This project is a contemporary retelling inspired by the traditional Chinese story The Dream of the Yellow Millet. Through the experience of a modern office worker who falls asleep and enters a dream set in ancient China, the story follows an entire imagined lifetime shaped by ambition, success, wealth and status.

As the protagonist moves rapidly through different stages of life, what initially appears to be an ideal future gradually reveals a sense of emptiness and isolation. When he finally wakes, only a brief moment has passed in reality.

Through this contrast between a fleeting dream and a seemingly complete lifetime, the project reflects on how self-worth can become closely tied to external measures of achievement. Using sequential illustration and visual storytelling, I reinterpret an ancient narrative through a contemporary perspective, questioning what we pursue, what we overlook along the way, and how we understand the value of a life.