Xia Huanao and Shen Yu's heads made intimate contact. Xia Huanao groggily asked what time it was. Shen Yu replied, "Don't worry, you've only slept for a little over three hours, and it's still light out..."
Xia Huanao nodded, "Then can I go back to sleep?"
Shen Yu held Xia Huanao's hand, "Of course. Today is Saturday, and I'll stay here with you."
Xia Huanao listened and lay back on his pillow. Just as he closed his eyes and was about to ask the system what he had dreamed about and if he had said anything strange, he saw a vast expanse of darkness, a surging momentum.
Xia Huanao tried to discern it more clearly, when a strong wind blew, and the things in the sky rustled noisily, all of them being flags. The flags he had seen in his dream hadn't left; instead, they were rushing towards him. Xia Huanao scratched his head and took two steps back, "How can a dream have a sequel?"
The system floated out, "You, this probably shouldn't count as dreaming. Your consciousness and thoughts are still online; it's quite easy to open your eyes if you want to."
"Is that so? Then what state should I be in now?"
"Right now, you should be in a stage of shaping your dream. For instance, when you wanted to do something with Shen Yu in your dream, you tossed and turned with the bolster, constantly shouting..."
"Okay, okay, okay, you can shut up now. There's no need to talk about these meaningless things. So, does this mean the next step after seeing these things is that I have to continue dreaming about them?"
"It's hard to say. If you don't dream, then there will certainly be nothing."
After the system said this, it went off to play by itself, leaving Xia Huanao surrounded by a pile of flags. He scratched his face and, in a daze, began to dream.
Unlike the massive world war he had fought with a bunch of flags tens of minutes ago, the scene this time was much more peaceful. However, it also felt more bizarre.
A red, burning shadow ran from afar and then kicked towards Xia Huanao. Xia Huanao felt a scorching flame coming his way. He tilted his head slightly, and a fireball grazed past his head.
Xia Huanao patted his chest, "My goodness, what is this thing?"
The burning shadow arrived in front of Xia Huanao, and the flames gradually dissipated. A creature with long ears gave Xia Huanao a thumbs-up. Xia Huanao paused for a few seconds before saying, "Tor... Torchic?"
The creature called Torchic, a rabbit, kicked out. A rabbit leg, carrying hot wind, swept past Xia Huanao's face. Xia Huanao almost drooled. While spicy rabbit heads are a delicacy, spicy rabbit legs aren't necessarily bad. However, Xia Huanao cleared his throat and decided against it, thinking he was coughing and shouldn't eat spicy food.
The rabbit, after its flying kick, said upon landing, "What Torchic? I'm Delphox!"
Xia Huanao thought for a moment. Torchic's ears seemed a bit longer. Thinking of this, Xia Huanao grabbed Delphox's ears, seemingly trying to make them longer. Delphox wiggled its ears and escaped Xia Huanao's grasp, "Don't do that. If you do, we won't be able to play soccer."
Just as they were speaking, a Mew floated down from the sky, "Heh heh, another one. But I don't think I've seen you before."
However, Mew didn't dwell on this and nuzzled into Xia Huanao's arms, saying, "Let's go, let's go, let's go watch them play soccer from the side."
Xia Huanao held the little pampered wife who belonged to both him and Sister Mew, watching the Pokémon play soccer. However, Xia Huanao wasn't paying attention to the soccer itself. In his previous life, he only counted whether there was a World Cup that year and then watched the pathetic outcomes of foolish gamblers.
But this Pokémon World Cup was quite interesting because the ones playing soccer weren't the Pokémon present, but the flags on their heads.
Frankly, a bunch of flags playing soccer here was a magical scene. After all, the only thing that could be considered a leg was the pole beneath the flag, and even that could only be counted as one leg. Flags with one leg dragging themselves on the ground, moving like dragon boats, were indeed quite unsightly. Thus, the flags didn't move like dragon boats but hopped like zombies...
A one-legged zombie hop was already abstract enough, and even more abstract was that as the flags floated and hopped, they truly resembled the talismans stuck on a zombie's forehead...
The most infuriating thing was that these flags didn't play soccer properly. As they kicked, they started fighting. Just as the World Cup was about to turn into a world war, Mew, in Xia Huanao's arms, casually threw an Origin Supernova Explosion at the flags in the sky, and the flags instantly quieted down.
However, after the clanging fight, the flags seemed to have lost the energy to continue. Only a few flags retained their last bit of "professional player's professional ethics," lying on the ground and using their poles to poke the ball in the sky. This was no longer a soccer match; it had completely turned into a snooker game.
Xia Huanao pointed at the ball in the sky and called out to Quagsire to perform a beautiful display for everyone. Quagsire didn't hesitate and jumped out to juggle the ball. However, Quagsire wasn't a professional soccer player. Its few accomplishments in sports were all in Tai Chi. Coincidentally, it now had a ball at its feet... You understand.
Seeing Quagsire transform the soccer ball from being at its feet to being in its hands, Xia Huanao felt like laughing. But he couldn't, and instead, he started coughing. The coughing wouldn't stop, almost making him cough his lungs out. Xia Huanao's main body, lying in bed, also coughed and turned over, nearly falling off the bed.
Shen Yu, who had been watching by his side, immediately helped Xia Huanao up, "Xia Xia, are you okay?"
Xia Huanao wiped the sweat from his forehead, "I'm fine. I had a rather unpleasant dream, but you know what, after this dream, I actually feel much better. Perhaps my fever has already broken."
Shen Yu heard this and took out a Lava Snail thermometer to measure Xia Huanao's temperature. Seeing the thermometer, Xia Huanao immediately lay down obediently, "Forget it, let's just leave it at that. I'll just lie in bed obediently. I'll recover well."
...
And so, classmate Xia Huanao's illness, caused by an unknown virus and striking like a mountain, continued on this not-so-large bed...