Tonight, the night was exceptionally quiet. Perhaps it was due to the cooling weather, as the night market stalls downstairs had long since fallen silent.

Linden opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He lay there for a long time, not getting up. A sense of discomfort permeated his entire body. It was a... peculiar sense of shame. Shouting out embarrassing adolescent memories at his age.

Linden rubbed his feet, wriggling left and right in bed, pulling the covers tighter around himself. Thankfully, it was just a dream; it would reset tomorrow anyway, and no one would remember.

But he never imagined. Even after putting himself out there so completely, the safe's password was still wrong! It made Linden truly doubt whether it was even his own safe.

"Never mind, never mind."

Linden scratched his head, threw off the covers, and sat up. "First things first."

Dreams were ultimately fake; real-life work was more important. After putting on his pajamas, Linden turned on his desk lamp and sat down, sketching the Keke Cat he'd memorized in his dream onto a piece of paper.

The Keke Cat design itself was simple and exquisite, without too many details, making it very easy to draw. In less than 20 minutes, Linden had completed the front, side, and back views of the Keke Cat on the sketchpad. From limb details to clothing, tail, and shoes... Linden meticulously recreated everything 1:1 based on his dream memories.

"Perfect."

Linden wiped his hands, blowing away the eraser shavings from the desk. "With such high completion, I can easily hand it in tomorrow."

Looking at the Keke Cat sketch before him... Linden couldn't help but think of the Big-faced Cat again. Through these two nights in the dream, he had thoroughly understood the grievances between the Big-faced Cat and the cryptographer CC.

Rustle.

Linden pulled out another blank sheet of paper and began to organize his thoughts:

[Story Flow]

The Big-faced Cat's daughter was murdered at six years old; he needs a lot of money to get revenge for her.

The cryptographer CC wants to enter the bank vault; her goal is to open Linden's safe and retrieve its contents.

CC deceives the Big-faced Cat, telling him there's a lot of money in the bank. So, they arrange a secret code to meet and cooperate in robbing the bank.

The Big-faced Cat always intends to kill the others and keep all the money; CC, in turn, will kill the Big-faced Cat after entering the vault, as there's no money inside, and the Big-faced Cat would surely not spare her, so she must strike first.

In the end, the Big-faced Cat gets no money, and CC fails to open the safe. A double loss.

Click.

Linden capped his pen. He looked at his analysis. This was the story of the Big-faced Cat and CC, like NPCs in a game world, repeating this scenario day after day, year after year.

Linden knew clearly... although he had only played with them for two nights, the Big-faced Cat and CC's feud had been looping countless times over the past twenty-plus years, starting and ending precisely on time every night. If he hadn't gotten involved, their ending would have been the same every day.

"But..."

Linden tapped the white paper with his pen. "I am the only variable."

All this time, Linden had been playing his dreams like an RPG game, which was a very interesting experience. Everyone in the dream was an NPC. They each had their own storylines, their own quests. Linden could fully participate, learn a story, join an activity, or change an outcome. After all, in a dream, he could do anything, reload infinitely, try countless times. So, Linden rarely encountered insurmountable problems or uncompletable quests.

But this time...

"It's pretty difficult; there are too many things I don't understand."

Rustle.

Linden took out another A4 sheet of paper and wrote on it:

[Unsolved Mysteries]

What exactly is hidden inside the safe?

What is the safe's password?

Why does CC save me? Her attitude towards me is also very subtle, very strange.

"That's all for now."

Linden looked at these three pressing questions. The first two felt completely without clues or breakthroughs. As for the third question... why did CC save him, and why was her attitude towards him so subtle?

"I feel like she hasn't met me for the first time; at least, she never wanted to kill me."

"But you can't say for sure; she doesn't know me at all."

"Actually, she trusts me quite a bit, willing to listen to me and try the password so many times."

"That's hard to say too; desperate times call for desperate measures?"

His thoughts were getting muddled again; he could practically be nominated for a literary award. Linden yawned.

"I'll just go to sleep. Can't take dream things too seriously; there are plenty of illogical parts."

...

The next day.

Company conference room. Everyone looked at the sketches on the table, shocked speechless!

"This... wasn't this just a rough sketch yesterday? How did he manage to produce all three views today, with such a high level of completion! We can start production and printing directly!"

"Are you stupid? Linden just drew a rough sketch yesterday; that doesn't mean he only started designing yesterday! With such a high level of completion in this design... Linden must have secretly been working on it for at least two months."

"It's too cute, I've never seen such a beautiful little cat! I said yesterday that the cat Linden designed has great potential! Once it's refined and colored... it'll definitely be no worse than Kitty Cat!"

"From a professional perspective, the design language of this cat is very avant-garde. I can't even imagine... what girl could resist buying such a cute cat? Linden really kept quiet until he stunned everyone!"

...

Usually, when President Zhao Yingjun was present, everyone was more reserved, never daring to discuss so loudly. But the results Linden presented today were simply too astonishing; the inner shock was impossible to suppress.

First, it was fast.

Second, the quality was high.

If everyone didn't know the inside story, they would have really thought Linden had plagiarized a finished product from another company!

Today, Zhao Yingjun was dressed in all black, looking particularly chic and heroic, exuding an aura of "mortals, do not approach." But even she, looking down at the design, wore a knowing smile of contentment:

"This is a truly excellent brand image, many times stronger than what I envisioned, what I expected... and more."

"It's clear that Linden put a lot of effort into the design of this cat. I suddenly feel that just using this cat as a mascot or for print advertising is a waste; now I have new ideas."

"But before that... we need to give this adorable cat a name."

Zhao Yingjun looked up at Linden, her eyes full of affirmation and praise. "Linden, since this cat was designed by you, you should be the one to name her!"

Everyone looked at Linden. Many colleagues from the design department secretly gave Linden a thumbs-up.

"The name of this cat..."

Linden rested his chin in his hand, looking at the meeting logo on the big screen, "Rhine Brand Image Design 7th Discussion Meeting"...

"Since the company's new brand name is Rhine,"

"Then this cat's name will be Rhine Cat."