The wrenching pain in his chest gave him an almost uncontrollable sense of suffocation, making it impossible for him to struggle free from the dream, as if that bizarre, fantastical dream was the real water, the true river on which his life depended.

On the desk lay a sheet of xuan paper, its ends pressed down by paperweights shaped like bronze chi dragons, with several lines written in clerical script, the ink still wet, the brushstrokes powerful enough to penetrate the paper; a few thread-bound books were scattered in a messy pile at one corner of the desk, and a fine-tipped wolf-hair brush rested on the inkstone.

A bronze ancient lamp stood beside the desk, its beast-footed lamp post lifelike, as if some primordial demon beast had stretched a slender, scaly foot out of the void, stepping onto the smoothly polished stone floor beside the desk. In the lotus-shaped lamp bowl, the oil was half full, and a wick as thick as a pinky finger was burning, casting a bright, reddish light onto the desk...

If this bronze lamp were taken out to auction, who knows how many collectors would be stirred into action.

Auction?

What a strange word!

Henry Foster was shocked by this word that had intruded into his mind.

In that bizarre, fantastical dream, "auction" was the most ordinary word, so familiar and intimate, but now that he was awake, why was he still thinking about everything before him with the logic of the dream?

What kind of dream was this, after all?

Why did the dream feel so real, so real that he began to doubt whether everything before his eyes was actually a dream?

Henry Foster, enduring a splitting headache, tried hard to piece together the chaotic fragments of the dream.

The dream was of a world a thousand years in the future, where the emperors and ministers he knew had long since vanished, and lowly musicians and performers had become celebrities or artists in the limelight, yet still could not escape the fate of being toyed with by the powerful.

Human understanding of the world was far vaster than he could have imagined; even the sun, moon, and stars he saw day and night, and the earth on which he stood, were all called "planets" by people a thousand years later.

Crafts and skills once considered unorthodox had become the mainstream of practical learning, developing in ways Henry Foster could hardly imagine; while the moral philosophy that had flourished since the Han dynasty had long been tossed onto the scrap heap of history.

War still had not ceased, and the efficiency of bloody slaughter had reached a level that made Henry Foster tremble with fear. Firearms, similar to repeating crossbows, could mow down lives like harvesting wheat.

A magical iron egg, dropped from a flying iron bird, could destroy and flatten a giant city.

The great clans and aristocratic families had not completely disappeared; their power no longer seemed as prominent as before, and they could no longer decide the life and death of their servants at will, but they could still control the world through "money"—or, more subtly, "capital"—which had become the core factor of power in the world a thousand years later.

In the dream world a thousand years in the future, he was an orphan named Simon Blake, who grew up in a welfare home, studied in a government-run school, and only entered a private equity investment fund in his youth.

Twenty years of accumulating great wealth allowed him to enjoy all the splendor and luxury that world had to offer, and to witness all the intrigue and deception of that era.

One night, after leaving a bar full of neon lights with two beautiful girls he had just met, ready to enjoy the ultimate pleasure of a king's life at a hotel, a black sedan roared out of the alley behind the bar and sent him flying into the air.

The bizarre dream ended abruptly at that moment, signaling the end of his dream life.

Pain,

Such pain,

What kind of messed-up dream was this?

"Qilang!"

The door was pushed open from outside. An old man in a gray robe, with a short beard on his chin and graying hair at his temples, stood at the door, peering into the room with a look of suspicion. His gaze lingered sharply on Henry Foster's face for a while, and, apparently seeing nothing unusual, he explained:

"Qingyun said there were strange noises in Seventh Young Master's room. This old servant was worried that a thief had broken into the manor. As long as Seventh Young Master is all right, I won't disturb your night reading any further. I'll take my leave now."

With that, the old man quietly closed the door and left.

Did he really look all right right now?

Seeing Charles Grant, the old family retainer who had served his father David Foster for many years and managed the manor, just leave like that, Henry Foster wanted to call out to him in a fit of anger, but as soon as he tried to open his mouth, he felt his mouth and the root of his tongue go numb, unable to make a sound.

The numbness in his limbs was still intense, making it impossible to stand up. The pain in his chest, though less severe, was still far from comfortable.

How the hell could this feel like being drunk?

Thinking of the conversation he had just overheard, Henry Foster felt a chill run up his spine.

Had he been poisoned?

Was it that little bitch Yvonne Bailey, together with the lover whose face he had only glimpsed as a blurry silhouette, who had poisoned him?

That old dog Charles Grant just glanced at him and left—didn't he know that Yvonne Bailey had come to visit at night? Didn't he notice that he had been poisoned?

Chapter Two: Peering into History Through Dreams

His tongue was numb, unable to call out. Henry Foster was agitated and resentful, but could only lie sprawled over the desk, listening to the window, covered with a layer of oiled paper, creak and sway all night in the breeze blowing from the mountain ridge, shaking so much that Henry Foster wanted to tear the whole damn courtyard down.