Peaceful, ordinary, and without anything special happening.
Even the strange dreams from before had begun to fade.
After finishing lunch, having nothing else to do, he began to clean his room.
Since graduating from college, a lot of clutter had been piled up in his wardrobe, left untouched.
In the very back, his old high school uniform was stuffed away.
The moment he slid the wardrobe door open, Lin Yuan paused.
In the corner of the wardrobe, a cluster of greyish-white moths was gathered.
There were quite a few, dozens of them huddled together, clinging to the gaps between the clothes and the wooden panels.
“Mom—”
“What is it?”
“We have bugs.”
His mother walked into the room, took one look, and her brow instantly furrowed.
“Why are there so many moths?”
“I don't know.”
Lin Yuan picked up a clothes hanger and nudged them.
The moths immediately fluttered up, the sound of their flapping wings making his skin crawl.
“Get the bug spray,” his mother ordered directly.
Ten minutes later, the chemical mist filled the entire wardrobe.
A large number of moths fell, coating the floor in a thick layer.
His mother opened the window to air out the room and pulled all the clothes out of the wardrobe.
“We might as well clean it all up together.”
“It hasn't been organized in so many years.”
“It's long overdue.”
Lin Yuan squatted on the floor to help, carrying the items out one by one.
Stuffed at the very back was an old cardboard box.
The box was slightly damp, its corners yellowed.
It had clearly not been opened for many years.
“What is this?”
Lin Yuan casually opened it.
Inside was a collection of junk from his childhood.
There were game cards, keychains, old coins, and various other knick-knacks whose purposes he had long forgotten.
He was about to stuff it back in when he suddenly froze.
At the very bottom of the box, two coins lay quietly.
One was brass-colored, and the other was silver-white.
The edges of the brass coin were heavily worn.
Its surface was engraved with a moth spreading its wings.
The silver coin, on the other hand, looked much older.
It bore intricate patterns, with the profile portrait of the Queen of England engraved on its front.
“Strange.”
Lin Yuan picked up the two coins, turning them over and over to examine them.
He had absolutely no memory of where they came from.
“Mom.”
“Yeah?”
“Have you seen these coins before?”
His mother glanced over.
“No.”
“Didn't you buy them yourself?”
“When would I ever buy something like this?”
Lin Yuan muttered under his breath, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the surface of the moth coin.
For some reason, when he touched the moth, his heart gave a sudden, gentle thud.
But it quickly vanished again, leaving behind only a bizarre sensation.
It was as if this item was very important to him.
But as for why it was important, he couldn't remember at all.
“Probably just cheap junk from a street stall,” his father said, glancing from the doorway.
“Just something you bought randomly when you were a kid.”
“Why keep it?”
“Just throw it away.”
Lin Yuan thought about it, but couldn't bring himself to throw them away.
He couldn't explain why.
He just felt it would be a bit of a waste.
So he slipped them into his pocket and continued organizing his clothes.
Half an hour later, the wardrobe was finally cleared.
His mother held a broom, sweeping up the dead insects, when she suddenly spoke:
“There's still something here.”
Lin Yuan turned around.
In the deepest corner of the wardrobe, lay a small pile of greyish-white powder.
His mother casually swept it away, sweeping it all into the trash can.
No one paid it any mind.
By evening, the room had returned to its neat and tidy state.
Lin Yuan lay in bed scrolling through his phone.
The two coins sat on his nightstand.
Outside the window, the sky gradually darkened.
Before he knew it, he was drowsily preparing to sleep.
In a daze, he seemed to see the moth coin gently reflect the moonlight.
A silver-white speck of light flashed by.
Lin Yuan rubbed his eyes.
Looking back, there was nothing there.
“I've really been sleeping too much lately.”
He rolled over, pulling up the blanket, and quickly fell asleep.
On the nightstand, the moth coin and the silver coin lay quietly side by side.
Moonlight shone in from outside the window.
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