Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Lottery
Gao Yang, who had just finished working overtime, arrived at Lin Xian’s home and lay down on the sofa:
“So, Lin Xian, what exactly happened?”
Lin Xian sat opposite him at the coffee table and began to elaborate…
He started with how he entered the dream to turn Big Face Cat, to learning the true cause of death of Big Face Cat’s daughter, to learning about the mysterious organization called the Genius Club that killed Cat Dad, to Big Face Cat robbing a bank to get an invitation to the Genius Club, and then later seeing the Genius Club’s invitation letter at the reception desk while he was at work…
Gao Yang kept nodding, drinking water, looking thoughtful and tense:
“You understand again?”
Gao Yang put down the water glass and looked seriously at Lin Xian:
“In plain terms, it’s still about the ‘subconscious’!”
“The subconscious is the scapegoat, huh?”
Lin Xian couldn’t help but retort:
“When in doubt, quantum mechanics? Can’t explain something, parallel universes? I’ve explained this seriously for so long, and you’re fobbing me off with the subconscious?”
“It’s not the same thing!”
Gao Yang interrupted Lin Xian, explaining:
“Last time at the bar, I was in a hurry to watch the World Cup and didn’t explain clearly. But actually, the subconscious is much more complicated than you think!”
“Just simplify it, please.”
“Many times, you see things, hear things, and then you immediately forget. But did you really forget? No! Your subconscious remembers them for you. That’s the feeling of déjà vu you often get in life, the sense of familiarity.”
Lin Xian stood up and waved his hand:
“That’s far-fetched, go write a novel, I don’t want to listen anymore.”
“This isn’t metaphysics!”
Gao Yang pulled Lin Xian back to the sofa and raised his index finger:
“Let me give you an example and you’ll understand!”
“Have you ever heard a song or a melody that feels very familiar, you’re sure you’ve heard it before, but you just can’t remember when?”
“That has happened, indeed.”
“Have you ever seen a stranger and felt like you’ve seen them somewhere before? Seen a place that’s unfamiliar yet strikes you as known?”
“That… sometimes happens.”
“You encounter many people when you take the subway to work every day, and you’ve had many classmates since you were little. You’ve seen their faces, but can you recall each one of them clearly now? Forget long ago, can you remember the faces of this morning’s subway passengers?”
“Of course not, who remembers that.”
Gao Yang smacked his thigh and pointed at Lin Xian’s forehead with his index finger:
“Human memory is a very unreliable thing; the farther back the memory, the less real it becomes. But the subconscious is different!”
“Many things you forget, your subconscious won’t! Including people you’ve met, music you’ve heard, places you’ve been. That’s why you often get this inexplicable sense of familiarity, as if you’ve seen, heard, or been there before.”
“You must have heard the name Genius Club somewhere before! Perhaps a whisper in an elevator, a fleeting ad on the subway… You’ve definitely heard it, so that’s why you dreamt about it.”
Lin Xian looked at Gao Yang, confused:
“Where do you learn all this stuff? This subconscious déjà vu… and you seem to know what you’re talking about.”
Gao Yang stroked his chin stubble:
“I learned it from that psychologist’s friend circle. You remember, right? I showed you her posts last time.”
Lin Xian didn’t dwell on that point:
“But your explanation doesn’t solve my core issue… I’m not troubled by the fact that I can dream about the Genius Club, but by ‘why the things in my dreams appear in reality’.”
“I dreamt about the Genius Club just last night, heard about the invitation from Big Face Cat, and then it literally appeared before my eyes this morning! Do you think that’s reasonable?”
“Perfectly reasonable.”
Gao Yang took out a pack of cigarettes and put one in his mouth:
“Many people have prophetic dreams, but they are mostly coincidences.”
“Where do coincidences happen ? In my dream, I even created the whole backstory for the Genius Club!”
“And I’ve seen the advanced math textbooks in the dream, the formulas inside are exactly the same as the real ones. You know I never studied advanced math in college, so you can’t say I’m better than Gauss in a dream, can you?”
“So what?” Gao Yang was nonchalant:
“You can’t think your dream can accurately predict the future, can you? Or that your dream is real, a world 600 years in the future?”
“Don’t say that, I really did suspect it.”
The two looked at each other, neither speaking.
Gao Yang lit a cigarette with his lighter and then reached into his pocket:
“You said your dream could predict the future, right?”
“I only said it’s possible.”
A small red and white paper ticket was slapped onto the coffee table by Gao Yang.
“A soccer lottery ticket,” Gao Yang exhaled a plume of smoke:
“At 3:00 am tonight, the Qatar World Cup semi-final, Argentina is playing Croatia.”
“You go to sleep now and dream, find out the result of the match in your dream. After you wake up at 00:42, tell me who won!”
Gao Yang flicked the ash from his cigarette and smiled at Lin Xian:
“Didn’t you say your dreams are ‘the real world 600 years in the future’? Let’s give it a try!”
Lin Xian picked up the lottery ticket.
It read 3:00 am, Argentina VS Croatia.
This ticket was a 100 yuan bet on Argentina winning, with odds of 2.3. If Argentina really won, the ticket could be cashed for 230 yuan.
To verify whether one’s dreams could accurately predict the future… the outcome of a soccer match would be quite convincing.
“Alright, I’ll give it a try.”
Lin Xian turned and walked into the bathroom to perform a quick wash:
“Keep it down in the living room, don’t disturb my sleep.”
“You better look carefully, huh!”
Gao Yang shouted from the living room:
“Better remember the score and everything! If we bet on the exact score, the odds are higher, and we earn more!”
“…Whether I can even find it in a dream is another matter, don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“You can use a computer to search online! That kind of info pops up in a second on the internet.”
“I’ve tried that before, what do you think I’ve been doing for the past twenty-plus years?”
Lin Xian rinsed his mouth, spitting out the toothpaste foam:
“After I first found out about the lottery in middle school, I searched for that year’s Lotto numbers in a dream using a computer.”
“And I couldn’t find anything!” Lin Xian said as he applied the face wash:
“Not just the Lotto, I couldn’t find any current political news, stocks, or anything relevant from our time… The internet in my dreams is trash, it can’t search for anything useful.”
Gao Yang tore open a bag of snacks and turned on the TV, lowering the volume:
“Logically speaking, it’s impossible that there would be no trace of online information. But… when I think about how your dreams are ultimately fictional, it makes sense.”
Lin Xian dried his face:
“I, for one, do not think my dreams are that simple; there’s too much in there beyond my understanding.”
“Action speaks louder than words! Just go and dream already!”
After finishing his wash, he walked into the bedroom.
Lin Xian turned off the light, got into bed, and tucked himself in:
Familiar summer wind brushed by as Lin Xian opened his eyes.
It was still the familiar square, the familiar bustle, the familiar cicada chirps.
Lin Xian looked at the familiar crowds in the square, and the electronic notice board showing the time:
Lin Xian scratched his head:
“2022 Qatar World Cup match results… where should I go to find that?”